02009-11-09 | Photos
On Saturday night Roy Rogers and I stayed at the Green Apple Inn in Freestone. It was quite cold, that wet cold that chills to the bone, but a fireplace and red wine made us comfortable and we pulled out guitars. He showed me a rare Dobro twelve string he had brought and another, equally ancient guitar, might have been an old Martin, with a small body and classical-looking headstock. We jammed for quite a while, I don’t know how long, and talked about the origin of Blues and Flamenco. We agreed that it is quite possible that both are rooted in Arabic music. The ancient oud, see wikipedia entry on Ziryab, is a fretless instrument – as is the slide guitar in Blues. There are the “blue” notes in Blues, and Blues guitarists will play certain notes a little flat, remnants of Arabic music… I think a big reminder of the common heritage are those notes, which are not in a regular western scale, that make the hair on your neck stand up and your heart tremble.
In the Morning I was up early and went for a walk through the picturesque town of Freestone.
Support for an old water tower:
I walked to the Wild Flour Bakery. I think a friend of mine told me to go to this bakery several years ago, but we were never close and the curvy roads are too much for a tour bus. The morning’s bread was still in the oven, but I bought a nice whole wheat sourdough that was left over from the previous day and waited for my “eye-opener” (((a cup of drip coffee with a shot of espresso, also called “red eye” – a “dead eye” contains two shots of espresso and a “dead eye” contains three… ))). Here is a shot of the table in the bakery with my bread-purchase at the far end.
The Hopmonk Tavern is a nice place and the benefit was a success. Roy and I signed two Epiphone guitars that were auctioned off. We didn’t perform together since he had another gig that afternoon, but a good time was had by all.
02009-10-31 | Performance
more info here
02009-04-15 | Uncategorized
Yesterday Jon modified his bassline for Heart Still/Beating and sent the new parts to me via DropBox. For some reason that only DigiDesign understands, the .sd2 files could NOT be read by my ProTools computer. When he sent .aif files instead they were read and located perfectly. Our theory is that since .sd2 is a proprietary file-format DigiDesign can do some black magic when the file travels across a non-ProTools computer. A file typically journeys from his ProTools desktop computer to his non-ProTools laptop and from there to the DropBox on the Information Highway. Then it is downloaded by my non-ProTools laptop and carried on a pocket drive to the ProTools computer in the studio – which has never been connected to the internet. No big deal, just won’t use .sd2 (Sound Designer II) files anymore. I have only used .aif for years, but we still used .sd2 when we recorded The Santa Fe Sessions in 2001-2002
Worked on a third Lava track, this one called Gothic Rock – how DID we come up with those titles??? Nice dynamics. These new Lava mixes sound so much better to me than the old ones.
Received an advance copy of Roy Rogers’ new album Split Decision, which will be released next week, I believe. I played a Flamenco guitar solo on the track Your Sweet Embrace.
Matt Schoening permitted me to make my rough mix of Kites Over the Playa available to you next week. It features the guitar a little more than the album mix does and I quite like the way it sounds.
Tuesday evening I made dinner for Roshi Joan Halifax, who just returned from Dharmsala, India. She told me about new scientific findings regarding meditation. Amazing stuff. And, check out this photo Roshi took of Kazuaki Tanahashi. I love the band of color in an otherwise nearly black & white image.
02009-02-05 | Music
No Stinkin’ blues series brings Roy Rogers — no, not that Roy Rogers — to town
How long do we have to wait for a new Roy Rogers album?
The new album will be out in early April on the Chicago blues label, Blind Pig. I’m really pleased with it. Flamenco guitarist, Ottmar Liebert is one of the guests.
02008-07-14 | Uncategorized
Sell-out show at Mystic theater last night. Our performance felt good and it was fun.
After the show I met Roy Rogers and got to ask him a few questions about that great soundtrack, Hot Spot – featuring Roy Rogers, Miles David, John Lee Hooker etc.
Later we discovered that the box office apparently made a mistake and gave After Show Passes to strangers instead of my friends who were on the list. As a result the strangers (((who seemed nice))) were brought to the dressing room – everybody kept wondering whose guests they were – and my friends weren’t able to come back.
My friends have this fine company and were bringing a few bottles of wine. I would have liked to say hello to them… but am glad they were able to leave wine for me anyway.
Stevo posted this and this.
