Tag: Left Hook

Left Hook at Burke’s Bar

Destined to replace the mud shark in your mythology, LEFT HOOK is moving up and kicking off our Slightly-Less-Crappy Bars of Westchester and Greater New York Tour of 2016 next month.

LEFT HOOK
Music with a punch!
Westchester’s classic rock Funk & soul party band

Saturday February 20, 10:0 PM
at
Burke’s Bar
645 Bronx River Road Yonkers

Actually Burke’s Bar looks like a nice place, and apparently they have a dinner crowd, so why not come out and get some dinner before the show. See you there!

Bonkers in Yonkers

Last weekend the Left Hook Played the Bryn Mawr Tavern in Yonkers. Nice place, good crowd. Easy parking, and they let us run a tab and then didn’t charge us for drinks. I’m happy to say that the band is getting to the point where it’s predictable we’re going to sound good. All those little things we’ve been working on – beginnings and endings, tempos, dynamics, vocal harmonies and balance, are all coming together now automatically, without thinking, so we can focus more on performing and interacting with the crowd. It’s good too that our set seems to be working, at least for the kinds of crowds we get at this kind of bar. Pretty much every song we have people dancing and singing along. Some of the ladies were very, uh, friendly and enthusiastic, which was quite flattering, but then again they were drunk too.

In a completely random encounter, my local UPS guy was in the audience. He came up to me between sets, said he knew me, sees me rollerblading around the neighborhood. I told him he delivered the speakers he’s hearing the band thru. Our guitar player Gary also drives a delivery truck, so they bonded over that like they’re part of some secret brotherhood.

A long time ago I had a bass player who drove a delivery van as his day job. One day he delivered a bomb to a doctor’s office. Learned about it on the news that night. Quit the next day.

I now have three gig’s worth of audio and video to sort thru. I hope to put up some new clips on the web site soon. Meanwhile we’re all taking a break for Thanksgiving and learning a batch of new songs. We have gig coming up in a couple weeks back at Fisherman’s Net, but it may be a private party. I’ll keep you posted. Beyond that, the search for more gigs and bigger venues continues. Onward and upward!

Let it Roll Baby Roll

Another successful show last night from the LEFT HOOK. This was at the River Roadhouse in Hastings, and local venue that’s known for having live music. Nice, comfortable place in a divey kinda way. Had a bunch of friends come out, plus a moderately sized regular crowd. Would definitely go back.

We’re getting good at the load-in, setup, soundcheck, and tear-down. I know what I’m doing with the PA pretty comfortably now, and am working on tweaking the EQ and FX to suit the room. Next gig I’m gonna start training Michael to help with that, since he’s the lead singer and it’ll go twice as fast. Also this night Gus played his electronics, since by the end of the last show his hand was pretty swollen. Didn’t sound the same as real drums, but it sounded good, and we were able to mix it into the PA with the vocals no problem.

Musically we’re continuing to get tighter. We didn’t add any new songs this week, but we reversed the first and second sets, since we noticed that our second set always seem to be the best in terms of energy and flow, and it’s usually when the place has the most people. This turned out the be the case again last night. There was a cute girl near the front singing along to Blue Oyster Cult.

We ended up not playing our third set cuz Gary got a weird cramp in his hand. Ah well, still a good night. Again, more audio and video coming soon, so watch this space. Meanwhile, our players will have chance to recover, and tomorrow it’s back to booking more gigs, so watch this space for that too!

Net Gain

Last night the Left Hook played a return engagement at Fisherman’s Net in Pelham. It was a really excellent show, good crowd, and the sound keeps getting better and better. This was also Gus’s return to gigging out after he broke his arm. He’s been getting stronger every week at rehearsal, but the show is three full hour long sets. And to make matters worse he missed the last practice before the show cuz he was sick with food poisoning. Bad gyro, poor guy. Ah well he rose to the occasion.

We added six new songs to the set: Fire by Jimi Hendrix with Gary on lead vocal, Right Place Wrong Time by Doctor John (whose lyric is the origin of the phrase Brain Salad Surgery, BTW), Higher and Higher by Jackie Wilson, Drive My Car from The Beatles, Rock’n’Roll Stew by Traffic, and Kid Charlemagne by Steely Dan with me singing lead vocals. All of them are winners and keepers. We got a few compliments specifically on the Dan number, which is good because we had been doing Pretzel Logic earlier, but decided to drop it cuz we thought it wasn’t going over well. Now we know for sure we can really kick a Steely Dan song. Bodhisattva here we come!

The second set in particular seemed on fire from start to finish. A good roster of songs, well performed, good energy flow, crowd engaged singing and clapping along, even getting up to dance. I think my singing was really on last night too. The first set was good overall too, but had a few minor clams as were still getting warmed up. The third set is better than it’s been, mostly strong, but that’s where we put the tunes that aren’t as well rehearsed or we’re considering dropping. Last night we made it most of the way thru okay. In the Midnight Hour and Mustang Sally were a bit rough; we hadn’t rehearsed them since the last show. Guess they’re first on the list this week.

Audio and video coming soon. Meanwhile be sure to come out and see us at the River Roadhouse in Hastings next Saturday. Sure to be better still!

Back in the Saddle Again

For the last few weeks Left Hook has been rehearsing with Gus on electronic drums while his arm heals. And while individually the drum sounds sound, well, electronic, when he’s playing and the band is goovin’ it sounds just fine. This last week Gus went back to playing a real kit, and man it just sounds so much better. All the time we spent during the hiatus working on parts and dynamics seems to have really paid off.

Meanwhile I’ve been trying to book us more gigs. I’ve visited a half dozen or so local bars and dropped off a CD and got the name of the guy who books bands. Unfortunately these guys tend to be hard to get a hold of, so I’m running down the list calling ‘em back every few days. So far no luck, I figure sooner or later one has to pan out.

Also been getting back to the studio in recent weeks. I have two current work-in-progress originals, Soul on Fire and To Be a Rock. I spent the last couple sessions cleaning up the rhythm section and editing up the vocals to make a complete basic track. Fro SoF I was happy to hear the vocal performance I laid down back in the spring was really killer. For TBaR not so much, so I laid down a new lead vocal over the weekend. This song has some vocal harmonies, layers and counterpoint, with a big build toward the end. I don’t know if I have everything I need for that, cuz toward the end I just sketched in the parts, but I might.

Left Hook Videos, Part II

I created a bunch of videos for the Dudley’s gig, including some new medleys and some whole songs: Domino, Hold On I’m Coming/Soul Man, Knock on Wood/Get Ready, In the Midnight Hour/Mustang Sally, and Them Changes/I Got You. Looks like a heavy concentration on the soul side of the set. Have to balance it out with more rockers next time. Meanwhile here’s the link:

http://zingman.com/music/lefthook/vids/dudleys1505/

There’s a pretty good amount of overlap between these and the FN set, so the next step is decide which ones we want to link on the web site. Coming soon. Also I’ve started making a CD from the show so we can use it as a tool to book more gigs. Onwards and upwards!