Montford Park

[David Houck]

Hah!  No, but I would like a nice used six string series bass!

[David Houck]

We played at OrganicFest, a local street fair, this evening.  We were the last band of the day.  Pretty much had my tone dialed in by the end of the first song, Red Baron.  Right before we start the second song, the Beatles' She's A Woman ala Jeff Beck, it starts raining.  We're covered so we keep playing, but the crowd is gone in a second and all the people with booths are hurriedly putting their stuff away and taking down the awnings.  With all the chaos, the drummer picks up the tempo, which is appropriate with all the people scurring about in the rain.  We finish the song and we're told to play one more.  So I call out China Cat Sunflower/I Know You Rider.  Turns out to be the best version of that song we've ever done; it was a joy to play, and the vendors huddled under what was left of the awnings seem to enjoy it as well.  Shortly after we finished, the rain slacked off and we were able to break down and load out with no problem.  So it was a short but enjoyable gig.

[57basstra]

Sounds like a great day!

[lbpesq]

Dave:
 
Snoopy and the Red Baron?  As in: 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 or more...?
 
Bill, tgo

[David Houck]

Bill; no, the Billy Cobham tune.

[lbpesq]

Wheeewwwww!!!!!   I was getting worried about you there for a second, Dave.  
 
Bill, tgo

[mikedm]

Billy Cobham, now there's a cat that could lay down a mean back beat.

[57basstra]

Well........I have a good friend who played guitar in the Royal Guardsmen...the group that recorded Snoopy VS The Red Baron. ..(a real cool dude and wicked blues player)..He was not in the Royal Guardsmen at the time the song was recorded, but he was asked to join the group a bit later on. For years he didn't really like to talk about it, but a few months ago I ran into him at one of our local music stores in Clarksville, TN., and I asked him about some details. He pretty much gave me an abreviated history there on the spot and said enough time had passed now and he is proud to have played in that band. There was another guy from Clarksville, a keyboard player, who also took a stint in that band after the 'hit' came out. At the time, 1967 or so, when I was about ten there was no bigger song than that one..(at least for a ten year old. It was one of the songs that made me want to start playing music actually)
 
..Certainly did not mean to interrupt....but I do like to share...everyone have  a great week!

[57basstra]

Oh....I am getting old and feeble, I reckon...for those of you who are not old enough to know .....the 10, 20,30,40,50 or more line is from that song Snoopy VS the Red Barron.......Anyway...when I have been seeing the previews for that new action movie Fly Boys it sort of reminded me of this song...anyway..enough of this nonsense..

[David Houck]

We got together one afternoon a couple weeks ago and recorded a new demo CD.  My playing is a bit sloppy but the result was good enough for our purposes, handing out to clubowners.  So for those of you who may be interested, the site has been updated with excerpts from the new demo.  I believe it to be the case that the site was setup on an Apple; it sure doesn't look right in IE.  So just click on the little icons to play the tunes.  My playing may be sloppy (list of excuses includes lack of sleep from night before, cuts are pretty much one time through with no overdubs, and the classic lack of practice), but the Alembic sounds great.  And for those of you who care about such details, I took my regular stage rig and we mic'ed it; no direct line out.  Interestingly enough, the tunes sound much better on my home stereo than they do on my laptop.

[jacko]

Very nice Dave. i especially liked the funked up China cat and The red baron excerpts. Just one complaint though, I couldn't spot the sloppy bits anywhere ;-)  You'll need to start marketing the CDs.
 
Graeme

[David Houck]

Thanks Graeme!  We didn't pay for permission to use the covers, so we can't sell the CD's.  So going in we knew this was just a demo.  The sloppy parts are really noticeable on a home stereo, and the most obvious are some places where there is a lack of tightness between the three players, especially noticable on the Beatles/Jeff Beck tune.  On that tune I think I'm probably concentrating so much on trying to play that repeating lick cleanly that I'm not relaxing into the drummer's groove.  I'll be watching for that at the gig this Saturday.

[palembic]

Montford Park rules!
Already 2 die-hard fans ovehee in Belgium!
 
Paul TBO
 
PS: remember our skype conversation a couple of days ago about Montford Park?
I just noticed that this side we have a Montfort College. So it's MonforT ...not Montford.
Is Montfort College a good jname for a band?
I just came up with Strand Nulde hehehe

[David Houck]

Thanks Paul!
 
I looked up a history of the Montford area of town, and while the community was established in 1893, the origin of the name is unknown.

[adriaan]

Paul,
 
Couple of points of interest re Strand Nulde ...
 
Of course it's a well-known parking area on the motorway between Amersfoort and Zwolle. Recently in the news for the meisje van Nulde case (Google should inform you of the horrors involved) so perhaps not a happy choice in case the band wants to play in the Netherlands.
 
On a happier note, some of the place names in this area of reclaimed land were created by the famous comic writer Godfried Bomans, who came up with terribly old-sounding, but completely new names like Nulde and Zeewolde. And Zeewolde is of course where they build Spyker cars.