I’ve been having epic music moments again in my car recently, but this time due to Sirius satellite radio. I was listening to an old song I love by The Police, “Bring on the Night.” The Police is one more of the bands that effected me heavily in high school and college, though this was the early-mid 90s and they were popular in the late 70’s-mid 80’s. As a result I thought I would play the album “Regatta de Blanc” that this song comes on in its entirety. But these days people don’t listen to albums from front to beginning, paruse album covers and read all the words or whatever commentary the band might have. So, hopefully this is a close second and you have 47 minutes to listen to the entire album…

I also wanted to add that Tom Petty, who is one of my heros, has a killer radio show on Sirius on the Deep Tracks channel. I’m only mentioning it because the show is killer and you really get to the bottom of Tom Petty (check out his wikipedia entry). More info here.

Cheers,
Andre

It’s been a while since I’ve posted up some fresh and interesting tunes…  The good news is it’s not because more of it isn’t out there…

One major, major influence that has so far been missing from the site is…  Soulive!  These guys are so damn sick, three of them, two are brothers…   That’s right, one more “rich” sounding organ trio..  And they’re big, and popular, they play with the likes of Dave Matthews, Ani DiFranco — you name it… Just no one’s heard of them–hopefully until now:

Tunes from their 2001 funky-ass album Doin’ Somethin’ :

Last night was the first time I’d seen them in probably 3 or 4 years. Though it was just a sleepy Tuesday afternoon/evening show, it made my night, possibly my whole week… It’s funny too because even here in Utah, they have a huge following, and out of the wood work a lot of my old friends who were Soulive fans (or fanatics) were there, of course! 

For example my friends the Williams brothers…  Who like Soulive so much they started getting into collecting old Hammond organs, Wurlitzers, Clavinets, etc…  So much so that they’re now the underground kings of the Hammond world here in Utah (if you found this through a search engine and are looking to get a hold of them, email me).  Yes they sell them and even turned it into a little side business for a while..  Not surprisingly I found them talking it up Neil Evans after the show (pictured in the photo below):

Neil Evans on the Hammond B-3, The Clavinet, & playing bass at the same time...

These guys have so much good music and their live stuff is where they really shine. They’re also like Phish where their tried and true glory days (stuff off Phish’s Junta album for example) still holds true, so they keep playing it even though they’ve put out probably 5 or more albums since then.. This is awesome as this old funky stuff is where it’s at…

Here are some videos I took, now on Youtube… Look for a lot more Soulive to come out of this blog and check archive.org for a TON of their live recordings that just kill it.. This is just the tip of the iceberg..

Well in so many words I thought I would explain somewhat of a breakthrough I recently came to.   It’s basically coming up with a term for a lot of the stuff I do (and have been doing for several years) as a hobby, called “dirtbag adventuring.“  I’ve been struggling for several years to build and define a name for it because it sort of represents a really wide assortment of seemingly different hobbies and activities: metal fabrication and welding, exploring and adventuring, mountain bike riding and tele skiing, desert exploring and camping, hiking, etc. Could it all fit into one place? Oddly in my eyes it does… And always has, and I was always sort of looking for a place that represented this. A place with “soul.”

Here is some of the stuff I wrote about the site as I started pimping it on misc boards:

Hi guys,
I thought I’d refer some of my friends from Mud over to a newish community I started called “Hazard Assembly” – Hazard Assembly – The Ultimate Place for Dirtbag Adventuring. It is more oriented towards the guy who sort of does all sorts of adventures so the cruiser is sort of “the tool” rather than the being and the idea is we’ll have skiers and kayakers and MTBers and ideally lots of good times. It’s sort of eco focused to an extent and is really about just having a good time. I figure as the site takes off we should start seeing some really good stories and interesting or hopefully riveting adventures… The irony is we probably have about a couple dozen cruiserheads there already. The whole site is on an old New Mexico license plate… I’ve met a lot of you at particularly Cruise Moab, guys like Beno . I figured it would be right up the alley of a bunch of us…

Hazard Assembly – The Ultimate Place for Dirtbag Adventuring

We also have a gear giveaway going on. Post in this thread.

Cheers, Andre

And here is some misc Hazard Assembly photostream. A little bit of everything…

What is a TBIC site?

