Addicted To Music...

Whew... Off the road

2009-11-20T11:04:00.000-08:00

Wow that was intense..

Left home on Oct 2....

Last night --Just back from a bit of work, long hours and travel:

BELEW TRIO _ FALL TOUR

MON OCT 05 MINNEAPOLIS MN, CEDAR CULTURAL CENTER
TUE OCT 06 WINNIPEG MB CANADA, WECC / West End Cultural Centre
THUR OCT 08 CALGARY AB CANADA, The Grand Theater
FRI OCT 09 EDMONTON AB CANADA, Starlite
SUN OCT 11 VANCOUVER BC CANADA, Venue Vancouver
MON OCT 12 SEATTLE WA, TRIPLE DOOR
TUE OCT 13 PORTLAND OR, ALADDIN THEATER
FRI OCT 16 CRYSTAL BAY NV, CRYS. BAY CASINO
SAT OCT 17 PETALUMA CA, Phoenix Theatre
SUN OCT 18 SAN FRANCISCO CA, Slim's
TUE OCT 20 REDONDO BEACH CA, BRIXTON
WED OCT 21 SANTA ANA CA, Galaxy Theatre
THUR OCT 22 PHOENIX AZ, Rhythm Room
FRI OCT 23 SPRINGDALE UT, Bit & Spur
SAT OCT 24 ASPEN CO, The Belly Up Aspen
SUN OCT 25 LITTLETON CO,TOAD TAVERN

NOVEMBER 2009
EDDIE JOBSON's U-Z PROJECT wsg JOHN WETTON, TONY LEVIN, Greg Howe, Marco Minnemann

TUES 3 Krakow, Poland Studio Club
WED 4 Warsaw, Poland Palladium Club
THU 5 Bydgoszcz, Poland Philharmonic Hall

EDDIE JOBSON's U-Z PROJECT w/ Greg Howe, Marco Minnemann, Ric Fierabracci
ADRIAN BELEW POWER TRIO
MON 9 Perm, Russia Philharmonic Hall
TUES 10 Moscow, Russia Club B1

ADRIAN BELEW POWER TRIO - NOVEMBER 2009
THU 12 Eskisehir Turkey Anadolu University Sports Hall
FRI 13 Istanbul Turkey Ghetto Genuine Music Lounge

ADRIAN BELEW STUDIO SESSIONS for RAPHAEL HAROCHE, EMI/PARIS FR NOVEMBER 2009
w/Simon Edwards-bs, Zachary Alford-dr, SLy Johnson-mouth
SUN 15 Paris France Studio Ferber..
MON 16 Paris France Studio Ferber..

wow. and i'm so lame I don;t even collect airplane miles - are there rocks in my head?? I' dbe sitting in Jamaica for free right now....

Belew Tour...about to start..

2009-10-03T22:47:00.000-07:00

Hello there. It's been quite a while. My life has been insane, as you probably know.

lots of changes. the bigest change in my life so far, losing my mom on JUly 14. Still dealing with that, missing her every single day. It's unbelievable.

But - MUSIC has been the greatest therapy....playing it....hearing it...working around it..

So...off we go.....back to the boards with the Adrian Belew Power Trio.....17 dates, mostly western USA, a couple in W. Canada as well...We just came back form three week son the east coast USA..

check out www.adrianbelew.net for details....whew it's been a crazy couple months......

man oh man.

and then..right off this tour ,..to some dates in Poland etc with Eddie Jobson, again tour managing but also doing some soft-synth teching and stage work. An amazing band -- stand by for details -- but the band is :

EDDIE JOBSON's U-Z PROJECT w/ special Guest JOHN WETTON

Eddie Jobson keys, violin

John Wetton bass, voc, guitar

Tony Levin stick, bass

Greg Howe guitar

Marco Minnemann drums

What a band!!! Details etc at www.eddiejobson.com

Gay Marriage, Popular Votes, and Progress...

2009-05-28T16:39:00.000-07:00

So - what do you think? Did Obama announce Sotamayor ON THE EXACT DAY of the CA supreme CT decision, to obscure it from 100% headline status?? I mean - -of course it' s huge news but certainly quiet dampened by the SCOTUS news...

Of course--I'm fine with gays having all the same rights as any other adult american citizen. That's consistent with the US constitution. Now let's move on.

To the RIGHT I say: The 18,000 marriages in CA (and many elsewhere) prove to bigots that THE EMPIRE WON'T CRUMBLE because gays wanna marry.

To the LEFT I say: Maybe, just maybe there's a discussion to be made about the various religious groups having the corner on the word "marriage". Just maybe> I dunno, i;'m just saying, let;s bounce that around. Because I still can't understand fully why Civil Unions are any different, except for..the semantics of it all.

Having said that -- I WISH gays and the protesting left would ADMIT and UNDERSTAND:

Prop 8 passed in Nov 2008...DUE TO A MAJORITY OF THE CA CITIZENS VOTING! Notice how no one mentions that too much - except when saying "We can't wait till 2010 to get it on the ballot again".

And -- just to play that thought out further - imagine if -- as many on the left would CHEER for -- if persons here illegally, were allowed to vote -- guess what - ?? They are overwhelming hispanic, CHRISTIAN/CATHOLIC, and VERY pro-life and for "traditional marriage". The prop would have passed by EVEN more of a margin. Wouldn't that have been even more ironic?

OK -- so now what if it doesn't pass in 2010? Will activists move on and focus on CIVIL UNION instead?? Or what?

People on all sides of the political spectrum need to realize-- sometimes the POPULAR VOTE OF THE PEOPLE will result in stuff you don't like!!

For some idiot/hypocrite right-winger drug crusader it might be the CA Prop. that allowed medical marijuana. A lot of those types (including cokehead GW Bush) screamed and yelled when the CITIZENS OF CALIFORNIA voted themselves medical marijuana. Yet -- THESE SAME RIGHT WINGERS go on and on about STATE's RIGHTs...which is precisely what that illustrated!!

I bet LOTS of gay potheads in SF are FINE with THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE on the med. mari. vote. Yet now....suddenly the exact same process is to be protested!! Can someone explain this to me?

Or how about the OR and WA resolutions..PASSED BY THE VOTERS to allow Dr.-assisted suicide. Again - it's clear my fellow left wingers in CA, WA, OR and elsewhere were as ECSTATIC as I was, seeing STATE'S RIGHTS upheld, and the rights of terminally ill people having THE RIGHT TO CHOOSE any treatment or ending they want. Awesome!

But again -- SAME VOTING PROCESS passed those laws- what would the left say if some right wing christian nutbags freaked out on each of those 100% legal Props. with hand-wringing, massive marches and legal challenges AGAINST THE PEOPLE and their LEGAL VOTE??

I hope this makes sense. I am for full gay rights -- but DO IT BY THE BOOK.

Gays compare this fight to that of blacks all the time. (I'm black, hetero and VERY left wing, libertarian, this week I call it "common sense socialist").

People need to realize -- that Harvey Milk was NATIONAL HEADLINES as a "openly gay elected city official" a mere 31 years ago!! Wow!! So -- it's been INCREDIBLE progress since then!! Gay rights on every level, the two big struggles are the military and marriage DADT and DOMA.

Well --black people have fought for far more than that - and we realize stuff takes time. It sucks, it's often hellish. Shirley Chisholm ran for Prez in what, 1972....it took 36 more years for a black person to win.

And this week again -- a white woman (in FL) calls in a FAKE 911 call..saying "Help!!! Two black men carjacked my daughter and I !! Help!! save us!! they locked us in a trunk"

How much did you see that reported?

Remember Susan Smith tried that?? - when she drowned her two kids?? She called the police and blamed...a black man. For DAYS young black men in her area were TERRORIZED by the cops, all too happy to have an excuse!

Remember Charles Stuart tried that? - when he killed his wife brutally (as most killings are...) and called 911 "some black guy carjacked us and shot my preggers wife"!

Anyway - I digress. I say to gays fighting for their rights -- which I am totally in solidarity with --Settle in, keep fighting, make your case district by district. Convince the ignorant. Stop crying, though -- and realize that everything is relative, i ponder that every day when I look at my rights as a black man, as someone with critical views of the gov't etc.

There's been mind-blowing progress since Harvey Milk's time, when cops were just strolling into gay bars when they felt like it, bloodying a few heads and moving on unchecked. It's gonna keep moving - but the most important thing in all this - IMHO - is that people from the whole political specturm HAVE to support the legal process.... if they want to be able to use that process to advance THEIR causes at some point.

Tempus Fugit

2009-04-24T18:25:00.000-07:00

Not only one of my fave YES songs....but Latin wisdom...indeed time flies, time waits for no one, where did the time go...

i have not posted in here for AGES it seems, thanks for asking, you handful that do!!
Time time time....

I've had a very tough cpl months for various reasons, some public, some private, some many of you know and thanks for the well-wishes and stuff. Finally I am getting back intgo just...writing for the diaric impulse of it all...

At some point I may catch up my news of the last cpl mths, but since that last post (January?!?! Wow.) -- we delivered the Eddie Jobson/UKZ show, which was completely awesome, historic and wild. Really great to be involved with that , meet the lads in his band, most of whom I was already a big fan of from other projects (the only guy I hadn't heard was Aaron Lippert, and he is now in my "rockin' vocalists" list forever.

The opening act was STICKMEN ....I'm also now a big fan of Stick player Michael Bernier.....and working with P@ Mastelotto and Tony Levin again was tremendous. I had the good fortune of opening for them when they played with the California Guitar Trio -- we were doing some shows as "Acoustic Project/Object"... (which, gawwddd!! I hope we do again -- such fun!!)...

then we were all in Russia together in aug/sept of 2008, what a trip. Russia.. still processing what a wild, mystical vibe I picked up on from that place. Truly intense energy, haunted land.

[Which is one reason I am loving the new MASTODON cd "Crack The Skye"...which is heavily based on Russian mythology, Rasputin, Astral travel, and other acid-induced madness. I am going to see them in several weeks...can't wait!]

Anyway -- the UKZ show was great -- lotsa UK classics, as well as all the full songs on the new RADIATION ep -- you can check it all out at the UKZ BAND site or the Eddie Jobson site and forum. There's also a bunch of (fair-to-poor sounding) videos up on youtube.....

For those of you in Japan. Eddie and the boys are headed over that way -- so look out!!
Someone in the comments page asked about "The other keyboard nr the drums.."

Well I can't remember the brand name now -- but it was simply a MIDI controller (no internal sounds), and Eddie used it on one solo, I think the original plan was ALSO to have Aaron play it on one song that ended up getting cut fomr the set. Yes, more details in the PROGRESSION interview.....

So it was a crazy week with Eddie (who by the way is a RIOT and great fun to hang with -- we had great rambling talks about politics, history, culture, language, and OF COURSE all kinds of music..! So great to see him get out in front of his fans for the 1st time in quarter century (!!) or more...

I jumped STRAIGHT from that week..into the Project/Object rehearsals, and off to or 10 days on the road. It was a very historic tour, in that it was the FIRST time the three alumni had EVER toured together -- Ike Willis, Don Preston and Ed Mann !!

We hit the midwest, also rural PA , Baltimore and NJ. A fun, cold tour, and FINALLY the WEATHER GODS smiled on us -- we did the whole Lake Effect Run - chicago, kalamazoo, buffalo, cleveland!! and not ONCE were we snowed out -- which was a crazy-miracle...

What a blast the whole tour was -- and seeing those guys trading off each other's energy -- priceless. Seahag KILLIN' on bass (BTW -his 1st instrument, he has asked for YEARS to play live bass with P/O)

Thank you for coming out and supporting that....Look for us later this year, here and in the EU as well....we are playing at the 20th Zappanale and we also have gigs in Laredo Spain, Groningen Netherlands, Berlin Germany, and a couple other EU cities TBA. This tour will be with Ike Willis & Don Preston.... with some extra fun added in at Zappanale from Bobby Martin and others...

The rest of February, almost starting with my 44th birthday on Feb 9 -- I had a VICIOUS FUCKING ATTACK of sciatica...Jesus!! and was on my back for at least 3 weeks....hobbling around the house...trying to wish it away -- FINALLY i gave in and saw a chiropractor, also did some massage therapy and acupuncture -- all helped greatly and I got back on my feet, JUST IN TIME to....

travel to Frankfurt DE, to demo the new Moog Guitar at the MUSIKMESSE, the world's largest music trade show. "Messe" means 'trade show', and I was blow away to read that Frankfurt --long an economic capital of Europe, has been the seat of trade fairs as far back as the early 1500s!! I guess being central in the continent, on a river etc, played a part but WOW.

So-- more on that trip later I hope -- it was INSANE , the show is 5 times the size of NAMM in LA, I performed/demoed 6 or 8 times a day on the NEW moog Guitar -- which is a pretty amazing and cool device. Infinite sustain -or- muted strings on demand, six classic Moog filters built in..it's wild....

Also working at the Moog booth with me were legends on their instruments (that I struggled to keep up with ) - Pamelia Kurstin on Theremin and Adam Holzman on various Moog keyboards. They did some incredible things on those instruments and we jammed at the end of each day -- dubbing ourselves THE ANALOG TRIO.... what a week..!! I love Germany, have been there several times, this was a BIT citified for me but a nice clean efficient city nevertheless. As usual makes me wish we cherry-picked the awesome mass transit , and mondo-recycling vibe.....

