This Saturday We will be back where we started at East Enders Coffee House on Main St. in Riverhead, NY. Showtime will be 8:00 PM. We will also have a special guest for the evening, the most talented harmonica player I have ever had the good fortune to play with: Frank Latorre of the King Bees. He wll be sitting in for Jerry the Dish who has an out of state court appearance. Please join us on the 19th for an evening of rockabilly and rock and roll as it can only be played when fueled espresso and cake. http://eastenderscoffeehouse.com/
The Vendettas are now working on a new recording. We have recorded the basic tracks, the old school way live, with no tricky stuff. We will be adding the finishing touches and mixing in the next few weeks. We found a great studio http://www.suffolkrecordingstudios.com/ and had excellent experience with Allen and Dan there. They understood what we were going for and helped us get the authentic vibe we were looking for.
A few weeks ago I was in Minneapolis for a professional conference and happened to eat dinner at a Jazz club called Rossi's. To my surprise Leon Redbone was appearing there that night. Needless to say I couldn't pass up the opportunity to see him. So as my colleagues left for the evening (they had no idea who he was) I headed toward the performance area to take my seat. I made a quick stop in the men's room and while washing my hands I turned my head to see standing there, freaking Brian Setzer!
Now I don't have to explain as a guitar player in a rockabilly band how important this guy is to me. When I was in the 8th grade the Stray Cats played in my middle school gym on Long Island. This was right before they went to England. It was a pretty influential moment in my life, it is one of the reasons I picked up the guitar in the first place.
It can be sort of terrifying when you get to meet your heros, there are many ways they might not live up to your expectations, not the least of which is they may turn out to be jerks. That happened to me once. It was a real disappointment. I knew I had to chance it though and say something (even though I was kind of star struck) so I eked out something along the lines of "I love your work". There were about a million things I wanted to say but I didn't want to seem like a freak. I have to say Brian was very friendly and gracious. He took some time to talk with me and even stayed to see Leon Redbone on my suggestion. We had another brief exchange on the way out. It was a very cool experience.
