We are trying to get our music placed in a movie. Please go to http://music.the5thquartermovie.com/
Click on the 'alternative' tab on the left side and play the song 'the Marsh' from the California Guitar Trio.
As it plays, you can vote on it, right next to it.
Thanks for your support!

Encinitas, California. I arrived here last night after four days at the NAMM Convention(National Associaton of Music Merchants). Day three was the busiest day, with short but great sets at the Beyer booth with CGT and Tony. I also was invited to sit in with Tom Griesgraber and Jerry Marotta during their final set at 5pm.
Saturday was also the day with the most visitors: thousands of people walking the isles and visiting the booths of vendors. Yesterday we had a day off; I enjoyed walking around Namm and reconnecting with old friends and visiting some booths of interest. I enjoyed meeting James Goodall's wife, who was very interested in my Bach solo CD (James G. is a fervent baroque music fan, and plays the traverso).
I enjoyed chatting with old friend Pekka from B-Band pickups, Ed Golden at Martin guitars, and Chris Lindquist at Breedlove guitars. I also ran into my friend Ron Brewer, who finished a very cool animation video of the CGT. You can watch it here:



Also: if you have some extra time we would appreciate you going on the website http://music.the5thquartermovie.com/ and voting for CGT's piece The Marsh. If we get enough votes our music might be used for a movie called 'the 5th quarter".
Please click on the Alternative Music tab. You'll see the Marsh there and you can vote on it while it plays.Thanks for your support!


With the Beyer team after the final performance.


CGT + Tony Levin!




With Tom Griesgraber and Jerry Marotta


Victor Wooten.


Shredding guitar player at the Zwex booth

Some news: We're trying to get one of our tunes placed in a movie called "The 5th quarter" It's a contest. So if you have some extra time we would appreciate you going on the website http://music.the5thquartermovie.com/ and voting for CGT's piece The Marsh. Please click on the Alternative Music tab. You'll see the Marsh there and you can vote on it. Thanks for your support!

Namm: day 2. I woke up with a slight headache from spending so much time at the convention Center yesterday, but a god cup of coffee got me over it. We started our first set at Beyer at 1;20 pm. Today the sound volume of the the hall seemed to have increased quite a bit. At the Akai booth just across hall a DJ was playing loud stomping music, and behind us was another DJ demonstrating trance grooves. In the meantime we were trying to play Eve and Bohemian Rhapsody tryng to ignore the loud stomping beats ... at total different tempos. It was a bit of a challenge, but hey, this is NAMM and we'd better get used to it! We had fun on this second day, and I walked around between our sets checking out some guitars by Ibanez, Breedlove and Washburn.


Getting ready to play a short set at the Beyer booth


CGT with Tony Levin


Tony Levin


With Ryan, drummer of the band Slightly Stupid and Tom Griesgraber

Amazing jazz guitarists at the Breedlove booth


Paul is talking to the crowd during our performance at the Beyer booth

Anaheim, California. The NAMM Music Convention started today. It is one of the largest in the country, with hundreds of booths of different music companies: anything you can imagine: guitars, drums, music software, synthesizers, microphones, guitar picks, ... Thousands of people are attending, most of them are vendors.
For the next three days we are playing two five minute sets each day with CGT and Tony Levin at the Beyer Dynamics booth. This company makes high end microphones. Great fun to play with Tony, as always! The reason why we were only allowed five minutes is that people usually stop to listen; if we play too long the isles get congested, causing traffic jams. It's a very intense vibe in there, and one must come prepared to handle the stress and the noise in the huge exhibit halls.

Every time I return here there is more people I know(or rather: they seem to know me, or heard me play somewhere). It was quite fun walking around, checking out the latest inventions and oddities that are on the market and running into old and new friends.


CGT + Tony Levin at the Beyer booth--photo by Gary


CGT--Photo by Gary


With photographers Jill and Gary


Paul is trying out the Moog guitar


It looks like candy but it's really guitar effect pedals.


Guitar closet hangers...


Ed Gerhard played some great music at Breedlove guitars.


My friend Greg, owner of the coolest guitar shop in Harrisburg.


With Ed Golden, from the Martin Guitar Custom shop. He's building a guitar for me.

CGT is 2 on 2008 Listeners Poll

The new California Guitar Trio's CD "Echoes" is 2 on the Listeners poll for best albums of 2008 on echoes.org radio!

