Guitar
There's been a few interesting developments in the world of D this last week, the first being a corporate gig I was hired to do in a swanky hotel downtown. Basically we had to provide audio wallpaper for a gang of municipal employees from all over the country. We were to play two hours of instrumental music for a fairly diverse group, whilst not drawing a whole lot of attention to ourselves, so that the conventioneers could schmooze in style.
I ended up doing a marathon woodshedding session to accommodate the needs of the gig. It was to be myself and my good buddies (and trusted compatriots) Pat Darcus on upright bass and Dave Webb on piano. I put together a book featuring everything from surf to blues to jazz standards and the lads did a beautiful job of playing some pretty ambitious material to an undemonstrative audience. It was a really cool night, musically speaking; I got to play 'Walk Don't Run', 'Apache', 'Telstar', a bunch of Freddie King, Earl Hooker and Jody Williams blues instrumentals and some jazz standards to boot, Horace Silver's 'Song for My Father' being the standout. Yeah, we played at an unbelievably polite volume and were largely ignored by the punters, but as a group we pulled together and played a challenging and (largely) poised show. We made some really pretty music. The organizers were delighted. Outside of the convention room, audience members proved to be friendly and very complimentary. All in all, an very good gig.
In other news, I've been called upon to co-compose an album with a couple of close friends of mine, Big Joe and Glynis Burke. Glynis is sitting on a huge pile of lyrics dating back more than a few years, and we have begun writing sessions to develop them into finished songs, which are to be recorded in a collective sort of atmosphere. We managed to make some really encouraging noise in our first session, and we'll be cracking at it twice a week until we've got an album-ready batch of tunes. If all goes as it has thus far, we should be thinking about studio specifics by the spring.
Also on the recording front, I received the brand-spankin' new release from Shake n'Cor and the Bonetones just yesterday. Recorded in two sessions (a couple of days each, last spring and summer) the album is pressed and available. It features my good pal Sandybone on drums, upright bassist extraordinaire (and silent film star of the internet) Keith Picot, Shakey Reay Suter on harmonica, Corry Suter on vocals and myself. It's a moody, torchy album with some really deep moments, recorded off Corry and Reay's living room in Crofton, BC. We built the arrangements as a group as we went and it was an ebullient and spontaneous session, and I believe we caught the essence of the tunes and the overall project with aplomb. I also managed to slip in what is possibly the most bad-ass solo of my recording career to date. Good work everybody! Welcome to the world little album!
My brother and I are getting ready (we might even rehearse) for the return of Two Cylinder Bastards, our new duo (two gigs and two rehearsals, so far). We'll be opening for Big Joe Burke at my home away from home, the Princeton Pub on October 26. It promises to be a raucous little party: Joe is in the process of unleashing the new iteration of his band, a little less country and a whole lot more rock'n'roll, and the duo of my brother and me is pretty incendiary, if I do say so myself. That said, we've got some work to do to prepare for our first gig since January, last year.
Finally, an update about the Kay (possibly Univox) Effector guitar. In one of my bored trolls across the wasteland that is Craiglist, I came upon an ad from a fellow offering amp and pedal repairs. He's a self-taught, handy fella', a long time band guy and generally a really cool dude. He's taking on the Effector problem, so I should have the long-promised demo of the beautiful cheapo ready in a couple of weeks. You can find him at http://www.amprepair.ca/
An eventful week, indeed. And very nicely timed at this season of slowing down and settling in for a long winter. I might make it through one more time!
- Ephemera And Updates
Garnet Stencil head. 4x10 open-back cabinet comes this week! Lookout Vancouver! Hello everybody. Once again I have let a significant period of time go by without posting anything new. I know how much this makes me crazy when I'm...
- Ephemera And Updates
Hey gang, I haven't forgot about you! I've just been extremely busy with both family and musical responsibilities. There are some cool posts coming up though: the Zinky Smoky Amp demo is almost ready; it's written and recorded...
- Very Normal Activity (ie. Not Normal At All)
Hello my dear readers. I apologize for the lack of any recent content, but the gap in posts happened for the best possible reason. You see, I blog because I don't necessarily get to play as much music as I would like...
- Learning To Live With It
Under the microscope again... I recently had occasion to listen to some of the recorded work I did over the last year. In total I "surveyed" about fourteen tunes from three different projects, and was struck with a simple fact: in not one...
- Audio Wallpaper
The Wolf performs at the grocery store. This past Thursday I played a charity event at a high-end cooking store (the Gourmet Warehouse in Vancouver). It featured a few local celebrity chefs, a popular local news team, a number of...
