Home of the Los Angeles-based Guitarist & Cinnamon Toaster Strudel Connoisseur.
This month marks my fifth year of living in Los Angeles. In some ways, it feels like a few decades of hard-work complete with it’s excitements and letdowns, discoveries and daunting but new opportunities. I get to make music in this community and I wouldn’t trade being here for any other experience. Unless we’re talkin’ about this guy’s.
I hope you enjoy my first music video.
Playing with Jane and David of The Black Heartthrobs is satisfying for many reasons: They’re of the rare breed of musicians who can throw a Hefty™ bag filled with vegetable soup out of a four-story building onto the sidewalk and have it sound musical, they have an amazing studio filled with electronic candy & they frequently break into Rush songs (below). We’re playing Thursday at The ArtWalk in Downtown LA and again in Anaheim next week. Check us out, shorty.
Update: Thanks DLTA Tonight for the post!
Time must be relative because although it was 5 AM PST, once we plugged in our guitars in Park City, Utah, I was no longer an undulating Leviathan that hadn’t had it’s coffee…
Mia Sable and I played at Martin Guitar’s Booth @ NAMM in Anaheim, CA. Check out the lineup… I’m honored!
Dear Mom, Things in Cali are just peachy…
Thanks to Sad Ninja who fanned the flames by asking for a guitar solo.
Malibu Music Awards Recipient List
I will be playing with Mia Sable at the Malibu Music Awards this Saturday, September 26, 2009 in honor of Grace Slick, Pink, Tom Petty, Horace Silver, & Hans Zimmer who will be receiving achievement awards. Swing through! Malibu Music Awards
Guns ‘n Roses + Television circa 1973 – 2 of my strings = Joe and The Jungle.
Upcoming dates::
Sep 6, The Troubadour, West Hollywood, CA 12:30 AM
Sep 25, Whiskey a Go Go, West Hollywood, CA 12:15 AM
Oct 3, M.E.A.N.Y Fest ‘09, New York, New York 11 PM
Oct 4, Arlenes Grocery, New York, New York 11 PM
Oct 24, Rusty’s Surf Ranch, Santa Monica, CA 11 PM
My drink tickets are your drink tickets, friends.
Sometimes when you get a free sticker at an art gallery, you have to go home, make goofy faces and annoy your neighbors for your own vanity.
Update: Thanks Steve. Check out http://bearflagwine.com for wine and sticky things.
Mia Sable "Light"
I’m proud to tell you that I performed on Mia Sable’s upcoming album “Light”! The sessions were produced by Jim Wirt (Fionna Apple, early Incubus, Something Corporate etc.) at 4th Street Recording along with Mia, who got final say, and it worked. The result is a fresh album that doesn’t try to ride a the rail until the next trend or bring a temporary onslaught of depression. It’s honest in it’s musical vocabulary and there are moments that make you dance, smile and spend the extra few dollars to buy apples and beer at Whole Foods to give your friends.
Mia Sable is a post-melodramatic, straight-to-the-point musical seamstress who can read and interpret people. We have been performing together for a few years and not once has she entertained the offer or thought of handing over they keys to a manager. Another cool thing about Mia is that she brings high-production value to her shows, band, bookings, finances, web presence, video content, and music.
We have a series of performances coming up, including a performance at The Apple Store this Saturday, August 1, a CD Release Party @ The Chaimberlain Hotel (invite only) and a few other places where your feet won’t stick to the ground while listening. Check us out and pick up a one of these for a one of these.
Thomas tweaking my craigslist score
Meet Thomas Nordegg. Few people have spent time with as many culture-shaping artists as Thomas has. Surely you’d expect to hear nothing but road stories and reflections of crazy antics while touring with Frank Zappa, Steve Vai, Yngwie Malmsteen, Duran Duran, Missing Persons, Dweezil Zappa and countless others but you won’t hear much of it– unless you ask. Unprovoked, the only two things that Thomas discusses is the amount of time he doesn’t have to accomplish a mountain of TODO’s and velcro. His shop, his enormously complex and unique guitar system, his modified everything– these are all fair topics of conversation. And velcro. The reason velcro comes up so often in casual conversation is because velcro saved Thomas’ life.
