October - December 2009
October 2009
- (10/01/09)
A fun night last night. Coup had a very short notice gig last night at the
Majestic in Detroit. How this came about is a long story but the short
version is that the venue had to cancel a national act that was scheduled
to play and in order to help them offset the cost of that action, several
acts got together to play and it was a blast. First of all, I haven't been
down there in quite a long time so it was great to catch up with some old
friends. Secondly, we nailed our set. After the Albion debacle, it was
really nice to do a solid set.
There was another positive out of last night's set as well. I've been
chatting with some tech buddies about downsizing my rig and one of them
assured me that I was very unlikely to ever play a room where just one of
my cabinets wouldn't be enough. So ... I put that to the test last night
showing up to play a fairly large room with just one cabinet and running
everything mono. I am pleased to say that it worked very well. What that
means is that I will be boxing up one of the cabinets and sticking with
just a singleton at home and at gigs. I'll hold onto the second for a while
in case I change my mind though.
- (10/06/09)
Ok. So after the Majestic gig I came home and made some changes. First I
boxed up the extra speaker cabinet and slid it into a basement corner.
Then I did some surgery on my rig removing some cables thus running several
pieces of gear in mono instead of stereo. Then I removed the extra Echoplex
and moved the remaining EDP and synth gear into a smaller rack case. I've
been playing with it ever since and things are sounding great. I am still
contemplating actually selling both of my SWR cabs and going with something
new. I'm not sure yet though. The extra EDP I will definitely keep. Those
aren't made any more and the ones that are out there are pretty expensive
so having a spare will likely come in handy one day.
Greg's songbook is now on the market and I got my "official" copy yesterday.
It looks outstanding. A great collection of tunes all notated for Stick.
Today I confirmed a private party gig in early November. It should be fun.
Especially since I'd like to get some practice at doing sets that are a
a little more "background" just to be able to do it when the opportunities
arise. I'll probably slip a couple of tunes from Greg's book into my set.
- (10/07/09)
I feel like I have a million things I'm supposed to be doing and no time
for any of it. Some overhauling of websites is high on my list but I just
can't seem to sit down and start. Preparation for various gigs is right up
there as well. Not to mention that pesky thing called employment.
I'm back into a phase right now where I really dislike the SP 13 and will
be ripping it out of my rig this week. I go through highs and lows with
this unit.
- (10/12/09)
Still a million things to do. I actually started doing some work related to
website overhauling. Nothing anyone can see yet but it's a start. I am also
considering a mission to notate most (if not all) of the tunes in my
extended set list just so they are cataloged. This will likely be a project
that will be ongoing for years. Plus there will be some brainstorming as I
try and figure out how to notate the use of loops. Hmmmmmm.
I did rip the SP 13 out of my rack and boxed it up. I am now relying once
again on my VF-1 to preamp the melody Stick. For my money, it is sounding
better. I'm still not 100% satisfied though. I'm in one of those phases I
go through periodically where nothing sounds right. I have some other ideas
I am going to investigate. More later.
Greg and I are making another thorough pass through the songbook to weed
out any additional errors before the next batch goes to print. This really
is an excellent work.
- (10/14/09)
Still wrestling with my sound and rig. I took the plunge into some serious
Stick setup this week. After the pickup change, I did some serious adjusting
of my action which was great but I think that messed up some other things.
So with a little long distance guidance from Greg and Emmett, I branched out
this week messing with pickup height and pole pieces. I'm reasonably sure
that I've got everything under control and things are sounding good. It's
wierd though because if I spend too much time at it, I get a little
flustered and start to hear things that aren't there.
In the midst of all that, I am research amplification as well. Even though
I've removed one of my cabinets from the equation, I still think I could
benefit from some downsizing. I am currently eyeing a combo amp that could
be perfect for my needs. I need to make sure it will work with all my
"extras" though and of course I need to make sure it sounds good.
On a side note ... it is October which means I need to take in my share
of good horror films this month. Last weekend I watched "Stir of
Echoes" which I always thought was underrated when it came out.
November 2009
- (11/02/09)
Shit! Missing posts!
I've been doing a little website re-organization and I also added a new
navigation pane to make it easier to jump right to certain places. But in
the midst of editing a bunch of HTML files, I used an old version of this
file and blew away a couple of October posts. Frankly I'm surprised I don't
do that more often. At any rate, let me see if I can recap a bit.
