The band played a great show last Friday.

I was a bit nervous about it because we had some new material that we had never played in front of people before. Most of our songs we’ve really dialed in, so we rarely make egregious mistakes on them. But on the new stuff, you never know when someone (sometimes me) will launch into a verse when we should be doing a chorus repeat. Believe me, you don’t want to be doing that.

Photo by Janet Piczak Brown

Well, I’m happy to say the new songs went over really well. Not only that, but the show overall went very, very well. We had a big crowd, many stayed through all three sets (this is unusual), there were lots of new faces, and we in the band had good energy and played well. We put on a great show.

(The photo is by our friend Janet Piczak Brown. Matthew is cut off, and Monique is obscured behind Terry, playing harmonica. But it’s a cool, energetic shot.  I am working on getting more photos and will post them when I have my hands on them.)

I still remember the first time we had a real gig (back in January 2007). It was at a now-defunct bar called the Grog and Tankard, north of Georgetown. When it was all over, the bar owner came up to me and handed me a wad of cash. Someone actually paid me to play in a rock band. Ever since, after every show, it never ceases to amaze me that someone actually pays us to do this.

Living the dream!

Here are a couple of videos. The first was taken by our friend Kate Gordon on her iPhone — it was actually sideways and I rotated it, which changed trhe aspect ratio so we look a little squished. However, it is a good representation of our original song “Ticket Anywhere” which you can find on our latest CD, This Ride Could Be My Last. (By the cd at the link.)

As I mentioned, we also debuted a few new tunes. Here is one of them. It’s called “I Will Take You There,” and it is an interesting example of how we write songs. Typically I will come in with a song I’ve written and play it for the band. Maybe 2/3 of those pique people’s interest enough that they want to pursue it. As we work on the tunes, they almost invariably undergo transformations.

With this one, the original version was all major key and it was a straight ahead rock song. Mike Shawn (keyboards and vocals) suggested we switch a D to a D minor and an A to an A minor, and add a little tag to the end of each verse and chorus — and the song became much more interesting.

Here’s the video, taken by my son Daniel, and the lyrics follow.

I Will Take You There, by Brad Rourke and Mike Shawn

VERSE 1:
          Dm               G
You're a girl without a conscience
       Dm              A
I'm a man without desire
        Dm             G
Let's build a life up baby
           A              Dm
Then we'll set it all on fire
     Dm                   G
The dogs have found the body
      Dm               A
The briefcase in the weeds
     Dm                    G
The Feds have marked the ransom
          A              Dm
We've got everything we need

CHORUS:
 D                 Am
Tell me where you want to go
 C               G
Doesn't matter where
 D          Am
Indiana, Timbuktu
 C               G
I will take you there

VERSE 2:
Somewhere in Ohio
I stopped to take a leak
That's when they surrounded me
While you were still asleep
The endgame was unruly
But I got it pinned on me
I rode in the cruiser
While you found the extra key

BRIDGE:
          Em                    D       Em
Who's to say we'll never not be on the run?
          Em                   D     Em
Who's to say our alibis won't come undone?

VERSE 3:
You're a girl without a conscience
I'm a man with five to ten
We had a right good run there
Even good things have to end
The dogs they found the body
The briefcase in the weeds
The Feds marked up the ransom
But we still got what we need

CHORUS (ALT):
Tell me where you want to go
Doesn't matter where
Promise me you'll wait for me
And I will take you there

If you’re local, come on out to our next show! It’s at Bangkok Blues in Falls Church, VA on Friday, March 19. We start at 10:00 pm and go until late. Cover is $7.

Check out our Facebook page for more info!

The band is getting ready for a show in about a week. (In case you are local to DC, we’ll be at the Austin Grill in Rockville, Maryland on Friday, February 19 from 9:00 pm until late).

One thing we’ve begun to do is to get our set lists in order. This is not as easy as you might imagine.

Photo by Ed Tenney

In the first place, if you are not an arena band with roadies and whatnot, you don’t get to warm up before your first song. You just get up there and start playing. Most people are a lot better if they’ve had a chance to warm up a bit, so this can pose a challenge.  So, we always try to pick a song to open up that we can play in our sleep. We’ve got two standbys that fit that bill: “Big Rock Candy Mountain” and “Hotel Yorba” although we will sometimes pull out other songs too. The key is to make sure we have them cold and could play them well with one arm behind our backs.

