I’ve been playing with my close friend Mark Zampella and his band Another Roadside Attraction. Our new configuration is that I open for them but Mark joins me on electric guitar to add his tasty licks. The band joins me toward the end of my hour set and then I strap on my Taylor T5 electric and play rhythm with the band for the rest of the night. I throw in the occasional cover tune when asked. We are having a blast. We have done two nights like that at Bacalao (the name of a salty dried fish and a very cool Puerto Rican restaurant) in Sarasota. It sits in the shadow of Ed Smith Stadium where the Baltimore Orioles do their spring training. We’ll be doing that Thursdays for the rest of May at least. We also scored a gig together at Felice’s Cafe at the end of the month. This arrangement leaves us free to pursue other things on our own as well, patient which we both are doing.
The hard reality for a solo acoustic singer songwriter in a resort town is that you really need to find a way to score gigs that pay better than the coffee house while at the same time avoiding the insipid demand for beach music and played-to-tracks covers. I feel fortunate to have fallen into this new configuration. Mark writes some terrific alt country/rock tunes and we do only covers of high appeal that we actually like. We are not a juke box. Those of you in the business who are reading this: I urge you to join this movement.
Repeating other news, Canadian American Records is getting ready to release my two singles.. You can hear them on Reverbnation and if you sign on the fan widget below, you can have two free downloads.
