modena, italy @ cafe concerto

we traveled by car today to Modena w/ our wonderful tour manager pauolo franti. modena is the home of pavarotti, i'm told,and what a setting for a concert. it's situated in the centre of this historic square of 14th century cathedral and leaning tower of duomo modena. we played outside after an amazing dinner of filleta di monaco, pasta, and lambrusco. good sound tonite with angelo our soundman and the maffia club crew were all here as well. show went well. our best show yet and ursula seemed to really enjoy this show as well as the beautiful setting. hung out for awhile afterwards...we will have a few days off here in reggio emilia to rest after some fairly strenuous travel days and no sleep. looking forward to rome our next stop in a few days.

rimini, italy - morphine room

flew from amsterdam into munich airport where we had a 4.5 hour layover. dealing with extreme exhaustion i collapsed over 3 chairs at our gate listening to hail to the thief on repeat oblivious to the outside world. the flight was very good into rimini and our first really comfortable one at that.
rimini is kinda like ibiza i'm told - a real party town -beautiful people here but it's all too much after awhile. no time for more rest. soundcheck at cocorico's morphine room - a small all white chillout lounge nestled in the back of a giant technodisco firetrap. PA is very bad. can't handle any lowend...clipping badly. but we will make the best of it. bad hum too.
show: after a long wait for dinner of a mix of fish back to morphine. 1600+people overpacked. scarey. show is very raw and very loud, but comes off as well as to be expected. after show a few beers and back to our hotel to sleeeeeeeeep.

rotterdam, the netherlands

After returning to hotel after festival to pack up i had the pleasure of meeting the violinist for sparklehorse (one of my favorite artists)...so it was really cool to make this link (so to speak)...hopefully some music down the line...so, left hotel for the 3 hour drive to stockholm past amazingly mythological viking burial grounds...a beautiful drive here...an amazing countryside to gaze at during the long drive. 5 hour layover at stockholm airport (due to our plane breakingdown)
finally into amsterdam and on to the train to rotterdam with 11 pieces of gear and luggage...
rotterdam show was a disappointment for us.
sound was lousy...an inexperienced monitor person and feedback all around us...i was practically playing off stage...but, we made it through this struggle. back to hotel...slept for one
hour before leaving for amsterdam airport for our flight to rimini, italy....yawn.

hultsfred festival, hultsfred sweden

vimmerby stadthotel room 103
some major traveling getting to this festival...flight into manchester england 2 hour layover then flight to stockholm sweden followed by a 3.5 hour drive by van into vimmerby where our hotel was. long exhausted night sleep then off to festival. a frantic setup during soundcheck as i discovered my zipdrive was malfunctioning...finished seconds before showtime...wonderful show with a shakey start due to lack of soundcheck...show was filmed for swedish mtv...this day we shared billing with massive attack , dave gahan of depechemode, catpower, raveonettes, schneider tm, and many others...massive attack were incredible...dont miss their show when they come to your city.
next headed to amsterdam then on to rotterdam for theater show...more to come.

off to sweden

crazy busy with rehearsals and packing too much
gear...looking forward to this new tour covering
festivals, theatres, clubs, and who knows what else...should be beautiful...stay tuned for updates from europe...off we go.

krass bros. @ bar noir

night 3. it's been a busy weekend of playing
and such diverstiy of musics. tonight with mark
boyce, barry meehan, and ted johnson at bar noir.
a quite loud show but blazing none the less. we covered, in our own way, 'dig a pony', waterloo sunset by the kinks', some old sly stone, and a few
boyce originals...it was a great night. i was buzzing after the show...still working out the inner workings of my new guitar amp and it's relationship with my trusty '66 epiphone...i like it!!
this week has been music madness...picked up all the zeppelin dvd + cds, saw lou reed at the tower theatre, and checked out denmarks raveonettes at the northstar...really loud...rock is back folks. here it comes. i'm glad too. it's time for bands to be back in the forefront...but, of course, we still need some good ones...krass bros. are ready to wipe the floor with anybody...see you next time at pontiac june 26th...next stop Hultsfred festival in Sweden with Ursula Rucker...more to come.

photo: mark boyce action figure by tim motzer

base3 v2

night 2 at tritone.
an interesting first set of late night improvisation with TK,
claudio rochat-felix, philip yaeger, and doug hirlinger sitting in on two pieces...second set failed to ignite into any great moments or direction...kind of waffled...but happy for the first set...and it was recorded...night was weird at the end...but had a cool wind down at ruba...all good.

jamaaladeen tacuma @ DNA galleria

it's been a fun weekend so far, starting with a
rehearsal at jamaaladeen tacuma's sound genetics studios where we did an off the cuff recording...19 minutes of exploration...which
kinda ended up as a wonderful piece of music...
we then burned a cd and ran down to WRTI
studio for michael harrison's show "the bridge"
for a sorta world premiere all in promotion of our show at the Tritone on saturday with Jack Walrath.

jump to show:: a wild and wooly ride...much like speeding in a jaguar around monaco curves with the pedal to the metal::: an astounding night though. two sets
of blistering musicmeltdown and it succeeded. bluenote recording artist jack walrath was amazing on trumpet..and many ridiculous moments
all night from this quartet which also featured tony
catastrophe on drumkit. looking forward to playing more with jamaaladeen and crew....it was quite an
honour being invited out to play in his on-going DNA galleria series. cheers.

jamaaladeen article
www.jackwalrath.com
www.tonycatastrophe.com
wrti 90.1 fm philadelphia - the bridge
friday 10-2 with mike harrison


photo: lost in space model at jamaal's studio