Banff. nuff said

Well, this will be the first of a few blogs pertaining to my time here in Banff, Alberta, Canada. I'm currently on my fourth day here and all I can say is "damn!" This is undoubtedly the best artistic experience of my life, and I still have over two weeks to go! I will be posting a lot of stuff from here, including pictures of quite possibly the most gorgeous landscape you have ever seen, as well as ideas and concepts I have learned along the way. I feel so incredibly lucky to be here, and I wish all of you could be here to share it with me.

On a side note, in case anyone is reading this soon after I have written it (thursday night) remember, Tom Waits tickets go on sale tomorrow morning! If you be in the south, you best be on that shit. Better believe I will. Thanks for posting stuff y'all, keep it up and spread the word. or not. peace out mimmy jimmys!

Cranium of Sound

There's a cool book that I'm reading right now that everyone should check out if you haven't already. It's called This Is Your Brain On Music. Very cool stuff. So far the most fascinating tidbit is that the neurons in your auditory cortex fire at the same rate per second as the vibrations of the tones that you hear. In other words if I play you an A 440, your neurons fire at 440 times a second. If I play you a note that vibrates 150 times a second they fire 150 times a second. Pretty wild stuff. Dig it. 

Quote of the day

If you are not aware of the Umbrella Music guys in Chicago, it could very well be an incredible source of inspiration as it is for me (umbrellamusic.org). There isn't a lot on the site other than a link to an article on the founders and a lineup of the shows their curating for the month to come. While perusing it, I found a really incredible statement that is so fucking true a lot of the time, I thought I'd mention it:

"It takes a great drummer to be better than no drummer."

South Knox School of Sound

Just wanted to report an incredible music happening this past weekend. Jeremy got together a solid group of folks together for what turned out to be one of the most memorable musical experiences I know I have ever had. It made me realize just how much I want to be the get the ball rolling in nashville - lets hope something eventually comes from it. Anyway, I might be able to put recordings of the music we played on here, that would be sweet. Keep your eyes peeled for it. And remember, invite some more folks to join this here blog - lets get it growin' and flowin'!

Festival International

Last weekend I was in Lafayette, Louisiana and experienced an incredible free festival that drew in musicians from Africa, Central and South America, Canada, and Europe. It was very francophonically centered and I believe about 80% of the bands came from French speaking countries. My two favs and strong recommendations:
March Forth Marching Band out of Portland - not French speakers, but the baddest marching band I've ever seen.
Mamadou Diabate - kora player from Mali whose music was so beautiful I had to fight back tears. Everyone in the quartet was incredible, two others were from Mali and the upright bass player was Keith Jarrett's son.