I Don't Believe It!

Three hours after that last post, just a week after I got it, that new ipod Classic died. Nearly full charge, I had it in my pocket. It had powered off after playing a song, and an hour or so later when I went to use it again, it wouldn't start. Nothing. Black screen, not even a spinning disc. Back to the store! And I'm going camping tomorrow, dammit.

My Bad Apple

Last week my ipod died, just two weeks out of warranty. It was a 30g 5G video model, and with the Christmas holiday coming, I was really going to miss it. So I took it into the retailer, Dick Smith Electronics to see if I could get it serviced.

Dick Smith's sales assistant told me that since it was out of warranty, there was nothing I could do. That just wasn't good enough. So the next day, armed with a copy of New Zealand's Consumer Guarantees Act, and some information from the Consumers Instutute on reasonable lifetimes for electronics. The manager really gave me the runaround, I argued for over an hour, even getting the national service manager on the phone. Eventually they agreed to service it here in Dunedin, so I wouldn't have to wait their minimum 15 working days for a repair in Auckland.

A few days ago I went in to check on progress and they told me what I suspected - it needed a new hard drive. They were going to repair it, but decided to replace my unit anyway. So I got a brand new 80g classic for pressing my consumer rights. There are some slight snags: It has problems charging in the car when connected to my itrip, and if I want to play video through the TV I need to buy a new AV cable, but it's nice to have so much capacity. I've got my whole expanding music library on there now. Yay for consumer rights!

Dark Horse

That's the name of the new lineup! Roslyn is away with family, so Mike, Lindsay, Nick and I popped down to the Empire last night to let rip with some solid blues. We had a ball, and it seemed the punters did too. Our old mate Boog Roberts was there too, so we got him up on harmonica for a couple of numbers. Great fun.

Hopefully Nik will harness his graphic abilities for the band, so stay tuned for some Dark Horse visuals!

Top Blues Albums No.1

While we wait on band news, I thought I'd start a little series on my most influential Blues albums. This isn't really a list of all time greats. I'm not sure I'm is fit to judge the world's most influential. This is just a list of the ones that made me the bluesman I am. It'll be more of a chronological list rather than any order of importance. So first up it's these guys:


I'm almost (but not quite) ashamed to say my blues journey started here. Believe me, I wish I could tell you it was the day I met Dr Feelgood, or shook BB King's hand or snuck into some seedy blues bar at the age of 15. Instead, I was about 17 when I hear a radio ad on a tape of a recent top 40 from Capitol Radio, London. The ad was for the Blues Brothers movie. I'd been fooling around on harmonica, and didn't really know anything about blues music. But this radio ad had clips from "Sweet Home Chicago" "Everybody Needs Somebody To Love" and "She Caught The Katy". I was hooked, I had to hear the rest of those tunes, but it took more than a year for me to see the movie or hear any of the albums.

When I did see it, in Invercargill, 1981, people left the movie in droves. I thought they were nuts. I was mesmerised. It took a while to gather pace, but my blues habit started with that ad. As for the album, well, The Blues Brothers is an all-star band, and the soundtrack is a killer list of blues, soul, gospel and rock. I still rate it as a very warm introduction to the deep world of blues. I think I played those tunes I heard in that radio ad in my first gig in my first blues band, and they'll always be on my master set list.

Name Struggle

Okay, after more time that I care to contemplate, the struggle for a good stable band lineup may be over. The struggle for a new band name has just begun.

Practices have been going well. I'd like a band new name to give us a fresh identity and a feeling of cohesion, but finding one that works for everyone is impossible. I'm sure if you've been in the same position you'll know how hard it is. Your name is important, especially in a blues-based band. You want some sense of pedigree. You want some stand-out. You want it to be user-friendly and not easily mangled mis-spelt or mocked.

We've been through scores of names in the last week. Nothing has stuck yet. I thought we were there with The Revelations, but there was some reluctance. We're close though. Stay tuned for an announcement, hopefully some visuals soon after.

