Sometimes you get inspired from the bottom up. As part of a really musical end of summer (4 concerts in 2 weeks), we had the chance to see Clive Carroll at Mississippi Studios (MS). Not only is MS a great venue, but Clive Carroll has become one of my favorite[…]
Read More »From the Blogahedron
You read that right: Weird Al Yankovic. Debbie & I attend a lot of concerts. It’s pretty much our go-to choice for entertainment and between us we have pretty eclectic tastes, so there’s a lot to choose from and there are a lot of very talented people out there playing[…]
Read More »
Where does the time go? I was just spreading the word about the Make Music PDX (MMPDX) program and I realized that it’s been 5 years since my first trip down that particular road. A lot has happened in my musical career since then, and much of it was made[…]
Read More »
As promised, there is new music! Ocean Amblin’ This is a song that has been in development for many years. It all started at a jam session when someone suggested we groove on a 2-chord progression that was quite pretty. The person who suggested it said that he was working[…]
Read More »
Yesterday was really productive. I spent the day at Pyrate Llama Studios to catch up with some new tracks and explore some recording techniques, and thanks to input from those present, a new project is starting to take shape! The New Project While we were setting up, I was talking[…]
Read More »
As long as I have been playing guitar, I never get such strong imagery as I do when I sit at the koto. I was playing at the Tigard Bull Mountain Farmers Market today, and I took the koto to add some variety. The response was nice, although many people[…]
Read More »
It was one of those things you always hear about, but seldom run into if you’re lucky. And if you’re luckier still, it turns out well. Last Sunday I had a gig at a local farmers market. We’d set up the date at least a month ago and it was[…]
Read More »
Good analogies get harder to find all the time. Everybody’s seen everything and every possible kind of comparison has been made between everything because you never know when the right set of variables will trigger a marketing algorithm. So when a good analogy comes along, it deserves to be celebrated.[…]
Read More »
The Instrument – I have been studying the koto for a couple of months now, and recently made a breakthrough with the help of a slightly different tuning. Instead of the traditional Japanese hirajoshi tuning (D G A Bb D Eb), my teacher Mitsuki Dazai showed me a tuning based[…]
Read More »
Thanks Pete! Thanks for all the great music and for making even the most hardened cynic clap and sing along. If you’ve never heard Pete Seeger play live, find a recording and listen. And rest assured that whatever the angels were singing before, from now on they’ll all be singing[…]
Read More »