general fuzz

Top ten shows of ‘09

10. Los Tortugas. Third times the charm. Its been fun and fascinating watching the festival evolve from its initial incarnation.

9. Jon Hopkins at the Grand. Its tough to impress me doing an electronica gig, but he delivered. He also did an excellent job of re-shaping his music for a live show.

8. Jackie Green + Friends at the Great American Music Hall. I’m sorta meh on Jackie’s material, but its always nice to see Phil and Bobby from 10 feet away.

7. Kyle HollingsWorth + Zack Gill at the Indy. Zack’s set build nicely from solo piano -> full band -> full band + all of ALO. Kyle then proceeded to tear it up. A wicked fun night, and was glad to catch the whole thing from start to finish.

6. The Jimmy Herring Band at the Grand. An amazing interpretation of a gem of an album. His touring band was phenominal. The interplay between the musicians left me dizzy.

5. Soulive w/ Roy Hargrove at Yoshi’s. Best Soulive set I’ve ever seen, which is saying something. It was chock full of guests and intensely funky grooves. And I HEART Yoshi’s.

4. Joe Ledbetter @ Cafe du Node -> Dumpstafunk @ the Indy. Two venues, two awesome shows, one dollar bill stuck down my drawers. ‘Nough said.

3. Bill Krutzman at the Indy. Easily the biggest surprise of the year. I didn’t have high expectations for that show, and my shit got blown apart. The trio took us through an incredibly adventurous path through the dead cannon. A truly fantastic ride.

2. Moby at the Warfield. There are very few shows that cause me to experience an entire spectrum of emotions. My respect for this guy knows no bounds, even if I don’t enjoy most of his work.

1. Phish at the Gorge. I won’t lie. It wasn’t the best Phish show I’ve seen. Not by a long shot. But it was a dream come true to see Phish at the Gorge. I’m glad the boys are back in action.

Best album of the Year: Inhumans, 97 Lovers. Their website is down. Maybe they were a one trick pony. That was one amusing pony though.

Best electronic music album of the year: Insides, Jon Hopkins.

Best free electronic music album of the year: Clash, Signal Path

What with ‘09 being the year of the weddings, there were a couple opportunities to stretch my musical muscles for the betterment of magical nuptial time.

Dave SG is an amazing friend. He also made our wedding cake. He asked if I would compose the processional for his wedding. I was truly honored (slash payback is a bitch). He also requested that it should be performed along with his friend Andrzej on guitar. After struggling with a couple different original tunes, I ended up adapting Dave’s favorite general fuzz tune. I think it came out quite nicely. I may revisit it down the road. I’ve named it dragon fly, after the theme for his wedding. Download it here.

Lars is also an amazing friend. He asked me to DJ his wedding. On my birthday, he made me a mix cd which included a random track discovered at the nursery school where he works. It is song about Lars, who fights off dragons and needs to eat lunch. It is a very cute acoustic track. Lars was lukewarm about playing the track at their wedding. I spruced it up a bit and slipped it in during dancing go booyeah time. It amused me to no end. And now you can hear it too.

Transitioning to our new pad has been intense, to say the least. The move, which was life consuming when it happened, seems like a distant memory. The day after we moved into to our new home, we had surprise visitors all day long. It was the most wonderful thing that could have happened. It hadn’t dawned upon me that the majority of our friends live in the East Bay until then.

Our new house doesn’t feel like home yet, but we’re getting there. Its a nice house in a fabulous neighborhood, right where Rockridge, Berkeley and Temescal intersect. My current street is sorta like living in Newton West, except for omnipresent Oakland vibe. I saw a dude take a piss on the street from the curb of the sidewalk one block away. It’s a very odd mashup of a suburb and a urban environment. The culture diversification is really different the SF. My favorite thing is that I can bike everywhere I need to go. I bike to the BART, the grocery store (of which there are four of), and the four or five yoga studios. I ride a bike pretty much everyday, and that brings me great joy. There’s endless stuff to discover. Unfortunately, there are very few parks. This irks me greatly, especially since I spent most of the decade living 50 feet from Golden Gate Park.

At this point the house is pretty setup. The only thing left in boxes is our art. We acquired a guest bed, and Stiners parents came out for five days over Christmas. This was a brilliant idea. We put them to work, and made huge leaps forward in setting up the house. Micheal, Stiner’s dad, is an architect, and proved to be rather handy with tools and a ladder. Ikea gladly accepted a lot our money. We haven’t setup the baby’s room yet, but that’s the last major hurdle left. My office is in a separate cottage which proves to awesome for a studio, but makes me feel really isolated when I’m there for long stretches of time.

