Shamanzarek
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Posts posted by Shamanzarek
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The Cars "Just What I Needed"in addition to using chords from "I Want to Hold Your Hand" took the intro from "Yummy Yummy Yummy" by the Ohio Express.
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I bought a new 200A around 1979. Seems to me I paid about $775. I suppose I was influenced by Supertramp who were big at the time. I also read a Keyboard Magazine interview with Al Greenwood of Foreigner who had good things to say about it and the ARP Omni which I bought at the same time. Here is that interview: http://www.4eigner.net/theband/197904coke-algreenwood.html . Loved the Wurlitzer until reeds started breaking and I got discouraged with it. Then in the 80s there wasn't so much need for it when everybody went to polysynths. Wish I had kept it now.
These days I'm happy enough with the Wurlies in my Casio PX5S and I also have a Nord Stage 3 Compact.
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At https://groups.io/g/combo-organ there has been a discussion going on prompted by an eBay sale for the prototype RMI Rocksichord used by Mandrake Memorial. I'm sure if Craig could supply them with any additional info it would be appreciated.
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On Star Trek: TNG they were still using US Apex stands in the 24th century.
Here is Marina Sirtis on drums and Jonathan Frakes checks out my Casio WK-3800 at Garden State Comic-Con in 2011. Marina's husband was in a band with one of my former bandmates in California at the time. That same day I got to play with Davy Jones which may have been his last public performance.
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Gino Vannelli with brother Joe on keys were users of the PS-3300 and PS-3100 on their 1978 album Brother to Brother and live shows. You might catch a glimpse of a PS in this live show when they take the camera off of Gino.
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I consider Joe Jackson to be one of the greatest composers of the 20th Century. He has done so many styles including extended orchestral works.
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I was in a couple of bands in Oregon with guitar players who had Kustom amps. Other than John Fogerty never saw any pros use them back them. Those organs were almost as big as a spinet organ but didn't sound near as good as something like a Hammond M-3. Most of those Kombo organs that were ordered with JBL's have probably been cannibalized by now since the speakers are probably worth more than the organ.
When I moved to southern California in 1972 Plush amps were sold at NET Electronics surplus. Plush amps had a similar upholstery covering to Kustom but were high quality tube amps similar to Fender designs. NET had bought the bankrupt company's inventory of unfinished amps/parts and finished building them to sell in their stores. The Jeff Beck Group used them on an East Coast tour. Buddy Rich used a Plush PA system to play his drums through.
Plush catalog: http://www.plush-amps.com/cat_pages.htm#da_mk3_cat
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I may be joining a prominent local band that has been around for about 15 years and has never had a keyboard player before. They sent me a list of songs for the upcoming audition. Only two have keyboard on the original recording both of which I have done before and are pretty much background parts. Of course you can put keyboard in any song whether it makes sense or not. I'm sure they are not anti-keyboard but might be somewhat naive about their song choices. At least if I get the gig I will be working a lot.
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In the mid-60s up until the late 80s my main instruments were organ and guitar. In 1991 when the bass player left our long-running cover band in SoCal I bought a bass guitar and started alternating between that and left-hand key bass. Then the band folded after being together for 8 years. In 1992 I moved to New Jersey and joined a Doors tribute band where I started playing Fender Rhodes Piano Bass which I continue with to this day. For a while I played bass guitar, keys, and bass pedals in a Led Zeppelin cover band. In 2001 I joined a band in NJ called Yasgur's Farm which had a long history on the Jersey Shore scene. With them I played bass guitar, left-hand bass on keys, bass pedals, and flute for about 8 years. From there I was bassist for some bands and keyboardist for others. My last gig on bass guitar was in 2019 so now I'm back to being mostly a keyboardist that doubles on guitar.
