St. Patrick's Day Brings a Lucky 4 Leaf Clover of Gigs

Four gigs in one day!  I mean from sun up 'til sun down.  I don't think I can ever top that, or repeat it necessarily.  Or want to...  It wasn't that bad of a schedule.  Funny how things like that can work out, while other conflicts just make me reach for the Advil.  Being that St. Patrick's Day fell on a Saturday this year, the celebrations were bound to be prominent.  Our little U2 tribute band, some say the greatest U2 tribute band in Atlanta, Running With Desire was hired for 3 events - all during the daytime hours.  My 4th job with with Platinum in the evening.
I met up with J.T., The MartaY, and the latest addition to Atlanta's AC/DC tribute act Back In Black, Mark Rudd (not his real name).  Mark may not be available much in the future - those guys are crazy busy.  So we rode together in J.T.'s van down to Underground for our first show of the day at Kenny's Alley.  Booking a band to play at Underground from noon till 1, during the start of the St. Patrick's Day Parade, was not the smartest move on the promoter's part.  There was virtually nobody there, and we certainly knew that going in.  Who comes up with these things?  The sound crew were just getting power, tweaking their system, checking the keyboard (? - not for us, mind you), smoking cigarettes.  They were nice enough, but their lack of preparedness cost us to scratch a couple of songs from our set.  This was a day where we had to stay on schedule.  My rig, consisting of a GK 1001 head with an 810 cabinet, was a dream machine of headroom coupled with pant leg billowing volume, and juicy tube-neo-infused tone that oozed with balls & heft.  It was meant to be loud. I did my best to oblige, although I did turn down for the sake of our ears and J.T.'s monitor woes.  We rocked to a faithful few.  J.T.'s photographer friend showed up and snapped some decent shots.  Might have been a smart move - it would the best we looked all day.

Updates made on March 28, 2012 mid-afternoon

Bonus pictures taken at the Kenny's Alley performance:

Alright, those pics were pretty good.  Taken with our old Sony camera.  Not too bad.  Now, here are some great shots, all taken by a real photographer, Ms. Carolyn Davies.  She has taken pics of several rock bands and is a wonderful artist in the medium.  With her blessings, I am re-posting her shots here to give some better ideas of the good times we were guilty of keeping to ourselves in Kenny's Alley that early afternoon.

March 28, 2012 10:00 p.m.

Even better - Carolyn generously sent me hi-res-foto-files to post on this little blog!  Carolyn has been nothing but nice about honoring my request for utilizing her expert lens craftings for my own self-promotion! That brings me to this fine point: the key word is request.  It is always the right thing to ask somebody's permission before you go and help yourself to their photos, music, documents, intellectual property, whatever the bounty in question may be...  Chances are, the person who owns the property will be gracious to lend their property.  It is good to know that I can post these fine pics of us mugging for the camera in good consciousness.  That should always be the case.  They are also available on the official Running With Desire "facebook" page, as well as Carolyn Davies' own "facebook" page.  Check 'em out!

Thanks again Carolyn!  When we saw you come up to the stage, it definitely kicked up our enthusiasm to "Zooropa" levels!  You made that show a memorable event, for sure.  You rock!!!

After our set, finished out to the applause of the following band, we loaded up the waiting golf carts to take our gear to 200 Peachtree Street.  How surreal to be zipping through the crowded downtown streets on these carts while the parade was taking place!  People everywhere, looking at us as we are hanging onto our gear and trying to not tumble off the back of these makeshift band limos.  It was a memorable trek.

Yeah, J.T. made a good point.  It was a true Spinal Tap moment: getting to the loading dock entrance on these golf carts only to find a locked gate.  Then having to wait for close to 15 minutes while the man with the keys is located and finally gets us in the building.  "Which way to the stage?"

And we're off to the 2nd job - 4 golf carts, 4 musicians.
How rock 'n roll to get to the venue in separate vehicles - with our own drivers!

Taken before I fully realized I need to hold on for dear life!

Storm Trooper on his way to the parade.

It was a bumpy ride, as you can see from this distorted image of GSU's Rialto Theatre and surroundings.

