Just got back from an amazing trip to Miami for a quick gig and have such an adventure to share. First of all Miami is awesome! Crystal blue water, perfect temperature and South Beach is shear opulence! I was down there with the fantastic Myles Bigelow for a show at the FontaineBleau hotel. Let me tell you that’s one swanky place! The gig went great, we had a blast and people loved what we were doing. Getting there and back was a whole other story.

Let me start by saying I have the good fortune to work with not only the best musicians you can imagine but also the most professional, so what transpired over these days is by no means typical, far from it. I only share the story for a good laugh because I was laughing all the way through it, mostly because it wasn’t my gig and I could .

On the morning we were to leave our plan was to meet at Vancouver International Airport at six am. I picked up one of the guys on the way and we got there slightly before six. After getting ourselves checked in we waited for the last of the trio to show up (you’ll notice I’m not using names to protect the ridiculous). Well our third managed to sleep through not only his alarm but 4 phone calls and a half a dozen texts! By the time he got to the airport he missed the one hour cut off by 2 minutes! That’s right, 2 minutes! Apparently when they say one hour they mean it! So the end result is we had to leave a man behind to catch a later flight. Unfortunately there wasn’t another connecting flight that day and he had to spend the night in the Dallas airport and catch a flight the following morning.

That might be enough to ruin a good trip for most people but our fun was just beginning. The gig that evening went great so we were feeling pretty good about things and decided to relax after in the lobby bar and have a drink. One thing about South beach….it’s expensive! Each round of three drinks averaged $70 US! Needless to say we did not go crazy on the booze.

The next day we had a 4:00 flight. Our hotel shuttle pick up was arranged for 2 pm. I did say to someone “that’s cutting it pretty close don’t you think?” to which the response was “don’t worry, it’s fine”……well. When we left the hotel at 2 we ran smack dab into a massive traffic jam. 45 minutes later we pull into Miami airport with less that three minute to check in!  With all of our gear! My heart went out to the poor woman behind the counter, Sandy, but she worked miracles to get us on that plane. Unfortunately because of our tardiness the plane was late leaving Miami which meant our  1 hour layover in Toronto wound up being less than 35 minutes. Here’s where things get sticky. When arriving in Toronto on an international flight it in necessary to go through Canada customs, collect you baggage, re-check said baggage and go through security again. I can tell you for certain, in 35 minutes it can’t be done. Especially when the airline looses half your gear! That’s right, lost luggage to boot.

Two of us went on upstairs and told number three to meet up up there when he gets his bags. As we got to security we realized we had less than ten minutes to get to our flight! If you haven’t experienced it, the felling of stress and dread that comes over you as your standing in an airport security line up waiting for you bags to be scanned and your name gets called over the PA telling you you should already be on board your plane is truly terrifying. By the time the two of us got to the gate the doors where already shut. We quickly explained our situation, that one of our party was still downstairs looking for lost luggage half of which was in my name and we’d already left him behind once this trip and we did not want to do it again so we’ll catch the next one. The agent quickly explain to us that because all other flights that evening were full if we didn’t get on now we weren’t getting home. Then they did something I’ve never seen happen, they re-opened the gates for us told us to go. We begrudgingly got on and left a man behind…….again!

I also have to say that being the last person to board a plane that is now late because of you and you bring a guitar on which you have to find a spot for  get’s you the evilest looks you can imaging, from flight attendants and passengers alike! As I mentioned earlier all remaining flights that night were full so our poor third party could get a flight home until the next afternoon!

All in all it was a complete comedy of errors getting there and back but also a great time with great music and people. Besides, if stuff like this didn’t happen wouldn’t life be boring. Then I’d have nothing to blog about.

D

My main purpose for coming here is to not only check out some cool new toys (none of which I can afford or have a real need for) but I was also performing at the MiSi pick up booth showing off their system. MiSi is a company I hooked up with about a year ago, the make acoustic pre-amps. What’s cool and unique about them is their system are all fully active yet battery free. Whaaa! you may say, as many people did throughout the weekend. How does that work? Well they use something called “super capacitors” (space age sounding I know). What it boils down to is that the system are rechargeable. You plug it into a standard outlet for 60 seconds and you get 16 hours of play time out of it. Cool huh?! The most important thing that is they sound fantastic, none of the usual piezo “quack”. Mikhail, the guy that owns the company and designs the product, and his wife were two of the sweetest people I think I’ve ever met. They treat me like gold.

NAMM is also a major schmoozefest, and we all know this business is all about networking. The fine folks at Guitar Player Magazine we’re kind enough to set me up with a badge for the show. One of the senior v.p.’s, John, is apparently a bit of a fan of what I do so he was kind enough to mention me to the marketing manager of a major guitar manufacturer as a possible endorsee. It’s took me three day’s to manage it but I finally wrangled myself into a meeting with said manager (even if at first he thought I was someone else) so with any luck I’ll be slinging some new guitars in the near future.

In another case of dumb luck I was having some issues with a particular pedal I was using during the show so when I had a free minute I went up to the company’s booth to see if they could help me with it. I told the guy who I was and what I do and how I use this pedal all the time, in fact I rely on it for most of my shows. Next thing you know, bada bing bada boom, ten minutes later I’m chatting with that company’s artist relations guy about a possible endorsee/clinician deal. Once again a case of right place right time wins out. Nothing is set in stone but we’ll see what happens in the coming months.

