Hey All,
Well, Christmas and New year already seem an age ago as we hit the middle of January, a month that always seems a little bleak, mainly due to being strapped for cash after the aforementioned celebrations. Still to keep you entertained during this month we've organised a Jack Cade and the Everyday Sinners gig at The Retreat in Reading. For those who don't know The Retreat is an excellent ale house in the back streets of central Reading which apart from serving some mighty fine beers put on a lot of great acts generally playing blues, country and folk. I've seen a fair few great performances down there so am very pleased to have been invited along to play. I'll be performing a short acoustic set to get things rolling, playing a few covers that have inspired me over the years and playing a few newly written songs too. After that I'll be joined by Everyday Sinners Adam Perry on Drums and Mike Muggeridge on bass for a run through some songs from the 'This Fiery Road' album. The gig is free entry, but fairly small so be sure to get down early to get a place. Music kicks off at 9pm.
In separate news label mate Steve Morano is in the Collision Music studio in Cholsey this weekend laying down rough demos for his forthcoming album which will be out in the middle of this year. I'll be dropping in on the session with a few beers for a listen at some point, really looking forward to it.
Cheers for now
Jack
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Saturday, 14 January 2012
Saturday, 7 January 2012
Fender Champ 600 mod
Hey all,
A bit of a departure from my normal posts as I'm going to run through the guitar amp mods I've just made. A bit geeky maybe , but what the hey.
For those that have a copy of the 'This Fiery Road' album you will, on several tracks, have heard my burns steer guitar crunching through my fender champ 600. As small guitar amps go I love it's portability and astonishing loudness for such a small thing. The only thing that really let it down was the harshness of the tone and in recording terms the amount of hum coming from the amp.
As is the way of things I Googled to find out if there were any remedies and in so doing ended up spending the next month running in circles deciding what was best to do. I first toyed with the idea of ditching the amp altogether and buying a Blues Junior a Peavey Delta Blues or to be honest any number of other amps. But ultimately everything I read led to the conclusion that any number of these amps would need some kind of additional investment in valves or speakers or even mods, and to be honest I wanted something that would offer flexibility as well as portability.
Having read more blogs than I care to mention I decided on the following;
1. The stock tubes Fender use are rubbish, particularly the Chinese 12AX7 and to be honest the Electro-Harmonix 6V6 whilst not awful is a bit harsh. I decided to change these to Cryo Valves from Watford Valves. Namely a Harma ECC83 (£16) and a Brimar 6V6GT (at £40 a bit pricey I know but I read some glowing reviews)
2. Having decided to splash some cash on these I didn't want to install them in an amp with no standby, so some form of modification was going to be needed. I decided on the Alnicomagnet kit available on EBay. I was impressed by the write up explaining why the mods were needed and there were a few good videos too. All in all it made me feel like I could achieve the mods needed even though I'd not previously undertaken much more than soldering leads or repairing my guitar.
The kit came with excellent instructions and pictures which made it very obvious what was required. I had most of the tools I needed apart from a meter which I bought from Maplins for £8. A bit of advice on how to use one of these would have been useful as the instructions that came with it weren't that great, however I worked it out.
Having steeled myself for several days of frustration and swearing I managed to complete the main mods in the kit in around 5 hours. These mods removed the annoying hum, adjusted the voltage from the Euro standard 230v to the UK 240v and added a standby switch along with a few other items. For more info go to http://bit.ly/x6rDsv
Mods completed I tried the amp out with the stock valves in place, there was a noticeable difference in the tone of the amp and all the hum had gone. The overall sound had great clarity without as much of the harshness and I was very pleased with the result.
Next I swapped out the old valves for the two new valves and wow what a difference, it really is hard to describe how much the clarity, depth and quality of the tone improved, with the mid and the valves installed all harshness had been removed, and I have to say the power of the amp seemed to jump up several notches with the use of the Brimar 6v6gt, it really is a great tube. Where before I didn't care too much for the sound of my Champ 600 now I love using it and seem to be rehearsing more at home with my electrics now rather than my acoustics.
