Memorial Day Weekend Roundup

I am starting training at a new job tomorrow morning so I will have to be a bit brief.  Friday night Sunset Strip played at Sunset Cove at Lake Lanier.  I had a bear of a time making it up there, with a dying cell phone & no charger, I had to try to find one.  Wal Mart let me down up in Cumming or wherever that was.  Heinous exit with clueless traffic design.  I stopped at an AT&T store, but they wanted $30 for a car charger that fit my phone (universal Android charger design).  Never got one thill on the way home that night.  The load in threw me for a loop but I finally took the right driveway & got my stuff on a cart for delivery to the beach stage.  The stage was a floating one out on a short pier/dock with a changing room/ship behind us for private hanging.  Nice bathrooms & AC!  I didn't mind the loadout too much, but that was not so fun after playing for 4 hours.

Saturday I was with Adrian Ash, Jason Passmore, & Tom Olsen.  We were hired to play for a wedding ceremony & the reception, both taking place in the bride & groom's backyard & patio area. Tom is a great piano player who knows many standards & played with Adrian on the Charlie Brown Chirstmas events.  We played a lot of bossas & reggae!  It was fun & with a laid back vibe to the whole procedings.  We actually played the pre-function, the ceremony, the dances, & the first third of the reception.  I thought we did well.  The step-father of the bride sat in with us to sing the first dance of "Crazy Love" & "You Are The Sunshine of My Life".  We also had a female singer for the Lauryn Hill version of "Can't Take My Eyes Off of You".  Very nice & sparse.  Also played a nice arrangement of "When I Fall In Love", which has prompted me to re-examine this standard, in the usual key of Eb.  Found a good chart of it:

Hey, in this last pic I am "wearing" my NS WAV with my new strap attatchment.  This was the first time I had used it on a gig & I hadn't figured out quite how to have it angled out just yet.  It is going to take a bit of a learning curve to really get the hang of it.  The issue for me is that I really do rely on those fret marker dots, but the bass is almost angled away from me so that I can't see the dots when I'm wearing it.  I have since improved the angle a bit but it's still not perfect.  It is, however, a very cool thing with the wireless system I've also since started to employ.

After we played, a DJ took over & kept the party going.  I wandered around for a bit & snapped this just before heading out.  A very nice evening to celebrate some good people.

 Sunday was back with Sunset Strip for the Beers, Bands, & BBQ festival at Park Tavern.  We had the 5-7 pm slot, warming up for Behind the Sun, a seriously great Red Hot Chili Peppers tribute band.  It was great that Sabina showed up with Jack & Spencer in tow!  Spencer apparently stole the show from us!  Nice to know he wasn't so afraid of everything going on.  I will put up some pics in the next few days so please check back soon!

Hey, I'm in this pic!  Proof that I was there.

The boys played out behind the stage.

You get down here right now!

Sweetwater Junction at Bryson Hall in downtown Savannah

My weekend was nonstop. After my gig with Gwen which took me up 85 into South Carolina, I was back at it the next morning & heading the opposite direction down to Savannah. Before I got on the Coach Tour Bus (actually it was the middle back seat of Brian's Saab SUV), I had to join the family for Jack's Kaikudo Family Day festivities. By the way, Jack's picture is on their website here. Jack addressed the group of students & parents with a short Japanese announcement (also translated into English). I wasn't able to stay for long, but luckily Sabina videoed it & I watched it later.

I left with Spencer in his Bubbie's care & made my way down to City Storage to meet up with Brian, Mark, Chris, & Dan - same lineup as the last time I went out with SWJ. We stopped for lunch at a Wendy's & ate in the car as we continued our journey. A while later, Brian was ready to eat so we stopped at Zaxby's. You know, I really hate for anybody to eat alone, so I had to pick up a 5-finger snack just to keep peace in the family. Before we knew it, we were milling about in Savannah. A beautiful warm & muggy day down there. I watched the horse drawn buggies circle around the park as we unloaded the trailer. The reception site was a tall room with a lot of tiled flooring & windows. This meant a loud room with extra boominess. My bass was super loud. Hey, this was the first gig using my Hartke head after the umpteenth repair (this time the input jacks were replaced at no charge - thanks James at Northwest Speakers & Equipment!) & no noise! I think we're finally back to beautiful bass tone! Yay! I love having all of that head room. Too bad I didn't need much volume at this gig. We were served hors d'oeuvres of bread with pate & shrimp cocktail - how can we resist? Speaking of food, it was good & I loaded up for dinner after all the guests had been through the buffet. Chris noted with a wry comment that I know how to make good use of free food. Well, we need our strength on these trips. They had yummy shrimp 'n grits, mashed potatoes, roast beef, grilled vegetable madness, salad, & sweet tea.

