Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

nice shot. where was that taken?

It's the Grand Ballroom at the Hyatt-downtown. They were throwing a party for the big $$ clients.

iamthebassman wrote:It's the Grand Ballroom at the Hyatt-downtown. They were throwing a party for the big $$ clients.

Right on!

We have our first gig in 2 weeks. Things are really starting to come together now.

nice

Eggmen ROCK!

hey Ronn.... if you get tired of that violin bass, why not try an Eastwood Club bass? It's certainly in the spirit of the Beatles.
I have one (in black) and once I put on Pyramid flats I found the sound to be GREAT.

http://www.eastwoodguitars.com/

correction... it's TI Jazz flats that sound so good on the Club bass.

Hmmmm..... it appears that Eastwood doesn't make a Club Bass for lefties.

Hi Ronn..... surfing around, it appears that you were not with the Eggmen when the band formed in 1992 (or at least were using a different name). In fact it looks like there have been a few changes in the lineup over the years and at one point there were 6 members. Can you tell us all a bit of the history of the band?

brammy wrote:Eggmen ROCK!

hey Ronn.... if you get tired of that violin bass, why not try an Eastwood Club bass? It's certainly in the spirit of the Beatles.
I have one (in black) and once I put on Pyramid flats I found the sound to be GREAT.

http://www.eastwoodguitars.com/

club-bass.jpg

Well, since that Hofner in the photo cost me $1700 about 10 years ago I'll probably hang onto it. I DO have a black Brice violin bass that I use for gigs we fly to, keeps the Hofner out of baggage handlers' hands. I'd like to get one of the Eastwood copies of the old Ampeg bass.

brammy wrote:Hi Ronn..... surfing around, it appears that you were not with the Eggmen when the band formed in 1992 (or at least were using a different name). In fact it looks like there have been a few changes in the lineup over the years and at one point there were 6 members. Can you tell us all a bit of the history of the band?

eggmen.jpg

OK, this might take a while
The history of The Eggmen starts in Corpus Christi,Texas in 1982. I had just spent the last four years playing in a semi-well known Punk band(at least in Texas), The Stiffs. I was hurting for $$ so I answered an ad for a cover band that needed a bassist. I didn't really know what a cover band was, and I was pretty put-off when I found out, having been part of the "next big thing"(blah,blah,blah). Anyway, the band was three brothers; John(r.guitar), Tom(keys), and Chris(l.guitar). We gigged for a few years in South Texas, with several different drummers, playing Top40 and Beatles tunes, then the brothers split to the East Coast. By 1990 all four of us were living in Austin,Texas. Tom had switched to drums and was playing in a local band, the other two were out of the scene. I was playing in a popular band Trance Farmers, and working at a bookstore(all musicians in Austin either work at a bookstore or a sandwich shop) with John's wife, who told me Tom was now playing drums. I had an idea that with Tom on drums and the other two brothers on guitar, we could put a band together and play Beatles tunes. Surely there'd be a market for that. So that's what we did. John(r.guitar), Chris(l.guitar), Tom(drums), and me, Ronn(bass). Our first gig was Winter '92. After a few years of hit and miss gigs Chris left. We got by with a few replacements till we found John#2. We started getting popular and hired a soundman, John#3. Things started to get a bit crazy with three guys named John so we came up with the idea of having fake/stage names. Since John was the rythym guitar in a Beatles band it was decided he'd stay John; John(l.guitar) became "Basil"; since Tom was playing drums in a Beatles band he kinda morphed Ringo with Tom and became "Tommo"; I became "Nigel". Up to this point we were dressing in matching suits and only playing the early Beatles tunes, but I really wanted to play the later stuff(and thus get to play a Ric bass). Around 1997 a guy started showing up at gigs, turns out he was the drummer in a famous Texas band from the 60s, he was David Fore of Bubble Puppy. I immediately saw my chance and asked him to join the band. He did, and Tommo switched back to his "real" instrument the keys, and we were then able to play any Beatles song we wished. Things started to get busy and since we were all gearheads we started bringing LOTS of guitars to shows. We needed someone to look after them; tuning, swapping out, etc. So another fan who was coming to lots of shows was asked to look after the guitars, his name was Brian. As things evolved we found some potentail customers didn't want Beatles tunes all night so we started learning some new songs. The show became: 1st set(early Beatles), 2nd set(later Beatles), 3rd set(British Invasion/60s). Which of course meant more guitars! In between the 2nd and 3rd set Brian plays a short solo acoustic 60s set. David(Davy) retired from the biz in 2005 and was replaced by Steven(Terry) from Scotland. And this current 6-man line-up is shown in the cartoon above, and in the photo(except Brian who is off-stage with the guitars). We've gigged as far away as Salt Lake City and Wash.D.C., average about 10 gigs a month, and have won the Austin Music Award for Best Cover Band 5 years in a row!!
And that brings you up to speed on The Eggmen.
Ronn(Nigel)

Since I mentioned them in my last post I thought it might be fun to list all guitars brought for a typical Eggmen gig.

John:
Rickenbacker 320
Epiphone Casino
Epiphone J160E-JL acoustic
Fender Telecaster
Phanton Teardrop Brian Jones

Basil:
Rickenbacker 12-string
Gretsch Country Gent
Epiphone Casino
Fender Strat(painted as George's "Rocky")
Gibson Les Paul(refinished as George's "Lucy")
Fender Strat
Danelectro

Nigel:
Hofner '63 reissue Beatle(LH)
Rickenbacker 4001S(LH) (painted as Paul's during MMT)
Rickenbacker 4003FG(LH)
SX Jazz(LH) (sunburst, w/covers)
Jerry Jones Master electric sitar
Phanton Teardrop Hollow BW
Gibson EB-2
SX P/J(LH)

Thanks Nigel... great story.

Dang, thats a heluva list of guitars. What does the total entourage look like when you go for a gig (both local and remote)? Roadies, no doubt... but also what does your sound system look like (described for the layman). I suppose you have someone in the back of the room mixing, eh? Must be nice to just plug'n'play as opposed to playing moving-man twice a night and constantly thinking about volumes and mixes.

Yep, one guitar tech and two sound/light guys. As far as PA goes, it belongs to the sound guys so I don't really know much at all about it, the board(its huge), effects rack(huge). On-stage there's 5 monitors, and the mains....they're huge, that's about all I know of the sound system. Oh and that I don't have to mess with it!

Ronn, can you comment on how the Jerry Jones sitar works? I've never heard one, but me and a friend have hobby of recreating Beatles' tunes. We're having a lot of fun doing this, even able to recreate some of the later stuff with keyboards, much like I imagine the Eggmen do. But we kinda hit a brick wall when it comes to sitar. We're probably not so ambitious to tackle a "Within You, Without You", but it would be fun to do something like "Norwegian Wood" or "Love You To".

So, does the Jerry Jones sitar fill the bill as far as a realistic sitar sound? I'll even take "close enough for government work".

Sitars, in a reasonably-equipped and acceptable-sounding full-sized "student" version, made by hand in the traditional way, are available from a number of vendors for less money that the JJ Sitar. Not that there's anything wrong with the JJ version.

I got my own sitar for free from a dumpster. A bit of cleaning, a new set of strings, and it is buzzing along.

Ronn, is that a Nordelectro that your keyboardist is using? Why not a VOX Continental? Or--better yet from a reliability standpoint, why not a Connie or Jaguar case with the guts from a short Nord installed within? That'd give you the look, too...

Maybe not worth it for a touring band?