First tour of 2009 is under way

The Young Dubliners have hit the road! We just departed Los Angeles last night, and as I write this we are hurtling up the highway toward our first gig in Boise, Idaho. I can taste the potatoes already!

The task of packing my gear and luggage for this trip took over 2 days. Winter always presents some special requirements for touring... due to the tight schedule, I had to make sure every item from picks to fuses to tools to thermal underwear is included, because having to find a music store out there somewhere is not an easy option in freezing weather! And, we're traveling by tour bus, so once we arrive at the venue, there's no driving out for an errand!

The first show is on Friday the 13th. I'll let you know how it goes!

-Bob, February 11 2009

NAMM and this week’s highlights

The appearance at the NAMM show was a success! I put together a short set, a couple of medleys of Young Dubliners riffs, and demoed new Framus gear at the Framus/Warwick booth.




http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3464/3228434544_03fa1a93c1_m.jpg
In addition to showing off the wares, I shared the schedule with other luminaries who play Framus/Warwick gear, like TM Stevens & Jonas Hellborg, John B. Williams, and Kevin ‘Brandino’ Brandon. Here’s a link to the Framus website with more details:

http://framus.de/modules/news/NewsSingle.php?id=2210&cl=EN

And in other news, the Young Dubliners new album will drop on February 3rd, and along with alot of excitement, I am up to my eyeballs is activity! The bandannounced a special offer on our website, where any CD’s pre-ordered early directly from us would be signed by the entire band. Lo and behold, we ended up sitting before a pile of over 1000 CD’s to sign one recent evening!

I began the task in earnest...



After the 3rd hour, fatigue began to set in. Hands began to cramp...


By late in the evening, all the CD’s were signed!


This weekend found the Young Dubs performing at the “Go Back 100” festival in West Palm Beach, Florida, and it was a good shakedown cruise for our traveling chops. Got to get ready for a 4-week tour!

Bob
January 26th

Appearing at NAMM this Sunday

Hey now,

I'm getting ready to make an appearance at the North American Music Merchants (NAMM) tradeshow in Anaheim, CA. I'll be there this Sunday, January 18th, at 1PM. I will be demonstating Framus Guitars and amps and playing some Young Dubliners music, all at the same time. If you're going to the show, stop by the Framus/Warwick booth and hang out.

Take Four?

I appreciate all music... depending on mood, surroundings, and dosage, I'll listen to just about anything. Sometimes, it's compelling, like some good singer/songwriter tune that will make you sing along, or it could attract with a train wreck-like quality, like some lo-fi world music recordings from the 50's that somehow broke out of the Library of Congress. Through all the varieties, I appreciate all...

The other day I heard the Dave Brubek jazz classic "Take Five" on the local smooth jazz station... a modern remake by a modern smooth jazz ensemble... and they played the song in 4/4. Isn't part of the original Brubek version's appeal, it's hook, why the record was and still is notable that is had the unusual rhythm of 5/4 (hence, "Take Five")? But these modern cats, they don't take five, only four. Smooth jazzed it right out.

Perhaps another form of gentrification??

November at Home.

The summer is behind us, and thus the Young Dubliners are finished with touring for another year. We occasionally have a leg or two in the fall (remember the Irish tours?) and early winter (a fun time to play gigs in Alaska!). But, this year the Dubs are taking it easy for the holidays, playing just a handful shows for the remainder of '08.

Having lost all of my gear in our trailer theft in August, I've slowly been replacing what I had with a slightly new direction. For starters, for several years I played a stock Vox AC30 both on stage and on recordings; I also used a Framus Ruby Riot combo. After some experiments on rented gear, I replaced the lost Vox with a Marshall half-stack - a bit edgier than I have sounded, and probably louder too! I'll have to be careful not to blow the hair back from the folks' faces in the front rows!!

