After being snowed in by a freak blizzard in NYC, I'm finally home with a finished copy of the new USAF combo album in hand!  Mixing and mastering went great.  The album will be available right here, for FREE in a matter of days.

Also, we've made a lot of progress on the Mr. Sleeves album.  In a few weeks, we'll have finished piano/bass/drums/horns.  That just leaves guitar, vocals, and some other random stuff.  Also, expect a new "making-of" video to be posted shortly (it's about time!!).

Hello all!  I'm currently in NYC to mix/master the USAF combo album.  Good times!  The album will be available right here for FREE early March.

A couple months ago, I went to a local pub with some friends.  From night to night, this bar featured a wide variety of genres - thursday they'd have something like a folk open mic night, friday a metal-fest, saturday a jazz quartet.  That sort of thing; they really mixed it up.  The quality of these bands from night to night was just as variable, but we took our chances anyways.  We asked the kindly doorman what kind of band would be playing that night.  His response was very typical - "They're kind of a jazzy, funky, jam group.  They're hard to put into one category.  I mean, they play a bit of everything."

Sounded like fun.  We sat down, got our drinks, and were serenaded by "brown eyed-girl".  Song after song, rock covers from the 60s, 70s, and a few from the 80s.  They were a rock cover band.  To the contrary of what the doorman said, there was nothing jazzy, funky, or jammy about this band.  They were in fact easy to categorize.  Don't get me wrong, this group was quite good at what they did, and were the perfect thing for the scene that evening, really.

I think people these days feel like calling a band "a rock band" sells a good band short, implying that there is nothing special about them. I don't think there's anything wrong with calling a rock band a rock band.  If I had a dollar for every time a dude told me that a band was a "funky, jazzy, free-jazz, cajun zydeco, classical, hip-hop, jam metalcore sludge soft rock" band (or some other ridiculous combination of genres) only to find the group was a "just" a rock band, I'd be a rich man.

This problem isn't exclusive to the non-musically-educated folk.  I remember my freshman year of college, a friend and I ran into a piano player from our school of music.  He had headphones on, so we flagged him down, and asked what he was listening to.  His response was "listening to some bop, man. Check it out".  I put on his headphones.  It was Prince.  I had to call him out. "Man, Prince is not bebop.  Charlie Parker is bebop," I said.  His response was "yeah, but there's a saxophone and he's playing some bebop-type lines".  That may have been true, but that doesn't make PRINCE a BEBOP musician.  Wow.

Sure, rock is a pretty broad genre.  Saying indie rock, hard rock, classic rock, country rock, soft rock, etc. can be pretty helpful.  But leave it at that people.  General rules:

-Only use one genre to describe a band (two-three word maximum).
-Just because there is a saxophone or other wind instrument in the band, does not automatically make it "jazzy". (Dave Matthews band is not a jazz band.)
-A violin does not automatically make something "bluegrass". (see above DMB comment)
-Unexpected meter changes do not make the group "experimental" or "free jazz". I've heard a person describe the Dismemberment Plan as having "hints of free-jazz in it", which, if you've heard that band, could not be further from the truth.  (They rock by the way, definitely check them out.)
-More than 8 bars of solo does not make the group a "jam" band.
-Spoken word does not mean rap/hip-hop.
-Stop throwing around the term "funky".  Just because something makes you want to shake your ass does not make it funky.
-Having a DJ or synthesizer in a band does not make it "techno". (see Incubus/Minus the Bear, respectively)

You get the point.  C'mon people!

 OK, Failbog is hilarious, but sometimes you need a more positive spin on things.  Succeed blog is a collection of awesome pictures and videos showcasing talent, humor, and hard work.

 Well, this weekend I'm heading into the studio with Paul Shaw (drums) and Dave Troncoso (bass) to record some original jazz with Dan Kenemore (engineer). I've been playing some pretty artsy-fartsy stuff in the last year or so, and I've been in the mood to just lay down some swingin' tunes. Expect the album to be available for pay-what-you-want, right here in a few months or so.

Also, PDF files of my original music will start to pop up on the site shortly, for anyone that is interested in playing some of these tunes!

He Died with a Felafel in his Hand - (2001)



What a weird but delightful movie.  It's basically about this dude that stays in a whole bunch of random houses with random oddballs and just hangs out and smokes the whole time.  I mean, there's way more to it than that, but you'll have to watch and see for yourself.

Highly recommended.

Ok, so I had a couple "album of the week" blog posts a long long time ago, and stopped keeping up with it.  Whoops.  Well, back at it!  Same with "movie of the week", or "website of the week".  I'll be doing this on tuesdays-ish.



Cynic - Traced in Air
Fantastic metal album.  Get it get it get it get it

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