John Hendow

In the 1 Uppers I frequently switch between my stratocaster and my Danelectro baritone guitar. Our set lists seem to always be perfectly arranged to maximize the number of times I have to switch 🙂 After a recent gig at the newly opened Royal Room, I was lamenting the inconvenience of the repeated switching. I said (half jokingly) that I really needed a double neck guitar that had both a baritone and a regular neck. One of my bandmates immediately pointed out that Gretsch actually makes such an instrument. I did some hunting online and discovered the Guitar Center in Little Rock, Arkansas had one in stock that was used, with a very attractive price! After a few calls to the store I decided to have them ship it over to Seattle so I could give it a whirl.

It’s likely I’ll bring it along with me to the New Year’s Eve show at The Sunset, just because it seems like a perfect opportunity to try it out on stage. The overall tone is classic Gretsch, and you just gotta love that silver sparkle finish with the TWO Bigsby tremolo bridges! It’s pretty heavy so I don’t see myself playing marathon gigs with it, but I love its visual vibe. This will be a fun addition to the guitar arsenal!

On Saturday 12/17 the 1 Uppers performed at The Royal Room, a new venue recently opened in Columbia City. It’s a very music-friendly room with excellent sight lines and a great sound system. Local jazz keyboardist Wayne Horvitz is one of the founders of the club, and he deliberately established it with musicians in mind. The stage has a permanent backline of equipment including guitar amps, a bass amp, a drum set, a grand piano and a Hammond B3.

I arrived to discover that one of the guitar amps was broken. Fortunately our singer David hadn’t left home yet, so he graciously brought along an amp for me to use… a Dr. Z head and cabinet! It rivaled my Boogie Lonestar for clear dimensionality and blues voicing. Definitely made my guitars sound very nice.

We performed on the opening weekend along with several local jazz luminaries, which made for some remarkable collaborations throughout the evening. Wayne sat in with us for a song, as did guitarist Tim Young. Throughout our performance I was struck by how fortunate I am to be in such great musical company. Another fantastic performance with my great friends in the 1 Uppers. Can’t wait for the next one!

On Friday 12/16 the 1 Uppers performed at Darrell’s Tavern in Shoreline. We’ve played there before and it’s always a great time. The crowd there is very supportive of live music, and they seem to appreciate just about every possible style. We often are part of a country-themed night there, and it seems to bring out the true believers in this style of music. The stage occupies about 25% of the floor space in the bar and we’re very close to the audience, which makes for an especially interactive and fun show. This weekend I performed both gigs as the only electric guitarist in the band; 1 Upper Kris Geren was out of the country so it meant I had more territory to cover in our songs.

I’ve been playing more baritone guitar in this band lately, which I’m really enjoying. For these shows where we are playing as a five-piece band, it’s been interesting to hear the texture of the mix with acoustic guitar being the sole instrument in the “regular” guitar range. I switch back to the strat for a number of songs where those parts are more crucial to the mix.

One of the interesting interactions I had in Friday was chatting with someone in the bar who is a guitarist and is interested in understanding country guitar playing styles such as Travis Picking and “chicken pickin’ “. I always feel a little sheepish discussing the technical details of country guitar playing since I’m sort of figuring it out as I go! So in this case I was able to make a semi-intelligent observation about those styles despite offering a disclaimer up front.

A great night of music with great friends!

On Saturday 12/31 The Dudley Manlove Quartet will be performing our annual New Year’s Rockin’ Eve show at the Sunset in Ballard. Advance tickets are available now and are strongly recommended as this event will sell out.  We’ll be pulling out the stops for another great show with new music and surprises. Come on out and ring in 2012 with the band and 200 of our closest friends.

This is the best NYE value in town, hands down: Twenty bucks gets you a champagne toast at midnight and all the Dudley you can handle. This will sell out fast, so get an early start on that “no procrastinating” resolution and buy your tickets now!