In March, 2010 I played a show in Montreal with Grammy winning rapper COMMON. He and his crew are amazing people. We raised a bucket load of much needed cash for the the Israel Cancer Research Fund.
I was hanging out at the hotel bar with COMMON after the show and he mentioned that his new album was being produced by Kanye West and No I.D. and was coming out soon, after the theatrical release of his new film, Just Wright.
Me and my producer colleague, Earl Lee Bird, proceeded to produce a track for consideration for the forthcoming album. It's called Summertime and well, it's pretty hooky I must say. Hopefully it suits the overall vibe and makes it on the new record.
My new friend, Nejeed Kasaam, is preparing to release his new book entitled High On Life: Stories of Hope, Change and Leadership.
We are very happy to support this important project. "Piece De Resistance" is being used as the song for this promotional Youtube video. Among other things, Nejeed started End Poverty Now. A massive movement with a global reach.
His High On Life book launch party: August 12th 7pm at The Coffee Shop - 2305 West 41st Avenue Vancouver. Buy a book baby!
I've been staying with my boy Mitchell, who owns Green Truck. It's an all organic catering truck that's even powered by bio diesel: vegetable oil. His warehouse is even solar powered. I rolled to work with him for a couple of days, talk about a walking reality show, this cat is a total character! We've found ourselves in some interesting predicaments. But one thing is constant, there's always an acoustic guitar nearby to get s out of a jam (no pun intended;)!
A former supermodel whose saving the world one meal at a time.
We'll be posting some behind the scenes footage soon...
Los Angeles has been a blast! We shot the video on Thursday with award winning director, Steven Goldmann at the helm. He's a total dude and directed us very well. We had several directors who provided excellent treatments, but when I went through Steven's reel and watched clips of his BBC documentary on Bruce Springsteen, I was sold. He shot, directed and cut the piece for BBC. He's also done music videos for several multi-platinum acts. We were in excellent hands to say the least.
It was a blast hitting several key L.A. area locations such as Venice beach, Hollywood and the beautiful bluffs of Point Dume, Mailbu.
We had an absolute ball at the inaugural Tall Tree Music Festival. Props and congrats to the organizers for selling out a peaceful groovy festival in their first year in!
Our set was in the glorious afternoon sunshine above a cliff overlooking the ocean. The night before I was walking to to my tent, I heard an angel singing in the darkness. I stumbled upon an acoustic jam at a campsite with some great players. After jamming for an hour with my new friends, I asked one of the stand-out players if she wanted get on stage to sing a song with us the following day. There was a pause and then said yes and everyone cheered. Her name is Laura Mitic and she's something else (see photo). Around 30 people were circled around for the jam... but, the coolest part was hearing all applause after each song from many tents surrounding the area where we thought people were sleeping.
A few songs later I felt that I had to also ask Pat to play. He he's such a cool dude and a hell of a singer/guitarist.
The two of them sat in with the band and blew the roof of the tent!
It was nice to meet many of the bands and hobnob with the industry folks that rolled down.
So many lovely and talented people. I was disappointed that I missed the entertainment that night as I dig the bands that played. One of my colleagues got kicked out for not having her ID with her, so I decided to go with her as she was there supporting the project.
Music BC flew in Tom Jackson, the world's only 'live music producer', to do some mentoring in a seminar setting.
Wow! What a passionate man! He delivered a 3 1/2 hour presentation with such gusto... it was very interesting. Check out the link to one of his videos below:
We're excited to participate in the Peak Performance Project this year. We're particularly excited to see such a large contingency of bands/artists from our home town of Victoria. Congrats to all the top 20. And to those who are disappointed that you didn't get in, next year comes around real fast, so keep writing, recording and playing live. This'll set you up for next year!
