SamuelBLupowitz

Josh, I think your observations regarding episode one (certainly the dreariest and most tense of the three parts) are all very on point. But I just can't see it with the "this needed to be more organized, this needed to be shorter," any of that, no matter how many times I hear it. All I've ever wanted since I was a kid just getting into music seriously was to be able to sit in a room with my favorite band while they worked. As tumultuous as this experience is, I cherished every moment. I will watch it again, and I would watch whatever additional material might eventually be released. Honestly, if I have any gripes, it's how few full performances we get of any of the songs. I understand during the earlier episodes -- how many times do we really want to hear them rehearse I've Got a Feeling in its entirety, especially given that we get the whole song twice in the rooftop concert? But I think one full run-through of Let It Be in the entire nine hours would have been nice. Then again, those complete performances have long been available elsewhere, so it's not like anything was left on the cutting room floor that we don't already have access to. But I do think the film asks the viewer to come to it with a certain amount of knowledge and experience, which is not necessarily made clear when you get the quick overview of the Beatles history from 1956-1969 at the top of episode one.

Kinda wish you hadn't sent me googling for that one. This is probably not the venue for this discussion, but reading about the dark parts of Billy Preston's life mostly makes me feel sad for him. By all accounts, he was a very sweet, kind person, with a lot of damage and trauma and substance issues stemming from being a black gay man in a culture that was antagonistic to that (and of course, having suffered abuse himself as a child). Given what we know of the antics of most of the rock legends in their heyday, and undestanding that it doesn't excuse him of any of the pain he caused others, it's hard for me to feel anything but compassion for someone who was mired in shame and not allowed to be fully himself. He left us a lot of great music. On a lighter note, my favorite Billy Preston story is from Keith Richards' memoir, where Keith cornered Billy at knifepoint backstage during a Stones show and threatened "dear William" with a stabbing if he didn't turn down the Leslie.

My wife and I were getting more and more annoyed with his tone-deaf suggestions (wait until part two when he tries to tell Linda that he is more of a Beatles fan than she is, lol). It's interesting, because with all the stories and legends around the band, I only ever heard him spoken of as a neutral presence, sort of a fact of the proceedings, rather than anyone who had a positive or negative influence on them like Yoko, Billy Preston, Glyn Johns, etc. But I thought it was a really telling example of the kind of unbearable pressure the band was constantly under. You can hear Paul and George actually in agreement about wanting to do an intimate, possibly even surprise, performance -- in a nightclub, in a dancehall, smoky lights, maybe don't tell anyone it's actually the Beatles playing. Then Lindsey-Hogg constantly tries to steamroll them for the sake of his film -- "no! It should be huge! It should be for the whole world! It should be in an amphitheatre in Libya!" Like, give them a BREAK dude! The last time they went out on tour the Klan tried to murder them! No wonder they couldn't take it anymore.

This was the moment when I realized just how special this documentary was going to be, rather than just a long rehash of the Let It Be footage I'd seen. To sit there and watch Paul write the beginnings of a hit song in real time while George and Ringo yawn... incredible.

As much as I've been an amateur Beatles scholar since I was 11 years old, watching this has been a thrill and revelation. One of those revelations was exactly how much Billy Preston brought to the table. It really took hearing them slog through I've Got a Feeling, Don't Let Me Down, and Get Back a dozen times with increasing interpersonal tension and disinterest to appreciate how he brought them -- the friggin' Beatles -- to a new level of polish, professionalism, energy, and enthusiasm just by sitting down at the Rhodes.

Yes, and the YouTube video "Jack's REAL Wurlitzer Vs. Our TOP Keyboard Brands | Blindfold Challenge!" demonstrates this. As someone who basically replaced a Wurli 200 with the CP88 in my gigging rig, it took me a minute to appreciate the Wurlitzer in the CP88, between dialing in the drive/EQ and also just the entirely different experience of playing a Wurlitzer sound on a fully weighted stage piano action. But now that I've settled into all of that, the accuracy of the sample is quite eerie.

Honestly, y'all, sometimes these threads are great for me because they remind me I *don't* need to covet the thing I almost got but didn't, lol. I love my Mojo XT but I got it less than a year before the Classic came out and not long before the MAG seemed to rise up in everyone's esteem, so it's nice to remember I don't constantly have to want to upgrade.

Yup, $10,000 dollars worth of gear for a $100 dollar gig, that's what we do. At least there were roadies on this gig. Hey, I got paid *$200* for this gig, thank you very much!

