PSB2

Amwell Township resident Patti Spadaro played her second show with a four-piece band the weekend before last at Scooby's in South Fayette Township. I wanted to come up with some better audio quality than at the Patti Spadaro Band's debut in January, when a patch from the soundboard didn't quite do the trick. So this time, I used a pair of ambient microphones, an approach that I'm finding to work fairly well as I record more musicians.


The audio, indeed, turned out much better. Unfortunately, I did nothing with the camera to compensate for the lack of bright lighting at the Scooby's gig, so I brightened the footage during the editing process. As a result, the finished product is kind of grainy.

Oh, well. You still can see clearly how well Patti plays guitar, and that's what counts.

Here is Patti's original composition "Give a Little Back," the opening track of her CD "Short Stay."

And check out the band on another of her originals, "Let's Roll".

Kicked again

OK, here's a good song performed by Kicked on Saturday night that's about half as long as "Babylon." It's called "Mary" and features the lead vocals of acoustic guitarist Justin Thompson.


There also is an live audio rendition that plays automatically when you visit Kicked's Web site.

Again, thanks to Josh at the Hard Rock for the soundboard patch. It's an adventure every time I try to set up a good audio feed, so any help I can get is much appreciated!

Click here for "Mary" video

Kicked in the Hard Rock

Last summer, I helped organize the annual Rock Off during Peters Twp. Community Day. In a change of format, we awarded two prizes: one to the best "under-21" band, and the other for the best "over-21."

The winner in the latter category was Kicked, which bowled over the judges with the interplay between lead guitar, acoustic guitar and saxophone. The musicians showed they know how to play together and feed off each other, the sign of a tight band.

A highlight of their repertoire is the epic "Babylon," written by guitarists Chuck Dressler and Justin Thompson. The song culminates with a guitar-saxophone duet in which Chuck and sax man Jarod Wachtel match each other note-for-note.

I filmed the Rock Off version of "Babylon" on a JVC Everio recorder with built-in stereo microphones. It sort of captured the energy of the performance, but I felt I could do a lot better with more advanced equipment. So I was happy to try again on Saturday at the Hard Rock Cafe at Station Square.

Thanks to Hard Rock soundman Josh, who helped me tremendously with patching my audio from the board, I was able to capture a stellar take of "Babylon." Even though it clocks in at more than 11 minutes (I love long jams) and I realize that might stretch the limits of many a computer, I'm posting it here for your enjoyment. I'll mix video of some shorter Kicked tunes when I get a chance.

In the meantime, here's "Babylon"