SamuelBLupowitz
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Posts posted by SamuelBLupowitz
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On 5/30/2023 at 5:40 PM, Jr. Deluxe said:
I wonder who is the lucky band that he's with now?
He’s played sessions with SO many greats of every era since he came to prominence with the Heartbreakers. Actually, I learned he played organ on a few tracks on the second Dawes record, when they were between keyboard players. He sat in with them when they did the 10th anniversary celebration of their debut album at Newport Folk in 2019, too. I feel like three out of four times, when you hear a keyboard part on a rock or Americana record from the last 40 years and go “man, that was perfect,” it was him.
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Actually, my small legacy for this forum is that I joined up trying to find this series of Keyboard Magazine videos where Benmont talks shop. Someone (was it Dave Bryce?) realized they were no longer on KM's site and graciously uploaded them to YouTube. Benmont is a treasure trove of good ideas!
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14 hours ago, davinwv said:
I do the same thing. I call it "What Would Benmont Do?" (WWBD), while one of my friends calls it "The Tench-mark"!
YES. This is exactly what I tell myself (I just posted elsewhere on the forum that those were my exact instructions when I played some sessions for a friend's new project).
He is my gold standard for how to play keyboards as part of an ensemble rock band. Very little ego, creativity and taste for days. And when they let him loose, hoo baby.
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11 hours ago, Jr. Deluxe said:
True. I'm wondering about SONY or whoever owns the world's stax/motown rights to revenue.
I think that’s the concern of whatever platform the performance is hosted on (YouTube, SoundCloud, what have you) rather than KC, which is just the depository of shared/embedded links in this case.
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The guitar player in my funk-rock band once said to me while privately talking about our drummer’s excellent chops, “sometimes I wish I could take that f***ing crash cymbal away from him.” 😆
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On 5/21/2023 at 4:51 PM, o0Ampy0o said:
So ‘mustard” loses points because the color isn’t especially desirable,
Listen you better not let my wife hear you trashing the most significant color in her wardrobe! 😆
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Thanks so much for sharing. I always love these videos, especially for artists who really get to do it exactly how they want, with all the fun toys you could imagine having onstage. I'm not familiar with Umphrey's McGee other than that their name comes up a lot in relation to other artists I like, and this is a great little behind-the-scenes of what they're up to, at least in keyboard land.
All the vintage/analog gear is rad, of course, but I don't hear the V-Piano mentioned very often these days, and it's cool to see one in the wild!
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Derek Trucks is my favorite guitar player. Anyone who is familiar with his long career will know that he is extremely schooled in jazz and Indian classical music in addition to his roots as a blues-rock-gospel slide guitarist. But I had a guitar playing friend say to me once that he found Derek Trucks' playing to be too "predictable," because he does tend to go back to a stable of licks and melodic patterns, particularly when he's playing slide.
The thing is, as much as I love when Trucks shreds and goes "out" -- as adventurous and capable a musician as he is -- the reason he's my *favorite* guitar player is that he can make me cry with three notes. And if you can touch me emotionally through your instrument, I truly don't care whether it was with a bebop run or a simple pentatonic melody. If Derek Trucks (or Chuck Leavell, or Pat Metheny, or any of the other players mentioned in this thread) isn't too good for that , neither am I.
And Lord knows, I have ripped off the Jessica solo enough to understand that just because a player bases a part or solo around a simple scale, doesn't mean that it's easy to be thoughtful and inventive with those notes. That's where the musicianship comes in, not in the complexity or chops required to execute it, but how those tools are applied to create a response, whether that's smiling, dancing, singing along, or crying.
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As far as surprisingly special shows I've seen: Weird Al Yankovic. I'd been a casual fan for years (because what's not to like about Weird Al?) but not a diehard or anything. But the summer of 2010, I was home on break from college, and the local newspaper was doing a mail-in sweepstakes for free tickets to see Weird Al at the theater downtown. First prize was two front row tickets and a meet-and-greet. Second prize was two second row tickets and a meet-and-greet; this went all the way back to about the tenth row. I thought to myself, "how many people who read the newspaper in Reading, PA are going to actually bother to mail in for tickets to a Weird Al concert?"
So I wound up in the fifth or sixth row with a buddy, and let me tell you: I never would have gone to that show if I had to buy the tickets, but after seeing Al once, I will go see him any time he comes around. He sings like an angel, he plays the hell out of the accordion, his band is absolute fire, and they put on SUCH a performance (costumes! acrobatics! video screens!). After the show, we did get a quick hello and photo op with Al, who is very polite but very quiet and shy. My friend did wind up talking shop with Al's longtime guitarist, Jim West, for about half an hour. What a great night!
