My Top 12 Guitarists of all time

I have always thought top ten guitar lists, or top one hundred or whatever, are silly. There is no such thing as a best guitarist. Its all relative to the context, the era, and personal taste. None the less they are a hell of a lot of fun to read and I have always disagreed with the Rolling Stone magazine list they publish every year. I was stunned by the excellent list that was written by Josh Tyrangiel of Time magazine. He’s the only guy I have seen with the balls to include Yngwie Malmsteen. In my opinion due to the sweeping changes and influence Malmsteen brought to the guitar not including him, as most of these lists do, is a complete joke.

Without further adieu since I make my living playing the guitar I have decided to throw my hat in the ring. I decided to use a three prong approach to my list. The first criteria I think is paramount is signature. And what I mean by this is signature sound. A strong aural identity is one of the rarest and most challenging thing to develop. This is so because to do so one has to have the moxie and courage to look inward. To not mimic and copy other peoples sound, but truly be committed to finding your own voice. I am talking about a musician where you hear one note and you know who it is. This alone is one of the rarest qualities on the planet, and is deserving of recognition.

Secondly I will use influence as a measure of scope here because when one has the courage to do the aforementioned, it has a positive effect on guitar because change always comes from the outside, not inside where everyone is paying attention to what everyone is doing.

Thirdly, I will argue that the best guitarists who create the unique sounds and change the game often do not listen to other guitarists and are influenced by horn players, singers, and have a vision of taking the instrument to a higher level. Like Howard Roark the famous architect in Ayn Rand’s epic novel The Fountainhead did with architecture.

One thing you will notice about this list is many of these guitarists are not that well known because they are guitarists favorite guitarists. Its often a fun idea to find out who your favorite guitarists are listening to.

1. Clint Strong

I put Clint first on the list because I’ve seen them all and I’ve heard them all and when it comes to what I call just the plain “Wow Factor”. This guy takes the cake. Everything about him and his style just reaches out and pops like some kind of prize fighter when he plays. I have seen musicians high fiving each other while watching in the audience during his gigs like it was some kind of NBA championship game after a slam dunk. Clint doesn’t talk, he just does it. You may have never heard of him, but when you do you will remember and mark my word, Ive seen them all.

2. Yngwie Malmsteen

I would argue as far as rock guitar is concerned there have been three major revolutions in the approach to the instrument since the sixties Jimi Hendrix, Eddie Van Halen, and then Yngwie Malmsteen. This guy was and is a major game changer. He is the epitome of the three principles I set out as criteria for my silly list. He didn’t listen to other guitar players and he tells guitarists all the time- don’t listen to me, don’t listen to anybody, find your own way, believe in yourself. He listened to Bach and Paganini and brought the brilliance and approach of a virtuoso violinist to the guitar. Before this guy came along rock and rollers were stuck in their little pentatonic boxes. Over night people had to learn what an arpeggio was. Learn about diminished scales, and the fifth note of harmonic minor. By mimicking violin Yngwie took technique to a level never before seen in rock guitar. You hear one note of this guy and you know who it is.

3. Allan Holdsworth

All of us in the guitar community know about the influence of this guy. Even guitar players who don’t know who Allan is are influenced by Allan. He is definitely a visionary who found his own way and has a signature so recognizable that you can hear one fourth of a note and tell who it is. Allan is definitely a guitarist guitarist, a great guy, and it is a joke that he is not on the top of that silly Rolling Stone list. So cheers to Allan, this is where he belongs. I have always considered him to be on the top of my list long before we became friends.

4. Eddie Van Halen

It goes without saying this guy changed rock guitar forever. This was the second major sweeping revolution in what we all thought was possible. Everything about this guy was different, and if you want to talk about Allan Holdsworth, Eddie is a big fan and helped Allan get exposure early on in the states. Everything about Eddie is unique, innovative, and game changing. I remember in the 90′s a radio DJ in Dallas announcing two new songs being released by a former band with their old singer. He declined to say the name, as it was a surprise that he would play after a commercial break. I was listening carefully after the commercial and I heard one note I got goosebumps because at the onset of that one note I knew, unequivocally, without a doubt that is was Van Halen. His brother Alex plays drums the same way, one note and I know who it is. Tone Loc, the rapper, sampled Jamie’s Crying, and the first time I heard that, I knew right where it came from. This is what I am talking about.

5. Pat Metheny

Lock, stock, and barrel here is a cat who is the penultimate example of hearing just one note and you know it’s Pat Metheny. His signature is his phrasing and ability to spontaneously create beautiful melodic improvisations that are astounding, original, and very pleasing to the ear. He has a very classy, elegant, approach that has elevated our instrument in so many ways. Hats off to Pat Metheny.

6. Al Dimeola

Al Dimeola is a very good guitar player. So much so at times he is accused by people, with very little technical command of their instrument, as being just a guy with chops. When I hear one of these clowns saying this foolishness about Al I know they have no idea what they are talking about immediately. While his technique is astounding, his playing is deep and rich harmonically and his chordal approach is beautiful. He also has uncanny control rhythmically that sets him apart in a league of his own. I can tell his playing by one note easily. His album Cielo De Terra completely blows me away every time I hear it. It is, to me, right up there with Julian Bream seminal guitar masterpiece Twentieth Century Guitar.

7. The Edge

When I was a kid my buddy Chris Sacco, a fine guitarist in Houston, turned me on to U2. This guys sound is so completely original and instantly identifiable. He is the poster-boy for the three strong traits of signature, influence, and taking the guitar past where you got it. When he plays it doesn’t even sound like a guitar. It sounds like a piano, or it sounds like the hills of Ireland. His playing is so beautiful it evokes visuals, like a soundtrack to a movie. Simply unbelievable.

8. Ted Green

In the guitar community Ted Greene is like our Yoda. Every great guitarist I ever met, or took lessons from, had his book Chord Chemistry. He dedicated his life to the guitar and his approach was so thorough and deep and profoundly affected so many of us that love the guitar. The first time I heard his arrangement of Send in the Clowns by Stephen Sondheim I wept. He had the same effect on me that John Coltrane and Bach have, and that is some very heavy company for a humble guitarist like Ted Greene who put out one LP called Solo Jazz Guitar in 1971. Ted is the best of the best and pretty much the reason I made this list.

