David Wilcox and his Rainsong

[bnjp]

Saw David Wilcox tonight in Hendersonville, NC...GREAT SHOW! David is so good at that after doing it for 20 years now. The last CD of his I bought was 15 years ago and I had never seen him live. Tonight was real treat!

The most impressive thing for me was his control of the audience. It was 2 hours with no break and he had us the whole time. He is very good at transitioning between songs and is so poetic in everything he does. Great artistic performance and he sings content-filled songs that really mean something. I was glad to be able to go.

As for his guitar. He played a jumbo bodied rainsong with tons of modifications to the electronics. The bridge looks just like a hardtail strat bridge (i'm guessing it's a fishman powerbridge or something similar). The following was posted by Tom Simonson on the David Wilcox forum describing the guitar. Very interesting...

"Bob, There is indeed a custom bridge on the guitar. Each string has an independent pickup/MIDI send so that, if desired, David can use a MIDI cable to connect to a suboctave generator and assign it to specific strings. (However, he is not doing that at present). It also has a piezo pickup setup in the bridge. The rest of the pickups/mics are as follows: An AKG 460 external mic on the mic stand, a Sunrise magnetic pickup, a Joe Mills Condenser mic mounted inside the guitar. David also uses a Pendulum preamp module."

[bnjp]

Here's one more photo I took. A close up of the bridge. I've definitely never seen anything like this on an acoustic before!

[hansentj]

Possibly my biggest musical hero. I haven't been fond of his last four or so albums, but the stuff before that is music that makes me excited to be alive. Thanks for the pictures.

[hansentj]

Originally Posted by bnjp

"Bob, There is indeed a custom bridge on the guitar. Each string has an independent pickup/MIDI send so that, if desired, David can use a MIDI cable to connect to a suboctave generator and assign it to specific strings. (However, he is not doing that at present). It also has a piezo pickup setup in the bridge. The rest of the pickups/mics are as follows: An AKG 460 external mic on the mic stand, a Sunrise magnetic pickup, a Joe Mills Condenser mic mounted inside the guitar. David also uses a Pendulum preamp module."

This just confirms what I already knew. David Wilcox may be as big a gear head as anyone.

[PhilT]

I believe the bridge pickup system is from RMC Pickup Co.:

http://www.rmcpickup.com/

David had this system in his Olson and it looks like this Rainsong has the same thing. Neat system when you really want to dial in each string.

[fingerpickerguy]

I love David Wilcox. I saw him last year an felt the same way you did. Leave it Like it is has always been a favorite song of mine. In fact, i would have to credit that song for introducing me to acoustic blues that I have loved so much for the past 15 years or so. I can still remember the first time I heard it. His new album is pretty good. It isn't produced all that well, but the songs are mostly good. I would prefer it if he would stay away from politics, but he is a songwriter and it is hard for them to not write songs about certain subjects.

In Minneapolis, I have a struggle. I have 2 very young daughters. In October, we have Joe Satriani w/Leslie West on a Tuesday, Tommy Emmanuel on a Wednesday and David Wilcox on a Thursday. I am torn. I would like to see all 3, but I don't think that I could do that to my wife. I have to figure out which 1 or 2 I will go to.

[fitness1]

David's the greatest......I wish I had one one hundredth of his songwriting skills......he's an alien, I think!

and, he's been at it for more than 20 years, I'm afraid!!