Great news!
Hot Buttered Soul is playing a benefit concert on May 14 at the Pepperjack Cafe in Hamilton. The benefit is for the NICU at the McMaster Childrens Hospital in Hamilton, ON. This place has recently become a very real part of my world due to recent events in my family, and it's the least I can do to give back what the staff at the NICU have already given to my family. Furthermore, Pepperjack Cafe is a great place run by two of my oldest friends (amazingly, none of us are from Hamilton, originally...).
It's all ages, 2-5pm and tickets are $10/adults, $5/kids available at the door. 100% of the ticket price will go to the NICU.
Stay tuned for more info, and see you there!
Wednesday, March 30, 2005
Tuesday, March 29, 2005
A gorgeous spring day (though it's a bit early to believe it's going to stay this warm) had me riding my bike to my gig today, which was a treat (I keep a full kit at the Etobicoke School of the Arts, so I was relatively unencumbered). Later, back in the car, I found myself loading up on media: books, DVDs, CD, etc. Something about the nice weather makes me want to devour new stuff, even though it means staying inside to do much of it.
So, the video store purchases included a marked-down copy of the Wilco doc, "I Am Trying To Break Your Heart", which includes a bonus disc of performances; a used copy of "Masked and Anonymous", the off-kilter political adventure thriller musical featuring Bob Dylan, and his current band (which to my best recollection is the unfathomably fine assemblage of Larry Campbell, Charlie Sexton, George Recile and Tony Garnier, now that's a band!!!!!!), and a fantastic cameo by the fine
actor Val Kilmer (in my opinion the most under-rated actor of his generation) as an animal wrangler.
I'm going to check out the Wilco film now before I contemplate beginning my income tax return.
So, the video store purchases included a marked-down copy of the Wilco doc, "I Am Trying To Break Your Heart", which includes a bonus disc of performances; a used copy of "Masked and Anonymous", the off-kilter political adventure thriller musical featuring Bob Dylan, and his current band (which to my best recollection is the unfathomably fine assemblage of Larry Campbell, Charlie Sexton, George Recile and Tony Garnier, now that's a band!!!!!!), and a fantastic cameo by the fine
actor Val Kilmer (in my opinion the most under-rated actor of his generation) as an animal wrangler.
I'm going to check out the Wilco film now before I contemplate beginning my income tax return.
Monday, March 28, 2005
This week I have two gigs (in addition to my daytimes at the Etobicoke School of the Arts), cc3 hits with Bruno Ierullo on guitar on Thursday night and on Friday I am playing a gig with AKIM with a bass player I have yet to meet, I think his name is Joe McLeod. I'm a bit excited to play with this guy because apparently he is currently the bassist in Ronnie Hawkins' band. I'm a huge fan of The Band, and of Levon Helm in particular. Now I know that the Hawk has probably had hundreds of bass players in his performing lifetime, but it's cool in a six-degrees-of-separation kind of way.....
I'm posting from a free wireless connection at the Second Cup coffee in our local shopping mall. This is the way it should be, and it makes malls much more bearable. So far I've read restaurant reviews and made a reservation. Yes, these are all things I can go with old-tech newspaper and payphone (both which the mall already provides), but somehow I am still excited. :)
I've begun planning the next steps for the new trio, but various constraints of scheduling and general responsibilities are already changing my plans, but also showing the project to me from a different perspective, and revealing other opportunities, stay tuned....
I've begun planning the next steps for the new trio, but various constraints of scheduling and general responsibilities are already changing my plans, but also showing the project to me from a different perspective, and revealing other opportunities, stay tuned....
Saturday, March 26, 2005
Fallsview Casino, Grand Hall 6:06pm 3.26.05
I'm sitting side stage at day2 of the Melissa Rebronja gigs. It's an hour to showtime, I got here about 20 minutes ago to set up my gear, which is now done but I can't set up onstage because Akim is doing an impromptu set of solo covers to.... no one in particular. The PA is up full-blast with Akim's voice and guitar, and Kenny G plays over the house-sound system. Parallel worlds?
Anyway, it appears the turnout isn't much better today than yesterday. There's a few more folks milling about, but not much that appears to be forming itself into an audience for Melissa's set. I am hopeful we'll do another set as decent, if not better than, yesterday, if only for Melissa's peace of mind (music is its own reward; maybe that explains why Akim is giving 110% up there...), and to lay a foundation for any future gigs.