9. Prince

This list is about signature and style. No one tops this cat when it comes to originality and taking the game to a new level. Growing up with Princes music, I always knew he had something unique and special, but it wasn’t until seeing him perform live that I realized what a burning guitarist he was. You can hear his influence in a lot of guitar players and to me Prince is a guitarists guitarist, as well as a rock star. I hear a lot of his influence in Steve Vai’s style. And Steve is one bad dude himself.
10. Pat Martino

Pat Martino is a class act, and has been from day one. He had the moxie and the courage to move to Harlem as a kid and make a name for himself. Like Allan he has his own system and approach to improvising and it is profound. His playing strikes me as someone who loses their mind and comes from their senses. Some Jazz improvisors come across as a little cerebral for me. Pat’s playing always hits you in the gut. My friend Fred Hamilton shared with me recently how Pat explained improvising to him and the students at my Alma Mater UNT. It was profound, based on the seasons. There are twelve notes in the chromatic scale and there are twelve months in a year. He based his system on the way he heard it, and that’s what this list is about.
11. Billy Gibbons

The reverend Billy G. My first guitar hero. This guy is so fucking cool I don’t know what to say. I grew up in Houston, and Billy is Houston. He is so down home, groovy, and always has the best guitar tones . I always say its better to be tasty than trendy. Everything about Billy and his playing is genuine and stands the test of time. I started out with the blues and no matter how far away I strayed, every time I hear this man play the guitar I remember where I came from, and what its all about.
12. Chris Carrington

As I stated previously I have based this list on the “Wow Factor”. I have spent a considerable amount of my years studying classical guitar. I like the discipline. Its like gourmet cooking, fine wine, or building a ship in a bottle. It requires dedication, preparation, and perseverance. The first time I heard Chris play was when he was touring with Al Dimeola. Several years later I was eating in a Lebanese restaurant in Dallas with my girlfriend there was this guitarist over in the corner, and everything he was playing just popped, and had this swagger to it. It was outrageously different than most stuffy sounding classical guitarists. It was so good, it was distracting me from being able to eat. So I went over to introduce myself and when he said his name I immediately realized who he was and I said, “What are you doing in Dallas?” He replied “I live here.” We’ve become good friends and he built me a wonderful guitar. It still doesn’t change the fact every time I hear him play I go “Wow!” Here is a testimony to his “Wow Factor.” One night on Lemmon Ave. in Dallas Chris was playing in an Italian restaurant and Al Dimeola, Paco De Lucia, and John Mclaughlin walked in. Hows that for pressure? If I remember right, Chris tells me he went in the kitchen to hide or something and the owner made him come out and play. Al Dimeola asked for his number and the rest is history.

I want to close here in saying that this list is in no way definitive. Its just the top twelve guitarists that impacted me. I encourage you to make your own list. Not of just guitar players, but of the people that impacted your life. You are the five people you hang around the most. You can learn a lot about yourself from doing something like this. I chose twelve because there are twelve notes in music, twelve months in a year, and twelve eggs in a dozen. Its just a cool number and making it was a lot of fun. These guitarists are not in any specific order. Any one could be in any order they are just the twelve that came to mind extemporaneously as I wrote this blog.

What’s with all these Italian guitar virtuoso’s?

I grew up in Houston Texas in a neighborhood called Timbergrove Manor. Four of my good friends growing up were Italians. Chris Sacco, Nick Russo, Louie Romano, and Sam Zarzana. Chris Sacco lived just a few blocks from me and is one of my best friends. We both started playing the guitar at the same time. Chris was what I would consider kind of a natural on the guitar. He just seemed to pick it up and get it sounding good right away. Not the case with me, it was a damn battle, from the get go rhythm and playing by ear did not come easy. I eventually got some lessons and stuck to it and about three to four years in, saw some great results.

This was my first inkling that there’s something going on with these Italians and guitars. As I found my way collecting records and transcribing guitar solos, I again noticed great Italian guitarists everywhere. Check out this short list that just came to me extemporaneously as I am writing this:

1. Al Dimeola
2. Pat Martino
3. Frank Zappa
4. Bucky Pizzarelli
5. Steve Vai
6. Joe Satriana
7. John Petrucci
8. Joe Diori
9. Tommy Tedesco

All of these guys are monsters and over the years I have noticed an inordinate amount of Paisano’s that can play the hell out of the guitar. I guess It just kinda makes sense, since Italians love life, music, food, and drama. In which music plays a major role. I was reminded of this again last night when my friend sent me this crazy video of an eight year old Italian guitar prodigy taking care of business. Lucciano Pizzichini is his name and he’s only nine in this video playing a nice version of Stella by Starlight.

Pretty cool eh?
Eric

In the Studio

I realized another vision yesterday during a recording session with Pat Peterson yesterday at my friend Eric Delegard’s studio Reeltime Audio. I first heard Pat several years ago when my friend photographer James Bland introduced us backstage at a John Mellencamp performance. I was moved by her performance and it was just a matter of time before I would write something and her vocals would come to mind. She has a presence and a style you remember when you hear her. She was a Rayette with Ray Charles, sings with The Stones and Tom Petty and John Mellencamp and too many to mention here. All around great musician. Plays the piano very well. We collaborated on my new single which I will be doing a video for with Mike Cevallos in Austin. Stay tuned

The Perfect Day

Ben Franklin was my first hero.

I read his book The Art of Virtue when I was a kid.
Ben felt a perfect day was:

8 hours of work
8 hours of play
and lastly 8 hours of sleep

3 x 8 = 24 hours

That is so elegant and simple, how many of us do this though?

Furthermore if you do what you love, you will never work a day in your life. I am so glad I read that when I was young.

Life is about balance and what is more balanced than Ben’s perfect day.

Stop working so much! Being a workaholic is not something to be proud of. Workaholics for example, lack balance. Imbalance is a weakness that sooner or later causes problems. The first problem is consistency in performance.

Much Love,

Eric

Create Music Video and win $500

Looking for an aspiring videographer to create a music video for my new single “Reign Falls”. Since the track has the right kind of “oomph”, I am looking for a video that captures the spirit of this song, which is about staying true to yourself at all costs and overcoming all obstacles. The winning video will be awarded $500! The deadline for the contest is August 15th.

Click on the following underlined link below to play the song!

Eric Invades the UK

Got a cool little boost in exposure in the UK when my album cover was used in an advertising campaign for Samsung cell phones. Thought you’d get a kick out of this. My friend Aaron Pendland has been working with a client developing music software for mobile phones, and they recently launched a service in the UK with CarPhoneWarehouse (the UK branch of Best Buy). They needed some album cover thumbnails displayed in the software on the promotions, so he loaded it up with my albums. They had it on a bunch of in-store posters/banners and the like. It was pretty quick turn around stuff but always good to get the word out. I wondered why my iTunes sales had spiked.

