Rock 'n Roll Weekend

I had a fun weekend.  I played a corporate show at the Suncadia Resort near Cle Elum with my band, Mister Miyagi on Friday night.  The speed3 didn't disappoint on the drive.  Very fun driving that through Snoqualmie pass.  Then Saturday evening we played the Bite of Seattle at the base of the space needle.  It's always a fun show.  I've played it 3 or 4 times, but this was the best show we've done at the Bite.  The setlist was good, the crowd was into it, and we performed well.  My favorite part of the show was my guitar solo during "Jump" by Van Halen.  Here it is:  Enjoy!!  If you weren't able to make it, you missed out!!

P.S. -- I think the crowd favorite was "Billie Jean", which isn't too surprising with the recent death of Michael Jackson.  That is on my facebook page if interested.

Laying down drum tracks

After Jason's visit, I've finally found the inspiration and desire to blow the dust off of some old recordings that Jason and I started about 6 years ago and start laying down some drum tracks to them. The album is painfully close to being done, but it still may be luck to get it done before the end of the year. Part of the reason it has taken us so long to finally get to the stage of getting it done is that we debated back and forth on what method to record us. For example, did we want to go to a "professional studio" and put up a bunch of cash in order to get a "perfect recording", if there is such a thing; or did we want to invest in pro tools computer recording software and afford us the opportunity to have unlimited tracks for recording, thus being able to double and triple track and layer guitars and vocals for a really strong recording with power and clarity? The last option was to just use my old Yamaha 8 track and be limitied to only 8 total tracks per song, which really limits the ability to get a really great sounding record, and leaves a lot to be desired. But alas, I have decided to just do it this way for now and at least have SOMETHING for people to hear, and maybe someday down the road we can take our best songs from our entire songwriting and recording careers and take that to a pro studio to get a really great recording. But anyway, that's where we are at right now. I think I should be finished with all my recordings in a couple of months, and then maybe Jason can fly up and finish his vocals and bass tracks and we will just have to mix down after that and burn to CD and call it an album.

Jacko Memorial Service

I had a good bike ride tonight.  I left BSS right at 5 o'clock and it only took me 28 minutes to get there.  I rode 13 miles with Dad on the trail.  He was there in the parking lot at the skate park when I got there.  We had a good ride.  We even switched bikes for a little while.  I made the ride back to BSS from the skate park in 26 minutes.  

Business was good today.  I got a transfer and a 5 x 15 rental which will be long term so that is good.

I got to see most of the Michael Jackson memorial service on the computer today while working at the desk.  I was busy for a lot of the morning, but I still got to see a lot of it.  It was really good.  A great celebration of his music and life.  My favorite part was Michael's big bro. Jermaine singing "Smile".    Here is a link to it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJm0eqI28Y8

I thought it was especially cool that all his brothers were wearing his trademark white sparkling glove.  R.I.P.  MJ

Thriller

I had a great visit with my bro. Jason while he was up here to visit.  We even played a gig last night out at Stone Palace and it was pretty fun.  We played "Beat It" as a tribute to Michael Jackson and everyone got a kick out of it.  We also tried to play "Billie Jean" and half way through I started acting out the first part of the "Thriller" music video, and I don't think anybody got the joke even though they were still laughing at us.  So here is the "Thriller" music video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtyJbIOZjS8 

Optimistic Outlook

Things are finally starting to look better for my injury situation.  I rode 31 miles on the bike tonight from BSS up near South Prairie and back.  Dad and Juliet met me at the skate park in Orting and rode the middle 13 miles with me.  It was a fun ride.  The weather was absolutely gorgeous.  It could have been no more perfect.  I did however deal with a pretty substantial head wind coming back to Puyallup from Orting.  But that seems to be the norm that time of day.  It was like that yesterday too.  I also was able to jog very slowly for 2 miles tonight, which is very encouraging for me.  I could be running again very soon!

Tuesday Morning

I went on a 20 mile bike ride yesterday afternoon.  I rode from here (BSS) up to Orting on the trail and up to the 1 mile mark bridge on the trail.  It was a good ride and I jammed out to tunes the whole way.  It took me about an hour.  Dallas had coach pitch practice last night.  He did exceptionally well hitting the ball, hitting it into the outfield on 2 out of his 3 times at bat.  However, he does struggle with paying attention, as I had to yell at him a bunch of times for kneeling down in left field picking grass, and also watched in agony as he was playing 2nd base and the ball was hit right to him and of course it went right past him into center field because he wasn't paying attention; the center fielder threw it to him and his back was turned, he was staring at the dirt, and it rolled past him a 2nd time.  Luckily he has a good coach and the coach went and chewed him out for not paying attention.  He is a natural athlete but he really lacks focus.  Hopefully that will change as he gets older.

My ankle is still too messed up for running on, but I am really hoping to try it out next week, maybe just for a mile or two to see how it does.  I'm pretty much going to have to start over with my mileage.  Hopefully with the biking I've been doing I will hold on to a little bit of my fitness.

My take on Michael Jackson

The sudden death of Michael Jackson was an unfortunate event that I'm sure will come out could have been prevented if he had not been abusing prescription medications.  He is probably one of the most misunderstood people to have ever lived.  I don't think anybody was ever close to him, he was a man surrounded by people, yet he had no real friends.  He lived as an extremely lonely person.  I try my best not to judge others, but it is hard when someone chooses to live extravagantly and does things that are, quite frankly, very strange.  However, I can usually see the good in just about every person on some level.  As a musician, I can appreciate how truly gifted a talent that Michael Jackson was.  Perhaps my favorite performance is of him singing "She's out of my Life".  You can hear the tenderness, and the loneliness that he feels as his emotions come to the surface towards the end of the song.  Michael Jackson's life was a circus more often than not, but this is how I choose to remember him:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qF0o-W5uu8o

Rest in Peace.