TheGoodRev

No joke, I'll be there. It's gonna be a blast. Who wouldn't want to spend their evening in boogie with a room full of women?

Great article, Shain, and way to go, phunkyb!

I don't know, to be honest. When kooky mentioned Ringo, I went and looked for a picture that I thought I had seen before of Ringo with his single dangly earring giving a big thumbs up. I found that clipping instead and figured I'd post it.

I happen to like Ringo, he's always on the money, but I can see how he could be a giant douche.

veal is disgusting and so are those who eat it...

I think that's a perfectly objective judgment to make, and you are perfectly qualified to make that judgment.

I won't even bother with the purple, it detracts from the seething bite I wish to add to the above sarcasm.

HAHAHAHA Joey Supertramp is my favourite member of the group.

Crime of the Century is a wicked record. I got it for Hannukah when I was 10 along with Fleetwood Mac's Rumours. Asylum, man.

I'll agree with you though, StoneMtn, I can't stomach the latter-day radio hits with the obnoxious vocals like Illogical and whatever else they play on the radio. I don't even like Dreamer from Crime of the Century. I don't know which of the guys it is, but one of them has a way whiney voice.

Sorry to hear bro. Many happy returns in any case.

Dammit

I was really looking forward to this show. Was even going to miss my friends opening for Matt Mays, AND overlook the fact that I'm due on the radio the following morning at 7, to come out. Sadly, a familial obligation has crept up out of nowhere and I'll have to be in Toronto instead of grooving at the PJ. Too bad, these guys don't come around too often. Have a blast, everybody who gets there.

They bend strings.

ib4l, as they say in internet-speak

Right on guigsy, I'll give Bob's solo set my personal seal of approval. I knew it would be slide-a-licious, but for a guy with that level of experience to non-chalantly start looping Dobro lines...let's just say I was surprised and very impressed. He also mentioned that he should be back in Hamilton in about a month.

And Velvet, that's a sweet deal. I need me one of those private sales.

Whoa. Where'd you get'er Velvet? And, uh, in what decade ?

Sampson was a Jew – therefore not a fool. The Jews have the best average brain of any people in the world. The Jews are the only race who work wholly with their brains and never with their hands. There are no Jewish beggars, no Jewish tramps, no Jewish ditch diggers, hod-carriers, day labourers or followers of toilsome, mechanical trades. They are peculiarly and conspicuously the world’s intellectual aristocracy.

~ Mark Twain 1879

Hahahaha! We always knew it, didn't we StnMtn? Would have been impolite to say so, though.

Saw this thread the other day but didn't have time to post.

I had the good fortune of seeing Bob Egan perform a solo set on Saturday night here in the Hammer. He played with Wilco in the 90's, on the road and on the Being There and Summerteeth records. He's now playing with Blue Rodeo. He only played one song on the steel during his set, he mostly played Dobro and standard acoustic, but shit was he ever good. I didn't even expect it. He had his Dobro running through a number of effects, including a Boss DD-4, and he was looping multiple rhythm parts and playing over them, it was pretty wild. He had loads of stories, one of which involving his only meeting with Johnny Cash, and how Johnny convinced him to sell his business and go on the road full-time with Wilco.

Anyway, the next band was the Kensington Hillbillies, an alt-country deal from Toronto, and Bob sat and played steel with them for their whole set. They were pretty awesome too. Last, two friends of mine had the deadlining set (i.e. the 1:00am set after the early headliner), and they asked Bob to play a couple tunes with them too and he did! Super nice guy, but most of all, a true professional and wicked player who played two and a half of the three sets on the night with no rehearsal for the second two.

I admit I haven't heard those two Wilco records so I don't know how prominent the steel playing is, but he has released two solo records (a self-titled and The Promise) that I'm sure contain a fair bit of steel.

I, too, have been badly wanting to pick up steel guitar. I've played guitar for the better half of my life and play in a number of open tunings, I figure I'd be a quick study. Anybody have any idea what a single-neck steel costs these days?

This is my favourite Twain quote:

When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.

HOLY SHIT

Tim you always seem to be the bearer of good news, thank you for that. Derek is insane; Doyle II is insane. And by 'insane' I of course mean "insanely talented and one of my favourite living guitar players." Doyle's album Welcome with his band Smokestack is a record that I still listen to regularly after owning it for five years. He is not simply an SRV-clone one-trick-pony, he is white hot Texas-blues influenced rock and roll. His playing on the Roger Waters In the Flesh DVD is also astonishing; his interpretations of Gilmour's parts in Dogs and Shine On You Crazy Diamond are worth the price of the disc alone.

And Trucks? You all on this board are surely familiar with him, but his Joyful Noise and Soul Serenade albums continue to leave me jaw-dropped and blown away after months upon months of heavy rotation. Has anybody heard his newest record? Any thoughts?

Thanks for the news, Tim.

Sorry guys, I know it sounds fun, but they're looking for broadcast-related engineering experience. You don't need to be world-class (in fact I doubt if they even require certification in the field) but you need to arrive knowing what you're doing.

A contact of mine, who operates a networking agency of sorts, has a client who is hiring for a pretty sweet radio-related job in Markham. It's a full-time, Monday-Friday gig. The job entails both the engineering and on-air side of the deal. The only reason I'm not all over it is because I'm in school and couldn't pull off a full-time gig on top of that. I have no salary information. Please PM me if interested and I will divulge the most interesting detail of the job, and provide contact info. Serious inquiries only, please.

