REVIEW: Lloyd Spiegel – Live In Japan

The first time I saw Lloyd Spiegel, he was rocking the old Espy Public Bar in St Kilda with a scorching set of electric blues. His new DVD, Live in Japan, showcases his brilliant acoustic playing in a small venue on behalf of guitar company Cole Clark.

With the backing of Cole Clark, as well as a few interview segments where Spiegel talks glowingly of the Melbourne company’s innovative acoustic guitars, it would be tempting to see this DVD as just a promotional item for the company, but that would be doing this excellent concert film a disservice. From the very first fingerpicked flurry of notes in set opener ‘Statesboro Blues,’ it becomes apparent that this is a demonstration of finely honed, honest and powerful acoustic blues by a player who has unbelievable command over the instrument.

Lots of close-ups and crisp audio production present Spiegel’s Cole Clark acoustics in their best light (although in a few spots a microphone stand gets in the way of seeing exactly what his fingers are doing, dammit!), and the clarity of every note is outstanding, but there’s a lot to enjoy here even for non guitar-playing blues fans, including a monster version of ‘Killing Floor’ and the sinister ‘Guilty.’ There’s also a touching ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ which recalls Billy Thorpe’s famous rendition, yet could also be at home on a Gov’t Mule album.

Spiegel’s technique never falters and he has a very cool way of pushing the beat at times without ever sounding like he’s rushing. His open-string speedy fingerpicking licks could put a lot of shredders to shame, yet the quieter moments are just as powerful.

Cole Clark Records

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...


Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>

FEATURED REVIEW

MY ARTICLES ON GIBSON.COM


I write for Gibson.com, Australian Guitar, Australian Musician, Mixdown Magazine (including my instructional column, 'Unleash Your Inner Rock God,' which has been running since 2007), guitarworld.com, Tone DeafBeat and The Brag. I started I Heart Guitar in 2008. I've been playing guitar since I was 8 years old, and I've been writing for magazines since I was 18 (I'm 33 now). I've also worked as a guitar teacher (up to 50 students a week) and a setup tech. I live in Melbourne, Australia. You can check out my guitar playing at Reverbnation or on YouTube. You can email me at iheartguitarblog@gmail.com


ComScore