Man, I sure don't update this MF very often. I just got back from Christmas in Brazil, which was tons of fun. This was the first time I got to do some serious hanging, musician-style, down there. I played a couple gigs at a great club called Syndikat, and ended up hanging all night both nights after the gig. Now I'm back in NYC, entering year number 2 up here. Got a gig coming up with my new band Kind Folk at the Sidewalk Cafe on Tuesday the 9th at 11pm. Expect no guitar solos. It's some songs, yo.
What does the future hold? I'm hoping to make it out to the upper west coast some time this year, release the record with Piz, hang in New Orleans for the Jazz Fest, etc.
When is it going to snow?

It's been a minute, America. I'm doing the same stuff. I'm focused on finishing up the recording with John Pizzarelli that you hear when you view my profile. Looks like we're going to lay down a couple more tunes in October. He's been a real prince to me since we met at the Monk competition. His new record--Dear Mr. Sinatra--swings its balls off, too.
Doing a little teaching, and I've been working pretty steadily on Sundays, either at the Carnegie Club with Evan Howard's band, or at Rendezvous in Astoria with Martin Urbach. It's funny how we all came up to New York, with all these musicians, and we still play with the same cats. Ha! It's cool though, the gigs are fun. Other gigs are happening as well. Might be going to Boston soon. And I'm going to Poland to play with Nicolas Payton, that's going to rule. That's all, we'll talk later, America.

Wow, America, it's been a while since I blogged. A lot has happened. I went down to New Orleans again last week and it's still a fucking mess. i played at Snug Harbor, and also at a club in Lafayette, the 307 club. That was a lot of fun actually. Overall it was a depressing trip. I miss my house, but my city is nothing like it used to be. New Orleans was always the place you could count on to never change. If you went up to New York and didn't hit the big time (whatever that is) you could always go back there, and it had a certain energy to it, and a sense of community. I feel like that's gone now. The city feels deserted and shell-shocked. What a drag. And of course I have no faith in the people that we entrust to fix things, that goes without saying. What will it become down there? I have no idea, but I feel like I've truly lost my home.

So I was chatting with some friends the other night about this whole myspace thing and how all the music dudes are on here and we have our little pages and our little song samples and some of us have these little blogs that we fill with deep and meaningful observations about the meanings of life and art and politics and...wait, I don't talk about any of that stuff, do I? As a matter of fact, I was chatting with a friend and complaining that no one ever comments on my blog, and he insinuated that this might be due to the insubstantial nature of the subject matter that I cover here. Needless to say I was taken aback, stunned at this affront. I think I've covered some pretty deep ground in these pages, from my deft analysis of a recent gig at the Night and Day restaurant, to my shock and awe at the sudden snow storm--or snow squall, perhaps--that caught me unawares during a recent sojourn down the New Jersey turnpike. I think I'm talking about things that people want to hear here. This blog MATTERS. I'm not afraid to call it like it is. And those of you that don't like it, or don't even read it, well, you know what I have to say about that? Oh shit, I have to go move my car. To be continued....

I was just reading my last blog, and I'm it sounds a little bit sarcastic. But I really am excited about these East Village gigs, and I would love for the New Orleans expatriate community to come out and play. The East Village has a kind of New Orleans vibe to me--the New Orleans that existed before the storm anyway. I'm going back down to play at Snug Harbor on June 18th. I haven't been down since December, but I hear that not much has changed. It's funny that the nostalgia I feel for the city is all connected to things that were destroyed, like my neighborhood, my mom's house, City Perk...I love Frenchmen St., but it's still like it always was. Back in December people had this dazed look in their eyes, though. Up here in New York they liken it to the vibe after 9/11. The lady that cut my hair said that after September 11th everyone wanted all their hair cut off, isn't that interesting?

Hi all of you out there in myspace land. I'm currently blogging and trying to get a copy of my flood settlement from Fidelity Insurance. I can't tell you how much I enjoy the hold-music that they have. Martin Urbach thinks I should blog about how deep the ocean is, but I'm not and never have or will be an oceanographer. In fact I have very few skills, although I've been told that i'm an excellent typer. And I'm pretty good with chord changes too.
I've been booking gigs in the East Village here in New York for a band called Davy Mooney and the New Orleans All Stars, and before you cringe let me remind you that bands with names like that are working very comfortably around the world these days, at festivals and things like that. So there. I'd like to invite all the New Orleans All Stars out there to come and sit in whenever we play. We love you, we really do.

Day after Easter, we had a nice get together over here in Crown Heights yesterday, and then we went by the Beer Garden in Astoria. That's a nice little place. And so it goes. I'm currently trying to put together a little trek down to New Orleans in June, in between my gigs at Night and Day and the 55 Bar. It feels good to be playing gigs up here, but it feels a little strange making zero dollars doing it. Hopefully that will change soon. The trick is, I guess not to get so into the teaching and the financial angle there that I don't spend enough energy trying to play my music. la di da. I'm only posting this because I haven't done one in a while. I don't really have anything to say. I like New York, but it can be a real pain in the ass. I guess that's what I expected, although I never expected to end up here. So it goes. Isn't that a Billy Joel song?

I just got a new batch of Luckless Pedestrian CDs from the disc makers warehouse down in South Jersey. They look really good, I'm excited. Now I'll be able to blitz the clubs around here and try to get some more gigs. I've been slacking on that lately. Next Wednesday I'll be at Night and Day again, I think I'll try to play some new tunes. I've been putting a lot of miles on the car, driving out to Long Island to teach guitar lessons. It's funny, I never would have dreamed of doing anything like that in New Orleans--driving to Slidell to teach. Here it seems like par for the course. Get a day job or start teaching your ass off. Oh--or get a sweet major label deal or a sideman gig with a big moneymaker. Here's hoping. The weather's been good, but yesterday, out of nowhere, there was a snowstorm. Or maybe a squall. It only lasted about an hour. Is that a squall? Martin?

Played a fun gig last night at Night and Day in Brooklyn, with my band featuring John Ellis. A lot of musicians came out, that was cool, and John sounded killer. I was a little zonked out though, I don't know why, and I didn't really play my best. Maybe it was teaching rock tunes in Valley Stream for three hours, forgetting to eat and then hauling ass back to Brooklyn to try to make it to the gig on time. I don't know. You know those days where you can't hear anything, and every note you play sounds like the worst thing you've ever heard (to paraphrase Effortless Mastery)? It's like the musical equivalent of a bad hair day. Imagine how Pat Metheny must feel....Anyway, I'll be going to LA next week, that ought to be fun. And I got a gig at the 55 bar. June 28th, mark your calendars! 

A lot of strange conflicted feelings lately. I've been getting little pangs of nostalgia for certain New Orleans activities that are no more, like going to City Perk, having dinner at my mom's house (which got 10 ft. of water), things like that. I'll be in the middle of teaching Mel Bay tunes to little kids and I'll get this quick pang of regret. Not so much about moving up here to New York, because the things that I miss are in my old neighborhood of Mid-City, which is still pretty devastated. I loved Frenchmen St. too, but for some reason I don't miss it. Maybe because it's still there and it's pretty much business as usual, except last time I was there everyone had a sort of dazed look in their eyes. Bye now, I'm going to get an oil change (for my car)....