The Song Fight Bulletin Board

Just got back from seeing State Shirt play live at the Rox. Great guy, bought me a bottle of water even.

First a guitar riff, simple but nice. Press of a pedal loops that riff while he proceeds to lay down a heavy beat-box vocal into the mic, checking each of his 6,035 pedals on the floor all the while (hey the guy works for Line 6 I guess he gets a discount). Then on top of the beat-box another guitar line - close your eyes and there's a band playing. Another guitar layer with a rhythm and melody to complement perfectly the two looping tracks.

Now he starts singing in a Thom York-ish voice, a little wobbly and sometimes off from time to time (hey who around here isn't), but then he starts building gorgeous harmonies, one, two, three on top building up and then with the press of a button crashes into a chorus that you just now notice was the first complete set of tracks in the song. When did.. How did.. Wow.

Then I started paying attention to how he would build the songs and when he would switch from part to part, and I have to tell you I've haven't seen anyone pulling levers and pressing buttons that madly since I saw the man behind the curtain get busted in the wizard of oz. He would build one part of a song, and then switch in a way that seems entirely natural to building another dynamic and then artfully colliding those constructs with clever bridges and crescendos.

It made going to see a concert much more of an engrosing process that one usually gets. Great show.

Sounds pretty cool! Hopefully we'll get to see it on Feb. 4th?

Yeah I asked him and he said he wants to. I'll send him an email today and make sure.

I'd rather see you BOTH next summer. *GLARE OF SERIOUSNESS*

I'm almost guaranteed @ Santa Cruz. I don't think Ethan knows about SFL06 yet, I'll tell him about that when I email him today.

abecedarian wrote:Just got back from seeing State Shirt play live at the Rox..... Great show.

Hey Sean, thanks for coming out to the show! And even coming out while feeling all sick and stuff! Just wanted to say thanks for the very thoughtful review of the show! Really glad you could make it.

Does it really look like I have 6,035 pedals on the floor? It really can't be more than 1 or 2 thousand.

Thanks again!

Hey no prob. If you get a chance I'd appreciate a post on how you set up your pedals and such (either here or in the 'Help and How To' section of the board), what they are and what that allows you to do and what the limits are - that sort of thing. I guarantee that many people who have to (or want to) fly solo could learn some tricks from you.

abecedarian wrote:Hey no prob. If you get a chance I'd appreciate a post on how you set up your pedals and such (either here or in the 'Help and How To' section of the board), what they are and what that allows you to do and what the limits are - that sort of thing. I guarantee that many people who have to (or want to) fly solo could learn some tricks from you.

Well the setup is always changing... keep experimenting with new ways to play... but my main live gear now is:

- Gibson EchoPlex Digital Pro (this is a cool looper unit, but is extremely geeky and not very user-friendly). It allows me to record song parts... Has unlimited overdubs, a few levels of undo, etc.
- Line 6 DL4 (I f-ing love this delay pedal... it's mainly for my vocals effects, beatbox loops, etc) My favorite settings are the tape-echo and analog delays.
- Line 6 Variax Acoustic 700 "acoustic" guitar (It's actually not really an acoustic guitar, but a digital acoustic modeling guitar... I'd actually rather use my Gibson because it plays nicer, but this is cool for shows has built-in alternate tunings and doesn't feedback). I also use the instant alternate tunings to tune the E and A strings down an octave for a bass effect.
- Behringer FCB1010 MIDI foot controller (I generally dislike everything that this company makes, but this thing works well... i use it to control the Echoplex instead of using the crappy pedal that came with it.)

I also have a little Mackie mixer to route everything into the Echoplex. Every once in a while I'll add/subtract other pedals to the setup, but in general I've learned that the more I add the more everything gets f-ed up.

I just got a DL4 last night and already love it after just playing with it for a half hour. I'm a little spooked by all the complaints about reliability people have with it on http://www.harmonycentral.com but it seems like a really fun and useful pedal.