Wednesday, October 23, 2013

The Black Orchestra

So far, "just" an ear infection and an occasional cough & headache.

Even so, I'm starting to gather songs for my next solo CD, tentatively titled THE BLACK ORCHESTRA (which was the code name for the attempts on Hitler's life by his own men.)

Hoping to create these songs with more dense & heavier drums, samples, bass, and keyboards - guitar will be used more sparingly, as I think I've done enough upfront playing for a while.

Monday, October 21, 2013

Brian Wilson, Jeff Beck, and Micky Saunders

Despite my looming cold, Sharon and I had a great weekend seeing our friend Micky Saunders playing with PANDORA at the Continental Club in Glendora (our dinner bill was only $44 with 4 rum & diets!) and then using our free, KLOS BLOOD DRIVE tickets to see Brian Wilson and Jeff Beck at the Greek.

The seats were almost back there with the Tree People, but we were in direct alignment with the stage, and unlike the Bowl it's really tough to get a bad seat at the Greek. We even lucked out on parking, after circling the venue for 15 minutes waiting for the lots to open. Out of there in a killer 15 minutes!

Great show. Brian wasn't always on key (even more than usual) and it'd be nice if he threw a couple more lead vocals to Al Jardine... but the band was amazing (always love seeing Darian Sahanaja on stage!) and Jeff Beck dazzled with some classic Jazz-prog guitar.

Below, my mandatory shitty cell phone pic.


UPDATE: forgot to mention running into my friend Chris and his wife Connee. Chris had said he couldn't afford the tickets, but I guess he decided he could! They were close enough to "borrow" the Jeff Beck setlist from the nerdy kid who grabbed it!



Really? AGAIN?!!!

Because I like to make note of these things, I must sadly disclose that I just caught MY THIRD COLD OF THE YEAR.... totally blowing my recent average of once a year.

And though I hate to blame people with thankless jobs, I know this came from Elizabeth's Parent-Teacher night at Hollywood High, because I found myself in very close proximity with one coughing teacher and another who complained about having a headache and feeling sick.  In both cases I had no hand sanitizer and was sitting very close just to hear them speak above the din.

Reminds me of when the kids used to bring home colds and the flu from elementary school!

No work today so I'm safe there, at least.


Thursday, October 17, 2013

Stedmuro Finished at Last!

Russ Stedman just sent me the mastered version of our collab CD, and it sounds amazing!

Now, finally, after 2.5 years of off & on recording (mostly OFF) this project can go to the printer! It will be a small run, but I'm sure Russ will have it available as a download as well.

Russ points out that we actually started talking about doing this in 2010 (or earlier?) but I didn't finish Dino's 50 until early 2011, so that's when I start counting.

Now... next project? Probably an outtakes collection called Dino's 56, and after that another solo CD - just a single, non-grandiose disc project.



UPDATE: The CD is printed and released! (In very small quantities, but still...)
It can be bought HERE, and a free download will soon be available.

http://www.russstedman.com/stedmuro.html