Ahhhh, Hello Aberdeen

Man, did that ever feel good. I finally got a chance to get my guitar out and play after a very long month off. If you were there you know I'm talking about an hour-long set at the Blue Lamp on Saturday the 14th. Thanks to all of you that came out and voiced such strong opinions in favor of that raw delta blues.

So, after gig #1, one thing that really struck me was how knowledgable the audience was about all things blues-related. Much more so than the States. I suppose that doesn't come as a suprise, as modern blues artists seem to spend more time here than state-side making a living. Must be that thing about not appreciating something that comes from your own back yard. No bother, it's great to have a room full of people to talk blues with. Great to see all of you there, and dthanks to those that spent some cash on my cd!

OK, some other local gigs will be going on the web calendar today. Also, I'm working on booking some solo shows in Argentina, and some return gigs in Alaska. So please check into my website to keep up to date on the latest show.

How do you recognize a real blues band anyway?

Seems like I get this question all the time. Here's a few thoughts to help you recognize a real blues band:

I think there's a difference between a good blues SONG and a good blues BAND. The best blues bands I can think of have a few characteristics in common:

1. The gig is an on-going conversation where the audience is a key participant. There's no rock-n-roll 'we're too cool to acknowlege the little people trip'

2. Song selection is geared for dancing, dominated by medium-tempo grooves that allow people to dance by shuffling feet and moving pelvises. Slow songs, funky songs too. Anything resembling 'Freebird', 'Enter Sandman' or 'Takin care of business' is a give-away that you're not listening to a blues band.

3. Likewise, songs that are not about collective concerns of a room full of people that work for a living generally aren't blues songs.

4. If someone in the band shot a man in menphis just to watch him die, that's a country band. Learn to line dance when listening to this band.

5. But, a band singing "i'm going to murder my baby" probably is a blues band, but only if the tempo of the song is one you could also use to walk to the dentist.

6. A band full of people dressed in shades, fedora's and cheap black suits is not a blues band, it's a movie tribute band. Run, don't walk, in the opposite direction.

7. Some indicators that you've found a real blues band- they can handle a Magic Sam request, have day jobs working in a steel mill, are not playing shiny guitars. If something about the singing or the guitar playing sends a shiver down your spine, makes you want to shuffle your feet and every once in a while turn to your date and smile because you've heard something universal about the human condition (excluding BMW cars, hired help, tax shelters and a CEO sucession plan) then you're listening to a blues band. If you are listening to songs about BMW cars, hired help, tax shelters and a CEO sucession plan sung by men in suits, fedoras and sunglasses, refer to #6 above. Should you by chance encounter a real working blues band, throw a fiver in the tip jar, buy a CD or two and tell them to keep up the good work. There's too many #6 bands around.

Are we clear now?

I've been waiting for weeks for my amp to get here. It took much longer than anyone expected. Then I needed a transformer to bring the 240 volt electricity down to something the amp can deal with. Fine. This afternoon I decided to wring out my amp before all the neighbors got home from work.

What a really, really bad idea....

Well, just let it be said that I did meet my next door neighbor. I've been here 3 weeks and seen no sign of life next door (we share a thick granite wall with them, the house is like a Texas duplex). To be fair, it was extremely loud. I think she was a little suprised to see gray-haired me answer the door, I'm sure she was expecting to see my teenage son. "Gosh, I sure am sorry" I said, "it was a little loud, I'll turn it off right now". At least she left happy. And she seemed nice, once she got over the shock.

So, from this we've learned a few things:

1. We really do have a next-door neighbor.
2. Granite walls make really bad sound barriers.
3. We need to work on the volume
4. I'm still kinda loud for an old fart.

And to think that my mother said that my guitar playing would only get me in trouble, what- 30 years ago? I should have listened!

The Pogues. Remember them?

I finally got my gear. Now I can go to work. The interesting thing? That's not it.

Yesterday I spent a long time talking with the gentleman that delivered my stuff. Turned out he was a drummer when he was a little younger. Not a casual drummer, a serious drummer who among other gigs played a long run of dates with the Pogues.

Now that is seriously cool. Oh, my gear is here too, but delivered by an ex-member of the Pogues. That has got to be some kind of sign, don't cha think?

Finally here

Phew. We're finally here.

The trip over was pretty calm, all in all. The music starts pretty quickly. Tonight I'm gonna sit in the audience and listen to a band that is from (I think, so don't hold me to this) Sheffield that does a Rory Gallagher tribute called Raw Gallagher. Be interesting to get a look at one of the local rooms, see what a Scottish blues audience looks like and watch someone else work for a change.