I had an Adrian Belew tour coming up -needed to get out to Nashville on April 13...but realized one of my absolute faves Todd Rundgren was playing in Nashville..the day b4 that. How could I miss this?? He has been doing his great new CD "ARENA" live in it's entirety...and EVERY time I had the chance in 2008 .. I Was on the road...... well, having travelled up to 9 hrs in a greyhound bus each way to see Todd + band, I said -- what the hell - how can I miss this -- and travelled out to Music City a day early. Well worth it!! -- on top of a stellar, guitar-driven show, got invited along to the post-show dinner with the band (my old buddy Jesse Gress has played gtr for Todd since 1991). Jesse was also GUITAR PLAYER's music editor for over a decade and has toured and recorded with THE TONY LEVIN BAND. Dinner was cool--and I had a blast talking with a major drum-hero Prairie Prince , original drummer for the magnificent and too-overlooked geniuses (genii??) THE TUBES, but also many years with Todd, and on XTC's Skylarking, The Mistakes (with Mike Keneally, Henry Kaiser and Andy West) etc etc.....What a night -the great Kasim Sulton , not on bas but GUITAR and keys..!! Kas of course was in Utopia with Todd, and played on "Bat Out Of Hell", and just abt every Meatloaf tour since then.... Kas is the man.....on bass was Rachel Haden, daughter of yes, CHARLIE, and triplet-sister to Petra, who did the WHO SELL OUT completely a capella on a recent album...bringing it full circle back to .... Todd - who did a groudnbreaking album called a capella, (20 yrs before Bjork's brilliant MEDULLA, which is almost all vocal in origin). Ahh, I worked in Todd, The Who, The Tubes, Keneally and Bjork. all my faves, desert planet shite. Life is good with music in the aire....

But I digress!!!!

So-- next day off to StudioBelew for some prep time, picking up vans, getting road cases out of storage, details details.... and heading out the next day on a short ADRIAN BELEW tour -- again with his power trio of Eric & Julie Slick. This was a great, whirlwind run thru the middle of the midwest, we hit St Louis, Newport KY, Chicago, Schaumburg IL, and Milwaukee. The band was killin' it -- and Adrian debuted another section of his magnum opus instrumental piece "e" -- all of it comes out this summer on a release of the same name.....they also pounded the crowds with some favorites from his catalog and most of Side Four, the recent Live album. As others have pointed out - LOTS of solos, Adrian was really diggin into the new axe, adn just happy to be back with the -"Master-rig"

We hadn't used this full on rig since mid- July 2008!! After that we went to Russia, all around Europe, and Australia -- so we had his scaled down "fly-rig". (A head, a looper and some pedals)

So it was cool (and challenging) to get the giant, three-pedalboard-and-a-rack system back out on the road. A couple glitches but it was fine!! Adrian also played his new #1 guitar --- a silver version of the signature ADRIAN BELEW PARKER FLY -- just unveiled and released this year at NAMM in LA. It's an amazing piece of engineering --has a sustainer, piezo pickups and Line6 variax built in, also 13-pin output that can be used for various synths and VG systems, which we do.

Now -- dealing with some major challenges in life, planning the Project/Object tours, booking some shows for Dave Fiuczynski, and also a great new Beatles band -- Mystery Trip

Lots lots more going on, my life is very crazy, but I thought i'd dip in and say hi. Hi!!

Eddei Jobson.....UKZ

2009-01-07T08:51:00.000-08:00

I'm at home a lot these days, which is great,.

playing a lot, working on sounds, an endless battle with your ears and the concept of objectivity vs subjectivity.....but always headed towards a simpler way to ..have tons of options.

Getting ready musically for a little Project/Object run (more on that later) , a very historic tour with our old buddy Ike Willis, but also Frank's original synth player Don Preston, and longest-running band member Ed Mann, who toured with us in November. This is the first time these three have toured together..... damn!!

But before that --- I have a project I am proud to be part of -- the upcoming debut of Eddie Jobson's new band -- UKZ !. I am helping Eddie on the planning side , setting up local production and generally "tour managing" as I often do, except this is for only ONE DAY instead of several weeks...

Tickets are already on sale -For more details Check out www.eddiejobson.com
For info on this new band check out www.ukzband.com

Click the song title for their first ever video for the new song: RADIATION

Otherwise -- hoping your 2009 is at least ....a chance to start some new projects.

We plan to be out again with Mr Belew in Mid APril - Stand by for dates!!

Hello 2009/A Day In The Life....of the ABPT/more....

2009-01-01T09:57:00.000-08:00

Well Happy New Year and all that.....we made it to another 'new year' whatever the imaginary gregorian/julian illusion may mean.

I started off as I have for, god, 25 years or so playing "New Year's Day" by U2...just to start the year on a severely silly note. But -- still a killer track...what the Edge is doing there --and those Voxy tones... a part of my DNA. Love it. Fuck all you U2-haters, LOL! They're doing something right...same exact lineup since August 1976, wow.

Anyway --Been home for almost 3 weeks, great to be standing still ! Re-designing my studio-space, working on guitar tones. I am back to the drawing board. After you work with Al Di Meola, Adrian Belew, Ike Willis and Derek Trucks... it's very hard to EVER be satisfied with you suck-ass tone. But -- I'm real happy with a very basic setup - Mesa Boogie Lonestar right into a Marshall 4x12...heaven. More on that later. Still searching for 'that tone'. Actually rehearsing a bit with the southern edition of DELICIOUS, and we played a very fun gig last saturday in town... stay tuned..

WHAT a year --- man oh man...a zillion flights it seemed ...and at least 15 countries. Fantastic time, dunno if I can top that in 2009, let's see..

SO -- I still had a bit of the OZ/BELEW trip to talk about so here we go:

A day in the Life - ABPT
Sydney -- a couple days before the last show....we had the morning off..everyone had the option to do a city-walkabout.
10:00am I did what i NEVER do... stroll around a downtown area and go shopping!! Wow... it's global-recession-bargain time!!

At some place called Hi Fi something or other they were doing a major DVD/CD blowout... for about $6.65 USD each I grabbed:
Jeff Buckley Live in chicago
AC/DC Live at Donnington
DEVO Live/De-evolution
Satriani Live In San Fran

and on CD for about $9.00 USD the new AC/DC Black Ice....(I'm glad I got this since back home you can ONLY get it at WalMart!) I don;t totally boycott them on principle, but try to avoid going in there..

So I was stocked up on music, and also grabbed some clothes, sneakers, great Global Economic Meltdown Prices..wherever you go!!

1:00 pm The Middle Eastern food is awesome here, as is the Indian, Thai and more. Quick cheap lunch at a food court, which generally are amazing in their choices and quality/cost of food. Vegan Heaven.
Back to the hotel in time for......

3:45 pm - Lobby Call for the 30-40 min ride to Cronulla, New South Wales
(Ah the Brits. They LOVED to attach English-City & Town Names to EVERY fucking place they rolled into and violently raped and pillaged...the world is littered with Queenstowns, New Londons, Georgetowns, Victorias, Perths, Liverpools, Manchesters, Kingstons, Lake Victorias, Yorks, Queens-this and-that...and here - NEW South Wales. You stick the NEW on there and all is well. Man they were some brutal fuckers. But - hey -- great schools.)

Anyway -- here is the band-in-the-van on the way down.....

The club is a SMALL one..dinner type theater (again)...this one with that pinnacle of stage-design genius -- the triangle-stage-in-a-corner. Great. Who ever decided to put the stage in a corner- SMACK !!! But -- we squeezed them on there.... all is cool. Julie is running only a 4x10 tonight instead of the usual 8x10, and Adrian has a pair of classic cabs -- older, mono 1960 Marshall Tweed 4x12s.

For monitors - we have merely...TWO mixes. This will be a little challenge, ideally this band uses FOUR mixes... but again , Adrian, being a very tolerant and flexible soul, allowed me to put his VG-99 guitar and Boomerang Loops in the front wedges, with his vocals. In this set, he never sings while he's playing the virtual-guitar stuff, so it works out cool..
5:30 pm Here's the trio soundchecking..as you can se it's a seated place, kind of mellow dinner theater vibe..

Soon they're done and off to dinner - this place feeds us , but not till after 730. So the band split to find some Japanese. I'm running a bit behind them as usual since I have to tweak a couple things, tape some pedals down and do some laptop-work. Cool little town, I think i'll split now and just walk the street a bit...and check out the new AC/DC......which of course, is GREAT 'cos it's...just like the older AC/DC. Actually, some nice new touches here and there, but it's Gibsons into Marshalls all the way. Nice.

cool..found another GREAT little indian place. Like the English, the Aussies love their curries...and so little "curry shops" are EVERYWHERE....

I was enjoying a very excellent combo plate, a Dhal, a spinach curry, mixed vggies, a pakora.. always so easy to find vegan indian... when a distinctive bald man hurrying don the sidewalk looked in, saw me, stopped and turned on his heel and greeted me with a smile,

He had arrived at the club early and they told him I headed out to eat... - it was the legendary CHRIS HASKETT.....Chris has released some amazing solo CDs out over the last decade or so, and is the longtime guitarist for, amongst other bands, the Rollins Band.

In my opinion, what Chris laid down in the late 80s and early 90s was part of the bedrock of post-punk hard-rock guitar sounds....his crushing "PRS into Mesa-Boogie" sound changed my life...we would go see EVERY Rollins Band show anywhere within a couple hours..in NY, NJ, Philly, whatever!
The intensity of Rollins' stripped down marine drill-sergeant vocal attack.....and Chris' Zen like calm as he created the most vicious squall of guitar madness, was something that hasn't been duplicated. Underpinning all of it -who could forget the thunderous bass of Andrew Weiss, (and later Melvin Gibbs), and the machine-gun-deep groove drumming of Sim "Sugar" Cain.

Again --Thanks to youtube, you can crank up the glory that was (and maybe will be again..) the Rollins Band. They reunited briefly in 2007?? 2006 to tour with the great X (Exene Cervenka and all original members), and who knows what the future will bring..but they are well documented.

If you scroll down to my Eindhoven NL entry you'll see we had a special guest show up to see the show: Theo Van Rock -- Rollins longtime sound man. It's all connected -- Adrian Belew appears on a track with Rollins on the recent William Shatner album.

And at Adrian's house - his studio alarm system is..a Rollins!!! Every time I go thru this door , I can't HELP but picture Henry Rollins crouched in the bushes, waiting for an intruder, so he can bellow " WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING HERE, MAAAAAAANNN!!!! YOU ARE TRESPASSING!! YOU MUST THINK YOU'RE GONNA LIVE FOR-EVER!!!!!!!!!!?"

So Chris came in and we caught up nicely as I chowed, he had eaten already. Finishing my awesome curries, we were just about to leave and, looking out the door he exclaimed "Hey is that Adrian!?!?!" I whipped around and yes, It was Ade racing by, mysteriously.... We gathered our stuff and headed in his direction...he had disappeared, like the Mad Hatter. A mystery indeed. Turned out he had left his satchel in a Japanese restaurant and was rushing back over to retrieve it, which thankfully he did. Chris and I caught up with him in the square, after some intros we headed back to the club. Two guitarists who played with Bowie!! Cool.!
7:45 pm The place was starting to get a nice little crowd in there, happy fine-beer lovin' Aussies..drinkin'. chatting and eating. Ah this is the life. Soon it was time to start. I went to get the band from "the green room" which in this case was the beauty salon next door!! Hilarious but it worked...the hilarity continued at the set-break with Chris and Adrian promoting one of the waxing products in the place..

10:30 pm Really great show -- with only a couple left in the year you could feel it -the band had a sense of "let's go for it and shut this puppy down for 2008"..or at least that's how I perceived it...Adrian especially just played some really blistering stuff... really got out there on the improv solos.....

Post show the band did the traditional hang n' sign with some great fans. Here they are just as it was being set up:

People were fantastica and welcoming - and in general were amazed that we came to little, "remote" Cronulla, New South Wales, Australia. Folks, check your maps...Head a bit south from all this and ...you're in Antarctica!!

I'm fond of looking at the globe "upside down'. It's COMPLETELY ARBITRARY that we view the map of the world the way we do. Actually -- it's clearly the bias of the first global-map makers, perhaps the Chinese and then Europeans, perhaps the Vikings. Either would OF COURSE put their homeland at "the top" and the European explorers/map makers to follow had no argument with that . We have the POLES which are indeed a clear geometric way to describe the planet's motion - around an axis. But the concept of UP/DOWN or TOP/BOTTOM is meaningless in space - and aliens approaching the solar system would indeed react to the PLANE it spins on- with the SUN as the center/axis. They could approach from EITHER direction that we consider 'solar north' or 'solar south' but in actual fact the whole notion of 'top of the earth' or 'down under' is not rooted in ANYTHING , it' s simply cultural and imaginary.

Anyway look at how fucking close we were to the continent of Antarctica ( A Belew track, by the way) . For the hell of it here's the 'traditional' view. BTW all these pics are courtesy of the wonderful iPhone - which not only runs google earth amazingly but lets you do screen-shots of anything.

ADELAIDE GUITAR FESTIVAL.........

2008-12-08T23:35:00.000-08:00

ADELAIDE GUITAR FESTIVAL

we flew on friday to Adelaide (check your maps now)...another city on the south east coast of Oz, where all of this tour is happening. There are a couple other coastal cities like Darwin on the north coast and Perth on the southwest... but -- otherwise...outback!!

Check out this sign in the airport - Damn!! there goes one of my fave things to do in a new city-- Drink the Toilet Flushing Water. Sheesh.

Adelaide was really cool, maybe my fave, cos quite a bit smaller, yet full on city with everything there..just a little more simple and old school. Incredible shops and again -- a ZILLION asian restaurants, just name the country and they had 4 restaurants. cool. This is also the home of COOPER'S BEER, who sponsored the fest..and dammit I never had one!! Not really drinking lately. I think -- after Russia -- where I was sloshed every fuckin day -- I decided to take a lil break! But I need to try a Cooper's.. I hear.

