Here’s an intro (no real­ly, it’s called Intro) to the Alter­nate Routes, the band I’ve been play­ing with late­ly (er, I played on their album Late­ly) and will be tour­ing with for most of the sum­mer. There are a crazy amount of dates ahead and hope­ful­ly we’ll be play­ing near you soon.

A recur­ring theme these days is, ​“musi­cians should give away their music for free, and make mon­ey through tour­ing and sell­ing mer­chan­dise.” But I have trou­ble with the idea that the music busi­ness is now going to be sus­tained pri­mar­i­ly by things oth­er than music itself:

This is the posi­tion in which our musi­cians now find them­selves. They’re expect­ed to mul­ti­task in order to suc­ceed. Their time is now demand­ed in so many dif­fer­ent realms that music is no longer their busi­ness. What we can increas­ing­ly expect is a con­vey­or belt of smug accoun­tants liv­ing a pop star’s dream, per­form­ing aggres­sive­ly mar­ket­ed, low­est com­mon denom­i­na­tor, unchal­leng­ing dross.

If musi­cians have to make mon­ey by sell­ing t‑shirts, where’s the incen­tive to record new, inno­v­a­tive music if your career is going to be a t‑shirt design­er? Is the idea of ​“make good music, ask fans to buy it” com­plete­ly unre­al­is­tic these days?

One of the most amaz­ing things about spring in Min­neapo­lis is how quick­ly it sets in. One sec­ond, you’re try­ing to fig­ure out where you’re going to put this new foot of snow on your side­walk; turn your head and—blam­mo—there’s grass and leaves and cou­ples walk­ing their dogs and flow­ers and pollen.

Of course, I’d prob­a­bly enjoy the mir­a­cle of spring a lit­tle more if I was actu­al­ly in Min­neapo­lis. These days I’m spend­ing most of my time with the Alter­nate Routes, which is to say I’m spend­ing a lot of time on the road. Weath­er notwith­stand­ing, I’m hav­ing a great time play­ing with these guys, and hope­ful­ly there will be new music com­ing your way soon.

Back home, I’ve been slow­ly (but sure­ly!) putting the fin­ish­ing touch­es on Dave Olson’s record. We start­ed the record just over a year ago, and as much as I’d like to say we’ve been slav­ing over it every day since then, the truth is we’ve both been out of town more often than not. Regard­less, I’m proud of the record so far and some things, as they say, take time.

Speak­ing of stu­dio-type endeav­ors, I’ve also been putting some fin­ish­ing touch­es on my lit­tle project stu­dio. There are a few nice mics here, and among oth­er things on the way are a pair of Avedis MA5s I’m excit­ed to work with again. When it’s all said and done I’ll be able to pro­fes­sion­al­ly track drums à la casa, as well as pack things up eas­i­ly for mobile over­dubs. I might need a stu­dio name, you know, for that extra-pro­fes­sion­al touch. Any suggestions?

In drum-geek­ery news, I’ve been real­ly into these Istan­bul Agop cym­bals late­ly, and just got a new 19” Mel Lewis that I’m going to total­ly lay into inap­pro­pri­ate­ly on every song at a ses­sion tonight with Mol­ly Maher. The word on the street is there’s some sort of record com­ing out in the sum­mer. Stay tuned.

The amp is a very impor­tant tool espe­cial­ly for rock music the more the amp is good the more the sound you make will be perfect!

– words of wisdom from a fan

Be reg­u­lar and order­ly in your life, so that you may be vio­lent and orig­i­nal in your work.

– Gustave Flaubet

I don’t know if I even agree with this quote, but I know that I have sort of a reg­u­lar and order­ly life, so it’s reas­sur­ing to know some­one has rec­om­mend­ed this as a lifestyle.

I had an incred­i­ble amount of fun in Feb­ru­ary with the Alter­nate Routes. Here’s a vid from our Feb 12^th show at Daniel St. in Mil­ford, CT. (about one sec­ond into the song my ride cym­bal stand implod­ed, mak­ing 2:12 pret­ty fun)

For­rest chills back­stage at Sun­set Sessions.

I’ve been enjoy­ing this album by my new friend via the Alter­nate Routes, Mike Sem­bos. Vis­it­ing the Band­camp link above allows you down­load the record for free, yet some­how no one goes to prison and Mike actu­al­ly encour­ages it. So, you know, go get a free record.

I spent the night before the new year in a friend­ly for­est (our nick­name for the Cre­ative Work­shop stu­dio in Nashville, TN). I’m in my old home­town once again, this time gear­ing up for a short run with the Con­necti­cut-based Alter­nate Routes. We’re head­ed into the ocean to play a four-day cruise-type-thing called the Rock Boat, which should be a ton of fun and a much bet­ter way to spend the first weeks of Jan­u­ary than back home in the arc­tic tun­dra of Min­neso­ta. While I’ve been here some friends and I have been putting down fin­ish­ing touch­es on Dave’s record, which will hope­ful­ly be ready to mix this spring.

If there are any lessons I can car­ry into 2011 with me, it’s that I’m lucky to know, and be friends with, such tal­ent­ed and kind­heart­ed peo­ple. It’s pret­ty damn inspiring.