That’s a quote from the poet Wallace Stevens… thought something different would be better than the usual “Summer Update” that I usually do…
Snarky Puppy at the Paramount in Oakland was fantastic! What a great theater. Amazing that there are two venues like this just a couple of blocks from each other (the Paramount and the Fox Theater).
I did not get to see Bela Fleck & the Flecktones nor Adrian Belew, alas.
No Static had a pretty good summer season – gigs at the Highway 1 Brewing Company in Pescadero, The Wine Room in Moss Beach, a couple at the American Legion Coastal Post 474 in Half Moon Bay, the Burlingame on the Avenue street fair, and the St. Robert’s Festival at St. Robert Catholic Elementary School in San Bruno (the latter exemplified the Stevens quote I used for the post title).
I got a new guitar! After wanting one for most of my life, I finally became the happy owner of a Gibson Les Paul. It’s a beautiful guitar and plays and sounds like a dream.
I also revamped my Telecaster with Chiltone pickups. It sounds particularly good now.
Today is the first day of autumn, so I thought I should quickly summarize the last three months.
No Static had a nice run of gigs… we played the Wine Room in Moss Beach twice, once in June and again in August; had a nice afternoon performance at this year’s Burlingame on the Avenue street fair, returned to the American Legion Coastside Post 474 in Half Moon Bay, and played another nice festival gig just the other day at St. Robert’s Catholic Elementary School in San Bruno. We played a couple of newer additions to our repertoire (one probably prematurely).
No Static after performing at Burlingame on the Avenue on August 17, 2019
After the Burlingame on the Avenue performance we had a photo shoot, first one in quite a while. Check out the Gallery page on the No Static site. There’s also a few shots from the show itself, and a couple of video clips are on the Music page.
Scott and I have booked another duo show, at The Wine Room Moss Beach. It’ll be shorter, only two sets as opposed to three, and hopefully my solo section will not fall apart with equipment failures and general ineptitude with the looper pedal. You would think that after the spring fiasco at Highway 1 Brewing, I would have been a bit more diligent about getting comfortable with looping, but you would be wrong. This time instead of using my guitar synthesizer, I’ll be using my new Electro-Harmonix BASS9 pedal to get a bassline going. I also traded in the looper I used to have, the Digitech JamMan Stereo, for a simpler model, the JamMan Solo XT, mainly because it has the JamSync capability that allows you to synchronize it with another JamMan Solo XT or their SDRUM drum pedal, which I got last year. However, I have yet to even connect the two and try to do anything with the combination. I’ll try it tonight when I get home and see if I feel that I can pull it off for a song or two.
Meanwhile it’s the last week of the regular baseball season, and to my great delight, the New York Yankees have managed to stay within a few points of .650 all summer long, reached 102 wins yesterday, have clinched the American League East championship, and are trying to win as many of the remaining five games to secure home field advantage for the World Series should they make it that far. This despite continued heartbreaking injuries as the “second-tier” players managed step up and keep the team firing on all cylinders. It’s been especially gratifying to see Brett Gardner have the season that he’s been having. I’m looking forward to consuming mass quantities of hot dogs, peanuts, and beer, and maybe some Cracker Jacks. But first I have to figure out how to watch the division and league championship games being broadcast on FS1, ESPN, TBS, and MLB TV without having any of those on my cable plan… Is it worth the $46/month cost of YouTube TV? (By the way, I did subscribe to MLB.TV during the All Star promotion and watched many games in July, August, and September.)
Spring approached its end with a pretty nasty heat wave that lasted a few days and saw temperatures at home of up to 100°. Thankfully it dialed back down and has been pretty pleasant, with lots of sunny days and temps in the 70s.
I had the great pleasure of seeing performances by the latest incarnation of the Tedeschi Trucks Band and the instrumental collective Snarky Puppy, both in Oakland – the first at the Paramount, the second at the Fox.
No Static had a flurry of gigs in late spring, three weekends in a row, and Scott and I made our first appearance as the Scott Goldstone/Alan Oehler duo.
Playing a solo set at Highway 1 Brewing Company in Pescadero, June 8, 2019
July will be mostly downtime, as Scott will be traveling a bit, but we’ll probably rehearse once or twice so we can surface some of the newer songs in our repertoire, including “Josie” by Steely Dan. Our next shows are in August. Check out our Calendar for details.
