John Hendow

Last night I attended the Three Below concert in Seattle, featuring three incredible musicians: Trey Gunn, Michael Manring, and Alonso Arreola. Trey is one of my favorite musicians and composers, and he is a trailblazer in touch instrument technique. He performed and recorded with King Crimson for twenty years, and has continued to expand his musical horizons in other global projects. Michael Manring was a student of fretless bass legend Jaco Pastorius, and has a very interesting approach to using the eBow on fretless bass. Alonso Arreola is new to me; he is a remarkable virtuoso who employs a wide range of slapping / popping / percussion techniques, and has recorded with David Fiuczynski .

The experience of seeing three bass wizards might sound like a master class, but this is a true musical experience. Each member of the ensemble performs an extended solo piece, showcasing their technique and approach; in each case, the use of effects and looping expands the horizons of the instrument. They also play a number of pieces arranged for the trio ensemble; this really shows off the highly developed musical awareness they each possess.

They have multiple dates on this tour, including Portland on Wed 10/8, and Corvallis on Thur 10/9. Read the reviews and get your tickets!

I am looking forward to this evening’s performance by King Crimson. The band produces intense, adventuresome rock music that defies categorization. One of the things I’ve long admired about them is their stylistic diversity and restlessness. It’s difficult to pin them down, and the band’s lineup changes every few albums. At the helm throughout the band’s existence has been Robert Fripp, one of the most individually unique guitarists in the world, who has collaborated with many other high influential musicians that I love (Peter Gabriel, David Bowie, Talking Heads, Brian Eno, etc).
Starting in the 1980s, the band has also included my favorite musician: Tony Levin. To quote the Wikipedia page:

A prolific session musician since the 1970s, Levin has played on 500 albums, including those of Cher, Alice Cooper, John Lennon,Sarah McLachlan, Stevie Nicks, Pink Floyd, Dire Straits, Lou Reed, Tom Waits, Buddy Rich, The Roches, Todd Rundgren, Seal, Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe, Warren Zevon, Kevin Parent, Laurie Anderson, Kate and Anna McGarrigle, Gibonni, and Jean-Pierre Ferland. Additionally, he has toured with artists including Paul Simon (with whom Levin appeared in Simon’s 1980 film One Trick Pony), Gary Burton, James Taylor, Herbie Mann, Judy Collins, Carly Simon, Peter Frampton, Tim Finn, Richie Sambora, and Claudio Baglioni.

Tony’s bass playing inspired me to pick up bass and to learn fretless. He always adds the perfect groove to every context. I’m really looking forward to hearing this new lineup of the band. It will be a challenging and inspiring night of music!

I’m pretty pleased with my AxeFX rig, and it continues to perform beautifully at shows of all sizes. My current setup involves a pair of Euphonic Audio VL110 cabinets. They’re great sounding and deliver a lot of punch. However, I’ve also been considering the possibility of using a monitor wedge for my listening position. I have been looking at the Xitone 1×12 passive monitor as a possibility. The advantage of a dedicated monitor would be putting the sound right at my performance position, and being able to carry a smaller rig.

Xitone cabinets get very good reviews from other AxeFX users, and I have been exchanging email with the owner of the company. It’s likely I’ll be adding this cabinet to my system in the near future.

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!

Last summer I had my main guitar refretted by Mike Lull, luthier extraordinaire. I had worn down the frets on my black Stratocaster to the point where it was pretty difficult to play. Mike did a beautiful job of refretting the guitar, and it made a world of difference in the playability of the instrument. I took the guitar back to him last week to have a quick adjustment made to the neck, and while I was there I asked him to remove the stock “roller nut” and replace it with a standard bone nut. The roller nut on this model strat is a source of rattling and vibration dampening. I should have had Mike do this replacement when he was working on the frets, but it didn’t occur to me.

The overall difference since the nut replacement is very noticeable. The tone of the guitar is clearer, and I don’t hear that occasional rattle from the headstock. I also think it’s vibrating more cleanly, with less dissipation. I’ve only had a chance so far to use the guitar in a practice environment; the real test will be onstage this next weekend. I’m looking forward to hearing it in that context.

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

On Tuesday 7/29 we held a full-band rehearsal in preparation for the upcoming BowieVision shows. When I recently upgraded my Fractal Audio AxeFX II XL to the most current firmware, I also updated the amp models in all of the presets I use for this show. It took me a bit of adjustment to get the tones back to where I wanted them, but it also meant I could do a bit of tweaking based on my experiences at the most recent shows.

For this rehearsal, I brought along my laptop so I could run Axe-Edit and make edits on the fly. It allowed me to dial in some quick changes for added punch and clarity. One new addition for the upcoming show is the song “Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)”, which has some wonderful guitar work by Robert Fripp. I put together a patch with multiple scenes for rehearsal, but in reviewing the playback afterward I decided my solo tone was not ominous enough. So I completely rebuilt the patch, making sure I have a sufficiently warped guitar tone for the solo sections.

This rehearsal also marked the debut of my expansion switch accessory for my MFC-101. It adds four additional switches to the board, and will allow me to call up some additional functions during our set.

Our rehearsal space is a big room with high ceilings and hard surfaces. The sound splatters around a lot, and that space could sure use some aggressive sound control. If we owned it, there would be corner traps, sound panels, and clouds. But it does have the benefit of being a live room, which lets us practice working in a challenging environment. If we can sound good, and play in time in that space, we can do it anywhere.

The next show will be Saturday 8/2 at Nectar Lounge in Fremont. I’m really looking forward to debuting some new material, and meeting fans in a new venue.

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.

On Saturday 7/16, I performed at the Bite of Seattle with two of my bands: The Dudley Manlove Quartet, and BowieVision. We had the opportunity for both bands to perform on the same stage, in adjacent time slots, so it was actually very easy from a logistic standpoint. The Bite of Seattle is a food and arts festival held every year at Seattle Center, and I have often performed at this event over the past thirty years. The stage crews have been all be around for that length of time, so I get to work with the same bunch of great engineers and stage managers who have made these shows successful and easy.

I arrived at about 11:30 AM with the few items that I actually needed for this gig: my guitar, my pedalboard, and a bag with a few cables and change of clothes. Each stage at this event is equipped with rented backline equipment including a drum set, bass amp, guitar amp, keyboard stand and amp, and so on. It makes the changeover between bands very easy, and allows us to travel pretty light. My equipment was driven to the stage in a Gator (basically a 4WD golf cart with a small pickup bed), and I got to ride along, doing my best parade queen wave as we wove through the crowd.

The Dudley Manlove Quartet performed first, charging through a high-energy set. I was particularly delighted that we played “Night Fever” by the Bee Gees, as it got everyone up and dancing. Disco music allows people to pretend they’re making fun of disco dancing, when in fact they are enjoying themselves doing it. We also delivered some classic rock hits to keep the crowd moving. Following a short break and wardrobe change, we returned to the stage as BowieVision and played another 45 minutes. We definitely had some Bowie fans in the crowd, as there were several people singing along who knew all the words.

The overall experience of working at these events is always fun. It’s a big festival with happy people enjoying food, beer, and fun energy. I did spot a booth selling elk burgers, which sounded really good, except it was so hot that day and I was already pretty overheated from playing two sets in the sun. Maybe I’ll get that elk burger next year.