Platinum at Atlanta Athletic Club for the Adams/Butler Wedding

Last night Platinum swarmed the fine Atlanta Athletic Club for a wedding reception that was a far reaching "greatest show on Earth!"  The groom is a DJ, so he enlisted a DJ friend to MC the event and take over musical responsibilities.  What this boiled down to is that we burned brightly for about an hour, then came back for a quickie 4-song finale!  Then we were done - before 11!  Here is a pic of the timeline that Kevin printed out, something like 14 pages worth. 

Hey, it's good to plan it out.  At least you might get a good part of what you're trying to achieve.  When it's planned with White House type detail then from experience I know it will always run behind.  We probably didn't get to play many of our best songs since the 2nd set was basically scrapped!

Here's a shot of 1 of the tables.  They expected 320 guests.  If you look closely, you can see that there is a cake on every table.  That's a lot of wedding cakes!

We spent a long time in the green room, waiting for our time slot to do our brief show.  We changed into some "show clothes".  All was well, but the night kinda dragged on for a while.

More pics of Running With Desire from St. Patrick's Day 2011

We were very fortunate to have Michael Ingledew at 37 Main taking pictures of us.  He did an incredible job and they really are worth perusing on his web site listed here.  With his blessing, I hope it's ok to post some of these here on my blog.  These are especially nice since I didn't have any pics of my NS/Stick and the club has tremendous sound and lighting.

http://dophotos.shutterbugstorefront.com/g/03_17_2011_running_my_favoritesfacebook

Platinum plays another wedding reception at the Ritz

Hey, as far as these kinds of gigs go, I like playing here.  We are usually taken care of as far as a hot meal goes.  This time we had leafy greens salad, grilled chicken, & yummy pasta with carmelized onions.  It was very good and I had thirds.  Also, it's not so far from home, so the commute isn't too terrible.  Plus, I usually park close to the dock so I don't have to deal with running several blocks to get my car at night.  I don't even mind having to take the freight elevator.  And another thing... I usually get a chance to make it over to the bar to catch part of Theresa Hightower's show with the Dan Lawrence Trio featuring Russ Rodgers and Sean O'Rourke.  I did make it there twice but the first time they were on a break and the 2nd time they were just wrapping up a set, so I heard about 2 minutes worth.  Can't they be on a different time frame than us?

We had an easy going night of waiting around and then taking many breaks.  We played several dinner set songs.  I'm glad we're keeping "The Nearness of You" and it did go better this time - I didn't go to the I chord too early this time.  We opened with "Breezin'", which we hadn't done much with Derek.  Then we played the opening minute of "Love's Divine", stopping just before the bass and drums come in.  Then we took a break.  See how that works?  The first dances went well and we got them on their feet with, surprise, "My Girl".  Another one called not on the list was "The Supremes Medley: I Hear a Symphony --> Come See About Me".  While I'm thinking about it, at the end of the night we played "Jenny Jenny" & then finished with "Shout" by Tears for Fears.  Wild surprise, since I'd never tried to play that one before.

She's going to kill me for putting this one on here.

Kevin lives the life and I don't mind hearing his stories.

Soundchecking on the beautiful white stage.

St. Patrick's Day with Running With Desire (x2!)

 With St. Patrick's Day here, we rose to the supreme challenge of being Running With Desire, a band of dual identities: 1 part Van Halen (Running With...) & 1 part U2 (Desire).  Being an Irish themed holiday, we of course, were hired initially as a U2 tribute act for the Buckhead Saloon St. Patrick's Day party.  I had never visited the BS before this day, and was rather confused about its location.  Nonetheless, I found it soon enough & got there with plenty of load-in time.  Even had anorder of chicken fingers to wolf down before the big hit.  We had a few sound issues.  One of them centered around the bass amp I was privileged to use on the gig.  It turned out to be Shane's, and it suffered from a faulty DI/XLR output.  The sound men scrambled on the 3rd tune to remedy the situation and mic up the Ampeg combo.  They later complained that my NS/Stick had a badly distorted signal.  Um, well, I don't think it was badly distorted coming through the amp, so we were most likely hearing the same thing since the DI wasn't functioning.  Not sure what to make of those cats, other than that they fit the "If it ain't a Fender then I don't wanna have nuthin' to do with it" stereotype.  They didn't know much of what to make of my Mesa top end signal either.  Too bad. 

I thought we did a decent job.  We had a rough start with "Streets".  I think the only way this one will be smooth is to use some recorded tracks for the intro, which my buddy Walt has done but we didin't get a chance to practice with the tracks.  To have the guitar play the intro only to drop out for the delayed line is a bit confusing.  I was ultimately hoping to learn the intro on the NS/Stick, and perhaps I still will get that under my fingers.  Once we're into the song we seem to find our groove.  I always like "Mysterious Ways", "Get on Your Boots", and "Vertigo".  These being more recent tunes of theirs, I think we do them justice and bring a certain swagger to the table.  I will go on record here as saying that in general, this type of band would excel in playing some deeper (read: much deeper) cuts.  At the very least, I was really pulling for "One" & "Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For".  Ultimately, as a fan myself, I like most everything on "The Unforgettable Fire", in particular I would love to feature "A Sort of Homecoming", "Wire" & "Bad".  I'm also partial to "The Three Sunrises", "Angel of Harlem", "The Fly", well, the list could go on and on.  I'm just saying that "New Year's Day" & "Sunday Bloody Sunday" have had their day and I used to play them years and years ago.  Time for an update.

Here are some pics from the Buckhead Saloon.

