News Archive

23 September 2010 The Club Fox (formerly the Little Fox) in Redwood City has announced that they are reopening for real now, and that the Wednesday night blues jams are coming back. The first will be hosted by the fantastic Daniel Castro Band on Wednesday, November 17th.

17 September 2010 I played in the Friday night jazz combo at Turtle Bay Seafood & Grill in Foster City.

13 September 2010 The Sunday night jam at the Old Princeton Landing is back! It kicked off Sunday, September 12.

28 August 2010 SNUG played at the Just Dance Ballroom in Oakland on Saturday, August 28. This was the band's East Bay debut.

28 July 2010 Some news about some of the local jams, none of it particularly good, but not all totally grim either:

The Old Princeton Landing over on the coast just north of Half Moon Bay is now under new ownership. It will be closed for several weeks as the new owners spruce it up. Word is that Stan Erhart's Sunday night jam session will resume soon... hopefully that will turn out to be the case.
The Little Fox in Redwood City, now called the Club Fox, has reopened officially for a one-off show the evening prior to the Redwood City PAL Blues Festival, but whether or not the Wednesday night blues jam is going to be reinstated, and when, has yet to be announced...
The jazz jam at Angelica's Bistro in Redwood City that I mentioned below was killed off after a mere two weeks, and restarted under new direction. I have not been back yet, so no word on whether it's worthwhile or not...
Finally, to end this somewhat dreary litany of not-so-great news, I'll end on a positive note - the Wednesday night jazz jam at the Milan Pizza Restaurant in Mountain View has really been going strong, with a healthy crowd, an excellent house trio, and some good players sitting in - hats off to Marty Honda for pulling it off.

23 July 2010 SNUG played at Murf's Broadway Lounge in Redwood City on Friday, July 23rd.

18 June 2010 I played in the Friday night jazz combo at Turtle Bay Seafood & Grill in Foster City.

9 June 2010 There are a couple of new jazz jams happening in the area. The first one, on Wednesdays from 7-10pm, takes place at the Milan Pizza Restaurant in Mountain View, and has been going on for approximately a month now. The second one starts next week (June 15) and will be happening on Tuesdays from 7-10pm at Angelica's Bistro in Redwood City. I continue to attend Stan Erhart's Sunday night jam at the Old Princeton Landing on the coast most weeks, and have put in one appearance each in recent months at three other blues jams: Tuesday nights at Neto's Market & Grill in Santa Clara, Monday nights at Murphy's Law in Sunnyvale, and Thursday nights at the Grand Dell Saloon in Campbell. I will have to return when I can to each of those. And I still have not been to the Monday jam at JJ's Blues in San Jose... and there are several others happening, on the Peninsula, in the City, in Marin and over in the East Bay... definitely no shortage of places to go and drag a guitar along. Finally, heard the good news that the much-missed Golden Gate Blues Society jam at the the Little Fox in Redwood City (which went out of business late last year), is returning soon at the same digs, soon to be reopened and revitalized. More on this as soon as soon as I learn further details.

26 May 2010 I filled in for guitar player Mike Schwartz in the jazz combo at Turtle Bay Seafood & Grill in Foster City.

7 April 2010 After losing bassist Mike Vargo after the February gig, SNUG has found a new bass player, Mark Cvitkovich, and we've begun rehearsing. Hopefully I'll have some SNUG gigs to announce here soon...

5 February 2010 I played a short gig in Redwood City at Angelica's Bistro with SNUG.

19 January 2010 The SNUG website has a new demo recording consisting of excerpts from four tunes in our playlist. You can find it here. Click on the play button on the little embedded QuickTime player that appears near the upper right on the page to hear it.

5 December 2009 A few more videos from the Golden Gate Blues Society jam at the Little Fox on Wednesday, 12/2 were uploaded to YouTube; in two I play my "new" Fender Telecaster and in the other two I play Vince Caminiti's black Les Paul while he plays my Tele; see this YouTube playlist.

8 November 2009 I filled in for Jeff Kamil in Stan Erhart's usual Sunday Night Jam house band at The Old Princeton Landing on Sunday, November 8. There's three videos from the afternoon here on my YouTube "jams" playlist.

7 November 2009 I played in Redwood City at The Shougun House Restaurant Saturday, November 7 with the GNUS (the quasi-acoustic version of SNUG).

1 November 2009 SNUG has filled the bass chair that's been vacant since September, so hopefully we'll be playing out again soon. More later...

26 September 2009 I played in San Jose at Santana Row with Marty Honda (violin), Jordi Cirera (bass), Aaron Hipschman (drums), and Kevin Gorey (piano).

