Click the links below for my photos from the Alex Machacek and OHM gigs at Alva's Showroom during NAMM week.
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| Alex Machacek, Ric Fierabracci, Tom Brechtlein, Phil Turcio: Live at Alva's Showroom - 1/16/10 |
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| OHM and Kofi Baker's Tribute to Cream w/ Mike Keneally: Live at Alva's Showroom - 1/17/10 |
Saturday is always the NAMM show's busiest day, and I have many highlights to report. Early in the day I was able to see Chris Poland and 'Pag' from OHM jamming at the Eminence booth. It's always a treat to see players of this caliber in these small-scale NAMM floor settings. Chris was burning as usual. After Eminence, I hit some other booths and saw lots of big names on the floor - I saw Gene Simmons heading to an appearance with a throng of people following him, Slash made a couple of appearances, I saw Flea walk through, saw George Lynch chatting with Uli Roth, saw Andy Timmons, Paul Gilbert, and Tony MacAlpine signing at the Ibanez booth, and on and on.
One of the highlights of the day for me was meeting Steve Lukather. As you may recall, back in November I posted a video of Luke jamming with Joe Bonamassa that Luke himself commented on. He essentially agreed with an earlier comment that he was overplaying on the song, and that the clip kinda sucked. Out of respect for Luke, I considered taking the post down at that point, but a good discussion was ensuing in the comments so I left it up. When I met Luke yesterday, I sheepishly revealed that the Guitar Channel was my site, and that I was the one who posted that video. Obviously I didn't need to do that, but I wanted to tell him I was sorry if I pissed him off. He absolutely could not have been cooler about the whole thing. He said hey, sometimes you're gonna have a bad night, but the next night you might play great. He said the difference nowadays is with YouTube, everything you play gets posted and viewed by millions of people. His "no-worries" attitude was very genuine, and super cool. What a great cat.
Another highlight of the day was seeing Tony Levin's Stick Men band play in the LOUD Technologies demo room. Their stuff is very rhythmic, and highly progressive. Levin is an absolute maniac on the Chapman Stick.
After the show I headed to San Pedro to see Alex Machacek (guitar), Ric Fierabracci (bass), Tom Brechtlein (drums), and Phil Turcio (keys) at Alva's Showroom. Marco Minnemann was originally slated to play drums, but due to unforseen circumstances, Brechtlein was enlisted to fill in. At the show I met up with Souvik Dutta from Abstract Logix, and guitarist Amit Heri who has been traveling with Souvik during NAMM. What a great hang. Got to talk with Alex before the show and between sets. He's always been one of my favorite players, and is a great guy to boot. His new album with Marco Minnemann sounds like it's going to be killer. I believe he said the title will be "26 Tales;" it was originally part of Minnemann's Normalizer project, but it will be released on it's own through Abstract Logix. Can't wait to hear it. I'd like to give this show it's own write-up, but I'll say this - These guys were some of the best pro's I've seen. Alex told me before the show that he was a bit nervous about the gig, since the setlist had to be changed at the last minute due to Minnemann's absence, and he was not as familiar with the material as he'd like to be. Nevertheless, everybody killed on this gig. They worked off of charts, and it was so cool to see these guys execute on such a professional level. There were a couple of tunes that Brechtlin hadn't even played before, but you would have had no idea. Fantastic playing by everyone involved. Below you'll find one of the videos I shot from this great gig.
I probably won't spend much time at the show today, being that it's the last day which is traditionally light on content. Tonight, however, is going to be huge. I'll be heading back to Alva's to see OHM, and Kofi Baker's Cream tribute featuring Mike Keneally on guitar. I'm sure this will be an awesome show that will pack Alva's to the gills. Stay tuned...
By the way... between the slow internet connection in my hotel, and the God-awful ATT&T coverage at the convention center, my ability to post updates, videos, etc, has been severely hampered. I've got a ton of pics, and some great videos, but most of it won't be uploaded until I get home.
Alex Machacek - "Actual Proof" solo live at Alva's 1/16/10
With another year drawing to a close, the time has come once again to reflect back on all the great music that was released over the past 12 months. Here are my favorite albums of 2009, in no particular order.
Wayne Krantz - Krantz Carlock Lefebvre (Review)
An amazing guitar album. Incredible compositions and group improv.
Odd Meters - Uncommon Denominator (Review)
Addicting funky jazz from 8-string guitarist Jon Morrow and drummer/vibraphonist Shane Parreco.
Live 2-disc set culled from the quartet's 2007 European tour. Holdsworth is searing throughout.
Cool jam project featuring members of OHM and Umphrey's McGee. Great guitar work from Chris Poland and Jake Cinninger.
