Goodtime showtime at West Nile tnite

Kaia Wong (of Mixel Pixel) plays her Mbira
Jennie Bringaker (Norwegian Performance Artist)
Unicornicopia
Nothingberryplasma (from Baltimore)

and special niceguy guest DJ Travis Stewart (aka Machine Drum) with fun

285 Kent Ave. #2
(next to “the glasslands” between South 1st and South 2nd)

MAIN DRAG on Coolhunting.com

Thanks to Emily for crediting us in Coolhunting.com’s review of EH’s memory man delay.   Check out the article HERE

Garg Viking Drum Lord

I am Garg the the infamous viking drum lord! I have landed here in Williamsburg at Main Drag music with my treacherous army of vintage drums and snares. Together we will conquer the landscape of studios and dungeonous practice spaces and reign supreme for centuries to come! Look in awe at the ancient wall of majesty behind me made of the finest drum kits NYC has to offer!!!

Roland RE-201 Space Echo

You asked for them, and they have arrived – the original and the imitation.  Like every other toy we collect for you, we’re offering free test drives of this magnetic interstellar explorer deep into the outer regions of your sonic space.

Eventide Pitchfactor – Harmonizer Pedal

Freddy Nighliker took the Pitchfactor for a spin in his home studio.  These are his notes, scrawled on a piece of paper:

“As advertised, superior sound quality, fun for the whole family (full mix=freak out), slaphappy, 12 oz. mouse voice from adult swim”

Fred tells me he tested the pedal by watching movies and routing the audio through the harmonizer.  In addition to his note he says, “it was ridiculous, but manageable.”

SXSW Day three continued

Glasvegas and other fun things…

SXSW day three…..

So last night ended up at the most insane lineup ever which included Tori Amos and L.A.’s Steel Panther….. Wow. While backstage i found our ad in the Vice Magazine’s Sxsw picks. Austin’s last call is 1:30am which sucks. We moved the party ti the Marriot pool.

Day three has been another scorcher. I caught the new Columbia ‘it’ band, Glasvegas at Stubb’s. The free tallboys of High Life definitely helped last nights effects blend into the day.

Hopefully tonight I will catch the long awaited Primal Scream show. Stay tuned….

Better know a tech… Garrett Landes

I’ve only heard Garrett tell two stories.  One of them uses “and then I got hammered” as a central plot device, and the other always beings with, “well I was really hung-over…”  Despite his lack of variety in adventures, one story I’m sure I’ll never hear is one of Garrett intoxicated on the job.  The tube amp shop is not a place to risk getting sloppy.  Working with the kind of heart-stopping current that a charged up capacitor can send through your body will teach you some painful lessons.  This time of year is especially dangerous for the boys in the back.  With the annual migration of aspiring rock stars from Williamsburg to Austin comes a violent surge in “rush” tube amp repairs.  Garrett recalls a few SXSWs ago when his mentor Pat got a little ahead of himself at the bench trying to get everyone ready for Texas.

“I heard a noise, and thought Pat had gotten mad or something and thrown his stool.  I turned around, and Pat had been thrown off his stool, and he landed on a pile of amps.  He had forgotten to discharge a filter cap(acitor), and it knocked him off his ass.”  Pat remembers it well saying, “yeah, it was bad.  I haven’t forgotten to discharge a cap since.”

Death aside, the main thing these students of arcane electronics fear is producing sub-amazing work.  Garrett obsesses over every solder joint; each one challenging him to perfect his skills.  He sees a lot of amps with quick and ugly repairs.  When an amp comes through with unsatisfactory connections, he will resolder them, making each one mechanically sound, and visually impressive.

Making each connection neat and clean not only means a long lasting, better performing amp, but it also looks great and tells the next repair guy, “somebody took the time and cared for this amp properly.”  Garrett feels that it doesn’t matter how much of his work will go unseen and unappreciated by his customers – he takes pride in the details of every job.  A couple weeks ago, Garrett put in an extra hour and fifteen minutes of wiring that might have taken forty-five minutes if he had rushed through.  The task was to completely rewire a Traynor 8×10 bass cabinet (for the laymen: that’s eight 10″ speakers inside a wooden box made by the amp manufacturer Traynor).  This particular make of cabinet is odd in that, instead of taking off a back panel and seeing all eight speakers at once, each speaker is loaded in through the front.  What this means for Garrett is that no one will probably ever see the care and time he invested into each speaker connection, but that’s not what matters.  This Flint, Michigan native has a working class pride that fuels an impressive work ethic, and a equally impressive drinking ethic – after-hours, of course.

-David Morrin

Sxsw day two cont..

Caught Tim Easton play with long time customer Aaron Tasjan on guitar.

SXSW day two

Well we had a great first day here in Austin. My total tally so far for being tagged as, “hey… Your the dude from Main Drag!”: 14.

The finally of day one was catching Gary Louris and Mark Olsen of the Jayhawks at a private acoustic show put on by New West records. Simply stunning!

Today is started off once again with a tall cup of overpriced joe and a bonus morning cig. I will try to sqeeze in a dirty projectors show as well as seeing Tim Easton and The Waco Brother’s Bloodshot showcase. Stay tuned…

Freddy Nightliker//Physical Filter//Telescopic Boundary Mic

Freddy Nightliker, electro-acoustician extrordinaire, is spending evenings perfecting his latestest auditory marvel: the physical filter/telescopic boundary mic.  I decided to journey deep within his hamster hole at the West Nile art space to document what is undeniably history in the making.

