Everyone have a happy and safe Thanksgiving

I've talked with a number of friends who are heading out of town today. May they all arrive and return home safely. Beyond my many other blessings, I am thankful every day to know all of you.

Monday Nov 19th gig at The Palms

UPDATED: POST GIG REPORT, SCROLL DOWN

10:30 pm in The Lounge at The Palms, no cover, no minimum. Be there.
__________

UPDATE NOTICE: a week from next Monday, Dec 3rd, we will again be graced by the stunning presence of The TRIO; bassist Marco Mendoza, drummer Joey Heredia, and keyboardist Steve Weingart. Gonna be a great night.
__________

Below, avoid the Holiday shopping rush. Buy now. Fabulous. Available at the gig, $10. Available here online (w/ mp3 samples), $10 + $2 S/H (sent via USPS 1st class).

_____

Luis Salinas

My great drummer bro' Kurt up in Washington state just sent me this link. Awesome.



Notice that Luis doesn't use a flat pick (particularly visible during his ride at around 7 minutes in).

POST GIG REPORT

OK, I'm mowing' some granola, sittin' here in my red chilis flannel PJ's, and may blog this incrementally. Gettin' a late start. it's 2:57. What a great night. Got a lot of shots to weed through.

Duncan Faure (Bay City Rollers cat) came to hang with Andy and Jessica. Nice to meet you. bro'.

Sean, of our fabulous peeps MOSAIC, came with his Dad, and promptly got put to work on "Come Together." Yeah, man, very cool.

Also among the crowd tonight: Brad The-Pavarotti-of-Blues Cordle, and the awesome Bobby Black of the Las Vegas Tenors (they have a couple of dates upcoming shortly at The Suncoast, BTW). Gotta give a shout as well to our bro' -- monster drummer and Santa Fe alum -- Tim Lienhard. I blogged about Tim and his studio just recently.

Funny story about Brad Cordle's pic on his new MySpace page. We were both over at The Sand Dollar one night, and I said 'dude, we gotta drag your retro ass kicking and screaming into the current times. You need at least a MySpace page and some promo pics. Go stand over there by the cigarette machine under that neon beer sign.'

Snap. Done. I shot that pic for him, LOL.

The highlight of the evening for all of us was the news that the eminent Armando Peraza was in the House!

Armando Peraza (born in May 30, 1924 in Havana, Cuba) stands shoulder to shoulder with Chano Pozo and Tito Puente as a pioneer of the Afro Cuban art form, but through his long associations with jazz pianist George Shearing, vibraphonist Cal Tjader and guitarist Carlos Santana, he was the most internationally visible of all Latin percussionists from the 1950s through to the 1990s. Although primarily known as a bongocero and conguero, Peraza is also an innovative and accomplished dancer and composer.

Significantly, and uniquely amongst the great Cuban percussionists, Peraza has for many years been an important socio-political figure, a symbol of Afro-Cuban achievement through his virtuoso musicianship and his refusal to be defeated by racism. His work with Shearing and Santana brought him international fame...

OMG! Well, of course, Jerry coaxed him up on the stage to sit in.

That was just awesome. 83 and still throwin' down. Jerry told me after the gig that Armando told him the band was the best he'd ever heard. How about that? 'eh?

Also on the percussion front, our brother Chiqui blessed us with his amazing talent once again:

One cookin', thumpin' night. Tyriq of the Brothers Johnson & Johnson stepped up for "Soul Trilogy."

Lenny, LOL!. More random pics below.

Thanks to our Fat City Horns subs Tom Delibero on trumpet and Dave Phillipus on trombone tonight! Danny Falcone was off owing to the birth of his son. Our congratulations to the Falcone family!

OTHER STUFF

Kool Kat Productions smooth jazz artist Boy Katindig will appear at the Las Vegas Springs Preserve (333 S. Valley View) on the Courtyard Plaza during their "Winter Lights Festival" Fri/Sat/Sun 11/23, 11/24, 11/25 and 12/13, 12/14, 12/15. Adrian Garcia will be on bass, Danny Dandan on sax, and Todd Smith on drums. Admission is $4 adults, $2 children ages 5-17. Check his MySpace tunes (click his name). 'Nuther Bad Boy.

Clint Holmes has some Christmas Special dates coming up in early December too, lest I forget.

Also, an email I got From Sandra Benton ("Menopause The Musical"):

Hey, please put in your calendar December 6 @ 2pm at the Suncoast - Skye's show that we have been working on for a year will be that day and it is not to be missed. It's called Simply Diva, Simply Skye. We have a killer band, dancers, choreography, and myself, Bobby Black, Gayle Steele, Audrei-Karin, Wally Broadnax are her backup singers, lights and videos. It is a full out production. Please come if you can, the show is free and we need all the support we can get. Pass the information on to anyone who loves to be entertained.

Peace,
Sandra

BobbyG's gig on Wednesday. Las time I did the solo acoustic thing was December 1985, up in Gatlinburg, TN. Then in January 1986 I went to work in a radiation lab in Oak Ridge and hung up the axe.