Rare footage of musical icon Elvis drunk as a skunk on stage!

I didn't think footage of The King fucked up was terribly rare, I feel like I've seen a whole bunch from the Vegas years without really looking. In any event, somewhat entertaining as a visibly sloshed Elvis flubs the whole intense monologue in the middle of Are You Lonesome Tonight:

http://ebaumsworld.com/videos/elvisdrunk.html

I thought the Mackie was proprietary PCI as well, no? Or maybe Firewire, I could be wrong. What I DO know is that, while it seems like an awesome system to have a Mackie mixer that doubles as an interface, the mixers themselves are more expensive than their non-interface Mackie cousins, and the actual interface component is a pricey extra. Weird system. I wonder what the advantage is of having an Onyx WITHOUT the interface guts in it, as opposed to just a regular Mackie mic/line mixer. I suppose you're paying for the possibly that one day you'll be able to afford the PCI or Firewire card or whatever...

Anyway back to the topic at hand...

Thanks for the replies, y'all, I truly appreciate.

I just did this next one over the past few hours.

EDIT My god I talk alot about my own music, how terribly lame. Listen please.

http://therev.neenerneet.net/2006-02-21.mp3 12 MB

Get ready for this, I'm a young'on...

"Beat It" by Michael Jackson

Sounds like a scalper to me. According to Ticketmaster, face value for those tickets is $15. Wondering why they'd need to ship it USPS, that's the United States Postal Service. Better ask if those prices are CDN or US.

As much as scalpers deserve to take a lead pipe to the knees, though, they tend to be a good source of tickets to a sold out event if you're willing to pay the price. I've never bought scalped tickets through the mail though, so I can't comment. Good luck man.

From what I understand, he's basically been recording songs on 8-track cassette in his house since 1995. His music is like a crazy orgy of soul-pop hooks and lo-fi 70's FM guitar fuzz. The only thing I've heard is the latest record, House Arrest, but it intrigued me with its insanity. I think the albums they've been releasing are from his tapes from 1995-2000, he apparently has amassed something like 300 masters. Crazy.

Don't know if I can make it to the Boat tonight though. Any Toronto folk planning to go?

p.s. Beat me to it, Tenenbaum. I think I got the FM reference from the distributor's sticker on the disc (heard it at the radio station).

Whoa! Had no idea this show was happening. Just heard his latest record for the first time a couple weeks ago, it's insane.

Just checked out his site to see if he plays solo or with a band, only to read that he's playing with a different local backing band in each city! Crazy!

Thanks for the comments all.

Re: the Firepod. Before buying I read a number of glowing reviews, most notably from Sound on Sound, a UK pro audio magazine. I saw some of those poor reviews on zZounds too, Jared, but I have a theory about online gear reviews. I personally own a whole arsenal of gear, from my drumkit to my numerous guitars and amps, effects, etc, and I have never once written a positive online review at Harmony Central, zZounds, or any other such forum. I'm sure, though, that the minute I ever have a problem with a piece of gear, I'll be shouting it from the rooftops in every online forum I can find. Simply the fact that there were so many POSITIVE reviews at zZounds was further reinforcement to head out and grab it. The way I figure, there's a warranty, and I really take the absolute best care of my gear that I can. The thing is pretty light and small considering its functions, and you get the sense that there may in fact be $5 worth of parts inside, but then you have to consider that it's probably the most affordable multitrack interface on the market, and it includes eight quality preamps. The preamps really are awesome, by the way. Crisp and clean, they do the job. Bear in mind that I've barely owned it a month, though.

As for 24-track, I could see how three Firepods would do the job quite nicely. I guess it depends what you're recording, though. Only two of the Firepod channels have loops, though, so if you're looking to add a bunch of hardware effects while still using the FP pre's, you're limited to 6 channels. I checked out a few MOTU units before buying the Firepod, but there were several drawbacks. The MOTU 24 I/O looks like an awesome unit, but don't forget it operates with a proprietary PCI card which is liable to up the cost considerably, and you'll have to open up your computer and put the card in there. A good friend of mine has been using a MOTU 2408 mkII for a long time and absolutely swears by it. It's also PCI though and also does not have preamps, and compared to the 24, it only has 8 analog inputs. What's nice about both these cards, though, is that they are built considerably sturdier than the Firepod, and most importantly boast ADAT I/O. The 2408 could then accept up to 24 ins through the ADAT if you had an appropriate ADAT unit to plug into it. That's handy if you can get by with 8 ins day-to-day, but then when the time comes to record your masterpiece, you can rent a digital desk with 24 channels and an ADAT out. As for the 828, it seems like it'll do the job, with two preamps and eight TRS ins. It's a pricier than the Firepod, but it does have that optical support that can come in handy.

Anyway, yes. It's a crowded marketplace. If you have the money and you feel like you'll get a great deal of use out of your home studio gear, MOTU is probably the way to go, along with one of the higher-end Mackie mixers (with direct outs for each channel) for preamps. For my purposes, and many others it seems, the Firepod is the affordable way to go without sacrificing a great deal of audio quality and without paying for a whole host of features (like ADAT) that we may never use, and without having to solve the preamp problem as well. Good luck and let us know what you end up with.