at 19:30 on July 6, 2009, EDT.
By Nelson Wyatt, THE CANADIAN PRESS

MONTREAL - Jeff Beck is a guitar god to some of his fans. He sees his hard-driving style somewhat differently.

"It's a form of musical Tourette's," he told a news conference at the Montreal International Jazz Festival on Monday. "It's involuntary spasm. I think it's probably a form of insanity, to be quite honest with you.

" I think most people who play are quite nuts. You become obsessed about sounds and positioning and notation and chords and we just get drawn into it. I try not to be boring and that's all it is."

A member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Beck has always been known as an innovator. He even made his own guitar out of cigar boxes and pieces of wood when he was a child.

He acknowledges that sometimes he makes a mistake despite his fans' insistence on greatness.

"If it's a great mistake, I put it in there and then expand it," he said, tapping his skull.

Beck was honoured at the jazz festival for a standout career which includes pioneering work using distortion, feedback and the fuzzbox and destroying rock's boundaries to explore jazz fusion.

One of his most notable career moves was joining the Yardbirds in 1965, teaming up with Jimmy Page. He also later had his own group, with Rod Stewart on vocals.

"It's hard to put the finger exactly where my present style comes from," the 65-year-old said of his current output, which has been described as a mix of guitar rock and electronica.

"It's just years of listening to people that I was drawn to, from rockabilly to the '60s - you know, Hendrix, and even Ravi Shankar, who twisted everything around for me."

He's also been influenced by music from Arab countries, he added.

"I don't care about politics or anything like that. If the song sounds good, I'll play it and try to embroider what's there and embellish it and try to make it my own."

Beck, whose concert at the festival sold out as quickly as his fingers race along his guitar, said he and his band will start in earnest on a new album at the beginning of August but he wasn't giving many clues about what will be on it.

"We're dreaming up ideas of how to modify existing songs," he said. "Hopefully, we'll be able to put some original stuff in as far as the 'up' stuff, the danceable stuff, the stuff with groove.

"There is a dilemma about whether to make it a double album with the tear-jerky stuff one side and the rock 'n' roll on the other but all will be revealed by the end of August or maybe September."

He did say the album will go for an "eclectic sound" and getting that means he'll use a variety of musicians in the disc's production.

But Beck says he is definitely sticking with his current band.

"They're great," he said. "You build up a camaraderie and I think anybody'll tell you that a band is better than pickup players any day of the week.

"You become a soap opera, you become a family, really, and you share travel griefs and misery and all the rest of it. We've been together for almost 18 months now. It would be a shame to spoil that."

He drew a few laughs when he talked about how he feels looking back on some of his old albums.

"It's like an old photo album where you think, 'Aww, sorry about the hair or the trousers."

But he allowed a lot of it stands up, particularly material he did with Jan Hammer.

Beck said one thing that pleases him is seeing the enduring popularity of the electric guitar, an instrument he says could have easily fallen down into "the black hole of nothingness."

An example of the electric guitar's popularity is Beck's inclusion on the latest version of the popular Guitar Hero video game, something he says has him plenty excited.

"Let's just see how excited I am when the cheque comes in," he joked.

For all his accolades, Beck says he never thinks of himself as a legend.

"It's very nice at this stage in my life to be listened to," he said.


©The Canadian Press, 2009

And, rightfully so. Beck's a beast.

luv4u said:

Nothing else needs to be said.


tA

Tribal Disorder

http://www.soundclick.com...dID=182431

theAudience said:

Exactly its Beck... nothing more or less

...

Glad he's getting the accolades he deserves! Over the last four decades there have been so many players with more flash, more star power, and more pyrotechnics, but few with the true feel and lack of pretense of Mr Beck.....









...

paligap said:

Subtlety and understatement are becoming lost arts (and not just in terms of music).

After the Jeff Beck concert I saw at The Greek Theatre is 2006, I was standing in the lobby talking to some friends when I overheard someone behind me say something like, "He's alright but he's no Eddie Van Halen."

What made it even more hilarious was when I turned to see who the speaker was, he looked like he'd just stepped out of a Wayback Machine that had been set for 1978 (reverse neckerchief and all).


tA

Tribal Disorder

http://www.soundclick.com...dID=182431

theAudience said:

Eddie Van Halen, more star power, but who has stood the test of time, even after a 10 year void between album projects (1989 - 1999), the one and only Jeff Beck.
Eddie Van Halen would be lucky to get a gig as Jeff Beck's guitar roadie.
Jeff Beck is the guv'nor of the guitar. So glad he is finally getting press and accolades. You tube has really been beneficial to him.

theAudience said:

theAudience said:

That was me.

minneapolisgenius said:

Naw, dude was fugly.
You're definitely not that. ---->


tA

Tribal Disorder

http://www.soundclick.com...dID=182431

theAudience said:

Aw...

But Jeff Beck is playing this weekend at Montreux and I can't go! My husband is going the day afterward (without me ) to see some guy that this website is supposedly about, but I'd rather see Beck anyway of course. But I can't go!!! I have to work.

minneapolisgenius said:

Just had a conversation with someone associated with that "other guy" who's about to take off for that event.

Btw, work is overrated. Live dangerously!


tA

Tribal Disorder

http://www.soundclick.com...dID=182431

theAudience said:

I know it's overrated, but it's my own fault that I didn't plan better (or at all for that matter ). I knew he was playing (he also played on Saturday in the south of Holland at some festival there) but I just kept thinking I had time to figure out if I could go or not. Now it's too late.
[Edited 7/13/09 15:01pm]