@stuartk: Yep, love Gurf Morlix. I saw Lucinda and her original L.A. band (including not just Gurf, but also drummer Donald Lindley and bassist John Ciambotti, a great trio) play around town after her Rough Trade album came out in 1988, once at a pizza parlour to an audience of about a half-dozen! I met Lucinda at Club Lingerie, introduced to me by the manager of her then-husband’s band The Long Ryders (he was their drummer), whom I knew. She was very sweet, shy. I later saw her behind the counter at local indi record store Moby Disc (in Sherman Oaks, where I lived), staring off into space in between ringing up sales on the register. Writing lyrics, no doubt. ;-)
A lesser known Tele player is well known in the Midwest---D. Clinton Thompson, of the great Springfield Missouri band The Skeletons (aka The Morells). Big fans of the band include Dave Edmunds, Nick Lowe, and Elvis Costello. Thompson was also at times a member of The Ozark Mountain Daredevils, and played guitar in Steve Forbert’s road band. Great player. The Skeletons’ drummer was Bobby Lloyd Hicks, later in Dave Alvin’s band The Guilty Men. A fine drummer who unfortunately was, like Levon Helm, a 2-pack-a-day man, and died of Cancer a few years back.
In the late-80’s Foster & Lloyd put out two really good albums, and when I saw them at The Roxy Theater on Sunset they had a really good Tele player in their band. I don’t know who it was, but I’d love to find out.
Speaking of the Northwest: A coupla years ago I recorded one track in the same Portland studio in which Bill Frisell has done a lot of his albums, a studio better than almost all the ones I have been in in L.A. I brought my own snare drum and cymbals to the session, but the owner/engineer had a set of DW’s that were very well tuned, and some nice Zildjians; all sounded great on tape. He knew the secret to getting a great ride cymbal sound (the very percussive "click" you hear on great Jazz recordings): lots of compression on the overhead mics!