Here is a look at one of the ads:

What do you think? Leave your opinion below in the comments!

Tags: ads, best buy, carphonewarehouse, itunes, promotion, UK

The Joy of playing Live.

I am the luckiest guy in the world in that I get to do what I love for a living. Of course I also realize that hard work brings a lot of luck and for 27 years I have “wrassled” and tugged away at my guitar to try and get it to do what I hear in my head.

My friend Clint Strong told me you should always try and be the worst guy in your band. That was good advice as you always want to be on your toes and what better way than have some heavy cats in your corner and with you on the dais. I also work hard on my guitar so it’s challenge I enjoy that bring’s out the best in me as a player.

Here is some footage from a recent show with some of my favorite guys to play with; John Carruth a great drummer and a hell of a listener. He hears everything and John and bassist Mikel Combs have a long history of playing together and it shows. Pete Weise is another excellent guitarist with great tone and timbres. His style is very different than mine. I remember that is something that Mikel used to encourage us to capitalize on early on in rehearsals. Enjoy!

All The Best,

Eric

Show Recap: At The Boiler Room with The Non’s & The 71′s

I had a great time playing at The Boiler Room last week. We tried out some new tunes and it was great to see so many good friends and make some new ones. We played with two good bands – The Non’s from Oklahoma and The 71′s from my hometown Houston, TX.

The 71′s had some serious gear and speaking of gear can you believe I am down to just one amp right now? My beloved Kendrick built for me by Gerald Weber in Plugerville. No worries as I put some money down on a killer amp built in Germany a Bogner “Ecstacy” I have to tell you it sounds great and I am excited.

There is a great joke I love;

“Heaven, is where the Germans are the engineers, the Italians are the lovers, the French are the cooks and the English are the administrators.”

“Hell, is where the English are the cooks, the Italians are the administrators, The Germans are the lovers and the French are the Engineers.”

Fun stuff,

Since I was between “amps” I borrowed my good friend and master engineer Eric Delegard’s Peavey Classic 50 and ran my trustworthy Ibanez “Tube Screamer” through it. That little amp is a monster as you can hear.

Well I just wanted to say thanks to everyone for coming out and I have some very exciting news coming on the Horizon as well as shows coming up in Austin, Houston, Dallas and Oklahoma.

All in the name of Rock and Roll,

Eric

http://www.erickeyes.com

Tags: boiler room, concert, denton, live music, show, show review

One Man’s opinion…

The last post I wrote “Keep Denton Beard” was received with all kinds of fireworks after I published it. The only post I received more mail on was “Learning to Love Yourself”

The responses were about even with a lot of support about what I was saying as well as a lot of negative responses especially critical of my music and that if my music is what practicing produces then by all means “Let’s Keep Denton Beard”

I found the responses cute and fun and ranging from the absurd to downright hilarious. You have to remember only 3 things happen when you put art out there, people either:

1. Love it
2. Hate it
3. Don’t give a damn

Focus on the ones that Love what you are doing because the rest is pretty much a waste of your time. People that “hate” your music are great as well because they will do more to spread the word about you than anyone. Hate as I mentioned before just means “I don’t understand”

I used to “hate” Algebra, I failed it four times in a row

I just didn’t understand it.

If someone hates me I know that they love me because “hate” is a deeply embedded emotion rooted in envy and jealousy. It also has it’s roots in resentment as well.

The 3rd group that just “doesn’t give a damn” could careless anyway and and converting the mind of apathy is a lost cause. This is where I was going in the rant in my last post.

I have sensed this mood of apathy in the music business ever since the “grunge era” and I am honest enough to say I don’t care for it and call me old school but I think it is sad. I come from an era where you work at your craft with an undying zeal and passion. My heroes where guys like Frank Zappa and Duke Ellington, John Coltrane, Bach, Ted Greene, Allan Holdsworth, Eric Dolphy, David Byrne, Salvador Dali, Yngwie Malmsteen and the list goes on and on.

Just because it became popular to be “grungy” I didn’t grow a goatee, put a sock on my head and get a flannel shirt and act like I couldn’t play my guitar.

It’s not always about technique either, however attitude is a great equalizer and can make for leaps and bounds when it comes to art. I have to be honest, when “grunge” became the “music du jour” I didn’t get it right away.

But when Kurt Cobain went on Headbanger’s ball in a dress, he won me over. That took balls and moxie and it needed to happen. Metal had become fake, plastic, all about hair and leather pants and shallow subject matter. Bono from U2 said the first time he saw “Nirvana” live it was like standing next to a “nuclear bomb” exploding.

I like that analogy and he was right.

Rock Music is all about “attitude”

Great Rock Music is 1% technique and 99% attitude.

Kurt understood that and I respect him for it. But then it became cool to be “grunge” Oh yes it did and I was right there to watch so many bands “change their tune” Even bands like Soundgarden and Pearl Jam who were definitely not original grunge acts. They cut their hair and got on the bandwagon right away. If you listen to the early Pearl Jam and Soundgarden records they were Metal bands until they got caught in the wave.

I know there is a lot of truth to what i was saying because it caused such a firestorm of e-mails and responses on both sides of the fence. I don’t a fuck what anyone thinks of me so I can write from the heart and just be real. I wonder how many people can truly do that? I know it’s not easy being radically honest but it’s a hell of a lot easier than being fake.

As I said in my previous post, “Who am I to call someone else’s, noise “noise”. I also stated that opinion’s are like assholes, everyone has one. Furthermore who am I or anyone else for that matter to judge anybody.

It is perfectly just to say that I prefer not to listen to something and to go on from there and just do your thing. It’s just that I love the times I remember being able to go out in Denton and there was a thriving music scene. In all fairness to this town it is still way better here than almost everywhere else. There is an overall wave of apathy and mediocrity in our culture that has been going on for too long now. It is time for a change and I know change happens in the underground. After I watched the American Music Awards I knew we had hit an all time low.

I love the way Jack White displays his “attitude” in the movie “It Might Get Loud” it brings him right into the picture with Jimmy Page and The Edge. It’s not all about technique, it’s not all about attitude. Their is a yin and a yang to it.

However it’s never about apathy…

Learning how to play your instrument never goes out of style.

Style never goes out of style, when you leave your home, it’s a choice.

