It’s been awhile but, boy do I have some good stuff to share! More to come asap!

I’m excited to share that Alex has accepted me as a student, sort of. What i mean by that is that he really doesn’t teach so it’s more of a hang i guess and sharing drumming together. It is so awesome that a player like Alex will make the time to do this. He is constantly doing movie scores and other studio work in Hollywood so….you get the picture..I’ll have more to share on this later as we get together at his home…

And now for other news….Cindy Blackman (drummer for Lenny Kravitz) will be giving a free drum clinic at Mike’s Drum Shop in Santa Barbara on Tues May 15th at 7pm!!!!

She is one of my favorite drummers and I would add that, to me, her jazz band sounds excellent as well…Tony Williams would be proud.

I’ll post after the clinic for those that can’t attend.

Caio

I’m back teaching at my own studio located at Goldmine Recording Studios in Ventura.

Currently accepting students for private drum lessons ( 1/2 hr sessions ) on drum kit.

Full professional kit, all styles taught, all ages, affordable, flexible schedule.

Please click on the above “Drum Lessons” page link for more info.

A few fridays ago I enjoyed the awesome priviledge of getting to tour the Drum Workshop facility in Oxnard CA. What an incredible experience to be able to share with my 12 year old son who came along with me. Right from our arrival as we entered the front office, we saw the most amazing display of pedals dating back to the early 1930’s (or earlier possibly) from many well known companies and of course leading right up to the present with the gold plated titanium DW9000 pedal.

I just bought my 9000 a little while back and have to say it is the best pedal I have ever played. period. Up til then I used a Tama Iron Cobra which was great but nowhere near the smoothness and speed of the 9000. I totally recommend saving your money and getting one.

Back to the tour….

I’ll give you the highlights so as not to take up 10 pages….

Our tour guide, Brandon was really cool and took us through the whole history and process of making drums at DW.

We got to see (and touch) Neil Peart’s new 24 pc kit being made for his upcoming tour with RUSH supporting the Snakes and Arrows CD. What a beautiful red lacquer finish with black arrows encircled by a 36 carat gold leafed snake eating it’s own tail. This symbol appears several times around each shell. Absolutely beautiful!!!

The new shell wraps are awesome as well as the natural finishes we saw being applied to other custom kits.

The making of a drum shell was super cool to see and learn about. The people making the drums were friendly and you can tell they love what they do!

After walking through the finish/ inspection area and visiting the hardware assembly section we went to the showroom where we got to try various kits, pedals and even a prototype pedal with no heel plate!!! very cool!

Brandon then took us over to the other building where we got to check out the new jazz kits (my personal fave) and the 6000 series hardware which is awesome. I hear that’s why Peter Erskine got interested in DW. Apparently the flat-based, aluminum legged stands actually allow the cymbal to resonate better like the old flat-based stands and he also loves the 9000 pedal.

We were just hanging out there for a few minutes when Brandon announced he had one more thing to show us. So, he takes us down the long corridor right past the office of the man himself, Mr. Don Lombardi. Continuing all the way to the end of the hall to an unmarked door, we step inside the room and as we enter, I see a drum set that looks just like a Terry Bozzio set-up. As we turn to the left we see Terry himself in the midst of constructing an enormous rack/cage for his upcoming tour with KORN!! There was also a film crew documenting the whole thing for television!!!

Wow! meeting Terry Bozzio was way beyond anything I expected for that day!!

We talked for 15 minutes about his days with Frank Zappa, UK, Missing Persons and his new instructional website coming soon as well as the KORN tour.

He was very gracious to stop his work and chat a bit. Thank you Terry and DW!!!!

All in all a great afternoon was had and I have to say that although I have been a vintage drum preferring guy for alot of years, I love the new DW jazz drums and that will most likely be my next kit.

Ciao for now…

Not here! it’s been a busy month or so since I last posted. Lot’s of gigging and my student list has grown as well. Teaching drums is teaching me so much! I have the best students. They are all at different levels and into different music so it really keeps me on my toes.

Goldmine Recording Studios continues to grow and we’re looking forward to many new projects already booked for the coming months. Big River has promo packs out to all the larger venues in the region and look forward to a busy year. Big River will also be performing to thousands at this year’s annual Rat Fink Reunion.

Joe Baugh and I are writing tunes for our avante- jazz duo, FreeFish,  and will be performing soon. Park Bench Prophets (our other funky jazz project) will also be busy this year.

If that’s not enough, The Phantom Riders are gearing up for another year of blistering Surf-a-billy madness all over So. Cal.!

See you at the gigs!!

A good time was had by all at this year’s festival which raised money to mend the faulty hearts of children born in the Chernobyl area of Russia. Big River drew an enthusiastic crowd including a group of line dancers who added some extra flavor to the show. A fan shot some video of the performance. Check it out here.

I’ve returned to teaching from my studio and doing house-calls. It’s a much better set-up (with full kit) for learning at the studio and my students are really enjoying it. If you’re looking for a drum teacher in the Ventura County area please shoot me an email. You can learn more about my credentials here.

