I pulled the Alien Disc and the new Ozone Splash out of my bag at the same time, looked at them and placed them on the stand reserved for the Chopper. Damn, they made a sound together, and now they are a team. Neither is great by itself for my puposes, but together they are an interesting variation on the “stack with a slight buzz” that the Chopper does. I think I’ll keep it.
That’s how the gig started last Saturday. I’ll finish the technical details and then tell you about the music.

I still wanted to use the Chopper, so luckily I had an extra boom arm and clamp in the bag, which I attached to the hi hat. Remember I have zero space to play with, and nowhere else to mount anything, but it worked. Next time I will have a short boom to mount it on. When in normal playing circumstances, I want three stacks just beyond the mounted toms and under the ride and crash cymbals. A third stack will involve mounting an 8″ chinese cymbal atop a 10″ splash. I’ll mount more splashes and bells atop the rides and crashes when I can add to those you already see here. There will also be high and low blocks and high and low little cowbells. I have a wobbly Hammerax thing that worked well, except I had to hand hold it. I have no idea how I’ll mount that…
My experimentalist attitude affects both Dave and Jay, I hope. I know that Dave is searching for a new way to improvise using electric keyboards. I get to hear what he’s listening to on his iPod. Some of it is stuff he has to learn for the diverse gigs he does, which include reggae bands and 80′s pop outfits. But the meat of his listening involves a lot of African artists as well as a couple of Japanese guys making a sort of quiet dance music filled with bubbly synth textures and dry drum machine sounding loops. My stacks, bells, blocks, and small drums are perfect for approximating those textures. And there is nothing that says that you can’t play jazz rhythms on flat ride against acoustic piano solos on top of those sounds. We will…
Jay’s bass was in the hospital, so he had to bring his electric bass with a couple of stomp boxes, but he was starting to use the stomp boxes (sorry, I haven’t investigated what their functions are yet) with the acoustic bass anyway. So the music took a turn toward straight 8th rhythms and started sounding like early seventies fusion and some of what I called “Return To A Feather”. Fine with me…
The restaurant was full all night, and people were noticing there was a live band. “Sissy Strut” got no applause, but some trip we took on a tune using samba rhythms got a big round of applause. Go figure. Some young kids were at a table right in front of us and proceeded to bang on the table along with the band with their chopsticks. Just the thing to fuck up a performance, right? Well, not in the bizzarro world me and Jay and Dave inhabit. I just got out the blasticks and chopped right along with those kids, making the same sounds they were that could be easily heard during bass solos. The kiddies loved it. We got nice compliments from people as they were on the way out.
We did our thing still, even with new tools and toys, and a pretty loud crowd. One particularly intense moment had us shaking our heads in disbelief. It’s been six months, and it’s the best thing in my tumult of a life right now. We need to get some more repertoire together, and maybe a rehearsal to loosely plot a point a, b, and c for each set we do.
Just let’s get through the holidays, people, and we’ll start showing up in public places just as unusual as the music is, I promise you.


the latest…
2011 Leave a Comment
Two more gigs at the sushi restaurant since the last post. No need to post a pic, it’s the same setup. The first time, no bass- so we did left hand bass and a guitarist. Second time there was bass, but a sub pianist. Nice comments from both subs on my wacky drumming. My guess is when these guys play most times its with a drummer doing the same ol’ same ol’. This tells me I am on the right track. But I need to refine what it is and practice! Practice is tough in 2011, but once things shake out in 2012, there will be more time to devote to music. Looking forward to making video, creating arrangements, and most of all getting gigs in unusual places. Like art galleries. Bookstores. Community spaces. Even people’s houses.
Rather than bark up the same old tree, maybe it’s time to make the internet work for creative music and musicians. Details to come.
I need to visit Sabian in person and have some specialties created. I don’t want to use the competitors, but I will if I can find no way to get my sound from them.
Hats off to the crazy drummers, the Chris Dave’s and Mark Guiliana’s of the world. Thank you Terry Bozzio and JoJo Mayer. Thank you Trilok Gurtu and Marilyn Mazur. And Roy Haynes and Will Kennedy too. Clarence Penn and Eric Harland are doing special things on the kit as well. Drummers are really dealing some new shit these days, and it’s a good time to pick up some inspiration.
And thank you Carl Allen for staying in touch, confiding, and keeping me in your thoughts and prayers all these years, and through the tough stuff. I’m on the way back in, bro. I might look funny doing it, but I will be on the scene…
Best to all in 2012. It is going to be one of the craziest years of all time…