Happy Memorial Day Everybody!

The Marietta Country Club, Fashionably Located in Kennesaw

Our green room was the employee break room near the loading dock, so that explains the heat and the flies.  A lot of flies, even with a bug zapper tacked on the wall just above where I dined.  The food was decent: a hot meal of country-fried chicken, orange roughy with pesto sauce, rosemary potato wedges, and garden salad.  Many of us were late to soundcheck.  Myself included, but not as late as others.  We had to go over the groom's song: You've Made Me So Very Happy, the old Blood, Sweat & Tears feel good tune.  He sang it rather well, considering he's a doctor.  A very musical oriented family, it appeared.

We went over You Sexy Thing, but didn't get around to it.  They did dance to Santana's Smooth, so that was a good choice.  Nice version of Lexxi's arrangement of My Funny Valentine.  I butchered The Shoop Shoop Song, as redone by Cher.  I was playing root fifth root fifth over a Cm chord, but it was really ii V ii V in the key of Bb.  I had even practiced it the night before in the parking lot of North Atlanta Church of Christ while waiting for Jack to complete his Kaikudo Karate Klass.  Poor Glen, he gives me some evil looks, I sure hope he keeps giving me another chance.  He did refer to my BS&T chart, so maybe that will help me out if he seriously considers a change.

I found the deep switch on my amp and it really beefed up my tone while keeping it clear.  I've never used it but once I engaged it, I didn't want to go without.  Kinda like the loudness button on your stereo, if you remember those things.  It was a hot one, 90 degrees or so this weekend.  Summer has descended on Georgia, whether it's still May or not.  Sledgehammer went well, but it was more fun on Thursday.  Love playing that with the octave down effect,  WWTLevD?  Maybe I'll try it on the fretless at some point, but I think the Stingray tone is more critical.  Our last song of the night was Jenny Jenny (867-5309), as the party just drifted away to the bar area.  I was ready to try Last Dance without my chord chart.  Next time.

Thursday Night at Ventanas with Platinum Soul

1st set.

The stage during a break.

Back again with Platinum.  Too bad I had to bail on my Thursday in Decatur with TAAG.  I don't like having to get someone else.  They are typically of very high quality and I always feel that I could potentially lose my gig to one of these cats.  A poor self image, perhaps.  I catch myself not grooving, or playing sloppy.  Must watch that.

Did my best to salvage this pic - low res of Chae &
Di cutting up with memebers of KISS.

Anyways, we were at Ventanas in downtown Atlanta, you know, the place with the helipad.  It occupies the 14th floor of a multi-purpose building right near the Aquarium and World of Coke on Harris St.  Floor to ceiling windows, giving a great view of the city.  Impressive at night.  We played to Delta employees in an '80's-themed party.  I had to learn a bunch of tunes.  Didn't get to all of them.  Some real fun ones in there: I Can't Go For That; Sledgehammer; Sign Your Name; Wishing Well; What You Need; Shout (TFF); Wrapped Around Your Finger; Human Nature, Caribbean Queen, Early in the Morning (Gap Band), lotsa Prince: I Wanna Be Your Lover, Little Red Corvette, 1999, Controversy.  We did most of them.  Sounded good too.  I blew the bridge and ending of Every Breath You Take.  The easy ones will fool you.  Also had my usual issues with The Commodores' Easy.  Don't know what it is, but I manage to over think those little bass licks (before the 2nd verse & before the solo).  Drives me mad and hard to keep going without getting upset at myself.

We had the most talented Chae Stephen, on loan from Platinum Soul.  Actually, this was very close to being a Platinum Soul gig, as we also had Dianna Crawford (perhaps Atlanta's finest real estate agent, a very detail oriented and beautiful lady, I must say).  In fact, for a good chunk of the night we had 4 on the front line.  Glen, our recently appointed musical director, led us through the 80's stuff that we hadn't really performed before.  He is a walking song book, that's for sure.

We were allowed to dine from the buffet tables.  It was the best dinner we've enjoyed in a long time: peppered slice steak, salmon, sauteed veggies, mac 'n cheese "martinis" with all kinds of fixin's, it was an impressive feast...

