May 22 2007

So alot has happened in the past 8 months.Today is the day that the band i'v been in for 9 years ,ediblered finally releases our debut cd,"Welcome to my bad Behaviour".It will be in stores today.You can get it at Barnes and Noble,Borders ,Circuit city,Virgin and Best Buy. It's been a long time coming.Check us out at www.ediblered.com and www.myspace.com/ediblered .In other news I toured Singapore and Indonesia in February with The great Hugh Pool and Admir Hadzik.Wow what an amazing experience,the gigs were alot of fun.There were such warm and beautiful people over there.It will be something i'll never forget.In march i got the oppurtunity to play in Amsterdam for a week with Jake Walker a great blues guitarist.That was a blast ,the gigs were all packed and the people really know how to party there.I got a chance to do a bit of sightseeing , and check out the city .Back here i'v been playing some great gigs with Jason Green,a great blues/jazz guitarist as well as a bunch of other great musicians.
So know we'll see what the next step is for ediblered.We will probably be hitting the road late summer/early fall.If you get a chance to buy the cd ,it will be great ,we can use all the support we can get.Till next time keep rockin and supporting live music.

September 06

Ok ,so it's been over a year since i'v written .WOW,time really does fly.I'v had a pretty cool summer professionally and personally .Over the summer i have been lucky enough to play with some great musicians.Some of them are Jason Green www.jasongreenguitar.com,he is an awesome blues/jazz/bluegrass guitarist,definately check him out,Jennifer richman ,a great singersongwriter,Bd Lenz ,Dave Gross,dave Eggar,of course edible red ,the band that i'v been playing with for a long time,we finally completed our cd and it should be out sometime in January,www.myspace.com/ediblered,you can check out this site ,we're using this while we get out website redesigned.On another note ,i just came back from a 2 week residency in the Quad Citys(Iowa and Illinois) it was a2 weeks of playing at schools,old age homes,librarys,prisons,mentally handicapped homes and concert halls.We really hit it all.It was very rewarding to be able to bring our music to all these different people.You can check out our myspace account.Myspace.com/lincolncenterfouronthefloor.Other than that i took a nice vacation to Greece,that was totally amazing.Know it's back to work and hopefully a busy fall and winter.

Saturday 7/30/05

This past week was very eventful.We had our signing party with edible red at Arlene's Grocery.We packed the place with over 100 people plus we played our asses off,we ROCKED.Rehearsal actually pays off.After the gig we had a great party at Forbidden City ,Collette set up the place beautifully.We had free food flowing all night,everybody had agreat time.Unfortunately on a sour note ,the 90 something pics that i took at the party got completely erased when i tried to download them into my computer.There were some really funny pics.BUMMER.....
Then on Wednsday Dave hooked us up a recording session at Spin Studios in Astoria.We had a great session .The studio totally rocked,great big live room,amazing drum sound.
Well now i'm getting ready to go to a gig with Jason Green,I really enjoy his gigs,he's a great player.I always have un on his gigs.

Wednsday 6/8/05

Well i had a really nice weekend.I played with the band Swampadelica at the Crawfish Fest ,which is a big
NewOrleans music festival.The music was great and so was the food,many little crawfish perished for this event.
We had a really good gig .We played on the main stage for a few thousand people,definately my biggest gig since edible red played in Pittsburgh a few years back.The set went well and people were groovin' to us. After we played i got to enjoy all the other bands ,like the Re Birth Brass Band,man these guys were killin',Then Sonny Landry an incredible blues guitarist,then i got to check out the Meters.WOW,they smoked ,i caught the whole show sitting about 5 feet behind the drummer, Russell,Baptiste,he just tore it up.I also got to meet George Porter,one of the funkiest bass players around,i have to say he was an incredibly nice guy.One of the things i got from this weekend was how much fun these guys have when they play.They're all smiling and totally diggin life when they play. A lesson to be learned by all of us.It's only music ,just have fun!!!!!!!Sunday was also good.Buckwheat Zydeco headlined the day.We(swampadelica) played a 2 hour set in the dance hall where people were shaking their bootys.I got burnt by the sun,i have to remember to bring my sunblock next time...

