socks

Well, thank ya Chatty! Hey,you have great taste. Spirit - I would fall more to your opinion of them waysider, and my two sample don't really do justice to their whole range of music. I really like them in their day. Randy California's death was tragic to be sure, I remember reading about it. The 60's era produced a lot of bands and music. In California there was a kind of "line" between the north and south, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Some of the bands associated with either area weren't really generic to that area (Steve Miller and San Francisco, as an example) but they settled there and worked, recorded, etc. and were closely identified with it. Some of the San Francisco bands that were part of the "hippie © " era weren't always that good in performance, IMO and probably sounded best on their albums. Jefferson Airplaine would be an example. While they certainly had talent in the band, especially early on, live they were pretty thin. I only saw them a couple times and figured, that's enough of that. The Starship with Mickey Thomas and Grace Slick together was good, but that was really a whole different thing. Other bands like Big Brother and the Holding Company seemed to have good musicians but live - forget it. But a lot of the bands that seemed to really have it going on never had the reputations, or got much if any national media recognition. "The Loading Zone" with Linda Tillery singing were CRAZY good. Funky, jazzy, tight, interesting improvisation. "The Sons of Champlin" are another, often referred to as the best "unknown" S.F. Bay Area band. Both had albums released and performed, and while some were sketchy (The Sons could take 20 minutes just uh, finding their way onstage and getting tuned up). they had ain identifiable and repeatable live sound. Spirit was a little like that in that they didn't quite hit it nationally, although they did have some radio play. Randy California is known amongst musicians as a unique guitarist. He could really rip live and played several styles well. Their music always seemed like a personal discovery and telling someone about them was a little like passing on a tip - "Check these guys out and tell me what you think". I don't have anything else digital around, but off their first album "Fresh Garbage" is full of classic Spirit sound. They were one of the earliest band I remember making statements about the environment in a clever and musical way. Anyhoo.....

Aaah, yes. Classic TV. There were a lot of guitar innstrumentals in the 60's, right around the time the Beatles and the British "invasion" was percolating the instrumental guitar track was pretty strong. Glad you enjoyed it, Chatty! Thanks for the pics! Ed Cassidy - waysider's got the 411 on him. He was the drummer in Spirit, indeed. Spirit, one of the lesser known bands of the 60's, out of L.A. Randy California - ! His signature sound was a smooth sustained tone, and he played great. They played a lot in California, where I saw them a ocuple times at Bill Graham's Winterland and Fillmore, maybe more at Fillmore. Long time ago. :) . Excellent band. I think their lead singer did a solo career after leaving Spirit and had a hit or two, I know I was hearing his stuff for awhile. They were a good live band. A lot of the 60's bands of the psychedlic era as it's called, weren't that good live. Spirit really played well. Couple cuts - they had a top 40 hit with I Got a Line On You and it kind show California's range for pop. And this one - this tune's rattled around over the years, I hear it every once in blue moon on something. It has a very familiar sound to it, so someone may know more of where it's been used - Nature's Way

Love 'em! The sand, the surf, the guy with the guitar! Book 'em, Dano!

Thanks waysider for the info on the Chili Dog. I've seen some of the Danelectro pedals but never tried them out. That sounds like it would add a lot to the sound. As you say, with pedals, a little usually goes a long way. Which reminds me of a chuckle - my amp set up downstairs has a 4 channel pedal selector and each one is set up for some basic sounds I like - 1 is kind of a fat Fender sound with a tad of chorus, 2 is set at a Marshall model, 3 is a custom setting with a little overdrive and 4 is set for high gain and I change it out. When my son's over I can always tell if he's been on the amp as it's on "4" and everything on the amp is up and on 10. You turn it on and everything goes "waaafzzzqq!@@#%$!!!!" and the walls shake. It's funny, I love it! That's my son, quiet till he's on and then it's all fun, all the time. :) Some Saturday links to go with your dancing lady ChattyKathy! I was reminded of the 60's and that made me think of Hawaii-5-O for some reason, and that made me think of the greatest instrumental rock guitar band of that era - The Ventures. Of drum solo and Mosrite guitar fame, those guys had to be the quintessential cover-band. Some very good guitar work throughout their albums of that time frame, and a lot of clunkers too. Some sound like they were recorded in the time it took to warm up the amps. Not that the Mosrite guitars helped - I used to ogle them in the local music store but by the time I tried to play one I realized they wouldn't stay in tune to save your life. But they had a very interesting sound. Anyhoo - they were BIG for years and never bigger than in Japan - below, the live intro of the band from that album - Intro And a classic example of Ventures, a cover-cut, "Penetration", the Mosrite in all it's glory, and some tweezy electronic instruments to boot. Originally done by the Pyramids, and if you go back far enough to remember them, you remember they shaved their heads, they were all bald. Strang, unless you were a surfer, which I wasn't, but that was the only possible explanation and I'm not sure it was the correct one. But they were skin heads, before there was punk. Polish up those Gp-Go boots and pass the paisley for some - Penetration

