Not long ago, music mogul Miles Copeland found that he missed hearing real rock musicians play their instruments without cliche-ridden, teen-themed lyrics in the way.
”I grew up with `70s music, where the musician was the key element of a band,” said the silver-haired Copeland, who manages Sting and the Bangles and is chairman of I.R.S. Records.
”You knew Keith Emerson was the keyboard player. Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton were known as guitar players. The musician was the real key element of the band in the `70s.”
Copeland was speaking to promote No Speak, a new I.R.S. Records offshoot, featuring instrumental rock albums.
Apparently Copeland is not alone in his desire to hear rock music from the musician.
”Surfing With the Alien,” on Relativity Records, is the second album by Joe Satriani, latest in a long line of hot-shot guitar heroes. On Rolling Stone`s upcoming solo tour of Japan, he will play guitar parts that longtime virtuoso Jeff Beck added to Mick Jagger`s latest album, ”Primitive Pool.”
Recently, Satriani`s album was No. 76, with a bullet, on the Billboard album chart. But this album is not the usual hard-rock record. The 11-track collection has no singing.
SST, a maverick independent label has released nearly 20 instrumental albums to date, including a compilation, ”No Age,” which features 15 SST acts, from art-rocker Elliot Sharp to punks Black Flag.
Instrumental rock may be on the rise, but it is nothing new. In the late
`50s and early `60s, tracks from Duane Eddy, called the ”King of Twang”
for the sound of his guitar, and the surf-oriented, guitar-based quartet the Ventures, frequently found their way onto the pop singles chart.
More than a decade later, guitar wizard Beck recorded ”Blow by Blow,”
an instrumental album produced by George Martin of Beatles fame. The record, showcasing Beck`s masterful guitar playing, climbed to No. 4 on the album chart and sold well over a million copies.
Beck continued to experiment with the format on a few subsequent releases that also sold well. In fact, some complained that ”Flash,” Beck`s last album released in 1985, was flawed by the inclusion of vocals.
”Escape,” an instrumental track, earned even more attention than the remake of Curtis Mayfield`s ”People Get Ready,” featuring Rod Stewart on vocals. ”Escape” won a Grammy last year for best rock instrumental.
Since Beck`s heyday, instrumental rock has been largely an underground phenomenon, although in 1985 Harold Faltermeyer`s ”Axel F” and Jan Hammer`s ”Miami Vice Theme,” both were top-five pop-instrumental hits.
For Copeland, the success of the new age-oriented Windham Hill Records label helped him realize that the time has come again for instrumental rock.
”Windham Hill provides a very useful music form for somebody that is going to have a dinner party, or if you want to mellow out or get down to some romantic stuff,” he said. ”But there is a whole other side to life that is more active.
”If you are driving down the highway at night and you put on a Windham Hill record, you probably will be asleep in three minutes, and you`ll end up wrapped around a telephone pole.”
The often-teenage theme of rock lyrics also was a force in Copeland`s decision.
”Rock `n` roll has tended lyrically and intellectually to sing to the same age group,” Copeland said. ”But now these people are older. They`re in their 30s, and they have CD players. They`re not really into jazz music and not really into classical music. The generation that grew up with the `70s is rock-oriented.
”If you eliminate the lyrics, all of a sudden you can appeal to an older audience that is still into rock `n` roll.”
Wishbone Ash is one such `70s act. Although the band continued to record during this decade, it made its mark in the `70s. At one time Copeland managed the band.
When the record mogul decided to launch No Speak, he suggested that Wishbone Ash members bring the band`s original lineup, featuring two lead guitarists, together for an instrumental album.
That plan brought guitarist Ted Turner back with his old bandmates.
”I like the concept of instrumental music,” Turner said. ”It is a logical progression. Every 12 years new ears listen to music. Every 12 years there is a new cycle.”
After the brief Wishbone reunion to record ”Nouveau Calls,” Turner decided to concentrate on his own band. The veteran guitar player is considering an instrumental record and a record with vocals.
In 1984, Black Flag, which had gone from playing simple short bursts of punk to complex metallike music reminiscent of Black Sabbath, put out ”Family Man,” a first for SST. One side featured Black Flag singer Henry Rollins`
spoken-word rants; the other consisted of instrumentals by the other Flag members, including guitarist Greg Ginn, SST cofounder.
In 1985 SST released ”The Process of Weeding Out,” an instrumental EP by Black Flag. Later Ginn formed another instrumental trio, Gone, which recorded two instrumental albums and contributed to ”No Age.”
About the time Ginn was delving into instrumental rock with Black Flag, Satriani, a veteran guitarist who once tutored a high-school chum named Steve Vai, decided to do an instrumental album.
While Vai would turn up later as David Lee Roth`s new sidekick, Satriani was building a following.
The rock-instrumental field is quite varied. The genre contains everything from heavy metal-fusion and surf-oriented sounds to avant-garde art-school experimentalism.
Elliot Sharp, an art-minded guitarist/composer who is featured on SST`s
”No Age” collection, didn`t start his long and winding musical journey with a guitar but by trying to imitate one.
As a teenager in the late `60s, Sharp tried to re-create a Beck guitar solo on his clarinet.
Since then Sharp has experimented with everything from string quartets to synthesizers.
”So often for me, it`s very difficult to understand the words (in music),” Sharp said. ”It`s more the sounds and the harmonics. That`s why I`ve always been drawn to instrumentals.”
Another reason: ”Words are really values,” Sharp said. ”Government and corporate people use words in the most duplicitous ways. Instrumental music is just another way to communicate.”
