John Hendow

On Thursday March 15 the 1 Uppers kicked off our “Third Thursday Twang Royale” at the Royale Room in Columbia City. This will be a recurring monthly event in which we will host a night of great country music with special guests joining us for the middle set. For this first occurrence our special guests were Liam Fitzgerald, Johnny 7, and Susan McIntire; all are familiar musicians in the local country / rockabilly scene. We went with the theme of “A Salute To George Jones” for these cover songs, which gave us a wealth of music from which to select.

Set list for 3/15:

I played the doubleneck Gretsch for the entire first set, then switched to the Danelectro baritone for the rest of the night. That doubleneck guitar is seriously heavy but a lot of fun to play.  I think I prefer the tone of the Danelectro, and it is a lot more comfortable to wear onstage as it probably weighs about 30% as the Gretsch. Because the Royale Room has an all-ages policy, there were a lot of young people in the audience. Several of them told me how much they liked the crazy silver doubleneck guitar. Always good to have the younger scene give you the official seal of approval 🙂 Oddly, I still cannot find a case for that guitar, despite searching online and asking people on the Gretsch forums. It’s good to have a quest I suppose… We had a great time with this first event and look forward to the next one!

Over the past few months I’ve been practicing fairly intensely for 1 Uppers and Dudley Manlove Quartet performances. Both bands hold regular practices together (more so with the 1 Uppers) but I’ve also been putting in a lot of time on my own, memorizing material and working to improve the accuracy of my execution. I have been noticing the dividends in live performances with both bands; ideas area moving more easily from mind to fingers, and I’m much faster at recognizing / improvising as the music evolves.

One of my objectives for regimented practice has been to increase my picking and fingering accuracy, especially at speed. I don’t do very much shredding in either of my bands but  I do get a few moments in DMQ where I can cut loose with a big solo, and it’s fun to have those chops available. I have been working on economical sweep picking and tapping exercises on my own, which seems to be improving my general picking technique. It’s very satisfying to have this investment of time bearing fruit. I’m looking forward to spending more time on jazz chord study, and on developing a stronger command over melodic minor playing.