John Hendow

Over the past few weeks we’ve been putting in some dedicated rehearsals for our upcoming BowieVision shows. This comes with the usual fun of loading up my car with a few hundred pounds of gear, loading up my cart, and pulling it into the rehearsal room. Fortunately, we typically rehearse at a facility where there is a fairly convenient ramp into the building, so generally there aren’t any stairs involved.

We’re adding “Beauty and the Beast” for this show, which is really exciting. It’s one of my favorite Bowie songs, and I enjoy playing Adrian Belew’s fantastic guitar parts. We are double-billing for the next two shows,with a band called “This is not my beautiful band”; they’re a Talking Heads tribute from Portland, and reputed to be quite good. I’m looking forward to hitting the stage tomorrow night for our show. Feels like our rehearsals are going well, and the material in our extended set is sounding really good. If you’re out and about in Seattle (1/24) or Portland (1/31), I’d recommend checking out the show!

On Saturday 9/30, two of my bands performed as a double bill at the Fremont Oktoberfest. We have performed at this event many times in the past, and it was great to continue our annual tradition of being a part of this great outdoor party. We arrived to find the usual crowd: huge, enthusiastic, and ready to party! The Dudley Manlove Quartet performed first, running some of our favorite pop and rock hits. The crowd really responded nicely to the 60 and 70s pop, and when we launched into the 80s material and rock classics, it was over the top.

We had just a few moments between bands to do some resetting, and to change clothes. BowieVision was a big hit, with the audience joining us to sing backup vocals on a number of songs.

For this pair of performances, I brought the full AxeFX system, which was very satisfying. When I started to set up, the stage tech manager came over with a mic stand, ready to put it in front of my speaker cabinets. I told him “thank you, but I don’t need a microphone, just the XLR cable please. I’ll give you a full-range output from my system”. He wasn’t thrilled about it and said something to the effect of “direct out for guitar never works”. That statement may be true for some processors, but with the AxeFX, direct is really the optimum connection method for the board. The AxeFX handles the effects, amp, speaker cabinet, microphone and room response modeling. At any rate, I checked in with him between bands to see if the FOH operator needed any adjustments. He didn’t ask for anything to be changed so I just carried on. The response and tone of the AxeFX is fantastic, and I’m really enjoying the system.

Looking forward to the next big public shows for both bands. BowieVision will be performing at the Crocodile on Saturday 10/25, and the Dudley Manlove Quartet will be performing at the Sunset Tavern on Friday 10/31. See you there!

On Wednesday August 20, The Dudley Manlove Quartet performed in Everett, Washington as part of their summer concert series downtown. We arrived in the late afternoon to discover that we’d be outdoors facing the sun, and performing without any sort of shade. As much as I love playing music under any condition, I’m not fond of the sun, and I never like to be in the sun for very long. I did have some sunscreen with me, and a good pair of sunglasses, so at least it was manageable.

We had a fabulous PA system, provided by a local contractor. The FOH operator was ready for us when we arrived, so it was a quick and productive soundcheck. I really enjoyed the sound of the EAW monitors that are part of his system. They made it easy for us to hear ourselves with fantastic clarity at a low volume. For this performance I decided to bring my regular amp / pedalboard setup instead of the Fractal Audio rig. The FOH operator commented he’d like to hear the Fractal Audio system, but he really liked the sound of the Boogie as well. I had a nice compliment from a local guitar shop owner who was in attendance at the concert as well.

When the show was over, it took about ten minutes to clean the sweat and grime from my guitar. Playing outdoors seems to always involve a lot of extra mess. All in all, a good show, despite the sun 🙂 I’m looking forward to the next one.

On Saturday August 2, BowieVision performed at the Nectar Lounge in Fremont. This show continues our run of 100% sold out shows since the band’s first performance. Opening the show was local tribute band “Purple Main”, performing the hits of the man in purple himself. It was fun to hear that music. I’ve always loved Prince’s music and been moved by his incredible guitar playing.

