A fun day of intense drum rudiments (or, as much fun as one can have doing drum rudiments for an extended period of time- lol) with Johnny Misso at his Extreme Drum and Groove School! It was a fun video shoot-Johnny was a great host- I’m looking forward to checking out the final results!
DRUM VIDEO SHOOT WITH JOHNNY MISSO
ALL STAR JAM FUN
It was a great time recently at Ironsmoke Distillery participating in the All-Star Jam on April 25! Lotsa great people and musicians were there. We jammed some classic Deep Purple, Joe Walsh, and Bad Company. Great venue – hope to do it again sometime.
NEW INTERVIEW ON THE PODCAST PAGE
Hey guys – my latest interview, with Jamie Eads of The Drum Shuffle, is now up on the Podcast – Interview page. I had a great time with Jamie, even though I was battling the flu. Go check it out!
Social Media Fun
Hey kids! I’m having fun shooting various videos for a new series on my social media accounts called “Name That Tune” – which has started to air already. Some will be easy to guess, some hard. They’ll be recognizable beats and drum fills from famous artists – either one beat per episode, or “medleys” of beats. Either way, lets have fun!
NAMM 2019 WRAP UP
This past weekend at NAMM was a blast! Just the fact that for a few day I escaped the freezing cold of Western NY (only to return to it afterwards…) was a bonus. It was great to meet up with my sponsors and musical buddies that I haven’t seen in months, or in some cases since last year’s NAMM, as well as meet a bunch of the musicians that I admire. Catching a couple of shows and socializing at the Hilton Hotel with all of the musicians is a given tradition that we all do. A special bonus for me was to hang with my fellow Lou Gramm bandmates Michael Staertow and Scott Gilman – I miss playing and hanging with those guys now that Lou retired his band. NAMM has successfully charged up my batteries for 2019 – I’ve had some talks with people about various projects – and we will see what the future brings!
HEADING TO NAMM!
It’s that time of year again – time to head to Los Angeles/Anaheim to be a part of the biggest and baddest show in the music industry. I’ll be stopping by the booths of all of my sponsors, with a special shout out to Regal Tip, who hooks me up with my pass each year. I’m also looking forward to catching up with friends in the biz that I haven’t seen in a while. A great way to start off 2019!
LOU GRAMM 2016 FOREIGNER MEDLEY NOW UP ON THE HOME PAGE MEDIA PLAYER
Hey kids – back in the fall of 2016 we (Lou Gramm and band) re-recorded some of the iconic classic Foreigner hits and put them into a juicy medley. This medley was recorded for promotional purposes to be used in advertising upcoming Lou Gramm shows. That medley is now available to listen to in the music player on the Home Page. Enjoy!
HAPPY NEW YEAR 2019!
Happy New Year everyone! I hope we all move upward and onward this year. 2019 will start out for me in January at the 2019 NAMM Show – I’m excited to once again be a part of such a great event! As for gigging in 2019, I have decided not to join Liegelord after all. As fun as it sounded, after careful thought, it didn’t make financial sense to do so. I wish my buddy Joe Comeau and the guys luck in their endeavors. A couple of other projects are being considered for 2019 as well, but I’m keeping my options open for the new year as of now.
On a personal note, since a new year always brings resolutions, plans and commitments for most of us, for those of you looking to either get out of a rut in your life or expand your thoughts and consciousness, I’d like to recommend some material that I’ve been listening/reading/watching over the last few years. I’m not going to describe theme here – I’ll let you explore them yourself if you wish to do so. As I recently heard one person say: “You may not find the material – it finds YOU”. Check out material by Eckhart Tolle, Don Miguel Ruiz, Jeremy Locke, Richard Wetherill, Ned Burwell, and Mark Passio. There are many, many others who can guide you to a new way of thinking. All of these guys have either great books, videos, and podcasts (or combinations of these) to keep you busy for hundreds of hours. You may not subscribe to everything each person says, which is ok. Take from each what you wish. Good luck!
LOU GRAMM WRAP-UP
Here’s a picture of Lou and I at the first show I played with him on July 4, 2009 in Big Bear, CA. Since 2004, I’ve recorded Foreigner songs with him (twice- in ‘04 and ‘16), been a fill in drummer for both practices and shows, and then a permanent fixture for the last 3 years. It’s been a blast looking out from the drums and seeing one of the best singers that ever existed right in front of me. Over those years, we played with Bad Company, Loverboy, Dennis DeYoung, Pat Benatar, and more. Anywhoo, Lou has now retired his band – and what a band it was. It was an honor to play with those guys – we had half of the classic Foreigner ‘90’s line-up, and I dare say we gave the current version of Foreigner a run for their money. So- enough rambling! BIG thanks go out to Lou and my bros in the band, the crew, all of the fans that came out and saw us play, and my family for putting up with me being gone. I hope to see everyone soon!
NEW INTERVIEW ON PODCAST PAGE
Check out the latest addition to the podcast/ interview page – I was recently one of the guests on the “Carnival of Randomness” Podcast. I appeared with some old high school buddies and a couple other friends – talking seriously, but mostly just plain silly, as we talked about my years with Lou Gramm and reminisced about our high school band, Gothic Toad, among other stuff.
