Thanks for visiting my web site. I hope you like the snippets of my disc, "The Fundus Among Us". The CD is available for purchase on cdbaby.com/cd/paulkempkes - check it out!!.
Just a little rant on who I am. My musical training started in grade school where I played clarinet and saxophone in about all the concert, jazz, and marching bands there was. In ninth grade I bought a Fender Musicmaster bass (Ahh..Lake Placid Blue!) because wind instruments just didnıt cut it in a rock-n-roll band. Later, one of my teachers was Carmen Caramanica, of New Hartford, N.Y. For you central New Yorkers, he is the jazz cat you need to be around. He taught me more about music in a year and a half than I learned in all my years in grade school combined. I took a little hiatus from music to attend optometry school, which is how I pay the bills. When computers came around (yea, I'm that old), a good friend of mine turned me on to Band-in-a-Box, which really helped me to put it all together. In the meantime I've played in a whole bunch of rock bands and jazz combos. For the last eleven years I've been playing with the Ageless Jazz Band which is a 17 piece big band that has afforded me the opportunity to gig in Aruba nine times. Oh yes, soft gig, baby! So yeah, I can read. For the last year and a half I've been playing also with the Purple Valley, a five piece blues/rockabilly outfit thatıs just a gas to play in. The leader, John Saylor, has more fun on stage than is humanly possible. I recommend that you search out people who LOVE to play music. It matters more than I can say.
My main axe is an old Bass Collection four string fretless that I converted to a five string and upgraded with EMG P/J pickups. It's basically a low end Ibanez Soundgear bass. It's light, and the rosewood fingerboard is a real nice piece of wood. I have other basses, like a Stoneman fretless five with EMGıs and piezo pickups, a Warmouth fretless five (God almighty is it heavy), a very old fretted G&L L-1000, et.al., but they are merely wall art. As I've said before, you could put EMGıs on a turd and it'd sound good. I started playing a five string when I needed a high C string to play the trombone-n-bass soli part in a big band tune called ³Scissors and Glue². Iım saddened it's not in the big band's book anymore. I've been playing five string fretless almost exclusively for quite a while. It looks harder than it really is. I find that when playing a fretted bass I have to look at the fretboard more than usual, as the clams are much nastier. Remember: Analog corrupts gradually, digital corrupts absolutely. Amps are a Carvin PB-150 for the jazz gigs, Peavey Hernia 300 for the way-too-loud gigs. I add an Acme B-1 extension cabinet to either rig as needed. I also play guitar, mosty on a 1986 Carvin DC-200. Hard drive recording is sooo cool, 'cause there is no way I'm that good of a guitar player. Cut-n-paste, baby.
All the tune on the new disc are original compositions, as I'm too cheap to pay royalties. Kudos to those who can identify where I stole the changes for some of the tunes. I played all the instruments except for the drums which I copped from Band-in-a-Box. I did all the recording direct to hard drive, no mic's. I did all the mixing, mastering, artwork, and marketing. Truly a one-man-band. Outboard gear was a Zoom 506 pedal, Behringer Ultrafex Pro, and an Art tube pre-amp. I used Band-in-a-box to create a MIDI template, then used Power Tracks Pro as my D.A.W. workstation. No plug-ins. A Roland E-5 played the drums and very limited keys. The processor for most of the project was an AMD XP-1700 with a Soundblaster Audigy 2 sound card. Howıs that for low end! For some of the tunes, like The Velvet Elvis, I played the chords on a fretted Hohner B2A five string bass.
As I've mentioned on the disc, my wife Linda has provided much support for this project. She is truly the most important part of my life. It took me a while to be able to do this aspect of my life right, and I'm so very glad I've gotten the opportunity to do so. Advice I have to give: trust your gut!
Need a bass player? Look me up. Got some cool jam to share? Please do!
Paul Kempkes