We hit the stage ready to rock, starting the show with “Fame”. This show also marked the debut of “Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)”, which we had only introduced at rehearsal the previous Tuesday. It went very well during soundcheck so we decided to include it in the show. I was delighted at how well it was received. I had spent quite a bit of time working up the transcription for this song. The studio version of this song appears on “Scary Monsters” and the entire album includes some fantastic guitar work from Robert Fripp. Recreating his sound and phrasing is pretty challenging for me, and it requires close attention to detail. The song has three solos (1) guitar synth solo of ten bars (yes, I know… it’s Fripp… you just let him do ten bars if that’s what he feels) (2) a 16 bar solo in the middle of the song which alternates between D and B (a deliberate tribute to David Bowie himself) and finally (3) a 16 bar solo during the refrain / outtro. For our rendition of this song, I take the first solo on guitar synth, then perform the second solo using a Fripp patch I built on the AxeFX. The third solo is performed by our saxophone player Brian Bermudez, which gives him a nice opportunity to deliver a good sax freakout.

This show was also the first performance at the Nectar where I had my AxeFX system. The house engineer was intrigued when I set it up, and after sound check he was very pleased with its sound. During load-out he approached me and said that the tone of my rig was incredible and made the mix super easy to manage. That is kind of feedback that you want to hear! I have noticed that my EA speakers are not terribly efficient. This was noted when I bought them from their previous owner, but I decided it was probably going to be enough volume for most stages. I’m starting to wonder if I should add a powered 12″ monitor wedge to the front of the stage. For smaller stages and rehearsals, this would also give me the option to go with just the monitor for quick setup. Decisions decisions…

I’m already working on new songs for the next shows. The band is sounding amazingly good, and I’m really enjoying the challenge of performing this music.

Set list for 8/2/2014

• Fame
• Ziggy Stardust
• Changes
• China Girl
• Jean Genie
• Starman
• The Man Who Sold The World
• Life On Mars?
• Rebel Rebel
• Suffragette City
• Fashion
• Absolute Beginners
• Space Oddity
• Golden Years
• Ashes To Ashes
• Blue Jean
• Scary Monsters
• Young Americans
• Let’s Dance
• Under Pressure
• Heroes

This coming Saturday, my band BowieVision is performing at Nectar in Seattle. We are working on a few new songs for this performance, including “Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)”, from the Scary Monsters album. It’s another time I have to recreate the frenetic 1980s guitar sound of Robert Fripp. On this track, I believe he is using a Watkins Electric Music (WEM) Project V fuzz pedal, an extraordinarily rare guitar effect that he also used on the Brian Eno recordings of the same period. This pedal can produce a classic buzz-saw fuzz effect (think “Satisfaction” by the Stones) and also has a primitive bit-crusher effect that deconstructs the sound into almost a ring-modulation tone.

It’s an interesting challenge replicating this tone in the AxeFX. For the guitar parts in “Fashion”, I use a complex stacked tone with two separate effects chains, with dedicated amps and cabinets for each part of the overall tone. During the two solo sections I switch to separate scenes with additional gain and modulation intensities.

Without question, Robert Fripp’s guitar parts are the most challenging aspect of this band to recreate. His sound and playing is unique and idiomatic unto itself. I have listened to mister Fripp’s playing in many settings, and appreciate how he approaches music. It’s a fun puzzle to work out his parts and play them live. After our recent Triple Door performance, an audience member complimented me on having navigated those difficult solos in “Fashion” with an authentic tone. That really means a lot to me, since those parts total less sixty seconds of music and took several days to work out.

Over the past few weeks the members of BowieVision have been working hard to polish our arrangements for the upcoming shows. We have a number of new songs being added for these performances and I’ve continued to refine my tones as I pay tribute to Bowie’s very talented guitarists.

For most of the songs I’m still using the black stratocaster, but the Les Paul goldtop is also being called into action. The combination of the P90 pickups and chambered body gives me a nicely balanced tone for Mick Ronson’s guitar parts. The strat provides a tighter sound that helps situate it in the more dense mixes for songs like “Fame”. Overall, my signal path is pretty simple: Pork Loin + 168 ms delay + reverb. The most complex signal chain for any song in our current set list is “Fashion”, where I am recreating Robert Fripp’s huge guitar sound with the Wampler Sovereign + pitch change (for solos) + delay + Strymon Lex + reverb. Mr. Fripp produces a frantic, angular sound and it’s challenging for me to fill those big shoes!

