Sparks of the Tempest Bass Cover

Lynn and I are going to see Kansas tonight at The Palace Theatre in Albany, NY where they will be performing the “Point of Know Return” album in its entirety.

This one’s a couple of years old - “Sparks of the Tempest” by Kansas off of their “Point of Know Return” album which came out in 1977 and features one of my favorite bass players, Dave Hope, on bass.

A small point of interest regarding tonight’s show - I was contacted a while back on Facebook by a fellow named Eric Holmquist. Our common interest is mask collecting. He is a big of the Universal Monsters and has many of the Don Post Calendar Mask collection, as well as many other vintage horror related items. He also happens to be Phil Ehart’s drum tech and is a fine drummer in his own right. I actually saw him fill in for him at a show when Phil was downed by a bad case of kidney stones. Not that there’s such a thing as a “good” case of kidney stones. I didn’t even realize it wasn’t Phil until a few songs into the show. Anyway, back in the mid-90’s, Lynn and I bought a bunch of these horror figure sets when they were on clearance at Toys-R-Us. They were called, “Little Big Heads” and were 15 classic Universal Monster caricature figures which were very nicely done. We made ornaments out of them for a Halloween tree and we also handed them out individually as party favors one year. A while back, I came across a set that I’d put aside and forgotten about. They reminded me of the sort of stuff that Eric collects and I thought he might like them, so we are going to meet with him before the show to hand them off. They were, quite literally, collecting dust in the basement and I'm happy that I could find them a good home.

While on the topic of “Favorite Bass Players”, there’s another guy who always makes my Top 5 list and that is Rick Anderson from The Tubes. We saw them earlier this year and, as much as I love the band, I never had the opportunity to see them before then. We had tickets in the late 90’s, but the show was cancelled. Again, we had tickets to see them on Halloween a few years ago, but a Halloween related emergency came up and we had to give those away. We really enjoyed the show when we finally did see them and when we heard that they were going to play at Daryll’s House we decided to get seats there as well. I was curious to see what it would be like to see them in such an intimate setting. Daryll’s probably holds only 150 people. It’s really a great venue that has topnotch sound, food, and drinks. The show was great, as was the sound, food, and drinks. We actually stayed for the encore and Fee said that they were going to come out to the concession booth and sign some stuff. I’d had more than my usual input of Tanqueray and decided that I was going to stick around to pay my respects to Rick. I’m not really into the whole “meet and greet” thing, but there have been certain artists that I’ve always wanted to pay my respects to and there’s no real rhyme or reason to that short list. Rick has always been on that list, as has Dan K. Brown from The Fixx. The band had a pre-show M&G that got you into the sound check and some loot that went for $100 and I would have definitely done it, but it would have meant getting out of work way early and it was our last day of work before vacation, so we didn’t. Because I didn’t want to seem as though I was looking for a “free” M&G, I tried to hand Rick a $20 when I asked him for a photo-op. Since I was only really interested in meeting him, I had no problem paying the 20% of the $100 directly to him, but he would not take it. He was like, “Well, let me give you a t-shirt or something.” And I said, “My wife already bought a t-shirt and I don’t wear them, please take the money.” It went back and forth for a bit like that until he said, “Hey, is your name Todd, or something?” I said, “It’s Troy.” And he said, “You’re the guy on YouTube. You’ve done more Tubes covers than anyone and you even play the keyboard part in Fantastic Delusion!” Well, that was it! My voice went up an octave and we both started blabbering, near shouting, at each other. A line of fans had formed to meet Rick, but he and I were really going to town, chatting it up, so I offered my back up for Rick to sign people’s shirts and would pick up our conversation in between. I’m normally very sensitive as far as trying my best to stay out of people’s way, but, in this instance I had no regard and I humbly apologize to the people who had to wait because I was monopolizing Rick Anderson’s time and attention. It was definitely inappropriate and not something I’d normally do. When I finally made it out to the car I realized that I had to use the bathroom and went back inside and started talking to Rick again, until Lynn came in to fetch me.

I’m playing the Ibanez Roadstar II RB-850. I played one of these for quite a few years as my main bass back in the mid-80’s/early-90’s.