It says something about you.

All the best,

Eric

Come see the show tonight…

Allan Holdsworth Live
Thu, Dec 10th DENTON, TX
Venue: Dan’s Silver Leaf
103 Industrial Road,
Denton TX 76201
Phone: 940.320.2000
www.danssilverleaf.com

Keep Denton Beard?

“The beginning of Wisdom, is to call things by their right names”

-Ancient Chinese Proverb

Never have we lived in such a time of “political correctness”

And I have to tell you something, I have had enough and what do we have to show for it?

Everyone is so concerned with what everyone else is thinking that no one is real anymore. They are afraid to say what is truly on their minds. They fear that they will not be liked and that they will offend somebody. There is no responsibility and for that matter as well no accountability.

I could count the times I have watched the show “American Idol” on one hand, but I can tell you this. I like Simon Cowell, I instantly liked him and recognized why he is such a polarizing figure. He is honest and I appreciate that in these times of not wanting to “hurt anyone’s feelings.”

A lot of these kids going on the show have no idea that they simply put “suck”

Their parents loved them so they said “Oh Honey, you sound great, you have a beautiful voice.”
Their friends did not want to hurt their feelings or offend them so they uttered similar platitudes. All the while their voice teacher and music teacher did not want to lose them as a client and or “hurt their feelings”, so they drag out the dishonesty and it goes on and on.

On to the extent that they arrive at this show thinking they are prepared for the big time. Think about this, then Simon looks them in the eye and gives them a dose of Radical Honesty and they cry like a baby or get mad at him and call him a rude pompous asshole.

I would argue the “rude pompous assholes” are the family members and peers and teachers who did not have the spine to tell them the truth. If your going to love somebody, love them from strength. There is nothing wrong with criticism if it is meant to build. It can even be done this way.

If you don’t have anything good to say don’t say anything.

That’s not my style (obviously) but it can be very effective.

Look, “Suck” is not truly a bad word, it just means you have not grown up yet. It means you are a baby. We all suck at some point, that is where the word comes from. A baby pig is called a “suckling”, why? because it sucks on the mothers tit, that is where this comes from.

In nature do you think a mother or father in the animal kingdom will not encourage a baby to leave the nest when it’s time? Hell no, it would be cruel so they make them leave the nest, in nature it is the survival of the fittest. There is a great saying from Africa that I love;

“Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must outrun the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the slowest gazelle, or it will starve. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a lion or gazelle – when the sun comes up, you’d better be running.”

One of the greatest lessons I ever learned was from my Classical guitar teacher. I had started to do pretty well in lessons and then I got lazy and did not practice one week. I went to my lesson completely unprepared. At the beginning of my lesson it became obvious to my teacher when I did not even have the piece memorized. He got up, walked out of the lesson and went to his garage and starting working on guitars. He refused to waste his time and went to doing something useful with his time. He didn’t say a word to me, he didn’t need to…

I got the message, it never happened again and I still remember that lesson like it was yesterday and that was over 15 years ago.

That gets me to today’s business at hand. I live in a town heralded for it’s music scene. It is one of the reasons I chose to live here and stick around as long as I did and not move to Austin. In the town I live in there is supposedly this thriving music scene and I have seen it wilting right before my eyes. I have seen it boil down to something that was going on in Austin 20 years ago.

Remember the movie “Slacker”

Well history is starting to repeat itself all over again. Once again it is fashionable to be a “hack” and hardly be able to play your instrument. To dress like a slob and to not shave and look like a Sasquatch.

Here is a definition of slacker:

Slackers, understood mostly as males in their twenties and thirties, may be regarded as belonging to an antimaterialistic counterculture, though in many cases their behavior may merely be due to apathy or laziness.

I like that last part “though in many cases their behavior may be due to apathy or laziness”

That is hitting the nail on the head.

That is the problem I have with this whole “Keep Denton Beard” movement. Even going as far as to have it as a slogan catchphrase of a music festival that is simply a carbon copy of SXSW.

Keep Denton Beard?

Paleeez!

Egad! I saw one of the most heralded bands of the “Keep Denton Beard” movement recently. I went with an open mind and heart and watched the entire set. Just to make sure i wasn’t being judgmental or biased I shared a youtube video of this bands performance to several friends. I showed a well known music producer friend of mine, I showed a sexy red-head friend of mine that simply loves all kinds of music, I showed a 14 year old high school kid, a 16 year old. I even forwarded the video to friends in Houston, Portland, Austin and Germany.

Everyone of them said in one way or another, “Eric, that sucks, why are you showing me this?”

“The beginning of Wisdom, is to call things by their right names”

I realize that art is subject to a lot of different perspectives and opinions. And I realize opinions are like assholes, everybody has one. At the end of the day, who am I to call someone else “noise” “noise”

But damn it’s hard to hold back on this one and I am just being honest. I even read an article in the paper about one of these bands just last week. In the article this band said this, straight up; “We actually barely ever practice, If you practice too much it has a very negative effect on our live performance” In the article they also stated that the band had a show in 3 weeks that it was purposely not going to practice for.

Zeeeesh!

In the book “Outliers” the brilliant author Malcolm Gladwell takes a look at what defines success specifically in the sense of practice being essential in addition to your family and culture and even the time you were born in. Behavioral Psychologist have come up with an observation that it takes about 10,000 hours of focused practice to become an expert at something.

To accomplish expertise in an endeavor that breaks down to practicing 3 hours a day for 10 years. I have definitely done that with my guitar. In the book Malcolm tells the story about how the Beatles took a gig playing at a Strip Club in Hamburg Germany that required them to play 8 hours a day. Almost all the other bands turned down the gig because of the work involved. Not the Beatles, they were hungry, they wanted to play and they wanted girls. They took the gig, at one point Paul and John sat down and wrote 50 songs in one day. They started learning covers and they had this gig they saw as being paid to practice for the greater part of a year. 8 hours a day for the greater part of a year. Then they came to America and the rest is history. They were ready…

So I am calling this latest movement and or fad of “Keep Denton Beard” for exactly what it is:

BULLSHIT

You go right ahead and grow your beard out, get drunk at Lucky Lou’s all day, put on your wood shop glasses and don’t practice. Let’s see where you are in 10 years. Oh, I almost forgot I already know where you will be in 10 years, doing the same thing I saw you doing 10 years ago, and ten years before that. Slacking

Striving to be the best you can be never goes out of style. Imagine a lawyer that had a case in 3 weeks and said to his client. Oh, I am not going to prepare at all for your case. Let’s just show up in the courtroom and see what happens.

While you guys Keep Denton “Beard”, I am going to continue practicing and sharpening my saw. I am also going to continue to bring the best of the best to town as a friendly reminder of what’s possible. Not only musicians, but Chef’s like Kei Nagano and lawyers like Racehorse Haynes. Grandma said it best when she told me “You are who you hang around.”

It’s great, I like the challenge, you guys remind me of why I hate to be lazy. Superman needs Lex Luthor he inspires him to be the best he can be. Batman needs the Penguin.

You keep Denton Beard, that’s easy…

I am going to keep practicing and hanging around those who do. Let’s see where that gets me in 10 years. I look back at where I was 10 years ago and I feel like the luckiest person in the world. I had to scratch and claw to get there though and I faced some serious “Lex Luthors” along the way. My Grandmother also told me “If it doesn’t kill you it makes you stronger”

Damn I loved her wisdom…

Set your beard down and come by the Silver Leaf this Thursday night. I guarantee you will see what happens when you do practice. Also take a look at the audience and watch the effect on the audience when they are witnessing someone who practices.

I rest my case…

Much Practice,

Eric Keyes
eric@erickeyes.com

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Some Thoughts on a few things…

Ever since elementary school I have chose to be “alive” rather than just “live”

This has caused a myriad of challenges especially for my parents and most of my teachers.

I had straight F’s in conduct from 1st grade to 6th grade across the board and the principal of Sinclair Elementary school, Mrs Deubel hated me and I am very proud of that fact. Especially the fond memories surrounding her face tightening like a prune at the very sight of me in her office.

You see the reason she hated me is because she couldn’t control me or figure me out. Hate just means “you don’t understand”. As a kid I found it humiliating to sit at a desk and be trained like a sheep to work in a factory one day. Even early in life my instincts just told me to fight the conformity of the whole thing. I remember Mrs. Murray who I gave a lot of grief to (I even glued her shoes to the floor) going on a rant about how “evil” the Pink Floyd song “Another Brick in The Wall” was. She was specifically upset with the lyrics in the chorus “We don’t need no education”

I so identified with that song and rock and roll at the time because it is about rebellion. How can you not rebel in an education system designed to train you to work in a factory and become a member of the herd. The bell rings and then they herd you to the next class. Everyone goes to the bathroom at the same time and to lunch at the same time. You have to ask permission to go to the bathroom?

Kids that are bright tend to stick out from the herd and are punished for being a “Problem Child”.
A great AC/DC song by the way. The nail that sticks up is the one that gets hammered down. In the system the hammer comes way of Ritalin or some other drug or a convenient label like ADD. ADD is such a complete crock it frustrates me to no avail. I am very lucky in I get to do what I love for a living. Play my guitar, I am a teacher first and Player second.

I see so many bright kids humiliated by the system it breaks my heart. I do everything in my power at my guitar dojo to be a light and show them a way out through music. The word educate is derived from the latin word “edu” which means to “draw out of”. The exact opposite happens in our system. Some legislators get together and decide what they are going to project on to the minds of our youth. They are not concerned with their individuality and well being.

I had someone I thought was a good teacher helping me teach while my mom was ill for a while. When I came back and took over I discovered I was wrong. This person was just like the legislators (all about themselves). Deciding what the student will be learning. This person even told me one time about this young girl that has become amazing now that I am back. “I am not teaching her ‘Linkin Park’ I refuse to teach her that trash”. I took a different route and used the music she loved to inspire and motivate her and lead her on to great things. Her and her Mother both commented to me that they like my approach and results better. They even signed her brother up with me who had been taking lessons from someone else for years.

I don’t tell you any of this to impress you, but to impress upon you the true value of being real and being a teacher that listens to the student. Not a narcissist that projects on to them what they think the student should be.

This is precisely why I am going to home school my children. I have worked with a lot of home schooled children over the years and the difference is phenomenal. I know firsthand of this.

Almost everything you hear in our society is bullshit. For example;

“Those who can do, those who can’t teach”

Absolute bullshit! Some of the greatest teachers I have ever had were incredible doers. That precisely why I am one, I was very lucky and I learned from the best.

My classical guitar teacher Chris Carrington is a hell of a guitar player. The best I have heard and I have heard a lot of them. My Brazilian jiu-jitsu instructor Carlos Machado is one of the best teachers on the planet. He also can do it and is a world champion. I have seen him tap out black belts from all over in just minutes.

Everyone is a teacher rather they know it or not and the first person you must learn to educate is yourself. When you have children you are a teacher. In your relationships you are a teacher. You are a teacher to your team and employees and co-workers and even your friends.

Here is where the difference lies:

There is a huge difference between those who can DO and those who can TEACH what they do.

There is the calibration and where the origins of the aforementioned bullshit phrase true meaning was lost.

So with that being said let me teach you something fun about one of my favorite subjects;

Food.

When I first moved to Dallas/FW there were 3 real Japanese restaurants that served sushi.
Royal Tokyo, Mr. Sushi and Hana. My best friend Jim Taylor took me to eat sushi after a Judo tournament and I fell in love with the cuisine and the culture. This was in the early 90′s and in the almost twenty years since then I have educated myself to a level I could never have imagined. I even became involved in bringing a real authentic Japanese restaurant Keiichi to my hometown Denton, TX.

Over the years Sushi restaurants have exploded in popularity so much that it is threatening the stocks of many fish and the great fisheries on our planet. Japan just signed a treaty to cease harvesting Blue Fin Tuna. This is sad, there are so many so-called Japanese restaurants in Dallas/FW they are like “dry cleaners” they are everywhere, however very few are even close to being the real deal. Even fewer are owned by real Japanese who uphold the tradition and the honor and respect so essential to it’s history.

The same can be said with Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Because of the quality and effectiveness of the instruction of the Gracie family and their cousins the Machado Brothers. The art has exploded and every school teaches “:Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu now. Why? Because it is popular and will make them money.

You see where I am going with all this? Back to the herd mentality we see in the schools.

Truly get to know things, especially yourself, go to the heart, to your core and always leave your ego at the door.

It is inevitable that things evolve, Japanese cuisine will evolve as well as Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu will evolve. I understand that but get to know the history and respect it and learn it’s origins.

Here are some keys to truly getting to know Japanese cuisine.

