Here tis, after countless promises, here are pictures and descriptions of my homemade “StompBox”. Those of you who’ve been listening to Booze Monkey in recent years, and those of you who’ve been listening to The Simian Syndicate regularly, you should know what this post is about. For the rest of you a brief explanation follows.
When I perform under the Booze Monkey moniker I usually appear solo; previously I had a partner who played bass guitar. I switch between a Dobro (tuned open) with a slide and a Taylor acoustic guitar tuned to standard. I sing and simultaneously play my “StompBox”. If you listen to any of the Booze Monkey recordings, live or studio, you will hear a percussive element. This is my StompBox. It sounds like a combination of a bass drum and a back porch.
To accomplish this I took an Anvil brand briefcase, tore out its’ innards and installed a GHS brand microphone and an L.R. Baggs Paracoustic D.I. pre-amp. I usually connect it to the P.A. or recording board via an XLR connection.
I lay the StompBox on its’ side (I have little rubber feet stuck on the bottom via adhesive) and I place my foot on it. I then stomp along with the music. Quite a bit of the Booze Monkey music features a form of “Texas Shuffle” rhythm that loses its’ “pocket” without the StompBox, so much of the time I can’t perform the songs without it.
Most of the time I stomp with my heel, rocking on the ball of my foot, but I do sometimes alternate and play it with the front of my foot, sometimes I even lift my foot off of the case entirely and stomp rather violently. The song “Surely Hang” is an example of this. The unit is quite dynamic and I can also get different tones by moving my foot to different spots on it.
I’ve repeatedly made the joke that the one guaranteed way to be the “best” at something is to do something that no one else does. I’m the best briefcase player in the world.
This is my second actual StompBox. I wore the first one out and ordered this one special. The company emblazoned the Booze Monkey name on the case for me. Smile.
These two photos show how my foot rests on the unit. Also worthy of note is that I usually bring a specific stool along to shows. The reason for this is that it is set at the right height for me to anchor my weight with only one free foot. This may sound silly, but it can be very exhaustive. Because of the StompBox I can’t play while standing and it can be tricky to maintain balance while playing guitar, singing into a microphone and working the StompBox with my left foot. Drummers will understand as they usually have both feet working in addition to their upper limbs.
Here you see the inside of the unit. Another added bonus, it carries its’ own cables.
This is a close up of the L.R. Baggs preamp. These preamps are superb, I adore them. I use them for a standard acoustic guitar D.I. when I need one though I’m notorious for my love of mic’ing acoustic instruments. I, well, I despise the sound of an acoustic guitar plugged in, to be completely honest. In the StompBox I use the L.R. Baggs to shape the sound a bit and to eliminate feedback problems.
This is a closeup of the GHS microphone. Sadly we didn’t get a picture of the end of the mic. It looks a bit like E.T.’s finger. It curves around in the upper corner of the case and faces into the body of the unit from the corner.
This mic is generally sold for use in acoustic guitar sound holes, I’ve never found it tolerable for that. I do, however, think it sounds fantastic on a snare drum. I used it to mic the snare on my drum kit for several songs from my last solo album Something Borrowed Something. Since putting it into the StompBox(s), I’ve not removed it.
TMSK.mp3. Booze Monkey Theives, musicians, serial killers… The song is around 5 minutes in length- LAME encoded - approximately 9 MB filesize.