Now, it's 6:09pm and it turns out there's going to be a Bachelor Pageant onstage (really.), could this get any weirder? Well, Kenny G is still playing.... Ok, about 30 middle-aged dudes in various states of business casual dress have just lined up sidestage; there are maybe 10 people now in the seats in front of the stage. It nows occurs to me that given the age of most of these bachelors, unless they are posing, are divorcees. I should stop typing now, because there's just too much to say, and none of it charitable to the events at hand.
I guess these guys are our opening act. (oh my....)
... until this moment, I thought the oddest gig I'd done was playing conga and Native American flute for a jazz dance troupe at a fundraiser for a Sri Lankan convent.
I'm sitting side stage at day2 of the Melissa Rebronja gigs. It's an hour to showtime, I got here about 20 minutes ago to set up my gear, which is now done but I can't set up onstage because Akim is doing an impromptu set of solo covers to.... no one in particular. The PA is up full-blast with Akim's voice and guitar, and Kenny G plays over the house-sound system. Parallel worlds?
Anyway, it appears the turnout isn't much better today than yesterday. There's a few more folks milling about, but not much that appears to be forming itself into an audience for Melissa's set. I am hopeful we'll do another set as decent, if not better than, yesterday, if only for Melissa's peace of mind (music is its own reward; maybe that explains why Akim is giving 110% up there...), and to lay a foundation for any future gigs.
Now, it's 6:09pm and it turns out there's going to be a Bachelor Pageant onstage (really.), could this get any weirder? Well, Kenny G is still playing.... Ok, about 30 middle-aged dudes in various states of business casual dress have just lined up sidestage; there are maybe 10 people now in the seats in front of the stage. It nows occurs to me that given the age of most of these bachelors, unless they are posing, are divorcees. I should stop typing now, because there's just too much to say, and none of it charitable to the events at hand.
I guess these guys are our opening act. (oh my....)
... until this moment, I thought the oddest gig I'd done was playing conga and Native American flute for a jazz dance troupe at a fundraiser for a Sri Lankan convent.
Friday, March 25, 2005
i'm home from the first Melissa Rebronja show at the Fallsview Casino. in the last few days we discovered that some of the tenants in a loft building behind our house have wireless routers, so I've hijacked a connection from one of them and am posting this blog from the couch. :)
The "Everything Leisure Expo" that we played at today was, to be generous, sparsely attended. There were people milling about, but they were all booth-dwellers (various people hawking products and services from makeshift booths, like a service/retail shanty town) talking to each other. When we finally did play our set at 7pm, there were about 20 folks seated in the 100 or so chairs set up at the stage. They were a mix of adults and children, and stayed for varying lengths of the set. One darkly humourous moment was when a couple of teenage boys chose Melissa's set as a time to try the olde-fashioned test-of-strength (where you smack a sledge hammer against a block to drive a piece of metal up to a bell at the top), so the ballad we were in was punctuated by huge smacking sounds.
The set overall went pretty well. I was having a good time playing drums and keyboard bass at the same time, and got some positive comments from the other band (who were playing after us) about how it filled out the trio's sound. Melissa's voice was strong, and while I think she was a little underwhelmed by the turnout and thus was somewhat reserved in her performance, it was an OK first gig. We do it again tomorrow, I'm hopeful for a better gig, all the wrinkles smoothed out and the energy level up a bit.
As for the Fallsview, no thanks. I couldn't find a wireless connection anywhere, and the overall atmosphere was so plastic and overdone that I found myself in a freaking Starbucks enjoying it's relative naturalism.
backtracking:
Last night's cc3 gig was fun, Tim P. once again dazzled and charmed. I'm getting quite excited about the new trio with him and Ed Z., but after a great discussion in the car on the way down to the gig, I have a clearer idea of what I want to do with it. We were talking about how one thing that is often under-appreciated in jazz and improv recordings is the role of a producer. Having someone objectively drawing on the strengths of the players and the pieces from a group is essential to fashioning a record worth listening to. So, being in firm agreement with this concept, I think the plan will be to record a demo (4 or 5 songs) soon, gig a bit, and shop around for a producer (I have one in mind, you can probably already guess, I hope he's interested) to do a record later in the year. This trio could have some life to it, the sound is fresh to me, and I think I can have alot of fun with this configuration, and especially, these players.
so, as usual, stay tuned!