Here is the link to the details:
http://www.echoes.org/PollResults2008.html

Phew! The West Coast tour is over. It's been a very intensive few weeks, with concerts just about every night, and some serious drives. But it was well worth our while: the living room concerts were a success, and we played for a gracious and intent listening audience every night.
On Wednesday we drove up to Clearlake for a concert organized by John Griesgraber and his wife Thomasine. And though it was a last minute notification on our part, they still managed to get about 60 people to attend the concert.
The next morning we drove to Los Altos for a small house concert organized by Natasha Carlitz, at the house of one of her friends, a very nice lady named Ann Rando. Most of the audience were members from Natasha's dance group. The CGT did a performance with them last year in San Francisco.
After the concert we drove into the hills of Los Gatos to spend the night in the mountain home of our friend Sandy. There we enjoyed a relaxing morning off, a hike up the hills and a trip into Los Gatos on our way to the final gig at Kevin Raymond's house.
Kevin's been a long time friend; he works for Apple in Cupertino, and whenever we drive by this area he invites us to visit the Apple Headquarters. It was great to meet his family, and we played for a great group of invited friends.After the final concert we drove two hours East across the mountains, and spent the night in a motel in Los Banos. This morning we got up at 6 am and drove to the Los Angeles airport, for Carrie to catch her plane back home. I'm staying a few days here in LA to visit with my daughter Tillie.



Evening view over Clearlake, CA from Tom's dad's living room.



Concert at Queen of Peace Church in Clearlake, CA




House concert in Los Altos Hills, CA


Los Altos Hills



Morning off at Sandy's in Los Gatos Hills.


Morning hike in Los Gatos



Tree creature in Los Gatos



Another view of the tree creature, so hard to spot in its natural habitat.



A final shot of the creature, making a quick retreat into the wilderness as I approached.



House concert at Kevin Raymond's



Talking to the audience at Kevin's house.



After the last concert near Cupertino, with Kevin's family

Clearlake, California.
On Monday night we played at the beautiful Chapel of the Chimes in Oakland, California. Flute players Nancy Tyler and Carol Alban joined in on the Marsh and the Aria of Bach's Goldberg variations. Didgeridoo player Paradiso played on several pieces too, walking around the audience. There was also a brief appearance of Carol's students on two pieces. It was a diverse evening of music! The drive day had been very heavy: 7 and a half hours straight to the concert, and no time to warm up. But the concert was fun, and we enjoyed playing in this gorgeous place.

Last night we played a house concert at our friend Nancy and Larry's home, in Santa Rosa. Both Nancy Tyler and Carol Alban joined in on three pieces. When we finished the concert, people had a lot of questions for us, and we played several encores. We visited some more with Carol and our hosts afterwards, and they are planning another World Flute Fest in 2009 in New York City. At the very end of the night Carrie read one of her poems to us.


Chapel of the Chimes in Oakland, CA.







Living room concert with special guests Carol Alban and Nancy Tyler on flute.

California, I-5 North towards San Francisco. Today is a long travel day: a 7 hour drive straight to the concert in Oakland, and another hour drive to Santa Rosa after the gig.


On Saturday we played at the historic Bembridge house in Long Beach. This concert was organized by our friends Mark Perry and his wife Cheryl. Both of them are involved in restoration projects for old homes in the Long Beach area. The concert was great, Mark's home made wine was superb, and lots of old friends were there.



Last night we played at the home of our friends Sally and John in Redlands. It was a private event for invited guests only. Our concert was followed by a nice dinner and a selection of great wines from John's cellar. Fun!




Bembridge house in Long Beach



At Sally and John's in Redlands.

Encinitas, CA. We're enjoying a day off at Tom's house. This morning Carrie and I visited the beautiful meditation gardens, on the cliffs overlooking the ocean. Here Paramahansa Yogananda wrote his inspiring book "autobiography of a Yogi".

Last night we played our first show of this tour at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano, about an hour North of here. Tom and I opened for Tuck and Patti Andress, a legendary guitar/voice duo. Tuck and Patti have been playing together all their life, and seeing them perform together was a breath taking experience. Tuck is one of the most expressive and musical jazz guitarists I've ever seen; he developed his own very unique style of playing. And he's a nice guy too: he came up to us after our sound check, thanked us for being his opener, and said he thought our stick/guitar arrangements work very well. Then he pulled out a notebook and wrote down our names.
After the concert he complemented Tom on his 'fluid' style of playing the stick.





When I told Paul(Richards)about hearing Tuck and Patti in an email today, he sent me a message with his own interesting story. I quote:
When I was 17 years old, I was invited to play with this band that had one gig in San Francisco. The leader of the band really hyped the SF gig up saying it was going to be huge with lots of media and maybe the band would get a record deal and on and on. We drove all the way from Salt Lake to San Francisco for this one concert. The gig turned out to be a gathering at a local cultural center. The band I played with sucked pretty bad and the whole thing was a big fiasco, but, the one great thing about it was this: The headliner for the gig was Tuck and Patti. Tuck must have been in his early 20's then, and I had never heard any guitar playing like that before. It made a huge impression on me, and I felt it was one of the turning points for me to take my playing more seriously. I remember talking to Tuck, and I remember he had a picture of George Van Eps on his amplifier. Important moment for me.




Sound check at the Coach House





Tom backstage at the Coach house






After the show with Tuck and Patti