New Orleans

Sunday night, I just finished a gig in Greensboro. It was a 9 piece little big band thing. Charts and all. It was fun.
I'm back home watching Gustav take aim. I hope the levees, sea walls and whatever else holds back the water, hold. I have met a lot of musicians here in NC displaced by Katrina. It's disconcerting to meet all these talented people in this new environment for them. It's not the same here as in N.O. Thats for sure. The gig thing here is like totally not happening comparatively. I don't know what to tell them. That great music town brimming with talent, influence and history is headed for oblivion. Another flood and then another. Sea Level is rising, the storms are huge, the water is hot. It doesn't really matter if global warming is caused by humans or not. We are way to self involved to do anything meaningful about it. It's probably pointless anyway. Kind of dark, but hey, it's dark isn't it? Atlantis has a parade beat going with a groove that just won't quit. I remember the first time I heard the Olympia Brass Band I almost jumped out of my skin. I love New Orleans and I hope this storm doesn't take them out again.

Noise R Us

I was looking at a Myspace of trombonist Joe Bowie of Defunkt. The old downtown NYC band from the 70/80s. I suddenly had a flood of memories of a band I was in called Noise R Us. I joined that band in early 1979 I think or maybe 78 sometime.
The original line up was Lloyd Fonroff-Drums, Jim Matus-guitar, Mickey Ortiz-Vocals, Dave Sewelson-bari sax, George Bishop-tenor sax, Pablo Gebhardt-alto sax and Philip Johnston-soprano sax and me on bass. Our first gig was a Tier 3 in soho NYC. We opened for Luther Thomas and the Dazz band.
Joe Bowie is on this old 1980's compilation called "The Pulse of New York" (Glass Records) with Noise R Us. He and Charles Bobo Shaw were sitting in. It's a board tape made at Trax. The original Noise was something else. A big firestorm of Noise. What fun it was. I stayed in the band till the winter of 1980. Then John Lennon got killed and I left NYC because it upset me. But for about a year we didn't take any prisoners or make any apologies. I started going through all my old clippings and whatnot. Wow. I think I'll put a Noise Myspace up. 

<http://www.myspace.com/originalnoiserus>

how do you know

I was reading my email and the digi design newsletter was there. The new amp emulation plug in sounds exactly like this and that. How will anyone know? How do you know what a fender jazz bass through a bassman amp really sounds like unless you spent all kinds of time doing that. This emulation stuff is starting to get on my nerves. I have tried some of that and it just is, well ok. I'm always thinking that's ok. This pod thing is ok. This sans thing is ok. Ok is not good or great. Something gets lost and it is very hard to quantify. I think back to high school in the funk band Tragedy A.D. Winston-Salem. Fender Bassman with 2 15's and an Epiphone 1 15 ported stacked. Shit that sounded great. I think I had the first peavy head ever made or something. Just power. Giant transformer. 66 Jazz and hell yeah it sounded good. Those boxes don't sound like that. I couldn't carry all that stuff around now anyway.

more wrightness

I keep screwing up this blog. I'm still getting the hang of the new googleized blogger.

I watched Rev. Wright's sermon that caused all the stir.  I think he's right. He doesn't hate America. He loves it. He's telling it like it is without sugar coating everything with P.C. double talk.  To summarize; 

1.America is run by rich white guys.

Is that shocking or are people just stupid?

2. Hillary Clinton comes from a privileged background and Obama does not.

Yeah, that's what it looks like to me.

3. Jesus fought the power in his day.

 The fight was for justice and equality. He was always going on about that.

Yes,  read a red letter bible and tell me he didn't

4.Jesus was black.

Okay, maybe not, but he was a Semite and hey, he could have been dark skinned.

upright bass pickups

I've played upright bass for over 30 years now. Times flies when you're having fun or rushing an up tune. I have been through a fair amount of pickups in this time. 

Uprights are hard to amplify. It's so big and its natural tone is so rich that it's really difficult to reproduce that beautiful sound. Sometimes the natural sound is not really what's needed. My favorite way to play is with no amps. Just natural acoustic sound with no alternating current at 60 cycles. Switch the lights off. That being said,  I almost always have to use an amp with some sort of pickup on my 40s Juzek bass. I am just going to go through my pickup history as well as I can remember.

My 1st pickup was a stick on Bacus Berry. It pretty much sucked. You used this sort of bluish putty to stick the pickup on your bridge. This was 1976 when I got my first upright. A plywood from Chuck Levin's music in Wheaten Maryland. I was playing at Kings Dominion in Ashland VA that summer and went up there and bought my bass for 600 dollars. It was new and a pretty good bass.

The next pickup was a Polytone. It was this big brass thing that had a pointed end that adjusted with a screw wheel between the legs of the bridge. hmmm... sounds erotic or something. This pickup was ok but kind of sucked too. I think this was in 81 or something.

Next, I finally got an  UNDERWOOD. This was the newest stuff and it really was good.

Good is a relative term in upright bass pickups. It sucked less. I got it in 82 or so and it just broke two weeks ago 2008. I was using it again after not using it for almost 15 years.

 In this time I got my bass that I use today. I won it in an insurance settlement.

I had this bass, a 30's Juzek, that I found in a shop for cheap. It was cool and I was getting it fixed up a little at a time. It got destroyed in a car crash. I was coming home from a gig at the Stouffers Hotel in Winston-Salem. The other car ran a flashing red light and totaled my car and bass. I got three stitches in My head where the bass tuning key hit me. I had a Chevette and the neck poked into the front seat. Bang smack. It wasn't my fault and told the insurance people to either get me a 30's Juzek or give me x amount of money. I finally got the money and went to David Gage's shop in NYC and got a bass that will be good for me till the Angel of Mercy comes and takes me away.

I used the Underwood for about 10 years maybe less. I used an MXR micro amp with it and it was pretty good. I used it with a Polytone Minibrute for years. Then I got a GK MB150 from Sam Moss. That rig with the Micro Amp sounded really good.

I moved to a GK head with some number and an SWR Goliath Jr 2/10 with a horn speaker. A loud rig. In this time I also bought and sold a Fishman pickup. It came out and was the newest bestest shit. It didn't work on my bass worth a darn.

In  88 or 89 I got a Schertler Pickup. It was great for me at this time. It was really loud and had a pretty good sound. I used this till it broke around 2000. It had these microphonic transducers that had a pre-amp to power it. There were these little cork things that wedged in the bridge. I got another Schertler but it wasn't the same.

Then I got a Realist in 02 and used it for a couple of years. Then I went back to the Underwood and it just crapped out. Now I have this Upton thing which I will replace soon or go back to the Realist. The Upton is a 1-inch or so square piece of wood that goes in the bridge wing. It has a strong sound. The quest for tone continues.