Mark L. Arbogast

My Band has ended

2012-01-21T08:54:00.000-08:00

Well, been a while. Not that anybody ever really reads this stuff, which is OK with me. The last two months has been pretty tough for me. A person I thought was a friend caused my band to break up. 9 years of sweat and toil over in a moment. Actually, after a while I found that I wasn't all that upset. Bands and musicians can be a real pain but I guess it is the way it happened. I have made it easy for those concerned. I whined a little at first but never said anything outward and even wished them all luck. But I would be lying if I said my heart was in it when I did. And I will be damned if I will go to the victory party. I'm trying to be as big about it all as I can but my feelings were hurt very badly and I cannot and will not forget this. Unfortunatly it has ruined and ended a brief friendship that I treasured. I was forewarned upfront that this might happen but I didn't want to believe it. I want to believe the best in all people. I want to trust them. I want to believe that they are sinceer in their dealings with me. Shame on me for getting fooled over and over but that is just who I am and I am not soon changing into something else. Besides, it is their loss as well as mine. I am a good a and true friend and that, to me at least, is worth more than gold. So I wish them good luck today.

Marshall

2010-05-03T09:12:00.000-07:00

Nobody really reads these posts anyway but its a good place to clear my mind so I just keep writing stuff anyway.
Stumbled upon some scrap money and used it to buy the 1960BV or bottom cabinet for my Marshall to complete the DSL stack. It should really roar now. Thank god for ear plugs! ha!
The differences between it and the Peavey are more monumental by the day. I should seriously consider sell off the JSX. Hack, I could buy a second Marshall Stack if I did!! Boy, would that be stupid (but fun to look at)
More later.
mark

Amp update.

2010-04-19T12:34:00.000-07:00

Had the Marshall DSL head re-tubed and it sounds real good but i think it could sound even better with some better tubes than the standard JJ tubes the store puts in them.
I still have the JSX amp I have been struggling to like these past 3 years.
The differences are HUGE;
1. The peavey JSX is 120 watts and the Marshall DSL is 100 watts but the Marshall seems way louder and has tons more headroom.
2. The Marshall cuts throught the Band mix like a red hot knife through soft butter but the band always complained that they could never hear the Peaver JSX even when I had it turned up to 8.
3. lastly and most important, the Marshall cleans up real nice when you roll the guitar voulme down. the JSX never does. it stays muddy and dirty no matter how low the guitar is turned down and actually seems to get darker and more muddy the lower the volume. I have speculated that maybe different tubes would fix this but who knows. Im keeping the JSX for now. I have 2000 dollars in it and im not interested in losing money on it just yet.

Guitar Amps

2010-04-15T07:49:00.000-07:00

I traded a fellow in Kentucky for a Marshall DSL 100 watt amp. Loved it for about 30 minutes and then it seems to go flat. Had new tubes put in it and it almost seems worse.
I cannot win.

Work

2010-04-15T07:41:00.000-07:00

heard this morning from my old boss at Hussmann that several more people were 'let go'.
These were all executive secretary's. Some been here a long time and all I had worked for many times. All these gals were (and still are) very good people. I am sorry for them but hopefully they will get to a better place than this is now.
I said it before and i say it again; this was such a wonderful place before the bean counting head choppers took over. Instead of trying to figure out a way to increase sales and make a better product they focus entirely on cutting overhead and costs, and there is certainly a place for that but to do one and not the other seems pretty stupid to me. What is wrong with creating jobs and spending money anyway? If every company keeps cutting jobs and spending money NOBODY will have a job or be able to spend money and then you will not have a market for your product so you will have to cut further costs and and lay off more people and the whole thing starts to spiral like crap down the toilet bowel.

