Happy Birthday D

Darian and her friend Laura at D's birthday lunch at the Cheesecake Factory.

In The Big Apple

I'm in NYC for a couple of days for business. I'm pretty sure this is the first time since I've been to NYC since 9/11. The last time I was here was with Jacki in early 2001.

Taking a cab to the hotel I was able to see the Empire State Building and take in some of the skyline. I took a walk this evening grabbed dinner at a small pub and was able to listen to some of the local regulars talk around the bar. The bar was very Cheers like, but the clientele was much older. They definitely got worked up over politics and after the instigator left the bartender said she was going to cut people off if they get out of hand like that again. Great dinner entertainment.

Now I'm back at the hotel watching the Olympics and getting prepared for tomorrow's meetings.

EARTHQUAKE

We just had a 5.8 Earthquake. The building I'm in shook for about 15 seconds and my stomach got queasy. This was the biggest one I've felt since being out here.

Magnitude	5.8 - local magnitude (ML)
Time	Tuesday, July 29, 2008 at 11:42:15 AM (PDT) Tuesday, July 29, 2008 at 18:42:15 (UTC)
Distance from	Chino Hills, CA - 3 km (2 miles) SW (235 degrees) Diamond Bar, CA - 8 km (5 miles) SE (127 degrees) Yorba Linda, CA - 9 km (5 miles) NNE (23 degrees) Pomona, CA - 11 km (7 miles) S (178 degrees) Los Angeles Civic Center, CA - 47 km (29 miles) ESE (103 degrees)
Coordinates	33 deg. 57.5 min. N (33.959N), 117 deg. 45.1 min. W (117.752W)
Depth	12.3 km (7.6 miles)
Location Quality	Good
Location Quality Parameters	Nst=144, Nph=144, Dmin=8 km, Rmss=0.42 sec, Erho=0.3 km, Erzz=1.3 km, Gp=18 degrees
Event ID#	ci14383980
Additional Information	map with fault names Google Earth KML (Requires Google Earth.) Waveforms Did you feel it? 24-hour Aftershock Forecast Map SCSN Moment Tensor Solution CALTECH/USGS AFTERSHOCK PROBABILITY REPORT Tsunami Information Statement from the WC/ATWC

The Spider Show

I had my debut performance with Spidersuit last night. For a first show it wasn't too bad, and the one song that I thought was rough sounded fine when I listened back to the recording. We had the first slot of the night and went on shortly after 8pm. Not a big crowd but definitely enough for a first show.

Spidersuit
Club Good Hurt
July 19, 2008

OC/DC
Tchopitoulous
Dirty
Lovesick
Trouble With Cars
Pete's 5/8 Special
Isaac Newton A-Go-Go
The Owl
New Year's Dissolution

The songs are short so I'm sure we were on stage less than 30 minutes. So far the songs I enjoy most are Tchopitoulous which was only added into rehearsal very recently, Lovesick, and New Year's Dissolution. There are a couple of other songs that we've been rehearsing that I hope we will be able to add into our next show.

After the set I received the finished product of the 4 recordings I did with Spidersuit back in March. I'm not sure when this will be released but I believe this will be available on vinyl and digitally on places like MySpace and iTunes.

Sunday Rocklahoma 2008 - Setlists

Here are the setlists for Rocklahoma I documented for Sunday day 5. The first band of the day we saw was Zebra. They played their hits including Who's Behind The Door, Tell Me What You Want and The La La Song. Similar to Triumph I had high hopes for this band. They had a few technical difficulties and weren't able to connect to festival crowd so early in the day. However they did get people on their feet for Who's Behind The Door. I do give Zebra the distinction as having the coolest guitar pic at the festival. How cool a guitar pic is that!

UFO
July 13, 2008

Mother Mary
When Daylight Goes To Town
Hard Being Me
This Kids
Only You Can
Baby Blue
Too Hot Too Handle
Lights Out
Love To Love
Rock Bottom

The first set I documented was UFO. I had always enjoyed the song Lights Out but didn't know any of their other material. Watching their set was a bit mixed. At times they sound like two bands, one from the classic rock era of the early 70's and one from the hard rock era of the late 70's. Needless to say the hard rock material was my preference. Highlights from their set were Baby Blue, Lights Out and Too Hot Too Handle.

