Geoff Nicholson - Flesh Guitar

Jenny didn’t know what she believed, wasn’t really sure whether the boys were alive or dead. She hoped the former, although she could see why they might have chosen the latter. However, regardless of their actual fates, from then on whenever Jenny was in the studio and a cymbal toppled over or a microphone fell off its stand, apparently for no reason, she’d cross herself and say, ‘There go the ghosts of poor Walter and Bobby.’

Number two: the boobs

Jenny Slade says, ‘You know, if there’s one thing I get asked more than any other, it’s this: “Jenny,” girls will say, “is my chest too heavily built for me ever to become a truly good guitarist?”

‘I always try to be sympathetic. But first I say, is it really that big a problem? Unless you’re colossally stacked there are probably ways of getting round it.

‘Let’s face it, lots of guys who have massive beer bellies are still able to play guitar, and the truth is, most beer bellies are bigger than most breasts.

‘But if you genuinely find it a problem, if you’re really built like a pre-op Amazon, and if you’re really serious about the guitar, then a breast reduction operation has got to be worth considering. Either that or you’re going to have to change to playing pedal steel.’

Reprinted from the Journal of Sladean Studies

Volume 4 Issue 1

In the Havoc Bar and Grill Kate and Bob have settled down to a boozy quietness. There’s lots more Kate wants to know about Jenny Slade, and she has no doubt that Bob has oceans more to tell, but for a while it’s enough to keep all that stuff on hold, to savour the whisky, to savour the night.

This quietness lasts no time at all, as the sleeping drunk on the other side of the bar wakes up, is reborn into flustered, disorientated life. He gets to his feet, jinks across to the jukebox and shovels some coins into the slot. Kate knows there’s no Jenny Slade on the machine and there’s no other music she could bear to listen to right now, so she flips the switch behind the bar that turns it off. The drunk is thrown into lumbering confusion. Unable to understand what’s happened to his selection, he approaches the bar and orders another drink.

‘I heard you talking about girls and guitars,’ he says. ‘And they just happen to be two of my special interests. Here’s to ’em.’

He drinks a toast in honour of girls and guitars.

‘Here’s to all those nude guitar girls,’ he says. ‘You know who they are, though you don’t necessarily know their names. They appear in ads. They appear on album covers, on posters, in magazines. They appear on bedroom walls. They get their images stuck on guitar cases, on the insides of lockers, in the windows of guitar shops; you know the type.

‘Sometimes they’re hugging the guitar as though it’s a mighty phallus, or at least a phallic substitute; not as a dildo exactly, since the guitar has too many hard, sharp edges for most tastes, and God knows it’s a little large for most anatomical configurations, but you get the point, nevertheless. Here’s to ‘em.’

He drinks again.

‘Hey, am I drinking alone here?’ he demands of Kate and Bob. ‘Next time I propose a toast I want you both to join in.’

Kate eyes him suspiciously, just another sucker, but she knows that talk of women and ‘girls’ can lead to bad, unpredictable behaviour in the Havoc clientele.

The drunk continues, ‘Here’s to the nude guitar girl who’s an adornment for the guitar player. He stands fondling the guitar while she stands fondling him. She’s impressed, thrilled, attracted to and turned on by his chunky yet streamlined axe. She admires his poise, his dexterity, his ability to wield that huge thing with authority yet delicacy. If she’s wearing clothes at all they’ll be skimpy and few and they’ll soon be shed.

‘Or maybe she’ll be stretched out atop a stack of amplifiers and speaker cabinets, with tousled hair, a “come and get it” expression in her eyes that the manufacturer hopes the punter will confuse with lust and transfer from the girl to the hardware.

‘Here’s to all those naked girls on the original Electric Ladyland cover, to the barely pubescent teeny holding the silver aeroplane on the Blind Faith album. Here’s to all the babes on all the Ohio Players albums. Here’s to the girl pleasuring herself with a Tokai copy of a Stratocaster in guitar magazine ads, the legend “Tokai is Coming” printed behind her back.

‘I’ve seen ’em all, bare bodies coiled with guitar strings and guitar leads, naked women posing in front of banks of speakers, plectrums displayed in deep cleavages. I’ve seen pickups strategically placed on nipples to retain some crass notion of decency, if not dignity. I’ve seen taut, sweaty bodies creating an objective correlative for the virtues of pedals and stomp boxes. Here’s to ’em.’

With a certain reluctance, though with a considerable urge to placate, Kate and Bob drink. Bob knows that Kate is being made uncomfortable by the drunk, and he can see her point all too clearly, though on a different night, in a different bar, he knows he might be proposing similar toasts himself.

The drunk says, ‘Here’s to the girls who got their tits out for the lads, who got their tits out so the audience would have something to entertain them while the lead guitarists went into long, laboured solos. Here’s to Stacia of Hawkwind, and Wendy O. Williams of the Plasmatics, and sometimes Grace Slick, and sometimes even Siouxsie Sioux, and certainly P. J. Harvey and definitely Patti Smith.

‘Exploited? Oh come now, surely that’s just the name of a band. Here’s to ‘em.’

This time Kate doesn’t pick up her drink, won’t humour the drunk at all, and Bob decides his place is right with her.

‘No, we can’t drink to that, I’m afraid,’ he says.

For a second the drunk looks dangerously agitated. Who are these people that think they’re too good to drink with him? Maybe he should take one of them outside, probably the guy, though not necessarily, and see what he’s made of. Then the booze and tiredness roll in again and he simply can’t be bothered.

‘OK,’ he says, ‘so you propose a toast.’

After due consideration Bob Arnold says, ‘Here’s to the ironic nude guitar girls. Here’s to the Slits all wet mud and atavism. Here’s to post-feminist nudity, to the vocalist in Tribe 8 who sings topless wearing a strap-on. Here’s to Courtney Love letting it all flop out, having her doll parts mauled by sticky fingers from the moshing pit.

‘And here’s, especially, to poor, poor Laurel Fishman, who is remembered, if at all, for having been vaginally penetrated by Steve Vai with his guitar head. The episode is recorded in a particularly nasty song by Frank Zappa. Here’s to you, Laurel. Here’s to all you girls. You’re the genuine article no doubt, the real thing, the live wire. Mind how you go. Forgive us for being young and callow, for being in love with the guitar. It was so much easier than being in love with real women.’

‘OK, I’ll drink to that,’ says the drunk, and all three of them raise their whiskies.

The drunk’s glass is now empty and he seems glad of it. Bob’s attempt at a toast was just one more baffling element in this long and befuddled night.

‘Here’s to Jenny Slade,’ the drunk says thickly, and he waves his empty glass in the air before returning to his table to resume his alcoholic slumbers.

‘Thanks for the solidarity there, Bob,’ Kate says.

‘It’s not a problem,’ says Bob.

‘I’ve got nothing against nude guitar girls, you understand,’ she says confessionally, ‘just against unpredictable drunks.’