John Hendow

On Saturday 2/16 the 1 Uppers performed at the Highway 99 Blues Club in Seattle. We were on a 4 band bill with Liam Fitzgerald and the Rainieros, The Roy Kay Trio, and the B-Stars. One of the guarantees of a multi-band bill like this is that it’s going to run late and be chaotic. It’s always interesting to me to hear other country bands. The B-Stars are based in San Francisco, but the other bands are all local and well-known to us. It was a great night of fun music.

In the past several months I’ve increasingly been focusing on playing baritone guitar in this band. It fits more cleanly into the sonic landscape with so many other instruments. It gets me out the guitar range which allows Kris Geren to stretch out, and it gives me a distinctive range of my own to work within. The more that I play baritone guitar the less I’m inclined to add much in terms of effects, so for this show I didn’t bring my pedalboard. I spent a great deal of time sitting in the bar waiting for our turn to play, and during that time I wondered if I had made a mistake by going without pedals for the show. Once we got into our set I was quite satisfied with my tone and didn’t miss having my pedalboard for any of my baritone guitar parts. I had to do a bit of amp knob twiddling to adjust the reverb for some songs, but overall it was great. I brought the trusty black strat because I knew we’d do a few things that just require me to have a regular electric guitar, including “How Soon Is Now”. For that one I switched my amp into its lead channel – the FIRST time I have ever used it at a gig – to get the grind that I usually evoke from my Wampler Sovereign. That might have been the only time during the night that I really missed my pedalboard. Otherwise, playing “naked” was refreshing and challenging.

Our next show is coming up 2/21 at the Royal Room in Columbia City. I’ll have the challenge of being the band’s only electric guitarist that night since Kris will be out of town. It means that I’ll definitely be bringing my pedalboard and filling up some additional sonic landscape in the mix. A new challenge is always just around the corner! Hope to see you there.

I’ve spent a lot of time in the past few weeks preparing for upcoming shows with both of my bands. In the case of the Dudley Manlove Quartet, many of our songs are requests from customers who hire us for private events. Those requests tend to us to recreate a specific arrangement of a song. Case in point for this week is the request for “Love is All Around”, originally performed by The Troggs, and recently reworked by Wet Wet Wet. The customer that made this request specifically asked us to refer to the newer version.

Here are the steps I took in working up the arrangement:

1. I find the song on YouTube or Pandora and give it a listen from end to end, observing the general arrangement and noting any especially challenging aspects. I don’t attempt to do this with my guitar in hand; I just focus on hearing what the song sounds like.
2. I sit with my guitar and start to determine the basic framework of the chord structure. I sketch it out using a free software application for music notation called “MuseScore”. I can usually establish the general framework of a song in a few repeat listenings.
3. If we’re changing the key of the song – which we do pretty frequently – MuseScore can do that automatically after the score is written, but I like to know that in advance because sometimes it makes the song much more difficult to perform in the new key. Once that’s locked down I proceed to the details. For “Love is All Around” the recorded version of the song is in Bb. I was tempted to move it down to A because it would sound so much better on guitar using open string crossings, but we decided to keep it in Bb.
4. Most songs we perform have idiomatic passages and solos that need to be performed verbatim. I’m very detail-oriented for these elements and explicitly transcribe solos. Putting the effort into really decoding the solo makes a big difference in performing it with authenticity. The song I was transcribing for this event doesn’t have a solo, but there is a little descending guitar lick before the chorus that required a few repetitions to play smoothly. It’s just parallel 6ths, but I want to get the same phrasing as the recording.
5. Finally, I publish the finished score as a PDF and print a copy for the gig. Usually by the time I’ve gone to all the trouble of writing out the score I’ve already memorized it, but there is something reassuring about having it as a reference before we hit the stage.