Click the image to enlarge it. Bought a couple of acoustic 12-string guitars this year. Never owned one before. They're great fun (and will flat wear our your chops). Slide by and hang a bit if you can. I'm really looking forward to it.

4:50 a.m. Gotta go cop some Zzzzz's...

BobbyG found a gig

Starting next Wednesday evening at 5:30 pm, I'm gonna throw down the solo acoustic 12-string thing in the very comfy outdoor gas torches & fireplace patio area at PT's Gold, 10075 S. Eastern Ave, just past St. Rose Parkway on the right (get off the 215 at Eastern and head south up the hill toward Anthem). I would be thrilled if y'all would come and hang. I'll bring an extra mic and stand (and a cowbell for Phil Wigfall) just in case anyone wants to sit in. We're gonna try week nights early hours thing first, so people can get out to party a while and still get home at a decent hour during the week.

They have a sharp new manager at this venue, Alyssa, who assures me that her big obsessive thing is excellence in customer service -- even to the point of asking me to have our peeps let me know in advance if they have any food/drink preferences. They have some very nice inexpensive happy hour menu stuff, too. Food menu link here. Drinks menu link here.

It's time. I've put this off long enough. Been devoting all of my spare time to Santa Fe for nearly two years now -- a glorious blessing, to be sure, one that will continue ever more intensely -- but I gotta scratch this itch too.

Been workin' on another new original song lately. Maybe this will motivate me to finish it and have it ready. Music is done, just kinda hung up with one of the verses at the moment.

BTW- one of my MySpace pages has some of my old demos from the early 80's on it. I'm workin' on recording some new tunes to replace those.
_____

A while back I blogged about the new 2-disk Eagles CD "Long Road Out of Eden" (blog post link here, scroll down). Great value, this thing. 20 tunes for $11.88. Sample (mp3) here, "No More Walks In The Wood." Beautiful vocals, man.
______

On the topic of local single/duo gig venues, I was lookin' at our li'l bro' Michael Grimm's schedule, and he's gonna be over here next Wednesday, starting at 8:30 ('bout the time I get done):

4785 Blue Diamond Road. Stop by and show the flag. Michael is just awesome. I've thought about these local restaurant/bar places a lot. I see a bunch of untapped potential (which is why I pitched PT's), and I'm glad to see them testing the waters with small footprint live music.

BTW- CONGRATULATIONS TO THE ELEGANT CLINT AND KELLY

Much happiness to y'all.

THURSDAY UPDATE: NEW HORIZON STUDIO

OK, this was just too cool. Recall that I blogged about Santa Fe alum Tim Lienhard recently. Well, he invited me out to his studio, and today we crashed around laying some prelim scratch tracks for my goofy Frank Zappa-ish political protest satire funk song "Big Brother," the Sing-Along-With-FISA Song, LOL.

Tim's studio is amazing. It's about 2,000 sq. ft., totally comfortable, quiet as a tomb, ProTools equipped, 32-channel board, separate additional digital drum kit board, and fully prepped as a video-shoot quality soundstage. A few pics:

I have had the best time today. Thanks for your time, bro'. Wow. Yeah, this is a place to come and lay stuff down, shoot a promo video, etc. Contact Tim for more details.

THE WRITERS' STRIKE

Food for thought.



Basically, the Suits don't want to cut the writers in on digital streams revenue, while at the same time salivating over the huge anticipated profits from those streams even as they posture during the strike about how it's too uncertain and difficult to assess.

All musicians immediately think "Try to Imagine My Surprise..."

BELOW: ANOTHER COMMENTARY



LOL!

FROM THE NY TIMES (11/16):

...When the Hollywood writers’ strike pulled back the curtain on the world of television, what Americans saw was not a cashmere-wrapped actress alighting from her Escalade, but rather a bunch of middle-aged writers in ill-fitting red T-shirts standing on a picket line on Pico Boulevard.

With the strike deep into Week 2, thousands of union writers are unemployed until further notice, and dozens of assistants, food stylists, electricians, makeup artists, landscapers and thousands of other “below the line” workers in the industry are finding that their work is drying up, too, punching a psychic wound through large swaths of Los Angeles.

“It is a major topic around town,” said Beth Holley, the office administrator at Global Effects Inc., a prop shop in North Hollywood. “I don’t think there are very many people who have not been affected directly or know someone affected.”

The city’s most defining industry, representing roughly 7 percent of its economy, has always operated with ample doses of smoke and mirrors. Elaborate marketing campaigns promote shows everyone knows will be canceled after a few episodes; unaffordable BMWs are leased by junior agents to save face at the Grill; actresses with eating disorders are given malteds to carry around on sets for waiting paparazzi. Much of what is said and done in Hollywood is meant to give the impression of solidity.

