September 20, 1984

By Mark de la Vina

Arizona Daily Wildcat

For some people, a picture may be worth 1,000 words, but for Rainer Ptacek, one medium-sized snapshot means a lifetime.

If the local blues guitarist ever wants to look back on the first spark of his career in. music, he only needs to glance at a rough, overexposed shot of himself as a 5-year-old playing a small accordion.

"My mother was looking for me", one day," Ptacek recalled, "and she heard this music outside in this courtyard. (When she saw me), there I was next to this garbage can. People would throw me nuts and coins. Somebody snapped a picture of this and I still have this on my wall."

So what's the significance of this modest photo?

"I've been a musician ever since that picture was taken in Berlin," the German-born guitarist said. "It just kind of reminds me where I started. If it hadn't had been for that picture, I might have forgotten about that moment."

Since his days of playing for walnuts, Ptacek, whose band is known as Rainer and Das Combo, has built a reputation as a blues guitarist. But being labeled a blues artist turns off the musician.

"People consider me a blues artist, but I don't think of myself (as one)," he said. "I'm just playing what I hear."

"If I grew up in Tibet, I'd be playing the same kind of music, but it wouldn't be with drums and an electric bass. It still comes from the same place."

Call it what you may. Ptacek's style, which uses his unique method playing the slide guitar, is a hearty, rock-charged assault that makes good use of his folky singing and sometimes acerbic guitar work. The sturdy rhythm foundation of bassist Nick Augustine and drummer Will Clipman, better known as Das Combo, makes for a near-perfect musical balance.

With its intriguing originals (i.e., "Mush Mind": "Drink and be merry/drink and bewildered") and occasional covers (Buddy Holly, Richard Thompson, et al), Rainer and Das Combo holds a serving tray of delectable cuts that would satisfy most rock-roots aficionados.

Ptacek was born in East Berlin in 1951, and his family came to the United States in 1956, thinking it was a huge "wonderland," Ptacek remembered. While living in Chicago, Ptacek was bitten by the blues bug, and singer-guitarist Robert Johnson and vocalist J.B. Lenoir became his biggest musical influences.

In trying to emulate Johnson's playing, Ptacek picked up on the slide guitar. Today Ptacek has a method of playing that greatly differs from the average

pill-bottle guitarist.

"I play the bar with my pinkie and I finger behind the bar," the guitarist explained. "It gives you a whole other world of notes." Normally, slide guitarists ignore fingering the portion of the guitar neck that is above the slide. Because of his innovation, Ptacek plans to submit an article to Guitar Player magazine describing his playing style.

Ptacek, who arrived in Tucson 12 years ago, has been playing as a soloist and in various O1' Pueblo outfits, including early stints in Giant Sandworms and Naked Prey. However, of all his musical undertakings, Rainer and Das Combo has proven to be the most fruitful.

In 1983, Billy Gibbons, the guitarist for ZZ Top, saw Ptacek perform in a Tucson club, 'and on a return visit to town, he contacted the Tucsonan.

Kurt Loder, a senior editor at Rolling Stone, was with the ZZ Top entourage on its Tucson stop in January 1984, and Ptacek was introduced to the writer by Gibbons. The bluesman handed Loder a cassette of Rainer and Das Combo's only release, "The Mush Mind Blues," Ptacek said. In the May 10 issue of Rolling Stone, the tape was reviewed by Loder, who gave it a rating of three stars.

The band is now set to release a live cassette, Ptacek said, and the trio will be sending it out to smaller blues-oriented labels.

Things are looking up for Rainer and Das Combo, but if his group doesn't get the opportunity to put out vinyl within the next year, the guitarist can always look at the hazy photo of himself playing the accordion.

"I try to remember why I started playing music," he said. "That's when I get that feeling. You've got to remember why you're there."