And how about this local honey?? Anyone wanna hazard a guess as to how they, um, make this?
I'm all for local ingredients and such...But --- what exactly is up here....? But, seriously, as a natural-food store shopper for 25+ years, employee for 15+ years, and owner for 10+ years, I went into one of the best stores i've ever seen anywhere, here in Melbourne, and one of the really impressive things is how strong of a local natural manufacturing base they have --Lots of great local organic items, and New Zealand, of course a massive source for natural foods..is one of the strictest places on the planet for organic growing methods, recycling, green industry, sustainable agriculture, etc. Good stuff.

So I knew I'd have a cool reunion in this town -- and indeed, we had just checked in when YONRICO SCOTT walked out of an elevator. He's the drummer from the DEREK TRUCKS BAND... I did a great 3 week tour with them this past Sept. It was incredible...watching Derek nightly was a joy and very schooling for me..The whole band and crew - really great players and people - check that band out! When that tour ended I knew that we'd all be at this Guitar Festival in december. Here's the Slicks & Rico moments after they met......

The band was to play a full set on Friday Night, then day off saturday to rehearse for Sunday ---which would be the AC/DC tribute (Isn't EVERY day a tribute to AC/DC??)

Here is the band rocking a nice outdoor crowd....We did lose quite a few people when the huge local pop-punk band GRINSPOON got done with their set..it was a weird pairing but hey - three cheers for diversity..

The trio brought it -- they always sound 'larger than life' on a giant stage with those outdoor systems....and there were some very happy locals....this was a real treat -- as ALL the gigs were, since Adrian doesn't get "down" here too often..People were really great after the show, telling the band how wild it was to even get this chance. One guy flew in from New Zealand for two shows..

I had a big surprise while looking at the program notes for this event.... the MC was none other than....WNYC's John Scheafer!!! Most of you are going...What???!..but if you live in the NYC or tri-state area, you'll know the very excellent WNYC, FM and AM, fantastic public radio, NPR affiliate stations. In the fall of 1983...i was studying in college, I ultimately got an As. Sc. in Computer Science. I got into the habit of studying with WNYC FM on...as they played great classical music. One night -- pretty damned stoned -- I came home and turned on my stereo-- which was still tuned to 93.9 FM...this...bizarre music poured out of it... I grabbed a cassette and started taping .. It turned out be Laurie Anderson's "From The Air"....more amazing music poured out of the box...Philip Glass, Keith Jarrett, Jan Hammer and Jack DeJohnette...maybe some Steve Reich...I was hooked!! In 45 minutes...the next direction of my life as a listener and lover of music took a severe turn.

I was listening to NEW SOUNDS with John Schaefer. At 18yrs old I was hooked on a ton of 'new' music all at once. The show was on nightly at 11pm...and John gets my eternal thanks for turning me onto so much amazing music, ..Popul Vuh, Penguin cafe Orchestra, George Winston, Michael Hedges, (in fact windham hill in general), Scott Cosu, Scott Johnson, the aforementioned Laurie, Philip Glass, Reich, and people I had heard of but never got to hear much - John Cage, John Zorn, on and on and on -- all the downtown NYC composers, Bang On A Can, etc. It was world music...ambient..electronic, experimental, japanese shakuhachi, Stockhausen..David Borden, Alvin Lucier, weird synthesiser music, you name it!!

This show CHANGED MY LIFE...I went onto minor in music and take a LOT of ancient music, world music and theory with Phil Corner..and electronic music/ tape-based musique concrete with Dan Goode...would I have done that without this crash course every night?? Maybe?? But I did -- and i thank john -- for being a HUGE part of who I am as a musical being..years later I met him when I toured with Don Preston - one of our stops was on the show - where Don performed solo and was interviewed. It was great..

THANKS JOHN

More Fun in Oz....

2008-12-08T16:46:00.000-08:00

BACK IN BLACK --AC/DC's best selling album, the second best-selling album of all time, and
the biggest selling album by any band, with more than 42 million copies sold worldwide. In 2006 Back in Black was certified by the Recording Industry Association of America as the fifth best-selling album in the United States, with 22 million copies sold....
(wikipedia)

Australia's been really cool. I am bumming we are not going into the hinterland...the outback.....Melbourne was slightly diverse..but I see more black people in Germany!! Where are my aborigine homies!!?? Actually I saw a few aborigines around town -- I love their completyely unique, CRAZY big-curl afros. I have Ethiopian blood, and being on the east side, the highlands of Africa, perhaps early settlers came from the eats side. I gotta do more research there...but ourr TM here tells us what one would expect -- like the native tribes in what we call america today --- they get a raw deal here -- and lots of alcoholism, poverty and unemployment prevails. You'd be shocked to know that industry gets away with a lot more polluting and toxic stuff ...out where the aborigines live.

Sad shit. I hope to learn more about that.....bur for now we're here to spread...some music --After chilling for a couple days off in Melbourne we did the first gig there -- at THE CORNER.

THE CORNER HOTEL
a Good gig in general.....a few rusty spots....no gigs in a month but killin' energy. a really crazy crowd, maybe 350 or more people there...

Nice ROCK club..no damn SEATS...they were right up front STANDING, our best and biggest crowd thus far.... last time he was here a cpl years ago -- Adrian crowd surfed!! So--at the end of the show, he turned his back to the crowd and fell into their arms!! It was great, totally unexpected (well not TOTALLY) but very cool and wacky for him! (You can JUST see him in the live shot to the right)

Great high energy show... the sound in here a little high end , but it was dealable.

Melbourne: very cool city, got read more about the crazy history of this country.....

(RIGHT:CHECK OUT THE BANDS IN TOWN..if you squint, near the middle you can see the ADRIAN BELEW listing, right above "HOLY FUCK")

The stores in the downtown...one funny thing I noticed in all the rock / clothing type places.... THEY LOVE AC/DC !! haha you;d think that was a cliche, but ...maybe it's cos there is a new CD and tour, first since 2003...but EVERY music oriented/fashion place had AC/DC mugs, shirts, banners, even calendars in some cardshop in a mall I ducked into (relax, I was looking for an Apple store, and saw some geek walking in with a Mac keyboard...)

Lunch one day was some amazing Indian, in a tiny little place with a few seats. The kind of place Anthony Bourdain is always in. I love that guy, even tho' he hates vegans, or at least tools on us pretty constantly. It's cool. When I get to meet him I'll put things in perspective for him.

LEFT: Great Indian food!! REALLY great stuff here ---As good as ENGLAND, yes, where I've had the best Indian food in my life. Go ahead - laugh -- you've been totally lied to about food in england -- it's stunning if you get your ass out of cliche fish n chips shops. And - like here - IT's ACTUALLY FUCKING SPICY -- unlike what has happened in the USA - thanks to crybaby, pussy americans who keep fucking up EVERY spicy cuisine with their decades of WHINGING about "It's too spicy ..! waahhh!!"

THEN DON'T COME IN HERE THEN!!! THIS IS SPICY FOOD!! STOP Wrecking it for the rest of us!!

God.! where was I...?

Alright, alright, i know. Of course you can fidn good Indian in the US -- it shouldn't take so much looking, tho'.

Anyway --Of course!! -- here in Oz...we're basically in the same time zone as much of Asia! So -- consequently you have TONNAGE of Asian restaurants... Thai, Chinese, Japanese, Cambodian, Vietnamese. This little Indian place was awesome, of course it's a good thing I love Asian food, very easy to get 100s of animal-free dishes....thanks to poverty, consistent interpretations of buddhism, hinduism, islam and also sheer practicality most asians eat LOTS of vegetarian foods daily, whether or not they also eat animal flesh.

(LEFT: Wherever you go, whhatever country you;re in...some one has taken a shopping cart far away from it's store. Classic, global phenom...)

Off to Sydney, and THE BASEMENT
another historic city.. Umm.. there AREN'T many cities here, mate! So -- you get done with Aussie -historicc city travel VERY QUICKLY.. there's 21 million people on this island/continent..NY state has 19 million. This place is HUGE, actually bigger on dry land than the contiguous 48 states.

this club is kind of a jazz/songwriter place....maybe like the bottom line (NYC) in a basement. Small cap , maybe 200-250 PACKED?? we had a nice crowd of around 150-175, again -- the seated/tables thing is always a little un-nerving...show #2 so the band really started to hit their stride, the tour company we are hooked up with is awesome, Charney our local tour manager is totally cool and has done some great tours all around the globe. They have been getting exactly the backline we asked for, whch is rarer than you may think!

Great show. great watching the crowd from the side, You can really see how special it is..to live this 'remotely' and when you get artists you love playing here, so special to them. But -- I don;t wanna OVERPLAY that -- just about EVERY artist comes here at some point - certainly all the majors and tons of punk rock and inde bands.... they LOVE music here and with afair amount of festivals and a good economy, bands can afford to make it happen. If you;'re in a band GO TO OZ!

blogging from iphone??

2008-12-03T01:57:00.000-08:00

hello there...
This just a shoutout from sidestage at the 1st Belew Australian gig in ages... And 1st with the power trio.
This is a tech-nerd experiment to see if I can indeed blog from my iPhone...

Let's see. Stand by for some pics and more info on how the tour is doing..
Cheers!!

In Australia at last....

2008-11-30T19:43:00.000-08:00

G'day mates!!

Well, I couldn't resist. Get ready for TOO MANY silly puns and references..... sorry in advance.

Left: Here I am Rockin' IN AUSTRALIA to AC/DC's "whole lotta rosie" from the crushing live album IF YOU WANT BLOOD...

It's great to be here..wow...what a DAY (literally) of travel.... I started with 3 or so hours of air travel from Asheville NC to Nashville TN, then a short drive to BelewCentral, where I crashed in the Fripp Suite, then packed up Adrian's remaining fly-gear, and caught a 3pm flight to Denver, then LA. In LA I met up with the Slicks, and we hopped on the United flight for FOURTEEN HOURS to Sydney Aus, then hung about in that fine airport, until we flew to Melbourne, where we'll be for the next 3 days or so. TIMEWARP!! We left the USA on saturday...now it;'s MONDAY afternoon, we got here around 1130am...weird...

OF course in typical style I had to crank up some AUSTRALIA connected music for the flight over, mixed into my playlist - unrelated to OZ -was lotsa Fiona Apple (Tidal, Bootleg:Orpheum Theater Boston '97), the new McCartney album as THE FIREMAN, fantastic, not as spacey as the earlier stuff but plenty psychedelic/acoustic bluesy folk (of course), Steve Hillage "Green", lotsa Zappa music (incl. Lather, Sheik, Orch Faves, Mothers of Prev., and some great Zappa/gear interviews...) and of course AC/DC..the mighty rock champs from down under....

How much do I love these guys ??.... let me count the ways. Let's start with THEY ARE THE FIRST BAND I EVER SAW ONSTAGE at a real concert...I was 14, it was Madison Square Garden, (summer 1979) they opened for Ted Nugent...tickets were about $10....as were the T shirts and programs...wow! It was ..incredible... Somehow my mom let me go to that one..inexplicable. But it kicked my ass....and here I am. An unapologetic rocker, thru and thru.

Plus BON SCOTT was still alive...man oh man. Tragically he would die 5-6 months later...
Well - I went on to see them with Brian Johnson 2 or 3 more times thru the years...and will attend a show pretty soon on the SOLD OUT USA tour going on right now.

My fave Angus Young story - true or not (??) - is when some journo asked him:

"Angus..you've been accused of making the same album eight times..what do you say to that??"

Angus replied with a snarl:

" Tha's a durrrty lie !! Ah've made the same album TWELVE TIMES !!"

Ah yes. they are PERFECT. don;t ever fix it. I had the joy of running rehearsals for the AC/DC show when I worked at School Of Rock, Bergen NJ...what a blast that was.

Anyway -- of COURSE I also had to rock some MEN AT WORK (because I'm the corniest, silliest man alive..) As i was listening to them -- I came upon a store..and guess what they had for sale: Yes , the infamous yeast spread of Australia: VEGEMITE. Some of you may only know of it from the MAW song "down under"..it;'s a STAPLE here, as MARMITE is in the UK..similar stuff. Think of a combo of
Miso paste and peanut butter, perhaps??? A salty, yeasty conccoction they eat here with EVERYTHING...especially toast and cheese. Altho' our tour liasion suggested 'toast, avocado and vegemite' ..Hmm.. will have to try that, I've already rocked some on flax crackers - fantastic!

So - mark me down as Idiot Tourist. There I was in an airport natural food store..buying Vegemite while Men At work was on. I dare you to do something more stupid.

Hmm.. Then THIS stuff caught my eye.... Um... guys...what is this cheese MADE OF, exactly..?? "Tasty"..huh??

I love finding words and signs in other lands...that would mean crazy stuff back home...or vice versa, or viva voce, or whatever.

But wherever I go , it's a chance to see how fucked up humans are in their quest to torture, maim, abuse and then SLIT THE THROATS OF innocent, or even not so innocent animals. Today's entry in the "Slow To Evolve" sweepstakes is this little display of various JERKY products..including Emu, Kangaroo and Crocodile. Poor little bastards never saw it coming. Emu??? I thought they were ..endangered? Guess not. And - of course if someone "farms" them ..then they can hide behind that I guess.. Well...lotsa work to do...at least it's a few steps better than factory -raised, drugged up, irradiated cows, chickens and pigs, as in your typical all-american egg/cheese/ham breakfast ....BON APPETIT!

We're OFF today and tomorrow (Tues) as well...Adrian arrived in Sydney a few days before us to do press, he gets here (Melbourne) tomorrow some time....and our first gig is Wed in town. I dropped Allan Zavod a line, hopefully he gets it in time and can make it out to the show... Allan played keys for many great bands, his own jazz, classical and fused projects first and foremost, but also for the great 1984 Zappa tour ("Does Humor Belong In Music") video from the pier in NYC... and also some great Ponty tours and albums.

If you are in Oz or know someone who is.....

