The Fuzzface

I spent the whole of last night listening to one song and one song only. It was on repeat the whole time because for some reason, I was so hooked on it that I decided to just set it to loop. It was some of the most annoying sounds I've heard in a long time and yet, I couldn't stop listening to it.

I speak, of Jimi Hendrix. The guitarist who never got rich, who only had three official releases throughout his lifetime, an artistic craftsman, the pioneer of the phasing effect, most distinguishable with his upside down Fender Stratocaster, the very meaning of out of this world, who left us a little bit too soon.

"Purple Haze" from the BBC Sessions is the song that I talk about. The song that most of the rock n' roll (or music in general) community thinks might be a bit over-rated, over-played, over-performed, over-covered, and over-listened to. Personally, to me, a good song is a good song regardless of how overrated it is. This particular song was recorded with the fuzzface effect and this particular recording, had more than its' usual share of the fuzz sound. The fuzzing effect is just about one of the most annoying sounds I've ever heard. I liked it for a while at one point, when I first discovered Jimi Hendrix's music and his out-worldly sound. It is by my standards, as a music enthusiast, some of the most important sounds of the 60's and 70's. Jimi was also famous for employing many new effects and sounds to complement his highly intricate yet messy playing. A combination that you hardly find in guitarists nowadays. But the fuzzing is still the effect that annoys me the most.

A quick explanation on what a fuzzing effect is. The first documented utilisation of the fuzz sounds is in the song "You Really Got Me" by The Kinks. Most may know of the Van Halen version without the fuzz, but is recorded with a huge amount of distortion instead. It is basically the sound the the guitarist of The Kinks discovered when he drove an amplifier through another amplifier, driving the sound very hard and saturating it very badly. Later on, many other musicians tried achieving such a sound by destroying their amplifiers and then playing through them after they've been broken. This was a very unreliable method because every amplifier would break differently everytime its' been tampered with. Some musicians tried to standardise the sound by poking holes into the cones at the same position everytime they needed such a sound. It still proved unreliable. Sound engineers then toyed with the idea of producing this sound in a suppository. After some experimentation, it resulted in the creation of one of the first fuzz pedals in audio history. It was called, the Arbiter Fuzzface. So named because the control knob combinations made it look like a face. The effect has had many tweaks over the years to make it more user-friendly (much like the wah-wah pedal and many other peripherals). It is in my opinion, an effect that man has never managed to master throughout the years even with the advancement of audio technology. It has always been unbalanced with a huge amount of either high frequencies but never both at the same time. It was very difficult to use it in a live setting as you could never transition properly from distortion to clean sounds or vice versa.

I was so annoyed by the song that I couldn't even concentrate on doing work. I couldn't concentrate on talking to my friends. To make matters worse, I hadn't even slept the night before and I was madly tired. Yet I couldn't fall asleep even when my eyes were shutting and the body was begging for rest. This man is an inspiration. The very reason why I tried learning how to play rhythm and lead guitar at the same time (not that I am any closer to sounding decent while attempting such a feat). This song is a fine example of a man with many wonders. It is an exhibition of a technical mastery and vision. True to his RnB and Delta Blues roots, every rendition of this song, has different licks and hooks due to the genre's improvisational nature.

A very misunderstood character. Even though guitar magazines and specialists have been telling this story for years, the general public still only thinks of Jimi as a guitarist with great technical ability. Some don't even believe this as they believe he's only show-boating with random sounds. Truth be told, Jimi was technically proficient in a sense that most people don't really comprehend. He was not an amazing sweep-picker or alternate picker although he still had considerably guitar skills. He was a great technician in a sense that he could do many things at the same time. Rhythm and lead guitar playing at the same time was a cakewalk. On top of all that, he would sing at the same time. He was a visionary. Before recording, the music appears to him as a mental image. He would imagine every single guitar part and how it would fit in his musical puzzle as well as how different sounds would complement his desired guitar sounds.

The very definition of originality. Predicted his own death in the song "Voodoo Chile". The methods employed for his songwriting was beyond extraordinary. Till this day, "Little Wing" remains the only mainstream song written in a pop format with no chorus and three same music verses. This particular song is also the first song ever written to be recorded with Hendrix pioneered phasing effect. Something we use very liberally for many recording applications today.

I may not have met the man. I hate many of his sounds. Yet I can't help but love them at the same time. He bade farewell to the world long before he left it. I only wish I was there to see him do it. He's taken up all my sweet time last night. But he can give it back to me, with the rest of my days. I can't help it that I was too late for his world. I'll see him in the next one, and I won't be late......