Changes

Ok, I think we might just have the line-up we need to really get to work. A few weeks back Lindsay was doing business with a chap in his photographic studio and discovered he was an experienced - and more importantly, free - drummer. After a jam with him, I'm pleased to say we've added Nik Sweeney to our lineup. I'm sorry to have to let Mark go, we all love his drumming and he's a lovely guy, but without more of a time commitment from him, Circus Animals just wasn't going to get anywhere. He was very gracious and understanding when I told him, which was what we all expected. We hope to jam with him in future and expect he'll sit in on some tunes with us when we get gigging around town. Best of luck with your other projects mate.

So, onward! Nik hasn't played a lot of blues, but is a versatile and intelligent drummer. He's already picked up the subtleties of the less-is-more style of blues drumming, and his enthusiasm is pretty uplifting too. He's also a graphic designer. Along with Lindsay's photographic business, I'm expecting the band to start presenting some visual images as sharp as our sound!

White Ribbon Day

Another little gig just to whet our appetites. We played four or five tunes in the Octagon for the White Ribbon Day concert on Nov 25. The hardest part was getting everyone together for a practice first. Our drummer Mark spreads himself kind of thin. Anyway, it went pretty well. If only we could get enough practice time to get a really tight set together and get gigging! Watch this space.

Dry Martinis

A few weeks back, my old friend Gordon Smith, former bass player for White Hot and Blue called me up. Gordon had an acoustic gig in Wanaka that he wanted some support for. It was a living room concert at a private home out of town known as "The River House". I asked Mike if he'd like to join Ros and I, but he felt unprepared. Lindsay turned out to be keen, and revealed himself to be not just a rock steady bassist, but a fine guitar picker as well. After a couple of practices I thought hard about our sound and the material, and hit upon the name Dry Martini.

We practiced hard. We needed to. We weren't playing 12-bar blues any more. Well, not a lot. It was only a set of about 14 songs, but went from reworked ABBA to Bigbang's Norwegian Rock. Just so we don't sound completely Scandinavian, there's a little Eric Clapton in the set too, and even a Kiwi tune by the Muttonbirds.

We felt ready, having had a thorough dress rehearsal in front of Warren our critical-eared sound engineer, but come the actual gig, we were as nervous as hell. You could hear a pin drop, and the audience of about 30 were right in our faces. Happily, they warmed to us and we had a ball. That's not to say we didn't make a lot of mistakes. You could hear the nerves in our voices. I've never been so nervous on stage. The worst was a tune we just couldn't strike the right tempo on and had to abandon. I've never done that before, and so exposed to the audience, we almost died, but by then they had kind of taken us to their hearts, and they were very gracious, and we managed to laugh it off and move on. For the last couple of tunes, Gordy joined us to play some lead guitar, and helped us raise the bar. We had everyone clapping along on the Vidar Busk and Clapton tunes (Lovestruck and Big Bill Broonzy's Got You On My Mind).

I think they were also pretty generous because we were after all, just the warm-up act to Gordy. He got me up for a few tunes in his set, and that was even more fun. I think I learned that although I yearn for musical growth, my own brand of blues harmonica playing is still my strength, so the blues is going to muscle up in our set at future gigs.

I also learned that Gordy is a world class solo player - a fine singer and phenomenal guitar player. He plays some originals, a lot of singer/songwriter stuff from the likes of David Wilcox, with a few blues stomps thrown in for good measure. He has a new toy, a Digitech Jam Man looper pedal, which he used sparingly, but to amazing effect. We had a blast. So I guess my second band is Dry Martini. Or maybe Dry Martinis. We're still evolving.

Presenting Circus Animals

A couple of months ago I started practicing some new tunes with my friend Roslyn Saunders. Ros hadn't sung since she was a kid, but has a great ear and harmonises beautifully with my blues shout. We were doing a few blues numbers, as well as some rock covers and ballads, with me on guitar. I felt we'd never sound good enough as a duo, so I roped in my long time guitar buddy Mike, with a view to gigging small venues. Our first road test was to be Ros's husband's 40th birthday party.

