June update

The Carnival Band have been playing lots, I'm usually out there even on the parades with my cowbell. I've played just about every stage gig with them, from the Peace March on June 24th, the Car Free Day on Commercial Drive, Rick Hansen event at Plaza of Nations, Point Grey Fiesta Days, Maple Ridge Children's festival and many more.

The band continues to finds its legs after Dan Vie has moved on. The band was precariously perched on a triumvirate leadership of Dan, Ross and Marcos, this has shifted somewhat with numerous others taking up the slack of the absent Dan. A role to which I gave some consternation and effort to, however after setting up several gigs and a radio interview I was advised to step back and concentrate on my playing. I reckoned I could do both equally, sadly those that have been in the band longer [although with much less "life" experience deem it not so.

With a few more new members of the band now involved, it seems I am not the focus of certain band members attention. Bands are often socially challenging, even for people with a plethora of social skills, TCB are no different. This has been a a great eye opening experience for me in many ways, my playing skills have increased dramatically, but also adjusting to the various relationships within the band has been challenging. I had to break up an argument at last practice between a new member and a more experienced member, reminded me of my days of working at the SFU pub.

With my own music I have been steadily re-intrumenting cover songs for my new CD "Casino Club". Numerous jazz and blues standards will be on the new CD, including Afro Blue, Chameleon, Watermelon Man, Footprints and there will be a few originals thrown in the mix; If I'm lucky i might be able to get some of TCB members to guest.

I am totally addicted to this myspace thing....