Tuesday - Palm Desert

THIS MORNING:

Woke up early to get ready to play on the morning news with Ottmar. I choose not to have coffee so I can stay relaxed for the performance. In doing so, it's a trip for me to see everyone around me at the news station totally wired from tons of coffee. They were talking about a million miles an hour where I probably said about 3 words all morning. Well, that was until they set us up in front of the cameras to get ready. Then I started to feel pretty chatty. It's always those moments when I'm in front of the camera that I want to start in with the cheap jokes. After a few good laughs with Ottmar they were ready for us to play. A few questions for OL to answer and then quick version of "Streetlight" and we're finished.

After getting back to the hotel I walked over to the coffee shop, now it's my turn to get all wired. Now I'm about to pack a few things up to take over to the venue and get set up for tonight's performance.

AFTERNOON AT THE MCCALLUM THEATER:





Added a few photos on flickr from sound check today.

Sunday

Here at the Radisson, sound checked and ready for the show. Early show tonight at 7pm. It was totally freezing on stage during sound check, I really dislike playing when it's cold so hope it warms up a bit from the lights during the show. We shall see. I'll report back later...

AFTER THE SHOW:

I had a great time this evening. The audience was great, they were standing and dancing around during Barcelona Nights, lot's of fun. Later after the gig I stood in line to get Ottmar's autograph. (he was signing cd's at the merch table). After I got his autograph I said "alright I'll see you on the bus" and he said "Yup, see you there" and I walked off. haha.

Rolling down the fwy on the bus now. And speaking of movies, I need to get back to that 007 movie I started the other night, I fell asleep again last night while watching. I need to speak with the person who edited it, I'm just not happy with it at all. In fact, I may go so far as to say back to the drawing board on that one. It's just not up to Casino Royal standards at all so far. I must have watched Casino Royal at least 50 times on the 07' summer tour. That movie is awesome. Wish I could say the same about this one. Maybe I'm being a bit hard on it though. I brought all the Sean Connery Bond films along. It's been a year since I've been through those and I may have to start up with those here in the next day or two. We're off tomorrow in Palm Desert. It will be nice to have a day to catch up a bit after the rehearsals and shows. I think the poolside has my name on it!

Saturday

After show:
Back on the bus having some chips & salsa with a cold beer. I'm tired this evening, I think I'll retire to my bunk in a little bit to finish the movie I started last night. What movie you ask? I started the newest 007 movie but fell asleep. I have to say I'm not as excited about as I thought I'd be. Casino Royal set the bar pretty high and so far it's not as good, bummer. I also started the Grind House movies the other night. Guess I'm bouncing back'n forth between movies at the moment.

(Below) This is where we were today.

Friday - first show of the tour

MORNING:

Woke up around 8am this morning. Got off the bus and walked over to some place where I got a smoothie. Now I'm listening and studying the music we recorded at rehearsal.

AFTERNOON SOUND CHECK:






Show:

Nice first show tonight. Great audience and I had some good conversations with some of the fans at the meet & greet after the show.

Tuesday / Wenesday Rehearsal

I enjoyed the rehearsals yesterday and today. Lots to remember and it's great that we have recordings of what we played. Now I can review all my parts for the upcoming shows.

Tuesday and Wednesday from OL's diary.

The not so perfect travel day.....

Got up around 7am this morning to get ready and leave for the airport. 9:50 am flight to ABQ. I got to the airport about an hour and 1/2 early and checked in. The agent let me know my flight was to leave out of gate 28. When I got into the terminal I double checked the screens for my gate. Yup flight to ABQ at gate 28. Now there is plenty of time to relax, get coffee etc. Nothing worse then having to rush. I got one of those nice leather seats that southwest has with the little table to put my coffee on. There are only so many of those you know, so I was happy to get one. Pays to be early!

When it got closer to boarding time the gate agent started giving updates of when they would start the boarding process for the flight. At that moment I started to chuckle a bit with satisfaction, in my mind I was patting my self on the back for being early and making this a nice relaxing morning. I even checked in online 24 hours in advance to make sure I'd get on board early so there would be plenty of space in the over head for the guitar and get a window seat. I started to day dream of me sitting next to the window with a smile on my face. "More coffee sir" the flight attendant asks "oh, yes please..." The perfect relaxing travel day.

