June 22, 2009
Well I’m late again with my blog.. ha ha I can never keep up... Oh well, here I am and here I go..
Since the last blog I did a three and a half week tour with Joe Cocker which was amazing... April 16 - May 10 I was filling in for the great groove monster Jack Bruno while he was out with Tina Turner.
When I was in New Orleans playing with Joe Cocker at the Jazz Festival, Matt Conners, Artist Relations for Remo drumheads, told me the great Roy Haynes (one of the greatest drummers ever to play jazz), was close by about to perform at another stage. I ran over to his stage to say hi.. I couldn't watch him play because we were playing at the same time, but here we are. YouTube him and you'll see what I mean... I saw him play once in his 80's and he was wearing cowboy boots and a cowboy hat playing heavy jazz.. yeee haw....
The Joe Cocker tour ended May 10 and I flew to LA on the 11th and went right into a recording session with Brad Cox. April 12 and 13 I rehearsed for a John Fogerty tour, 14 and 15 another session and May 16 - June 8 I was on tour with John Fogerty through Canada.
The first day of tour my luggage was lost.....again..... I hate when that happens... So going to my first sound check I had 15 minutes to go to a Walmart in Prince Edward Island Canada to get some necessities... So I got some kids shorts or maybe it was a bathing suit for sound check. : ) The logo on the shorts says Captain Morgan.....the original planksta... : ) whatever!!!!
What I love about playing with John is he takes his career so seriously right now, as if he never made it and is trying to make it for the first time. He practices 2 or 3 hours a day on the bus. When we all travel together on one bus, we have 15 minutes to get on stage for sound check once we get to the venue. The band sound checks for 1 hour and then John will sound check with us for 2 more hours. John will spend 1/2 hour at least walking around the venue repositioning speakers and listening to my drums making sure they are sounding the way he likes them. He is very particular about my drums sounding powerful and super particular about my snare drum sound. I am using my 5" x 14" Tama trackmaster signature snare.. My drum tech Jimmy Robison does an amazing job of tuning, but John will ask me to retune or I will move the snare mike as little as 1/4 of an inch to make adjustments which will affect the sound of my snare drum to sound great in the venue. Each venue we play in has unique accoustics and we have to make adjustments to make sure we sound amazing every night. We get a 1 1/2 hour dinner break and then do a 2 hour show and sometimes run from the stage back onto the bus and drive 2 to 4 hours toward the next hotel...
John changes the set list every night and sometimes we learn a new song for that evening. I love how much he is into his art..It’s real hard work, but that’s what I live for. On one day off I did a drum clinic in Regina, Canada. I really enjoyed it, and my thanks to Jayson Brinkworth of St. John's Music, who did an excellent job organizing the clinic. As we were driving through the night to Calgary from Edmonton, I called a buddy of mine up on the phone and said I wouldn’t be able to see him on my day off because I was flying to Regina for a clinic.... So he leased a jet and flew me to Regina so we could hang out and we flew back to Calgary after the clinic... : ) I love that..... I spent 10 years flying on private jets on tours with John Mellencamp, Bob Seger, Melissa Etheridge, Smashing Pumpkins and sometimes now with John Fogerty... It makes touring sooooo much easier.. I love it.
John has a new Blue Ridge Rangers CD coming out which I played drums on 2 of the songs and percussion on 4 other tunes...(I couldn’t record a lot of the record because I was doing drum clinics in Italy when T-Bone Burnett was free to work with John in the studio). We’ll be touring and promoting that CD in 2009.
We’re playing at the Hollywood Bowl with the LA Philharmonic on July 2-4 which should be nice and kickass... Nice when we play with the orchestra and then kickass when we play alone....
Playing with John is like getting on a brama bull and riding hard for 2 hours... Shit is going to happen...it's how you handle it. You have to stay seriously focused with John’s music because even though it's simple, the styles of music, the feels and tempos change from song to song.. John will only accept perfection with every note and how it's played and the placement of every note in relation to the other instruments... He hears it all.
Besides all of that I’ve been doing sessions, some private teaching and also just got my first tattoo at LA Ink from Corey Miller.... He did a killer job.. He’s a drummer and a very cool guy.... I felt like he was the one who was supposed to do my tattoo... He is a deep thinker, has a great heart, smart and is very focused.. He was perfect for me. I can’t show the tattoo yet because it’s being aired on LA Ink sometime in July.. They requested that I do not show it or they will throw me in jail or take my tattoo away.... ; ) joke....... I love it...
Stay tuned for more and I will be playing with Zep set soon... : )
April 6, 2009
Man I am late late late late again with my blog... I get so busy I tend to take care of immediate things first, like what session or live show am I preparing for or doing today, tomorrow, in a few days or next week... There are songs to learn, charts to write and each session or gig has all kinds of logistics to deal with.. There are always tons of emails and phones calls to make. I am always working on 6 to 10 big things at once...and then there are tons of medium and smaller things to deal with.. It’s hard to even read and answer all my emails and phone calls... Anyway... since the last blog, which was just after my amazing Inaugural experience and getting to meet President Obama.... I have been doing some live shows with the Zep Set, which is a Zeppelin band I love playing with in Los Angeles. I take it real serious and try to play the amazing compositions authentically that Zeppelin created, play the amazing Bonham parts, with the right tempos and feel and most of all LISTEN to the other musicians because that helps us sound like a band.... a Zeppelin band, so we can play the right parts and tempos and feels that Zeppelin had and also IMPROVISE at the right time and play off each other... Like Zeppelin did.... no 2 shows are ever alike..
