Whew... Off the road

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..

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...

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

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

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....

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.........

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