ADRIAN BELEW POWER TRIO
DEC 2008 - AUSTRALIA

03 WED Melbourne, The Corner Hotel
04 THU Sydney, The Basement
05 FRI- 07 SUN Adelaide Int'l Guitar Fest.
08 MON Newtown, New South Wales The Vanguard
09 TUES Newtown, NSW, The Vanguard
10 WED Cronulla, NSW, Brass Monkey
11 THU Bulli, NSW, Heritage Hotel

Back from the PROJECT/OBJECT tour....

2008-11-28T10:33:00.000-08:00

(Ike Willis talks to P/O keyboardist Eric Svalgard at rehearsal, Wilmington Delaware, 13 Nov 2008)
Ah yes, a fun and fine time was had by all.... despite the OBSTACLES and attempts to stop what we do.... (more on that in a bit)

But -- Suffice to say ...it was fun, musical, and HISTORIC (Ed Mann and Ike Willis have not done an extended Zappa-music tour since....1988..!) We just did an 8 city tour (It was 9 until problems were visited upon us), and the fans out there ...you are so amazing, all of you!! thanks again...

Ed and Ike are the longest-running Zappa alumni, ever, and it's our distinct honor to have worked with both of them for so many years. Stand by for video links etc as things get put up..

Ed Mann sets up his gear, then meets some old fans - JAZZ CAFE', Wilkes Barre, PA 15 Nov 2008

Belew Tour, almost-Closer...LEVERKUSEN DE

2008-11-28T09:26:00.000-08:00

Leverkusen....The Rockpalast sponsored GUITAR NIGHT

(LEFT: you can see the cool lineup we were part of during this festival, with Living Colour and Dominic Miller (Sting's longtime gtrist)

I'm Home now -- but reminiscing about what seems like a few days ago...we were nearing he finish line on this little tour.. (and the Finnish Line, we'd be close to that country soon)

It was such a great tour...after all the obstacles, brickbats and problems...we did it, I'm very proud of the whole thing, I did a lot of the early bricklaying work in the spring of 2008 to get this ball rolling -- and besides thanking The Slick Parents and everyone at TeamBelew, I have to thank especially my dear friend and EU booking agent Wolfgang Scheel at NovaConcerts for coming on board and booking a spectacular set of dates, all in such amazing parts of Europe, we all got a new appreciation for the physical beauty of the continent...from the air and ground.

The 2nd to last show of that EU tour ...We played at a 9 day music festival In Leverkusen DE, a great (2000 cap) venue that I had been to once before, in 2006 when I was Tour Managing/Teching for Al DiMeola. THAT show is immortalized on his recent video SPEAK A VOLCANO, clips of which I'm sure are on youtube. what is there is the final gigs (so far) that I did with him -- Israel, spring of 2007 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kogs1RpHmlI&feature=related - really amazing stuff , filmed by my buddy Ehud Lazin.

ANYWAY...great time in Leverkusen.... we were on a bill sandwiched between Dominic Miller and Living Colour, one of my fave bands of all time.... I have been seeing them since sometime in 1985....well..before they were Living Colour and it was "Vernon Reid" then..."Vernon Reid Trio" etc.

1985...I went to see one of my guitar gods JAMES "BLOOD" ULMER (if you don't know him -- again , run to youtube now.....)

and there was this guy, unknown to me VERNON REID opening up--- I might have seen his name in the Village Voice playing small clubs...but there and then I became a Vernon Reid freak -- he was incredible, that much I remember. So-- started to scour the papers for ANY chance to see this guy . Yes the 'papers' (this is pre-internet, kids!!)

So I watched as his trio morphed and changed, I started finding him on recordings by Ronal Shannon Jackson, right around 1985 he and Bill Frisell released a duo record, "Smash And Scatteration" within which they played ALL kinds of instruments that fascinated and interested me...banjo, guitars, guitar synth, drum machines, all kinds of wild AND traditional sounds..

thru the years... Vernon kept breaking the rules (and still is!) in "My Science Project", GTR OBLQ (with David Torn and Elliot Sharp), Yohimbe Brothers (with DJ Logic & Leon Gruenbaum on the Samchillian Tip Tip Tip Cheepee), Masque and several other projects...touring with the great JACK BRUCE's band, doing Hendrix tributes with the Gil Evans big band, you name it!

Living Colour was just really great in Leverkusen, and especially cool to see them the night before the historic election..... I ran into Dennis Diamond - Vernon's longtime guitar tech and everything-gear-guy (there's Dennis at right)
None of the guys knew I was at the gig - so I had a blast seeing the shock on their faces one by one...

After Dennis... The first band member I saw was drummer extraordinaire Will Calhoun...who was walking back into the venue from sending out his ballot via priority mail of some sort.....half the fun was seeing the look on each of their faces as I surprised them - !!

It was a serious Geek-Fest as I hung out with Vernon for a while talking gear and checking out his extensive bank of effects, laptop and new amps (he's beta-testing the new Bugera tube amps and combos....)

(LEFT: Vernon Reid explains his sci-fi guitar signal chain as Dennis plugs a few things in...)

Vernon hipped me to a few new plug-ins he had recently discovered, and we talked about "Guitar Rig", a software amp/FX system he uses that we are checking out for Adrian as well. Notice the killer Roland VG-99 to Vernon's right ... IMHO that is just one of the sickest new devices to come down the pike in YEARS.... I don;t have one YET but I use the Boss GT-10, which has the same computing brain, just for a regular, mono guitar signal as opposed to 13-pin GK hexaphonic signal....I used that on the recent Project/Object tour....

Here is a part of Vernon's effects bank .. a Boomerang looper, the Roland FC-300 pedal (I love that one, very useful), an Eventide Mod Factor multi-modulation pedal, the yellow thing is a Digitech, I forgot which one.. is that the Space Station..? and a wacky custom pedal (the little red guy ontop of the Boom). Yikes!!!

ADRIAN BELEW POWER TRIO - LEVERKUSEN
(ADRIAN BELEW and his trio under the TV lights, in front of an energized crowd, Leverkusen DE, 3 Nov 2008)

An energetic, stellar show....fortunately captured forever by german TV WDR....an awesome multi camera shoot of a fine show. At this point the band has just one date to go...and this one was NUMBER EIGHT in a row... wow....

I think Eric was (unnecessarily, but understandably!) nervous that Will Calhoun was in the room...it pushed him into some cool new stuff....check out his drum solo...

the crimson stuff went over extra great tonight -- and as always "e" was great, the fans here really got it, a captive 'guitar audience'

This will be a real bonus to "introducing" this band to a whole wider , EU audience....a it was captured in expert German style...with a 5(?) camera shoot..stand by for ways to see the complete thing....

Hanging out with Vernon Reid the day after the show, I'm about to leave for our flights to Lithuania...

Lithuania by way of Latvia..was a surreal and wonderful.... We got there on election day for the USA, and for us the news of Obama's win came at about 3 or 4 am...my TV Was messed up so I found out by checking the net every few hours...I was pretty serene about it -- trying to not set myself up for disappointment in case it was ANOTHER Diebold election....but ..wow.. woke up to a new direction.

Obama can;t do it ALL....Let's see what we can do. It starts with CITIZEN ACTION on a daily basis..recycling..using less..eating lower on the food chain... buying sustainable products....paying attention to packaging...fuel usage...reproducing responsibly (or not at all)..supporting non-violence as a way of life...conflict resolution ...supporting green candidates....all of this will make a REAL change..and finally we have a president who would at least LISTEN to such talk.

Criss-Crossing Germany/Some Bad news...

2008-11-02T23:23:00.000-08:00

Mothers Of Invention and Keith Emerson

Today is a bittersweet day....

Jimmy Carl Black left this earth

Keith Emerson celebrated his 64th year.

Keith did a version of LUMPY GRAVY, that made me happy to listen to today...celebrating both he and Jimmy Carl Black era of Zappa-musik.

I found out last night that the great Jimmy Carl Black has died, lost his long battle with leukemia and cancer....

What a great guy, a sweetheart to the end. I didn't know him well but he always stayed in touch and sent helloes my way thru common friends. I still remember the day I met him, Summer of 2000, it was a big Zappa festival in the middle of Illinois...ill planned -- hardly anyone showed up for the size and scope of the event...he and the other Mothers walked into the cafeteria..amazing!! Roy Estrada, Bunk Gardner, Don Preston... to meet them all at once ..still blows me away. They knew all about P/O and we hugged, shook hands, Jimmy had that wide perma-grin...it was amazing for a young Zappa freak....

We all went in and had a meal, it was great. Somewhere I still have un-developed pictures from that day. Remember developing film ?? Another things that has slipped into the past....now, like Jimmy.

Project/Object played at the fest, as did the Grandmothers...and Banned From Utopia with all the 70s/80s guys..unreal!! it was the first time Ray White sat in with us.. I think JCB sat in that day as well - doing Lonesome Cowboy Burt with us...

My fondest memory is -- at some point I was hanging out with the Granmothers....in their rickety mobile home they were touring in.....and you could hear Banned From Utopia was taking the stage.

So I had to literally pick between continuing to hang out with -- cmon!! the MOTHERS.... with Jimmy was rolling a joint the size of my finger...or see the Banned From Utopia, who I hadn;t seen live in 5 years!

Um..I opted for the joint with the 60-something year old legends. THEN i went out and saw the 40 and 50-something yr old legends!

We met Jimmy again in 2002 at the GREATEST Zappanale..the one where the statue was unveiled... the mayor (kapellmesister??) came and did a speech and promoted the whole thing..Ike Willis..Mike Keneally..Scott Thunes...Candy Zappa and Bobby Zappa were there....the Grandmothers...and I had the honor of playing the set with them - Don Preston, Bunk, Napoleon, Bob Harris, Roy Estrada..and Jimmy Carl Black on a couple numbers....with Miss Pamela dancing and Bobby And Candy Zappa watching a few feet from me...I was terrified for the 1st couple songs.. but it remains my pinnacle Zappa memory, along with taking Frank a sign and participating in his show for 30 seconds..

Jimmy - R.I.P !!!

Keith -Happy Birthday..play one for Jimmy!!

Hallow'een in Zurich CH

2008-11-02T16:42:00.000-08:00

Today back to the 5+ hr drives.... this time we head south to Zurich, completing our SWITZERLAND TRILOGY ( to go along with the Netherlands Trilogy). We have played now in ALL THREE sections of CH (confederatione Helvetica, the official name of switzerland...)..we started in ..Lugano (Italian Switzerland)....stopped in Vevey (French Switzerland)...now in Zurich (German Switzerland). Such a crazy country!! What a nutty experiment...and it works..!
Again the EU truck stops and their great salad bar serves my Van-Floor Gourmet Table well.. some fine Insalata Verde with a garlicky broad bean salad, some kraut and tomatoes etc... wow.

ADRIAN BELEW POWER TRIO --THE SHOW
...another great show!! I was fooled - we all were- with this place when we got there and saw the little stage...the small amps.....it's a jazz club (Bill Frisell coming up next week...) and that always wiggs us out a bit...right away we were considered TOO LOUD ..and that is usually the case..... also the sound system is usually waaaaay inadequate buit no, this system was actually pretty ballsy...

but as i let the posters and listing on the wall sink in, I realized it was more diverse than "just jazz" -- they had funk bands, pop stuff, electronic...and the main floor area was open/no seats, so that was a good sign.

Sure enough - they crowded in there and were a rocking crowd!! It got pretty packed....

here as in in NL, some super-Crimson freaks were flipping out when they hit those numbers...and I was even surprised by the RARE appearance of "Elephant Talk"..very cool...

In attendance were some local friends of ours- including a transplant from the USA-- our dear friend and brilliant songwriter Chris Harford !! Chris is here for a couple months..it was still surreal to see him there, so far from our familiar haunts.

I started seeing Chris play...oh god..was it 20 yrs ago. ??? Holy Fuck the time is flying. I guess we're making the best of it tho'....

Chris.....I was put on the spot to describe his music to some local friends... urgiong them to go check out his weekly Zurich gig...I say it's utterly unique... he doesn't filter his emotions it seems.. just pours out his story for better or worse. Yes-- you can hear wide ranging influences...the Band..Joni Mitchell, Neil Young..the Clash...80s indie rock...Jefferson Airplane.....but ... Chris sounds like Chris...from a whisper to a scream.. just check him out!!

A great place, some great old and new friends, a club owner that LOVED the band and was a total sweetheart to us...a hotel across the street....some good food...
A great night, personally a great first visit for me to historic Zurich......

.. in Nederlands...To Eindhoven 30 Oct 2008

2008-11-01T07:52:00.000-07:00

(PIC: bikes outside my window...)

Van Halen
Van Halen (debut)
Live Bootleg - 1982??

...people forget the VH brothers are Dutch -Indonesian!!.

As you may know..The Dutch..during their brutal, murderous imperialistic/colonial years.... slashed and burned their way into dominating Indonesia.....and moved some of the people to another colony ..Suriname. I was born next door to Suriname, in ANOTHER former Dutch colony - now called Guyana. When I was born in 1965 it was called British Guiana..confused yet..???

SO ANYWAY..... when I come to Netherlands at some point I always make a beeline for some amazing Indonesian and/or Surinamese food..there are a lot of Indonesian people here. And thank the gods...because such a union produced those fabulous Van Halen Brothers.....

To celebrate their incredible rock-genius I had to blast the untouchable debut album "Van Halen" and then a random concert from 1982...just fuckin' roastin, Eddie is when he's on. Unreal

Urban Dance Squad
Life n' Perspectives Of A genuine Crossover

Then a few tracks from another great dutch band....what a shame they only stayed "underground" in the US despite some close calls at getting a bona fide hit with "Deeper Shade Of Soul" on their first LP. This was the 2nd one, my favorite -- it's really all over the place and just...wow, such killer riffs and melodic ideas. this gets a lot of spins thru the years, it's so good and...timeless.