The "Everything Leisure Expo" that we played at today was, to be generous, sparsely attended. There were people milling about, but they were all booth-dwellers (various people hawking products and services from makeshift booths, like a service/retail shanty town) talking to each other. When we finally did play our set at 7pm, there were about 20 folks seated in the 100 or so chairs set up at the stage. They were a mix of adults and children, and stayed for varying lengths of the set. One darkly humourous moment was when a couple of teenage boys chose Melissa's set as a time to try the olde-fashioned test-of-strength (where you smack a sledge hammer against a block to drive a piece of metal up to a bell at the top), so the ballad we were in was punctuated by huge smacking sounds.
The set overall went pretty well. I was having a good time playing drums and keyboard bass at the same time, and got some positive comments from the other band (who were playing after us) about how it filled out the trio's sound. Melissa's voice was strong, and while I think she was a little underwhelmed by the turnout and thus was somewhat reserved in her performance, it was an OK first gig. We do it again tomorrow, I'm hopeful for a better gig, all the wrinkles smoothed out and the energy level up a bit.
As for the Fallsview, no thanks. I couldn't find a wireless connection anywhere, and the overall atmosphere was so plastic and overdone that I found myself in a freaking Starbucks enjoying it's relative naturalism.
backtracking:
Last night's cc3 gig was fun, Tim P. once again dazzled and charmed. I'm getting quite excited about the new trio with him and Ed Z., but after a great discussion in the car on the way down to the gig, I have a clearer idea of what I want to do with it. We were talking about how one thing that is often under-appreciated in jazz and improv recordings is the role of a producer. Having someone objectively drawing on the strengths of the players and the pieces from a group is essential to fashioning a record worth listening to. So, being in firm agreement with this concept, I think the plan will be to record a demo (4 or 5 songs) soon, gig a bit, and shop around for a producer (I have one in mind, you can probably already guess, I hope he's interested) to do a record later in the year. This trio could have some life to it, the sound is fresh to me, and I think I can have alot of fun with this configuration, and especially, these players.
so, as usual, stay tuned!
Thursday, March 24, 2005
I'm trying to google (it's now a noun, y'know) old press clippings for the website, and I came across a website for a singer that stiffed me for a gig, and she's still putting my name on her site! I'm not going to name any names, I can't even remember what she owed me, it was so long ago, but wow, some people....
yesterday and today have been booked up with rehearsals... first, Tim Posgate and Ed Zankowski joined me in jamming on some new material for a recording project I am planning. It sounded great, and good fun was had by all. I think this is going to be a new band, and we'll be doing some sort of record in May (for release on iTunes, Puretracks and other sites). Describing it is not so easy, as it is still evolving, but right now it sounds like freejazz+LosLobos to me. Stay tuned...
Today I rehearsed with Akim and Melissa Rebronja for her shows tomorrow and saturday. The trio sounds pretty full, I am playing keyboard bass, piano on one tune, synth strings on another, and a hybrid drumkit (hihat, cymbal, 18" kick and a dumbek mounted on a snare stand). Akim's acoustic always has such a strong sound (he really lays into it) that the overall effect of the low-end from the keys and my drums and him makes it quite cool. Anyway, we do it Friday and Saturday, so I'll report back.
In a few hours cc3 is with Tim Posgate in Burlington, should be fun. Bruno Ierullo (who is with us next week) phoned me this morning asking about how to do a blog. I assumed it was relating to his and his wife's Pilates/fitness studio, but to my horror, Bruno said he wants to do one because he has so many thoughts on a variety of topics that he wants to share with the world. Ladies and gentlemen, I have know this man for almost 15 years, and been the audience for many of his thoughts, all I can say is be afraid. very afraid.
Today I rehearsed with Akim and Melissa Rebronja for her shows tomorrow and saturday. The trio sounds pretty full, I am playing keyboard bass, piano on one tune, synth strings on another, and a hybrid drumkit (hihat, cymbal, 18" kick and a dumbek mounted on a snare stand). Akim's acoustic always has such a strong sound (he really lays into it) that the overall effect of the low-end from the keys and my drums and him makes it quite cool. Anyway, we do it Friday and Saturday, so I'll report back.
