Doin' it...

I love orange juice. Have I mentioned this? Well, I do.

Sooo… not much going on… no just kidding. It was a pretty unique weekend, I must say, starting on Friday night with… am I really typing this… me making a desk. An explanation, if you’re still reading: my next door neighbor Kevin had bought a desk from Ikea that he never bothered to put together, so Rob offered it to me(?) one day, probably months ago. It sat in my room, in pieces, for quite a while, just taking up space, until after work Friday I said to myself, “screw it, let’s do this.” With only a break for a Glint “family” dinner (J brought over ravioli from Gracie’s in Nyack), a couple hours and some Bud Ice later, I had myself a nice (un-shellacked) corner desk. Oh yes. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t moderately pleased with myself on that one.

After that excitement, some of us headed downstairs to Casa del Sol to check out this hip-happenin’ hip-hop/funk/jazz group from Brooklyn/Philly called the Cold Hands Collective. There were maybe 7 of these guys (and a female flutist who doubled as go-go dancer and mailing list girl) and they were such a fun group. The two MC’s were really pretty good; everyone looked to be about our age, early 20’s. I recognized a few (hip-hop) covers (The Roots, etc.)… they also jammed on Red Clay at one point. After the show, Dylan proceeded to persuade the band to come hang out with us upstairs while Rob and I convinced this girl Eve that Rob worked at a bowling alley. Right. Anyways, the band came and hung out with us, all 7 of them (and their sound guy), we schmoozed, …good stuff.

I also bumped into a couple of the guys from Joe Mamma’s Fantastic Trio, an instrumental funk group from Congers (local) I heard once at Olives. I’ve been dying to jam with these guys… they are stellar musicians and play music in the vein of Soulive/MMW/Sam Kininger. They did just add a keyboardist (who doubles on sax) to their lineup and he’s pretty good… but I’d still like to just funk it out with them sometime, especially on my own beloved bright red Nord with the sweet vintage sounds. So here’s hoping. I do miss playing that kind of music.

Saturday was Snitch! Our showcase show in Chelsea. There were 4 other bands, mostly of the pop-rock variety, but the band that closed the show was a metal group (one guitarist had a guitar strap made out of [what appeared to be] large bullets). It was a short set, a very strict 35 minutes (we didn’t get to play Boy of the Stars), but we sounded good. There was a last-minute scramble when we realized there was no snare stand at the venue (even though we were told drummers had to use the house kit… you’d figure they’d have the necessary drumset pieces, but apparently not), but we managed a decidedly makeshift solution by taping Mat’s snare onto the case for his bass drum pedal. Heh. The second group to play, FN-CO, was pretty good, and had some tight funky Percy Hill-esque jams (and harmonies)… the group just before us, Whiskey Richard, was from Nashville, and they weren’t bad themselves… we later noticed the singer innocently lighting up a cigarette in the bar, illegal here in NY but indeed, very Nashville-y, reminding us all of our excursion to said city not months ago.

Thanks to Erica, a fellow keyboardist from Nyack, for taking pics...

Surrounded by fans! Oh yeah!

Check Tebaldi's new dreads!

Our video guy Jonathan (and his friend Sabrina) came down to wrap up work on our music videos (which should be posted on youtube by now), check out our show, and apparently also to school Mateus at Guitar Hero… and speaking of getting schooled I got a huge-ass parking ticket ($115!) in NYC after the show... lame. :/

Sunday… Rob and I attempted our latest cooking vision. Well, Rob’s vision, really: Chinese tacos. Long story short, we whipped up some stir fry and put them in taco shells. Pretty good. After that, Bob, our other video guy (from Nyack), invited us to join his informal weekly Sunday night soccer “league,” mostly fellow employees from Wasabi and us Glint guys. I was put on defense, my old position from soccer days of yesteryear, and did alright. At first I caused a few corner kicks (none of which resulted in goals, fortunately), but then stepped it up and had a few nice clears after that.

Tonight my classic rock itch will be scratched… Dylan, Mateus, Andy “Rock” and myself will be playing a few Floyd, Doors, etc. tunes at the Olives open mic. I don’t usually hit this up, mostly because it’s late on a Wednesday, but I just felt like playing L.A. Woman and Comfortably Numb again… doin’ it.

