Pat Metheny - Recording & Touring with a "Band of Robots"

This month's Electronic Musician magazine features an amazing cover story about the legendary Pat Metheny and his latest endeavour, which involves a studio album and live tour where he is the only "human" musician - and he is accompanied by a vast array of robotic instruments that he triggers remotely while playing guitar. His unconventional - and truly


revolutionary "band" - consists of multiple types of drums, glass bottles, digital pianos, four one-stringed guitar necks (he calls it the "Guitar Bot") and many other unusual sound makers. In addition, Metheny uses a range of software solutions when performing with this mechanical orchestra - from Abelton Live, Motu Digital Performer, and Avid Sibelius.

The article not only covers Metheny's vision behind the project, but also profiles the pioneering mastermind behind most of the robotic instruments - Eric Singer - who is also behind "LEMUR" (the League of Electronic Musical Urban Robots) which builds robotic musical instruments for many situations.

As a longstanding Metheny fan and admirer, he never ceases to amaze with his groundbreaking drive to try entirely unconventional methods for making wonderful music. If you're a fan, give the article a read - and if you're not a fan of his but just a general music lover, I'd encourage you to check it out as well. It's quite an incredible story.

Also, check out amazing videos of Metheny and his "band" as well as listen to a podcast at: www.emusician.com/bonus_material

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Irish Pub Improv - The Real Deal

Last week, my job took me to Ireland and I stayed in the country for a few extra days to hang with an old friend of mine who lives in Ennis. While we were only there for a couple of short days, we managed to squeeze a lot in - from cliff walks, to farm houses in the country, to a few pints of Guiness in some pubs along the way - and more. One evening found us in a tiny pub in Ennis, where a group of 6 musicians circled a table adjacent to the bar, jamming on one Irish melody after another.

What's cool about this is how the pub only "supports" one of the players (meaning they only really pay one of the players - usually the more renowned one) and the rest of the musicians just show up to jam. I guess it's sort of like an open mike nite in the US, but it's different in that when you walk into the pub it looks as if these folks have been playing together forever. The particular group we saw featured a banjo player (he was the renowned one) and playing with him was a fiddle player, guitar, piccolo, recorder, congas, and another banjo. The woman playing piccolo also sang.

What amazed me most was that while the tunes seemed mostly like traditional Irish music, they were fairly complex in notation and phrasing. Yet everyone seemed to hold their own on every song - in fact they did more than hold their own, they actually sounded like a band. They were great listeners, each letting the other take the lead at the appropriate time. Lots of give and take, which is often the difference between a group of people just "playing instruments" vs a great band.

So if you ever find yourself in Ireland, I would strongly suggest that you take in an evening at a local, off-the-beaten-path pub where there is Irish music. A true delight.

An Amazing Piano Talent

Those who know me know that I am a Pandora junkie - mainly for the purpose of musical discovery. (If you don't know what Pandora is, you can read one of my posts from June of 2008... or just visit the site at Pandora.com).

Anyway, the number of new artists I've discovered on Pandora is vast - and one of the latest that I'm currently grooving on is Hiromi (http://www.hiromimusic.com/), a jazz pianist whose recordings and live performances are absolutely jaw dropping. Japanese-born Hiromi began studying piano at the age of six, later went on to write some jingles fro big Japanese companies like Nissan, and then wound up at Berklee School of Music, before becoming an international award-winning piano sensation. I discovered on Pandora after creating a Michel Camilo station - he is one of my favorites.

In the spirit of introducing other people to amazing music and performances out there, take a look (and listen) to one of Hiromi's original standards called, Love and Laughter from her Spiral album - and you can judge for yourself.

Mist and Mast

Here's a shout out to a great San Francisco band "Mist and Mast" - saw them last night at the Pirate Cat Radio Cafe, where they played live on the radio to promote their new CD. The music is refreshing -- sort of an airy indie rock feel (a little reminiscent of Radiohead) -- but very unique. Great melodies and some interesting chord progressions are found in all the material, which gives each of the tunes some unexpected "lift" as they progress. Really good stuff. What's even cooler than their CD release party tonight at Bottom of the Hill? You can actually download the new album in its entirety -- FOR FREE -- from the band's website. Just visit Mist and Mast and look for the "Download Album" link on the upper right. All you have to do to complete the download is sign up on the band's mailing list. A great idea - and you won't be disappointed.

Hey Guitarists... This One DOES Go to 11!!

For all my guitar playing friends out there - and there are many - here's something you're definitely going to want to bend an ear on: the new Eleven Rack guitar recording and effects processing system.

I know what some of you are thinking. this is just a shameless plug because I work for the company that makes it. But it's not. We make a lot of products for guitarists - and I have to tell you that this one is simply outstanding. Sure there are other amp modelers out there - but Eleven Rack has many unique characteristics that put it in a class by itself. First, it uses a tone cloning function and custom "True-Z" input which re-create the exact experience of playing through a full guitar rig. More importantly, it integrates with Pro Tools (the #1 Recording software out there) so you can take all those great sounds from your studio recordings and just dial them up on stage with the push of a button. Imagine going back into the studio months later to punch in a few chords or notes in a solo - and all you have to do is bring the same guitar you played on the first takes - and just dial in the sound settings you saved. Forget the painstaking process of trying to replicate amp tones by ear... it's all there in Eleven Rack. For those of you who have Pro Tools, you may already be familiar with the Elven software plug in - and that will sync directly with Eleven Rack, allowing you to control the hardware directly from your PC. Just amazing.

I've heard this unit up close, and compared to every other modeler I've played through, nothing comes close. Check out the Eleven Rack Sounds sounds and videos and you can also check out a press video review at premierguitar.com.

The Best Club Band in Boston?

Just a quick plug for Chad LaMarsh - who I used to gig with regularly. His band (The Chad LaMarsh Band) has been nominated in the "Best Club Band" category for the Boston Night Life Awards in conjunction with Dirty Water TV.

Give them a vote if you get a free minute at Night Life Awards. They're also the house band on the night of the awards show - Monday, October 5th @ The Paradise Rock Club in Boston. If you want tickets to the event, you can e-mail chad directly at: chadlamarsh@comcast.net.

And the blog re-emerges....

So... my former blog basically got obliterated after the technology I used to created it a few years back was killed by Yahoo. After only a few hours (!) of reconfiguring everything - and recreating it using a new (trustworthy) platform, I finally figured out how to get it going again. Sorry for the radio silence... but I'll repost a couple of things that I was able to recover from the archives... but mostly, this site will be a "go forward" thing. Who really cares about the old stuff I wrote anyway!