Ian McLagan/The Hammond XK3 Is A Powerful Machine

Tomorrow is Ian McLagan day in Austin.

He will be playing on the rooftop of Whole Foods from 6-9 AM CST, and this will be simulcast on 107.1 KGSR.

Don't know who Ian McLagan is?

He is most famous playing keyboards(including the Hammond organ) with The Faces which later became the The Small Faces .

He has also toured with the Rolling Stones and Bonnie Raitt.

The Faces and Small Faces were the first of the boy bands, kind of like a 60's version of N Sync.

Except much cooler and influenced by American blues music.

From England, they were part of the British Invasion started by the Beatles.

Still don't know about the Faces/Small Faces?

That's where Rod Stewart got his start.

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I didn't clean last night.

That took a back seat to playing with the new XK3 I just got.

Until the XK3 came along, I wasn't very interested in anything but a vintage Hammond organ.

But after a year of lugging my vintage Hammond and Leslie around for low paying gigs, and understanding how flexible the smaller XK3 is in emulating the original, I find the XK3 a welcome friend, only now I find that there is a learning curve.

Out of the box, it's very easy to play. Anyone who is familiar with a vintage Hammond would be able to quickly get sound without much assistance.

But when you start digging into the programmables, then it starts getting interesting.

It has a decent Leslie effect, but even this can be altered.

I went into the parameters last night and saw that you can specify not only the time it takes for the rotating Leslie to go from slow to fast and slow back down, but you can also the specific model of Leslie, from a list of some of the most popular Leslies that have been offered through the years.

Additionally, you have virtual control over the angle of the virtual microphone and it's distance away from it....

If you get so far off of a decent sound and you want to return it to the factory settings, you just turn it off, hold the record button, and turn it back on.

Hopefully, I will get to send this on its Maiden Voyage this weekend with the Gateway Community Church band....