Starting At Zero

by Jimi Hendrix

  THE SOUNDS AND MOTIONS,

  ELECTRIC WOMAN WAITS FOR YOU AND ME.

  GOOD AND EVIL LAY SIDE BY SIDE

  WHILE ELECTRIC LOVE PENETRATES THE SKY

  I WANT TO SHOW YOU …

  I WANT TO SHOW YOU.

  Some groupies know more about music than the guys. Some people call them groupies, but I prefer the term “Electric Ladies.” My whole Electric Ladyland album is about them. It starts with a ninety-second sound painting of the heavens. It’s typifying what happens when the gods make love – or whatever they spend their time on. I know it’s the thing people will jump on to criticize, so we’re putting it right at the beginning to get it over with.

  The way I write things, they are just a clash between reality and fantasy. You have to use fantasy to show different sides of reality. It’s not a little game that we’re playing, trying to blow the public’s mind and so forth. For instance, 1983 is something to keep your mind off what’s happening today but not necessarily completely hiding away from it, like some people might do with certain drugs and so forth …

  Hooray, I awake from yesterday,

  Alive, but the war is here to stay

  So my love, Catherina, and me

  Decide to take our last walk through the noise to the sea

  Not to die but to be reborn

  Away from lands so battered and torn

  Forever, forever.

  Oh say, can you see it’s really such a mess,

  Ev’ry inch of earth is a fighting nest

  Giant pencil and lipstick tube-shaped things

  Continue to rain and cause screamin’ pain

  And the Arctic stains from silver blue to bloody red,

  As our feet find the sands and the sea

  Is straight ahead, straight up ahead …

  Well, it’s too bad that our friends can’t be with us today,

  Well, it’s too bad. “The machine that we built would never save us,” that’s what they say.

  That’s why they ain’t coming with us today.

  They also said, “It’s impossible for a man to live and breathe underwater.”

  Forever was their main complaint.

  And they also threw this in my face, they said,

  “Anyway, you know good and well it would be beyond the will of God,

  And the grace of the King,” Grace of the King.

  So my darling and I make love in the sand,

  To salute the last moment ever on dry land.

  Our machine, it has done its work, played its part well,

  Without a scratch on our bodies we bid it farewell.

  Starfish and giant forms greet us with a smile,

  Before we go under we take a last look at the killing noise

  Of the out of style, the out of style … out of style

  So down and down and down and down and down and down we go,

  Hurry, my darling, we mustn’t be late for the show.

  Neptune champion games to an aqua world is so very dear

  “Right this way!” smiles a mermaid, I can hear Atlantis full of cheer,

  Atlantis full of cheer, I can hear Atlantis full of cheer.

  On some tracks you hear all this dash and bang and fanciness, but all we’re doing is laying down the guitar tracks and then we echo here and there. We might have the drums or the guitar swing around to the other side with the echo going the opposite way – what you call “pan the echo.”

  We’re using the same things anyone else would, but we use them with imagination and common sense. In House Burning Down we made the guitar sound like it’s on fire. It’s constantly changing a dimension, and up on top that lead guitar is cutting through everything. For the record’s benefit we just try to take you somewhere – as far as the record can go.

  On Voodoo Chile we just opened the studio up, and all our friends came down after jam sessions. Steve Winwood is on one track. Al Kooper is on another, but his piano is almost drowned out. It just happened that way, so the piano is there to be felt and not heard. A lot of my songs happen on the spur of the moment. I start with a few notes scribbled on some paper, and when we get to the studios the melody is worked out and lots of guys all kick in little sounds of their own. It’s satisfying working this way. We don’t want anything too carefully planned.

  We did Voodoo Chile–Slight Return about three times because they wanted to film us in the studio. “Make it look like you’re recording, boys,” one of those scenes, you know.

  So,

  “Okay, let’s play this in E. Now a-one and a-two and a-three,” and then we went into it.

  Except for Watchtower and Burning Of The Midnight Lamp, it was all recorded at Record Plant studios in New York. Watchtower comes from British sessions and was recorded as a single. It’s our own arrangement. We used this solo guitar as different types of sounds, as slide, then wah-wah and then straight.

