vent2

This page is dedicated to thoughts that tend to provoke me. I will be adding and making changes periodically as my mind wanders.

05/10/08 it is amazing how people view your friends that are "popular", huh. a lot of times i believe it's the mystery of what is unknown about them that continues propel their popularity. you know your friend is the same as everyone else in many ways which i can see why you enjoy this chat about him. what is it that people see or think when they really don't know.

having a few friends that are pretty successful in this industry it is interesting to see what does and does not change. some have hit so big that they literally pushed their past behind them. it's as though everyone are telling them how wonderful they are they don't really want to remember they are human and were once caught with their pants down or picking their nose. some are so nice or you've been through so much with them that nothing ever changes. they are just glad to be around someone who is real with them. some famous people who i didn't even know before they were famous appreciate someone just simply being human to them in that same manner.

hopefully your friend will stay grounded and realize this wave of popularity usually last just a short while. be there for him/her when he/she comes down as most always do. if he/she is lucky and focused he will use it to propel himself to another gig so he/she can continue riding his/her good luck into a career. if he/she is smart he/she will take whatever money he/she is making, if any, and invest in something more permanent that will make him/her money regardless of where his/her music career is.

07/07/07 No Complaints Tour is what we (Palomar) called our last tour I just got back from. If anyone complained about anything a dollar must be added to the envelope. Well, no complaints were really necessary as it was a great tour though some how we collected $18. It must have been the fact that our air conditioner was broken when we traveled from Atlanta to Houston with stops in between.

he shows were great. We played well, the energy was high and all in all so were our moods. The last show in DC is really what it was all about though. We have played in that town plenty in smaller venues but never have I ever expected a headline gig to pan out as well as it did. We were on fire I'm proud to say and for some reason we felt we have arrived in some form there.

Thanks to all the bands we played out with especially Say Hi to Your Mom, Voxtrot and the crew in Ypslanti.

02/10/06 Has it really been this long since i've written in this section. all these forums i'm apart of has really let some of my venting out of me. anyway, i more less just got back from NAMM which i had never been before. it's a trade show of all the new music instrument products. all the top endorsers come out to represent their products, sign autographs and give some performances. i guess that is really the big draw to those who come with a friend. you see, you really are not suppose to be in there unless you are a buyer of some sort. none the less, i have my ways.

anyway, i saw more "stars" in one day there than i did on the cover of People Magazine. at the same time it was all the same people that would have been there or on the cover of Modern Drummer/ Bass Player Magazine etc 15 years ago. are there not any "new" great players out there? i guess you could say when i saw Gene Simmons, that pretty much said it all.

i was standing around the GMS booth (which is where i pretty much hung out the entire time) with a friend and great drummer i know from Chapel Hill Nick Campbell and all of a sudden i heard "get out of the way, get out of the way!". nick and i looked at each as if it was some sort of EMT plowing through to help some one. noooo, it was the Gene Simmons' entourage. that dude had some sort of reality show going on and a crew of people circling him to make sure no one got in his way. i think part of it was to make Gene look larger than life compared to the other 'stars'. he later did some sort of improv jam session with former Kiss drummer Eric Singer and this young singer guy who i assume is the reason for what will be in his next reality show as with Gene Simmons' School of Rock. they crashed and burned by the way. well, the next time i heard 'get out of way!' i didn't move and i elbowed the dude who plowed into me. funny thing is GMS' Rob Mazzella saw the whole thing and said 'that a boy, fuck those guys'. i guess my old school oi' boy came out in full force. i just can't stand the fact that some of these 'stars' forget they are just as FOS as the rest of us.

all in all it was a great time as i got to hang out with my great friend and producer/neuromance member Erik Colvin and our old friend from college Eric Aho (who is now a soundtrack artist). i haven't seen him in 13 years so it was amazing catching up. as well i saw my old roomate from atlanta Sunny Mag and college friend and Puya drummer Eduardo Paniagua. check out the pics in the gallery section.

08/20/05 this is meant as a joke as i was listening to a bunch of friends of mine complaining to me about drummers and their ways so i added......

i hate when a drummer does have good time that the band thinks that he/she is a machine to jam over with wanking masterbation solos.

come on, maybe book some where better then "Joe Schmoe's Tarvern" in Bumble**** and maybe then we don't have to be so "flakey" when it's time for the gig.

maybe we should just quit now before the recording even happens so when the producer decides he'd rather have his brother or best friend be on your album, you don't just bail and use the classic line, "well, they are my songs".

forget it, just pay me now because though you find it necessary to try to tell us how to play most of you can't write your way out of a paper bag and the songs will be lucky to see more than a 10 mile radius outside your practice space.

08/01/05 Check out this discussion.

