Thursday, March 3, 2011

Wow!

I'm gonna get better at this. Honestly. I mean, how can i not get better, right?

I can't pretend that i'm going to be able to cover everything that has happened musically in the last 2 1/2 months but i'll try and hit the highs (and lows).

NAMM
Back in January, I went down to LA to attend the 2011 NAMM Show. Wayne was able to get us passes for the entire event (4 days) through a Fender connection. I flew in LAX early Thursday morning and we drove down/out/over to Anaheim. Spent the day walking several miles looking at re-diculous amounts of gear.

At first, I was walking around in a bit of a daze because of all the cool Stuff. I was often passing right by drumming legends and super-stars because i wasn't prepared to have to be looking at all the cool instruments AND people! After a couple hours, I started being able to spot people. The short list is: Peter Erskine (Weather Report and Steely Dan (among countless others). I've played his signature "Ride" stick for years and saw him 2 or 3 times. Chad Smith (Red Hot Chili Peppers). There was this ridiculous line to get your pic taken with him, which i thought was dumb. So, since i was standing 5' from him I just snapped his pic while he was standing with this awesomly dorky kid/dude. Alex Acuna (percussion great - also played with Weather Report).
Then, at the end of the day as we were leaving we saw a jam session with bass greats Victor Wooten and Steve Bailey. Wayne spotted another bass heavyweight, Marcus Miller standing right in front of us. Then I spotted bassist/producer et.al. Roscoe Beck who i'd just seen a month before playing with Leonard Cohen. Very cool!

We opted to not make the treck out to Anaheim again and instead spent the next 3 days taking in all that LA had to offer us in music stores, burgers, bars, and the like. Got to hang out with Arthur and just chill which was very awesome!

Drum Makery (Mackery? ; )
I had high hopes of coming home from NAMM all inspired to make my own drums. Finances have proven to not've materialize for this project like i was planning. Long story-short... had some 401k action that i thought i could utilize but i was wrong. : (

more?...

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