Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers in
OK, so like I said in yesterday's awesome blog post, MOJO, the new album by Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, came out Tuesday, June 15.
Musically, it's all still a blur to me right now -- a big, riff-filled blur of loud, mid-tempo things with lots of blues changes and lead guitarist Mike Campbell making believe he's Jimmy Page circa 1970 or Mick Taylor circa 1972.
But if you get the deluxe "iTunes LP" version of MOJO and watch the three videos that come with the download, you can see the band of rich men in action, standing in a gigantic room that's packed with vintage amps and guitars and basses and keyboards and random gear, looking cool as they play their new tunes.
The big room in question (which is semi-visible in the photo above) looks familiar to me. Petty and Campbell have been photographed there many times in recent years, and the photos appeared in Guitar Player and Vintage Guitar magazines when HIGHWAY COMPANION came out in 2005 and MUDCRUTCH was released in 2008.
The room is, perhaps, the perfect place to be if you love guitars and amps and random bits of vintage gear -- not to mention good music by one of rock's great bands.
The walls are lined with the aforementioned vintage things. Some photos or scenes from the videos show old Fender Jazzmasters -- probably the ones Mike Campbell used to record SURF-N'-BURN. That's the 1997 CD recorded by his fictional surf band, The Blue Stingrays.
And, speaking of surf bands -- several of whom make a point of listing their impressive vintage gear in their liner notes (a spooky surf band from New England likes to do this) -- Tom Petty and the crew get very surf-band-like in MOJO's liner notes by listing the vintage stuff they employed to make the album.
The list includes:
@ 1959 Gibson Les Paul in Sunburst
@ 1964 Gibson ES-335 in Sunburst
@ 1964 Gibson Hummingbird
@ 1965 Fender Stratocaster in Fiesta Red
@ 1963 Hofner Club Bass
@ 1965 Fender Jazz Bazz
@ 1959 Fender Precision Bass
@ 1965 Gibson SC Special
@ 1964 Rickenbacker 625 12-string
@ 1963 Fender Stratocaster
So, yeah -- it must be nice to be in this band ...