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The other side of the fence

Does anyone else have “summer music” and “winter music?” I mean… when it starts to get colder and there’s snow on the ground, I tend to want to listen to say, Jethro Tull more, and when I can finally drive with my windows down, it’s time for Santana. Listening to Tull’s “Heavy Horses” on the way to work this morning… thank god there –is- finally snow on the ground, even if it is just a little bit…

I am remembering a certain winter night in a certain castle-dormitory on a certain college campus where I arrived late to a party and was handed a red Solo cup filled with Malibu, cranberry juice, and a dash of fresh snow from the windowsill…

Hm. Anyways. Nostalgia aside…

Well… the album is OUT! Chances are if you’re at this blog in the first place, you probably already knew that. 1000+ copies are sitting in our apartment… as well as some new merchandise, namely, two kinds of t-shirts (in two colors each!). So… if you haven’t gotten the hint already, go buy the CD! …unless you were involved in making it (Hogan) or lived/put up with us while recording it (ShanNON), in which case, I’ll hit you up with one…

I appear to be in an ellipsis-y mood…

…

Yup. Well, we’ve also gotten half of the Sabrina demo in, which sounds great… still waiting on the other two tracks. Actually, in an interesting bit of news, the producer Paul (whose main gig is writing musicals) called me up and mentioned that a friend of his was looking for a “musical director” for a production of Little Shop of Horrors, and that he was wondering if I’d be interested. To be honest, I’m flattered he thought of me… he’d asked me for my card after the Sabrina sessions and said he liked my playing, but I wasn’t sure if anything would come of it (flattered as I was at that point as well). And even though it sounds like it would pay some decent bucks, I just don’t think I’m cut out for it… even if he just meant “rehearsal pianist,” that’s a big job, and could easily entail, you know, directing the pit orchestra and/or cast on musical numbers. I’d have a “shit ton” of music to learn, and my reading chops just don’t rival my play-by-ear/read-chord-changes chops. Not to mention time commitment to Glint. In conclusion… Libya is a land of contrast. Heh. No. In conclusion… I am encouraged someone like him thought well enough of my playing. And he said if I didn’t want/couldn’t do this gig, he’d keep calling me with other offers, so, who knows… “hey Phil… open date at the Blue Note… just wondering if…” heh.

Rob’s birthday was real fun… in the spirit of “your friends are my friends,” a couple of his local buds, Dan, Joe, and apartment-mate Kevin, met up with us “newbie” friends Dylan and myself for a night of Nyack-based debauchery. And it was debauchery indeed. After dinner at Black Bear (where one of the waiters recognized Dylan and I from the band and bought us both shots), we decided to launch our own Nyack pub crawl, and hit Vertigo, Wasabi, O’Malleys, and finally Bruxelles for some inspired dancing. I’d almost go so far as to say, in our collective inebriated state, we got the dance party –started- in that back room at Bruxelles… oh, and there was a kick-ass traditional Irish band at O’Malleys, a place I usually malign as one where “all you can do is drink.” No where else to really hang or do anything else. Just a bar. But… I hadn’t seen live music there before. Awesome. Quite a scene. Bagpipes, fiddle, the whole bit. After too much partying I decreed “no more Rob’s birthdays for another year.” It was kind of like the Berenstein Bears’ “Too Much Birthday,” except, with alcohol.

So what’s next for Glint? A showcase this Saturday… it’s at a club called Snitch in Manhattan (Chelsea), and will feature 5 bands, performing for indie label guys. As we say here at New Street… doin’ it.

A grand old time

I, got to play on –two- grand pianos this past week… one at a show and one at a recording session, the former with Glint on Saturday, the latter with Sabrina on Tuesday. Awesome.

Friday the band played at the Cutting Room in Manhattan, a slight departure ambiance-wise from our recent NYC gig scene. Other than the Hook in Brooklyn, this was our first non-Village gig: the club was in Chelsea, co-owned by Chris Noth (Mr. Big from Sex and the City) who wouldn’t let you forget it, with both a modestly-sized Law and Order poster by the men’s bathroom and a less-than-modestly-sized picture of himself extending his hand in greeting above the main performance room… anyway, it was arguably one of the nicer places we’ve played to date. Have I played a rock gig anywhere else with a weekly-tuned Steinway? No, I haven’t. Having a real piano for the piano parts instead of a keyboard piano sound was, amazing… the feel of the instrument has so much to do with “it” (how I play?). So that was cool. We went on super late, around 1 AM, but had a good crowd, and played straight until 2:30… pretty fun. It was kinda nice to have my “fortress of keyboards” back for a night. For any family members in NJ or NY reading this (heh), this is a place I would invite you to see one of our shows (counting on an earlier set time, which shouldn’t be too hard to get since they liked us there).

And Tuesday, the Sabrina Stone group recorded in the city, at a studio usually used for recording musical soundtracks, around 9th and 45th. So damn fun. Dylan and I took off of work (sweet) and met up with Sabrina and Chris that afternoon for practice at Ultrasound rehearsal studios for a couple hours…

Rehearsing at Ultrasound.

Tuning. I think.

