Hyde Street Band: Journal

Our good friend and zenmaster Jonathan Parnell has left the band to pursue music originating from south of the border.  He will be dearly missed for his amazing talents as well as his amazing personality.

We welcome Lindsay Noble as our new drummer.  Lindsay keeps wearing these big hats (to make his head looks smaller I reckon).  Seriously though, he has an amazing, almost magical, digital drum kit and he does some wonderful things with it (can't go into detail in an open forum ;-).

We welcome Lindsay to our family - you will enjoy him.

We played Sunday May 2nd at Grant & Green and recorded our first set. We should have some of these songs on the site within a week or two. I haven't heard the recordings yet, so it remains to be seen what came of all this work...

Saturday April 20th we were in the studio at HyperRaje Studios on Mission Street recording our first demo CD. We knocked out four songs, they lost one, so we are left with three. Chris and Derek were kind enough to give us a makeup to redo the missing song. We still have a bit of editing to do on the tracks, but these demos should be up on our website by mid-May

I saw D Johnson at the Cafe Royale this past Saturday night. DJohnson Blues was my first 'act' in the Bay Area. Dennis is an excellent slide and finger picker and singer who in the past had mostly focused on Delta Blues.

His act at the Royale was excellent. They play as a 3-piece group - Dennis, Pat Sharkey on harp, and (I think) Mike Curtis on drum (and I do mean drum in the singular). The show had excellent energy. They did some Stone and Johnny Cash that really added to the standard mix of delta blues and gospel.

Good job DJ.

Here is a YouTube Clip of our opening song at the Festival. You can tell that we had trouble with the sound guy (everybody did) - no harmonica sound coming out at the beginning. Still, we were there!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRt7QAlR1UE

Well, we have been told we rocked our part of the California Blues Festival at Golden Gate Park this Monday Memorial Day. I forgot to call out that I was a US Army veteran while I was up there (damn). Oh, and the sound man was about as bad as you can find. Midway through our first song, my girl Bonita and Willie are running up and saying they can't hear me. I don't think he ever got the mix right. I felt slighted until later in the show when the mix sucked so bad that Bobby Webb played 24 bars of saxophone that could not be heard at all. And the bass level was so high, it sounded like being on the street and the gangbangers pull up beside you in their GTO.

At least that's my take on things.

It was cool being there though. I met Bobby and Psychadelic Mike and some other folks, and saw some people I know, like Johnny Domino and Paul from the Tee Off. The festival hosted a nice crowd of people and a lot of barbeque grills.

My old bandmate Alan sent me a link to a cool new site called Playing for change. This site is phenomenal - it puts together a group of street musicians from around the world as they perform the same song - the work on Stand By Me is incomparable. I've added the real-time link to the site in our LINKS secion. You can check out the Stand By Me performance via this link:

http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=2539741

Check out our Music Page. We have uploaded 3 new demo songs from our recording session at Expressions Studio the first week in May.

Rose and I will be in Emeryville this week to record our first demo cuts. This will be the first of 2 or 3 sessions to complete a demo of clips for the website and for marketing purposes (ie help us get dates in clubs).

We hope to start work on a real, true, CD later this year.

Scratch My Back - Kim Wilson (very uptempt)
Sugar Coated Love - Lazy Lester
Help Me - Jr Wells
I’m Tore Down - Eric Clapton
Messin’ with the Kid - Jr Wells
Built for Comfort - Howling Wolf
Can’t Judge a Book… - Kim Wilson/Bo Diddly
Early in the Morning - Jr. Wells
Hey Bartender - Floyd Dixon
Hole in My Pocket - Carlos Guitarlos
Sonny Boy’s Jump - Sonny Boy Williamson I
Tell Me Mama - Little Walter
Blues with a Feeling - Little Walter
Hoochie Koochie Man - Muddy Waters
Got My Mojo Working - Muddy Waters
T-Bone Shuffle - T-Bone Walker
Shake Your Moneymaker - Elmore James
Learn to Treat Me Right - Kim Wilson
Stormy Monday - T-Bone Walker
Natural Blues - T-Bone Walker
Midnight Blues - T-Bone Walker
The Hustle is On - T-Bone Walker
Spoonful - Howling Wolf
Back Door Man - Willie Dixon
Pride and Joy - Stevie Ray Vaughn
I’ll Sing the Blues for You - Albert King

Rose and I will be recording at Expression's Studio in Berkely in early May. The purpose of this session is to get some demo songs for this web site and possibly start putting together some of our original material for a CD.

Rose and I are playing at the Old Ship Saloon. Williams-Sonoma, located a few blocks down the street, has put the gig on their corporate IT events calendar. We hope to fill the place to overflowing.

I was way too excited - Saturday Mar 8th I had the opportunity to go to Norton Buffalo's house and take a 3-hour harmonica lesson. It turned into a 5 and a half hour visit - just like visiting old friends. Norton is the nicest and most accomodating 'celebrity' I've ever met. I had a great time, got some excellent tips and tune ups, and hope to go back on a few months for a progress check

(Rod). I have the extreme please of being able to sit in with LA Recording Artist and BluesMan Carlos Guitarlos at a New Year's Eve party at the Hamilton. Carlos made his fame in the LA area in the 80's with Top Tommy and the Rhythym Pigs. After falling out of the scene for a while, he started recording again in 2003 and has produced 3 CD's since then. Check out these links for more info:

http://www.carlosguitarlos.com/
http://articles.latimes.com/2003/apr/30/local/me-carlos30