When you go to a sushi restaurant sit at the sushi bar. This way you can interact with the chef and have a much more intimate experience. One of the reasons this is important is so that the chef hands you what he makes immediately and you can eat it while fresh. If the sushi is sitting there waiting for a waitress to notice it and then getting around to bringing it to to you.

The nori (seaweed) gets soggy and this makes for a much more unpleasant experience.

I remember talking with my friend Dr. Jeff Viaclovsky about this phenomena years ago in Austin at Mushashino in Austin. I remember up and coming chef Tyson Cole who used to be at Kyoto lighting up and agreeing with me from behind the bar. With that kind of sensitivity I knew he was going places and he sure has. He has his own sushi restaurant in Austin now called “Uchi” which means house in Japanese. It is excellent.

Here is a great subtle way to see if you are dealing with a real Japanese chef. Order a Kanpyo roll, Kanpyo is a Japanese pickled pumpkin that is pickled and marinated. It has a wonderful aroma and salty sweet taste. If he looks at you like you are crazy and he doesn’t know what it is. You are not at a real Japanese restaurant.

If the restaurant uses fake crabmeat Kani-Kama run for the hills. This is a sign that they are cheap and focusing on profit not quality. Authenticity and quality are essential to the Japanese and no chef with any type of respect for himself and his customers would try and pawn that crap off as a substitute for crabmeat.

Inside out rolls are another sign to watch out for. This started as a way to hide that they are using cheap nori or nori that is not fresh. Nori should be crisp and pop in your mouth. This is my favorite subtlety in Japanese cuisine. This is why I always order hand rolls, I want the seaweed on the outside. If it is chewy and you have to pull at it with your teeth it is not fresh at all.

Order Natto, a delectable Japanese dish that is fermented soybeans and has a coffee like flavor and aroma. It is incredibly good for you and can be ordered in a roll or with tuna.

My favorite is Bakudan, Natto with Japanese Yam, Nori and quail egg.

If they have none of these things you are not at a real Japanese restaurant and you do not know what you are missing. The essence of this wonderful food is in the details and it is a shame that it’s true meaning and delicate subtleties are getting lost in the pop-culture popularity of sushi these days.

By the way sushi just means “with rice” anyone that that mistakenly believes sushi means raw has a lot of catching up and learning to do.

Until Next Time,

Much Love,

Eric

Some thoughts on a few things…

Yesterday I went by myself to see the movie “It Might Get Loud”

Go see it, it was spectacular and inspiring and incredibly revealing.

It is a documentary on Jimmy Page, The Edge from U2 and Jack White.

I also had a chance to watch “Tyson” a documentary by James Toback.

WOW!

What an amazing story and what a great man his original trainer Constantine D’amato was.

Mike Tyson is a prime example of how the media in this country distorts the truth and spins it.

Even I had some stupid pre-conceived notions about Mike and I have never met him.
What brought me around is Tony Robbins who I have met several times was asked by Canadian talk show host George Stroumboulopoulos:

“Who is the most amazing person you have ever met”

That’s a great question to ask Tony as he has met some amazing people. He has worked with Mother Teresa, Nelson Mandela, Princess Diana, Bill Clinton and scores of others.

I heard Bono from U2 mention that his interview with George was the best he had ever done.

So George asks some great questions.

Tony’s reply was quick and decisive and very pointed, he said:

“Without a doubt Mike Tyson”

Watch the movie, you will see what I mean.

I interviewed Erotic film star Luc Wylder for the Lion’s Den last week. It was refreshing to hear such honesty and to talk to someone so real. We live in a state full of Wholesome Pretenders and Erotic Hypocrites. The one exception in our state is Austin. Austin is weird and about the only “loophole” in the bible belt. Luc is a member of the Free Speech Coalition, the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom, and a supporting member of the American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors and Therapists (AASECT). Luc is also a great businessman and a pioneer in e-commerce on the internet.

The average person tells 3 lies every ten minutes in conversation. We live in a nation of liars.

Professor Benjamin Edelman of The Harvard Business School published a study of Anonymised Credit Card receipts from a major online adult entertainment provider. He found the most conservative states with the most conservative laws were the ones downloading the most porn.

Look up the study and read it, I did, just google Professor Benjamin Edelman.

Once again the most outraged turn out to be the consumers of the very thing they are outraged by. I love challenging hypocrites and I do it every time I get the chance.

Cut up all your credit cards. Then go get a hundred dollar bill at your bank.

If you don’t have a hundred dollars, save up till you do and go get a single hundred dollar bill.

Put it in your wallet or your purse and never break it or spend it. Just keep it on you at all times.

You will never be broke…

Plus you will teach yourself in a clever way to control your spending.
Any money you have above the hundred dollar bill you can spend as you wish. When you get down to where you have spent all your extra cash and you see the hundred dollar bill is all you have left. That’s it, flex your financial muscle at that time and exercise restraint.

This is a great principle and incredibly empowering after you get a few weeks of doing this under your belt.

Save all of your $5 dollar bills. When you get a five; stick it in a different pocket. Stuff it in your safe or a mattress. Hell even open a separate bank account just for $5 dollar bills.

I learned this from a waitress friend of mine that did this in college. She is kind of OCD about things and when she starts something she sticks to it.

She put all of her 5 dollar bills aside and each week she deposited them in a savings account at her bank. She purposely asked the bank not to mail her statements and she never checked the balance. When she graduated from College 3 years after she started doing this she had over $15,000 dollars in that account.

She cried when she told me.

They were tears of Joy.

Much Love,

Eric

The State of The Music Industry

When I was in Junior High School my first girlfriend Paulita Coronado used to listen to John Cougar all the time. She turned me on (literally) and she turned me on to him.

This was years before he started using his real last name Mellencamp. I am glad he did that by the way. It shows he is a maverick and that he just wants to be real. So rare these days.

I am a big fan and my good friend James Bland took me to see him in Dallas a few years ago and I got to go backstage. I even got to meet his backup singer Pat Peterson that lives in Dallas. She has been with John for 25 years and was a “Rayette” before that. That is the name of Ray Charles backup singers.

I have been saying for years how all the radio stations are just advertising set to back ground music. Years ago Redbeard at Q102 in Dallas was honest enough to share with me how radio truly works. I used to religiously attend “music meetings” with him and I guess my persistence moved him in some way because he sat me down one day and just broke it down.

A friend of mine in LA just sent me this article written by John Cougar. This is a rare honest glimpse inside of what has been happening for years from someone who knows what they are talking about. If you are a musician this will open your eyes in a major way. More importantly if you are a fan you will see how little anyone in the music industry cares about what you want.

