Shawn C. Dodd

Tonight I received news you are never prepared for. One of my long time best friends from Austin committed suicide Wednesday night. This is my third time to be exposed to suicide, a concept I'll never understand, and the first time from a friend this close to me. It saddens me to think how dark a place he must have been in.

Shawn was my first office mate in my first job out of college at pcOrder and we became very close when I lived in Austin. He even took over the room I was renting when Jacki and I got married. After pcOrder I had Shawn come and work with me at two other jobs and had the great pleasure of relocating him to Los Angeles for a few years to work for me at Helio. He was one of the smartest people I've ever known and I enjoyed each and every day I worked with him. I used to tell him he is my resident smart guy, and just having him around made me feel smarter.

Unfortunately we had a bit of a falling out towards the end of his time in LA, but in the last few weeks we had begun to exchange emails again and it seemed like I was talking to my friend again of many years.

Shawn was also a dear friend of Jacki's, taking her out in Austin when I would travel for business and looking out for her when I wasn't around. He came to our wedding and shared many memories with Jacki and I including dinners, concerts, and even vacations.

Last night Jacki invited me out to a dinner with her and one of her friends at one of our favorite spots, El Cholo. It was nice because one of my last great memories of Shawn in Los Angeles was he and I celebrating at El Cholo after giving a successful business pitch. This past December he sent me a congratulations note because the business pitch we gave became a reality nearly 18 months later.

We loved Shawn and will miss him dearly. Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family.

KEEL Reunion

Last night I saw KEEL's first reunion concert at the Knitting Factory in Hollywood. This past summer I was able to see Ron Keel's K2 band perform at Rocklahoma and they played a Keel heavy set so I knew a bit of what to expect.

Tonight at the Knitting Factory was a Club Vodka event. Three stages, bands going round the clock and scantily clad dancing girls in the main room for the headlining acts. For KEEL's set they were wearing KEEL shirts. The club was packed and from where I was sitting in the balcony it was solid people from the stage to the back of the floor. A great turnout for this show.

I wasn't in the mood for hearing new music tonight but I was able to catch 4 local bands, some good, some not so good. One band that did catch my attention was Ritual Habits. Good classic metal with a chick bass player that held her own, although she looked like she might still be in high school.

The DJ began to announce some of the VIP's in the audience including members of Black N' Blue, KISS, Cinderella, Quiet Riot and others. Right before KEEL went on Tommy Thayer stood right behind me and watched the entire KEEL set about 10 feet from where I was in the balcony.

Jamie St. James from Black N' Blue introduced KEEL and the debut concert of the reunion started.

KEEL
January 31, 2009
Knitting Factory
Hollywood, CA

Intro Music From - The Final Frontier
Reason To Rock
Rock And Roll Outlaw
Evil, Wicked, Mean And Nasty
United Nations Intro ->
Somebodys waiting
Speed Demon
Because The Night
Here Today, Gone Tomorrow
Medley: Electric Love -> Cherry Lane -> Let's Spend The Night Together
Raised On Rock
I Said The Wrong Thing To The Right Girl
Tears Of Fire
The Right To Rock

Encore
Joined by Jamie St. James (Vocals), Fred Coury (Drums), and Chuck Wright (Bass)
The Boys Are Back In Town (Thin Lizzy)

Guests leave and KEEL band members rejoin with Ron's K2 guitarist and a KEEL crew guy
We're An American Band (Grand Funk Railroad)

Ron sounded great on vocals but the set was troubled with some sound problems and you could barely hear Bryan Jay's lead guitar. KEEL is heavy on the double solos so missing half of the harmonies was a minor disappointment. Near the end of the set Bryan's guitar was finally loud enough to be heard.

I must admit the set list was a bit of a surprise. I was expecting a heavier set focused on material from Lay Down The Law and The Right To Rock. Instead the set covered their entire career with tracks from every album including the surprising set opener Reason To Rock off of their 6th album Back In Action released in the mid 90's.

Highlights of course included the hits The Right To Rock, they even brought out the kid from the video although he is no longer a kid, and Tears Of Fire. Other highlights included Raised On Rock featuring Dwain Miller on the Michael Des Barres vocals, and of course my all time favorite KEEL song Rock And Roll Outlaw.

They just announced a set on the mainstage at Rocklahoma this year so I'm hoping for a slightly heavier set with some more songs off of Lay Down The Law and The Final Frontier. The band looked and sounded great but you can tell it may take just a few shows before they are comfortable in front of an audience again. The band gave us our money's worth playing a setlist you couldn't predict and closing out the show with special guests at around 2:15am.

Darian was accepted

I just found out that Darian received an acceptance letter from Brooks yesterday. Assuming the tour we take of the campus in February works out it looks like Darian has decided on a college. Hard to believe she is about to leave us to go to school. She will start in July.

