I went into this contest knowing that I probably wouldn’t win but confident that if I did things right that I could. Well I didn’t do things right. I tried too hard. That along with some complications with a pinched nerve in my right elbow (known as cubital tunnel), making it hard to hold on the pick, I lost in the store finals. I won 1st place in the preliminary round but that doesn’t mean a lot. I’ll try again next year and bring my blues “A” game. I lost the blues completely in the store finals. I didn’t deserve to win it really.

Here is the first round video:

And now I have the second round up:

WOW! It’s been a LONG time since I posted anything. Life has been
scattered at best. I’ve been remodeling my home, trying to get some new
businesses going, raising my beast of a 2 year old and somewhere in
there, trying to play some music!

My New Year’s Resolution is to
finish my Blues/Rock CD. My goal is to finish that, one for the Ethan
Alien Project, another for the Roid Runner Project and yet another for
a new duo I am rehearsing. Seems like an impossible task and it
proabably is. But if I can get the blues project and the Duo project
finished and the others well along then I can feel good about things.
Got to do this before my joints get too old…

Blogged with Flock

I suppose if you know enough about Guitar and have listened to enough music you can probably guess at a few of my influences but I’m sure there are a few that you would NEVER guess.

My earliest was The Ventures. No one else for a long time caught my attention because I didn’t really listen to the radio back then. I had gotten my first stereo, which was very exciting except for the fact that I didn’t own a single album. So When I went to pick out my FIRST album I wanted something… Special. But I knew almost NO music but what I heard from my Dad which was mostly Eddy Arnold, Jim Reeves and the like. So I looked at some records in a bin and the one that caught my eye for some unknown reason was The Ventures – Walk Don’t Run ‘64. It was fate from there. Once I heard the sound they produced I was COMPLETELY HOOKED!

After that its a bit of a blur. Clapton, Hendrix, Page and very much Jeff beck were all in there. Then someone else caught my ear like the Ventures did. Jan Akkerman. Not a household name at all but a phenomenal guitarist with a Dutch group called Focus. That name might sound a bit familiar but once you hear the familiar yodeling and hot guitar licks of their one basic hit, Hocus Pocus, you’ll say “Oh Yeah! I remember that song!”. Thing is that song was a far cry from a lot of their normal songs. They were very avante garde and eclectic and while I didn’t love every song, I listened to every note with a passion.

And of course Carlos Santana. From Soul Sacrifice on I was captured by his truly unique sound and approach.

Despite his personal problems and general bad attitude, I still was in awe of Ritchie Blackmore’s playing and sound. His sound was SO mellow and fluid. He was another truly unique individual and way ahead of his time. But now he’s playing Renaissance Faire’s?? A shame really…

Joe Walsh was and instant hero to me. What a master of the understatement! And by going through the back door too. He took an approach I had never heard before and his closing wah-wah solo on Walk Away is still one of the most powerful statements I have heard. Many other songs are classics too, all thanks to his mastery.

Then there was Pat Travers. Too bad his big hit was Snortin Whiskey and Drinkin Cocaine. He had SO many better songs. Great Sound, Great licks and a funky style. Loved his old tunes. He’s playing Power Blues now and still sounding good.

Another guy that did a similar style change to Pat was Gary Moore. Another incredible technician with a lot of emotion. He ventured from band (Coliseum) to band (Thin Lizzy) and worked on solo projects in between. He’s now primarily doing blues also and a major player in that style.

Another obscure player that I was very fond of was Pat Thrall. I first heard him in a group Automatic Man. I loved their mix of funk and hard rock. Then he showed up with Pat Travers! Later he became part of the somewhat legendary Hughes/Thrall band. Glenn Hughes being one of my favorite vocalists, this thrilled me to no end. Pat later joined Asia and has done some work with many others as well. So cheers to my early instincts about this talented man. He deserves all the praise you can give him.

