Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

James Honeyman Scott in a video of a great Pretenders song...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xiul5lgn3zA
I saw them on the Extended Play tour, in Fall of 1980; this was a new song then. Of course, I was much newer too.

Another one from the same period, this time it's Pete Farndon:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDmLH2rg28U

Awesome vids, thanks for posting Lindsay.

Cool posts, Lindsay. I love The Pretenders. Here's my James Honeyman-Scott story as it relates to Ricks:

A guitar student of mine who ended up being a good friend played a burgundy-finish Rickenbacker 6-string - a gorgeous guitar, and it sounded sweet. He'd play it at lessons plugged into my old Ampeg amp and I'd play acoustic guitar along with him as I showed him the tunes. (His name was Jim Evans. He's the same guy that elicited my punk rock epiphany.) One day Jim showed up at the lesson without his guitar. "It got stolen." he said. My heart dropped and my eyes rolled back in my head. I felt so bad for him. Having your guitar stolen is a staple nightmare for any musician, like I need remind you. He told me about how someone had broken into his car and taken it. Although I felt like saying "STUPID! STUPID ! STUPID!" to him for leaving it in his car in the first place, my empathy far outweighed my urge to dish a little tongue-in-cheek scolding. So we moped through lessons for quite a few weeks. He finally broke down and bought another Rickenbacker guitar, this one blonde and a slightly different model. But that was cool. It was gorgeous and sounded sweet too, as all Rickis do.

Then one day, with sort of a "You're not going to believe this..." look on his face, he had news once again. "I think I know where my old guitar is." Apparently the guy at the music store who sold Jim his new Ricki saw the burgundy guitar floating around in some questionable circle somewhere. Details sounded shady as to how well the music clerk might have known the guitar thief, but what mattered was that he was going to make an effort to get it back for Jim.

The next week Jim had it... the old burgundy Ricki that I'd grown fond of since it had been stolen. I was absolutely amazed that he even got it back. That's like a one-in-a-thousand long-shot, getting back a guitar that's been stolen from you. Jim had brought his new blonde Ricki that day as well. In previous lessons, we had been working on the guitar solo from "Kid", so this week, we both plugged in and played along with Pretender's guitarist: the late James Honeyman-Scott. Jim had his burgundy guitar, and I played his blonde. All three of us playing this passage together just sent chills down my spine, it was so cool... one of those moments where all the elements within our little diorama converged in perfect resolve.

Man, I love the Pretenders.

Did anyone notice Pete Farndon playing a pink Hamer bass in that clip?
That guitar solo in "Kid" is beautiful...
I watched the first clip and then spent a good hour watching other Pretenders clips! Thanks!!

Man, I really like the album version of "Talk of the Town" better than the single edit. The ending sounds SO strange to me...

Intentional or not, I like how the final harmonic note that JHS hits at the end of the 'Kid' solo is sort of a nod to George Harrison's same maneuver at the end of his solo in 'Nowhere Man.'

Gotta agree with you on "Talk of the Town"; I always point that out to my wife when we hear it...which is more often than one might think.

The first two Pretenders albums will be reissued next week as double disc sets including demos, outtakes, live and BBC session tracks. Dig it!

SWEET!!!!!!