Saw them once with...was it Living Colour at Cornell University...?? I think so. God the years are rolling by. All good.

These guys were really unique -- Rude Boy's great hip hop moves over a LIVE band...that was all over the map--- kinda like Manu Chao meets Fishbone or something. they could go from soulful funky stuff to anthemic rock in a flash, always glued together with the turntable and funky bass. Kind of a pre-cursor to all the rap-hybrid stuff of the later 90s,

UDS always reminds me of that amazingly fertile, happy late 80s/early 90s time -- with Fishbone, Living Colour, Jane's Addiction , Rage Against The Machine, Soundgarden, Faith No More, King's X, Red Hot Chili Peppers (Blood Sugar!), Bad Brains, Rollins Band, fIREHOSE, Voivod, Meat Puppets, Butthole Surferss, NIN...all the Lollapalooza nation stuff.

I listen to a TON of new bands, sampling them on iTunes and their myspace pages. But I don't often hear anything that's not a hybrid or derivation of a lot of the above bands.....there's some REALLY great stuff out there , you just have to seek it out.....music is alive.

Adrian Belew Power Trio -THE SHOW

what a killer show!! I'll keep saying it -- the band thrives-- like any good live band - on a rabid, involved and engaged audience. And this show, closing out the Dutch Trilogy (Groningen, Den Haag, Eindhoven) was just memorable stuff...

Started out with a spirited soundcheck, including trying out some parts for the "e" recording sessions coming up...

(PIC:SOUNDCHECK..eindhoven)
A soundcheck made extra special for me -- as my friend the great Theo Van Rock had shown up early to hang. As you may remember- Theo is the sonic architect behind the board for virtually all of the Rollins Band LPs/CDs whatever. Rollins always listed him as a band member, and rightfully so -- that band always had the most incredible sound, and he found a way to capture their might in the studio too....so he was there smiling approvingly at all the crazy math flying by....

The venue EFFENAAR is a stand alone building, with a big "zaal" (stage) and a small stage. there was another show that night so the enegry in the place was high wiith super-efficient dutch production and hospitality people scurrying about. With the hotel a 5 min walk away we were in great shape, able to get back and rest after soundcheck and a nice dinner at the venue, including some indonesian veggie curry, awesome...

'e'...the new work-in-progress the band has been doing.....this just rocks them every time -- it sounds better as they go along...the looping guitar stuff really becoming seamless...and the band keeps digging deeper for the improv stuff in 'beat box guitar' and 'madness'. Like everywhere here in NL, some super-Crimson freaks flipping out when they hit those numbers...Soon it was over with THELA HUN GINJEET, the usual encore of choice for this tour..

Just a great, high energy show.... the backliners brought EXACTLY what the band ordered, so everyone was happy -- the perfect Yamaha drumset, Marshall 1960 4x12 cabs and the Ampeg SVT w/8x10. Yes, they read the rider...
Actually, I can't hate -- virtually everyone on this tour has been really great here with the backline...VERY few snafus....i don't wanna bash -- but the CLUB THAT WILL REMAIN NAMELESS, BUT RUN BY AMERICANS, fucked us up on the gear a bit. Whatever.

We ended a great night with a stroll down to Theo's favorite bar for a quick nightcap and some conversation. He's currently doing sound in the NL, once in a while a small tour in the USA, and also some studio work with some of the guys from URBAN DANCE SQUAD. Cheers!

EINDHOVEN NL

Deutschlande.. into Nederlands...Groningen & Den Haag

2008-10-30T01:16:00.000-07:00

Klaus Schulze
Trancefer (1981)

Doing a lot of 'old school electronic" here in Deutschland.Often when I'm here I listen to a ton of Beethoven, Bach, Haydn (ok he's Austrian but he rules) or some of the German electro-school like Eberhard Schoener, Ulrich Schnauss, CAN, Amon Duul, you name it.

Today the rainy quiet day was perfect for this brooding Schulze LP.... consisting of just 2 long tracks...it slowly morphs thru still interesting synth textures...driven by a live sounding drum pulse. Schulze was in Ash Ra Temple and he's originally the DRUMMER for Tangerine Dream, so his sense of rhythm, performed or programmed, is usually pretty interesting...this album however has the great Michael Shrieve on there (yes you know him from the Infamous Santana/Woodstock clip...and LOTUS/live in japan. He's still a monster today --check out the 90s stuff he did with Bill Frisell and Shawn Lane/Jonas Hellborg. Utterly Fantastic.)

Ahh..a truck stop. I'm serious, if you like Good Food- the truck stops in Germany are stunning... I have actually sat at a place in bavaria with ... a vegetarian menu section. People always, ALWAYS ask me how the hell I stay vegetarian in Germany -- it's a myth folks ...this is perhaps one the best, easiest places to be vegan/veg. Really. They get it, that's all. And no - Hitler wasn't a vegetarian. Here's just one little set of choices in a place that wasn't EVEN that great: All kinds of great fresh stuff, some of it organic even. But -our driver - Peter - who is fantastic --still went right into Burger King, saying about the other stuff "Ahhh, they only have crap here"!! Sigh.. Lots of fresh soups, stuff for meat-eaters, dieters, vegans, whoever. Sad to see our American Poison is loved everywhere. They may rail on our politics, but they love our grease. So-- take with a grain of salt when people tell you about 'the shitty food' in other countries. That's for my NEXT project - I am doing a project called "Tour Healthy" where i share some ideas that have WORKED in the field--- how to stay healthy, eat a great vegan, even raw diet, while on the road in ANY country. I have done this in Germany, Russia, Chile, Venezuela, Hungary, Bulgaria, Jamaica, England, Israel.....you name it.

So We're on a long series of highways....
the fall colors are amazing (who needs to go to New England?) and my soundtrack implies forward motion nicely, so it's all pretty trippy without any drugs...the hypnotic, meditative opiate of synth tones will always work for me. They're warm and organic, I never understand why people call this music "cold" or "inhuman".

We drive into Holland and you start seeing LOTS of windmills...one of the many cool things abt this country is --of course you get to see like 500 years of windmill technology!!! What the fuck are we waiting for!!??

Rollins Band
TURNED ON (Live 1989)

Well I'm a collosal Rollins Band fan...just a Rollins fan in general, I love what the guy has to say I love the Black Flag years, along with Bad Brains, Fugazi, that is some required punk rock/hardcore listening. I have every one of his albums, have seen every tour since "The End Of Silence"....the 80s band wth Chris Haskett, Sim Cain, Andrew Weiss, the 90s band with Melvin Gibbs replacing Weiss, and the completely new 2000s band with Mother Superior as his band, until the recent reunion to tour with X.

But his renaissance one man industry deal is just awesome. I don't live my life by it - but I'm intrigued by the possibilities offered by astrology, and as a fellow aquarius (2.09.65) to his (2.13.61) I find myself agreeing a lot with his outlook on the world - an innate fairness of judgement, a propensity to rip on all sides when stupidity is seen, general bonhomie until we are fucked with, then we will crush you. One difference is -- he could actually DO IT...!! I also learned a lot about touring reading his books, great series of travelogue, self -released stuff all available thru his website. His book Get In The Van documents brilliantly the Black Flag years, and YOU ARE THERE with his escribe verite style...check it out!!

But one thread that goes thru many of his "road diaries" (to be certain --blogs before there were blogs) is that -- they toured Europe a lot , and ....played Holland (and Belgium) all the time!!! The back of Rollins Band albums were the first places I read names like ....Nijmegen...Maastricht... Groningen and Eindhoven where we're going today. And when we hit Eindhoven one of our special guests in the audience will be the mighty Theo Van Rock, always listed as the fifth member of Rollins band...and without whose amazing engineering skills the band's might ..simply would not have been captured the way it was...WHICH WAS MASSIVE.

Chris Haskett is just stupidly unsung.....his simple PRS into Mesa Boogie approach with a couple simple pedals had a major head-crushing effect on me. One of the reasons I have a PRS today. Huge, post-sabbath riffs. Simple , direct and devastating. But he really got TEXTURE..and sometimes wasn't doing much AT ALL... just adding some atmospherics with a harmonic ..or one sustained note. Great. Tension and Release. This band had and still has -- such amazing power. But the bottom end was what it was all about - Andrew Weiss, towering under his mop of unruly hair, huge bare feet braving ANY and all surfaces. the dude was unreal onstage, storming around with this HUGE bass sound.

Blues based, soaked-in sabbath and hardcore punkrock, with a decidely funky edge and a fantastic drummer in Sim Cain. Out front you have this crazy, stripped-to-his-bike shorts fireplug of muscles, screaming his hoarse message of self improvement and wry social-observation. Calling people on their shit. Fortunately this very live band recorded a TON of their stuff and Rollins pumped out release after release in the late 80s...any fan of hard rock, metal and punk rock should check out the early stuff before they kinda blew up with the hit "Liar". And those albums with Melvin Gibbs kick ass too. DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT !

What's great about being alive today is you can just GO WATCH IT. We can all catch up on the shit we missed. Rollins Band at Youtube

Into Deutschlande...

2008-10-29T23:51:00.000-07:00

Tangerine Dream TANGRAM (1980)

(PIC: the castle at Aschaffenburg)
Long 6 hr ride today......The mechanistic..sequencer-beat vibe and analog sound of Tangerine Dream has appealed to me for ages since I first heard them, probably some movie soundtrack. Most people are familiar with Tom Cruise getting laid on the train in Risky Business...that's Tangerine Dream on the soundtrack...

Then in the early 80s a couple things happened for me:

I stumbled across John Scheafer (SP??) and his amazing show NEW SOUNDS on WNYC in, um nyc, the public radio station. I had been listening to this station a lot at night-- studying with orchestral music on. I'm one of those snobs who insists on NOT calling it all classical music.

Classical is JUST ONE period of the music people are usually referring to when they say that -- there's a bunch of subdivisions, like musiqua antiqua, baroque, plainchant, romantic, modern, 20th c., minimalist, 12-tone, serial - -all kinds of terms to define WHAT period/style you're talking about. But much like the words "rock" or "jazz" it's become the catch -all phrase, accurate or not. SO- i'm cool with it but I try to not use the term erroneously.

So i had been listening to a lot of classical, and one night in 1983 after 11:30 or so, very stoned I'm sure, I flipped on my FM receiver (remember those...?) and WOW..this amazing music was coming out-- It was Laurie Anderson's "From The Air". I grabbed a cassette within seconds and was getting it all down, you did that almost daily in those days....and I STILL have the tape...(Interesting aside -- we JUST missed running into Laurie today -- she was checking into the hotel we were at, playing the same venue tonight - Adrian is of course an old dear friend, he was bummed that he wasn't gonna run into her. They did a couple records and a concert-movie back in the 80s...He DID see her solo show in Nashville a few years ago, tho' and they stay in touch a bit)

So I went on to become a giant fan of NEW SOUNDS, listening religiously every night and on sat and sun afternoons...taping EVERY SHOW until it became ridiculous... from that show I learned about Michael Hedges, Philip Glass, Scott Johnson, Laurie Anderson ..Steve Reich, Popul Vuh, Pierre Bensusan, got deeper into Eno, plus all kinds of Indian, African and one of my favorite types of music -- Balinese & Javanese Gamelan....

The other thing was --It just so happened in New Brunswick, NJ, where I was hanging out a lot, there was the greatest record store i have ever been in, just about. Except maybe Amoeba in San Fran..

CHEAP THRILLS was run by very cool people..but also it was part owned by a distro company in nearby Plainfield. Or maybe the guy Ed who owned Cheap Thrills was part owner of the distro , I forgrt. Either way -- they would get TONS of cut outs of great euro-avant stuff like Gong, Mike Oldfield, PFM, Gentle Giant, Cluster, Eno, the Canterbury stuff, Genesis, Synergy, FM, Saga, YOU NAME it. And LOTS of Tangerine Dream. So thru that whole period I built up a massive TD collection... LPs at Cheap Thrills would go for $1.99-$5.99, typically, it was insane, You DID NOT walk out of there without 20 Lps, every time !! It was nuts. And they would get new stuff, 1000s of pieces..it seems like DAILY....

So i built up this giant collection in no time of all the TD albums....it was a peak of my weed-smoking and mushroom days, and this music goes great with nodding out on some bud....pulsing...hypnotic trance-inducing trippiness...you would imagine these guys in some cold dark Berlin studio with all their proprietary Oberheim gear....taking acid and just creating these synth masterpieces....

I finally got to see them in 1986, it was great, really cemented my love for synths, the whole thing. A love that endures to this day with my Moog Voyager in my basement-studio and occasional visits to the Moog headquarters in my hometown......

Ludwig Van Beethoven
Symphony No. 1 in C Major
Symphony No. 6 in F Major
Overture: Leonore No. 3 Op . 72A
etc

Ahh Louis of the Beet-garden. Germany's most famous composer of his era. Love this guy.... he has the same fate as Led Zeppelin, and my other fave of the period Haydn (who taught Ludwig a few times) it's easy to overlook his genius 'cos everyone goes on and on about him...... and like Zep -- his most pedestrian, yet fine-in-it' s-own-right stuff gets worn into the ground.

Every fucking orchestra beats the Synphonies (many of which are amazing) to death -- while his later quartets and the trio stuff like "Archduke" are things of wonder. "Wellington's Victory" is a must listen.

He should also get major props for helping to develop the PIANO AS WE KNOW IT TODAY. It was Beethoven's demands of contemporary piano manufacturers that led to them going from a wooden frame to a METAL one...so it could stay in tune better , and have more structural integrity to withstand the VOLUMES he was looking for....to compete with his massive symphonic works. He also presided over great expansion in the SIZE of the orchestra. he wanted BIGGER and LOUDER always, so as a guitarist, how could I not love Beethoven?