I’m currently rich with yoga classes, since I signed up for new student specials at 4 studios. Its been crazy being exposed to totally different styles of Yoga. I tend to reject them all at first since they are unfamiliar. I’m starting to figure out that I prefer Hatha yoga to Vinyasa. I don’t dig the flow classes – yet. I learned the important lesson that if there’s a lot of really fit women in a class, I should turn around and walk out.  Normally I’ll start checking the clock around 45 minutes into an hour and half yoga class. That’s when I’m starting fatigue and wondering how much more I have to endure.  In the class with all the fit women, I looked for the first time 20 minutes in. I knew I was in big trouble.

My favorite new place is the whole word is the Starry Plough. They have awesome live music every weekend. The day we moved, I went there to catch a Dead cover band, because I could. It was pretty fun. I’ve never in my life seen an audience dance so ecstatically at a Dead themed concert. In fact I’ve just returned from seeing Further in SF and the audience was not even closed too as jazzed as the folks in the Starry. I’ve now been there 4 or 5 times. I last was there to see Albino with Angel, which was crazy fun. There are several amazing beer bars in the nearby, as well as a few breweries.

Our time has been jam packed with setting up the house and holiday parties. I’ve been hell bent on seeing as many concerts as possible. I’ve spent all my other free time focused on composing music, which has been coming along nicely. I would totally have a new album out in time for Burning Man this year, especially if we weren’t having a baby. Except I’m not going to Burning Man, and alledgely we are having a wee one. I’m attempting to be ok with that. As Stina wisely said – I have the rest of my life to be a musician.

The pregnancy is coming along nicely. No major hurdles yet. We’re entering the home stretch.

I’ve been spending lots more time in close proximity of our friends children. Its gotten me pretty excited about being a father. It’s also gotten me terrified about being a father. That seems about right.

The Inner Sunset has been my home for almost a decade. I love so many things about this place. Pub trans runs through here to almost every point in the city. It’s a tourist destination, but almost devoid of the issues that usually plague such places. It’s populated by a unpretentious multi cultural community that makes this neighborhood feel particularly separate from the rest of San Francisco.

Golden gate park is the best park on this planet. I certainly haven’t explored every facet of this 3 mile long outdoor playground, but I’ve given it a good go. The Botanical Garden is one of my first destinations when I’m seeking inspiration. Awesome festivals sweep through every season. I anticipate the first gorgeous days in the spring when hippie hill explodes with activity.  Bocce and Frisbee tossing in Big Rec was a staple in our social gatherings. There have been countless strolls through the park to the beach, always followed by a tasty beer at the Chalet.

The food here is out of control. Rarely a week goes by without Singapore curry noodles from the Lime Tree. Ebisu kills my wallet, but is simply too delicious to ignore.  The friendly and hopefully permanent fixture of Darla, and her brownie rewards.  Arezmendi’s, Plutos, Nan King Road Bistro, Underdogs organic sausages, it just goes on and on. I vaguely recall some crazy late night donut runs. The multiple late night pizza options are especially close to my heart. I’ve earned more free slices at Irving Street Pizza then I care to admit. Even Andronico’s, which is that bane of my existence with its insane prices, is sadly the epitome of convenience and delicious sandwiches. Fortunately, I can balance it out with cheap, quality produce at the produce store @ 10th. And now there’s a killer farmers market to boot. Good work, community.

The amazing new library. The Smokedaddies at the Blackthorn, every Wednesday. Thursday nights at the Academy of Science museum. Unusually friendly homeless folks. Walking, not driving, to the hospital. Catching the occasionally inspiring sunsets from the top of the hill on Funston. The ever present crowd outside of San Tung. Bobby the butcher. The sporadic telescope folks. The many incarnations of the Brewery. The growing facebook community. The “Yes We Can” house. A wave and smile from the folks at the cheese shop. The awesomeness that was the Canvas cafe. Pondering how there can be so many nail salons. I freaking love the Inner Sunset. I think I’ve been clear on that.