Pic from Virgin Mobile Party

Here is a picture of Jacki and I from the Virgin Mobile Holiday/New Year Party (yes, way late) last night. The party was at Kress a happening Hollywood hot spot. We had a great time and were able to mix and mingle with the Virgin crowd and make some new friends and hang out with some old ones.

The Art Of The Callous

Last night was my first serious band practice in nearly a month. I had only played drums once in the last two weeks and now it's time to prepare for our big show at the Key Club.

Well, about an hour entire rehearsal last night I noticed my right hand was beginning to hurt. Blisters were forming, pain was entering into my playing and then I realized, my drum callouses were gone.

I'll have to get into a callous building regimen this week and begin practicing on the electronic kit this week after work. Time to build up the callouses. This is the first time in over a year where my hands went and got soft on me.

I'm so proud of D

Tonight Darian, Jacki and I had a phone screen with Brooks Institute. She is looking at Photography as her major and a career and The Brooks Institute made her short list.

The interview lasted about 90 minutes and we covered everything from an overview of the school, to questions about how we think Darian will do in a college environment, to financial aid and the application process.

Darian did great. She answered every question with passion and enthusiasm. At the end of the call the interviewer congratulated Darian and wants to invite her to proceed with the application process. She filled out the start of the application and we paid the application fee. The next step is a one on one follow up interview for Darian.

On Feb 21 we will go to Santa Barbara to go to an open house of the school and check out the different campuses.

You can check out Darian's amazing photos at
http://darehow.carbonmade.com/

It's only 3 degrees outside

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Snow

Here is a picture of snow outside my hotel window in NJ this morning.
Not a sight I'm used to seeing.

Vegas Day 2

Today has been good so far. We ordered room service this morning and
had one of our best breakfasts ever.

D and Jack napped this morning and they joined me at a Sopranos slot
machine. I put in 20 bucks and went away with 144 bucks. That win
covered my losses for last night and then some.

We then went to the Bodies The Exhibition exhibit which is something
Jacki really wanted to do. I don't do well with body parts but held
up until the circulatory/digestive system part of the exhibit. At that
point I felt sick and had both sweats and felt cold. A few minutes of
sitting down allowed me to get well again. We finished off the
exhibit with fetuses and embryos.

At the end we got a cool hologram image with skeletons. I will post
it once we get back.

Once back to the hotel we got a lite meal and then Jacki played some
slots. I finished off at roulette and after 2 days we are ahead.

Tonight we have dinner on top of the hotel in the foundation room.

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A view from our room

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! Jacki and I celebrated our 9th wedding anniversary today and are off to continue the celebration in Las Vegas. We are road tripping it tomorrow and will spend the weekend in Vegas with Darian.

We are staying at TheHotel at Mandalay Bay and have a suite for the weekend. We hope to get in some much needed relaxation and will be seeing the Beatles' Love Cirque Du Soleil show Saturday night.

It should be a fun weekend.

The Annual Top Ten List

Here is my annual top ten list that I've now been posting for the last several years. No real surprises in my list this year, although it is nice to see one newer band on the list.

These are the most listened to of my 2008 purchases.
Sebastian Bach - Angel Down
The Sword - Gods Of The Earth
Mudcrutch - Mudcrutch
Zappa Plays Zappa - ZPZ
King's X - XV
Metallica - Death Magnetic
Guns N' Roses - Chinese Democracy
David Gilmour - Live In Gdansk
Cheap Trick - Budokan! 30th Anniversary Edition
Rush - Snakes And Arrows Live

I'm seeing that new material isn't standing out for me year after year. I must say Metallica's Death Magnetic is a return to form and has probably been my favorite album of 2008. Sebastian Bach and King's X come close behind. As for reissues Cheap Trick's Budokan! including a DVD of the show and live recordings from both nights of their legendary Budokan performance has been great. Jacki and I were even able to see Cheap Trick a couple of times.

Top Concerts
Queensryche / Don Dokken - Feb 24 - House Of Blues / Anaheim
W.A.S.P. - March 8 - Key Club / LA - March 8th performing The Crimson Idol in its entirety
Ace Frehley - March 25 - HOB /Anaheim, with an honorable mention for March 24 in LA when I got to meet Ace in his dressing room.
Eddie Vedder - April 12 - Wiltern / LA
Mudcrutch - April 26 Troubadour / LA
Rush - May 8 - Nokia Live / LA
Iron Maiden / Anthrax - May 30/31 - Verizon Wireless / Irvine, CA
Liquid Tension Experiment - June 27 - Downey Theater / Downey, CA
Bob Schneider - Oct 17 /18 - Key Club / LA / Wavehouse / San Diego
Zappa Plays Zappa - December 12 - Roxy - LA
Metallica / Machine Head / The Sword - December 18 - Forum / LA

Looking back at the concerts I think this was one of my best years for concerts. I saw Ace 3 times, Maiden twice, Bob Schneider twice and experienced some unique shows including Liquid Tension Experiment and Zappa Plays Zappa at the Roxy where Frank's live album from the Roxy was recorded 35 years to the day at the same venue.

