Nov 7

I believe that only the truest icons one arrives upon must be done so via personal exploration, not through the influences of one’s peers. At twenty,for me that icon was Phil Manzanera, and that remarkably devised FENDER work of his. Curiously enough, though I aimed to create the same sort of lush sonic effects as he had during the first phase of Roxy Music and his various side gigs.

I had no idea that one of the MOST FAMOUS FENDER GUITAR PLAYERS,actually played a FENDER STRATOCASTER. I fabulated, as a lot of kids are want to daydream, that Phil’s guitar had to be some kind of uniquely designed piece of experimental machinery, and thus quite unattainable for the likes of me. Such projections, whether they be directed upon a really, if not MOST FAMOUS OF FENDER GUITAR PLAYER’S instrument, or merely some girl or boy one has a crush on at school, are at once born of the rawly experential and a kind of mysteriously postive charge that goes off at the back of the head when confronted with the object of one’s ultra-focus and/or desire — at once fixation and incalcuble as a choice or aesthetic path.

I am hardly any of the MOST FAMOUS FENDER GUITAR PLAYERS, nor did I aspire to become one. For me to have played a FENDER for the life of my rather ill-starred musical career was (again) quite choiceless. In that my FENDER STRAT was found. Maybe, this abandoned, but still very functional model had indeed been owned by one of those MOST FAMOUS FENDER GUITAR PLAYERS, though this previous owner was likely not Phil Manzanera (sic!). He would never just abandoned his Fender, as it were a table lamp left on the dusty floor in a hastly vacated apartment. Of course, just as I had incorrectly calculated my ability to reach some measure of post-punk stardom, I had also in some ways misdetermined that one of the MOST FAMOUS FENDER GUITAR PLAYERS had not just employed a FENDER STRATOCASTER on all those great early Roxy Music recordings and tours, but that he (Phil Manzanera) had indeed once abandoned a GUITAR, just not his FENDER STRAT. Rather, as legend has it - and there must always be a legend to go along with the icon, that’s a given - when Phil first auditioned for Roxy, he was given a choice in order to join, that being to abandon his Gibson for a FENDER STRATOCASTER. Obviously, both he and the band knew what they were doing. That is why Phil is one of the MOST FAMOUS FENDER GUITAR PLAYERS, and I am - instead - composing this blog post.