Interviews Reviews - Shows 

Rod Piazza & The Mighty Flyers – The Railhead, Las Vegas, Thursday 14th January 2010

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You just wait till he does his walkabout and gets up on the table

Rod Piazza ©FrankVigil.comThe Good Doctor found himself back in Vegas for the post-Christmas lull. It was strange seeing folks in coats and jackets complaining about the cold in a City that is normally a kiln. But the white tops on the nearby mountains, the absence of crowds and an ill wind blowing through the valley spelt winter in Sin City.

The Doc was in need of something to warm the soul and what better than a Vegas helping of Rod Piazza & The Mighty Flyers? He jumped a cab and rode out from the Strip to the Boulder Station Hotel and waded across the Casino floor to the The Railhead. Standing in line, he was engaged in conversation by Carol, a regular winter migrant from Michigan. Oh I’ve seen Rod Piazza many times. This your first? she quizzed. The Doc nodded and smiled, showing full British reserve. Oh you just wait till he does his walkabout, gets up on the table and Honey starts playing that piano with her toes. The Doc’s grin broadened. Sounds more like the Cirque du Soleil he thought to himself. (more…)

Apprenticeship Series Harp Podcasts 

Harmonica Podcast: The Kids Are Alright

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Harmonica Podcast 1Download the podcast (19.7MB)

As the world stumbles into a new decade, we at the Harp Surgery find ourselves contemplating the future. But we’re not thinking about jetpacks or three-course meals that you can take as a pill. No, we’re thinking about the future of the harmonica. Okay, jetpacks would also be pretty cool, but for his debut podcast, Elwood the Apprentice mumbles his way through five young players who are poised to become rising stars of the harmonica.

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Announcements 

Seydel Söhne Competition Winners

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Congratulations to our competition winners

Seydel Quiz VouchersWe know that many of you have been waiting for news of the competition result and now that all the formalities have been completed, we can bring you up to date. Thanks for your patience! Thanks also to Bertram Becher at Seydel Söhne for making this special event possible.

As advertised, on the 11th January three names were drawn at random from our pool of correct replies and the winners were notified by email. We are delighted to announce that the lucky recipients of a Seydel e-shopping voucher are Matthew Squires (USA), Tony Westlake (USA) and Jörge Lange (Germany). Congratulations to Matthew, Tony and Jörge and a big thank you to everyone who sent in an entry. (more…)

Harp Tab How Do They Do That? 

Culture Club Harmonica II – Karma Chameleon [..with tab]

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Karma Chameleon single coverIn Culture Club Harmonica part 1, we studied Judd Lander‘s harp playing on the band’s top 10 hit, Church Of The Poison Mind. Their follow up single, Karma Chameleon, went flying to the top of the charts worldwide, where it stayed for several weeks. To this day it remains a classic of 1980’s pop. Culture Club and Boy George had well and truly arrived.

To recap for a moment, Judd Lander is purported to have taken lessons from Sonny Boy II during his formative playing days in Liverpool. He subsequently relocated to London where he found studio session work and launched Charisma Records. His playing is not complex, relying as it does on cross harp blues sequences, but it is highly polished and instantly recognisable. Full of natural tone and excellent phrasing, Judd Lander gives his harp licks real ‘voice’ without resorting to digital trickery or overdriven tubes.

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Harp Tab How Do They Do That? 

Culture Club Harmonica I – Church Of The Poison Mind [..with tab]

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Culture Club - Colour By NumbersThe Harp Surgery has had a number of enquiries regarding the harp riffs used in Culture Club’s hits and who was responsible for them. The culprit was Judd Lander, a harp player from Liverpool who managed to ingratiate himself with Sonny Boy II before moving to London as a session musician and co-founding the Charisma record label. You can find more about Judd in our Harp Trivia pages and on his website.

In the heady days of post-punk Britain, the Sex Pistols‘ erstwhile manager Malcolm McLaren branched into the New Wave pop market with his new creation for the 1980s, Bow Wow Wow. We could look into how and where he found the lead singer Annabella Lwin, his promises to side step the Lolita and Svengali traps, how old Lwin wasn’t, that scandalous album cover, the Vivienne Westwood effect, and how utterly brilliant the music actually was. But we won’t. (more…)

Harp Tips 

Octaving The Blues On Harmonica

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Blues RemedyPutting double-barreled blues harp into your playing

As a journeyman blues harp player listening to the experts, there were moments when those guys hit what I call the tickle spot and I shuddered with pleasure. For years I just couldn’t work out how they did it. It just sounded like they were producing harmonics and extra fat tone from out of nowhere.

It wasn’t until I broke into third position playing and learned that octaving can be achieved with 5 hole splits – as well as easier 4 hole splits – that the secret began to reveal itself. By reapplying those 5 hole splits to cross harp, the hairs on my neck stood up and I broke out in goose bumps. Bingo! There was that tickle spot. So how do you pick it up?

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