Back In The Saddle

Might as well start off with how sweet it was to play a gig once more. Rob Moorman and Company jumped back into action at the Brazos Valley Brewery here in Brenham to a very responsive and appreciative crowd. Very apparent that people are more than ready to get out of the house and support the live music scene again. The venue limited the tables available and customers to a table and had employees wiping down chairs and table tops. Hand sanitizer sat by the entrance. Lots of people sat at picnic tables just outside the entrance. Very, very few people wore masks. Just the absolute joy of playing our music again overcame any trepidation I felt at the beginning of the night. If the virus doesn't sneak up on me, we'll do it again at one of our frequently played venues, Home Sweet Farm, this coming Friday (June 12). And, by the way, our bass player, Andy Chiles' and his wife Sandy's band Tailgate Poets with Charlie Kelm on guitar will at the Brewery on Sunday.

We christened the Brewery's new Tap Room, where they keep something like 15 or 20 of their brews on tap behind the bar. The room seems to be about 40 feet long (maybe) and 20 feet wide and a 15 foot or higher ceiling. We sat up at one end with a rolling glass door at our back and another one stage right. I assume they'll open those up during nicer weather than the 90+ degrees hitting us. Such a situation could pose a problem acoustically, but I think the sound was surprisingly good. Rob's Bose p.a. system has yet to meet a room it can't whip. The same for Jason Moorman's guitar rig. He can adjust it to slay any situation and Andy Chiles has a new bass rig that is absolutely killer, weighs less than my Princeton and has a righteous thump. We kicked butt, if I do say so myself.

For my harp buddies: I took a chance and took my 68 Custom Princeton Reverb, hoping I could turn it up to a decent tonal volume. It was perfect for the room. I made some tube swaps that seemed to give the amp a creamier tone and a little more sag. Nothing wrong with my set up before, just a bit smoother. Not that anyone but me notices.

I might have mentioned before that I bought the amp a couple of years ago based on David Barrett's review of it on his website. I paid the subscription price just to read his review of small amps, which was worth the money for the couple of months that I decided to utilize it. The tons of information that one of the most knowledgeable harp instructors lays down is amazing. Anyway, after getting the amp I swapped tubes around quite a bit and settled on some of his review suggestions. The one that bothered me was swapping a 5u4 rectifier for the 5ar4 rectifier that the amp came with, given the 5u4 draws more current and could be detrimental to the transformer. I did try it, but it seem to gut the tone, so I kept the 5ar4 in. I settled on a 12at7 in the V1 preamp position and left everything else stock. Played many a gig with this setup. The amp seemed to really bloom once the speaker broke in, which seem to take longer than I expected.

NOW...back to David Barrett. I spent a couple of months combing through his website back then and then decided to cancel. THEN...during this quarantine period, I decided to polish my tongue blocking skills a bit more and no one teaches it better than Barrett, so I resubscribed and began delving a little deeper into what was available. Gary Smith, who taught Barrett a thing or two early on about tongue blocking and has tone to die for, is one of the contributors. I clicked on his contributions, which are extensive, and noticed several vid links regarding tube swapping. Clicking on a link revealed that they were using the 68 Custom Princeton Reverb on which to experiment with rectifiers, preamp, and power tubes. At the end, a 5u4 rectifier, a 12au7 in the phase inverter slot and a 5751 in V1 impressed them the most.

As I mentioned earlier, I was not impressed with the 5u4 rectifier and actually bought a Weber Copper Cap version to keep current draw in line to try out. Still didn't like it until I tried the combo Gary and David used mentioned above. Suddenly, the amp tone that they were illustrating, with a bit more sag and slightly smoother sound, came through in my amp. My thinking is that it all lies in the phase inverter tube being swapped from 12ax7 to 12au7 allowed the different rectifier to perform better than before and without the gutless tone I heard prior. I do not know how lowering that tube did that trick, but I do like the sound. I'd tried a 5751 in V1 before that seemed to gainy for me and I think the phase inverter swap is key to that tube working sweeter also. THAT said, I can see where going back with the 5ar7 in a louder band environment might be necessary. That's not us, though. Next gig will be outdoors, and I'll see how well the current setup will work.

Alright. I have more on my mind. I've said enough. I'll get back to Shoji Naito's Westmount to Chicago cd next time. Maybe. In the mean time, maybe I'll see you at Home Sweet Farm on Friday. 'Nuff for Now.

Stay At Home Blues

Might as well document some of this stay at home Covid-19 scenario stuff for historical posterity, or whatever, but also just to get the writing juices back to flowing. It's not like I don't have time on my hands to get my ass in gear and get creative with new stories or push my harmonica tone and lick vocabulary to deeper levels. Motivation has moved like molasses lately.

