I'm excited about the upcoming release of my first foray into the world of DVD's, "Drummer's Night In Boston ", which is a beautifully shot document of the benefit I produced for Right Turn at the Berklee Performance Ctr. in Rocktober 2005. It was one of the great nights of my life, and also a great opportunity for drumming fans to catch some mind-blowing performances by five of today's most talented drummers . Words escape me so here's the catalog copy from Hal Leonard Publishing:
Drummer's Night in Boston 2005; Featuring Chad Smith, John Blackwell, etc.......
This DVD documents a remarkable one-night-only performance by five of the biggest names in the drum world, as they play live onstage, both solo and then together in a show-stopping finale. You'll experience upclose: the amazing handwork of Prince's drummer John Blackwell; the heavy-yet-tasty "band approach" playing by Chad Smith of the Red Hot Chili Peppers; classic rock icon Simon Kirke; and the firey, polyryhthmic, jaw-dropping ensemble playing of drummer's drummers Horatio "El Negro” Hernandez and Eguie Castrillo. The Drummer’s Night in Boston 2005 gives you unlimited access to the artists, with exclusive backstage interviews, and spirited performances captured live with multiple cameras in sparkling digital video and audio.
This is just a temporary cover, the final cover is being designed as I write.
The whole process of putting this beast together has been a real lesson in teamwork and patience for me. Luckily, I've had a great group of folks working selflessly for the last half year. I'm learning a lot, especially from my editor, JB Lamont, who's done an incredible job finding a good rhythm (yeppers) to the piece. We're in the last legs of production and I need to sign off on the final edit before I leave for Europe on Monday.
I should mention here that I'm going to be teching for Chad Smith on the second leg of The Red Hot Chili Peppers' European tour. Really exciting stuff for me. Chad's an old, old friend and he was kind enough to ask me to drum tech on the Peppers' new release "Stadium Arcadium" back in April 2005. Well, I got the touring gig through a horrible circumstance: Chad's longtime tech, Chris Warren, a really great guy and supremely talented road warrior, had an accidental fall off the stage while the Peps were in production in Barcelona two days before the launch of their Euro tour. He was really messed up and had to travel home to Cali to convalesce. This left Chad one day to find someone to fill in while Chris healed. I received a call that night from Chad asking if I could hop on a plane to Spain(mainly in the rain) the next day and help out. Unfortunately, I was just beginning a week where I was booked to tech on 4 different projects in 6 days (!), and I couldn't just leave the producers in the lurch, so I had to say "no" to Chad, which really bothered me, not just because I would have loved to do the gig, but also because he had honored me by calling me first and he needed my help. Long story even longer, Chad called a week later to see if I was available for the second leg of the tour, and this time I didn't even think, I just said "Oh hell yes!". It's a great opportunity for me, but I feel terrible that I got the gig the way I did. It's only a fill-in job until Chris gets better, which hopefully will be very soon. I've never done proper "tour" drum tech work, I've always been a studio guy, but hopefully I can learn what it takes quickly and do a passable job until Chris comes back.
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