STRAY CATS COLLECTOR'S BLOG: FANS

Hello everyone,
sorry I haven't updated the blog in a while but I've been ill for a few days and geez, I feel as I had been beaten or struck by lightning... twice!

Today, we have a new fan wanting to share his story when he met the Cats in Helsinki back in 1989.

"When the Cats played at the Kaivopuisto, Helsinki, Finland on 4 June 1989, I met them before the show in their dressing room.

I remember talking to Lee, who was polite and nice. I had with me Cats’ “Rock Therapy” LP and I asked him who played guitar on “I Wanna Cry”, the song Lee sang on that record. To me lead guitarist sounded too blues influenced to be Brian. Lee told me I was right, it was Earl Slick who played lead. Lee explained that the band didn’t exist at the time they recorded “Rock Therapy”, so that’s why Brian didn’t play on all the tracks.

Most of the time I talked to Brian. I already played guitar at that point and Brian was my
hero, so most of the time we talked about playing.

I said to him that my 3 favourite pickers were Chuck Berry, Brian Setzer and Micky Gee, he kind of smiled and said "that's a good collection of guitar players".

Brian has played same kind of solos on “Jeannie, Jeannie, Jeannie”, “Nervous Breakdown” and “Gene & Eddie”. Originally it was Eddie Cochran who played these licks on his version of “Jeannie, Jeannie, Jeannie”. Brian commented me that that he had used these ideas a few times because “you can’t beat those Cochran licks”.

At one point of our discussion I asked Brian about guitar player who plays on Carl Mann's "Mona Lisa". Carl recorded in the 1950's for the Sun records. Brian shaked his head and said that he hadn't heard that record. He also sang to me one line of "Mona Lisa". The guitarist who played great solo on "Mona Lisa" is called Eddie Bush.

When I mentioned Carl Mann and “Mona Lisa” I didn’t want to impress Brian with my knowledge. I still think Eddie Bush is one of the unsung heroes of rock’n’roll guitar. Just listen his playing on Mann’s “Walkin’ The Dog”, “Kansas City”, “Ugambi Stomp”, “Pretend” etc.

Next day after the concert Cats did interview for big Finnish rock magazine ("Soundi"). In the end of the interview Cats moaned that nowadays people who work in the record companies don't know anything about the music. Interview ended when Brian said "these people that we meet on the road they should be working in the record companies. They know everything. Like this guy that we met yesterday. I know quite a lot about rockabilly, but this guy asked me about Carl Mann's "Mona Lisa" he wanted to know if I know who played guitar on that one. Oh my God! "Mona Lisa"!".

I was 19 years old at the time. As you can imagine that totally blew my mind. It was great, great moment when I saw that interview first time.

Fast forward to 2005: Brian recorded CD full of Sun covers. It made me smile when I heard Brian's version of "Mona Lisa". He copied Eddie Bush's great solo when he recorded "Rockabilly Riot" CD."

THANKS A LOT, ARI!!

Since I don't have any pics from that show, I post a couple of them from their show in Hamburg, a few days later.

You can also watch part of the Helsinki show on YouTube, as it was TV/FM broadcast:

"Rumble In Brighton" + "Blast Off"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wo0yyYjjefM