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REY 101
Rob Eberhard Young is a native of Maine (and definitely a Mainiac) who humbly qualifies himself as a composer with a small “c”, but who unhumbly plays acoustic guitar with a very large “A”. In addition, Rob writes beautiful film score orchestrations. What’s Rob’s music like? Let’s put it this way…Rob can sit down with his acoustic guitar and play you a ballad that’ll bring a tear to your eye and then save you the trouble of blowing your nose by blowing your whole head clean off with a bit of tectonic grooviness, thus leaving your neck a smoldering stump. Rob tends to play starkly beautiful and austere ballads on the one hand and primal, tectonic, grooves on the other. He spends little time in between. He can also play really fast, but has so far resisted the urge to do so on record in favor of musicality…unless you count his early forays into heavy metal, which, under no circumstances, will even be mentioned here. Oops! What’s Rob all about? His current stated raison d’ętre is twofold—first, to spearhead the integration of huge, eclectic, and hybridized acoustic guitar into a band context and accordingly groove-out, and second, to do major film scores for lots of wonga to support his acoustic habit. How long has Rob been playing and how did he get his start?
Moving right along, metal ultimately burned Rob out and left him unfulfilled. Around this time, he fortuitously ran across acoustic guitarist Ned Landin who so blew Rob’s mind with his wide palette of sounds that Rob went home, put his electric in the closet, and took up the acoustic guitar. He quickly jumped into the deep end of the alternate-tuning/unorthodox techniques pool, and began, to his delight and others, misbehaving in earnest.
Nevertheless, our hero had (and has) quite a lot to say musically and the chops to do it with and has unquestionably developed his own voice on the instrument. How many recordings does Rob have and what are they like? Three… First, Rob’s homegrown solo recording—1994’s Consistent Variation which, with the exception of one track, is entirely acoustic guitar. Ballads, grooves, and power-funk all appear on this recording. It is the sound of a guy wailing, emoting, grooving, and just plain having a lot of fun exploring his instrument. Originally released on cassette, Consistent Variation was re-released on CD in 2004 and is available through this web site. In 1995, Rob sent a copy of Consistent Variation to the New Age Godfather himself, Will Ackerman. As Will later recalled, “I was just blown away.” Will was so impressed, in fact, that he signed Rob to his new label and co-produced his second album, 1996’s Sticks & Stones—a title referencing Rob’s affinity for all things primal. While the album included several acoustic guitar solos, Rob was also joined on other tracks by uber-bass-weirdo (and I mean that in the nicest possible way!), Michael Manring, Will Ackerman on parlor guitar, and the late, great Michael Hedges on harp-guitar. Sticks & Stones is a dynamic, diverse, and powerful album and anything but your typical flacid, precious, humorless, fingerstyle modal-blathering which seems to be today’s very very Caucasian norm. Sticks & Stones is available at CDNOW along with streamed samples of each track. In addition, go to the Sticks & Stones promo page for the downloadable radio edits of “Trance Dance“ and “Pictures of Lulu” (with Michael Manring) as well as interviews with Rob.
Why hasn’t SPEAK! been released and why haven’t we heard from Rob in awhile? While this may sound like two questions, it’s really the same question. The answer is that while Imaginary Road/Polygram has paid to have SPEAK! recorded, mixed, and mastered (in other words, it’s as ready to go as any recording could be), the album has become a casualty of the recent industry shakeup and is in limbo. Frustrating? You bet. Particularly since it’s a great album! As always, please join Rob’s e-mail list if you would like to be updated on its availability. What is Rob working on at the moment? Having just finished installing the studio of his dreams in his Florida home, Rob is immersing himself in hardware and software manuals. He is also working on both orchestrated film scores and (you guessed it) his next acoustic guitar/band album. What other scintillating facts should I know about Rob which will help me impress members of the opposite sex and/or get me a raise? Try these:
If those tidbits don’t work and you just get strange looks from your date or boss, either play them one of Rob’s CDs or fake a seizure and excuse yourself. This has been a public service announcement. — Matt Guthrie |
So who is this guy,
anyway?
Rob’s father
introduced him to the acoustic guitar at age 8, but poor young Rob felt
that playing the instrument was “like wrestling a freight
train”. He didn’t become seriously interested in guitar until age
14, at which time, being a total rocker, he picked up the electric
guitar. He quickly became a Grade-A shredder and played in various metal
bands in New England and Hawaii with moderate commercial success…but
you really don’t want to know any more about that due to the unsavory
leather pants and hair spray issues.
Interestingly (or
amusingly, depending on your perspective), when Rob first dove into the
acoustic guitar, he thought he was the first guy to conceive of
expanding its range and playing it as a solo instrument. What a
sheltered life he led! Then someone introduced him to the late, great,
Michael Hedges, Leo Kottke, and several other geniuses and Rob
experienced, shall we say, another epiphany.
Upon completing 