We played some great jams - Loving Cup, Shakedown Street, Eyes of the World, I Shot the Sheriff, they wanted a lot of hippie trippy stuff. Chris does a great job fronting us & it's good to know he's there to handle all those vocals. Dan sounded great on his keys, in spite of some issue he had with volume. Mark was really on top of the tempos & I especially liked his breaks that left no doubt where the 1 was in I Shot the Sheriff. Brian just needs a nod & he's off on another journey through upper partials. I sang Miss You, by request from Mark, & it was all the better with some blues harp from Chris just like on Some Girls. We had a good time & really enjoyed playing for the dancing partying crowd. Mark videotaped the evening & it came out well. We listened to it on the drive back - good job Mark (& Chris), especially having a charged battery for the car.

Once we were finished, it was a quick pack so that we could get back home at the earliest poosible time.  Unfortunately, in my haste, & even though I brought my typical garment bag & did a "dummy check", I think I left my jacket & shirt in the green room.  Ugh.  Now I have to shell out some $$ for a new one.  Maybe I can make it over to Goodwill today & see if there are any in my size.

Adrian Ash Group with special guest Rob Henson May 19, 2011

Thursday we returned to Java Monkey for a rare non-Wine Tasting theme night.  We are playing there every Thursday in May to make use of rehearsals for the recording.  The only problem is that I'm not taking part in the recording.  Rob Henson, professional bassist who is busy on various small yet lucrative tours with country/blues/rock singer/guitarist Corey Smith, among many others, came out with his NS Bass Cello (new models are sold with the new moniker Omni Bass).  It sounded full and articulate.  It's a 5-string with the visually alluring EMG circular pickup array.  Rob claims (rightfully so) that it helps the tone cut through a band mix more clearly than the piezos are capable of by themselves.  He is a masterful player who melds his expressive glisses and upper choral linearism with a deep and somewhat busy pocket.  Sight reading the charts in my book, he played and connected with Adrian in ways I certainly haven't explored.  I sat and watched, taking pictures and video.  It is a surreal experience to check out a great player do his thing over original music that I had been playing for close to a year now.  Rob has a vast vocabulary from which to draw to underscore the melody & harmony.  His expressive counter melodies & emotive driving grooves were certainly an inspiration.  He invited me to meet up with him at his house some time to jam together.  This might be a mart move for me to him up on this offer.  It would be the closest I could get to having some private instruction.  At the very least, I'd like to take the plunge & pick up the strap attachment for my NS WAV.  I liked the mobility he enjoys & it seems to bring the whole enchilada together on a more personal level.

After the first set, which was a long one by our standards, Rob took off to make the tour bus.  I meekly tuned up & we settled in to some more of the same.  The level was not quite as high but we held our own.  Bill Panter joined us again for some bluesy jamming.  He brought his custom made (actually self made) Panter amp.  Sweet tube tones.  I spent a few of my waking hours in the previous week constructing Finale charts for the wedding the AAG is set to play on Memorial Day weekend.  We didn't go over them, but look out next week for "You Are The Sunshine Of My Life" & "One Love/ People Get Ready".  The charts came out well & I was actually hoping to do "One Love..." with Sweetwater Junction, but nobody was that smitten with it enough to comment or learn it.  Before we knew it, our time was up.  Next week...

Gwen Hughes & The Retro Jazz Kats at Keowee Falls Clubhouse

Friday the 20th turned into a Friday the 13th for me as I made my way up to the The Cliffs at Keowee Falls Golf Community in Salem, South Carolina to join up with Gwen Hughes and the Retro Jazz Kats.  The problem was that I got a later start than I should have and made it there too late to play the first set.  I called Gwen to tell her the bad news and she was very nice about the whole thing.  I really appreciate her making the night a pleasurable one after my missing the entire 1st set.  In some crazy way, this was one gig where it might have worked out without much of a huge problem.  It's certainly obvious when bass is missing, yet cocktail hour can be the one set where it's just not the end of the world.  There was a gentleman who happened to play bass, & he might have been the only one in attendance who was acutely aware of the band's predicament.  They filled up the sound, keeping the volume down as requested.  I loaded in through the men's locker room and was all set for the 2nd set, which was more jazz & ballads as the crowd was eating at this point.  The band was a great lineup of stellar musicians that Gwen calls on for her many projects: Steve Cunningham on guitar & lap steel, Mike Hinton on drums, Mace Hibbard on tenor sax & vocals, Jason "Shot Blocker" Covey on trumpet, & of course, Gwen on keyboards & vocals.  I found my groove with Mike shortly into the show over tunes such as "Little Sunflower," "How Insensitive," & "There Could Never Be Another You".  Mike taught me the joy of sticking the trick from the Commodores "I'm Easy" of crashing and holding the tonic on the 4.  It was funny.  Steve & Mace joked about the gig where they kept finding ways to quote "Sara Smile" (the opening guitar licks ~ I wonder who played that original part ~ I hope it was John Oates.)
After the second set, it was time to eat!  We hungrily scarfed tall plates teeming with shrimp cocktail, broiled lobster, prime rib, baby lamb chops, iceberg wedge with bleu cheese crumbles & bacon bits salad (loved it), asparagus & skinny carrot medley, & for dessert, New York Cheesecake!  Great meal ~ much needed by all of us.  Trust me, my picture did not do it justice.  We were all so hungry but this was a feast I should have preserved better for posterity. 

