Mushroom

Linda Perry dropped by and introduced herself prior to the session starting and I think we laid down some really cool stuff that splits the difference, vibe-wise between Duke and Stax/Volt. I'm very excited to hear how this track sounds once Dan and Sierra are done mixing it.

2/21/10

I have been hard at work putting together a new page of music for you guys to listen to on here. I put up my brass recording demo reel for 2010 as well as a new song I'm working on and Figure It Out by The Ventriloquists. Check it out on the audio samples page.

Thanks to everyone who came out to see the Reigning Monarchs, The Insect Surfers and the Damselles at Casey's Pub and The Ventriloquists, Honey Honey and Eric Lilavois at the Dakota Lounge. Both shows were a whole lot of fun and hopefully I'll have some clips on youtube soon for you guys to watch.

Lenka's tour was a blast - we were opening for the Belgian artist Milow all around Germany (Hamburg, Hannover, Muenster, Berlin, Liepzig). We had a weekend off in Berlin wherein I managed to pick up a pretty stellar polar bear hat, which made an appearance on stage last night.

Also the picture above was taken on this tour, by photographer/musician/guitar tech/etc. Lieven Bulckens (who by the way has a band called Kid Fear).

It also looks like we are going to be doing some festivals this summer in Europe too so I'll post more information about that as it becomes available.

I have been doing some fun session work lately, including a really awesome track for Topher Mohr (guitarist for Mayer Hawthorne and the County) called Ruthless, which really sounds cool in that late 70s MJ kind of way. Really excited to hear how this one comes out.

Me and David Moyer (the Double D Horns) recorded at my studio and I'm super happy with the sounds we were able to get (trumpet, flugelhorn, trombone, tenor sax, bari sax and flute). You can hear a clip on the brass demo reel (I think it's the second clip of the reel) on the audio samples page.

Speaking of the Double D Horns, we also did some recording for our friend Simeon Shigg. He is in a band called Hawkins Shigg and Hardy and we put down some really cool horn stuff on a few of their tracks.

And of course the Ventriloquists have been hard at work in the studio (MSP, Crown City, Invengo, etc.) getting Bailout ready for release. We are working on an entire album of course, but we also expect to press up some 7" vinyl with a few songs on it and we are really excited about that as we expect to do that sooner rather than later.

I have a session coming up with producer Dan Burns and artist Sierra Swan that I'm really excited about. I believe they recorded the main tracks at Sun Studios in Memphis and I get the opportunity to drop some MSP hornage into the proceedings.

Also I'm heading down to Long Beach in March to play some more Flugelhorn on Chris Schlarb's upcoming solo record as well as performing live with Sarah Dashew. As always, more info on this stuff will be forthcoming...

*****

1/25/10

First of all, I'm pleased to announce The Ventriloquists have booked their first show of 2010 at the Dakota Lounge in Santa Monica on Saturday February 20th. Our friends Honey Honey are doing the show as well and it's going to be a great night of music.

I'm headed to Germany with Lenka at the end of this month, where we are going to play for a week doing shows opening for the recording artist Milow. We will be joined by Trey Lockerbie on the guitar and vocals and it should be quite a fun week of gigs.

Speaking of fun gigs, I played an awesome one on New Years Eve with The Reigning Monarchs at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco. There were a bunch of awesome comedians on the bill including Maria Bamford, Doug Benson, Amy Schumer, Chris Porter, Todd Barry, John Mulaney and of course Greg Behrendt who MC'd the night as well as played with the Monarchs.

The fellow Monarchs consisted of the Double D Horns (myself and David Moyer), Mike Eisenstein on guitar, Dan Petty on bass, Peter Adams on the keys, and Mark Rivers on the drums. Good times. Jolly and the Dizzler were both in attendance from The Ventriloquists and a rollicking good time was had by all.

Shortly thereafter me and David Moyer flew across the country to New York to meet up with Garth, Murph and Chris and head to Connecticut for a 2 day recording session at the home of Josh and Anna Loar. We recorded quite a bit of music and I'm very excited to see what all Josh and Anna come up with after they get a chance to listen through everything. Ceschi even stopped by and made some contributions on guitar, keys and drums.

Our good friend Mike Gorham came by the MSP studios a few days ago and recorded some badass Bb and Piccolo trumpet for the album as well.

Also I want to take a second and reiterate to you all that you should listen to Bill Lefler's mix of the Ventriloquists song Figure It Out, which you can hear by going to www.theventriloquists.com..

Speaking of Ventriloquists mixes, we just sent our song Overpopulation to our friend Mark Curran who does sound engineering for Lenka as well as runs a studio out of Virginia Beach so he could take a crack at mixing it.

We've also been putting in a good amount of time at Crown City in Pasadena finishing up the mixes for a number of other songs on the record.

I also spent some time there with Graydon, a local band that Erik Kertes is playing bass in, recording horns for some of their songs. They are doing a residency at the Hotel Cafe starting Jan. 30; check it out if you get the chance.

I realize that I neglected to mention one of the creative highlights of the last few months, which happened while I was on tour with Lenka in New York in November. I visited my friend Garth MacAleavey at his apartment/studio in Brooklyn and we immediately threw up 3 mics and started recording.

