**over 30,000 plays of Paul's songs on MySpace. Click the "Paul Bibbins website" in the "Links" section on the lower left side of this page to be taken to Paul's MySpace page. **Listen to Paul's songs in FULL LENGTH and watch an awesome VIDEO of Paul on MySpace**
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Hello Paul, Thanks for the CD. What a truly amazing sound. I ripped the CD into the system immediately upon receipt and chose a song at random. I went with "Stone Cold Monday" as the CD arrived, and you debuted on Monday. It is playing as I type this and all I can say is WOW!! Welcome to NomadRadio. Music this amazing gets tons of airplay so I ripped the CD to show your MySpace address as the artist when the song titles scroll.
Cheers! Dr Stoney, NomadRadio
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We just got your CD (Songs From The Index Of Fools) today Paul. Our jaws dropped open and our ears were amazed. This is absolutely a killer CD and we would recommend it to everybody and anyone that loves rockin blues guitar. Somewhere between Hendrix and Robert Cray you reside Mr.Bibbins. Your fans and friends from Arizona, the Key Element Band
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Paul, I really think you broke the mold of blues players as a whole on this CD. It clearly shows who you are, and where you come from. Your influences mixed with your own amazing grooves. This is a must have for any guitarist’s music collection! David Mills, JCM Thunder
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Dec. 2006,
In order for someone to fill the hole that Jimi Hendrix left or someone to even try, one had to have a hell of a lot of "sand" to do that! Because no matter what that player did, they'd be standing next to the all time icon of the electric guitar. There is no one in music that will dispute that statement.
So one day a couple of months ago we were cruising through the "Space" (MySpace) and along comes this request for an add. We clicked on the profile. It was Paul Bibbins.
Now we weren't stoned at the time. Nor had we had anything to drink other than coffee...but by the time we were done listening to the four songs put up on the player, we were convinced that we were. Ummm...stoned, that is.
At the onset of all this, let's understand something. Electric Lead Guitar players have huge egos, though refreshingly, such is not the case with Paul. They're all such experts on who did what and how they did it. Easily enough, this can also be because of their passion for playing the electric guitar, which basically is the modern day version of the classical violin and not just an expression of elephant heads. But we weren't listening to Paul with an eye towards that end. We were just a few witnesses to our own experience of hearing what was coming over the speakers. Quite frankly, and there was a guitar player in the room at the time, we were transfixed on the screen and the speakers. For us it was like being hit with a brick on the side of the head without knowing the brick had been thrown. And what a brick that was! Simply put, we were knocked out. Cold!
Are we an easy audience? Perhaps you should go take a look at the column written on the Brian MySpace profile. The direct answer is no, we don't think so.
So on several occasions after that we had talked with Paul. We were going to sign him, on that there was no doubt...at least we wanted to, let's put it that way. The album Index Of Fools deserved to be looked at for another go around of treatment. Most often, time and money stop progress in the expression of recorded musical art (and notice how we phrased that, instead of the ubiquitous...recordings) especially for independent artists like Paul Bibbins. We had felt the same about Paul's Debut release. Plus, Paul is a New Orleans resident, so he was one of the millions hit by Katrina...and ain't that a bitch? But things have settled for him and while he works on fixing up his house and making a living he's got the time to do what needed to be done for the original Index Of Fools.
Ok, so like we've been groovin' on each new cut that's been comin' down the pipe at us until we finally got the last cut about a week or two ago.
Maaaaannnnn...this guy just kept on blowing us away. But then we're partial because he is a Bittersweet Artist. Then again, we knew what we were doin' when we latched onto Paul, to begin with, like we say. However, another thing that maybe some of you folks out there may not know about Paul is that he's a solid individual...and when he's got the time to play the perfectionist role he can really lay it out pretty heavy.