Guitar
Weekend Update
There's been a few interesting developments in the world of D this last week, the first being a corporate gig I was hired to do in a swanky hotel downtown. Basically we had to provide audio wallpaper for a gang of municipal employees from all over the country. We were to play two hours of instrumental music for a fairly diverse group, whilst not drawing a whole lot of attention to ourselves, so that the conventioneers could schmooze in style. I ended up doing a marathon woodshedding session to accommodate the needs of the gig. It was to be myself and my good buddies (and trusted compatriots) Pat Darcus on upright bass and Dave Webb on piano. I put together a book featuring everything from surf to blues to jazz standards and the lads did a beautiful job of playing some pretty ambitious material to an undemonstrative audience. It was a really cool night, musically speaking; I got to play 'Walk Don't Run', 'Apache', 'Telstar', a bunch of Freddie King, Earl Hooker and Jody Williams blues instrumentals and some jazz standards to boot, Horace Silver's 'Song for My Father' being the standout. Yeah, we played at an unbelievably polite volume and were largely ignored by the punters, but as a group we pulled together and played a challenging and (largely) poised show. We made some really pretty music. The organizers were delighted. Outside of the convention room, audience members proved to be friendly and very complimentary. All in all, an very good gig.
In other news, I've been called upon to co-compose an album with a couple of close friends of mine, Big Joe and Glynis Burke. Glynis is sitting on a huge pile of lyrics dating back more than a few years, and we have begun writing sessions to develop them into finished songs, which are to be recorded in a collective sort of atmosphere. We managed to make some really encouraging noise in our first session, and we'll be cracking at it twice a week until we've got an album-ready batch of tunes. If all goes as it has thus far, we should be thinking about studio specifics by the spring.
Also on the recording front, I received the brand-spankin' new release from Shake n'Cor and the Bonetones just yesterday. Recorded in two sessions (a couple of days each, last spring and summer) the album is pressed and available. It features my good pal Sandybone on drums, upright bassist extraordinaire (and silent film star of the internet) Keith Picot, Shakey Reay Suter on harmonica, Corry Suter on vocals and myself. It's a moody, torchy album with some really deep moments, recorded off Corry and Reay's living room in Crofton, BC. We built the arrangements as a group as we went and it was an ebullient and spontaneous session, and I believe we caught the essence of the tunes and the overall project with aplomb. I also managed to slip in what is possibly the most bad-ass solo of my recording career to date. Good work everybody! Welcome to the world little album!
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| The Kay/Univox effects layout. |
My brother and I are getting ready (we might even rehearse) for the return of Two Cylinder Bastards, our new duo (two gigs and two rehearsals, so far). We'll be opening for Big Joe Burke at my home away from home, the Princeton Pub on October 26. It promises to be a raucous little party: Joe is in the process of unleashing the new iteration of his band, a little less country and a whole lot more rock'n'roll, and the duo of my brother and me is pretty incendiary, if I do say so myself. That said, we've got some work to do to prepare for our first gig since January, last year.
Finally, an update about the Kay (possibly Univox) Effector guitar. In one of my bored trolls across the wasteland that is Craiglist, I came upon an ad from a fellow offering amp and pedal repairs. He's a self-taught, handy fella', a long time band guy and generally a really cool dude. He's taking on the Effector problem, so I should have the long-promised demo of the beautiful cheapo ready in a couple of weeks. You can find him at http://www.amprepair.ca/
An eventful week, indeed. And very nicely timed at this season of slowing down and settling in for a long winter. I might make it through one more time!
- Ephemera And Updates
Garnet Stencil head. 4x10 open-back cabinet comes this week! Lookout Vancouver! Hello everybody. Once again I have let a significant period of time go by without posting anything new. I know how much this makes me crazy when I'm...
- Ephemera And Updates
Hey gang, I haven't forgot about you! I've just been extremely busy with both family and musical responsibilities. There are some cool posts coming up though: the Zinky Smoky Amp demo is almost ready; it's written and recorded...
- Very Normal Activity (ie. Not Normal At All)
Hello my dear readers. I apologize for the lack of any recent content, but the gap in posts happened for the best possible reason. You see, I blog because I don't necessarily get to play as much music as I would like...
- Learning To Live With It
Under the microscope again... I recently had occasion to listen to some of the recorded work I did over the last year. In total I "surveyed" about fourteen tunes from three different projects, and was struck with a simple fact: in not one...
- Audio Wallpaper
The Wolf performs at the grocery store. This past Thursday I played a charity event at a high-end cooking store (the Gourmet Warehouse in Vancouver). It featured a few local celebrity chefs, a popular local news team, a number of...