Shamanzarek
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Posts posted by Shamanzarek
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One interesting thing about IAGDV the song, not the album, is that it was recorded at a studio on Long Island, NY. Normally IB recorded in California. The band was on a tour with The Doors and Jefferson Airplane and had been playing IAGDV in their shows and it was about a ten minute song. When they got to New York Atlantic Records put them in Ultra-Sonic studio in Hempstead, NY under the guidance of George "Shadow" Morton who produced Vanilla Fudge and The Shangri-Las. Morton turned the session over to Fudge and Rascals engineer Don Casale. The band played through the song thinking the engineer was getting levels and continued playing the song not really knowing if they were being recorded. They got the basic track in one take, overdubbed vocals, a guitar solo, and then took the tape to Gold Star in Hollywood for mixing. Their producer Jim Hilton who was not present for this recording didn't want to put out such a long song but the band was so happy with how it came out they held their ground. Only Jim Hilton is listed as producer on the album and Casale is uncredited.
Iron Butterfly was scheduled to play Woodstock. They arrived in NYC but by then it was impossible to drive to the festival. Their manager made several calls to the promoter demanding they send a helicopter to pick up the band. The promoters had enough problems to handle on site and declined to have the band flown in.
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S_Gould, That was Toad's Place in New Haven. There was a B3 in our dressing room and I was playing a bit of the "Iron Butterfly Theme" on it when their keyboard player heard me and came in. The main members of IB stayed sequestered in their dressing room and I didn't meet any of them. Years later I was playing a festival in NJ with one of the acts being The Classic Rock All-Stars which included Mike Pinera, Jerry Corbetta of Sugarloaf, and Pete Rivera of Rare Earth. Mike sang IAGDV and "Ride Captain Ride".
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Here is a performance by the classic IAGDV lineup from 1988. Notice Doug is using an expensive at the time Kurzweil K250 mainly for a Vox Continental sound. He could have bought at least a hundred Continentals back then for the price of the Kurz.
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"In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" the song not withstanding I consider their first album Heavy to be the superior album. The Iron Butterfly sound was fully formed and only Doug Ingle and drummer Ron Bushy from that lineup continued with new bassist Lee Dorman and new guitarist Erik Brann for two more albums. The Ball album seems to be nearly forgotten now but two songs "Soul Experience" and "In the Time of Our Lives" were both really good records that got AM airplay at the time. When Doug abandoned the Vox Continental for a B3 they were indistinguishable from many other bands of the time. Mike Pinera took over most of the songwriting and singing and it was a different band. They did a European tour with Yes in 1971 with each show culminating in a jam with both bands. When the tour ended Yes bought the PA system from Iron Butterfly and Doug left the band. The band reformed several times but Doug was rarely involved and without him it was not really Iron Butterfly. RIP.
In 1993 I got to open for a version of IB with Mike Pinera, Lee Dorman, and Ron Bushy. Our Doors band and a Hendrix tribute were the openers. I had my Vox Continental which I would have happily let their keyboard player use but he didn't care. He was a hired gun getting paid $100 per show. They opened with "Unconscious Power" and I couldn't believe so many young people singing along.
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I read Quincy Jones book and he considers rap to be as important as be-bop was in the 40s and 50s. His daughter was dating Tupac Shakur at the time he was killed. Tupac is now recognized as one of the most influential music artists of the 20th century.
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I started a duo with a female singer last year never having done this before. We both play in local bands but started this to do the many well-paid smaller gigs available in the resort area in which we live. We started from the ground up and I get to pick many of the songs. She plays guitar on a few songs and I play guitar on several songs which adds more diversity to what we can do. Most single/duo acts around here are strictly guitar often with backing tracks which we don't use. I learn songs mostly from listening to the recordings and sometimes check chord charts but I memorize everything so I don't have an iPad or charts on stage. The singer does use an iPad for lyrics and guitar chords. Maybe coming into an established act where someone is dictating unfamiliar repertoire from specific charts would be a different situation but being in this duo leaves me free to play how I want and work things out democratically with the singer. I am happy doing this and we have been getting bigger audiences than the many other single and duo performers in our area.
