audiot

who would have thought of that? i wanted to show you some Michael Landau video, because i think he’s not known enough. this guy played on so many records, chances are you even have an album on which he did his thing. but – as is the thing with many studio-cats – nobody knows him. except guitarfreaks of course. anyway, he deserves to be known…

then i found this clip of his trio playing in Karlsruhe/Germany last year – and i was there! this was one awesome show, wow. Gary Novak on drums, whom i had a little chat with afterwards, is such a nice person and such a bada$$ drummer. he got most of my interest that evening, sorry Mike. and Jimmy Johnson on bass, never seen him before. i think i heard or read his name somewhere but that was it – he was another pleasant surprise that day. this is a great band, if they are still out there gigging – don’t miss ‘em… under no circumstances!

by the way, the guitar really was that loud compared to the other instruments – it’s too bad you almost can’t hear anything else in the clip. i stood right at the stage, in front of the drumkit – that made for a balanced sound. i got very few of the pa, almost only stagesound and that was fine. the guy who shot the video though, seemed to have a somewhat worse position, so sorry for the sound. but you should hear that they know what they’re doing ;-)

enjoy

i just wrote an email to a guy who bought some of my drumparts on ebay and once again i experienced this ‘brotherhood of drummers’ that i got used to over the years and that i love very much. i’ve been a guitar player long before i learned to play drums but i never experienced this with other guitarists. and certainly not with singers :-)

there have been a lot of other musicians that i got in touch with just to buy or sell something. and with a guitarist it’s usually saying hello, making the deal, saying goodbye and be done with it. but this never ever happened with a drummer. even in the first email you can feel this togetherness-thing and when it really comes down to seeing each other, it’s more like trying to say hello but he interrupts with something like: ‘hey, there’s something i need to show you’ – then it’s off to geartalkland for hours, switching over to experiences-with-bands-story-talkland and it never ends. sometimes you even are forced to stay for dinner – unbelievable.

but that’s not it. at the first drumclinics i attended, i felt kind of uncomfortable. why? because i only knew guitar-clinics and there always was rivalry in the air. and not just at clinics, i sensed this at music-stores, in bands, rehearsals, even (maybe especially) on stage and at events like the Musikmesse which takes place once a year in Frankfurt/Germany. i have no idea why, but there always seems to be a rivalry between guitarplayers. i even was in a band once where the two guitarplayers actually fought about who gets to play more solo-notes and they were dead-serious. maybe it’s because of the instrument’s character. in a ‘normal’ band, the guitarist is the second ‘star’ next to the singer. singers usually have the lead, they’re in front. but when they’re not, it’s about the guitarist. that is at least one reason why singers are so cocky. and to a certain degree that’s not only understandable but even required. sounds ridiculous? it isn’t. it takes self-confidence and ego to be the singer in a band (remember, i said to a certain degree!) because the audience thinks of you as the lead and wants you in that position. my guess would be: the average audiencer doesn’t know anything about playing an instrument but he/she has a voice, so the singer is as close as it gets and therefore the listeners mainly identify with the singer.

guitarists however, are the ones that play solos and make funny moves :-) so they are sometimes in front getting the most attention. and if the same rule applies, they would need some self-confidence and ego too, to give a convincing performance. i’m no Freud so i won’t speculate about the fear of losing the lead of the one or the inferiority complex because of being the all time second of the other – ida know, maybe there are such things, maybe not. but one thing is for sure: the different musicians in a band are different characters. for instance, the drummer is often the funny one, making jokes, laughing the most – right? that’s at least how i experienced it. while the singer often is a bit of an outsider. and the most amazing thing of all: when i’m playing drums in a band, i’m making jokes and mess around – when i’m the singer, i’m a lot more serious and a lot more about business. how freaky is that?

once again i’m drifting off a bit. i just wanted to share some thoughts about the guitarists’ rivalry (“i’m not showing you my riff!”) and the drummer’s club (“come on in, what’s mine is ours.”) if you haven’t experienced this, go ahead and hang with guitarplayers (if they even get together outside the rehearsal room…) and with drummers. the perfect environment is a clinic or a music fair or the Musikmesse itself. you can go from the drummers’ hall to the guitarplayers’ hall in an instant and feel the different vibes. i’m not kidding, you can actually feel the vibes in the room – crazy…

p.s. i’m not mentioning bassplayers or keyboarders here because i have never been one of those in a band. i have been a singer/guitarist/drummer in many, many bands so i can’t really compare this…

AND of course: there’s exceptions to everything. rumor has it there are drummers out there who really are serious people – never met one of those though. and there are guitarplayers and even singers who are actually very nice persons – i even know a few of them…

Image by audiot.eu via Flickr

ok, before the big move takes place, i need to get rid of some things…

so here are the links to some ebay-auctions:

1. Sonor Phonic Plus lugs
2. even more Sonor Phonic Plus lugs
3. Epiphone 12string acoustic guitar

the descriptions are in german, but if there’s anything you want to know, drop me a line right here.

there will be more stuff on ebay in the future – i’ll let you know…

…well i did. actually i even own such a thing since i was about 16. saw an ad in the paper and a day later i had bagpipes, yay. the thing is, they are so ridiculously hard to play, it’s unbelievable. you need to have lungs as huge as a whale’s. the bag has to be filled up with air all the time. if there’s not enough pressure in there, the pipes just fall all over you. and imagine, there’s a bag with four holes in it and you need to keep it packed with air at any moment. i never figured that one out, probably never will. the blowing-air-into-the-bag is kind of independent from the sounds because you press the air out of the bag (through the pipes and the flute) with your arm. now when i tried this – no matter how much pressure i had in the bag – as soon as i pressed with my arm, the bag was empty within a few seconds, even with me hyperventilating. and the biggest challenge is to not laugh while this instrument of hell makes it’s startup-moaning-sounds…

i remembered this episode of my teenhood because of a youtube-video i found by accident. nothing special, it’s a scene from ‘Friends’ where Ross plays the bagpipes – and if I may say so: he’s doing really well. and i’m dead serious…

so here goes:

and if you ever, ever get the chance, you have to try it. you haven’t lived until you did, guaranteed!

as you already know, i was away for three weeks to prepare the new apartment and to record guitars for the garden album. now i posted a bunch of pictures to my flickr-site, where you can see the amps, cabinet, mic and guitars used. nothing fancy, though. two guitar amps (Laney and Sovtek), one Laney cabinet, one Shure SM57 mic and two guitars (Gibson and Heritage).

there’s some pics of my new drum setup and of the two guitars that are for sale (Sandberg and Epiphone). if you’re interested, drop me line through the contact form right here…

…well, not really. i’m lookin forward to the new apartment but right now i’m glad to be back from my almost-three-weeks-absence. so right now i try to catch up with all i’ve missed online, throwing the recorded guitar tracks i did in my soon-to-be-hometown on the harddrive (to be able to work with them tomorrow) and reading some funny stuff like this blogpost here….

so stay tuned, tomorrow i’ll be back again with my daily entries – starting with the next part of the singer’s workout series…

this is kind of amazing. Victor Wooten in some q&a battle with a guitarplayer i don’t know. to all bass players: this is the perfect way to get thrown out of a band really fast :-) :-) :-)