Ace Frehley
July 13, 2008

Rip It Out
Parasite
Snowblind -> I Want You (ending)
Rock Soldiers
Into The Void
Shout It Out Loud
New York Groove
Shock Me -> Solo (w/ She live ending)
Rocket Ride
Deuce
Love Gun
Cold Gin

I had high hopes for Ace, especially after the challenges of Saturday and I had been disappointed with the line up this year compared to last. Ace delivered and the KISS Army was in full force during his set. I was surprised by the heavy selection of KISS that Ace didn't sing on or write, but Ace knew how to deliver these hits to a festival crowd. Ace had the last day light performance and across the 5 days Ace had the best set during this time. Ace was reusing his KISS Farewell tour pics. He couldn't even spring for an event pic like Zebra did.

Tesla
July 13, 2008

Comin' Atcha Live
Into The Now
Gettin' Better
Hang Tough
Mama's Fool
Heaven's Trail (No Way Out)
Love Song
Little Suzi
Signs
Edison's Medicine
Modern Day Cowboy

Tesla was the breakout set for me on the mainstage at this year's Rocklahoma. They came out, blew everyone away and left the stage much too early. I would have liked to have seen them get an extra half hour in their set.

Queensryche
July 13, 2008

Operation Mindcrime

Encore
Walk In The Shadows
Take Hold Of The Flame
Jet City Woman
Empire
Silent Lucidity

I left the Queensryche set near the end of the Operation Mindcrime performance so I could catch Ron Keel and K2. I saw the Mindcrime performance in Los Angeles a yaear or so back and this was a tour I didn't enjoy. I enjoyed their performance better at Rocklahoma but would have preferred a rock concert as opposed to a theatrical performance. I listened to their encores while sitting at the North Tent. Great band and normally a great show but I'm ready for them to move past the Mindcrime theatrics.

K2 - featuring Ron Keel
Final North Stage (Tent)
July 13, 2008 - (actually July 14 Monday 1:30am)

American Thunder
Rock And Roll Outlaw
Evil, Wicked, Mean And Nasty
Sombody's Waiting
Becuase The Night
Here Today, Gone Tomorrow
Give Me All Your Love Tonight
Tears Of Fire
The Right To Rock
Lick It Up (KISS)

The K2 set was one of the best shows for me at all of Rocklahoma. I was able to meet Ron Keel in the VIP food tent on Friday and after the storms knocked the side stages down I assumed that K2 would not be able to play.

On Sunday they put up two small tents to replace the fallen North and South Stages. Ron and K2 went on stage after Queensryche's set, the last act on the main stage. When Ron started the show there was just a few of us and by the end of the set he had nearly everyone in the tent right at the front of the stage with him. I never thought I would get to hear Keel songs performed live again and hearing songs like Tears of Fire, Somebody's Waiting and The Right To Rock were incredible moments for me. Ron added two songs to the set that weren't planned and he finished off his set and Rocklahoma 2008 perfectly when he closed his set with KISS' Lick It Up.

Spidersuit at the Good Hurt

I'm not even back a full day in LA and I found out Spidersuit has their first gig with me as their drummer this Saturday at the Good Hurt. The Good Hurt has so far been my favorite venue to play in LA and I'm looking forward to debuting with Spidersuit. We will be playing some new material that I had a hand in creating along with a couple of Spidersuit classics from their album The Owl.

We will play at 8pm sharp so come out early and stay late. I will be loading in at 7pm and will watch one or two of the bands afterwards (as long as the bands aren't bad).

See you at the show.

Rocklahoma is over

Its 3:30am and we are just now getting back to the hotel after the 5th day of Rocklahoma. I'll do write ups when I get back to LA but I have to say I just saw K2 featuring Ron Keel. And to top off a perfect performance he ended his set with KISS' Lick It Up. Awesome!