Trading with Stanley Clarke...

Here's a video of our final mega-jam with Return to Forever on Stanley Clarke's iconic song "School Days." Even watching this now, I can't believe it happened. After a brief run-through during soundcheck, we just jumped right into this madness, and somehow I think it came out pretty good. Considering my heart was pounding through my chest when I had to solo after Stanley, I managed to play some stuff that I'm not completely embarrassed of, you can check that part out starting around 5:45.
What an incredible ending to an incredible tour, not only was it a dream come true to tour with RTF, I got to meet (and play for) a lot of my heroes who happened to be in the audience (Victor Wooten, Vernon Reid, and Chester Thompson just to name a few.) One of the best perks was that after Chick Corea had been sitting in with us on a regular basis I got to the point where I was actually comfortable playing with him, rather than just thinking "holy s#!t I'm playing with Chick Corea!"
Now that I'm back home I have a few awesome gigs coming up before ZPZ heads out to England for some shows. First, Gryphon Labs will be back at Molly Malone's on Friday Novemeber 4th. That's a Friday night, and we go on at 11 pm, so come get your weekend started with us!
Then, I'm really excited to be a part of The Show Must Go On, a Queen tribute with all proceeds going to AIDS Project LA. The band features Brendon Small (Dethklok), Mike Keneally, Bear McCreary (TV composer for Battlestar Galactica, Walking Dead), as well as Joe Travers and Rick Musallam from Gryphon Labs, and many others. This one-time-only show is Nov 9th at the Roxy, get your tickets now!

Return to Forever/The Red Room

Watching Return to Forever every night from this view point has been a humbling and educational experience so far. Each band member is amazing in their own right, but I'm particularly learning a lot from watching Stanley Clarke and Chick Corea play off of each other. It's really an honor to share the stage with these legends, and we've still got a month to go!
In Gryphon Labs news, we've released a FREE live in studio recording called The Red Room. We recorded it live in a studio with no overdubs or studio tricks, and I think it's a great document of what we sound like live at this point. You can download it (did I mention it's FREE?) at our Bandcamp page.

Gearing Up For Tour/July 1st LA Show

After the longest down time I've had in years, it's time to start getting ready to head back out on tour with Dweezil Zappa Plays Zappa for most of the summer. This time around we'll be opening for jazz fusion legends Return to Forever, which is both incredibly exciting and somewhat daunting. Bassist Stanley Clarke is a huge influence of mine, as well as an influence on all my other influences (if you can follow that), so seeing him play every night will be quite the educational experience. The rest of the band doesn't suck either; Chick Corea, Lenny White, Jean-Luc Ponty, and Frank Gambale...
But first, we've got one more Gryphon Labs show here in LA, on Friday July 1st at Molly Malone's. We've been rehearsing our butts off for the last few months and I think we sound better than ever, so see us now before we're gone for a while! You can check out some recent vids of us over at YouTube (including one of brand new tune "Chuck D for President") for a small sample of what you're in for!