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Monday, February 02, 2009
Wow...next thing you know you haven't blogged in weeks...
We had a great night of music on Saturday night at Bogart's. Dick Sage was on keys and brought along friend and Saxaphone player Ian Katz of the band Grow. Both Ian and Sage have the incredible ability to pick their spots. So all night we had little pockets of goodness everywhere. Really stellar night of playing all the way around the stage. Everyone was on and we tackled some new stuff and some stuff we had't done in awhile. Including an absolute on fire Loose Lucy, Dark Star >>> Cosmic Charlie and our first ever crack at Saint of Circumstance... which is my new favorite song to play. Dave Barrett also joined us on percussion and did a great job. Computer had a weird error neither Ray or I could get around. But John did videotape it so hopefull we will get that at some point.
Dead Tix
Got my Worcester tix for both nights. It's going to be weird going back to Woossa to see the Dead. The site of my very first show in 87. Psyched tho.
Basta
Looking forward to Basta Bar. Bassist Kevin mans the keys (see below for more on that) and #2 Pino is on bass. Dave Barrett again joins us on percussion. Will be great to see how multi-talented Kevin is and also to get to play with El' Pino.
Pete Waters
Pete had surgery on his bum shoulder on Wednesday. He is resting comfortably. Heal up brother, can't wait to get ya back on the hoss. and we are pickin ya up saturday to take you to the gig! You can be light guy or something!
JBZ
Did Stonehill college last week. This Friday we play at Daryl and my old stomping grounds The Northside (formerly Longfellows Pub). It's going to be very strange I think. It's been probably 10 years since we last played there. Daryl is now our new guitarist officially in JBZ. Really great to play with him again regularly.
LOTK
It looks like family and work commitments are going to take our LOTK away from us. We are all very sad to see him go and we hope something changes so he doesn't have too. But until that unlikely scenario happens, we move on in both bands looking for keys players. So if you know anyone, let us know........for the time being we of course have the esteemed Richard Sage and Kevin is valiantly filling in this Saturday. Talk about taking one for the team!
Mike
Posted at 09:37 pm by mikepand
Saturday, January 10, 2009
What an incredible experience I had at WSFB on Thursday. Really something I have never done before.
I went south on Wed night, stopped in to see Dick Sage in providence. Hung out, watched some of a Tribute to George Harrison, ate some sausage and peppers I brought with me. Always a fun time hanging with Sage. He has a keyboardists dream in his living room now. To go along with the baby grand thats been there are now a 1984 Fender Rhodes and a 1949 Hammond B3 with rotating Leslie cab. Very cool.
I left Sage's around 8:30 and got to Nick's by 10pm. We went over a couple tunes, crashed and was up by 7am to get to the TV studio in Rocky Hill just south of Hartford.
The folks at Better Connecticut were as nice as can be. We had soundchecked by 8:30am abd then waited until the shows start 10am. Nick prepared his cooking segment and we just hung out and joked with his boss-partner Sean. I will profess to being nervous about this gig, mostly on Wednesday but not so much on Thursday. The crew and place were definitely calming. We played one song at the end of the show and 2 "grab's" which were 30 second snippets while they were going to commercial. We did "Be My Yoko Ono" by BNL for the first "In Your Eyes" by Peter Gabriel for the 2nd. Lovelight was our tune at the end. You can see that here. It sounds good, I flubbed a note in my lead which probably only other guitarists will notice, I certainly do. The co-host Scott butchered my name and then made fun of it a little. Kevin asked if I was pissed and I really wasn't, I just wanted to play the tune as I had been waiting hours for that. You can actually hear me say "whatever" to the fact he called me Mick Pandicini. All in all a great time playing with my brother from another mother Nick and seeing how a live morning show is brought together.
Click Here for Lovelight
Click Here for Nick's cooking segment
Some good things should come out of this show, one they want to book BRW for a show in the future and two we also should be able to get a gig out of Avon Old Farms where Nick works. In a gorgeous 100+ year old ballroom.
It twas a good gig all the way around.
Practice with BRW on Monday night. Can't wait!
Marcusssssss
Posted at 10:24 am by mikepand
Wednesday, January 07, 2009
Posted at 11:10 am by mikepand
Thursday, January 01, 2009
Mike New Years 2008 Review
Happy New Year!
