Category: Musicians

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Gigs Musicians Random

Salt Lake City International Jazz Festival 2006

Alternate titles:
“It’s all about who you know.”
“Met the mayor of Salt Lake City this weekend!”
“Jazz is alive and well in Salt Lake.”
“Rocky Anderson tries to bring Salt Lake out of the dark ages.”
“Tom Scott’s band is amazing.”

How is this for a venue?

In the pic above Patti Austin is performing with her rhythm section and jazz musicians from Salt Lake. Her whole set was a tribute to Ella Fitzgerald. I’ve never heard Patti perform live before and she was totally amazing.

The Rippingtons

The Rippingtons (above) have been around for about 20 years playing their style of jazz. These guys are very talented and tight live. But they’re not my style. They’re kind of like Kenny G meets Lee Ritenour. Though I had front row seats through my best pal Matt, I couldn’t stand the whole set. The Kenny G sounding stuff was making my skin crawl.

Tom Scott

I’ve been a Tom Scott fan for years. There’s Kenny G, the cheeseball “jazz” sax player and then theres one of the best sax players ever in Tom Scott. Tom Scott spent his time practicing, writing and working with the likes of George Harrison and many jazz greats while Kenny G was at the hair salon.

Tom Scott’s band is f’ing amazing. Most of them look like cats from Memphis. His keyboard player was a blind black guy who was having so much fun on stage I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face. His Hammond B3 piped through a Leslie sounded SO cool I was melting.

My new pal: Salt Lake Mayor Rocky Anderson

In the pic above my new buddy Rocky Anderson is addressing the crowd. My friend Matt (once again) introduced me to the Mayor. In a conservative republican town like Salt Lake, Rocky is a breath of fresh air. Rocky is the one guy who is trying to bring Salt Lake out of it’s shell and turn it into a modern city with arts, decent liquor laws and attractions that people other than Mormons would want to see.

Way to go Rocky. Keep up the great work.

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Musicians Recording

My new best friend: Michael Renna

Meet my new buddy Michael Renna. He’s a studio owner/engineer in New York. Strangely enough we met because his brother frequents one of my golf sites. Small world.

So Michael and I have been sending some notes, audio and images back & forth…. The images below are of Michael and his very famous client Al Di Meola. Al Di Meola is one of the worlds greatest guitar players. If you don’t know who Al is, and you play guitar….well, you’re not a guitar player.

Al double neck
Al playing a beautiful double neck

Michael And Al
Michael Renna and Al Di Meola

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Musicians Recording

New friend. Should post more

Well as many of you know I have several golf sites I work on. One is a blog that is HUGE. I just opened my 4th golf site this month so I’ve been slacking on making posts here. Trust me, I have plenty of material. I’ll get back to it.

I have a new best friend! He happens to be the engineer for Al DiMeola. If you don’t know who AD is, especially if you are a guitar player, then shame on you. AD is one of the top guitar players in history. I’d say his trademark is his lightning fast licks with extremeley staccato notes. No one can play tight, crisp staccato notes like AD.

My autographed AD photo is on the way thanks to my new buddy. I hope to get to know him much better and maybe some day meet him and Al and even sit in on a session. That would be major.

Hey Al… Need a drummer? I’d KILL to play some tracks on one of your albums. I only charge room and board 🙂

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Musicians Rants Recording

New Dream Theater album sounds like a “do it yourself” project

Ok I have listened to the entire new DT album. I must say I’m not impressed. Don’t get me wrong, the musicians are amazing. That’s not my beef.

The engineering and production on this album stinks. It sounds very mid-rangey (if that’s a word). In my one car stereo all I can hear clearly driving down the streen is snare drum and vocals. Can’t hear the bass, and the guitar & keyboards just blend into each other to form foggy sort of “audio soup.” And it seems like the whole thing is damn near panned center. Mix in some stereo will ya?

The lead guitar parts are way too low. The snare drum is too loud and in fact the whole kit sounds very mid-rangey and thin. The kick drum doesn’t kick. The toms are kind of whimpy. And the whole kit was obviously recorded in a tight space and it is totally lacking “life” or some kind of wideness or ambience.

The vocals sound pretty good.

Did these guys engineer/produce it themselves? That’s just what it sounds like.

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Gigs Musicians Recording

Metal gig

I ran across an old metal band I recorded years ago through myspace. They’re in the midst of hammering out a record deal and they’re in need of a drummer. Looks like I’m going to do some drum tracks for them here. When they do the real album they say I’ll do the tracks wherever they record (LA or somewhere). Sounds like a lot of fun.

If it goes well I could see doing some touring. I hated the last tour I was on but that was a little different. I hope I get along with these guys.