All Myspace and Facebook are about is farming e-mail addresses and fishing for information about you. Then they can target information to market to you and make a buck. If you can’t see that then it is sad. I hope we all wake up soon out of this wave of narcissism and hey look how cool I am and get back to being real.

God help us if we don’t.

Grab a cup of something wonderful and read this, it is profound:

Much Love,

Eric

On My Mind: The State of the Music Business
by John Mellencamp

Over the last few years, we have all witnessed the decline of the music business, highlighted by finger-pointing and blame directed against record companies, artists, internet file sharing and any other theories for which a case could be made. We’ve read and heard about the “good old days” and how things used to be. People remember when music existed as an art that motivated social movements. Artists and their music flourished in back alleys, taverns and barns until, in some cases, a popular groundswell propelled it far and wide. These days, that possibility no longer seems to exist. After 35 years as an artist in the recording business, I feel somehow compelled, not inspired, to stand up for our fellow artists and tell that side of the story as I perceive it. Had the industry not been decimated by a lack of vision caused by corporate bean counters obsessed with the bottom line, musicians would have been able to stick with creating music rather than trying to market it as well.

During the late 80s and early 90s the industry underwent a transformation and restructured, catalyzed by three distinct factors. Record companies no longer viewed themselves as conduits for music, but as functions of the manipulations of Wall Street. Companies were acquired, conglomerated, bought and sold; public stock offerings ensued, shareholders met. At this very same time, new Nielsen monitoring systems — BDS (Broadcast Data Systems) and SoundScan were employed to document record sales and radio airplay. Prior to 1991, the Billboard charts were done by manual research; radio stations and record stores across the country were polled to determine what was on their playlists and what the big sellers were. Thus, giving Oklahoma City, for example, an equivalent voice to Chicago’s in terms of potential impact on the music scene. BDS keeps track of gross impressions through an encoded system that counts the number of plays or “spins” that a song receives. That number is, thereafter, multiplied by the number of potential listeners. SoundScan was put in place at retail centers to track sales by monitoring scanned barcodes of units crossing the counter. A formula was devised whereby the charts were based 20% on the SoundScan number and 80% on BDS results. The system had changed from one that measured popularity to one that was driven by population.

Record companies soon discovered that because of BDS, they only needed to concentrate on about 12 radio stations; there was no longer a business rationale for working secondary markets that were soon forgotten — despite the fact that these were the very places where rock and roll was born and thrived. Why pay attention to Louisville — worth a comparatively few potential listeners — when the same one spin in New York, Los Angeles or Atlanta, etc., was worth so many more potential listeners? All of a sudden there were #1 records that few of us had ever heard of. At the time we asked ourselves, “Am I out of touch?” We didn’t realize that this was the start of change that would grow to kill, if not the whole of the music business, then most certainly, the record companies.

Reagan’s much-vaunted trickle-down theory said that wealth tricked down to the masses from the elite at the top. Now we’ve found out that this is patently untrue — the current economic collapse reflects this self-serving folly. The same holds for music. It doesn’t trickle down; it percolates up from the artists, from word of mouth, from the streets and rises up to the general populace. Constrained by the workings of SoundScan/BDS, music now came from the top and was rammed down people’s throats.

Early in my career, I wrote and recorded a song called “I Need A Lover” that was only played on just one radio station in Washington, DC the first week it came out. Through much work from local radio reps at the record company, the song ended up on thousands of radio stations. Sing the chorus of “I Need A Lover.” It’s not the best song I ever wrote nor did it achieve more than much more than being a mid-chart hit, but nevertheless, you can sing that chorus. Now sing the chorus of even one Mariah Carey song. Nothing against Mariah, she’s a brilliantly gifted vocalist, but the point here is the way that the songs were built — mine from the ground up, hers from the top down.

By 1997, consumers, now long uninvolved, grew passive, radio stations had to change formats. Creative artistry and the artists, themselves, were now of secondary importance, taking a back seat to Wall Street as the record companies were going public. The artists were being sold out by the record companies and forced to figuratively kiss the asses of their corporate overlords at the time these record companies went public. In essence, the artists were no longer the primary concern; only keeping their stockholders fat and happy and “making the quarterly numbers” mattered; the music was an afterthought.

Long-tenured employees of these companies were sacrificed in the name of profitability and the culture of greed was burned into the brains of even the most serious music lovers. It seemed that paying attention sales, who had the #1 record from one week to next, and who fell or rose on the charts was all that validated music.

One of my best friends in life was Timothy White who had been the editor of Crawdaddy, then Rolling Stone and, finally, Billboard. As a music critic, he championed singers, songwriters and musicians of all stripes. He was a music lover, beloved in the industry and by artists. Timothy, as many of you know, died suddenly, at the age of 50, waiting for an elevator at Billboard’s office in New York. Artists including Don Henley, Brian Wilson, Sheryl Crow, James Taylor, Jimmy Buffett, Roger Waters, Sting and me thought so much of him that two sold-out concerts — one in Boston and one at Madison Square Garden — were produced to raise money to support his widow, Judy, and family that includes their autistic son. Each of you, who care enough to read this, should ask yourself if people would be there to celebrate your life so lovingly as this.

In the early 90s, Tim started talking to me about the new service called SoundScan. Then the editor of Billboard, he was leery about the whole idea, realizing its potential to turn the record business upside down. He was pressured by his boss, publisher Howard Lander, who had warned that if Billboard didn’t buy into SoundScan, its competitor, Hits, would become the premier music industry trade magazine. I remember performing at a City of Hope benefit dinner in 1996 where he and I argued with Howard on the pitfalls of SoundScan and BDS and how there would be consequences that would not be good for the music business once it was embraced. It was a very unpleasant evening.

Let’s pause here to note that the record business has always been known for its colorful characters like Colonel Tom Parker, Ahmet Ertegun, John Hammond, etc. The most important thing is that different artists were able to express themselves in ways that were uniquely original, expressing their hopes and disappointments. That kind of artistic diversity and the embrace of eccentricity made the recording business great. It also made the record business horrifying in some ways. Look at what happened at Stax Records where financial finagling and skullduggery brought a great enterprise to a screeching halt that ended so many brilliant careers.

During the time of the upheaval wrought by SoundScan, BDS and the “Wall Streeting” of the industry, country music seized the opportunity and tacitly claimed the traditional music business. Country has come to dominate the heartland of America, a landscape abandoned or ignored by the gatekeepers of rock and pop. Great new country music stars came from seemingly nowhere to grow to tremendous popularity; think Garth Brooks.