Ahhh 2008. Was a fine year musically for me. All 3 bands did great, especially BRW. CFZ did 15 beach gigs, only 2 inside which was a nice change. A quick count gives me 26 shows with CFZ, 24 with BRW and 17 with Jukebox Zero. 67.............a really good year. I don't talk much about Jukebox Zero in this blog but we had a great year too.
A huge shout out to Pokey, Colin, Ray (for the first 2 anyway) and Wally Y on the festivals. Pokey came to the first one and then played the next 4 with Colin. But not only were those two doing a set with CFZ, all of them were BRW's 'crew' and we could not have done it without them. Thanks guys.
It was a really great year and here is a kind of long summary of it:
January brought one gig at Our Place. This was the infamous LOTK "I forgot my keyboard" gig. He preceeded telling me with "you are gonna be pissed". I was not, I just started searching music stores on my GPS when luckily it was deemed his friend Dave had a Casio not but a mile away. We still sounded great, keys may of been a little 'thin' but I don't think anyone noticed..... Adam was still new to us but getting his legs under him. Great gig. The 2nd set was a monster.
Feb brought us back to the OP. I did a Reuben for soundcheck by request, Pino followed half hazardly on the drums of all things. This was a 2nd set that never really paused once. Limelight magazine showed up to do a feature on us.
March, first we headed to Phi Delt at Dartmouth College. Katie from the Rhythm Ship joined us on keys. Monumental jams at this show. I remember being between Pino and Adam and them just doing sonic battle with each other through me. Killer 4 part harmonies.......Crazy time as usual at Phi Delt. March also brought us back to Our Place , this time with Ray on bass and his wife Laurie doing the Donna thing. I don't rememeber a ton about this gig but I know we sounded real good and I know I came out of my first Donna experience thinking 'yes, we could do this sometimes, this is good!". Great Cassidy if I remember correctly.
April saw 2 gigs with brw. Our return to Arturo's on the Cape. This was another real good show. Lots of Cape people that hadn't seen us in awhile were there. Killer Viola Lee, Knockin on Heavens Door and Hey Pockey way. This to me is when Adam really started hitting a stride. not that he hadn't sounded great already, he had, It just takes time for people to jell and we already knew how good he was.......I think he was still treading water at times fitting into our thing.... still seeing where he fit in. But that night he was on fire, leading us through crazy jams in Scarlet >>> fire and Terrapin. I can remember driving home with Pete, Jason and LOTK and having the conversation about just how good a player he is.
Back to The Op for 4-26. Cosmic Charlie >>> gin and Juice was fun. Another solid gig.
Back on the 18th I had filled in on guitar with The Rhythm Ship at Mill City Brews in Worcester, great time learning and playing their fine material. Def a different place for me, playing lead guitar and not even having a mic in front of me. weird! But a real good experience.
I'm pretty sure around april was when we lost Kevin Pond and gained Ray as our soundguy. No knock on any other soundguys....but Ray has been the best. Really, and I don't say that lightly as I have had some great loyal soundguys. He sets up and breaks down quick, most importantly people tell us how good we sound in all 3 bands. He took our PA system and fine tuned it so it sings. A little public acknowledgment of your quality work brother. Thanks!
May was a tough month, saw my 15+ year old dog Ruby pass away. Still miss her. And my 8 year old Strat stolen from me. I still miss that guitar terribly. I don't often go for an ax without thinking about it, especially at Bogart's. No BRW gigs in May of 08, OP got double booked if I recall correctly.
June started for me with a return to Rum Runners with CFZ one night and then seeing DSO on Sat at the Melody tent. Nice weekend of music. we did our first of 5 Maine Festivals which was Freedom Fest. We went on at 2am and played until almost 4am on friday (well technically Saturday). Then took the longest set break ever and came back on at 11am on Saturday with a Morning Dew opener. A body painted female topless frisbee player was of course an added bonus....not that we looked.......we heard rumors.......A fine fest.
July was Somerset County Jam which by far was the WEIRDEST festival. We had already planned to have Ray and Laurie along on bass and vocals. We knew Pete couldn't make it so Jason was solo. Two things happened that we didn't expect. LOTK couldn't make it and the day before we were to go Jason jammed his middle finger when it wrapped itself around a drill. So we hired local pro Chuck Torlone on keys and had Colin from CFZ play drums Friday night. Jason toughed it out (warrior stuff, and I do not say that lightly at all, he was seriously jacked up) on Sat with Colin on percussion and we played well. We survived it. This was also the "Kill da Wabbit" trip. I may not have ever laughed so hard in my life on this trip. My sides hurt for days.
