It’s Take Your Kid to Work Day! And Spotify’s New York offices called up the Lemons to come kick out the jams!
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Category Archives: Uncategorized
Fuzzy Singles Forthcoming
The Fuzzy Lemons are back in the studio laying down a few tracks. Get ready for some hit singles you can listen to with your kids! Or maybe we’ll get really crazy and release an album, you never know…
LITE FM & iHeartRadio
Elizabeth Chan, the Queen of Christmas, had me join her at a special performance at the Pennsy Theatre at Madison Square Garden. What a pleasure to accompany her with guitar monster John Benthal. Plus I got to strap jingle bells to my leg!
Mario Padrón and Friends!
I knew I had listened to every Roots album and transcribed half of ?uestlove’s grooves and spent hours and hours trying to hone in on his feel and swing for a reason. It was to play RnB and soul with my friend Mario. Sometimes it is by giving ourselves limitations that we become truly creative. With a stage the size of a postage stamp we were limited in space but free to play deep pocket. Everyone in the place was nodding their head with us and the patrons and staff were so appreciative of the sound we were putting out.
12″ hats, 18″ BD, supraphonic snare, and Mario’s feet.
Kaylor and the Tin Cans
I recently joined this beautiful new Americana project led by Kaylor Otwell: Kaylor and the Tin Cans. I guess that makes me a tin can. The band has three qualities I’ve been looking for in a project. First, it’s acoustic. No pesky amplifiers or extension chords, volume knobs or earplugs and it sounds great in a living room. Second, there are lots of harmonies and I can finally stretch out my third-part-singing. Third, I get to play cajon! Now that is an easy schlep. Check out my setup:
Dela-where?
I just finished up a really fun gig with the Herreras down in Delaware. Besides the perpetual energy of the Herreras’ music, we were poolside and it was a lovely sunny day. So sunny, that I decided my cymbal was put to better use as a shade than an instrument. Little known fact: the sun makes things really hot, especially metal things.
The Streak
2,680 days. That’s how long my practice streak had lasted when I ended it this past weekend.
Since January 26, 2010 I have practiced drums for at least five minutes a day, every day. That’s more than 7 years straight. Over the past decade I have practiced more days than I have showered or brushed my teeth.
I have long believed this practice streak was indicative of who I am. Proof of my dedication. Proof of my devotion. Proof of my professionalism. Of my musicianship. My sacrifice.
But, over the past few months, the immense responsibility of parenthood and the sheer exhaustion that comes with it relegated my daily ritual to the last few minutes of each day. I had even stopped journaling my practice; it was too depressing. I wasn’t working on anything. I wasn’t developing anything. My daily practice had become a chore rather than enticing progress. It was–and is–time to end this chapter and begin a new one.
The drums were my first love, but I now have a great deal more to love in my life: My son, Aidan, whose every small accomplishment I experience as if it were my own, and my incredibly inspirational wife, Sivan, who works tirelessly to support our family.
Over the coming days, weeks, and months, I will consider how my next streak might better suit this new chapter of my life. What goal I might work toward and the new ways that working toward that goal might fulfill me. While my current record will be a hard one to beat, the daily ritual of focus, practice, and mindful improvement of my musicianship has already accomplished what I set out to prove so many years ago. The only loss I have suffered was in a number, an imaginary concept tying together a lifetime of work. Whatever I do next, I’ll do it the only way I can, one day at a time.