It's like that old flame you just can't seem to let go of...

Was a hired gun for a big record release show this past weekend, the solo debut from the singer of a very well-established local band (with whom I've also done a couple of stints on keyboards). It was a sold-out show in a roughly 350-person theater, big sound/light/stage crew, the works, so I decided to do the thing I said I wasn't going to keep doing so much and went A Little Extra. Photos of the rig attached -- Yamaha CP88 for acoustic and electric piano (plus a synth pad for one Genesis cover that pushed the limits of even this rig), Novation Ultranova for lead synth (including the talkbox stuff), Nord Electro 4D for samples (clavinet, Mellotron strings/flutes, and saw pads), Roli Seaboard Block Bluetoothed to an iPad (for some expressive "flute" leads on two of the tunes), and my Crumar Mojo XT for Hammond... which I ran through (I can't believe I did this) my Leslie 147 (it actually fit in the back of my car, and there was a crew to help lift it onto the stage!). A pretty hefty rig, but the gig had a lot of simple parts utilizing varied textures song to song, and it made my life a lot easier to have a breadth of sounds I could grab at any time, rather than complicated patch changes dominating each tune. The new music we were performing live was very much created "in the box" with a lot of electronic sounds and Production rather than a band, and the Nord was really handy to have for some drone parts that came in and out of the recorded arrangements -- I used a latching footswitch and a volume pedal to bring some open fifths in and out during some songs without having to take my hands away from more prominent parts. That's a trick I learned from Benmont Tench; he used to do it with the synth parts on Running Down a Dream so he could keep both hands on the piano. I also got to get a little cozier than I had been with the modeled tape delay on the CP88 for a few of the songs. And hey, even by my massive rig standards, this one still had the advantage of being all digital! Well, except for the Leslie. What am I, a philistine? :wink:

At a certain point I developed a reputation as the guy with all the emergency stuff, and that's helped/haunted me to an absurd degree. I'm the guy with extra quarter inch cables, power cables, XLRs... one time the piano player in the band (I was playing bass on that gig) asked if they could use my keyboard! Hilariously, I had a Nord Electro and a Wurlitzer in my car, but the piano player's partner still had to drive half an hour back to my house to pick up a weighted 88-key board from my wife. So when I am missing a cable I need, I get really mad.

There's something extremely funny to me about the idea of a drummer going on an ego trip and touring without any of his bandmates. "I'm sorry, was someone complaining about the drum solo? I guess not because you're BOTH DEAD."

Those isolated Brown Sugar tricks give an even greater opportunity to appreciate how horribly out of tune the bass is! At any rate, I think your attention to detail is admirable, and I will say I'm having a hard time hearing exactly what Ian Stewart is playing in that section -- I hear the high octave Gs, I hear maybe some blues licks happening within them or underneath them? It's hard to say. But if you want my two cents, I'd zoom out a bit. While learning the ins and outs of each Stones keyboardist's style will certainly help bring the correct flavor and more than a casual cover band approach to these (in some cases well-worn) songs, I think it's fair to say that any of these players, given another pass at the tune, would play something totally different. There are probably dozens or hundreds of live recordings of Brown Sugar, with Stu, with Ian McLagan, with Chuck Leavell especially, and while every single one of them is full of sick blues and boogie woogie licks (if you can hear them under the guitars), I think getting too hung up on what exactly is happening at any particular moment isn't necessarily in the spirit of the thing. So see what feels best when you play it with the band -- hammer out those octave Gs, throw in a little honky tonk lick to break it up, answer the guitar, or comp rhythmically for a bit. And as awesome as it would be to bring the full bore of Stu's complex left hand patterns and syncopated right hand licks to the tunes... how often can you *really* hear the left hand of the piano in the context of a Stones arrangement at all? So none of this is to say "eh, why bother," because as Josh Paxton often points out, there is great benefit to be had from learning the ins and outs and details of a player's style and approach. But if your inability to figure out exactly what is happening on the studio recording is inhibiting your enjoyment or, even worse, your confidence in your abilities to handle the gig... remember, Ian Stewart would refuse to play on any song with a minor chord in it, so let your limitations springboard you to finding your creative voice in the context of a Rolling Stones tribute band! EDIT: Chuck Leavell also has a lot of solo performance videos and tutorials showing the ins and outs of his style, and again, while he didn't play on the classic records, he's been putting his flavor into the Stones' catalog longer than any other keyboard player at this point, so there's certainly something to be gained from watching him play anything: [video:youtube]

What is there to say? They're the BEATLES. My heart.