We also started our 5th (not sure) year on the beach at The Blue Water Resort with Care Factor Zero. we missed LOTK on the keys some dates but Katie Whelan filled in just fine all month. Even added a new dimension with her singing. We did 9 Blue Water gigs from June 28th to July 29th.
the 27th brought us our newest best-es buddy Kevin Keene on bass. No one, well except maybe Adam too, has ever assimilated himself both personally and professionally into a group so fast. Our first time at The infamous Improper Bostonian and we really had a good time and sounded great.
Aug we did 8 gigs with CFZ. 7 at the beach and 1 at LOTK and our buddy Benji's house. Hempstock brought a whole new band for me an Adam. Pete and no Jason on drums with Dick Sage and his buddy Fred Wilkes on bass. Fred was awesome, great guy and player and playing with Sage was a blast. Hanging with him and seeing him in that element (funny.....he took to it, we all do!) was really cool. We also got to jam with Sage and Fred's buddy Ian from the band Grow. Ian is incredible and made our set.
We did our second Improper gig, while turnout was a little low due to a massive rain and lightning storm, it was still a great night with a lot of friends and family showing up to support us.
Sept
We be Jammin Fest! Pino dancing naked on CFZ's stage.......rubbing his junk on LOTK's shirt. Ahhh the memories....He still has the shirt and when wearing it gladly points out "you know what this shirt is ....don't cha?". Full band and 2 monumental shows. Great time. The week after we traveled to NH and the Bouchard wedding. Just as cool as a wedding could be. We rocked out with cousin Dupe on bass and Sage on keys. Great show.
Oct : Oh Harvest fest......how i love thee let me count the ways. Ummm Infinity. Just incredible. Playing to over 1000 people in front of us both nights. 3500 or so showed up I heard. Mind blowing gigs, even Sundays show was well recieved and attended as was CFZ's set on Saturday. This was Kevin's first taste of how lucky we are to have this band, he was instantly hooked I think.
Nov had 4 BRW gigs. 2 were on the same day. Pete played two gigs with a torn rotator cuff and biceps, another warrior moment. First we played a bday party at the Beachcomber in Quincy. Adam had just traveled from a vaca in Peru so we had Pino come sit in on guitar just like old times. Not since 3-25-05 at the Chatham VFW had Pino manned the "Jerry" role. After that gig, Pete, Kevin and I met Adam and Sage in Putnam Ct for our first time at Rick's Billiards. Absolutely another great gig and room. We are back there in Feb and April and hopefully beyond.
11-22 brought us back to Phi Delt as a 4 piece with no keys. Me, Adam, Colin from CFZ and Adam's buddy Zac. We rocked out to a packed house and another fine time at Phi Delt. 11-29 was our last gig of the year. This will be forever known as the "golden rd" gig, where Adam blew the roof off (and the top of everyone's head's as well) with one swooping and soaring outro lead at Bogart's
No gigs in Dec, everyone deserved a nice 60 day reprieve. Back to work on Jan 29th.
Proofreading this brings back so many memories and little things that would take me days to type up. One thing is those festivals. I explain it to people like this. "we get to go to a dead show....hang out and camp in the parking lot, and then WE GET TO BE THE DEAD!". And then we get to see and meet really cool bands and people from all over. Especially Don and the crew from Maine Vocals. It is truly amazing and an honor to be a part of it.
I think though that the biggest thing that stands out is that I love all these guys. Really, a great bunch of talented guys in all 3 bands that enjoy each other and just have fun with it. No one gets too serious, no one gets too high or too low. We like to get up and rock the F out and enjoy spending time with each other while doing it.
Thanks guys and any and everyone who came out to see all the bands in 2008, here's hoping we all have an even better 2009!
Mike aka Marcuss
Posted at 10:34 am by mikepand
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Nick's wedding was a good time. Long motherlovin snowy drive on the way up...thankfully I have 4wd. I saw spinouts, accidents, people in little 2 wheel drive cars FLYING around like idiots....crazy......easy drive on the way back tho. Saw his son whom I haven't seen in 10 years or so. Tall as a tree at 16. Mind blowing that is. We did a little set at some point in the middle of everything. It was to the best of my knowledge this ;
Romeo and Juliet
In Your Eyes
Corinna
Jack a Roe
Brown Eyed Girl
Lovelight >>>
What I got
Don't Be Cruel
I may be missing a tune or two. Really nice wedding. Great to see him and see him so happy.