In 1983, Thomas had an accident on his scooter and was taken to the hospital. Later, when he was resting at home, Frank Zappa & Steve Vai came over to check up on him. As Thomas explains, “They were asking me if I was OK– and I really believed I was. Then someone said something about velcro and I asked ‘What’s that?’ Everyone in the room looked at each other and the next thing I knew, I was downtown LA getting a plate in my head.” — “I like going to the airport,” he smirks.
Thomas catching Yngwie Malmsteen's Strat
Out of all the adventurous & well-traveled road-dogs I’ve ever met, Thomas surely has the biggest heart. When I lost my wallet one night at The Fatburger, he was the one to suggest we dig through the parking lot dumpster at 5AM. When that proved unsuccesful, he scurried into his closet and came out with a metal shoebox filled with wallets. He offered me to take any one in the box– including one his deceased father had given him as a teenager. Or one he bought on tour in Germany with Frank. I picked an unsuspecting wallet (thinking I might lose it –again) and the first thing that was done was it underwent (you guessed it) velcro-ization! I cannot ever pay a library fine for fear of being cursed at by every bookworm in the joint as they hear the “fffffrrrrriiiippppp!” of my wallet being pryed open.
Thomas Nordegg is a good guy to have in your corner. He could be an arrogant prick & shut his doors to needy broken-string bastards like me but instead, he’s wholesome and generous as he casually mentions he’s currently working on a project with John Petrucci or teching a session for the guy who wrote the book on being a bad-ass, virtuoso guitar player.
Thomas riding an electric scooter around the Ibanez Custom Shop, doing 90 MPH.
I can’t leave out the fact that everytime Thomas has come to see Zack and I play, at the end of the show, he tells us to talk and network with everyone as he packs up our gear. When I open my gigbag and pedalboard case in the morning, it is like unwrapping a present on my birthday– everything is neat, tidy and proper. Thomas doesn’t mess around. He doesn’t have the time. Here’s a picture of Thomas riding an electric scooter around the Custom Shop at Ibanez, doing 90 MPH.
If I had known it was that kind of party...
Zack Wiesinger, guitarist extraordinaire/mad-hatter and I will be playing four shows in New York City next week. Although Zack and I are both from Pittsburgh, we didn’t link-up until I received an email from Steve Vai’s mailing list letting me know that Zack was going to be opening for Steve’s European and US tour. I checked out his stuff and dug the hell out of it. When we started playing together, I grew as a musician. We eventually found an apartment where we could make serious amounts of noise around the clock. Zack and I decided that if we were going to do these shows, every song would have to say something that hasn’t been said before. Otherwise, what are we doing?
From our Fall 2008 West Coast Tour Live @The Knitting Factory
Goddam that was fun!
Here are the dates::
July 9: The Crazy Donkey Long Island, NY 10 PM
July 10: Uncle Mike’s Tavern Manhattan, NY Midnight
July 11: Mulcahy’s Long Island, NY 11 PM
July 12: The Trash Bar Brookyln, NY Midnight
If you are in NYC, check us out! Peace.
From Deke Dickerson's Guitar Geek Festival, NAMM 2009
I’m late to take a swig of grandpa’s blog medicine so here is the fizz on me and why you might want to check me out, in my musically inebriated state.
I’m a Los Angeles based Guitarist, Cinnamon Toaster Strudel connoisseur and internationally recognized Fall-asleep-on-the-coucher. As a guitarist, I’ve found myself in situations where all kinds of craazy sh*t is happening and I vaporize into a fly on the wall to witness it… but sometimes I knock over the pots & pans on my way out and that’s what this blog is about. I’ve…
hopped into a kitchen freight elevator to find a restroom and ended up eating banana bread with Alice Cooper before his show, I’ve complained at 5 AM about the feathered pillows at The Four Seasons while on tour; while munching on a Milano cookie, I overheard payola deals and music industry nitty-gritty, I’ve ‘been a geek in music and rocked out in corporate boardrooms at Yahoo!, MTV, Yamaha, Fender, etc. My strange luck & unerring clumsiness extend so far beyond music that I don’t know where to begin but the music memories are safe and sound in my guitar case and that’s what I intend to bring you. I’ll tell you about my projects, mention a friend or two and post my schedule (top left) but let’s keep this random. Chicken pot pie.
