had a great show with the rock orchestra. felt like i took the reins a little in my relationships with these people, it's a good thing: the most positive thing that's happened so far here, and will be a basis for me creating my same identity here as i have in other places again. the afterparty was the first party i've gone to recently where there ( Read more... )

in an effort to continue this thing: tonight was my second show with the seattle rock orchestra. it was a chamber show, i played with three different rock singers doing their songs in a woodwind quintet and a brass quintet. one of the singers was this guy barry, who wrote circus inspired tunes and wore a bowler hat. his wife came up as we were ( Read more... )

after two months of living here, i finally had two back-to-back rehearsals in one day, totaling six hours of music. it's beginning to feel better.

had a rather enjoyable mermaid parade this afternoon and duke reily's birthday party under a bridge this evening. i think it was the best party i've ever been to. xavier brought me. they'd built a depression era bar with depression priced (nickel) drinks. we were secretly ferried from a parkinglot in white vans to the side of a freeway where we ( Read more... )

went up to cortland, ny for the day to crash their dairy day parade with the RMO, disguised as milk not jails. the day was run by the bread and puppet people and they were on point, present and active. immediately upon getting out of the car, sam befriended a very nice boy who (though he was surprised as we kept multiplying) let us all use his ( Read more... )

i'm in the strange position of having a group of people who explicitly believe in me artistically and who's goals i believe i can artistically satisfy. and am apparently satisfying.

i finally succeeded today in doing a show with one of these bands that i'm a substitute bassist in. showed up and learned the stuff in one day. reviewed it the day-of. played the show. show was awesome ( Read more... )

last night marked the first time i had a gig with a project i was in charge of and had come up with - my first gig as a leader. i've always been a sideman until last night. it feels pretty great.

today i took apart my first trumpet and put it back together. jon good helped immensely by having bought bushels of trumpets cheaply on ebay, and had a $15 one with a bent bell crook. we used fire and 60/40 solder on his kitchen table to fix it. once we bent things too much and had to learn how to anneal: that involves heating the non-ferrous metal ( Read more... )

in a minor miracle, i picked up a sousaphone from adam (via the sisterhood of the traveling tubas), a trumpet from jon good, played in the bread and puppet opera, and then the folk band, all within about 6 hours, all in very separate parts of brooklyn and manhattan.