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Every November, Jeff Moore and the Witchdoctors hosts a tribute called A Musical Celebration of Jimi Hendrix at the Kraken in Cardiff. He says he’s been staging the invitational gig for at least nine years now, to the best of his memory. As such it is the longest running Hendrix tribute in the city but for the life of him, Moore can’t remember exactly why he started doing it. One reason, he thinks, was the availability of like-minded local guitarists with chops and time on their hands.
“I don’t know. I had this gig at the Kraken. And there’s a fair amount of really good guitar players here in town that love the Hendrix music and that have a certain…affinity…for that sound.”
More than just a recording artist, Jimi Hendrix became a proving ground for rock guitarists of a certain generation of which Jeff Moore is one. He’s been called San Diego’s answer to Jeff Beck, but Moore is often at his best when knee-deep in a Hendrix cover like “May This Be Love,” pushing his amp to a point that one would not be surprised to see flames burst from the stack.
Moore says he witnessed a full-on acoustic Hendrix tribute once at Humphrey’s years ago and was taken aback. “They were, like, acoustic folkies, reading the lyrics. Me and Jeff Snider,” who is also a guitarist and an amp builder and has appeared in many of Moore’s Hendrix tributes, “we were disconcerted that actual electric guitar players that had been playing for a long time and knew Hendrix music didn’t really get any kind of invite to the show.” He thinks the slight was in part the impetus to get his own thing going, which by now has become a Kraken tradition.
“Yeah. It’s taken on, it has an existence beyond my will, beyond the scope of what I had anticipated.”
The Witchdoctors are a year-round trio. A good fit for Moore’s choice of Marshall amplification is the Kraken, which is known as a seaside biker bar. A lesser band would surely be drowned out by the din of motorcycles coming and going. “Exactly.” He laughs. “I can get the stink eye just by hauling that speaker cabinet and amp by the bartender.” Moore's played the Kraken since 1999. The band includes Rick Nash on bass and drummer Gary Nieves; they have a standing engagement Friday nights at Calypso in Encinitas. The Hendrix thing is for other reasons.
“We wanna play the guitar music that we love. We just go for those tones because we love them. It’s Hendrix, Beck, Page, Clapton. It’s a classic rock thing. And we all aspire to those guitar tones. Tone junkies, I guess you could call us.” And the Hendrix tribute is a scene, he says, where they can enjoy that music. With Jeff Snider, other Jimi tribute guitar guests this year included Eddie Lizer, Jeff Ruiz and Bob Bucciarelli
Moore plays Stratocasters these days through a variety of amps including a Fender Vibrolux, a Fender Super Reverb, or a 50-watt 1970 Marshall. His Strats have been hot rodded with custom pickups wound by a La Costa builder named Ron Ellis. “They’re the best pickups out there.”
The Hendrix tribute shows are popular and the house is generally packed. But Moore says no dice to a suggestion that he book them twice a year. “It’s simply in conjunction with the proximity of Hendrix’ birthday. Which is late November. I typically do it the last Wednesday of November,” he says, “and not a minute sooner.”
Every November, Jeff Moore and the Witchdoctors hosts a tribute called A Musical Celebration of Jimi Hendrix at the Kraken in Cardiff. He says he’s been staging the invitational gig for at least nine years now, to the best of his memory. As such it is the longest running Hendrix tribute in the city but for the life of him, Moore can’t remember exactly why he started doing it. One reason, he thinks, was the availability of like-minded local guitarists with chops and time on their hands.
“I don’t know. I had this gig at the Kraken. And there’s a fair amount of really good guitar players here in town that love the Hendrix music and that have a certain…affinity…for that sound.”
More than just a recording artist, Jimi Hendrix became a proving ground for rock guitarists of a certain generation of which Jeff Moore is one. He’s been called San Diego’s answer to Jeff Beck, but Moore is often at his best when knee-deep in a Hendrix cover like “May This Be Love,” pushing his amp to a point that one would not be surprised to see flames burst from the stack.
Moore says he witnessed a full-on acoustic Hendrix tribute once at Humphrey’s years ago and was taken aback. “They were, like, acoustic folkies, reading the lyrics. Me and Jeff Snider,” who is also a guitarist and an amp builder and has appeared in many of Moore’s Hendrix tributes, “we were disconcerted that actual electric guitar players that had been playing for a long time and knew Hendrix music didn’t really get any kind of invite to the show.” He thinks the slight was in part the impetus to get his own thing going, which by now has become a Kraken tradition.
“Yeah. It’s taken on, it has an existence beyond my will, beyond the scope of what I had anticipated.”
The Witchdoctors are a year-round trio. A good fit for Moore’s choice of Marshall amplification is the Kraken, which is known as a seaside biker bar. A lesser band would surely be drowned out by the din of motorcycles coming and going. “Exactly.” He laughs. “I can get the stink eye just by hauling that speaker cabinet and amp by the bartender.” Moore's played the Kraken since 1999. The band includes Rick Nash on bass and drummer Gary Nieves; they have a standing engagement Friday nights at Calypso in Encinitas. The Hendrix thing is for other reasons.
“We wanna play the guitar music that we love. We just go for those tones because we love them. It’s Hendrix, Beck, Page, Clapton. It’s a classic rock thing. And we all aspire to those guitar tones. Tone junkies, I guess you could call us.” And the Hendrix tribute is a scene, he says, where they can enjoy that music. With Jeff Snider, other Jimi tribute guitar guests this year included Eddie Lizer, Jeff Ruiz and Bob Bucciarelli
Moore plays Stratocasters these days through a variety of amps including a Fender Vibrolux, a Fender Super Reverb, or a 50-watt 1970 Marshall. His Strats have been hot rodded with custom pickups wound by a La Costa builder named Ron Ellis. “They’re the best pickups out there.”
The Hendrix tribute shows are popular and the house is generally packed. But Moore says no dice to a suggestion that he book them twice a year. “It’s simply in conjunction with the proximity of Hendrix’ birthday. Which is late November. I typically do it the last Wednesday of November,” he says, “and not a minute sooner.”