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Not wanting to possibly miss the greatest album of all time I listened to some Lauryn Hill yesterday after seeing news about that list. I remembered it getting acclaim when it first came out but don't know if I ever heard any of it. Anyway, I liked the videos and I can see how it might be a milestone in the Hip Hop/R & B genre but to call it the best album of all time is a stretch. It would need to have songs that have become timeless standards that get mainstream airplay and get covered by many other artists. I don't see enough of that here. Someone like Stevie Wonder whose songs from the 60s and 70s are still widely heard would be a better candidate with Innervisions.
As great as it was Sergeant Pepper might have had a better chance at making a top ten list if it had been made as The Beatles originally intended. Among the first songs recorded for the album were Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields Forever. The record company needed to release a single and took those two songs. In England there was a policy that if a song was released as a single it didn't appear on the current album. This happened a lot with Beatles songs. When the Beatles put out a single or four song EP those songs were not included on an album. Capitol Records would then collect those songs and release them as a new album for the US market.
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After Jim McCarty and Keith Relf left Renaissance John Hawken brought in two former members of the Nashville Teens. Both Dunford and singer Terry Crowe had been early members of the Nashville Teens but left the band before they recorded "Tobacco Road". The original Renaissance line-up fell apart within about a year. Jim McCarty and Keith Relf, though they had stopped playing with the band remained involved in production and songwriting for a while as new members came in. Dunford stayed with Renaissance for many years as co-writer of much of their material and played acoustic guitar while Crowe was in the band very briefly. Hawken was on the first Renaissance album and a second album which was only released in Germany at the time. The second album was titled Illusion and had a few new members including Dunford and Crowe. Don Shinn (early inspiration to Keith Emerson) is credited with keyboards on one song.
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This is where I first saw John Hawken when I was 13. "Tobacco Road" was on the radio and his playing made a big impression on me back then.
Here are some Nashville Teens performances some live and some mimed. John appears with a Hohner Pianet in one clip. I asked John if he ever used one and he said he always used a real piano for live performances. Another thing I asked him about was if Jimmy Page played on "Tobacco Road" as there were a few sources crediting him. John confirmed that it was their guitarist and not Jimmy Page on the recording. To me even though there are other great versions of "Tobacco Road" theirs is the definitive version. Love the piano and dual lead vocals.
With The Strawbs in Japan 1975.
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A founding member of The Nashville Teens and Renaissance keyboardist John Hawken has passed away at 84. John was also briefly a member of Spooky Tooth and was later a member of the Strawbs among other bands.
The Nashville Teens were known for their sole American hit "Tobacco Road" in 1964 which featured John's distinctive piano solo. In Britain they were considered to be one of the best live bands and backed visiting American artists including Chuck Berry and Carl Perkins on UK tours but most notably Jerry Lee Lewis in 1964 at the Star Club in Hamburg, Germany which was recorded for one of Lewis' most critically acclaimed albums titled Live at the Star Club.
In 1969 John co-founded Renaissance with former Yardbirds Keith Relf and Jim McCarty plus Louis Cennamo and Relf's sister Jane. This line-up released one album before all founding members left the band and completely new members took the band to greater success. Hawken with the surviving Renaissance founding members reformed the band in 1977 under the name Illusion and released two albums.
After brief stints with Spooky Tooth (who also recorded "Tobacco Road" on their first album), Third World War, and Vinegar Joe Hawken joined the Strawbs in 1973. Following in the footsteps of predecessors Rick Wakeman and long time Bee Gees keyboardist Blue Weaver with the Strawbs John played Piano, Mellotron, and Minimoog on the albums "Hero and Heroine" and "Ghosts" which were very successful in the Northeast US and Canada.