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In the early 70s I used to play 6 night a week gigs in Oregon and Washington state. In Oregon nobody from the Union ever showed up at our gigs. In Washington a couple of representatives of the Union would show up everywhere we played often on our opening night. They would try to intimidate us into paying Union fees. We were playing really out of the way places in WA like Ephrata, Sunnyside, Moses Lake, etc, so I can't imagine where these union guys were based to come all the way out to these small towns. We never did pay them any money and the club owner would argue with them on our behalf until they left. Then they would send a bill to our booking agent and he just laughed it off. Our agent was a former member of The Champs so he had been around the music business quite a while. He recommended that we not join the Union as there no real advantage to doing so. He said some of his bands joined thinking they could demand higher Union wages. The reality is if you wanted to work you had to accept wages the individual club owner was willing to pay Union or not. To this day I have never had to join an MU even after years of playing NYC and European tours.
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The only external power supplies I have had a problem with is Kurzweil. I had a PC88 and the PSU failed. It took months to get a replacement as they were out of stock. I got a PC2 and it had a proprietary PSU with a four pin DIN connector. I had problems with this, too. This wasn't the only issue with Kurzweil but I have stayed away from them ever since.
I now use Casio keyboards for most bar gigs because I can't risk expensive keyboards. The external power supplies for these seem to be readily available and aren't too expensive.
I also have a Nord Stage 3 Compact which has internal power so all that is needed is an IEC cord which for some reason didn't come with the keyboard when I bought it.
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One from the days when an instrumental could be played on the radio and become a huge hit.
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Bagpipes traditionally use African Blackwood and Cocobolo which are now restricted under CITES. Bagpipe makers now need a permit to ship out of the country of origin. There is a Gibson Bagpipe Company in Nashua, NH founded in Ohio in 1978.
It has been a Scottish tradition for the last couple hundred years not to wear underwear under a kilt. In modern times it is common to wear boxers, briefs, or special kilt underwear.
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I liked playing this song back in the early 80s. I used a Jupiter 6 which came pretty close to the main sound plus OB8 and Pro-One for additional sounds. Gotta find a band that wants to do this one again.
Jonathan Cain used a Jupiter 8 and Prophet 5 for playing it live in the old days. In modern times he uses a Jupiter 80 and some other keyboard.
Interesting Korg and Roland both did the same mis-spelling of "Separate" in their patch replications for this song.
Journey live from 1983:
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In 2000 a bandmate of mine got a gig as vocalist in a reformed version of The Animals. Members of the band were Hilton Valentine, John Steel, Dave Rowberry, and Jim Rodford. Since Hilton lived in Connecticut and the rest of the band lived in England we put together a rehearsal band with Hilton to break in the singer. The drummer was Chip Damiani who was a member of The Remains in the 60s. I used my Vox Continental for all the rehearsals. It was so great getting to play with one of my 60s heroes. Besides Hilton I got to meet Dave Rowberry and Jim Rodford. Surprisingly Dave had no interest in using the Vox organ although he played it on one show and sounded great. He preferred playing piano and only used organ sounds for a few songs. I provided a Kurzweil PC88 for him and he was happy with that. Dave's first hit recording with the band was "We Gotta Get Out of This Place". I found out he used a studio-owned Lowrey organ on some songs such as "Don't Bring Me Down", "See See Rider", "Shake" and maybe others. On stage he was sometimes seen with Hammond spinets or consoles and some songs on the Animalism album feature a Hammond. There are TV appearances and photos with Dave on a Vox Continental so he did use one on some occasions. Even though they never recorded with it Dave played a silver top Fender Rhodes on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1965. This may have been the first time a Rhodes was seen on national TV.
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Remember Mad magazine's Mickey Rodent parody from 1955 with Darnold Duck and Pluted Pup?
https://johnglenntaylor.blogspot.com/2009/01/mickey-rodent-mad-19.html
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I started piano lessons in 1962 and after a few years started playing organ after which I rarely touched a piano. Then in the 70s/80s synths came along and I spent so much time making sounds rather than pursuing serious playing. I got back to the piano in the early 90s but if I could do it over again I would have never stopped playing piano.
