Our tribute to the Shadows

[Ivan Pongracic Jr]

Hi all!

Been absent again for a few months, mostly because my surf band has been working really hard to finish up our third full-length album, "Tribal Fires." The album is now at the manufacturer and will be coming out on March 6th. The reason I am posting this here is that included in the album is our loving and respectful tribute to the Shadows and Jerry Lordan, titled "Twilight." I wrote the song hoping to capture the feel of those great Lordan epics, such as "Wonderful Land" and "Atlantis" in particular. Of course, that's setting the bar stupidly high, so if any of you feel we got even 50% there, we'll consider it a huge success! You can now hear the track on our MySpace page: http://www.myspace.com/themadeira

I used:
1997 '62 reissue Strat with Seymour Duncan Antiquity II Surfer pickups
Zoom RFX-2000 loaded with Echoes from the Past
2000 Made in UK Vox AC30TB

I very much hope people here like it - I poured all my love of the Shadows into this track, and I thought my bandmates did a phenomenal job capturing that feel and sound. (On our MySpace page you may also enjoy our new track Cities of Gold, which is quite melodic - the third and final new track on our MySpace page is a surf rager that probably won't be quite to the tastes of most Shadows fans. )

Thanks!
Ivan
http://themadeira.net
http://www.facebook.com/themadeira

[Nels]

Hi Ivan, great job, always love to hear you play. Very good job from the band as well. Nicely written.

Cheers

Nels

[abel]

Hi Ivan,

You and your band really need to be congratulated for a superb effort and a CD that is going to get the whole of the Surf
and Rock Instrumental community excited around the world and especially in our sunny California.
I really liked "Twilight" and I know that your intention was not to reproduce the sound of The Shadows nor their playing,
but the style of instrumental with which they conquered the world.
You very nicely panned the rhythm guitar and centered the lead just like The Shadows.
Your tone in the lower register is grandiose (your higher register could have been beefed up a bit but it still sounded good).
I can easily see this tune picked as a theme for a movie some time down the road.
"Cities of Gold" reminds me much of "Les Players", a French group of the very early 60's. Google them up and get their CD if you can find it,
You will love what they do.
Hats off to your rhythm guitar In "Undercurrents".
I can only imagine to what state of exhaustion "The Saracen" has put all of you.

Again Congratulations to all of you for a CD that's going to reverberate ... across the oceans.

You make us proud.

Abel

[Ivan Pongracic Jr]

Thank you very much Nels and Abdel! Greatly appreciate your vote of confidence.

*Abdel wrote:*

> I really liked "Twilight" and I know that your intention was not to reproduce the sound of The Shadows nor their playing, but the style of instrumental with which they conquered the world.

Well, we tried to sound like the Shads, too, but, you know, we're most certainly NOT the Shads! We're us, so it's OK. I know there are bands that sound remarkably close to the Shadows, and I do love many of them (especially stuff like 1961, the Mustangs, the Quiets and the Rapiers), but it's kinda hard after striving to develop our own sound for years to try to morph into something else. Especially since we're a surf band, not a Euro-instro band!

> Your tone in the lower register is grandiose (your higher register could have been beefed up a bit but it still sounded good).

Thank you. As you know, so much of getting 'that sound' is in the recording techniques, and unfortunately we didn't really have time to experiment with that in the studio. I think my tone was more Hank-like in person than what ended up being captured on 'tape.' I was also going more for the Atlantis-and-later-style tones rather than the '60-'61 tones - meaning less echo and reverb, a bit drier of a guitar tone, and gentler picking. I suspect some Shadows fans may not think of that period as quite as distinctively 'Shadowsy' as the earlier stuff, but I love it.

> I can easily see this tune picked as a theme for a movie some time down the road.

Thanks! Here's hoping!

> "Cities of Gold" reminds me much of "Les Players", a French group of the very early 60's. Google them up and get their CD if you can find it, You will love what they do.

