| | Porta on the Go ! ! !Moved the B-3 Portable from my apartment yesterday, for the first time.
While the day has not yet come when Hammond Suzuki will ever be able to run an advertisement on TV that goes like this :
Wow ! I just bought my new B-3
organ, and playing it is just half the fun. What I really enjoy
is taking it apart, putting it back together and carrying up and down
steps, through narrow corridors, and loading it in and out of the
car. That's the real fun in owning a spanking new B-3...
the joy you get from the physical exertion moving it around.
...the truth is while this day has not arrived yet, and probably will
not arrive until technologies such as VASE II are surpassed by
breakthroughs in Quantum Physics, Nanotechnology and the advent of
pocket size Star Trek Like teleporter devices, the truth is that the
New B-3 Portable is relatively easy to take apart and put
together. Very little screwing, bolting and connecting
necessary. (You know, just a side thought here : I think that
would be a name for a nice and nasty Wynonie Harris type blues tune, "I'm Going Screwing, Bolting and Connecting with My Baby Tonight"
!!!) All in all, I'd say it only took about 5 minutes each time
to take it apart and put it back together. And once it was
up and running, there were no problems. Sadly though,
despite the fact that it was relative easy to lift and move, we had
some tricky corridors to navigate, and I can't say I'm feeling too
"genki" today. Pain being a relative thing though... I'd say the
lower back pain and bruised ribs are MILD as compared with prevoius
moves.
So how did it sound? Well, the upper part to my Leslie System 21
hasn't arrived yet, meaning that technically speaking I was playing the
organ without a "Leslie" (that's to say no rotary effect) and also
without the treble speaker. The Leslie is a key factor in
warming up the sound of a Hammond, yet even without it the organ did
sound pretty warm and punchy, especially during the blues set I sat in
on. Word of advice : One of the secrets of playing a Hammond
without a Leslie is knowing how to use the swell pedal. If you
know how to control the expression pedal, you can actually create a
very authentic Leslie effect without actually having Leslie as long as
you run it through a good speaker, and in fact, if you don't know how
to use your swell pedal and only floor the thing, you can actually kill
the Leslie effect ! Anyway, the clip below is proof... I
think its hard to tell that I'm not playing a "real" tonewheel B-3, and
further, the absence of the Leslie is not so apparent. Have
a listen...
http://www.tokyojazz.net/blue.aif
Not such a bad waste of money, huh.
Anyway, yesterday was an unusual day for me...
I woke up at 8:00 AM (the time I'm normally going to bed.)
Moved the organ. Rehearsal in Shinjuku at 10:00.
Rock band (!) rehearsal at night at Shinjiku, then sat in at a blues session.
Then went to bed at 11:00 PM.
Oh shit, I just realized why I pulled so many muscles... It probably
had something to do with the stuff I had to take to GET to bed...
I guess that's why they call it a muscle relaxant. Because
it relaxes the muscles... ergo, muscle relaxant... Doh ! I
did this once before.
Young, frisky, on the go...
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| | Posted 1/29/2006 11:05 PM - 25 views - 0 comments
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