Thanks to my affiliation with Instrumental Music, I went to the NAMM show this year!! For those who aren’t familiar with NAMM, It is the largest trade show for musical instrument manufacturers and merchants and has been coming to Anaheim, CA for many years. I hadn’t been to NAMM in about 14 years so I was really excited to see all the new products etc. The trek from Ventura to Anaheim is about 2 hrs, so I left pretty early to allow myself enough time to visit the booths I really wanted to see and visit some friends working there. Of course when i arrived at about noon, I realized I should have left my house earlier; when you go to NAMM be prepared to park far and walk.

Once inside, I was immediately familar with the layout as it hasn’t changed much in 14 years. I saw many faces I recognized from the music biz. Naturally, being a drummer, I headed directly for the the drum section. Here’s some highlights from the booths I visited (in no particular order):

1. Matt Sorum, Omar Hakim, Zoro and Steve Gadd at the Vic Firth booth.

2. Remo’s new bass drum heads: Super cool. Also their pre-tensioned heads in colored geometric shaped frames sounded great with mallets. I think these were for kids. Remo also has a new be-bop in black lacquer that’s nice.

3. Nikki Sixx signing autographs near the Gretsch drums booth.

4. Talking with Chris Lombardi the owner of DW about artist endorsements. The new Peter Erskine Be-Bop kit is very cool. I also chatted about Alex Acuna’s affiliation with them and GonBop. Checked out their vintage style stands and I need to get the 9000 series pedal which is incredible.

5. I’m a huge fan of Bosphorus cymbals so naturally I talked with one of the owners Kevin Vosbien who greeted me warmly. One of the best moments by far was watching Jeff Hamilton (co-owner of Bosphorus) play one of his Remo signature kits in the Bosphorus booth. If that wasn’t enough, as I lingered there trying out Stanton Moore’s (kit pictured above) cymbals. along came Joe LaBarbara who sat down on the open kit and treated us to a short and very sweet performance.

6. At the Roland booth I checked out their amazing line of V Drums and talked with one of the reps since I’ll be teaching with one of their kits very soon. Awesome products all around.

7. Taye drums makes some of the most melodic acoustic kits I’ve ever heard. I tried them out and talked to them about endorsements. Derrek Phillips from Charlie Hunter’s band plays Taye drums.

By this point I was pretty beat, so I visited some friends: Darrell Smith who’s a product designer for Line 6 and Jeannette Villareal who works for Larivee Guitars. All in all a great day. Whew! Can’t wait for next year.

It is with great pleasure that I can now share with you the news of my latest recording endeaver. As the faith community known as The Bridge has come to a close in terms of name/identity, we, the collective of artists/musicians have cronicled the voices and music of this unique community in the form of “8″. This cd not only represents our journey of eight years but will also be used as part of our global mission/outreach as all sales proceeds will go towards Just One. This collective voice for justice exists for the ones living in poverty, orphans and those being trafficked throughout the world. I am honored to have been asked to play drums for several of the recordings as well as getting to be a part in some way of such an outreach. Being able to share one’s gifts for the benefit of others is how we have lived this journey. My personal thanks to Darrell Smith for his patience and ideas. Thanks also to Alex Acuna for the use of his personal studio for tracking and of course, thanks to all the other musicians who shared thier time and gifts.

I will try to post some of the tunes, create a link or Myspace page for “8″ asap.

I’m sure many of you already know the name Alex Acuna. For those that don’t, he is ONLY one of the worlds leading percussionists ( certainly one of the BEST ) on both hand drums and percussion as well as the kit. Although he’s recorded and performed with EVERYONE, he’s probably best known for his work in the groundbreaking 1970’s jazz fusion group Weather Report

I have had the good fortune to meet Alex through his enormously talented daughter Regina Acuna-Williams with whom I have spent the last 4 years drumming as part of the worship band for the faith community known as The Bridge.

Recently Alex joined us for our pre-Christmas celebration and we shared drumming duties that morning……Let me tell you, I had met Alex the prior year at our Easter gathering and got to witness his amazing kit technique then as well as have him watch while I attempted to perform the same tune…gulp! But he is one of the nicest, most down-to-earth people you could ever meet. He gave me tips and encouraged me while pointing out the beauty of our different styles and approach(es) to the instrument.

Well, this Christmas I was really in for a treat as I got to watch and listen to him drum on Little Drummer Boy. At the rehearsal earlier that morning he walked in while I was playing with Regina and the others and after we finished working on the other tunes I would be playing,  Alex came up to play. It was great to re-connect with him and felt as though we had just seen eachother recently. ( side note: I recently recorded 3 tracks for The Bridge cd entitled “8″ at Alex’s home studio in Balboa Lake but he wasn’t there that day…more on that session later). Of course his playing was incredible. He got sounds out of my Bosphorus cymbals  I’ve never heard before and displayed a comfortable approach and light touch combined with just the right moments of power that captured the spirit of the classic tune beautifully. After he finished he told me how much he liked the sound of the kit and MY playing (huh). (the kit is a Pacific kit by DW and I had just put alot of work into dialing it in so I was super stoked to have him say that!!) I sat down to play the next tune and he grabbed up some of my tambourines and shakers….I couldn’t believe it…I was playing a song with Alex Acuna!!! The best part was that we were sharing a moment together for God’s glory and the conversation we shared later definitely held moments I will treasure.