Category: People

After all that rain and cold, summer arrived full blast, just in time for Memorial Day weekend. It was in the upper 80’s and maybe even the 90’s the whole weekend. This is the earliest I can ever remember putting in the air conditioners.

I worked a half day Friday, and it seems like the first time since the new year I didn’t have something on my todo list that needed my attention. I managed to do some shopping: bought a new pair of shoes and a couple shirts suitable for work. Jeannie was with Lizzy in Philadelphia for a class trip on Friday, so Michelle and I had some time together to ourselves.

Saturday I had a gig, my first live appearance in quite some time and my first ever as a guitar player. It was a coffeehouse kind of scene, at the BeanBerry Café in nearby New Rochelle. Nice place. Erik and his cousin Jerry had worked up a set of music in the unplugged classic rock vein. I’d jammed with them a few times around the campfire, so they asked my to join in. They’d rehearsed together, but I was winging it. I gave Erik a list of songs I knew and he told me which ones he know too. And so I led a few songs including I’m Only Sleeping, Friend of the Devil and Wish You Were Here, and followed along with a a bunch of others. (Sorry, no Elvis.) The first song was a bit rough for me, cuz as soon as I started singing I realized the mic wasn’t set up right, but I (unlike with keyboards) I couldn’t take my hands off the guitar for even a second or so to adjust it. Erik and Jerry did a few originals from an album they’re writing. After The Fall was a standout. For me the high point of the show was Erik doing Wild Horses. I’m not really a huge Stones fan, but he really sang the hell out of that song. I didn’t know he had it in him.

After the set, Erik suggested we come back and do a set with me on keyboards, which is much more my main instrument than guitar. This got me thinking. More on that soon.

We went to a barbecue on Sunday at our friend Nick’s. Good time, but I got eaten alive by nosee’ums.

I bought a new digital stage piano Monday. I’d been meaning to for some time, and after months of spending my shopping cycles on utilitarian things like snowblowers and cars I finally had the opportunity. Spent the evening working on music. Felt really good.

I’ve been back to work for two weeks now an already it’s back to full-on busy business. It’s also been cold, dark and snowy. We got a good foot of snow earlier in the week and it’s only been up in the 20’s in the daytime. I’m predicting I won’t see my lawn again until March.

Last weekend Martin came down for a visit. Just before xmas he contacted me asking if I’d like some spare parts for my Rhodes piano cuz there were some for sale on Craigslist. The guy was asking more individually for the parts that I was really interested in — the hammer mechanism, the rack of tines, and the pickups — than for the whole thing, so basically I ended up buying a complete Mark III Rhodes sans legs and pedal and with busted electronics. Martin came down last weekend, and we had great fun fitting the parts back in the original cabinet, destined to be stashed away somewhere until. And Jeannie didn’t even complain!

We spent most of the afternoon jamming, which was great fun. Martin mainly called the tunes, from the songbook of his now defunct band. A good handful of interesting 80’s tunes I hadn’t played before, but totally in my zone, by the likes of Sting and Joe Jackson. While we was visiting he gave me a primer on how to use the multi-effects box he lent me in the fall. And best of all, he lent me his old Stratocaster guitar! Martin mainly plays 12-strings now so he’s not using it. Plus he lives in an apartment and Charlie is at the age where he’s getting into things, so partly is was for the sake of guitar’s safekeeping. I hadn’t really been considering a strat, but hey, awesome!

It’s funny too, because my friend Mark, who years ago sold me my old electric guitar asked if he could buy it back. Which is cool, so I asked him for his thoughts on what to replace it with. His advice was to up my budget a few hundred bucks and focus only either a genuine Fender or Gibson guitar. (“Then you’ll have a great guitar that will keep its value.”) Martin’s strat plays and sounds so much better, so now I have a basic of comparison of what a really good guitar sound like for next time I go back to the music store. And when I sell my old axe I’ll have a little extra money for better new one.

Here’s a blast from the past: a friend recently posted this pic, an album cover from the band Tafari from the early 1990’s, of which I was a member. Tafari was a summer party band and we were only together for a few months, but in that time we gigged out a lot and even managed to record an EP of four original songs. The set was mainly Bob Marley and Steely Dan plus a bunch of reggae-influenced originals and a smattering of other stuff in the summertime party vibe. It was a large group consisting of a singer, drummer, percussionist, bass, two keyboards, two guitars and a three piece horn section. We were kind of an all-start lineup of the Kenmore music scene at the time. Led by Jim Parry, members included Bill Ross, Joe Quebral, Mark Colecchia, Chris Sierzchula, Matt Cline, Mark Hofschneider, Dan Jablon, Paul Bernstien, and your truly. I had thought Martin had sat in on a show but he says no. We pretty much used the money from every gig to buy beer for the next rehearsal.

We did the record Wiser Than Forest of Owls toward the end of the summer. Matt Cline and I did the cover art. Somehow I lost my copy over the years. If anyone has one, I’d love to hear these tracks again. From what I remember it came out quite well, and I even player clarinet on one song.