February 24, 2004IOTA Turns 10The month of March is IOTA Club and Cafe 's 10th anniversary, they'll be having special events and showcases all month long. Friday, March 5th will be the local IOTA Showcase, where I will join twenty or so other featured performers in playing 3 or 4 songs each for what is sure to be a unique evening at our favorite local club. Watch this space for more info... February 20, 200410 Worst Album Covers10 Worst Album Covers February 16, 2004Los Angeles, Las Vegas, The Grammys, Elton John
Before we left town, a drive up Laurel Canyon (including a stop at the Laurel Canyon Country Store) and onto Mulholland Drive was not to be missed. We headed out to Palm Springs to visit a family friend for a few days; the drive from L.A. to the desert always puts me in mind of those scenes from Less Than Zero, or The Player, as you drive by the wind farms. Ah, Andrew McCarthy, where have you gone? Drove back up to Vegas, where we saw opening night of Elton John at the new Caesars Palace Colosseum venue (the Celine Dion theatre); he had laryngitis but still pulled it off like a pro. Gotta love Davey Johnstone, still playing those parts, perfectly... February 15, 2004Musings...Music is 4-dimensional sculpture... shaping sound in space-time. And just as the sculpture already exists inside the stone, so does the music already exist in time... February 02, 2004Luna Park Grille
A decent crowd was on hand, considering it was 3° outside. Granted that was with wind chill, but... did I mention it was 3° outside?!?! We are ready for Minneapolis now, I guess... We were able to pull liberally from all three CDs, having really beefed up the repertoire in recent rehearsals... amazing progress for our new lineup in such short time. We settled nicely into the second set, catching a pretty good groove, and sounding okay at least up on stage. Even played a few covers, mostly in the third set, to help round out the night. Lee has promised to e-mail some photos he took (and thanks for getting us started with sound, for our first couple tunes), hopefully I can post those soon. Quite a friendly bar, we even got a little help from the clientele with load-out... in the 3° weather! Chris and I hit the IHOP on the way home (IHOP!)... haven't done that in a long time... then back at the house, we were literally unable to unload the van, due to the ice, and incline... grabbed guitars, snare drum, etc... but after each hitting the ground at least once, reason finally prevailed. Did I mention it was— |
...oh yeah, and Palm Springs (Rancho Mirage, to be exact). Have just returned from an eleven-day sojourn out west, part vacation, part work (for Kelly), and nothin' but sun the entire time. Covered a lot of ground, including a first-time Vegas-to-L.A. drive (which we did twice); further than I thought at 270 miles, but you're doing 80-90 mph the whole way, it's not too bad. Counting one hotel change in L.A., we totaled five locales in all...
We attended the Grammys—somewhat subdued this year, signaled initially by the "No Alcohol Served At This Event" sign, which greeted us at the first concession area. The smoking terraces were also closed off—they had been great vantage points for watching the red carpet scene. Close encounters with Rob Thomas, and Chris Martin of Coldplay (Record of the Year, damn). I dug watching Jack White play Seven Nation Army on an acoustic (including the "bass" part, with an octaver), and watching Pharrell on drums for the Beatles thing—he wasn't bad.
