I have been somewhat destitute financially this month. Man, the entire music community i know has been destitute! It certainly was a crappy winter for work. This is in my opinion (hey this is my blog i can rant as much as i want right?) because of the GOP's effort to banish art and science from the globe if it doesn't line up with their 'ideology' of what America is about. That and 8 years of a maniac unilateral warmonger partisan president who is responsible for screwing up,well, pretty much the world.

So... I'm really looking forward to going to Siena next week. Before that I'm off to Minorca to play with Tommaso Cappellato, Paduan drummer and all around beautiful cat. He'll be part of my group that I'm instructing at Siena Jazz. This will be a great experience and a good opportunity for me to brush up on my italian. I'm pretty bad but to my credit, I'm a lot better than most of the English speaking musicians over there.

I really did run out of bread but I took advantage of the slow period to produce a new CD of my band Hellbent. Recorded live from a concert in Vancouver from a few years ago, it is my first independent release since Blake Tartare in 2004. I have 2 former Lizards on board - Steven Bernstein and Calvin Weston - and tubist Marcus Rojas. My next releases on my brand new label of love - hey that's not a bad name right? - are a reissue of Elevated and the Soundtrack to Vodka Rocks. Director John Rubino made this madcap political action film on his own and I hope he gets it out soon!