Grateful Dead Music Forum

We've been playing with a new keyboardist lately. David's really good, since we run our own sound so there's not really any mixing during songs, he's still getting used to having to control his own volume between being out front and blending in. He was a little quiet in the mix but that may be that the camera was on my side of the stage and my cab was pointing at the camera. There's a lot of me . . . I may have also been loud as shit too I'm still working my way through the video I'll try to get some more stuff up later.

Sound check:


Jack Straw:


Iko Iko


Lay Down Sally

Sweet!

We've been working though a few keys guys to. Just love playing with keys!

Great picking too.

Peace,

James

Nothing wrong with a lot of you ... guitar sounds great!

James-T wrote:Sweet!

We've been working though a few keys guys to. Just love playing with keys!

Great picking too.

Peace,

James

thanks James! Keys are fun to play with. David is really good too. We've got a couple of other friends who will come sit in from time to time and they're great players and somewhat familiar with the music, Dead stuff is in David's wheelhouse so it's been good to have someone who wants to do this stuff. I'm also gearing up to play in another musical, back to reading charts but also get to play with a 20+ piece orchestra . . . and do Monty Python tunes (Spamalot).

Here's a few more tunes:

cutting through the mix, a how to guide. I liked the Dead years where the keys (Keith) really were the anchor for the song..to the extent that folks not familiar with the band sometimes thought Keith was the leader. That allows more dipping and weaving by both Garcia and Weir.

I love your style, I get a real authentic rolling Mason-Dixon hills vibe which was a big part part of Garcia obviously. Making it looks easy as bluegrass folks do so well.

playingdead wrote:Nothing wrong with a lot of you ... guitar sounds great!

thanks Vic! Milobender did a great job on that guitar, it's gonna be tough picking a guitar when the Wolf from Leo gets here - switching guitars at set break every night may be in order. First world problems . . .

tatittle wrote:cutting through the mix, a how to guide. I liked the Dead years where the keys (Keith) really were the anchor for the song..to the extent that folks not familiar with the band sometimes thought Keith was the leader. That allows more dipping and weaving by both Garcia and Weir.

I love your style, I get a real authentic rolling Mason-Dixon hills vibe which was a big part part of Garcia obviously. Making it looks easy as bluegrass folks do so well.

Thanks tatittle! Living in the Blue Ridge Mts for 30 years has rubbed off. I play in a bluegrass band too, that's some fun shit. My bluegrass band is opening for Jeff Austin of Yonder Mt fame next week. That should be fun. Back in the 90s we were playing this street festival we were asked to tell what genre we played, I looked at all the others on the lineup and it was funny that almost all of them had "fusion" of some sort in their genre (funk-rock fusion, jazz-soul fusion and so on) so I came up with hillbilly, psychedelic, folk, rock fusion as a joke and it stuck

My favorite T-shirt when I was a tyke was one that read "I'm a lil' hillbilly" with a picture of a kid, maybe with homeade fishing rod or something.

Seems like 1/2 the new restaurants have fusion in their name too, I prefer the music.

You guys sound excellent! Nice playing!

hippieguy1954 wrote:You guys sound excellent! Nice playing!

Thanks, hippieguy!! There's a lot of guys here that are a lot more Jerry-ish than I'll ever be but at least my rig is getting close - I sure do have fun

Here's a few more:
some Neil Young . . .




I flaked out on the lyrics a bit

You guys sound great! What effect pedal are you using on that last Jack Straw lead?

TRG wrote:You guys sound great! What effect pedal are you using on that last Jack Straw lead?

Thanks TRG!!

Through the whole song I'm using the Earth Drive with the gain down pretty low and the treble full on. On that last lead section I'm using a T-Rex Dr Swamp. I love that pedal. I use a T-Rex Replica delay too. **EDIT** In fact, these are my three favorite pedals of all time.

OK, here's the last of the tunes from the show, I'm hoping to get some good video of our shows in the Outer Banks, NC next month. We've got our original drummist coming in from Hawaii to do the double drum thing, our original lead singer and acoustic guitarist, and our old violinist for an 8 piece GD orchestra. It should be fun - I love the OBX and playing in a town called Kill Devil Hills.

Mercedes Benz-->Bobby McGee-->Not Fade Away


Peggy-O


Goin' Down the Road Feelin' Bad --> Blister in the Sun


Thanks for all of your kind comments!!