I'm excited to announce that in addition to Ape Tit, Sessh, and Frogs Gone Fishin' shows I will be playing some solo dates this summer including album release parties at Cervantes Ballroom in Denver on June 20th and Samana Lounge in Vail on July 19th.
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Download the album for FREE HERE
The music I'm making with Ableton Live is different in that I'm free to record drums, bass, guitars, keyboards, vocals and any number of sounds and samples, right from home or on the road, on my own time. You might be surprised by the lack of guitar work if you're familiar with Frogs or my other projects, but keys and rhythm have always been a fascination of mine, guitar a way to melt faces and lead a band. PLEASE ENJOY AND COME OUT TO THE SHOWS!!!
Monday, June 4
Tuesday, May 1
What New Orleans Feels Like
It's hard for many people to imagine what New Orleans, NOLA as we affectionately call it, is like without ever having been here. I thought that while we are down here for Jazz Fest, playing late-night shows and eating food, I would break it down into not 5, but 6 sense perceptions of what NOLA is like for the uninitiated.
SMELL:
Bottom line, NOLA smells. Good and bad. In fact the contrast is what makes the place so dynamic to walk around. In only a few minutes one might smell alternating heavenly and loathsome wafts of fish, trash, garlic, gardenia flowers, fresh swamp water, salty sea air, sugar, coffee, more garlic and more gardenias. The food and flowers smells utterly delicious, the trash and water stagnant and repulsive.
TASTE:
Choosing from the above, one hopes to end up with only a good smelling item in the mouth at any given time and their is no shortage of morsels and meals around town. In my mind, no other place in America has the range of culinary options, minus the trendy vegan-type non-food we have in certain regions, ahem, Colorado... You can get just about anything put in your pork sausage, alligator was my choice the first day we rolled into town. My favorite is the way New Orleanians work with fruit. An old mid-city fav is blueberry-lemonade and just this morning I had a peach-strawberry muffin. Abita Purple Haze is one of the only reputable fruit-beers in the nation, appeasing even the staunchest Bud-drinkers. After Katrina, an influx of workers from Mexico has led to one fine burrito crafted on Claiborne Ave. and there is no shortage of Italian or Sushi joints either. Still, some chicory in the coffee and a cup of gumbo is just about the most New Orleans you can get in two cups.
TOUCH:
It's humid. Beyond conventional means of odor and moisture control, learning to exist in a bath of one's own perspiration is par for the course. The ground is also highly uneven (read: POTHOLES) due to the location of the city on a constantly shifting subterranean swamp. NOLA is a place of rich materials: aged wood and wrought-iron, stained glass and thick costume velvet.
SEE:
New Orleans is an international city. Europeans, Japanese, West Africans and transplants from the Caribbean all mingle in a place that certainly looks more diverse than most of the rest of the region. The flora and fauna are diverse enough to match the human population, as well. Huge oak tree branches canopy the streets, growing amongst patches of tropical flowers. The clouds move overhead at a quick pace next to the gulf, and sunsets are a fiery purple affair.
HEAR:
Sounds in New Orleans work much the same way the smell does, wafting into your ears, carried on humid swamp currents and inland ocean breeze. The city is alive with cats, dogs, cars, men and women shouting in greeting and conflict, not to mention music. While there certainly are several types of "New Orleans Music", the brass band variety being the least replicated anywhere, you can hear music from regional Louisiana, the South, New York, L.A., the Caribbean, South America and Africa en masse on Frenchman Street and Uptown. New Orleans is the main refuge, as it has always been, for musics of the African Diaspora and the highly percussive result is a musician and listeners dream, alike.
FEEL:
There is something which appeals to a sixth sense in NOLA, an energy which peels off buildings onto the sidewalk, up from cracks in the swamp just inches below the pavement. It is the soul of the Civil War and slavery and untold horror and joy played out over and over again, a production few other American cities have known in their metropolitan theaters. The force is so great, a hurricane couldn't wash it away.
And when I walk down a darkened alley, only candlelight flickering from gas lamps above shuttered French Quarter doors though a thick fog... I can feel it.
SMELL:
Bottom line, NOLA smells. Good and bad. In fact the contrast is what makes the place so dynamic to walk around. In only a few minutes one might smell alternating heavenly and loathsome wafts of fish, trash, garlic, gardenia flowers, fresh swamp water, salty sea air, sugar, coffee, more garlic and more gardenias. The food and flowers smells utterly delicious, the trash and water stagnant and repulsive.
TASTE:
Choosing from the above, one hopes to end up with only a good smelling item in the mouth at any given time and their is no shortage of morsels and meals around town. In my mind, no other place in America has the range of culinary options, minus the trendy vegan-type non-food we have in certain regions, ahem, Colorado... You can get just about anything put in your pork sausage, alligator was my choice the first day we rolled into town. My favorite is the way New Orleanians work with fruit. An old mid-city fav is blueberry-lemonade and just this morning I had a peach-strawberry muffin. Abita Purple Haze is one of the only reputable fruit-beers in the nation, appeasing even the staunchest Bud-drinkers. After Katrina, an influx of workers from Mexico has led to one fine burrito crafted on Claiborne Ave. and there is no shortage of Italian or Sushi joints either. Still, some chicory in the coffee and a cup of gumbo is just about the most New Orleans you can get in two cups.