The night began with driving in circles in Freddy’s SUV, listening to bubbly synthesizers below an operatic recitation of poetry on what Nightliker called “weird radio.”  After agreeing that we should cover the tune for our next performance, it was time to enter West Nile and get ready to record some live music.

Freddy seemed satisfied with his efforts after about 3 minutes of recording.  Perhaps he will be kind enough to allow me to post what he captured once he has properly Nightlikened the raw material.

-David Morrin

Sxsw brooklyn’s ‘the states’

Good fellas and Main Drag Music customers playing a slew of dates this week.

More SXSW

Brad from brooklyn outfit ‘This Frontier Needs Heroes

Elvis perkins

Amazing! Not to mention main drag customer Matt from Nada Surf enjoying the show!

Gringo star

These guys are about to go on a European tour with Trail of the Dead in April. Great fun band and Main Drag Customer!

“Is that a Nagra?”

When I first noticed the Nagra IV-L in the front counter display case, it didn’t really catch my eye.  As a teenager, I had indulged an obession with tape and tubes and all things analog, but these days I’ve grown more and more comfortable with the digital world, and an old tape machine just didn’t spark much interest at first.  I completely overlooked its existence until customer after customer would bring this relic from the 1960s to my attention on a daily basis.

“Is that a Nagra?  Wow, that’s awesome, those things are amazing – can I check it out?”  Hmmm.  Why all the fuss, I wondered.  A quick google returned this statement from Wikipedia:

“Nagra is a generic term referring to any of the series of professional audio recorders produced by Kudelski SA, based in Cheseaux-sur-Lausanne, Switzerland. The machines were initially designed by Polish inventor Stefan Kudelski, and his company won numerous technical awards for their precision and reliability.”

Our drum guru, John Fell, gave me a proper introdruction to the Nagra one day, asking me if I’d care to see “under the hood.”

Opening up most electronic devices is a pretty boring, ugly, and/or frustrating enterprise for the average human being.  And who opens up their electronics just to admire the beauty of the care and skill that went into the soldering and bundling of wires?  John Fell showed me the guts of the Nagra like we were poking around in a vintage muscle car.

I don’t know much about art, or electronics, but I think anyone can appreciate the visual impact of the amazingly neat, compact, and even colorful work inside this Swiss marvel.

First day….

Well the only saving grace waking up this morning was the starbucks in the lobby. I will be playing in an hour and within two hours will be severely drunk over at mohawk seeing atlanta band Gringo Star and my fav, Elvis Perkins. Stay tuned.

Freddy Nightliker: greetings

as you would that it were… erstwhile knob twiddler and electro-acoustician at your server.

What it is

This just in… Prophet 5

Sequential Circuits Prophet 5 Rev 3.2 with midi retrofit – very clean and just fully serviced.  Everyone who’s come in and fired up this thing has left smiling.  There’s very little this analog, polyphonic, and programmable monster can’t do.  Rev 3s are known for their reliability – toss that troublesome Juno one-oh-sh** in the trash and pick this up before someone puts this thing in a museum.

I am Garth

Hey fellow tragic hipsters! I am Garth, the new Drum guy (ed: a new drum guy – John Fell is still THE drum guy) at Main Drag Music. I will help you with your sonic needs or punch you in the face for being uncool.  But seriously, you guys got any vintage drum kits you wanna sell?!! Give us a call or bring them by! We’ve also got some new ultra knowledgeable staff on board to help you pinpoint whatever ridiculous sound you are looking to make. Cheers and happy fuzzing.

-Garth

SXSW ‘09

So once again I am heading down to SXSW to partake in the yearly tradition of playing unpaid shows while trying to stay sober enough to be operable. Lucky for you, I will be blogging about it while drunk and full of BBQ on a live, daily, up-to-date, basis… so stay tuned….

This year I will be playing guitar along side Main Drag Music customer “Tim Williams.” Every year I run into our entire customer base on 6th street in Austin. I will surely be approached again this year as…”HEY! IT’S THE DUDE FROM MAIN DRAG!” Yes, Yes…. indeed I am….

As an added bonus this year they will be having a Vintage Guitar Show at the convention center… pretty amazing! If it didn’t cost me $100 for every extra piece of gear I bring on the plane… I could do some damage down there. Anyway… stay tuned because the next six days will be exciting.

-Matt Welsh “AKA: THE MAIN DRAG DUDE”

The elusive Chamberlin Rhythmate

So while on the road this week I was fortunate enough to find a piece of gear I have only heard about around vintage guitar geek camp fires and sparklehorse chat room sessions.. (kidding….not really)

Now, being that I am no stranger to strange gear in my own musical quests, I have already used this piece of gear in my own music. The problem…. I had to use samples of said gear. Like catching “the big one,” on a man’s weekend fishing trip, no one ever expects to see it.. just talk about it their whole life.

So now I have a record with samples of Chamberlin Rhythmate drum loops plastered beneath my songs and will never be able to change the tempos or organically recreate it live…… till now!