Swamp Thing by The Chameleons | Guitar Lesson 

@DickMcCoolbeing from philadelphia pa and the horrible music market back in the 80s...i never heard of the chameleons until the early 2000s...and im well past 25

Thanks Nick - some really good info there, thanks for sharing.

@@acpg Thank you very much for the guitar lesson! I might add that according to Mark Burgess' book, in the early days they tuned guitars and bass by ear, with one guitarist as reference. They kept tuning unknowingly higher and higher, their early demos are roughly in G standard (!). And as someone else already noted, they developed the unusual "inexplicable" (XD) reputation of breaking strings very often even live. Once in the studio for the first serious recordings, the personnel introduced them to the electronic tuner as a "must" for serious music work. And they found out what was killing strings. The guitars' sound and the vocal lines seemed not to suit them in standard concert pitch, so they settled on F#. Not sure why but somewhere around 1985 when touring promoting the second album they went to F standard and kept that tuning until disbanding in 1987. Briefly reunited in the 2000's they used E standard, and so does the current ChameleonsVox project (a "tribute" band featuring original members, started originally by the John Lever the drummer and then joined by bassist/singer mark Burgess and recently guitarist Reg Smithies).

Correct. I knew Dave and Reg well, and neither of them had the slightest clue about theory. Just pure talent. I mean they didn't even know chords! Dave picked up a banjo lying around in a studio and wrote a song (is there a mother in law in the house), which is very cool. He also played 'gob iron' over it.

thing about them being a footnote, they still tour in small enough places that you can get right up close, maybe you can even chat up Mark in the crowd after. if they were Depeche Mode or The Cure, they'd be far far away

Can confirm. Saw them 9 months ago in Arizona with Theater of Hate and The Mission. Not even 150 people in the audience. I could have walked right up to the stage.

Absolutely magical stuff Arthur, the sheer creative force of all of those bands ;-)

as i did as well also...dont fall

Produced by Steve Lillywhite . Great album soo eerie and atmospheric sounding.

“Perfume garden” introduced me to the chameleons , loved the ethereal , moving delayed guitars in that track

U know him?!??

@@declanbates3203 Not personally, but my brother in law who is also a keen guitarist does.

@@ednaplate Did he have any answers?

@@ednaplate Any answers from him?

@@mungofinalfi4480 If it's about the curious tuning of the guitar on the original recording, me and another answered that question in the top comment above. I hope that might help, though not directly coming from Burgess himself.

Yes, please!

I even liked my own comment!

@@bl00df4rt one year later your not alone anymore

chorus = "double at the same time" delay = repeat in time

delay pedal is simpler and is basically an echo, with a chorus pedal the pitch is changed slightly on multiple copies of the input to emulate multiple instruments since they would always be tuned very slightly differently - that is my understanding anyway