Harvey in the Hall

Early in August, I spent three days at the home of Harvey and Dolli Gold in Bath Ohio. The purpose of the visit was to try and record a few of Harvey's songs in a relaxed home environment. Harvey and Dolli live in a restored turn of the century school house in the woods. It sounded great!
Harvey played guitar, keyboards and sang all the vocals.
Debbie Smith of Chi-Pig played bass and "Bongo" Bob Ethington on drums rounded out the trio. Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys played guitar on two of the songs and brought us that modern vibe.
Harvey and I will be finishing the tracks and mixing in Orlando in November.

TheJames Gang Rides Again!

Bruce Hensal, Joe Walsh and Joe Lala

Joe Walsh, Jimmy Fox and Dale Peters have reunited as the James Gang, after 30 years to tour the U. S. this summer. I caught the show on Sunday August 27 at Ruth Eckerd Theater in Clearwater. It was smoking! With a psychadelic light show straight outta the Fillmore, the music took me back to the smokey basement of J.B.'s on Water St. in Kent, Ohio circa 1969. They rocked the ususl hit's, "Funk #49", "Walk Away" and "Rocky Mountain Way" and reached way back to cover Freddie King's "Going Down". Excellent.
Joined by a keyboard player and three female singers/dancers, the band stripped down to a trio for several songs, and even a couple of acoustic numbers including a solo acoustic song by Walsh.
He is still one of the best guitarists in the business...a true tone monster.
It's great to see these old fogeys rocking. Anyone got a Walsh story?

True Pioneers

Jim Mothersbaugh and Gary Jackett

"Jungle Jim" Mothersbaugh and "Genral" Jackett were both early influences in the entire Devo aesthetic. Jim was the band's first drummer and virtually invented electronic drums with his Barcus-Berry pickups mounted on drum practice pads. The output fed a synth module and the hihat pedal controlled a white noise generator!
Gary was an early experimental guitarst and graphic designer with some early incarnations of Devo. He was in an early Devo video playing a guitar plugged into a wall heater, if I remember correctly. He also produced one of the first digital multi-media Cd-i discs, the forerunner to DVD.
Cutting edge guys.

Photo credit: M.Pilmer-www.devo-obsesso.com