Michael Grimm CD release gig and party at The Cannery

Cheryl and I went to the Cannery last night to hear Michael. Great show. That's a nice venue. The lighting and sound cats are all over it. This gig was a CD release party event for Michael's new "Michael Grimm Live" CD, which features our Jerry Lopez on guitar and Bad Boy Abe LaMarca on background vocals.

Short medley excerpt clip I put together from the CD here:

Michael has a cool new onstage feature: The Delta Bound Singers, Diane Spann and Nikki Logan. Very nice. Hey, uh, Michael, BTW, Fat CityHorns II are now available as well, little brother. Hmmm...

I just burned a CD for Michael and Don that has 99 shots on it. Early on I got hassled by this Fife for taking pics. I blew him off by lying 'I work for these guys, I'm the band's photographer. Go talk to their manager.' LOL! Well, I guess I kinda actually am.

A small sample of the evening's photos:

"...I did it my.y.y.y.y.y... way..."
(sorry, that lid gave me an impulsive Sinatra flash)

Above, post-gig party dressing room shot. We thought about having everyone light up. I'm gonna Photoshop that "No Smoking" sign out when I have a minute, maybe replace it with "SMOKING REQUIRED AT ALL TIMES BY NEVADA REVISED STATUTE 160.12.a.1."

On "Healing" and our Pale Blue Dot

My PacNW bro' Kurt (monster player; see blog post #1) sent me this link this morning.



"The earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner. How frequent their misunderstandings. How eager they are to kill one another. How fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light..."

"...There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot -- the only home we've ever known."

- Carl Sagan
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No telling what that cat might have accomplished were it not for his major doobie Jones.

;)

Two years!

Two years ago today I posted the first of the now-accrued 311 Santa Fe and The Fat City Horns blog posts. Across this period (through yesterday) we have been graced by 36,894 pageviews reached by 10,109 individual visitors (excluding me.)

It has thus far been a labor of sheer delight, one regarding which I intend to carry on with ever more intensity. I am blessed and humbled to know everyone in this magnificent band, and to have come to know so many of you, colleague performers and devoted fans alike.

- BobbyG
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UPDATE: Podcast #2 is now posted. The great chops and feel and broad guitar styles of our Jerry Lopez.

I tried to gate the mic to squelch ambient background noise (including my episodically ranting dogs and planes flying close by and my HVAC kicking in), but gave up finally and left the voice channel open, 'cuz I had trouble finding the precise gate point that wouldn't make the V/O track sound like it was heavily edited, which it wasn't.

Hope you like it.

JOHN JORGENSON

Yesterday I was enroute to my Mom's nursing home and heard an NPR segment featuring guitarist John Jorgenson. Yikes!

This cat is one of Mundo's heroes, I subsequently learned. Mundo Juillerat, recall, is Jerry's brother in law and is the principal guitarist in the Vegas stage production of "Mamma Mia." His "Hot Club of Las Vegas" ensemble is all over the Django Gypsy Djazz thing.

Listen to John's NPR interview and the tunes on his MySpace page (click his name). Wonderful stuff.

January 21st gig at The Palms

Above: shot of the night, Miguel soloing on flute during "San Diego." Below, seconds later, goin' in tighter.

Below, Dave Phillipus trombone ride, same tune. "San Diego" was really thumpin' tonight, and the solos were inspired.

I thought it might be kinda slow tonight, but we had a standing room crowd again (though some of the seats on the upper section right side where they put in the rows of armless chairs were not filled. Lotta people just chose to stand). We finally got stage lights up at 9:45. They had to call from the bar and rag Engineering to get someone to come in and hook up the laptop. That's getting real old.

The enthusiasm was high all the way around. Santa Fe started off with the Earth, Wind, and Fire medley, and it was snappy tight and energetic from the first measure. Sonny nailed the sound mix right from the git-go, too. You could tell right away, it was gonna be a good show.

Next tune up after EW&F - "Ain't That Peculiar" from the 2007 live CD. Fat City Horns II nailed the horn ensemble interlude section, it was awesome. This was the final night for Fat City Horns II for now and they kicked major bootie. Below, Miguel Rodriguez, Tom Delibero, Glenn Colby, Dave Phillipus, Dave Stambaugh, and Eric Tewalt, Fat City Horns II. Gentlemen, thank you! Everyone has totally dug y'all.

Danny, Gil, Nathan, Jerry, Phil, and Rob are slated to return next Monday. I bet they will be ready to throw down. Don't you just know. And, we must make them dance. Jerry, are you hearin' me?

Be sure to come to the gig next Monday and welcome The Fat City Horns home. It's sure to be wild.

When the band started I was having to stay in the back to mind the Fat City Superstore because Cheryl was home not feeling well tonight. So, I squeezed off a few rounds from back at the table.

The compressed perspective lines you get from shooting telephoto are way cool (if you can hold steady in the low light, something I don't always manage). Below, Jerry doing the awesome "Si Te Vas."

Major props to my homies Ron Crews and Rudi Regalado for comin' to hang at the table so I could get around to shoot. Thanks, guys.

Tonight we were again blessed to have guests sitting in: The incredible Tony Davich of Phoenix, (whom I blogged on recently -- they are totally fine), and the always fabulous Michito Sanchez (scroll down in that linked post).

Santa Fe alum Tony ripped the seams outa "Soul Trilogy," man. Y'all gotta go hear him sing with his band. Below, Pepe, Michito, and Gabe get it on in "We Are Nothing."

Below, I got a couple of decent solo shots of Gabe tonight.

More random pics:

Below, Jerry introduced me to Celine Dion's keyboardist, Yves Frulla, who hails from Montreal, and has been doing her show at Caesar's. Very, very nice cat.

Yves told us about Celine's upcoming post-Caesar's world tour "Taking Chances" (also the name of her latest CD). Yves said it is an edgy new approach.

Yep. Here's a link to a "Taking Chances" YouTube video (they disabled embedding, so I can't just post it in the blog). Check it out.
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OK, I'm tired, 3:30 a.m. Enough for now. Great night tonight, thanks to everyone for coming. New podcast on tap this week, BTW. Stay tuned.

TUESDAY UPDATE

Andy hipped me to this last night, and today it's up on his Soul Music Online blog.

Today, it comes as no surprise to me that Lenny Williams and Greg Adams have chosen to collaborate and build their own touring band, East Bay Soul. Read on, for the official press release announcing the concept, the band members, and the plan.

- Andy Ebon, CEO of Soul

So, in addition to other Major League Bad Boys, they're gonna have some cat by the name of "Tom Scott" in the lineup. I think we know him from somewhere.

That is gonna be slammin'.

CAMPAIGN 2008 UPDATE

Wherein BobbyG monitors and reports developments so you won't have to keep up with all this catatonia-inducing stuff. Nobody summarizes it better than these two cats:

Dr. Martin Luther King

SHED A LITTLE LIGHT

- James Taylor (mp3)

"Let us turn our thoughts today
To Martin Luther King,
And recognize that there are ties between us,
All men and women
Living on the earth,
Ties of hope and love,
Sister and brotherhood.
That we are bound together
In our desire to see the world become
A place in which our children
Can grow free and strong,
We are bound together
By the task that stands before us,
And the road that lies ahead.
We are bound and we are bound..."

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See y'all at The Palms tonight. Band starts at 10:30 pm. No cover, no minimum.