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!!