Who Remembers Quad Sound?

I'm old enough to remember when certain record companies and electronics manufacturers experimented with Quad sound. This was a unique "Dual Stereo" encoding system that required a special phono cartridge, a Quad compliant component and four speakers to reproduce. Sound like any recent audio technologies? Needless to say Quad was short lived due to less than stellar reviews, the price of admission and little software support (the few titles offered were mainly classical and pop).

My roommate and I went this one better using stuff we already owned. We put together a system that consisted of 2 AR Integrated amps, 1 pair of AR 3 speakers for the front, 1 pair of AR 4x speakers for the rear. I wired the speakers in a "Stereo Around" configuration that, no matter where you sat, you had a complete stereo sound-field. The results were spectacular! The sound was rich, warm, involving and filled the living room with ease. We could take advantage of our current LP and Tape collections without having to deal with format incompatibilities. At the time I had a Sony TC-355 reel to reel deck that had "Sound-On-Sound" dubbing facility which allows you to crudely overdub sounds. If this function was engaged with the "Monitor" on, you got incredible and variable echo effects. One night I was fooling around with this when some friends called. They had just dropped acid asked if they could come over to listen to music. I continued with my echo experiments until they arrived. I had left the tape deck going and audible. When they walked into the living room their voices instantly began echoing through all the speakers in glorious "Stereo Around" sound. They began laughing hysterically which, well, you get the idea.

I loved that system. After 30 some-odd years, multiple iterations, untold investments, I've finally put together an excellent system that accomplishes much of what that system did with just 2 speakers. Advances in digital amplifier technology, analog and digital source components, speaker designs and cable geometries can now yield unparallelled musical reproduction and amazing holographic imaging.

We live in a wonderful age!

Didgeridoo: The Most Expressive Musical Instrument?

I first heard the Didgeridoo at a very early age on my dad's Folkways LP of Aboriginal music recorded on locations in the Australian Outback. I always thought it was a drum ( I was too young to read the liner notes) because of how the instrument is articulated.

Many years later I'd all but forgotten about the Didgeridoo when I read in Duke Ellington's biography, "Music is My Mistress", his account of hearing didgeridoos while on a musical ambassadorship state department tour of Asia. Duke considered the Didgeridoo to be the most expressive instrument he'd ever heard, and even incorporated the instrument on the album, "The Afro-Eurasian Eclipse". 

In the '80s when I was the New Age buyer at The COOP I met a couple of nice guys who called themselves, "DidgeriDuo". Yup, 2 guys playing rhythmic set pieces on didgeridoos augmented by processed low frequency extension and sparse synthesizer shadings. Before you commit "Contempt Prior To Investigation", these guys put together compelling pieces that actually ROCK. I treasure these albums and have dubbed the cassettes onto CDRs which I've ripped into iTunes at high resolution. "Boom-Shaka-Laka!" 

The Didgeridoo is capable, in the right hands (Aboriginal master David Hudson is, for me, the best), of complex ranges of shading and by blowing using circular breathing techniques, beautifully primitive dancing and dream inducing rhythms.  

I feel a Walkabout coming on...

It Has Been Made Clear...I Am Painfully Out Of Shape!

This Monday evening my Auto 66 posse Tristram and Doug descended on my home, and we fired up the "Big Irons" for the first time in over a decade. It felt GREAT to interact in real time with these guys. What the session pointed out in black & white is I'm out of shape. When Doug launched into the fastest tune in the Auto 66 repertoire (Thanks Doug!) I lasted about 3 minutes before melting down and just stopping (insert out of breath gasping sounds here). SO, grateful for this data point I am looking to work on stamina. My plan is to play along with my iPod on Shuffle. Whether a Chopin Etude, The Ventures, Mastodon, Kirsty MacColl, NEU!, a Beethoven symphony, James Brown, Captain Beyond, Lee Fields, Steve Roach, Steve Reich, Funkadelic, Judas Priest...this will be my metronome and context source. I think this sounds like fun. Any drummers care to weigh in on this?

The Night I fell Over On Stage

When we had shows at the club Streets, my girlfriend Barbara loved to have the Someone & The Somebodies "Entourage" over for a hearty meal of anti-pasto, pasta with her incredible north Italian style tomato sauce that included sausages sourced from the neighborhood deli in Park Slope. We usually ate a lot because it was so awesome. Er, we also drank A Lot of wine with these meals. It just felt right at the time! We'd all stumble around to Streets and arrive just in time to set up and play. It was one of those nights in 1981 when I was reeling from one of Barbara's heady fetes. It didn't help that the audience was particularly hostile. At one point my bassist Tristram was hit in the left elbow by a full beer bottle. No chicken wire here! Half way through the set came one of our more complex pieces. The ending was a rapid fire cadence, "DAdadadaDadadadaDAdadaDA!" where I conclude by damping the ride cymbal on the last beat. Only this time I kept going, falling over my floor tom and crashing to the ground still holding the ride cymbal. My throne, floor tom, cymbal and a few microphones were scattered over the stage. I calmly picked myself up, got everything back in place and said, "Excuse Me". Right out of Cheech & Chong's "Up In Smoke". the night didn't get any better. Between songs towards the end of teh set the club DJ announced, "Would the owner of a Toyota sedan with New Jersey license plate #........ please come to the bar. Your car is on fire". Tris lowered his head in ultimate dejection. Yup, that was HIS car on fire. Rock & Roll!

Who Are Your Favorite Wah-wah Players?