An hour later we had essentially laid the groundwork for a record called "The Hoodwink Ensemble live in Berlyn" that features mostly drums and fluglehorn with some cello and keys thrown in. Not sure when or how we are going to release this, but hopefully we'll be able to get some music online for you soon.

Speaking of online music, the Elevaters have put up the song Lionside up for download on their website. It features me and David Moyer (The Double D Horns) laying down some afro pop hip hop grooves. Dopeness!

Congratulations are in order to Ian Souter who is having some of his work published in a big ol fancy book of erotic photography. We'll give you more info on what it's called and where you can pick it up once it comes out.

Finally I keep neglecting to mention the new Breakestra record Dusk 'Til Dawn, which dropped a few months back. It features the Double D Horns on a track with Chali 2Na and DJ Dusk called"Posed to Be" as well as a good deal of other dope horns from David Moyer, Chris Bautista, and Sheffer Bruton. While your at it check out Moyer and Todd Simon rocking the horns on Mayer Hawthorne's A Strange Arrangement.

*****

12/6/09

So much to report since the last time I updated this site. Since I last checked in at the end of August, I've done a fair bit of touring, a number of recording sessions and even a little bit of writing and scoring.

I played the Bumbershoot and Outside Lands festivals with Lenka in Seattle and San Francisco respectively. Shortly thereafter we left for Europe where we linked up with tour manager Paul Allen and driver Jan Calgar and began a two week trek through Germany, Poland, Switzerland, and Denmark. We then hopped a flight to Asia where we joined the Hennessy Artistry Global Art of Mixing tour. We performed concerts in Taipei, Kaula Lumpur and Hanoi with Paul Freeman, Bryan McFadden and Boys Like Girls. We then flew to Jakarta, where we played a festival which featured a massive battle of the bands with local Indonesian rock groups. After that we flew to London to perform a show there and then returned home to LA.

While at home I had the opportunity to work with a band called Walter Meego in the studio with Dan Burns. Their record sounds like it's going to be super cool.

Mark Jordan, a producer I've worked with for a few years now, called me in to do some horns for an artist he's working with named Allison Gray.

I also had the pleasure of getting to play a number of shows in November with Julian Casablancas and his band during their residency at the Palace Theater downtown as well as gigs at Spaceland and the Regency Ballroom in San Francisco. These shows were loads of fun and his new record, Phrazes for The Young is really awesome.

The band is particularly awesome - Blake Mills and JP Bowersock on guitar, Jeff Kite and Nelson London on keys, Alex Carapetis on drums and Danielle Haim on guitar, drums and a little bit of everything else. Below is a picture taken at the last show of the residency by Kristin Burns.

In addition to all of this, The Ventriloquists have been hard at work on Bailout, our upcoming record which is getting very close to being finished.

Our friend Bill Lefler mixed the song Figure It Out for us, which you can hear on our myspace page at www.myspace.com/theventriloquists. I also put some horns on a track for Lindsey Ray that Bill produced.

We have also been putting in long hours at Crown City Recording in Pasadena with Eric Lilavois and Joe Olendar. In addition to Bailout we have also been working with Eric on his next record, which will feature extensive horn work from the Double Ds and maybe even some vocals from Jolly.

Another friend of ours, Josh Rumer, is hard at work on 4 other songs on our record, and we are going to soon enlist the services of our friend and former bandmate Josh Loar who is currently teaching audio engineering at Yale among other things to do some mixes as well.

A couple of the Ventriloquists are planning to head over to Connecticut to lay down some funk on one of Josh's projects too. Small world: Josh happens to know Ceschi from TOCA. Who would have guessed?

Speaking of TOCA, Tommy V came by the studio a few weeks ago and I put some flugelhorn on a song he is working on. His project sounds like it's going to be cool.

I also played some trumpet and euphonium on a record by a band called Redstone Hall that was being produced by David Cobb. I got to work with David Ralicke on this gig who is a very talented horn player and who also ended up playing trombone on some of the Julian Casablancas gigs. Also a shout out to Sheffer Bruton who played trombone on the rest of them, Nate Walcott who played trumpet on the record and all of the gigs and Lilly Aycud who subbed for me on one of the gigs on trumpet and flugelhorn. Speaking of small world, Lilly and Sheffer were the two horn players I played on the Tonight Show with when I performed with Lenka.

The new Built To Spill record There Is No Enemy that I played on (Dave Trumfio produced at Kingsize Soundlabs) came out on Warner Bros. records. It got a nice review at Pitchfork, in which I was misidentified as a trumpet player who had wandered over from a Calexico recording. FWIW I've never played with Calexico before.

Oh yeah, and I also scored a television commercial for my friends at Lasrever, who did a spot forDirecTV called Year of The Rabbit.

In 2 days I'm off to Asia again for another 2 weeks of touring with Lenka. Then I return home for a few days before heading to San Francisco to play a New Years Eve show with Greg Berhendt and the Reigning Monarchs at the Palace of Fine Arts.

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