Shel Daltrey

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Crescent Cty BDB

Current project is playing bass with our Crescent City BDB (Blue Denim Band, but then again there is another Blue Denim Band somewhere, so it gets messy.)  I kinda went from "the bass player" in someone else's band, to a semi, sorta, leader. We've got a random number of people, maybe 12 at the moment and are practicing for this summer's "Play On Your Porch Day", so we'll be out there, well not "porch", but in Jack and Debbie's driveway. Stop on by We play a bunch of covers of music that proves we listen to way too much "classic radio.".

Cisco & Daltrey project

Well, this is old news. Cisco & I had some fun gigs here and there but it's past tense now ...

Still a personnel shortage in the kazoo band. Maybe you have listened to my recordings and so are not asking, "why would that be?"

But, in any event, Cisco (currently from Brookings) and I have formed a duo and are playing a couple of places. Kinda fun, look for us around the Crescent City - Brookings area!

Lots (and Nuthin')

Moved to Crescent City. No luck finding players for the "Jordan Creek Kazoo Band" (just happen to live on Jordan Creek now). Uploading new recordings to my Bandmix page on a regular basis, but no luck finding anyone to jam with.  And, there is that Covid thing.  Made a couple of tracks with my brother-in-law providing drums, will probably add "the original" one here. And, just uploaded my new "If I Had To (I'd Do It All Over Again), which is my "valentine card" to my wife this year.

Finally a new home base

You love the lockdown & so do I. Yay!!! Which is why the Mu-Drus are now located in Crescent City, CA home of ... well anyway, there is an Ocean and A Lot of Redwood Trees.lli

The Mu-Drus may get renamed, I'm thinking something along the lines of "Jordan Creek Kazoo Band" or "Jordan Creek [fill in the blank] Band. For reasons that will become (somewhat) less obscure in future posts.  Who are these Musical Druids, anyway? Don't they belong in a forest? 

Stay tuned. Creativity is imminent.

more rehearsing

So ... I put a couple of our 3-piece garage band rehearsal covers up here (mostly so the guys could download them, I will retract them later) and another jam.  So far to go ...

Decent-ish jam ...

Been doin' some playing in Corona with Casey and Steve (and Steve).  Plus, I got some new gear!  Shout out to Zoom -- the L20 is fantastic!  (And I say that after some initial, let's say, "stress" because it requires an iPad, only Zoom had not updated the software to run on iPadOS 13, so it was DOA.  But, all is good now ...)

So, first recording of 2020!  Also, first time we used this equipment.  I mic'd the drums with two Behringer condenser B-5s, on stands about 6 1/2' high and just in front.  Bass went straight into the Zoom mixer/recorder.  Guitar input to Digitech modeler pedal and from there stereo feed straight into the Zoom.  It's Casey's band, Casey is on bass, Steve is on drums and I played guitar.

Happy New Year, Mu-Dru fan club!


Still No Mu-Drus ...

But Kevin (drums) and I got together, going pretty good we think. 

Added our 09-30-19 warm-up jam to the "jams" playlist.

Lunch Conversation Band-i-Oke

My earlier version of Lunch Conversation suffered from issues.  I had a couple of verses based on an actual restaurant experience & I was recording a drum exercise to see how I was doing (not so well).  So, I put the two together and wrote the song, but there were rhythmic issues that I tried to cure adding more rhythm guitar, etc.  I like the song and near the end of the earlier recording, I kinda' felt a grove was coming together.

It sounded vaguely "reggae" to me and I wanted a more complete version of the song (having added some additional verses).  Having just upgraded my ancient version of Band in a Box, I put together a reggae-based backing track, put the vocal & guitar on top, and there we go.

Oddly, there are some aspects of the original I like better than the new version -- but at least it is complete.  Probably another re-do is in the future (especially if I can get some Mu-Drus to come over and record with me ...)

Band Rehearsal

So, Roberto and George came over 3/1/2019 for a 2 hr.+ session.  Tested our new "two drum mics + feed off the PA" recording system, sort of on autopilot -- I would say the results are listenable.  Does not approach "studio quality" in any way, but better than just using an Android tablet. The Behringer B-5 condenser mics seem to work pretty well for overhead recording of the drums.  With 4 separate tracks recorded into Audacity, there is some ability to edit and balance the recording.

Roberto was rock steady on the drums and George sings a lot better than I do, so progress was made.


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