https://guitarnoise.forum/news/the-good-bad-ugly-and-what-about-jim/ Guitar Noise Discussion Board en-US Thu, 04 Jun 2026 06:10:58 +0000 wpForo 60 https://guitarnoise.forum/news/the-good-bad-ugly-and-what-about-jim/#post-262420 Sun, 02 Sep 2007 09:30:47 +0000 If the outlet box is grounded,then you can pick up a ground thru the screw, but if the box isn't grounded (which it probably isn't - if it was, why wouldn't they spend the $1.50 and put in a 3 prong outlet?) then there'a no ground... Scary.]]> News kent_eh https://guitarnoise.forum/news/the-good-bad-ugly-and-what-about-jim/#post-262420 https://guitarnoise.forum/news/the-good-bad-ugly-and-what-about-jim/#post-262355 Sun, 02 Sep 2007 00:06:43 +0000 News corbind https://guitarnoise.forum/news/the-good-bad-ugly-and-what-about-jim/#post-262355 https://guitarnoise.forum/news/the-good-bad-ugly-and-what-about-jim/#post-262162 Fri, 31 Aug 2007 18:26:11 +0000
Dan]]> News Dan T. https://guitarnoise.forum/news/the-good-bad-ugly-and-what-about-jim/#post-262162 https://guitarnoise.forum/news/the-good-bad-ugly-and-what-about-jim/#post-262161 Fri, 31 Aug 2007 17:50:20 +0000
And you might not think so now, but not doing a gig because you're not able to get it into the schedule is a smart thing. Just be sure to keep whoever made the Traverse City offer in the loop about things and start looking as to when you might be able to make that happen. Having a solid gig to prepare for will help you get focuses very quickly. Just ask Bish. Or even Nick! :wink:

Looking forward to hearing about the next show. Love the band name, by the bye...

Peace]]> News David Hodge https://guitarnoise.forum/news/the-good-bad-ugly-and-what-about-jim/#post-262161 https://guitarnoise.forum/news/the-good-bad-ugly-and-what-about-jim/#post-262158 Fri, 31 Aug 2007 17:23:06 +0000
Wes - Yeah, I think I would have been nervous to playwithout a ground. Those converters do provide a ground though, right?

And yeah, I have a bunch of 25' mic cables, but still came up short.

And when th singer started the wrong song, it was funny because he called out the correct song as he walked up to the mic, and then just started singing and playing the wrong one. He still how it happened. It must have been nerves or something. But to our credit, we kept playing right through it, and I'm not sure we would have been able to do that a couple of months ago. It was a good lesson in adversity.

We had a blast and I bsolutely relish the mistakes and problems because I think we learned more from those moments that the ones that went according to plan.

Yeah, he ordered one of the Boss tuner pedals. Definitely a worthwhile investment!

Thanks for the comments!

Jim]]> News MrJonesey https://guitarnoise.forum/news/the-good-bad-ugly-and-what-about-jim/#post-262158 https://guitarnoise.forum/news/the-good-bad-ugly-and-what-about-jim/#post-262086 Fri, 31 Aug 2007 01:03:21 +0000
Yeah, thanks for the great report, I always enjoy them.

Yes, performing in front of others is always a learning experience. I remember once we arrived at a club to play and all (and I mean all) of their outlets were old two prong! And guess what? We didn't have any of those little converters. Luckily we found one at the club and used it to plug one power strip in, plugged other power strips into that, and powered everything off that one outlet all night. And amazingly, no noise.

So you always get surprises like that. Now I carry a few of those converters, even though I don't like to play without a ground.

You know you can join mic cables together don't you?? I carry lots of 25' mic cables, at shows where we need longer cables I just daisy chain two or three together. :D

As far as your singer starting on the wrong song, he really should have told everybody what he was going to do. We carry a set list, but even still, we always look at each other and call out the next song (crowd can't hear it) to make sure we are all on the same page.

And being out of tune is a good reason to use a good floor pedal tuner. I would never play without one. You can tune up in seconds without having to unplug. I have an old Boss TU2 that works great. Good investment for a gigging guitarist.

Always carry spare cables, batteries, tools, junk like that. Once in awhile you need them.

But no matter what, surprises seem to always catch you by surprise anyway, but that's part of the fun of gigging. :D]]> News Wes Inman https://guitarnoise.forum/news/the-good-bad-ugly-and-what-about-jim/#post-262086 https://guitarnoise.forum/news/the-good-bad-ugly-and-what-about-jim/#post-262061 Thu, 30 Aug 2007 21:41:52 +0000
Cool report, and yea doesn't a bass player make a big difference. I jam with a bunch of guys every week and we don't have a bass player there but I was able to jam for a month or so with one and it really really makes a big difference even if they are only playing root notes.