TOUCH:
It's humid. Beyond conventional means of odor and moisture control, learning to exist in a bath of one's own perspiration is par for the course. The ground is also highly uneven (read: POTHOLES) due to the location of the city on a constantly shifting subterranean swamp. NOLA is a place of rich materials: aged wood and wrought-iron, stained glass and thick costume velvet.
SEE:
New Orleans is an international city. Europeans, Japanese, West Africans and transplants from the Caribbean all mingle in a place that certainly looks more diverse than most of the rest of the region. The flora and fauna are diverse enough to match the human population, as well. Huge oak tree branches canopy the streets, growing amongst patches of tropical flowers. The clouds move overhead at a quick pace next to the gulf, and sunsets are a fiery purple affair.
HEAR:
Sounds in New Orleans work much the same way the smell does, wafting into your ears, carried on humid swamp currents and inland ocean breeze. The city is alive with cats, dogs, cars, men and women shouting in greeting and conflict, not to mention music. While there certainly are several types of "New Orleans Music", the brass band variety being the least replicated anywhere, you can hear music from regional Louisiana, the South, New York, L.A., the Caribbean, South America and Africa en masse on Frenchman Street and Uptown. New Orleans is the main refuge, as it has always been, for musics of the African Diaspora and the highly percussive result is a musician and listeners dream, alike.
FEEL:
There is something which appeals to a sixth sense in NOLA, an energy which peels off buildings onto the sidewalk, up from cracks in the swamp just inches below the pavement. It is the soul of the Civil War and slavery and untold horror and joy played out over and over again, a production few other American cities have known in their metropolitan theaters. The force is so great, a hurricane couldn't wash it away.
And when I walk down a darkened alley, only candlelight flickering from gas lamps above shuttered French Quarter doors though a thick fog... I can feel it.
Friday, April 20
Monday, April 16
Sunday, April 8
Religiousness
disclaimer: don't read this if your feelings get hurt easily or you think your religion is superior to other religions and get all huffy and puffy about it...
Looking below, I haven't blogged since January. I'm not sorry this time, I just counted and played 63 shows since Jan 9, my last post, or a little more than two shows every three days, if you're a geek like that. It's been a fantastic winter playing with Frogs, The Sessh and Ape Tit and now that the weather is warming up on this Easter weekend, I'm starting to think about summer festivals and our yearly tour to New Orleans, leaving later this month. I had a wonderful Easter brunch with my parents, on the rare occasion I get to take time to visit with them in person. During my busy schedule I always make sure to do one thing, and that is meditate. Whether for 5 seconds or 30 minutes, I try to spend some time every focusing on nothing but breathing. It's part of being a Buddhist, and if you try it you'll find that oftentimes you're not really breathing, and specifically, not breathing out as fully as you can. It's like we spend part of our lives in partial hyperventilation. Try checking your breathing next time you're driving home from work.
Buddhism is a philosophy, not a religion. I was raised as an Episcopalian, a word I had to spell check just now, and after serving as an acolyte (alter-boy) I became skeptical in my teens. Now I'm a firm agnostic, and have trouble accepting any of the scientific impossibilities involved with Christianity. We know the human body is irrecoverable once lifeless, and furthermore, accounts of Jesus weren't written until 60-200 hundred years after his death. Could you write an account of Abe Lincoln's life in 2012, without use of computers or even a good number of people who could read and write walking around? I think the view that only followers of Jesus, or Allah or Gumby for that matter, get into heaven accounts for some of the worst historical events ever recorded. If you're enemies are all going to hell, who cares how they die?
But there is another movement which concerns me, as much as narrow-minded Christians, extremist Muslims or unwavering, militaristic Zionists. It's atheists who have a strong, yet completely non-human view of god which is equally as destructive as any of the above listed groups. They are doing the exact thing they sometimes preach against, the active conversion of others to their viewpoint. People need to decide what they think on their own, a billboard stating "God Doesn't Exist, Stop Worrying About It" doesn't help anyone. Just like I don't think anyone has it truly figured out, I don't think atheists are correct in their assessment. Yes, the burden of proof should fall on someone claiming something DOES exist. If I came to you and explained that purple aliens, or Zeus or Satan DOES exist, I better back it up. But to aggressively claim you have proof that something unprovable doesn't exists is complete BS, as well.
Atheists miss the point. To say that something unobservable is real, or not real, is an egotistical move. What are you, a god scientist? Is there still oil under the surface of the ocean, thanks BP, in the Gulf of Mexico? Was Osama in Pakistan? You don't know jack, Jack, and to think that life is anything but the case would be to really bum out Plato who said:
"The only thing I know is that I don't know jack".
