You Say It's Your Birthday?

My birthday was on the 12th, and apparently I lived to tell about it, or something. I had a few dudes over to play—Brandon Arnieri and Paul Horn make up the trio I am playing with right now. In addition to Paul and Brandon, we had Whit Harrington and Dom Piscopo who made up the trio I played with earlier in the year—we did the tunes Return To Zero and All Things Frippy.

Over the course of the eve, we played in a whole bunch of different combos. I know I played drums and bass, Dom is mostly a guitarist, but probably played some bass, ditto Brandon, who is a better bass player than he'd let on to. Whit provided powerhouse drumming, and Paul provided some of the more jazzy stuff. At one point, Whit and Paul traded in the middle of a jam. I got it all on Pro Tools, but don't expect much—the alcohol was flowing that night, and I'm not sure that all the levels came in right from one trio jam to another. A lot of stuff was played, but not recorded, for, er, uh, whatever reason. But we all had some fun.

In addition to the music geeks in attendance, we also had some other folks: Dom's lady Kate, Brando's lady Merrily, Doug Robinson, Kelli and her friend Suzanne. Missing were the Brothers Thaxton, who came last year, but I'm sure Mike had a very good reason for not showing up ;^)

On a half related note, for the prog and art rock minded, be sure to check out the big two day show on the second weekend of November that will feed your hunger for some challenging and interesting music—Progwest. My buddy Mike Thaxton is the webmaster and a key organizer, and I am the stage manager. The show headliner is the Mike Keneally/Nick D'virgilio band doing a live rendition of Kevin Gilbert's posthumous masterpiece, The Shaming of the True. Go to his site and read up about the history behind the album. It's a major triumph, and one of my favorite albums of all time.

Aside from that, I have to say I am digging the Pro Tools set up, and the studio control room is getting some attention. I will put some pix up soon of the new lean and mean rig. Some audio hopefully will be soon to come.

New Songs

Hi again, and welcome to the show. Recent developments include finishing two tracks that my friends in Loaf recorded at Hog Heaven. I played some guitar, tambourine and sandpaper on one track.

I love working with Rebecca and Dawne—they are such good singers. But remember that this track isn't necessarily super Hi Production. The new Loaf songs are actually the first couple of tracks that my new and improved studio has done. (I've certainly used the place, but haven't really had stuff get done and ready for listening.)

A couple of tracks from my little trio (me on bass, Whit Harrington on drums, Dom Piscopo on guitar) exist, and I decided to put them up, with the proviso that you remember they are just live rehearsal recordings. They both RAWK though.

Music Notes

The news is good. Sort of. I can't claim the money is rolling in (it certainly aint), but it's alright here at Hog Heaven Central. I just restrung my acoustic guitar (rare enough, as I barely fancy myself a guitar player let alone one who plays acoustic, so my strings always go dead), and at this very moment, it's tuned in Robert Fripp's tuning style (C G D A E G), but actually a half step down (B F# C# G# D# F#). It's a wonderfully different tuning that I have visited upon occasionally for a few years. There is scarcely any similarity to any other guitar tuning. I get some ideas from it, though its a physically hard tuning to play in (added string tension, certain intervals are hard to reach.) I've also been dabbling in quartal harmony, which is neat stuff. One of my fave artists, Erik Satie used quartal harmony, and paved the way for a very cool 20th century musical device.

I also have this band thing I've been doing since January, with some changes to the lineup; it's been a trio mainly: Me on bass, Dom Piscopo on guitar, Whit Harrington on drums. Recently, a feller named Jeremy Robinson has been involved on guitar. He is a helluva nice dude, good player and knows his shit. Todd Larowe played with us before Jeremy did, and Todd was right for the job, but he gets wickedly busy in the summer at his Sea World job and had to bow out. Bummer. Todd, as you will see in these pages, has been very influential on my stuff and in general, and a good friend. I hope we play together again. Jeremy, oddly enough, has some of those same qualities so I'm looking forward to writing new stuff and getting the quartet playing out. We have a few tracks at present, and once I get worthwhile recordings, I'll post a few here.