Last night I finally got around to listening to a double CD live recording of Bela Fleck’s Bluegrass Sessions that a friend had copied* for me a few weeks back. Wow! This stuff is amazing. Since I was born and raised in southern Indiana, it is quite possible that I have country/bluegrass in my blood, although I never would have admitted that growing up. Good music, played from the heart, defies categorization.

(* My friend downloaded and copied this and other music from furthurnet.com, “the first and only 100% non-commercial, open-source, peer-to-peer network of legal live music created by fans for fans”.)

Last Sunday night, right before I started my set at Alcoholiday, I met and spoke briefly with a nice guy about the types of music we both enjoy. He asked me what kind of music I play. I always have difficulty answering this question, because, quite frankly, I don’t know what kind of music I play. I don’t know what to call it. Improvization is an important element, but I wouldn’t call it jazz. Rock doesn’t seem to fit right, either. I’ve had people describe it as new-age before, but I’m not comfortable with that mostly because I don’t understand what it means (and I get the feeling that the “new-age” designation is often applied to music that people simply don’t know how to categorize otherwise). Fusion might be a good starting point, but then what is it a fusion of? I could just say “Stick music”, but that isn’t much of an explanation to someone who has never seen/heard a Stick before.Actually, “categorization” isn’t important to me at all. But, how do I explain these thoughts succinctly and conversationally without sounding arrogant? After a moment of hemming and hawing, I politely asked him to listen to my set and then tell me what he thought it sounded like. Unfortunately, I didn’t speak to him again afterwards. I wonder what he thought?

I have some related thoughts regarding my set at Barco last night, but I’m going to think on that a bit, and put off commenting on it for another day or two.

Although there are always several new pieces of gear that I want for processing my Stick signals, rather than dwell on how limited I am because I don’t have “super processing unit X”, I think I need to focus on being more creative with my existing units.

I’ve recently purchased a portable mp3 player with a 20GB hard drive. Supposedly, this thing can store several thousand compressed music files. It also has an internal microphone for recording audio direct to a compressed file. I’m hoping that I’ll be able to use it to record my performances, and maybe upload some files to my website in the future.

I’ve been compressing (actually using Ogg Vorbis rather than mp3) some of my favorite CDs, which has led to me spending several hours over the past few days listening to Stick recordings I hadn’t touched for quiet a while. This “re-discovery” has been rather inspiring.

Although nearly 20 years old, Emmett Chapman’s Parallel Galaxy is, for me, still the quintessential Stick recording. While there have been several incredible albums by great Stick musicians since then, Parallel Galaxy is still the one that sets the bar for everyone else.

I’ll be returning to Rendez-Vous on 15 May, this time for a solo performance. This time, I’ll be playing to the bar crowd, rather than in the restaurant. The owner thinks the bar area will be a better atmosphere for live music, and I tend to agree with him. Everyone at Rendez-Vous seems excited about having live music there, and they have all been extremely pleasant and fun to work with.

The 3 Japanese people taken hostage in Iraq have now been released. I was very pessimistic about their fate, and so their safe release comes as an extremely pleasant surprise. However, 2 more Japanese citizens, journalists, have been abducted, and hostages of other nationalities have been killed.

I was very happy with my performance Saturday night. I started the first set at 8pm, with Jamie and Kit scheduled to do the second set starting at 9pm. I did 7 songs, and ended up going straight for about 45 minutes, so the second set was put off until 9:15. I don’t have a large repertoire, so I try to make the most of the tunes that I have. Sometimes I worry that I stretch them out a bit too much, though. Jamie told me not to worry about it, that it sounded fine.

The “stage” was a bit of a weird setup. The venue was a Peruvian restaurant, and we were told to set up at the front, near the entrance, with a fountain at our backs. There’s probably enough room (barely) for an acoustic set, but with my equipment (amp + foot pedal), I kinda stuck out in the middle of traffic a bit. I just had to keep one eye open for the waitresses as they passed by. Also, anytime customers came in the entrance, I was basically right there in their faces. Actually, this turned out to be a really good experience for dealing with distractions while performing. I think I will try talking the manager into letting us try a different “stage” space in the future, though, assuming this becomes a regular gig.

My set went smoothly, and I enjoyed myself. Except for “My Funny Valentine”. Again. One might wonder why I continue to play (attempt?) that tune. All I can say is, it’s a matter of pride now. I ain’t ready to give in yet.

New strings on The Stick sound so nice.

In general, I’m easily distracted. World events have again absorbed quite a bit of my attention over the past several days, including some extremely difficult news for Japan over the past 24 hours in particular. This has been made worse by an extremely odd sleep schedule this week, making it difficult for me to concentrate on immediate concerns.

All of this was forseeable by anyone willing to consider the consequences. People have now been placed in impossible situations, and it didn’t have to happen this way.

I’ve had an idea about a song based on an old funky jazz standard. Several months ago I had temporarily programmed the rhythm into my drum machine, but gave up on the tune after I realized it was probably beyond my capabilities to copy it effectively as a solo piece. Now I’m thinking of just stealing the rhythm (and maybe one or two signature riffs from the song) and creating my own tune around it. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to work it out in time for this weekend’s performance.

I got my new Stick cables on Friday. Plugged in and did a little practicing. Not only are these new Planet Waves cables much heavier-duty (also heavy-weight, too) than what I had been using before, the sound is noticebly clearer as well. The clarity of these cables had been demonstrated to me before, so I was expecting it. What surprised me was the extra volume I am getting, particularly out of the bass side. I’m going to practice with the settings as they are now for another day or two, but initial impressions are, since switching cables, that I’m eventually going to need to tweak the balance between the bass and melody string groups. So far, I’m using only the new stereo-stereo cable into my Rane SP13 preamp; I haven’t yet had the chance to use the stereo-mono cable.

I’m excited about instrument cables. This is pretty indicative of how exciting my life is.

Recently, I’m really enjoying the CD “subzerosonic” by Stick player John Edmonds. He describes this CD as “odd-time deep-space ice groove for ambient hypnosis and motional haphazardry”. Check out his website for more info and a sound sample.

Things have been pretty hectic at the office this week, and so I’ve barely taken the time to unpack my gear after the weekend gig, let alone do any practicing. I need to get on the ball though, since I have several gigs coming up in April. In addition to the monthly open mic at Barco, I’ve got performances at Cusco Cafe (restaurant) and Alcoholiday (bar) later this month. I may have another restaurant gig coming up as well, but details haven’t been worked out yet. I also learned from Jamie recently that the local Molly Malone’s (Irish pub) may be open to the idea of us performing there once a month on Sundays. Apparently we’ll have an “audition” of sorts on the first or second Sunday in May.