Take a look at where we live
Today Google released the street view mode for 13 more cities in the US and expanded some already existing ones like Los Angeles and San Fransisco. Apparently they have been driving with their car here on our street so now you can almost see our house! At least the building in front of us. You can click and drag on the image to rotate the view and click on the arrows on the street to move the car around. This is the coolest ever!
View Larger Map
Hard rock concert with the Black Crowes
I managed to get tickets and back stage passes for the Black Crowes’ LA concert at the Wiltern, an old theater in town. I thought, what the heck, rock could be cool! 
Sure enough, I got down there and hooked up with my friends, drank a few beers and got myself my seat on stage. All other people were of course down in the theater behind the security guards. I sat right next to the band up on stage which was pretty cool. It was a two hour concert with a lot of volume and attitude. After the concert we went upstairs to the band room were all the groupies were chatting and partying with the band. I managed to talk a good 10 minutes with Kurt Russel and Goldie Hawn who knew the band and also saw the concert. Relaxed people, Kurt is a really nice guy. Here is a picture from my phone from the concert.
Music store and mountain climb!
After trying to make sure the new car we got was not going to die on us, we dared taking it for a run for its money. 
We drove up to the Hornguys, Steve Ferguson Music in Glendale, closer to the mountains. We tried all their instruments there, nothing was really interesting except e for a King 2B Jiggs Whigham that felt pretty good. Anyway Mattias ended up buying himself a Cronkhite leather trombone gig bag that was really cool. We have been carrying around our horns together in one bag up till now so time for a bag.
We got some food and took the car up to Mount Wilson, extremely far up the hills. 
Amazing the car survived, it was quite a climb. Up there was snow and we couldn’t see the city below due to the fact we were above the clouds! It was still sunny so we got out, unpacked our trombones and played up there over all the hills and mountains for a good 45 minutes. There are few places that allow you to play at maximum volume level. We played so loud up there people must have heard it miles away! An amazing feeling playing out in the wild. Echoing around the mountain tops.
Bob McChesney at Charlie O’s #2
This last Tuesday we went to Charlie O’s to listen to Bob McChesney again. Apparently he was a bit upset arriving to the gig just settling with the fact that his wife the hour before by mistake had rammed the car into a fence after having their dog running out in front of her. I was already late and he had to leave for his concert. His wife obviously did not show up but we met his daughter instead who was there to help Bob do some filming and sound recording. According to both Mattias and me, Bob for sure has some catching up to do on his internet presence. He does have a web site with some badly updated stuff. In these times of YouTube and MySpace it is for sure time for him to get a profile, some movies and sound clips uploaded to both those site to give him the recognition he for sure deserves being such a fantastic and unique trombone player. Not jumping to conclusions here but it is funny that the week after Mattias tells him to put more music and video on the internet, he appears with a fancy video camera and a camera girl…
Anyways, the concert this time with Bob was so much more interesting than last time. We loved the bass player he played with who was sitting in with the band flying on from New York. Great player. Bob himself played incredibly well. He seemed to let go a bit more this time and really got some amazing trombone playing happening. Good times. It is my turn to take a lesson with him, so I asked him for that. He also has planned to bring us this coming monday to a recording session in Fox studios for a couple of takes for the Simpsons, yes that cartoon series with the yellow people. We have wanted to see a recording session since we got here; we are really excited!
St Patrick’s Day
After getting ourselves another car at Rent-A-Wreck (of course the car we had showed to have bad brakes) we went down to Santa Monica for the weekly R’n'B jam session at Harvelle’s. It was St. Patrick’s and everybody are wearing green coloured clothes and necklaces allover town. we stopped at a nice looking place called Cafe 50’s. Total nostalgic approach with old school foods, jukeboxes and lightly dressed waitresses. Good times. We got ourselves food, beers and milk shake and enjoyed the Irish atmosphere. The place was covered in green all because of the Irish holiday. Even my beer was green! I brought the camera, here are some pictures.
After food and good times we continued to Harvelle’s down the street. We were way too early there but at least cought the house band playing all their sets. We got up to play a good hour with the guys. Had a great time, played all kinds of tunes and backed some great singers. Good evening…
Wayne Bergeron Big Band
Sorry for the blackout last couple of days. I know there are some Kyrkhult based readers that are fanatic readers and look for more frequent updates… Promise I’ll try to keep up better. But now I have some news from the past week. First off is our visit to a jazz club we haven’t seen before, Vibrato, a beautiful place in Sherman Oaks, hidden in the hills. Mattias had an issue with the car so we missed the opportunity to go see a masterclass with Bill Watrous. Seems like all things happen for a reason. We have wanted to see the famous trumpet player Wayne Bergeron since we got here and when we experienced the Big Phat Band without him, this concert came as a pleasant surprise. We also noticed when we got there that most of the LA studio scene was in the band, including our hero Andy Martin that we yet have not seen playing. We were up for a treat!
