Look, a new post! I have a couple big things to report. First, I’m back in school! This fall I started an approximately two year program at Marylhurst University here in Portland in order to eventually become a music therapist. It’s an incredibly powerful field, and even though I’ve basically just started I feel very inspired about the whole thing, and can’t wait to start an actual practice someday. But for now, I have to succeed as a student again, and learn how to play the darn guitar, so wish me luck!
Second, I have a couple important shows coming up in the next few weeks that I feel are worth mentioning here. The first is a Midnight’s Children show at the new fancy jazz club in Portland called the Jack London Review. We’re headlining on Friday November 24th, and we’re all very excited to play that night. Sharing the night with us will be Amirah, so check them out if you haven’t and be prepared for a party!
Finally, speaking of parties, my trio The Euge Organ Trio is finally releasing an album! Dave Fleschner, Teddy Presberg and I have all put in a lot of great time and effort into this project, and we’re proud of the result and excited to share it with all of you. Our CD release show is on Saturday December 2nd at Alberta St. Pub, and another neat thing about this show is that since we all teach quite a bit, we decided to opt for an early show in order to allow it to be all ages. We’ll play from 4:30-6:30, and if you pay the admission price of just $10, you get a copy of the CD. Bring the whole family!
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Hi there everyone! As usual, it’s been quite a while since I’ve posted an update about the musical happenings in my world, but this time I’ll make up for it with a couple pieces of big news!
First, I’m simultaneously very honored and proud to announce that I’ve been endorsed by Allegra drums. This company is based just across the river from us Portlanders, in Vancouver, WA, and they make beautiful, incredible sounding, masterly crafted drums. I recently received a beast of a 14” by 8” snare drum that they made for me, and I’m having a blast getting to know it. It’s got such a huge range of capabilities, from dynamics to pitch range to sensitivity to straight up thundering.
Second, I’m super excited to be touring Europe this year, in just under a week from today! I’ll be touring and playing with the newly formed Crow band, led by vocalist Earl Thomas and keyboardist Dave Fleschner. We will be promoting our new album, CROW, in such countries as Spain, England, Denmark, Switzerland, Belgium and Germany to name a few. Check out Earl Thomas’ website to get more details, listen to and buy the album! http://earlthomasmusic.com/index/ First leg of the tour we’ll be plane hopping back and forth between Spain and England. Here’s to summer touring across the pond!
Howdy world of the internets! I’ve got a few pieces of news-worthy reporting in my musical life, so check it out… Firstly, my Euge Organ Trio with Teddy Presberg on guitar and Dave Fleschner on keys is going into the studio next week! I’m super excited to start putting to tape (figuratively these days, of course) the originals we’ve been working on for a few months now, and eventually we’ll have an album! It’s fun for a number of reasons but one is that I find myself being super analytic/scientific about drum sounds and overall mix sounds when listening to different groove-jazz oriented projects these days. A couple that come to mind as sounding fantastic are The New Master Sounds’ “102%” album and Stanton Moore’s “Emphasis!” Check those out if you haven’t already and listen to, among the overall great sound, the superb sounding yet rather natural and raw drum sounds. Anyway, wish us luck in the studio!
Second, I’m very excited to reunite yet again the Under the Streetlamp folks for a few New Years gigs down in Laughlin, NV, which for those of you who, like me, have no idea where that is, it’s close to Vegas. It’s always such a pleasure to play music with that crew, not to mention the epic hangs/music listening sessions that inevitably occur in the hotel rooms or on the bus when we’re not actually performing.
Finally, I’m simultaneously happy and proud to introduce a new project that I’ve put together very gradually over the course of this year… Meet Midnight’s Children; Portland’s new Soul/R&B/Funk extraordinaires! The band has Chuk Barber, who can be found playing with The Lowrider Band and The California Honey Drops among other groups, singing and playing percussion, Portland’s guitar wizard Dan Duval, Alex Weinberg from Shafty on keys, Nathaniel Daniel from Yeah, Great, Fine playing bass, Chelsea Luker of The Quadrophones and Joy Tribe singing and playing woodwinds and myself on drumset and backup vocals. We’ve been working on a mix of covers and originals, ala Prince, Jon Cleary, D’Angelo and others and our rehearsals have been sounding fantastic, so be sure to check us out! Our debut show is January 13th at The Goodfoot, so I hope to see you there!
Greetings again everyone and anyone! It’s time for another long overdue post about my musical happenings, so here goes. Firstly, I want to mention what an awesome time I had playing with The Tooloose Cajun and Zydeco band on the Mysti Krewe of Nimbus’ float for Portland’s annual Starlight Parade last Saturday. I’ve been playing with The Tooloose crewe for about half a year now and they’re a great bunch of players and people, and the related Mysti Krewe of Nimbus is a super cool Portland society based off of New Orleans’ social clubs. It’s just really neat to be a part of something like that up here. I heard that we played to somewhere around 200,000 people all along the parade rout and watching Oregon’s news. That’s a pretty big audience!
Next, it gives me pleasure to introduce The Euge Organ Trio with Teddy Presberg on guitar and Dave Fleschner playing organ. These guys are fantastic players and we’ve been playing a mix of originals and old school soul jazz from the likes of Jimmy Smith, Wes Montgomery and others. We’re playing at the new club up on Alberta called Solae’s Lounge this Thursday, June 4th. This club seems to be gathering a lot of attention and great bands so we’re excited about our first show there, and hopefully more to come!
On June 13th I’ll be playing at Dante’s with Professor Gall, which should prove to be an entertaining and zany night of music. Then on June 20th I will reunite with Under the Streetlamp in Boise, ID. I can’t wait to see, hang and play with all those wonderful folks again. Finally, at the end of the month, on June 25th Chervona will play it’s second of this year’s last Thursday parties at Mississippi Pizza. Last Thursday, May 28th was a great night of Russian party music, and I’m sure the future shows will be as well.
Then it’s July and the Basque festival in Elko! I’m sure I’ll be playing around town for what’s always a fantastic week of partying. Then in mid July I’ll be teaching my eighth year at the Great Basin Jazz Festival. My, as they say, how time flies… I guess that’s fine just as long as it’s not rushing 
Hi everyone, I’m finally back in Portland for the rest of the year! I’ve actually been back for a little over a month now and it’s been a busy month as I’ve done gigs with Chervona, The Quadrophones, DoveDriver, Professor Gall and The Transcendental Brass Band. I’m also back teaching the history of rock and roll for Portland Community College, which is a rewarding teaching experience.
Next up, The Rocky Horror Show! I’m excited to be the drummer for Live On Stage’s production of this cult classic musical at The World Trade Center in Portland. Shows run from October 16th through November 8th. We had a rehearsal with the cast last week and the music sounds awesome! This is sure to be a fun time.
Finally, I’m hoping to get just a couple more piano and drum students to fill out my teaching/studio time, so let me know if you or anyone you know may be interested in some lessons. That’s all for now folks, let our musical adventures continue!