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"

First time around

The Patti Spadaro Band made its debut Friday at P.D.'s pub in Squirrel Hill, a pretty good venue with an area off to the side where an audience can gather to enjoy a performance a little bit out of the way of the rest of the patrons.

Patti previously had a band when she was in Los Angeles, simply called Spadaro, which released an album, "Short Stay," featuring her original compositions.

One song that isn't on the album is one I particularly enjoy her play. In fact, we filmed her playing "Tonight" last summer on lower-grade equipment, and I was hoping to capture a better version with her new band.



The debut started with the Grateful Dead's "Franklin's Tower," during which I was trying to get a decent audio feed using one microphone pointed at the stage and a patch from the soundboard. The soundboard connection wasn't working, though, so I had to make some adjustments. By that time, the band was firing up "Tonight."

The raw tape revealed some "clicks" and minor distortion on one of the channels, but I was able to repair that for the most part. For some reason, the tape cut off in the middle of Patti's guitar solo, but the finished product is six-and-a-half minutes of a cooking jam.

Click here to check it out.

Putting some teeth into it

The video camera's tape had just about run out, and after the band One Gig at a Time performed a stellar version of Jimi Hendrix's Little Wing, I figured it was time to put my equipment away.

I'd gathered everything together and was talking with some people when I noticed the decibel level had increased significantly. Up on the stage, One Gig's Steve "pUNK" Cunningham was adding to the band's volume by taking a chainsaw to an old wooden nightstand.


I guess that's somewhere in between Pete Townshend smashing his guitar, Hendrix torching his and Wendy O. Williams sawing through a Cadillac. Whatever the case, I quickly grabbed the camera back out of its case in time to capture a few minutes of the epic display.

The result, with just a bit of tweaking with the sound, is on display at right in our YouTube player.

In the meantime, I'll work on editing some One Gig at a Time footage from earlier in the set. The band's music was even more impressive than pUNK's performance art!