3. Phase 3 of the project is the addition of an extension cab. The main difficulty here was the impedance of the amp which is 4 ohms. Most prebuilt cabs are 8 or 16 ohm not a problem as such but the higher impedance will effect the loudness and given it's only a 5 watt amp anyway I really didn't want to lose anything if possible. Another factor was the speaker configuration, I had set my mind on using two 10" speakers rather than a single 12 or 2x12. this was partly to do with weight and size but again also to do with the sound, as 10" speakers are more responsive than 12's.
Being that the amp is 4ohm I have decided to go with two 8ohm Jensen P10R wired in parallel, so creating a 4 ohm cab. The cab itself I'm having built by a guy in Ireland who sells hand made cabs on Ebay, check them out they are beautifully built. The cab will be with me in two weeks, when it arrives I'll add a review to this post. Cheers Jack
For those that have a copy of the 'This Fiery Road' album you will, on several tracks, have heard my burns steer guitar crunching through my fender champ 600. As small guitar amps go I love it's portability and astonishing loudness for such a small thing. The only thing that really let it down was the harshness of the tone and in recording terms the amount of hum coming from the amp.
As is the way of things I Googled to find out if there were any remedies and in so doing ended up spending the next month running in circles deciding what was best to do. I first toyed with the idea of ditching the amp altogether and buying a Blues Junior a Peavey Delta Blues or to be honest any number of other amps. But ultimately everything I read led to the conclusion that any number of these amps would need some kind of additional investment in valves or speakers or even mods, and to be honest I wanted something that would offer flexibility as well as portability.
Having read more blogs than I care to mention I decided on the following;
1. The stock tubes Fender use are rubbish, particularly the Chinese 12AX7 and to be honest the Electro-Harmonix 6V6 whilst not awful is a bit harsh. I decided to change these to Cryo Valves from Watford Valves. Namely a Harma ECC83 (£16) and a Brimar 6V6GT (at £40 a bit pricey I know but I read some glowing reviews)
2. Having decided to splash some cash on these I didn't want to install them in an amp with no standby, so some form of modification was going to be needed. I decided on the Alnicomagnet kit available on EBay. I was impressed by the write up explaining why the mods were needed and there were a few good videos too. All in all it made me feel like I could achieve the mods needed even though I'd not previously undertaken much more than soldering leads or repairing my guitar.
The kit came with excellent instructions and pictures which made it very obvious what was required. I had most of the tools I needed apart from a meter which I bought from Maplins for £8. A bit of advice on how to use one of these would have been useful as the instructions that came with it weren't that great, however I worked it out.
Having steeled myself for several days of frustration and swearing I managed to complete the main mods in the kit in around 5 hours. These mods removed the annoying hum, adjusted the voltage from the Euro standard 230v to the UK 240v and added a standby switch along with a few other items. For more info go to http://bit.ly/x6rDsv
Mods completed I tried the amp out with the stock valves in place, there was a noticeable difference in the tone of the amp and all the hum had gone. The overall sound had great clarity without as much of the harshness and I was very pleased with the result.
Next I swapped out the old valves for the two new valves and wow what a difference, it really is hard to describe how much the clarity, depth and quality of the tone improved, with the mid and the valves installed all harshness had been removed, and I have to say the power of the amp seemed to jump up several notches with the use of the Brimar 6v6gt, it really is a great tube. Where before I didn't care too much for the sound of my Champ 600 now I love using it and seem to be rehearsing more at home with my electrics now rather than my acoustics.
3. Phase 3 of the project is the addition of an extension cab. The main difficulty here was the impedance of the amp which is 4 ohms. Most prebuilt cabs are 8 or 16 ohm not a problem as such but the higher impedance will effect the loudness and given it's only a 5 watt amp anyway I really didn't want to lose anything if possible. Another factor was the speaker configuration, I had set my mind on using two 10" speakers rather than a single 12 or 2x12. this was partly to do with weight and size but again also to do with the sound, as 10" speakers are more responsive than 12's.
