Paul K

The Phantom Knobs

The Scapegoats "Lesbian Undertow" I'd go see that band. I dunno why. But I would. "Undertow" could be combined with a whole slew of prefixes. Like... Inland Undertow. Snow Undertow. Drive By Undertow. No Undertow.

6 Die Yahtzee

A new record. 2.8 cents a gigabyte. http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-Details.asp?EdpNo=8991299&sku=XEA-102409996&SRCCODE=WEM4410TT&utm_source=EML&utm_medium=main&utm_campaign=WEM4410&cm_lm=fretless@twcny.rr.com&SEG=C&lk=7 (For those new to this game, my hobby is watching the price of computing fall throughout my life time. Hard drive space is easy to track.)

This is hip. I played with this guy when he was a teenager. He was good then, but now, wow! No chance he'll be back in town soon for more than a visit. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AGQfvtmS2Y

Ha! A cover band, no doubt.

You are correct, sir! Fretless 5 string. I like it, but have no use for the piezo pickup in it.

So in my new amp pics I teased you with a route job I did on a J-bass copy that I had previously made into a five string. Weight was an issue. In addition to the body route, I replaced the metal neck plate with four grommets like the ones on my Cort Curbow. And I cut a new control plate from a strat pickguard to replace the metal one. The tone control got booted also, since I keep it dimed all the the time anyway. I did retain my input jack hack: It has two. One on the control plate and one in the traditional j-bass side of the bass location. IMHO, traditional location works better for playing, but then you can't set the bass down unless your cord has a 90 degree plug. Control plate location involves more stresses unless you again have a 90 degree plug. I don't have a favorite yet, but my next guitar cord will have a damn 90 degree plug at one end. So she's a lot lighter and easier to move about. Two gigs with it, and it sounds the same as before. Ergo, Successful hack. I'd like to replace my control plate hack with a nicer looking one. But finding three hole jazz plates made out of plastic is harder than it looks. Or, one with no holes as I'd rather drill my own. Any ideas?

I've got a two disc set of a real early live show and a post-Synchronicity show. I'd love to put a band together to do the newer disc...or both. That'd be a hoot. I'll revisit more Police tunes to do in the solo act. I've gotten better at finding a key that I can sing in, yet still works on guitar. It'd be worth another look. The old bootleg: is that the one they recorded right before their first trip to the U.S. that they recorded in some college in the U.K.? Sting wore a yellow jumper and still had brown hair in that one. Copeland hits'em hard, eh? SMACK!!!!

That was my fear....Originally I learned it just for fun 'cause it's a weird song, but have such fun doing it that I wanted to revisit putting it into the set. I do "Tea in the Sahara" off of that album. And a whole slew of earlier stuff. BUT!!! Most of that stuff needs a band. Walking on the Moon, SO Lonely, Shadows in the Rain, Bring on the Night, When the World...., and the rest just don't have enough going on to keep interest in a solo performance; they're still in the book but have drifted out of the set. Man in a Suitcase almost works, but that's cause it's got a cheesy key modulation 2/3 of the way through to bring the energy back up a little bit. Most of these songs would work if only Sting wrote a third verse instead of repeating the first verse....they just need a 'little more' when you take away the band. Pfffft. Sting. He doesn't know anything. (eye roll)

Synchronicity II Should it go into the set, or is it one of those tunes that's really just for me?

Fun blues jam where I live. Singer and lefty guitar rock it.

I have a haunted guitar cord. It works well at home, I use it all the time. I get it outside of the house and it shorts out as soon as I plug it in. I bring it home, plug it in, and it's fine; I wriggle every damn part of the cord trying to make it short out, and it doesn't. Its haunted. Possessed. It's the demon cord.

What. Don't like "Lettuce Tray"? How about Spider Dolly

Led Astray

Thanks very much, Gruuve; The mic is an SM86; it's their condenser that is road-sturdy. I like it a whole lot. It went into my Carvin powered mixer. Guitar went into a Digitech RP-355 with the right and left headphone output going into one of the stereo channels of same mixer. I mixed it so it sounded good on stage-- guitar and vocal balanced properly, reverb, tamed the 12 string zzzing. Then took the "left-right tape output" of the mixer to my Tascam DR-1 recorder set at 16 bit wave. (At home on my computer I added a little more reverb.) The trick is to set the record level of the Tascam unit at the right level, but without much of a sound check to do it. I record most of my performances that way, and have gradually found the appropriate level. So I just tune up, hit the red button twice, and go. Attendance wasn't so hot at the gig, and it's a big place, and the people weren't near the stage. So with the cardioid mic, the glass-tinkling and chatter noise was minimal. Ha! Sometimes the sound of one hand clapping works to your advantage, but I'd have rather filled the place (Oh sure.....in my freakin' dreams.....) And the lower octave on the 12 string are flatwound strings. That helped a lot to fill out the bottom. For the house, I gave the sound lady the XLR left and right out of the Digitech pedal and asked her to pan it hard right and hard left. Out of the Carvin mixer I fed her a dry "monitor out" of just the vocals. For the house, she added reverb/whatever as needed. She was pretty happy because I didn't need to get a monitor mix from her; she only had to mix the house. I like that way better also because the usual thumb up vs thumb down thing doesn't really work like we wish it did. That set was long--I've got a 79 minute disc out of it, and it'll be my new Gig-Demo disc. I was able to keep my attention level right up--almost no brain farts. And the brain fart on the beginning of "Deacon Blues" I was able to edit out;)

Gig last week was stellar and it recorded well. Here's a couple. I did 90 minutes on 12 string and boy where my hands tires. I put the first set on a disc and will give them to the owner and the guy who books the gigs---just in case they weren't listening. https://soundcloud.com/paul-kempkes/logical-song-the-dock-11-13-14

OK. so for years now, my father's computer has sucked wind. Browser capabilities sucked; everything took forever to "not respond". I did tons of malware scans and such. Deleted as many unused programs as possible, etc. Still sucked. And tonight I noticed that all browsing went through this "conduit.com" site. Quick google of what in hell that is, and it's fixed. It's a malware thing that lives inside the browser. I hit browser re-set, and his machine is good as new. And again, Rock on!!!!!

Dept. of Chaos later to be abbreviated as D.O.C.

Here's what I did after work today. I put flatwounds on the lower octave of the 12 string. Going to do the same with the wound octave strings. No over dubs. Next time I swear I'll do a complete thing the multitracker instead of one take. https://soundcloud.com/paul-kempkes/overkill-11-7-14

I will need to buy bigger doors in my house, as my head has swelled to the proportions that make egress difficult. I ran a 21 min 7 sec 5K today. No rabbit for me to chase in this race: not enough runners for that. So my delusions of grandeur have me thinking that a sub 20 min 5K is possible with the right runner to chase.

Eric, thanks for the kind words. Indeed, one more take would have turned my spouse into a Queen Killer. She's been hearing me butcher that song on a nightly basis for some time now. Practice isn't pretty, I always say....

I'm a posting fool. One after another. This one was harder than most of the rest. It took three weeks to figure out what key to do it in. https://soundcloud.com/paul-kempkes/killer-queen-10-5-14

Fresh Water Mermaids

OK. Fine. So I put some bass on this track so that I won't be kicked off the bassplayer forum. Happy now? New 12 string and the aforementioned new microphone. Me likey. https://soundcloud.com/paul-kempkes/no-such-thing-8-31-14