Happy Thanksgiving!!

More progress shots of the Skjold!

Pete sent me some more pics today. Each pic gets better and better!




The other bass you see is one Pete made for himself.
You can see many many more pics of the current batch HERE

Octavius and the Bass

I had to share this:



He loves instruments...but he really took to the Drums and the bass. He's already using his thumb!

Soon I'll get to show him how to play this:



The Skjold is another step closer to being finished!

In other news type shtuff:

Amongst the very important musical discussions going on in the twitterverse, there also exists discussion of sophisticated cinema like that of which I present here for your viewing pleasure.

Please to enjoy a scene from, Hard To Kill. Unfortunately this is a scene with a beardless Segal, but nonetheless, features one of the best lines ever uttered by a revenge seeking cop who just woke up from a coma.

Progress Shot of the Skjold

Look at this! I just received this photo today and just had to post the pic. Look at this thing...It's better than I imagined. Pete's doing good things... www.skjolddesign.com

Bandcamp people to listen to...

So yeah, I've been blathering on about Bandcamp for a while now. I've even pointed you in the direction of a nice directory of Bandcamp musicians. But that assumed you had all the time in the world to read my post, go read Steve's post and listen to the rather large amount of peeps there. Let's see if we can make it a tad easier.

Some special highlights from the list and few that may not be on there:

First up is Gustaf Fjelstrom's Metamesmeric, which is described as Ambient Looping Bass Cello Excursions. It's all sorts of ambient loopy goodness...Listen and meditate...or something.




Next is Trip Wamsley. Solo Bassist, Extended Range Bassist...goofball. Aparently was once a zygote...but he got better. Listen now. He's good...like real good.



Here we have Atmos Trio, Rob Michael: guitars, Joe Shotwell: drums, Drew Waters: bass
Rob has been doing loads of Ustream performances, so if the tracks aren't enough you can check him out HERE. It's all excellent music.



I can't leave out Steve Lawson. Solo bassist, fellow looper, and all around social media wizard. It helps that his music is good too:




That's it for now... More to come as I discover more. Take a listen to everyone and if you like, it wouldn’t hurt to throw some of that spare change you got lying around at the chaps above. They could use some more Ramen.

Bandcamp and new things afoot...a foot....uhfute

Bandcamp seems to have become the next big thing for musicians. It's super easy to use and it has all the usual widget type things that make it very useful in getting your music noticed as well as providing an easy way for people to purchase your music. Speaking of... Matt Stevens a fellow looper and blogger discussed why now is the best time to be a musician on his blog a bit ago. I agree, it's an age of DYI. The only thing that seems to be holding anyone back is commitment. You can't procrastinate and expect things to happen. So get out there, make friends and don't annoy people with tweets that contain nothing but "HEY BUY MY MUSIC!" it's rude and generally people Will not listen. What's the point? Why interact with someone who yells at you to buy something. Billy Mays you are not.

This brings me to the idea of community. I would like to link to Steve Lawson's Bandcamp directory. It's an example of how to do this right. Build a community, interact with this community, make friends in it, and help promote each other. There be loads of great music in here. Please take your time, stroll through the widgets, and if you like it, support it. (was tempted to type put a ring on it...apologies)

I'm on bandcamp, the new CD will be on bandcamp. Hell just about everything I do will be on bandcamp. In fact Surrent(AKA Jake Hildreth) and I are using bandcamp to document our progress in creating a new project. Here is the first version of what we're doing. IT gets rough in places, but I think preserving the creative process is interesting, to me and Jake anyhow. Please take a listen, and provide feedback, I would love to hear comments, both negative and positive.




In other news:

My Skjold Bass is coming together nicely. It's looking fantastic!




That's all for now. No movie clip today. I've got word on a movie called "Highway to Hell" that looks promising. I'll let you know.

But I do have this hilarious look into a discussion of a solo bass gig thanks to Steve Lawson:

This is where the title goes....

While making room to demo for the new CD I came across some non looped material I recorded eons ago. Must have been before I got my first looper. I had completely forgotten about them and at least one was decent enough to post here...or so I thought. After listening to them I realized why I didn't release them in any sort of way. However it seems that I've always been a loop kinda guy as these tunes can be tweaked and then looped live for performances. It's always nice to listen to old stuff...cringe...and then be happy knowing that you've progressed since then.





In other news, my Skjold bass is still in the early stages of production, but Pete tells me it's ready to be cut and he starting work on the neck soon. I'm thrilled...I should have it in a few months...hopefully.

When I get more pics I'll post 'em.

In other OTHER news, I'm no longer pulling bass duty for Glass Bead Game. After my son was born I needed to take a good look at the things I was putting time and energy into and evaluate the return. Time away from my family must be productive time, and things just didn't seem to be progressing. There was discussion but differing opinions couldn't fix the issues. It sucks in some ways because the music was great and the musicians are some of the best I've played with, but it just wasn't working out.

So I'm putting that energy into production of a new CD, and some collaberative projects with Surrent. He and i have a show at The Ground Level on Nov 7th. Seperate sets and a collaberative peice. I just might Ustream the thing. We'll see.

Movies:

The genius of Hard Ticket to Hawaii can be summed up by this clip: