Look at my huge organ! Just look at it!

Filed from the Weirdly-Poetic Timing Dept...

Jon Lord, organist for Deep Purple + formerly-solid candidate for the most interesting man alive, died earlier this week. An innovative cat, to be sure, with powerful Hammond B-3 chords stabbing thru the band's sound, juiced up thru a Marshall stack...


 



And synchronicititilly, I found a Hammond organ available locally this week, for only $50! Of course, it ain't a top-o'-the-line B-3 or anything at that level, but it IS a perfectly functioning VS-300 (entry-level unit: no drawbars, shortened keyboard range, no Leslie cabinet)... so now my studio is really coming together, albeit as a room full of weird old vintage gear... Anyway, here's some pictures! 

 Along with the Hammond, you'll see my rack full of vintage Ibanez effects units (UE-400, UE-405, HD-1500... + not pictured: UE-303B, DUE-400), my Yamaha SY-1 (monosynth ca. 1974), an Alesis HR-16 (16-bit is the shit!) and some other stuff.

All of it (except the Hammond) was used in the making of the Mighty Blowhole album posted here a few weeks ago. So, if you're curious as to what some of these things sound like, there ya go...

Figplucker's 21st Century Blues: Slide It In (Charley Patton)

Another month, another blues song... this time around, I took one of the great Charley Patton's brilliant tunes, known alternately as Shake It + Break It or Hang It on the Wall. I took the liberty of further altering the song, rewriting some of the lyrics, restructuring it slightly, + retitling it Slide It In, though it's really still his song, even if he might not wanna take credit for what I did to it.

I originally worked on a full-band version of this, but scrapped that here for a more raw + real version: one rhythm guitar track, one slide guitar rhythm take, one slide lead take and a vocal take. As close to live as I can get, one track at a time... Hope you like it, cuz it's rather nasty! And if you don't like it, at least it's short!

SLIDE IT IN