Mushroom Stamp Productions -- Quality You Can Taste!

Sorry it's been a while since I updated the site, but I've been too busy making music for the last 4 months to get around to it.

The year started off with a bang as the Ventriloquists booked time at Crown City Studios in Pasadena CA with our friend Eric Lillavois, wherein we laid down the base tracks for what are going to be the versions of Silverpeak, My Little Darling, and Is What It Is. The whole crew was present, including special guest Simeon Shigg who laid down some super killing Hammond B3 on the tracks.

After this I jumped into rehearsals with Lenka and the band to get ready for our performance on the Jimmy Kimmel show as well as our upcoming 2.5 month tour. The Kimmel show was awesome, and we were fortunate enough to have Brian LeBarton join us on vibraphone and glockenspiel:

For this tour we had two new band members - Stella Mozgawa on the drums and John Graney on the guitar. Both proved to be excellent musicians and managed to complement what Lenka, Eric and myself were already doing quite nicely.

This was also due to the services of Mark Curran doing front of house (and often monitors as well at the smaller clubs) for us. With artistic director James Gulliver Hancock and tour manager extraordinaire Ed Baker in tow, we set off from Los Angeles in a van and trailer on January 9th, headed for the eventual destination of Vancouver BC before returning to LA on January 17. Along the way we played in Portland (including a morning television performance), Seattle, San Francisco, Spokane, Santa Barbara and most memorably, Modesto, at Modesto Virtual which was, as the name would imply, a video arcade:

I had two days off in LA during which I worked on the Ventriloquists material with Jolly and Moyer and Ian and Edy at my studio as well as recording with Justin Webb for his latest project. I also spent a day at Kingsize with Dave Trumfio and Doug Martsch putting horns on a new Built To Spill record, including re-recording a part I laid down 2 years ago for this same album. I'm really excited to hear it.

We then set off on January 19th for the longest tour of my life, an over 2 month jaunt straight through the midwest up to the northeast and then back down the east coast, into the south and then back into florida to do the whole thing all over again type of situation. Along the way we met a lot of new friends, including other artists we played with like The Miniature Tigers, Gabe Dixon, Dr. Dog, Derek Trucks, Justin Nozuka and Missy Higgins.

Highlights of the headlining portion of the tour included great shows in Chicago, Salt Lake City, West Virginia, Charlottesville, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle and a sold out evening at the Drake Hotel in Toronto where we unveiled a disco remix of Lenka's single, The Show:

After our last headlining date in Charlottesville, Viriginia where circumstances forced myself, Erik Kertes and John Graney to sub as the opening act - we each played 3 songs of our own device, which for me were Big Machine, Silverpeak and Circuits from the upcoming Ventriloquists record - we headed to Nashville to meet up with Justin Nozuka and then Houston for our first show with co-headliners Missy Higgins and Justin Nozuka. Stella made a tour video that sums up the second half of our tour in a likewise manner:

Along the way I managed to pick up a couple of new toys for the MSP studio including a Juno 60, an Avalon 737, a slide trumpet and an incredible vintage Manhattan Bach Strad which I picked up from trumpet maker Josh Landress in New York City.

We actually spent a good bit of time in New York City on this tour. While there I managed to get Stella Mozgawa into the studio (Love Rock studios, Matt Rocker's place in the Lower East Side) to lay down some drums for a song from the new Ventriloquists record and she absolutely killed it. This same studio was also the site of a jam a few nights later that included Stella, Matt, Myself, Erik Kertes, Gerald Clayton, Josh Loar, Garth Macaleavey and Max Tucker - good times.

We finished the tour with 3 days at South By Southwest, and then shows at the Orpheum and Fillmore in LA and San Francisco respectively. At SXSW we played a bunch of shows inlcuding a Hotel Cafe showcase and a live broadcast on Direct TV.

Here is a video of us at the soundcheck of the Orpheum show performing the song Bring Me Down. James Gulliver Hancock is behind the camera (he also donated the fancy jacket I'm wearing), and this gives a pretty good indication of what sort of thing we were up to musically for the 2 and a half months we were on the road:

After returning home I've been working non-stop on the new Ventriloquists record as well as doing a session for Lindsey Ray and putting some horns on some more music for Jeffery Alan Kite. The Ventriloquists also got asked to do a guest dj set for Tap Project Radio, a charity organization devoted to helping children get clean drinking water.

Also that track I did with Dan Burns and Carina Round for Carina's upcoming EP is finished. It's called Backseat, and it turned out to be really nice. Check out her website for more news about how to get your hands on that. You can also hear it on the Ventriloquists guest dj set for the aforementioned Tap Project, along with new material from The Ventriloquists and songs by Fleetwood Mac, Sam Cooke, Hall and Oates. We even threw in some strange piano music by Ligeti. Good times.

Oh yeah, and I'm going to be playing with my good friends Ian and Lilly in a horn section for Pierre De Reeder, who is playing at the Glass House in Pomona opening for Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band on April 15. Come check it out if you are around!

	Subject:	Home For A Spell
	Date:	5/13/09

	Subject:	Lenka @ Largo
	Date:	4/23/09

	Subject:	Circuits and a Video
	Date:	4/9/09

	Subject:	Tour Update
	Date:	4/9/09