GUITARIST MAGAZINE
MICHAEL MESSER FEATURE
issue 233 - February 2003
Michael Messer is no pub-rock blues widdler. His latest album,
Second Mind, fuses in-the-pocket
grooves with contemporary scratching & sampling and, of course, the emotive
open-tuned electric
& acoustic slide of Messer himself.
"Sometime in the mid-seventies I started playing slide guitar & bought
myself a metal-bodied Dobro,"
he relates. "I can't pinpoint why but it seemed a good idea at the time.
Then, during the eighties, along
with Mark Makin & a handful of other collectors, I was involved in the
research that led us to knowing
& understanding National guitars & their history."
Messer's first album, Diving Duck, back in 1987, was restrained
by the limited distribution of the small
label it was released for. Other albums - Slidedance (1990), Rhythm Oil (1993),
Moonbeat (1995) &
National Avenue (1997) - suffered the same fate, even though Messer was awarded
UK Acoustic Blues
Artist of the Year in 1991. After making an album in Canada in 1999 which the
label decided not to release,
Messer felt, "enough was enough. I started looking at the possibilities of
doing something else, I was really
frustrated." Luckily salvation was around the corner when Messer met up
with Catfish Records in 2000.
"They couldn't believe my back catalogue had never been properly issued so
we released King Guitar -
a compilation of blues tracks from my early albums - in March 2001." By May
the album had been critically
acclaimed all over the world and reached number one in the American Living
Blues chart.
"Considering a year earlier I was gasping for air, it was all quite a
turnaround."
Second Mind - recorded here in the UK during a six-week period mid-2002 -
continues the upturn. "My plan
was to make a new contemporary record that was as cool and funky as the old
blues & rock records that I grew
up on. To acheive that I had to effectively make a record in the way they used
to. That meant no computers or
digital technology at all, which in this day & age is not easy. We used one
inch analogue tape and as much low-tech'
equipment and attitude as possible."
Second Mind features Messer's core band peppered with guests that include
backing vocalist Ruby Turner, keys
from Richard Causon ( Ryan Adams, Alanis Morissette & the Jayhawks ), Alan
Whetton on saxophone and
West Weston on harp. But making the album more contemporary is Louie Genis - son
of rhythm guitarist Ed Genis -
who supplies the looping and scratching. "Louie first appeared scratching
and sampling with old blues records on my
Moonbeat album in 1995. Over the years these records have become as
important to me as playing the music itself,
so to be able to use them as instruments in the band seems very natural to
me," explains Michael. Some of the samples
on Second Mind include: Son House, Willie Brown, Blind Willie McTell, Kate
McTell, Elmore James, Muddy Waters,
Kokomo Arnold and Arthur 'Big Boy' Crudup.
"I only used one amplifier for everything electric - a
1950 National with original valves and speaker. My Dave King
electric is a semi-acoustic Tele-style guitar fitted with a mid-1940s pick-up
from a National lap-steel guitar. I never
use any effects or reverb with this set-up. You can hear this on Locomotive
Skin, Bluer Than Blue and Blue Letters.
On Tail Feather Blues the electric is a 1931 National cast aluminium
lap-steel (known as the BUG). The only old
acoustic National I used on the album - Big Wind and Shine On - is
a 1937 12-string National Havana, the only one
in the world. I used my Fine Resophonic wood-bodied Tricone on Riverboat,
Painting The Blues and Big Wind, but
my workhorse, a single cone koa wood-bodied Fine Resophonic Triolian, can be
heard on Love, Jinx Alright,
Locomotive Skin (acoustic version ) and Hummingbirds In My Soul."
Messer is touring the UK during January & February 2003, but aims to get
back in the studio soon to "continue
where we left off. I still have a load of ideas to explore and I am discussing
it with Catfish Records right now. I
love making records and I'm proud that people enjoy listening to them."
Michael Messer feature/interview by Dave Burrluck ( by permission Future
Publishing Ltd ).
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