One Sick Guitar MoFo
Tim Reynolds
by Dean “M.I.A.” Bonzani
9.27.04
Gentles, ye must pity the guitars of Tim Reynolds. For upon their faces Tim doth tread with impassioned fingers, with a roaring clamour like the din of a thousand heavy horse.
Tim is a spanker of guitars, a coaxer of weirdness from the nest of wire and wood.
Best known as the separated-at-birth musical twin of Dave Matthews, Tim Reynolds is a reckless genius, spewing mad invention with any implement he lays his gnomish paws on. One half of the splendor that is the cult favorite recording “Live At Luther College,” and a near-constant collaborator on Dave Matthews Band recordings and tours, his manic lead runs, quirky harmonic voicings and bittersweet volume swelled lines provide a psychic and sonic counterpoint to Matthews’ rhythmic strumming and lilting voice.
The two met in Charlottsville, Virginia, where Reynolds was playing solo and band gigs all over town. Matthews admired Reynolds’ skewed melodicism and omnipresence, and got to see Reynolds perform his solo act on a regular basis when he became a bartender at Miller’s, where Reynolds had an ongoing Monday night gig, playing by himself on an interesting variety of instruments: violin, sitar, drums, cello, and electric guitar, among others. Reynolds came to the acoustic guitar as a way of incorporating much of the other sounds that he was looking for onto a single instrument, while still utilizing effects processing to create a richer sonic palette. He and Matthews naturally fell in together, as musical soulmates, and Reynolds contributed his inspired playing to the band that he encouraged Matthews to form, with mutual friend Carter Beauford on drums.
The album “Live At Luther College” stands as a monument to the relationship that Matthews and Reynolds enjoy. Recorded on February 6, 1996, it was released in 1998, after the release of the phenomenally successful third DMB album Before These Crowded Streets, and gave fans a solid dose of the magic that lives at the core of the Matthews Band. Professionally recorded, it was a snapshot in time of the dynamics of Reynolds’ and Matthews’ accoustic duo performances, full of humor and joy. In a relaxed, unscripted, free-wheeling atmosphere, the two could do what they do best— play with each other, in the true sense of the word. Unburdened by pretense or pretext, their interplay is locked in at a subquantum level, like the unflinching choreography of migrating swallows. Every skritch and burp is folded into the tune at hand, giving rise to fractal dimensions in the music that aren’t typically encountered, save on the rarest of occasions. Matthews freely admits that he’s no lead guitarist, and that an electric guitar simply feels wrong in his hands, though he has been known to wield one. He defers to Reynolds’ Jaco Pastorius-inspired Flamenco runs and capering melodic jaunts, bowing deeply at the waist, as it were.
When Reynolds isn’t recording or touring with his friend’s band, he’s putting in time with his own projects. He still plays with the band that grew out of the Charlottesville scene, DR3, and with his newer group, Puke Matrix. He records prolifically, and encourages taping where it’s acceptable to the venue. His website graciously offers free downloading of MP3’s of two of his latest solo works, recorded in his own studio, Petroglyph and Id From The Lab, with further links to fan recordings and software for playing and converting a variety of state-of-the-art formats. His priority is making sure that people get to hear his music, and he makes sure of that.
Reynolds is most recently touring the U.S. solo, with a handsome array of acoustic and electric guitars and assorted other instruments and noise makers. He’s concocted a gnarled mass of electronic processing devices to tweak and torture his guitar sounds with: samplers and delays, wahs and the like, in an ongoing effort to wring every last possible groan and whisper out of his six-stringed victims. No song is ever played the same way twice, making each performance a treasure.
His strict upbringing as the son of an Army preacher, travelling continually and eventually performing bass in a church band through high school caused him to rebel, and the upstart has been rebellious ever since. He’s a jammer who loves Marilyn Manson and chaos theory, deeply concerned over the political guagmire the world’s gotten itself into, and all of it ends up at the tips of his wee fingers as he persuades his guitar to give up its secrets.
And we’re all the better for it.
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Tim Fuckin’ Reynolds, Man! at NAU’s Proctnow Auditorium, Fri., Oct. 1
© 2004 by Dean Bonzani, All Rights Reserved