John Hendow

Last night we had the first rehearsal for a new band called “The One-Uppers”, organized by the inimitable Jon Hyde who is a good friend and a frighteningly talented musician. Some of the band members are regulars in the Jon Hyde band, and a few others (myself f’rinstance) have been invited to join the fray. We’re slinging up some classic country tunes in an authentic style, which is a lot of fun. I brought along my trusty strat last night, which I plugged into a fabulous Dr. Z amp kindly loaned by fellow One-Upper Kris (dang… wish I could afford one of those amazing amps!).  But now that I’ve heard the texture of our band with his solid Tele tone I think I’m going to switch to my Guild Starfire for a mellow counterpoint.

Once we get an hour of material nailed down, we’ll get a gig on the books. Ayup… The One-Uppers are coming to town.

Our show at Bop Street Records was a lot of fun. There aren’t a lot of really big record (LP) stores left, and this one is seriously big. Boasting an inventory of one million (!) vinyl platters, Bop Street is a haven for awesome music. Our show went really well. I’d say Josh and Janie were more relaxed onstage than ever before. Brad is always the pro and did a great job covering his many instruments.

A few friends from work came down to catch the show. Big should out to Jon, Licoln, Bill, and Tom for being there.

My bass rig sounded pretty good in this room. I turned the output on my bass head to its maximum and used the preamp to moderate the volume, which yielded a very large tone. The more that I experiment with the compression settings on the PodXTLive, I’m convinced it’s necessary for a solid bass tone from the OLP. I still want to find a great 6 string bass, but for the moment I am reasonably satisfied with my setup.

The Preons will be playing a number of shows this summer, and I’m looking forward to adding more of our new songs to the set list. Hopefully we’ll be able to expand our new set to 2 hours before the end of summer. That would give us a good range of active material to work with.

The Preons will be playing at Bop Street Records this Saturday (4/26) at 9:00 PM. I’m looking forward to doing this show as it will give us a chance to play for a new audience, and to continue to refine our songs. If you happen to be out and about this Saturday evening, please come down to Ballard and check us out.

Bop Street Records
5219 Ballard Ave NW
Seattle, WA 98107
(206) 297-2232

I’ve been considering the purchase of an XBOX 360 for some time and have finally arrived at the conclusion that I should get one. My mission at this point is to locate one of the new “falcon chip” units which are supposedly less prone to the overheating problems associated with earlier units. I’ve made a list of what to look for when examining the packaging to ensure I’m getting the new version.

Yesterday an employee at Best Buy offered some helpful advice including “buy the extended warranty.” I don’t find that to be very surprising in terms of advice, given the reliability track record of this gizmo. Still, I’m thinking it’ll be fun to have it, and I’m planning to make the purchase some time in the next week or so.

Yesterday I was working on one of my band web sites and I decided what I need is a simple RSS feed mechanism that supports all my current gigs. This will be handy for inclusion in each of the bands’ individual web sites, and in my own overall view on this site (and some others, too). I decided it was something I want to write myself, so I started to stub out the code last night using PHP and MySQL. It’s going pretty well so far and I think I can finish the project before next weekend. The LAMP architecture is interesting and I’m looking forward to continuing this project in my spare time.

In Jumbalassy we spent a lot of time on the road. One of my favorite tours was a jaunt up and down the West coast in which we drove nearly the full length of I-5 and subtsantial parts of Hwy 101. Along the way we did a show in Mendocino, California and early in the morning I found myself looking out at the coast and sipping a cup of coffee. Our intrepid drummer Doug took this picture, which always reminds me of (1) that crisp morning enjoying the salt air and (2) that I probably should have gotten a haircut at that point in my life. Oh well. At least I didn’t fall into the ocean.

I’ve made another upgrade to my Drupal experiment site (www.sleestak.us) and discovered that it’s still not capable of properly managing images. Not terribly surprising since the 6.2 update addresses several security issues identified in the v6 engine. It’s disappointing, given that the current versions of Drupal and WordPress both have broken image upload capabilities that were functional in earlier code versions. Hopefully this is something that will be addressed before too long.

Well, after showing up to get my wisdom teeth pulled, it was determined they really don’t need to come out after all. So I get to keep them – at least for now. Hooray for second opinions!

At this time tomorrow I’ll be exactly 2 wisdom teeth duller. I’m not certain of the precise effect of having my final two wisdom teeth removed, but hopefully I’ll still be able to remember important stuff like the lyrics to the lumberjack song.

The Rendezvous is one of Seattle’s classic downtown bars. It’s gone through phases of being something of a dive, but lately it’s been returned to its rightful place as a cool live music venue. I always enjoy playing there, and the staff is great. Last night’s gig was a late one, with three bands on the bill. We started playing at around midnight, which meant the audience was suitably “prepared” for our show 🙂

Josh showed up all dressed in white, perhaps a yin to my yang. I was wearing all black, but just as I left the house I decided to grab a green shirt. I should have gone all-black in keeping with tradition. Josh also arrived with a newly-purchased fog machine and some stage lights. Through providence or poor planning, the fog machine’s controls were placed on top of my bass amp, thus providing me with some degree of weather control. Last night’s forecast was: fog.

This was the first gig where I used the PodLiveXT to dramatically process my bass tone. The addition of more aggressive compression helped the low B string punch through a little more, and I think a short reverb also helps smooth out the overall sound – especially on songs like Ghosts of the Dalles which calls for a slightly more somber tone.

My friend David arrived early to help run sound, but alas… he didn’t do at this gig. I’m really looking forward to having him run our sound at the next opportunity. He’s got great ears and really understands how music production works. It’ll be a huge step forward for us to have his help. Also in attendance was Paul, who is a fine local musician. At some point we’ll be inviting him to join us on a double bill.

Overall, a fun evening. I’m looking forward to the next gig.