Harp Surgery – Page 16 – the harmonica player's web site

Son of Dave – Part 2 : “I’m not really a very clever harp player”

March 26, 2010 Elwood

Last month we interviewed the Son of Dave. Here’s the second half of our chat with the beat-boxing harmonica man: this time, he rants about drum-machines, America, nun-raping pop songs, and why he wears sunglasses indoors.

…So I asked some of our readers if they had any questions for you. Here’s one from Adam Gussow.
SoD: He has a question for me?

Why, he has three questions.
SoD: Get the fuck out of here! Well, hi Adam.

Here’s his first question: do you tongue-block or lip-purse, and does that sort of technical question interest you or bore you?
SoD: Tongue block, now stop boring me. Read more

Choosing a Microphone: Acoustic vs Amplified?

March 23, 2010 Greg

Elwood’s Note: “I’m pretty ignorant when it comes to harmonica mics. When you ask me what my favourite element is, I normally choose between earth, wind, water and fire. I thought “Impedance” was a stigmatised medical condition which affects 50 percent of all men. That’s why we asked Greg Heumann at BlowsMeAway Productions to run a blog here at the Harp Surgery for the next few weeks, giving you (and me) a crash course in microphones and all the fiddly bits inside them. Greg is a performing harp player who’s been making custom mics since 2004, and he’s forgotten more about microphones than I will ever know.“

Choosing a microphone: Acoustic vs Amplified?

In choosing a microphone, the most important question of all is “What do you want to sound like?”

There are two classes of sound, with infinite variety in each class. If you’re a classical musician, you’ll probably stand in front of a stand-mounted microphone and you want the amplified sound to cleanly reflect the tone of your playing – giving the closest representation of what it would be like to be in the same room with you, with no microphone or amplifier at all. We call this kind of sound “acoustic” even though it may in fact be picked up with a microphone. Read more

Win A Copy Of The New William Clarke CD

March 18, 2010 The Good Doctor

So many smiles down through the years

Harps down, heads up! Harp Surgery has been chatting with the lovely Jeanette Lodovici, former wife of the late great William Clarke, about her latest CD release: William Clarke – Live Bootleg Cassette Anthology. Read on to find out how you can win a copy!

Jeanette explained how the project came about: “There are so many pirate recordings out there of my late husband. Two of his fans sent me some of this bootleg music. Unfortunately it was poor quality, so I sent it to three different studios and finally we got a decent sound out of this badly recorded material.

I still had my doubts on the quality of the recording though. I promised Bill that I would never put anything ‘bad’ out of him. So I sent a few songs to eight people I respect. Seven of them told me it was great stuff and the quality really didn’t matter. Well, I went with the majority. Read more

Tip of the Top – Sonoma Chicken Coop, Campbell CA, Sat 27.Sept 2009

March 12, 2010 The Good Doctor

Old School’s Cool

During its first months on line, Harp Surgery posted a review of Jason Ricci’s show at Biscuits and Blues in San Francisco. The event was a double leap of faith. Firstly we’d never encountered Jason’s radical playing before and secondly we’d never published a live gig review. Since cutting our teeth on both counts, Mr Ricci has become a firm friend and Harp Surgery has accumulated a small library of gig write-ups.

Readers of the Jason Ricci review may recall we forged another important friendship that night in Frisco. Aki Kumar is an honours graduate of the great Dave Barrett’s Harmonica Masterclass. A skillful musician and a true gentleman, Aki’s in high demand on the SoCal blues circuit both as a guest performer and as front man for his own stellar lineup Tip Of The Top. The Harp Surgery caught up with Aki in San Jose and, bearing in mind recent debate concerning old versus new harping, the experience was somewhat poignant. Read more

Son of Dave – Part 1: Same Old Sound, Maybe New Sunglasses

March 7, 2010 Elwood

An interview with blues harmonica man Benjamin Darvil

Son of Dave found his coolness through the only legitimate means available to us skinny white guys: Wearing your granddad’s clothes and a creepy grin, and making bizarre, gut-busting music that goes oomph-a-doomph in the night. The one-man beat-boxing, harmonica-playing phenomenon has a new album coming out on March 22: Shake a Bone. The Harp Surgery’s Apprentice found him in the Blues Kitchen, North London, lurking behind a pair of sunglasses and a huge plate of Tex-Mex. Here’s what he had to say… Read more

Interview with Christelle Berthon

February 19, 2010 Elwood

Elwood the Apprentice in conversation with the undisputed harmonica queen of YouTube.

By turns bold as hell and surprisingly self-doubting, Christelle Berthon is one of the most closely watched harmonica players on the web (over 2 million pairs of eyeballs, according to her YouTube stats). She’s a different kind of harmonica hero: instead of gin-soaked juke joints where the smoke hangs low off the ceiling, she found fame playing to jam tracks in front of a web cam at home.

She took time out of her gruelling practice regime to tell us about her decision to dedicate herself to harmonica, and share some insights to her style and influences. And as we soon found out, chasing the dream ain’t easy.