[Harp-L] Re: REVIEW: Hohner Traveling Harmonica Roadshow

[Drew <dmaj135@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hello All,

A real nice write-up, Bill. It was a cool/ fun presentation. Id go see a Shellist gig in a second,now that I seen him perform live. 

to Scottie,
 Im gonna get on my knees and ask my "ex" if I can have some of that divorce-payola back to buy your Victoria Regal II.(oh, how I regret selling mine..lol.)  Good seein you again.

...enjoy the file attached, turn it up.

                                                                                                                             Drew

                                                                                                                  


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On Tue, 6/10/14, William Lifford <william.lifford@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

 Subject: REVIEW: Hohner Traveling Harmonica Roadshow
 To: "harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx" <harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx>, "William Lifford" <william.lifford@xxxxxxxxx>
 Cc: "Drew Davis" <dmaj135@xxxxxxxxx>, "Clifford Bernard" <lilcliff@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>, "Ken Korb" <rocketfanmail@xxxxxxx>, "Scott Micchiche" <cptscottli@xxxxxxxxx>
 Date: Tuesday, June 10, 2014, 11:25 PM
 
 The other night, I attended the
 Hohner Traveling Harmonica Roadshow in Huntington Station,
 New York, at the Sam Ash music store.  I thought I'd
 give my thoughts on it in case any of you were considering
 going to one of the Roadshow events as they make their way
 around the US.
 
 
 This is a long post, so I will get right to the
 point... It's a fun event and you should definitely go
 check it out.  The roadshow has an old-timey carnival motif
 and they had little giveaways for everyone.  I scored a
 T-shirt but I got jealous of my friend who got a Hohner
 baseball hat.  Other folks got cool vintage metal signs
 that would be perfect if you had a basement music
 room.
 
 Adam "the bearded technician" was a
 really nice guy and he did free repairs for a number of
 players that came to the roadshow. He repaired two of my
 harps that had slightly flat reeds; he did it in what seemed
 like only a few seconds without taking the covers off.
 It's clear that he's tuned probably 20 or 30,000
 harps and it he really made it seem easy. Almost easy enough
 for me to try it myself.  I was tempted to go to the Carle
 Place Roadshow just so I could bring a few more beat-up
 harps, but I thought that might be taking advantage.
 
 When they say "bearded technician",
 they are not kidding.  Adam has a beard that most Amish
 people and ZZ Top are jealous of.  From the quick playing
 of harps while he was tuning them, he also a pretty badass
 player.  He also played guitar while Ronnie demo-ed
 multiple harmonica models.
 
 There was a mix of players attending the
 roadshow, from 30-and 40-year players to at least one or two
 people that were brand-new and had never really played
 harmonica before the curious about it. To be honest, I
 don't get out very much, so was it was nice for me to be
 able to sit and hang out with some harmonica playing
 pals.
 
 Ronnie Shellist, the "lead" presenter,
 played really excellent acoustic harmonica. His tone and
 phrasing are excellent. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to
 his playing.  Ronnie sings pretty well and his vocal style
 suited the guitar-and-harp duo well.  He's a good
 presenter and he was really enthusiastic whiteout being
 syrupy or cheesy about it.  I have an album of his and I
 liked it a lot, so seeing Ronnie play was what got me
 interested in the Roadshow in the first place.
 
 Ronnie showed some of the small differences
 between many of the higher-end Hohner models by playing them
 one after another over some guitar grooves laid down by
 Adam.  To be honest, all of them sounded great (I guess
 there is a lot to the "the tone comes from the player,
 not the gear" moralizing we all hear on MBH forum and
 Harp-L after all), but the character of each harp started to
 become clearer to me.  I liked the MB Deluxe a lot along
 with the Crossover, but the regular MB sounded great too.
  Ronnie also played the Rocket and the Thunderbird models
 as well.
 
 As good as Ronnie's second position playing
 was -- and it was really really good -- I was most impressed
 by his first position blues.  When most guys play straight
 harp blues, they all seem to pick from a very limited
 vocabulary.  Ronnie can definitely do a lot more than the
 same twelve or so 1st position licks we hear from everybody.
  He's got a lot of fluidity and uses the middle of the
 harp well in 1st, not just the top and bottom of the
 harp.
 