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All right, you K&M Omega Pro users, gotta pick your brain. I need a new stand for my Mojo that’s sturdy, has room for all my pedals, will easily change and lock height, and is easy to transport. The platform stands I’ve used for years don’t have locking height adjustment to keep the organ sitting flat at the height I like, and have too many fiddly knobs and feet that unscrew and get lost in transit. I have a different folding stand I love for my 88 key stage piano, but the proportions are just a little off for the legs to angle comfortably with the Mojo on it.
The Omega Pro looks exactly right, but it’s three times what I’ve ever paid for a keyboard stand. Worth it?
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A friend and frequent musical collaborator recently started up a new project that I've been playing keys in, and we played our first gig last weekend. It's been a real treat: it's an old-fashioned, rough-around-the-edges, soulful rock 'n' roll band in the vein of the Stones or Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. I've loved the relaxed rehearsal schedule for getting arrangements together for the studio and stage work -- I really enjoy just getting to sit in the corner and play Hammond and a little electric piano, sing some harmonies, not have to worry about complicated changes, and jam with some great players on fun, well-written tunes. My assignment before the first studio session was "what would Benmont do" and I've been more than happy to live up to that to the best of my ability.
Here are a few clips from Front & Main's first show in Owego, NY last weekend: two of the originals, and a Pearl Jam cover. Did the whole gig with just my Mojo, and I don't remember the last time I only had to bring one board to a gig.
Also, the band did its own sound from the stage in a crowded corner of a bar, and you can still *hear the keyboards* -- even running direct with three (!) guitarists (we last-minute added a special guest, a stellar young lead player who has been sidelined due to an arm injury for the last few years). Yeah, these guys can call me for a gig any time.
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On 5/11/2023 at 4:07 PM, analogika said:
New single off the second album from The Angels of Libra.
In & Out, feat. Jean Cortis:
This sounds fantastic! Love it.
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In the early aughts, my first years of dedicating myself to music, I lusted after the exotic-seeming instruments that my heroes from the 60s and 70s played. I remember staring at pictures of giant keyboards and beautiful string instruments that seemed totally unobtainable for a 13-year-old in semi-rural Pennsylvania in 2002.
Now, in my adulthood, I have the Hammond and Leslie, the clavinet, the Wurlitzer, the bass pedals. So I guess all I’m still holding out for is the baby grand piano (white if possible). And the Rickenbacker bass. And maybe an Ampeg B15 to play it through…
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I have the Mojo XT, which was the upgrade to the original dual-manual prior to the release of the Classic.
I remember hearing some of those same rumors about unreliability and any number of issues and gripes people had with the Crumar clones, but that was alongside a ton of people singing the Mojo’s praises. I got a good deal on one so I went for it, knowing none of the other clones were in my price range at the time.
I’m happy to say that since 2019 I’ve used it as the core of my rig on dozens of gigs without issue. Sometimes the output is a little noisy depending on the power. That’s the extent of it. No crashes, no problems powering it up, nothing. I absolutely adore it. So, long may yours run!
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Russian Doll! Such a cool variation on the genre. First season is a little more Groundhog Day, but the second season is closer to what we’d think of as time travel, even if it’s still a bit of a deconstruction.
My wonderful, late sci-fi nerd cousin Andy apparently was thrilled with the original Terminator movie because “they understood how time travel worked!” But when T2 came out, he left the theater horrified that they messed up the mechanics relative to the first film. His wife had to gently remind him that nobody *actually* knows how time travel works… 😆
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2 hours ago, apple said:
I'm pretty sure Jimi Hendrix owns the E7#9 chord.
You know what, that one he can have. He earned it and I owe him every time I use it.
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Reviving this thread because I'm seeing Theo live in Cleveland this Friday, and in anticipation, I put together another one of those one-man-band cover videos, because that's been a really fun, satisfying way for me to mess around in the studio lately. Figuring out how to approximate that muted piano sound was cool (a blanket with gravity giving a little bit of "palm muting" pressure on the strings), but it didn't put the low Bb on my spinet back in tune, unfortunately... it was a real vocal workout too, as you might expect!
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15 minutes ago, Al Quinn said:
Funny Sam, my daughter was also born in 1989Should I start calling you “Dad” now, Al?