  You just don’t do everybody’s songs, and if you’re going to do them you don’t necessarily have to copy them. Noel kicked in one of the songs. Mitch and he are singing this English rock type thing called Little Miss Strange, but mostly they’re mine.

  In the early days I used to ask my producer to drown my voice in the backing track, I thought it was so bad. But I was basing my assessment of my voice on the wrong things. Now I base my singing on real feelings and true thoughts.

  I learnt that from listening to Dylan. Dylan has a lousy voice technically, but he’s good because he sings things he believes in. True feelings are really the only qualities worth listening for in a voice.

  I felt like All Along The Watchtower was something I had written but could never get together. I often feel like that about Dylan. Every time I perform his Rolling Stone it makes me feel so good, as though I had taken something off my mind.

  {IN MAY 1968, WHILE STILL IN THE PROCESS OF RECORDING AND MIXING ELECTRIC LADYLAND, THE EXPERIENCE FLEW TO ITALY FOR A SERIES OF EUROPEAN CONCERT DATES.}

  I’LL COME BACK TO ROME. I love this wonderful city. Tomorrow we end our Italian tour. Then I’ll fly to New York for a day to sign a contract. In four days we’ll be in Switzerland, then a vacation in Spain. We really need one, we’re simply overtired. We can’t continue at this pace for long. I feel we could end up has-beens sometimes. I feel it’s happening now. I think people are getting tired of us. I’ve had all kinds of bad hallucinations. We come back from America, and people say, “Here are those three shaggy-haired guys again!”

  {MOST OF JUNE 1968 WAS SPENT AT THE RECORD PLANT, FINISHING ELECTRIC LADYLAND. IT WAS MID-JULY BEFORE JIMI GOT A FEW DAYS VACATION IN SPAIN (MAJORCA). ON AUGUST 1 THE EXPERIENCE BEGAN ANOTHER TOUR OF AMERICA.}

  DIARY EXTRACTS:

  August 1. Weather’s beautiful here in New Orleans. Food’s O.K. Everybody’s on fire – but a groovy fire. Can you imagine, Southern police protecting ME? We could change America! The gig was actually great. Turned them on with physical music, come back to the hotel and get stoned and make love to “Pootsie,” a TALL Southern blonde.

  August 2. Well, back again and we are in the beginning of a change – San Antonio, TEXAS. Down the street about three blocks from this motel is the World’s Fair. Hope I get a chance to see it.

  August 7. In New York again. Linda was at Salvation in white and gold. She loves me. She is beautiful. She loves me. Tomorrow she will be gone again, but she never gets away.

  Mitch and Noel were quick in wanting to go back home from this tour. Our music is getting uglier, but so are the times. We aren’t living in Blue Danube times now, are we? There’s all this violent thing in the States right now. Playing the Midwest, like Cleveland or Chicago, is like being in a pressure cooker, waiting for the top to blow off. In New York it’s very violent, actually. The music might sound loud and funky, but that’s what’s in the air right now, isn’t it?

  I dig playing in the South a little more than in the North. Texas is fine. I don’t know why – maybe it’s the weather. New Orleans is great, Arizona’s fantastic. Utah? Well
, once we’re off stage it’s another world, but the people are great. When we played at the gigs they were really listening, they were really tuned in some kind of way or another. So much depends on the audience.

  {AUGUST 17, ATLANTA MUNICIPAL AUDITORIUM.}

  I didn’t really feel up to it this afternoon because we were pretty tired. Very, very tired as a matter of fact. We just got straight off the plane and came over here. We had free time for about half an hour. It’s just like having a recess in school.

  The first show was a drag. It was a bore. The people were waiting for flames or something, and I was waiting to get through to those people in a music way. Who wants to sit in a plane eight days a week and come down and see people’s faces saying, “Are you going to burn your guitar tonight?” What’s that shit about?