In 1979 John and his family relocated to the U.S. residing in New Jersey. In 2004 he reunited with the Strawbs and I first met him at a Strawbs concert at The Strand in Lakewood, NJ. About a month later I was invited to a party where John was the distinguished guest along with Strawbs sound engineer Paul Smith. Before going to the party I went over "Tobacco Road" and a Strawbs song. At the party there were a couple of other guitar players and we played a lot of songs with John. John demonstrated some of his piano parts from Renaissance and Nashville Teens.
Several years later John was in a local NJ band that opened a show for our Doors Tribute band. He was impressed with my Vox Continental saying he hadn't seen one in years. His band played "Tobacco Road" and the Spooky Tooth version of "I Am the Walrus".
John Hawken was there from the beginning of British Rock history. It was great to hang out with him and hear his stories about the British Invasion days and more. Good-bye John.
https://bournemouthbeatboom.wordpress.com/john-hawken-2/
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For his first tour Stevie landed the opening slot with The Moody Blues which put him in front of large audiences all across the country. I saw him in 1983 at a Moody Blues show in southern California. I had already heard of him from his work on Bowie's Let's Dance album which was all over the radio around that time.
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This will likely put an end to:
Disco
Trance
Techno
Future House
Electro House
Tech House
Hardstyle
Drum and Bass
Most other genres have a wider range of tempos so can stay within the 80 to 116 BPM limitation.
I wonder if the police will be monitoring music events and arrest musicians who exceed the tempo limit or don't play fast enough.
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One of the lower priced keyboards that is actually called a Workstation is the Korg Nautilus. Can be found for around $1500 for the 61-key version if you do some searching.
Another low-priced option that calls itself a Workstation is the 76-key Casio WK-7600 which has been in production for ten years or more. Most of the big dealers sell these for $450 but might be less on Amazon. YouTube demos are fairly impressive considering the price and everything it can do.
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Mike first used the 300 on "Never Comes the Day" from On the Threshold of a dream. On "Watching and Waiting" it was layered with a pipe organ so it is not purely Mellotron.
Here is a list of Mellotron 300 sounds and songs it can be heard on:
https://www.gforcesoftware.com/products/the-streetly-tapes-m3000-for-m-tron-pro/
Mike had custom string sounds made for his Mellotron Mark II which are first heard on Every Good Boy Deserves Favour. Before that album they would typically triple-track the Mellotron strings with staggered start times to smooth warbling in the stock 3 Violins sound.
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Mike Pinder was the leader both musically and spiritually who influenced the direction of The Moody Blues. Mike's songs were of high quality although often overshadowed by Justin and John's. Some of Mike's most notable songs were "The Sunset", "So Deep Within You", "Have You Heard/The Voyage", "Melancholy Man", "Out and In"(co-written w/Lodge), and "A Simple Game". The latter song was a hit for The Four Tops in England and they also covered "So Deep Within You". The Moody Blues only completely instrumental piece "Beyond" was composed by Pinder though he generously gave the credit to Edge. Mike considered himself to be the musical arranger on most recordings done while he was in the band.
Mike was also known for his voice-over talent. He is heard reciting most of drummer Graeme Edge's poems on Moody Blues albums. Pinder is heard on "The Day Begins", "Late Lament", "The Word", "The Dream", "Higher and Higher", and "The Balance". In concert Edge would recite most of his own poetry. Mike did some additional spoken word narration recordings in the 1980s.
While employed by Mellotron manufacturer Streetly Electronics Mike turned The Beatles on to the instrument which they most famously used on "Strawberry Fields Forever". Pinder along with fellow band member Ray Thomas was involved in the recording sessions for "The Fool on the Hill" and "I Am the Walrus" playing Harmonica on the former and singing backing vocals on the latter. Pinder was going to play Mellotron on John Lennon's "I Don't Want to be a Soldier" but the machine malfunctioned so he ended up playing Tambourine on that and "Jealous Guy" from the "Imagine" album. Pinder prided himself on being able keep a rock solid tempo on Tambourine which he sometimes played on Moody Blues basic tracks to establish the feel of the song.
