Last night’s show at Neumo’s was great despite the fact that I began the day with a horrible headache that never completely went away. For shows where a modest crowd is anticipated, the bar has a policy of closing part of the room off with a curtain. This allows them to work with a smaller staff and minimizes production expenses. Our show on Saturday was a “curtain show”… at least at first… when we arrived for load-in we knew there had already been a lot of interest in the show. Once we hit the stage as “Black Celebration”, it was clear the curtain needed to be removed (which occurred right on cue). Playing to a full house is always more fun, and with the whole room dancing there was a lot of great energy. I managed to catch a good portion the middle band “Love Vigilantes”, and had to sprint to our dressing room to change before taking the stage again as “80s Invasion”.
My general impression of the gig was things went very well. Load-in is just about as easy as any gig could be: there is a door directly opening onto a loading area, and the path from street to stage is flat. Separate power circuits are dedicated to the lights and audio gear, with additional power drops for each circuit onstage. This is important to our bands because we bring a number of stage lighting effects to augment the house gear. This was one of the first gigs where I used my in-ear monitor setup and I did have a number of observations after the gig:
It’s great having some of the stage volume blocked out. I really like being able to clearly hear my guitar. But with such good isolation I couldn’t hear the rest of the band quite as well. I’m thinking of getting a 4-channel mixer, plugging a microphone into it, and combining that ambient mix with my guitar. That would provide the best of both worlds.
During the “Black Celebration” set I made some mental notes about the backing vocal arrangements. It seemed to me that our collective phrasing is decent, but there are some places where we don’t consistently carry notes until the end of phrases. I’ll bring that up during our next soundcheck. “80s Invasion” had a really great set with some fun high points. Nicole is really nailing her vocal parts and she’s a delight to work with.
By the end of the night I had pretty much forgotten about the headache (which I still had the next day, but that’s another story). The bar staff and production team at Neumo’s are top-notch and really made the night go smoothly. I felt very comfortable with the way we played and look forward to our next show.
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My Bands
Last night I performed some necessary maintenance on my primary electric guitar, which happens to be a Fender Stratocaster. The output jack has been intermittent since last month and I wasn’t going to risk playing another gig without fixing it. Testing with a continuity meter didn’t immediately reveal the issue and I knew it was going to require some disassembly to diagnose it. When I removed the jack plate and inspected the soldering and wires it wasn’t immediately apparent that anything was wrong, but I went ahead and replaced the jack. I made two important discoveries in the process. First, the existing jack had a slight rattle, and when tested with the meter it showed a poor connection between the body and the ground lug. This was the source of my intermittent output. The second discovery was that the routing in guitar body underneath the jack plate was pretty tight. So after I replaced the jack and reinstalled the plate, there wasn’t quite enough clearance for the phone plug to easily fit inside the routed cavity. It worked if forced into the jack, but this put pressure on the jack body, which is probably why the internal connection failed on the previous jack. After a few minutes of adjustment I discovered it was barely possible to make it fit, provided the jack was rotated to a specific angle before being tightened in the jackplate housing.
So the problem is rectified for the moment, but ultimately I need to rout a little more wood from one end of the existing cavity. It’s a problem I’ll solve at a later date. For the moment, the black strat is ready for gig action and that’ll get me through this weekend’s show.
My next guitar repair project involved my backup strat, which needs several things done. I’ll probably get around to that project next weekend.
Today I received confirmation from Neubauten.org that my recent DVD order is shipping. “Recent” is a relative thing… I actually placed the order back on 11/29/2008, but I’m sure the delay is a combination of the holidays and the generally methodical pace of German industry. The DVD is a film adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s At The Mountains Of Madness, with musical score provided by my favorite band “Einstürzende Neubauten”. The project is pretty exciting. I’m a huge fan of the band and have supported their efforts for over 2 decades, purchasing music and video, and attending their concerts whenever they tour the US. And H.P. Lovecraft is my favorite author! So this is a perfect conjunction for my tastes. I’m sure it will take a few weeks for the package to arrive, but at some point next month I intend to have an evening of watching this DVD. Review to follow…
Last night I finished the first book in the Dark Tower series and have now begun reading the second. I’d forgotten the turmoil of this book. It’s interesting to review some of the sections of the story with the benefit of knowing the full plot arc from my previous reading. There is little doubt that this is Stephen King’s finest written work. He really has infused his characters with a lot of conflict, and there is a lot to keep track of. I haven’t been able to confirm whether J.J. Abrams is indeed making a movie of this series, but I am hopeful… it would be quite a thing if true.
Today I dropped off my Warr Guitar for the various changes I want to make. The local luthier doing the work is probably the best in the Northwest. I left him with extensive printed instructions of exactly what work I want done, along with diagrams (it’s impossible to remove my Project Manager hat…) and spent about 15 minutes walking him through it. And then I spent another 15 minutes shooting the breeze with him because he’s such an interesting guy.
Because one of the changes I’m making involves fabricating a new nut, which is typically made of bleached bone, the luthier will need to locate a fairly large segment of bone to use. This may delay the configuration of the instrument. Hopefully it’ll only take a week or so…
Today when I got home from work I found the mailman had delivered my Warr guitar strings. Looks like I’m paying a visit to the luthier tomorrow!
I’m generally skeptical of New Year’s resolutions. But among the things I’m trying to make happen this year is to get each of my instruments into the hands of a qualified luthier. I have a few [guitars, basses, banjos] that all need minor service and at this point there’s no way I can make time to do it at home. Fortunately, they’re all in good shape and there really aren’t any major repairs necessary. A little solder work here, a little adjustment there. One of my basses needs to have the frets dressed. One of the strats needs a bunch of minor tweaks. I’d like to replace the pickups on one of the fretless basses. My banjo needs to have its Keith/Scruggs tuners replaced. The tele needs a new output jack. And the list goes on.
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Last night’s show at Neumo’s was great despite the fact that I began the day with a horrible headache that never completely went away. For shows where a modest crowd is anticipated, the bar has a policy of closing part of the room off with a curtain. This allows them to work with a smaller staff and minimizes production expenses. Our show on Saturday was a “curtain show”… at least at first… when we arrived for load-in we knew there had already been a lot of interest in the show. Once we hit the stage as “Black Celebration”, it was clear the curtain needed to be removed (which occurred right on cue). Playing to a full house is always more fun, and with the whole room dancing there was a lot of great energy. I managed to catch a good portion the middle band “Love Vigilantes”, and had to sprint to our dressing room to change before taking the stage again as “80s Invasion”.