Then we met up with Paul, our producer, later that evening. We got basic tracking (bass, piano, and drums) done in about an hour, after setting things up and getting good sounds, which I must say, I was impressed with, even if it was only for four songs. I forgot to mention… we opted to record the band live (everyone playing at once instead of sequential overdubs) which ended up being a pretty smart move. Sabrina recorded her guitar tracks afterwards with little difficulty; Dylan laid down some electric guitar-ness, Chris some percussion, and myself some organ, and we called it a night around midnight. SO FUN! Can’t wait to have these tunes on a CD…

Outside the studio.

Me...

...Chris...

...Sabrina "don't google me" Stone...

...aaaand Dylan.

The Glint album will be here very soon, next week sometime… and then, finally, we will be on the other side of the coin… Adam and J have been preparing t-shirts, stickers, and other merch for the release, and Mat has been overhauling the website…

Paragraph deleted… ah, self-censorship…

Well… tonight we are taking Rob out to Black Bear for his birthday, which was yesterday… 25 years old… doin’ it!

Also… I added some pictures in earlier posts of Octoberfest and our cute cat Stella.

Good enough is good enough

Well, what’s been up… I spent Christmas with my grandparents, Mom, Dad, and Vicky up in Worcester. Jeff was up in Maine with his girlfriend Kristin. The shadowing experience at the clinic in Concord the next day went well; I made a good contact with the medical physicist who showed me around, Fred(erick) Dube.

The Wasabi gig fell through, unfortunately, before it even started… which sucks. I was really looking forward to having a consistent jazz gig, even if it was only a couple times a month. Adam, one of the managers who was going to bat for me, wanted to add music on nights other than their usual Monday, hence my lil’ Tuesday night “trial” gig a while ago, but, no go… apparently, the owner just didn’t want to shell out the extra bucks for more performers. :/ Too bad. I don’t doubt there are other similar opportunities around Nyack, but that would be a whole separate project, getting some kind of demo CD together, going around and pitching myself…

We did have a fun Chanukah/holiday/whatever party last weekend… Rob and I attempted latkes and after making a huge mess and suffering minor potato-grating and frying-related injuries, churned out some pretty good potato pancakes, which went almost as fast as we were making them. Nice group of people… Yael’s sister Amira showed up, Sabrina and Chris (drummer from the Sabrina project) were there, Jordan (from Brandeis) came up from the city and helped spearhead the Chanukah cookie-making initiative with Yael AND actually got the dance party started… overall a very “warm” vibe.

I’ve been spending too much money… food, alcohol… and not making enough, especially with all these days off (and car repairs). I go full-time/salaried in February though, so at least that’ll be nice…

And where the hell is the snow?! 60 degrees in January? Come on. I remember it taking this long to snow in recent years, but, man…

New Years was alright. We decided to make the aforementioned holiday party the bigger of the two events and opted to stay in for NYE, make tacos, etc. Which was alright, but going out at 11:30 in Nyack was a little… lame. Really not many people at the two bars we hit. I’m not sure what I was expecting… someone to kiss at midnight? ;) I don’t know… at least there was some inspired tattoo-giving (nod to Dylan), a last-minute pinstripe pants/beach theme (you choose), and a drink Rob and I invented called a “Blue Noggermeister…”

Rob, Dylan and I have formed a side project known as “Rob’s Chicken and the Mint 500” with Rob on lead vocals/ranting, myself on acoustic guitar, and Dylan on whatever (instrument) he can get his hands on and “backing vocals.” No dates scheduled yet but we did have our debut performance on our balcony Saturday night…

More seriously though, things have been great and quite satisfying on the Sabrina front. She played at Kenny’s Castaways in the Village on Friday night… Rob, Dylan and I attended and all got shout-outs during the show, the former as a great latke-maker and the latter two as past Sabrina-crushes, heh. She hosted a nice little party afterwards, with more dancing than I could have asked for… and, in regards to the recording, Sabrina opted to go with her friends over Paul’s offered studio musicians, but Paul will stay on board as producer. We practiced yesterday at her place again and it just sounded so good. The one tune I personally felt least good about, “I’m Taking Hold of Me,” got a serious boost with Chris’ new drum beat, and the newest of the four tunes “Good Enough” came together as well… this is a riff that just somehow –sounds- like chilling on a rainy Sunday afternoon, or something… so catchy, beautiful. I can’t wait to have these four songs recorded. Paul sat in on the rehearsal and really seemed to like our playing which was, encouraging. A recording date has been booked, Tuesday the 9th, in the city, and I’m so stoked. There’s a grand piano there and at Paul’s suggestion I am calling the studio today to see if they have a Hammond organ… how fucking fun is this?! Seriously. Awesome. And again, Sabrina is going back to school in a couple weeks, but hopefully this group can play some gigs together, whether they be in NY or Boston, in the future…