  I get a kick out of playing. It’s the best part of the whole thing. But then you come to things like people saying, “Well, you’re supposed to be an entertainer, so you’re supposed to be this to us, and we’re buying your records and we’re making you this and we’re making you that.” They think they have us for the rest of our lives. Who wants to go through all that? It’s the public who can smash a group to pieces by the way they treat them. They squeeze something until it is completely dry.

  The success is not good. It makes my work suffer. It’s the reason Electric Ladyland is still not released yet. It was supposed to be out on July 21. Still, there is a difference between doing your own shows and getting the bread than going around the same sort of circuit with guys like Little Richard and King Curtis.

  {SEPTEMBER 1, DENVER, COLORADO.}

  We played out there at Red Rocks and I had a lot of fun. People are on top of you there. At least they can hear something. It’s very hard sometimes if you know those people out there are not going to hear anything. That’s how it should be, natural theater-type things, outside where a hundred thousand people can get together. The Grand Canyon or Central Park. I’d like for us to play outside more because the air does something to the sounds. It’s terrible to have to rely on the Madison Square Gardens all the time, because those places are not for real good rock music. Then you have to go to the small clubs and get your ears blasted away. I think they should make special buildings for loud electronic music, like they make special buildings for restaurants and hotels.

  {SEPTEMBER 7, VANCOUVER.}

  My dad, brothers and sisters, my grandmother and her boyfriend and my cousins were out there tonight. I don’t get a chance to see them until maybe we play here. This is only the second time in about eight years. I wanted to give my parents a new car, but I guess they didn’t want it. I guess they’re proud.

  Each day on a tour like this kind of moves into the next. Nothing different about each one throughout a week. Sometimes I have this feeling I’m getting too mechanical. We’ve been playing Purple Haze, The Wind Cries Mary, Hey Joe, Foxy Lady, which I really think are groovy songs, but we’ve been playing all these songs for two years. I know we have to change some way, but I don’t know how to do it. I suppose this staleness will finish us in the end.

  The promoters think you’re a money-making machine, and they have no faith in you. It’s dog-eat-dog constantly. I can always tell the artificial people from the real music people, the ones who care about the music and what the musicians are doing. The trouble is, in this business there are so many artificial people. They see a fast buck and keep you at it until you are exhausted and so is the public, and then they move off to other things. That’s why groups break up – they just get worn out. Musicians want to pull away after a time, or they get lost in the whirlpool.

  I’m so tired I could drop, but I find the relaxation comes from thinking about music. Nothing else moves me. I hear music in my head all the time. Sometimes it makes my brain throb, and the room starts to turn. I feel I’m going mad. So I go to the clubs and get plastered. Man, I get real paralytic.

  But it saves me …

  I don’t really know if I have friends or not. I mean, the cats in the group and all this and Chas Chandler and Gerry Stickells, the road manager. Granny Goose, that’s his nickname. My friends are the people who give me a belief in myself.

  I spend most of my time just writing songs and so forth, and not making too much contact with people. They act just like the pigs that run these places, these countries. They base everything on the status thing. That’s why there’s people starving, because humans haven’t got their priorities right.

  I get mad when I hear about people dying in wars or ghettos. Sometimes I’d like to say fuck to the world, but I just can’t say it because it’s not in my nature. And I can’t let it show, because it’s not really a good influence on anybody else. People just make me so uptight sometimes. They don’t give me inspiration, except bad inspiration to write songs like Crosstown Traffic, because that’s the way they put themselves in front of me, the way they present themselves.

  You jump in front of my car when you know all the time

  Ninety miles an hour, girl, is the speed I drive.

  You tell me it’s alright, you don’t mind a little pain,

  You say you just want me to take you for a drive.

  You’re just like crosstown traffic,

  So hard to get through to you, crosstown traffic

  I don’t need to run over you, crosstown traffic,

  All you do is slow me down,

  And I’m tryin’ to get on the other side of town.

  I’m not the only soul who’s accused of hit and run

  Tire tracks all across your back,

  I can see you had your fun!

  But darling, can’t you see my signals turn from green to red,

  And with you I can see a traffic jam straight up ahead.