Later I and the world were blown away by Steve Morse. Who wouldn’t be. But I never quite wanted to play exactly like him. I did marvel at his technique and melodic sense. Along the same lines was Al Dimeola. Another master of the Fretboard.

As time went on I regressed a bit and REALLY started to listening to the old blues players. But I think I will save this for chapter 2…

Here’s a short article that explains what pretty much every musician should be thinking when they choose to have a career in music:

SELL YOUR MUSIC & GET FAMOUS!

It’s worth reading if for no other reason than to remind you what is the most important decision when making music.

We had announced a new CD in the works hten it stalled. MY fault but now it’s actually going for sure. We have several new people on board for this one:

David Kempers – an EXCELLENT violinist is going to add his talents. He and I have been collaborating online in hte past few months so this was a natural progression.

Dawn Landers – Vocalist. She has many years of experience in choirs, opera and general musical situations so her beautifully voice will be most welcome.

Also new is our daughter Stephanie! Well she isn’t new but her additions will be. She will be adding her voice and possibly some keyboards (piano, church organ, etc.). She has worked with me on a few projects in the past but this will be her largest contribution to any recording.

The current working title for this CD is ANACHRONISM. If you know anything about the background of Bedlam Abbey the meaning behind the title will be fairly obvious.

I’ve had the studio up and running for a bit now and back to working on projects. I’ve also been collaborating with folks online again too. It’s been fun doing that again and I’ve met some great talents and gotten to do some cool songs with them. I am going to set up a special page with final mixes of some of them. I will getting permission first though. More on this later.

Since the move I have been busy catching up and getting unpacked and setting up a new computer for the recording studio. Its been slow and I miss having it ready to go but it hasn’t been high on my list of priorities. But this week I am making the time to get it all back up and running with new version of Cubase! Along with ever favorite Native Instruments Guitar Rig and Steinberg Groove Agent I will be making more sound than I can handle soon. I am thinking seriously of upgrading to Groove Agent 2 soon. While I love the current version, the new one promises even more great possibilities.

Well we finally made the BIG move to new home with about 50% more space than the old. Just in time too as we had our second child together, a boy named Matthew. So now all 3 children have their own room, I still have my space (and an office on the main floor with a outside window!).

But this means the studio is not yet set back up so all projects are on hold until I can complete that in a couple of weeks. I did get a newer, bigger, badder computer to use stricly for audio and video that will make life a little easier. I’ve upgraded to new versions of my Native Instruments software (Absynth, Reaktor, Kontakt) so the sounds will just keep getting better.

I am very excited about finishing up some very old projects as well that were started on my Yamaha SY-77. It recently had a problem with the floppy drive belt but I have a temporary fix on it so I can work until I get a proper replacement (OK it’s a rubber band but it’s working).

Some even older projects include old 4 track cassette songs that I would like to redo. Will I ever find all the time?

I am presenting this site as platform to my music. I have gotten involved in so many styles over the years and so many projects in the present that this seemed to be a natural progression.

I will be showing progress in current projects, sharing stories about past exploits, recommending music from other folks and whatever else I feel like doing. My site ya know

Currently I am working with several folks on a variety of collaborations from pop to blues to heavy metal. One such project is a pop song that is going to be submitted to a collaboration CD on a site called The Muses’s Muse. The primary songwriter is named David who lives in Canada. He wrote the lyrics and melody then posted a message on the forum on TheRecordingProject.com for a collaborator to add chords, arrange, record and produce the song. I jumped in and we have a nice start on this. I will be posting a rough mix soon.

TheRecordingProject.com is also doing a Collaboration CD and I will hopefully be submitting one of my songs to that as well. The one I plan on using is called Held by Stone. It’s a simple blues based tune that I wrote in an effort to complete a project for a complete blues CD. It’s going slow but this song is nearly done. The organ and piano parts were done in another interenet collaboration with Jay Ricketts (DAFDUC on TheRecordingProject.com)