Peace and love all. I'm sure this will get more interesting as time rolls on. Just wanted to let those of you checking in that we arrived safely and that as a thursday night passed without a blues jam, it felt really odd sitting at home with nowhere to plug my strat in.

Over and out from here.....

Look out world, I'm signing off from my Alaska home. The next transmission will be from the other side of the Atlantic!

Thanks to all of you that came to the last Thursday night jam. It was great to see all off you one last time and make some music together. And having Lindy Raines there to play as well was over the top. Jusst think, all of my favorite players in one room. It was a greate send off, thanks so much.

And, those of you that were there got to see my younger son Toph take the stage and play the conga drums. He was great, totally into it, making rock star faces and doing lots of flashy tricks on the drums. By the end of the night I had 2 of my boys on stage, surrounded by Todd Glazer (harp), Lindy Raines (guitar), Gary Lamar (guitar, John Clark (drums) and Joel Lockman (bass).



See you all in November for the next Blues for my Brother benefit!

CD party and the aftermath

What a great time! Thanks to all of you that joined us for our CD release party!

For those of you that missed id, we kicked off at 8pm, with an acoustic set. I played my old national, Joel played the doghouse and John played a snare with brushes. Real minimal, and exactly what we did on Amy VanSingel's 9th Alley Blues show on KNBA. We played some old standards and a couple of songs from our new CD, including Glenn Highway Blues, Long Way Home and Cold Cold World.

From there we settled into some electric instruments and played the rest of the CD. It was great to see Patti Greene, Gary Lamar, Mr Whitekeys, Todd Glazer, Kyle, a.k.a. Minnesota Slim, Sherman, Steve Pradell and Veronica Page. They all sat in with us, and kept the party in high gear. When the music stopped somewhere around 2 a.m. I think we were all played out and ready to face the raging snowstorm outside!

The most overwhelming part of the night was the huge turnout of people that came to wish us well and buy a copy of the CD. Boo Rody jumped in to help get everyone a CD that wanted one, and gave me a chance to visit with about 80 people. Every little bit of positive feedback is appreciated, and validates what we set out to do from the start- record some honest original blues songs that captured the feel of our club set. Thanks to all of you for your vote of connfidence!

CD's are here.....

Nothing more to say except PHEW. Big box of our new CD's arrived in time for the release party tonight!

Here's a picture of me and some of the boys after opening the box of disks at the studio:

Vintage Guitar Photo

In this months 'Vintage Guitar Magazine' there's a photo in the back of the Alaskan Tone Party! Thanks JZ for submitting the picture and thanks Gary Lamar for taking that incredible picture.



No, all that gear is NOT mine. The old bassman is, and the 100 watt marshall too. The rest came from all my buddies here in Alaska, all professional musicians. Every bit of that gear is something you'd see at a blues gig somewhere in the state. We took over Studio 68 on a Sunday afternoon, dragged in our favorite gear and let loose. My buddy KB brought in some of the best stuff- that old vibratone, the Gibson RV-whatever amp, the satellite reverbs. What a time that was...

Repairs, repairs, repairs

Man, I'll tell you one thing that is freaking me out about moving is that it seems like everything needs to be fixed before I go. We only blew up or set fire to 4 amps while we were recording last month, and I've finally got all that squared away. But, on top of all the things I need to do to get my family moved (which is the important thing right now) I realize that I'm not going to have access to most of my tools and I've got all this broken crap. Talk about a senseless crisis, but a crisis it is- I've got an old Supro double-necked lapsteel that needs a new pickup, my Strat is falling apart, my Silvertone needs a new input jack, blah blah blah.

The lesson here is not to play so hard, I suppose, but where is the fun in that? So, we're packing tools too. Grrrr.

New Lap Steel Tuning!

Ok, Larry Allen (a well known Alaska steel guitarist and tatoo artist) called me last week to let me know he has a few old road cases that might hold my gear. I went over to take a look and after 3 hours of talking and swapping war stories I was on my way with a few cases to check out. Very cool of him, no?

But, while I was there Larry turned my on to his 'secret' lap steel tuning for 6-string guitars. It goes 1, 5, 6, 1, 3, 5 from low to high. So, if you were in E the notes would be E, B, C#, E, G#, B. I knew the rest of my weekend was wrecked, and it was- all I've been doing is playing the steel guitar so I can master this tuning. Here's what's so cool about the tuning- it's overall a major tuning with the added 6th. But in the middle of it is a minor triad (the C#, E, G#), which means you can play minor chords without bar slants. You can also make a minor 7th chord too.

The other cool thing about this tuning is that the relationship of the 3 highest pitched strings are the same as in a open G country blues tuning. So it's not that much different than most standard blues tunings- it's just got that 6th scale degree in it. And, if you pull the high string up a whole step, you've got a 4 note minor chord. Damn, it's a very cool tuning.

