Big Insane News 2011/2012 – Sugar Ray! Duke Robillard! Stuff!

Sugar Ray and the Bluetones’ Evening has been nominated for five Blues Music Awards!  Album of the Year!  Traditional Album of the Year!  BAND of the Year!  Harmonica player of the Year!  Bassist of the Year!  Go to blues.org to read the nominations, sign up and become a member.  Vote for us!  We’re pretty good at what we do, and the Bluetones were my favorite band (well, them and the Beatles) for years before I joined.  I’m incredibly proud to be part of this band and this record.

And then there’s Big Insane Secret Project 2012, which is now out of the bag: Duke Robillard and Monster Mike Welch. New record. Lots of crazy guitar. Stony Plain Records. Next year. It’s a little like getting a call from Batman asking if I want to team up and fight crime. Duke just has three thousand records to produce between now and then…

Have a great Christmas and/or December holiday of your choice.  Love you all.

Tracklog 05 – Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) (2002)

Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) (click to listen, Right Click and “Save As” to download)

Featuring Jeannette Ocampo Welch on vocals

For a couple of years in a row, my wife Jeannette and I made Christmas CDs for friends and family, with a mix of Christmas tunes and other songs.  This is one of my favorites, a cover of the Darlene Love/Phil Spector classic, with Jeannette singing her heart out, and me having fun trying to recreate the Spector “Wall Of Sound” with a cheap keyboard, a Boss drum machine, and a ton of reverb.  I’m pretty proud of the bass sound, which is my Danelectro Longhorn reissue unplugged and miced.  Enjoy, have a great Christmas, and if you don’t celebrate Christmas, I hope you have the best Sunday ever next week.  Love you all.

Tracklog 04 – Blues For Hubert (2011)

For Hubert (click to listen, right click and “Save As” to download)

The recent passing of the great Hubert Sumlin hit me hard.  I didn’t know Hubert very well; I played two or three songs with him once and met him three or four other times over the years, but I knew him just well enough to understand what a gentle, amazing man he was.  Even before I dreamed of meeting him, he was a hero of mine, and his influence on my playing and musical worldview cannot be overstated.  There’s nothing to say about this song, really, other than that I had to play something for the man.  My heart still hurts, you know?  I hope you enjoy it.

December Shows

December 4 – Blues Jam @ Johnny D’s, Somerville, MA (4:30pm)

December 8 – w/Anthony Geraci, Mudcat Ward and Marty Richards, The Bailey, Marshfield, MA

December 11 – Blues Jam @ Johnny D’s, Somerville, MA (4:30pm)

December 17 – w/Sugar Ray and the Bluetones, Knickerbocker Cafe, Westerly, RI

December 18 - Blues Jam @ Johnny D’s, Somerville, MA (4:30pm)

December 21 – w/Danny and Douglas Banks, Blues Jam at the Tavern, Plainville, MA

December 31 – w/Sugar Ray and the Bluetones, NEW YEAR’S EVE at the Bailey, Marshfield, MA

Monster Mike Welch Band November 2011 Europe Tour!

We’re looking forward to seeing all of our wonderful friends and fans in Germany, Belgium, and France!

November 16 – Blues in Schools, Trittau (D)

November 17 – Blues in Schools, Bad Oldesloe (D)

November 17 – Wassermuehle, Trittau (D)

November 19 – Jegelscheune, Wendelstein (D)

November 22 – Rat Pack, Clermont-Ferrand (F)

November 25 – Maison des Jeunes Tamines, Tamines (B)

November 26 – Blues in Bezannes, Bezannes (F)

November 27  - Zapping, Grande Synthe (F)

November 28 – Chateau d’Oupeye, Oupeye (B)

Tracklog 03 – Out Of Bad Luck (2007)

Out Of Bad Luck (click to listen, right-click and “Save As” to download)

Once again, “Tracklog” = “Free Music.”  Demos, outtakes, etc.  Enjoy.

This is an outtake from 2007′s Just Like It Is.  I like it about as much as anything that made it on the record, but we recorded too many songs, and I think we felt that a direct cover of a Magic Sam song was not really a high priority to release when compared to a bunch of originals.  I do love Magic Sam, and the Alex Club side of Magic Sam Live completely rewired my brain when I was just a little kid.  It’s a funny thing about the Boston area, too; I’d be willing to guess that more Boston area guitarists would count Sam as a primary influence than in almost any city except Chicago.  I would chalk a lot of that up to two things: Sam’s great disciple Luther “Guitar Jr.” Johnson has been living in New England for decades now, and Ronnie Earl is another Sam follower that has had a huge influence on the local scene.

This track was recorded by the same lineup as the rest of Just Like It Is:

MIKE WELCH – Guitar/Vocal
ANTHONY GERACI – Piano
BRAD HALLEN – Bass
MARK TEIXEIRA – Drums

…and it was produced by Matt Malikowski and myself, recorded and mixed by Matt.  I love the way the bass, drums, and piano careen off of each other through the whole song.  Brad and Mark are currently playing with Duke Robillard, and if you haven’t heard Duke’s new Low Down and Tore Up, you’re missing something really special.  Anthony is of course playing alongside me in Sugar Ray and the Bluetones, and he’s probably my favorite pianist to work with.  If you’re interested about this sort of thing, I’m playing my blue Strat through a Fender Pro Reverb.

(Song credit: Maghett/Benson, Nam Jean Publishing/Conrad Music, BMI, admin by Bug)

Tracklog 02 – This Boy (2002)

This Boy (click to listen, right click and “Save As” to download)

Once again, the Tracklog posts will be where I post demos and outtakes for your listening enjoyment.  If some of it is a little rough and/or silly, hey, it’s free music, right?

The Beatles are the reason I play music of any kind, and the first place I heard the blues feeling was John Lennon’s voice.  Even as I’ve made my career playing blues with (wildly) varying degrees of traditionalism, the Beatles’ music is still my favorite of all time.

The idea of recording this track came from a couple of different sources.  I’ve always loved the famous scene of Ringo dejectedly walking along the water in A Hard Day’s Night, which is accompanied by a great, twangy instrumental arrangement of “This Boy.”  When the Beatles Anthology documentary came out, the clip of the Beatles singing “This Boy” on Ed Sullivan in Miami completely freaked me out, with Lennon’s passionate delivery of the bridge (sorry – “middle eight”) burned into my brain from that moment on.  I’ve always tried desperately to get the guitar to sing, and recording this, I realized just how much Lennon’s voice influenced my guitar playing.

For a couple of years in a row, my wife Jeannette and I made CDs for friends and family as Christmas gifts, with a mix of Christmas songs and other things we wanted to sing and play.  I recorded “This Boy” in 2002.  The electric guitars are played on a Fender Classic Series 50′s reissue Strat with Barden pickups through a Line 6 POD (although I think the verse harmony guitars may be direct into Pro Tools with lots of compression – I don’t remember), the acoustic guitar is a Gibson J-45, the bass is a Danelectro Longhorn reissue, and the tap-tapping is me playing a snare drum with brushes.  ”Paul” and “George” on the middle eight are both me, as well; I liked the idea of an instrumental with backing vocals.

(The song is of course by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, published by Northern Songs)