Trombone section was Andy Martin, Charlie Loper, Alan Kaplan and Bill Reichenbach, all people we know of, amazing to see all these guys in the same section. When Rick Baptist and Gary Grant were in the trumpet section meanwhile Wayne Bergeron plays in front of the band we realized there can’t be any recording sessions going on at all this evening. All guys are HERE!
The concert was great, so much good music, by far the best big band we’ve heard this far. The danger of hearing way too much high screaming trumpet playing was present but did not happen. A very tasteful Wayne playing beautiful solos and lead lines. Good evening for sure. Here are some pictures of the evening.
Trombone “en masse”
Meanwhile Mattias stayed home, lying sick with a terrible cold after the police event, I went down to meet one of my clients downtown for a photo shoot. I am currently working with a girl launching her new corporate business as song writer. the web site shilloh.com is about to launch the first of April including logo, photos, business cards, email templates, t-shirts, DVD cover and promotional materials. Big project. After spending two hours inside Samy’s Camera, the biggest photography related store I’ve ever seen, buying stuff for a good 800 dollars worth I went with Christine to the museum park to shoot. We had a wonderful day there and made some great looking photos.
When I finished downtown I drove to pick Mattias up. Time for concert! Yes, we are trombone players both of us and have to hear everything there is. Period. Yesterday John Fedchock was playing at Charlie O’s so we went there. Bob McChesney and some other people was there listening as well which was fun. Fellow trombone players see fellow colleagues, that’s the way it works. He flew in from New York so people don’t want to miss it. John is a remarkable trombone player, good technical control and nice lines.
Meanwhile we listened I ran over and got the LA jazz scene paper and found out that we had a chance to see Bill Watrous the same evening over at Spazio. After a two minute discussion we decided to get over there. We have our car now so no worries. Bill Watrous!! we have both listened to him since our birth. One of our true heroes! This was our only chance to see him. 
We even got to talk to him, a great guy. He had trouble with the sound system on stage so it was tough to hear him properly, but GOD what a player he is. He still plays incredible. The most relaxed trombone player I have ever seen. Effortless mastery. Fast stuff and beautiful ballads. To be over 70 years old he still rocks the house! Check that embouchure out!
Scott Whitfield on youtube
I just found this video clip of the Toshiko Akiyoshi Big Band with Scott Whitfield playing a fantastic solo. He starts playing around minute 4.07 but listen to the whole thing, it swings like crazy. Scott is such a beautiful soloist with melodic fluent lines. Check it out, it will knock you off your feet!
Got a rental car today!
After all these stories with the public transportation last weeks, we thought we’d treat ourselves and get a car for the entire month. Off we went to Rent-A-Wreck. Yes, that is the real name, don’t ask us why we trust this place. We’ve been there once before checking it out but left because of the sketchy vibe. This time felt better and we took this car and another one for a test drive before settling on the white Nissan Sentra GXT. Pretty good car, the rear bumper almost falls off and the automatic and brakes sounds they’re on there last journey but what the heck, 1000 dollars for a complete month is a good deal! Compare that to the 250 dollar for two days at AVIS car rental… It seems to drink pretty sparse which is good. We took the freeway down to Santa Monica Pier and hung there till it got cold. The traffic is terrible after 15.00. Well, here is a picture of Mattias with our new car. (and yes the picture is taken with my new iPhone).
Mattias fighting the police…
Yesterday Mattias gave me a phone call around 22.00… and had quite some story. He had just been at Bob McChesney’s house having his first lesson with him. On his way back home he was walking between bus stops, trying to heat up (it is quite chilly during night time here). A woman is running behind him, most probably doing her workout routine. Mattias reaches the bus stop and sees her stop on the opposite side standing at the corresponding bus stop. He sees her calling someone on her phone and within minutes two police cars shows up from out of nowhere. She starts yelling and pointing towards his direction and the police officers runs up to him, grabbing him hard and pushes him up towards the wall. ‘Spread your legs’ and all that. They cuff him and starts asking for weapons and everything. They are really aggressive and Mattias of course wonders what is going on. He sees the girl leave after a while and the police officers starts calming down after multiple questions. Apparently she had been worried that Mattias was a rapist and was insinuating that he had made sexual gestures towards her. Totally insane.
Apparently, LA females can come up with any story and call the cops on your ass without reason. It happened around 20.00 so it wasn’t really late… crazy, Mattias was pretty shaken up when he arrived home.
-
-
Site Stats
Visit Counter: 84554
Site loaded in 0.275 secs -
About
This is the place where you can read about where I am and what I currently am doing. My calendar is on the left.
-
Afilliates