In a few hours cc3 is with Tim Posgate in Burlington, should be fun. Bruno Ierullo (who is with us next week) phoned me this morning asking about how to do a blog. I assumed it was relating to his and his wife's Pilates/fitness studio, but to my horror, Bruno said he wants to do one because he has so many thoughts on a variety of topics that he wants to share with the world. Ladies and gentlemen, I have know this man for almost 15 years, and been the audience for many of his thoughts, all I can say is be afraid. very afraid.
Sunday, March 20, 2005
Thursday's gig with Tim Posgate was a blast. He may be the most original guitarist I get to work with. Tim comes out of the same crowd of YORK University educated musicians as me (Tim was a few years ahead of me, so our paths didn't cross much or at all while we at YORK, but we studied with the same folks...), but of all of them that I've managed to stay in touch with (or subsequently connect with) through gigging or simply listening, Tim has really developed his own sound on his instrument. Many of us are versatile in our ability to play stylistically, technically etc. and possess a vast knowledge of repertoire (which allows one to stay employed as a musician in a variety of contexts), but I can't say that everyone has truly forged a sound for ourselves to the lengths that Tim has. I mean, Tim sounds like Tim. (and thankfully that sound itself is a great one)
This is in no way a negative criticism of other players (myself included), I just want to take a moment to celebrate TP's particular achievement. There are lots of musicians within my sphere that can play more stuff, get more gigs, whatever, we all have our strengths, but there's something going on when TP plays that is unique, with the state of the music business, I'm not going to wait for Downbeat magazine to notice before I say something. :)
At the cc33 gig we play all kinds of tunes, from Bjork and U2 to Ellington and Gershwin. Tim delivers all of the material through his voice, and I think that (along with the improvisation) is jazz. Straight or swing, slow or fast, whatever. Deliver the composition in your own voice and improvise on it, that's a good enough definition of jazz for me.
Other times the trio morphs and shifts itself to the tunes (some players like to be more chameleon-like in their interpretation of the songs), and I'm honestly caught between the two approaches. I think it takes a certain kind of confidence in your playing that goes beyond professionalism (which is often where much of my musical output gets hung up: I'm a pro, working, satisfying a client.), and Tim really inspires me to go for that.
This Wednesday's rehearsal with TP and Ed Zankowski should be fun.
In other news......
I had my first rehearsal with Melissa Rebronja (with Akim on guitar) on Friday. The gig's going to be good. I've decided (and the idea was approved by MR) to play keyboard bass while I am playing drums and percussion. It's not as complicated as it sounds (I play the keys with my left hand and the drums with my feet and right hand), and it's a version of what I do every day in dance classes. I'm using an old MIDI-able keyboard through my iBook with Reason and Garageband. This is perhaps the most hi-tech I've gotten since my days playing in Lee Kim when half of his music was sequenced on a DAT that I operated and monitored through one ear while I listened to the live band (myself on drums, Bruce Dies on guitar and Nikku Nayar or Jon Page or, sorry, guy-I-can't-remember-your-name-but-you-did-a-TV-appearance-with-us on bass). I have to thank uber-drummer Randy Cooke for letting me see his rig (Randy was the first drummer on that gig, when the budget was bigger and I was the percussionist) to set up my own.
Anyway, MR rehearses twice more this week, and then the gigs friday-saturday. I hope there will be more gigs (and less rehearsals), I'm liking the keyboard-bass idea. Hopefully it's something I can develop as a vibe I can offer other singer/songwriter solo acts.
wow, this might be the longest blog entry ever in the history of my blog!
This is in no way a negative criticism of other players (myself included), I just want to take a moment to celebrate TP's particular achievement. There are lots of musicians within my sphere that can play more stuff, get more gigs, whatever, we all have our strengths, but there's something going on when TP plays that is unique, with the state of the music business, I'm not going to wait for Downbeat magazine to notice before I say something. :)
At the cc33 gig we play all kinds of tunes, from Bjork and U2 to Ellington and Gershwin. Tim delivers all of the material through his voice, and I think that (along with the improvisation) is jazz. Straight or swing, slow or fast, whatever. Deliver the composition in your own voice and improvise on it, that's a good enough definition of jazz for me.
