Hi all!
In a few days we'll be doing some sort of "unplugged" gig as the Cyco Sanchez Blues Trio, and already I've organized some unplugged gigs for local punk and hardcore bands a few years ago.
Since we're doing it again now, I've been thinking about the concept of "unplugged" recently, with pretty contradictory results. On the one hand, there's the saying of the great John Darnielle of The Mountain Goats: "The whole thing about playing an acoustic guitar is not to unplug; it's to get raw and draw blood." On the other hand, there are loads and loads of stale MTV Unplugged Sessions (except, maybe, for Nirvana, and definitely except for The Cure, which just was fun).
So we decided not to unplug, but to use acoustic guitars, play our songs in different arrangements (poaching through different not-so-cool styles like indie pop, reggae, bluesrock etc.), but still use our overdrives and stuff.
I realized that we couldn't just do an unplugged gig, but that we had give the whole thing an irconic twist (apart from just having fun trying out new styles), which seems kind of strange to me, for I dearly love my acoustic guitar, but calling it "unplugged" seems odd.
So now I was wondering what you all think about this whole "unplugged" thing? Cool? Not cool? Both? Depending on who does it, where and why?
Cheers, Doc Sanchez