How I did a live studio album in Slovakia (?!) with no rehearsals and a band I met in a cellar in Prague...
I was in wandering around the ancient city of Prague in early October, 2015. I walked down some steps into a little subterranean chamber lined with stone. About thirty people were crammed at tables around a tiny stage. Only two seats remained, inexplicably, at the very front. Nina and I slid in between songs. It was dark, smokey and musicians were sitting on folding chairs. They began to play a JJ Cale tune, interpret it, actually, as it was entirely different. It evolved into a hypnotic jam that prompted a tall, slender young man, black clad, black hair flowing to his waist, to jump up into the negligible space and start dancing. His moves defied physics. Arms flew to the left and right, and straight to the vault-like ceiling. Black boots twisted at impossible angles. He shimmied and leapt in place with a perfection that can only be attributed to the perfect balance of drugs and amazing sound. And Amazing sound it was. It was a bravura performance, impossible to script, both by the band and the unexpected dancer.
The longer the jam progressed, the more energetic his ecstatic rendition.The band, inches away, performed with such a perfect obliviousness.... the epitome of blasé inscrutability, that it became hilarious.
It was the best ad hoc exploration of JJ Cale's "Down Down Down" in musical history, as good as an epic Grateful Dead jam, and this stranger was shooting his limbs out in every inconceivable direction, coming within a hairsbreadth of toppling tall Czech beer glasses, or putting out an eye. The audience was stunned into immobility, and tears were streaming down my face as I laughed uncontrollably at the sheer street theater of this incredible confluence of talent.
Was it fifteen minutes? More... ? The earth stood still, but the music flowed to a level of perfect interplay that could never be replicated. My laughter turned to awe.
In that wild psychotica of performance perfection, I saw it: This was the band for me.
During the break, the two guitarists, Martin and Pista, wormed their way to the bar where I was propped up considering the cosmos and gorgeous Nina. We all fell into a conversation.
This led to me sending them some of my songs, and ten days later, a studio session together in Bratislava.
Where was Bratislava? I didn't know, but I agreed instantly. They had four days in between gigs, and I recognized the universe was opening a door I had to walk through.
On the other side was my latest album: Time Has A Place For Me.
The longer the jam progressed, the more energetic his ecstatic rendition.The band, inches away, performed with such a perfect obliviousness.... the epitome of blasé inscrutability, that it became hilarious.
It was the best ad hoc exploration of JJ Cale's "Down Down Down" in musical history, as good as an epic Grateful Dead jam, and this stranger was shooting his limbs out in every inconceivable direction, coming within a hairsbreadth of toppling tall Czech beer glasses, or putting out an eye. The audience was stunned into immobility, and tears were streaming down my face as I laughed uncontrollably at the sheer street theater of this incredible confluence of talent.
Was it fifteen minutes? More... ? The earth stood still, but the music flowed to a level of perfect interplay that could never be replicated. My laughter turned to awe.
In that wild psychotica of performance perfection, I saw it: This was the band for me.
During the break, the two guitarists, Martin and Pista, wormed their way to the bar where I was propped up considering the cosmos and gorgeous Nina. We all fell into a conversation.
This led to me sending them some of my songs, and ten days later, a studio session together in Bratislava.
Where was Bratislava? I didn't know, but I agreed instantly. They had four days in between gigs, and I recognized the universe was opening a door I had to walk through.
On the other side was my latest album: Time Has A Place For Me.
