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One of the many reasons why I like to produce a music podcast is it gives me the chance to put together a mix of music that makes me happy. In the early 70’s I got to hang out with a DJ of a local radio station and enjoyed helping her pick out the music she played on her show. Going through the list of songs for today’s episode reminded me of those times and when I finished I had more songs that could possibly fit in a single show.
I kick the show off with a tune from the “Rock Goddess” Sophia Ramos called Torn. I had the pleasure of interviewing early in my podcast career back on The Big Break # 7. From there we move right into the Rusty Wright Blues band with Hell On My Heels. Sean Chambers definitely brings up a strong Stevie Ray Vaughn feel with his song Strong Temptation. I close out the first set with Walter Trout and his song Workin’ Overtime that also features Jeff Healey.
David Gerald has released his second single called How I Feel from his upcoming album “Hell and Back“. A new artist to the show is Dave Hole and his song Rough Diamond Child. After a short comedy bit called “Blondstar” we get right back into the music with Can’t Keep Me Down by the band Helium Soul. Another debut song from the Glenn Kaiser Band called Save Me From Myself follows.
For fans of Lynyrd Skynyrd I get to play one of three tracks from Skynyrd founding member Allen Collins (and writer of Freebird) that was sent to me. In the song Chapter One from the Allen Collins Band album “Here There And Back Again” you really hear the voice and talent that Allen Collins contributed to the Lynyrd Skynyrd sound. I follow that up with a song in the same music style called Takin’ All I Can by the band Rebel Storm. We bring that set to a close with My Baby Says from the Laurie Morvan Band.
There are quite a few songs in my play list that I can set on auto-repeat and listen to all day. One of my favorites is the old “T-bone” Walker song called They Call It Stormy Monday beautifully done by Christi Ana Perez that I play to close out the show.
Podcast Promo: Logical Loss Podcast
It seems that for the better part of January I’ve been fighting some form of respiratory bug or other malady that’s kept me from producing new episodes. Either my energy level was low or my voice was so bad that I’d only get a few sentences out before triggering a hacking cough. But now my system has recovered quite a bit and I’m getting back into the swing of things.
As I was going through my music playlist, I found some tracks that I’ve not played in some time along with some great new songs recently sent to me. So this episode is a mix of tracks you may not have heard in a while and great new music.
Baby Hates Me by Danko Jones
Letting Go by Retrograde
Hard Stuff by George Thorogood
Automatic Woman by Christina Vierra
Maybe I’m Amazed by Blake Morgan
Booty Voodoo by Lee Coulter
That’s All She Left Me by The Bluescasters
Get Your Own Coffee by the Janet Lynn Band
Controlled by the Julie Schrieber Band
What A Man by Soul Summit
Walk Away by Katy Pfaffl
Sticking Around by Jarah Jane
Free and Easy by Lovespirals
Promos: Journeys Inside My Mind 100th Episode Special, Chillin with Lovespirals
I just got back from working a gig with The East Coast Party Band and thought I’d provide a glimpse into what I do on the weekends.
The ECPB is an 8 piece band that plays beach music, cover tunes from the 60’s-80’s and other music appropriate for weddings, outdoor festivals, corporate parties, etc. They have a tight, well polished sound with a killer brass and rhythm section. Various members of the band have been together for over 30 years. I even went to high school with their bass player.
The band carries all the equipment to do an entire show in a 26′ International truck. It’s slightly smaller than the largest Ryder truck you could rent. It’s painted with full color murals on both sides featuring the band members and acts like a giant billboard when out in public. It has a hydraulic lift gate on the back which is an absolute necessary.
We travel with a four man road crew. Our sound engineer arrives an hour or two after load-in starts. The band arrives shortly before show time. Only the four man crew is left after the gig to break down and load out.
The ideal setup is where we can back the truck up to the venue close to the stage location. Corporate gigs are usually held at a hotel, resort, country club, auditorium, etc. utilizing a loading dock and many times involve a freight elevator.
Larger events require more of the equipment but the basic setup remains the same for each show. Here’s a list of what we set up.