Those who stuck around were ready to dance to some great fun jams, expertly paced & sequenced.  Gwen is a true pro at keeping the crowd engaged.  There is never a dull moment in the night.  Steve got the prize for ripping on the synth break in the bridge of "Oh What a Night" ~ scary good.  Mace shocked me with some great singing: "Let's Stay Together" & "Have I Told You Lately" (in Bb!).   We honoured some requests for vintage two-step country music with Patsy Cline's "Walkin' After Midnight" as well as Johnny Cash's "I Walk The Line" (Steve wrung some mighty fine "front porch old-skool/nouveau bluegrass" licks from his Telecaster on these - that boy can sure play).  Some of the best charts of the night included "Can't Take My Eyes Off of You" & "Can't Help Falling In Love".  It was a very good night and I have to say that I enjoyed it more than the last time I was with Gwen (in spite of my untimely travel woes & my bud MacDougal not being there) back in September.  It makes such a difference when the band can connect with the audience.  This band is capable of playing just about anything, which is a tribute to the chart books Gwen has put together.  I haven't played with her much but I am able to come in & read it down, much of which I've played before anyways.  All of the Kats can read, so the challenge in that kind of situation is first to play the music correctly, play together as a band with good communication, engage with the audience and each other so that we're not a bunch of mummies up there with our heads buried in the charts, and then, if we're all good enough, we turn it into a show with any kind of choreography or some sense of showmanship.  I'd have to say that we accomplished all of that and more.  I was thinking to myself that this was going to be a tough crowd & that we wouldn't be able to pull them in, so to speak.  Sometimes that is not the fault of the band.  Nonetheless, we did get them to let their hair down & have a good time.  I think some part of that is that Gwen can manage to split the difference with tried & true crowd pleasers as well as some deeper cuts that aren't so overplayed.  I'm thinking of songs like "Still the One" & "More Today Than Yesterday" alongside "My Girl" & "Brown Eyed Girl".  Everything flowed well & that helped to win the crowd over so that we all had a great time.

I played my Fender Jazz through the Genz Benz combo and it really sounded fat & full.  So funny how that amp can cut through with plenty of headroom on some jobs & be wimpy on others.  This one was admittedly a lower volume gig so I knew it would be a good fit.  I'm so glad I went back to the stock Fender pickups - I love the highs those pickups put out, especially for slapping.  I sang some harmonies along with Mace and we had a nice vocal blend - I love singing the low (not really too low) D on "Still the One" & I remembered on the 2nd chorus of "My Girl" to get the high harmony.  Once again, I am in debt to Gwen & Mike for putting me at ease when it could have been a very troubling scenario.  I tip my hat to a class act that is one of the most professional yet enjoyable groups with whom I am proud to associate.

A fine evening for a wedding reception at Druid Hills Golf Club



In spite of a Friday the 13th and predictions of thunder storms (70% chance), the weekend turned out to be a warm, partly sunny, breezy and, well, springy one.  My day started with Spencer.  Not much of a revelation there - I think they all start with Spencer.  Okay, maybe they start with Praline, who sleeps in between Sabina & me lately.  I eventually got Spencer ready for his day with "Mommy" and then drove off to get Jack from Karate practice.  I then drove him up to a high school in Canton for a track meet.  Those events sure are a large scale.  We didn't get there till just after 11:00 and we left at about 1:45 - he only had enough time for 1 run.  He did well but he's like his old man, not the fastest gun in the west.  Eventually, I made it home in time to shower, change, pack, and head down to Druid Hills Golf Club, located very close to Fernbank Science Center off of Ponce de Leon. 

I had acquired a new (used) Boss Bass Chorus pedal earlier in the week.  My Super Chorus pedal, which was also a used purchase, never really sounded quite like I remembered the famous Boss chorus effect to sound.  On top of that, there is a slight issue with the switching on it.  It generally, for whatever reason, requires 2 or even 3 good depresses for it to either switch on or off.  Can't figure it out.  So, the new (used) pedal works much better all around and sounds sweet.  I actually don't use chorus that much on bass, but once in while it gives a little colour (love that old English spelling on words like colour and flavour) when I wish to be colourful.  At any rate, it helps my fretless playing sound like it could be pitchy from the chorus than from the pitchiness.  So I actually installed it on the Pedal Train before soundcheck got underway.  Nice to update the board, as always.  I repositioned some of the pedals as well, hopefully to make switching a bit easier. 

