John Hancotte's Bass Desires: Happy Birthday Van Morrison!

The Venue: The Melting Point

I had asked Greg about us doing another Van celebration this year, but there was nothing planned. Then, a couple of weeks ago I got the call that we were on to play in Athens at the legendary club The Melting Point. This venue has great acoustics and a wonderful sound system to go along with it's impressive stage. Reece Harris was on board but who could cover the guitar parts? I think it was I who suggested Shannon Pengelly. Turns out he was available and willing to do it. We were billing it as an all acoustic evening in the spirit of Astral Weeks, Van' s legendary debut for Warner Brothers Records after he broke free of his Bang contract. As you may guess, I'm actually a fairly big Van fan. He's an artist that my wife and I can both enjoy equally. Important to note occasionally! How many songs has he written? That's like asking how many gumballs are in the dispenser! Dude is Prolific, with a capital P!
I've known these 3 gents for, let's see, a good 21 years now. Met them all about the same time in Buckhead when I was with Jellyroll Blue, playing my old fretless P-bass through my JC-120. Crazy. Of course, Shannon, Reece, and myself eventually joined up to form Fuzzy Logic, later be renamed Baby Brando.played my Chapman Stick and really enjoyed all of those Saturday afternoons at Black Box Studios. We jokingly referred to this as a reunion, but no chance of trying to play any of the old originals. I don't remember them anyways. We recorded 2 but there were others as well. Ah, well...

Greg has written many songs himself. Much of his recorded output is available on iTunes. He does a mean Van personna, not an impersonation. Just the carefree spirit, with a powerful voice to project all of that Irish Heartbeat. Anyways, the setlist included only one tune from the Astral Weeks album: Madame George. Perhaps the most infamous track, partially due to its length at close to 10 minutes. Only 3 chords - most of his contain maybe 4 chords, 5 if he was feeling adventurous. Well, we never got to it. Bummer, since we played it last year at Limerick Junction and it would have given the show a critical favorite and some much needed "deeper cut clout". The show was pretty much Van's greatest hits as seen through Greg's eyes. As a fan myself, I have come to like the late 80's and early 90's stuff as well (Hymns to the Silence is probably my favorite track of all his; Days Like This was in Binnie's Honda's cassette player for many months).

Here's a look at the setlist from last year:

Van Morrison Birthday Bash at Limerick Junction 10/09/31

Greg Hester Band ft. Doug, Brian, Reece, & Feedback

Set 1

Caravan G intro: 2 count G Em C D

Moondance Am

Give Me a Kiss* A: A blues Brdg: D A D B7 E7

Crazy Face C: C G/B Bb F C G (Gb)F C G

I've Been Workin' Gm

Into The Mystic D: D A Brdg: F#m G D F#m G A

And It Stoned Me G

Crazy Love A

Carrickfergus* C (1^st chord: Dm)

I'll Be Your Lover Too Em: Em C Em C Em C D (end: Em)

Madame George* G C D

Jambalaya D

Jackie Wilson Said… G

Set 2

Tupelo Honey Bb

Steal My Heart Away* Eb: Eb Bb Cm Ab Eb Bb Eb Bb

V: Cm Ab Eb Bb Cm Cm Eb Bb Cm Ab Eb Bb Eb Ab Eb Bb

Br: Ab / / / Eb Bb/D Cm Cm F /// Bb

It's a Man's World Dm

Domino A

Wild Night G

Comfortably Numb* Bm

Baby Please Don't Go Em

Gloria E

Have I Told You Lately E

Brown Eyed Girl G

Closer encore

Guilty (Randy Newman) Blues in A

Greg never got around to making one for this year. This one shown was my doing last year (complete with my chordal guidance). We mixed it up a bit, scribbling out the first set in the green room minutes before hitting the stage. I remember we started with Crazy Face. It was actually fairly well paced. We had dancers too. It was older couples night, but some younger folk too. Even a gay couple, not that there's anything wrong with that. Great to see, actually. The dance floor wasn't packed, and we weren't playing what one would stereotype as dance music for any niche. It was really a very sweet and innocent sight. I did my best to take note and move on. Then I probably made a mistake!

I ended up playing upright the whole night, even though I brought my Johnson acoustic bass guitar, visible in the topmost picture of the 4 of us. It's an unlined fretless with those bronze strings and it has a preamp, like most acoustic/electrics. The circuitry isn't the quietest, of course. The soundman did not think too highly of it. I suppose I need to come up with a dedicated preamp of sorts to really get it in line with a more "normal bass". I play it a lot at home when I'm learning a tune. Easy to grab, I can hear it, and it really has a nice mwah tone that is very satisfying to a basement dweller loner musician in the wee small hours. Some of you gentle readers can identify with that. The upright sounded damn good, I must say, at least for me and my technique. The few days I spent prepping kinda paid off. The strategically placed small pieces of electrical tape on the underside of the fingerboard also are continuing to pay off! They are at the most intuitive spots: 5th, 7th, 12th, 15th, 17th, 19th, & 24th "fret" positions - yeah, of course it's a 2+ octave neck. I took a good solo on Man's World (James Brown but apparently Greg knows that Van has covered it before) and on Moondance as well. Reece played rather loudly; all the talk in the Green Room about the dynamics we were going to employ went out the window. For that, I was glad I resisted Greg's wishes and brought my amp. I placed it in the monitor position, tilted back as it's designed to be, just for me to hear primarily. With upright, it's imperitive that I can hear myself. Otherwise, intonation? What intonation? Got to be real here. Shannon did well, playing his way cool looking Ovation Adamas with those sweet little f-holes (as opposed to one big F-hole. I felt his pain. These songs are all quite similar - same chords, different order, maybe a different groove. After the first 5 or so, it's hard to not repeat yourself on solos. Many of them have sax or something else to add colour. We were lacking there.

Everything fell into place nicely. I really enjoyed "Baby Please Don't Go --> Gloria for some reason. Our "Them" medley. The bass on the former is just E to F# (I thought it was E to G but Shannon corrected me) over and over and over. Great endurance test. One of my favorites is Steal My Heart Away since it actually has more than 4 chords and is in Eb (or Cm), and it's in 3. Nice and pretty, but not a dirge. If we learned a few more of his recent numbers, we really be in business. He did some cool things with John Lee Hooker that we could try. Blues. Things taht are off the beaten path. Days Like This is a great crowd pleaser.

Great to play with Shannon and Reece once again. It's been way too long. Shannon wasn't really too upbeat about this gig. He wasn't looking forward to playing acoustic all night. This music certainly works with electric guitar as well. With acoustic, there really is no sustain, so it's a bit more work. My fingers were sore, but not too bad. In fact, I elected to play upright the following night at Java Monkey. No blisters! I've had blisters before from the upright and it's no fun. When that happens, it's time to break out the P-bass and pick! Hah! BTW, thanks George for the title of this blog post! Sometimes talking about music comes easy and sometimes it doesn't. I don't think I was on it for this one, but I did try to give some background at least. Also, the font and text of all of this was whack since I sent it from my phone while waiting in line one fine day. I've played around with it but it still doesn't look quite right. Oh well, time to get to the next entry.

The view from the outside as I pulled around back of this office park. A welcome site that I wasn't lost in Athens once again! My Tom-Tom really hasn't failed me much at all.