Pre-Summer Update

Yoooooo!

Just finished up the mix and master of the upcoming Jason Spooner Band Live At Stone Mountain album and it sounds sooooo gooooood! Keep an ear out for that. I’ve been continuing working with Eric Green and Ryan Curless on the upcoming Eric Green record, which is gonna be great. The drummer Charlie Sitcherman has been coming up occasionally for sessions, which we’ll be releasing some music from those real soon. Dan Boyden has been picking away at a couple projects, notably the EP from his sister Sarah, who’s voice is smokey and velvety enough to make Barry White come back from the dead haha! I’ve been in frequent collaboration with Joel Thetford and Ryan Ordway at The Studio in Portland and we’ve been systematically releasing Joel’s music and writing new stuff consistently. I’m super stoked about an upcoming session in June with my friend Jon Wyman, who I learn immeasurable amounts from every time we work together. I’m in talks with Nigel Hall about mixing one of his records and coming to NOLA to work on new material.

I just posted a bunch of upcoming shows, so if you’re around and dig what I do, come through and high five the Stu! Love y’all and hope you’re as stoked about upcoming music as I am!!!!!

Happy Spring And Apparent Annual Blog!

Hello friends! It has been one year to the day since my last blog. Let me just admit right now i’m the worst at keeping my blog up-to-date, but here I am writing to you, whoever/wherever you are.

So what’s been going on with me personally/musically? The biggest news personally is my wife and I had a baby in late May, which has been the single most joyful experience of my life. Parenting is as exhaustive as everyone warned me, but it is such a small inconvenience compared to the love I experience everyday. It seems to compound exponentially every day. I love it! That being said, he is one of the reasons I really fell off the blog front lol!

Musically, the first thing I’m excited about is I have renovated a room in my house into a new studio. I did some more recordings down in the boathouse this past summer and when the weather was too cold/wet, I made the move up here. I filled it with some AMAZING gear including a couple Distressors, UAD 6176, UAD LA610, Eventide H3000B, Neuman U87, some new keyboards, and a bunch of other stuff I’ll be listing in the gear portion of my site. The room has been acoustically treated and sounds fantastic! Lots of good music is coming outta here for sure…keep an ear peeled!

The Keyna Hall EP was put on hold after the pandemic really hit. Likewise with some other projects, which is understandable. Some things to look forward to are Joshua Eden’s full length album, which I mixed, Modern Clarion full length and the Joel Thetford LP, both of which I played bass on, Mike Schools full length which I played on, produced, mixed, and will mostly likely do a mastering job on, Dan Boyden’s Mix Tape, which I will be mastering, and some other secrets I have yet to reveal because they are so dope I have to wait for the ok from the management…:)

I put my creative work off to the side for a minute while I navigate/manage being a new dad and getting my studio in a working place. That being said I am excited and eager to explore my own material now that I have this studio and things with kiddo are settling into a more manageable place. I’ll be playing out A TON this summer. My calendar is nearly full already and that excites me to no end. I think people are really hungry for live performances as well. I played a fair amount last summer at outside venues, which was super fun, but exhaustive because I would end up wearing my mask like 8-10 hours a day in the summer. Sweat-face…eew. Hopefully everyone will be vaccinated this summer and we can do away with the masks.

Well that about sums up a year. I could go further in to the details, but I’ll save you from that. Thanks so much for checking in to see what i’m up to. Super stoked and positive on this end. Contact me if you have questions, concerns, would like lessons, or would just like to say hi. Stay safe, healthy and smart out there!

Covid-19 and the Social Distancing Humans

Well this is weird. Since my last blog post we have found ourselves in the midst of a pandemic. Many of us are self-quarantining to help slow the pace of the virus so our hospitals can handle the incoming patients appropriately. What have I been doing with my time? Practicing, mixing, writing, going on hikes with my wife, exercising, cooking, reading books, and keeping a low profile. While this pandemic is horrible and extremely alarming, I gotta say it is nice to slow down a bit and reflect on the important things in life. Here are things I am excited about…

The 45 sounds so damn good on vinyl and you should absolutely scoop one. I am very happy with how this turned out! If you can’t afford one, holler at me directly and we’ll see what we can work out, otherwise listen to it on any streaming platform.

We are working on the Kenya Hall EP while everyone is quarantined. Since we are all essentially on lock-down, and have the wonderful tool ‘The Internet’, we can send each other things to work on and get the recordings sounding good. We are starting with a three song EP.

Jacob McCurdy of the Dapper Gents has finished the tracking for his EP and we are moving into the mixing/editing stage of that. I believe we are looking at four songs, barring he doesn’t throw an acoustic number on there. While none of us are playing live right now, we can hunker down and get all this new music out to be heard!

Finally, I’m working on my own stuff. When my ideas are solid, I send them around to friends to get their take and track ideas over the top to create something collaboratively. It’s weird not being in the same room as other people and the process takes a little longer, but its ok. It’s still super fun working with folks on new stuff!