While all this was going on, technology, just as it always does, progressed. That which, by all rights, should have had a positive impact for all of us — better sound quality, accessibility, and portability — is now being blamed for many of the ills that beset the music business. The captains of the industry it seemed, proved themselves incapable of having a broader, more long-range view of what this new technology offered. The music business is very complicated in itself so it’s understandable that these additional elements were not dealt with coherently in light of the distractions that abound. Not understanding the possibilities, they ignorantly turned it into a nightmarish situation. The nightmare is the fact that they simply didn’t know how to make it work for us.

The CD, it should be noted, was born out of greed. It was devised to prop up record sales on the expectation of people replenishing their record collections with CDs of albums they had already purchased. They used to call this “planned obsolesce” in the car business. Sound quality was supposed to be one of the big selling points for CDs but, as we know, it wasn’t very good at all. It was just another con, a get-rich-quick scheme, a monumental hoax perpetrated on the music consuming public.

These days, some people suggest that it is up to the artist to create avenues to sell the music of his own creation. In today’s environment, is it realistic to expect someone to be a songwriter, recording artist, record company and the P.T. Barnum, so to speak, of his own career? Of course not. I’ve always found it amusing that a few people who have never made a record or written a song seem to know so much more about what an artist should be doing than the artist himself. If these pundits know so much, I’d suggest that make their own records and just leave us out of it. Nora Guthrie, Woody’s daughter, once told me a story about a reception she was at where Bob Dylan was in attendance. The business people there were quietly commenting on how unsociable Dylan seemed to them, not what they imagined an encounter with Dylan would be like. When that observation about Dylan’s behavior and disposition were mentioned to Nora, the response was very profound. She said that Bob Dylan was not put on this earth to participate in cocktail chatter with strangers. Bob Dylan’s purpose in life is to write great songs like “Blowin’ in the Wind” and “The Times They Are A’ Changin’.” This sort of sums it all up for me. The artist is here to give the listener the opportunity to dream, a very profound and special gift even if he’s minimally successful. If the artist only entertains you for three and a half minutes, it’s something for which thanks should be given. Consider how enriched all of our lives are made by songs from “Like A Rolling Stone,” a masterpiece, to “The Monster Mash,” a trifle by comparison.

Now that the carnage in this industry is so deep you can hardly wade through it, it’s open season for criticizing artists, present company included, for making a misstep or trying to create new opportunities to reach an audience, i.e., Springsteen releasing an album at Wal-Mart and, yes, we all know what Wal-Mart is about. The old rules and constraints that had governed what was once considered a legitimate artist are no longer valid. When you think about it, you must conclude that there really is no legitimate business; there is no game left.

Sadly, these days, it’s really a matter of “every man for himself.” In terms of possibilities, we are but an echo of what we once were. Of course, the artist does not want to “sell out to The Man.” Left with no real choice except that business model of greed and the bean counting mentality that Reagan propagated and the country embraced, there is only “The Man” to deal with. There is no street for the music to rise up from. There is no time for the music to develop in a natural way that we can all embrace when it ripens and matures. That’s why the general public doesn’t really care. It’s not that the people don’t still love music; of course they do. It’s just the way it is presented to them that ignores their humanity.

If we have any hope for survival of the music that we all love, compassion must replace name-calling, fairness must replace greed and we need to come together as a musical community and try to understand each other’s problems. I once suggested to Don Henley, many years ago after I had left Polygram, that we should form an artist-driven record label, much like Charlie Chaplin did with the movies when he, more than 90 years ago, joined forces with Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks to form United Artists. Don’s response was correct. He said that trying to get artists and business people together to work for the common good of everyone involved is akin to herding cats. When all is said and done, unfortunately, it’s not really about the music or the artist. It’s about you and your perception of yourself and how you think things ought to be. And we all know that this very rarely intersects with what actually is. Just because you think this is how it should be only makes it just that: what you think; it doesn’t make it true. So let’s try to put our best foot forward and remember that anyone can stand in the back of a dark hall and yell obscenities but if you want a better world it starts with you and the things you say and do.

Going down South

We played a show in my Hometown of Houston, TX Saturday night at The Continental Club.
I love the venue and there is a lot of great history there. Whenever my friends come to Texas I will book them there and it always is a great time with an audience that is about one thing.

The Music…

There are not a lot of clubs like that these days especially in the present environment. Rudy Ray Moore played a show there a few years back and I even booked Blowfly there earlier this year. My friend Chris Sacco performs there as well as David Garza and Allan when he comes to Texas. Here is a pic from the show an audience member e-mailed us:

Pete, Mike, Damascus and John all sounded great and it was a fun show. I still cannot believe how humid Houston is, it is unreal. The best part was that my Mom and Dad came out. I got them a table in the back of the club and brought them 2 of the clubs legendary BBQ sandwiches. I met this cool cat named Hank after show the show. He kept telling me I should play the accordion? Well it turns out during the show my Mom and Dad kept telling him I should play the accordion. My mom’s love of polka and Czech culture never stops.

The band we were on the bill with was “Hot Club of Cowtown” and they were excellent. They were great folks and the guitar player Whit was phenomenal. He played a Gibson L-5 through a little vintage Gibson Amp and it was some of the best Western Swing Jazz I have heard. Elana the fiddler who shares vocal duties with Whit was tearing it up as well. She brings an intensity with her to the stage that is a spark. She toured with Bob Dylan for a few years and tells a great story about the realization that brought to her as a performer.

Here is a pic:

If you look carefully you can see me behind Whit (the guitarist) checking out the show side stage. The bass player Jake was slamming as well and lives in Dallas.

Get their new CD, I did and it is excellent.

The photos are courtesy of a cool music aficionado Gary Weiss that bought our CD and came to say say hello after the show. Thanks Gary, it’s funny he was honest and admitted he didn’t know what to think because our music was so different than Hot Club. Gary is an Oncologist based in Houston and has great taste in music. Here we are after the show:

My band is this Electric, funky, bluesy fusion with rock songs and then you have straight up Western Swing Jazz. I like it like that as music is music and we have had some “wyrrd” pairings over the years. The strangest booking was with a Klesmer band at Juanita’s in Little Rock Arkansas.

Next time you are in Houston be sure to stop by the Continental Club and while you are there stop by in the back and try the BBQ. It is amazing.