Ryan Alford – Guitarist

Last Friday I picked up my first Telecaster. Favoring the clean guitar sound, I’ve been interested in Teles for a while, but have really wanted one after seeing Redd Volkaert‘s band perform in Austin. After hearing about Squier’s Classic Vibe 50′s Telecaster from several friends and reading some seriously good reviews, I was convinced this was a great guitar that wouldn’t break my wallet. (Seeing Redd demonstrate it for this years TDPRI giveaway didn’t help the addiction.)

In the reviews, a few readers commented on the guitar having a thin neck, but this is a personal preference. Of the two colors, the neck on the Vintage Blonde felt thin to me (then again, this could have been me subconsciously wanting a guitar that looked like a Tele from the 50′s). Other reviews suggested that there were better pick-ups suited for the guitar, while the other end of the pick-up spectrum had folks who swore by the factory pick-ups.

A week into it and I’ve kept the original 9s on, with plans to change update them to 10s later tonight. With that said, 9s are a bit strange when you’ve been playing 10s as far back as you can remember – any excess string pressure or slight bend stands out. But, so far, the instrument feels solid and plays well.

If you are considering adding this to your collection, I will share with you a fault you might not encounter during a test run. After 40 minutes of test driving the Butterscotch and Vintage Blonde models, I brought it home and cranked up my Ampeg J-12T. Only then did I rake an open “E” chord down at the bridge… The vibration on the open high “E” string caused by a heavy dig with the pick will repeatedly pop the string out of the nut. This guitar has no string retainer on the headstock! Pretty strange if you ask me, but not a big deal, as one can easily be installed.

Aside from the missing string retainer, I haven’t uncovered any true mysterious quirks on it during my first week. This is a solid blues, jazz, or country guitar, and in no way lives up to Squier’s low-end reputation (except for the “do not throw away” sticker on the back – what is up with that??).

Hint for parents or beginners: If you’re looking for good quality gear that you can use for years down the road, $800 will buy you a Squier Classic Vibe 50′s Telecaster, Ampeg J-12T tube amp (with reverb & trem), overdrive pedal, two chords, and a gig bag. Just sayin’!

It’s hard to believe that Black Coffee has been cranking for only a year.  To celebrate, we played our anniversary show last night at Club Cafe in Pittsburgh.  I like hanging with the band and friends after the show, but an occasional late night drive home is always nice to reflect.

It was a pleasure to share the evening with Aabaraki, a band that’s been in my funk/soul rotation for a few months now, who dubs their style as reduction-stutterfunk.  Earlier in the year, a few of us went to see the Tedeschi Trucks Band in New York and winded up catching these fellas at Rockwood Music Hall.  Definitely check them out.

We also had the opportunity to talk with the sound engineer, Denny, who – as it turns out – used to run sound regularly for Queen Bee and the Blue Hornet Band.  He has been running sound for years, and it was great to have him behind the knobs last night.

Pittsburgh shows are always special to us.  There are some nice venues down there, great people, and folks just seem to genuinely enjoy seeing live music.  As usual, there were a ton of familiar faces, but it was especially good catch up with the Touch Faster crew and our friends Joe and Monica.  Joe was always among the performers at the Phryst open mic nights we’d hit when we were starting out as a trio.  (Great times, but I don’t miss carrying my Barker through the crowd on our way out.  Though, my Ampeg would fare well in that environment…)

So we shall see what the year brings.  We’ve played over 65 shows in the last year including a pile of festivals, shared the stage with Lubriphonic and Bettye LaVette in Pittsburgh (not to mention a pile of touring acts at Johnstown’s Flood City Music Festival), met some really great folks along the way, and to say the least:  we are chomping at the bit to hit it hard again this time around.  We have a pile of new tunes in the works, and are truly branching out regionally with shows on the calendar in WV, PA, and NY and others in the works in MD and VA.

That’s all for now. Be on the lookout for our friend Jay’s recording of last night’s show.  And if you’d like, sign up for our email list in the meantime.

Hello friends! It has been a very busy and exciting year, and though I’ve not made a weblog post in some time, the time has a come. My friend Gina Riggio has recently invited the members of Dirty Superb (Jacob Haqq-Misra, Micky New, and myself) to join her in recording her latest single, “No Guarantee”.

The song is hot of the press, released very early this morning after a late night of mixing at Marc Frigo’s studio: No Guarantee. Enjoy!

Chad Becks raises the dilemma that many genres of guitar including the jazz and classical varieties are experiencing a lack of growth in comparison to other more popular genres. Though I’ve not observed an actual decline of interest in classical or jazz guitar within the musical community, I can certainly relate his observation to the acceptance and support of musical creativity. Becks’ observation between pop music and jazz or classical guitar differentiates between two vastly different levels of creative complexity within written music, and is analogous to the continually growing popularity of cover-bands versus lesser-supported original music at the local level.

Having lived in Centre County now for eight years, I can certainly say that musical interest among the general public favors popular music over original music – or at least the typical downtown band line-ups selected by our venues make it appear this way.

With State College holding a large population of the county, it’s common to hear local musicians blame the venues and their student patrons for this lack of variety. True or not, many naturally relate the demand for sing-along bands to the thirsty student patrons that stimulate the borough’s night life economy. On the contrary, bluegrass – an example far from sing-along pop music – has much local support not only from musicians but more importantly the community. So it is not truly fair to say that State College night life only caters to popular music. Though bluegrass’ local popularity may be largely attributed to its American roots, other roots genres such as blues and jazz do not share the same steady niche that bluegrass holds in and around State College.

