Donovan Banks

I played on Saturday evening with Swell band at a birthday party. Lately with Swell we have been focusing on getting the on stage sound right. This weekend we seem to have nailed it.

The truth be told though, it seems we solved the problem by throwing money at it. Each of us had our own monitor, and we were mixing on a fairly advanced desk.
I had my trusty Vox rather close to me but thanks to the variable wattage I turned the amp down to about 30W and miked it for the Front of House sound.

I had to adjust the gain settings on my favourite lead patch on the Boss GT8 to prevent feedback and then the angels were singing.
Sometimes this is necessary. Much like EQ and reverb gain needs to be set for the venue. Too much will cause headaches and too little will sound weaker than you want it to. The tone you get in the rehearsal room is tough to mimic elsewhere.

I also decided that I was going to hold back a bit on my playing. Too often I try and be too flashy or fast and end up losing the plot. I played simple lines and kept with what I was 100% sure of. As a result my confidence was high and I left feeling like a king.

Playing with Swell band has taught me a lot about music performance. I have learned about bad gigs, good gigs, playing outdoors, dealing with some very strange people, being ignored, being harassed, and playing on some tiny stages as well as some big ones.

What stood out for me this weekend was that, when playing covers, you have to believe in the song to really communicate it well. There are some songs we do that the whole band believes in and we really pump those out. We have a lot like that and it is such an amazing feeling to play.

But there are the songs that I battle to get behind. Blue Eyes, by Elton John is one of them. Every time I play that song I feel like I die a little inside. We play it EVERY TIME. I don't believe in it, so I can't follow it, and I have to bury my nose in sheet music to guess what is going on and my performance suffers for it.

So how do I get around this? I dunno. I don't think I can force myself to like certain songs. I guess I must try keep to songs I believe in. Unfortunately in this case the band likes this song. I may be dead by 2015 if I carry on playing it.

That is why it is so much easier to play your own songs, because you automatically believe in them. If you didn't, you wouldn't have written them, or you would have made them somethign you can work with.

Thats just the way the world works. but if you figure out how to pay music you hate, let me know how..

This weekend we tried to break the world record for the most guitarists playing together. The record is held by a group in Germany with 1802 guitarists playing at once. I think in Durban we had over 1600 registered but only just over 1000 pitched.

It is stipulated to play Smoke on the Water which I guess most people weren't happy with but it was loads of fun.
There were some of Durban's best muso's out and about including Tree63's John Ellis, Steve Fataar and local guitar hero Barry Thompson. One of my Swell Bad Mates John Skuy was playing bass in the stage band and the guys from Zero thirty one were there as well.

It was good fun, if it happens in your area I suggest doing it. Even just to see some of the interesting guitars that pop up. I was astounded by the variety of people playing there.

enjoy the pics..


Zaine Higgins (right) and I


Richard Davies and his prize JEM guitar


Part of the crowd


More of the crowd


John Skuy on stage


The Helicopter that took our picture to count everyone


A group of youngsters at the "gig" I wanted this photo because it shows how diverse the crowd was.

Last night I played at the Blues Train with Swell Band at Zack's on Wilson's Wharf in Durban. I've been going on and off to watch some of the finest older musicians around play for a while. They are very good and it's a little intimidating to play in their company and I felt a little like I didn't belong there. That turned out to be one of my downfalls.

We were unprepared as a band and had no idea what to play or how we were going to. So we just hacked through some numbers we thought were bluesy enough.

I used someone else's amp which is never good for me. I found my tone wasn't the way I wanted and the GT8 responded differently to this amp. Although that was the least of my worries, I forgot all the chords. I had a shocker of an evening. Thankfully it was short.

My learning points were;
a) don't be intimidated by your surroundings. You deserve to be there.
b) Practice at least once, if not have some sort of discussion before or a plan in place.
c) Check the gear. I tell myself this all the time and I don't practice it. I like my amp and I know my amp so I should use my amp.

All in all, I had a rough one. I got a few compliments which means it was worse by my standards than others. But we are booked there again in September so I can implement my learning's.

The one thing I know above all is that Swell Band is good. We had an off night, so what. We all had our moments and I had a good, blazing solo in "Holding Back the Years." Most importantly, we live and we learn. Rock on!

Hey,
I play in a cover band called Swell. In fact its more of a corporate band as we are not specific to any genre. I will get into the band more as this blog develops but for now you only need to know that we are developing as a band and we regard ourselves as professionals and hold our trade in high esteem.

We played at HighField House in Hillary, Durban on Friday night (22 May 2009) it was a quiet evening and we were ready to do our usual 3 sets. Bearing in mind this isn't exactly a music venue we had to improvise on our placement (read squeeze into a corner) but our sound was once again very good thanks to Niel Snyman.
Highfield house is a small conference/wedding centre with a lovely garden and a great atmosphere. They set up braais for everyone to cook on and it felt like a family gathering. There were children and dogs running around, it just felt like home. ( I also had what I rate as the BEST roasted potatoes ever!)

I had a few problems at this gig I want to mention so others can learn from it;

Steve Fataar was there. He's a very nice guy but as far as my playing goes I've always felt like a hack. In other words I can cut it when there are no muso's around but as soon as someone I consider to be a real guitarist is around I get more nervous and worry that I will be uncovered and pointed out as a novice. I'm not sure why this worries me, I think it is my lack of formal training but I must learn to get over it. He was very nice though and he gave me a piece of advice which I think is very valuable to any and every guitarist.
A sound engineer will mix your levels to how HE sees fit. So if you are playing with your guitar (especially an acoustic guitar) at max volume on your preamp that is as loud as it will go. So do a sound check with your volume slightly lower, that way when you play and you need to break into a solo, you can crank it up slightly so you can be heard.

Not all sound engineers will mix the same as well, if your engineer is a drummer for example, he will favour the drums in the mix, as a pianist will favour piano, a singer vocals and a guitarist the guitars. You need to know who you are working with. Thankfully Niel is very good and his mix comes out beautifully, but he isn't at the desk to turn me up when I need to solo so I need to make provisions for that in the future.

I had a technical problem which you also need to be aware of. I was playing a nylon string semi acoustic guitar. The pre-amp runs on a battery like most of these instruments. I did two things wrong here, I bought a cheap battery and never carried a spare. what happened was that the battery died mid song. The result was that I started out hearing myself clearly then halfway through the song I couldn't hear myself at all. Batteries are funny objects, when a battery is running low, the chemicals inside are still reacting and once it has generated enough voltage again it send out the current, once again draining all energy from it. This resulted in me having surges of volume in the song. The guitar would be soft one second and loud the next. It's not an easy thing to control.

The last issue I had is a bit of a gripe... I have a pick holder that is on the mic stand and I have a few picks stuck in there in case I drop one. During one of our breaks someone pinched 2 of my picks. Now I'm not sure what to think, did someone think I was that good and wanted a memento? Or is someone that cheap that they have to steal a pick from a mic stand when nobody is looking. I'll take the first option though, so thanks to whoever took them, I feel like a rock star...

Until next time, rock on and if you're in the Durban area pull in to Highfield House for next time we play.