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!
This year for the New Year’s Eve we were hired to perform at a wedding reception. It’s unusual for us to take a private booking for this night as it’s usually the biggest public event of our year. The client for this event was a friend of the band’s and she wanted to throw a fantastic, memorable party to follow her wedding. The event was very enjoyable and we performed a large set list comprising many of our favorite songs, along with a number of requests from the wedding party. Fortunately, the bride’s family is friends with my wife as well, so she was able to attend the event and we spent our New Year’s Eve together.
As part of the wedding ceremony itself I played classical guitar while guests were being seated. For the family’s processional Chris Joss (DMQ keyboardist) and I performed “Unchained Melody” as a duet for jazz guitar and accordion. And for the bride’s entrance, her brother and I performed a guitar duet of “Seabreeze” by Tyrone Wells. After the wedding was over I had the opportunity to join my wife for dinner.
The reception party was in full swing from the first song, with the dance floor full and plenty of great energy all around. At the stroke of midnight, the balloons dropped from the ceiling and champagne flowed. It was a fantastic event, and one that we were honored to be a part of. We’ll look forward to seeing our fans at the next public show. Many thanks to the bride and groom for throwing a great party and for inviting us to be a part of the fun.