But in reality, one tug on a card can make an entire production implode, rendering scores of people instantly unemployed. Many are middle-class laborers who populate the San Fernando Valley and other neighborhoods outside the glamorous canyons that most Americans associate with show business.

Mr. Dick, a writer on “House” on Fox, said that wherever he goes in his red strike shirt — his daughter’s basketball game, for example — another writer approaches to commiserate. “You realize this really is a company town,” Mr. Dick said.

Producers who are usually absentee parents for the bulk of the fall season are now padding around the house, when they are not on a strike line. Writers with newly minted union cards wonder if they will ever get beyond their first jobs. Low level assistants have found themselves instantly out of work and desperate.

The Writers Guild of America West has a $13 million fund that will provide loans to “members who face financial hardship because their income is demonstrably affected” by the strike.

“I’ve got big N.Y.U. loans and health insurance that I have to pay for,” said Kimberly Mercado, who recently got her first writing job on the Fox show “New Amsterdam” and leased an Audi A4 to celebrate. “That was my big excitement,” Ms. Mercado said, adding that she hoped she would not have to give up the car.

The strike, which has been the talk of coffee shops and playgrounds, is something of a metaphor for the broader labor force of Los Angeles, a place of enormous geographical and class division. It has pit studio executives against writers — the bulk of whom are paid far less than high-profile strikers like Larry David — and writers against some trade professionals, whose feelings about the strike are ambivalent at best.

“Our people are middle-class workers,” said Ed Brown, a business agent at the local trade union that represents 6,000 crafts people. “These are not the people that people see at Hollywood insider parties. We are the collateral damage.”

Mr. D’Orsa, an assistant to the executive producers of the FX show “The Riches,” said he would soon be headed to Starbucks, résumé in hand.

Getbackinthatroom.blogspot.com is keeping a running tally of industry workers who have been laid off — almost 250 as of Thursday afternoon.

“I am unemployed thanks to both sides not wanting to lose face,” said Ms. Buyrucu, a costumer on “Grey’s Anatomy” on ABC. “Yes, they have families, too, but they’re making the choice. We don’t have a choice.”

And yet for as dominant a role as the entertainment industry may play in the minds of Americans, and as prevalent as the red shirts of strikers are on the Westside of Los Angeles, the ebb and flow of the broader life of the city is undisturbed.

“It is tough to energize people to come up for middle-class and upper-middle-class people,” said Fernando J. Guerra, director of the Center for the Study of Los Angeles at Loyola Marymount University. “Hollywood has always considered itself in L.A. but not part of L.A. They consider themselves a national industry.”

Monday Nov 12th gig at The Palms

First, indulge me as I ask that we reflect just for a moment this Veterans' Day weekend in honor of those who have served and continue to serve so bravely that we might continue to live in peace and freedom here at home.

__________

NEW CAT IN THE FAT CITY HORNS

Miguel Rodriguez on tenor tonight. 'Nuther Bad Boy.

Welcome, bro'.

Ok, here's how this is gonna work. Jerry is rotating in new cats into the Fat City Horns, because our main posse -- Dan, Gil, Nathan, Jerry Merra, Phil, and Rob -- are gonna have to spend a bunch of time in L.A. and New York in rehearsals over the next couple of months working up the Bette Midler show. So, there's gonna be an interim period with a new Fat City Horns lineup on Monday nights.

No sweat.

Band was cookin' tonight. Great, fun energy and loose attitude. They nailed Toto's "Rosanna" right away, with JJ on guitar (Jerry now gets to the gig a bit late because of his stint with Wayne Brady over at the Venetian). Nailed it, man.

Below, Andy Ebon returns to The Seat of Funk.

Stylish. Cirque du Le'Ebon. Joerg was jealous.

;)

I didn't get a ton of great shots tonight. Still messing around, trial & error, with 400 and 800 ISO settings, with mixed outcomes. A few keepers:

Below, Jamie and Ann, his aunt.

Jerry told Miguel it was mandatory that he dance as a condition of being part of the Fat City Horns. Miguel struggled to get into it, but got with the program after a bit.



Thanks to those who bought copies of Dave and Lenny's Christmas CD. If you're not aware of this project, click here for info and mp3 samples (UPDATE: I just added another sample, "Joy To The World"). Best ten bucks you'll ever spend during the Holiday season.

Also, Jerry announced that Marco Mendoza will return with his trio to be our guest artist once again on December 3rd. Save the date!

BIDNESS CARDS FROM LAST NIGHT

Props to our friends. Jessica Marciel is Andy Ebon's better half.

Rudy-eeee!!!! (That's gotta be Michito, too).



ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST...

Buh-bye to The Frontier. Imploded early this morning. LOL, Some editorial writer cracked wise a few years back about how the next big Vegas Mega Resort was gonna be called "Las Vegas/Las Vegas" and would basically be a casino theme park wherein we could all stroll through sanitized replicants of the Sands, Dunes, Desert Inn, Stardust, Hacienda, etc.

APROPOS OF NOTHING

I love these things...