Electric Bard

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?

Tribehouse,org is presenting yours truly, along with Mrs. Electric Bard, plus Norm Strauss and Jane Eamon at the Streaming Cafe tonight to sing some original songs. I am really looking forward to it. We get under way at 7PM.

Thornybleeder recording artist Billy the Kid has a new album out now, and you can hear it for free.

Well, this is cool. The Malarkeys are featured on pubsong.com not once, but twice this summer. June 28, 2011 show and July 25, 2011.

Got a minivan upgrade for hauling PA and guitars, etc.. This is a 2008 Kia Sedona to replace our 1998 Windstar. Haven’t tried stuffing all our gear into yet, but it should be good, right?

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.

Two gigs this week, tomorrow night at the Summerhill Pyramid Winery and Saturday night at The Hooded Merganser in Penticton. The Gibson J-45 will handle everything tomorrow and mostly everything on Saturday. Can’t wait!

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”.