Friday, February 10, 2012

JANUARY 17 - FEBRUARY 10 - LA, ANAHEIM, PHILADELPHIA, MEXICO CITY, NYC - Where is my mind?

Hey all - first and foremost:

THANK YOU!!!

... for helping me successfully create the funds to produce my second album, "Terroir." I'm very excited to get into writing again, and I'll be posting lots of updates about my progress on my facebook and twitter pages.

Also, I'll be offering some of the packages on my site, so if you missed your chance or wanted to use paypal to make your transaction, you'll still be able to make a contribution and receive some goodies!

So what else is new? Well, as usual, I've been running around like crazy... Where to start? In the middle of January, I took a trip out California to see my good friend Rynne, and swing by the cacophonous circus that is the NAMM show.  The expected week-long stay was extended to 10 days, and I also played a few gigs - one of which was at an event called Altbass, "an esoteric experimental bass event during NAMM" put together by Tom Shad (we hope to do more events like that on the east coast - check out the site for more info).  The other was house concert with the fantabulous Steve Lawson).  I even (finally) met my curly haired bass playing sistren one night at the Baked Potato. We were both there to see Holdsworth and Haslip, of course.

bass worlds collide

I even stayed an extra few days, since I had the opportunity to cook dinner for Meshuggah... did I mention that I had beautiful Wild Alaskan salmon hand caught by Danny Carey and Justin Chancellor to work with? Sometimes I don't even believe my own life... I hope to include the recipe for the oven poached fish, along with the hand rolled pasta with creamy mushroom fennel sauce that I served along side it in the sneak preview of my upcoming cookbook...

But really, I needed an excuse to escape the gray Philadelphia skies... the sunshine really filled me with energy... On the 26th, I took a redeye back home on the to have an early birthday dinner with the family, and then left again the next morning for Mexico City, where I reconvened with Adrian, Tobias, and John. I immediately passed out for 4 hours, and woke up just in time to go out to dinner with our lovely promoters. They took us to a funky Argentine restaurant (so... just veggies for me, please), and I slept for another 8 hours that night. Needless to say, I was nice and refreshed for the concert - I even had the time in the afternoon to walk around downtown with new friends (photos coming soon).

Soundcheck was a little stressful - we always hold our breaths until everyone's rig is working and sounding good. Luckily, John fixed some problems just in the nick of time.

Doors opened, and an hour later the always impressive bajista Alonso Arreola opened up the show. And what an awesome show it was - roughly 1500 ravenous fans showed up at the gorgeous Plaza Condesa for an evening of exciting experimental music.  As a mentioned earlier, it was my birthday weekend, so the whole concert was truly a special experience, as everyone in the crowd sang "Las Mañanitas" to me. So cool!

Two hours later, my 26th birthday officially started with shots of tequila añejo and sangrita at the bar.  I stayed up maybe a little bit too late, but I knew I'd be traveling all day, so I wanted to celebrate while I could.  Of course I regretted this immensely a few hours later, as I must have had lovely tint of chartreuse in my cheeks for the few hours that I sat - rather - slumped into a chair in the airport lounge...

Luckily I recovered quickly, and the next day, I woke up and immediately set up my rig. I was inspired by all the good times, and got right to work on the album...

Five songs later, Dom picked me up and we had DRGN KING practice down in South Philly. Our keyboardist/producer Brent has been getting awfully busy lately, so we were rehearsing for the first time as a trio.  Yay - another trio!

The next day was another wild one... I went up to New York City nice and early so I could hop on one of Tool's tour buses and catch their show at Izod in East Rutherford, NJ.  It was another magical evening - the birthday celebrations just didn't seem to end...

I decided to stay overnight, and took a train back to Philly just in time to walk on stage with DRGN KING.  It was an excellent night at Johnny Brenda's (Fort Lean and Nico's Gun also performed), and the crowd seemed very welcome to our new configuration.

My head is still spinning.

... Speaking of DRGN KING, we'll be playing at Cake Shop in NYC tonight.  Mike Visser from Springs (another band I play in) will be opening with a sure-to-be-killer acoustic set.

So I guess that brings us up to date... As said, check for more frequent updates on my facebook and twitter pages, and I hope to see you soon at one of my upcoming shows!