Hello!

I'm off to Burlington tonight, and I haven't played the drums since last Thursday so I'm quite excited to do some playing. The holiday season has freed up everyone's schedules enought to even allow us to do some jamming tomorrow. EdZ, MikeP and I are getting together, for, wait for it..... fun. :)

Anyway, that's pretty much it for me for 2005. There's lots coming up in the next two months, so please stay tuned and try and be a part of as much of it as you can. Thanks for your continued support my music, Happy New Year!

Head over to drumLAB to check out the posters for the Drum Mondays concert series in February 2006. I'm playing twice (2.6 cc+mo, 2.27 cc3+EZ), but will be there every week as the host, for lack of a better term.

A light week for me musically (the universe has filled up my idle hands with such fun as a natural gas leak in my home and other near-death experiences :)), only two gigs: I'm playing with Paul Fitterer's Solsticks ensemble for the Kensington Festival of Lights parade from 5pm-7pm on Wednesday and then with cc3 in Burlington on Thursday.

If I don't blog before next week, Happy Holidays to all and Merry Christmas to those that celebrate it. (we have a tree and presents under it in my home, but we've edited out out the manger and other exotica, I guess our holiday is better term Santamas, or Clausmas....).

The Toronto area is getting ready for a major snowstorm, but cc3 is unstoppable! We're planning to head out to our regular gig in Burlington, so maybe we'll see you out on the snowy roads, and then hopefully at our gig.

I rehearsed tonight for my good friend (and trusted drum tech) Paul Fitterer's drum ensemble, Solsticks for the Kensington Festival of Lights next week. It's a huge parade and we'll be one of the travelling bands. I'm playing bass drum. We're doing some second-line grooves, African, Brazilian, and plain old funky stuff. It should be fun, and incredibly cold. The event happens next week on December 21st in Kensington Market in Toronto around 5pm.

Things are slowing down for a few weeks on the gig front, which may mean that I'll be busier on the blog and my websites in general. We'll see. With the exception of my old faithful cc3 hit in Burlington, my holiday season begins after Wednesday this week. Perhaps it began tonight when a fellow citizen decided to hurl insults and obscenities at me because I wouldn't let him drive through my car to jump the line at the gas station. The price of oil is dignity, I guess.

Anyway, back to music! I'm booking the first round of Drum Mondays gigs for drumLAB. I'll post an official lineup ASAP, but looks like we'll have a CC+MO gig (the first since November of 2004) and hopefully another night with cc3+ Ed Zankowski, Joe Sorbara's great trio, and someone else TBA. Those gigs are in February.

I've put some more stuff on the free download page, including a rare live gem from Relax with Trudy's February 2000 run at Clinton's. We did a weekly gig there, it was some of the most fun I've ever had onstage. There was never more than 10 people there, but instrumentally we were KILLING it. Really, off the hook. I was playing just snare, hihat, bass drum and an 18" Paiste 2002 medium cymbal and we were playing everything from fusion to funk to metal to pop and country. It was wild. Unfortunately we were also experimentally vocally A LOT. So, while I have recordings of 3 of the 4 nights, much of the material with singing is sub-par (well, the singing is). Plus, in between tunes we got just a wee bit irreverent, resulting in a lot of absurdity. The mp3 I've posted to the download page is the tip of that iceberg.

I miss that band. I miss being able to convince musicians of that caliber to show up four weeks in a row for NO MONEY.

As planned, the complete free download of the fruits of our limitations has now been removed from chriscawthray.com. You can currently purchase it at Puretracks.com and (hopefully very soon), iTunes.

Fans of free stuff fear not, as soon as I get a chance, I'll be uploading some unreleased music for your enjoyment. Please bookmark the LISTEN/DOWNLOAD MUSIC page at chriscawthray.com and check back often.

This week is fairly light, I'm off today, and then the rest of the week is dance classes at ESA, PSB, and for Toronto Dance Theatre, the cc3 Thursday night and that's about it. I'll be wearing my drumLAB hat this week as I try and finalize a special clinic/lessons appearance by the great Joey Baron for January and the first "Drum Mondays" concert series to start in February. So far, it looks like the first show will be a very fun lineup of cc3+EZ, myself, ericB, mikeP, and ed zankowski. I am hopeful to also feature bands led by Joe Sorbara, Great Bob Scott and Paul Fitterer that month too. Stay tuned...

I can't resist the remote-blog!

I'm currently at The Gladstone awaiting my 8pm set with Chip Yarwood at the hotel's grand opening. They have WiFi here, and on Chip's gig I run Reason sequences from behind the kit.

There's no cover, come on down (there's lots more going on beyond my gig too....).