I’ll be honest, I’m not a happy camper right now. I am working this weekend while Audra and the cats are at her folks for Easter. There are times when I need and enjoy some solitude, but not one of them. It’s even been a little creepy being at home without even the cats. I keep thinking I see one of them stroll by or asleep on the bed.
I woke suddenly around 3AM to other night and was actually a little freaked out because I could not tell what woke me with such a start. Usually, my light-sleeping wife will inform me of what loud noise, or imaginary intruder has stirred me. Normally I would have simply gotten up and checked on said imaginary intruder, grumbling and complaining the whole time and returning to bed with a grumpy ‘I told ya so’. This time, instead of bravely getting up, I lie unmoving, listened intently for several minutes for the imaginary intruder to make his next move.
Boot camp 2.1 has suffered too. Between being busy working through this disaster and my motivation being low and my points (my system for tracking the things I need to be doing and NOT doing) took a serious dive.
Still, I have climbed the mountain several times this week. While at my in-laws earlier this week I ran what might have normally been a daunting hilly 5-mile course in the foothill community of Highland , CA
Whippersnapper!
The other good news is that, after my inexplicable weigh gain last week, my weigh-in this morning showed that I am 6 pounds lighter this week and down around 11 pounds overall.
Fear not, I am not going to spend the rest of this blog making saddy boo-boo puppy faces and causing everyone get out the Worlds tiniest violin while I whine and moan.
Instead, I am going to celebrate and promote a couple of friends of mine who happen to have recently released recordings and one who has not.
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Rocky Jackson
I had placed my name on a local online musicians list eight years ago in an effort to get some more paying gigs. I had nearly forgotten about it when several months later I got a call for a gig. It was in Santa Clarita. My only phone number at the time was a company cell phone that had a Santa Clarita area code. As a result, 90% of the jobs and bands I got from that time on called for were the Santa Clarita area—about 35 miles North of LA.
I found myself schlepping my way up there and back countless nights. By the time I got a call from Rocky Jackson, I was loath to add more trips to the land of the canyons. I agreed to listen to some of his music however. It was a mixture of original and blues standards. One particular instrumental caught my ear.
I had really enjoyed playing blues with Ned Lucas back East and I found Rocky’s playing and singing impressive enough to change my tune a little. I agreed to meet Rocky and his drummer at an open mic blues jam in the Valley. We all auditioned for each other on stage in front of an audience of other blues players; professionals, wanna-bes, and ‘you-shoulda-stayed-homes’ alike. It was hurried crowded. I didn’t like the amp I had to play through and it was hard to hear much of anything clearly.
I didn’t feel I did well on the audition, and I didn’t think they did that well either. Between that and the Santa Clarita thing, I told Rocky on the phone later that I thought he should keep looking for a bass player. To my surprise Rocky wasn’t so easily put-off and eventually talked me into a rehearsal.
The dynamic of the rehearsal was quite different that the open mic. The music sounded more like the recording that had attracted me in the first place. I liked the drummer, Eliot “Lee” Witherspoon and his playing immensely—even before he told me I played beautifully. At the rehearsal was a young Hungarian-born harp player (harmonica) who was not at the open mic. He had whittled his not-so-blues-sounding Hungarian name down to “A.C. Blue”. He played great and was also a really nice guy.
A couple years later AC moved to Colorado
I came away from the rehearsal with a much better feeling and decided to continue with the band. It meant more schlepping up North but it also would mean some new friends countless gigs and two CD credits to my name both as bass player and graphic designer. I am also Rocky’s Webmaster.
Rocky is a Texan bluesman via Chicago and LA sound and style wise. His singing and guitar playing have deep feeling and true blues grit. He’s got great blues originals that are both rootsy and have an “LA attitude” as he likes to say. Rocky also indulges in blues classics both on stage and in the studio with reverence and stylistic accuracy.
The band line-up on stage has always been guitar, bass, harp and drums. On his recordings he adds keyboards and sax he and there.
He also pulls out a mean lap steel with a sound that can cure acne… or was that ‘cause’?
Either way, it sounds great.
Rocky’s second CD “Testify” just came out and is available on CD Baby as well has his debut recoding “Squeeze Here”.
