Jim Alfredson

The original Mackie 1604 does not have seperate buses. One master bus is all you have. Along with six aux sends and their patented mute/3-4 out scheme. Is Millenia still around?

I like the dates Cannonball did for Riverside. That stuff swings hard! Thank goodness Capitol is re-issuing those dates.

I heard a track off this last night on WCMU on my three hour drive home. I agree with Soulstream. El stinko! I wanted to kill the guitarist. Can't play changes, plays pseudo-blues licks over everything drenched in effects and distortion. Boo! The organist sounded competent, but I will save judgement for when I hear him in a better setting, since someone said he's a good organist. His Leslie sounded like poo poo! Anyway, I won't be spending my money on that thing. I wish I had WCMU's number last night. I wanted to call the guy and say, "Stop playing that CD and play Organissimo! They're BAD! " Soulstream, I'll make a thumbsdown for ya!

I heard a track off this (you're talking about ScoLoHoFo, right?) last night on WCMU. I thought it was yummy! I like how Sco plays in a straight ahead setting. And Joe Lovano is the shit.

Cool!

My R&B band just got done playing a casino three and a half hours away from where I live. You gotta love casinos with all the slot machines singing a C triad over everything. Makes for some real interesting harmonies! The thing that sucks is our manager booked us three nights instead of the usual two. So we're thinking, "Cool! More money!" Yes more money overall but she accepted LESS money per night. BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Oh well... she's just trying to get us more work.

Thank you, Saint Vitus! Glad you like the disc!

I had a pair of KEF Q15.2 that I thought were nifty. Very inexpensive, too. $250 new for the pair.

In my R&B band, the phrase "My pussy hurts" is said in imitation of the guy in the band that doesn't want to play a particular song because he hasn't practiced his part and/or his voice is not up to par or he's tired or ... you get the idea. For example...... Me: "Let's play that Funk, Inc. tune." Guitarist: "Aw man, I don't want to play that tune. It's too early in the night." Me: "Awww, my pussy hurts!!"

My wife and I live in a relatively quiet neighborhood and I hardly see my neighbors. The one on the south side of our house is a very nice middle-aged woman who was living with her elderly mother. The mother recently passed. But Jackie is still there with a new boyfriend. Our neighbors on the north side though. Holy moly. They seem like nice people, but I cannot understand where they are coming from. Number 1: The house looks like total shit. Every other house in the neighborhood is very well kept. This place looks like a crack house. They finally put actual stairs leading to the porch instead of cinder blocks. Number 2: They have three or four couples living in the house, each with 1 or 2 kids. And they did have 3 dogs (HUGE dogs I might add) and they just got another puppy. All in one house. Number 3: Their backyard when we moved in was a gigantic pile of trash. They finally cleaned that up after numerous calls to various officials. Now it's just dirt. When it rains, mud. Luckily it's winter so it's covered with snow now. Number 4: All the adults that live in the house drive MONSTEROUS SUVs. Brand new. I don't get it. The house looks like shit, yet they are all driving $30,000 vehicles. Except one. She drives an older Mustang all suped up. And she revs the very loud engine at 6:30am before going to work. And squeals away... every morning. Number 5: Since they all drive huge vehicles, they are constantly parking on their lawn. Which just looks ugly. I'm trying not to sound like a snob, but the little neighborhood we live in has been around since the 1920s and has some really nice houses in it and everyone takes pride in keeping their houses nice except for these people. You can't say it's money because they all drive really nice trucks or a Mustang. It's just laziness. They have four dogs and I never, ever see them walking any of them. They just sit around in the postage stamp backyard all day. And these dogs, like their trucks, are HUGE! Blows my mind....

Boney Baby Jackson... But I'll go by B.B. Jackson... that's much better! If only I could be Fat Cracker Jackson!

larsrec, That's very cool that David Baker likes the Presonus. I respect his work very much and I've always liked my Presonus. Although like I said, I think they changed the transformers and thus the sound. The Precision 8 is an amazing unit. That will be my next 8-channel pre. I've not heard of the John Hardy units. Where can I find them?

Damn Soul Stream... that's some crazy shit! Joe and I just did a gig tonight involving stairs and the B3. My back is aching. Plus the buildling we were playing in is 140 years old (no shit) and the power in it is atrocious. The organ was humming like mad. And for some reason my Leslie went poopoo. No switching from fast to slow. It just stayed on fast. So I had to unplug the motors and play like that all night. Bummer. But we did make $100 a piece.

Do it! Start telling horror stories! I love em! The guitarist in my R&B band calls the phenom of people not liking music without words the "AM Radio Syndrome". He thinks it started back in the days of AM radio, when DJs would talk over the beginning of a tune up until the singer started. It's even worse today. They talk at the beginning and the end of the tune. No words? TALK TALK TALK! Subconsciously, according to his theory, people think, "Hey, the music isn't important... he's talking over it." Thus, we are where we are.

