Paul K

Boys Make Noise

Ice Cream Casualty

You can't tell 'cause you're somewhere in Belgium. But I'm blushing right now. Thanks. That really does mean a lot to me. Peace Paul K

Thanks! All the tunes are covers except Dream Girl, which wrote itself after I read a "Dear Abby" advice column in the paper. I should spend more time writing bad songs instead of just waiting for lightning to strike.

And here's the first decent recording with my Win 8 machine and the Behringer FCA 1616 interface. One pass, no overdubs. So I don't yet know if the interface is synched properly with the 'puter as far as matching latency goes. I monitor out of the interface, so the latency can be big or small--as long as the input latency is equal and opposite the output latency, I'm good to go. I'll figure out that when I do a full recording, which won't happen till after I get a Band-In-A-Box upgrade that works with Win 8, as I use that to create a midi template for the song. But back to this recording, it was four tracks: two mic's and guitar left and right. I only used one of the mic's on the final. Enjoyed being able to mix the levels separately between guitar and vocals and still get stereo guitar. And the Tracktion 4 software I'm using is really nice. Learning to use it was a pain in that it doesn't look like a recording console so I had to learn where all the buttons were. But I do like it better than the Power Tracks Pro I was using. https://soundcloud.com/paul-kempkes/haitian-divorce-11-8-13

I had an epic gig a couple weeks ago. Not epic as in how I was received--think the sound of one hand clapping--but in my performance level. And with nobody clapping the recording came out stellar. Very few brain farts, happy with the intonation and feel. I do need a new ukulele, as on the high string the fretted notes aren't in tune with the open string. Soooooo....which one do you tune to? Or since it's ukulele, does it matter? Click through the "Corks and More 10-25-13" after the title for this gig.

Carlos Danger

Saw Steely Dan last night at the outdoor arena near Canandaigua, NY. Ha! Good time. Pro's of the show: Drummer kicked ass. Fagen was great. The guitar player doing the real playing was totally solid. Great tune selection; only one song in the list that I'd have axed. Horn section was the total bomb--almost as good as the drummer. Bone player raised the bar for other bone players to aspire to. And did I mention that the drummer was the bomb? Second tune was Aja; every lick was perfect and in it's place. Something simple that I noticed that I really liked was that at the end of the tune where you do a pop for the last note (think Basie ending Ba Da bumbum bump-a-dump bump......Baaaaaaaaaaaaa!", he'd do a kick drum two notes that let you know when the "Baaaaaaaaaaaaa!" was. Every drummer I've ever played with made me and the band watch his sticks. The better drummers hold their sticks in the air, then raise them higher before they do the crash--like a conductor telling the winds to take a breath. The bad ones just crash down without showing the upbeat so that it's hard to time. Then they give you the stink eye that says, "Well, shit. What else do you want from me? You guys screw that up every damn time." The two kick drum beats before the crash that this drummer did made it easy; no looking involved. Now I know what to ask the drummer for. It's so obvious to me now. Me stupid. And again, Fagen was just great. But I have an even hand. Here's the things that sucked. Walter can no longer play guitar. His right and left hands weren't in synch--like a bad clarinet player who can't tongue the reed in time with his fingers. His presence was important, but maybe he should switch to air guitar. The sound was so loud and full that the bass player was inaudible. All nuance of the classic Chuck Rainey lines where gone. Unison part with guitars on Josie was totally gone. On Peg you could only hear those three notes where Chuck goes high on the neck (but just barely hear it)--the rest of the licks were gone. Backup singers were not in the mix as they should have been, and did not come close to hitting the Micheal McDonald harmonies in Peg. The killer drummer and killer horns where just too loud to let these parts shine. (Or the parts weren't there?) I know it's a rock show, but sometimes more is less. Plus, then when you give'em more it has more impact. You can't give'em more if you're already on "10". Oh, and the one tune that I'd have axed was Razor Boy. Why'd they do Razor Boy? Not a good choice in such a thick catalog. There's many other obscure Dan tunes that bring so much more to the table. The most glaring error was no cowbell on My Old School. Just snare and hand claps. C'mone. Never thought I'd say, "Needs more cowbell" and really really mean it. The seats we had rocked, and even at 51 years of age, I almost felt like the youngest person there. Old farts, all. If they come to your town, you should go. You will dig it. Peace Paul K

I saw the Yellowjackets last night at the Syracuse Jazz Fest. Felix P. held down the bass chair. My first tip was that the bass being tuned on stage was a righty and not a lefty; I had forgotten that Mr. Haslip wasn't with them anymore. But Wow, Felix was good. Enjoyed it greatly; him and Mr. Kennedy played nicely together. But: the sax player had no on stage personality. During the other solos the fella looked like he was waiting for a bus. Keys player also didn't light my fire. But the rhythm section rocked. I would also like to be able to say that Felix totally rocked his "Village People Mustache". But that would be lying. But he did totally rock the "Bass Face" category. Something must have been pretty stinky on stage. We got rained on a couple times, so about nobody was there. Was looking forward to seeing The Grandmothers of Invention, which was the next act, but the lightning and sinister looking dark clouds convinced us to run away to come back another day. Having driven through it on the way home, it was the right choice.