My pleasure, Chatty. Let's get bloozed. That's some interesting stuff. I especially like Nick G's voice, still strong, maybe strong after all these years. waysider, would love to hear some harp! Mandel's got a lot going on. I think he also uses some sort of envelope filter that gets that reversed sound, or an actual reverse delay. My daughter's Toneworks rig has one and it's pretty effective at reversing. With a little technique, it gets some cool sounds. A Chili Dog? Need to hear more about that. :) Here's a quickie rendition of a Mandel sound I worked up - it's only a couple of his sounds, a flange and the delay mostly. Using a Fernandes Sustainer, which he may also have - a lot of players use them, installed and inviz-ible. Not exactly the Snake, but possibly some kind of amphibious sock - a modest attempt - Bud-Ski's

The Snake, at the Cafe DuNord More Serpentine Blues with Nick Gravenites, at the House of Blues With his band "Nightfire", with Freddie Roulette. Alien greenery from the cut "Budmonster".

welcome waysider, sorry, sounds like everyone's kind o' busy, me included. Harvey Mandell - oh yeah! I like his playing too, and he's got some great material out there still rolling around. I'd like to catch the Chicago Blues Reunion myself. He plays a Parker Fly these days from what I've seen and heard. Back in the day he played a Gibson 335 and a Les Paul at one time. A part of his signature sound is his vibrato - he has a big fat finger and hand vibrato when he stretches and moves the strings, always has. He's also used Echoplexes, by the sounds of it. Amp vibrato, compression and assorted chorus and flanging figures into some of the stuff he's done. Picking wise he's very fleet of finger, as it were. Skips along through passages and pauses to wiggle a note or two. When he plays, a note is very thick and distorted usually, and there's a whole range of harmonics and echo that follows around the note, giving it a kind of "pillowy" sound. If you took a Gibosn style overdriven sound, and mixed a delay with it so the original signal was about 30 percent of the sound and the rest the delay and added reverb to it all, with that vibrato and picking styly, it'd be pretty close. But he has a LOT of sounds he uses.

Thanks Chatty! I've got a first draft with the vocal, not "quite" there yet, so I'm still playing around with it. Yeah, there's a thumpy bass line through it, but it does need something more defined, I think you're right Chas. The bass line is embedded with the drum track, so now I gotta figure out sequencing them back in without it. More fun. :) Guitars have no effects, just a tad of reverb, so they're pretty stable. Mountain - was the Leslie West playing? Did they do Mississippi Queen? That's kind of amazing to me "Melanie" still performs. Wonder what she's been up to all these years? Never listened to her much. Wavy Gravy - Hugh Romney. He's kind of a San Francisco Bay Area fixture, always into something or other. He's a perennial figure around Northern California seems like. Lives in Berkeley, kind of a lovable and very addled uncle to a certain line of the older "hippie" culture here. Saw him myself at a concert earlier this year - he sounded like he needed some rest. That sounds like quite a concert Chas! Rare Earth - I remember "I just wanna celebrate, yeah yeah!" that line from one of their hits. Very cool they're playing so well.

Thanks Roy, I'm familiar with the bloodline information. And I-Dan, thanks for the background. This is way too esoteric for me, assuming there's an enlightened group who understands the meaning . Maybe there is, dunno.

It's uh, Greek to me, Roy. Makes no sense. :blink: Although some of the language - Archons - does this talk about 'the Aeon"...? anyway, I wondered, and Invisible Dan may know more - could the "great Seth" referred to be the earlier Egyption god Seth? Would a Gnostic follower attempt to bring forth a "word of Seth" in a message like this?

Alright, Chatty! Glad you liked it! T-Bone, thank you likewise. The twiddling goes on, forever. Slightly reworked solo, little more presence. How long? Pretty long. Listened to the two different versions of Beck on "Shapes of Things", the Yardbirds version and then the Jeff Beck group's version. Quite a difference. The drums and bass are much better on the second one, earthier, downer and dirtier. Cool tune. And Beck hss some of the vintage violin sound in parts. I've read the Yardbirds tour, without Beck and with a different guitarist who's supposed to be very good. Wonder what that's like?

