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"The Bellmaker". I have always wanted a bell brass snare drum; the clarity of their tone, the poignant attack they offer, something about them is truly unique. The problem was, I didn't want to spend upwards of $2000 on a snare drum to achieve this!
I've always been a fan of the underdog. The small business owner whom, armed with a dream and experience, does something so good, unique and cool that envelops passion and love into the final product... a lot of the large companies seem to have lost that part of the equation and I'm always happy to find someone who delivers. Vukan Karadzic is such a guy, and he lives in Serbia.
I first became aware of Vukan's work through the internet, photos of his drums began to show up on social media groups and I was intrigued with what he does, as the first video I watched was this 1:00 long reel about creating "spun" snare drums. One minute was all it took to convince me "this guy can build a badass drum!" and so I began to manifest one of his drums in my mind.
One day I was walking along in Central Park in NYC and it hit me, "Hey, I can actually make that drum happen!" and I put in for a 5.5x14 Bell Brass. I figured it would take 6 months to get and was in no hurry so I dropped the $200 deposit with Vukan. A little while later I thought about the size and decided I'd like a 5" deep shell instead of a 5.5" deep, and Vukan said he had that same drum in stock so I paid the difference and the drum was suddenly on it's way to me!
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"Behold Electric Guitar"
When I was living my final days in San Diego in 2015, I met PG at a guitar workshop (Guitar Workshop Plus, out of Toronto) where I was an instructor. PG asked us "staff musicians" to play behind him and who could say "NO" to an offer such as that? We played well together and even better, vibed incredibly and both discovered we were about to move northwards...
So 8/15/15 I arrived in the Pacific Northwest for a fresh start to my musical career; 26 years in Southern California was enough for me, having been raised in Mississippi for the first two decades of my life and I needed some rain! So Seattle it was... Got a fresh start in the local music scene, began meeting folks and hanging out and then one day PG calls me up and says "Hey I just moved to the PNW too, down in Portland... let's record!" and a few days later, I was at Opal Studio in Portland, sitting down with PG and Damian Erskine, recording tunes!
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When I was a child, my world was surrounded by books due to the fact that my Grandfather was a book salesman. There were complete sets; all the cool Time-Life series that were being released back in the 1970’s routinely made it through his office and as a result I was exposed to many educational opportunities.
One book that I remembered was pertaining to “Correlation” and the fact that through steps or degrees of separation one element could be connected to another seemingly unrelated. For instance- one would never think to bridge a painting with a drum beat because a painting is visual and a drum beat is something you hear.
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"Codex Tempore" is a musical collaboration that began between drummer Bill Ray in San Diego / Seattle and Tobias Weber in Germany. The tunes are composed from Bill Ray's extemporaneous drum performances ergo "Rhythmic Sketches". Says BR- "I play to a song in my head which is more of a "tuneless whistle", and Tobias comes up with things that make sense musically".
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"We take shitty songs and elevate them while we drag great tunes down a few notches and smash 'em all together..."
As of right now, I am a ghost on social media. My Facebook account, all 5000 friends and upwards of 2700 followers is now dark. So is my Twitter. Instagram? I was never really a user, although my account is floating around and I'll probably go turn that one off now that I think about it. Snapchat? Ugh. WHY. I never got that "hip". To me, it's just another way for someone to half-heartedly say "I messaged you on [insert social network here], and never heard back from you..." But it matters not, because my life is now rid of the divisive and frustrating entity that was, for a decade the start and finish of every one of my days and all points in between.
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Feel free to create with the ideas! If you want to use my work for commercial purposes, we can work something out. :D
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In 2006 I was recording an album for an artist at Spotless Digital in Ocean Beach, CA and asked Sean Power, engineer extraordinaire "could I have ten minutes of time to warm up, and will you record me?" And so I banged out two "Rhythmic Sketches"; basically, songs without melodic content. Wireframes if you will, as dictated by percussive dynamics.
I will delve into the whole story later, but for now I wanted to hip you to my newest album release from my project "The Odd Get Even"
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Imagine, if you will a giant...no GINORMOUS "Information Desk" that's smack in the middle of a sea of humanity. There's queues ("Subreddits" or "Subs") for subjects no matter how arcane, vulgar, pedestrian or specialized that allow pretty much anyone to come in and offer their knowledge to those asking questions about said subject matter and a comment section under each post to further the conversation. Thing is, you don't even have to be an expert in the subject in which you find yourself enlightening the masses. Welcome to Reddit, the juggernaut that is owned by the Conde Nast corporation and has a worldwide readership.
Denizens of Reddit ("Redditors") are largely in the teen-to-25yr old bracket, but it's far from a "kiddie website". The demographic spans all generations. Reddit has done some pretty amazing things in its lifespan; the average Redditor seems to have some semblance of altruism to their personae and overall, it's a positive experience. Except when it's not.
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I had a great time at NAMM! Please enjoy a couple of videos while I parse all the other stuff to present to you. :D
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OK so here's my Rick James/Ike Turner story: We played in Birmingham, AL at a festival and RJ was on the bill. Ike and Rick used to hang out when Bolic studios was around.
So I'm at the festival, sitting with Ike to my left and Rick to my right and they began to recant days gone by. This is kinda how it went, albeit not exactly in order but this was the gist of the conversation:
Ike: "Hey man, remember the time we were out in the Rolls (Royce, car) drivin' and we usedta keep that bowl of cocaine in the car?"
Rick: "Yeah man that thing was like a SALAD BOWL..." (Apparently they used to drive around with a Scarface-sized mountain of blow in the car)
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