I’m looking forward to the show on Friday 1/24 in Tacoma, at the Swiss Tavern. In my years with Jumbalassy we performed there regularly and it always was a great venue for us. We’ll also be performing on Friday 2/14 in Seattle at the Crocodile. Come on out to one of these shows and join us!

We’re most definitely ready for 2013. Things are moving ahead with bookings for the band and we’re putting together a great schedule of shows in night clubs. This is my 4th year as a member of The Dudley Manlove Quartet and it’s a great experience to work with such fine musicians who also happen to be great friends. It’s rare to have a solid bunch of musicians who are so even-keeled and dedicated, and who get along so well. There are long hours involved with being in a band and we are blessed with an abundance of goofy humor to keep things upbeat. As musicians, we’re a serious bunch and spend a lot of time discussing our music, and are constantly fine-tuning to improve.

Over the past four years we’ve spent a lot of time polishing material that has been in the band’s repertoire and adding new songs with more complex arrangements. I didn’t expect that I’d ever have to learn to play harmonic, or to transcribe mandolin parts. But that’s been part of the fun! New songs almost always require transcription for me; I’m a big proponent of transcribing songs as a musical exercise – especially for guitar solos. It requires careful listening to an entire arrangement, and dissection of minutae that give a song its personality. For some songs I’ve spent significant time listening to the guitar parts trying to figure out exactly how something was performed on the recording. In a few cases I’ve been able to ask questions to the musician directly, to determine whether something was recorded backwards or sped up in post-production, or how they perform the song live. All that helps me develop an authentic arrangement for the song that can then be embellished with the band’s performance style.

For 2013 I have a number of objectives including developing my vocal range. More of our songs feature 3 part harmony and I’m enjoying the challenge of singing outside my usual range. The band has two very strong vocalists already so I have plenty of incentive to improve! As a guitarist, my objective for the year is to develop a stronger command of our jazz standards. I have some training as a jazz guitarist and want to extend my abilities, particularly for soloing over complex arrangements.

The opportunity to perform in an ensemble that has a balance of fun and serious musicianship is very rewarding. It keeps me on my toes and is good incentive to constantly improve. There is no substitute for playing in a live setting with other musicians.

This past weekend I spent 10 hours transcribing and practicing my guitar parts for the upcoming DMQ Halloween Show. We are adding six new songs plus bringing back some favorites. For the new additions I had to start the with the song in the original recorded key and transpose it to an appropriate key for our vocalist. Whenever I am faced with this kind of task, I’m very glad that I studied music in college, and that I have some technology to help make part of the work a little easier.

1. The first step was taking each song from its original CD and converting it to MP3. This is really just for convenience as the file size is much more manageable during all the steps that follow. I used iTunes to rip the CD tracks to decent quality MP3s.
2. Then I imported the MP3s into Sony Vegas. Although this product is aimed at digital video editing it also has good multitrack audio editing capabilities, and it’s on my main computer at home so it’ s fairly convenient for quick work like this. There is a handy plugin that can change the pitch of the songs without changing the audio duration. Once this is done, I export the edited file as a new MP3.
3. Then I open up MuseScore, a free notation program that is becoming my favorite tool for writing charts. It has the capability to handle complex multipart scores, but I primarily use it for creating standard notation charts for my guitar parts. Once I had written out the parts in MuseScore, the next step was proofing the chart. The software can actually play the notes, which isn’t great-sounding given the weak MIDI implementation in my computer, but at least the notes and durations are right.
4. Finally, it’s woodshed time! I spent about six hours working through my charts, programming tones, and practicing the mechanical execution of the parts.

