Bob Weir, of the Grateful Dead, and who is currently on a brief break mid-tour with Dead and Company, stopped by a local music store to talk about his new toy, and play a couple songs to a small crowd gathered to see him. Bananas at Large in San Rafael, California, got a last minute permit to block off a section of E Street for a couple hours in the afternoon. The free event got over 200 sign-ups, and the store manger said he thought it was too many people to do it inside the store, as originally planned. My guess is that it was more along the lines of 150 people, and some of the folks were locals who just happened to be walking by…
I had heard about it a couple weeks or so ago, and had signed up on the stores website, and conveniently for me, it’s a 5 minute walk from my office (I have a “Day Job” – until my night job pays…). I got there around three, and they were set up outside,t hough less than a dozen people were there early. By 4pm the crowd had swelled. The Bananas guy filled us in on the history, and story of the name of the store (no real connection to Banana from the Youngbloods, BTW). The Pigtronix guy sang a couple of his originals, which were pretty good. He told us the history of Pigtronix, which started 20 years ago because he wanted to re-create a very specific Bob Weir sound from a specific Estimated Prophet – and the Pig in the name was in tribute to Pigpen too. He detailed his getting to know Bob, and was very pleased with the full circle of eventually working with Bob on his new pedal.
Which was the reason we Weir here! Bob Weir and Pigtronix worked together on Bob Weir’s “Real Deal” Acoustic preamp pedal. Bob and his tech guru at TRI Studios, Mike McGinn had a method of using a mic inside a guitar to get the high end, and getting the low end off the pickup (or was it the other way around? lol) and mixing them – anyway, this Box does the deal and allows you to mix two inputs, cutting off the low on one and the high on the other – and making it into one unified rich acoustic sound – that can be “loud enough to knock your teeth out” – so to speak!
Bob Weir
“Real Deal” Acoustic Pedal Launch with Pigtronix
E Street Stage
Banana’s at Large
San Rafael, California
Wednesday June 28, 2018
Talk about the pedal and demo of different channels with Mike McGinn, Pigtronix and Bob Weir
Loose Lucy
Only A River
Q & A
(they told me no video, and I obliged – but someone else got there late and didn’t know, and thankfully caught Bob’s performance of two songs.)
Bob Weir – Loose Lucy
Bob Weir – Only A River
Thank you Bob, it was wonderful to see you, and hear about the “Real Deal”
Always Grateful!
DHL