Stuff

2009-09-04T05:30:00.000-07:00

I have been on the Nutrisystem diet since July 1st now. I started at 250 pounds (or pretty close) and this morning I am at 213. That is a 37 pound loss so far. I have about 6 or 7 weeks of food left and because of recent financial changes I have decided to cut myself off after it runs out. I need to be hard nosed this last 6 weeks because I am so close to my goal, which is first to crack the 200 pound barrier and then proceed down to about 185 pounds. That is 28 more pounds which is a daunting take to be sure but i have sacrificed so much and stayed so strong and true to the course and now I am closer to my dream and goal than at any time before I simply cannot and will not fail.
I did find out one thing though; losing this weight did not end all my troubles and make me instantly happy. Far from it. I get an odd compliment here and there and a few select people have noticed but mostly nothing has changed. I have noticed that my 'mobility' as a musical performer has changed dramaticly though.
And another bonus is that I can now see my Dick when I pee!
That was a big thrill.

Woodstock

2009-08-27T14:56:00.000-07:00

I was watching the documentary titled Woodstock, then and now. Very cool.
It always seemed so huge musicaly that I almost forgot that it was only a 4 day event and that by the 4th day it was mostly over.
My step-brother Rick Burrow was in from California and he wanted to go and wanted to take me with him. I was 15 years old.
Rick had long hair and beatle boots and my dad, his step father, thought he was a communist out to overthrow the American way of life which, for him, was Hank Williams, truck driving, hard liquor, and cheating on his wife(s).
He didn't say no, he said hell no.
Rick left without me but I think he got sidetracked too and never ended up going himself.
So I almost attended the most significant event in modern musical history.
Thanks to my father I missed it.

Arbogasts

2009-08-20T09:12:00.000-07:00

I was on CASE.NET today looking up random names and decided to look up my own. Case.net is the home page for Missouri court cases. There are over 40 listing for people named Arbogast! Most of them are orders of protection, spouse abuse, divorce, and traffic tickets. I just got one thing to say; All you freaking Arbogast's out there please get your collective Sh**t together and quit despoiling my last name. I carried this name for 55 years and never did anything to tarnish it.
It's enough to make a fellow want to change his name around here.
Hmmm, I really like Italian food;
From here on out my name is Rudolpho Laspara!

Watching TV

2009-08-18T18:42:00.000-07:00

I was just watching one of my favorite Will Smith movies on the tele tonight called I ROBOT. The basic theme turns out that the main computer gets a mind of it's own and trys to take over the world. The computer, called Vikki, gets destroyed by Will Smith in the end. I can speak from experience when I say that any evil controling bitch named Vikki getting destroyed before she can take over the earth is a good thing for all mankind.

Work

2009-08-12T08:14:00.000-07:00

Things have stabilized a bit at my job at the MFG plant but its still not good. The Central Scrutinizers (as I have aptly named them) are still there. The plant is very slow and several shifts are laid off so they are not doing much work. Hence there is much less for me to do BUT the Central Scrutinizers are boasting that because of their diligence they are saving the company money (spent on me). I would tell them and anybody who wants to hear that this is bullshit. Things are slow and sales are down so production is down and changes are almost nonexistent in the plant right now. Everyone here is slow (except the Central Scrutinizes who, as always, thrive in times of trouble and dispair). These guys are simular to funeral directors. When things are at their worst their business is booming. While I still like some of the people here there are some that have moved from that list. Some people here (one in paticular) don't seem to realize than you cannot screw someone over and still expect to be friends with them. Unfortunatly, this truth will probably not be seen by them until the day I am removed permanantly from here. After that point it will no longer be nessessary for me to play the nice good old boy game with them. I will not be mean or a jerk because that is just not my nature but I will no longer associate with them. I really hate wasting so much print and time venting about stupid stuff but I have no where else to get rid of it. During the last 8 years when things were tough I always knew I have this place to fall back on. No stress and rewarding work for wonderful people. The Central Scrutinizers took all this away in one fell swoop. For a time at the begining they were even trying to get rid of me by having others come in to bid and also investigating my past proceedures and work history. That failed, as I knew it would but the head Central Scrutinizer kept trying until other stuff finally got in his way. So, now what once was a peacefull wonder place is a lions Den.
My good friend Madeline told me that "it's true that things have changed but always remember that things will change yet again if you wait long enough". That is my trouble; I hate to wait!