My one wish for the CP88 is that it had Nord-style "live sets" in addition to the presets, and I'm told that the YC88 has those. That said, I prefer the panel layout and simplicity of the CP, especially since (as I was just saying on another thread) I'll compromise a lighter action for piano if I'm slimming down a rig, but I won't usually mess around with playing organ or lead synth on a weighted piano action. Anyway, all this said, this is my first stage piano upgrade in a decade, so I'm extremely pleased with it.

In the "late to the party" category: at the behest of the bassist I've been working with a lot lately, I recently checked out Sting's 1993 solo effort "Ten Summoner's Tales" and was totally blown away by the songwriting, the musicianship, and David Sancious's stellar keyboard performances (though Vinnie Colaiuta is no slouch behind the drums, either). Great melodies, infectious odd-meter rhythms, just a compelling record all around. I assumed that Sancious (who I've long admired; one day I'll learn that piano intro to Bruce Springsteen's "New York City Serenade") would have access to whatever well-maintained vintage keyboards he wanted for the piano and Hammond that dominate the record (alongside the gooey synth pads that were de rigueur in the early 90s) but the videos from the studio sessions and the accompanying tour I've dug up have him playing a single controller attached to a massive rack of modules and a very period-looking computer system. Cutting edge for '93, I imagine! I've included one of those videos below -- any insight into the equipment he would have been using will certainly be of interest to me. My bassist has suggested a 30th anniversary tribute show in 2023, and we know a drummer who can definitely hack it... I'll have my work cut out for me, but I'll have a blast, and prooooobably bring more keyboards than David Sancious in this case! [video:youtube]

...so you can say "it belonged to someone in the Dead." That may not be worth $900 to you, but, like, have you MET Grateful Dead fans?

Assuming it's the same action as the Electro 4D, I also find their waterfall action to be extremely satisfying for electric piano and clav. It's not the same as any of the authentic instruments, it just feels nice to me!

I'll tell you what, as a longtime Electro 4D owner, the Stage 3 Compact seems like the ultimate flexible lightweight rig rounder-outer/cover-all-bases board, and I would absolutely love to have one in my collection. Playing acoustic piano on an organ keybed is never ideal but if it means I only have to haul one board up the stairs to the shitty tiny club or rehearsal space to get by, I'll suffer through playing my blues and honky-tonk licks with zero resistance, especially if it means I also have Wurlis and clavs and synths and Mellotron, oh my. [Edit: I feel very differently about playing piano in a band context on a keyboard that's too light than I do about playing organ on a board that's too heavy. I won't bother playing anything that vaguely sounds like a Hammond on a weighted action unless it's, like, for a joke,] Only trouble is that price tag. YEESH.

I know this board has been around for awhile now, but as I've been window-shopping synths, I realized that while the cover-many-bases VA board is very useful, I already sort of have that covered, but I don't have an analog synth anywhere in my collection. It looks intuitive, sounds pretty cool, fairly low-profile, and a reasonable price point. Wondering if anyone here owns/used to own/plays one and what your experience has been!

Excited to see how the new touch sensitivity feels on the CP88, particularly on the electric piano section. Unrelated, anyone know what stand Nahre Sol is using in that video...? My ten-year-old platform stand is a little worse for wear...

This is kinda fun.Yes, my glee over this enormous evil tech conglomerate getting kicked in the proverbial nuts is helping balance out the jitters I am feeling from not being able to compulsively check the social media apps that I am clearly addicted to.

Apparently the DNS records for all three apps are mysteriously gone, as well -- "facebook.com" was shown as available for sale this afternoon. So this is not an accident. I bet Mark Zuckerberg is having a very bad day.

Thank you so much! I have a good time. Liked this a lot, Sam. You wrote something that's inimitably you, and yet extremely hooky. Very hard to do. Love all the keyboard work. I can see how the Wurly has become your musical center. I have to be critical about reading your own lyrics from your phone for the video. I wish you had found a way around that. Fair enough -- truly, the video is exactly what it looks like, a snapshot of the actual tracking the of song, nothing staged or artifical (well, other than the goofy visual effect when I do that silly Moog pitch slide near the end). I read the lyrics off my phone when I laid down the lead vocal because... that's where I had the lyrics!

Hooray! Happy birthday!