Definitely will do this. I must say that French '60s instro band are a complete unknown to me. I've gotten into a LOT of '60s Euro-instro music, everything from Rautulanka to the Belgian Jokers to Indo Rock to Spanish stuff like Los Relampagos and even to some Eastern European bands, but for some reason the French stuff has escaped my attention so far. Something to remedy in the future....

> Hats off to your rhythm guitar In "Undercurrents". I can only imagine to what state of exhaustion "The Saracen" has put all of you.

Thanks for that, too, though I should point out that both of those tracks are not new, they're from our '08 album "Carpe Noctem." But our rhythm guitarist Patrick O'Connor deserves all the praise he gets and a lot more than that, he's really incredible, I'm unbelievably fortunate to have found my 'Bruce'! (And just like Bruce, Patrick's a great singer AND an amazing songwriter - he wrote both Undercurrents and Cities of Gold. On the new album he wrote five songs, all fantastic.)

> Again Congratulations to all of you for a CD that's going to reverberate ... across the oceans.
> You make us proud.

Thanks again so very much, Abdel! Coming from a Shadows expert like you that's high praise, indeed, and all I can say is that I deeply appreciate it.

Here's hoping that I get to see Men of Mystery sometime soon, and maybe even share a stage!

Ivan

[Ivan Pongracic Jr]

BTW, I should point out that there two other tracks on our upcoming album that Shadows fans may enjoy: we covered Ernesto Lecuona's "Jungle Drums" (which was a b-side of the third and final Krew Kats single, The Bat, with of course Brian B., Licorice and Big Jim Sullivan, though we came up with our own arrangement), and gave it a bit of a Shadows treatment, me using the Zoom EFTP box for that track, too, with an acoustic rhythm guitar and a Shadows-y arrangement; the closing song for the album, "Zanzibar" is a pretty ballad that I gave the "Blue Sky, Blue Sea, Blue Me" treatment with a DeArmond 610 tone pedal, and again a prominent acoustic rhythm guitar, and a mellow Shadows-y arrangement. I hope a few of you are willing to check it out once it's out in March. It'll be available through iTunes and downloadable through many other outlets.

Thanks!

[Stratpicker]

Somehow reminds me of Jerrys final epic "Life Story", which is waht, I gues, it was meant to do.
Excellent!
cheers
ian

[Martin Payne]

Well you've gone and done it again Ivan. Excellent stuff all round, but then I wouldn't expect anything less from you. Glad to see you're still active musically as well, as you have a very definite talent!

Out of curiosity....Madeira; the place or the wine?

All the best, Martin

[abel]

Hi Ivan,

I assure you that I am no Shadows expert.
Almost every member in this site knows more about The Shadows, the technicalilty of their recordings, their instruments,
the way they play, their exact history than I can ever know.
I just love their music, heard it at an early stage, have been much influenced by it and love to play it.

I am sure the experts on this site will give you their much valuable opinion even if have a very different one.

I second everything that Martin said.
Bavo again,

Blessings,
Abel

[Ivan Pongracic Jr]

Ian, Martin, and Abdel, thank you VERY MUCH gentlemen, your kind comments are deeply appreciated.

Ian, I've only heard Life Story once, and that was when it first came out. I should go take another listen, I do wonder now how similar they are.

Martin: "Out of curiosity....Madeira; the place or the wine? "

Well, it's kinda hard to say - the name of the wine caught my ear, but then researching the place caught my imagination, so I guess it's both. Once I found out it's a popular surfing spot, it seemed like it all came together. But we are not a typical surf band, and we introduce a lot of North African and Mediterranean tonalities in our music, so it also seemed fitting that we're named after this little island in the middle of nowhere, that is mostly Portuguese despite being off the coast of Africa, a mish-mash of cultural influences, a crossroads of a kind. Many different ways to take the imagery.... Thanks for inquiring, though!

Ivan