Jazz Guitar with The Belltower: Lesson 1 Chords and Comping

My buddy Chris Bell ripping it up, check out his new series...

Jazz Guitar with The Belltower: Lesson 1 Chords and Comping

Fall Wedding

Here is my setup...

The setting is the 1824 House in the Mad River Valley. Gorgeous colors, and a unique wedding in that the attention to detail by the two brides on my end, the DJ, and the music they chose. Their "do not play list", required at times to suit the event, was larger than the do play. Basically every Motown, Rock, Hip Hop, and classic club tunes were out to make way for New Wave and modern sounds. We turned this old barn into a private dance club, and kept playing upbeat songs for dancing the whole time. I liked the challenge of organizing and acquiring a whole new set of special songs.

Big thanks for the leadership of Bernadette at 14 Stories Wedding Service. Wonderful job with the food (vegetarian), the center pieces (cactus), dessert (pie), and my favorite...the French Fry Bar. Nothing stereotypical about this event, so for me, no chicken dance! Nothing wrong with that, in fact I have a knack for attracting couples out there looking for a unique experience, and try to give them the attention to detail they deserve.
Thanks for having me along!

My Hometown Show

Its been a while, and while no excuse is good enough but at least its been a fun, busy time!  I will be posting shows etc. starting probably with the most recent and moving back thru the summer.

On that note, Sunday was a special show.  Both for the pleasure of playing in my small hometown of Rochester, Vermont, and for kicking off the Pierce Hall renovation with the Caravan of Thieves.  This was the summer of Gypsy Jazz/Americana/Parlor Music (my genre tagging) and this band was amazing.  Blending music and performance, the small but dedicated audience was in for a treat. A couple nice openers, i had to use my iPhone to tune guitars at one point, Thanks iPhone!

Here is a little clip-

Then there is the historic Pierce Hall Community Center.  This building, mostly dark my entire life has slowly come to life over the last year or so.  Of course the economy crumbled at the onset of this project, but no matter, it is a building worthy of your attention.  Almost everybody there, of the Grey Hair variety, remembers when it was a bustling multi use building.  The Masons meet there once a month or so, the Boy Scouts used to meet in the basement, but for 30 years it was mostly unused.  This the place that used to hold plays, meetings, movies, shows, and rollerskating!  Yes, there were about a 100 pair of old leather roller-skates and grooves in the floor, just awesome.
Midway thru renovations, so the place was pretty stripped as you can see from the photo here, but such potential.  Thanks to Sandy's Books and Bakery for their support and feeding me awesome vittles.  This could be a new partnership forming, so help out and attend when you can.  Thanks to Marc for giving me the call and introducing me to another great sound guy in the area, he was a pro as was the band.

From here I will be working on getting images and links from my busy summer of weddings and events, with the hopes of more to follow!  Let me know if i can help you or yours in anyway, Thanks!  Your humble neighborhood DJ/Soundguy/Guitarist etc. pq

LEAP Event w/Senator Bernie Sanders, Wedding at Big Picture

Had a great event a couple weeks ago, followed by a wonderful wedding at the Big Picture Theater which made for a busy Saturday indeed!

Waterbury LEAP is a non profit Waterbury organization that stands for Local Action Energy Partnership, wonderful folks!  The morning was anything having to do with renewable alternative energy, farming, education, efficiency and the like.  Good stuff!  Bernie of course rallied those in the Crosset Brook School gym, and secured a huge grant for the school to install solar panels on the roof, both for education and for energy, how cool is that??  Bernie Sander's speech was on point as usual, good job Great event!
Bernie Sanders - U.S. Senator for Vermont

Later I made my way to the Big Picture Theater for a wonderful Wedding, Kim and Del, and Red Hot Juba played and folks danced the night away!  Great band, good times....
Thanks to all for giving me the call...more posts on the way!

A time to plant, a time to Blog...

Well its been a while since the last post but no more! My goal is to keep you informed as to what i have been up to in the hopes of helping with future events. It is a place full of photos and vids to enjoy, and the many thoughts on the many subjects i enjoy bouncing around this small brain of mine.

The reason it has taken so long is that i was heavily involved with a certain records store in Burlington Vermont. I was tapped to help bring it online, build inventory, manage the shop etc. and had a great time doing it. It is really rare that one finds a "Dream Job" at all in a lifetime of toil and horrid bosses, and talents gone wasted. At least got a peek into mine, because i love vinyl, talking about music, stereo systems, instruments, meeting people and helping them find music they are gonna love. It was a dream, and dreams end. Not my choice, but i am moving on and finding the time to concentrate on my own passions and businesses in hopes of carving out a similar niche in this here life. Let me know if i can help!

There are lots of stories, for other times. Right now we are redesigning the website, thanks to Jeremy for all the help! also...

Playing live music out is a joy of mine. Me and Russell Goodwin have been getting lots of gigs for our "acoustic duo" and we love it! Dates and locations to follow...

Adding high quality digital transfer to the list of services i can do for you. I can take your precious vinyl, tapes, whatever and make cds for you to enjoy anytime anywhere!

Along with that i will be selling collections for people, working on ebay type of auction where i can list and sell vinyl and connect with more buyers. Let me know if i can help!

Still DJing weddings, parties and providing sound and lighting for events here in Vermont and beyond. I have been accumulating a variety of quality live sound equipment, both for my gigs and for yours! Lets rock the house, and make your Wedding really special.

Much more to follow, look for your event here! Keep in touch and thanks to all who hired services in the past, and looking forward to helping you in the future, pq

Who would have thought the party of the year was going to be in the middle of the winter, totally free, full of local friends and community members, include 4 awesome bands and me DJ-ing in between sets and doing sound and lights?   Awesome!!  The Mad River Valley still has some surprises left, i thought nobody goes out to shows anymore.  Maybe the rumor of a Grace Potter appearance, the Sugar Shack, Nic Dooley's Ska party band that won the battle of the Bands, the word was out, and they came!  Thanks to Jack Garvin, Johhny Reid, Colleen and band for a great first set.  Then Shattered Brix, the Eames Brothers with Matt Burr, Grace Potter rocking the Temple!  Folks stayed late, i didn't get home till almost 6 am, what a party!!  Check out the lighting also, I think it worked out great.  A workshop for Dave Sellers and company by day became one of the best party spots around.  Lets do more of this.  

Mad River Glen Base Area Install

Thanks to some friends at Mad River Glen I got the call to help with getting some music to ease the crowds at the famous Single Chair!  When I got there the situation was pretty rough, a pile of old components, yard sale stereos, mess of wires etc.  We put in a pro setup-QSC 300 watt amp, JBL control 29AV-1 weather resistant speakers, rackmount Sure mixer for inputs, dbx compressor limiter to help with line spikes, nice case, Sure mic for engaging the nice people of the base area, iPod dock for music, and a nice Gator case to house the whole setup.  

We were really impressed with the full quality sound coming from these babies, nice bass response.  I had a guest tell me he was hoping to hear Phil Lesh's bass thumping away to pump the crowd, and I assured him it was no problem!  A simple operation, just turn it on, plug in the iPod and go, that was the goal!