Hazard Assembly is the first of a few sites I plan to develop called “TBIC” sites, short for “topic by Internet Community.” It’s basically a publishing platform powered by lots of people, not just a few.  In the case of Hazard Assembly, it is simply a blog that has several users, but the community provides the bulk of the data.  In the long term TBIC will be a software platform that extracts quality data for publishing.

Look for more updates about this as I get some time. My hobby, ‘dirtbag adventuring’ www.hazardassembly.com.

In Comb Wash, where they found Everett Ruess

Also RIP Michael Jackson, devastating because I liked his music so much. It did shape my life and the music here, sort of as the ‘first taste.’ I played that album from when I could work the record player (3 or 4 maybe?) all the way through college, wearing the grooves through the vinyl… I feel he is in a better place as he was sick physically and mentally to have become the person he was. Sad to see him go…

Normally I don’t dork around enough to really care too much about different editions of wordpress and different software (and particularly blogging software).  Since I became a convert to wordpress some time in 2008 I’ve sort of seen the light though and how totally awesome this little piece of blogging software is.  I also use it in all sorts of applications so it really is pretty neat.

Anyway, Wordpress 2.8 is here and the best way to sort of highlight it and what it is and how the back end works (and all the new features) is to post their video about it. I’ve already updated easily 50% of the sites I have running Wordpress with it (and it takes about 2 seconds to do, which is another nice feature of it).  Even on a complicated site like www.hazardassembly.com, with all sorts of crazy plugins (for example the site’s entire login feature is powered by vbulletin for example off a completely different database) it upgraded flawlessly and effortlessly.

Here is the video explaining it all.  For the tech geeks out there, enjoy!

This afternoon as I’m banging away on a web project, I had Breakestra playing once again.  There are quite a few more tracks than what I’d originally posted so I thought I would post them up on the old post.   HERE IS THE LINK TO THE OLD POST ON THIS SITE.   Click it to listen to these newly added tracks…

Yeah. ..  that’s what I’m talking about.  Check out the track with Charlie Tuna from J-5!

I thought I would start playing from some of the archive of live Herbie Hancock recordings I’ve been acquiring and saving for some time….

“Peace and Love” as my friend Ara says… (hit play)

This is a pretty killer recording of Jaco Pastorious sitting in with Herbie Hancock quintet in 1977 at the Ivanhoe Theatre in New York. At first I thought I’d just play a couple of my favorite songs but I thought that wouldn’t be fair for the folks who haven’t heard it before, as this is rare but not “that” rare… Instead I staggered the order as Track 2 and particularly track 3 – It Remains to Be Seen, are some of my favorites. In typical fashion this track came on my ipod on the way home tonight from the shop and it just cranks, so here I am playing it — no rhyme or reason I suppose (smile).

Also — and this is important — now, here I was, thinking I was something special with some of these rare tracks. But as I was looking online for both the playlist and some art for this bootleg (or “import” as they were once called), out of the wood work I found some blogs way older than this one, including **holy gold mine** – very cool, make sure you click that link. In this single post there are 44 great bootlegs — many of which I don’t even own. And look at the lineup, Roy Ayers (trust me – there is some Roy Ayers coming) and a gazillion others… It’s so good that I added his blog to the blog roll on the right and it will take be days to get through it all, and to even get a good beginning…

Here is some art from this blog & this post. There is something about the covers of early 70s recordings, again just keepin it real…

I have seen these guys play a couple times and they are pretty killer… In a couple weeks is the Desert Rocks Music Festival and they are playing a complete Herbie Hancock set. How sick is that…

To get you guys pumped listen to how tight their band is and their music skills. A couple youtube vids…

Check out how sick their keys player is…

In really no musical order I started playing some Chick Corea, Return to Forever, and even a little of Tower of Power tonight. I thought I would play some random, favorite songs of these guys for you… Be forwarned that at least the first song is a hair weird but man is it tight and funky…

The first song is a total rando as I like a lot of Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock and this is about one of the farthest I would normally think to play, right off the back. But I thought I’d throw it on mostly on the tightness of all of the players, and it reminds me of good funky diverse later Chick that really heavily lied on their unbelievable drummers… Carrie says it reminds her of the music of a musical. I definitely see that…