In the second place, you’ve got to pay attention to how the audience clicks in. We used to try to “build” energy over time. But if you are playing in a bar, where people can come and go easily, you don’t have the luxury of knowing people are going to pay attention from the get-go and stick with you. So you’ve got to grab them early with energetic, upbeat songs. However, it also takes some time for people to really pay attention, so you don’t want to open with your best songs.

The sweet spot, where you want to put your awesome, roof-raising anthem, is in the third slot. By that point people are settled into your sound, you are in a groove, and everything is going good. This is where we’ll put our best and rockingest originals, “Father Lou,” or sometimes “Snitch.”

There’s also the question of how you want to end your set. We try to end with a rousing and very familiar song. People in bars do not go out to see original music. So we pack our oroginals in the middles of our sets. (More and more people are familiar with our originals so this is less and less of an issue.) But we like to make sure people are grinning and wanting more at the end of the set so we try to make sure to give them something like our VERY loud version of “Night Time” (J. Geils) or a sing-along version of “The Weight” (The Band). Another standby is our very rock-and-roll version of “Summertime,” which has to be heard to be believed — Mike Shawn, our keyboardist, always knocks that one out of the park.

Our songs are very short (most are under 3:30) so for one set, we’ve got to play a lot of songs — between 11 and 13. So we’ve got to know a lot of songs, almost 40 each night. We have a very strict “no notes on stage” policy which means we’ve got to be “practiced up” on what we’re playing. Some of our songs sort of fall out of rotation and so we need to double-check and make sure we’re up to snuff on those. So if we have not played it recently in practice, we don’t include it.

There’s also the matter of what songs go in which set. We usually play three sets of between 45 and 55 minutes each in a full night of music. We’ve found that our second set is almost always the awesomest. We’ve got the most audience members at that point, we are warmed up fully without being too tired yet, and the dinner crowd is gone so we’re not annoying any diners with our loud sounds. So we try to carefully craft a really rousing second set. Since we’ve got people’s attention in the second set, sometimes we will open this one with an original we want to highlight for folks (for instance, “Ticket Anywhere“).

We use the first set to get folks warmed up, with a lot of familiar songs and an overall upbeat tempo but not over the top. During this set, there are still people eating dinner, and this is also where we get audience members who are stopping by to support us but for whom our music might not be there cup of tea.

The third set is an interesting challenge. This one usually starts at around 11, so you’ve got your hard-core bar attendees at that point. People who are in the audience for the third set are really enjoying our show, or are just there to hang and don’t much care what we’re doing up on stage. (Probably about a 50-50 mix.) So in the third set we can get pretty experimental. We’ll introduce new songs in the third set that are a little complicated or that we are still a little unsure about, just to see what the reaction is. The balancing act here is that we’re all really tired by the third set — our shows are very energetic and take a lot out of us.

Also, in the third set we can’t go off on some jazz-fusion escapade because if heckling is going to happen it’s going to happen in the third set (from that “we don’t care” crowd I mentioned before). We’ll hear calls for “Free Bird” and people will walk right up to the stage and glare at us, drink in hand. So, we want to have a few familiar tunes in the third set just to make sure everyone is happy!

See you on the 19th! I hope we put together a list you’ll enjoy!

As I may have mentioned, we’ve got a show coming up on February 19. We’ve been crunching to get some new songs ready for it.

Here’s a song we just recently started to work on. It’s called “Wishing Well” and the basic tune and rhyme came to me randomly while I was driving aimlessly around Silver Spring. I had dropped my daughter off at a friend’s and was killing time until I was supposed to pick her up again. I worked the song out on that drive.

The video is a very bare-bones version, just to give a sense of how it goes. From this, we work on it as a band and it can undergo some pretty big changes. And, just adding in new instruments can make a huge difference.