I can’t stress the importance of keeping calm and healthy. Drink lots of fluids. Call your friends. Read books. Don’t spend all your money. Reading the news too much is detrimental to your mental health too, so watch out for that. Please email me any time if you have questions, comments, or just want to say hi. Let’s combat this pandemic together and celebrate full-on when this thing dies down! See you all very soon!!!

Maytime

This is a short but sweet one. I had the pleasure of heading out to the west coast (Spokane, WA) to play a show with my friend Maurice Brown. It was a heavy travel weekend, but the show was an absolute blast and I enjoyed the change of scenery for a couple days. I flew into Seattle, rented a car, and drove to Spokane. I had a leisurely drive back to Seattle the next day after the gig and stopped at some beautiful spots along the way, which included the overlook of the Columbia river in Vantage, and enjoyed a picnic lunch and meditation at a small park in Snoqualmie Pass on the Keechelus Lake. I made my way into Seattle where I found a beach, read a book, and watched a stunning west coast sunset. What a nice way to spend a couple days!

Upon my return I had my friend Tristan up and we did some editing and prepped all his songs to be mixed for The Tristones album. Following a couple days of editing Tristan’s stuff, I tracked a new artist, Lauren Crosby, who is an absolute gem of a human. We had a blast in the studio and her songs are great. I’ll be editing and mixing those in the upcoming weeks for her EP to be released later this summer.

The Gainers EP is OUT! You can hear it on any of your regular streaming services (I recommend pretty much anything except Spotify…I use Tidal). I wish those fellas all the best on their musical journey and look forward to working with them again in the future.

I’ve been chugging along on making my own music, which I hope to release in the early fall. For me, it’s a very revealing process about my inner workings and when to say ‘enough is enough’ on a piece because I find myself experiencing reversed-productivity due to my perfectionist nature. I hope people enjoy the music when its released, but I feel strongly that I have to like it too! I’ve heard the old adage ‘you are your own worst critic’, but for me, I am over-critical to the point of trashing pieces I like ok in order to get to the stuff I love.

As always, I’m grateful to anyone who reads these posts. Often times it’s just catching up on what I’m doing and I appreciate anyone who takes the time to catch up. Be safe out there and keep your ears open!

Projects and thoughts

Hey there universe, been a moment, but I’m glad you’re still out there. I’ve had quite a run these last couple months and parts of it I’m excited to reveal while others are depressing at best. I guess the depressing part first.

My good friend, collaborator, colleague, and confidante, Dave Noyes, passed away on March 7th from what I presume to be a heart attack. He was 45 years young and is survived by his loving wife and two sons, one of which has yet to be born. It is a tremendous loss for our little music community up here, but things are slowly getting normal again. Dave was maybe the kindest person I have ever met. His willingness to ‘go get it’ and make a situation better was contagious. I am very happy to have known and worked with him and even happier to have his friendship as long as I did. He is missed, but would want us to move forward with a smile.

I have been writing a lot lately and practicing a ton in lieu of the winter doldrums and ‘lighter’ schedule. It is spring time now and everything is waking up, including my schedule. Check out my shows page for some great events coming up that you should definitely check out!

I am happy to report I have a reggae 45 completely mixed and ready for mastering and duplication. Be on the lookout for that. I am proud of it and happy to have it done so I can move forward on some new stuff.

I have finished mixing The Gainers’ EP which has been mastered and is off for duplication as I write this. I am super excited for these fellas. Their songs are fun and they perform them well. I wish them all the best and hope you have an opportunity to hear their stuff.

The Tristones album is now fully tracked and we will be stepping into the editing phase sometime in the next few weeks. This is the full-length album I had the pleasure of producing in the fall time with my friend Tristan Clark. The guitar tones we achieved on this are mind bending.

My friend Andrew Bailie’s new album is about to be released. Andrew lived up here in Maine, but now lives in Omaha. We enjoyed playing up here for the year that we overlapped. His album is spectacular and I am humbled he asked me to tour with him in support of it. Congrats Andrew!

I enjoyed playing a show with my friend Nikhil Yerawadekar at City Winery earlier this month. His band is killing and I always love heading to New York to play with that crew. I hope he asks me to play more shows!

That’s pretty much it as of right now. I have some other things I can’t really release any info on right now, but if they lock in, are very exciting. Thank you for reading this and keeping up. I’ve said it before, but I’ll do a better job of regular blogging and keeping my shows updated.

Long time!

I really got be better about blogging on the reg. My last blog was in July and so much has happened between then and now. I’ll do my best to recap.

The summertime saw lots of inspiring moments, shows, hangs with friends, books read, guests came and went, songs written, and music recorded. I took a fair amount of time to work on my house while weather and time was on my side. My Tuesday Night Hangs with The Nightshades (the New Orleans band) have been gaining great momentum and it’s been fun being a part of the growth of a regular Tuesday night hang. I’ve met some really nice people and have enjoyed seeing many familiar faces.

