Video of the Day 9 May 2013: the Ford Brothers Band, 2006
This live performance was recorded at a reunion concert on “Sierra Center Stage,” which is apparently a television concert series on some channel somewhere. (Seems like it must be a PBS series,...
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Bit by Bit: Bringing the Boards Together
Now that I’ve got a basic layout for my two-amp modeler setup, I’m beginning the process of setting it up for fast, reliable load-in and tear-down. I started this weekend by painting the boards. Here’s...
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In Memoriam Walter Joyce
When I lived in Falmouth, MA, in the 1980s, I was close friends with Walter Joyce, who at the time was a pastry chef, and soon after taught karate for a living, before becoming a lawyer, which was the...
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So Long to the Big Amp, At Least For A While
My Peavey KB/A 100 started producing lots of bad sounds last night–crackles, pops, booming bass, sudden drops in volume. After 18 years, I guess it’s overdue for service. Anyway, I’m back to the KB2...
View ArticleVideo of the Day 25 May 2013: Pablo Fagundes, “Voo da Mosca”
This guy can play the chromatic harp. Did I mention that he can play? Can he ever. I can’t tell for sure what instrument he’s using, but it might be a CBH 2016, which is certainly the very thing for...
View ArticleA Few Things about Programming Patches for Your MultiFX Device
A number of the licensees for my Digitech RP patch sets have told me that they’ve tried and given up on programming the device, because it’s just so hard to make their own patches. (Some of them say...
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Going Wireless
I’ve been spending time thinking about how to make my rig look smaller and more compact. One of the important approaches to that end is cable management. The most prominent cable on the stage is the...
View ArticleAudio of the Day 2 June 2013: Blues Birdhead, “Mean Low Blues” (1929)
Holy smokes, this thing is crazy good. There’s a lot of chatter in the comments on Youtube about whether or not this is the first recorded instance of an overblow on the harmonica. To me this is like...
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Two Days, Three Jams in London
I was in London Sunday through Tuesday of this week, which was perfect for checking out some blues jams. On Sunday, I hit the afternoon jam at Ain’t Nothin’ But The Blues and the evening jam at TCR...
View ArticleFiguring out the Loop Layers for “Mellow Down Easy”
I’m back in my home studio, working on my looping, getting the songs and the related sounds together. I love big low-frequency layers, because it’s a new sound for the harp with a lot of power, so I’m...
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Nominate me for a SPAH award!
Okay, this is shameless shilling, and for myself too, which is doubly shameless. But I want to be nominated for a SPAH award. SPAH offers three annual awards (I quote here from SPAH’s website at...
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The RP500 Set is Locked and Loaded
I’ve completed the patch design, programming, and setup for the first RP500 Huntersounds patch set. Basically, it’s the v16 set for RP355 with 15 new patches. Some of those new patches, like a set I...
View ArticleVideo of the Day 26 June 2013: Boris Plotnikov, “Hair Up”
Boris Plotnikov from Ekatarinburg, Russia is one of our favorite up and coming harp players. This fun and funny little piece was recorded by Boris in a commercial for Philips vacuum cleaners. In...
View ArticleVideo of the Day 30 June 2013: Konstantin Reinfeld, “Seven Orange”
Reinfeld is a new player on the scene, obviously young, but with plenty of cool stuff in his head and his breath. This piece, a latin-tinged jazz number, sounds like it’s played in 3rd position on a...
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The Digitech Jamman XT Express: Synced Loop Firepower, Cheap
Digitech has just announced a new looper, the Jamman XT Express. I haven’t seen or touched one yet, so I don’t know how it performs in action. However, the feature set is both stripped down and...
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Upcoming Gig at Alpine Wines in Driggs, Aug 2 2013
Alpine Wines in Driggs ID–wine and song at the very least I’ve just booked a gig for Friday, August 2 at Alpine Wines on Main Street in Driggs, Idaho. The first set starts at 7 PM, and overlaps the...
View ArticleVideo of the Day 7 July 2013: Rob Paparozzi with the Shoos, Live in Dublin
Rob Paparozzi is on tour with the Original Blues Brother Band in Europe. He heard the Shoos, the stars of this video, playing on the street in Dublin, and joined in. The quality of the audio on this...
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A Cool Sunday Morning with Michael Batdorf at Pendl’s
I played this morning (Sunday, July 7) with singer-songwriter-guitarist Michael Batdorf at Pendl’s bakery in Driggs, ID. Not long after I showed up and plugged in–and I was indeed plugged in, through a...
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Rockin’ like a Dirty Bird: Jackson Kincheloe interview, part 1 (intro)
I interviewed Jackson Kincheloe of Sister Sparrow and the Dirty Birds right after the band’s performance on the afternoon of Sunday, July 21 2013 at Targheefest in Alta, Wyoming. The band sounded great...
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Digitech’s Vocalist Live FX: Anti-feedback for (relatively) cheap?
Digitech has announced the Vocalist Live FX, a vocal (duh) processor that includes anti-feedback circuitry with (according to Digitech) up to 12 bands of frequency filters, in addition to Lexicon...
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