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Fun fact: Taylor Swift grew up in Wyomissing, PA, in the school district next door to mine. We graduated from high school the same year, both born in -- of course -- 1989. Never met her, but we had mutual acquaintances (by the time we were in high school she had already shipped out to Nashville to do the thing).
It's an interesting thing being from the same nowhere town as someone who is leagues more famous and successful than you in your chosen field. I had a lot of bitterness and resentment towards her (and her wealthy parents) in my late teens into my early 20s, as I struggled to get my footing as a working musician and songwriter. That feeling is documented by a clever and unnecessarily nasty song I wrote in 2010. Ten or so years later, for my Pandemic Solo Album, I wrote a sort of sequel/apology song that I'm quite proud of. Both of the songs are really a lot more about me and my relationship with success, envy, and external validation. She was just a convenient scapegoat for my insecurity and dissatisfaction.
Eventually, I listened to the re-recorded version of her Red album when it came out a few years ago and realized how much I'd been missing out on by hating on her. The new record, Midnights, is badass -- haunting, sparse, groovy, and raw. I don't have any prog versions of her songs in mind, but I have been tempted to do an all-talkbox version of I Knew You Were Trouble... I'll keep y'all posted as that seems in keeping with the vibe of this thread!
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2 hours ago, CyberGene said:
As a non-American I wasn't familiar with that Karen term until recently. Maybe it's a regional/political/sociological thing but I don't find that character only negative 😀
If you work retail in the US for more than ten minutes or so, it'll start to feel VERY negative. There is a very different culture of how service workers are treated here than in Europe, both by their employers and by many customers. That's the most I'll say here lest it drift into "politics."
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8 minutes ago, HammondDave said:
Tell me about it… I will never sell my three Mellotrons, two B3’s, four Leslies, two combo organs, or Wurly. The more modern keys I have no sentimental value for.
...even if ... and bear with me here ... a fellow forumite wanted one of your extras...? 😉
I get sentimental about instruments, but then again, I get sentimental about everything (ask my wife what it's like trying to get me to get rid of ANYTHING). I finally sold my 12-year-old Casio Privia, to a friend who I knew would use it, after I got my CP88. My wife, and a drummer we play with, are both always trading up older gear for the next new thing. I don't replace -- I collect.
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I have an older Seaboard Block; it’s very tiny, less than a foot across. I use a laptop stand with adjustable width grips to keep it snug. That way the height and the width can be adjusted separately. I think the Rise 25 is bigger but that might still be the ticket.
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7 hours ago, Jr. Deluxe said:
Funny to me that at least a couple guys here would take up the challenge if it were Roundabout or maybe Point of No Return. But FLAE daunts the greats.
I've been having a blast doing one-man-band cover videos at home lately -- maybe I'll have to add this one to my list! Really fun bass part too. The trick is always whether or not I can manage the drums...
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Somehow it never registered to me that you can do this with *more than one* note. Holding the E minor triad down while he plays piano during Runnin' Down a Dream is SO crafty.
Also, the band did its own sound from the stage in a crowded corner of a bar, and you can still *hear the keyboards* -- even running direct with three (!) guitarists (we last-minute added a special guest, a stellar young lead player who has been sidelined due to an arm injury for the last few years). Yeah, these guys can call me for a gig any time.
In-Ear Monitoring and Limiter
in The Keyboard Corner
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I just bought myself one of these to replace my P1 in my live rig, and I absolutely love it. I was trying to figure out how to whittle down my line mixer and my in-ear amplifier to a single unit so I had less to fiddle with -- and also monitor my keys in stereo without having to ask for stereo from the house and then sometimes have to settle for mono anyway -- but ultimately decided it was going to be less efficient to add a big rack mixer into my life.
The Rolls is great. Sits right on top of my Mojo, takes a single XLR from the house, and then I feed it a TRS cable from the headphone out of my line mixer (or, on one-board gigs, right out keyboard's headphone output) and I always have a reliable stereo mix of my keys to listen to, which I can *balance on my own against the rest of the mix.* It's made my last few gigs SO much more manageable to be able to make tiny adjustments to how much I'm hearing keys vs. everything else as we go from ballads to big rockers, different lead vocalists, that sort of thing. And I can just tell the monitor engineer "I don't need any keys, I've got it covered," and only need to flag him down if I need to hear my vocal (or a specific individual in the band) better.
Oh, right, and it has that built-in limiter. That's good too.