The 2nd gig was inside, where a makeshift festival was assembled.  The band before us was deep into a long Irish-themed dance number with the leader out front on accordion.  They were killing it, but after a while, his nimble-fingered soloing wore on me.  Once again, I had a GK 1001 amp, this time coupled with 2 410's.  It just didn't have that zing that I enjoyed at the previous venue.  We had a much better crowd this time!  Sabina brought the boys down, so it was great to see them out there.  They didn't stay long enough - our best songs are closer to the end of the set.  Took a small break and MartaY scored some chicken tenders that didn't stand a chance.  The 2nd set filtered in some Van Halen so that MartaY could emit his Eruption juice all over the excited crowd of gawkers.  Here was the gist of our sets:

Where the Streets Have No Name
A Sort of Homecoming
Mysterious Ways
Beautiful Day
Bullet the Blue Sky
Get On Your Boots
New Years Day
With or Without You
Desire
Sunday Bloody Sunday
I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
Pride (In the Name of Love)
Gloria
I Will Follow
Vertigo

Alternates:
Ain't Talkin' ' Bout Love
Panama
Ice Cream Man
Eruption --> You Really Got Me

As luck would have it, we never really got around to #2, 8, or 11.  Actually, #2 was my idea and the others simply have never listened to it.  I would like to dive into some of these deeper cuts at some point, as there are other U2 tribute acts in Atlanta.  We could distinguish ourselves by being a bit more adventurous in our repertoire.  Certainly, the Van Halen tunes go over well - even those are the tried and true well worn hits that don't quite hint at the more intricate songwriting that Eddie and the boys would eventually warm up to.

Our only full group shot.
There is a reason we finally ditched this Sony camera as our family cam!

Eruption 1

Eruption 2

Two well-received sets and we were off - late as we were for our next one at Tavern 99.  First, we had to get back to Underground to get the van (and Mark's truck, as he only played the first 2 events with us -Shane is on the next one - that's not weird, is it?).  The parade was over, so traffic permitted a truck, which our friend, one of the golf cart drivers, provided.  It took a minute, as you could expect.  Before too long, we were in Buckhead where the Feeling Lucky? Festival was taking place.  Nice big stage for us and the weather was just perfect.

We were certainly warmed up.  Shane wasn't.  Not his fault, but we had built up this energy and adrenaline with Mark and were ready to nail it.  I don't think Shane was in the same mindset, but he wears many hats on events such as this one.  It was still a great performance, perhaps our best ever in this configuration, and a fine way to end our mini-tour.  My rig this time was an Ampeg mini SVT setup - nice fat semi-distorted tones, rather scooped in the mids, not loud enough for this venue but probably better for the soundman.  At least the soundman was out front this time!  I never see that anymore.  How do you mix from the side or the rear of the stage?  I used my wireless, as the stage was big and I could make my way over to MartaY for some jamming.  It was a rock star scene.  Check out the crowd, certainly loving the rock.  Ah, these kids!

After all of that, I loaded out my pedalboard and such and met up to get paid.  Then I changed clothes (in the parking lot - so classy) for my Platinum hit at Stone Mountain's Marriott Evergreen Conference Resort.  This was Platinum II, not Platinum Soul, as we were a 7-piece: Dianna, Glen, Derek, Anton, Gus, myself, and special guest Tracey Wolf, on loan from Atlanta Beat.  Tracey fit in so well, seemingly taking over any part as if she had been fronting us for years.  She worked really well with Dianna too.  We sounded good and perhaps, due to all of my playing during the day, I didn't flub too many notes!  Yay!  My P-bass, which I used all day, just doesn't have the right vibe for Platinum.  It may well have been because I brought my Genz-Benz kickback combo and I'm used to having a 15 with some power.  Plus, I did have all of those wonderful loud rigs during the day.  My tone was rather limp...  We played through The Emotions' Best of My Love as a precursor to Got To Be Real.  I learned it in my car before we started, as I had missed the soundcheck.  Must mention Anton's little Korg keyboard.  He sounded great on it!  It was a tough crowd, but these corporate gatherings can be like that sometimes.  All told, a fine day of entertaining the masses.  My thanks to J.T. for putting this all together and keeping me in the loop.  Also a big thank you to Virginia & Dianna (they really do work well together) for allowing me to do my thing past the soundcheck that we normally do have.

The Ides of March at Java Monkey

The Ides of March - always 2 days in front of St. Pat's.
A Java Monkey salutation from their facebook page.

