Post it!
I realized as I was teaching a lesson yesterday afternoon that almost a semester's-worth of time has passed since I graduated with my percussion degree! Man, time flies like a motherfucker when you're having fun; that's exactly what my life is. One big ball of excitement. I really have an ideal life. I live with the love of my life in a cozy apartment with great vibes, I have an amazing black cat named Stank, I have some of the coolest friends in the world, I teach a lot of lessons, play a lot of gigs, and work in a fantastic music store. Life is the shit.
I rarely ever post/update here as most of my 'online energies' are focused primarily on my MySpace Music page, but here's a brief synopsis of upcoming events:
-Currently, my main gig until mid-April is drums in the pit of the musical Reefer Madness(!) at the Epic Theatre in downtown Kalamazoo. Immediately following will be another musical, Trailer Park Boys(!) at an as-yet undisclosed venue, for an as-yet undisclosed run of time.
-I'm playing in two of the opening pieces on my good friend/colleague John McFarland's Masters percussion recital this coming Saturday. One is a great multi-percussion duet called "42nd Street Rondo" by Wayne Seigel which features two players with mirror set-ups of two cowbells, two bongos, and two toms each. We performed this back in November at my Senior Recital with great success, and I look forward to whipping it out again! The second piece I'm playing on is John's first marimba concerto(!) which he's reduced to marimba, two pianos, and aux. percussion for his recital. It's an incredible composition, and I'm honored to be playing on it.
-I'm currently spreading my energies between three great bands. My main focus in that regard is my own jazz/fusion project, The Jesse Williams Group. We play everything from originals, to covers by Bill Bruford, Planet X, Cab, Billy Hart, and Chick Corea among others. We have at least one 'warm-up gig' coming up in April minus our powerhouse guitarist Matt Lund, who's down in Nashville for grad. school until May. Once he returns, we plan on hitting The Union, Kraftbrau, and maybe even Bell's if we can do some recording and get a press kit together. My second band is Hazy Jane, the classic rock/roots band that I've been playing keys in for over a year now. Summer and fall seem to be 'our time', so expect some heavy gigging from us in and around Kalamazoo throughout the coming months. My third band is a very recent project which basically began around the convenient fact that 3/4 of us work at Broughton Music! We've been rehearsing every Thursday for weeks now, and recently played a very solid half-hour set at the Corner Bar. We're going to start doubling up our rehearsal time and take this as far as it can go!
-I currently teach six private percussion students a week and absolutely love it. One of them just auditioned for WMU's School of Music and had a fantastic experience. Judy told me he was at the very top of her list and that he can expect his acceptance letter in a few weeks! Makes me very proud.
-I'm head percussion instructor at Plainwell High School for the fourth straight year. Will likely be another successful and fun year for me and the kids!
I rarely ever post/update here as most of my 'online energies' are focused primarily on my MySpace Music page, but here's a brief synopsis of upcoming events:
-Currently, my main gig until mid-April is drums in the pit of the musical Reefer Madness(!) at the Epic Theatre in downtown Kalamazoo. Immediately following will be another musical, Trailer Park Boys(!) at an as-yet undisclosed venue, for an as-yet undisclosed run of time.
-I'm playing in two of the opening pieces on my good friend/colleague John McFarland's Masters percussion recital this coming Saturday. One is a great multi-percussion duet called "42nd Street Rondo" by Wayne Seigel which features two players with mirror set-ups of two cowbells, two bongos, and two toms each. We performed this back in November at my Senior Recital with great success, and I look forward to whipping it out again! The second piece I'm playing on is John's first marimba concerto(!) which he's reduced to marimba, two pianos, and aux. percussion for his recital. It's an incredible composition, and I'm honored to be playing on it.
-I'm currently spreading my energies between three great bands. My main focus in that regard is my own jazz/fusion project, The Jesse Williams Group. We play everything from originals, to covers by Bill Bruford, Planet X, Cab, Billy Hart, and Chick Corea among others. We have at least one 'warm-up gig' coming up in April minus our powerhouse guitarist Matt Lund, who's down in Nashville for grad. school until May. Once he returns, we plan on hitting The Union, Kraftbrau, and maybe even Bell's if we can do some recording and get a press kit together. My second band is Hazy Jane, the classic rock/roots band that I've been playing keys in for over a year now. Summer and fall seem to be 'our time', so expect some heavy gigging from us in and around Kalamazoo throughout the coming months. My third band is a very recent project which basically began around the convenient fact that 3/4 of us work at Broughton Music! We've been rehearsing every Thursday for weeks now, and recently played a very solid half-hour set at the Corner Bar. We're going to start doubling up our rehearsal time and take this as far as it can go!
-I currently teach six private percussion students a week and absolutely love it. One of them just auditioned for WMU's School of Music and had a fantastic experience. Judy told me he was at the very top of her list and that he can expect his acceptance letter in a few weeks! Makes me very proud.
-I'm head percussion instructor at Plainwell High School for the fourth straight year. Will likely be another successful and fun year for me and the kids!