This kind of mind-meld interplay was a precursor to the dual-guitar style that Duane Allman and Dickie Betts would later develop in the Allman Brothers’ music, which also makes Cipollina and Duncan key forefathers of the jam band scene. Cipollina and Duncan’s freewheeling, modal, raga-flavored excursions took Mona far from the Afro-Cuban roots of the original Bo Diddley recording. We got into double leads right from the start, partly at my insistence John Cipollinaĭuncan and Cipollina would soon become a formidable two-guitar team, trading licks and interweaving lead lines during trippy, marathon improvisations over material like Bo Diddley’s classic Mona. Balin felt a little guilty for luring Skip Spence away from his slot as Quicksilver’s guitarist so that Spence could play drums for an early incarnation of the Airplane. One of the group’s founders, singer/guitarist Dino Valenti, was jailed for marijuana possession before the band could even have its first rehearsal in ’65 at the Matrix, the club owned by the Airplane’s Marty Balin.īut then it was Balin who recommended guitarist Gary Duncan for the newly forming group. For one, Quicksilver’s lineup was notoriously unstable. So why aren’t Cipollina and Quicksilver Messenger Service more well remembered today? Much of it is down to the typically sad rock and roll story of bad timing and worse luck. “On any given night sharing a bill with the Grateful Dead, the Quicksilver guys could hand Garcia and company their asses,” the Bay Area music critic Joel Selvin wrote. On any given night sharing a bill with the Grateful Dead, the Quicksilver guys could hand Garcia and company their asses Joel SelvinĪt various points, the Quicksilver lineup included Skip Spence, best known for his work with Moby Grape, and bassist David Freiberg, who would go on to play with the Jefferson Airplane and Jefferson Starship. And their history intersected with that of several other Bay Area bands. They were an integral part of the hippie scene that grew up around LSD, free love and free thinking in San Francisco’s Haight Ashbury neighborhood. In 1965, Cipollina became a founding member of Quicksilver Messenger Service, the band that would bring him to fame. Even in an era noted for its imaginative experimentation with gear, Cipollina’s rig stood out just as much as he did. His setup, which today is on exhibit at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, also incorporated a Maestro Echoplex and Standel Modulux, complete with a system of automotive lights to indicate which effect had been activated by footswitch. “I like the rapid punch of solid-state for the bottom, and the rodent-gnawing distortion of the tubes on top,” he said. He devised an elaborate amp rig combining two solid-state Standel bass amps with two Fender tube amps: a Twin Reverb and a Dual Showman driving six Wurlitzer horns. I like the rapid punch of solid-state for the bottom, and the rodent-gnawing distortion of the tubes on top John Cippolina In an era when rock guitarists were debating whether they should stick with tubes or move on to then-brand-new transistor amplification, Cipollina simply said, “I’ll have both.” And by combining his distinctive picking with a highly original approach to amplification, Cipollina was able to forge a style that blended tremulous lyricism with bursts of snaky, anarchistic phrasing. But Cipollina was doing it in ’65, long before Beck.
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