This song was off Corea’s 1978 album the Mad Hatter. Definitely a little later and a little weirder. As sick as he is I think that Scientology had a force in it, thought I learned his sick bass player Stanley Clarke did a lot with the song naming (especially the ones he wrote, the Sorcerer, etc) – stuff seemingly right out of Dungeons and Dragons. Yes, dorky, I know… He was and is and always will be pretty popular in Japan as well, interestingly enough…

The Funky Chick Corea -- Early 70's

This photo above is more along the lines of the Corea I know and like. A little more traditional and a little more jazzy, and Latin and even Brazilian influenced. I know it’s hard to listen to some of this stuff on the internet and get the good vibes out of it, particularly if you’re at work at something, but I will say that this is a good goose-bump-yielding song… It is also one of the cleanest and most soulful playings of the Fender Rhodes I think I may have even ever heard — and believe me I’ve searched out this music… This is the famous “RTF” (Return to Forever — his band) albums out there, before they went a little more electronic; man is it good…

Return to Forever

This next song, Shadow of Lo, is one that on the album is a little cheesy but there is something about it. I particularly like this live version though, something that is a little more soulful and you can hear them all get down. This is slightly later, about 70’s playing as they are clearly all electronic here and this is when Corea was messing around heavily with pitch bending — an acquired taste. For this reason, along with the reasons for song #1, I give this post definitely the “weird music” label, and sorry, but it is good stuff if you ask me!

__________________

But finally…

Tower of Power -- look as some of the shades and hair dos...

I thought you guys would dig this. Way more funky, way more main stream. This was mid 70’s. And we’re still having the same discussions…

It’s better to tell these stories with the tunes playing, so hit play…

A lot of the music that happens in my life comes from down at our amateur mechanic shop at the Recycling Center in Heber City, Utah. This is where we spend a lot of our time working on old Toyota Land Cruisers and other misc vehicles. We do all sorts of interesting work: major modifications, engine swaps, modernization of old vehicles, and other crazy fabrication. We’re down there for hours and hours upon a time and usually the music is very loud and the music is sort of our essence and the soul of our time and essence down there. We have a pretty sick old stereo, interestingly the same old stereo I’ve had all the way since high school and some parts (the receiver) since middle school. It is an old school 400 watt JVC from the early days of compact disks, back when their players were called “DADs” or “digital audio devices.” I bought it from my friend Sam Spiegel for $25 in I think 8th or 9th grade, who is now a famous DJ and music producer in L.A. I’m sure he’d be psyched to know I still have it and am using it and the direct role this receiver has had in my life. Through out the night we basically just turn it up and last night we found ourselves listening to the album you hopefully just hit play on (above) – “Secrets” – the famous old album by Herbie Hancock from about 1974, so I thought I would post it for your enjoyment in its entirety…

This is the album that followed the Head Hunters’ famous self titled album with “Chameleon.” My best interpretation of it is Herbie Hancock and his group really progressed heavily from the Head Hunters album. Herbie also had a lot of new, neat interesting toys that were coming out at the time and was getting really good at using them. For example he started using a machine/synthesizer called an “Arp Odyssey” and a few others. Yes the name is an accurate representation of it’s sound.

“Secrets,” to me, is a way-more advanced read than “Head Hunters.” Simple and tuned down, a little more poppy and generally catchy-er. But it also wasn’t “new” and “out there” like Head Hunters so this is why Head Hunters was always their best selling album, whereas I remember the first time I bought “Secrets” (its been purchased several times, LOL) I remember it in the discount bin for $8 in Tower Records at the bottom of Central Park in New York. Here is the album cover…

Herbie Hancock Secrets

I think this picture says a lot about Herbie and sort of the era there. If you look at photos of Herbie these days you’ll see he is pretty sharp and clean cut. And that really about-describes Herbie and the mantra of this site spells out, the old school jazz and bebop movement was largely dead with the rising shortly-lived popularity of avant-garde jazz music and the increasing popularity of increasingly complicated rock music, such as the progressive rock band Yes, and even the Beatles. For many Americans, it wasn’t too odd by then, I figure (though I wouldn’t have been born until 6 years later) to see Yes and the My Favorite Things album occupying the same milk crate.

So the interesting thing is that this is probably when it really mattered to Herbie, he had a good past that he could ride out, but so did his competition like Miles Davis Guitar Player John Mclaughlin who beat him to the punch with this killer album (earlier post on this site). Herbie really had no idea what the outcome would be and what his future would be, he had no idea he would go on to basically always have and audience and put out God-knows how many Grammy-winning albums.