The Beckster - here's "Rocking Me", from his first album, "Truth". Don't have Going Down handy, although it's a great tune. Rocking Me Good to see ya JL! Going Down is a good tune, Jonny, definitely a hard rocker! I like the way Beck floats over the rhythm sometimes, other times digs right into it. He really does his own thing with it. It's a Freddie King tune and the original really had that fast hammering beat going, with King's biting tone on the guitar. Beck's version takes it up a notch! Beck's a goodun, alright. When he toured for this first album I saw him and he was playing Les Paul, gold top, not sure which model. I think I read he recorded Rocking Me with a Strat though, not sure. Strats have been his instrument of choice for years. Overall his sound works on any guitar, as long as it's "Loud" as a lot of his nuance and articulation comes from the whole sound of the guitar and Fenders with single coils are very live, lots of stuff going on when it's amplified. Paremount - he's played there before, in Oakand. I'm making a mental note to see this one, this year. A family event maybe.

Hey, got a Beck check coming! This is the very rough first spank on the plank for "How Long", the instrumental track. Goes a standard blues shuffle, intro, etc. on and on. No voice. How Long

I'm usin' it! Verse 3, we're on the road again! Lojack, ahd to find it - What is dat Lojack? Ain' nothin' like the blues!

O Come All Ye Faithful, let those who have heard the Stringed Voice walk the straight path rest in the cooling waters of The Music. Lo, many are called and know in their heart of hearts, deep within the folds of their heart of hearts, know as they are known. Truly, it's amazing! Or sumpin' Working on a blues tune, standard progression, and the lyric goes - How long, how long Baby, how long? How long, how long Oh baby how long? How long, how long How long are you gonna keep my car? (turnaround) We've been dating for a month or so. All that time, we been ready to go. Week nights, Friday night, Saturday too. Then you borrowed my Subar-uuu. Haven't seen you since that night When I watched you drive outta sight. (repeat chorus) Now I'm trying to understand Lord knows I'm a compassionate man. Visa and Shell say you're doing fine. Remember the oil when you gas up next time. Get in touch, let me know how I know you'll be back any day now. (repeat chorus)

I'm glad it made some sense, rereading it, it's a little blotchy. We think alike T-Bone, indeed. The Rembrandts wrote "Friends", and have said they kinda wished it had gone away, as they're mostly remembered as the guys who wrote the theme song. Their albums are filled with some very cool music, crafted elagantly around a library of sounds and styles that cover the whole history of rock. Figure a band that names itself The Rembrandts" better know what it's doing. They did. U2 started in punk, which is more of an uncontrolled energy, where everybody flails along at full bore. Musically, most "punk" stuff gets boring unless it's short - enter The Ramones, extremely smart and crafty punk rock, that succeeds so well because they honor(ed) basic song structure, wrote memorable hook lines into the songs, and stayed with what they did and did well. A lot of songwriters figure if a riff sounds good 3 or 4 times, it'll sound incredible the 50th time. Usually, it doesn't. Enough's enough, y'know? Leave me wanting to hear it again. Some other time. What U2 does with exacting precision, is maintain very controlled energy that alternates tension and release throughout a song. I think they're built around the live performance dynamic, and how a song not only sounds and plays, but is received. I saw them few years back - forget the release that was out at that time. It was pretty powerful. U2 really crafted their roots, their core sound, and made it into a usable style, a genre of it's own really. Their songs work in a 3 minute length or a 10 minute length, because they pace them well. Evans is a very good guitarist, and one who's playing serves the music. Anyhoo, Streets sounds like a call to arms, musically. In concert it was almost like the whole place was going to go running out of the stadium and just go. It was good.

Hmmm, pondering that question TomS. How does "With or Without You" hit you? It has a similar set up in the music. Same key, and the opening has a little reperitiive figure, a D chord, that pulses agaisnt the bass line, which again establishes the chords. The little D figure sets tension through the dissonance of the 3rd and 5th against the changes, and it continues through the opening verse. Meanwhile the sustained high note does the same thing. There's a world of simple movement that's implied in these simple changes they use. I think the stuff they don't play but leave to the collective ear of the listeners does a lot. The fact that U2 is very passionate about their material and messages has a lot to do with it too, I think. A band named the Rembrandts, 2 guys actually, had a song out in the late 80's titled "That's Just The Way It Is" that was a masterpiece of understated use of this sound. X -rated as I call it, a very cool tune, musically. The drum score for it, what the drummer plays, is a study in simplicity, in itself. Add to that the fact that you can hear little sounds from the guitars as they change pickup selectors here and there and it's a really interesting tune.