Another equipment update: my Fender Jazz bass is back and buzz free.  A while back I decided to try to upgrade the pickups.  I had researched and found that a new model of pickup was coming standard in the Fender American Deluxe series of basses.  I found a great deal (relatively, mind you) on these Fender Samarium Colbalt Noiseless Jazz Bass Pickups.  They were designed by Bill Lawrence, who has been making pickups for decades now.  I installed them and they do sound good, but I had a slight buzz when I wasn't touching a metal part on the bass.  On top of that, my tone just wasn't the same.  I have since gone back to the stock pickups.  I don't know what the deal is, but these pickups are hard to beat.  The bass was made in Japan, so I don't know if that has anything tho do with the PU's being better than, say, the Mexican variety.  They are not as loud, but the SC pickups are almost too loud!  The stocks are more scooped sounding with a glissy top end that is indicative of single coils, and I just miss that more than anything else with the SC's.  I've actually gone back and forth once again because i thought I must be missing something.  It's a pain to remove the pickguard and control plate, desolder the pickups from the pots, install the other pickups, yadda yadda.  One thing I do like about the newer pickups is that they are bigger.  They are a tight fit and they look sharp.  Well, looks isn't everything, is it?  I replaced the old ones once again, but this time I inserted a piece of foam (taken from a foam sanding block - only foam I could find laying around the house) under each PU so that they sit a little higher.  I am trying to give them a bit more stature and raise them a hair to boost the level just a touch.  Since I rest my thumb on the neck PU when I play, I want that one to be sitting as high as possible.  I had recently replaced the output jack, so this is as good as it gets for now.  Pretty much no change!  Maybe down the road I will feel the need to upgrade the bridge or the tuning pegs/machine heads.  One thing I'm considering is to have the bridge SC PU installed into my Precision.  It will cost about $85 and the tech at Guitar Center seems to be very comfortable with that procedure.  I really enjoy playing that bass in a rock setting, and a Jazz PU at the bridge could only make it more versatile.  It would have an additional blend knob with center detente so that I could get my P-bass tone as is now after the mod.  That bass already has a Quarter Pound™ for P-Bass® SPB-3, as well as a Badass Bass II bridge and a Hipshot BT7 Extender Key for the E string which can instantly drop the E string down to D.  I play this bass often with bands that tune down a 1/2 step so that we are, low to high, Eb Ab Db Gb.  My tuner thinks in terms of sharps, so then it's D# G# C# F#.  Ugh.  So the Hipshot actually drops it from Eb to Db, or D# to C#.  That's why I need to have a 105 for the low E.  Maybe even a 110 would be good.  Hmm.  Something to look into.

Soundcheck was a little weird.  Always such when we don't have anything to really go over.  I thought we might have ventured into new territory, like the tunes we had worked on in Dillard (Shining Star, Here Comes My Girl, Summer of '69).  Nah.

It was our last gig of the month and David Winterhalter's last gig with us.  Hard to believe he's leaving.  We are really going to miss what he brought to the table, particularly his clarinet playing.  Also, he wasn't shy about bringing the horns: alto, tenor, & baritone sax were often part of the mix.  He even picked up an EWI not too long ago, with some cool patch capabilities.  And I'll tell you what: he never really learned the cowbell part for Honky Tonk Women, but he sure is a great tambourine player.  Don't laugh at that.  It's not easy to play a tambourine convincingly.  There's no volume control for one thing.  It takes a bit of finesse and even anticipation to swing it in rhythm, assuming one has that kind of rhythm already.  He has amassed a substantial percussion collection which is another great attribute to David.  He really came out of pocket for many things.  He has put together a fine sax book for Anton or whoever will ultimately use it.  Another fine trait he has, since his first charts for us were of the hen scratch variety - his new charts are Finale and very easy to read.  He sounded great this last night.  Anton was there too, but it was Dave's moment and he went with it in full force.  I hope his transition down to Florida works out well for him -  he may have a slot in a band similar to Platinum down there!  A class act and I can honestly say I'm a better man for having known DW.  Virginia did a swell thing and bought a cake to celebrate his last day with us.  We enjoyed it - yellow cake with chocolate frosting.  hey, we had a great hot meal of chicken, real mashed potatoes, and fresh veggies.  All around a fine evening.  The only bummer was that we ran over a bit at the end and didn't get to end the set properly.  We were supposed to play their final dance of You Are The Best Thing, but the DJ (not our DJ) handled it!

The groom's cake!

Anton and David - David Winterhalter: good luck with your future endeavors - we will miss you!

The Platinum Band.  We have a break now and Mr. Kevin Harry is starring in the Atlanta production of Rent!  Break a leg Kevin!