Hear samples at:
Rocky’s site (the one I built):
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Milking Diamonds
Years ago, I was in a singerless band (I didn’t sing lead then). It consisted of two of he best friends I have, or will ever have. Bringing in a fourth member was something we didn’t relish so we eyed Sam French with unfair suspicion when he tapped his chest and pointed to his vocal chords and said matter-of-factly “I got it”.
I wasn’t sure what he meant until he sang. It was clear, powerful and confident.
Yeah, he had it!
For reasons I don’t even remember, we ended up going back to a trio but Sam would get his day years later when two-thirds of our trio helped form “The Great Divide” with Sam on vocals and guitar.
Sam’s ability on guitar seemed to grow exponentially as the band developed. His sound too became an integral part of the band’s sound with its chiming lush atmospheric tones.
Sam was married by this time to a woman of uncommon beauty named Katherine Scholl. She was cool and smart but had never heard her sing. I heard later on that she was doing some singing of her own. If her singing voice is anything like the silky enchanting way she spoke, I thought, we should be in for a treat!
We were in for a treat indeed as you will hear in “Milking Diamonds” the indie project the couple formed with drummer Michael Smith in the Syracuse , NY
Listening to this band is like a vacation from the constraints of gravity. Reminiscent of “Cocteau Twins”, “The Chameleons”, and “The Sundays”, it all about atmosphere and Katherine’s heavenly voice. Don’t think for a moment this means there isn’t plenty of momentum to sway to though in Smith’s solid eighties-styled beats.
Sam saves his voice for occasional backing vocals but takes center stage for at least one tune reminding me that he’s still got it.
Check out Milking Diamonds on CDBaby and iTunes:
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Jim Schreck
A third of the aforementioned trio I was in was Jim Schreck. When I was just jamming with my friend Bill in my parents’ basement (bass and guitar) he told tales of this incredible drummer that went to his school. We schemed to steal this guy away from the band he was playing with. Our plan: to play better so we might be up to his standards. In that way Jim Schreck had influenced me before we even met.
Where we did meet was at a school jazz band competition in Bloomfield , NY Kansas
Finally, we managed to lure Jim into my parent’s basement where he assembled a large Pearl silver drum kit that resembled the International Space Station and from that moment on began to gradually shrink until, after a year or so, it had transmogdified into an ancient red speckle three-piece Ludwig kit that, somehow, he played better on and that sounded more amazing than the big Pearl kit. For instance, he could play as if he had a double bass drum but on a single pedal and single drum... But without 'machine footing' if you can figure that one out.
Back to the first jam: I was not disappointed. Jim lived up to his legend, and then some. Not only was his playing more original that I had ever heard (or since), it was daring: intricate and simple at the same time and never once lost the prime directive of the all-holy pulse.
Everything we played was magic; all completely improvised non-blues riffs that went on for hours until my parents flicked on and off the basement lights letting us know it was getting late (and that they had had enough of the furniture migrating across the floor in the din. My own playing felt effortless; natural; buoyant.
All roads leading too my present timing and feel as a bass player, a particular strong point in my playing, can be traced back to this jam.
All roads leading too my present timing and feel as a bass player, a particular strong point in my playing, can be traced back to this jam.
Then we took a break…
Then Jim picked up the guitar…
O… M… F… G!!!
Everything he could do on drums seemed to be tripled on guitar!
Keep him away from my bass!
Yeah you guessed it. I didn’t hear it on that particular day but he also can play bass like nobody’s business and in original ways that have influenced me profoundly to this day.
These days Jim has focused most of his efforts on his first love: guitar. He is not only a schred-meister, but a taste and tone-meister too. He performs solo mostly, utilizing looping to gradually build up gorgeous lush harmonic and textural playgrounds to weave melodies and solos into.
If pressed to compare Jim to some existing entity, some of his influences are Pat Travers, King Crimson, and Alan Holdsworth.
Like myself, Jim’s released recorded material is pending but here is a link to his Youtube channel and videos to give you a taste of what is to come as well as witness his schredolicious virtuosity and pure joy in playing:
And a video from elsewhere:
By-the-way, Jim’s playing will be featured in at least one of the tunes on my album. And despite claims in the National Inquirer and the Journal of the American Medical Association, he is not, nor has he ever been, Larry.
You can also find all of these folks here in my friends and pages. If you think they’re awesome like I do, let em know!
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