From left to right: Maggie, a Warlock electric with 24 scalloped frets, Floyd Rose and two humbuckers; Lily, a silent electric with one humbucker; Dove, a Spanish acoustic with piezoelectric pick-up; Val, a kid-size acoustic with magnetic pick-up; Martha, a customized electric-acoustic with scalloped neck and piezoelectric pick-up; and Nathalie, a BC Rich Ironbird. Missing from the photo there's Susan (named after Susan Dury, the marvelous actress), a custom black acoustic with double cut-away edges.
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JOHANN SEBASTIAN BEN-SAISAT
Yes, that's my name: I'm Jew, after all (not by religion, yet, but by lineage - Levite to be more precise), and my father named me after the guy who composed The Well-Tempered Clavier. I'm a struggling writer, proof-reader and musician (occasionally working as photographer, translator and teacher, and with the idea of flirting with radio and theatre in the foreseeable future). It may seem like a lot, but actually it's not - I'd kill myself if I did the same thing every day, so I'm glad to be lucky enough to switch between disciplines and earn a living off of them. And I'm a recovering alcoholic btw! In 2006 I self-published a 32-page mini-book called 'Poetry And Other Lost Arts', which has only sold a few copies, and at the moment I'd love to finish a long (600+) text about something intellectual (in order not to be pigeonholed as only being able to do something in the music department), but no idea about how or when I'm gonna develop it. What else can I tell you about myself? Not getting into very personal matters, I'll just add some words about my musical background: I love classical music the most, but I respect and admire virtually all other genres, since there's always something you can learn from them. I'm not one of those who think only complex things are worthy, I feel there are loads of good features in pop, for instance, that us classical musicians (if I dare call myself one) can learn from.
Back in summer 2000, my enormous Queen collection consisted of 'A Night at the Opera', 'Jazz' and 'A Day at the Races' (bought in that order). Nowadays, my enormous Queen collection consists of ... 'A Night at the Opera', 'Jazz' and 'A Day at the Races'. What can I say? I either copied or downloaded the rest, and that's how I got to know songs like White Queen and Dear Friends, both of which I absolutely adore. I don't regard myself as a Queen fan (or any musician's fan for that matter), I love classical music the most but I also enjoy popular things, from Spice Girls to Iron Maiden, from ABBA to ZZ Top, from +44 to The Rolling Stones... no, not the Stones, I hate them, except for Salt of the Earth which is a masterpiece.
Having been in contact with top Queen experts and webmasters, I’ve managed to informally meet a handful of celebrities over the years. The most unforgettable incident remains the September 3rd one: during summer 2004 somebody was selling a Steinway piano on e-bay, claiming that it’d been owned by Freddie and David Bowie. Brian was asked about it on his soapbox and he replied that Fred didn’t use Steinway’s. And that’s when my brief moment of glory came: I corrected Dr. May! My message and his answer were online for a while on Brian's website, he was very kind to recognise his error and publicly acknowledge my rectification. |