  You’re just like crosstown traffic

  So hard to get through to you, crosstown traffic,

  All you do is slow me down,

  I like to treat people fair until they screw you around. You can be terribly honest these days, but this tends to bring out a certain evil thing in people. My eyes are very bad, and sometimes I go into a club and I might not see somebody and they might get all funny – “Oh, you’re big-time now, you won’t talk to me!” And I say, “Hello. I was thinking about something. I’m sorry.” Because you daydream a lot.

  I don’t think I’m difficult. I get a little deep at times and don’t talk, but that’s because I’m thinking about my music. I’ve got notes in my mind, so I can’t kill them by talking. People get the wrong idea. They think I am being ignorant. I’m not, but after a while, I must admit, I don’t care what they think.

  I guess I could do without people. In fact, sometimes I’d rather be alone. I like to think. Yes, gee, man, I’m a thinker. I can really get lost thinking about my music. But then I think so much I have to get out among people again.

  {OCTOBER 5, HONOLULU.}

  Hawaii is the place. I had some beautiful days there. So many girls. I smashed my car up at 100 miles per hour in a 50 miles per hour zone. I got hurt real bad, and my face got scratched. I’ve been just freaking out for a few months.

  {OCTOBER 10–12, CONCERTS AND RECORDING AT WINTERLAND, SAN FRANCISCO.}

  It was great. We’ll use one or two of the things, maybe three of them. But I was out of tune a few times. With the way I play the guitar it might jump out of tune, and so I have to take away 30 percent of my playing for three or four seconds to get back in tune. You might not even notice it.

  You can usually tell how a show will go about halfway through the first number. Naturally, you try to play a little better when you get good feelings from an audience. But if there’s no response at all, it doesn’t bother me too much. I try to turn them on regardless. When the audience is quiet while you’re playing, that’s really great. That means they’re listening. There’s a few little piggies in the back row squealing every once in a while, but I don’t think about those things. I think about the feeling that is there. It’s like all the spirits collect for an hour and a
half. That’s the way it’s supposed to be. It doesn’t call for talking and yelling, does it?

  {JIMI SPENT THE REST OF OCTOBER 1968 AT T.T.G. INC. SUNSET-HIGHLAND RECORDING STUDIOS, HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA. IN NOVEMBER HE MOVED BACK TO NEW YORK FOR A SERIES OF EAST COAST CONCERTS.}

  RIGHT NOW, WHEN IT COMES TO ACTUAL PLAYING, I like to do really funky clubs. Nice sweaty, smoky, funky, dirty, gritty clubs. Because you can really get to the people then. All this stuff where you stand two thousand miles away from the people, I just don’t get any feeling at all.

  What you can do in America, especially New York, is meet up with guys and just go out and jam somewhere. Jamming is the thing now because everybody wants to create some music. The club scene is so informal. Things don’t have to be official all the time. You just go in, wait your turn and get up there and blow. It’s like a workhouse. It’s nice to sweat.

  I remember we used to play sometimes when even the amplifiers and guitars were actually sweating. It seemed like the more it got sweaty, the funkier it got and the groovier.

  Everybody melted together, I guess!

  The sound was kickin’ ’em all in the chest.

  I dig that!

  Water and electricity!

  That’s what being a musician’s about.

  That’s what you live for.

  Half the people don’t know how to jam nowadays. They don’t play together, they don’t really think about the other person. That’s what jamming is about, it’s playing with everybody. It’s kind of like making love to one another musically or like painting a picture together. After playing a while you feel the flow that goes through the music, like changes of key, timing and breaks. Finally you get where you can be more together than on a record you’ve worked on for two weeks. It can be one of the most beautiful things if you have time to hit it.

  We have a certain little crowd, which is great. We’ve all been through the teeny-bopper group scene. There will still be a need for good performance groups, but this scene is developing along the lines of jazz, where cats from different bands always jam together. We are like a band of gypsies who can roam free and do what we like. We are trying to produce real music and to hell with the imaginary thing.