Nutrisystem

2009-08-12T08:01:00.000-07:00

Well, I was listening to my old Jethro Tull records a couple of months ago and came pon the song titled 'Fat Man'. Ian sings that he dont want to be a 'fat man'. I was getting a little sick of it myself so my wife and I decided to try something to change it. I tried Adtkins a few years ago and lost 40 pounds, even kept most of it off when all the other Adkins people around me gained it all back but that diet is really hard on your system if you suffer from Diverticulosus, as I do.
The Nutrisystem diet food is mostly a calorie count diet; 1500 a day for men and 1200 for women. I started at 245 pounds on June 1st and as of today, August12th, I am 219 pounds for a total so far of 26 pounds. Not bad but not good enough yet. My eventual goal is to break the 200 pound barrier. When I hit about 225 things began to slow considerable and that has been a little disheartening but I am still on track. Its a little tough but so far the benifits are worth it. I guess the most dissapointing part is that not a lot of people seem to notice it much. Its pretty bad that you are so dam fat that you can lose 26 lounds and nobody notices it at all. This will change with the next 20 pounds though. I figure it shoulf take me another 2 1/2 to 3 months tops.
The food is really very good and, though its not a lot, it is filling.
Its not really much more expensive than regular food. Considering that i dont eat out fast food anymore and only buy vegies to suplement the regulat nutrisystem meals it works out to about the same as if i were shopping for everything and hitting Mac D's once a week.

My day job

2009-04-14T13:04:00.000-07:00

I work for an electrical contractor during the day and for the past 6 or 7 years I have been working steady at a manufacturing plant as the resident voice and data tech. We had a great thing going there and I did my best to provide the best service I could going above and beyond much of the time. About 2 months ago they hired a new finance guy who came from, of all places, one of the big three auto makers. I cannot understand why anyone would hire a finance guy from a company that has been begging billions from the US Government and is still about to go under. I have (or had) a sparkling reputation there. Received many comendations and letters of thanks from the management over the years. I worked hard to consoladate as many of the jobs as I could to give them extra bang for the buck and save money time and time again.
This new guy requested to speak with me and had "questions" so I was forthright with all my answers and basicly a good doobie. He took the things i said and imedeiatly sent out an email requestion to get my pay reduced, suggested I was unqualified to do parts of the work (programming the phone system) and suggested that we were charging them no matter if I was there working or not!! Of course when I confronted him with this he denied it and said I was out of line and that he was very complementary of me. It has been a long long time since i have met such a lying SOB as this guy. Now they have brought in his pals to try and take over my job. All the people that I had worked for there are begining to run for cover to save their ass's. It is a sad end to a great place. I made many friends there that i shall cherish and miss; Walter, Madeline, Ann, Sue, Cindy, Barb, Jeannie, Pat, Bill, Gerry, Linda, Brad, Chuck, Jennie, Clem, and even some of the plant people like Greg, John, and Chuck. You all made me feel so welcome and like I really belonged somewhere for the first time in my life. I shall cherish the feeling as long as I live and be greatful to you all forever. My wish for you all is that you can survive this man who seems to hold everyone's fate in his cold lying hands. He has a couple of helpers in all this too. For the time being they will reign supreme but things always change and they will fall from grace. When they do it will be a friendless cold fall. I will celebrate silently when I hear the news.
To my good friends; Love and luck.
Mark

Jobber Musicians

2009-04-12T16:09:00.000-07:00

I hate to use this forum to vent and I know I will probably take a beating for this one. I live in St Louis Missouri. Over the last few years I have had to search for replacentments for my band now and then when a player decides to move on. Reguardless of the position each time I place an ad I would get answers from what I call 'jobbers'. These are musicians that are like hired guns. They will play with anyone anytime anywhere. Some of them are players in weekend bands and try to get fill in gigs whereever they can during ther band's off days. So why, you might be asking, do I have a problem with this/
I will tell you. These are musicians that could not make it as a professional but didnt want to join society and get a regular job. Many of them work part time in a music store or giving lessons but play for a living. My problem is that guys like me go to work, earn money to buy the PA equipment nessessary to do the gigs and do all the legwork to book the jobs and whatever else is required to put a band together and keep it busy. The 'jobber' player shows up just to make his/her money and thats it. They share no risk or responsibility. What'a more, they have a personal schedule that they are constantly trying to fill so while you are working to put money into everyone's pockets by booking work they are actually working against your interests by booking their own personal schedule that will in all likelyhood conflict with yours. And when it does conflict with yours guess who will get the short end of things? Well, It wont be them, I can assure you. The the majority are drummers and to a man they are really great guys. It's a livestyle for them. I feel a little sorry for them because sooner or later father time will catch up with them and they will have to join the working world. They will be old with no skills, no pensions living in an apartment or trailer somewhere eking out a living hand to mouth.
None of the bands I know around town job out with 60 plus year old guys unless its the symphony.