Thanks Larry! I'm a total convert! Was it nice out this weekend? Somebody needs to tell me....

the Eric Bibb Show

Hey all just got in fro the Eric Bibb show and I gotta tell you it was a great show. Eric is an engaging performer and a fantastic singer. If you don't recognize the name you really should check out his music.

It's always a treat for me to play with someone of his caliber, that's no surprise. But there is always something about a show that hit's me as interesting, or something I had never though about. This time it was watching Eric do his sound check (a sound check is where the performer tests all the gear before the performance and makes whatever necessary adjustments need to be made). He worked systematically through the house sound, verifying that the guitar and his voice were 'recognizable', which I though was a great choice of words. He made some minor adjustments with the help of Sheila the sound engineer until the sound in the room was perfect.

It was pretty obvious last night that the monitor speakers (the ones that he was listening to) were really inadequate for the job. And here I agree- the monitor speakers were a pair of Carvin monitors that make a male voice sound like it's coming through a cheap telephone speaker. Remember the teacher's voice in the old Charlie Brown comics? That's what it sounded like. Now, that may sound like a small thing, but it's really important that as a singer you hear your own voice coming back at you. First, it's a comfort and it gives you confidence because you sound like yourself. Second, and much more important, if the sound is off you'll unconsciously compensate for the missing frequencies and hurt your voice. Eric had a gentle way of working with Sheila to get everything as sounding as good as they could, and then he was done. He kept making one statement that I thought was really pretty profound; "it sounds good, but it doesn't sound like me yet". It's really something that sound reinforcement engineers loose track of, as basic as that is.

OK, I did my sound check with Mr. Bib in the audience, and he was a great help dialing in the tone of my old National guitar. This can be tricky because it's not like a regular guitar made from wood- it's all steel and needs to have a certain 'thump' to it in order for all to be well with my universe. All was well.

We spent a few minutes talking guitars with him and then right after a quick bite to eat it was showtime. The sound was great and the Anchorage audience was exactly what you expect- energetic, involved and loud. I just love playing for the home folks- Anchorage audiences are just nothing short of excellent. It took me a minute though to get comfortable, because the theater was so dark that all I could see was the edge of the stage and then nothing- edge of the world darkness. Probably exactly what Christopher Columbus was afraid he's sail into. It's really that dark, kinda like singing into a black curtain.

I played 3 new songs, 2 of which you'll find on my new CD. I opened with the title cut "Glenn Highway Blues". It felt really comfortable, and armed with that sense of security I played a real slow song called "Hole in my soul", that I wrote the night my father died. It was the first time I've ever played that in public; it's a very personal song. The time was right and from the comments I heard later on it was well received.

And so my friends my last acoustic gig in Alaska has come and gone. Thanks to all of you I saw there for your support. Next stop, Humpy's. Tonight is the farewell show, last full gig of my road band! See you tonight!

Peace

Son

I'm ruined.....

They have eBay in Scotland. Check it out:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/

I thought I was escaping by leaving that behind. I'm ruined.....

Melissa Gibson's Birthday too

I just heard from Melissa, March 26 is her birthday and she's going to come to Studio 68 and celebreate with us. How cool is that?

CD Release Party!

Well, one last gig to mark on your calendar- we’re having out CD release party at Studio 68 on Saturday, March 26^th at 8 pm. Joel Lockman, John Clark and I spent a solid week in the studio working on a hybrid of old-school blues and a 21^st century punk attitude. We’re really excited about the results. So, join us for a night of merry-making and mayhem!

 

I’ll open the show with some solo delta blues, and then we’ll play an acoustic set as a band. This’ll gradually get louder and crazier as we go electric and bring up lots of friends and special guests. Oh, we’re recording this for posterity as well!

 

This is, however, the last gig for us till November (when we once again bring you ‘Blues for my Brother’). If I don’t see you, be well and take care of each other till I get back, ok? I’

 

I'm opening for Eric Bibb

Ahhh, yes. One last Alaska gig before I go- I'm opening for Eric Bibb at the Snow Goose Theater on March 11. Show starts at 7:30, I'll probably play for around 20 minutes- just enough to get crazy. But, thank goodness (and Marc Schoenberger) I've got my national guitar all rebuilt and ready to go. 'Spect it'll be quite a time.

Here we go....

Well gang it's getting closer to departure time, leaving Alaska for a couple of years to live and play in Scotland. I've had a couple of good friends ask me to set up a blog documenting my time away from Alaska, and so here it is! Gig trivia, travel stories and other announcements, courtesy of the internet...