This is a great old video I dug up playing my “Last of the Imaginative Executioners” drum ‘n bass drum solo that I used to play with Grandfather Ridiculous in the 2003 era. There are not a lot of good video’s at all of that band so this is kind of a cool time capsule. This was from a show at a club in downtown NYC called Tribeka and was probably one of that last times I performed this solo. the video kind of shows the infancy stage of the progtronica project I’m working on now. At this point I was using a Roland MC-909 sampler/sequencer with a electronic kick and Roland midi drum trigger along with my acoustic drums.

At a reunion gig of their abstract hip-hip group “L Maestro Presents”, backing band “The Cell Theory” which features Taylor McFerrin on beat box and keyboards, Jason Fraticelli on upright bass, and Nigel Sifantus on drums were in top form. These are out-takes from the video “L Maestro Presents live at the Grog Shop” which also features mc’s Jubei and K.B. When the video was shot by a willing audience member, it turned out a lot of what he captured was not really the whole L Maestro Presents band but instead was a bunch of the instrumental jams by “the Cell Theory.” this video might as well be entitled “Jason and Nigel go bananas” because we go pretty much off the hook.

Warning… This is some pretty weird wild stuff and the sound quality is not the greatest but it is amusing none the less. What we learned from the night is that the “karate Kid is actually kind of a long movie when you try to play continuously throughout. Once the fight scene in the end came up we were pretty much exhausted.

Happy Halloween!!!!

L Maestro descended to the surface of the earth once again in Cleveland Ohio on Sunday, August 16th to rock the Grog Shop. Although Taylor, Jason and I have been performing as “The Cell Theory” in the mean time, this group hadn’t played together since late 2004. We were scattered around the country in proportion for the gig and were only all in the same place in time to make a sound check. The previous week had been spent emailing around to each other tracks we had of recordings from old shows so that we could all re-learn the material while adding new twists. With the aid of L Maestro himself, the gig came off flawless. Here are some highlights!