The Ides of March Wine Tasting of Pino Noirs

It was a killer show!  I think we had purpose and attitude, something that can be lacking on jazz gigs every now and then.  I chose to haul out the doghouse, aka Beatrice, given that the weather was warm but not too muggy yet and that I'm wielding the P-bass all day on Saturday.  I really want to work on upright more.  I like the tone I have been generating from it as of late.  I think I've gotten a bit stronger in my attack.  This bass needs some real finger strength, pulling through the string to make it rumble and not being shy about noise and vibration.  It's always been easy to play more delicately and make certain my pitch was happening.  Better still to be loud and proud - play it as if it's the last note you'll ever play!

What did we play?  Tasty Town Blues, Roll Call, Fred's Life, In-a-gadda-da-vida, really, kind of deviated from what is typically called.  We've had more folks checking us out lately.  Discussed how we can't be "rehearsing" seldom-played tunes in front of the curious peeps.  People seemed to genuinely enjoy our set - dudes typing/blogging away into their iPads andthe like, asking questions, taking notes...  I quickly adjusted my eq on the Fishman - settings all quite different than with the NS WAV.  Better to accentuate the mids or even just keep it flat.  I finally settled on boosting the high treble with everything else flat, giving me a little air to compensate for the lack of tweeter in the GK Backline 112 I've been bringing out lately.

By killer show, of course I was alluding to The Ides of March.  I did well, but certain things just don't happen for me on the upright, namely Fred's Life.  Should have opted for an octave lower on that lick.  I kid myself into thinking I don't need thumb position.  I think I've learned my lesson - the thumb helps to "in effect" lower the action so that your fingers can do their fancy "fretting", so to speak.  Tough stuff to make sense of.

Et tu, Brute?

Running With Desire Hits the Shed (again...)

These guys are practice happy.  Such is the way we improve, and it does have merit.  I can always count on MartaY to school me on proper "rawk" technique.   One aspect is to keep my picking confined to downstrokes only, a la Metalica!  It does make a difference that I can hear.  With alternate picking, the energy is wee - continuous downstrokes propels the driving beat.  It separates the men from the boyz, so man up and get ready for some sore tendons!

We met at Soul Asylum Studios, Shane's rehearsal studio off of Peachtree Industrial Boulevard (the P.I.B. in some circles, like, for instance, traffic reports).  The place was set up for us to play as if we were playing live, so it worked out real well.  We got through all of the songs and tightened up many loose ends.  What more could you want?

Bono Vox

The Edge

Adam Clayton

Larry Mullen, Jr.

Eastern Standard Time Bids Us a Fond Farewell

The dim reality of spending the rest of a beautiful day in here...

Back at the Atlanta History Center's Grand Overlook Ballroom with Platinum on Saturday (the 10th of March - I date it for my use, as I just completed my taxes reporting and this blog serves as one of many references).  This time, as more often than not, we were all there: Virginia, Kevin, Lexxi, Glen, Derek, Anton, Gus, and myself, along with Junius on sound & lights.  I got there early with the notion of formulating a signal path for the NS/Stick (to be used with the 10-string Stick as well, naturally).  It wasn't meant to be.  I have some serious issues with it.  I think for sanity's sake, and respecting my role in this rather large cover band, I shall just keep it as simple as possible.  I do wish to come up with some kind of plan for the future.  Maybe I'm just not that kind of player (yet).  I do harbor hope of gaining monstrous "free hands" independence and generating wonderous sheets of sound with my rig.  It just seems to require too much floor space with the gear I have.

Part of me is down from the mistakes I made last night.  I need to prioritize in a better way to prepare for some of these songs that I think I really know.  After playing in this band for 3 years or so, I ought to know how to play You're the One That I Want in my sleep.  In all fairness, it wasn't on the list, but still, I should know it.  It's one of the few that we drop down a whole step for the vocalists.  It's also one that on which I reach for a pick.  It's clearly played on a Precision Bass with a plectrum.  The part and the chords is fairly interesting.  Hey, it's a showtune, so it's not a cheesy doo-wop kinda thing:

Gm
Eb                      Bb
D7                     Gm

Bb                     Dm                        Gm                    Eb
Bb                     Dm                        Gm                    Eb

Bb                     Eb                         Bb                     Eb                   F