Being that the amp is 4ohm I have decided to go with two 8ohm Jensen P10R wired in parallel, so creating a 4 ohm cab. The cab itself I'm having built by a guy in Ireland who sells hand made cabs on Ebay, check them out they are beautifully built. The cab will be with me in two weeks, when it arrives I'll add a review to this post. Cheers Jack
Thursday, 29 December 2011
It's the end of a great year for Jack Cade...
Hey All,
It's been a little while since I've posted on my blog. Shame on me. So to begin with I'll wish you all a belated Merry Christmas.
2011 has been a great year in the world of Jack Cade. The first 6 months of the year were spent recording the debut album for Jack Cade and the Everyday Sinners 'This Fiery Road'. And the second 6 months of the year have been spent promoting the album, it's been busy, busy, busy.
I'd like to say a big thank you to all those out there who have bought, played, reviewed and commented on the album. It really has blown me away all the great things people have said.
Jack Cade and the Everyday Sinners live gigs are now out and playing. Having recorded the album with so many great musicians giving there time to the project it was always a worry for me that there would be no live performances to back the album up. In October I enlisted the talents of Adam Perry on Drums and Mike Muggeridge in Bass to for the nucleus of a three piece to perform live. The first gig for the new line-up took place on 22 December and ROCKED. We had a great audience and for a first gig I couldn't have gone much better (putting aside a couple of glitches).
Now the New Year is beckoning and we will be out and about gigging whilst adding a keyboard player and brass section to the mix. We're planning to get around the country and into Europe over the next 12 months but if you'd like to see us in your area why not drop me an email letting us know where you'd like us to play and we'll see what we can do.
We'll that's it for now. I'll be posting up here a bit more regularly over the coming months so be sure to drop by regularly.
Have a great New Year
Jack
Monday, 24 October 2011
This Fiery Road - Review
Today was a good day in the world of Jack Cade and the Everyday Sinners. Whilst kickin back and drinking my morning coffee down at the Workhouse I received an email about a new review for 'This Fiery Road' album.
As with any review the immediate reaction is excitement followed by trepidation. I needn't have worried the review which appears on the excellent From Under The Basement blog, based in Austin Texas, was extremely complimentary.
Rebel Rod Ames wrote 'Take about two cups of Johnny Cash add a dash or two of Tom Waits, and a smidgen of the psychobilly or punk roots that began molding him years ago, and you have Jack Cade.
I love this album for so many reasons. It’s honky-tonk or is it? It’s country, or is it? It’s blues, or is it? It continuously keeps the listener guessing. I on the other hand, after hearing the first track, the title cut, “This Fiery Road”, decided not to categorize, but instead, simply enjoy this extremely unique brand of whatever it is...'
http://fromunderthebasement.blogspot.com/2011/10/jack-cade-and-everyday-sinners-this.html
If you want a copy of the album go to http://www.jackcade.com
Cheers
Jack
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/jackcadeandtheeverydaysi
As with any review the immediate reaction is excitement followed by trepidation. I needn't have worried the review which appears on the excellent From Under The Basement blog, based in Austin Texas, was extremely complimentary.
Rebel Rod Ames wrote 'Take about two cups of Johnny Cash add a dash or two of Tom Waits, and a smidgen of the psychobilly or punk roots that began molding him years ago, and you have Jack Cade.
I love this album for so many reasons. It’s honky-tonk or is it? It’s country, or is it? It’s blues, or is it? It continuously keeps the listener guessing. I on the other hand, after hearing the first track, the title cut, “This Fiery Road”, decided not to categorize, but instead, simply enjoy this extremely unique brand of whatever it is...'
To read the full review go to:
http://fromunderthebasement.blogspot.com/2011/10/jack-cade-and-everyday-sinners-this.html
If you want a copy of the album go to http://www.jackcade.com
Cheers
Jack
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/jackcadeandtheeverydaysi
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/jackcadeandtheeverydaysi
Sunday, 2 October 2011
After the launch
Hey all
It's been three weeks since the launch of 'This Fiery Road' and I have to say 6 months in the studio seems a breeze compared to a month trying to promote the album out to publications, blogs and radio stations. It's not until you start that you realise how many thousands of tresses there are in each genre of music. All vying for the same coverage largely from the same groups of dedicated bloggers.