Drummer Joe Donahue

2009-02-06T08:44:00.000-08:00

It is with sadness that I report that our drummer, Joe Donahue, will be leaving the band. I have been with Joe a little over 2 years now. When I was looking for a drummer I auditioned many guys and had not found anyone that was what I was looking for. Just when I had reached total dispair over the situation Joe emailed me. He had been in a very popular wedding band in Boston and had relocated to St Peters. I had figured "wedding band drummer. . yeah right. . .this guy is probably pretty average".
I could not have been more wrong. Joe was far and away the best guy of them all. Joe saved me and the band and helped establish us as a real force in the St Charles area. Joe has a quiet leadership and wisdom that I could always turn to when I needed it. He helped me work through some trying times. That wisdom along with his solid drumming will be greatly missed. I am so very grateful that he took a chance on my band even though the time was way too short. Just in case I never said it before I want to say it now. Thanks Joe, thanks so much for everything. I will miss you terribly my friend!!

New Singer

2009-02-06T08:42:00.000-08:00

We have a new lead singer named Ron Smith. Ron is a great guy and a fine singer and I am real happy to be working with him. He brings a much higher vocal range to the band and allows us to play material by artists that we have not been able to do before like Forigner, Led Zepplin, and Queen.

Changes

2008-07-24T15:58:00.000-07:00

Jim Gentemann is no longer with the band. His last show was at Dano's in Wright City on Saturday July 19th. I wont go into detail but we had some personel and creative differences and decided it was in the best interests of everyone to part ways. Speaking for the entire band I wish him all the best in both his personal life and him musical career. Mark and Chris will be handling all the lead vocal duties for the time being.

New Cardinal Ballpark

2008-05-19T04:38:00.000-07:00

My wife and I went to the ballgame last Friday to watch the Cardinals play the Devil Rays in what was a really booring Cardinal loss. My daughter bought us the tickets, bless her little heart, for my birthday. We had never been to the new park before so I was pretty excited to see it for the first time. The seats were along the 1st base side but about 5 rows from the very top of the stadium. To me, from that vantage point the stadium seemed cramped and cheap. The people around us were more interested in drinking and screwing around than watching the game. Many were just plain drunk and obscene. We were constantly getting up to let people in and out that were just coming over to visit other drunk people. One girl dumped her 8.75 dollar beer all over a 6 year old boy and his grandmother who were actually trying to watch the game. She quickly disapeared and never returned. One young girl said to a guy sitting a row below her, quite loudly and within 10 feet of the aforementione 6 year old boy, "Hey Brian, if you go with me to get another beer you might get some pussy tonight". Thats just great. Hey, dont get me wrong; I'm not a prude, but that was real trailer-park-trash. I had serious doubts as to how many of them actually even knew the score. Maybe the experience is better if you have better seats but the 26 dollars it cost me for 2 hotdogs 2 fries and 1 coke is stealing where I come from.
I guess my real beef is that this is a cheap stadium that is hyped by the Cardinal media machine as being 'Baseball Heaven" and that is bullcrap plain and simple. The St Louis Cardinals are the greatest team in National League history and are near the top in attendance year after year. Only the Yankees have won more World Series than the Cardinals so in my mind this city and this team deserved one of the best stadiums in baseball and instead got a minor-leaguer. It even feels like a minor league stadium with all the noise and advertisements bombarding you and every chance. And the seats are fantastic if you weigh 120 pounds and are missing at least one arm.
The only way I will return to this place is if I get free tickets and they are field boxs. Personally im not expecting those would be a lot better. Shame on all Cardinal fans for letting them get away with building this second-rate park for our first rate team.

