Starting At Zero (15 page)
Authors: Jimi Hendrix
And I get very bored on the road. I get bored with myself and the music sometimes. Like, what can you do on a tour? People scream for the “oldies but goodies.” So you have to play
the “oldies but goodies” instead of some of the things you want to get into.
Of course, those kids out there expect to hear the records we’ve cut. They’ve already heard the record, but still they want us to play the song like the record. We could either bring
the whole box of tapes on stage, or they could go back home, set pictures of us up on the wall and listen to the record! In person we play things a different way. Two shows a night are tough, and
we soon find ourselves completely boxed in with the same numbers. It really gets sticky and icky. So we usually start jamming onstage and have more fun doing that. That really gets it over.
Sometimes a three-minute song might stretch into ten.
We play as we feel, and people will never get to know us by just listening to our records. We could never make enough to cover all our moods. It’s only by seeing our shows when each
performance is spontaneous and different that they will come to understand what we are all about.
{IN APRIL 1968, WHILE STILL ON TOUR, THE EXPERIENCE BEGAN RECORDING SESSIONS FOR
ELECTRIC LADYLAND
AT THE RECORD PLANT IN NEW YORK.}
In England, the studios don’t have anything to work with compared to what they have here in America. Then they come out with the best sounding records and the most new sounds. Even the
limitations are beautiful, because they make people really listen. The engineers have more imagination over there. They do some fantastic things, just like the way they fought World War II.
It’s all very positive, the atmosphere, the engineering, everything. When you’re with an engineer over there you’re with a human being. You’re with someone who is doing his
job.
Here in America, all an engineer does is his thing. He’s a complete machine, just like the tape recorder he’s working. You feel that the human being is missing, that the studio
isn’t interested in anything but the bill, the $123 an hour. There’s no atmosphere, no anything. But that’s only in some instances. At the Record Plant we have a good cat.
He’s on the ball. This is the first time we’ve recorded seriously here.
I
WANTED TO MAKE
Electric Ladyland
a double LP, but it was a big hassle. The record producers and the companies don’t want to do that. I’d be
willing to spend every single penny on it if I thought it was good enough. Well, I’ll do that, and then they’ll leave me out there!
The reason I wanted this as a double LP is because we had so many good songs. I don’t know if they’re commercially good, but time was going by and our sound was changing and there
were these songs you haven’t ever heard. If you put out a single LP and then wait six months for another single, it’s going to be out of style. We’re trying to give as much of us
from six months back to now as we can. Because we’re constantly evolving.
Electric Ladyland
is different from anything we’ve ever done before. It’s slightly electric funk every once in a while, and it goes into the complete opposite on some songs,
complete fantasy. There are other sides of you, and sometimes they leak out on the records too. Like you might tell them something kinda hard, but you don’t want to be a completely hard
character in their minds. That’s where the fantasy songs come in.
People think you don’t know what you’re talking about, but it all depends on what the tracks before and after might have been. The record wasn’t just slopped together. Every
little thing you hear on there means something. I don’t say it’s great, but it’s the Experience. It has a rough, hard feel on some of the tracks. It’s part of us, another
part of us.
I
WANT TO SHOW YOU DIFFERENT EMOTIONS
,
I
WANT TO RIDE THROUGH
T
HE SOUNDS AND MOTIONS
,
E
LECTRIC
W
OMAN WAITS FOR YOU AND ME
.
G
OOD AND
E
VIL LAY SIDE BY SIDE
W
HILE ELECTRIC LOVE PENETRATES THE SKY
I
WANT TO SHOW YOU
…
I WANT TO SHOW YOU.
Some groupies know more about music than the guys. Some people call them groupies, but I prefer the term “Electric Ladies.” My whole
Electric Ladyland
album is about them. It
starts with a ninety-second sound painting of the heavens. It’s typifying what happens when the gods make love – or whatever they spend their time on. I know it’s the thing people
will jump on to criticize, so we’re putting it right at the beginning to get it over with.
The way I write things, they are just a clash between reality and fantasy. You have to use fantasy to show different sides of reality. It’s not a little game that we’re playing,
trying to blow the public’s mind and so forth. For instance,
1983
is something to keep your mind off what’s happening today but not necessarily completely hiding away from it,
like some people might do with certain drugs and so forth …
Hooray, I awake from yesterday,
Alive,
but the war is here to stay
So my love, Catherina, and me
Decide to take our last walk through the noise to the sea
Not to die but to be reborn
Away from lands so battered and torn
Forever, forever.
Oh say, can you see it’s really such a mess,
Ev’ry inch of earth is a fighting nest
Giant pencil and lipstick tube-shaped things
Continue to rain and cause screamin’ pain
And the Arctic stains from silver blue to bloody red,
As our feet find the sands and the sea
Is straight ahead, straight up ahead …
Well, it’s too bad that our friends can’t be with us today,
Well, it’s too bad.
“The machine that we built would never save us,”
that’s what they say.
That’s why they ain’t coming with us today.
They also said,
“It’s impossible for a man to live and breathe underwater.”
Forever was their main complaint.
And they also threw this in my face, they said,
“Anyway, you know good and well it would be beyond the will of God,
And the grace of the King,”
Grace of the King.
So my darling and I make love in the sand,
To salute the last moment ever on dry land.
Our machine, it has done its work, played its part well,
Without a scratch on our bodies we bid it farewell.
Starfish and giant forms greet us with a smile,
Before we go under we take a last look at the killing noise
Of the out of style, the out of style … out of style
So down and down and down and down and down and down we go,
Hurry, my darling, we mustn’t be late for the show.
Neptune champion games to an aqua world is so very dear
“Right this way!”
smiles a mermaid, I can hear Atlantis full of cheer,
Atlantis full of cheer, I can hear Atlantis full of cheer.
