Many thanks, Jonathan, for listening and commenting. Always trying to improve the live capture!
Hi Leon,
A really good live recording session, it sounds like it is when your in the audience i think. What really stands out for me is the stellar drumming ! The solo’s have a ‘live’ timing, the playing is good and controlled. I hope you can freak out a little when there’s audience in front. I would certainly be there when the gig would be in Amsterdam!
Peter
Thanks for listening, Peter! I could only dream of playing in Amsterdam, where I lived for five years in the 90’s. I really hated to leave. Anyway, we are just a suburban band playing stuff nobody in the area wants to listen to! Still, I think you got it right when you said it sounds like what you would hear in the audience. Clearly it doesn’t sound like the “studio” versions I made of this song. In addition to the fact that we’re all playing live together, I think the mic bleed through the drum mics is the big reason.
Hey Leon,
Why not just upload some of the tracks to your Soundcloud account and let us know?
Steve.
Well see if this works. I didn’t want to put it on soundcloud because it’s not an original composition. I didn’t spend the same time I spent on Red Wine And Brownies. On the other hand, this one was easier for us, so less editing. Let me know if you can hear this:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/71340320/Wind%20Cries%20Mary.mp3
Leon, it does work.
I love your arrangement, and what a great beginning to the piece - disguised Hendrix! Funky Hendrix!
That’s a nice tone you’ve got - is that what you said about tapping the Les Paul? Lovely, precise, tasteful playing and great use of those bouncy Hendrix-like chords. Very funky stuff. There were a few small parts in the piano solo where I thought your pianist got a bit stuck with a couple of clashing passing blues scale notes, but no biggie.
I thought you said something about a wah wah!
Yes excellent ,i always love hearing people do hendrix stuff ,your sound on the guitar his great . there is an hendrix tribute album which came called "power of soul " and one of the artists on the album is Sting he covers that tune with john mclaughlin , i think your keyboard player was reffering to the mclaughlin solo which when you hear it is wacky out there,so you should probs hold back on the rhythm and let the keyboard player do that thing cause whatever you play is gonna clash with him .your solo sounded great ,wish i could come and watch you guys. put some more up please Leon
Steve, yeah, that’s the Les Paul neck pickup in coil tap position. Tone knob set about 6. I also equalized in the recording - notched out a narrow high freq range to make it a little mellower.
Polgara, you’re right that Tom the keyboard player likes to wander far out there. I should have given him more space. But you know, just a rehearsal! The point of making the recordings is to let any bar out there know what they’d be hiring. So far I’ve sent it nowhere. Actually I sent a couple of earlier ones to a local dive advertising original acts, but we were rejected.
So here’s another. Not proud of my playing on this one so I hesitate, but at least you can hear the wah-wah.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/71340320/Freeway%20Jam.mp3
Very nice Leon ,great sound and cool playing all round .
Thanks, Polgara. I only bought my first wah-wah two years ago. I had a borrowed one for a while. I’m not so good at it yet, despite the fact that I should have bought it decades ago. I’m just trying to keep it somewhere in the middle! If you listen closely, you can hear the hi-hat pedal squeaking like crazy. One more note to myself! It’s a pleasure when I do get a chance to play with these guys.
Ha ha i never noticed the sqeeky pedal ill have to have another listen , my brother who plays the kit once pointed out that he could hear john bonhams pedal squeeking on some led zep track ,ha ha . regarding the wah wah it sounded great ,i dont know if i liked the sped up chorus effect , i liked it at first but then it seemed to go on a bit ,have you tried an auto wah it`s a totaly different animal from a normal wah ,they are good for melody lines, very expressive ,they trigger when you hit the string .anyway nice one Leon , once again top quality band.
Leon, great stuff. Is this a Jeff Beck and/or Max Middleton tune? Sounds vaguely familiar to me, but I can’t remember what it might be.
Lovely playing as usual, and a lovely tune and arrangement. You need to know that I’m starting to chuckle at your exclusive use of the neck pickup. I really like the tones you got here, and I also think you could get another whole series of tones. My guess would be that to get a bridge tone that you’re happy with, you’re going to have to increase your preamp overdrive/distortion. Geekedy-geekedy!