Excellent throwback fusion. Features Jeff Kollman on guitar.
Finally a new SMB album! Great stuff.
Gerald Gradwohl Trio - Sally Beth Roe (Review)
Raw guitar-driven fusion at it's finest.
Other favorites from 2009:
Ed DeGenaro - Less Is Seldom More (Review)
Robby Ameen - Days In The Life
Jon Reshard - Jon Reshard
Oz Noy - Schizophrenic (Review)
Mike Stern - Big Neighborhood
Akira Jimbo - Jimbomba
Adam Nitti - Liminal
Liquid Tension Experiment - Live 2008 Box Set
Check out Matt Warnock's great interview with Umphrey's McGee guitarist Jake Cinninger at Guitar International. The main topic of discussion - OHMPhrey; Cinninger's recent side project that combines the mighty forces of Umphrey's McGee and OHM.
OHM guitarist Chris Poland appeared on the Black Night Meditations radio show on WSCA 106.1 FM in Portsmouth, NH earlier the week. The interview can now be heard online at the following location:
Black Night Meditations: Chris Poland Interview
Umphrey's McGee is one of my favorite bands from the jam-band scene. The reason I dig these guys, is they often venture into prog and fusion territory; they don't dwell on modal-jams as some bands in the genre tend to do. I saw Umphrey's live in Chicago a couple of years ago and was blown away. Their new album Mantis is getting a lot of attention in the prog-rock community. As a token of their appreciation, the band has released a free prog "sampler" showcasing some of their more "proggy" moments onstage. Here's the info, straight from the horses mouth:
"In the two months since the release of Mantis, we've been overwhelmed with the attention and appreciation from the progressive rock community. We admire the rich tradition that the community has, and the respect they have for many of the same artists that have had a lasting influence on us as well. We've been privileged to share the stage with such heroes as Adrian Belew, Mike Keneally and Stanley Jordan in recent years
Our latest album "Mantis" has been touted as our most progressive
studio album, and we are very proud of how it turned out. We were
glad to take the time and flesh out our compositional approach on
Mantis, and wound up with an album that stretched our songwriting and
playing to levels we hadn't been able to produce in the studio before.
While we enjoyed the experience of taking our time in the studio, much
of the Umphrey's McGee experience happens on-stage where we live 120+
nights a year. The challenge of reproducing some of our demanding
compositions live while leaving room for both loose and structured
improvisation brings out the best in us, and we encourage you to come
and experience it with us.
We wanted to let you know that Jake, Kris and Joel have embarked on a
new project, OHMphrey (http://myspace.com/ohmphrey), with OHM's Chris
Poland and Robertino Pagliari. This project is rooted in progressive
improvisation, and will release an album and support it with a few
west coast shows. Furthermore, another improvisational fusion side
project of ours, Kick the McGee, is thrilled to be teaming up with
Morglbl from France for a show in Chicago @ Martyrs' on 5/20.
As a token of our appreciation, we're offering a free digital sampler
of the "proggier" side of Umphrey's McGee to the progressive rock
community, though it's really a little bit of everything to help
provide context of the grander scheme of who we are as a band. In
this sampler, you'll find a heavy-dose of prog-metal in Wizard Burial
Ground, while a slice of the improvisation and instrumental dexterity
that UM is well known for resides inside Higgins. An electric
re-working of Safety In Numbers' acoustic End of the Road is a band
favorite, and to give you a taste of some our our playing with special
guests you'll hear Adrian Belew lending his guitar to King Crimson's
Red and Mike Keneally stopping by for some extended on-stage antics
and guitar pyrotechnics on Ringo. We’ve also included a bonus video
of “Out of Order” from our PBS Soundstage performance.
Umphrey's McGee - Prog Sampler track list
1) Rocker part II (10.28.08)
2) Wizard Burial Ground (12.30.08)
3) Higgins (12.29.07)
4) End of the Road (2.17.08)
5) Search 4 (2.12.08)
6) Red (3.17.07 with Adrian Belew)
7) The Fussy Dutchman (12.30.04)
8) Ringo (2.12.08 with Mike Keneally)
To download, visit: http://tinyurl.com/umsampler
This will deposit the FREE download in your basket from our download
site UMLive.net (run by Livedownloads.com). Registration at
UMLive.net is free and required to complete the process. We'll keep
this posted for the next 2 weeks, until April 17th, so grab it while
it's hot.
To those who've checked out our albums and/or shows, and to those who
are helping spread the word (and we encourage you to spread this
around), we appreciate your support. Thanks for your continued
interest in Umphrey's McGee, we hope to see you all on the road some
time soon!"