Tom, it's cause you like 'em. :) I do too, pretty much their whole catalogue. Dave Evens - "the Edge" has a very unique sound, using some effects regularly - echo and delay almost always. Musically there's a few basic elements constructing the sound, the bass is always strong, simple and shapes the movement of the chords in the against what the guitar is playing. The bass really drives it and has a lot to do with that overall "chill" you're referring to, I think. Agains't that Evans will play octaves, two of the same notes, one higher and one lower and move that around in the chords of the song. That gets a full rhythmic sound going while the bass defines the actual chord movement usually. He'll often use a few common root and harmony notes amongst several chords and work with the bass to produce some nice chordal sounds. He also uses open strings a lot, drone notes that play and stay the same throughout a verse or chorus. Streets is in D, an ideal key for Evan's sound. The opening chords are very simple, set by the organ opening. He modulates the 3rd and the 4th of the chord and plays that straight through the whole instroduction up on the 10th fret "D" chord, on the 4 high strings. He changes back and forth from an F# to a G note in the chord against all of the chord changes the bass plays through. That modulation is very common in rock, called a "suspended" chord, where the 3rd of the chord is raised up a step, and sometimes back down a full step, in D to an E. Anyhoo- what this creates is a rather pleasant sounding dissonance, and a constant set and release of tension in the chord structure. Playing that kind of 2 or 3 note figure against other chord changes gives a very airy feel of movement, without a lot of movement going on. It goes way back in pop music, common in early 50's doo-wop, and the simplest 4 chord stuff. Wrongly applied it can sound like "chop sticks" on the piano, but obviously EVans knows how to make it work, he's very crafty in getting a lot of mileage out of simple effects and sounds. Michael MacDonald uses the same concept in a lot of his music, that "dee-dee-dee-da-deee-de- piano part in "What a fool Believes' is the same idea, but used in a tighter fashion. US does a lot of songs in a march kind of mode, too. They hit the ground running and keep it moving ahead and forward. It's a very aggressive sound that suits their lyrics well I think. That's a little on that song, but there's more to it so let's see what else comes in!

Perusing the guitars lately, still have a hankering for one o' these - Aria FA71 They're really nice and very playable. Big full tone, and a serious vintage vibe. Price is low, they're selling for around 500 bucks these days. Good value, interesting history, serious sound.

Well, these pictures do say something about the subject of adultery and more broadly, fornication. Granted, humans as a species want to procreate due to the urge to restock the gene pool with fresh and personally trademarked hatchlings. All evidence indicates that's a powerful urge, nevermind the ancillary benefits. But something about these pictures tells me this particular group of people might have trouble finding appropriate and willing partners, seeing as how the act of procreation requires a fair amount of personal contact with the partner of choice and at least a nod to some followup maintenance. ("Had a great time - hey, I'll call you!") Seasonal breeding activity in the midwest, particularly in the dead of a cold winter, might produce an environment where on any given week night by 2:00 a.m. well, anything can happen and probably has. Adultery and this gang though - whoa. Look at these people again. What strange desires would drive that kind of decision making, what kind of crazy cosmic game of musical chairs would lead a person to land in any one of these laps to avoid a timeout? Makes no sense. But that's just me, I guess. Dunno. :blink:

Ronald MacDonald hasn't seen this I'm sure, otherwise he'd be suing. Rosalie looks like she's laughing, but really she's wincing. Wincing at how Craig has perfectly duplicated her hairstyle - compare the two - they're almost exactly alike. Except for Craig's coloring which is adding insult to injury as that's probably Rosalie's natural hair color, y'know?

Then there's this one -

The guy on the left is Don Weirwille, who has since died. He was a Vice Pres. at the time. He's wearing a horizontal striped shirt - brown stripes, white sneakers and black socks. Black socks. He's in the Bahamas. Wearing black socks. I think you get a nametag that says "I'm the stupid everyone else is with" if you wear black socks to any island. Next to him is Rosalie Rivenbark, looking every bit like someone's gra-ma from Ohio, at the Bahama's. The guy in the middle - Craig Martindale. What's to say? He's wearing a camo jump suit. I think. It has a vaguely militaristic look to it, as if he's "General El Presidente" or some such person. But he's wearing sandals so I dunno. It's a very strange look. I can almost hear the muffled giggles from people passing by. Donna Martindale looks like gra-ma's sister. And the guy on the end, Howard, has the same smile he's always had which always seems to say "I'm still here, and it's free!" From left to right you've got ears large enough to get some good wind on a parasail. People that look like this can't have big ego's.

watersedge, egomaniacs? look at this photo again -

Course we do - that's ... you know who! Never heard that song, but I like it. Odd combinatio but it works, sounds good! Thanks!