Now it's time to look forward to next year.

In The Studio With Spidersuit

This past weekend it was time to go back into the studio. I recorded 4 tracks with Spidersuit earlier in the year and we wanted to build on those 4 tracks and round out a full release.

Saturday December 20 10:20am
We started early on Saturday doing load in shortly after 10am. After setting my drums up, setting up mics and checking out sounds it was a little after noon. By about 12:30 the full band arrived and we set to record. We are using the same producer as last time so I had to prepare myself to record without a click. Fortunately I've been practicing to a click track for another band I'm in so it wasn't nearly as stressful focusing on tempos this time around.

It was now 1pm and were ready to record my first track. Since we record without a click our producer prefers the dynamic of capturing a live performance in the studio. During the recording process only my drums are recorded and the rest of the band can only be heard through headphones. So if you sat in the room where we recorded you would only hear me, although all of us are playing.

The first track up was Tchopotoulous, which to me sounds like a great name for a dinosaur, but I was told that it was just a street name in New Orleans. So a cajun dinosaur it is.

We did three takes. First take was good but not exciting, second take was in the pocket, third take was also good but I think I drifted and forgot about the tempo. On listen back we can use either take 2 or take 3.

Between takes we jammed a little Zep and worked up a piece of Over The Hills And Far Away.

Next up was Devil Went Down To Pedro, in reference to a small coastal town called San Pedro just outside of LA. This song is the closest thing to a ballad we will have and is very different from our other songs. We did one scratch take for rehearsal and then I think I nailed our very first take of this song. Things were moving much too easy but I was about to get the studio payback on the next track.

Pete's 5/8 special. The 5/8 references the intro section of the song and a middle break that are preformed in 5/8. This song gave me some challenges where we originally learned it and now in the studio the goal is to perfect a performance. Well let's just say it took quite awhile to perfect. We must have done 6 takes of this song when we decided to give it a break. After the hour plus of recording this one song I was pretty sure we weren't going to capture the killer performance today.

Moving on we worked on our Beach Boys meets punk song called Isaac Newton A Go Go. A fun song that feature the drums. We did three takes of this one and we liked the third take the best.

At this point I had been working for about 5-6 hours on drums and was ready to call it a day. After some urging from Pete we went back to his 5/8 special. Two more takes and then we nailed it. We were so confident we didn't even listen back to it. Fortunately when we came in the next day all was good and was probably the best the band had ever performed that track.

We called it a day around 4:30pm.

Sunday December 21 10:30am
First thing we did Sunday morning was a listen back to Pete's 5/8 Special. I couldn't believe how strong it sounded. I was about to fall apart on Saturday and digging just a bit deeper pulled out one of my best recorded performances.

Now it was on to record a few more tracks. I woke up Sunday with a sore throat so I didn't feel great. Throughout the day I lost focus rather quick but we were able to complete 3 more tracks.

First up was Farstick. Oh and yes all of these titles are working titles. No telling what they will be called. This song is so new we don't even have lyrics for it yet. We did a scratch take and decided to work on the intro a bit. After coming up with a build of guitar, bass and drums we all appreciated we did 2 more takes. On listen back either take 2 or take 3 will work. It will be up to the band to decide which take they want to use as the foundation for the other instruments.

We had been working on a new song in rehearsal so we gave it a go but quickly realized that we are not ready to record. We'll save that for another session.

The next song up was Brown Saturday. This is cleverly titled as an ode to Black Sabbath, and during the recording our producer mentioned that it sounded as if I was channeling my inner Bill Ward. Bill Ward was the original drummer for Black Sabbath. Once I heard this I knew I was doing my part. This song is really 2 songs in one. A straight ahead rock song that breaks and builds as a triplet feel in the vein of Fairies Wear Boots off of Paranoid.

After a few takes we ended up liking the first half off the fourth take and the second half of the third take.

Last up for these sessions was Ding Dong Ding. This came out different than I expected and is turning into a heavier grungy song complete with a Kurt Cobain style guitar solo. When we originally worked this up in rehearsal I was expecting a song with a bit of a lighter touch such as Pedro, but once we finished I told Pete I think my playing may have been a little too heavy. Given the new grungier direction he said that heavier worked.

We recorded 4 takes but on listen back the band preferred my very first take. So although it was the last song recorded I was done on my first take.

We wrapped up and I was home by about 3pm.

So there you have it. Two days in a studio, 7 completed drum recordings and one sick drummer.

