Tied Up in Bows
The guitar acquired a new voice in 1969.
I remember hearing it on Led Zeppelin’s first album, most notably on the LP’s final track, which featured a series of long notes that sounded like the moaning of a humpback whale … or perhaps the reverberations of some massive heavy-metal machine.
Here’s a bit of it, sampled from the middle section of “How Many More Times”:
Not long after, when I caught Led Zeppelin live during one of their first tours of the States, I saw firsthand how lead guitarist Jimmy Page achieved those long notes by dragging a violin bow across the strings of his Les Paul.
Not surprisingly, like so many young players who witnessed his performance, I wanted to make sounds like that on my guitar too.
Initially, my results were limited. The flat bridge of a Stratocaster isn’t made for bowing, and playing individual notes (except perhaps on the first and sixth strings) seemed all but impossible.
Enter the Ebow
That same year, a guitarist named Greg Heet was experimenting with handheld electromagnets that enabled him to play sustained notes across all six strings.
But it wasn’t until 1976, when the Ebow officially launched at a trade show in California, that things really took off.
The First Wave
The Ebow’s influence on popular music began almost immediately after its introduction.
Consider, for example, David Bowie’s “Heroes” (1977), The Cars’ “Shake It Up” (1981), Blue Öyster Cult’s “Don’t Fear the Reaper” (1977), Blondie’s “Dog Star Girl” (1983), Phil Collins’ “It Don’t Matter To Me” (1982), and The Cranberries’ “Daffodil Lament” (1994).
If you have time, be sure to click the links above. And when you do, note how Bowie’s live performance of “Heroes” opens with a close-up of Mick Ronson’s Ebow technique. In contrast, note how the Phil Collins clip is powered mostly by horns and drums until the two-minute mark. That’s when one of the players (guitarist Daryl Stuermer?) cuts in with a long-note lead. Tasty!
Music in a Similar Vein
In the early aughts, I joined the Ebow soundscape when bandmate Duane Davis and I collaborated on the EP Veins: The Soundtrack.
Inspired by my novel Veins, and featuring six ambient tracks that rely heavily on the Ebow sound, the album is available on Spotify and iTunes.
The Minute Men Theme
All of which brings us to the novel Minute Men: Execute & Run, due out October 14 from Caezik Science Fiction and Fantasy.
Back in May, when brother Christopher and I launched the Minute Men Newsletter (click here for a free subscription), we were determined to make the publication something special. More than just a promotional vehicle for the forthcoming book, we endeavored to create a multi-media experience with artwork, videos, music, and more.
To score some of those videos, I selected the third track from the Veins EP. Ominously titled “Opening the Veins,” it begins with some pensive Ebow before transitioning to a minute-long blast of metal rock.
Though recorded a decade before Chris and I began working on Minute Men, the track’s hard-driving bridge, sandwiched between a pair of slower Ebow-fueled sections, seemed an apt representation of the minute-long superpowers depicted in the novel.
Want to see those powers in action? Click the trailer below.
I’ll meet you there.
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