I’ve done an incredible amount with my life while living here.  I composed five albums of downtempo electronic music here. The second album was named “Inner Sunset” and has the processional for my wedding on it. You can download all my music for free @ www.generalfuzz.net (they’re worth listening to – my last album was voted #9 in the top 200 albums ever played on the nationally syndicated radio show echoes). Bija Yoga changed my life forever. I no longer have chronic back and wrist pain, and have been taught the extreme importance of breathing. I never set foot inside a yoga studio three years ago, and now plan on attending Yoga classes for the rest of my life.

My girlfriend and I moved in together for the first time on 8th Ave. Right when I walked out the door, the aromas from Pasquales would hit me like a mack truck and I would start salivating, even if I just ate. We got married a few years later and moved all the way down to 14th and Lincoln. Now we are about to embark on the “east bay shuffle”. You know, the one that often happens when you get pregnant. So it’s on to the next phase of our lives. Transitions are difficult, and I particularly suck at them. That’s ok. I’m sure there will be lots to appreciate about the next chapter in our lives. Allegedly life also thrives on the other side of that bridge.

Anyhow, I hope that you are able to touch upon why this neighborhood is so freaking special. I’ll miss it terribly.

Except for the fog.

That I can live without.

I’ve been a fan of Jon Hopkins for a year or two now. I discovered his music when someone said I sounded like him, which I now take to be a huge compliment. Earlier in the week I saw he was going to play in SF, and since he hails from the UK and I’m on my show bender, I figured I should catch him. He was opening up for Royksopp, whom I’ve never heard of.  I checked them out online, decided they were sorta fun, and figured I’d go pick up a ticket at the show.

On Thursday morning, I discovered that the show was sold out. Royksopp is far more popular then I realized. I checked craigslist, saw many people looking for tickets, and figured it wasn’t going to happen. No big deal. I was haphazardly checked craigslist every once in a while, when I ran across a fresh post selling a ticket for face, but the buyer had to come pick it up. I was downtown with no car, so it wasn’t realistic with the demand for the ticket. I called the seller, got the address, google mapped it, and saw it was in the far south part of the city. There was no way I could get there fast. Google maps will now plot your public transportation options, and upon clicking the pub trans link I learned there was a bus that left from right in front of my building, and the line ended at the exact address of the selling. And the bus left in 3 minutes. So I went for it. I dropped everything at work, ran downstairs, jumped on the bus, and headed to south SF. Sure enough, the bus dropped me off at the exact location I needed to be. I found the seller, bought the ticket, and since we were at the end of the line for the bus, the driver was smoking a cigarette, and I was able to get back on the same bus to bring me right back to work, just in time for our weekly social gathering. Booyeah.

Then off to the show, which was at the Grand. I hate the grand. Security made a huge stink over my metal water bottle last time I was there and the sound is generally terrible. It turns out that the Warfield just bought the Grand. Shockingly, security didn’t care at all about my water bottle or laptop, and they’ve put in an entirely new stack of speakers since I’ve last been there. Issues magically resolved. I got there right when Jon Hopkins took the stage, and his set blew me away. The way he adapted his mostly mellow musing to a dynamic, occasionally bombastic, live show was inspiring. His setup was all tactile and no laptop, so watching him deftly trigger and manipulate tracks was fairly engaging, which is unusual for this type of music. The light show brought it home. I was really impressed, which is no easy feat with my extreme electronic music snobbery. My only complaint was that it was too short, under an hour, but that’s what happens when your the opener.

There’s always a voice in the back of my mind that when I go to a show like this that it would be perfect if I could meet the artist, do a short shpiel and a cd handoff. The likely hood of this happening is almost nil, since the artist has to be milling around in the audience and I have to capture their attention. After Jon’s set, I scoped out the two areas that he was most likely to appear, and lo and behold, I saw him appear from the stage door. So I went up to him, chatted about venues in the city, and I asked him if he knew about echoes, and it turned out he just recorded a living room concert from them a couple weeks ago. Perfect. That gave me a fantastic license to do my self promotion thing and make the connection. I  felt on top of the world. I don’t expect anything to come from these connections. They rarely do. Its just an unbelievable feeling to accomplish a really unlikely goal. I just felt completely in tune with the universe – that special combination of luck and preparedness.

I have to admit, Royskopp didn’t reel me in. They place got jammed, hipsters were everywhere, and it just wasn’t my scene. They do write some fun music though. I stayed for an hour and then bailed, hoping to make it home before Stiners went to bed. I made it back in the nick of time. After tucking Stina in to bed and saying goodnight, I actually felt like the luckiest guy in the world.

