In no specific order here, we have our third vocalist working with my cover band called The Chase. Performing with us now is Sean Bandy (Shoeless Sean to his followers). I don’t think I have any real pictures of this time. I will keep looking but so far nothing great.
Sean also played acoustic guitar and does a great job of working with the audience. We played songs from the Beatles to Zappa and from James Brown to Queen and he kept up with them all. I am playing keyboards and electric rhythm guitar, as well as back up vocals. I am not running sound at this point from what little I can remember. I posted a couple videos of us on my You Tube channel earlier. See the following links THE CHASE LIVE 1 and THE CHASE LIVE 2. These are more like music with pictures and old video clips. The video recordings I made for that time did not translate well to the leap in resolution 30 years later lol.
The Chase and vocalist Sean Bandy performing “Cross Eyed Mary” by Jethro Tull The Chase and vocalist Sean Bandy performing “I Feel Good” by James Brown The Chase and vocalist Sean Bandy performing “Freeway Jam” by Jeff Beck and “Black Friday” by Steely Dan
Which vocalist is your favorite from the few examples here?
Continuing on in this series, the cover band I performed with is trying out new vocalists. Fortunately I record often and want to share with you some of the live performances during this time with The Chase. The songs were performed by James Fidelli and he also played a bit of electric rhythm guitar.
The Chase vocalist Jamie Fidelli singing “Stone Cold Crazy” by Queen and “Red House” by Jimi Hendrix The Chase vocalist Jamie Fidelli singing “Tight Rope” then “Digging in the Dirt” by Peter Gabriel The Chase vocalist Jamie Fidelli singing “One” by Creed
For a quick recap, I have been going through archived recordings I have made over the years. Recently reviving performances with the bands I have played in, I want to give you a few samples of recordings I made with The Chase.
For a period of time we were reforming the band Euphoria and looking for a new vocalist. These recordings were during that transition period working out with different vocalists. Short story for new visitors, I worked at a local instrument store as a salesman when asked by The Chase to fill in for their sound man while he was on vacation for a few weeks. I had never run sound (with the exception of one hotel gig band that was in desperate need for one night.) I filled in, loved it and the band, the sound man could not return and I became their regular sound guy. The band was smart and paid the sound engineer the same as the other members of the band. They knew the house sound was important.
Once running sound, the keyboard player took a break for a few years and I worked really hard to fill in for him. Soon after that I started playing rhythm guitar too………. and yes, in the early years I ran sound, played keyboards, rhythm guitar, back-up vocals and percussion all at the same time from stage. For a period of time I ran sound from the audience and had my instruments next to me. Not as strong a player as the others in the band I tried to “earn my keep” by being a jack of all trades.
I have recorded music since I bought my first four-track reel-to-reel when I was around 13 years old. I am closer now to 70 years old. When working with bands as a sound engineer or member, I record for a lot of reasons. Some were not intended to be hi-quality recordings and often were stereo cassette or DAT machines connected directly to the main outs of the sound board. Usually there was no level test and the band members would not know I was recording at all because it was so basic.
In the next few posts I will share cover songs we played live with three vocalists. In some I am playing Keyboards, rhythm guitar etc., and some I am running sound using various techniques to find quick ways to get a decent live recording. Many of these I have detailed here in my Live Sound Reinforcement Series.
Here are a few samples, starting with Gary Jefferson as the lead vocalist.
Vocalist Gary Jefferson performing The Rooster by Alice In ChainsVocalist Gary Jefferson performing Middle Man by Living ColourThe Chase performing cover of Cliffs of Dover by Eric Johnson
As mentioned in the first post of this series, we played original songs in each set. Here is the only recording I am aware of for the song “For Those Who Wait”. We were touring in Corpus Christie Texas and I met with Ric in the afternoon to do a little practice and system fine-tuning. After we were settled he said, ‘hey, whip out the lyrics you are working on. I have a few chords I want to try. We worked for about half an hour going through his chords and arranging them into a song.
