Aye, Mateys, Thar Be The Buried Treasure!

[Rod/]

All 16 minutes of In a Gada Da Vida. That’s why you forgot your coffee! You go Les
Did you play the long version of Light My Fire and use a Farfesa Combo Compact on both tunes?

 

[László]

All 16 minutes of In a Gada Da Vida. That’s why you forgot your coffee! You go Les
Did you play the long version of Light My Fire and use a Farfesa Combo Compact on both tunes?

No, I used a Hohner combo compact like the one Zep used to tour with and John P. Jones used on one of their tunes.

Incidentally, both In A Gadda Da Vida and Light My Fire were played on Vox Continental combo organs, not Farfisas.

The good news is that the Hohner could be set up to sound every bit as cheesy as a Vox or Farfisa, and I was that guy who did that!

The bad news is that the only interesting organ parts on those tunes were the intros.

Once you shot your wad on those, there wasn't much to them other than noodling. This, of course, did not deter me from much tasteless noodling/overplaying on the recordings!

I've already remixed one of the tunes as best I could, using a software algorithm that was able to separate out vocals, drums, bass and "other".

Sadly, "other" was organ AND guitar. The guitar was fine. However, for my noodling, I should have gotten the hook and been escorted off the stage. The fact that I wasn't can only be explained by what people were thinking in 1968.

In any case, the only way I could get rid of some of the more embarrassing organ riffs would have been to lose the electric guitar along with them, and everything would have then sounded wrong, wrong, and more wrong.

Oh well, it's an historical document, so I guess it should sound like it sounded. Which is to say, most un-good (at least the keyboard parts, though I freakin' nailed those intros)!

 

[László]

Always a great story from you, Les. And the setlist - ROCKIN' - all though I'd have probably went to pi$$ as Iron Butterfly droned on.

I kinda wanted to myself.

 

[Tony M.]

It all depends on how you look at it.

The "tasteless overplaying" would be the equivalent of
the scratches in a very fine antique leather overcoat,
or the alligatoring of a vintage guitar finish.

 

[vchizzle]

Awesome Laz, I can picture some high school gigs pretty vividly. I know I have some horrid VHS tapes somewhere.

 

[Alnus Rubra]

Great share Les, thanks.

 

[László]

Awesome Laz, I can picture some high school gigs pretty vividly. I know I have some horrid VHS tapes somewhere.

Gosh I wish I had videos (in my case it would've been Super 8 movies) of some high school gigs, or even pictures!

The gig I remember best was a Battle of the Bands when I was 15 that didn't quite go to plan.

There had been a runoff show. Four bands made the finals, including ours. The runoff show went great. We were stoked.

But in the finals, our drummer's foot pedal broke. Instead of just moving on and finishing the set, we stood around in our mod stage clothing and Beatle boots that the situation made even more ridiculous, looking at each other like, "We're f#cked," and waiting with our thumbs up our butts for 15 minutes for him to get it together.

I remember looking at the audience, and them looking at us, and no one seemed to know what to do. Deer, meet headlights.

Finally we finished the set.

We came in second.

I remember thinking I needed to be in a better band. But the guys in my band were my buddies, so I didn't find one until college.

 

[vchizzle]

Gosh I wish I had videos (in my case it would've been Super 8 movies) of some high school gigs, or even pictures!

The gig I remember best was a Battle of the Bands when I was 15 that didn't quite go to plan.

There had been a runoff show. Four bands made the finals, including ours. The runoff show went great. We were stoked.

But in the finals, our drummer's foot pedal broke. Instead of just moving on and finishing the set, we stood around in our mod stage clothing and Beatle boots that the situation made even more ridiculous, looking at each other like, "We're f#cked," and waiting with our thumbs up our butts for 15 minutes for him to get it together.

I remember looking at the audience, and them looking at us, and no one seemed to know what to do. Deer, meet headlights.

Finally we finished the set.

We came in second.

I remember thinking I needed to be in a better band. But the guys in my band were my buddies, so I didn't find one until college.

Been in those battles for sure. Most times it doesn’t matter how good the band, just who’s most popular.

 

[László]

Been in those battles for sure. Most times it doesn’t matter how good the band, just who’s most popular.

In the case of the one I was in, we were definitely not the best band. The band that won was very, very good, well-rehearsed, tighter.

My high school buddy-band refused to practice a song more than once. It drove me nuts, because I knew we could do better. I'd say, "Let's try that one again." They'd look at me and say, "We already did it. Let's play something else."