Saturday, September 29, 2007

Crosby Loggins in town tonight

Similar to the amazing Will Champlin, brilliant offspring of our Peeps Bill and Tamara Champlin, the son of my long time musical hero Kenny Loggins, Crosby Loggins is becoming a musical force in his own right. (I blogged about these kids a while ago.) Cat will be here tonight for a free show in Henderson:

Henderson Events Plaza
200 Water St.
Henderson, NV 89015
www.cityofhenderson.com
Free Show! 7 pm.
with Joe Bonamassa

Thanks to my friend Brad Cordle for the heads-up on this, I was not aware that he was coming. Ya oughta check this young dude out. Great writing and singing. The fruit indeed doesn't fall far from the tree.

POST-SHOW UPDATE

Well, Crosby opened -- solo. And kicked ass all by himself (I'd thought he'd be with his band, which would have been great too). I bought his new CD at the show. It's a must-have. Great writing, along with fine playing and singing.

Joe Bonamassa won me over, big-time too. In truth, I'd never heard of him. Cat can really sing, and has major, tasty blues guitar chops. He put on a great show. I'd pay to see this dude too.

Damn, there's so much fine talent out there.

Some interesting copy about Crosby from bellyup.com (where he and Joe will be gigging tomorrow night):
Crosby Loggins is the son of 70’s singer/songwriter, 80’s go-to soundtrack artist, Kenny Loggins. Enough said, because apart from the obvious familial resemblance, and a genetic gift for melody, this is not a simple story of a son following in his father’s footsteps.

“Some kids, their parent’s are business people, they become stockbrokers. Others choose medicine ‘cause mom or dad’s a surgeon. I never really thought about anything but music. The fact is, I tried to do everything I could to avoid music, as a career, I mean. But it was always there, and at some point, I just recognized that this is what I had to do. “

In fact, for two years following high school, avoid is exactly what Crosby did, working construction full-time on the island of Hawaii. But soon enough, the music came calling. And so, when he finally moved back to Santa Barbara, a town well-known as the home of a number of music greats, such as Jackson Browne, David Crosby, Glen Phillips, Michael McDonald and, of course, Kenny Loggins, Crosby couldn’t help but find himself and his career.

Just south of Santa Barbara, the towns of Ojai and Ventura have always played a critical part in Santa Barbara music culture. It was here that Crosby was first introduced to Jesse Siebenberg, producer, multi-instrumentalist and son of Supertramp drummer, Bob Siebenberg. Something of a musical prodigy, Jesse’s been playing stadium shows throughout Europe as a member of Supertramp since the age of 16.

Then came Paul Cartwright. Violinist. Never afraid to stretch the limits of conventional string playing, Paul is a whirlwind the world’s been waiting for. Paul grew up in Bakersfield, California, a town that’s home to a respectable group of successful musicians and high-caliber artists, such as Merle Haggard and Buck Owens.

Sometimes things just come together. After searching endlessly for the right group of musicians, Crosby, Jesse and Paul finally found the chemistry they’d been searching for in drummer Jared Pope, bassist Forest Williams, and keyboardist Dennis Hamm, three guys whose rhythm talents formed the backbone behind Bakersfield’s explosive funk fusion favorite, The Mother Funk Conspiracy.

In November, 2004, the newly-formed band, named Crosby Loggins and The Light, entered the studio to begin recording their first, full-length album. As work progressed, old friendships and a diversity of musical directions melded together to produce a sound and an album that are a unique expression of this talented group of young musicians. With stylistic influences ranging from pop to jazz, funk to straight ahead rock and roll, and held together by Crosby’s classic singer/songwriter melodies, this is an album that will resonate among discerning listeners and radio audiences alike.

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Monday September 24th gig at The Palms

Good crowd tonight. Place filled up early. They got a serious throw-down, too. Band was loose, happy, and energetic. Jerry pulled out the Flamenco, too, and they segue'd straight to "Canta Con Amigo," which is so fine (it's on the first CD, 2nd disk, BTW).

