The Science of Sleep is a fantastic new film by Michel Gondry the director of "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind." It's unlike anything you've seen before. If you like good movies, you'll dig it.

New post on the baby blog. Go dig.

Well I've spent the last three days working. And it wasn't just a few gigs around town, I hauled my ass all the way down to Orange County twice, the southern part down by Laguna. That's around 70 miles. And the gigs didn't even pay great, I just knew they'd be fun. Thursday night I played at a private function at the Getty Center, some reception for Merril Lynch (I guess they'd just donated money for a new exhibit or something). Friday I played at a restaurant with this band I work with whenever I can (that is to say whenever I'm in town). They play a lot of older-style pre-bebop jazz which is a lot of fun for me; old standards, Louis Armstrong type stuff--plus the people in the band are really cool as well. Tonight I played with the same band at the trumpeter's 40th birthday party. Carrie went with me. A good time was had by all.

I don't know what it is, I think I take all of the gigs I can because I still kind of think I'm this struggling bassist trying to make it in LA as a professional musician and I need to take advantage of ever opportunity presented to me. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to sound like a rock star or anything, but I'm at a place in my career now where my time is worth a lot more than some of the gigs I take. I dunno. It's a good problem to have.

Earlier in the week I was in computer hell. My CPU wasn't working so I found a guy in the phonebook (I can't remember the last time I had used a phone book) whose price was very reasonable. He told me I needed a new power supply and had one there for me. He also said that my OS was corrupted and fixed that (or so we thought). Like I said he was really reasonable but I was at his shop for like four hours or something. Total waste of a day. And the bitch of it is my computer still isn't right and it looks like I might have to wipe the hard drive to fix it. Drag.

Colts have a big game tomorrow, I gotta go to bed to make sure I get up in time to make it to the sports bar for kickoff. g'night!

After I came home from Europe and Carrie and I's vacation I was looking forward to doing a whole lot of nothing around the house this month before I hit the road again with Tyrell. By "whole lot of nothing" I mean practicing, playing video games, playing cards, just chillin' out. Well, it hasn't really worked out that way. Besides doing all of that work for Christian at the Hollywood Bowl I had quite a few rehearsals with Tyrell for some gigs we had this past week (the rehearsals were for a substitute pianist as Quinn couldn't make the dates).

But it finally looks like the next couple of weeks will be pretty light. That's good, I have a lot of things I want to do before October. Once October hits my road schedule gets really heavy.

And by the time November rolls around I'll be back in NYC for another engagement at the Carlyle.

This is both good and bad. Good because that much cheese is going to be really nice for the pocket book. Bad, of course, because my wife is pregnant. I asked her what she wanted and she wants for me to work, so there we go. I'll be able to fly home for my days off (Sundays and Mondays) a few times. I think we'll be fine.

I must admit, I'm looking forward to living in the city again for another couple of months. But we're traveling quite a bit before then including dates in the Midwest and northeast and a trip back to London.

So for the next couple of weeks, chill is all that's on the schedule.

I got this from the esteemed Mr. Brady's blog (linky to the left). Our friend Michael Pullman came up with this.

If you haven't noticed (and I'm sure you have), many people (starting with our wretched administration) will use terrorists and terrorism to try to convince you do whatever they want you to do. Mike did a fantastic job at poking fun of this:

For those of you living under a rock, football season started last week. I'm happy to report that the Colts won their first game of the season, a game where for the first time two quarterback/brothers played against each other.

I like Eli Manning, but he's not Peyton.



I'm not sure if I'm ready for the extreme highs and exterem lows of another Colts football season. Maybe I'll try to get less passionate this year.

Yeah, I'm sure that will work.

So Tuesday was rehearsal day for the Christian McBride Big Band/James Brown concert. I arrived at Christian's hotel and quickly figured out that my gig was to carry around Christian's axes while he and his wife tooled around in a Mercedes coup. Hey man, you're playing with James Brown you gotta walk the walk, know what I mean. So we go to the rehearsal studio and I set up Christian's basses, a little later on in the day he actually let me play a tune with the big band. This was great for me since the band was made up of all heavy L.A. players.

No one knew what to expect when Mr. Brown showed up. We've all heard the stories about what a taskmaster JB can be and how hard he can be on his band. Well when he finally showed up he was really cool towards everyone. He sounded fantastic, I got goosebumps seeing the Godfather singing less than ten feet away from me. He talked a little bit too, here are some gems of his:

"It's great to be playing this music again. This is where I started before I got sidetracked with the funk."

"It's good to see so many people playing this music today. Don't get me wrong, I love rap music ... I invented it."

The next day was the dress rehearsal and concert. Once again I set up Christian's axes and made sure everything was going to be cool for the concert. As it turned out I didn't have to turn his music for him onstage which was cool. I watched the show from some really good box seats and it was killin'. The band sounded great and Mr. Brown is still a fantastic performer. While most of the concert was him with the big band he closed the show with his own group performing "This is a Man's World", "Sex Machine", and "I Feel Good." It was really great. I schmoozed a little at the afterparty and headed home.

So right now Christian is in Canada visiting his in-laws and I am keeping his basses for him. Can you dig that? He asked me to keep them for him until Monday when he comes back to L.A. before heading to Japan. He told me "if you have a gig this weekend, you can play my bass." I did have a gig last night but there was no way I was going to use his instrument. I would've been too nervous.

Instead I've been practicing with it all day. Steve Cotter came over and we jammed a bit. It's so much fun. You gotta understand he played this bass on some of my favorite recordings, it's a phenomenal bass with a really rich and big sound. Not many people get to play on the instruments of their hero's, how lucky am I.

So here are some pictures from the week. I have one of myself, Mr. Brown, and the rest of the band but I'm going to have to scan it.

Dig:

I'm sure this will be all over the news soon, I just heard about it around midnight PST, but Steve Irwin has died.

Say what you want about how goofy he was or how he shouldn't've been messing with dangerous animals, but he seemed like a real 'top bloke' who loved animals and loved his family. I was quite a fan of his show.

Hats off everyone ...

As you've probably heard me say before, in this humble bassist's opinion,Christian McBride is the baddest bass player walking. If he's not the baddest then he's definitely my favorite. I've had the pleasure of hanging with Christian a couple of times and we've stayed in touch a bit ever since we met.

Christian has recently been appointed Musical Director for the Hollywood Bowl's Jazz Series. I know the first concert was last month, his band played but I missed it because I was on the road. Well next week he is giving a big band concert with none other than James Brown at the Bowl. James Brown recorded a fantastic big band record in the 70s called Soul on Top, they will be doing music from the record at the concert. I've been meaning to get tickets to the show for a while now but have been lazy and hadn't got around to it.

Well I got an email from Christian today saying he needed a big favor from me and could I call him on his cel. Needless to say I was intrigued, guys like that don't give their cel numbers out. So I called him and left him a message. He soon called back and asked me if I would be his assistant for a couple of days helping him set up for the rehearsals and helping him turn pages (for his sheet music) onstage at the Bowl since he will be playing and conducting.

I said yes, of course.

This should be a blast, I'm really looking forward to it ... Being able to see Christian play up close, watching the band rehearse, meeting James Brown ... I'm pretty excited. Part of me thinks that being a little errand boy for a couple of days might be a little bit lame, but C'mon, I'm going to be onstage with James Brown. I don't care if I'm laying rose petals at his feet while he walks across the stage, that's pretty damn cool.