Life, which seemed to be a little more open to interpretation a few short months ago, has become rather tightly focused of late. The destination of this journey is baby, and there several well defined hoops that we are jumping through. Even though I know its more about the journey then the destination, its hard to lose track of the destination at this point. Of course, life can always throw us a few curve balls, so every morning I tense up, clutch my sweet ass, and shut my eyes as I boldly attack my day.

The good word is that we’ve found our fabulous new home in the east bay. We’re wicked psyched about that. Now we need to move all our stuff from A to B. Fortunately, with Stina at the helm, we’re already ahead of schedule. We’ve already donated and sold all of our excess possessions, and there’s a solid showing of boxes stacked around the house. All the art is down, and this apartment now sucks way more then it did a week ago. As much as I’m sad to leave our amazing neighborhood, this long goodbye is on the verge of dragging on, and I’m beginning to anticipate starting the next chapter of our lives.

We celebrated Halloween in the only way we know how – in a cabin in Yosemite surrounded by hippies and killer music. I really brought my A game for our probable final appearance at Las Tortugas, the best music festival in the universe. Strangers commented on all costume changes. I freaking RAGED all weekend long, while Stina rested comfortably in our sweet sweet love cabin. Unforuntatly our neighbors raged much harder then we did, blasting the tunes till past 6 am. I was too tired to be affected by it, but alas, Stina complete lack of raging rendered her helpless to the onslaught of  ”bonus rock”. I think I’d give top honors to Dumpstafunk, with Umphree’s second, and Tea Leaf Green third. TLG really brought it big this year.

Last friday one of my band dreams came true when Sean Lehe paired up with Asher Fulero in “Mo-Ped“. They were rounded out by Marshall Harrell (New Monsoon) on bass and Dave Brogan (ALO) on kit. I started off the evening right at JP Cutler’s suprise b-day dinner, and then dove deep in the Mo-Ped show. Those guys can freaking jam. I ran into bunches of folks from Los Tortugas, and one person who knew me as the guy with lots of costumes. Booyeah.

My internet love is running at an all time high right now. Craigslist allowed me to trade an office chair for a bike, which is AWESOME. Craigslist did a head fake though with tickets to Widespead Panic, what with the dude bailing on me last minute. So I jumped on the Bart, headed to the GORGEOUS new Fox Theater, and got second row center balcony tickets from the box office! Aww yeah! Then I forced the two folks who had to accompany me in (cause I had a dangerous laptop and might be able to “take pictures” – no lie, this is the reason I was accompanied by TWO security peeps) to wait at the merch booth while I snapped up the LAST killer poster. Booyeah! Then I happily checked my bag + poster, and rocked the fuck out! WSP was awesome. No “Tall Boy” though.

On Friday we went to see Kate and Maggie dance in the Go Go Spectacular, which was surprisingly awesome. Its insane how talented my friends are. Like Tom, who competed in a Championship Triathlon this past weekend. Or Amanda Gean, who ran 20 miles. Or Dave SG, who not only helped clean and pack all our art, but ate all the food in the house.

On one day I went to a bar near work to say goodbye to a co-worker I rather liked.  Then I met a random musician I connected with through the crazy large general fuzz scene at a different bar. Then I went to see Assembly of Dust (one of my favorite bands) at the Independent. Bizaw! This is an excellent example of how transitions and celebrations are crushing the opposition these days. I tend to dislike the opposition, what with the barring of progress and plotting of my demise.

Theres a distinct possibility that our housing situation may be on the road to conclusionville. Its out of our hands now, anyway. It’s been an exciting week of coming to grips with things. I sense this will be an essential skill in the upcoming lifetime, so I’m glad to get some practice in.

The holidays deftly approach, putting Stina in her seasonally predictable happy place. We visited our favorite overpriced decorative produce market, perhaps for the last time. Special magical cabin in Yosemite at the festival is on deck. Stina deployed her mad Halloween skills in anticipation.

Its rare these days for a concert to exceed my expectations, so I was pretty stunned when Moby gently guided the outer layer of my soul to a special place where string pads tangoed with the choicest boom-boom-squiggy-squiggy. That is to say, it’s ridiculous how talented that Moby guy is. He can sing, play the fuck out of a guitar, piano, and even rock the congo’s. He also writes and produces some incredible music. His new album, “wait for me”, is truly excellent. It’s my second favorite to “Play”, which is a masterpiece. His onstage persona is genuinely positive. He dedicated all the proceeds from his California shows to California’s Partnership to End Domestic Violence. Basically, he’s an exemplary human being.