Pinder had one of the first modular Moog synthesizers in England. It was first used on "In Search of the Lost Chord" and later albums for sound effects as its's tuning wasn't stable enough to play musical parts. Mike received one of the earliest Minimoogs which can be heard playing playing background patterns on "How is it We are Here" from the "Question of Balance" album and also put to good use on "Melancholy Man" from the same album.
For the "Seventh Sojourn" album Mike used a Chamberlin keyboard on a few songs. "For My Lady" is almost all Chamberlin backing and it was likely used on "Isn't Life Strange" and Mike's song "Lost in a Lost World". Some Mellotron sounds were derived from the Chamberlin but the Chamberlin had better fidelity and stereo outputs.
Mike also had an RMI Keyboard Computer which may have seen some use on Mike's solo album "The Promise" and The Moody Blues "Octave " album. There is no Mellotron on "Octave" but it has their first use of a Yamaha polysynth probably a CS80. Real strings and Brass were used on some of the songs. "Octave" was Mike's last album with The Moody Blues.
Mike and the band helped originate the extended song form as well many of the stylistic instrumental and vocal sounds of what later became Prog Rock. Mike was first to develop an "Orchestra Hit" type sound as heard on the song "Question". He did this by layering Mellotron strings and brass with percussion sounds.
In the late 80s Mike and several other prominent musicians had a brief association with Atari Computers and promoted the ST series.
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Jessica has the distinction of being the rare instrumental that still gets significant radio play. An amazing achievement. Dickey's singing/writing/playing contributions drove the band's rise to their highest level of commercial success in the mid-70s.
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Band life only. Never knew there was such a thing as home life.
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For low prices check out AliExpress. $1271.90 for a Yamaha C7. $454.25 for a Nord Stage 4 88.
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Brian's career has really taken off with acclaim from Downbeat mag and others. In 2017 he subbed for me at a Doors tribute concert in New Jersey.
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I do like the Stage 3 Compact. One thing I would like to have in the Nord organ section is Filter, Envelope, and Modulation control like it has in the Sample/Synth section. My lowly Casio WK from about 20 years ago does this and it adds so much versatility in creating different types of organ sounds. Since the Casio was marketed to the novice market very few of its users even know about this capability. I have looked for other keyboards with this hidden feature and haven't found it anywhere else at any price.
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There is a drawbar setting I really liked but it caused my C-3 to glitch every so often. That setting is 088000000.
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Lack of foldback in the upper octave of Hammond spinet organs wasn't likely known to be an issue at the time. On the chorus of AWSOP Fisher plays the same chords in the top two octaves which intentionally or not has the effect of compensating for lack of foldback creating a fuller sound. Both hands in the upper octaves can be seen very briefly here. Can be better seen on much later live versions when he played a Hammond console:
In this instrumental mix the notes with Percussion sounding can be heard more distinctly. The Percussion seems to be most prominent in the same part of the verse each time around and mostly not heard in the rest of the song.
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The Korg Nautilus is a favorite for Symphonic Metal. Synthonia sells Nautilus sound packs optimized for metal.
https://www.synthonia.com/marketplace/korg-nautilus-series-nightwish-cover-pack-detail
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Instant Karma-John Lennon
Mr. Moon-The Coachmen
Mr. Moonlight-The Beatles
I'll Follow the Sun-The Beatles
Mr. Sun, Mr. Moon-Paul Revere and the Raiders
Waiting for the Sun-The Doors
Aquarius/Let the Sun Shine In-The 5th Dimension
Earth and Sun and Moon-Midnight Oil
California Sun-The Rivieras
Walking on the Sun-Smash Mouth
Age Check for Those of Us Still Gigging and Hauling Gear
in The Keyboard Corner
Posted
Most gigs these days I use a Nord Stage 3 Compact and 1980 Fender Stratocaster. Nord into the PA and guitar into a Vox AC15. A few upcoming gigs will require supplementing the Nord with a Gibson G101 and Fender Rhodes Piano Bass. I am 72.