Tony Cox - garden party - GuitarTalk Community

Tony Cox - garden party

Bob-Dubery

Hi all,

Went to see Mr Cox at a garden party sort of event in Bryanston yesterday. Nice venue on a beautiful highveld autumn afternoon - the musos in a lapa and the audience spread out around an attractive garden. AND they provided ladies and gents loos. We took a picnic basket.

The support act was Mike Burger and Richard Bruyns. Some of you may know Richard as the sales manager at Andy McGibbons. Mike plays finger-style acoustic (two Larrivees - an OM-05 and a limited edition JCL), Richard plays lap steel (a National, metal-bodied with 3 cones). They combine very well with Richard occasionally showing his gruff, half-spoken vocals. The sound was very good - you could hear the two guitars as two separate instruments, and thus you could hear the two intertwined guitar parts.

A nice set from these two - anything with a lap steel in Jo'burg is automatically novel and different, but that aside they chose interesting material and they worked together very well in the way they complemented each other's playing.

The main act was up next. Playing a Mervyn Davis Smoothtalker. Loud! (or noticably louder, the PA was set somewhere south of "ears will bleed") Does that Davis guitar have remarkable grunt? Does Cox has considerable power in his hands? I suspect both.

His playing was precise, potent and very agile. At one point one of the friends I was with asked where the bass player was - guitarists of this caliber can occasionally cause moments of disbelief.

I enjoyed Cox's set, but it was a bit hard going for those who hadn't seen him before (he seemed to know most of the audience) as he stuck mostly to pieces that were technically challenging but not easily taken in.

Then there was surprise 3rd act. Tony Russell. I have heard about Tony Russell but never heard him. Some of the better players I know go to him for lessons - but more to do with musical theory and possiblities than "let's teach you this technique". Tony played with a rhythm section (stand-up bass) and himself had a gorgeous late 50s Gibson arch-top. I think an ES-125. Classic jazz axe - single pickup up near the neck, trapeze tailpiece, floating bridge.

He plays in a style akin to Barney Kessell or Kenny Burrell and has considerable chops. A set of standards ("Night And Day","Stompin' At The Savoy") with great soloing and chord work laid on top. He stole the show and got two encores.

All in all a great way to spend a clear, warm(ish) Highveld autumn afternoon. Tony Cox had just been in the UK and then in Canada and was so enthused by the relatively warm weather that he was wearing shorts.

Squonk

sounds good Bob, I hope you were wearing shorts!
Does Tony go directly into the PA, any type of effects?

Bob-Dubery

Squonk wrote: sounds good Bob, I hope you were wearing shorts!
Does Tony go directly into the PA, any type of effects?

As far as I could tell he had two stomp boxes on stage with him. One was a delay effect, presumably with a tap tempo feature. The other he seemed to use to mute the sound when he was tuning or talking between songs. Wouldn't have been a DI box because he was running an unbalanced lined from his stomp boxes to a little Roland amp on the stage. Most of the time he played with no effects. The delay got used for a couple of numbers.

Bob-Dubery

Squonk wrote: sounds good Bob, I hope you were wearing shorts!

No. I was in hospital a couple of months ago with a deep vein thrombosis and currently have to wear a rather unsexy and distinctly un-rock 'n roll elastic stocking. So I like to keep that covered up.

I WAS wearing crocs though. An orange pair. Very fetching.

Keira-WitherKay

hello Bob, you lucky devil, i am supposed to be off to see tony at a pvt show at friends in hartebeespoort today but my partner is ill damn ..... so still in air whether we will go..... but it's only at 4 so plenty time ....

but about the DI box if the roland amp he was playing through was the Roland AC 60 or 90 which is more than likely( steve newman uses ones so does greg georgiades) this is a dedicated acoustic amp...and so small it looks like a practise amp.... don't be mislead this is a very serious top of the line acoustic amp.........

basically a roland version of the rolls royce of acoustic amps the AER .... and the roland (and AER ) have DI box's built into the amp.... so the line out to PA from amp is actually a balanced line...and in the case of both AC 60 and 90 also are stereo DI outs since the amps are true stereo amps ...so it actually has 2 DI box's ...... beautiful features for an acoustic amp if you not seeking the option of running it on battery power..... ( the AER offers a battery powered model)

here is the roland website for the 60 (they make a 90 too) if you go to the photo section and pick rear view you can see the 2 balanaced cannon connectors in back of the amp( this is the stereo DI box to connect to PA)

http://www.roland.com/products/en/AC-60/images.html#

peace and light
Keira

Bob-Dubery

Keira WitherKay wrote: hello Bob, you lucky devil, i am supposed to be off to see tony at a pvt show at friends in hartebeespoort today but my partner is ill damn ..... so still in air whether we will go..... but it's only at 4 so plenty time ....

but about the DI box if the roland amp he was playing through was the Roland AC 60 or 90 which is more than likely( steve newman uses ones so does greg georgiades) this is a dedicated acoustic amp...and so small it looks like a practise amp.... don't be mislead this is a very serious top of the line acoustic amp.........

I'm not sure it was his amp. Everybody played through the thing, and it was on stage before he arrived at the venue. I'm sure it was a good quality amp. When I said "little" I meant "doesn't look like something you'd see on stage at a Who concert".

Keira-WitherKay

Bob if it was Roland and the gig acoustic i would put money on it being an Ac 60 or 90 heheheh great amp

Bob-Dubery

Keira WitherKay wrote: Bob if it was Roland and the gig acoustic i would put money on it being an Ac 60 or 90 heheheh great amp

I think it was a Roland, can't swear to the model number. The acoustic guitars (and Tony Russel's Gibson) were all run into this amp, and there was a balanced line from the amp to the desk.

Riaan-Combrink

Nice review! Almost felt the Highveld air on my legs down hear in a miserably cold Cape Town.

Hope you had those hand-knitten woolies complementing the crocs, Bob ... ?

Bob-Dubery

Riaan C wrote: Nice review! Almost felt the Highveld air on my legs down hear in a miserably cold Cape Town.

Hope you had those hand-knitten woolies complementing the crocs, Bob ... ?

Absoloodely! The hand-knitted socks are just the best thing to wear - anything you can buy in a shop doesn't even start to compare. And I'm not just talking about the colours! To pull on a pair of those hand-knitted socks (and I am lucky enough to have 9 or 10 pairs) is to feel better than James Brown, to feel one's karma parting company with the wheel of birth and death. They are ... BEYOND, man.

Dirk

Hey, I didn't know Richard was a drummer. Thought he was a guitarist

Bob-Dubery

Keira WitherKay wrote: Bob if it was Roland and the gig acoustic i would put money on it being an Ac 60 or 90 heheheh great amp

I can now confirm that
a) It was an AC-60
b) It was not Tony Cox's