Monday, April 13, 2009

Well, it is inexcusable, even my mother has noticed the absence of a new blog, and you know mom's ALWAYS right.
So here we are back for 2 weeks from Zihuatanejo where we played for the International Guitarfest. It's our fourth time there. And this I think was the best festival yet. Over the course of the four years, we've made some wonderful friends, Jeanne, Rick, Catherine, Kelli Ali (from previous years) and of course, Heidi Nygaard, who was our most gracious hostess. She has the most beautiful house. Eric McFadden came with us for his second time on the festival. We all got to stay in this fab house! The house became music central for the festival, and there was jamming many a balmy Mexican night into the wee hours.
www.tomatis.no/mexico/Zihuatanejo.html
Eric's friend and mentor, Stan Hirsch, and supercool wife Trish came too. They stayed in the bungalow which is also on the property.
Stan does blues yes, but also mixes in his own edgy thing...he had some hispanola trippy melange in there...and he's got this crazy thumb/tremolo fingers isolation technique that is humanly impossible, yet he does it. It's been driving me crazy for years. How, Stan? How do you do it? www.stanhirsch.com

Stan and Trish shared with Patrick Sweany, one of my fave new players on the festival this year www.patricksweany.com. He made a grand arrival, getting totally soaked by the cabbie who had driven Pat way out of his way, on purpose and was trying to charge him like $100 bucks for a $10 ride. So there was a big yelling match in the street.

Now Patrick has the most soulful voice, plays gutbucket guitar, blues, ragtime, R and B, great obscure tunes and great tunes of his own...and knows song after song after song after song. But GOOD ones. The last night of the festival he was one of the last guys standing, 5:30 AM, I think it was, and he was still singin' 'em, fresh as a daisy. Well, maybe not that fresh, but at least he sounded good...







Here's the bungalow where those guys stayed:
Oh yeah, I almost forgot this totally crazy kid guitar player, Lenny or Jay Leonard, Juatco...a young sweet guy, pretty fresh outta Berklee, and played as fast as a jackrabbit. What the heck IS your name, Lenny? Anyway, a whole lotta talent, and hysterically funny guy. The kind who leaps flying fully dressed with a guitar into the pool, although he didn't actually do this, it would be easy to imagine him. Hope I get to see him again sometime...

A special hello to Marianne, who inspired me and taught me a couple of truly magical things, but they're secret!

So here we are back in cool San Francisco, with only a few mosquito bites that are fading along with the memory of this year's Guitarfest.