By the way, when I first starting doing this process back in my early 20’s, this seemed impossibly difficult and took me a long time. I’ve been transcribing my own parts for a long time and it’s become a big part of how I approach learning music, and after you do it for a few years it becomes much easier. Jazz musicians will tell you: transcribe transcribe transcribe. I completely agree! It’s a very good way to really understand a composition or solo.

We’re most definitely ready for 2013. Things are moving ahead with bookings for the band and we’re putting together a great schedule of shows in night clubs. This is my 4th year as a member of The Dudley Manlove Quartet and it’s a great experience to work with such fine musicians who also happen to be great friends. It’s rare to have a solid bunch of musicians who are so even-keeled and dedicated, and who get along so well. There are long hours involved with being in a band and we are blessed with an abundance of goofy humor to keep things upbeat. As musicians, we’re a serious bunch and spend a lot of time discussing our music, and are constantly fine-tuning to improve.

Over the past four years we’ve spent a lot of time polishing material that has been in the band’s repertoire and adding new songs with more complex arrangements. I didn’t expect that I’d ever have to learn to play harmonic, or to transcribe mandolin parts. But that’s been part of the fun! New songs almost always require transcription for me; I’m a big proponent of transcribing songs as a musical exercise – especially for guitar solos. It requires careful listening to an entire arrangement, and dissection of minutae that give a song its personality. For some songs I’ve spent significant time listening to the guitar parts trying to figure out exactly how something was performed on the recording. In a few cases I’ve been able to ask questions to the musician directly, to determine whether something was recorded backwards or sped up in post-production, or how they perform the song live. All that helps me develop an authentic arrangement for the song that can then be embellished with the band’s performance style.

For 2013 I have a number of objectives including developing my vocal range. More of our songs feature 3 part harmony and I’m enjoying the challenge of singing outside my usual range. The band has two very strong vocalists already so I have plenty of incentive to improve! As a guitarist, my objective for the year is to develop a stronger command of our jazz standards. I have some training as a jazz guitarist and want to extend my abilities, particularly for soloing over complex arrangements.

The opportunity to perform in an ensemble that has a balance of fun and serious musicianship is very rewarding. It keeps me on my toes and is good incentive to constantly improve. There is no substitute for playing in a live setting with other musicians.

On Monday 12/31 The Dudley Manlove Quartet performed two shows at the Triple Door in Seattle. The shows were separately ticketed events and both shows were hugely full… we sold out one of them, and came within a dozen seats of selling out the other. What a night! Our set list for the two shows was pretty large since we had our horns along with us, so we stacked the songs with the horns at the top of each set to allow them a break.

We had a 3:00 PM load-in, which meant arriving early with everything ready to go. It generally takes us about 30 minutes to completely set up for a show. For this event we spent a little extra time preparing the large stage for our use, and to minimize potential hazards. The Triple Door has a handy feature on my side of the stage: a cable trough that runs from the front of the stage all the way to the back. It is covered by removable steel plates with cable notches cut into the ends, so when I place my pedalboard at the front of the stage I can run the audio and power cables all the way back to where my amp is, which protects them from the occasional stampede (as shown in the picture).

I brought the black strat and the red tele for this show. I had intended to bring the Eric Johnson strat with me but when packing up at the house I couldn’t find the tremolo arm; it’s extremely rare for me to misplace part of a guitar in my music room at home (seriously!) and despite a thorough search it never turned up. Before leaving for the show I jumped on the internet and ordered a replacement. For both shows I played the black strat, and it’s increasingly clear to me that this guitar (my main instrument) is in serious need of fret work… looks like I’ll be visiting my favorite guitar tech at some point soon.