I had a few no-shows at my table, so eventually a couple from Alberta, Canada came up and asked if they could sit at my table. First time in Vegas for them, and someone had told them about the band. They were speechless by the time the night ended. "Living For The City" finished them off, big-time.

New fans!

BTW- Props to former Tower of Power vocalist Brent Carter in the house tonight. Brent now appears with the kick-ass NY Bad Boys horn group FUNK FILHARMONIK. Props also to Andy Ebon for the plug and the link. And, gotta recognize our friends from the incredible MOSAIC in da house. Those cats, yikes!

Rob Mader can wail with the best of 'em on tenor. He seriously reminds me of the SNL dude.

Above: Man, Nathan was havin' a Good Hair Night tonight! Lookin' good, bro'. Below, a random assortment of tonight's shots.

Don't forget, BTW, Michito's Salsero night on Tuesdays in the South Point Fever Showroom.

We also gotta thank all the fans who bought CDs tonight (and thanks to Cheryl for taking care of all that). We had a good night at the table. Really helps the band keep the fire burning.

Man, those new originals are, as Champlin would say, ridiculous! Stoooopid!
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RECENT BLOG TRAFFIC DATA

Interesting (click to enlarge). Bil Champlin/Sons of Champlin week gave us a big bump in hits. We've been steady for quite a while, with mostly the same repeat viewers week after week (most of 'em locals, with a small random smattering of hits from around the planet). Notice in the graph above the repetitive Tuesday hit spike caused by folks going to the blog to see what I posted about the Monday night Palms gig. Us stats heads call that "periodicity" or "seasonality." The purple trend line at this point evinces an upward slope that is pretty much the result of Champlin week. Now if we can just hold that viewership gain, and figure out how to grow it. We're a small but devoted group, LOL! By contrast, an irreverent and eclectic "liberal" political blog where I hang a lot (FireDogLake) gets on the order of 100,000 to a half-million hits a day. I would kill for those kinds of numbers.

NOTE: these data are from the Google Analytics page for the blog, covering the past 30 days, which I scraped off and dumped into Excel. Tech stuff: the "R2 = 0.3978" is known as the "R-square / Coefficient of Determination," essentially the square of the 1st order Pearson-R linear correlation coefficient, i.e., tells us how significant the trend line is. The larger the number, the lesser the variation around the trend line (and the more comfortable you can be in leaning on your extrapolations out to the future). Now, if I wanted to go all high-falutin' & stuff, I could pump up the R-Square by goin' to a higher-order polynomial (Excel will give you up to a 6-degree polynomial) that would more closely fit the trend estimator to the data peaks and valleys, resulting in a recurring wavy trend line.

The "y = 1.86275x - 72303" thingy (recall high school algebra? Didn't think so) tells us the slope of the trend line. Geek shit. Most of what I've been doing since hanging up my axe in 1985, LOL!

FYI- KELLY CLINTON UPDATE

From Kelly's website:
NEW ONE WOMAN SHOW - OCT 1

Versatile performer Kelly Clinton will preview her one woman show "Out of My Mind: An Evening with Kelly Clinton" at the Family Music Centers on Oct. 1 at 7 p.m.

Tickets are $25 with proceeds benefiting the Southern Nevada chapter of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's Team in Training campaign.

Clinton, who performs weekends at the Stirling Club and is the private venue's entertainment director, will be introducing a cast of characters that have played a role in her life through the years. "You might call them my alter egos who have supported my career," laughs Clinton. "They like the stage as much as I do and I love sharing it with them."

The eclectic evening will also include her vocal styling with her band and other surprise guests.

Members of the local Team in Training, which includes Clinton's brother, John Clinton (director of slots marketing at Bellagio), are preparing to run the Chicago Marathon Oct. 7. Their stepfather, Alfred Issa, recently completed his battle with lymphoma and, after six months of chemotherapy, has received a clean bill of health! John said, "I'm very proud of how he has fought his way through this, and he inspires me everyday to keep working to be prepared for the marathon."