Some people that may not understand what's been happening here, are the new folks that have been visiting this profile. Bibbins isn't hitting the add button and pumping the numbers on the player. He doesn't have the time to do that...still in about three months time, his numbers have over doubled the amount of airplays...because when something is hip...well...it's just HIP that's all. Simple, right?
Something else that Paul Bibbins' music proves is that people are still interested in hearing a great guitarist when they hear one.
Okay, here's a fact...First off, in order to get permission to record and then release Voodoo Child by the Late Great Master Hendrix...what you have to do is write his publishing company, submit the recording and then wait until you get their seal of approval. If the cut doesn't make it in their ears...which means faithful to the original in enough senses of the word, then you can't release it! Not quite legally anyway. So it's a testimony in and of itself when an artist does get the Hendrix family to let the artist loose with it. That Paul got the permission to begin with is an accomplishment. And that should put some kind of finality as to whether this Guitarist has arrived or not, to rest. In other words...HE HAS!
Index Of Fools - REDUX is an amazing body of important work in it's final form. There's something ethereal about it. Also, there's something on it for just about anyone’s taste when it comes to power trio work. There's the hard driving rhythms and guitar-grooves and then there's the more laid back styles. For instance when you listen to Angel Blue and then Thrill Walk which we have playing back to back in the album's song order...one can't help getting carried off onto some kind of other worldly, head lolling, stoned groove...and that's without the aid of maryjane. It's almost like listening to John Coltrane if he could play guitar.
Now there's something in the musicians world that maybe some who witness music, yet can't put what it is they're listening to into words, and that's called talking with the instrument. From one end of this present album's final structure to the other this guy, Paul that is, just doesn't run out of things to say. We had just previously made a reference to John Coltrane. And anybody that knows what the "Trane" was all about, was this; if he had nothing to say with that horn of his...he just kept quiet. On the other hand, on any particular night on 42nd Street, during the days of his meteoric rise in the "Age of Cool" as part of Miles Davis' quintet, any jazz musician will tell you, that there were some nights when Trane had a lot of talking to do and during those times, while taking his turn at a groove in a solo order, he just kept playing until he was all talked out for that particular chart. Sometimes...that would last for five or ten minutes!
Well put a stopwatch on some of the tunes in this album. Do you have any idea as to the difficulty it really is, to be able to sustain a listeners interest for more than three minutes, when it comes to popular forms of music? It's not easy friends! So, when Paul stretches you out into a seven minute groove, inter-sparsed with the lyrical content, which is also strong...well guys, that takes some doing. What's amazing is he pulls it off with every song that takes you to those lengths. Every time!
There's another important point to make about REDUX, and that is, the New Orleans influence in Paul's work is unmistakable. Ya see, before that big wind hit...on any day, you could walk down Bourbon Street and every 200 steps or so, you'd here some band somewhere, belting out the Blues. It had become the predominant force in the music down there. Dixieland and Jazz had long since waned the last time we were there. Bibbins' modal odd meter grooves are literally oozing with it! And let's not forget to mention his soulful vocals.
So, here's what will happen to you if you put a pair of earphones on and listen to this incredible album. You'll go off into your own little personal space and spend time on another plane of existence. Your host to this cool experience is more than ready to take you there. And if you listen to him on this album from one end all the way to the other...you will have had your fill of music for the day because the grooves will stay with you. It's like, you'll be hanging out in the supermarket, and like looking for a pile of spinach or something, and bobbing your head to the echo's left in your brain. People will probably think you've lost it or just out there. You'll be an electric guitar, grooving vegetable and damn happy to be so.
Yes! Your brain will be salad! Oh, and let's not forget...there'll be some Cajun sauce thrown in there too.
Paul Bibbins...what can we say? We bow appreciably to the master of our reality in these grooves.
Can you dig it? We knew that you could!
L. Lewis & Brian Sidler - Bittersweet Records Co.
HOW TO CONTACT PAUL BIBBINS:
email: pb@paulbibbins.com
website: www.paulbibbins.com
MySpace: www.myspace.com/paulbibbins
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