John Hendow

For our gig at the Mix, I was the first musician to arrive. And the first to leave. There were three bands on the bill that night, with The Preons scheduled to go onstage at 9:00. We had agreed to be there for a 7:00 load in, and I was in the front door of the club with my gear at exactly 7:00, only to discover that I was alone. I chatted with the house sound engineer and described our setup and input list. Then I loaded my rig onto the stage, set up the Warr Guitar and bass, and got all tuned up. Then I drank a beer. And another. About thirty minutes later a few members of the next band drifted in. Then more members of my band, and people from the last band. We eventually were all ready and managed to start right on time. 

When our set was over, I tore down as quickly as possible to get out of the way. One of the challenges with having two instruments is the extra cords, stands, and cases. I really need to find ways to make setup / teardown faster. Once I was off stage I had a few minutes to visit with my friends David, Debby, Bill, Kim,. Shane, Wally, Bill (yes, another Bill), Dorothy and Dave. Then I loaded up my gear and we headed out to our next engagement of the evening, which meant I was out the door with all my gear before the second band had made a peep. My apologies to the other bands for this seemingly rude behavior; we had made arrangements to meet elsewhere for the remainder of the evening.

Last Friday night was the on-stage debut for my Warr Guitar. At rehearsals I have been refactoring my bass parts for “Cobra Kai”, “The Technologists”, “The Dalles”, and a few others. By grouping those songs together at the top of the set, it allowed me to start out on Warr Guitar and then switch to bass for “Sunrise”, “Charlie Munden”, “48 Express” and  “Listing”. Overall it’s pretty satisfying to have some facility on my new instrument and I’m becoming more comfortable with playing it with the band. Very few people actually know what the instrument is, so I wound up doing some explaining after our set. This is fine with me. When I played Chapman Stick I was a perpetual ambassador, demonstrating how it worked, how it was tuned, and why it’s such a great geeky fun. A few people seem to have some familiarity with the Chapman Stick courtesy of Tony Levin, but a Warr Guitar is more obscure. The occasional King Crimson fan knows this instrument, but that’s pretty much only high-profile gig you’re likely to encounter one (at least until The Preons seize their rightful place as global pop icons of the new millennium). The band played a great set. I thought our overall sound was very smooth and balanced, particularly impressive since none of the instrument amps were in the house PA. We did our own mix directly from the stage by simply balancing our relative volumes. We also kept the gaps between songs pretty short, which preserves the set momentum and helps keep the musicians “in the zone”. We’re also working on presenting the band in a more linear setup with Josh and Janie in the middle, while Brad and I act as bookends. I like putting the drummer closer to the front of the stage where people can appreciate the instrument more closely. Janie’s playing is a big part of the band’s kinetic energy and  it’s unusual to hear a female drummer who plays with her level of intensity. It’s also nice to have the drummer recognized as part of the “front line” rather than being toward the back of the stage.
During our set, the club projected “Baraka” onto the wall behind us, which was an interesting touch. I’m sure people wondered whether we usually played our set while video of the Balinese Monkey Chant was being projected onto us.

I’m looking forward to next weekend’s gig. We’re playing in Ballard at the “Live Girls Theater”, and the stage is somewhat unusual. It will present another opportunity for us to experiment with our setup. It’s my understanding that there is a projection screen available and we might attempt to put it to use during our set. Since we’ve already used “Baraka” perhaps we need to branch out into another choice…