Other times the trio morphs and shifts itself to the tunes (some players like to be more chameleon-like in their interpretation of the songs), and I'm honestly caught between the two approaches. I think it takes a certain kind of confidence in your playing that goes beyond professionalism (which is often where much of my musical output gets hung up: I'm a pro, working, satisfying a client.), and Tim really inspires me to go for that.
This Wednesday's rehearsal with TP and Ed Zankowski should be fun.
In other news......
I had my first rehearsal with Melissa Rebronja (with Akim on guitar) on Friday. The gig's going to be good. I've decided (and the idea was approved by MR) to play keyboard bass while I am playing drums and percussion. It's not as complicated as it sounds (I play the keys with my left hand and the drums with my feet and right hand), and it's a version of what I do every day in dance classes. I'm using an old MIDI-able keyboard through my iBook with Reason and Garageband. This is perhaps the most hi-tech I've gotten since my days playing in Lee Kim when half of his music was sequenced on a DAT that I operated and monitored through one ear while I listened to the live band (myself on drums, Bruce Dies on guitar and Nikku Nayar or Jon Page or, sorry, guy-I-can't-remember-your-name-but-you-did-a-TV-appearance-with-us on bass). I have to thank uber-drummer Randy Cooke for letting me see his rig (Randy was the first drummer on that gig, when the budget was bigger and I was the percussionist) to set up my own.
Anyway, MR rehearses twice more this week, and then the gigs friday-saturday. I hope there will be more gigs (and less rehearsals), I'm liking the keyboard-bass idea. Hopefully it's something I can develop as a vibe I can offer other singer/songwriter solo acts.
wow, this might be the longest blog entry ever in the history of my blog!
Thursday, March 17, 2005
i am in the midst of a really busy day (so why i am I typing into the blog? well, I have a few minutes, and typing clears my head a bit so I can continue with my day I guess), and so far it is musically vacant, even though I've been playing for 3 hours already! I am hoping (and pretty certain) things will improve later at the cc3 gig with Tim Posgate.
Anyway, the AKIM gigs on march 25/26 aren't AKIM gigs after all. Melissa Rebronja (her site is her name dot com) has hired AKIM and myself to back her up for two shows. Cool! New music, new people. She seems really focused and has all of her music-biz ducks in a row. So, as long as I don't impale myself on a drumstick or something, things should go well...
ok, back to my busy day
Anyway, the AKIM gigs on march 25/26 aren't AKIM gigs after all. Melissa Rebronja (her site is her name dot com) has hired AKIM and myself to back her up for two shows. Cool! New music, new people. She seems really focused and has all of her music-biz ducks in a row. So, as long as I don't impale myself on a drumstick or something, things should go well...
ok, back to my busy day
Wednesday, March 16, 2005
I can't remember the last time I was excited about a concert to see (maybe more so because with a baby at home you don't really get to go see gigs other than your own....), but John Scofield is coming to Hamilton (in a really crappy dance-club venue.. oh well) on April 20. His website says it will be his trio with Bill Stewart and the incomparable Steve Swallow, so if i get there having paid $32.50 + $4 "convenience" charge and it is his boring "uberjam" band, I'll be a sad drummer boy.
The next few weeks were looking kind of slow for me, but now looks pretty busy. This is nice, new work. Looks like I'll be doing 3 gigs with AKIM (3/25, 3/26 and 4/1), including some travelling stuff. Stay tuned for details. AKIM's gig can be a lot of fun, and he's said that he wants to do more originals, which is very much to my liking (my first gigs with him years ago were original-material gigs).
Those gigs, coupled with some new dates at YORK University (in the Dance Dept.), and Canyon Creek and rehearsing with Ed & Tim, will quite nicely fill out the vacant spots in my schedule (my residency gigs with the Toronto School Board and the Pickering School of Ballet are going on hiatus for Spring and Easter break....).
Those gigs, coupled with some new dates at YORK University (in the Dance Dept.), and Canyon Creek and rehearsing with Ed & Tim, will quite nicely fill out the vacant spots in my schedule (my residency gigs with the Toronto School Board and the Pickering School of Ballet are going on hiatus for Spring and Easter break....).
