Chuck Naffier
» Location: Ft. Collins, Colorado
Original Date:03/06/2000 7:53:32pm
When you grow up in Dubuque Iowa, you kind of learn to live without a lot of great musical exposure. Luckily there was a little college FM station that would play Rush, Pink Floyd, Bad Company, etc. Pretty cool for a 14 year old kid listening late-night to his stereo headphones in 77. So it's late at night sometime in early 78, and I'm sitting down in my basement watching TV about 3:00 am when on comes this show "California Jam II" so I'm thinking I'll check this out. So I sit through Bob Welch, Dave Mason and a rather hot set by Santana. Ted comes out and does his "gonzo" thing, and after that they announce "we'll be right back with Aerosmith, Mahogany Rush, and Rubicon". I'm thinking, cool. . . Aerosmith. Hope they play "Back In The Saddle" I Wonder who these other bands are? Then they showed Frank Marino & Mahogany Rush. I was stunned. I just sat there in my basement at 4:00 am staring at my TV. I could not believe what I was hearing! Here on the stage with spotlights on him, looking like he was standing on a tower in the middle of nowhere, was this guy making the most incredible sounds I'd ever heard on a guitar. I didn't even know how to explain what I was feeling. I finally figured out that it was just absolute satisfaction. I felt complete listening to this guy play! And to top it off, the band was kicking the living hell out of "Purple Haze". That night I made it my mission to find anything I could by this band. May I remind you now that I lived in Dubuque, Iowa? Great place to go hiking. Try and find an album though. Fortunately for me, a couple months earlier this little place downtown opened up called "The Asteroid". Lots of t-shirts, bootlegs albums, paraphanalia, etc. In short, the hippest place in town. They had 3 albums by the band; "IV", "World Anthem", and "Live". So I'm standing there with my $8.50 trying to decide which to pick. When I found "Purple Haze" on "Live" that pretty much sealed the deal. I took it home and played that album non-stop for the next 12 hours. Just over and over, flipping it when it finished and played it again. That was the first time I'd ever heard "Who Do Ya Love". It just killed me to know that not only was Frank playing that incredible guitar, but that the emotional way that he could carry the lyric was equally devastating. Man, it just kept getting better and better. I was also just finding Van Halen at that point with their first album. I was totally into guitar pyrotechnics. Imagine the look on a 14 year old kids face the first time he hears "Electric Reflections Of War". Unbelieveable. There are no words. To this day I don't know if that was all from one concert, but whoever programmed that album knew a little something about pacing! After that I found anything I could by the band. Read "Guitar Player" interviews, etc. Mostly I had found something that just made me happy when I listened to it. Years later I'm a freelance musician, making my living writing music for high school and college bands around the country. The music that Frank made, and continues to make, still speaks to me. It also turned me on to some very fine blues players, and gave me an appreciation for all the dedication and hard work that people like Frank put into their work. As any musician out there knows, you've got to love what you're doing so much that you would do it even if you couldn't make a living at it. If you do it for money, there's no soul in the music. Frank, you've got soul, you've got joy, and you've got a gift. I love the passion that you all bring to the music. As a musician I respect that immensely. As a fan I'm still in love with that sound! Outstanding! Thanks, Chuck Naffier PS - I listed "World Anthem" as my favorite album. I finally bought it again on CD a few weeks ago. "Hey Little Lover" still makes me smile. The eclectic style on the whole album, and the sound of the recording, as well as the fun that was obviously being had while putting that together makes it sing even now!!