On Saturday morning I was walking into the show when I spotted someone who has made a pretty big impact on my life. I’m usually not one to do this sort of thing but I just couldn’t help myself, so I went up and got my picture taken with Nicko McBrain, drummer for Iron Maiden! Anyone who knows me knows I’m the biggest Maiden fan, if only I ran into Dave Murray I would’ve melted. Later that day I was walking past the Hughes and Kettner booth and spotted Tommy Thahill guitarist for Kiss. A few months back I took my son to his first ever, rock concert which happened to be Kiss (who’s the coolest dad ever?!!) so I was able to show Mr Thahill a video if my son jumping up and down with his fist in the air singing along to “Shout it out loud” and thank him for being a part of such a great moment in my life. Of course I had to get my picture taken with him so my son could see his dad hanging with Kiss (again I say, coolest dad ever!). Shortly thereafter I happened to see a guy I recognized as another Latin guitarist from the LA area. I have an album of his which is fantastic. His name is Luis Villegas and he’s definitely worth checking out. I introduced my self to him and throughout the conversation realized we are both endorsees of Shub capos. He was booked to perform at the Shub booth the next day and invited me to stop by and sit in. An awesome impromptu little jam session happened out of that chance encounter. Too much fun!

I also had the opportunity to see some amazing performances at the show. My buddy Don Alder did a great set at the Marriot stage for Yamaha guitars. On Saturday night I got my VIP passes to the all star guitar night (thanks Guitar Player) and saw an amazing show including Larry Carlton and Mike Stern with Nathan East on bass, a surprise appearance from Stanley Jordan and an unbelievable performance by a guy named Sean Hopper, check him out. Sunday myself and my friend/great bass player, Pete along with another friend Aarron drove up to hollywood to a little club just off Hollywood Blvd to see Monte Montgomery. If you haven’t heard of Monte you should. He is one of the best guitarists, songwriters, performers you will ever hear. Hands down one of the best shows I’ve been to in my life.

On Monday morning, just to put a topper on the weekend me and my fellow Guitar Superstar alum Dave went out for breakfast and had our last little fun moment of the show. Where else but NAMM can you run into Ricki Rocket, drummer for Poison, walking into a Denny’s!

All in all a great weekend . I was on my feet for three days straight, slept on a pillow that I’m sure was carved from a log, ate my first In n’ Out burger…….it’s food! Made some new friends, hopefully started some new business relationships. Can’t wait for next year.

D

I am the first person to stand up against illegal piracy. Believe me, when you spend you life working your ass off to create something from your soul only too have some self righteous nob rip you off because they believe they’re entitled to it, it pisses you off. I’m going to say it now so be warned this may offend…..Napster f***ed the entire music industry. Not just evil record companies but all of us. What happened when file sharing became the norm is that it de-valued music entirely. People began to believe that because they could get it for free they should get it for free. Wrong. Art has never been free and it is not something you are simply entitled to. If you feel it enriches your life, you are obligated to compensate the artist for it…period.

Unfortunately what it looks like the US  is trying to do is give themselves carte blanche to go after not just copyright infringers but anyone who links to them or mentions them anywhere on their site. Without due process. If they think someone is up to no good, or has linked to some else who’s up to no good, they can shut them down with nothing more than a “letter of good faith”! Sound familiar? Talk to Gibson guitars about that kind of insane power wielding. By that logic wouldn’t they also be able to arrest a gun store owner for selling the gun used to shoot somebody? Or simply referring someone to the gun store where the gun was purchased? We all know that’ll never happen.

I’m all for shutting down illegal sites, but why do they always have to try  give themselves ultimate power over everything. Have they not figured out yet that they always screw it up when they do!

Maybe it’s just me but do all politicians have to go through some sort of training camp where all sense of reasoning and common sense is eradicated from their psyche?

D.

First, since this is at the forefront of my mind, I’d like to talk my new web site. I decided to do a redesign for a few reasons. First of all I just did a new design a few months ago which I really liked but I was getting a lot  of comments that people were having difficulty navigating it! Not sure why but I got emails asking me why there were no listings of my gigs when I had everything listing on my “tour” page. Perhaps the word tour was throwing people off so thats now been changed to “shows”, hope that helps. Also I was told that it was difficult to find my cd’s to purchase. Hopefully this problem will be resolved since I out the link to my albums page back up in the top menu.

Second, I’ve made a bit of a resolution this year to expand my web presence. I did some reading and discovered that in order for people to find you on the internet you actually have to put stuff up on the internet. Who knew! And not just stuff you put up a few years ago and hope people will stumble across it, you have to continue to upload new stuff! Hence the blog comes into effect.

So now I’ve explained the reasoning behind it I’d like to go off on a tangent about some technical stuff. I do all my own web design and have for years. I started out of necessity as I couldn’t afford to hire anyone else to do it for me and also I didn’t want my site to look like every other site out there. I have never used a template of any kind, I like to do everything from the ground up. Not just with web design but with everything. I do the same thing with my music, I produce, record, mix and master everything myself. Not just for budgetary reasons but I’m kind of a control freak that way. as the saying goes, if you want something done right..yada yada. With me it’s more like I just want it done MY way, so I’ll do it  myself…….I may have a problem.

Anyways, when I set out to redesign my site I did some research about search engine optimization. What I found out was that search engines apparently love wordpress. I don’t know why, but they do. I have never worked with wordpress before, I’ve become a bit of a wiz with html and css but this php stuff is a bit of a mystery. I thought I might be able to incorporate a wordpress blog into my regular site but once I got into it, it seemed like doing it all in wordpress was more sensible. However wordpress is great for building a site if you want to do it with templates and plugins but that is just not me (remember the control freakishness). I had to teach myself how to build a wordpress site from scratch! No easy task let me tell you. It’s been a lot of work, my poor wife has only seen me from across the room by the glow of a computer screen for a few weeks now, sorry honey, but the result is hopefully a nice design thats easy to use and will get you returning an a regular basis.

Let me know anything you’d like to hear about, learn about me or my music or just let me know what you think.

Next up I’ll be in LA at the NAMM show. I’m sure I’ll have lots to discuss about that!

Cheers
Doug