05/18/05 what exactly is your definition? i find it interesting how quickly that term is used. my definition is basically doing something that you don't find artistically satisfying but you do it anyway for fame and/or financial gain.

i think it is different then having artistic credibility. though you need to have integrity in order to have artistic credibility.

at the same time, just because you don't sell out doesn't mean your music is even remotely interesting, though it may be.

if someone truly loves a particular kind of music, then playing it doesn't make one a sell out. it may just mean you have bad taste.

04/19/05 alot of things have been going on. we (palomar) have just gotten back from tour and recorded a lo-fi demo ep. i'm blown away about the radio response. it actually has been added to more stations than Palomar 3.

my great aunt's 90th birthday is this weekend so i'm going to catch up with alot of family. she's not the oldest though. my great-grandmother's sister is still alive at 96. speaking of family, my dad is going to come see me play for the first time ever this weekend in philly. kinda a strange that he never has but if you knew him you may not think so. i'm going to get to see alot of cousins i haven't seen for sometime at this party. sure is funny how much fun family can be once your older. i remember when i was 17 i would almost dread to go to something think this. now i'm just as exicited as i was leaving for tour last month.

speaking of that, SXSW was a lot of fun. as brockett says it was Spring Break for rockers. sometimes i feel the bands are just a background for all the industry people to schmooze. i was actually talking to someone about that while i was down there and she just started laughing. come to find out, last year's SXSW was where she got her current job. all in all it was still a good time and i was glad to be there.

i'm babbling so much i'm sounding like my daughter KJ.

02/11/05 well it's amazing that it has been this long before i've had something else to say. the holiday season was fun catching up with family and friends. it made me realize how sad it is that most of us spend most of our time not with family. sure you may see your brothers or sisters or mom or dad if you still live with them, but if not?? my mom worked at this place for 35 years with mostly the same people and i was thinking, ever since i moved out she has spent nearly 100x more hours with them then she has with me. not saying that's not the way life goes, but it is strange that you have to special days (holidays) to get together with the people you love.

11/03/04 i can't believe Bush won. i thought america was smarter than that. i actually thought that churchs would be out of business by the time we were adults. boy was i naive. it scares me how one sided every where was. did you notice how sectional the voting pattern was? Kerry on the coast and Illinois and Bush everywhere else. i actually heard people celebrating over same sex marriages being banned. kinda scary how insecure people are. i wonder if there parents were ones who didn't want people of other ethic backgrounds to move in their neighborhood?

09/09/04 for the most part people who seem to be for the war in iraq are republicans. most republicans i know are considered right wing. most right wingers are christians, so i ask all you christians out there who support the war, including good old Dubya, do think Jesus would lead us into war?

08/30/04 everytime i start feeling kind of down i take a look around and realize i really have nothing to be sad about. i have a beautiful loving family and things on the business side of music have never been better. Palomar's record has come out of the box placing #69 on this week's CMJ playlist and #8 mosted added album. the reviews have been extremely positive other than a few mediocre ones. but really those are all things i can't control either, so i guess i'll just laugh and wonder why it's falling my way as of late.

07/18/04 i really don't have much to say but people are complaining to me that my rants are not frequent enough. i guess really nothing all that exciting has happened in the last 2 months other than the normal family chaos and adventures that i usually like to leave private. one thing though i've been seriously thinking of building up a private lesson clientele again. it's been since my time in atlanta that i taught music on a somewhat regular basis. the problem i have with teaching something i'm passionate about is i never think i'm good or know enough to be doing it. the other problem is, though i do it for the money, if it was money that i was after i would do something else. point being, if a student is not taking what i'm teaching him/her seriously by practicing, it's not worth my time though i am getting paid for it.

one of my favorite experiences to share with people regarding why i stopped teaching is this one 15 year old i taught in NW Atlanta. this kid's house was a southern mansion in the finest form. it was so huge that he even had a private apartment all to himself in the lower level of his parent's house. he was so enthusiastic at first so my gut feeling of him being a spoiled brat was well hidden. the first four lessons he was on fire and did everything as asked and more. then week five kicked in. it was a little bit more difficult of an execise that the other weeks, but not one that needed 4 weeks of practice. and that was just that, by the fourth week i asked this kid, "when do you practice?". he said, "now". my jaw dropped in shock that the kid had that much attitude and cockiness to be so blunt. well i let him know i wasn't here to babysit him and he said, "what do you care, my mom pays you."

well that was the end of the lesson as far as i was concerned so i headed upstairs to receive my pay and as with most parents his parent wanted to hear how wonderful their child was. i let them know that actually he was doing pretty poorly and it was obvious that he wasn't practicing. now knowing my mom, she would have paid the teacher the next week's pay in advance and told him to come back when i got my act together, if i was in his shoes. not this parent, she started making more excuses than i could handle and i had to tell him to give me a call when he was ready. these people think just because they are paying me that i'm going to give my life's work with no effort on the student's part. what they don't realize is that i'm not in it for the money, it's for the love of music and the desire to share it and that her $40 which she probably tosses around like you and i toss around $5, is not worth it.

