photo catch-up

I took some photos at the last CPZ gig, and I forgot to post them!

Here they are:

my drums

rob price soundcheck:

ed zankowski collating documents:

plane-hopping

I booked the flights to NYC for the JUNE 1 CPZ gig @ Jimmy’s. Normally, I would just hit JetBlue.com and book the flight, but I accessed my inner travel agent this morning and found two separate one-way flights on two different airlines, and saved the CPZ multi-national corporation 30%. To my surprise, Delta was very cheap.

Anyway, I’m hoping this kind of on-the-job performance is going to get me noticed and result in a promotion.

if you look closely…

Detail-oriented readers of my website gig schedule may have noticed that some in the next couple of weeks have disappeared. You’re right. The gigs themselves (a Hot Buttered Soul gig, and some cc3 dates) are still happening; I’m just not on them. Depending on which gig, it’s either David Monis subbing in on drums or David Patterson playing guitar with the trio (a drum-less trio on those nights). Our regular babysitters are unavailable for the next couple of weeks, so I’m subbing out of a some gigs to attend to be at home. Please be merciful on my bandmates and go see them play.

no PA, no problems. literally.

I had the pleasure of playing a private party last night with a pick-up band of myself, Mike Pelletier, Paul Neufeld (piano), and Laura Lynn (vocals). Getting to gig with players this good is a treat in and of itself, but there were some added perks last night that may have ruined me for future gigs.

The host of the party is an amateur jazz pianist, and as such has a nice Yamaha baby grand piano in his house. And it’s tuned. Often. So, Paul didn’t have to bring any gear (though he did bring his accordion, which we didn’t use but did have a pre-party jam with. Laura sang through a small keyboard amp and Mike played his upright bass through a small amp. What this meant was that we played to the volume of the piano in the room. It was great. Paul is such a great player that we were capable of quite a huge dynamic range, and I pulled the sticks out for many tunes. I tried out a bunch of cymbals in the room and much to my surprise the best sounding “ride” for the room was a 15″ Traditional Extra-Thin, such a small and light cymbal it’s barely there. Steve Jordan used a small ride when he played with Chuck Berry, and Joey Baron uses them all the time. So, I’m in good company. We played standards, blues, funk, pop, etc. It was a natural and really “easy” sound. The crowd loved it and there were no cables, speakers, mixers, or any other crap to load in or out. And, the money was decent.

I would do this kind of gig any night. It was just so damn civilized.

NYC date added

June 1 – CPZ @ Jimmy’s, East 7th Street, Manhattan

Not the most informative website, I’ll post more details as they come in. It’s going to be a multi-band show, I hope.

Things I Noticed/Learned/Said on my Weekend Off

I did not play the drums this weekend. I put my stick bag in the basement around lunchtime on Friday and have yet to pick it back up again (OK, I didn’t pick it up this morning but I did open the front pocket to try and find my missing iPod Shuffle).

My weekend took the course of leisure, in which (in no particular order) I attended a two birthday parties (one for three 2-year olds, two of which I am the uncle of, and one party that I hosted for one 34-year old that I am married too); spent less than 60minutes watching live music in a bar; spent roughly the same amount of time in a bookstore and did not look at any books but did drink a Frappuccino; purchased postage online for a cymbal that I sold on eBay; received a ballpoint pen with a 512mb USB drive built into it from my brother who may be currently residing in the future based on the swag he’s passing out; paid a parking ticket over the phone.

Some things that I would like to share from this weekend:

- Inviting 17 people to a restaurant at 1pm on a Sunday and offering to pick up the bar tab is actually a sensible thing to do. It appears to be a generous and gracious gesture, which it is, but is also very affordable (if goodwill can be valued in Canadian dollars, I may have made money on this deal), since many people are technically having breakfast at 1pm on a Sunday, so their interest in alcohol is reduced (not eliminated, but reduced).

- When performing feats of “4-way independence” on the drums (look it up if you don’t know), just because one limb is playing constant 1/4 notes or 1/8th notes that does not necessarily mean you are “in the pocket”. In fact, anything involving 4-way independence usually means you are not in the pocket and probably annoying the bass player.

- Business self-help books are written for people that:

(a) don’t know what they really want out of their career

and/or

(b) are not willing to actually work hard to achieve it

So they wrap themselves in “theories”. I was introduced to the “80/20″ theory this weekend, and it sounds like a load of crap to me. I prefer the “80/81″ theory (it’s a Pat Metheny record on ECM that kills, look it up if you don’t know) myself.

I hope your weekend was as illuminating as mine!