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The Mellotron Mark 2 is the most iconic model used by The Moody Blues, The Beatles, and The Rolling Stones.
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My favorite for left-hand bass. Came in a variety of colors especially in the early 60s. Gold or silver tops have the iconic look.
The successor to the CS-80. Lacks poly aftertouch/wood keys, velocity, and ribbon but has split, memory, and mono aftertouch. Synth architecture is nearly identical to CS-80 at somewhat smaller size and weight.
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Right now I'm listening to Pandora a lot. It plays mostly music I want to hear in many different genres. I listen to Sirius in the car but even with all the different channels there are a lot things I like that rarely, if ever, get played. I still have a turntable and CD player which don't get used much anymore.
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In 1971 I bought two brand new Leslie 147s, pre-amp pedal, relay, and cables all for for well under $1000.
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In England it has been a de facto practice to incorporate the name of the artist that is being tributed in the band name. That is why there was the Bootleg Beatles, Beatles for Sale, Counterfeit Stones, Boot Led Zeppelin, The Four Seasons Tribute Band, One Night of Queen, Killer Queen, The Manzarek Doors, The L.A. Doors, The Australian Doors Show, UK Beach Boys, etc.
In America tribute bands often name themselves after a song, album, lyric, or other catch phrase associated with the artist and people have no problem figuring out what the band does. But in Britain they need to see the name of the artist somewhere in the band name.
The Doors band I was with for many years, Riders on the Storm, did a tour of the UK in the 90s. The promoter said the band had to change its name so that Doors was in the name. The band leader refused so they billed the band as Riders on the Storm-The American Doors.
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In 1984 I was in a band with Eugene Organ a guitar player from the British band Charlie. In the late 70s he and Julian were members of Charlie touring as opening act for Foreigner when they ran out of money in Providence, RI. The other band members made their way back to England but Eugene and Julian were stranded in the US but somehow made their way to Southern California. Julian did studio work, wrote books and eventually played under the stage second keyboards with Yes. Eugene played in our cover band, attended cosmetology school so he could get a real job while trying not to get deported. One night Julian came to one of our gigs in Brea, CA. He was accompanied by two very beautiful British women. Julian and I had a good discussion about synths. I had just seen the Matrix 12 at NAMM and asked what he thought about it. He said "Oh, it's so complicated." Not what expected to hear but I bought one anyway.
Charlie was a great band and got a lot of airplay on the big Los Angeles rock stations. I think they might have become much bigger if they hadn't had problems with their record companies. They had one record company in the States and another in England. Neither would support them while on tour so the band had no choice but to break up when they ran out of money.
Here are a few Charlie songs. Julian is clowning around with an MS-20 in the first. The other two songs were played a lot on the radio in SoCal. I was already a Charlie fan before I met Eugene and Julian.
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Other music or musician events on this day in history include:
1914-Irving Berlin's Watch Your Step musical premiered.
1915-Sibelius' 5th Symphony premiered.
1925-Irving Berlin and George S. Kaufman's Cocoanuts starring the Marx Brothers opened in NYC.
1930-Cole Porter's musical The New Yorkers opened on Broadway.
1943-Jim Morrison born.
1949-Jules Styne and Leo Robin's Gentlemen Prefer Blondes premiered in NYC.
1956-Guy Mitchell's Singing the Blues hit #1.
1957-All-star CBS broadcast of The Sound of Jazz.
1967-Magical Mystery Tour EP released in the UK.
1976-The Eagles' Hotel California released.
1980-John Lennon Murdered.
1984-Ringo hosts SNL with musical Guest Herbie Hancock.
Billy Joel's New Single (No, Really, He Has New Music Out In 2024...)
in The Keyboard Corner
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A former bandmate who played on the same circuit with Billy when he was with The Hassles in the 60s told me that back then Billy sang with with a bleating vibrato that reminded him of a sheep. Maybe that was his true voice and he was able to change his singing style in later years.