The show consisted mostly of tracks from both of my favorite albums, created with an ever changing 6 piece band. The band was stacked enough so that there minimal backing tracks (though there definitely were backing tracks), which really drew me in. The show was at times intensely introspective, and then at other times a big fucking dance party. I enjoyed both parts equally. I was emotionally stirred and chock full of joy. I loved how the two amazing singers really played around with very repetitive vocal parts, keeping them rhythmically and melodically fresh.

At three shows a week, my feet are having a tough time keeping up with my relentless need to rock out. This week, I randomly saw Aerosmith at the Oracle World party on Treasure Island, which was fine. I had many flashbacks of high school.  I did manage to win 4 or 5 stuffed animals at the free carnival though. I can no longer attend large scale events without doing at least a surface analysis of how the organizers set it up. Living with Stina will do that.

Another stellar show worth mentioning was Zack Gill / Kyle Hollingsworth at the Independent. Zack’s set really built well. It started with a few solo songs with a piano, then he gradually brought out Kyle’s backing band, and then gradually brought out the rest of ALO. Then Kyle just tore it up. Lebo peppered the entire show. It was  a great night.

Echoes, a nationally syndicated radio show, ran a listener poll to honor their 20th anniversary of broadcasting new age/downtempo electronic music. The poll was to rank the top 200 cds played on their station.

I ranked #9 and #24.

Are you kidding me? I didn’t tell anyone about this poll. Not even my wife. Obviously, I’m deeply indebted to echoes/John Diliberto for promoting my music over the past few years. It’s such an exquisite honor to be listed so close to BT’s “This Binany Universe” (which is truly the album of the decade IMO) and Moby’s “Wait For Me” (which I love, and am psyched to see him in concert on Thursday). Just browsing through the list is to walk through some of the most brilliant music ever made. I certainly don’t deserve to be ranked higher then Sigur Ros, Air, Ulrich Schnauss, or Vangelis (to name just a few). I’m sure it helps that my music was more recently featured then some of these outstanding albums.

Anyhow, if you read my lessons page, you know that I don’t often get feedback on my music. Therefore, when something like this comes along, I really don’t take it for granted. My deepest gratitude to those who voted for me, and to echoes for supporting my music.

You’ll have to be patient for the next album. I’m made some real headway on it, but there’s a long way to go. It won’t be finished before our first child arrives in Feb/Mar, and therefore it’s not gonna happen for a little while after that. But I assure you I have no plans to stop creating music. There will be a sixth album eventually, and now I have a renewed spark to spend a few long nights this week working on it.

Yom Kippur has come and gone once again. During my day of intense reflection I became overwhelmed with the sheer number of ridiculous celebratory activities that occupied our waking moments. So much happened in the last year that its slightly hard to comprehend. 6 weddings (half of which I had an active role in), 3 bachelor parties (which I had a big part in organizing), 3 trips to Boston, work kicking my ass all over the place, Phish tour, Burning Man, Belize, relationship changes, tons of friends and family visiting, far too many concerts, that whole economy collapsing thingy, and the occasional emotional breakdown. Life hasn’t been boring. I was really focused on the concept of time, which seems to march forward relentlessly, regardless of what we do.

After living a roughly linear life for the past 4 or so years, we suddenly banged a sharp left into pregnantville. And even though this year was crazy intense, I’m incapable to fathom the insanity that’s about to transpire in the next year.  I’ve embraced the concept of moving into a new place, but the rental market isn’t really hugging me back. The longer this one way hug goes on, the more awkward I’m feeling. My goal is to transcend awkwardness until it feels like an active form of dominance. Then I’ll have the confidence to transition this hug into getting all the way to second base. Booyeah! They don’t call me slick for nothing.

Really.

Nobody calls be slick.

I seem to be caught in concentric circles of music. I saw Galactic at the Fillmore last weekend, and I’ll see them again at hardly strictly bluegrass tomorrow. I started this week at Dead Night @ Milk, and then Angel and I saw Dark Star Orchestra last night.  If music is playing, and I’m slightly interested – I’m so there. I’m on a serious concert jag right now. Gotta get out while I still can.

We went back into the hospital so we could do some baby related radar. They sure have some fancy dan devices at the hospital now days.

Stina is incubating quite nicely, which is pretty much all thats important these days.