Many musical adventures

Interesting times! Monday night I rehearsed at Henry Kaiser‘s house for our show at the Hotel Utah Thursday. Also in the band is David Phillips, a terrific pedal steel player with whom I have wanted to work for years and years. I ran into David a couple of weeks ago at a benefit – he was in Lorin Rowan’s band, and I sat in and we had a fine time. We both agreed we want to work together, so I invited him to join us at this Hotel Utah gig. (Also with us will be drummer Jeff Blair, keyboardist Josh Kaye, and bassist Josh Zucker. Drummer Adam Perry had to withdraw due to a commitment with his main gig, The Love X Nowhere.)
Yesterday I confirmed a show with Lorin and Chris Rowan – adding them to a date I had already reserved at the Larkspur Cafe Theatre: May 13. We’ll do our “Rubber Souldiers” Beatle set in between my set and the Rowan Brothers’ set, and we’re going to share a band that includes Phillips, Josh Zucker on bass, and possibly Jimmy Sanchez on drums. This is exciting!
Yesterday I participated in a recording session in Novato with Ned Lagin and the great guitarist Terry Haggerty! Ned is a keyboardist who hasn’t played in public in 30 years – he was a computer music geek at MIT in the late ’60s and early ’70s, and he made very adventurous record called Seastones with Phil Lesh (and played electronic music with Phil between GD sets) in the mid-’70s. He’s been developing some new works and also reworking Seastones for a while now, and I am very happy to see him moving forward with all of this.
The session with Ned and Terry was great fun. We just plugged in and played for about three hours. Turns out Ned was imposing some structure, but I just went with the flow – and apparently I passed the audition.
The two of them have been getting together once a week for the last six weeks or so, and bringing me in was the next step in the evolution of what Ned expects will be a live performing ensemble. We’ll do this again soon, and Ned wants to move it to a recording studio and bring in a rhythm section.
After Terry went home, Ned and I played some more.
I was very happy with my playing in this free-form context, both with and without the loops. This was a great circumstance in which to use loops w/ other players – both Ned and Terry were very good at locking in w/ the loop, and I was in turn wise about when to drop the loop and let the live musicians evolve the jam.
AND I have an idea for future solo loop performances that I am very excited about: using both the old Loop Station and the new Echoplex! The Echoplex can be programmed to have multiple loops, and to automatically go into RECORD when you stop on the “next loop” button and the next loop is empty. I’ve done some experiments at home with this – I can cycle through two or three sections and add new material to each jam at will. That’s one great new capability – but what I can do with the other, separate loop device is something I have done in live situations a couple of times before (includng that thrilling jam out of “Psycho Killer” a couple of Invitationals ago) is make a loop that is not synchronized – record some swelling, sustained overdrive sounds for an arbitrary period, then add more swelling notes to create a sort of cloud of sustained sounds w/ shifting harmonic content. In a solo show, I start with that and then begin a more conventional loop jam in the Echoplex.
The trick w/ that will be getting out of the cloud loop. To do it properly will require a mixer, and tapping into my signal path in a couple of places. That way, I can fade the cloud jam out manually while the other loop continues.
Also this week: I am opening for The Waybacks at the Freight and Salvage Friday and Saturday nights. (Tonight we’re recording a Waybacks set at KPFA for broadcast in April, when their new CD comes out.)

3 thoughts on “Many musical adventures”

  1. I’m really glad for you. It’s very exciting to be doing so much creative stuff with people you’ve wanted to work with for awhile. Did you sit in with the Waybacks last night at KPFA?

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  2. I didn’t sit in at KPFA (that performance will be broadcast April 19), but I will sit in with them at the Freight and salvage this Friday and Saturday nights.

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  3. More musical adventures!

    Last week was really great fun, all of it. Started with the Waybacks recording session at KPFA (to be broadcast April 19 on KPFA), then continued through the Hotel Utah gig w/ Henry Kaiser et al., and then two nights…

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