I had a "gear" session at Oz's in Ann Arbor trying out some different combo
amps that are popular among those Stick playing types. All in all I was
impressed but none of them really suited my needs. The Fishman was really
nice but not powerful enough for the band. The Acoustic Image had an
impressive amount of power and clarity of tone for it's size but some
logistics made it a non-starter for me personally. Both were really nice
sounding amps for Stick though and I might still pick up the Fishman to use
as a portable practice amp. The long and short of it is that my current rig
sounds pretty damned good so I think I'll keep it. I am still sticking by
my reduction to one cabinet and may even replace said cabinet. I'm also
considering yet another pickup change. But at least the amp question has
been answered.
Gary Jibilian came through town and I had a chance to see him last night.
He is doing a handful of midwest dates with his L.A. drummer Jay Setar who
I hadn't seen yet. The guy is an asbolute monster of a drummer. They did a
great set at the Magic Bag last night and it was really good to see Gary.
Playing this Friday for a private party in Westland. After that? Hopefully
getting some charts up on the website.
- (11/06/09)
Gigging tonight ... kind of. Every once in a blue moon I'll take a classic
background music kind of gig. I find it to be good practice because it
makes me re-evaluate a bit. In some ways, it forces me to be more musical as
it takes me out of the comfort zone of my "usual" set and makes me work up
stuff that's more appropriate for the setting. We'll see how it goes.
Still pondering my setup. I was very close to sending my Stick back to
Emmett and getting the hybrid pickup back. After talking to Greg though,
I may hold off on that and see how the StepAbout preamp fits my needs.
- (11/09/09)
The Friday gig was kind of fun. I was setup at an open house that took
place at a Hallmark Store. Not the sort of thing I generally see myself
doing but it was a favor for a relative and also, as I said, I consider
it to be good practice. I was pretty pleased actually. I went for a solid
two hours and had no problem filling the time even with the bulk of my
"usual" set removed. There was one rub though. I had quite a few people
asking for CDs and I'm quite certain that the "121normal" CD was
NOT what they were looking for (not that it mattered because ... like a
complete idiot ... I had forgotten them anyway). But still, if I have any
notions of doing more gigs like this one, I really need to make a solo
Stick record with these softer tunes on it.
- (11/16/09)
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Old AP Guys
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Fun weekend. Friday was a "throwback" day. For starters, I had my
iPod at work and I wasn't sure what I wanted to hear so I just started
scrolling. I have everything we own on this particular iPod and I found
some really old stuff. When I started listening, I beamed back over 30
years. It's amazing how songs can conjur up memories.
Friday evening saw a mini-reunion of a bunch of guys I was in band with
from elementary school through high school. Two of them I have continued
to see pretty regularly through the years. Two others I hadn't really spent
any time with since high school. What was amazing though is that we were
all such good buddies when we were very young that we got together this
last weekend and just took right up where we left off. Great fun!
- (11/30/09)
The Thanksgiving Holiday has come and gone which means the Christmas holiday
season has officially started. I had the entirety of last week off. With
that, I headed north and stayed for a full week. Rasa and I had her sister's
family up for the holiday proper. They headed back on Friday morning while
the two of us stayed and went into Glen Arbor that night to watch the
Christmas tree lighting at the township hall. A great week all the way
around.
Absolutely nothing happening on the music front. I took my Grand and Alto
Stick north with me. I planned on a fair amount of practice time but ended
up playing very little. Time to get back to it.
December 2009
- (12/14/09)
I am officially in a funk! A monster funk! We had a really good Coup
rehearsal last week and I still haven't unpacked my Stick since then. At
this rate, I'll probably just leave it packed until this weeks practice.
I'm not really hitting the piano much either which is uncharacteristic for
me this time of year. Regardless ... I'm in a funk. Hopefully I'll get out
of it soon.
I have been playing a lot of hockey. Last week we had one of our late
10:30PM games. At around midnight, I walked out of the ice arena to find
that the first significant snowfall had occurred while I was inside. I
drove home on very empty and very snow covered roads and it was very cool!
Aaaaahhhhh ... winter.
- (12/24/09)
Not much to say in December I guess. I may be jolting out of my funk via
a piece of gear though. Greg let me borrow a new StepAbout which is
the latest in pre-amp technology for Stick. I took delivery yesterday and
the plan is to try it out for a while to see if I like it. So far, I've
put in just a little time both plugged into my rig and also with headphones
and I'm finding the overall sound to be really superb. I need to give it a
couple of weeks though to be sure.
Cooking today. Making merry today and tomorrow. Then heading north with my
Stick, StepAbout and headphones in tow. Happy Holidays everyone!
)