“I never struggled a day in this business,” said Steve Vai. “I’ve been so blessed. It was always, how can I do this thing on guitar, and you work until you can do that.” Vai was honored at the 27th annual TEC awards, receiving the 2011 Les Paul award for the creative application of music...
Today was actually our day two, as we started yesterday for the press preview. Some of the press we previewed for were legit, some probably formed a publishing concern in order to get a pass to NAMM. But today it started to become clear just how much of an onslaught of music business insiders and...
So I’ve had a really interesting gig these past few months, where I get to mix my three main skills as a professional musician & bandleader, a technology journalist/pundit and a copywriter. I’m actually working with Exadel, the makers of Tiggzi, to shape the perfect tool to help musicians build their own mobile apps to...
Thanks to all the fans who voted for us! I share the award for Latin Jazz Outer Edges Album of the Year with arranger/associate producer Sam Bevan, as well as Colin Douglas, Carlos Caro, Jonathan Alford, Gary Mankin, Steffen Kuehn, Mara Fox and Felix Samuel! Thank you all, and thanks to Chip Boaz of the...
I’ll be interviewed by Afrikahn Jahmal Dayvs at 11 pm tonight on KPFA 94.1 FM in Berkeley. You can listen online at http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/75915!
I went to see the Montclair Women’s Big Band last Sunday at Yoshi’s Oakland. It was a packed house for the 17-piece ensemble. I’ve always loved big bands, but I’m more attuned to them now than ever since I’ve been working this year steadily with Pacific Mambo Orchestra. Unlike PMO, where trombonist Mara Fox (who...
Today, my third full-length album goes on sale in digital format. This is an album about the search for work, for purpose, for justice, for love, for anything real in an artificial world. The 10 original tunes on I Wanna Work for You ruminate on the Gulf of Mexico oil spill and naked grabs for...
Seen on today’s run: A swarm of deathly handsome agents with fake handguns doing a hostage negotiation training exercise outside a building (I asked them). I have never seen such good-looking officers. Hmm, maybe it was a Chippendales kind of thing. But they said they were park police. A very old man with a heavy...
Last night I worked for a writing client, covering an event they were holding. I had a great time, but it must have brought back memories of my old job. I dreamed that a man who used to work for me was now a dentist. He had set up an open-air consultorio in a field...
These days, everyone wants to play music on YouTube. That’s great and good and all that, but it also means your little unplugged video probably won’t go viral unless you work really hard at making that happen. I spend my free time living life rather than trying to make videos go viral, or become the...
We were driving home from an afternoon gig in Tiburon, the toniest suburb in Marin County across the Golden Gate from San Francisco and a quick ferry ride from Angel Island. My 10-year-old son had come with me to help me load equipment in and out and sell CDs during the gig. It was about...
She took a bite. Secret sauce a tang on the back of her tongue, a rippled pickle slick between her lips, the meat and fluffy bun filling her mouth. She swallowed and felt the bolus sliding down until it nestled in her stomach. A tiny, fist-shaped packet of energy. The stadium was a behemoth; here...