Again using bluegrass as our example – there is another reason for why it is a more successful contender than jazz in a community where pop seems to flourish. Centre County already has numerous popularized gathering circles for bluegrass music. They are hosted on a regular basis by local churches and cafes and offer a free open-to-any-skill-level environment to learn how to play bluegrass music. The circles provide a unique opportunity for musicians to collaborate and meet each other, and it’s my belief that these circles have created an unintended movement over time. The result is a stronger community foundation for bluegrass to thrive in the county. American root genres or not, the same cannot be said for jazz, blues, jamband, and funk, though, some intimate downtown atmospheres such as Zeno’s Pub (and occasionally Bar Bleu) show that there is a consistent interest in such creative music styles.

For whatever reason, there are not many gatherings in Centre County to bring attention to jazz guitar and much more generally, original music. I too agree with Becks, and generally speaking, I believe that it is up to our musical community to establish localized “cells” of musicians to hold playing circles that encourage growth of original music in the community. Numerous local organizations and venues already exist to thrive on the music and musical relationships generated at such creative music circles. Though, much like the circles that assist the interest in bluegrass among the public and local musicians alike, I believe the original music circles must occur regularly and encourage participation at every skill level to successfully increase awareness that original music is indeed a community interest.

Did you get the memo? Dirty Superb is staging a hostile takeover of your work weary mind. Even though the semester just started, there’s a new CEO in town: Soul Power. Come watch Dirty Superb bring their musical synergy to the stage this Friday.

Dance grooves and general merriment await you in Pleasant Gap. So make the journey and fill us in on what you did on your summer vacation. Come Monday, you’ll be sure to have some stories to share around the water cooler. But this weekend, loosen your loafers and slip into something on the funky side.

Dirty Superb will be playing at the Red Horse Tavern in Pleasant Gap this Friday, September 4th. The show is from 9 to 12pm, with no cover charge. Hope to see you there!

On Sunday I got together with Vitamin Funk to do some jamming and recording before Chris and Mike headed back to college. We had some room-mic recordings of most of our tunes prior to the weekend, but wanted new takes on some of them with a sax player we recently met.

In about two hours we ended up laying down five tunes (bear in mind the goal wasn’t a professionally isolated studio recording).

Three were previously written, and the other two were an upbeat blues song and a reggae beat – both ideas that came up while fooling around earlier in the summer. They were both on file as well, but we wanted a more formal shot at them with more than one mic in the room. The three originals were Off the Wall, Jammy Moe, and Keeping it Funky.

Sunday was a great time, and I look forward to the next Vitamin Funk show whenever that may be. We’re toying with the idea of setting up a show or two in State College around Thanksgiving. I’ll let you know if that comes to fruition.

This Thursday night at 7:30pm State College’s funk, soul and Motown band Hounds of Soul will be performing live for the first time at Tussey Mountain WingFest. We’ll be playing tunes of the 60s and 70s, and covering songs by Tower of Power, Blood Sweat and Tears, Stevie Wonder, Steely Dan and James Brown to name a few.

The nine piece band features a four piece horn section and includes members who have performed in State College and Altoona area bands such as Cliff Turner and the Afterburners, Cootie Brown, and SouthWEST.

If you are into funky music and like wings, come out to Boalsburg to see State College’s funkiest horn section. More information for the event can be found at the Tussey Mountain webpage. The band will also be performing at 8:00pm this Friday night at the Bellefonte Arts and Crafts Fair.

This has been an exciting summer of music…

On July 4th, Cootie Brown played at Central PA’s 4th Fest, which, come to think of it, was probably the biggest stage I’ve played to date. YouTube has some brief footage of us in front of Beaver Stadium.

A few weeks ago, I played my first wedding reception with Vitamin Funk. Towards the end of our set, a trombone and sax stood in with us, and we started into a blues instrumental. Also at the reception was The Lovin’ Spoonful’s John Sebastian. During the blues jam, he hopped on stage with us and wailed on the harmonica! I saw him play for the first time last year with David Grisman at the State Theatre, and have been listening to their folk recordings ever since. To say the least, playing music with him was surreal.

Throughout the summer, Dirty Superb has been playing about once a month at Pleasant Gap’s Red Horse Tavern, and we are going to be doing our first gig at Bar Bleu this week in State College. We are also now playing as backing musicians for Gina Riggio, and will be joining her for a set at the Bar Bleu show.

And finally, State College’s funk/soul/Motown band, the Hounds of Soul, will be making their debut this week at Tussey Mountain WingFest. If you enjoy the music of the 60′s and 70′s, and are into the powerful horn lines of Tower of Power and Blood Sweat and Tears come check us out!

Here’s August’s schedule so far:

• Dirty Superb and Gina Riggio: Monday 8/10 – at Bar Bleu (10:00pm)
• Hounds of Soul: Thursday 8/13 – Tussey Mountain WingFest (7:30pm)
• Hounds of Soul: Friday 8/14 – Bellefonte Arts and Crafts Fair (8:00pm)
• Hounds of Soul: Monday 8/17 – 2009 New York-Penn League All-Star Mountain Bash (7:30pm)

I’ve posted another track recorded by my old band, Ubiquitous Proprietors, called Where the Ceiling Meets the Floor. It may have been the last original we wrote, and was recorded about nine or ten years ago. It’s straight-up funk/rock, and is surely the song to listen to if you want to hear U.P.’s sound.

For me the song marks a sort-of milestone of where I was in life, reminding me of some extremely fun times, people, and places, all that I’ll never forget. It’s interesting how repeated listening to or playing music can capture memories from a time period.

Where the Ceiling Meets the Floor can be downloaded from the MP3 Goodness page.

I just posted an ancient recording written and recorded by my first band the Ubiquitous Proprietors. We wrote about ten originals between 1999 and 2000, most of which were never were recorded. This is one of the exceptions. Roger can be downloaded from the MP3 goodness page.