James Wesley Part II

Who would've thunk it but I got another chance to go out with James Wesley and da' boys on the short East Coast run. 

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hey hey.. it's the wolf rack! (ala The Monkees theme)

There were a few new tunes added for this run and I also took the Wolf Rack to give the red shorties a headliner look. The surprise was how comfortable the cymbals were... especially the high center crash. I've been playing cymbals in a low R&B-ish position for a while and thought it would be that way for good... being that I just turned 84 years old and all! I'll definitely have to experiment getting some of that vibe using my usual convertible stands. 

For me, there's no one perfect set-up for every situation (unless you're Steve Gadd) BUT I think there's a perfect set-up for each situation. For every new artist, I start out with a drum rug and build from there... not ever gig needs a rack tom, ya know.

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The gigs were great and (like James predicted) the last one would have us shifting into high gear ready to take over the world... just in time to head back home. <cue trombone slide> 

We had really some cool openers and I want to give special call outs to the guys (and girl) in the Greg Burroughs Band and the 90 West Band... both were a great hang and played fantastic.

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What else can I say about the band (Brian on lead guitar/vox, Neil on bass, and Dylan on guitar/vox) that I didn't mention in the Part I post? There was some downtime at soundcheck so we started throwing songs around and it was a big time. Usually, everyone is up for a Space jam but there's one guy who only knows the Artist's music and Billy Idol B-sides but these guys knew it all. For example, sometimes I'll play the drum intro from "Rock with You" from Michael Jackson's 'Off The Wall' within my soundcheck just to see there are any bites. 

Brian, Neil, Ross The Man, Dylan, & brown shirt

They bit. 

We blew through a ton of standards like clockwork... The Beatles, ZZ Top, Iron Maiden, The Knack, Rush, Michael Jackson, Steve Miller, and Led Zeppelin just to name a few. A lot of fun.

I said it in Part I and I'll say it again... if you have a chance to see James' show, I highly encourage you to do so because they're great musicians and 'good peoplez'. Stay afterwards too because James meets, greets, and shakes every hand who hangs out to do so and I'm not even joking. A super special thank you to Laura Friend Photography for the awesome pictures.

James (aka The Hardest Working Man in Country) was also nice enough let me throw up a drum cam in NY and here's a montage from Friday's show:

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Call your favorite Country radio station and ask them to play "Waking Up The Rooster" from James Wesley in January 2013.