I took on three production endeavors this fall. Zesty!, a band from my hometown asked me to produce 2 of their singles. The fellas are young and hungry and write great music. It’s nice to see some great talent come out of that little town! In addition to Zesty!, The Gainers asked me to produce their full length record, who are also from the midcoast Maine area. We are currently in the middle of tracking that record. They came super prepared and we tracked 8 of their songs in one day, which was fantastic. Finally, my friend Tristan Clark brought his band The Tristones up from NYC and we recorded his full length at the Rustic Overtones space with my good friend Jon Roods engineering. So much talent and great music coming out soon and I am humbled to be helping sculpt the sound of these bands and bring them to the public. Keep an ear out!

This was the first year Jenny and I hosted a Thanksgiving. We enjoyed the company of our roommates, so friends from town, and the Marcus King Band and crew. It was fun bringing those fellas up to our home and cooking food for everyone. We had a 25lb bird!!! After the mega feast, I made a turkey soup that reached 4 gallons…needless to say we’ll be eating that all winter. (I froze most of it:)

I played at the Blue Note with my friend Maurice Brown in early November. It was one of the best shows I’ve played all year. I play really well the Maurice and his usual band; Joe Blaxx on drums, Marcus Machado on guitar, Chelsea Baratz on tenor, and this fella I had never played with, Taka (sp?) rounded out the group on keys. The music was so free flowing, intense, delicate at times, and GROOVY AF! We played the same day that Maurice’s mentor and trumpet phenom Roy Hargrove passed away. The show was dedicated to Roy and Maurice brought his brother in brass, Keyon Harold, on stage to pay respects and play with us. It was a beautiful albeit mournful night.

That pretty much generalizes my last 5 months or so. Lots of music, working on the house, and other life stuff. I appreciate anyone who reads this blog post and as always, if you have an questions or want to drop me a line, please do. Take care of yourselves out there!

Move on up!

How's it goin' y'all?!?  It's another beautiful summer day up here in the 207.  Here's what's been going on and what is coming up.  

I had some liberating experiences over the last 6 weeks and I'm excited to share them with you.  My friend Nigel Hall asked me to play with him for a VIP performance benefiting hungry kids.  The show was so fun!  It was essentially Lettuce and me.  Jesus was playing so there were two bass players.  I paid careful attention to not step on any toes and find space for me to add to the music rather than muddy everything up.  Everybody in the band was very kind and encouraging and I am extremely humbled to have shared the stage with those guys.  

Paco Naviera's project Octopus Kid has released the vinyl version of his debut album 'Demonstration', which I co-produced, co-arranged, played bass, wurlitzer, and percussion among various other things.  I love Paco's music so much and am grateful he included me on this project.  I look forward to working with him again and am very excited for people to hear this music.

Aimee Bayles has released the first two singles from her upcoming EP.  We worked diligently on this record over the last year and the results are wonderful.  She'll be playing some shows coming up pretty soon here and the EP will be released in the fall, so be on the look out (ear out?) for everything Aimee Bayles.

Two of my personal projects have bore their first fruits.  Arbelos, the improvisational group, had its first show at Apohadion Theater and my New Orleans funk night kicked off last night at Local 188, both venues in Portland, Maine.  The Arbelos show was interesting, but insanely good and fun.  It was interesting because our guitar player, Zach Bence, broke down on his way back from another show in Vermont, so we asked our friend Kyle Friday to come through.  Kyle brought his keyboard and guitar, created interesting loops and other sonic textures, and filled the space beautifully around Henry and my playing.  It was lightly attended, but the people who came were enthusiastic.   I'm looking forward to seeing how Arbelos evolves.

The Nightshades (NOLA funk/soul) was a large step for me personally in that it was the first band where I sing lead vocals tunes.  It brought me a lot of comfort to have incredible musicians backing me up...Ryan Curless on drums, Max Cantlin on guitar, and Emmett Harrity on keys.  We all sing and do our best to make shit groovy af.  People REALLY dug it!!!  We are doing a residency every Tuesday for July and I am so excited for the next one.

Kenya Hall's band has been picking up some momentum.  We opened for the legendary Roots on 6/29.  Kenya has a talent for uplifting everyone around her wherever she goes and the 500+ people we played for are no exception.  The cheers were as thunderous as her voice and it felt good to be next to her on stage...playing guitar!  

Speaking of playing non-principal instruments, I played keys on a Jaw Gems show in Brooklyn too!  Those guys are so fun to chill with.  I did my absolute best to bring the heat with that crew and it was super fun to approach music from a keyboard perspective vs guitar or bass.  I anticipate more of this in the future :)

'City of My Mind' has taken a back seat while I get these other thing rolling.  It certainly doesn't take away from my love of that song though.  For anyone who reads this and is interested, it will be coming out soon, I promise!!!

I went to NYC to play with my friend Swerling a few weeks back and caught up with a bunch of friends while I was there.  Swerling continues to grow immeasurably as a songwriter and frontman.  I have enjoyed watching his process, it really inspires me.  Stay tuned for all things Swerling as well.  

That's pretty much the long and short of it.  I have some production endeavors on my plate that I can't reveal at this time, but I am stoked about them.  If anyone has any questions or comments, please drop me a line.  In the meantime, keep it greasy!