Steve.
Yeah, Polgara, I was wondering about that chorus sound too. The idea was to make the main melody stand out. Another note to myself: add effects such as these in the mix, don’t record them. Never tried an auto-wah. Most of the time on this number, I’m moving the pedal very slightly, as opposed to full disco mode. Auto-wah would probably be nice for this one.
Steve, this one is credited to Max Middleton on the Jeff Beck Group album Blow By Blow. Mr. Beck is still playing this number (saw him about two years ago). I am trying to retrace my steps on pickup choice. On my first department store electric guitar, it was bridge pickup only. It wasn’t until I made the attempt to learn some jazz that I began to use the neck pickup, on my old SG. When I bought the Strat, I often used the in-between settings (two adjacent pickups out of phase, I believe), but I didn’t play the Strat very much for a long time because I liked the Gibson sound better (even though I was a big fan of Hendrix). And as I became a fan of fusion players (John McLaughlin, Larry Coryell, Bill Connors), and then pure jazz players, the bridge pickup just went completely out of favor for me. Even when I started to play the Strat again, listening to original Hendrix favorites, I think he was mostly on the neck pickup (listen to Voodoo Child from Electric Ladyland). And now with the coil tapping, I’m happy to play Wind Cries Mary on the Les Paul on the neck pickup.
So maybe I’ll have to try it one of these days! Good that nobody else is reading this, so we can geek out!
Hi Leon ,just as a suggestion if you were considering ever moving the pickup selector in the direction of the bridge pickup lol ,even though i think you have a wonderful sound on the neck pickup .take a listen to early Gary Moore stuff when he used to play fusion type music especialy when he was playing melodies along with instrumentals using the bridge pickup and tremolo arm , i think "back on the streets " album has examples.
i also think it depends on the amp you use which can determine if you tap your humbuckers .i fit one of my strats with a 16k bridge and an 8k neck pickup (both i can split)which i think are a fairly hot output config , through some amps would sound muddy but through a marshall 900 sound great , the clean channal in configaration with the neck pickup on full humbucking sounds wonderful just like a typical strat .
Just listened to “Back On the Streets”, and I definitely liked this guy! Still, I wasn’t trying to sound like this, although I was a big fan of it in the past. Robin Trower, Leslie West, Jimmy Page, Ritchie Blackmore, Steve Vai, Van Halen, Satriani, for example, used a lot of bridge pickup. So maybe it’s more a question of the particulars I was after… still I will go play with it!
Hi leon ,i just had a re listen to this album and it hasnt aged very well ,oh well. by the way Robin Trower doesnt use the bridge pickup he tends to use the middle pickup all the time ,yuk .
Ritchie Blackmore is a great example of pick up switching ,he got rid of the middle pickup.
If there’s one sound I’ve always hated, it’s the middle position of a two-pickup guitar! Does anybody use this? On the other hand, the middle pickup on a strat on its own, is not a bad option. But, I don’t use it! One thing I really don’t like about John Scofield lately is that he plays that imitation ES-335 from Ibanez (ok so far) and uses the bridge pickup! It’s just wrong.
i love the middle position of a two-pickup guitar ,lots of 70`s funk had that sound.John Scofield can use any pickup he wants and does , does your guitar actually work in the bridge position Leon ,i have a feeling stuff may have grown on that side of your selector 
Wow these are both excellent Leon.
Great guitar and parts and all.
I couldn’t play like that in a month of Sundays.
Or Mondays either, come ta fink of it.
Abso-freaking-wonderful drumming.
What’s Spencer’s retainer? Gotta be a mortgage at least.
Great live captures. Must be the best around these parts, for sure.
Crisp, clean, clear.
Noisy hi-hats? Squeaky wahs? Odd notes on the EP? Give me a break. 
Wonderful.
Thanks for the kind comments, Jet. Spencer can play anything we give him just by ear. He’s trying to make a living at this and I think he likes to play with us when he’s around because it gives him a chance to exercise his chops with a little fusion-y music. Nice guy too!