Anyway, here’s the song:

And here are the music and lyrics:

Wishing Well, by Brad Rourke

    A                        G
I threw your letter in the wishing well
           C                           D
I wish I never did learn to read and write so well
    A                          G
I kicked around town with nothing to do
  C                         D
Kicked around town like a worn out shoe

CHORUS:
 F    C    G   A
Get back, go away
 F          C                G       A
It's been looking like he's here to stay
F    C    G   A
I know I should fight
F      C               G          A
But I can’t make it through the night

Just two ways to pass the time
Get on with my life or try to make you mine
Wake up every morning and I have to choose
Seems to me whatever way I turn I lose

Am               C       G
Oh, he's been coming 'round
Am               C    G
He's seen all over town
Am                C    G    D . . .
Oh, he's been coming round town . . .

I threw your letter in the wishing well
I wish I never did learn to read and write so well . . .

I hope you enjoy it.

Like almost every guitar player I have ever known, I have a real jones for new guitar pedals. I have tried so many of them, on that search for the perfect tone. Now that I have settled on an amp that works well for me, I have also been able to finally settle on some pedals that work for me.

Here’s a 10-minute video that goes through each on of my pedals so you can hear how they sound and what they do. After the video I go into detail about each one, with links.

Here’s my signal path:

Guitar => Boss TU-2 Tuner => Boss GE-7 Equalizer => Pro Co RAT2 Distortion => MXR M-1 MicroAmp Boost => MXR M16 Carbon Copy Analog Delay => Voodoo Labs Tremolo => Silvertone Twin Twelve 1484 Amp. (All powered by a One Spot power supply.)

My Pedalboard

My Pedalboard

First of all, you can see that my pedal board is an entirely do-it-yourself deal. I actually have purchased a number of official pedalboards, but none of them seemed very rock and roll to me — too fancy. So I found a wooden board in someone’s trash heap and I fastened a bunch of Velcro strips to it. First thing I do when I get a new pedal is stick Velcro on the bottom so I can use it on my board easily. The whole thing is powered by that One Spot power supply you see there at the top. I plug it into the tuner pedal, and then from there I can power the rest of the rest of the pedals.

That looks like a lot of pedals, but it isn’t really. I actually don’t use many of them very often, except here and there. I’ll go through them one by one.

Tuner

Boss TU-2 Tuner

My Boss TU-2 Tuner is probably the most important pedal on my board. First of all, it is a great tuner. It’s easy to read in the dark, built like a tank, and responds quickly. It is critical to have a ready-to-go tuner throughout a gig — guitars go out of tune a lot in some conditions and you never really know.

But there are two other important features of this tuner: First, when I engage it, it immediately mutes the signal path. That can be really useful if you’re getting feedback, or if you need to leave your guitar on stage for a while. I always feel more comfortable knowing I have that ability to quickly silence everything.

The other useful thing about the TU-2 is that it can power other pedals. So it is the “power hub” of my pedalboard — some people like to use batteries but I don’t, because I am fearful I’ll run out of juice at an inopportune time.

Equalizer

Boss GE-7 Equalizer

First up in the actual path is my Boss GE-7 Equalizer box. This is actually a very versatile pedal, and I only use it for a small, defined purpose. I set it to “scoop” out the mid-range frequencies in my signal, and boost (slightly) the lows and highs. The result is a “jangly” sound and I use that for a handful of songs, maybe five in a night.

Sometimes, if I am soloing in the midst of a lot of noise, and I can’t hear myself very much, I might engage this pedal to get more highs out of my sound, which helps the lead cut through. But I do that very rarely.

Distortion

Pro Co RAT2

My Pro Co RAT2 Distortion box is the most recognizeable pedal when I engage it. It is a loud, harsh distortion. This pedal first hit the market in the 80’s and it defined the “hair band” sound of LA metal bands. I use it at a pretty mild setting, but it provides a Gargantuan amount of boost and bite so on the few leads that I go for, I use this baby. It makes feedback (the good kind) easy.

The middle know (“filter”) works very strangely. It’s like a tone knob, only as you turn it to the right the tone gets more bassy — it is filtering out more and more highs.