I did break out my harps yesterday and tried my hand at keeping up with some of what a cat named Andrew Alli is spitting out on his Hard Workin' Man cd from Eller Soul Records. I wasn't familiar with this young black bluesman before reading a bit about him in an online interview...I think from Blues Blast, but maybe not. Intrigued me enough to seek out his stuff. Seems that a few young black musicians (pardon me for not using African American or such, but no disrespect meant) are pursuing the path of the blues in recent years, which does my old heart good. Alli follows the traditional road paved by Big and Little Walter, both Sonny Boy Williamsons, George Harmonica Smith, etc...as a blues harp student should. He's got it. Good harp tone, lick selection, variable technique employment. Nine out of twelve tunes are well written originals and stay close to the Chi-town Blues vest. Alli's vocals chops aren't far removed from Little Walter's or John Lee Williamson's in the tenor range. Anyway--spent the better part of an hour getting some licks in with the young man just to keep my chops up until I can gig with the band again.

I have a couple of more blues cds on the way. Sort of did a little binge buying last week. It's not like I don't have a thousand recordings stacked around the house, just felt a need for something new. I'll report back on those.

Speaking of the band. The last gig that Rob Moorman and Company played was on March 10 at the Brazos Valley Brewery here in Brenham. They are getting serious about providing live music and have a tap room being completed for entertainment. Until then, we set up amongst the beer vats and machinery. I used the Princeton Reverb, which I was able to crank a bit more than usual and the tone rocked. The crowd was great. Cajun Cowgirl's food truck had the crawfish boiling and it was just a shame it all had to come to a screeching halt. It was pretty close to the last gig anyone played due to bars being forced to close down the following Friday. We had two more gigs scheduled for March and three for the month of April. Just hoping our venues can out survive the virus hiatus. So totally unreal and none of us knows what the post-virus scenario will look like.

And...I'm hoping this little ditty I'm writing today breaks the log jam and loosens things for some kind of flow for the ideas that are bouncing around. I have been reading some FB advice from one of my favorite authors, Joe Lansdale. I sure feel that we are kindred souls that think alike as far as the method to our madness. He just gets it and gets after it and I need to follow suit. He definitely is a motivator. Another is Gabino Iglesias. I'm such a slacker right now and I actually fear that Gabino will show up at my house any day now and whip my ass for not writing like I should.

And along those lines. Fahrenheit Press saved River Bottom Blues from oblivion and reprinted it a couple of weeks ago. They gave it a great round of publicity...then the pandemic panic crap hit the fan. We'll see. They'll put out The Devil's Blues and Howling Mountain Blues on a staggered schedule. My newest manuscript, The Removal, also sits in their house. Anyway--'Nuff for Now.

Long Time Coming

Been over a year since I last posted. No excuses. None. I plan on getting things going again beginning with this post. Gonna spit out this and that revolving around both my writing and musical activities. Sort of just updating what's happening with me and around me as things pop into my head. I'll plan to keep posts short and sweet. Once upon a time blogs were 'the thing' but it seems that Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram platforms have eclipsed this format and those social media formats slap updates out short, sharp and to the point.

I begin with mentioning that I lost my website domain due to my credit card going out of date. I update my payment, but somehow that fell through the cracks. Didn't know it was gone until a fellow author told me when he pulled it up that all he saw was some random Vietnamese writing. I was told after three months that the domain may be available again. I typed in rickybushbooks and it looked like I was back in business because my website re-appeared. Then I saw that the URL read-http://rickybushbookscom.coffeecup.com Made no sense, but I haven't researched into the why and what. So since it is my website I leave things be for now.

On the book writing end of things I'm 55,000 words into my latest novel. This one has been pretty much similar to rolling a big rock up a hill. It'll roll back down and I'll roll it up again. There is a light at the end of the gopher tunnel. My first three books were published my Barking Rain Press and the last one by Fahrenheit Press. They've both done well by me. The latter focuses on crime stories.

I've mentioned playing harmonica with Rob Moorman and Company. He's kept us darned busy with booking around the town of Brenham which has several more great venues available than when I started playing with him eight years ago. We are a lot better now and Rob's made me a better harp player. We draw well enough that venues re-book us. I'll mention more in future posts. I don't think I mentioned that I bought a 68 Custom Princeton Reverb amp for gigs that need a bit more volume. I'll discuss it at some point.

I did mention before that I'm more or less done with reviewing recordings. I loved writing those, but it just takes too much time to do it right. I will let readers know about new blues that I've purchased, which is quite a few since I last mentioned such.

I'll wrap up by saying that I took my daughter and her best friend to see ZZ Top courtesy of a fantastic brother-n-law's third row tickets at the Cynthia Mitchell Pavilion. Cheap Trick and Bad Company opened and the show was stupendous. Tonight I'm taking my wife to listen to David Lee Holt at the 4 Star Concert venue here. He's Joe Ely's guitar player and slings strings with Tommy Shannon's Blues Band. Back in the day, he joined Shannon, Chris Layton, Malford Milligan and David Grissom in forming the critically acclaimed Storyville. Speedy Sparks, of Doug Sahm's band, will join him on bass. Should be a helluva show.--'Nuff for Now.