Christmas is here. I did all my shopping online as usual. No malls for me.
Confirmed some new dates for CFZ at Rum Runners. No word on Sugarloaf.
One of my friends is in the hospital. My brothers best friend. They don't know what's wrong with him. Something in the top spinal cord - brain stem area. Being poked and prodded over xmas and not even knowing whats wrong is just horrible, especially as serious as it sounds. So be thankful for your health and think a positive thought for our friend Pat sitting up at Mass General.
Hopefully going to work on my end of the year blog tonight. I think I can blast out what I have left in an hour if I type fast.
Pino is at The Middle East this Saturday Dec 27th in Boston with The Big Bad Bullocks. Opening for the Mighty Mighty Bosstones. I'm trying to go, so should you.
Marcuss
Posted at 04:39 pm by mikepand
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Only a few more days of 2008 left. Christmas is BAM! Here. We all knew it would be quick with the late T-Day. This is "Nutcracker" week in our house with 2 girls doing 4 shows in 3 days.....hmmmmm sounds like Dad. Exactly why I have 0 shows in 3 days......Oh wait I do have one but it's purely for fun. See"Nick" below.
The boy is good, broken nose was set last Friday, back to school yesterday. No bus riding or recess until after the break. Thanks to all who sent a note. Twas a crazy time.
Nick Muce
Ahhh Nicky, or Nicola if you really want to agitate him (add a thick Italian accent like his mom and he really squirms) is gettin married in CT on Sunday. I am going.... hell or high snow banks. Then we get to set up a little PA and jam out at his reception. Should be fun. Nick is the guy whom I started Care Factor Zero with..... he thought of the name! So it's fun to see him and play some Taj, Dead and BNL which were staples of ours.
Bio
I changed our lower Bio page on the site, former members and guests, to include some names I had omitted. Some guys that we felt didn't treat the band with respect for whatever reasons had not previously been on there. Can't ignore history just cuz you don't like who's in it. So it's been fixed and that to the best of my knowledge is accurate.
Sugarloaf
Trying to confirm gigs at Sugarloaf Mountain. I put it on the website anyway. Hopefully I don't look like an idiot. we shall see. Donny of Maine Vocals is doing it so it looks pretty good. Our friend Justin works there. Oh it's going to be fun.......
Originals
I've been in writing mode lately. Lots and lots of stuff. Full tunes, ideas, bunch of unreleased stuff. 2009 is going to be a recording year for me so watch out boys. CFZ and BRW are both putting discs out if I have my way.
www.hulu.com is a cool site for watching TV and movies on your computer. I watched 30 Rock the other night, something I would never do on a regular TV, but up here I do not have one so a laptop works. And Alec Baldwins character said this about the Jerry Garcia stamp. "If I wanted to lick a hippy....I'd call Joan Baez!".
Love that.
Mike
Posted at 04:39 pm by mikepand
Saturday, December 06, 2008
We had a great night with Jukebox Zero at Bogarts last night. Alotta fun. Daryl Sabine filled in again for Randy and did an incredible job as usual. If you don't know Daryl, or have never seen him play, he is hands down one of the finest and most knowledgable guitarists you will ever see. The karaoke band is so perfect for him because he is after all the "Human Jukebox". Daryl and I played together for 10+ years in Borrowed Time , CFZ and our acoustic duo That's That. It's truly an incredible and satisfying thing for me to get to play with him again. I have not shared stage or musical experiences with anyone more than him. We logged some serious gig time in those years. 5-6 nights a week at times. Plus he is one of the coolest dudes you will ever meet which makes those rides to B-Water a great time.
And now to our "tradgedy narrowly averted" part of the blog. My 10 year old son fell on the playground the other day. Tried jumping over a bench, missed and landly squarely on his face. Broke his nose in 3 places, chipped some teeth. Poor kid got worked over hard. He sits on the couch now with a very swollen face and a re-setting visit and dentist visits next week. You will never have a more hopeless, sickening feeling than having your kid in a hospital bed......but we have it easy compared to him. And it could have been a lot worse he was home in a couple hours and has a good attitude about it. With his protruding upper lip I told him he looked like Cletus the Slack Jawed Yokel from the Simpsons (thats me!) and he was able to throw out bits of "I name all mah kids after what I thinks is gonna happen to them. Ain't that right, 'Stabbed In Jail'?". So the sense of humor is still there but it hurt to smile so we stopped that. Here's hoping to a swift recovery.