There, I can type it out as I hear the song go by in my head.  Why can't I trust myself to remember the changes on stage?  A big part of my problem is that I rely on my charts.  Then, in the heat of performance, I look up so that I don't look transfixed on the sheet music and I lose my place, then the panic instills itself and it's a minor train wreck.  I'm fumbling - this after patting myself on the back for getting the 1st verse perfect.  Another tune that was sour was  Jlo's On the Floor.  I made my great chart, but I still can't understand it well enough to know when to play, lay out, do my thing, whatever...  Need to really sit down and just go over it until it's in my head.  So not fair!  One other excruciating flub was hitting a Bb at the beginning of a chorus on Barry White's Can't Get Enough of Your Love (ouch!).  I think we all had a few shaky moments, but when the bass hits a sour note, everybody hears it loud and clear.

Many other songs went very well.  I did play the NS/Stick quite a bit and it worked well as a bass guitar.  I had raised the action on the B, E, A & D by varying amounts in order to get a better plucked tone.  I may back them down just a tad, but I enjoyed the relief and ability to dig in without fretting out.  I was also able to tap a good amount.  We do Boom Boom Pow  and that is a great 2-handed bass tapping motif exercise - easy but more fun to tap than just pluck.  Of course, I have always tapped that counterpoint in Just Dance.  My synth tone was a bit different and not sure that it was an improvement.  All in all, we had a good show and the B&G were very pleased, as were the elder party guests.

Detail of my rig: note amp head on it's side (not on the cab);
NS/Stick 8-string guitar/bass & Tobias Fretless 5.

Shrimp 'n grits - tasted better than it looks here.
Hastily gobbled before I thought to save for posterity.

Hangin' in the green room - in this case, the youngsters classroom in the basement.

More hangin'

Clearly, a conversation in progress.

Just damn glad to be here!

Lexxi is a superstar presence - a great performer!

This week I get ready for a very busy St. Patrick's day with 4 gigs in 1 long day.

Possible New Jazz Group to Feature My Stick Playing

Glen from Platinum sent me a very rare email.  In it, he shared a link to our local Craigslist which was a request for a local Chapman Stick player.  Now that is something that you just don't see in print very often.  I was compelled to reply to this post.  I have since found out the ad placer is a guitarist who knows a drummer that I thought I knew.  I'm not great with names, but I remember a gig with what I have to believe was almost a one-off band that imploded a bit for no apparent reason named Mofobia.  Mofobia!  What a great name!  It sounds funky, doesn't it?  Our gig years ago in Buckhead is still a Google request away in cyberworld here.  It was with Brian Molin on guitar and several blokes who I haven't spoken with or heard of since.  I had to shed on a bunch of their tunes, namely some cool Meters and Funkadelic stuff.  Well, anyways, one of the guys was a Zendrum founder.  I now see that the guy form Mofobia was Kim, but that my contact for this new band is mentioning David Haney, the other co-founder.  That may be for the best.  At any rate, I thought this might be worth mentioning.  I have almost zero free time for a new project, but...  it would be nice to have something pushing me along to work on the Stick.  I don't see using it much unless I'm prompted.  I am trying to bring it out to some weddings and such, but I am the bass player on those things and there is a certain responsibility that keeps me from really letting loose on the true Freehands technique - that and a rather apparent lack of chops!

Leap Week Part III: a Tornado Brings in March Madness

Thursday I was at Java Monkey for a Pot Luck Themed wine tasting event, with the ubiquitous jazz stylings of The Adrian Ash Group.  We all made it through another 2 week period of life.  It jelled once again for our willing souls.  Many things sounded good.  Adrian called Watermelon Man.  Whenever I hear that, I freeze a bit as I hear Cantaloupe Island in my head.  They both start on F, although the former is in F or F7, while the latter is in Fm or Fm7.  Subtle difference, but not really.  It's just my personal little trip.  As long as I make it to the IV chord and not the bVI chord, I'm doing well.  Then the V to the IV loops for 3 go-rounds.  That's it.  No sweat after all.  I tried to take some daring chances during a few of my solos.  It seems to break me out of the doldrums I can get myself into.  Running up high for a quick peak at the upper register is a nice easy way to brighten up a stale motif.  Take it from me, I have the stale motif thing down.

Now this got my attention.  If it was posted on the door, there might not have been any parking spaces!

