Sharing the Stage

Gryphon Labs will be sharing the stage with 3 different bands in the month of May!

First, we'll be at The Mint this Friday May 6th with Steel Toed Slippers, a very talented trio of young musicians who love Little Feat and Pink Floyd just about as much as I do. The Mint is a fantastic venue, you can reserve a table and get some food off their awesome menu, or you can just show up and rock out with us. It's only $10 for 2 bands, which is an unbeatable deal for a Friday night in Los Angeles. Steel Toed Slippers start at 8 pm, we go on at 9 pm.

Then, we're heading back to the Central S.A.P.C. in Santa Monica on Saturday May 28th to open for our good friends VOLTO! It's $20 and we'll start around 9 pm, this is an awesome chance to see both Gryphon Labs and the amazing musicians in VOLTO! (featuring Danny Carey from Tool) in a hip, intimate venue. We had so much fun last time, and it was really packed in there, so make sure you get your tickets ahead of time.

Finally, on Tuesday May 31st we'll be back at our second home, The Baked Potato, with fellow Zappa Plays Zappa-er Ben Thomas and his band Wundergroup. Ben's band is incredible, a cool mix of soul and rock music, so don't miss out on this one! It's only $15 and music will start at 8:30 pm.

Gryphon Labs album available for download!

That's right, "Modern Mythology," the debut full length album from Gryphon Labs, is now available for download from your favorite online music retailer. It's been a long time in coming, but I couldn't be happier with the final product.
Get the album at:
iTunes
eMusic
Amazon
and many other sites!
Physical CDs will be sold at shows starting soon, but for now get the mp3s, tell your friends, and leave a review!

Frank Zappa Day

This past weekend we got to be a part of Frank Zappa day in Baltimore. Frank's music is so strongly tied to southern California that few people know that he was born in Baltimore. Well, now there's an impressive statue proudly informing everyone who comes to the corner of Eastern Avenue and Conkling Street, newly renamed Frank Zappa Way, that Baltimore is proud to call Frank their own. Head over to Zappa.com to see the actual proclamation and some more pictures from the event. I think it's a pretty amazing sign of how things have changed that a controversial public figure such as Frank can finally be recognized in such an official way, for both his musical output as well as his part in the fight for free speech.
Before we go back on tour with ZPZ in November and December (with new video footage!), Gryphon Labs will be playing once again at the world famous Baked Potato on Thursday October 7th, with our good friend Paul Barrere from Little Feat sitting in. Come on out, it may be our last show of 2010!

R.I.P. Richie Hayward

If you've never heard Little Feat then you don't fully understand the concept of "Groove." Go out and get their live album "Waiting For Columbus" and skip straight to track 6 "Time Loves a Hero" (although you should listen to the whole thing over and over.) The drum intro to that song is a perfect intro to Richie Hayward's playing; impressive but not flashy, both loose and tight, and simply, utterly, GROOVING. It's no surprise that Richie is one of the most recorded drummers ever, both with Feat and as a session drummer for the likes of Robert Plant, Buddy Guy, Bob Seger, Robert Palmer, and many, many others (check out his credits page on Allmusic.com.)
I was lucky enough to spend a day with Richie when he recorded the Gryphon Labs song "Felt Like Love (Another)," and I was marveling at my fortune to have such a legend play on my album. I wish I could say I paid him thousands of dollars for his time, but the fact is he was willing to help out for free, simply because our producer Roger Cole asked him to. This song was a little different for him, a few bars of odd-time, some strange phrasing, yet he dove right in and gave us the most perfect pocket to build the rest of the song on.
The world is a whole lot less groovy now, we lost Richie last Thursday (or, as the guys in Little Feat are saying, he found a ride home) to the liver cancer that had kept him off the road for the last few years. Head over to LittleFeat.net to keep up on official memorials for Richie, including a tribute page. Check out the Labs tune he played on below, and of course, pick up any or all of the incredible body of work he left behind and get an education on "Groove."
Felt like Love (Another) by RColeMusic

Down Time

After enjoying some much needed couch time, my schedule starts to get pretty crazy soon. First of all, Gryphon Labs will be playing a club show at Molly Malone's in LA on Sunday 4/11 at 9pm. Then a crazy week of rehearsals for the next weekend, during which I'll be playing 3 different shows with 3 different bands.
Friday, April 16th I'll be at the Baked Potato with the amazing technical fusion of Cosmosquad, with Jeff Kollman on guitar and Shane Gaalaas returning to the drum chair. I'm really excited to play with these two killer musicians again, we may even break out one of the new tunes we've been writing together.
Then, April 17th, Dweezil Zappa Plays Zappa opens for the legendary Jeff Beck at the Nokia in downtown LA. Being slightly younger than the rest of DZPZ, I'm not as familiar with Jeff Beck's earlier work, but I loved his last few records ("Jeff" and "You Had It Coming") for their mixture of Jeff's old school playing and more modern production. If you don't have tickets for this event you should get them soon. Plus, Jeff has the amazing Rhonda Smith (from Prince's band) on bass!
And finally, on Sunday 4/18, Gryphon Labs will be descending upon the Baked Potato one more time. We'll have Paul Barrere from Little Feat sitting in again in the first set, and in the second set Ben Thomas from DZPZ will be joining us for some cover tunes (no Zappa music, though.)
Then we'll be auditioning new keyboard players for DZPZ, several people have posted some pretty impressive clips of themselves on youtube, so maybe you'll be seeing one of them on tour with us this summer. And speaking of tour this summer, check out all of DZPZ's dates for the US, Europe, Tel Aviv, and Tokyo.