Boost

MXR M-1 MicroAmp Boost

The MXR M-1 MicroAmp Boost is another really useful little pedal. When you are playing at low volumes, engaging this pedal can give you a nice boost. So on an Americana song, for instance our rendition of Hard Ain’t It Hard, I will use this for my solo (if I take one) so you just get this nice little countryish solo sound. But more typically, I will use it when I am already playing at high volume. In these cases it really just thickens everything and increases the sustain I can get. Plus it makes feedback (with the Rat) a breeze. When we’re all playing loud, this pedal is actually very subtle!

I am told Jack White uses this pedal, so I don’t imagine I will ever take it off of my board.

Delay

MXR M16 Carbon Copy Analog Delay

There are a lot of delay pedals on the market. This one is my favorite: the MXR M16 Carbon Copy Analog Delay. Most delays are digital, which means that they give you a precise echo of what you are playing. This one is old fashioned, and each echo sounds slightly different than the one before.

I use a very small amount of delay, just enough to fill up the sound on quiet numbers and add interest when I am playing a lead. (However, if I want the lead to sound “searing,” I don’t use any delay so the end of each note is then more defined.)

Tremolo

Voodoo Labs Tremolo

Because we play Americana, I cannot get away without having some tremolo. My amp has tremolo built in, but I prefer the sound of the Voodoo Labs Tremolo. It is sort of hard to find, and in demand, as VooDoo Labs doesn’t make a lot of gear at once.

This is another pedal I use only on a certain few songs, and only at certain times. But I guarantee I will use it at least once in any set.

(In the video, this does not come through very well, because the camera tried to compensate for the volume drop-offs of the tremolo!)

There You Have It

So, there’s my rig. There are a few standard pedals that I have experimented with and don’t use — I don’t really need them for my sound. I don’t use a chorus pedal, for instance. Nor do I use a compression pedal or phaser. If I start experimenting with those, I may do a post about that. But for now, this rig gives me all I need — a straight ahead rock and roll setup, not to metal and not to wacky — in a small and easy-to-set-up package.

What’s on your pedal board? Let me know in the comments!

We’ve been practicing a lot lately to get ready for our first show of the year (if you are local, it’s at the Austin Grill in Rockville on Friday, February 19). Since late last year we’ve taken some time off to work on new songs. We’ve been working a few of those out, but now it’s time to really knuckle down and make sure we know our repertoire.

We’ve been playing with harpist Terry DeFrees our last few gigs, and his harmonica adds a wonderful dimension to our sound. Typically, our main lead instrument is a keyboard (I am mostly a rhythm player) and adding in a new lead instrument has meant a lot. Terry hasn’t been sitting in with us for a while, for scheduling reasons, but now he is back and we have been practicing together. It’s amazing how much one new instrument can change the dynamic, and we are all getting used to it again. It really is exciting.

But the challenge is to really use our time together to rehearse and practice, and not just to jam. Since our songs are all so short, we have to know a lot of songs for one night full of music — usually 13 or more per set, for three sets. The biggsest thing we have learned playing together these years is that there is no substitute for practice together. We might each know our parts, but we’ve got to have that time together otherwise it doesn’t gel.

So I am thrilled we are hitting it so hard now, in practice. I am writing this after a phenomenal evening.

One of our trademark tunes with Terry is a rendition of J. Geils Band’s “Whammer Jammer” followed by “Nighttime” — a classic 70’s vibe. Terry hits Whammer Jammer out of the park. Tonight he crushed it. So cool.

It was also a thrill to hear the harp playing over the new material we have been working out.

Here is one of our performances of Whammer Jammer / Night Time, captured by our friend Cindy Cotte Griffiths. It was an outdoor show and dark, so the visibility isn’t so good, but you can hear Terry’s harp and see us running around a bit:

I am looking forward to our show. I hope you can make it!

As I will be the first to admit, I’m not an excellent musician. “Passable,” is probably what describes me best. And I sure don’t know a whole bunch about music theory. But one thing I can do is write, so I like to take care with my lyrics. For the kinds of songs I like to write, there’s always a story involved.

I also don’t like to use turns of phrase that are used very often, unless I can put a different twist on them somehow. I especially like juxtapositions.