 One of the highlights for me was when Adam played
 a low-low F Thunderbird harmonica. He played a groove on the
 first couple of holes while Ronnie soloed with a regular low
 F Thunderbird.  The low-low F must be in the range of a
 bass harmonica.  What a cool thumpy sound it makes!
 
 As far as equipment goes, I had hoped that Ronnie
 would have the Memphis Mini amplifier, but instead he played
 through a little Vox amp that they sell in the store.  He
 brought along a gorgeous custom wood microphone from
 MBH's own Greg Heumann. I forgot to ask him which kind
 of wood it was made from, but it has a nice grain and the
 finish was smooth and shiny.  The mic had the volume
 control on the tail.  I got to handle it a little bit and
 the volume control was very smooth -- the microphone was
 really beautiful and lightweight.  I thought I overheard
 him say the mic had a black CR element in it.  When he
 demo-ed the Discovery chromatic, he played some outstanding
 slow third-position George Smith-style octaves and the tone
 was fantastic.  
 
 Ronnie led the class in learning basic a blues
 progression. This was old hat for many of the really
 experienced players, but there were also a fair number of
 traditional chromatic harmonica players that haven't
 really played diatonic before.  Some of them were from the
 Long Island harmonica club, which means two Wednesdays of
 each month in Massapequa (I can get contact information for
 anyone that's interested).
 
 Recently there was an MBH forum post (or was it a
 Harp-L post?) lamenting the fact that you had to buy a harp
 to try it out; that there are no demo harps to try before
 spending your hard-earned money.  This has always been a
 barrier to trying the more expensive models for me, because
 like many of you, I have kids and a mortgage and my wallet
 is frequently empty after the bills are paid at the end of
 the month, leaving few spare bucks to try new harps.  This
 is where the Roadshow shines...  One of my favorite parts
 of the evening was trying some of the orchestral and vintage
 harps along with the "petting zoo" of the newer
 models.  They were wiping the harps down liberally with
 alcohol so people could try them.  Maybe germophobes might
 have been creeped out, but I was really excited to have the
 ability to try some high-end harps without having to lay out
 sixty-plus dollars.  I tried the Thunderbird, which I
 loved, the MB deluxe, which seems like a really excellent
 blues-focused harp, and the Rocket.  The Rocket, while not
 my favorite harp of the bunch (still the Crossover for me),
 plays lightning fast and gets a lot of sound for relatively
 little effort.  I thought I was going to hate the narrow
 dividers between the holes but it turned out to be no big
 deal.  If I was a pro player, and I had to play some rock
 stuff, the Rocket would be my choice.  Fast runs can take
 on a Popper- or Ricci-sequel blistering pace with this harp.
  
 
 I was blown away by the overall quality of the
 $60-and-up harps in general.  For years I played Big River
 Harps because that's what I could afford, so these were
 a real treat.  
 
 Overall, the Hohner Roadshow was a lot of fun and it
 was FREE, which makes it even better.  My main
 recommendation for change would be simply to have Ronnie and
 Adam play more songs.  They were awesome together and it
 made for great listening.
 
 I would have been interested in -- since Ronnie
 and Adam were already there and all -- paying a fee for a
 more advanced session after the completion of the regular
 Roadshow.  I definitely would have paid thirty bucks or
 more for some higher-level stuff.  I can see how it
 wouldn't have fit into what they were trying to do with
 the Roadshow currently; the idea was to introduce the
 different models of harps to a wide variety of people.  But
 maybe a one-hour session on harp repair for $20 and an hour
 on advanced acoustic blues techniques for another $20?
  
 
 The only other constructive criticism I will make
 is that while Ronnie and Adam had brought some harps for the
 store to sell to attendees, Sam Ash and most other music
 stores typically do not carry enough of the newer models and
 even when they do, they don't have all the keys, and
 they are seven or so dollars more expensive per harp than
 online stores.  This is why so many of us use online
 vendors like Ron, etc.  I'd like to see the music store
 get something back so that they will want to host next
 year's edition of the Roadshow.  
 
 
 -- 
 William Lifford, CPProgressive O&P,
 Inc.1111 Willis AvenueAlbertson, NY
 11784516-338-8585