OK.  Here goes a freewheeling commentary on my last week with my Trio.  Barry (gtr) arrived from LA Saturday night.  Bill Urmson (bass) drove down from Boston that same evening and I drove gtr. dude up to our upstate house where my wifey had dinner ready for us.  Wifey agreed to be our cook.  I didn’t ask - I would never live through finishing the sentence usually because she has a life and career and it isn’t about feeding me and my friends or coworkers!  Yet, she somehow wanted a chance to simply chill out and cook some nice meals so we all gratefully ate a “meal of the tour” every night.

Sat:   Spaghetti w. lamb ragu and some seared steak on the side with an incredible salad made up of herbed baby lima beans over a bed of augula with shaved parmesian cheese.  All of wifey’s salads and many vegetables came from her garden with incredible homemade dressings.

Sun:   Roast chicken with rosemary roasted potatoes, spinach and (yes!) another incredible salad.

Mon:  BBQ’d Shrimp (skewered) and an incredible pork roast with “Abbey-Normal”  (a head of Cauliflower prepared whole with a light cheese sauce sprinkled over the “brain”) and, as always, an incredible salad.

Tues:  Bison burgers grilled out with hot links and weenies in whole wheat buns with cucumber and jalapeno relish and potato salad and the other things that accompany these kinds of low-fi delicious meals.  On Tuesday, we played after we ate for wifey and neighbor Nancy.  It was our first live performance in ages and we made all kinds of mistakes - mostly due to all of our energy being sucked out of us earlier from those burgers and dogs!  But it was fun.

Wed:   Salmon for the band - (with Ocean Trout for me) with garden herbed rice, broccoli from wifey's garden and (surprise) incredible salad.

BTW, every breakfast was french toast with quarter inch-thick bacon from Whole Paycheck, or steel cut oatmeal with eggs and sausage... it was over-the-top fun-food.  We ate wild blueberries and blackberries from the on the grounds marsh at will.

Thursday, we said goodbye to wifey's cooking and we drove straight down to the Cutting Room and played an hour and a half set.  It included four new songs that we had to read off music stands.  It was great fun - I was happily lost inside some very creative waters throughout most of the set.  I had the show videotaped and recorded with the idea of putting together something that can be inexpensively downloaded.  Stay tuned on that one.

Friday:  We drove to SUNY Purchase College and set up our gear.  It only took about a half hour because Adam Budofsky, Modern Drummer's Mangaing Editor, took my drums out of their cases and set them up as best he could - which was actually quite close to my exact settings.  Impressive!   Adam is one of my favorites due to his incredibly open mind about all music and his incredibly fast, high intelligence - I love talking music with him.   He’s got triplets and appears to take that responsibility on like a day at the beach! 

I also got to see Simon Phillips for the first time in a long time and we had a great chat about the Glyn Johns mic placement that I use so much (and used at the show).  Simon is a VERY experienced and talented audio engineer, you know.  And what a musician!   He’s the kind of musician that you have to be to even qualify for his level of musicianship.  He’s an incredibly aware and thoughtful and funny  person.
Some people practice too much and don’t develop their people skills - and I don’t mean “how to sell a car” people skills.  I mean a great musician is skilled at reading people - about saying or playing the right thing at the right time.  Simon has all of that and more.

Ah, one more thing.  In order to hear my drums I needed somebody to play them while I walk through the house.  Nobody was willing to take on the task - but I saw Will Calhoun and asked if he could do it.  We were checking to String Theory, which is a freak show in 5 - so he was psyched to play! -and he did.  He sounded absolutely great with my guys! This little moment helped everyone - Will got a little ride on a spaceship, my guys got to play with an extraordinary drummer and I got the drum mix set-up with Bill at FOH (front of house engineer).  Winners all around!!!! 

BTW, my drums sound REALLY good.  the 23 is awesome.  I miked it was a beta 91 inside and a beta 52 on the un-ported reso head.  We had 57s on the toms and a beta 57 on the snare, but barely used those mics.  Most all of the drum picture came through the two ksm 141s in cardiod over the kit.  The jazz series toms and snare really are fun    I love the way my Evans heads sound on the toms and snare.

After set up, we went to the hotel and chilled.  I wrote out as detailed notes as I could for FOH engineer, Bill, and the recording engineer, Sean, who was out in a recording truck filled with rack mounted gear that either creates or reads "ones" and "zeros".  I always play better if I know the engineers have their confidence throbbing so I try to give them the tools they need to monitor and mix a previously unheard show.

Friday night:  I tossed and turned all night.  Maybe got four hours because I was worrying about what to say in between songs.. totally stupid worries and concerns.  When the day came, it was all flowing fun.

Sat:  Fun.  There’s Walfredo Reyes Sr. hanging with me and Urmson (aka Urm / Urmdog / Son of Urm)  Wally’s kind of a Latino Chapin.   I enjoy being with them both and listening to their stories.  He’s got stories going way back - Buddy Rich - Rat Pack - early Vegas - and also about tons of other bad ass Latin dudes that I’ve never heard of.  The show begins and I’m hearing Thomas play a whole lot of notes.  I look at my band and their faces are lit up - it has begun.  Cocky me, I remind them that I said earlier they may hear more drumming notes than in their previous life combined.    then I smiled and told them not to worry - we were getting the “cocktail hour” slot.  I don’t even know what that meant, but I thought it might be funny so I went for it.