Tuesday 5/24/05

Just chillin in my crib with my cat(??????)Tomorrow Collette and I are meeting with Fred of Select Records to discuss what songs are going to go on the edible red record.
My gigs have been pretty cool lately tomorrow i have one with the Jeff Young band in NJ ,last week we rocked Session 73 in NYC.It was one of the best gigs,playing wise that we had in a while.Iam also looking foward to the swampadelica gig ,we're playing the crawfish fest ,the first weekend of June,thousands of people come to this thing so it should be fun and the METERS are headlining ,i'v never seen them so i'm stoked they are fffffffffunky!!!!!!!!!!
The Yankees are winning again so life is good

Monday 5/9/05

Took a little vacation and chilled out in Florida for a while.Looking foward to get back to playing.It was kind of refreshing to take a break from the drums.Sometimes you can get so obsessive with every little note and drive yourself crazy.It's only music.The book EFFORTLESS MASTERY by Kenny Werner is great at really explaining this point.Everyone who is struggling with the "I suck" "so and so is so much better than me" "i feel terrible because i sounded bad on my last gig" "maybe i just don't have that much talent"syndrome should check out this book.

sunday 3/27/05

blah blah blah

Tuesday 3/15/05

I was just thinking of all the great drummers out there.Sometimes i feel i don't give my students enough of a backround on these great drummers

well here are just a handfull of them

Philly Joe Jones ,Papa Jo Jones,Buddy Rich,Gene Krupa,Tony Williams,Jack DeJonette,Billy Cobham,Ziggaboo Modeliste,David Garibaldi,Max Roach,Art Blakey,Dave Weckl,Steve Smith,Billy Ward,John Bonham,Charley Watts,Keith Moon,Keith Carlock,Steve Hass,Jeff "Tain "Watts,Marvin Smitty Smith,"El Negro"Horacio Hernandez,Al Jackson,Steve Gadd,Jimmy Cobb

There are sooooo many more ,i didn't even scratch the surface but it's a good start to check out some of these guys.

Sunday 3/13/05

just came back from a jam with the band swampadelic.They are a really cool band but tonights jam was kinda labored,i know i was really tired ,but in general i felt like the jams didn't go anywhere,i guess sometimes it happens and sometimes it doesn't,anyway i hope we do it again sometime.On another note ,i recorded some tracks for edible red this weekend ,they came out really good,i think this is the end of the tracking ,it's been a while so it's cool to finally have it done.

Thursday 3/10/05

wow had a stressful day today ,woke up early today and had Ignacio (the genius who worked on my website,this guy is amazing with computer graphics ,anyway he was trying to explain how to edit and upload songs to my website,well,i got the editing part but the uploading is another story,that my friends will have to wait for another day.I'm trying to be patient with myself but it is really difficult ,definately not my srtong point.

it's really hard for me to stay positive as a drummer when there are soooooo many amazing players out there sometimes i feel my progress is so slow,i guess that's where patients comes to play ,it's like i tell my students "just do your best and enjoy the process" i should take my own advice .Even though i complain alot and get bummed out i am very grateful to be playing with some amazing musicians,sometimes ,i'm like ,"what do they want to play with me for?" i guess they see something in my playing that they like or they're using me for a ride to gigs lol.

Tuesday 3/8/05

damn snow ,had to cancell all my students today,bummer ,,,i was stuck in a 5 1/2 hour traffic jam in the most scenic part of NJ, the turnpike around exit 15 and 16 ,for those of you who are from the area, you know what i'm talking about .The swamps,factories,dirty trucks,over passes,dirty polluted water is quite a sight ,i would love to get stuck there more often : )

Thursday 3/3/05 

 have a cool gig with The Jeff Young Band tonight  at session 73 in manhattan.... for more info check out www.session73.com

wednsday 3/2/05