What is the exact opposite of a Hatchet Job?
The San Diego Troubadour is a local monthly free newspaper about San Diego's roots music scene. They cover Americana to Jazz, Bluegrass to Blues, and everything rootsy in between.
My friend Allen Singer occasionally writes reviews of local artists and CDs and such for them. (I should confess at this point that Allen & I have been performing together for a couple of years.)
About Allen: his deep, first-hand, encyclopedic understanding of Folk Music is based in the life-experience of "being at ground zero during the great Folk-scare of the '60s". Allen came up hanging around Greenwich Village, rubbing up against heros like Seeger, Guthrie, and Zimmerman (er, Dylan). The life-experience he's amassed is conveyed in a very direct way in the honest, immediately accessible & unaffected manner that he plays and sings the music he loves. Allen's a great contributor to our local Folk scene - as a performer, booking agent, writer for our local journals and mentor (of musicians like me).
He's also seen so much musically historical stuff personally that he's a pretty hard guy to impress at this stage of life. ("But enough about that", Allen would say.)
For the September edition of the San Diego Troubadour (Vol. 6, No. 12), for some unfathomable reason, my pal Allen wrote an extremely flattering article about me. Said a bunch of stuff that it's going to be very difficult for me to live up to. Really nice stuff. It's the first time I've been the subject of any kind of publicly circulated piece, so it's a really big deal to me. I'll be sending copies to family members just as I'm telling y'all about it here in my blog.
It's a little unsettling to see one's own name in a publication read by thousands (TENS of thousands?). And it's very humbling, especially coming from someone whom I like and respect so much. Hard to come up with something that accurately conveys how this boon makes me feel.
Thank you sincerely, Allen, for the 'good press'.
Props
I was listening to some music yesterday, and had a virtual Flashback.
I remembered seeing a harmonica-playing buddy at Etta's Place a couple of years ago. He was playing with some jammers and a dude he referred to reverentially as The Guru. My friend revered him, and tells me he's learned a LOT from "The Guru".
The Guru had real great tone. The thing The Guru did that impressed me incredibly was, he SANG. I mean he projected, broad-casted, he really put it out there. His voice projected so strongly, he almost didn't need the PA. Reminded me a little of an old movie I saw with Cab Calloway . The dude's voice just projected so strongly, so HONESTLY, that it really knocked me out. I've been striving to integrate that into my vocal delivery ever since.
So, Guru, thanks for showing me something important.
I remembered seeing a harmonica-playing buddy at Etta's Place a couple of years ago. He was playing with some jammers and a dude he referred to reverentially as The Guru. My friend revered him, and tells me he's learned a LOT from "The Guru".
The Guru had real great tone. The thing The Guru did that impressed me incredibly was, he SANG. I mean he projected, broad-casted, he really put it out there. His voice projected so strongly, he almost didn't need the PA. Reminded me a little of an old movie I saw with Cab Calloway . The dude's voice just projected so strongly, so HONESTLY, that it really knocked me out. I've been striving to integrate that into my vocal delivery ever since.
So, Guru, thanks for showing me something important.
Champ
Just got one of the new Fender Champion 600 amps. Man, it's got some grind. It also has a ton of bottom end (considering it carries a 6" speaker). I'll be A/B-ing it with the Valve Jr through all my different speaker set-ups to find out how it sounds over the next few days. I already prefer the way it responds to the Franken-mic, so that's a plus.
I'm really fond of little amps!
UPDATE 8/20 - the little mofo definitely sings. It sounds good through my external speakers, too, although Fender made the jack so bloody hard to get to that I tend to favor just playing through the 6" speaker it came with. The only mic I own that doesn't sound good with it is "The Cheese Mic", but that's OK - still leaves me with 3 strong choices.
New Old Content
It's been some time since I've posted about my Epiphone Valve Junior - in light of the fact that I've been living with it for half a year, I think an update is warranted.
I first gushed about this little diamond-in-the-rough in this blog, in a post entitled Reward. Since then, I've drug that little monster all over town. I mentioned that I built a 2 x 8 cab to haul around. That cab is fine for the living room, a little on the quiet side for rehearsal, and not bad at all for recording.
The surprise is that I've gigged with the VJ several times! In a small enough room I can hang, even with the (right) drummer using STICKS. And I've hooked it up to my Bassman Ltd 4 x 10s in gigs for a little more volume. I know - it's heretical to connect a LITTLE amp to a mighty Bassman's speakers, but I really dig the sound - I get a real dark, blurred, horn-like sound from the set-up.
The amp doesn't sound good for blues guitar, IMO - too grindy (I tend to favor guitar tones more like Jimmy Vaughan, Albert King, Jr Watson) for blues.
Oh yeah - the VJ is OK with a 520DX, but it doesn't sound good at all with my favorite crystal (which is the mic of choice for the Bassman), but the BEST mic for it is a real low-gain franken-mic we refer to as "The Cheese Mic" because of it's "Lo-Fi", cheesy sound through the PA. The Cheese mic is "Baby Bear" (Juuust Right) for the VJ - I can turn the amp up to about 85-90% driving the power tube almost to saturation. Ah, tube compression & distorted harp...Mmmmm...
A while back, my amigo Karlos had me over to taste-test some of his incredible vintage Nationals, so now I have a hankerin' to get me some ovals to blow through. Those Natis he plays all have 6 x 9 speakers - man, you want to hear a trumpet bark!
Speaking of which, some cats are just SO authentic and true to the sound of real blues...listen to Karl & Tom's band West of Memphis if you get a chance - you'll be blown away if you haven't heard the real stuff like they play it. (Yeah, I know - broken record - well, it's true, I really admire WoM) Check them out - you'll understand what I'm telling you.
I first gushed about this little diamond-in-the-rough in this blog, in a post entitled Reward. Since then, I've drug that little monster all over town. I mentioned that I built a 2 x 8 cab to haul around. That cab is fine for the living room, a little on the quiet side for rehearsal, and not bad at all for recording.
The surprise is that I've gigged with the VJ several times! In a small enough room I can hang, even with the (right) drummer using STICKS. And I've hooked it up to my Bassman Ltd 4 x 10s in gigs for a little more volume. I know - it's heretical to connect a LITTLE amp to a mighty Bassman's speakers, but I really dig the sound - I get a real dark, blurred, horn-like sound from the set-up.
The amp doesn't sound good for blues guitar, IMO - too grindy (I tend to favor guitar tones more like Jimmy Vaughan, Albert King, Jr Watson) for blues.
Oh yeah - the VJ is OK with a 520DX, but it doesn't sound good at all with my favorite crystal (which is the mic of choice for the Bassman), but the BEST mic for it is a real low-gain franken-mic we refer to as "The Cheese Mic" because of it's "Lo-Fi", cheesy sound through the PA. The Cheese mic is "Baby Bear" (Juuust Right) for the VJ - I can turn the amp up to about 85-90% driving the power tube almost to saturation. Ah, tube compression & distorted harp...Mmmmm...
A while back, my amigo Karlos had me over to taste-test some of his incredible vintage Nationals, so now I have a hankerin' to get me some ovals to blow through. Those Natis he plays all have 6 x 9 speakers - man, you want to hear a trumpet bark!
Speaking of which, some cats are just SO authentic and true to the sound of real blues...listen to Karl & Tom's band West of Memphis if you get a chance - you'll be blown away if you haven't heard the real stuff like they play it. (Yeah, I know - broken record - well, it's true, I really admire WoM) Check them out - you'll understand what I'm telling you.
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