Two songs from Ulm two nights ago (free download)
Here be two songs from Sunday night’s concert at the Sauschdall (also Wikipedia) in Ulm, Germany. I like this venue a lot - a super solid old fort building with massive walls and rather crazy acoustics inside. Jazz venue since the 1960’s. The resident sound technician Andreas, a very friendly and capable guy, is nice to work with but it has to be said has a taste for the reverb, the delay and the chorus. The colour, let’s say. At soundcheck, and again in the interval, I asked that we cut the delay and the chorus and keep things simple but I think he felt it necessary to stay busy throughout my set. It sounded a bit random and distracting on the night and going though my recording of this show this morning most of it is pretty unlistenable to my ears at least. Chorus appears out of nowhere on my guitar, some words I sang are repeated, clipped and randomly delayed. Sometimes it’s fine on the night in the room at least, but doesn’t stand up at all when listened later. So it is here.
It’s a funny thing with this simple acoustic setup sometimes - I have the feeling that sound technicians often feel like they have to do something throughout the concert, to stay busy. I get that it’s not the most exciting thing to manage my sound and perhaps some people love the use of ‘colour’ for dramatic effect at different times in different songs. To add dynamics or whatever, but for me personally when playing I like to get an idea of the sound and stick with it. Have a picture to rely on where it is, what the shape of it is and how things are going to come out.
Blah, blah. I’m rambling so anyway, here’s the first song of the night:
And here’s the second to last one an hour or so later. Played as a request, poorly but distracted as I said.
Bit of a shame as it really was a pleasure to play there, like I say the whole crew are super friendly and helpful and the place is great. The Diamond Family Archive will play there in October so if you’re about please make it down and have a listen. There’s opportunities for some really crazy shit going on with their sound for sure, wowee.
Halfway through the evening the thunder and the lightning and the downpour had started on. We left the place in a rainstorm, walked down the hill and a short while later I drove off onto a flooded motorway and all the uneasy feelings there upon.