Meanwhile, I have been enjoying the NY Yankees’ incredible season so far… currently they are at .650 – seven games ahead of the Tampa Bay Rays – and have won nine of their last ten games. They are currently on a home run tear and just the other day passed the MLB record for consecutive games with one or more homers, which had been 27, held by the 2002 Texas Rangers. They have reached 29 as of yesterday, and are now taking two days off to travel to London, England to play two games against their arch-rivals, the Boston Red Sox. Amazingly, they have been doing all this without many of their main players, having endured a terrible swath of injuries – Aaron Judge, Didi Gregorius, Gary Sanchez, Giancarlo Stanton, Dellin Betances, and others, have all spent a significant spell on the Injured List. Stanton, after missing most of the season, came back about two weeks ago, and now is back on the IL. While this went on, new Yankees DJ LaMehieu and Gio Urshela in particular have just been red-hot both with the bat and in the field. It’s fun to watch… mostly vicariously, as I can’t see most games, having eschewed ponying up for the MLB TV app… I will probably get that when they do their All-Star promotional price cut.
For some reason, stars aligned and planets danced and I ended up with a goodly number of concerts to go see in the first half of the year, mostly as Christmas or birthday presents. I think this is the most number of shows in a short time frame that I’ve been to see since I lived in NY and went to multiple Schaefer Music Festival shows every summer. Here’s what they were:
Wayne Shorter Legacy Celebration, January 6th at SFJAZZ CenterIt was originally supposed to be Wayne’s great quartet, but he was recovering from an illness that precludes travel, so instead he was “honored by an amazing array of his peers… a wonderful group of his musical ‘family members’ [performing] music from his celebrated career along with his longtime band members.” We saw band members Brian Blade, Danilo Perez, and John Patitucci joined by Joshua Redman and Ambrose Akinmusire.
Bill Frisell, January 25 at Kuumbwa JazzThe guitarist’s When You Wish Upon a Star project featured the group from his Grammy-nominated album of his arrangements/adaptations of music for film and television, with Petra Haden on vocals, Thomas Morgan on bass and Rudy Royston on drums.
John Scofield with Lettuce, March 24 at SFJAZZ CenterLettuce is a monstrously good instrumental funk ensemble (thanks to Tom DeFiglio for turning me on to them a few years back). Scofield appeared as a special guest on their 2002 debut album Outta Here, and they’ve rejoined forces over the years. Lettuce consists of Eric Bloom (trumpet), Ryan Zoidis (saxophone), Adam Smirnoff (guitar), Nigel Hall (keyboards & vocals), Erick Coomes (bass), and Adam Deitch (drums).
Kurt Rosenwinkel Standards Trio, April 14 at SFJAZZ CenterKurt Rosenwinkel presents a revised edition of his standards trio featuring Italian bass virtuoso Dario Deidda and drummer Mark Whitfield Jr., performing material from his 2009 album Reflections and new settings of timeless classics.
Still to come is Snarky Puppy, May 30 at the Paramount in Oakland… a terrific Texas-bred/New York-based instrumental quasi-collective led by bassist and composer Michael League. “Snarky Puppy isn’t exactly a jazz band. It’s not a fusion band, and it’s definitely not a jam band.” Thanks to Jeff Nix for turning me on to these guys a few years back when they were more obscure. And in the coming months there’s a few shows I’d like to catch, though I don’t have any tickets yet: Bela Fleck & the Flecktones, June 7 at the Fox Theater in Oakland, and Adrian Belew, September 17 and 18 at the Chapel in San Francisco…
We had a pretty decently rainy winter this year and the hills are all still green well into spring. Here’s what’s going on in my musical endeavors:
No Static continues to be moderately busy. We played six gigs between January and April, and currently we’ve got several coming up, starting with San Carlos’ Hometown Days event this coming Saturday, May 18, followed a week later by our first appearance at Highway 1 Brewing Company in Pescadero on Saturday, May 25, then the Wine Room in Moss Beach on Saturday, June 1. Scott will be out of town for a lot of July so we probably won’t take any gigs in that period. Next one after that is another community festival, Burlingame On the Avenue, on Saturday, August 17.
Meanwhile Scott and I landed our first duo gig, also at the Highway 1 Brewing Company, on Saturday, June 8. Scott will do a solo set, then I’ll do a solo set, followed by the two of us together. I’m using the solo set this as a forcing function to finally get more comfortable using a looper and a guitar synth. Fingers crossed I can keep it afloat!
The loose jamming aggregation consisting of guitarist Jeff Kamil, the bassist know to some as PJ, and drummer Tom DeFiglio got together in early March for our first throwdown of 2019, and had a second one in mid-May.