Tuesday, March 15, 2005
Saturday, March 12, 2005
good morning! (It's morning as I type this, and I guess it's safe to assume that it might be morning when you read this...) I got a call from Peggy Baker (dancer and teacher extraordinaire) to play a class with her today at the National Ballet of Canada. I haven't played for Peggy in a long time so I jumped at the chance and had my faithful sub Derek Thorne take my regular classes at the Pickering School of Ballet. I'm looking forward to it, Peggy's got a strong sense of time and flow in her work, so making music for her is an engaging experience (she's really listening and knows what she wants, so while it may not be easy, it's fun).
what else? hmmm, had a few emails exchanged with Kip Hanrahan this week and got some news tidbits on his new record, his thoughts on the Cream reunion, etc. My "other" business, musicformovement.com sells Kip's CDs, and while we don't sell tons (which isn't to suggest that it is isn't the reason the site keeps going, in many ways it is), it's steady and it's worthwhile, because for many of the titles M4M is the only place you can get them.
so, the next two weeks at Canyon Creek are with Tim Posgate, which will be great. We haven't played with Tim since the summer, so it'll be good to re-connect. I'm busy writing charts out for the first rehearsal of a new proposed project ("proposed" because if the rehearsal doesn't go well, or we simply don't dig it, I won't labour over it, I'll just move on) that will involve Tim, a guitar/sax/drums trio with a great tenor player, Ed Zankowski (whom I met while playing in Kevin Cooke's band). I'm hoping it will be "avant-garde roots" if that means anything. NOT JAZZ. Instrumental, improvisational, swinging, funky, gritty, loose, but not necessarily jazzy. I love jazz, but I don't want to go in a harmonically dense direction. One of the charts I am working on is am excerpt from a dance piece I wrote back in 2001-2002, called "Japan". It's essentially a static harmonic environment (just a G7 chord, really) based around a loping, mutating drum beat (it's in 4, but I'm free to drop or add beats), the harmonic movement (to a C chord, nothing tricky) is written in sparingly, and more to provide a release, rather than a cyclic shifting of landscape. I envision it somewhat like a blue sky (G7) with the odd cloud (C) floating by...
We get together @ Tim's in two weeks. Stay tuned....
chris
what else? hmmm, had a few emails exchanged with Kip Hanrahan this week and got some news tidbits on his new record, his thoughts on the Cream reunion, etc. My "other" business, musicformovement.com sells Kip's CDs, and while we don't sell tons (which isn't to suggest that it is isn't the reason the site keeps going, in many ways it is), it's steady and it's worthwhile, because for many of the titles M4M is the only place you can get them.
so, the next two weeks at Canyon Creek are with Tim Posgate, which will be great. We haven't played with Tim since the summer, so it'll be good to re-connect. I'm busy writing charts out for the first rehearsal of a new proposed project ("proposed" because if the rehearsal doesn't go well, or we simply don't dig it, I won't labour over it, I'll just move on) that will involve Tim, a guitar/sax/drums trio with a great tenor player, Ed Zankowski (whom I met while playing in Kevin Cooke's band). I'm hoping it will be "avant-garde roots" if that means anything. NOT JAZZ. Instrumental, improvisational, swinging, funky, gritty, loose, but not necessarily jazzy. I love jazz, but I don't want to go in a harmonically dense direction. One of the charts I am working on is am excerpt from a dance piece I wrote back in 2001-2002, called "Japan". It's essentially a static harmonic environment (just a G7 chord, really) based around a loping, mutating drum beat (it's in 4, but I'm free to drop or add beats), the harmonic movement (to a C chord, nothing tricky) is written in sparingly, and more to provide a release, rather than a cyclic shifting of landscape. I envision it somewhat like a blue sky (G7) with the odd cloud (C) floating by...
We get together @ Tim's in two weeks. Stay tuned....
chris
Sunday, March 06, 2005
Changes:
Ken Aldcroft (of Leftover Daylight concerts) emailed me to see if I could change my performance date there to April 29, as he has a group coming in from Chicago that would like to do a set. No problem here, seeing as MO wasn't available and everyone else I tried to get to play with me were busy too. :)
Anyway, I'm set to do it April29 now, but unfortunately MO is booked then too (he's good, he works, it happens.), so I may be debuting my new project (TBA STAY TUNED!) there on that night.