In very short time I came up with the melody and we were able to finish the song enough that we performed it later in the tour. I programmed the Yamaha RX7 Drum machine to fit the arrangement. Ann and I sang the lead vocals and Ric did everything else. In the picture above you can see the two silver discs on the lower section of Ric’s guitar. While playing guitar, he would touch one of the silver pads to make a cymbal crash sound from his drum machine and the other one triggered a pre-programmed drum fill pattern for each time he hit the pad. He also kicked bass pedals and triggered string or piano sounds. Pretty amazing when two out of three are just singing to get all that sound.
For “Those Who Wait” by Ric Ahlers and Michael S Kennedy
This is easily the best song I have co-written. Years ago I posted lyrics and said that I wrote this duo for existing country stars at the time. It was my hope to have Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers do this song. I think it would have blown the charts for the time. But who knows. I think we sounded pretty good.
Personal Touch as a duo with me and Ric Ahlers. Yes, he is that tall!
As a duo and later as a trio adding vocalist Ann Ellis, we tried to play popular current songs along with songs we wanted to play. As the Personal Touch we tried to play cover songs with an original flair. Often having Ann sing songs by male artists. She obviously had the best voice of the three of us so she often got the more challenging songs.
My first touring band was a trio called Personal Touch
I know I haven’t been posting things for a while, but actually I have been pretty busy. During the Covid lock down I was fortunate to get my writing partners and band mates from The Merchants of Death on-line for Internet jamming. In a while I will post some tunes we recorded live from different cities.
I have also been working with a great friend of mine to re-mix and master a 16 track live recording of the band Euphoria. Those familiar with my blog know that I also played in Euphoria, but I am not in the band at this time. Clint Garcia is the keyboard guru for the band, and when he took a break for a few years, I filled in for him.
When not jamming or mixing I often return to my archive. My recording obsession started around 1970 or so and I have been working for a while reviving very old recordings. I am currently working on my cassette collection. I found the original live recording of Personal Touch performing including what I think is the best song I have ever written. See the lyric post here: https://midimike.com/2015/03/05/per-request-lyric-to-our-bodies-move/ While I have always struggled with naming my songs, this is either called “For Those Who Wait” or “Our Bodies Move”, depending on what I was doing at the time.
We perform a bunch of familiar cover tunes and throw in originals somewhere in each set. I have a few songs from the live Personal Touch recording I will post over the following weeks. This was recorded as I mentioned using a stereo cassette deck running straight off the mixing board. We have no sound tech, so I do the mix from the stage. We ran our sound in stereo even playing live, so I just took the main outs and recorded. Back then I used my home stereo speakers for the monitors and we all fit in a single van to travel. Ahhhhh. The good old times!
Ric Ahlers was my brother-in-law and talked me into buying and learning a synthesizer and an electric piano so we could form a duo. Ric played guitar, sang, and also controlled bass pedals and a drum machine. (I detailed in an earlier post that he has triggers attached to his guitar so he can make a cymbal crash or a drum roll). I played my 12 string Ovation guitar for some songs, sang and played keyboards for the rest. I also programmed a 2nd drum machine to play a number of songs and could be used to add tom fills or crashes on the spot. Ann Ellis joined the band as our vocalist and soon we hit the road.
Vintage cassette recording of my band Personal Touch performing live
It is a lot of work but we met great people and had a good time playing our songs and doing cover tunes with a personal touch. I think there is a date in here somewhere, so I will try to find it and give you an idea how long ago this was. Enjoy.
I just posted another vintage video to YouTube. This is a live recording of Euphoria in my early days with the band. We are playing live at Hollies in Springfield OH. for some of this post. This was a transition period as members of Euphoria took time off and a new band formed later to be called The Chase. I did use some video from the events but compared to hi definition available today, it just looks dated, because it is! Enjoy at night at home and some great live music:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAW_cJVFFog
I posted songs from the first half of our live set when I was playing with The Chase earlier. Today I would like to share with you select songs from the second half of our set. The recording is decent – though this is ancient as it was recorded on a cassette tape!!!