In the traditional style of jazz organ, (aka the Jimmy Smith style) the left hand plays bass. "Well what do the feet do, then?!" Ah... here's one of the secrets of the trade. You play bass with your feet, too. What's the point of that? Well, the left hand sustains the note. The feet tap the same note on the pedal board, adding an attack to the front of the note, not unlike a bass string being plucked. You can also add heavy accents to the bass line by holding the pedal down longer. Playing just bass pedals on a Hammond usually sound like poo. There are some players that can do it and make it sound great, but they are few and far between. The Jimmy Smith style is/was used by most players... Patterson, McGriff, McDuff, Holmes, Patton, Young, Earland, etc. Shirley Scott plays all pedals on that Strata-East record. Barbara Dennerlein has MIDI-fied pedals. There are exceptions for sure, but most use the tap method. The main reason, I think, is that to get a really swingin' bass line at a fast tempo, you'd really have to use two feet. And then how do you control volume? There's no foot available for the volume pedal if both are playing pedals. And as you know, the organ is not velocity sensitive! Some people just tap one note on the pedal board for the "same" effect. It doesn't sound the same. At least not to me. Plus you can't do accents very well that way.

What's up Cary! Thanks for joining!

Ah, the old Sportsmen Tavern. One of my favorites is back when I first started playing gigs (I was about 17) and I was in this country cover band. We were playing a beer tent in Mason, the little town Joe and I grew up in. They had this tent set up next to a gas station. The ground was grass. The drummer checked out the site the day previous to the event and told the "promoter" that we couldn't play on grass. That we needed a stage. He said, "No problem! I'll take care of it." So the drummer comes back the next afternoon to set up his drums and finds a big ass pile of dirt. The promoter says, "Yeah, we haven't spread it out yet, but it'll work great!" Dirt. So the drummer calls up his buddies and they all scrape together a measley amount of leftover wood and they actually build a semi-functional stage on top of this dirt. So I get there with my M3 (a little Hammond) and the rest of the band sets up. It starts to rain like mad. All that dirt under the stage starts turning to mud. It seeps out underneath the stage making our shoes, cables, speakers, my poor little organ all muddy. To top it off, there were two strictly divided camps of audience members. The "PLAY SOME SKYNYRD" rednecks and the "PLAY SOME SEGER" hillbillies. Funny thing is, we play "Beautiful Loser", get done with the tune, and instead of applause we hear, "PLAY SOME SEGER". I think I got $40 for that one. I feel really bad for my dad. I didn't have a drivers license yet, so he drove 12 miles from our house to drop me off and pick me up and load the organ. Now that's parental support!

Recently my trio played a joint in K-zoo. We were supposed to get $300 for the night... $100 a piece. We play for four hours and at the end of the night the bartender gives us the door. $60. A Jackson a piece. Ouch! The hour long drive home sucked on that one. I guess that's why they invented contracts. ps. I take total responsability for that one...

I keep reading that these guys are the shit live. I haven't been too impressed with their records so far. I agree with the earlier assessment. The first one was pretty sweet, the second (first BN) was ok, the third one was kind of lame. My biggest complaints about them are: 1. Drummer - not very inventive in my book. He seems to play nearly the same groove over everything. 2. Solos - I think they have some neat heads to their tunes, but a lot of times their solos get dull to me. 3. The organ - yes, his left hand is badass, but he never explores the different registrations of the Hammond... he also doesn't play pedals. I just have issues with that. My biggest compliments to the group: 1. Nice heads on the tunes. 2. Funky as hell. 3. They have their own sound. Very hard to do. Just my two cents. I'll definately pick up the new record.

I would say update your browser. Are you on a Mac? I've experienced similiar problems on the Mac (not to mention the color scheme weirdness) and newer browsers tend to fix it.

I stay up waaaay too late. My wife constantly bugs me about it and she's right. I should get my ass to bed. However, when I do have a gig and I have to drive home late at night for an hour or so, I'm not tired. Which is a good thing! This week I've been getting up pretty early, though. And still staying up late. But, I'm sleeping in tomorrow!!!! YAY!

scottb, Clap Yo Hands is a favorite of the tikes, that's for sure! The drummer in the R&B band I play with has a 4 year old and she loves that tune, too! Like her proud father says, "Children are the true test of music." If they can get down to it, it's good. Just don't tell Barney that! Thanks for your comments. Soul Stream, Thank you as well for posting a review. It means a lot to me to have my fellow ex-BNBB brethren digging our stuff. A "phenom"? I don't know about that, but I'll take it! I do pride myself on doin' the funky thang. That record just makes me want to write more and record more! I've been working so hard lately, it's been a bummer not being able to practice.

That Homestar Runner stuff is pretty funny. Although I have to say, HR sounds a little too much like Brak, don't you think?

I celebration of my boyz, da Pistons, whoopin' some Laker ass tonight, I hereby unveil the official Ben Wallace Smiley. "You gonna try to shoot that over me, sucka?"

I don't know much about mac software, so I'm going to keep my mouth shut! I still stand by my original assessment that a lower line G4 should run fine, however. The studio we recorded our trio record in has a G4 800Mhz machine running the newest Pro Tools (the HD) with all the plugins you can imagine and he has no problems. For preamps, you can't go wrong with Grace. Of course, they are $$$$$. I have a Presonus M80 that I like a lot, although I've read they've stopped using the Jensen transformers in them and went to a cheaper (and not as good sounding) alternative. Mine has the original Jensen's in it. The True Systems Precision 8 is nice. Sounds real good. The Focusrite Red series is awesome. All I know is that when it comes to preamps, you get what you pay for!