Conejo.rocks 2017

Conejo Rocks has been updated for 2017: 85 events!

It’s my collection of (mostly) free music in the Conejo Valley area. What makes this list different? The events are in chronological order, so the ones at the top are always the next event to occur. Items that have already happened aren’t visible so they don’t clutter the listing.

Conejo.Rocks

Most items are free musical shows put on by local parks districts and shopping centers, but there also some of major events that charge admission. I don’t cover clubs (unless it’s a band that I really like a lot, or me.)

There are two types of displays. Select the short description version to see only the event titles and times. Click on the event to see more info about it.

Salzer’s influence

Salzer’s Records in Ventura was broken into on Christmas day (https://www.facebook.com/jim.salzer.1/posts/10205697972788437), and Alastair Greene (https://www.facebook.com/alastairgreene71) made the comment “Your store is a historic landmark and national treasure.”

His statement reminded me how much Salzer influenced my musical tastes with the concerts he promoted in the late 60s. I’m glad I kept this poster; mine came with the concert tickets.

What a double bill, but… Spell check!

One thing leads to another

One thing leads to another. The story of this post. Start off simple:
1. Clean out emails. Get rid of a bunch of old stuff, but browse unread titles.
2. Find email with a link to “Guitar Player Vault” that has an old J.J. Cale interview.
3. Gotta read that. The article’s time frame: When Cale was asked about some of his favorite guitar players “today”, he refers to “this kid, uh, Peter Frampton”.
4a. There is also an interview with the highly under-appreciated Harvey Mandell.
4b. Learn that Mandell played the guitar solos on the Rolling Stone’s song “Hot Stuff”.
5a. Go to Mandell’s website. It looks like it hasn’t been updated for a while.
5b. Check the touring page in case it was updated. He is touring with Canned Heat, and has been for a while. Continue reading “One thing leads to another”

Carvin and the five-way switch

No, it’s not a scam involving a ball and cups.

Quite a few years ago I had a local shop install a DiMarzio ToneZone pickup in my Carvin guitar with the hopes that it would make it sound more like my Ibanez. It did not.

A few years after that I picked up a fairly recent year Gibson SG. By fairly recent I mean that I wouldn’t feel bad about modifying it. The better, older guitars that I had in the past were kept in factory-fresh condition out of the fear that any change would lower their collectibility. You can probably see where this is heading since this was not one of those.

One of my planned project for the last 2 years (hey, I have a lot of projects on my list!) has been to move that DiMarzio pickup into my SG. At the same time, I would add coil-splitting controls, and maybe a phase-reversing switch.

It turned out that SGs are thin. I knew that, but never imagined that putting standard push-pull pots in one is not an option. I didn’t want to start drilling holes to add switches. The plan was downsized.

Continue reading “Carvin and the five-way switch”

Simi Cajun and Blues Music Festival 2014

It was nice to have Saturday’s headliner at the Simi Cajun and Blues Festival sound like a headliner. Some years it seems that the players are getting by just on their names and songs they did 25 years ago and it’s the early bands that are the best.

I don’t normally bother with reviews, but at this show I was gifted by the twin gods Timing and Slol (Sh!t load of luck) with a bunch of good photos. It’s a surprise any time I like 10% of my pictures from a concert, mostly due to the lag time between clicking and saving on a digital camera. Since the pics are going up, some explanation is in order. Sorry for all the watermarks, but people photos tend to get stolen and it was easier to modify them all at once instead of just marking the ones I really liked.

Continue reading “Simi Cajun and Blues Music Festival 2014”

2014 Upcoming Events page updated

The majority of updates on my collection of (mostly) free music in the Conejo Valley area is done. What makes this list different? The events are in chronological order, so the ones at the top are always the next event to occur. Items that have already happened aren’t visible so they don’t clutter the listing.

Upcoming Events for 2014

The list is primarily free musical shows put on by local parks districts and shopping centers, but there also some of major events that charge admission. I don’t cover clubs (unless it’s a band that I really like a lot.)

Local music event list

I finished this year’s local music events list and there are a lot of shows. There are already over 60 events, and The Oaks, Janss Marketplace and the Simi Town Center haven’t announced anything yet. I’ll update the list when they do.

/events/UpcomingEvents

The list is primarily free music events in the Conejo area, but there also a couple of major shows that charge admission. None of the Civic Arts Plaza events are included unless they’re free. I also don’t cover clubs (unless it’s a band that I really like a lot.)

What makes this list different? You’ll see the events ordered by date with the closest ones at the top. Events that have already happened aren’t visible so it’s easy to see what’s happening in the near future.

Posted in categories music

Leon Russell on SNL

I got curious about Leon Russell’s appearance with Elton John on the 4/2/11 episode of Saturday Night Live. Something seemed wrong. You could barely hear Leon, and it didn’t look like he was fully there. And why was he on SNL with Elton in the first place?

It turns out that there is a reason for both his appearance and his appearance. Leon has been sick, and Elton had earlier decided to bring him back from his recent obscurity by doing a joint album and tour. Well, sick is a bit of an understatement: he had brain surgery last year.

For a refresher, I decided to look back at some of Leon’s history. I knew he did a lot of session work, but no idea how much. There’s more than enough to inspire awe on the Wikipedia article about him. There is also this info from AllMusic.com for a little of the variety of what he did:

As a member of Spector’s renowned studio group, Russell played on many of the finest pop singles of the 1960s, also arranging classics like Ike & Tina Turner‘s monumental “River Deep, Mountain High”; other hits bearing his input include the Byrds’ “Mr. Tambourine Man,” Gary Lewis & the Playboys’ “This Diamond Ring,” and Herb Alpert’s “A Taste of Honey.”

And finally, don’t forget about Russell’s “This Masquerade”, which earned a Grammy Award for singer George Benson.