Anyway, people all over the world are having tough times. Stuck indoors is the least of our concerns. Sit back, stay at home and listen to a live band performing classic rock songs from Jethro Tull to Santana and Creed.
As a note of mild interest; I have no pictures of the vocalist in this particular recording. I have video, but compared to the hi-res available today, the videos just don’t look very good. Sean (Shoeless Shawn) Bandy is the lead vocalist this evening.
Have a drink and a great evening in and stay safe!
Thank you for your continued friendship. The story of friends and talented musicians, artists of all kinds was fun in the telling. Followers will know the names and projects I have been thrilled to be involved with. Sacrifices. Heart break. Overwhelming joy.
I have told the story but I also have my archives to share. I started recording with a reel-to-reel tape deck when I was 14. I recorded everything. Everyone. Everywhere (once I had portable recorders lol!)
The medium has changed many times over. Some of the video, for example, was amazing on a small tube television. It just does not stand up to the quality of large screens with high resolution. I did not include the ancient videos on this post because it just looks bad/old.
For some reason I did not take a lot of photographs in this time frame. Unfortunately, I do not have any pictures of the lead vocalist in this recording….. Shoeless Shawn was not with The Chase long before we stopped playing out. So I collected more recent pictures I had taken of group shots of friends, family and fans we have known over the years.
With a little free time on my hands, I have been going through my archives. This is an old recording from my Nakamichi stereo cassette player! I think it is straight off the board. I did not run sound for this recording. Our friend Dave Houston was at the helm.
Everyone stay healthy, and with social distancing, stay at home, grab a drink, and put up your feet. Press play and listen to some live music!
Another thing that helps recording projects is if the sound board has a number of spare Aux or FX (Effects) Sends. Some boards offer 6-8 sends for various reinforcement and recording needs. If you have multiple tracks to record the live performance, use Direct-Outs when available for each active channel on the board. Record as many separate tracks as you can for the most options during mix down. If no Direct-Outs available use those Sends! You can still record the Left and Right Main outs, then use Sends (you can use the ones not needed for monitors and effects…..) to record instruments you want to have independent mixing control later. If the board offers Sub Groups – even better. You can let the sound guru use Left and Right Main outs if they wish, and you use the Sub Groups to create 2 stereo mixes you can record as pairs. Mix the drums and rhythm section (drums, rhythm guitar and bass guitar for the most part) with a stereo image by L-R panning of appropriate channels and assigning those channels to Sub Group 1. Then take lead guitars and other instruments and hard-pan to the Left out of Sub Group 2, and the vocals hard-panned to the Right out of Sub Group 2. In only four tracks you have great bed tracks to mix with, and control over vocal processing and adjusting volume of solo or lead instruments. This still keeps that ‘live sound’ but helps create a better stereo environment and some independence when mixing and processing limited tracks.
One last set-up where I liked the results I got by using stereo in a different way with the following technique. Instead of thinking left and right as the stereo image, I set up Audience position is 1 (left), and Stage position is 2 (right). To achieve this I create a Mono mix from the sound board as described and available as above and record to channel 1 of the stereo recorder. Then I take a quality microphone and hang it from the ceiling above the center of the stage and record this on channel two…….
I dump the ‘stereo’ wave forms into my computer and you can see right away they are offset a bit: one source delayed more than the other. Recording software allows you to separate the stereo tracks and shift the start time just a little to match the other track and all of a sudden you have a new Live Stereo environment where you can hear what it sounds like to be ON STAGE, mixed with what it sounds like IN THE AUDIENCE. Try it a few times and you can get great results if you are willing to sacrifice typical stereo images!
MidiMike 