Through a small miracle, I recovered my two Framus electrics. Turns out a gentleman in the Phoenix area purchased them at a swap meet shortly after the heist, as well as a few other accessories of ours, and was unwittingly auctioning them on eBay!! When we spotted them, we contacted said gentleman to ask where he'd found them. He still had me guitars, and graciously returned them immediately. A shout out to Richard in AZ - you're on the guest list for life my man!!

Since settling back into life in Los Angeles, I've been fortunate to hit the studios on a number of projects. All have been tracking guitar for independent artists, on a range of music swinging from adult alternative to pop to plain alternative to plain wacky. One outing was a return to working with singer/songwriter Jeff Aeling, whom I worked with on a project last December. We spent a fantastic week tracking basics and overdubs at Sage and Sound Studio B in Hollywood... Other locations I saw included Echo Park Recording, tracking guitars for the Young Dubliners, Tim Boland and Ken Sluiter producing; Bright Orange Studios, for Brian Cram, with Jon Mattox producing; and Chun King Studio for Craig Bowden, with Shawn Nourse producing.

I am currently playing a fly date with the Young Dubs, performing 2 nights at the Sarasota Irish Festival in Florida. We're threatening to start playing some tunes from our new CD, due out in February.

Cheers until the next time!

A brief catch up!

Well hello. Long time no blog! Hope everyone's having a fantastic election season.

I'm finally back home after a long and awesome bunch of tours with the Young Dubliners. We're replacing all of our gear slowly and surely. In no time the show will be back to normal, replete with lazer lights and go-go dancers (ok, just amps and stuff. But someday..._

Times are exciting because the band has just completed our new album! Still untitled, it's slated to drop in February - just in time for the March Madness tour and St. Paddy's Day. My ears are still ringing from the final mixdown session we had today! The songs and sounds are possibly the most ambitious and inspired records this band has produced to date. Maybe writing and recording 4 albums with the same lineup has something to do with it...

But, no rest yet! Tomorrow, I'm beginning preproduction for another project. Jeff Aeling, whom I had the pleasure of sessioning for last year, has a new batch of songs which he is recording in Hollywood, back at Sage And Sound studios. The demos sound great, and I'm looking forward to writing some eclectic and rockin guitar tracks with Jeff again!

Have a great Thanksgiving, or whatever you celebrate in your part of the world.

The Dubs Tour and Pedestrian

Been out with the Young Dubliners for a couple of weeks, great tour. We played a few major Northwest cities - Seattle, Portland, Boise - and some smaller ones - Spokane, Bend, Medford. Everything from large rock music venues (The Knitting Factory) to free outdoor concerts (Les Schwab Amphitheater in Bend); we even gigged in a roller rink-turned-arena rock concert. So variety is the spice of life!

And speaking of variety, and you electric guitarists out there can understand where I'm coming from, it seems that every city has a different level of voltage coming out the sockets. On some stages, my Vox amp sounded just sweet as usual, while on others the sagging voltage left my guitar sounding like the strings were found in an old abandoned mine in the desert. Can the power companies of America get it together and get nice strong electricity to everyone equally? Is that so much to ask?

Just like it would be a solid to all of us if the highways of America were equally smooth everywhere you drive. But if you travel from, say, California to Idaho through Utah, your auto has to endure miles of buckling, patched pavement which feels like washboard when driven at 70 MPH. But then you come to Nevada, and start to think that a state with legal gambling may not be all bad, because the roads are like butter. I wonder where our tax dollars are going when, in Cali at least, there are ALOT of people in the tax base, and you'd think the roads would be half decent. But instead, we're closing some state beaches and parks, and cutting back on educational spending, to make ends meet. Hmmm...

But hey, let the good times roll. I'm off subject here. I just wanted to tell you about the band which opened for us on this last tour. They're called Pedestrian, are from Los Angeles, and are not to be missed if you're fan of indie rock and good songs. Check them out on myspace, or at your music outlet of choice, and you won't be disappointed.

Keep it safe and sane this Independence Day! I'll be sans fireworks back at home for a week, and then hittin' the eastern half of NoAm (North America) during July and August. Write at ya soon!

Bob