Spidersuit performance THIS WEDNESDAY

Spidersuit just got a last minute gig this Wednesday night. The bad news is we will go on a little after midnight Wednesday night / Thursday morning. The good news is you can listen from home! We will be on the radio doing a live broadcast from the studios of KXLU 88.9 FM in LA.

If you want to come out and see us perform then send me an email and I'll give you directions to the studio. They encouraged us to bring our own live audience.

http://www.myspace.com/livation

Listen in!

Dr. Pepper's Chinese Democracy

If you hadn't heard Dr. Pepper jokingly said in the press earlier this year that if Guns N' Roses released their album Chinese Democracy this year, then Dr. Pepper would buy a free drink for everyone except, Buckethead and Slash, two of GnR's guitarists through the years.

Well that day finally came. And how could you blame Dr. Pepper for taking a bet they didn't think they would have to pay out on. Chinese Democracy has been some 15 years in the making and has been rumored as coming out by the end of the year for the last 7 years.

It took some patience but I was able to get my coupon from Dr. Pepper for a free drink. I also picked up GnR's Chinese Democracy and I must say that after a few listens I'm impressed.

Thanks Dr. Pepper, thanks Axl. This drink is on me you!

Six degrees

Today I'm in NJ as part of an executive management training program through Columbia University. Tonight we had a great treat and were able to see Chris Washburne and the Sytos Band, a Jazz combo, as part of the program.

Tonight was part of our leadership training and the Jazz combo was used to illustrate team dynamics. Some of the questions we asked centered around how does a Jazz team prepare, what happens if you don't like your team members, how does the team recover from mistakes, along with questions to the band regarding the popularity differences from country to country of Jazz worldwide.

Chris Washburne and the Syotos Band
November 11, 2008
The Heldrich Hotel
New Brunswick, New Jersey

Epistrophy (Thelonious Monk)
Killer Joe (Benny Goldsoon)
I Thought About You (Frank Sinatra / Miles Davis)
Caravan (Duke Ellington)

This combo was as good as it gets, and the environment in which it was presented were ideal including the setting of a hotel bar, 20 ft high ceilings and carpet with only 30 people. This made for the perfect acoustics although in an imperfect environment.

Over dinner the band sat with us and by a stroke of chance I ended up sitting by the drummer, Vince Cherico. We had a fantastic conversation and talked about his experiences, my experiences, and some of his friends including Kenny Aronoff. As we talked I discovered that Rufus Philpot was a bass player that he played with in his past and is someone that I'll be playing with in Seven Seraphim in Feburary. It is such a small world. I can't believe that as part of an executive training course through Columbia University that I met a Jazz Drummer from New York CIty that has performed with a bass player I'll be performing with in Los Angeles. This makes me only 2 degrees of separation from the band tonight. David -> Rufus (1) - Rufus -> Vince (2).

Vince and I exchanged information and I hope to meet up with him next time he is performing in Los Angeles. In addition to seeing him perform I hope that I'll be able to take some Jazz / Latin drum lessons from Vince.

The band was extremely generous with their time and even gave us CD's. I can't wait to hear it when I'm back home.

This week has required significant focus and a lot of work, but after an evening like tonight I feel that I've been rewarded through music which is so important to me, and I've made a connection with many of my team mates that are part of the organization I just joined.

I have one more day left in NJ but I don't see how it can get any better than this.

In NJ

I am in NJ all week. On the flight in I had a great view of the city and was able to see the Statue Of Liberty on the approach.

I am not sure if I will get to see the city this week but it reminds me of how much there is to see and do herem

President Elect... presented by the KISS Army

KISS has been running on their website a Choose Or Lose campaign to encourage people to vote. As part of the campaign they have been selling Obama and McCain KISS Army shirts and will be publishing the winner of the KISS Army vote by the number of T-Shirt sales.

In recognition of the President Elect here is Obama presented in Paul Stanley makeup by the KISS Army!

Enjoy.

PS. Mom - there is always 2012 :-)

Celeb sighting at Molly Malone's

Tonight Jacki invited me to her regular after work hangout Molly Malones. She had a tip that a special guest would be performing there tonight. I was getting in from San Francisco and drove straight from LAX over to Molly's.

Jacki and I were sitting at the bar eating and we saw Dennis Quaid walk in. A few people walked up and talked to him. He was just a couple of bar stools down from us. After our celebrity spotting we headed into the live music room.

The band that was playing was called Ghost Hounds. They were a good blues rock band and the lead guitarist had a very Rolling Stones type style. About half way through the set they even covered Gimme Shelter which was dead on.

They finally announced their special guest and it was Dennis Quaid. He gets up on stage and leads the band on guitar and vocals through a couple of songs. Not who we were guessing would be the special guest but it made for an entertaining night.

I voted

I just completed my absentee ballot and will drop it in the mail tomorrow.