The Industrial Jazz Group

photo credit: Steven Noreyko

Just when you thought it was safe to go out and hear a show… California, here we come.

On August 19 the Industrial Jazz Group will be at the beautiful Hammer Museum, at 10899 Wilshire Boulevard, in Los Angeles, as part of the museum’s JazzPOP series. If you don’t know the Hammer, check out their summer performance schedule, and you’ll get an idea of why this is such a cool gig. 8 PM, Free. Also: partially funded by Leonard Nimoy. (No kidding.)

On August 20 we return to a venue that has been a long-standing favorite for us: Dizzy’s in San Diego. Located in the San Diego Wine & Culinary Center, at 2nd and J Street. 8 PM, $15 ($10 for students). It’s not necessary to drink fine wine to enjoy our music, but it certainly doesn’t hurt to do so.

We’ll be debuting a slightly revised edition of the group at these shows:

Cory Wright (sax)
Damon Zick (sax)
Evan Francis (sax)
Brian Walsh (sax)
Mary-Sue Tobin (sax)

Dan Rosenboom (trumpet)
Josh Aguiar (trumpet)
Kris Tiner (trumpet)

Mike Richardson (trombone)
Ian Carroll (trombone)

Damian Erskine (bass)
Dan Schnelle (drums)

Tany Ling (vox)
Jill Knapp (vox)

Andrew Durkin (compositions, conducting, piano)

We’ll also be playing some new (and some new versions of old) IJG music. A splendid time is guaranteed for all.

…while keeping us in facial hair.

sigh the world seems alive with anything but springtime

it’s fucking hot, getting worse

Reading Andrew’s post this morning about The Art of the Fill reminded me of a neat thing that happened a few weeks ago. I thought I’d share.

I wrote this on April 30th, 2010, so forgive the present verb tenses:

I had to go to the Claymont post office today to mail some stuff. As I was walking out, I heard some music blasting from someone’s car stereo. I walked through the parking lot towards my car, and I saw a mid-20s guy with long hair sitting in his beater with the windows down, unabashedly rocking out to In the Air Tonight. He was waiting for the big drum fill of awesomeness, and he was singing along in full voice, shamelessly.

I smiled to myself at his I-don’t-care-who’s-watching groove, and I walked to my car. But then I thought hmmmm… wait a minute.

I turned on my heels walked over to his open drivers side window about 35 seconds before the big drum fill (Well I remember…and I remember don’t worry…), and as he looked up at me I said, “Dude, I just need to hear the drum fill.” He gave me that 100% acceptance nod because he totally knew that this was a necessity. It wasn’t weird at all; no pretense. It just was two people about to ROCK.

And then… “The hurt doesn’t show; but the pain still grows / It’s no stranger to you or me!”

DUD-DAT, DUD-DAT, DUD-DAT, DUD-DAT, DJAT! DJAT! / DOOM dugga djat-jat etc. etc…

I played some delicious air drums! He banged on the steering wheel!

And after a few seconds of the chorus had passed, I said “Thank you!” and he said, “Right on!” and I walked to my car to drive away, both of us wearing doofy grins of pure happy.

By the time I got my car started and my seatbelt on, the guy had gotten out of his car and walked over to mine to wave goodbye.

That was it.

I love people.

So with that said, what are your favorite drum fills? You know, the ones where you can’t turn off the song until you’re basking in the drumfill afterglow? These don’t have to be epic “quaalude thunder” fills; I also wanna know about the delicate pizzelles of drum fills.

• So the obvious one is In The Air Tonight. Duh.
• Durkin’s post mentions D’yer Mak’er by Led Zepplin… also fabulous.
• Neil Peart’s killer fill in the intro to 2112
• Misunderstood by Dream Theater — the fill from 5:31 to 5:40 is awesome.
• But I’m also a fan of the gloriously simple fill that consists only of two simple quarter notes in Sundown by Gordon Lightfoot, about 47 seconds from the end of the tune. (Yes, Gordon Lightfoot. I love him.)

What else?
Talk to me!

summer is peeping his wee head through these rainy southern Californian clouds today

soon, my soon will he be here

the finale to Lost struck a frightfully spiritual chord with me, but I would argue that the device used to conclude the series had nothing to do with the series

anyway