Mission Mission

Gaucho bandleader, Tom Cruise impersonator, and my upstairs neighbor Dave Ricketts (hey have you seen his guitar?) will be teaching an 8-week Gypsy Jazz guitar course at the new mission music school Zambaleta in January. You’ve probably seen Gaucho rockin’ those Django Reinhardt hits every Wednesday 8-10pm for the past 6 years (!) at Amnesia.

This class begins January 5, 2010 and meets every Wednesday at 1pm for 8 weeks for $150. Join this gypsy jazz guitar class to learn this distinct style. Learn the ‘la pompe’ strumming style and percussive playing techniques for rhythm guitar. Then switch gears to develop lead guitar skills. For this function, you will work on soloing using chromaticism, arpeggios, and glissandos. A guitar is required for this class.

After this class, you will play circles around that weird rocker dude in the mission. I occasionally play this stuff and I can confirm that it gets the ladies attention. Granted they are mostly senior citizens who want to feel how firm my arms are.

Django did all this with two fingers, by the way:

If that’s not your style, there are a ton of other classes being offered at Zambaleta, including Arab Oud. Not as cool as the Ultra Oud-Harptar, but halfway there!

Conrad sends in a link to a post on Djangology.net.  It seems Gaucho guitarist Dave Ricketts’ axe was stolen from Amnesia the night of September 30th.

Gumshoe that I am, I took to the case immediately by contacting my awesome friend Vic (LADIES: HE’S SINGLE!), who often sits in with the gypsy jazz band.  He sent in the above image, and the following:

It’s a dell arte “minor swing” model guitar. Note the pick wear right below the strings by the bridge and the Gaucho sticker on the cutaway. These sorts of guitars are pretty distinctive so it should be easy to spot if it pops up somewhere.

 

More details: it was stolen out of the back room at amnesia sometime after Gaucho finished their set at 10pm at Sep 30. It was in a blue Alpine brand gig bag.

Thanks Kat… some might call you a hero…

Oh, whoops, totally didn’t mean to include that last sentence.

Send any clues this way!  Rumor has it Dave Ricketts has found a suitable replacement, but I’m sure he’d appreciate getting his old guit-box back.

Related: if you ever have  a chance to make it to Amnesia Wednesday for gyspy jazz night, prepare to shit your pants over its novelty.  A scene like no other.  Whew.  I recommend it.