Friday I met up with the very hip blues band The Jump'n Jukes.  They are blessed to be the real deal, a sound from old sweet home Chicago or deep in the heart of Texas.  Nice guys all around: Steve Sams on vocals & blues harp, Juha Saily on guitar, Jim "Stuff" Jones on violin (some folks call it a fiddle 'round here - by the way, I truly hope I have these names correct, you know me...), & Pete Bennie on drums.  They had requested upright bass, so that's indeed what I brought (had my Jazz in the car just in case).  It has been quite some time since I've played a whole night of blues music.  I can't remember, certainly not since this blog started up.  I even told them that before we started - great reassuring words to relay to people I've just met!  ha!  It turned out to be a good fit all around.  We played at Spiced Right Ribhouse, located just north of Roswell Square on Atlanta St.  The ambiance was a little odd.  They should seriously reconsider the lighting.  Those compact flourescent bulbs have different color temperatures.  That cold bluish light does not convey a down home experience.  Just my personal issue, perhaps.  The stage in the corner was a nice size for the five of us, plus a PA speaker on a stand.  Juha had a beautiful Gretsch hollow bodied guitar; Steve had the old school vocal mic that was blues approved to the max - not to mention his bullet mic for his harp; Stuff had it going on with one of those modern Acoustic Image downward firing tiny combo for his electric violin (you don't see a volume control mounted into a violin very often).  Me, I brought my Genz-Benz out for the first time in a while.  It gave me plenty of headroom for this job.

Some of the setlist:
Read About My Baby (Original)
Baby What You Want Me To Do (Jimmy Reed)
Big Boss Man (Jimmy Reed)
Help Me (Sonny Boy Williamson)
Hideaway (Freddie King)
Mean Old World (Little Walter)
Read About My Baby (Hollywood Fats Band)
I Asked for Water (She Gave Me Gasoline) (Howlin' Wolf)
Rock Me Baby (B. B. King)

Juha, whose name sounds like "U-Hall" but w/o the L sound (he also goes by J), gave me good instructions, although sometimes I would misconstrue his 4's as 5's or vise versa.  Here's a great example: sounds like Green Onions.  How great of a hint is that?  The only time I completely fell off the bus was during Hideaway, which is quite an arrangement.  That's a good blues tune for everybody to know.  A real guitar slinger anthem which I first heard on my old bud Phil Hurd's copy of Eric Clapton's At His Best double album collection on Polydor (just a bit of detail there for you to get the picture of just how ingrained this is in my formative conscious) - it was John Mayall's Bluesbreakers that E.C. was with.  Freddie King's version is the one we all check out when really digging into it.  I gotta mention Stuff's violin playing - it added so much and he's a master of inserting quotes from other tunes into the spaces between the vocal lines.  Very cool technique all around on his part, all while being perfectly in tune and being a consummate pro entertainer.  No shoe gazing here - he got up in my grill a few times!  Great stage presence and masterful eye contact!  Also on hand was an old friend from my days with Big Matt Kearney, the young Dave Cunningham on tenor sax.  He sat in on the 2nd set and sounded much like I remember Big sounding!

Bottom line: these guys should be playing in some much larger venues.  Almost makes me want to change paths and become their manager or agent!  Hope I can testify with them once again sometime real soon.

Juha Saily

Pete Bennie

All of this happened while a rather major tornado scare came upon our area.  It came through our area but did not do any noticeable damage, at least from what I can tell.  There are areas that were badly hit.  Typing this as I'm watching the Today Show's story on the poor Louisville, Kentucky Mom who shielded her 2 children from their house collapsing above them and has since lost parts of both of her legs.  She is lucky to be alive.  I am very flippant about these storms but need to take them more seriously, obviously.  My prayers go out to those who have suffered a loss this past weekend...

Leap Week Part II

Did everybody have a nice extra day in their lives?  As we all learned through our social media, Davy Jones of The Monkees.  They have always been around.  Just when you take something for granted, you lose it's essence.  Davy sure had a pleasant (valley) voice.  Reassuring in it's wholesomeness.  I found this chart in my collection - cleaned up, cropped, resized for your pleasure.  Somebody made the repeat notes before I got my hands on it.  They are somewhat helpful notes and it is even in the key Davy sang it in, so many years ago.  Rest in peace, you were indeed a white knight on a steed.

Sheet Music for Daydream Believer,
written by John Stewart of The Kingston Trio,
as recorded by The Monkees in 1967.