Tracy Bundy is known as a master guitarist. The so-called “acoustic ninja” has been cutting his unique swath for a decade now, creating an almost mythical body of work, transforming our conception of the music one man us able to produce with a guitar. He is more than a guitarist, but rather a purveyor in the fine art of astonishment.
Bundy returns to Hermosa Beach’s Live at the Lounge this Sunday night having once again pulled a rabbit out of his hat – or, more precisely, an elephant out of his guitar. His new record, the exuberantly melodic Elephant King, further expands both on his myth and on the wild musical possibilities that exist between one man and a guitar.
The album, which also includes a DVD and an exquisitely drawn fold-out cover that tells the story of the Elephant King, also expands on Bundy’s gift for magically creating wordless narrative.
“Ever since I was a kid, I have had a fascination with elephants,” Bundy said in an interview this week. “They are kind of these giant but humble creatures, and I’ve always had respect for them, so I ended up naming a song Elephant King. And then I decided to name the album that, then when I gave the album name to our graphic designer…me and him just kind of went nuts creating this story about the Elephant King. It was fun to create a little bit of concept around it – it’s really a story about humility, because the elephant on the cover, he is a little kind of skinny and scrawny he’s not this giant powerful elephant. He was crowned king for other reasons, his humility and how he serves others, and those are always things that have been important to me. I wanted to highlight this other sort of king.”
Bundy’s back-story, and how he earned his nickname, goes something like this: once upon a time, he was a young engineering professor at the University of Colorado who, during his spare time, played some pretty good guitar. One night, he started tapping the guitar with only his left hand, and realized he could actually make a melody with only one hand, thus freeing up his right hand for all sorts of mischief (the guitar can be a drum, for example, or a bass). Then one night he went down into his workshop, crafted some strange homemade capos (the clamps used to globally change keys on a guitar), and started playing around with using multiple capos – some that only partially covered the frets – and moving them around in the course of a single song.
Thus was born the Acoustic Ninja. When he emerged from his shop, he began playing songs the like no one had ever heard before. Combined with a looping machine, he could make the guitar sound like some new-fangled kind of backwoods orchestra. Beyond the sound, it was also a spectacle – it was music that had to be seen to be believed – and within a few short years his legend had spread via YouTube videos. He quit his job and hit the road with his wife, Becca, his guitar, and his looping machine. Both he and his growing legend been circling the globe ever since.
Bundy is still a technician of a sort. His grounding in math is somehow apparent – melody, after all, is based on intervals – but the equations he is producing are made out of wood, steel, soul and flesh. He is, in his way, the Elephant King. There may be no more humble musical virtuoso on the planet.
“I am not in this for the mega-fame,” Bundy said. “I am really trying to produce art, and do it in humility, you know?”
Trace Bundy plays Live at the Lounge Sunday night at 7:30 p.m. See Liveathelounge.com for tickets or call 310-372-1193
