Show Recap: Sunspot at Howie's with Caroline's Spine
Monday, October 12, 2009 at 8:07AM Saturday night's show turned out to be a very memorable and fun one. We opened for Caroline's Spine at Howie's in La Crosse. This was an identical lineup to a show we did there Memorial Weekend of this year, so it felt a bit like a reunion; good to see friends again after 5 months.
;)
Me and drummer Greg HipskindThe lineup for Caroline's Spine was slightly different this time around. It was a total surprise too see a drummer who looked very familiar and turned out to be Greg Hipskind, who also plays with Wicked Liz and the Bellyswirls, a band with whom we played at Chicks Rockfest in Cincinnati a few years ago. Greg put on a strong performance with Caroline's Spine, and he also kindly shared his drum kit with me. His setup is slightly different from what I'm used to, with the higher toms further off to the left and the ride cymbal in between the rack toms and the floor tom, so that posed a little challenge, but overall it was fun to play and sounded great.
;)
Pearl WinglocGreg clued me in to an extremely cool piece of hardware which I hadn't tried before: the Pearl WL200 Wingloc. I've seen a lot of "quick release" wingnuts over the years, but these were by far the handiest. They enable you to securely lock your cymbal on the stand very quickly, without having to thread the wingnut all the way to the cymbal. This is extremely efficient and particularly useful in situations such as Saturday night, when we traded out cymbals during a quick set changeover. They cost significantly more than traditional wingnuts, but I think it is worth it for the savings of time and the annoyance of flying wingnuts (if you've ever put a cymbal on a stand, you know exactly what I'm talking about!). I love seeing traditional drum set and hardware evolve with these cleverly engineered solutions.
We performed a 90-minute multimedia set, which included videos and backing tracks on some songs, so I was playing with a metronome for a portion of the show. It worked really well this time around, but I still need to find some headphones that are comfortable and don't fall off while I'm performing.
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Reader Comments (1)
You're right, of course. There's very little more frustrating than trying to do a quick changeover, and then having that @#$%&*! wingnut fly away and go rolling into the darkest, farthest corner possible. Grrr. So, I'll have to check out the Winglocs. Sounds like a handy solution to an all-too-common problem.
Now, for a recommendation of my own: I've rarely played with a click except in-studio and with studio cans...But the handful of times I've played with a click onstage, I've used Sony MDR-J10 over-ear buds. Amazon has them right here. They're cheap, they stay put, and the sound is clear. They're a little mid-rangey, but if you're mostly using them with a click, that's not a big problem.
They have two added benefits, too. 1) They're COMFORTABLE. I actually wear these at my desk all day, and use them to listen to music while I work. And while the bass is pretty weak, that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make. Reason being, I often wear these for a full 9-hour day, and they never make my ears sore, like every single other pair of in-ear 'phones I've used has. 2) They don't shut out extraneous sound completely. So, you'll still be able to hear your floor-wedge, which we BOTH know is key to making sure the backups are where they need to be pitch-wise. These are far from the perfect earbuds, but for what you're looking for, I think they'll work great. :)