I had 3 people talk of that Golden Rd lead Adam did. Ray and I talked at length plus 2 guys that work there mentioned it. Legendary stuff that was. All agreed.
Now this is crazy news, I thought at first not to jinx myself but considering I don't really believe in such things, here goes. Joel at Bogart's says he knows someone who knows someone who may have my missing guitar. He said not to get my hopes up and I am not. but any hope, even a sliver, is more hope than I had yesterday.
Mike
Posted at 05:30 pm by mikepand
Monday, December 01, 2008
I cannot believe it's December already. Seems like yesterday we were in Maine. which means these new ones in 2009 will come quickly. Can't wait. The cold sucks already. Our friends, formerly of Rhythm Ship came out Saturday night. Kate and Jerry both have new bands and are schedules to play in Maine too. Katie got up and sang 'Donna" on a few tunes and did a great job. Hadn't seen those two since late July.
We had a really good night. Lots of new faces, a few regulars, more new than old I think which is always interesting. Wendy and John came by and saw us for the first time in awhile. I met Emoto from the rukind.com message boards for the first time. He had been 'Pino'd" earlier in the day. Having jammed with him.
We played really well. Everyone sounded great, never too loud.
Kevin has assimilated his personality and playing so fast into the equation that it's...for lack of a better term..weird. I am as comfortable with him to my left as anyone I have ever had up there. His singing is smooth and flows with both Adam and I. A fine addition as I have said before.
Jason played well without (injured) wingman Bubbles. We miss ya tho Cookie.
It was great to play with a keyboardist again. LOTK was on fire and beaming all night. We all looked forward to this one and it did not dissapoint.
Now Adam...holy shit Adam. He played great all night but the peak and-or absolute mind blower was Golden rd, our last song. We did an outro jam that he did things that sent chills up your spine. I am not kidding here....... and anyone in that room for that jam will be saying the same things that I am to all their friends. LOTK called me yesterday to (chastise me for not recording) and to go "Dude did you HEAR THAT GOLDEN RD?". Yes I did. Amazing.
Forgot the mouse and keyboard..AGAIN. No recordings. Oh and the video camera sittign next to the mouse on my couch up here. Will not happen again as they are already in the trailer. Yes I can be a dumbass, wish I had gotten that show on record.....next time....
Mike
Posted at 09:34 pm by mikepand
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Happy Thanksgiving to all.
Figured I'd run up here to the studio mid-cooking to blog very quickly.
Today I think about how lucky I am to have 4 happy and healthy chillin's. A wonderful and beautiful wife. My 3 bands of both old and new friends. How lucky I am to be able to play in such great bands with such talented people. That everyone is on the same page and very much into being on great productive teams where we all make each other better just by getting on the same stage.
Plus all my non-band friends, too many to name but all who are supportive and lifelong....well you know, it's appreciated.
I thank you all and wish you all a wonderful Thanksgiving and many more.
See you Saturday at Bogart's!
Mike
Posted at 10:24 am by mikepand
Monday, November 24, 2008
My 4th time back to Phi Delt and it was a great one, probably the 2nd best turnout-wise if my memory serves me correctly. The brothers as always were excellent hosts. We went on at 11pm for the first set. Set 2 started at about 1am and went all the way until 3:20am or so. Incredible crowd.
I can say this, I said it at about 3:25am. I missed my keyboard players immensly. Not that we sounded bad, we didn't. Zac on bass was a monster. He played really well, as did Colin on drums. But for me everythnig changed, I felt at times I had to fill the space of two. So it was a challenge, not something i would like to do often. I did notice how much Adam and I clicked on alot of things tho. After a year now we are really getting that bounce - off players get after awhile. And the singing was just great. We nailed Truckin' among others.
The whole weekend was fun. Went by quickly. Got to see mom and have her cook for me, my sister stopped in. JBZ on Friday was great as well. Got to hang with our brother Kevin Pond which is always a blast. It was flippin COLD up there tho. Freezin -ass cold even. My partners in travel colin and Pokey were great as always.
We laughed alot all weekend. Can't wait for the next one!
T-day and the Bogart's on Saturday. Can't Wait.
Mike
Posted at 08:46 pm by mikepand
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A Grateful Dead Experience