The first Wah-wah I heard was Eric Clapton on Disraeli Gears and I thought it was cool. His approach was on the beat with an accent hear and there, and after a few listenings I started to miss the wonderful tone from Fresh Cream.

I relegated the Wah-wah to, "novelty" status until I heard Jimi Hendrix's incredibly supple articulations on "Axis Bold As Love". Wow!...THAT's expression! His seemingly effortless ability to use the Wah-wah as an extension of his mind remains for me well, mind blowing. Just listen to any of the recent Experience Hendrix approved live recordings, especially "Winterland". When I listen to these performances I feel in the presence of a true genius who's emphasis on extracting every ounce of expression and emotion from his rig hasn't, for me, ever been matched. Thank you Jimi!

I have to give a shout out to the late, great Pete Cosey who anchored the lead guitar spot in Miles Davis' great acid rock "On The Corner" band. I saw Pete several times in this band and his use of the Wah-wah for pure effect is the closest I've heard a guitarist approach, "Phasers On Stun!". He could make the guitar sound like it was literally falling apart. Beautiful Pete!

Frank Zappa. Talk about totally unique. Developing his style to suit what he was writing for The Mothers Of Invention, Frank invented an inimitable feel for the Wah-wah. Zappa's ability to articulate triple "Wah" inflections while executing hellacious 32nd note rapid-fire staccato attack leads is so uniquely audacious I have never heard anyone else, even Zappa's lead break transcriber Steve Vai. Eat Frankie's dust all you Cali GIT-Heads!

Who are your favorite Wah-wah players?

How Loud Is Loud?

When I was at The COOP music department in the '80s I got to see a lot of bands compliments of the labels. There were some great shows (The Kinks, Bryan Ferry, Paris Combo, Lou Reed touring "New York" with The Feelies warming up, Laika & The Cosmonauts) and some not so great shows (Motley Crue with Ratt opening, and they go downhill from there).

3 major act heavy metal shows that came my way all happened at the Worcester Centrum. First Up: Iron Maiden on the "Somewhere In Time" tour. Our seats were 25 rows back and 15 rows up on the stage right (audience left) side. The SPLs were so ridiculous that the bass, bass drums and lead vocals were pounding our chests. NO KIDDING!! Luckily Sylvia brought ear plugs. Next up: Judas Priest touring "Ram It Down". Similar seat placement. Chuck and I were prepared with ear plugs. As soon as "The Hellion" began blaring from the PA ear plugs were inserted. Half way through the second tune, "Metal Gods" I had to take the ear plugs OUT! The sound was immaculately put across to draw the audience in, not blow them away. We were able to relax, get into the songs and sing along. And Last: Van Halen touring "5150". Worst case scenario, loud and muddy/honky..."There's Only ONE WAY TO RAWK!"...NOT! C'Mon! The audience deserves better than that! And the performance was, as my rock critic friend Tristram Lozaw put it in his Herald column the next day, "Pathetic".

Also, I remember, during the "Live Aid" concerts broadcast from Britain, a "Loudest Band In The World" face-off between Black Sabbath and Judas Priest. Sabbath sent up the slowest "Iron Man" even the rabid fist pumping fans timed out on. The Priest weighed in with their send-up of Fleetwood Mac's, "The Green Manalishi (With the Two Prong Crown)" complete with much KK Downing feedback and blistering breaks. Sabbath won. Fewer amps but louder amps wins over many well-placed and tightly tweaked amps. Go figure.

If any of you folks have favorite "Ear Splitter" shows please share! 

To Match Grip Or To Parade Grip?

When I was 15 I took 6 weeks of drum lessons with the great local percussion instructionist extraordinaire, Dick Demers. We focused on "Set Control" as I had a basic fundamental vocabulary. After observing me he commented, "I see you use the Matched Grip popularized by Ringo Starr. Did he influence this?" "No, I just find this grip suits my style of rim-shot based attack." "Interesting you should say that. I find the Parade Grip actually gives me more power and flexibility, making it very easy to switch gears from feathering to sharp rim-shot attack. Would you like to try this?" "Okay, it works for Charlie Watts who I prefer over Ringo, so I'll give it a try." This approach is a paradigm shift! I found that switching between Parade and Matched grips really opened things up, A LOT. I angled my snare around 2 degrees forward, positioned my hi-hats to be easily reached with the left hand, brought my ride as close as possible angled almost vertical. Dick always questioned the ride positioning but hey, it works for me! As I began playing out and the emphasis veered towards hard rock/progressive blues rock Ala Mountain, Jethro Tull, ELP, etc., I weighted my approach more to the Matched Grip (turns out the great Jethro Tull drummer, Clive Bunker did the same shift as they began playing larger stages). By the time I co-founded the band Someone & The Somebodies in '79 I was a confirmed Matched Grip slugger. My rim-shot accuracy had improved to over 90%. The upside was I sounded way more powerful than I was actually hitting the snare. The downside was I more consistently cracked my left index finger, sometimes severely enough to draw blood and bleed all over my snare. I became quite adept at keeping the beat while licking blood from my hand! After Someone & The Somebodies broke up in '85 I hung up the sticks and became more involved on keyboards in my experimental electronic band Dervish with Somebodies lead guitarist Rob Davis. When I was urged out of retirement in '90 to join the Goth Country band, Why Fatman, Why?, I toyed with the Matched/Parade switch-off approach but I wasn't ready for it so stuck with Matched to get up and running quickly. After another long hiatus, I've set the kit back up and am taking time to be as open as possible on this. Any of you drummers out there care to chime in?