Unfortunately, it snowed heavily that night and Mike was stuck at home. So Ros and I toughed it out, and the result was pretty encouraging, especially since Warren is a complete audio fiend and had the PA tweaked to make us sound as good as we could.

Then Mike told me a friend of his asked him to assemble a band for his 40th. He'd heard us play as White Hot and Blue a few years back and wanted something similar. Mike said he'd try and get something together. He and I were ready. Ros was keen, but where to get a rhythm section from? Luckily Mark Reeves was available, and promised to do his best to scare up a good bass player. Mark has jammed with us on drums at the Empire, with great subtlety and feeling, so I was confident that we'd be good if he could get a reliable bassist. He enlisted Lindsay Somerville, who hasn't played for many a year, but turned out to be a fine player as well as a very sympatico character. The only snag was, because of everyone's other committments, we only had 2 practices in which to get 24 songs tight.

The first night was hard work. The second was a marathon. We knew we could use a couple more to get things really tight, but we were ready. Leo LaDell and Paul Southworth warmed up for us as The Resonators - a pretty hard act to follow. They're both excellent players. I've already written about Leo's skills.

I'd bought myself a guitar pedal - a Line 6 Floor Pod, and since I haven't been doing much TV work lately, had thrown myself into upping my skills on my Strat. I have to say, it was like going back 20 or so years to when I first started playing. Playing 2nd guitar was so new, and the lineup so exciting. Having Ros sing lead on some songs and harmony on most others was a really fresh sound for Mike and I.

I think we were all a little nervous as we started. But that just melted away very quickly. Sure, there were a few little errors due to the lack of practice - endings and things, but otherwise, we felt great. The band really gelled. And of course, Warren was there to make sure the stage sound was impeccable. The upshot is that it wasn't just a one-off. We're a band, and fingers crossed, one that'll be getting a bit more work soon. We're a lot more versatile than the hardcore blues bands I've played in before. I don't know what to call us other than a blues-rock party band. Exciting times. I'm sure we'll find room for some Cold Chisel covers too.

Leave of Absence

Nearly a year since I last blogged? Yeah, well, I haven't had that much to talk about. Sadly Crosseyed Cat was a hard band to get gigs for, and ultimately, keep together. At the end of the Academic year, Anders and Chris left town, and after a while Bob went home to the States, so Mike and I were kind of back at square one - two dedicated bluesmen without a band.

My musical career really is "The Blues Brothers" meets "Spinal Tap".

So what have I been doing in the meantime? Well, I wrote a TV series about the brain. Don't hold your breath for it though, it mutated into a kind of reality show that many of the crew are less than impressed by. I'm still waiting for a DVD, but I'm not hopeful. That's Television. I also field produced a documentary about shark attack survivors for Discovery Channel. That was fun, coordinating things on a 2-week shoot up in the Bay of Islands. Fake blood, actors, rubber shark... A much better show, with a great producer called Thomas Quinn, who's own blog I heartily recommend to you: http://godzooks.blogspot.com/

Musically, I've been down to the Empire for a few jams, fairly hard work. King Leo has kind of saturated the traditional blues scene here in Dunedin, and he's so damn good that it would be silly to try and play the same sort of thing. He even recruited Anders into his band!

So I've been trying to stretch myself by branching out on guitar and slightly different material. I guess the tunes I picked to jam down at the Empire Pub were a little too complicated for some bass players, because on two occasions, I've had guys walk off stage in anger in mid tune. Sorry guys, sometimes blues (and its baby, rock'n'roll) has more than 3 chords. Talk about dummy spitters. Fair bounced off the nursery wall.

Anyhow, exciting news: Mike and I have been woodshedding with new musicians, and we played our first gig in the new band last night, a 40th birthday party for about 50 or so people. It's a hell of a story. As soon as I get some pictures to post, I'll tell it.