New music has found its way into my home, car and iPod this week:
-Paul Motian trio - I Have the Room Above Her : yes yes yes. so good. it's actually what spurred my most recent (and likely most possible) project idea
-the Mars Volta - Frances the Mute: I just got a few minutes into this, but it's already as good as the first one. which was really good.
-Michael Bettine - Stars Show the Way: solo percussion, lots of gongs and other PAISTE treats. I got this disc in an exchange (he's a fellow PAISTE endorser) for "winter music". There's some fine playing on this disc; the solo drumming is musical, and not drum-istic, which is what usually shuts me down when I encounter solo drumming. By drum-istic I mean an exposition of various technicalities (in basketball don't they call them "technical fouls"?), that I can only imagine are of interest to other drummers or sports fans (for its athleticism).
Ken Aldcroft (of Leftover Daylight concerts) emailed me to see if I could change my performance date there to April 29, as he has a group coming in from Chicago that would like to do a set. No problem here, seeing as MO wasn't available and everyone else I tried to get to play with me were busy too. :)
Anyway, I'm set to do it April29 now, but unfortunately MO is booked then too (he's good, he works, it happens.), so I may be debuting my new project (TBA STAY TUNED!) there on that night.
New music has found its way into my home, car and iPod this week:
-Paul Motian trio - I Have the Room Above Her : yes yes yes. so good. it's actually what spurred my most recent (and likely most possible) project idea
-the Mars Volta - Frances the Mute: I just got a few minutes into this, but it's already as good as the first one. which was really good.
-Michael Bettine - Stars Show the Way: solo percussion, lots of gongs and other PAISTE treats. I got this disc in an exchange (he's a fellow PAISTE endorser) for "winter music". There's some fine playing on this disc; the solo drumming is musical, and not drum-istic, which is what usually shuts me down when I encounter solo drumming. By drum-istic I mean an exposition of various technicalities (in basketball don't they call them "technical fouls"?), that I can only imagine are of interest to other drummers or sports fans (for its athleticism).
Saturday, March 05, 2005
...this is a great way to start a Saturday: worlds collide when I find a picture on the Internet of two of my favourite performers: Terry Adams of NRBQ and the hilarious actress Betty White (of the Golden Girls, of course.):
I've had a rush of creative ideas/plans but now I am not sure which one will advance. The organ trio idea with Dan Wall may have to back-burner simply because it is the most expensive idea and I have no real plan for how I would get a return on my investment. I have some other, equally exciting (to me) ideas that are less costly, so one of them may win out. Stay tuned...
I've had a rush of creative ideas/plans but now I am not sure which one will advance. The organ trio idea with Dan Wall may have to back-burner simply because it is the most expensive idea and I have no real plan for how I would get a return on my investment. I have some other, equally exciting (to me) ideas that are less costly, so one of them may win out. Stay tuned...
Wednesday, March 02, 2005
In the midst of doing some re-organizing of music files yesterday I stumbled across a CD I'd almost forgotten: De-Loused in the Comatorium by the Mars Volta. It's wonderful, frantic, powerful, delicate, and very original. The drummer, Jon Theodore, is fantastic. Anyway, turns out they have a new album, so I'll be digging on that soon too... check them out.
Tuesday, March 01, 2005
Toronto got hit with tons of snow yesterday and it's still falling. Of course, our furnace/water heater decides to conk out in the middle of this. So I've got repair guys in the basement as I type. I'm off to Toronto Dance Theatre to play a class this evening, and in the meantime am doing some computer cleanup (moving files, etc.)....
I just discovered the iTunes has a huge world music section: this is exactly what makes the whole download model so great. Most world music albums are imports and thus priced quite high, so to take a chance on one is a serious financial risk. With iTunes, one can literally sample the globe at 99cents a pop. Don't like Indonesian music? well, it only cost you 99 cents to find out. :)
I just discovered the iTunes has a huge world music section: this is exactly what makes the whole download model so great. Most world music albums are imports and thus priced quite high, so to take a chance on one is a serious financial risk. With iTunes, one can literally sample the globe at 99cents a pop. Don't like Indonesian music? well, it only cost you 99 cents to find out. :)
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