Perth Blues Clubs Festival of Fret Review by Marcus Schultz
Festival of the Fret
By Marcus Schultz
Yes, the annual Perth Blues Club’s Festival of the Fret came and went last Tuesday on the 18th of November but it was definitely a night that will not soon be forgotten.
The first act eased the Club into its biggest night yet with the solo acoustics of Mike de Velta. His set combined a handful of original compositions as well as a mix of traditional blues standards. In an unusual fashion Mike played a 12-string electric acoustic as if it was a lap steel guitar for a number of songs from his extensive repertoire.
He played a few upbeat songs such as Room with a View, Red Dress and The Sailor Song with an instrument not too often seen as the Blues Club, a ukulele. For Life’s Like That he produced a harmonica and proceeded to accompany himself with his 12-string guitar (now played normally).
Mike de Velta finished up with two blues cover songs, Tony Joe White’s As the Crow Flies and a traditional blues titled You Gotta Move.
The house band consisted of an all-star line up with Bob patient on piano an organ, Wayne Freer on Bass guitar and Ric Eastman on drums. Backing Gerard Maunick, Mal Eastick and Lindsay Wells all on the same night, the house band seemed to have had their work cut out for them, but they didn’t seem fazed at all.
The next act, always a crowd pleaser, was Gerard Maunick. He and the house band jammed out some reggae, rock and blues numbers.
Some highlights of the set included South Bound, Back to the Crossroads, a rolling blues tune which drew a large crowd to the dance floor and Suzy Q.
The 12 bar blues shuffle that is Across the Border illuminated Gerard’s mastery over the guitar as well as demonstrated the raw talent that Bob Patient possesses.
Just before the band played their last number, Bob Dylan’s All Along the Watchtower, Gerard announced that they actually hadn’t had time to rehearse their set, but who could tell?
Mal Eastick is widely considered as Australia’s premier blues musician and who could argue? His style is a marvel to watch and is even more amazing to hear.
Mal played a set of all instrumental blues off his two albums The Southern Line and Spirit with a few covers thrown in. Mal opened with a song for his song entitled Blues for Aaron, followed with The E St Blues and then slowed things down with the sensitive Times Like These.
Mal paid tribute to two of his biggest influences by playing Lenny from the catalogue of Stevie Ray Vaughan and Freddie King’s I’m Going Down to San-Ho-Zay.
After playing a few more of his songs such as Two Love, The Jungle Funk and Swept Away, Mal ending with the fast and distorted Jumping with Stevie.
Finally, the time had arrived that we’d see one lucky winner take home the Fender Squire guitar signed by Gerard, Lindsay, Matt Taylor and others as Mal drew the winning ticket. Unfortunately, Dennis Raditch (apologies if I spelt that wrong) was absent from the Club on the night, however, I’m sure he got the best phone call of his life a bit later that week.
Having just flown back to Sydney I think it’s safe to say that Perth audiences will be waiting anxiously for Mal’s return to WA next year.
Lindsay Wells, a favourite at the Perth Blues Club was back again to mesmerize the audience with his natural talent and incredible stage performance.
Some highlights of Lindsay’s performance included Sugar Coated Love, ZZ Top’s La Grange and Jimi Hendrix’s Red House and Hey Joe where he played his guitar behind his head and between his teeth.
The final song of the night was something very rare and a real treat to see; Lindsay Wells invited Mal Eastick on stage to wrap up the festival. Together they played through a brilliant cover of Crossroads (also called Cross Road Blues) written by the late, great Robert Johnson and as performed by Cream.
After the applause of the audience died down, Lindsay and Mal played a slow blues encore in E, I’m in the Mood by John Lee Hooker.
The only thing that went through my mind as I left the was how are they going to top The Perth Blues Club’s Festival of the Fret next year?
Side chain compression in Pro tools
I met a professional mixer on gearslutz once on a live chat some time ago and asked him if he worked with stems (merged tracks e.g all drums in on sep stereo track) in a final mix, he said he didn’t like working with them because of the extensive side chaining work he does with all his tracks.
I was a bit unsure of what he meant but in the simplest terms he went on to explain how you could send a level from a track via a buss to the compressor of another track that you wanted ducked.
Man! Like a light bulb! I knew how to do it theoretically but never saw or importantly heard this effect in a real world application.
Listen to the snippet below and listen to the effect of the vocals “pushing” down the volume of the keyboard sound it is set against.
Sacrifice.mp3
It makes more sense now to employ this method instead of trying to eq or volume ride everything into or out of existence.
Great stuff!
The Pro tools Side Chain Method
In this example a send is created within the vox channel and routed via bus 8 to the input of the compressor on the track below it.
The bussed output on the vox channel is set to 0db and the pre fade “P” button is clicked on to maximize it’s level.
The input of the compressor’s key (top-left) is now set to receive from bus 8 and importantly the highlighted blue key on the compressor should be activated. (top-right). The compressor is now listening to the external source.
Initially by tweaking the threshold settings within the compressor you should now be able to hear the side chain effect.
Voila!
The above graphic should be self explanatory, if you get stuck just flick me a mail and I’ll elaborate a little.
The new album
Well I have been plugging away the last few months really thinking forward about the musical direction for the next release. Whether or not it will be a hard copy CD or just available for download I’m not sure but however I go about it I want these tracks to stand out.
The track I’m working on here is called, “All these words”. so far it’s a fairly deep mix in that there is a lot going on. At this stage I work with midi instruments like drums, horns, sax etc until I get the arrangements in, then I’ll be looking for real players.
I’ll keep things posted.
For the technical I run pro tools 7.4 on OSX, really looking forward to Pro tools 8!
Live on Radio ABC 720
Live at the Perth ABC 720 studios performing, “I don’t mind at all” with James Lush’s Breakfast Show. Also on the show I had the pleasure of meeting and chatting with Ricky Grace formerly of the Perth Wildcats and Dale a chef who showed us how to cook the perfect omelet, divine. It was quite an atmosphere with the aroma and sizzle of eggs entwined with the sweet rapport of fun, music and pleasant conversation. A most enjoyable Saturday morning. This is a lofi audio recording captured on Panasonic NV-GS400 camcorder in 16:9 ratio.
Festival of the Fret at the Perth Blues Club
Awesome night at the Perth Blues Club playing the annual “Festival of Fret”. A full house of happy punters and the rocking sounds of Mal Eastwick, Lindsay Wells, Gerard Maunick and yours truly Mike de Velta.
I got to say seeing and hearing these other great artists was a real joy, what impressed me was the distinctive tone each of these artist possessed, , while each wielded their own stratocasters each was unique and deeply personal.
Tone, tone, tone….yummy!
Episode 1 – Only God Knows
Forays into the Esoteric Podcast
Episode 1
Forays into the Esoteric
The first track to kick off the experimental series of works is titled Only God Knows,
For this work I was considering texture and richness of sound.
Subscribe they’re FREE. Got itunes? Click on the logo 
Don’t have itunes? Select your own reader here
Next Gig
Categories
Mike's other Sites
Latest Posts
Recent Comments
- mikedv on My life after Tinnitus
- Arlene on My life after Tinnitus
Archives
Tags
Subscribe
Click and subscribe below to receive 5 FREE tracks for instant download
About
Typically associated with the Blues and Roots movement and acoustic in nature Mike De Velta's intoxicating compositions and performances are constantly on the move. A rich showcase of modern folk,blues and a hint of the eastern expressed through the shimmering and delightful tones of lap slide, ukulele and acoustic guitars.