Down at the shop I was going to say that our environment is sort of “young” and I realized that I’ve been really clinging onto my “twenties” possibly as a method that I believe I “still appeal to young people,” college kids etc. I was right about to write that “we’re all a bunch of 20-somethings” but I realized that as of last November I turned 30 and in fact none of us are 20-something now.

It’s also funny for me to think of myself as the youngest guy in the shop as well. The good news is we’re all at least pretty “mentally” young. Bill is a pretty hardcore adventurer. His facebook profile picture is a bumper sticker that reads “My vacation is your worst nightmare.” Right on Bill!

Scotty and I, I feel like, are tremendously close these days mostly revolving around life at the shop. He has this absolutely bitchen’ old 4WD ‘77 Dodge Van that he bought for $500 that he is sooping up to be a sweet lean mean shaggin’ machine in true 70’s style (and bare min it has a bar and tons of shag carpeting to be installed), he even has a plexi-glass mirror for the ceiling. He’s been doing tons of bondo and fiberglass (and minimal rust work as its just too far gone) to make it a fun-ass vehicle to drive till its death, put a month of work into, and get a good 5-10 years of ever-rotting enjoyment until it finally dies. His goals this year are bare min, the Desert Rocks Music Festival (in Moab Utah in just over a month away – gulp!) and Burning Man. How sick is that.

Scotty Ray's Mean, Bitchen '77 4WD Dodge Van

The story of the shop is pretty neat. I was fresh out of college in about 2002 and took on my first attempt at doing something “crazy!” with a vehicle: restoring an old ‘71 Toyota Land Cruiser from the ground up. Previously I’d never attempted anything remotely similar. I was doing it in the basement garage of a hour I was sharing with a bunch of guys and I managed to kill the furnace from all of the airborne dust that came from removing literally pounds and pounds of bondo-dust from the 30-year-old vehicle. So after that of course, I needed to move operations…

Shortly after my neighbor revealed had an extra bay in a shop he owned down in neighboring Heber City, so I ended up down there. A couple years later I became good friends with a new transplant to here in Park City Utah from Kentucky named Damon Leake and maybe a year later we ended up sharing the shop. One year after that I was recycling one day and I met Dirk Spangenberg, the owner of Curb It Recycling, and we ended up moving into his larger shop on the rear side of his facility. One after that our friends Scott Ray (also from Kentucky originally, one of Damon’s good friends from home who is just awesome) and our friend Bill Hartlieb who I met through the world of biodiesel have also moved in.

We have a pretty good environment where its a lot of fun and we do a hell of a job pooling tools and resources and really with I think all of ours only complaint being a lack of cleanliness and too much clutter unfortunately..

We’ve done some pretty neat things. At least two full diesel engine conversions, some WVO conversions, several major rust removal projects, a full motorcycle restoration, countless suspensions installed, fabrication of potato guns and bicycles, and absolutely huge amounts of fabrication in general – definitely a fun place to be… I’m liking it so much these days that perhaps sometime in the future will be to create a site for the shop for the 4 of us where we constantly update all the fun stuff we’re doing…

This all leads me to last night where Scotty, who’s really into the Jam Band scene and all the bands from there (and I’m sort of into a lot of those guys too), are listening to the album you’re listening to right now. Except it was really really loud and on our amazing sound system. This era of Herbie Hancock was probably cranked in thousands and pot-smoke-filled vans, just like the one he was working on, through the 70s and everyone knows who Herbie Hancock is but I find not a lot of people have listened to his tunes… I think we were both likening it to a lot of the music we’re going to see down in a month and a half at Desert Rocks, but I described it to him as “real early – 1973. You have to imaging a room full of the darkest soul brothas just getting down and funky. Listen to the congas!” I did point out that there was a white guy with an afro in the band though. Mike something-aruther, who was the drummer… Cool, funky stuff… Scotty was down….

If you’re done with the tunes and want to get a visual of it all. I believe I’ve posted this earlier on this blog but here is a good 17 minute (you can skip through it of course) video of Herbie playing “Chameleon” from his famous Head Hunters album which was the one that lead to this album. I hope you enjoyed this…

Cheers,
Andre

Herbie Hancock – Chameleon Live 1974 from Andre Shoumatoff on Vimeo.