I've jammed the past couple of Wednesday nights with the former bass player from earthShine, Denver, and the drummer he's been working with, Jason. It was fun, but we couldn't really find any musical common ground, so they said they were going to keep looking. All was not for naught, however, as Jason reminded me that Planet Drum (now re-titled "Global Drum Project") was playing this Friday night. That's important because A) They're awesome, I mean, they have Zakir Hussein! AND Giovanni Hidalgo. (and Mickey Hart of the Grateful Dead, ho-hum). and B). Chris Mitchell is their monitor board guy. Chris is worth the price of admission. And since he's one of my best friends, and put me on the guest list, there WAS no admission. The venue this time was right up the road in North Park, right near the North Park sign, which we photoshopped to use as the earthShine album cover.

(Photo by Todd Ison)

So I gave Chris a call. He said he'd emailed me to let me know he'd be in town a couple of weeks ago, but I never got it. Bah. Good thing Jason let me know! So I had to skip out on a meeting for the group-I-joined-but-still-haven't-blogged-about-so-I'll-explain-it-later, to go see the event. When I got to the area, I drove around for a small eternity trying to find parking. Yes, there was a nice huge parking deck right next to the theatre, but I neglected to bring any cash. So finally I pulled in there anyway, and was relieved to find that it was a "pay when you leave" parking deck. I figured I could hunt down an ATM after the show. But, once I was parked, I took maybe five paces towards the stairs back down to street level when I found a 5 dollar bill lying on the ground. Problem solved! After figuring out who I had to talk to in order to get the ticket Chris had left for me, I got into the theatre and found my seat literally seconds before the show started. Perfect! Unlike the last time I saw them at The Avalon in L.A., this show was in a theatre, with seats. Probably not the best venue for a show as rythmic as this one, since so many are inspired to dance, and had to do it in the aisles. This show was sponsered by local sports legend Bill Walton, who I met. As it turns out, the ticket Chris had put aside for me was for a better seat than Bill Walton had. Yeah. Front row. Not center, but that's ok, I was right in front of Zakir.


After the show, I went up on stage to visit with Chris while the broke down. Then I went back to the crew's hotel with them, just to chill for a while. Chris was able to get me the source files for all our tracks from the Bob Spelled Backwards record. They're still just tracks, and I'm probably the least skilled audio engineer I know, so I doubt I'll have a listenable mix available any time soon. So don't ask. You'll have to wait for the finished product. Meanwhile, Chris flies out tomorrow morning to head to Philadelphia, where he'll be on the crew for "The Dead" (Grateful Dead minus the one who is dead, and not grateful) who are playing a massive rally for Barak Obama. I think it's on TV. Monday or something. I'll next meet up with them when they go to Vegas this december for a new casino opening.

After such a great start to the weekend, I don't know if I'll be content to relax and do mostly nothing, as I had planned for tomorrow. I need more unmarried friends, so I can get out more...