Jonah Koslen (Lead Guitar/Lead and Backing Vocals)
 I'm more of a tech head than a gear head. I lean toward the shiny new bells and whistles rather than the vintage gear. And besides, I can't clearly remember what my set up was back in the day. So these days I'm using a Line6 Variax Guitar and a Line6 Pod X3. I can dial in all the vintage amp sounds and pedal effects on the Line6 Pod X3 and the Variax Guitar allows me to jump between the sounds of a classic Black Top Les Paul, a Vintage Stratocaster, a normal tuning Martin acoustic and, my favorite, the open G tuned, big body Gibson acoustic, all without ever changing guitars!
Any recollection of what my amp set up was or what my speaker cabinet configuration was is completely lost to me now. If any of our old road crew are out there and can remember, please drop me an email. Now I use an old Mosvalve Power Amp I got in the early 90's and a Line6 2-10 cabinet.
I do remember the effects I was using back in the day. I loved that MXR Phase 90! It was the bomb when it came out. Michael turned me on to it and after that I used it all the time. Slow phase on "Nothing's Gonna Change My Mind" and fast phase for a kinda tremelo effect on rhythm parts and figures. You can hear it in a supporting role filling out the arrangements in "Midwest Midnight", "Calcutta Auction" and several other cuts.
I loved the guitar, volume knob effect Phil Keggy used in Glass Harp, but I couldn't coordinate between my little finger on the volume knob and picking the strings. So I opted for a volume pedal instead. I usually used it in conjunction with my Echoplex tape delay with a long, slow, multi-repeat, delay for dynamic effect. The best example of this effect is on the intro and solo sections of "Let's Get the Show on the Road". Then I loved using the Echoplex with a fast, slap back effect to thicken the sound during solos and for the hand clap effect on "Nothing's Gonna Change My Mind" before the guitar solo. (Sometime later, you can hear the same effect on the intro to Breathless' "Walk Right In".)
I think I may have used an overdrive pedal from time to time, but mostly I just cranked my amp up loud and used my guitar settings to adjust the volume between solos and rhythm.
My classic, early 70's Les Pauls are long gone (sigh) but I do still have the Sigma acoustic guitar I used for Stagepass. It's the guitar I played to record the Stagepass versions of "Waste a Little Time on Me" and "Pierette".
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Donny Thompson (Rhythm Guitar/Lead and Backing Vocals)
 I'm using a Fender Telecaster, as well as a Strat, plugged into a Fender Hot Rod DeVille loaded with 4x10's. I didn't buy this gear for the Stage Pass Now project, I've had it for years, but it's a classic sound I've always liked and that I feel translates well into a variety of styles.
I'm pretty minimalistic in my approach to gear, because being the rhythm guitar player, I don't really need all the fancy bells & whistles that a lead player does. My job is to play in a very simple capacity, helping to hold down the rhythm section with Van and Billy.
For effect, I'm using an MXR Phase 90 to capture that mid seventies guitar sound (it was also pretty prevalent on the Stage Pass album).
For the acoustic songs, I'm using a Washburn 6 string acoustic / electric cutaway.
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Rik Williger (Keyboards/Multi-instrumentalist/Backing Vocals)
 When Jonah first contacted me about this project, I actually sat down and listened, I mean really listened, to the keyboard parts. I first had to determine how many sounds I was hearing in each song in order to determine how many keyboards I thought I might need for this project. I remember the 70's and 80's, and back then, I was surrounded by keyboards, so, and I knew Bob Pelander was no slouch when it came to gear. Anyhow, I finally figured out that I would need a minimum of five keyboards. I especially needed to be heavy on organ sounds, piano, clav, strings, and I needed a good synthesizer - preferably a Moog of some type.
I am still refining my gear but, for the moment, I am using a Yamaha Motif ES7 (piano and clav), Yamaha MO6 (organ and clav), Yamaha S30 (clav, piano, strings, synth), Alesis QuadraSynth (for those more authentic sounds, clav, strings, and a lead synth part), and my Moog Little Phatty for, well, the Moog synth sounds. I put the S30 through a delay unit for the delay part on Midwest Midnight. All the 'boards are going through a Mackie 8 channel powered mixer. My onstage monitor is a Roland KC550. For guitars, I usually use my Line 6 wonderwhiz guitar with all the computer modeled sounds. I find it to be less temperamental than an acoustic.
For flute, I prefer my Gemeinhardt open holed M3, although I will also use a Selmer silver-plated flute, as it is not as susceptible to the cold and will sharp-up more quickly. And, I will admit to using hole plugs on the Gemeinhardt on occasion if I haven't played for a while.
Harmonica-wise, I play mostly Hohners, although I have tried and like a few Seydels, Bushman, and Lee Oskars. I normally prefer the Hohner Golden Melody, for its ease in bending and overblowing, despite its just temperament tuning.
For keyboard stands I am using OnStage and QuikLok stands. I always use at least two-beam support stands for stability. I'll give you more information later on how I approached the songs so as to impart as much authenticity as possible. |
Bill March (Bass/Backing and Lead Vocals)
 I use a Fender 5-string Jazz Bass with a Gallien Krueger 400 RB (Mark IV-No Less) and a Hartke cabinet with 4 10" speakers. I've chosen this configuration to do my best to invoke the spirt of Daniel Pecchio's style and playing.
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Van Eidom (Drums/Percussion/Backing Vocals)
 The Tama kit I plan to use is very similar to the one Tom Dobeck used in the 80's but I have no idea what he played in 70's on Stagepass (I was Ludwig guy back then). I'm gonna email Tom to find out more. I'll get back to you later when I hear from him.
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