Archive for March, 2011

The Gold Top Arriveth

March 31, 2011 by John No Comments »

Last year Gibson did a limited run of reissue Les Paul Gold top guitars with P90 pickups. I attempted to order one but they sold out very quickly and then started showing up on eBay at a premium. I kept an eye out for one in smaller local stores, but never came up with one. About four months ago I noticed that Gibson was doing another limited run on these guitars, and I placed a pre-order hoping for the best. I was notified that the instruments were back-ordered, then on street date the status immediately changed to sold out.

We left for a few weeks of vacation in Italy, and upon our return I found that the guitar had been delivered to the office! Hooray! I only brought it home last night and haven’t had much time to put it through its paces, but so far I quite pleased with it. This guitar will get a lot of action in the Dudley Manlove Quartet and the 1 Uppers.

 

Thoughts On The 3/5 Dudley Manlove Quartet Performance

March 7, 2011 by John No Comments »

On Saturday 3/5 The Dudley Manlove Quartet performed at The Triple Door in Seattle. This performance marked the 16th anniversary of the band. The show was sold out over a week in advance, and we knew this one was going to be a great party. When we arrived for load-in there were already people in the bar waiting for the main room to open. Loading into The Triple Door is a bit of an adventure. It starts in the alley between between the venue and the parking garage, pulling equipment up a short ramp into an elevator vestibule. From there it’s down the elevator into the back of the main room, and then you snake your way back and forth through every level of the booths to make your way to the dance floor in front of the stage. Then you hoist gear up onto the stage. Fortunately, all my equipment fits onto my cart, so at least it’ s only one trip.

With the horns playing on this show it meant adding another riser on stage right, putting them behind our keyboard player. The venue does provide bass and guitar amps, and a drum set. They do have a Fender 65 Twin Reissue, which is the same model of amp that I use with this band, but the last time I performed at The Triple Door I found the house amp was badly in need of retubing. My amp just returned from being retubed, rebiased, and generally cleaned up. So I brought my own amp to the gig. Steve played through an impressive GK stack bass rig that put out a whallop of low frequency. Every time I walked by that amp it was like getting a massage…

We kicked the night off and never looked back. It was probably our best musical performance since I joined the band. Everyone sounded really solid and we played really well. With such a big crowd there wasn’t much room for dancing but everyone managed to find places to boogie in the aisles and in front of the booths. I’m sure the wait staff was a little annoyed at having to dodge their way through exuberant dancers, but hopefully everybody made up for it with nice tips!

This was a very satisfying show and one that I’ll remember as a peak moment for the band. A high school classmate of mine, Chris Joss, is substituting on keyboards with us. He has done a very good job of covering the complex parts in our songs and is a pleasure to work with. Anybody ever in need of a great keyboardist should look him up! At the end of the night I spent time chatting with friends in the audience and didn’t get my equipment packed up until about an hour after the end of the show. Since Jeff and Steve had both used the house equipment, their loadout was very easy. I was the only one with a big pile of gear to haul back to the alley… fortunately the house sound operator helped me get as far as the elevator vestibule at street level, which left me only needing to fetch the car and load up.

Friends of ours joined us back at the house to celebrate the night with a few bottles of wine and snacks. I woke up the next morning with a sore back and slight headache (from perhaps one too many glasses of wine after the gig!). All in all, I’d say that is a successful evening.