victimize me, please...

Bill Nelson is a bit pretentious, but boy can he play guitar.  If Mick Ronson had been classically trained at a music conservancy, he’d be Bill Nelson.  Classical training, mind you (or at least playing that sounds classically trained), makes for a bad mix with rock, more often than not, to the extent that those who’ve been formally schooled tend to be overly ambitious and given to conceptual overreach.  Progressive rock is what happens when rock ‘n roll flirts with classical structures and motifs.  I’m ok with some progressive rock as long as the ridiculousness and self-importance are reined in.  Like, for example, Yes don’t temper their ridiculousness.  I have a friend who’s been trying to get me into Yes for years.  I don’t have the heart to tell him it ain’t ever gonna happen.  I think he’d be crushed and feel rejected.  People get very emotionally invested in the music they love.  I know I do.  If you told me there was no way you’d ever like the Byrds, or David Bowie, or the Beach Boys, or the Lovin’ Spoonful, I’d probably tell you there’s no way we can be friends.  I digress… As its title suggests, the first Be-Bop Deluxe album, Axe Vctim, is a guitar lover’s fantasy come true. The Be-Bops are progressive rock, but they come from the segment of the genre that initially had toes in glitter and eventually made a transition to New Wave.  The thing about Bill Nelson that’s so exciting to me is that he maximizes the potential of the guitar like very few others are able to do.  And he’s able to make it sound so effortless.  How the hell does he get that unbelievable tone?  I’ve tried in my own amateurish way to replicate Nelson’s sound with my Tellie, but it takes a tremendous amount of talent and know-how to get a guitar to sing like that.  Also, there’s the problem that Nelson’s sound relies quite a bit on natural distortion, which requires that you crank things up as high as they’ll go.  Doing this isn’t practical for a strict bedroom jammer like me.  The windows in my house would shatter and my cat would run away.  And I have neighbors.  So all I can do is daydream about the awesome phallic power one must feel in getting a guitar to hum and whine and explode in the manner of Bill Nelson.  …If you love and worship the guitar as much as I do - if it’s one of the few things that bring your life meaning, continuity, pleasure and happiness - then you can’t not have Axe Victim in your collection.  Nelson’s playing is a unique and perfect blend of tarted-up glitter and classical aspiration.  The guitar in his hand becomes a gateway to the sublime, and I become an all-too-willing axe victim…