Some of the songs we are doing were originally recorded in “guitar-friendly” keys, allowing the player to use open-string voicings for ease of performance. In the keys we’ll be playing, these parts suddenly become quite challenging with awkward chord voicings and difficult stretches. I don’t like to use a capo and have never owned one! If I can’t get smoothly work out the performance aspects of these guitar parts, I might consider retuning a guitar especially for this set.

The guitarist who recorded the parts on these original recordings typically plays a Gibson Les Paul through a Marshall amp. His tone is pretty distinctive. I will use my Les Paul for this set, but since I play a Boogie Lonestar (voiced more like a vintage Fender Twin), I’ll need to use a pedal to emulate the big dark tone of a Marshall. It’ll be the ZVEX “Box of Rock” that will help me dial this in.

We’re also working on costumes for the artist being featured this year. We always have fun preparing this material and I’m sure this year’s show will be blast. Come on out and join us for a night of fun music!

On Saturday 9/15 the Dudley Manlove Quartet performed at a private event in Seattle. We arrived on time and loaded in for sound check. When I picked up my trusty Boogie Lonestar to set it up, I noticed the 5U4 rectifier tube wasn’t seated in its socket, so I pushed it back in. Then I set up my equipment, including the Furman power conditioner and plugged in the amp. And powered up. And nothing happened.  Few things in this world match the sickening feeling of turning on a piece of equipment and having it not function. I pulled out the fuse and verified it was blown; in fact, the fuse was blackened inside indicating a high voltage failure. Egad… after the previous bout of amp woes I was wondering if I was cursed!

Rather than attempting to troubleshoot the amp further I made an emergency phone call to my wife, who saved me by bringing me my backup amp. Yes, I realize that’s above and beyond the call of duty. I expect that I owe her a tropical vacation for this heroism.

The gig went great and we had a lot of fun. Once the gig was over I had the opportunity to delve a little further into the Lonestar situation. What I discovered was the 5U4 Rectifier tube had come loose and broken off its orientation key, so when I reinstalled it I must have accidentally inserted incorrectly. The pins were in the wrong holes in the socket, and the fuse immediately blew. What makes this especially odd is that this amplifier has both solid state and tube rectifiers, and you can switch between them based on the amp’s output setting; if you have the amp in 50w mode you can selected either the solid state or tube rectifier, and in the 100w mode it’s solid state only. I always have the amp in 100w mode for maximum headroom, but apparently even when the switch is set for solid state rectification the 5U4 tube is receiving power from the input transformer. So the incorrect orientation of the pins cascaded a failure and the fuse blew. My amp technician strongly recommends using the amp without that tube in place at all (!) which seems odd to me. I’m considering the possibility of replacing it with an  octal-base solid state rectifier just in case the amp gets set in 50w mode at some point. Given that I had just replaced all four of the power tubes, having the rectifier also give me trouble was frustrating. But at this point I’ve got the full complement of power section tubes replaced and all should be good.

I swear, I better not have any amp problems anytime soon. It makes for a some grumpy moments.

After months of anticipation, the 1 Uppers CD was released on 9/14. We held the CD release event at one of our favorite local venues, The Tractor Tavern in Ballard. They have been very supportive of local music over the years and it was a pleasure to celebrate this CD release in their space. It was a great night with many familiar and new faces in the audience, and once the band hit the stage for the first song we knew it was going to be a good night!

As always, the audience came ready to dance and sing along. Everyone joined in for the choruses on the crowd-pleasing “Cadillac Truck” and even on the new song “Get It Right”. It’s always funny to observe how easily the audience defines their part in our songs and joins us for the fun.

I brought the trusty black strat and the Danelectro baritone for this gig. I was a little tempted to bring the Gretsch doubleneck but with limited stage space I worried that I’d be colliding with my bandmates. In retrospect I suppose I could have just brought it and been careful with the space awareness. The set flew by with some great moments. We definitely tore up some of the material from the CD, with furious soloing in abundance.

The next few weeks will be an interesting time for us as we’re continuing to promote the CD with live shows and online advertising. We have shows coming up including the “Third Thursday Twang Royale” at the Royal Room in Columbia City. If you’re out and about, come on down and join us!