It was the official grand opening of a relatively new guitar and drum store in Decatur: the Atlanta Musicians Exchange, or if you are web friendly; www.AtlantaMusicanSexchange.com - sorry, had to do it, and by the way, it does help you remember the name, doesn't it? We had the slot after Mike "Swami" Schuleman. He was delayed as he had an important phone call or two to make. At least do yourself a favor and go to his band's facebook page: Swami Gone Bananas. Their photo at the top of the page is worth your time, I think. Swami sounded great, opening with ZZ Top's Blue Jean Blues. His set was cut short, as he started a bit late. Then we got up to do our thing.
As it was The Adrian Ash Group (Adrian, Guy "Looper" Fenocchi, and myself), without a horn player, we had the good fortune to have Tom Olsen join us. He was on that Valentine's Day show we did earlier this year. Funny how he didn't know the names of the tunes we called but he fit right in and filled us up with nice piano and organ tones. He set up where I wanted to stand, displacing me to the center of the stage. Not my most comfortable position. I get nervous enough on these types of gigs. The only hiccup I noticed was that he didn't have the form to Cantaloupe Island quite right. He wouldn't play F minor after the Dm9 - he was going straight back to the top. We also had one or two instances when we lost it on So What, which always seems to happen. It happen during my solo, but I stand behind my form - AABA becomes AABAAABA, which is a lot of A's in a row, ie 24 bars of D minor to get through before the next E flat minor. We played well, even a bit aggressive, so that helped our cause. Folks seemed to like what we did, with Josie being perhaps the biggest crowd pleaser. All in the name of keeping it going. I was encouraged to bring a fretted instrument. I can dig, although I always say that intonation is over-rated! I brought my 6-string, as I wasn't certain if we were inside or out, and the 6-string is my default outdoor instrument. It sounded good, although my chording was a bit rusty. I wanted to be able to grab some of the pol-chords on Josie in particular. I think it was good as I'm not certain if Tom knew those particular ones:
A/D
G/C
D/G
C/F
On the 6-string, I can grab 2 notes from the upper chord on the C and G strings, plus the lower bass note on the B or the E strings. In the case of the first chord listed, A/D, I finger E on the C string at the 16th fret and C# on the G string at the 18th fret while also getting D on the B string at the 15th fret of the B string. Probably easier to have diagrams to show my fingerings. Anyways, I relate to the 6 and really should play it more. If I could, I'd get a nicer one someday. I've had this Ibenez since the days of Jellyroll Blue (our cd can be streamed in 30-second samples here). I upgraded the pickups to EMG's - very good pickups and preamp, making the tone much more full sounding. I played through the in-store back-line of a GK 200W amp into a no-name PA sub cabinet containing an 18' speaker. It sounded decent, if not excessively crystalline. It was fun to "vomit" all over those tunes, at any rate. I wish the AME much success in the future, although it's a bit out of the way for me to frequent.
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