I spend a lot of time working on those little things — I see each song as a story or essay and I want to get the lyrics just so. (What’s funny is that most people never quite focus in on the lyrics, because the settings in which we play it’s often difficult to hear.)

Here’s a song I have been working on for about a year now, called “By The Golden Gate,” along with a bit of a story about where it came from:

I’m not saying it’s perfect, by any means! But it’s a song I like. (I have no idea if there really are seven bridges in San Francisco or not, by the way.)

As I have done before, here are the lyrics and music so you can follow along if you want:

By The Golden Gate
By Brad Rourke

        G        C     D
It was raining when I got there
 D       C       G
Raining when I left
     G         C      D
The road rose up to meet me
       D         C        G
But I couldn't catch my breath

I felt so far away from home
Alone without a friend
All your letters got to me
But I never opened them

CHORUS:
A               C
Stranded by the Golden Gate
G             A
Living on the Bay
A             C
Seven bridges out of here
G           A
But I couldn't get away

Walking down to North Beach
The fog is rolling in
I always get so turned around
I can't get home again

BRIDGE:
Em, Am, Bm, Bm, Am, Em

I listened to your message
Saying, "Why don't you come back?"
I'll explain it all to you
After I've unpacked

I hope you like it.

If you’re like me, you’re impatient to start learning to play right away. When I started playing guitar, I didn’t want to spend a whole lot of time learning scales and whatnot. I wanted to start playing songs as soon as I could.

If you learn these three chords — D, A, and G — then you will be able to start playing about a zillion tunes right away. You’ll still need practice and more practice, but at least you’ll start getting the instant gratification of being able to actually hear something recognizable coming from your guitar.

For me, that was enough to keep me going. Here’s the quick video, just ten minutes:

The music book I refer to in the video is Rise Up Singing, which is the best compendium of folk songs (and not just a bunch of hippie stuff either, it’s damn good Americana). You can get it here.

And, since it’s hard to see in the video, I also took these photos of each chord so you could see how to fret them:

D Chord

A Chord

G Chord

Hope this helps. Learn the chords and start strumming! You’ll hear songs very quickly and be able to play them.

It’s funny what kinds of songwriting personalities we have. Take me, for instance. I seem unable to write a happy song. Just can’t do it.

Part of it is that it’s more wistful and sad (and gritty) songs that interest me lyrically. That’s what I am drawn to. The main thing I am after when I write a song is to tell a story. I am a much better writer than I am a musician, so it’s the words that come first for me.

The feeling I have when I am writing a song is similar to the feeling I get when I am working on an essay for my blog — I am trying to work out an idea and explore some of its nooks and crannies.

When it comes down to writing, even when I try to write something upbeat it usually goes south. I’ve got a number of songs that the band just won’t do, because they are too much buzzkill.

Here’s a song I wrote about two years ago. I set out to write a love song, and I never quite made it. It is a love song — but it’s unrequited love.

We’ve never recorded it before, but the song is a staple of our live shows and there are one or two audience members who have said it’s one of their favorites. (Go figure!)

Since you might be interested, here are the lyrics and chords:

She's So Neat, by Brad Rourke


G        D           G                D
She’s so neat, she’d make my life complete
G                         D
I’ve got to figure how to get through to her
G                     A
And sweep her off her feet
She's so neat, I see her every day
I try to occupy myself
But I just can't stay away

D       G    D                G
Days go by, still she doesn’t try
D   D   G   D   A
To get in touch at all
It’s like she has a plan to keep the upper hand
By forcing me to call

She’s so neat, I wish she’d notice me
It can get discouraging
Like I’m lost at sea
She’s so neat, I try and can’t forget
She’s an itch I can’t stop worrying
I guess I’m not done yet

I don’t know where I have to go
To find her when she’s gone
She’s not an open book, everywhere I look
It turns out I was wrong

C       F       D       G
Everyone wants someone to love
C       F        D                G
So does she, at least I think she does

She's so neat, but I just can't compete
I won't ever get through to her
Not even if I cheat
She's too neat for a nobody like me
But I'm resigned to knowing that
I never will be free
Because she is so neat

I hope you like it.