On Feb. 2 I played in Clear Lake, Iowa and performed in a house band for the 50 Winters Later Concert. The event honored Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper who all died in a plane crash immediately after a show at the Surf Club 50 years ago, which is where we did this performance.. I stood in the exact dressing room where the coin was tossed by Tommy Allsup (guitarist in Buddy Holly and the Crickets) and he lost his seat on the plane so Ritchie got to fly...wow.... I had to learn about 40 songs which got dwindled down to 24. Then I did recording sessions with Slash, John Fogerty, a new artist from Arizona with Mike Lattanzi, another session at NRG studios for a young artist Sarah Beckman, a session in Nashville with Matt Nolen, 2 shows with Jon Bon Jovi in Jersey. I had to learn about 26 songs for that and we only had 2 rehearsals.. Jon is a perfectionist and I love that... All Jons are... : ) John Mellencamp was and so is John Fogerty.. : ) I did some jingles for American Idol, a session for Ted Wulfer, an amazing Japanese artis, Miyuki, who has made at least 40 albums. Recently I did another Live from Daryl's House except this time it was in Los Angeles with Robbie Krieger and Ray Manzarek from The Doors... That was amazing... we did 4 Doors songs, “The Crystal Ship”, “Break On Through (To The Other Side)”, “Roadhouse Blues” and “People Are Strange”. We also did 2 Hall and Oates songs, “Kiss On My List” and “Borderline” and finally one Sly and The Family Stone song, “It’s A Family Affair”. What a trip.. I had a Doors band just when " Light My Fire” came on the radio with my twin brother and he played keyboards.. He bought the Farfisa keyboard that made The Doors have that unique sound... I did some recording for Jimmy Barnes who has been a huge soul and rock singer in Australia forever.. He is the Paul Rogers - Bruce Springsteen of Australia. More sessions and blah blah blah.... it goes on and on... But I love it...love it love it...
Just flew back today from Zurich where I played with Joe Cocker outside at the foot of the powerful and dangerous Eiger Mountain.... 10,000 feet and we had to take a train up a mountain to get to the
area where the outdoor concert was... A big SnowCat took us down to the stage.. It was awesome.. I will be be doing some shows with Cocker in April and May, subbing for the great Jack Bruno who usually does the gig but he is with Tina Turner right now.. I used to play with Cocker so I have all the charts still.. that made it easier to at least get started... And will be doing some touring with John Fogerty..
So until my next blog.... work your butts off and if you love what you do... work even harder.... : )
In Switzerland for Joe Cocker show - Eiger Mountain
Eiger Mountain - Switzerland
Dressing room at Grindelwald, Switzerland - Joe Cocker show
January 24, 2009
Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii EVERYONE! On January 18th I performed at the Obama Inaugural Celebration Concert at the Lincoln Memorial, with a super killer band that performed with Stevie Wonder, John Mellencamp, Jon Bon Jovi, Beyonce, Mary J. Blige, Garth Brooks, Sheryl Crow, James Taylor, Josh Groban, Herbie Hancock, Heather Headley, John Legend, Bettye LaVette, Jennifer Nettles, Usher, Shakira, and will.i.am.
Here's a link to the show if you didn’t get to see it... There are some good camera shots of me in the Stevie Wonder segment..
http://www.hbo.com/weareone/
And here's an interview I did after the show...
http://webcenters.netscape.compuserve.com/celebrity/celebgossip.jsp?floc=ce-main-9-l1&feature=ce_cel_01212009
The preparation for this historic event was not only 15 to 16 hours a day rehearsing and recording songs for artists to hear and give comments, but it was extremely cold.. The first 2 days of rehearsals were inside at Ft. Myers Army base, but after that we moved on site to the Lincoln Memorial where we rehearsed inside a tent with minimal heat (I had to wear long underwear, warm clothes a ski parka, hat and gloves)... After we rehearsed a song with an artist, we then went to the stage to do a sound check with the artist... The coldest moment was rehearsing at -2 degrees with Jon Bon Jovi and Bettye LaVette. It was almost impossible to play... The horn section couldn’t play because their instruments froze... we each had a heater the size of laptop computer which was useless.. : )
I was focusing and concentrating so hard on learning the music, writing, rewriting charts, making notes about when to count off a song, what the count off would be, and who I would be counting off each song to, tempo markings, cues etc etc.. that I didn’t feel the impact of the event until I was on stage looking out at a sea of people... When the show was over I was fortunate to meet President Obama... which was very coooooooool and yeeeeaaaaah,,,,,
Here are some pictures..
January 12, 2009
On January 10 I was one of the judges at the Guitar Center Drum Off finals... Here are some pictures from that event. Some of the other judges were... Taylor Hawkins, The Rev, Danny Carey, Trevor Lawrence Jr., Drew Hester, Atom Willard, Alan White and Frank Zummo. The evening was hosted by Jane's Addiction drummer Stephen Perkins, and featured performances by Jason Bittner, Nicko McBrain, Thomas Pidgeon, Thomas Lang and Papa Roach. Congratulations to the winner, Jerome Flood II !
January 1, 2009
Happy New Year to everyone!