04/22/04 the other day, jim my good friend and bassist of Geometry/J. Majesty called me up and said, "dude, you'd never guess who's hang'n at the guitar store right now, David Lee Roth." my jaw dropped and as per his instructions i got in my car and drove to the LES to hang with Dave...and i did just that.... all night, for that matter. at first we were just hanging in the streets why some people gaucked (sp?) and asked for photo ops, Dave at that point became Diamond Dave giving the fans what they want. after an hour or so there jim invites DLR to join us a Bar 2A and he said yes. next thing you know, JIm, Hippy Jeff, me and David Lee Roth are walking down street together for about 5 or 6 blocks. we get to the bar where the old j majesty singer Spanky Van Dyke works, and the party began. even with the crowd that gathered around, Dave pretty much sat and chatted with me and one other person for about 2.5 hrs. we spoke about some interesting subjects other than the tour war stories you can read in his biography. i found him to be extremely witty and well read, and if you can follow his tangents they all come full circle to a point. i left before he did thinking what a once in a lifetime experience. well actually it's been twice, i saw him yesterday too.

03/31/04 you have no idea how much i appreciate a shower when on the road. ah, the simple things things in life. being in van for 4 to 6hrs a day can get you feeling pretty grimey. good thing i can fall asleep any where on a moments notice. lack of sleep is inevitable when you leave a club no earlier than 2:30 every night and have to be out of the hotel by 11:00. the ladies in Palomar live on coffee, i choose an early morning iced tea. sometimes we sleep at someone's home, it's always better because it's free, but a couch is a bonus. this time around i slept in the van 5 nights in fear of our gear being stolen. i don't mind though, except for the morning. it's only then when i need to go to the bathroom that that former morning's iced tea cup seems to have a dual purpose.

02/16/04 you will never guess who came to see Palomar this past saturday in nyc. i'll give you a hint....she made the most widely known sexual act in american history....you guessed it, Monica Lewinsky.

that's right. the women who entertained our president in the oval office is a fan of our band. she came in with her friend just in time to catch the show. stood behind some people we knew, and later bought a cd. she immediately left after we got off stage so i completely missed her. i was packing my gear. it's times like this, that it sucks to be the drummer.

02/12/04 just playing the waiting game at the moment and getting pissed off about the state of america today. i was thinking of buying gun and killing all the CEOs of walmart. care to join me?

anyone who knows me knows i'm not an advocate of violence but when i heard that Wal-mart is the largest company in america, with most the employees and their pay is not much more than a minimun wage for the average employee i get irate. then the company shows a profit of 5.8 Billion dollars...something is wrong. men and women taking buses 45 minutes away to work at a mall because it pays $3 an hour more all because the company gets a tax break and the yuppie's kids in the area won't work..... something is wrong. is the livestyle of a billionare and millionare that different in comparison of being able to pay your bills or not? share the wealth with the people who make you the money Wal-mart. you already closed down all the small town mom & pop stores, now you want to enslave all the poor people you put out of business/work in the first place.

the Darkness = Ted Nugent
ted nugent sucked the first time around.

12/19/03 i figured that the reason i play with only one rack tom isn't necessarily because of the million reasons you heard before...make a big sound on a small kit, a small kit forces you to be more creative and the ultimate "it looks cool". i would love to find a way to play a few more toms but the ergonomics of setting up a drumkit doesn't want to work another way for me.

besides the fact i don't want to cross my arms to reach my hat any more than i have to, it really is based on the placement of the ride. the spot right above the kick is just too perfect and is quite a relaxed position for myself. i can wash it, ping it and reach the bell without being forceful which gives me better balance ultimately allowing me to keep better time. which when usually playing the ride is what you are doing, observing time.

well maybe it's that i'm just plain lazy and don't want to carry any more gear than i have to.

12/12/03 someone recently asked me...What's your big catch on everything being absolutely original?

what would you rather be? the original or the clone?

there are some things that have been done so why try to pass it on as yours. there is difference between influenced and more or less copying. if you want to be a copy cat, so be it. but don't expect me to say you are an artist.

i ask you..who has made more of an impression in this world of music, nirvana or bush? the artist or the clone? (using "teen spirit" and Bush's first single that sounded just like it as the example.)

i'm sure in the day when Buddy Rich and Krupa were around there were many clones of them playing throughout jazz clubs every where. but who do you remember? the originators along with some other artist that went against their grain as philly joe, tony williams or shelly mane.

do what and be who you want. i'm just trying to offer some insight on the bigger picture. and to be honest, if i had some guidence in some areas were i was weak when i was younger maybe i've would have grown at a different pace than the late bloomer i consider myself to be.

if you actually consider yourself an artist, be one and create something different that the world has a reason to listen to you for. why bother saying it if it has already been said.

i can point out every influence of mine to you if you want they are there. i just don't wear it on my sleeve.