But don't we feel something more, as human beings, than simply our flesh and bone desires and day-to-day monotony? Next time you're drowning your morning-after hangover with a latte, staring at the foam patterns, getting all philosophical about why exactly we do this alcohol-driven evolutionary dance of work and sex called life week-in and week-out, ask yourself if you're not really inquiring about the existence of something more. I would also argue that the self-confirmation of that "more" is what keeps us alive, what keeps us from going lemming-status out the airplane or bus door on some days. We have to relish that with art and music, food and sex, love and compassion and find that "more" and instead of thinking this a hedonistic exercise, enjoy what this life has to offer, instead of conjecturing what the afterlife might hold for us. Find the beauty herein and overlook the ugliness, find the godliness inside. Then, instead of telling others about it, show them, walk humbly and help others. Jesus, Buddha and Allah, "the compassionate and merciful" one according to the Qur'an all taught this.
It's us humans who keep putting our egos in the way.
http://www.mormon.org
http://www.televisiontunes.com/South_Park_-_Hippitus_Hoppitus.html
Looking below, I haven't blogged since January. I'm not sorry this time, I just counted and played 63 shows since Jan 9, my last post, or a little more than two shows every three days, if you're a geek like that. It's been a fantastic winter playing with Frogs, The Sessh and Ape Tit and now that the weather is warming up on this Easter weekend, I'm starting to think about summer festivals and our yearly tour to New Orleans, leaving later this month. I had a wonderful Easter brunch with my parents, on the rare occasion I get to take time to visit with them in person. During my busy schedule I always make sure to do one thing, and that is meditate. Whether for 5 seconds or 30 minutes, I try to spend some time every focusing on nothing but breathing. It's part of being a Buddhist, and if you try it you'll find that oftentimes you're not really breathing, and specifically, not breathing out as fully as you can. It's like we spend part of our lives in partial hyperventilation. Try checking your breathing next time you're driving home from work.
Buddhism is a philosophy, not a religion. I was raised as an Episcopalian, a word I had to spell check just now, and after serving as an acolyte (alter-boy) I became skeptical in my teens. Now I'm a firm agnostic, and have trouble accepting any of the scientific impossibilities involved with Christianity. We know the human body is irrecoverable once lifeless, and furthermore, accounts of Jesus weren't written until 60-200 hundred years after his death. Could you write an account of Abe Lincoln's life in 2012, without use of computers or even a good number of people who could read and write walking around? I think the view that only followers of Jesus, or Allah or Gumby for that matter, get into heaven accounts for some of the worst historical events ever recorded. If you're enemies are all going to hell, who cares how they die?
But there is another movement which concerns me, as much as narrow-minded Christians, extremist Muslims or unwavering, militaristic Zionists. It's atheists who have a strong, yet completely non-human view of god which is equally as destructive as any of the above listed groups. They are doing the exact thing they sometimes preach against, the active conversion of others to their viewpoint. People need to decide what they think on their own, a billboard stating "God Doesn't Exist, Stop Worrying About It" doesn't help anyone. Just like I don't think anyone has it truly figured out, I don't think atheists are correct in their assessment. Yes, the burden of proof should fall on someone claiming something DOES exist. If I came to you and explained that purple aliens, or Zeus or Satan DOES exist, I better back it up. But to aggressively claim you have proof that something unprovable doesn't exists is complete BS, as well.
Atheists miss the point. To say that something unobservable is real, or not real, is an egotistical move. What are you, a god scientist? Is there still oil under the surface of the ocean, thanks BP, in the Gulf of Mexico? Was Osama in Pakistan? You don't know jack, Jack, and to think that life is anything but the case would be to really bum out Plato who said:
"The only thing I know is that I don't know jack".
But don't we feel something more, as human beings, than simply our flesh and bone desires and day-to-day monotony? Next time you're drowning your morning-after hangover with a latte, staring at the foam patterns, getting all philosophical about why exactly we do this alcohol-driven evolutionary dance of work and sex called life week-in and week-out, ask yourself if you're not really inquiring about the existence of something more. I would also argue that the self-confirmation of that "more" is what keeps us alive, what keeps us from going lemming-status out the airplane or bus door on some days. We have to relish that with art and music, food and sex, love and compassion and find that "more" and instead of thinking this a hedonistic exercise, enjoy what this life has to offer, instead of conjecturing what the afterlife might hold for us. Find the beauty herein and overlook the ugliness, find the godliness inside. Then, instead of telling others about it, show them, walk humbly and help others. Jesus, Buddha and Allah, "the compassionate and merciful" one according to the Qur'an all taught this.
It's us humans who keep putting our egos in the way.
http://www.mormon.org
http://www.televisiontunes.com/South_Park_-_Hippitus_Hoppitus.html
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