If you are just thinking about starting out learning guitar, or being in a band, you’ve probably poked around a bit on various guitar and gear forums. And you’ve probably got an entry-level guitar and amp that you’ve been playing around with for a while. So you probably have been exposed to the great disease that appears to plague all guitar players, good and bad: The Quest For Tone.

For whatever reason, we are constantly searching for some new addition to our arsenal to get just that perfect tone, the one we hear in our head, or hear on our favorite record. There are many, many elements that go into this including (of course) your guitar, your pedals, your cables, and your amp.

In my experience, it’s the amp that most shapes your tone. I have been on a quest ever since I started playing for Just The Right Amp. The sound I had in my head was the very beginning of the Gin Blossoms’ song “Hey Jealousy,” which is a sort of “dirty” sound but not too heavy.

I have tried lots of different ways of getting that basic sound, including dialing in a Vox AC-30 on my Pod XT, cranking a Fender Deluxe Reverb, and tweaking my Mesa Lonestar Special. But finally, in a pawn shop specializing in musical instruments, I found this:

My Silvertone 1484 Twin Twelve

What caught my eye is that I had heard Jack White plays one of these bad boys. So I tried it out in the store and I was just in heaven. It wasn’t exactly the Gin Blossoms but it spoke to me. I went home and did a little online research (by checking out what other people said about it here) and came back to trade my Fender for it.

What is it? It’s the Silvertone 1484 “Twin Twelve.” Mine was built in 1965 (the year of my birth) and actually had the original tubes still installed. “Twin Twelve” means it’s a 2×12 — two 12-inch speakers. Silvertone is the brand Sears sold their musical equipment under from the 1930’s up until 1972. This was made by budget gear maker Danelectro, a british company known for economy gear.

So, when it was new, this was a low budget, garage amplifier. The workmanship shows it: The cabinet is made up of this weak particle board and the vinyl covering is some kind of fake alligatory thing. But the sound is incredible. It’s got this growl, but not too heavy. Gritty, I guess is the word for it.

Once I started playing it with the band, I never looked back. My bandmates were a little suspicious, as they had really liked the sound of my Lonestar (which I still use and love at home), but I persevered, insisting on gigging with it even though we worried that excessive heat would fry the tubes.  Eventually, they relented and began to agree with me that this amp sounds just right.

Maybe we all learned to play around it and adjust to it, or maybe it was right from the start. I’m not sure. But what I do know is that I would hunt down and kill anyone who stole this from me, as they are not making anymore these days!

I took the amp to a tech and he installed a ground wire for me, because I had been shocking myself on it slightly, and I also ordered up a new set of Russian tubes for it (this cost more than the amp). But now it is a rock-solid workhorse and I would not play out without it.

We came to love the amp so much we recorded our latest CD using it (I used the amp part, but plugged it into a different speaker cabinet, a Marshall 4×12 with a closed back for more punch).

This song that opens our CD, “Snitch,” has an intro that gives a good idea of what it sounds like:

Snitch, by The West End

I’ll be writing more about my other amp, the Lone Star, in another post — and a post about the other key components of guitar tone, the guitar (natch) and the effects (my pedalboard).

(P.S.: You might be curious to know what that orange box is on top of the amp. It’s called a “Hot Plate,” and it knocks the overall volume of the amp down, while still allowing me to have the volume knob cranked up. Tube amps get their signature sound as the tubes begin to break up so you need to turn them up . . . which can make it tough on neighbors and band mates. The Hot Plat sits in between the amp and the speakers and allows you to get your tone without busting your eardrums and making enemies. One of the best investments I ever made.)

Sometime in 2005, I decided I wanted to learn how to play music. I had always loved music, it was the most important part of my life growing up. But I never learned. Somehow, I realized that I was now old enough to do what I was too afraid, or impulsive, to do when I was younger.

So I bought a guitar and started learning to play. Eventually, some friends down the way started playing with me (they are  better players than me). Then we became a band. We called ourselves The West End.

People keep asking me about it, so I thought I would start this blog about what it’s like to be in the band.

If you really want to know the full story, you’ll need to watch this:

I hope you’ll come back and read regularly. I am planning a lot of useful, fun, musical content!