Shortly after we finished in Buckhead, we transported ourselves up to Buford to the club entitled 37 Main.  This turned out to be a great venue for us and we enjoyed a crowd that came to party and dance the night away.  We wisely chose this time to start with some Van Halen numbers and then go down the U2 list after the crowd was warmed up.  It worked well.  We had a birthday party crowd that was really into it, and the birthday girl joined us on stage for "Ice Cream Man" - is that a dirty song, I wonder?  I felt much better about my parts and my mix.  A good sound man can really ease one's mind on these matters.  I felt over all that the 2nd set was a wee bit short and that we played a more rewarding 1st set, which I probably should have foreseen.  Soon enough, we were packing it up and heading out to get home before it got too late in the game.  Shane took care of us and the club wasn't too bad either, considering.  I look forward to returning one day.  The band is most likely on a hiatus for now.

 

All set up and finding my happy place!

Changing my NS/Stick Strings

I've had this instrument for how long now?  Over a year now, and I still haven't changed the strings.  Decided it was time.  It's a big procedure, since it's 8 strings and being a Steinberger instrument, it is a little different than my other instruments.  A pack of strings isn't that bad, considering - around $35 plus shipping, only available from Stick Enterprises.  They are certainly custom strings and not just any ol' bass or guitar string can be substituted.  I recently ordered a second pack, so I do have backups after changing them.  I took them all off and polished the neck and body, nothin' fancy, bit it needed some tlc.  To put them on, the ball end goes into the bridge slot and then the string is fed up over the "headstock" through an opening where a hex screw is tightened to hold the string in place.  It must be pulled tight so that a minimal amount of tuning is required to get it up to pitch, thus leaving leeway to go up or down in pitch.  I need to have room to go down a 1/2 step for Running With Desire, who tunes down to properly cover Van Halen & U2.  I'm also spending this day working on my patches for my Boss pedalboards: the ME-50B for the bass side and the GT-8 for the guitar side.

Spencer & Praline helped me on this, of course.

Platinum at the Georgia Railroad Freight Depot

We were contracted to play the Bean/Spinnelli wedding reception and that's what reunited us - hey, it was a very slow February.  The big news is that Winterhalter is leaving the band after being with us for about a year and getting a ll of the tunes together!  Rats!  Well, his wife has a very nice job offer in the Tampa/Clearwater area and he must follow her down there, where they ultimately wanted to end up anyways.  We played in this great Freight Room where I've played and worked many other functions.  The Freight Depot is certainly one of the oldest buildings where one can entertain, going back to 1869, I do believe.  It's quite a long room but it actually has decent sound considering it's all concrete and glass.  Kevin took some interesting shots with his iPhone while we were sound checking/rehearsing.  We learned "You Send Me" plus Cee-Lo's "Forget You", which actually sounded good, thanks to Glen handling all those vocals.

For me, the big news really was that, knock on wood, my Hartke amp is fixed!  I used it with my Golight cabinet and it sounded loud and proud, with no distorted nasty noises like I've been experiencing this past year.  Ouch, right?  Anybody who's been with me on a gig with that going on can relate - sounded really ugly.  I hate to say it, but I guess it was the pre-amp 12AX7 tube.  Such an easy fix.  The tech at Northwest Speakers & Equipment told me the tube was microphonic and would generate a loud harsh noise when he tapped it.  Sounds like what I was getting at intermittent intervals.  What threw me was that I had thought it could be the tube, so I would turn the tube preamp level all of the way off and I would still get that noise.  Well, it seems to be fixed so I'm going to have to say that it was the tube and we can move on.  James really went over everything and even cleaned the graphic eq switches and faders.  He made a custom Speakon cable with a 1/4" phono plug on 1 end so that I can use it with my head.  I feel that with all of that taken care of, I should have some well deserved karma with this rig.  It should last a while - let's hope. 

I played my Ibenez 6-string with freshly boiled strings.  Got a new pack of strings at Krazy Al's but I thought I might get a bit more life out of these with a good boiling.  It worked and they sounded nice and bright, almost too bright.  I also had my NS/Stick since I'm using it St. Patty's day with RWD.  It sounds good but the strings sure need to be finessed on that thing.  Also brought along the NS Wav EUB for the dinner set and first dances.  I think I've had the toggle switch in the pizzicato mode (down) the past several times I've used it.  It actually sounds much better in the arco (up) mode, and with a lot fewer squealing feedback issues as well.

The crowd was great and they were dancing from our first tune in the second set (Haven't Met You Yet).  They really seemed to enjoy it.  It was weird to be at the end of such a long room yet not have an elevated stage.  I guess we always expect to have one, but that's certainly a cost cutting move to not have one.  Our dinner was boxed lunches from Jason's Deli, which was a sandwich & chips with a pickle & a big cookie.  Fortunately, the wedding coordinator was sympathetic to our having to move our cars from the loading zone driveway and offered us a free round of mixed drinks after the show as we were packing up.  Gus and I enjoyed a Jack 'n Coke and all was well with the world.  My big screw up was going to the 1 in the last A section of "The Nearness of You" when it should go to the 3 - Norah's version.  Too bad, 'cause I really enjoyed that tune and wanted to play on it.  All also really blew it playing F# on the top of the bridge in "Jenny Jenny" - as many times as I've done that song you'd think I could get it right anytime.  I wish we had done "Give It To Me Baby" since I had worked on it - I used to stick in a few too many grace notes, robbing it of its funky on-the -beat charm.  Never realized it was recorded in the key of Db, always thought of it being in D (minor).  Glen sings it in C to make it a little easier.  We grooved well and sounded tight considering it's been a while for us.  We play again this Saturday at the Ritz.  Read about it here first.

More pics from my camera...




Cool floral arrangement above the table.



The horns of Winterhalter.



Virginia in the wings.



Gus is the driving force.



Kevin is a little bit country.



Thank you all for coming to the show...



You can tell from this shot that the time was approximately 11:01 PM - Glen makes like a tree and leaves.