Friday, September 11, 2009

Progressive Nation and Onward


Here's a picture of every musician from the Progressive Nation tour we just did with Scale the Summit, Big Elf, and headliners Dream Theater. What an amazing bunch of musicians to be on the road with. The picture is sort of divided by instrument, so I'm standing with the bassists from the other bands.
Having more bands on the tour meant shorter shows for us, fewer (and quicker) soundchecks, and overall more downtime, which can easliy lead to certain amounts of road insanity. But we all found ways of using the time productively, I managed to write some more tunes for Gryphon Labs, do the occasional yoga/workout routine, listen to a LOT of music, etc. I think the downtime made us enjoy our time onstage with our instruments that much more, and I think the shows went really well because of that. Or maybe it was ther fact that Dream Theater's incredible drummer (and Zappa superfan) Mike Portnoy watched our set from the side of the stage every night. The best part was watching the obvious Dream Theater fans transition from being skeptical about our show to leaping to their feet to give us a standing ovation, so thank you to them for being so open minded.
So, now we're home for a little while. Gryphon Labs is playing the Baked Potato on Tuesday September 29th. The second set is looking like it'll be a cavalcade of guest stars including Bryan Beller, possibly Mike Keneally and many others, so come on down and see what happens! We also have T-shirts and stickers available, as modeled by me in the above picture.
Check out the new tourdates for Zappa Plays Zappa, and stay tuned for more ZPZ news, including a possible TV show...

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