The last 3 nights I have spent some time with my best friend , partner and all round good guy before he scoots of to Hawaii to settle his daughter into university...
As always I am made to feel part of the family and I love them all dearly, we drink nice wine, eat tasty Hawaii based food, I bring strange beer over and we always end up working on the business of TG and talking about music..
Every time I visit prog rock is playing and the running joke of early Genesis playing seemingly every time in the background..and their not even in his top 5 of prog rock fav's...
Anyways..we decided on the rest of the songs to add to the target program for the next month and I know you will all be happy with the really interesting mix that serves all playing levels..
Last night he shot two lessons while I watched, and it was just super to see him at work again, what is interesting to me is that preparation for a target lesson is 3 times the time component of actually filming...as with all things I have ever been involved in that are a success , the work is always behind the scenes, getting the music right, having everything set up mentally in advance before sitting down and playing..
When he does it is so eloquently and easily done, it is easy to forget what went on before he sat down to play..their is a serious lesson their for you all...
My biggest thrill though was listening to him tell me stories, we have some fantastic discussions that go everywhere, and one of my favorites was the connection story between meeting John Renbourne which led to Al Stewart which led to Lawrence Juber..
It is such an appealing story I am going to go back in a week and film the story, and have it for you all ..
The night for me was capped with listening to Neil and AL play a song that is relevant again called on the border, I told Neil (he doesn't watch the news)about the recent basque bombing in Majorca and ETA's 50 year anniversary...
This song by Al was written about the separatists..and their fight for independence..
Neil and Al played this song live in Montalvo with Al leading in with a Jam (heard it through the grapevine) that he didn't let Neil know about in advance so He had to improvise but wow did it sound good...then into the song...just fabulous..
We don't have video of this but we will put the audio up in a couple of weeks with the story as told by Neil... Just something different to share...
In the meantime check out this video of Al playing the song...enjoy..
Cheers
Matt
[video type=youtube][/video]