The staff and management at the Triple Door are top-notch. Working with the production crew at this venue is a treat; they have great expertise and take an engineering approach to putting together the mix. Everyone always tells me how good the band sounds at this venue and I know the tech crew is a major contributor to our success there. Once we finished soundcheck at 5:00 we had some time to kill until the first show. Most of that was spent changing into our suits and having a light dinner. The first show went from 7:00 until 9:15, and within 30 minutes the staff had completely emptied the room and reset for the second performance. During the break between shows we had just enough time to change the batteries in our wireless transmitters, put gear back in order and eat a quick snack. We played again from 10:00 until 1:00 AM. Then we got to load out… I had my gear all packed up and on the cart by about 1:30, but ran into friends in the bar who insisted we stay and chat for a bit. The bar closed and I finally left the club around 2:15 AM, almost 12 hours after arriving. We had a fantastic night and enjoyed seeing so many familiar and new faces for this special night. Thanks to everyone who joined us!

Set list from 12/31/2012:

• Let’s Stay Together
• Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You
• It’s Not Unusual
• Copacabana
• You’ll Never Find (You’re Gonna Miss My Lovin’)
• Silly Love Songs
• Sweet Caroline
• Me & Mrs Jones
• Evil Woman
• Dancing Queen
• Right Back Where We Started From
• Piano Man
• Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting
• I Wish
• September
• If You Could Read My Mind Love
• Suspicious Minds
• Power of Love
• Let’s Dance
• Auld Lang Syne
• More Than This
• Rio
• Don’t You Forget About Me
• Take On Me
• Melt With You
• Video Killed the Radio Star
• Don’t Stop Believin’
• Don’t Change

On Saturday 10/27 The Dudley Manlove Quartet performed our annual “Halloween Spooktacular” show. This year’s performance was at the Sunset Tavern in Ballard, one of our favorite local venues. For the Halloween show we perform our usual three-set show, but for the middle set we pay tribute to some other band by dressing up as them and playing a dozen or so of their songs. In past years we’ve been the B52’s, Talking Heads, David Bowie, Spinal Tap and so on. This year we were Elton John, so each member of the band took a look from Sir Elton’s historic career. My costume was based on his “Rocket Man” era, and I seized the opportunity to wear 4-inch platform shoes; as a guy who is 5’6″, that makes quite a difference in my perspective on the world!

I have always love Elton John’s music and own nearly all of his albums. By far, my favorite of his albums is “Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy”, and I was delighted that the band agreed to add the title track from this album to our tribute set. We also performed a bunch of of his better-known hits including Crocodile Rock, Rocket Man, Philadelphia Freedom, I’m Still Standing and Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting. I put a lot of work into transcribing the guitar parts for these songs, including the stylistic idiosyncrasies of guitarist Davey Johnstone. Davey was one of my strong influences as I was developing my guitar playing, and I have always wanted to let him know how much I appreciate his tone, phrasing and general approach to the instrument. I was backstage once at an Elton John concert and he was really the person I hoped to say hello to… he seemed busy and disinterested so I didn’t bother him. So, DJ, if you’re out there on the interwebs, I tip my fez to you.

Also in the Halloween set were the usual thematic hits such as “Ghostbusters” and “Werewolves of London”, the latter being one of the few times in this band when I get the opportunity to play slide. Because this song is in the key of G, it’s kind of a softball for playing slide on a guitar in standard tuning… but I do my best to come up with something fun and different on it. We also played “Piano Man” so I brought along my harmonicas.

As always, there was an abundance of clever and creative costumes in the audience. This is absolutely my favorite holiday of the year and it’s always a fun show.

This past weekend I spent 10 hours transcribing and practicing my guitar parts for the upcoming DMQ Halloween Show. We are adding six new songs plus bringing back some favorites. For the new additions I had to start the with the song in the original recorded key and transpose it to an appropriate key for our vocalist. Whenever I am faced with this kind of task, I’m very glad that I studied music in college, and that I have some technology to help make part of the work a little easier.

