Mike

Just say the word, and I’ll take care of it.
He won’t feel a thing…

Atta boy, Ryan!

Edit: (This countdown timer is cool.)

Are all those keyboards really necessary? I have wondered this since childhood whenever I see Paul Shaffer on Letterman. As a pianist, I admit, I don’t get it. (ducking; tomatoes flying overhead…) I’m not saying this to be a brat, truly - maybe someone out there with an affinity for the gadgets can explain it to me.

Sharolyn,
I’ve no affinity for the gadgets whatsoever, but I saw on some other post that you mentioned your new gravatar and I’m too lazy to go find it now but wanted to say that yes, I do indeed LOVE your new gravatar as well as your hip-looking specs and I do have an affinity for run-on sentences and am I saying that right or is it gavatar or gravatar?

June, I seriously hope we are not banned from this blog.

Sharolyn, I think I can explain about the keyboard thing.

It’s f’ing AWESOME, that’s why.

OK, now the serious answer. The top keyboard goes to the laptop, and let’s him triggers loops, ear-candy, and play any of the thousands of fantastic samples that he has loaded up in Mainstage. On one of the songs, he lays down a very convincing string orchestra during the bridge.

The two red keyboards excel at old-school vintage keyboards, like B3, whurly, rhodes, darker piano sounds, etc.

One of the pieces they do is an R&B re-arrangement of “Blessed Be Your Name.” Think “Billy Jean” style. Here’s a recording.

So, while the bass and drums churn up the 1/8th pulse, the keyboardist can be holding down a pad with the top keyboard, double up the bass movements on rhodes during the intro, and then do a perfect tasty B3 organ fill to get into the verse.

If he had to do all of that by switching patches instead of just moving hands over to a new keyboard, it would never work.

June, they are Mike’s specs. I wanted to be like the cool kids. And, your artwork is brilliant in person; I am honored now to have seen an original.

Mike, thank you for a serious answer. I do feel like I’m missing out on a whole other world. BTW, are we talking Summer Celebration tour?!

Yes. This small group has become more like a pro tour than anything that’s come before it.

More like a pro tour like they’re all having sex with each other? Or is it just about the drug use?

Yes Chad, let the darkness out. All of the darkness. Revel in it.

Darkness out…. goodness in.

Hey! Here’s some goodness! As of this moment, the Orange County Angels of Tustin are losing 8-4 to a team called the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, which is apparently something passes for a professional baseball team in the AL.

Darkness out…. goodness in. I do feel better!

I feel badly about that last comment…

…especially because now it’s 10-4 Devil Rays.

Yeah, you lose some, you win many, many more.

And some you lose by a final score of 13-4.

We’re like Dr. Suess right now.

Sometimes here I feel like the mom driving Chad and Michael to their next music lesson while listening to the conversation they’re having in the back seat.

(I mean that in the ‘I don’t know (care) what the heck those boys are talking about, but my my, they sure are into it’ way not the condescending way. I’d have to actually know (care) what they were talking about to be condescending.)

We’re talking about the greatest sport ever invented, and the indisputable fact that the Angels are retarded and the Dodgers have gravitas.

Right, Mr. Halo-pants?

FYI, I will get more belligerent the more the Angels win and the Dodgers lose. So, by August, I will be just unbearable.

(The blog collectively thinks… by August?)

(The blog also thinks… GET OFF YOUR WIFE’S COMPUTER, CHAD!)

Erica, has Chad even let you touch “your” new computer yet, or is he still “setting it up” for you?

Dude… It’s all her. I’m on flybys only.

Shar,
in Guitarland, this would be called an “Ego Rig”. Extra amps, extra effects, extra speaker cabinets, and topped off with a bike rack full of fancy guitars. Part of gigging is to look as cool (or actually, much cooler) than you sound. You score many of your Rock Points during load-in, which is when the hiring party uses their eyes to see if you’re gonna sound good or not. This is exclusively why my buddy, Brian, travels with a UK-made Vox AC30. People say, “aw, cool! A Vox!”, and then he plays through something else while the vox is used as a very large an elaborate coaster for his Diet Coke.

Side note: I did some work for a manufacturer on a new line of amps and they have decided to pay me in said amps. Three of them. Yes. Three. Next Couples Conference at Hume is going to feature me with a wall of sound and a steel pair of musical juevos. Until Deanna Ramsey asks me to turn everything off. And play acoustic instead. From behind the aforementioned wall of sound, now unplugged and being used to hold World Vision literature.

I keed, I keed…

I’m going the other direction. I plan to do the whole conference with just an accordion and a sneer.

and lederhosen.