It’s a couple of weeks now after Christmas 2014, and I’m looking over the last year musically (and otherwise) and trying to see it in a glass-half-full rather that glass-half-empty mode. Not easy. SNUG had just three gigs all year. The collab with Adrian McMahon imploded. Another playing collaboration with some friends never got off the ground much due to the scarcity of time to get together. I had one jazz gig in November. Otherwise I’ve been spinning my wheels, floating between working through some instructional materials, working on solo jazz arrangements, occasionally going to some blues jams, working on some of my various recording projects, looking at Craig’s List every couple of weeks or so in hopes of finding some playing situations…

That all sounds pretty half-empty. What’s the half-full part? Well, I keep managing to get a little better still. I dread the day when old age starts to take its toll on my hands but so far I continue to improve.

In 2015 I really hope to figure out some sort of path forward that sees me either writing and recording some of my own music, finishing some of my other recording projects, and playing live more often in one or more contexts.

I’ve know about Mike Keneally for a while but somehow was never moved to check him out until I read a Guitar Player magazine interview with him on the occasion of his new album,  You Must Be This Tall,  and learned that he had previously released a collaboration between himself and one of my all-time favorite musicians, Andy Partridge of XTC fame – Wing Beat Fantastic. So I downloaded it from Amazon, loved it, and then went out and got the new one. Loved that one, too.

Some thoughts while listening to You Must Be This Tall: Keneally’s guitar parts by turns roll, ramble, snake, dart, flit, bark, snarl, roar, chuckle as they make their way across a colorful, vivid musical landscape.