1. The first step was taking each song from its original CD and converting it to MP3. This is really just for convenience as the file size is much more manageable during all the steps that follow. I used iTunes to rip the CD tracks to decent quality MP3s.
2. Then I imported the MP3s into Sony Vegas. Although this product is aimed at digital video editing it also has good multitrack audio editing capabilities, and it’s on my main computer at home so it’ s fairly convenient for quick work like this. There is a handy plugin that can change the pitch of the songs without changing the audio duration. Once this is done, I export the edited file as a new MP3.
3. Then I open up MuseScore, a free notation program that is becoming my favorite tool for writing charts. It has the capability to handle complex multipart scores, but I primarily use it for creating standard notation charts for my guitar parts. Once I had written out the parts in MuseScore, the next step was proofing the chart. The software can actually play the notes, which isn’t great-sounding given the weak MIDI implementation in my computer, but at least the notes and durations are right.
4. Finally, it’s woodshed time! I spent about six hours working through my charts, programming tones, and practicing the mechanical execution of the parts.

Some of the songs we are doing were originally recorded in “guitar-friendly” keys, allowing the player to use open-string voicings for ease of performance. In the keys we’ll be playing, these parts suddenly become quite challenging with awkward chord voicings and difficult stretches. I don’t like to use a capo and have never owned one! If I can’t get smoothly work out the performance aspects of these guitar parts, I might consider retuning a guitar especially for this set.

The guitarist who recorded the parts on these original recordings typically plays a Gibson Les Paul through a Marshall amp. His tone is pretty distinctive. I will use my Les Paul for this set, but since I play a Boogie Lonestar (voiced more like a vintage Fender Twin), I’ll need to use a pedal to emulate the big dark tone of a Marshall. It’ll be the ZVEX “Box of Rock” that will help me dial this in.

We’re also working on costumes for the artist being featured this year. We always have fun preparing this material and I’m sure this year’s show will be blast. Come on out and join us for a night of fun music!

On Saturday 9/15 the Dudley Manlove Quartet performed at a private event in Seattle. We arrived on time and loaded in for sound check. When I picked up my trusty Boogie Lonestar to set it up, I noticed the 5U4 rectifier tube wasn’t seated in its socket, so I pushed it back in. Then I set up my equipment, including the Furman power conditioner and plugged in the amp. And powered up. And nothing happened.  Few things in this world match the sickening feeling of turning on a piece of equipment and having it not function. I pulled out the fuse and verified it was blown; in fact, the fuse was blackened inside indicating a high voltage failure. Egad… after the previous bout of amp woes I was wondering if I was cursed!

Rather than attempting to troubleshoot the amp further I made an emergency phone call to my wife, who saved me by bringing me my backup amp. Yes, I realize that’s above and beyond the call of duty. I expect that I owe her a tropical vacation for this heroism.

The gig went great and we had a lot of fun. Once the gig was over I had the opportunity to delve a little further into the Lonestar situation. What I discovered was the 5U4 Rectifier tube had come loose and broken off its orientation key, so when I reinstalled it I must have accidentally inserted incorrectly. The pins were in the wrong holes in the socket, and the fuse immediately blew. What makes this especially odd is that this amplifier has both solid state and tube rectifiers, and you can switch between them based on the amp’s output setting; if you have the amp in 50w mode you can selected either the solid state or tube rectifier, and in the 100w mode it’s solid state only. I always have the amp in 100w mode for maximum headroom, but apparently even when the switch is set for solid state rectification the 5U4 tube is receiving power from the input transformer. So the incorrect orientation of the pins cascaded a failure and the fuse blew. My amp technician strongly recommends using the amp without that tube in place at all (!) which seems odd to me. I’m considering the possibility of replacing it with an  octal-base solid state rectifier just in case the amp gets set in 50w mode at some point. Given that I had just replaced all four of the power tubes, having the rectifier also give me trouble was frustrating. But at this point I’ve got the full complement of power section tubes replaced and all should be good.

I swear, I better not have any amp problems anytime soon. It makes for a some grumpy moments.

