Madison Square Bedroom

RIP Harder Beat Magazine, 1993 – 2009

Written on 17 September 2009 by John

Harder Beat was arguably the only magazine that supported original hard rock and metal music in Dallas. Losing this one hurts.

http://www.harderbeat.com/html/from_the_editor.html

Thanks Linda for 16 years of great support and for being an advocate for so many of us in the Dallas scene.

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Eric Johnson & Alien Love Child, Dallas TX, House of Blues, 8/27/09

Written on 28 August 2009 by John

Tickets were $10!! So catching this show was a total no-brainer.

Opening act was a 20-something dude from Austin named Jake Andrews. He’s sort of a hybrid Eric Johnson/SRV on guitar, however, he was basically just doing a lot of meandering semi-jam things that went nowhere pretty fast. His lead vocals also left a little to be desired. He used a sunburst strat and two Fenders – one blackface Super, and a second tweed one which I would guess was also a Super or maybe a Bassman. His tone was very nice – dark for a strat, and not super ice picky like a strat through a Fender can get. I have no idea what his pedals were but I will say that’s probably the best dirty tone I’ve heard a Fender strat/super combo get.

Alien Love Child hit the stage around 9:30 opening with Zenland, the first song on 2000′s “Live and Beyond” album. Eric was playing a red strat which I assume was a signature, had two Twins, a slant and straight front 4×12 cab sitting side by side, and some kind of an older Marshall that I’ve not ever seen before – it was a small box head like a JTM 45, but it had more knobs. Clean tones were amazing as always. Of course, I dig his take on country western Holdsworth. (Darren will make a disparaging remark about cheesy over-processed tone, naturally.) However, he seemed a little tentative, and his dirty tones were not as good as I’ve heard in years past. It seemed too bassy and muffled – back when he used 100W tops he could take your head off, and this Marshall wasn’t giving up the high end sparkle at all. I know he downsized a few years ago because of hearing issues, but maybe he needs to use a treble booster or something.

Drums were handled by Bill Maddox, who is really good, but hardly breaks a sweat back there. He makes it look really effortless. Bass was handled by Chris Maresh, and he’s also an excellent bass player. ALC leans a little harder on the blues and blues based rock than EJ does with his solo stuff. They hit most of the live album, along with a few newer tunes that I wasn’t familiar with. Eric stayed kind of tentative and cautious most of the night. Maybe he knew I had snuck a recorder in. He finally loosened up at the very end of the night.

Highlights were “Last House on the Block”, “Zap”, and “Are You Experienced”.

Overall for EJ it was a bit of a letdown because he was being so careful. Maybe a 7 on a scale of 10. Compared to most mortal guitarists though, it was still mind blowing. Overall a good time was had by all, in a very comfortable venue that’s just about the perfect size for rock music.

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Her Christianity by Tim Nicholson

Written on 19 August 2009 by John

Check out this instrumental track by my friend and co-worker Tim Nicholson. Kind of makes you wonder just how many incredibly gifted players there are out there just doing music for their own enjoyment. Tim has a lot of Eric Johnson in his playing and I always enjoy the stuff he comes up with.

If you like this tune leave Tim a comment over at Riffworld.

“Her Christianity” Comment & more at RiffWorld.com

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