Staging - We do not provide actual staging as the venues often have a built-in stage or rent it. We do however bring and utilize risers for the PA gear and musicians.
A large central carpet is first placed center stage and then the risers form an inverted U shape. The two (or more) PA risers are positioned as wings to stage left and stage right.
The right side of the U is the drum riser (stage left). Jerry, the drummer, is also a lead vocalist so he plays to the right side of the stage from the audience’s perspective.
Musical Equipment - The drums consist of a six piece kit, five cymbals, hi-hat and double bass pedals. All drums are individually mic’d and mounted on a drum rack. We also add overhead and hi-hat mics.
On the left side of the U we set up a double keyboard stand and two electric piano keyboards. David wears a wireless head mic.
The back part of the U gets another double keyboard stand for a piano keyboard and organ. Jason also plays saxophone so he gets instrument stands and a wired mic.
Just to his left is the bass players position where we place Jack’s bass speaker cabinet angled upward and sideways directly at his head. He also gets a wired mic and stand.
To the right of Jason we set Mike’s guitar amp, angled in a similar manner. Positioning the amps in such a way reduces the volume each member needs to hear themselves and helps the sound engineer control the mix.
The open part of the U gets wireless hand-held microphones for Joel (lead vocal and trumpet) and Mark (lead vocal and sax). Beverly (backup vocal) gets a wireless head-worn mic. Next to Beverly we set up congas, chimes and other rhythm instruments with wired mics.
All brass instruments have their own wireless clamp-on mics. This give the musicians freedom to move around stage and even go into the audience to play.
Stage Monitoring - All the musicians utilize in-ear monitors. This allows the sound engineer to reduce the amount of actual sound coming from the stage and makes it easier to mix the band. Each band member has their own 8 channel monitor unit that their “ears” are plugged into that allows them to custom mix what they want to hear for themselves. This eliminates the traditional need for a separate “monitor tech” on stage. All this is controlled via a large monitor rack on stage that handles the feed for the “ears” and the hand-held or head-worn mics. Jack’s bass guitar amp and the wireless mic receiver rack goes on top of the monitor rack.
Lighting - A standard show consists of elevated light stands supporting an eight light “tree” of standard PAR56 can lights with dimmer pack at each front corner of the stage (two trees of eight lights). We set up two pairs of “intelligent” lights, which are motorized reflector units that can be remotely controlled for lighting position, color, gobo effects, etc. For a full show we run a 20′ aluminum truss with lights along the back of the stage and attach four more of these intelligent light units to the back lighting truss as well.
For additional visual effect a hazer (fog machine) is run during the show. When required, we also utilize a high intensity “follow spot” light that can be used to highlight individual musicians.
Power - Our setup requires a dedicated 70-100 amp 230 volt power source. Many times we do a direct tap into the main circuit panel which is fed to our own dedicated power distribution panel on-stage. This panel in turn feeds the amplifier racks, stage power for instruments, power for the front-of-house equipment and two separate sub-panel power drops for the lighting. This setup ensures that we have a stable power source, free of hums and other audio related issues. On occasion, venue power is provided by a diesel powered 70KW generator from a local rental company.
P.A. - All sound is controlled through an Allen-Heath GL4 48-channel analog mixing console. Three additional equipment racks containing effects processing gear and console power supplies are placed 75 to 100 feet from the stage and connected via audio and power cable snakes. An additional 100 feet of snake is available to enable routing of the cable to keep it out of the way as needed. The remote lighting controller console is run from here also.
Speakers - We set up one to three “stacks” of speakers on each side of the stage depending on the venue size and acoustics. A stack consists of a JBL 4732 mid/high range speaker cabinet on top of a JBL 4719 sub-woofer cabinet. Each stack is powered by a dedicated amplifier rack (4 amplifiers/rack) with a maximum power rating of 8400 watts. For large outdoor events we have the capability of providing over 22,000 watts of sound.
So the bottom line is, excluding travel time, it takes 3-5 hours for load in/setup and around 2 hours for breakdown / load out. I also provide backup sound/lighting support during the show so a typical day for me is around 12-14 hours.