After months of anticipation, the 1 Uppers CD was released on 9/14. We held the CD release event at one of our favorite local venues, The Tractor Tavern in Ballard. They have been very supportive of local music over the years and it was a pleasure to celebrate this CD release in their space. It was a great night with many familiar and new faces in the audience, and once the band hit the stage for the first song we knew it was going to be a good night!

As always, the audience came ready to dance and sing along. Everyone joined in for the choruses on the crowd-pleasing “Cadillac Truck” and even on the new song “Get It Right”. It’s always funny to observe how easily the audience defines their part in our songs and joins us for the fun.

I brought the trusty black strat and the Danelectro baritone for this gig. I was a little tempted to bring the Gretsch doubleneck but with limited stage space I worried that I’d be colliding with my bandmates. In retrospect I suppose I could have just brought it and been careful with the space awareness. The set flew by with some great moments. We definitely tore up some of the material from the CD, with furious soloing in abundance.

The next few weeks will be an interesting time for us as we’re continuing to promote the CD with live shows and online advertising. We have shows coming up including the “Third Thursday Twang Royale” at the Royal Room in Columbia City. If you’re out and about, come on down and join us!

On Friday 8/24 the Dudley Manlove Quartet performed in Bothell for one of their free public concerts in the park. I love these opportunities for us to play outdoors and it’s always fun to get exposed to new audiences. We played the usual assortment of crowd-pleasing hits, despite having to set up on the infield dirt of a softball diamond… why oh why did they put us there? Oh well. We happily played and had people dancing in the grass.

During our third set my amp suddenly started to make an odd distortion and the output dropped. I turned around just in time to see the pilot light go out, indicating the fuse had blown. With no spare fuse or amp in sight, I had to wave over the monitor operator and have him patch the output of my pedalboard directly to a DI. I’m told it sounded surprisingly good, but it wasn’t nearly as good as my amp.

The next day I had a chance to get the amp to my tech who diagnosed the issue pretty quickly. First off, it’s partially my own fault. I bought the amp used about a year ago, and while I intended to retube it “real soon” I never got around to it. The original owner had installed mismatched power tubes in the amp, which is a really big no-no in a Mesa Boogie amp because they don’t have a bias control. Three of the four 6L6 power tubes were Boogie tubes, and the fourth was a Ruby tube. Naturally it was going to cause a failure eventually, and it did! I replaced the four power tubes and had my tech check the amp out. No worries. Back in fighting shape again, and sounding MUCH better since the power tube section was properly balanced. I definitely should have checked out those tubes on day 1 and recognized this was a potential problem. It also made me wonder if I should always have an alternate output strategy, like carrying a good quality DI just case something like this happens again.

The 1 Uppers get together every week for a 2+ hour practice session. We’ve kept to this schedule pretty faithfully since the band’s inception. It gives us an opportunity to work on new material and polish up any rough spots from recent shows. It’s also our communal time to form the hive-mind that is at the nucleus of good bands. There is no substitute for playing together. I have certainly seen brilliant performances delivered by musicians that have spontaneously assembled but this is the exception; most truly great bands come from hours of invested time working together and becoming mutually attuned.

Sometimes I come home from 1 Uppers practice frustrated with my playing and feeling that I’m creatively blocked. Other times I have fantastic nights where I’m happy with my playing. Because so much of what we do is based on a framework and then extended via improvisation, it’s a different experience from delivering a meticulously rehearsed performance. In the case of my other bands, such as “The Dudley Manlove Quartet” we spend time carefully crafting arrangements of our songs to continuously improve our show. It doesn’t mean the music is less challenging; only that it requires a different discipline where memorization and recall are emphasized.

Over the course of the past several years, these regular practice sessions have yielded some great music and fun times. We often wrap up our practices and walk together to a nearby bar for a beer and snacks, and general musical chatter. Making music with such fine friends is a joy. We’ll be releasing a CD on Friday September 14. Stay tuned for details!