| Rumour III: THE EDGE THEORY |
| THIS IS A RUMOUR |
| THIS IS JUST ANOTHER RUMOUR |
| Were there anything at all to this fable, |
| You'd be reading about it in the National Inquirer |
| --that beacon of Truth and champion of Free Speech, |
| nestled next to the latest Elvis sightings. |
| Primary Blame: (as always) |
| Fran Doty |
| NOTE: Before we get started, I would like to announce that the 2002 Elvis Tour has been cancelled.� Seems he died again. (Sorry, Larry, we know how much you were looking forward to having him open the show.) |
| "Remember that TV series?�� 'Lost In Space'?" |
| We all know the echo, that curious, aural whisper which is so ethereal and insubstantial because its reason for being-the fiddling about that produced it-ended several microseconds before it existed.� How existential.� This shadowy phenonmenon is the not-so-solid basis for U2's sound?� God forbid the effects machine should ever fail. |
| While the singer rides it's wave, the drums and bass keep time to it and the guitarist is so busy creating and controlling it 'tis no wonder these face are so close and intense-break that concentration and the schmeal falls apart.� Ever see a tight-rope act?� Well, this is it. |
| Nobody knows how he does it-this elusive echo, not even he.� Oh, sure, read Guitar Player and listen to him talk all manner of technical nonsense.� (Infinite sustain??� Do we really want this man fooling around with the natural laws of the universe??)� At the end, you shake the bedazzlement out of your ears and ask, "Yes, but, Edge...HOW do you do it?" |
| Why are you asking him?� HE doesn't know.� That's like asking someone how they speak a language-preferably one other than your own.� They can't explain how they do it; they just open their mouths and out it comes.� So The Edge happens to speak guitar.� But as we all know, that wasn't always the case. |
| "Ever get the feeling you're being watched?" |
| ����������� The real Dave Evans was snatched from his crib a few short days after his birth-before the Evens family came to Ireland-and replaced by what the Celts call a changling.� Gwenda (as in "Yes, this is Mrs. Edge"), of course, noticed the difference immediately, you can't fool a mother, but she didn't have the heart to expose the substitution because, well, he was so little fuss and these amazingly huge, penetrating eyes...and we've all heard what they do to changlings. |
| ����������� The Edge is not of this earth.� He is a walking, talking, living, breathing, human-like Video Camera.� All his life he's been watching us, recording us, and transmitting back to his home planet.� (The search is narrowing down to a handful of likely galaxies, but NASA is still looking...) |
| ����������� Now this guitar-speak is either a by-product of his programming or, as I strongly suspect, a malfunction, probably caused by the damp, rainy Irish clime.� Picture the scene back at Control Central, Planet ???????: "Oh, I can't live with this-the Earth line has got this awful audio buzz.� It's really irritating and I just can't be expected to work with it."� (Sounds just like The Edge, don't it?)� So one of these years soon, we can expect the repairman.� (And based upon the amount of time it takes him to get here, we can extrapolate a radius whereby...) |
| WE INTERRUPT THIS RUMOUR WITH A BIT O' PROPHECY: |
| ����������� An odd looking man, tall, thin, (no, it's not Adam), greying, in a funny-coloured velour jumpsuit (no, it's not Mr. Spock either) will step out of an anonymous crowd ('wait-aren't all crowds anonymous?').� He will stand before The Edge with his fists on his hips, looking up and down before kicking him twice in the left ankle ("Emergency Repair Procedure #1").� Then the stranger will turn away, brushing his clean with disdain and announce, "That should take care of that."� And just before disappearing into the crowd again, he will stop and take a card out of his pocket ("Wait, velour jumpsuits don't have pockets").� Tossing it over his shoulder, he invites in his sickly honey-sweet voice, "Never fear, call me again if it acts up again." |
| The card reads: DR. SMITH'S REPAIR SERVICE. |
| "Darn, I was hoping for Dr. Who." |
 |