It Might Get Loud

It Might Get Loud (Davis Guggenheim, 2009) Between making An Inconvenient Truth and Waiting for 'Superman', (and the occasional tv work like the pilots for "The Defenders," filmmaker Davis Guggenheim did one for fun: It Might Get Loud, a summit, if you will, of three electric guitar aficionados, Jimmy Page, The Edge, and Jack White.  The axe-men were brought together to talk, but as Page wryly notes "there will be guitars there, so who knows?" 

What's interesting about the documentary and hearing them three men talk is their completely different approaches to using the electric guitar: for Page, it's technique; for The Edge, it's technology; for White, it's breaking it down to the bare essentials. All three do things nobody else does with the electric guitar, approaching the instrument with a completely different mind-set, as writers approach a piece of paper.

It reduces them to human beings, all capable of greatness, but not fathoming where each gets it ("I can't tell you what a 'process' is" says Page at one point): to see the unbridled love in the eyes of The Edge and White as they watch Page play the opening to "Whole Lotta Love," how Edge intensely scrutinizes White's fingering during a jam session, all three's tales of creative crises—Page's dissatisfaction with studio sessions, Edge's dealing with writing the "War" album, White, how to create a blues aesthetic in a world of "packaged" music and bands.

And it is fun to watch them eye each other and tell tales and compare notes, artisans and students all.  My favorite moments are with White, whose work I know the least and who always veers precipitously close to the edge of pretension: the first opens the film as he builds a guitar out of scrap wood and a pick-up; the second, is in the extras, and has Page and Edge ask about a particular riff that White wrote for "Seven Nation Army" and White tells the tale of how he socked it away "if I was going to write a James Bond theme song or something." But Edge wants to know how he did it, and when White tells them, the others' eyes go wide with the simplicity of it, and both have to try it. Then, they all riff, finding possibilities. "That'll be five dollars," White cracks.

I'm not a musician, but I appreciate musicianship*, and I have no particular interest in electric guitars, but I like good stories told by good people.  And It Might Get Loud sure is fun.

* My favorite comment on that subject came from a rap-artist I was recording—on the subject of Jimi Hendrix—and someone said something about a certain recorded performance being lack-luster, and the guy paused, considered what to say, and said "Ya know...as many grains of sand there are on the beach...THAT's how many times Carlos Santana has played "Black Magic Woman." Wisdom, there. It's not just about innovation...it's about discipline, too.