Lauryn + Eric | 12.30.2017 | Brooklyn Arts Center at St. Andrews | p: Kate Supa | planner: Knot Too Shabby Events

I've been to noon weddings, and to lunchtime receptions, but I've never seen anything like this crew in Long Island. They were fired up and ready to roll!

Trisha's review of the band above warms our hearts. We met at Sydney's and Chris's September 2014 wedding at the Wythe Hotel in Brooklyn, and began email correspondence the next day, reconnecting in January 2016 when their wedding planning began in earnest. So as you could expect, we've developed a friendship over the past two-and-a-half years, and can't wait to see them in Virginia when their schedules allow.

The crew enjoyed our stay in our favorite Brooklyn brownstone, and our favorite neighborhood restaurant for two nights in order to make the early load-in at Fox Hollow. We've been fortunate enough to have consistent repeat and referral clients in New York who keep us as semi-frequent visitors.

The video above was posted on Instagram by Your Wedding Films on Monday March 13th--two days after the wedding. How's that for quick turn around in the editing queue! Well done, guys! They really captured the energy we try to bring as #TheWeddingBandForPeopleWhoHateWeddingBands. And yes, the dry cleaning bill is but a small price to pay for getting to do power slides in white pants.  

The aforementioned Sydney, Trisha, and Mikey share their impressions about our little yacht rock band below. 

Behind The Curtain will be an ongoing feature of this blog detailing the technical solutions we invest in and the advantages these solutions offer our clients for their events.  This--our first installment--deals with our guitar rigs.

LOOK MOM, NO AMPS!
One of the first things people notice about our stage setup is how clean it is. Sometimes they notice that we don't have  on-stage monitors; sometimes they notice that we don't use any wobbly tripod stands for speakers or lights; but generally the first thing musically savvy people notice is that we don't have amps on stage. The advantage are clear: a more controllable stage volume, and a cleaner stage. But what's the secret?

GOING DIRECT
We'll first examine Topper Dandy's solution for playing without an amp. He actually uses an amp--just not the kind you're used to seeing: 

The two pictures above show Topper's pedalboard and amp.  The top left image shows the pedalboard from above, while the top right image flips the board to show the routing underneath. The large black pedal that says ETHOS Overdrive is the amp, and the proverbial straw that stirs the drink. Like any more conventional combo amp or head, it can drive an 8 ohm speaker cabinet, has a speaker simulator output (which Topper sends directly into the sound board in most cases), and an effects loop in which Topper has routed several essential '70s and '80s time-based effects (Phaser, Chorus/Flanger, Reverb, and Analog Delay). Going into the front end of the amp are other pedals including a wah, clean boost (The EP Booster is always on, and can be seen in the upper right image mounted underneath the board), and a dual drive box for light to moderate gain. The pedals and settings were chosen to approximate the various guitar tones you hear from Steely Dan, Toto, Hall & Oates, and others in the yacht rock genre.  

EXPANDABILITY
Choosing pedals, locking your pedal board plan down, and then changing your mind later is an inevitability for a guitarist. Thankfully, Temple Pedal boards has provided a great solution for expanding the board through their optional side-panel-integrated patch bays.  By adding a turnaround "loop" in the effects loop chain, Topper can add a pedal (or more) into the chain without committing to it permanently. In the two pictures above you see two options: a Boss CE2-w Chorus on the left, and a mini Volume Pedal on the right. For a Hall & Oates heavy set, Topper prefers having the Boss Chorus in the chain, but on another night, he might leave it out and. The patch bay allows him to adapt his sound as needed for the set without tearing apart his core setup. 

I/O CLARITY / CABLE MANAGEMENT
This paragraph, and the accompanying picture at left is added perspective for guitarists interested in the side panel patch bay I was describing above. (Look for the four red hex nuts.) You can see the IEC cable input (which powers the entire rig with one cable) at the top of the board in the bottom left of the picture.  The 90 degree Monster cable is plugged in to 1/4" patch routed from the ETHOS speaker sim output.  That routing keeps the cabling neat and out from underfoot. The next output is unused in this rig, while the final two outputs closest to the foot of the board are routed as a "send" and "return" inside the effects loop chain. The entire chain starts with the Line6 wireless receiver (the pedal with the antennas), and ends in the patch bay output. The wireless unit allows the guitarist to really "explore the space," in the parlance of our times, and to, once again, ensure a clean stage. 

ONE MORE ASIDE
Just one IEC cable routes power to the pedals PLUS a USB charger on the other side of the board as a convenient iPhone charger.  Good on ya, Temple Boards!

For the past 6 years, we have been fortunate enough to describe our gratitude in being named Richmond's Best Band as voted by Richmond Magazine readers for the annual Best & Worst Issue. It's been an amazing run, and I can promise you that each win was more unbelievable to us than the last. This year, however, we write with a different sense of gratitude and perspective as participants in and fans of the amazing Richmond musical community--a community that No BS Brass Band reps everywhere they go. From the top of the Forbes building, to NPR's Tiny Desk series, to Paris and beyond, No BS lives the RVA All Day gospel they preach.

