Gigs

Our show at The Whiskey this past Saturday was just awesome. It was The Groove Campaign with MC Mic Myers (in the future this combination of The Groove Campaign + Mic Myers will be billed as Addictive Nature, just FYI). Let me tell you, the house was PACKED. I will try to get some pictures up as soon as I can. Bottom line, though, we all had a great time, played great music, and got a great response. The people were all really into it and I think this is just the beginning of an awesome musical relationship.

I have a nice little cluster of gigs coming up as the end of October nears:

- 10/23: playing w/ Scott Quinn of Without Until @ The Rusty Nail, 9PM
- 10/25: Addictive Nature @ Port City Pub, 10PM
- 10/26: Sunday night jazz jam @ The Rusty Nail, 9PM
- 10/30: sitting in w/ Vermillion Sands @ The Rusty Nail, 9PM

for a complete listing of the gigs I'm playing in, click here.

Lots going on...

Since I moved down to Wilmington a little over a month ago, I have been very busy! I have been networking like crazy and things are going great. I have been playing a good number of gigs around town and the people I have met have been awesome. I am playing regularly with two groups:

- The Groove Campaign
- Without Until

The Groove Campaign is a group that I started when I moved down here, with me on keys, Andrew Chadderton playing bass and Shelby Smith playing drums. We play an interesting mix of music, taking the improvisational nature of jazz music and blending it oh-so-smoothly with the danceable feel of hip-hop and funk music. We're currently playing original music and covers from many genres, including jazz, hip-hop, blues, and funk. It's going really well and our musical chemistry is phenomenal. Without Until is a self-described "over the top" jazz-fusion band featuring guitarist Scott Quinn and drummer Lee Venters. I round out the sound by playing keys and keyboard bass. They are already an established band and I have been playing out regularly with them.

In addition to all the praciticing and performing, I am teaching piano lessons. I have a handful of students right now and am definitely looking to keep as full a schedule as I can with that.

The big thing coming up this weekend is The Groove Campaign's debut show. We are playing this Saturday, 10/18 @ The Whiskey at 10PM. It is going to be such an awesome show, I can't tell you how stoked I am. I really can't wait. With any luck, we might be able to grab some video footage of the show, and if not, hopefully at least some audio. For now, though, check out The Groove Campaign's Myspace page and listen to our latest recordings there! Here are some pictures from our last recording session:

me

Andrew

Shelby

In Wilmington!

So I am now down in Wilmington, NC and starting to get settled in to my new place. It's been great so far and now I am in the process of finding a job! I will write a more detailed post later once I get internet at the apartment (as I write this, I'm downtown taking advantage of free wifi!).

Google Chrome

I found out today that Google has come out with its own web-browser, Google Chrome. I downloaded it and tried it out, and it's not bad. It's still in beta, so there will be a lot of improvements coming, but all in all it's a pretty solid browser. It's typical of what you'd expect from Google: simple, efficient, and user-friendly. It's got some cool features that I played around with a bit. The main drawback I saw is that it's not as fast as Firefox, but that is something that will very possibly be fixed in the next little while. Chrome is definitely worth checking out though, so give it a whirl.

2 Days!

It's now Tuesday around noon, and I've got today and tomorrow to finish sorting out all my stuff and packing it up to take to North Carolina. It's coming along slowly but surely and I have managed to condense the amount of stuff I am taking with me by quite a bit. The truck is rented and we're set to leave Thursday morning! Now the only real potential hold up is Hurricane Hannah, which is supposed to be hitting the coast pretty much the exact time that I'm planning on moving in! What luck. Hopefully it won't be too bad, or it will change course or something.

Two New Songs on Myspace

I posted a couple new solo jazz piano songs on my Myspace... "Alice in Wonderland" and "Easy Living." You can check those out here. Let me know what you think!

Moving to Wilmington, NC!

Hi all. It's an exciting time for me, as I'm going to be moving to Wilmington, NC in less than a week! I had really been hoping to move down there, and one of my buddies that lives there told me that he was moving out of his apartment and needed a roommate. Lucky me! So now I am less than a week away from this big move down south. You can check out Wilmington's Wikipedia page here ... it's a really cool city.

More on the move later, and hopefully I'll be able to update with some job prospects pretty soon!

Back in Oneonta

As of today, June 10th, I am back in Oneonta. I am temporarily living with a friend in his apartment until I move on campus in about 2 weeks, but my internship begins tomorrow. Luckily, it doesn't look like we will have to move all of the instruments, sound equipment, etc. out of the Fine Arts Building like originally expected. The construction project has been postponed so all the stuff can stay in the Fine Arts Building. That's quite a relief, as that would have been a huge undertaking, but there is still a lot of work to be done. The camp starts on June 29th and there is a lot to prepare for. I'll update tomorrow with news from my first day of work.