"Starlite Drive-In Saturday Night" releases June 12th. Order now for an immediate download of the song "Tell Me Where It Hurts". You'll get a digital download of the entire record AND a physical CD when it ships next month.
Quick info: Dayan Kai Band at Kuumbwa / Saturday March 17th at 7:30 pm / tix link
Singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Dayan Kai was born in Maui, grew up in San Juan Bautista, and up until two years ago was raising his family in eastern Washington. These days he lives in Watsonville. For many reasons, though, you could call his show at Kuumbwa this Saturday a trip back home.
Read the rest of this entry »
Click to hear episode #115 (time = 36:01, size = 49.6 mb)
We’ll take a slight detour from the usual (and very talented) run of singer/songwriters usually featured on the “Songs and Stories” podcast. This time out, we talk to Asyst, my very favorite local metal band. (Okay, so they’re the *only* local metal band I really know…but I digress.) Asyst is Mike Sylva (drums), Dipendra Bagchee (guitars/vocals), Tim Sankar (guitar), and Vic Rodriguez (bass/vocals). Their new album is “Setting Sun”, and I recently chatted with them during a rehearsal at Silva’s Custom Classics (drummer Mike’s garage where he restores Chevy Muscle Cars).
Read the rest of this entry »
Short version: It’s simply a night that could not have gone any better.
Longer version: My wife and I have been hosting a “house concert”-style series at the Corralitos Cultural Center for nearly two years. Sometimes I bring in a couple of other songwriters, and we share the night telling the stories behind our songs. Other times I’ll just host and “show off” an artist that I want other people to experience. Every show is different, and each one is special. But I think we outdid ourselves last Friday.
Read the rest of this entry »
Eleven songs. How hard could that be? Really? As I’ve been gathering and working up material for the new record the past couple of years, I’ve been joking that “writing the songs is the easy part”. And it is. Sorta. But while recording isn’t necessarily easy – it’s work – it’s a fun process when you’re in the right hands. Read the rest of this entry »
I dread it. I keep quiet, and I always feel a tinge of guilt, but I still dread it. We’re driving along, totally minding our own business, and then we see a loose dog, obviously not street smart, haphazardly sniffing his or her way through an unfamiliar neighborhood. I secretly hope my wife won’t see the critter. But she does. And I oblige, since I’m also worried about the dog even though we’re late – we’re always late – for wherever we’re heading, and stopping to find this pup’s home certainly isn’t to help.
But it beats returning later and seeing that same animal flattened on the pavement – hey, it’s happened. So you see a stray and want to help. What do you do? Pretty simple: Read the rest of this entry »