Chopin gets a lot of (well deserved credit for pushing the piano to prominence but his stuff sounds pedestrian and bookish to me. Beethoven is the go-to piano guy, trust me.

At Rutgers University I minored in music and to a lot of history stuff, including a fascinating class called simply "Beethoven" . that was great as the course-book was written by a psychologist/musicologist who took a deep look at the psyche of this wacky genius. His story is a great one if you ever wanna learn some of his bio -- or just love period pieces like I do - I recommend two great movies "Beethoven's Nephew" and "Immortal Beloved" with the great Gary Oldman. The former looks at the central struggle of his last several years (besides going deaf) -- which was the custody battle for his nephew, and the bitter fight with his brother's widow. Great stuff, especially seeing how the german court system worked in the early 1800s. The latter was a great movie from the 90s looking at another central theme for the never-married, childless Ludwig....he had this love of his life....never conclusively identified but guessed at with all kinds of detective work. Every couple years someone proclaims that they KNOW FOR SURE IT'S "_______________" but it remains one of the great mysteries of classical music nerd-dom.

So rolling thru the hillsides of Germany I have this on--- I like to imagine old Ludwig sitting out in a field with some wine and cheese and bread, writing the "Pastoral Symphony"

Adrian Belew Power Trio
After dealing with the DOWNSIDE to german accuracy (i had a particularly inflexible hotel clerk fuck with me and over charge us due to a mixup) Completely would not budge. Gritting my teeth - I realized this rigidity...has two sides -- it's probably what gets them to make the best machinery, design stuff with such insane acccuracy (cars, tools, electronics, war machines) , but it can be a pain in the ass once in a while. I'll still take that over complete incompetent idiocy, which usually ALSO comes with attitude, anyday. Which is prevalent all around the world in varying doses....

So on the GREAT German side-- we get to this club and they have great gear - great sound, great crew working it!

Again -- the BEST shows on this tour have been when the band has a real live ROCK CLUB vibe..in a ROCK CLUB.... it's made for the sound of this band...they dig it and feed off the audience energy..this was such a show.... And the germans are extra crazy fans..."Young Lions" had a particularly wild solo tonight... and the improv in "Beat Box" keeps going further out.... and out....(here is the Aschaffenburg crowd at the end..)

The band really dug this one as well...always the clubs are what we want....and it keeps getting better..

Tonight - Marshall cabs again - Adrian is real happy with those..we are getting into some new gear choices..What an honor to be part of this -- here is one of the MAJOR guys that shaped my idea of guitar sound, sonics, effects, guitar-technology addiction, all of it...it's great to be out there with him bringing new stuff to the table and trying new stuff, shaking it up and seeing how his mind works...

And look what is coming up at this club..dammit!! I would almost fly in for this gig....Actually Adrian tells a great story about when he saw the real Emerson Lake & Palmer... with the James Gang opening, this was 1971 or 1973 or something...and the solo in "Lucky Man" kicked his ass so much -- he immediately set a goal to "make those sounds from the guitar". So- there you have one little piece of the man's musical influence. Add in his love for Hendrix and The Beatles and you have a little more...the rest.... is from outer space!!

Vevey - Day Off

2008-10-28T17:57:00.000-07:00

Above: Our modest tour-van, from outside my Vevey Hotel Window
Ahh the rare 'day off' . Kinda sorta.
I woke up "late" haha, and since it was a hotel with a LAME internet pricing, i grabbed a 30 min slice for 4.00 CHF (swiss francs, 1 CHF = about $1.15USB right now..)

On tour -- there is a continual barrage of stuff to do - contact wise. There's the lame promoter who JUST WOULD NOT get back to you, even after 50 calls and emails. Usually it's the REAL owner's son..usually heroin is involved. These guys somehow keep staying in this biz..
Then there's just the continual number crunching, payouts for various bills, per diems, fuel money deposits perhaps, etc. The sound guy who NEVER got the several emails with inputs you sent him or his boss. The sound guy in 2008 with NO EMAIL (rare, but it happens). The booking agent who keeps sending out 3 year old info. Grrrrrr!!

Finally i said "screw this, dude take a break!!" and headed down to the lake...on the way there I dialed up:

DEEP PURPLE - MACHINE HEAD (1972) (25th Anniv. Re-master 1997)

I mean c'mon. How can you be at "the Lake geneva shoreline" and not go sing that while cranking THE GUITAR RIFF THAT KILLED THE 60s....??? It's just so great, still. So silly, so spinal tap -inspiring..

So, yeah, I'm that lame, I listened to "Smoke On the Water", right at that fabled lake. But I mean-- when one travels THIS far to sacred places in the rock pantheon, one must participate in ritual. I firmly believe that.

The shoreline was clean, pristine and the ducks were loving the day. This LP is one of my earliest encounters with hard rock -- I remember my cousin Christine bought this LP, and Alice Cooper 'Muscle Of Love". They also had Black Sabbath "Paranoid", and I remember learning the riff for "Electric Funeral" on some horrible out of tune guitar. In all cases the insane cover art is what blew us away...

"..Frank Zappa and the Mothers..were at the best place in town.... some stupid with a flare gun, burnt the place to the ground"

So then I had to hear, of course

FRANK ZAPPA and the MOTHERS OF INVENTION
KING KONG (fr. AHEAD OF THEIR TIME live 1968)

I have the distinct pleasure and good fortune to have been able to tour a few times with a few of the ex Mothers Of Invention, very often DON PRESTON, the original synth player for Zappa's groundbreaking band.

Above, THE GRANDMOTHERS fall 2001
Left To Right: Yours Truly/Andre' Cholmondeley (Tour Manager/Driver), Ken Rosser (Guitar), Don Preston (Keys, synths, vocals), Bunk Gardner (saxes, madness) , Billy Mundi , drums - I'm gonna guess Roy Estrada was taking the piccture..

What the hell does that have to do with anything -- well of course Don Preston - was actually JUST launching into his Moog solo on KING KONG...literally on the first note -- when the alarm went down -- FIRE!! FIRE!!! the bootleg is great and you can literally hear people clamoring to get offstage. The best part is ..Don is sometimes...um, well, let's say caught up in the music. You can be onstage trying to tell him to go to the bridge , or to turn off a sample, and he seems to be off somewhere in a state of bliss. Listening to the boot - I like to imagine they were trying to get his attention for several seconds before he realized what was up!

The 1968 version I head today is from an LP that came out aout 30 yrs later -- from the infamous Royal Albert Hall show--- turns out Frank had a 4 track live version sitting around that actually sounds incredible. A very key document of the Mothers -- some of this show can be seen on film in various spots. this is a great record too 'cos it has the Mothers doing "Progress" a crazy play/dramatic piece Zappa was working on at that point, a little piece of bizarre theatre that asked the questions about modern music vs. the classics...about tonality vs. dissonance and experimentation...

ANDRE' CHOLMONDELEY
Fire and Air (fr. ENIGMA WITH ATTITUDE 2006)

I did this wacky album a couple years ago -- and Don Preston was kind enough to let me use a sample of THE VERY FIRST AND ONLY NOTE of that famous Moog solo.... I sampled it and looped it , and used it as the basis for a piece I used the Alesis Airsynth for. Hence the name. A strange little instrumental weirdness. Don's part is the weird, rising dirty synth sound. So it was cool to hear it again after quite a while...near where a piece of the track got it's birth. You can check out my album on iTunes, or here

But, wow..back to hearing the rest of the Purple album after all that.....Lazy"...."Space Truckin"..the classic "Highway star"..."Maybe I'm A Leo".."Pictures Of home"...all complete blues-proto-metal classics. Ritchie Blackmore just digging into the pentatonic blues box, with his scalloped strat....so good!!

Now, the bonus tracks ---some quad mixes,who is gonna use THAT I have NO idea, and a B-side "When a Blind Man cries" a cool blues number.

I ran into the great Roger Glover - bassist for Deep Purple and also Rainbow... He was coming upstairs to leave BB King's in NYC...after a Steve Morse show. He was really cool, and I got to thank him for not only helping to basically INVENT HEAVY METAL but also for producing Judas Priest's "Sin After Sin", a great , dark kickass slice of their history. very diverse album actually, with some great ballads...but again I digress..

Fans of the band and rock-fans in general don't often realize it , but Morse is the longest running Deep Purple guitarist (!) having joined the band in 1994, and is still in the band, very busy. He has a great road-diary on his site. What a special human being that guy is.

I love the stuff Purple has done with him -- it really sounds quite different than his stuff.... or previous Purple. It's really rockin', sometime just basic sounding like AC/DC, but with the awesome Jon Lord distorted organ sounds. They have remained HUGE in all markets ..except the USA! So weird. They tour stadiums in south america, australia, europe, russia, all thru asia...but can;t get arrested in the USA. In fact-- the most successful tour they have done in the last decade was when they played...the entire Machine Head.

(Photo: Looking back at our hotel fomr across the street..)

I walked over to Lake Geneva, I mean Lake Léman... apparently the locals insist on that - the 'real name' .."Snobs call it Lake Geneva" I was told by a local musician !

Whatever you call it --it's amazingly beautiful.... a huge glacial lake ringed by mountain. On the side I walked near there were houses going up the side. A great sunny, crisply cool fall afternoon, people of all races walking their kids, dogs, lovers along the super clean lake's edge. I was blown away by how clean the water looked... really amazing. Couldn't find any garbage along the rocky shore either -- i had to SEARCH until I found ONE cigarette butt over by the grassy park, and I finally found a plastic coke bottle and threw it away. It's great -- like most places I visit here, it seems a higher % of people just... take pride in their country, they are VERY nationalistic...they just seem to channel it into..taking care of the place instead of feeling like they need to invade someone.

Deep Purple. Go crank some - Ian Gillan is simply one of the greatest rock vocalists....hard to quantify how many others rip his style off.

26+26 Oct, Vevey, Switzerland...

2008-10-28T16:51:00.000-07:00

Vevey, Switzerland

YES - GOING FOR THE ONE (1977)

I'm enjoying Rick Wakeman's giant organ right now.
You know - the one at the beginning of "Parallels" on Going for the One. That thing is MASSIVE..and resides in a church somewhere around this lake...

Today we will drive into CH (switzerland) again...having been there last week in bellissima Lugano....what a city!! The ADRIAN BELEW POWER TRIO played there at the studios of Radio Svizzera -- the Swiss radio station...really cool and VERY weird crowd in that....NO ONE seemed to be under 40 yrs old.... really - his crowds are usually way more diverse. It was surreal. So that was the ITALIAN part of Switzerland... today we go into the FRENCH part and the coming weekend, the GERMAN part. Really an interesting aspect of this tour I hadn't thought about till Vevey..

Going for the One was the record YES travelled to Switzerland in 1976 to make with the reunited classic lineup -- in other words Wakeman was back in the fold after a few years with, ironically, Swiss keyboardist Patrick Moraz (see yesterday's listening highlight). It was an important LP for them as they had been out of the scene for a little while - and punk rock had come along and spat in the eye of all the bloated, overwrought prog-music that YES had been a big part of... and this LP does have a more lean sound..a couple shorter songs to balance the epic "Awaken" and "..Century"....and the album actually did great!

I love this album, it really has Howe reaching out into a more rocking sound, what guitar-addict doesn't dig his "soloing all the way thru" approach on some songs... He's the man. He needs an avocado once in a while tho' -- that macro diet...makes a lot of sense on many levels, dietary and energetic, but man it CAN make you look kinda grey and lifeless...Macrobiotics blows it on the "fat-avoidance" and "tropical-avoidance" thing.. but I digress.

YES came here and set up camp, I need to read more about it, and see ALL the videos, but I've seen a few that exist on youtube of the rehearsals. They are fun 'cos you can see Anderson actually making up his wacky lyrics on the spot, or it looks so. They seemed to just pick an incredible area, get away from the world as it were, and focus on creating...

Steve Howe-- burning pedal steel on the opener "Going for the One", divine classical tones on "Turn of the Century" , tasty jazz-guitar licks on "wonderous stories". As giant of a figure he is in the guitar world he is STILL , I think, underappreciated for his diversity...he , like my favorite guitarists, is an eclectist, and has dug into every friggin type of "thing with strings" made that I can think of -- trad stuff like teles, strats, Pauls, wacky older medieval stringed instruments, lutes, mandos, guitar synths (he dove WAY into this with fellow Brit-Vegetarian-Eccentric guitarist Steve Hackett when they did GTR in the early 80s. Shoulda kept that band INSTRUMENTAL, but there is some burning and interesting playing on that. There's even a book out there detailing Howe's crazy collection of rarities, probably all on the web too.

The masterwork "Awaken" is also on here..what a timeless tune...Just driving along with this in my ears, looking at the beautiful mountains and huge fields everywhere... I can imagine some of the inspiration these guys had, relaxing in such a place, THIRTY years more remote and undeveloped, wow!

This track goes all over the place, really is an odd Yes piece in many ways -- again the amazing sounding church organ they used is highlighted -- I remember reading that they used some kind of -at the time - cutting edge recording technique to capture the organ parts, via phone lines or something, from the church to the studio. This is also One of Chris Squire and Alan White's coolest tracks...we were so glad when they brought it back to the setlist a few years ago....

Finally, the bonus tracks ---There are some cool practice takes of "going" "parallels", "century" and "awaken". I love these and so happy they have done this for just abt every LP. It's a rare way to peer into the writing and rehearsal process of some of my favorite music.....especially these 6, 8, 10 min pieces, always interesting to see how parts evolved. "Parallels"..man oh man i;m glad they opted for using the church organ. Awesome.