Lea & Co.’s long hiatus continues; I think we can safely assume it’s a thing of the past.
I’ve continued to only show up at Stan Erhart’s weekly jam session at the American Legion Coastside Post 474 in Princeton-by-the-Sea about once every six or seven weeks. I always have a good time, sometimes a great time… I really should go more frequently…
I managed to get out to the mid-week Club Fox jam in Redwood City once this spring, the first time in over a year if I’m not mistaken.
It’s another rainy day here in the Bay Area, after a few days of sunshine, which had followed on the heels of what seemed like constant gray skies and intermittent showers this winter. The coming of Spring and the promise of nicer weather has had us all looking forward to leaving the umbrellas and raincoats behind and venturing out more.
March has been a good month for No Static. We’ve got two more gigs coming right up after playing at Winters Tavern in Pacifica on St. Patty’s Day. First up is our fifth appearance at the American Legion Coastside Post 474 in Half Moon Bay/Princeton-by-the-Sea, which has become a real favorite place to play. A week later we’ll be making our fourth appearance at the Wine Room in Moss Beach, just a couple of miles further north from the Legion. Check out our Calendar for details.
We’ve got a few more unconfirmed dates in the pipeline… hopefully those will solidify.
The New Year is upon us. Here’s what I’ve been up to:
No Static has several gigs coming up. Our first one of the year was at a new place for us, the Vinyl Room in Burlingame. In February and March we’re going to be back at the American Legion Coastside Post 474 in Half Moon Bay, Winters in Pacifica, the Wine Room in Moss Beach, and another new place for us, FDR (Ferment-Drink-Repeat) Brewing Company in San Francisco. Check the Calendar for details.
Lea & Co. has been on hiatus since around Thanksgiving… hoping to start that ball rolling again in February.
I’ve been chipping away at the pile of educational material I’ve accumulated over the years.
It’s a new year! Here’s a few things that have been going on and are coming up.
No Static, after a bunch of summer and autumn gigs, tapered off a little around the holiday season, but now our calendar is “filling up” again, with a date at the Vinyl Room in Burlingame on January 11 to start us off, two in February and three in March…
The erstwhile jamming entity consisting of guitarist Jeff Kamil, the bassist know to some as PJ, and drummer Tom DeFiglio, are going to get together in early March for our first throwdown of 2019.
No updates on Lea & Co., we fell into a long hiatus around the holidays.
My infrequent appearances at Stan Erhart‘s weekly jam session at the American Legion Coastside Post 474 in Princeton-by-the-Sea continue to be pretty infrequent, about once every six or seven weeks. But I always have a good time, sometimes a great time… I really should go more frequently.
I’ve been slowly but surely working my way through some of the gigantic mountain of educational material I have. Really enjoying some of the videos I got from TrueFire.
Still nothing new to announce re recording projects, dammit.
Daylight Saving Time is gone, and the midterm elections just happened, but it’s still pretty warm outside… low to mid-seventies in the daytime, low fifties in the early morning… though the forecast calls for the lows to be a few degrees lower. Mostly sunny skies… no rain in sight yet, alas.
No Static is playing a private party in Moss Beach on Sunday November 18th, and will be back at the American Legion Coastside Post 474 in Princeton-by-the-Sea on Saturday December 8th at 7pm.
The rag-tag group of players consisting of myself and Jeff Kamil on guitars, PJ on bass, and Tom DeFiglio on drums, managed to fit in another playing session in late October, probably the last one for 2018.
Not much else to report… the usual pile of recording projects, incomplete or not-yet-begun…
It’s a few weeks into autumn now. Here’s what’s current on the various fronts:
No Static had a very busy period, with eight gigs over the last couple of months ranging from San Francisco to Santa Cruz and from the coastside to the bayside. We are working on adding about a half-dozen more tunes to the repertoire. The website has been updated with some photos from several of our gigs over the last year.
Lea & Co. is gradually coming up to speed as we sandpaper the rust off our tunes. We recorded some fresh demos recently – check them out!
Hoping to get another playing session in with Jeffrey Kamil, PJ, and Tom DeFiglio before the winter is upon us. It’s a challenge to wrangle a time slot that works for us all, hence we only are able to do this three or four times a year.
I finally spent some time exploring my looper pedal (a Digitech JamMan Stereo) and, in conjunction with my Roland GR-55 guitar synth, I hope to put together a few numbers I can use it in a solo-performance context, or as part of a solo set when Scott Goldstone from No Static and I actually inaugurate our side due project.