As I was thinking this there were some announcements going on in the background and I happen to catch the last part of it that said "Final call for passenger Stephen Duros at gate 25 to ABQ!!" I nearly had a heart attack at that very moment. I dropped everything and leaped out of my chair, grabbed the guitar and carry on and ran over to the screen to see if I heard that correctly? The screen showed a flight to ABQ at gate 28 AND 25. I first decided to panic then I thought, I'd better get down there. So I went a few gates down, 27.....26........ and then.... wait, where is gate 25??? I then realized that it was on the other side of the terminal! (of course). So I bolted down the hallway at lightning speed, guitar case and all. I thought, I'm "that guy" running through the airport. I was weighted down pretty good with all my carry on stuff and about 10 to 12 steps into my running, I started gasping for air. I thought man am I out of shape, way too much time sitting and practicing guitar, must work out. I got to the end of the hall and then made a left and went running down that one, finally got to the gate. All I could get out of my mouth when I got up to the gate agent was "Duros". I'm surprised he could hear me because it was almost a whisper. He looked at me like I was a complete moron and said "well, you better get on that plane, you're the last one". Thankfully the flight attendants were kind enough to make some extra space in the over head so I could place my guitar up there. I then took the only middle seat left on the plane.

Later in the day:

Happy to be in Santa Fe, beautiful weather today. After I checked into the hotel, I met up with Jon and went to the studio to set up my gear and sound check everything. Jon and I went over a few parts together as well. All set for tomorrow mornings rehearsal and I'm very much looking forward to it.

Had a super tasty dinner. The food is so good in Santa Fe it's not even funny. Chips, salsa, guacamole and a quesidilla for dinner. Topped it off with a house margarita. The perfect way to end a not so perfect travel day!

Heading off to sleep now.

Music playlist

Added some music over there on the right for your listening pleasure while you read. I also changed a few things around in my website and added a few of these players in my "Music" page. I feel it's more user friendly now for sampling some music. I may have to change to a 3 column blog down the road. I have a lot going on and need more space.

Apparently, it's not the best morning to record!

audio clip #1 - Noise!!!


So much for recording guitar tracks this morning. Super noisy out today. Here is an audio clip of me noodling around on the guitar, nothing serious. You'll hear the weedeater dude, a train blowing it's horn and Cosmo coming in to visit. The helicopter happened to fly away before I pressed the record button. Usually it's pretty quiet around here. I think everyone knew I was going to record this morning so they had a ton of coffee and came over this way to rock out with their equipment.

Hey, if anything, you get to hear the new guitar a little bit. Oh, and try to listen in head phones, you'll get the full effect, you can even hear Cosmo purring at one point.

NEW WEBSITE

Well, all I need now is a "THAT WAS EASY" button. I'm happy this is finally up and running. I hope you all enjoy having a look around. It's simple, to the point and should be easy to read and find your way around. I may add a few last min details in the next day or so as well.

stephenduros.com

Thursday / Friday

Spent a lot of time both days doing my homework for the upcoming Ottmar Liebert & Luna Negra tour dates. Really looking forward to getting back out on the road again. Hm, "on the road again" could make for a good song no? Yes....yes I know, Willie Nelson. Just trying to make a joke there but since you're not really finding it that funny I'll move on to what I was going to say next.

I checked out the live rehearsal audio clip on the Ottmar-friends journal to hear what they're up to and played along with the tune. Thought my new guitar really sounded nice with OL's guitar tone from what I could tell listening through the speakers, not to mention the song had a great groove too. By the way, do you have your OL-Friends account yet? If not, it's a must have.

Wednesday

On Wednesday Andrew Reissger stopped by at 11AM to record the charango on one of my tunes. His playing sounds great and I just love the tone of that instrument. It has a mysterious quality to it, almost haunting in a way and I feel it's perfect for my upcoming recordings.

We recorded till around noon and then I made us a couple of small pizzas for lunch, I was starving after only having coffee for breakfast(I'm not a big breakfast person). Back for a few more listens afterwards, some good suggestions from Andrew so we tried a few more things and finished up the session for the day. I'm really looking forward to working more with him in the future on this album and other projects.

This morning

Got up at 7:30 to make coffee and practice. Beautiful morning, pouring rain yet the sun was shining brightly. Took a few photos while listening to Leaning into the Night. It set the mood perfectly while I wake up a bit. I've been way into the nylon string guitar playing with an orchestra the past few weeks, there just something something about it. I think "The Call" is my favorite piece on the album at the moment. Beautiful piece and it's really cool how the call to prayer is in tune with the song.




My coffee set up wouldn't be complete with out my Mr. Coffee warmer, 60min coffee mug and Flamenco coaster! Yes, I told you I take my coffee seriously. Maybe this stuff should be in a "Stevo gift pack" at the music store or something. Remember that post where I decided against the CNN coffee mug? Well, I decided to go with the 60 Minutes coffee mug and I feel confident with my decision. I feel more informed with whats going on in the world when I sip from it. Not to mention, I love that movie "The Insider" directed by Michael Mann and they sipped from CBS coffee mugs so I had to get one. Yes, I can be a total sucker for advertisement.

Speaking of Michael Mann, here's a little trivia question for you -

What TV show did Michael Mann produce?

It has been answered in the comment section -