If you recall, I had a computer issue where I'd hear a click noise and then playback would speed up to chipmonk range. It was about 1 and 1/2 half steps in pitch. Info on this page fixed it: http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_xp-pictures/music-and-sounds-are-coming-through-too-high/70521787-71d4-4990-b578-f6152fdf295b

I bought an acoustic guitar a couple three weeks ago. Gonna busk when I'm on the road this summer. And it's already been in the studio. Fun. Not gonna post fish pics cause it's not a fish.

Fancy Pants

Ten Round Limit Yes. Sure. It's a boxing reference.

Indeed, missed Darius, but saw his mug on the marquee. That, and Steve Bailey wasn't in town as he's working at Berkley so didn't have any gigs in town and couldn't play golf. But, oh. Seeing him play again would have been a treat. So I had to be satisfied with playing golf with a bunch of old men. In spite of the weather, we had a good time. I hit some stunning 3, 4, and 5 hybrids. And some truly stunning drives with my new (new to me) 13 degree driver (Uh, sort of a giant and glorified 3 wood). But: I scored better with the head cover put back on the driver since my hybrids were so effective. I was no longer intimidated by being 165 or more yards away from the green, and playing from the fairway was often more valuable than the extra 25 yards. I haven't played guitar or bass or sang in a week. You'd think I'd be all jittery, but I'm not.

In Myrtle Beach. Golf game is excellent. Anybody else here? What's the music scene like in the middle of the week? And: We could use a few more players. 17 of us are her for golf, and golf comes in multiples of 4.

I busted up my ski binding this week, had to rent a pair of skis for Friday skiing. Oh, man the rental was so much better than my old sticks. Lighter, quicker. Yet stable at speed. Knifed through choppy snow like butter. New sticks were just ordered. Well, used ones were ordered. Thanks, eBay.

My taxes are finished. It took way too long 'cause my wife has some silly $600 worth of Sysco stock from when she worked there, and getting the 1099DIV from them is like pulling teeth. One year I forgot about the silly $21 of dividends 'cause I wasn't aware of the stock and never got the 1099DIV, and got audited for it. It was cleared up pretty quick, but still..... It's too early in the day for a glass of celebration scotch.

For the two takers of the Behringer Challenge: The first of the two listed, "No Such Thing" was the one recorded without the exciter/enhancer/bass processor/surround processor thingy. Me? I like what it does to the guitar. It's kinda like a chorus or flange effect but without the swirly. I like it, not that it's better or worse; just different. I've no opinion on what it does to vocals, pro or con. When I used the Aphex pedal on bass, I liked what it sounded like in my studio but the effect got lost in a band context. No one could tell when it was engaged or not. And it was apparent that the band mates really could not care less either way. As such, it got jettisoned in the interest of simplicity since my amp has an XLR direct out.

More of the solo stuff. No overdubs, guitar and vocals recorded in one pass. On one track I used the Behr*** Ultrafex Pro. Which one is it, and/or which track sounds better to you? All other knobs where kept the same. Yes, I know. Two different songs so i'm asking you to compare apples to oranges. But I'm curious nonetheless. https://soundcloud.com/paul-kempkes/no-such-thing-3-16-13 https://soundcloud.com/paul-kempkes/thunder-road-3-16-13

I saw a video of "people yelling like goats yelling like people". Glad I saw this one first, or it would have gone right over my head.

Horse Meat Scandal.

The trombone fella made it onto The Rachel Maddow Show. So, indeed, he's big time now.

I was hoping for a little slide vibrator somewhere in the tune. Very cute.

Ladies and Gentlemen; Alright, so I downloaded the software from my e-Mu soundcard as well as the other codec that ButcherNburn recommended. I think the soundcard download fixed the problem; thanks for the hint, ButcherNburn. So here's the new take. I didn't mess up the words this time. It kinda sucked 'cause I screwed it up on literally the last line of the song. And wow, Bruce sometimes stuffs 7 kilos of lyrics into a 5 kilo bag. Yup. The metric thing was for our northern and overseas friends 'cause I'm bilingual. https://soundcloud.com/paul-kempkes/thunder-road-12-12-12