Amazing Grace" is a solo/distorted bass take on the gospel/spiritual american classic , played by Chris Squire, sound like over some simple, probably Moog Taurus bass pedal. His dirty-bass sound is a thing of wonder, this reminds one of the solo in "Ritual" originally from "Tales from Topographic Oceans"

"Montreux's Theme" is a nice, short piece that highlights Howe and Squire --they have a wonderful BACH-ish counterpoint in there..

As we pull into town I am checking out "Vevey" another bonus on the re-release -- it's another short instrumental with a brooding pipe organ and what sounds like some kind of theorbo , lute , or that other wacky middle ages thing I can't remember the name of - that has the timbre of a harpsichord..but a lovely little baroque-flavored work..and Vevey is of course the town we work in tonight... It's near a lake, the same lake -correct name is Lake Léman - that Montreux is on, scene of the famous fire.

ADRIAN BELEW POWER TRIO: the gig tonight is at ROCKING HORSE... and it ROCKS

Another rock n roll club , bingo, a couple in a row, now we're on a roll. The owner is real cool- Kevin, he also owns a vinyl store nearby and the Slicks planned to go there the next day. A big Belew/Crimson/Prog fan- -he was personally excited abt this gig - you are seeing that more and more -- the younger promoters, mostly guys in their 30s thru 50s who grew up with prog and eclectic musics... and now are booking shows.. a great trend. We are seeing that, literally on this tour and this was another example. Guys who really know how to treat the musicians and keep them comfortable.

Damn!! look who's also playing here soon...!

A real rock vibe -- STANDING PATRONS...the smell of legal pot in the air here and there, and just a real excited crowd, ready to rock..Tonighht we have a pair of Fender Twins for Adrian, well actually we are fooling the gear nerds, since we only use the twins as 'speaker cabinets'..the power isn't even on..we are just running right into the speaker jacks. Twins are pretty cool for him 'cos a good one will have some ballsy speakers in it - but ALSO the legs attached so he can TILT the amps--- all so important for him hearing,...Anyway , guitar sounded great...!

BTW -- the setlist on this tour is basically (beware: SPOILERS!!):

writing on the wall
ampersand
dinosaur
young lions
beatbox guitar
matchless man
madness
neurotica
of bow and drum
big electric cat
e
three of a perfect pair
****************
thela hun ginjeet

They killed it -- always so great with a crowd to bounce the energy back. 'madness' and 'neurotica' were really killer tonight. I almost triggered the spoken stuff at the exact right times. Very difficult doing it with an iPod, in the US we drag around a sampler...
Curtain Call, Vevey CH

24 Oct - Driving Milano, Italia to Worgl Austria..

2008-10-28T13:08:00.000-07:00

FUTURE MEMORIES LIVE: Patrick Moraz (1979)

Today we started the leg of the tour with our rented van and driver, Peter Ullrich. Peter is a real cool guy -- we're lucky that he is also a ex-musician (horn/classically trained) and now a music-maker "I play the computer" . He also taught me the right way to say "Behringer". (The "ger" is said with a hard "G" , as in "anger", not like "danger")

We took off from Milano IT by 8:30h and after negotiating some traffic we hit the highway. (Buildings above just as we got on the highway. Man this damn iPhone camera is not bad for what it is...)

Dammit !! As we drove away from the hotel we realize we were mere blocks from a fantastic section of town with load of fresh produce sellers, all seemingly right from the farm. Just what I live for -- the locals and their fresh fare....and some local fresh live food...

Always happens tho' . When I'm PLAYING on tour I get a bit more walk-around/explore time... but when Tour Managing, it's often mostly hotel-room time, ironing out stuff for upcoming shows..tweaking gear requests, planning interviews for days off, crunching some numbers .

Anyway nice drive thru northern Italia into Switzerland. Would totally move here in a minute, love it. And -- feeling luckier all the time that Cheri & I moved to Asheville NC...we have mountains as awesome as this, no doubt. Not the cool chalets etc . But really -- the peaks are kinda reminiscent...

So todays musical tie-in is Patrick Moraz.. just 'cos he's from the little land locked "neutral" place they call..Switzerland. Like I said -- there's no rhyme or reason to what triggers a particular musical choice during the day -- but I DO try to listen to someone or some piece somehow connected to where we are....

SWITZERLAND -I love this place, always liked the idea and first came here in 2006 on tour with Al DiMeola, for the AVO fest in Basel. A crazy end to THAT show was coming back to the hotel late night to have a beer -- and running into one of my fave drummers, the inimitable Vinnie Coliauta, at the hotel bar! Even better -- getting into a conversation with him about the crazy unanswered questions surrounding 9-11. Vinnie was in town with Herbie Hancock and Nathan East to play the next day. Sick!

I love to tweak my ill-informed republican pro gun friends and shock them with the info that 'evil socialist switzerland' actually has perhaps the most guns owners per capita on earth! Why? At one point it was the LAW that you had to own a gun, and the state could randomly check up n you - check yr gun , ammo, etc. You had to learn HOW to use, clean, hold, store, load a gun.

The state was the one who organized this, very sensibly. I think that's called A WELL REGULATED MILITIA. That's the part of the 2nd Amendment that EVERY gun nut I have queried on this wants to skip by. Test a pro- gun person on that sometime (when they're not HOLDING a gun....). Most of them FAIL the test -- if you ask them if the "2nd Amendment is iron clad" and they think it should be "law of the land". They always say YES OF COURSE, I LIVE BY THE 2nd AMENDMENT.

Well- I always then ask them - "Why do you think it' s ok to SKIP the 1st half of the amendment.??" you should pause and look at the Amendmment yerself....HERE

They love citing the example of Hitler being 'socialist' so that means socialist take your guns. The usual stunted mental capacity of the US gun nut. Using the one bad example of Hitler (who was just a MANIAC and inexplicable) --their logic goes --because Hitler seized guns... then socialism is bad 'cos he was a socialist.....huh??? It's fun watching the election circus from afar this year..and seeing the right sling around the word 'socialism', a concept few of their supporters , much less Ms. Palin, could actually define. Hilarious. Here's a woman who JUST got her passport at age, 43 was it?, telling us about socialism. Fucking moron. And she might win.
ANYWAY -- THE MUSIC !! Even though we are just passing thru today -- we're going to AUSTRIA after all....Switzerland rocks!! I am just starting to read about about their crazy history --and Swiss keyboardist Patrick Moraz is just one of their great imports......remember his early 70s prog-trio with Refugee with Brian Davison and Lee Jackson of the Nice (early band that Keith Emerson's was in....)

Patrick has.....so many great records like "the story of I", "Out in the sun" and of course the great Bruford/Moraz LPs and tours , which I was lucky enough to see in NJ back in about 1985, a great show at which I met keyboard/violin legend Eddie Jobson. I met Eddie again thanks to the week we all spent in Russia (Belew Trio, Tony Levin, P@ Mastelotto, Patti Smith Band, Keith Emerson, KTU ( gunn, mastelotto, pohjonen) [see my August/September blogs & photos abt this amazing trip at Robin Slick's IN HER OWN WRITE page.

This Moraz album is so unsung and ahead of it's time.... really it is.
I'm kind of a synth freak, I've had the pleasure off performing ojnstage wiith Don Preston while Bob Moog was in the audience (bragging, I know!! but I mean, C'MON, Bob Moog!)

I've owned three Moogs so far (RadioShack Rogue, classic Rogue and currently a Minmoog-Voyager RME) and countless synth classics like a Sequential Circuits Six-Trak, Korg Poly-800, Korg Poly 61 (the LAST non MIDI synth they made, in fact the first one was the Poly 61-M), Korg Mono-Poly, Emu Proteus, Emu World, Kawai K1 II-R, Ensoniq Mirage, various guitar synths, sequencers and samplers.

And I'm here to say that if you love 70s classic analog tones, creative music, and live solo performance - and haven't heard this album, do so. The reissue tacks on two introspective solo piano pieces "Black Silk Pt.1 , Pt. 2"

But the synths kick in for "Eastern Sundays Pt.1 , Pt. 2". What Patrick did was have a live performance on TV, you have to see the picture sheet in the LP to believe it, for 1978, amazing stuff for solo playing. He is in a room FILLED with at that point state-of-the art gear,...every major synth it seems is in there -- Moogs, Oberheims, sequencers, drum machines...and the goal was to create pieces of music for...Live TV. I think the experiment was a success.I've been spinning this Lp for 25 yrs or more and it's still fresh sounding....

You can now get this all on DVD -- and there's some great video of the event here

"Metamorphoses Pt.1 and Pt 2."
After some bubbly sequence and a funky drum patch sets up the groove.... Pat plays around with some textural stuff over the top of it -- white noise, sampled vocals, R2-D2 blips, percussive synth teases.... And then - throwing a sonic curve ball amidst all the technology....some good old fashioned PIANO takes the lead voice for a while.. I love that contrast. There's an almost Indian/tabla duel on some sort of electronic pads, and what sounds like sampled Gyuto Monks chanting.... I mean , this is realy an amazing album considering, again , that it's THIRTY YEARS OLD , and at times one would guess it's Aphex Twin or Bjork...

Part 2 goes deeper into the vocal samples...and some really cool funky Moog stuttering bass , all the while shifting moods. really cool driving music, some of the rhythms are very train-like, propelling...the one lame track is the closer/bonus "Paris In Bottle" the title gives it away, it's that lame "blowing on a bottle" pan pipish synth sound , a syrupy melody over an insipid little beat.. ugh! I wanna jump off one of these mountains when I hear this!

ADRIAN BELEW POWER TRIO:

The gig tonight was at a rock club KOMMA, cool place - bar with "rauchen" (smoking) downstairs. I like saying "rauchen" because it sounds like "rrr-rocking!" And tonight the band was "rrr-rocking!" as they do when it's a standing place with a rock -stage feel, light show etc. they are introducing this set to the new EU audiences, and that they did indeed.... as usual people soaked up "e" like they knew it already, (maybe they DID from youtube..?) great supportive crowd, the band sounded great....

Ade had a pair of 2x12 Marshalls tonite, sounded great. For sure we love the Marshalls, have been getting 4x12s (1960 A and B) but this was a sweet change. A tight sound , maybe a tad lacking in low end but cool...

A nice wide stage, and great sound system with Meyer speakers and subs (Meyer is just..the best, or close to it,. It's what they have at the Berklee performance center - the entire PA).
Here's the cool poster they made for the show -- we saw them all over town on the way to the venue.....

We stayed in this amazing Austrian Chalet, the KRAMSACHERHOF....looking out the window you had lousy views like:

I like the Austrians. Some may say - you're crazy, Andre' -- they are the source of Hitler and so much xenophobia. Well- I respect that. They're up front about it! And hey -- WHY can't you decide to keep your country ANY way you want to -- if the majority says so?? Isn't that democracy, Isn't that what we SAY we want?? Until the voting disagrees with what we dream of ..?? I'm all for local rule.

Today -- at least the minority of people here, in places like switzerland, germany who think a certain way -- have the SPINE and BALLS to call it what it is. They actually form parties with names like "Keep Austria Pure" , "Switzerland for the Swiss" etc....and they campaign, run their candidates & issues, and win or don't win.

BUT THEY'RE NOT HIDING BEHIND some crap lie like "we're the party of Lincoln" while unleashing the same racist/fascist policies....or winking at vicious racists at their rallies. So here's to Austrian, Swiss and other real-politik. Tell me what you really mean. I prefer that.

Bilbao Espana, fly to Barcelona ES

2008-10-26T03:02:00.000-07:00

TOUR THE PLANET...
MONDAY OCT 20 -
Bilbao Airport, Espana to Barcelona Airport
SPANISH BOMBS - The Clash
London Calling (1979 UK, 1980 US) -or- The Clash Live at Shea Stadium (Oct 2008)

"Spanish songs in Andalusia...."

"..Costa Brava..flying in on a DC-10 tonight.....freedom fighters died up on the hill"

"....Spanish bombs.... yo quiero infinito....yo te quiero, Oh ma corazon....!"

Wow. a history lesson....a trip thru the glory , fascism, civil war and fiery history of this place.....

What a great song!!

Punhcy riff, layer acoustics (!) and electrics that come in in layers, Strummer and Mick Jones great combo-vocals... I still loive Mick's voice -- he has a great new band called Carbon/Silicon with Tony James of Generation X.

Tthis is simply one of the greatest albums of the 80s, or really any time. so fucking timeless. I can't possibly calculate how much I've heard this LP....I've owned it on cassette..LP...CD...double-CD reissue.....or how colossal the Clash are to my personal mythology. Joe Strummer...man I miss that guy, Never saw the band, but caught Joe once with the Mescaleros, which was glorious.

A lot of people don't know i'm basically a DIY punk at heart -- paying attention politically and LIVING THE CHANGE not just placing your faith in the "next savior" , self -awareness and the whole animal rights influence from the straight-edge side...using technology to better things but fighting commercialism and materialism. The politics.... intense and direct and showed me a way to write angry songs that said something general and didactic....but kept it fun and not slogan-like. And they taught me early on that both sides usually need some critiquing, but fascism was the worst of all.

In 1980 I turned 15 on Feb 9. I got on the train and went down 3 stops from Hazlet NJ to Red Bank, and got "London Calling" with my allowance or whatever I had. I had heard a little of the Clash's debut album, and had taped their Sep 1979 radio concert, I was sold. It's all I wanted, and I wore that little cassette out, I still remember how exotic it was, this new music we had been hearing for a month or so on the radio, this band from England with so much intense, pure punk energy and slashing guitars had...blossomed into a kaleidoscopic blast of countless styles and textures..wow! acoustic guitars...horns... more deep reggae.....funk...rockabilly..and some bona fide runaway hits like "Train In Vain (Stand By me)" or "Lost in the Supermarket". still such an amazing album. Some stuff on there sounds like..really no one else. "Rudie Can;t Fail" and "Hateful"...wow.