I did fairly well, aside from my snafus outlined above.  I brought 1 bass to the party: my Stingray.  Funny that nobody commented on my singular choice, as I have been bringing multiple instruments lately.  I sounds great for all that we did, and the low B is just the ticket for a song in Eb.  However, for slapping parts, a la Carwash, the top end is just too much.  That was clearly a roundwound strung P-bass.  I should have dialed the horn attenuator back a bit more.  Fortunately, my SWR golight 1x15 tested out okay this week at home.  I set it up in the basement and cranked it up, pummeling through that 2-bar slap solo from You Can Call Me Al at varying tempi.  It was sounding distorted in Birmingham and I thought I had "overwhelmed" the poor fellow.  My rig gets a nice little workout on these jobs.  Bass equipment takes a fair amount of brutal punishment to push that air along.  Perhaps I was overloading the input from my pedalboard?  Gain stages galore - need to keep it at unity.

Untouched photo of Dianna courtesy of Lexxi.

A Saturday Double Header: In Chamblee with Martay & In Birmingham with Platinum

We cheery picked an early afternoon time slot to accomidate our busy schedules, thus bringing the rock flair to an otherwise underwhelming outdoor event.  Not sure what the promotors were thinking.  It didn't seem to get any publicity and I felt a bit sorry for those who planned this.  Still, some friends of The MartaY were out in force and got to feed off of our contageous energy.  Sam Owens pounded the living daylights out of the backline drums.  I grabbed a plectrum and went for only downstrokes while trying to punish the poor man's Peavey rig.  It sounded mean and mighty.  MartaY got his sound and dazzled the unsuspecting families.  Brent flaunted his vocal range, belting out Your Love (Josie's on a Vacation Far Away) for the opening number.  As everything was running behind, our set was really about 45 minutes.  I was stressed about leaving, but we had plenty of time to make it to soundcheck in Birmingham.

Sam the man!

My "bass tech" for the day - a great player who let me wank thru his rig.

MartaY getting his sound.

Brent in lead singer mode.

Hamming it up before the first hit!

Cleerleader girls showing some love.  They danced for the duration of our show.

The people wanted the best and were willing to pay for us to get over there.  Hey, at least it's nice to take it in and reflect on how somebody paid extra money for us versus somebody local.  They put us up for the night, and treated us to a nice hot meal, and gave us a memorable experience!  What more could you want?  It was indeed a fun little trip.  Fortunately, I had Anton with me to split the gas money.  He lives on the outskirts of Marietta, about as far west as I live far east. It really was crazy getting to his house.  We made good time getting there.  Played at a place called The Club, a country club on steroids.  A big ballroom with a stage area that lifts up after everything has been loaded on it and set in place.  Don't drop anything, like your car keys or phone, down in the crack along the stage.  It's roughly 3 floors down to the bottom and chances are, you may never see your belongings ever again!  I was good that we played a long last set, giving the couple their money's worth.  This was one wedding that didn't get interrupted with endless speeches and other time wasters.  All in all, it felt good.  My rig sounded rather "farty", so I figured my speaker had an issue.  I was not looking forward to taking it in and paying for whatever repair needed to be done.  As it turned out, it was okay.  I did find a bad cable with a slightly bent 1/4" tip, although that wasn't the problem (that gave me a bad buzz (as opposed to a good buzz  ; > P ) earlier before Junius encouraged me to track it down).  All in the name of good times.

Crew setting up fireworks down below.

Setting up the stage.

Hanging my NS/WAV on the tripple stand, as I used the strap accessory
and not the tripod ultimate stand that I normally use.
The "joke" was that it was a "strap on".

Detail of wireless beltpack bungeed to my strap.

View of downtown Birmingham from The Club.

Patio with other reception in progress.  We were in '"wait" mode.

Like all the other fools, I'm standing there taking dozens of pics of these fireworks.
This was the only one that didn't look like a giant mess.
Pictures of fireworks just don't work!

Guest vocalist from the bridal party sang "At Last" for one of the dances.

Relaxing afterwards near the hotel: Vinny & Lexxi.

Hangin' with Anton.

Kevin chillin' with us.  He was in vacation mode.

The long walk home.