And don't you love the Uncle Bob comments..there's always someone that will say something like that ignore him.

Sounds like your learning alot and having fun so it's all good.]]> News cnev https://guitarnoise.forum/news/the-good-bad-ugly-and-what-about-jim/#post-262061 https://guitarnoise.forum/news/the-good-bad-ugly-and-what-about-jim/#post-27743 Thu, 30 Aug 2007 21:18:21 +0000
The same goes for the harmonica player, Becky. She has a really cool bluesy voice and she has always added tambourine, shakers, salad spoons, sandals, what ever. She would take literally anything close by and find a way to play it. Well, she decided to take up the harp and is really starting to take off with it. She truly adds a vital ingredient to our blues sound.

And then you have our drummer, Eric, who was already very good before he ever joined up with us. He has played for many years and worked with several bands in Detroit and Chicago. It's amazing that he's still sticking with us!

The other guitarist, Chris, has been playing for a few years, and I have been playing for a few more, but we have never really had the chance to play with anyone else until we got together and started jamming a couple of years ago.

Anyway, this is really our third time performing in front of people. We did a couple of small things for family and friends in my buddy's basement last winter, but we're really just starting to come out into the sun and play in front of larger groups of people (including some strangers).

Our previous two (real) performances consisted of a house party and a private birthday party. We felt that we needed some more experience so we rented an amphitheater, made up some fliers, started a web site and decided to just go for it. We prepared ourselves to perform about three sets of about 45 minutes each. We generally consider ourselves to be a blues band, but there was also some classic rock mixed in (and even some country during a block in the second set).

We were very nervous about the sound, because we have been struggling to learn the sound system and have had problems with the levels at each of the previous two events. It's hard enough to learn how to play together without having to worry about levels and feedback and all of that stuff. So we got a friend with some sound experience, Russ, to help us out. That combined with some tremendous help from some of the posters at https://www.guitarnoise.com (Wes and Lear) and we ended up getting the levels much better than we have ever had it. Some of the vocals were still a bit low on some of the songs, but overall, a huge improvement.

A learning experience which we didn't expect was that we didn't have enough mic cables. We have never played on a stage this big before, and I really thought we had plenty of cable. We ended up being short. Big time thanks to my parents and brother who ran up to Guitar Center an hour before the performance was scheduled to begin and picked us up two 50' cables! Man, that was close.

We also got some pretty good war stories and experience building moments out of the performance. For example, the lead singer/rhythm guitar player, Chris, started the whole thing off with the wrong song. We had planned to start the night off with “Work Together” by Canned Heat, but he started off with the second song (It Hurts Me Too – Elmore James). Well, I was in shock. I was all set to start playing lead in key of G, and he started playing this other song in key of C#. It took me about three bars before I regained my composure and found the right key. The funny thing was that NOBODY noticed. Even some of the musicians in the audience said that they didn't notice.

Then he went for a guitar change from his electric to his acoustic so we could play Lyin Eyes by the Eagles. Well, with the temperature changes throughout the day his guitar was severely out of tune! We started up and it sounded just horrible. We had to stop and have Russ run up on stage and re-tuned it for him while we went ahead and played the song with his Gibson LP (he has since ordered a tuner pedal and an acoustic simulator pedal). The song sounds much better with his acoustic, but we got through it.

The bottom line is that we had a lot of fun and everyone there seemed to enjoy themselves (hey, it was a free show for them). We had some very good learning experiences and I feel like it was definitely something to build on. We have a long way to go, but we definitely have sounded better after each performance.

I think we actually made some pretty good music at times. We'll find out soon enough. My wife's cousin, Kimmy-Sue, is a trained and practicing videographer and she taped the whole thing. She had one stationary camera and a roving camera for close-ups. She is going to mix them together for us. How cool is that?

Hopefully, we find that we sounded as good as people told us that we sounded (except for Uncle Bob, who advised that we "shouldn't quit our day jobs" :D ). We actually got an offer to play at a Traverse City resort this coming weekend, but we really didn't have enough notice to get ready for it (we're ready to play, but individually didn't have time to clear our schedules).

I'll try to post some samples from the show on our website and link them here once I get the final product. Thanks to everyone who made it out to the show, and I can't wait to get out and play again.

Jim]]> News MrJonesey https://guitarnoise.forum/news/the-good-bad-ugly-and-what-about-jim/#post-27743