Privilege

 I was planning to learn to play the guitar this year. I still plan to learn to play the guitar. But I haven't yet bought a guitar, and that's quite an important part of the process. I nearly bought one yesterday - I walked past a musical instrument shop in Lisburn and it had a few, fairly cheap but not too cheap, parlour sized acoustic guitars, and that's what I'm looking to buy. I say I nearly bought one, but that's inaccurate. I looked in the window. That's as far as it got. I don't seem to be able to make spontaneous purchases that cost more than twenty quid.  

I'm no fun at all. 

What I did do instead of buying a guitar, as a sort amuse bouche, was buy a copy of Will Hodgkinson's Guitar Man. 

I write memoirs, occasionally. In Teeth, I wrote about having my teeth pulled out and replaced as they were no longer fit for purpose. In Spine, forthcoming this summer, I talk about my bad back and my quixotic efforts to become supple. I also talk, at length, about the far reaching effects of my breaking a knee twenty years ago. The books are ruminations on aging, regret, plus lots of funny jokes and drawings, and a little glossary round the back. Pretty cool, but also a serious meditation on humanity's privilege to be, alone of all creatures, an animal that knows it will die. 

Will's book is about him learning to play the guitar. That's sort of it. Will's a guy who lives comfortably in North London with his beautiful wife and two adorable children. He decides to learn the guitar because, at 34, he feels life has passed him by. Will doesn't fuck about. He doesn't read someone's memoir about learning the guitar as a prelude to learning the guitar like an idiot. He buys a guitar. But he also does fuck about. He asks a lot of famous people, fairly casually, how they play guitar. The second chapter of the book starts like this: "About a month into my guitar learning odyssey I got chatting to two French brothers, both guitarists, who played in a band called Phoenix." Oh, Phoenix. One of my favourite bands, you mean? You got chatting to them, did you? Casually? Like you would? 

This keeps happening. Over the course of the book he "gets chatting" to Johnny Marr, Bert Jansch, Roger McGuinn, P J Harvey, Billy Childish, Devandra Banhart, Chan Marshall, John Moore, James Williamson and Davey Graham. He complains most of them are not very good guitar teachers. 

At some point someone gives him one of John Entwhistle's suits ("it could have been made for me") and Sky Saxon asks him to join The Seeds. He travels to America to find the blues and finds it. Double thumbs up, Will. 

His twin missions are mastering Davey Graham's notoriously tricky "Anji" (he does) and appearing on stage, playing guitar with his own band within six months of picking a guitar up (he does). Is it a disaster? Is his hubristic attempt to better himself/achieve a goal/look cool in public/meet all his idols doomed to epic failure? 

No. 

He plays the gig. It goes really well. Afterwards everyone thinks he's great (it's a capacity crowd in that London). They buy him drinks, and all the girls think he's well fit. His wife loves him. That's the end. There's no pain in this book. He doesn't even seem to suffer from calluses on his finger tips. The worst thing that happens is he sits in some dog poo on Hampstead Heath. He learns guitar, pals round with celebs, everyone likes him and gives him free stuff, and he achieves his aims. He even presents himself as the cool one in the band: his guitarist is a boring, passive aggressive drip, the bass player a moronic red flag waving thug*. 

Now. 

This is clearly not a JPH joint. The joke - and there may be one though, while the Observer called it "hilarious" and Record Collector said it was "funny and sharp", I didn't crack my face once - is definitely not on him. Hodgkinson presents himself as blithe and frictionless, all forward motion, ever upwards. Cool things just keep happening to him. He is a journalist, but a journalist with an agenda. Its not mentioned in the book, but I'm assuming he's been paid to meet these people and extract interviews from them. The guitar lessons just an added extra. The only time his life sounds like mine is when he goes to see Les Paul (in fucking New York - whose dollar was that on, Will?) and is appalled to find he is treated like any other punter. When he asks the Godfather of the Electric Guitar what the secret of playing it is, he's told "practice." Will slags off Les' gig, and gives him passive aggressive "thanks" in the acknowledgements. 

He stays at the Chelsea Hotel in New York, because of course he does. 

There are seventeen reviews inside the opening pages of this book. They're listed as "Praise for Guitar Man". I still see this book in airports, even though it came out nearly twenty years ago. There's no doubt this book is very successful. 

It's making me question everything. A memoir without failure, without pain. Without learning anything except how to play "Anji". A book that's about meeting a load of cool guys and - hey, guess what? - they think I'm pretty cool too. No hospitalisations. No sadness or peril. Just happiness and success. 

Wow. That is NOT what I do. 

Should I write my own? My own guitar playing journey. Just for the pain in my fingertips. My arthritic hands failing to dance. Meeting no celebrities. Not staying at the Chateau Marmont. Not really leaving the shed. Mastering "Fade Into You", three years later. 

Yeah, why not? At least it'll be funny. Even if the Observer disagrees. 

Oh, Will's written a sequel, called Song Man, where he travels around asking famous people how to write songs. Presumably he's set himself some sort of arbitrary deadline. I've not read it, but I expect it'll all work out pretty well for him.  

*he has very questionable attitudes towards women and romance, I mean. He's not a Chinese communist.