Benifit for Regina

2008-05-19T04:20:00.000-07:00

Not a lot happening really. The band has been off a lot and the weather has been rain and more rain for two months with more rain today.
We played a benifit yesterday for a young lady who had Colon cancer and I was deeply saddened to learn that she had passed last Tuesday before the benifit. I didnt know her and to my knowledge had never met her but I feel bad for her family and for her as well. They told me her name was Regina and that she was 41. The sad lesson here is that you are never too young to get a colon exam and that you must treasure every moment you have with your friends and family. I truley hope both she and her friends and family can find some peace.

Danny Prosser Benefit

2008-02-17T19:33:00.000-08:00

I have had the flu for 2 days and it couldn't have come at a worse time for me. Today was the gig for Danny Prosser at the Westport Trainwreck and we were scheduled to play a set, which we did. But I had/have a real nice little fever and got out of bed at the last minute just to do the show and then hustled back home to bed so I missed several of the bands that followed us. The fever made me pretty weak so my playing left a little to be desired but i guess i wasnt horrible but I wanted to be at my best and I wasnt.

Guitar Amps

2008-02-13T06:07:00.000-08:00

A few months ago I bought a new Peavey Joe Satriani model JSX half-stack guitar amp and I really like it a lot but I have found that sometimes I question the purchase and have had to defend it to others once in a while. The amp was a special build version with some cosmetic differences from the original stock amps but no real tonal differences that im aware of. After many years of playing in bands using cheap amps (because i was raising a family and school clothes are a higher priority than guitar amps) I found myself in the position of finally being able to get a good amp. I had decided to buy a Marshall even before i started trying out any amps because thats the standard and it is what all the great ones play or have played. Funny thing though,; I tried out several different models and none of them appealed to me. The JVM-410 has a decent clean channel but I didnt like the distortion at all. The Vintage modern was just plain aweful. i tried an old JCM-800 and it was pretty good but you need to use a fuzz pedal to get any kind of real sustain and gain for a real rock sound. I then tried other upscale brands like the Diesil Einstein, which I loved by the way, but the head was 3300! I tried a couple of Soldanos and they too were pretty pricey and the only one I liked had only one channel. I tried the JSX peavey and liked it right off but dismissed it because it was a Peavey but I found myself going back to it after each time i tried out another amp to reference the two and every freaking time I liked the JSX more! Finally, I had to face the fact that It was really what I wanted even though it wasnt a marshall. I know a real fine guitar player named Jeff Bartholic who used a JSX for a while so I contacted him and asked his opinion about it and Jeff said he loved it. He dont have a JSX anymore and normally that would make me wonder if he really did like it, but Jeff has used a ton of different amps since I first met him so that's not an issue here and I respect his opinion on amps a lot. My good friend and guitar player Dan Ralston, a huge Joe Satriani fan, advised me to buy the JSX and this suprised me because Dan is a bonified Marshall Man but he loves the JSX sound and his advice was the deciding factor for me. Even though I didnt want price to be an issue in buying this amp it was somewhat.
The Marshall JVM-410 Head only was 1700 dollars.
The Marshall Vintage Modern head only was 1700 dollars.
The new Jcm-800 reissue head is 2083 dollars.
The Soldano heads were well over 2000 dollars.
The Diesil Einstein head only was 3300 dollars.
All these prices did not include a speaker cabinet.

In the end the "special Namm Show" version of the Peavey JSX was 1999 dollars and that included the speaker cabinet. Joe Satriani is known throughout the guitar world as one of the best guitar players in history with legions of devoted followers. There were only two of these "special" JSX models built according to Peaveys artist relations people. Joe Satriani has one and I have the other.
When I add it all up it was the best choice available for me at the time and with the money I had to work with. And I want to note that my devoted beautiful wife Crystal was the one person that made it possible by alloting me the monies and not making me feel like a schmuck for spending it on myself.
Beside, Im going to buy a Marshall cabinet soon and try out the head with that so i can have the great JSX sound and the great Marshall look all at the same time!!