Having run the Freebase music site for 3 years from 1997 I can appreciate how much time and work goes into running a blog reviewing and commenting on the music you love. There are a few blogs that have caught my eye over the last 3 months, in researching and checking out around a 115 sites the ones I'm visiting and enjoying the most are being added to my website as links. Ninebullets.net is particularly good well written, some good humour and a great weekly radio show. I've also been spending a lot of time on No Depression, check it out, loads of good articles, posts and forum. Oliverdiplace.blogspot.com is always a good and varied read as is fromunderthebasement.blogspot.com also with it's own cool weekly radio show.
Last week some of the album tracks went up onto Jango. Fir those who have not come across it before it is an Internet radio service that sllows the use to pick stations based on an artist or genre, same as last FM. The difference is that as an artist you can upload your tunes and buy credits to get guaranteed plays. You pick the artists you want to be aligned with, target locations and off you go. In the first week I've had a great amount of positive feedback and picked up new fans and sales.
The album has also been picked up by various Internet and specialist radio stations, mainly in the states. The only downer for me so far is that I've not been able to get one bit of coverage in my own local press or radio stations.
With any luck the next week will see a few reviews coming out, as soon as they do I'll be posting links up here, in the meantime if you're one of the good people who have bought a copy of the album then you'd do me a great favour if you posted a review on iTunes, Amazon or any of the other digital sites.
Catch ya soon
Jack
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/jackcadeandtheeverydaysi
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
It's been three weeks since the launch of 'This Fiery Road' and I have to say 6 months in the studio seems a breeze compared to a month trying to promote the album out to publications, blogs and radio stations. It's not until you start that you realise how many thousands of tresses there are in each genre of music. All vying for the same coverage largely from the same groups of dedicated bloggers.
Having run the Freebase music site for 3 years from 1997 I can appreciate how much time and work goes into running a blog reviewing and commenting on the music you love. There are a few blogs that have caught my eye over the last 3 months, in researching and checking out around a 115 sites the ones I'm visiting and enjoying the most are being added to my website as links. Ninebullets.net is particularly good well written, some good humour and a great weekly radio show. I've also been spending a lot of time on No Depression, check it out, loads of good articles, posts and forum. Oliverdiplace.blogspot.com is always a good and varied read as is fromunderthebasement.blogspot.com also with it's own cool weekly radio show.
Last week some of the album tracks went up onto Jango. Fir those who have not come across it before it is an Internet radio service that sllows the use to pick stations based on an artist or genre, same as last FM. The difference is that as an artist you can upload your tunes and buy credits to get guaranteed plays. You pick the artists you want to be aligned with, target locations and off you go. In the first week I've had a great amount of positive feedback and picked up new fans and sales.
The album has also been picked up by various Internet and specialist radio stations, mainly in the states. The only downer for me so far is that I've not been able to get one bit of coverage in my own local press or radio stations.
With any luck the next week will see a few reviews coming out, as soon as they do I'll be posting links up here, in the meantime if you're one of the good people who have bought a copy of the album then you'd do me a great favour if you posted a review on iTunes, Amazon or any of the other digital sites.
Catch ya soon
Jack
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/jackcadeandtheeverydaysi
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Wednesday, 7 September 2011
Jack Cade and the Everyday Sinners | This Fiery Road | CD Baby
Hey all,
Just a quick post to let you know that This Fiery Road is now up on CD Baby, iTunes and Amazon to name just a couple. It's also available in CD format from my website at:
http://www.jackcade.com/store
Jack Cade and the Everyday Sinners | This Fiery Road | CD Baby
http://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/this-fiery-road/id461450341
http://www.amazon.co.uk/This-Fiery-Road/dp/B005K5RR56/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1315387423&sr=8-3
Just a quick post to let you know that This Fiery Road is now up on CD Baby, iTunes and Amazon to name just a couple. It's also available in CD format from my website at:
http://www.jackcade.com/store
Jack Cade and the Everyday Sinners | This Fiery Road | CD Baby
http://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/this-fiery-road/id461450341
http://www.amazon.co.uk/This-Fiery-Road/dp/B005K5RR56/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1315387423&sr=8-3
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