All of the Team in Training is raising funds to help stop leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin lymphoma and myeloma from taking more lives. John is completing this event in honor of Alfred and all individuals who are battling blood cancers. "These people are the real heroes on our team, and we need your support to cross the ultimate finish line - a cure" he added.

The limited number of tickets for the evening can be purchased by calling 210-9721 or 810-0995. The Family Music Centers is located at 8125 W. Sahara.

Sunday, September 23, 2007

Ronnie Foster at "Just Jazz"

Ronnie Foster on B3 (throwin' down effortless left hand bass, too), Phil Wigfall on reeds, Jesse Gopen on tubs, Ronnie Rathers on guitar (badass Wes Montgomery style). Old school straight-ahead jazz on Sunday nights. Very nice. Love the little figurine inside above the entrance (100 East Sahara, BTW).

Place reminds me of black jazz clubs we used to go to in Newark when I first started gigging in 1964. Couldn't get good shots in the dim light tonight, had to bail to flash. Good to see Ronnie, haven't gotten to see him in a while.

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Sons of Champlin Part Deux

PRELUDE: I went to setup and sound check today. Interesting. Shot a bunch of pics. No time to post more now, heading back over the South Point for tonight's show. More later.
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POST GIG REPORT

OK, 11:47 pm, here we go (episodically, as I cull through the many pics for keepers, and post iteratively). I was so busy runnin' all over the room tryin' to get good shots I really didn't get to enjoy the show. Got my Aussie Shiraz in hand, 1, 2, 3, blog away...

Above shot, from the right sky box. Below, Carmen. Man, this cat throws down!

More thoughts later. I gotta go park my incipient geriatric ass for some Zzzz's, it's almost 1 a.m. This has been a huge thrill for me. I been diggin' Bill and the Sons for 40 years. Beyond the funk grooves and hot-assed playing, the intelligence of the lyrics, man. Listen to those old tunes. They just shout out such loving wisdom.
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CODA

Wednesday I showed up at the Fever showroom at 4 pm at Melanie's request to get some shots during a press photoshoot that had been arranged. The shoot got ditched over some scheduling beef with the back-of-house cats, who were there to set up the stage, and would not yield. So, I just hung around to watch Bill and the Sons do their 5:30 sound check. Melanie gave me a comp pass to the buffett. Cool.

But, sound check ran late, and I had to run home to change clothes and pick up fresh spare batteries for the show, so I didn't have time to eat. Then, after the show it was too late to go to the buffett, so I again didn't eat. I just went home and swigged a bit of Shiraz and blogged the evening. Well, yesterday (Thursday) morning I got up and had to run to the TLC nursing home in Henderson to pick up my Mother's clothes and bring 'em back to do her laundry, so, again, I didn't eat.

Well, while the wash was in process I went over and hit the lunch buffett. OMG! I pigged out to an extent that would make Claim Jumper entrees look like an Ethiopian drought harvest. LOL! I had food coma the rest of the day. Oink.

Just now (2 pm Friday) ate again.
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I seriously gotta get a solo acoustic gig now. Unemployment checks are about to run out, and I've thus far been unsuccessful in turning up another suitable local corporate gig. Well, I rendered up a bit of promo stuff (click here), but lack a current headshot. So, just now, after getting back from seeing my Pop over at Silver Ridge, I
got out one of my mother's pincer thingys that she'd used to pick stuff up without having to bend over, put my camera on a tripod, sat in the bay window in the dining room, pulled the louvered blind down to mute the sunlight. My camera irritatingly lacks an auto/remote/timer shutter, so in the pic below, I'm using this geriatric implement with my left hand (it's about 3 feet long) to squeeze the shutter.

Hey, 'make lemonade.'

Click the pic to enlarge. No, I didn't shave. On purpose. 'Manly' and shit. LOL.