The Rebel Variety Hour at "Spike Africa's".

  To be perfectly honest, it ended as quietly as it started. There was some warm applause, some tips, and smiles, all very nice and super appreciated, but always falling a little shy of a musicians hopes. It was the middle that was the intense part. The middle was the wild roller coaster ride that was my band mates and my nine month residency as the house band for "Spike Africa's Fresh Fish Grill and Bar".
  Recently the management has decided to scale back the live music to special occasions. I understand the decision and agree with it. The downtown beast is a tricky one to figure out and quite often the waxing and waning business doesn't merit having a band. I know personally from years of waiting tables in the Gaslamp, it can be frustrating. Of course as a player my instinct is always to play until the coach says it's time to take a blow, so from that stand point, i'm sad to not be playing there almost every weekend. Now that i've had a few days to rest up and reflect, which means a few moments for Rockstardaddy Daycare, i'm relieved for the break. The band has alot of big gigs coming up and an insanely cool album to finish. Exciting times are upon us San Diego rockin' rebels, I just want to take a moment and share some memories from what was the single most growth inspiring year in my life as a performing musician. 
  What really made it special was how it was pulled off and the challenge was met. The resulting growth was the gravy, I personally like the sweat and the search. You see the band, the "Country Rockin' Rebels" in all our rebel splendor, are a six piece rock, country, blues spectacle. We gots it all from screaming electric, bluesy slide, fiddle and pedal steel. But we can't fit as a six piece into the smaller venue, and with everybody's individual schedules we had to do some inventing to fill the almost thirty shows we played there.
  We played as everything from a five piece, four piece(with and without bass), three man and two man acoustic, to just me and a guitar. We added covers from every genre and debuted originals on the crowd to fill the three and a half hour time slot. The actual slot was three hours but when we got the Saturday night crowd rockin', we emptied out the catalog on them. In my own romantic mind it was my chance to play the role of Jon Coltrane or Miles Davis and lead a group of talented instrumentalists through a few hours of improvisational riffing and soloing against a backdrop of American music history101, rebel style!

  We developed new dynamics amidst our shuffling line-up. New tempos, inflections, approaches, etc.We discussed it over beer battered mahi and oh so many delicious, local micro-brews! They treated us well and we responded. The passing throngs of downtown night life would look into the window and watch us jamming. It seemed our personality was different for every different passerby who would look in. We took the opportunity and ran with it and now all that's left to say is thank you. I want to give my most humble thanks to Rob, Gordon, Tony, Blaine and of course the ring leader Mr. Alex Fernandez. To all the players involved, Mr. Michael Head, the man with the magic wand, Steve the "Tomahawk" Tahmahkera, Mark the "L.A. Slide" Eppler, Teddy "Strings" Stern, Tony the "Sandman" Sandoval. Of course to all us players families and friends for all you do for us musicians. And of course a giant thanks for the support from the staff of "Spikes"...I leave you all with a line from one of my own.
  "When i'm going downtown babe, you give a frown to me. I say jump in the back you can come along, enjoy a ride for free." -Indian Wind.