I hate the term "ahead of it's time" but I guess it fits here. I also firmly believe nothing is really 'dated'. It may remind one of a time, or be identifiable by the sonics, but how can art be dated? Is Beethoven or Haydn "dated". You NEVER hear anyone say that. When the Beatles used a harpsichord on a track, was that "dated" since the instrument was 200+ years old?? Music fans can really be morons. Anyway -- if you don't know LONDON CALLING go run now and hear it. the brand new (oct 2008) release of the Shea Stadium show is blowing me away every couple days as well -- this was from the tour they did with the Who (my fave band) and David Johansen.

Today's setup time was very intense and difficult for me, maybe i'll revisit that later. Terrible personal stuff, and several days later I am writing a lot, still in therapy and making sense of the world. Somehow I held it together with the help of a very great, compassionate crew and the band. We were in a nice small club (300 cap), the kind Adrian prefers by a long shot.

(PIC: streets of Barcelona, w/typical quiet clean commuter tram. Evil Socialists!!!)

Nice tight setup again -- MARSHALLS, yeah! We had originally ordered fender twins for this tour, with the OPTION for Marshalls, but when Adrian used some Marshalls the 2nd date he fell in love with how they made his Johnson Millenium sound.

ADRIAN BELEW POWER TRIO:
the gig tonight was just great -- I think the band would rank it the best so far--- maybe tied with Vevey or something. I agree - very ROCK n ROLL energy onstage. Always for all of us performers -- a close, packed club is THE BEST , seeing the crazy increasingly buzzed crowd just a few feet from you is unbeatable, really! This place is called FORUM BIKINI, medium stage, very deep and again the band up front, tight. Didn't need my espanol as much tonight, I just kept my head low and got in there and did the job. Very much flying on auto-pilot this night.

Very psyched, energetic crowd, lotsa Crim fans again right up front singing all those words. The band was visibly pumped -= Adrian LOVES this kinda packed crazy vibe out in the audience....as I said The Crimson material went over extra well here in Espana.

The gear has been working pretty well despite a snafu or two....the Boomerang looper has been working fine --in Russia it was intermittent, driving us crazy. I thought it was a power-supply issue, but now it turns out it may have been a faulty XLR direct out on the amp. Fortunately the Johnsons rule and there are TWO channals of XLR out, so I just switched it and we've been golden. (PIC: Adrian Belew Power Trio rocking the nearly 300 happy Spaniards in Barcelona)

We stayed in the city of course, and it was great wheeling thru the clean, busy streets with our promoter for both Espana gigs, runner and general great new friend and music freak - -Sergio Merino. More cool modern architecture..even saw a classic bullring, being refurbished..into a shopping mall. wow. good for the bulls. Sergio explained to us that the Spanish anti-cruelty movement is very strong, and has really pushed back on this brutal, bloody sport. I didn't realize the bull was gutted and chopped up immediately , and sold at VERY high prices to restaurants nearby, so-- people as they poured out of the stadium, would go to their fave place, get some drinks and very soon eat some of the actual bull they just watch get tortured, gored and finally killed. I am glad humans have been headed steadily away from this kind of senseless behavior for centuries now, even tho' some people never will, and so it is. No reason to stress about that. I'm here to help those who want to move forward, and eat a compassionate diet.

SUNDAY OCT 19 - San Sebastien ES

2008-10-26T02:49:00.000-07:00

TOUR THE PLANET...
SUNDAY OCT 19 -
Alitalia AZ0096
Milano Malpensa Airport, Italia -to- Bilbao Airport, Espana

(What else!??)
SONG FOR BILBAO - Pat Metheny Group - Travels (1983)
SONG FOR BILBAO - Micheal Brecker -Tales from The Hudson(1996)
Micheal Brecker/Pat Metheny/Jack DeJohnette/Joey Calderazzo//Dave Holland/Don Alias/McCoy Tyner

(Picture Of Bilbao by AC's new iPhone..) Finally I make it to Espana...wow!! I studied Spanish starting at about age 10, one course of it at Queens College in Georgetown Guyana, S.A. simultaneous with French, which sadly I never revisited (yet). Man - that was REAL schooling. Math, geometry, geography, science, english, spanish, french, gym, all at age 10. Wow. Imagine me in a little uniform - I loved it. I push back intensely on the idea the "uniforms cause uniformity" -do I see like I don;t live my own life, cut my own path? They were just cool, I was "in" and going to a real special school that my dad and uncles had been to...anyway, as usual, I digress. !!!

The point is -- I learned some spanish then, always loved it -- and then did 3 years in high school when I finally moved to NJ in 1978 (after 2 years in Brooklyn NY). So -- Spain/Espana -- always read about it , studied a little bit of the literature and dug the food, culture etc. So - a personal milestone to be flying here, the last big Euro-country I haven't seen, the last big colonizer/imperial power as well. man they killed some motherfuckers. Jesus.

All that's left to see here is all of Scandinavia, Belgium, and the tinies like Lichtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco , and then the south-east europe like Greece, Turkey. With Adrian I just returned to Hungary, and went to Russia for a week with the Trio this aug/sep. I've been thru a bunch of Eastern Europe touring with Al DiMeola, and played concerts with Project/Object and/or Don Preston Akashic in Germany, Holland, England, Northern Ireland, Czech Repub. and Austria...

So Today we flew from Milan into Bilbao airport. So finally the place I imagine from the music will come to life...actually I have to say the song makes me think of brazil even tho' i've known for quite some time it's in Spain. I bet there's a Bilbao in Brazil, it just sounds like it, even tho they speak PORTUGUESE there not spanish. I bet you could stump Palin with that one.

After setup and before Adrian got there for soundcheck I got to step outside and get some amazing San Sebastian air and sun. WOW, again the SUN in Espana is incredible...really..otherworldy feeling as it hits your skin - what is it?? ! Is it psychological??? They really rock that in all their "come to espana" vacation ads etc, almost a cliche. well - I'll tell ya - the sun is intense!!

I got just within a block or two of the venue - right across the way I saw what I needed -- a fresh live fruit/veg tienda [shop]. I was happy to say I was able to do the whole thing in spanish "las uvas son Bio?" [are the grapes organic] since i saw the BIO sign...awesome, they were, and huge,juicy, incredible. Lotsa great grapes on this trip, and they have all been from pretty close, like France, Spain, Italy, etc..which always feels good.

Though that just reminded me (as I write this in the van days later) I snagged a VERY ripe kiwi at the breakfast buffet today and better have it -- wow that's good...not PC at all...Even tho' I sometimes inspire chuckles, and comments about about "eating nothing" and "empty calories" ..I am having such a great, energizing, super-diverse, food tour...enjoying the amazing fruits grown in europe like pears, apples, plums, olives, avocadoes, dates, grapes (and raisins), oranges, grapefruits, clementines, pomelos, and stuff imported from way south like bananas, kiwis and even a decent pineapple in Worgl.

As it's super easy to get organic food here -- they call it BIO (for biologique, basically french for 'grown naturally', biologically,not chemically), I have no problems getting great protein like fresh raw almonds, one of the ultimate protein and calcium sources we know of....also easy in the great truck stops to get some of my fave other high protein nuts like brazils, hazelnuts, cashews, the occasional peanuts, plus I always travel with pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds and some green foods...

SONG FOR BILBAO
a bouncy, fun groove sets it up - and a rare song by Pat Metheny in a way - the classic Roland GR-300 synth sound he has made his signature for 28+ years jumps right in and takes the MELODY LINE instead of showing up later in the song for one of the solos.... rarely does he do that...... after a long piano solo by Lyle Mays Pat goes for it, what a happy, sunny piece of music, like the region of Espana itself. I had the version from "Travels - Live" in my ears as we landed, then later as we drove the highway out of Bilbao area to San Sebastien thru beautiful remote hills...the newer version from the very awesome TALES FROM THE HUDSON by the late MICHAEL BRECKER. Pat, like Adrian is one of my favorites because he has tried just about every guitar advancement that has happened -- and writes on so many different type of axes.

VERSION 2 - MICHAEL BRECKER What a great record -- Jack DeJohnnette, McCoy Tyner, Dave Holland, the sorely missed Michael (died early in 2007), and Pat again, on the GR-300. A killer take on this classic tune. I love the GR-300, Pat, like King Crimson of course was one of the first to have it on a record with "Offramp"(1982), but many of you can evoke a memory of it instantly by thinking of King Crimson's "Sheltering Sky", the screaming melodic guitar-synth that comes in over the strummed chords...also it's doing the huge pads on the front of the Police's "Don't Stand So Close", and the reggae-stabs on "Spirits In the Material World". Just a brilliant synth. wow. I still remember hearing that for the first time...and Adrian and Fripp made it a signature sound in their 80s work.

Adrian's GR-300 can be seen in many 80s Crim videos, and also on the back of one of his greatest records "Desire Caught By the Tail", and it still sits in his gear-closet in StudioBelew. He got it IN japan on a Talking Heads tour - probably the first one to leave the country! See - what's unique about it - still -- is that there is NO PITCH ANALYSIS, the custom guitar has hex pickups-- that are using the STRING ITSELF as an oscillator source, you are processing the sound of the strings. So-- you can do everything you do on a regular guitar - -slides, pick scrapes, harmonics, and get something sensible back out. Similar to what is going on with the Roland VG99 technology, which I'm so happy to be a part of bringing Adrian back to - it's certainly a key piece in his new and changing arsenal- allowing him to do alternate tunings, offset parts, and soon backwards delay and other special effects...this too is NOT A SYNTH, instead processes the six individual string signals in amazing ways. BTW I am writing a book on Guitar Synth history.... more on that later...

ADRIAN BELEW POWER TRIO:
the gig tonight was at a theatre called Teatro Victoria Eugenia. They are introducing this set to the new EU audiences. For a theatre, people were pretty rocking but it always feels restrained when people are seated, and adversely affects the band a bit. This was also a special gig 'cos our booking agent in the EU - Wolfgang Scheel was visiting with his wife Julia. It was great to get to hang out with them a bit and have them enjoy a full show. they loved it and he's even trying to juggle his schedule to come see another show!

The stage was huge, but as usual I set the band up in a tight formation center/downstage.

(SOUNDCHECK IN SAN SEB.) It was a great sound system, and being so close they were able to generally avoid the "lost in space" aspect one can get on a huge theatre stage. Having a little spanish under my belt helped negotiate some gear wackiness, and it was deemed a good, enjoyable gig by the band, tho' everyone prefers a rock club !

As usual -- 'e' killed the crowd, people are always blown out by this new tune, the backbone of his upcoming new CD, the first one he'll record with the trio. The Crimson material went over extra well here in Spain, it seemed.

Julie has a nice loud Ampeg stack, and Ade had a pair of 4x12s (1960 A and B). they just sound great, now I am thinking abt getting a 4x12 for my Boogie head, but maybe, strangely the Line6 cabs..which sound amazing the couple times I have used them with DiMeola.

we stayed in this amazing , modern architecture hotel, very cool....clean edges, wild! And having just left a 2 day visit with my architect sister Lisa, I was hyper aware of the endless creativity of architecture... spain is well known for it's forward-looking ideas in building design, art in general, I mean they cough up Goya, Dali and Picasso for starters....

touring the planet....

2008-10-25T14:31:00.000-07:00

[Pic: Your intrepid reporter In amazing Lugano Switzerland, Oct 2008. And, once again, I'm not even on the Intrepid...]

Well i'm back I guess...

jeez....haven't blogged in quite a while..I guess not since the Russia dates this aug/sep....and certainly not to my old page "robotvomit.blogspot.com"....inna while. I discovered there was a band and all kinds of stuff with that stupid name,... and needing a site more in line with my upcoming tour-management page .... i thought I'd start again with a cooler name that I can't use up..

You can find the stuff I wrote/pictures i took at:

http://inherownwrite.blogspot.com/2008_08_01_archive.html

It's been fucking non-stop. After the amazing RUSSIA trip... I flew back to Chicago..one day off in a hotel nr the airport...and started a 3-week tour with the Derek Trucks band . It was awesome, we went from Chicago to the west coast - and one fly date in Canada. Gonna post some pictures with that sometime soon - some great guys , what a crew.

Derek -- awesome human being and WOW, he kicks sooo much ass on guitar, the master of slide. I really learned a lot there AGAIN about guitar. I've now tour managed for Al DiMeola, Adrian Belew and Derek Trucks... each MASTERS in their corner of guitar-worldness. I, um , better go practice!!

Then I was home for three weeks-- almost every waking second finishing up the advance work on THIS tour AND the december Australia dates..AND the up-coming Project Object dates with Ike Willis and Ed Mann. Check out our newly refurbished webpages.... under development as we speak...www.projectobject.com

Right Now (15 Oct - 05 nov 2008 ) I'm on tour again with the ADRIAN BELEW POWER TRIO, primarily Tour Managing but also Guitar Teching for Adrian and Julie Slick , his bass player. We're crisscrossing thru most of Western Europe, and a bit of Eastern....and it's a spectacular time to be here, just as autumn season is in full swing....

Right now I'm going thru some insane stuff in my personal life that needs some mental soothing and distraction therapy, and writing has usually been that for me, so I'll give it a try.

Another balm, a major therapeutic is of course...listening to music.... and when I'm travelling, I often play a little game where I try to listen to some music relevant or connected in SOME way to the locale I am in, or even just passing thru or flying over...

So here goes some random notes about what I consider some cool music, and the places that inspire their choices on my iPod...and some tales from the tour. It could be that i'm in a place someone is from...or has played recently. OR maybe a song title fits in with a city name, or it's an artist's birthday or anniversary of a great release. Almost any excuse!! But my travels are indelibly music-connected -- or course starting with the REASON I am usually in town anywhere -- the concert I am performing, or that of the artist I am working for.

So - thanks for stopping by and enjoy my ramblings if you would be so kind.