Last Week's Rehearsal For a Paul Simon Tribute Concert

The same group of guys is getting together once again to showcase their love for the songs of Paul Simon.  Last time out, near the very end of 2011, we played a tribute to Simon & Garfunkel.  This show will also include Paul's solo years, certainly quite a bit more from which to choose.  The jury is still out on the spelling of Absynthe Makes the Art Garfunkel - maybe we want to intentionally spell it as absynthe.  The correct spelling of the spirit is absinthe, just so we're clear.  Hey, maybe it's a synthesized concoction, or we wish to remove any sinful connotations as we are marketing it as a kid-friendly event!  Well, at any rate, it's a bunch of talented guys, and myself, getting together to play some fine wholesome singer-songwriter folk rock for the masses of the unwashed.  We held a rehearsal last week that I'm just getting around to reporting on.  We got through perhaps the first set of tunes before our time ran out.  I learned that many of my charts were incorrect and that I had a lot of work to do for this.  Funny how one of the easier songs for me, You Can Call Me Al, has that blistering 2-bar break with the slap solo that reverses itself midway through.  Easy enough in the studio - you just turn the tape over.  Live, I am learning it forwards and backwards.  Not so easy when the tempo is fast - faster still in the heat of live performance with a bunch of boys pushing the tempo!  I am slowly nudging the metronome in incremental steps.

We are now a 6-piece group with the addition of Richie Jones on percussion and drums.  As before, it's J.T. Alessi on acoustic guitar, his brand new Epiphone Les Paul model electric mandolin, and vocals; Matthew Smith on acoustic & electric guitars and vocals; Jeff Fritz on acoustic guitar, piano, keyboards, and vocals; Adrian Ash on drums and percussion; and myself on bass.  I played my Johnson fretless acoustic/electric last time.  This time I think I'll stick to my P-bass but also bring the Tobias fretless for the Graceland-era stuff.  I might have the Ashbory as well.  It would be fun to use it when J.T. reaches for his lil' axe!  It would also be sweet to play some Stick, but I will have to work that out.  Not sure how much time I have to devote to this gig.  It's rewarding to make it though these songs.  Perhaps I'll post some charts so you can see what I mean.  Still Crazy After All These Years comes to mind as one I'll have my nose buried  in - what a great song!

Richie

Matthew

Adrian

Jeff

John

J.T.

Thursday Night in Sandy Springs Takes a Stormy Monday Turn of Events

It was perfect weather until it wasn't anymore.  That's how these things can go.  A tent wouldn't have even been much help with these tornado-like winds, blowing trees over and dropping dime-sized hail pellets on our mid-spring soiree.  The band was Martay and Brent, our 2nd of 3 jobs this week.  If only we could be busy like this all of the time!  We played on the topmost level of the JE Dunn parking deck.  Our stage was in full sun, while all of the employees hung out in the shade across the lot from us.  Interesting.  On the plus side, they served us some most excellent southern barbecue, chicken and pork, along with sides of excellent cole slaw (my favorite kind, without the mayo and with pepper seasonings), baked beans, and corn bread muffins, plus some good sweet tea!  It was a great meal!  We played a good generous 75 minute set before our break: mid tempo stuff like Tequila Sunrise, Peaceful Easy Feeling, Sitting Waiting Wishing, Deacon Blues, Sweet Home Alabama (I think at this point I've played that one more than any other tune!).  Sounded good and strong.  The PA was nice and loud, using Martay's Peavey power amp instead of the Mackie powered mixer for the mains. The powered mixer just doesn't have the headroom when we start getting fancy and miking up the kick.  This was very clean.  I got there before Martay returned from his afternoon gig and dialed it up.  In "Bridged Mono", those power amps typically only receive the input signal from 1 side (channel A).   Care must be taken to connect everything correctly.  The storm came after our break.  We got a couple of songs into it and then big raindrops started splattering around us.  That was that!  Pack it up fast!  I managed to stop and take a couple of pics - always ready to report to you faithful readers!

Batten down the hatches!

Chambrel at Roswell Hosts a Latin Themed PartaY

It was a return for Crazy Marty and the Nutty Bunch to one of Georgia's finest assisted living services Chambrel at Roswell.  The occasion was a Latin themed party for the tenants, complete with Margaritas and a photo lounge.  The group was into the oldies (no kidding) and the Jobim music was not a big hit.  These folks really just wanted to dance to some music from their youth.  We were set to play many bossas and such, but we quickly realized that they weren't into it.  It was one long set peppered with other fine selections: What a Wonderful World, Can't Help Falling In Love, It Had To Be You, Yes Sir That's My Baby.  We gave them a good time and that's the name of the game.  After the 75 minute set, we practiced a few things with Brent playing guitar to get ready for Saturday's gig in Chamblee.  It ended up being a rather late night.  When will I ever learn the importance of sleep?