Electric Bard

Guitar tone. Guitars matter, amps matter, effects (or lack thereof) matter, strings matter, cables matter, it all matters but ultimately tone comes from you. It’s in your fingers. It’s in how you play. And that’s what makes the guitar such a great instrument – it’s so expressive. It’s you.

OK, that’s the punch line. Now here’s my story. This past Saturday we did a gig for Festivals Kelowna. A company called SPL provided the kickass sound system and backline. It was a gig at Kelowna’s outdoor skating rink. We showed up 30 minutes early, being the seasoned and serious performers that we are (The Malarkeys, that is). I was delighted to see the amp they were providing was a Fender Deluxe Reverb, one of my very favourite amps in the world. In fact, I’d been practising that morning with my Robert Cray Strat and my own ’67 Deluxe Reverb at home.

About 10 minutes before we were to start we fired up their Deluxe, and let it warm up for a minute. The temperature was just a notch above freezing. With the tubes warmed up I plugged in my pedal board, a BOSS LS-2, TU-2 and GE-7, cranked up the Strat and…nothing. No sound came out of that amp. So we started trying different guitar cables, checking the speaker to amp connection, etc., all the usual troubleshooting stuff. That speaker was blown.

At precisely 1PM, show time, the MC stepped up to the mic and introduced us to a round of applause. I then stepped up and said thanks, but we’re having a little technical difficulty. Standby. SPL had made a call, another amp was on its way.

Gail suggested rather than wait, since we only had 45 minutes and then another act had to go on, we try plugging the Strat right into the DI on the stage. Crazy, right? We decided to try it. Thank God for my great sounding Stratocaster. It sounded pretty good, straight through my pedals into the DI. I didn’t even turn the EQ pedal on. And away we went.

We sounded good, the stage sound was good, and we got on with our set. We could see people enjoying it. After the set, a few people came up and bought our CD. Yes, with no amp tone I had to skip any wailing solos, plus for the first 30 minutes I was wearing a fingerless glove on my left hand and blowing on it between songs, but I learned that after 30 minutes I warm up enough in cold weather to play just fine. And I was reminded that tone comes from those chilly fingers.

The audience didn’t care that I didn’t play any smoking distorted solos. They liked our choice of cover and original songs, they liked our sound, they liked our arrangements, and everybody had a good time. I got to play my guitar, and I got paid, so really, how does it get any better than that?

Here’s a really nice video lesson from Arlen Roth for Gibson Guitars, featuring Buddy Guy’s Mary Had a Little Lamb. Arlen does a great job of explaining it in this video.

Monday night me and Mrs. Electric Bard saw Train at the Abbotsford Entertainment and Sports Centre. Oh man, they were fantastic. Jimmy Stafford‘s Fender ukulele sounded wonderful on Hey, Soul Sister. He also made very good use of his Fender Acoustasonic Tele on a few songs. AND he was playing a Les Paul type guitar that actually had some of the features I’ve been suggesting for Gibson in earlier posts to this site, with the rearranged volume and tone controls. I couldn’t tell what it was for sure, but I’m guessing it might have been a PRS SC 58 or something like that. Does anyone know what he plays? And has anyone read Jim’s book, The Guitar on the Wall? Is it out yet?

This Sunday morning we’re at the Mission Creek Park to play for the Hike for Hospice. I think I’ll be bringing along my Gibson J-45, Fender F55-12, and maybe the Squier for good measure, although I may not get to use it. We start at 10AM (8:30 set up time, yikes!)

I bought a BOSS GE-7 on eBay this weekend from someone in Florida. I doubt it will arrive in time for the gig, but you never know. Flatpicker extraordinaire Steve Alexander at Roland Canada suggested it to me as potentially good little pedal with the acoustic guitars to reduce feedback and help me tame some of the brittleness that can sometimes go with an amplified acoustic. After looking at reviews and demos online, it seems like many of the acoustic guitar preamps have features like EQ, a notch filter for feedback, maybe a tuner, sometimes an effect like reverb, and maybe an XLR out. I already have a tuner on my little BOSS BCB-3 pedalboard, so that’s why the GE-7 might actually help for those rare occasions when I plug directly into the board. We’ll see. The only thing I won’t have with that is some sort of mic simulation, but the demos I heard online weren’t all that convincing anyway. I’ll post something about the GE-7 in my little rig once I’ve had a chance to try it out.

Friday night I caught the Hot Tamales at the Pheasant and Quail. Here they are doing an original song. The guitarist is Tim Ford, playing a Line 6 guitar.

Hey, thanks to everyone who came out to the Bike Shop Cafe last night. The place was busy, and we had fun introducing our Malark-O-Meter Set Generator. We had heard that Elvis Costello is on tour with a big wheel of songs, and he gets audience members up to give it a spin and determine what song he should play next. Well, we can’t afford a hi-falutin’ wheel, so instead we printed the names of ten songs on sheets of paper and distributed them on the tables. Part way through the sets we asked people for suggestions. It was a fun night, catch us there next time if you missed us last night!

Tonight at the Bike Shop Cafe, I’ll be trying out medium gauge strings on the J45. I know, stop the presses, right? I’ve been using mostly D’addario light phosphor bronze on it since I got it last year, but last night I put on a set of mediums, so we’ll see if I’ve got what it takes to play ’em. So far they’re sounding great. It’s been really dry here in Kelowna, despite the snow, and the guitar needs a little more humidity to get into its comfort zone. All that dry indoor air doesn’t do my throat a favour, either, so the guitar and I will both try and get prepped for tonight’s show. Humidifiers are on, glass of water on deck, etc..

March 17, we’re at Whiski Jack’s in West Kelowna.

Here’s a new video we shot last weekend for the song “Right as Rain”.

Hey, there’s a new jam in town. Wednesday night, 8PM, at Duffers. Yeah, the golf course bar. It’s hosted by Charlie and the Mad Dogs. The Malarkey’s drummer, Jay Dallamore, is their usual drummer, so I went down last night to check it out. I brought the Tele. I got up with Jay and Mad Dog Dieter on bass, and we rocked some Freddie King (Tore Down), an original tune called “Baby, Won’t You”, and then that good old standby, Brown Eyed Girl. The audience was very receptive.

I was playing through a Mesa Boogie – nice! I was a little hoarse after just those 3 songs, ’cause I gave it everything I had. I ran into Ashley Perry there, and she’s still rockin’ the roller derby thing. Check out the SS Rodeo site for details on the next match, March 12 in Penticton.

Coming up on March 5, join us at the Bike Shop Cafe on Ellis Street. We’re on at 7PM until 9. Good food, mellow vibe. It will be fun! You could order something like this:

When we were there, enjoying the pasta, we listened to some great instrumental guitar music by Almost a Few, and shot a bit of footage on my iPhone, which you can watch on The Malarkeys YouTube channel.

I’ll be bringing along the Gibson J-45, but not the Tele on March 5. We hope to see a few friendly faces there!