On some tracks you hear all this dash and bang and fanciness, but all we’re doing is laying down the guitar tracks and then we echo here and there. We might have the drums or the guitar
swing around to the other side with the echo going the opposite way – what you call “pan the echo.”
We’re using the same things anyone else would, but we use them with imagination and common sense. In
House Burning Down
we made the guitar sound like it’s on fire. It’s
constantly changing a dimension, and up on top that lead guitar is cutting through everything. For the record’s benefit we just try to take you somewhere – as far as the record can
go.
On
Voodoo Chile
we just opened the studio up, and all our friends came down after jam sessions. Steve Winwood is on one track. Al Kooper is on another, but his piano is almost drowned
out. It just happened that way, so the piano is there to be felt and not heard. A lot of my songs happen on the spur of the moment. I start with a few notes scribbled on some paper, and when we get
to the studios the melody is worked out and lots of guys all kick in little sounds of their own. It’s satisfying working this way. We don’t want anything too carefully planned.
We did
Voodoo Chile–Slight Return
about three times because they wanted to film us in the studio. “Make it look like you’re recording, boys,” one of those scenes,
you know.
So,
“Okay, let’s play this in E. Now a-one and a-two and a-three,”
and then we went into it.
Except for
Watchtower
and
Burning Of The Midnight Lamp
, it was all recorded at Record Plant studios in New York.
Watchtower
comes from British sessions and was recorded as a
single. It’s our own arrangement. We used this solo guitar as different types of sounds, as slide, then wah-wah and then straight.
You just don’t do everybody’s songs, and if you’re going to do them you don’t necessarily have to copy them. Noel kicked in one of the songs. Mitch and he are
singing this English rock type thing called
Little Miss Strange
, but mostly they’re mine.
In the early days I used to ask my producer to drown my voice in the backing track, I thought it was so bad. But I was basing my assessment of my voice on the wrong things. Now I
base my singing on real feelings and true thoughts.
I learnt that from listening to Dylan. Dylan has a lousy voice technically, but he’s good because he sings things he believes in. True feelings are really the only qualities
worth listening for in a voice.
I felt like
All Along The Watchtower
was something I had written but could never get together. I often feel like that about Dylan. Every time I perform his
Rolling
Stone
it makes me feel so good, as though I had taken something off my mind.
{IN MAY 1968, WHILE STILL IN THE PROCESS OF RECORDING AND MIXING
ELECTRIC LADYLAND
, THE EXPERIENCE FLEW TO ITALY FOR A SERIES OF EUROPEAN CONCERT DATES.}
I
’LL COME BACK TO ROME. I love this wonderful city. Tomorrow we end our Italian tour. Then I’ll fly to New York for a day to sign a
contract. In four days we’ll be in Switzerland, then a vacation in Spain. We really need one, we’re simply overtired. We can’t continue at this pace for long. I feel we could end
up has-beens sometimes. I feel it’s happening now. I think people are getting tired of us. I’ve had all kinds of bad hallucinations. We come back from America, and people say,
“Here are those three shaggy-haired guys again!”
{MOST OF JUNE 1968 WAS SPENT AT THE RECORD PLANT, FINISHING
ELECTRIC LADYLAND
. IT WAS MID-JULY BEFORE JIMI GOT A FEW DAYS VACATION IN SPAIN (MAJORCA). ON AUGUST 1 THE
EXPERIENCE BEGAN ANOTHER TOUR OF AMERICA.}
DIARY EXTRACTS:
August 1.
Weather’s beautiful here in New Orleans. Food’s O.K. Everybody’s on fire – but a groovy fire. Can you imagine, Southern police
protecting ME? We could change America! The gig was actually great. Turned them on with physical music, come back to the hotel and get stoned and make love to “Pootsie,” a TALL
Southern blonde.
August 2.
Well, back again and we are in the beginning of a change – San Antonio, TEXAS. Down the street about three blocks from this motel is the World’s
Fair. Hope I get a chance to see it.
August 7.
In New York again. Linda was at Salvation in white and gold. She loves me. She is beautiful. She loves me. Tomorrow she will be gone again, but she never gets
away.
Mitch and Noel were quick in wanting to go back home from this tour. Our music is getting uglier, but so are the times. We aren’t living in
Blue Danube
times now, are we?
There’s all this violent thing in the States right now. Playing the Midwest, like Cleveland or Chicago, is like being in a pressure cooker, waiting for the top to blow off. In New York
it’s very violent, actually. The music might sound loud and funky, but that’s what’s in the air right now, isn’t it?
I dig playing in the South a little more than in the North. Texas is fine. I don’t know why – maybe it’s the weather. New Orleans is great, Arizona’s fantastic. Utah?
Well, once we’re off stage it’s another world, but the people are great. When we played at the gigs they were really listening, they were really tuned in some kind of way or another. So
much depends on the audience.
{AUGUST 17, ATLANTA MUNICIPAL AUDITORIUM.}
I didn’t really feel up to it this afternoon because we were pretty tired. Very, very tired as a matter of fact. We just got straight off the plane and came over
here. We had free time for about half an hour. It’s just like having a recess in school.
The first show was a drag. It was a bore. The people were waiting for flames or something, and I was waiting to get through to those people in a music way. Who wants to sit in a plane
eight days a week and come down and see people’s faces saying,
“Are you going to burn your guitar tonight?”
What’s that shit about?
I get a kick out of playing. It’s the best part of the whole thing. But then you come to things like people saying, “Well, you’re supposed to be an entertainer, so you’re
supposed to be this to us, and we’re buying your records and we’re making you this and we’re making you that.” They think they have us for the rest of our lives. Who wants
to go through all that? It’s the public who can smash a group to pieces by the way they treat them. They squeeze something until it is completely dry.