We played the show - I was mostly comfortable.  The drumming was OK - but I was worried about Barry because his synth was acting up and I was concerned he would freak out or something about it.  Barry’s wacky synth cable problem was intermittent, but the show went off well anyway.  Standing ovation. Most of the mistakes were mine really.  I was counting off the songs about 5 to 10 BPMs too fast!  That is so typical, but not typical of me... yet I did it, which cracks me up.  Of course, I can laugh about it because I had a great band that could adapt and still hit the notes at the light years speed.   Most bands would’ve crumbled at some of those speeds, not to mention the IQ test of each song.  As always, “Song For Jo” was my favorite.  I thought of someone special as I played it and sent my notes to him.   

I so badly wanted to hear Will and especially Ndugu.  I love that guy - Ndugu’s got a great, outgoing personality and he’s also a true “been there / done that” pro.  He deserves all of our respect and admiration.  Sadly (but good in the long run), I had to do interviews for both Shure mics and a longer very much more detailed one for the Hudson's to-be-released DVD about the festival.  Hopefully the interviews will yield some teaching fruits when they get out there in public.

I got back in time to hear Simon’s band.  At the bar the eve before, he had told me that they had hardly played and implied their performance would likely be a little rough and tumble... wow.  They were great!  I heard nothing itchy and scratchy whatsoever!  Simply great.  Simon’s playing is so clean.   He doesn’t ghost notes and slurp on his drums the way I do - he hits everything well intentioned and purposely.  What a great musician!  He asked me earlier if I would be comfortable playing a shaker part on a song in 7 - and that he was going to have Ndugu play some timbales as well.  I, of course, happily accepted -  Who’s going to say “no” to that?

So I’m side-stage as Simon’s Protocol is burning down their set and wondering if the next song is “the one”, the one where I get to sit in with his band.  And as the time goes by I’m becoming more and more the 7 year old inside me.  People that know me knows that guy is in there.  Well, so I’m shaking my little Rhythm Tech mutated (stepped upon) shaker and chatting it up with Neil Miller (my editor and partner in film crime) and he is teasing me with stuff like, “do you want me to warm up your shaker for you?”  and “have you had your right wrist massaged enough?”  Sadly, I got too loud and someone side stage angrily asked if I would shut up because they would like to hear the set.  I was mortified, and retreated - I wouldn’t mind taking that faux paux back and staying more in line with society!... oh well. 

So then the moment comes.  Ndugu and I go out.  The song starts.  My job is to watch the ”big time” - meaning most of the band is playing 7/8 and I need to shake in 7/4 - holding the big time for everyone.  The song begins and I am standing at the mic.  I then realized, as the kybd player was squirming to see his band mates, that I am directly in the way of his field of vision and not helping the band - but actually hindering it!  I thought of moving the mic forward, but that appeared to possibly interfere with the video cameras.  Also, I have to admit that it occurred to me that I might hear some flak about moving to the front of the bandstand when I’m only a damned shaker dude.  So what were my options?

I knelt down.  Heck, the mic was kind of low anyway.  Yeah!... this feels good now.  I’m shakin’ and iIm bakin’  Lots of beautiful subtle downbeats - and everybody knows where they are and they are groovin’.    Man, the bass player is great - he plays behind the beat in a nice relaxed way.   I’m kneeling directly in front of him and behind me is the keyboardist.  The keyboardist mouths “thank you” to me with a grateful nod when I look back at him and I’m sure I’m doing my job well.  But the song continues... and continues...  Oh my.  My old knees are starting to hurt!  So now I’m wiggling around and decide to see if I can kind of sit down.  It seemed like a good idea at the time, but what happens is the ol’ man almost rolls to the ground - so I’m still groovin” (musical priorities ) but this is almost embarrassing!
The crowd seems to have noticed my predicament as well.  Oh well, it’s only one song.  Now Ndugu is taking a solo.  He’s hanging in there with the odd time and sounds great.  Of COURSE he does - he NDUGU!!!!!   After the Timbale solo, I see Simon look over at me and I realize he is thinking of giving the shaker player “some”, but you know what?  I’m freakin’ ready, man!   He’s going to hand it off and I’m going to play the best shaker solo of ALL TIME.  But the next instant,  Simon passed on the shaker solo idea and I have to admit, I felt nothing but relief.  Not so much relief that I didn’t have to step up on a shaker solo but more so relief that this means the song is going to end soon and I will be able to once again stand up.  Simon takes an absolutely incredible solo.  His skills are way beyond me - I can assure you of that!   Eventually the song ended (mercifully for me) and the audience went nuts.  I honestly don’t remember what happened next - I was simply overwhelmed at the physical relief of being able to walk around again!  I think Simon’s band played another song and then the night ended.  What a great day.  Sadly, I didn’t get to hear some of my favorite drummers on the list, but now I knew I was done and would be able to enjoy tomorrow thoroughly - as a listener. 

Next Installment?

Part Two:  The birth of “Shaker Dude”.  It'll be short but "strong".