From eslawson@comcast.net Thu Aug 05 16:02:36 2004
Subject:Re: Shameless plug, & potential brush with greatness

I had the honor of opening up for Little Feat about 4 years ago at a
club called the Norva in Norfolk, VA. During soundcheck, the
question arose about whether or not I should set up my keyboard rig
in front of Billy's or if maybe I could just play his rig.
Obviously, I was drooling at the chance to play his rig. Their
stage manager nuked the idea of me playing the rig as he told me
that the Bill Beer chop is "temperamental" and they would not want
me to be the one behind the wheel when it died...I did talk them
into letting me play the rig, so I spent about 10 minutes on his
rig. I mainly played the Hammond, but also got to plink on the
piano and the Korg T3, which was MIDI'd to the other keyboards with
a big brassy sound dialed in. It was kind of weird the way he had
the Hammond positioned...it was almost at a diagonal facing the rear
corner of the stage, so his back was to the band (and the audience)
while he played it. Not sure if this was the usual setup, but it
was a big stage with plenty of room to do whatever. I would not
have been too comfortable playing like that.

His rig back then had the Bill Beer chop facing the backside of the
stage, with an interesting modified Leslie 122 sitting way backstage
with mics. It had all the top wooden louvers cut out completely
with a sawzall (not a clean woodshop job) and rather than wood
louvers, there was wire mesh tacked in there from the inside. I
presume this allowed the horn to cut louder. His keyboard rig was
totally Korg (I believe he is an exclusive endorser): SGxPro piano
with a Trinity above that, T3 off to the side and an M1 sitting on
top of his rack. The rack had a Roland MKS20 (he said this is still
a major part of his piano sound), an M1REX rack, maybe another synth
I don't remember and the usual Rack power stuff.

Billy was at the hotel during the time I played his keys, but later
in the night, I sat beside him on the sofa in one of the dressing
rooms. We had a really brief conversation as our band was getting
ready to start and then I did not see him again until he was on
stage (they had a private room).

I'd be curious to hear how much his rig changed in the past 4 years.

Regards,
Eric Lawson
Moderator
CloneWheel Support Group
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CloneWheel/

> for a monitor, looked like some older Korgs for piano & rhodes.
>
> > I'm jealous....those are the kinds of bands I've been trying to
> > get management to put us behind, at least when they come into
> > town. Yeah, take advantage of a sidestage view if you can and
> > get a free tutorial! I've never seen them (anytime they come to
> > town we're workin), but they're one of my favorite bands.
> > Curious if he still carrying the A100 or a CX3.