The No BS family and the Three Sheets family goes back a long way as Reggie Pace and Topper were in a band called The Heavy Rotations together before Three Sheets and Bon Iver came calling. In fact, Reggie's horn arrangements got the the Rounding Cape Horns started 6 years ago! David Hood, Bryan Hooten, John Hulley, Reggie, and Marcus Tenney have all played with Three Sheets over the years, and when we had the opportunity to headline Friday Cheers a few years back, we got to ask No BS to join us on the bill and on the stage. The band is a monster, and it feels great to be named in their company - even when we occupy the number two slot!

And don't even get us started about the other bands on this list! Twist our arm? Okay, we'll start anyway with DJ Williams Projekt! Man, when DJ sat in with us at the Republic a few years ago, we said he could have a yacht rock name. He chose "Leroy Cadillac Williams," which - although less yachty than some yacht rock names - certainly hits the '70s-Curtis-Mayfield-Skip-Pitts-Soul-Jazz vibe that imbues his playing. Now he's moving to LA - home of yacht rock, and touring the world with various projects. Mark Ingraham Jr. was also a major factor in The Heavy Rotations and the SWiTCH with Tops for even longer than Reggie, while Gordon Jones also blessed the Republic stage for a few hours with Three Sheets back in the day. And Dusty on the drums has played with all kinds of bands across the country, but Three Sheets fans know him as Bobby Bravado - drummer, percussionist, and rapper extraordinaire!

We've played two weddings this past year where Barry Privett from Carbon Leaf was in attendance (although he is still yet to join us on stage). One of those weddings was for Carbon Leaf's longtime LD / monitor engineer Chris Buford, whom Topper met when they were both in college at an Agents of Good Roots show - the former band of current Three Sheets saxophonist Mister Cool.  (Are you following this?)  And when Topper needed some advice on buying his Reverend Buckshot, Carter Gravatt was cool enough to meet him out to the store and play for a while. And while we don't cross paths as often with the country musicians on this list - Jackson Ward and Pat Russell - it is well documented that Tony from Jackson Ward is a big supporter of bands in the scene. When Jackson Ward is off the road, he's often found in the crowd at local spots around town. Pat might be the hardest working musician on this list - playing solo gigs in restaurants and full band gigs all over town. And perhaps the silliest thing of all is that Lucy Dacus, an incredible songwriter and a Rolling Stone Magazine 2016 "artist to watch" is listed behind our little soft rock cover band. On the one hand, we're super grateful for the votes and appreciate the love, but on the other hand we know we're on the wrong side of history here. It would be incredible, though, to be mentioned in her future VH-1 Behind The Music episode wherein she describes how tough it was in the early days when hometown voters ranked her just behind a yacht rock cover band in the Best & Worst Issue! Now signed to Matador Records, we will all enjoy watching Lucy's career take off.

As we've said before, we sincerely appreciate the recognition and support of our hometown family. As I finish this post, we're headed out to participate in our 7th annual Massey on the River fundraiser - one that's on track to break all previous fundraising records. And when we can do what we love, playing music we love, in a town we love, with the support of so many awesome people, we can truly be grateful to be named #2.

Massanutten Resort provided the scenery; we provided the music. And by "we," I mean the three-pronged en échelon attack of Party of Four, Tëaze, and Three Sheets to the Wind--America's #1 tributes to 80s/90s jangle pop, 80s hair metal, and yacht rock, respectively. The staff and crew were great to all of us while we shared their mountain with them over the holiday weekend. 

Massanutten Resort Summer Jam "Rock of the Ages"
Sound and Lights by Sound Impression.
Bands booked by EastCoast Entertainment.
All proceeds benefitted Rockingham/Harrisonburg SPCA.

Four times in human history has an audience witnessed the Hall & Oates tribute set from Three Sheets to the Wind.  Richmond. Norfolk. Philly. And ... Richmond again. As the photos below attest, good times were had by all at The Broadberry on Friday June 3rd for our Great Yacht American Summer show.  Special thanks to Captain Max Power's brother, Admiral Hal Power, for joining us on stage during Billy Joel's My Life.

All photos below by Kai Eason

The old joke would be more accurate in this case if it were to say, "a bride and groom walk into their bar." Do us a favor. Next time you're in Elon, NC, drop by The West End Terrace and tell them that your friends in Three Sheets to the Wind sent you. That's right, Austin and "H,"--bar / music venue owners--booked our yacht rock band for their wedding. 

You don't have to spend a lot of time around Austin and H to understand that their family are friends, and their friends are family. A smarter blogger would find a sneaky, humble-brag-y way to talk about how we make our clients feel like family, but the truth is that they made us feel like a part of theirs. 

Damn that tent was COLD, wasn't it? Although our fingers fumbled a bit on hard-to-tune guitar strings, and Danny traded his short shorts for longer pants, the dance floor radiated enough heat to keep us all going. Ably deputizing for JC Cool, Roxy Smoothly joined us on sax for the first time in a few months, and good times were had by all. The images from Finch and Farrow capture a lot of smiling faces. I have a feeling we'll see a few of those faces again. 

And Austin--I'm not sure how many others noticed the string arrangement of You Enjoy Myself that was played as you were led to the altar, but we did. Well played, Mrs. Hill. Well played.