9 September 2009 I filled in for guitarist Mike Schwartz with the Wednesday night jazz combo at Turtle Bay Seafood & Grill in Foster City. There's a video of us playing "Fly Me To the Moon" on YouTube thanks to Bobbi Goodman, local music fan extraordinaire.

3 September 2009 A couple more videos from the Little Fox and Old Princeton Landing jams have popped up recently on YouTube; see this YouTube playlist.

19 July 2009 I posted a couple of tunes I recorded last week accompanying vocalist Janna Osborne at The Shougun House Restaurant in Redwood City.

11 July 2009 I accompanied the terrific jazz vocalist Janna Osborne at The Shougun House Restaurant in Redwood City. I did a few gigs back in early 2007 with Janna and it was wonderful to be doing it again.

6 July 2009 There is a SNUG Facebook page... if you use Facebook, check it out and Become a Fan.

28 June 2009 SNUG entertained the crowd at an afternoon benefit for breast cancer at Winters Tavern in Pacifica.

27 June 2009 SNUG bravely performed in the baking heat at Murf's Broadway Lounge in Redwood City.

22 June 2009 SNUG had their debut performance at Shougun House Restaurant in Redwood City.

1 June 2009 I joined a band and have been rehearsing with them for a number of weeks now. The band's name is SNUG. SNUG, spring 2009

18 March 2009 A couple of items from recent weeks:

I sat in with the Dave Workman Band and John "Broadway" Tucker at the Saloon in San Francisco's North Beach on February 28, and again with Dave and Chris Cobb on March 14.
Once more, Bobbi Goodman, the roving Bay Area blues fan and video shooter, got me at the Redwood City blues jam at the Little Fox on March 11, and again at Stan Erhart's jam at the The Old Princeton Landing in Half Moon Bay on March 15. Rather than post individual links, just go to this YouTube playlist -- the new ones are the bottom five links.
After six weeks, the 23 Club jam in Brisbane is no more, alas; the club went under.

3 February 2009 A new jam session started at the 23 Club in Brisbane, CA. It's been put together by Jackie Enx and Stan Erhart and will be happening on every Tuesday evening from about 7:30-11:30pm.

14 January 2009 For the third time, the roving video shooter at the Little Fox blues jam got one of my solos from the Redwood City blues jam at the Little Fox. My solo starts at about 2:20.

17 December 2008 Another evening at the Redwood City blues jam at the Little Fox. Once again part of what I was doing ended up on YouTube.

3 December 2008 I returned to the Redwood City blues jam at the Little Fox for the first time in eight months. I got caught on videotape and so you can see and hear me on YouTube (be sure to click on "watch in high quality" at the lower right of the video pane).

Autumn 2008 So much for promises... sidelined for a while there. But now I'm back and hopefully there will be more to report here going forward.

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Spring & Summer 2007 I've been away from things for a while for but I'm starting to get back to it now. Hopefully that's the last gap I'll have on this page for a long time to come...

9 April 2007 I accompanied Janna Mordan again at Frescaroma in San Jose on Saturday, April 7.

23 March 2007 I accompanied the terrific jazz vocalist Janna Mordan at Frescaroma in San Jose on Friday, March 23. We'll be doing it again on Saturday, April 7 at 7:30pm.

February-April 2007 I've been continuing to show up and play when I can at pro blues jams at the Little Fox Theatre in Redwood City, the Old Princeton Landing in Princeton By the Sea (on the coast just north of Half Moon Bay), and the Seahorse Saloon in Pacifica.

15 February 2007 I played at the Brookdale Lodge in Brookdale, on Highway 9 near Boulder Creek and Felton, on Valentine's Day, augmenting the Christopher Patton quartet.

11 January 2007 I accompanied vocalist Bonnie Thomas at a the annual Crab Feed fundraiser for the Guardsmen at the Aquarium of the Bay at Pier 39 in San Francisco. It was interesting to play to a tankful of enthusiastic anchovies in addition to the usual human audience...

30 November 2006 I accompanied vocalist Bonnie Thomas at the 750 Restaurant and Lounge in the Hilton San Francisco Financial District Hotel.

19 November 2006 It's been a busy month or so. I've played at the weekly jam session at the Tasting Room of Domenico Winery in San Carlos four times now. It's a great scene and has been extended past its initial trial period through the end of the month, and will then start up again after the new year. I've also started bringing my old solidbody guitar out at some of the pro blues jams around the Peninsula, in particular at the Little Fox Theatre in Redwood City and at the Old Princeton Landing in Princeton By the Sea (on the coast just north of Half Moon Bay).

15 October 2006 I played at a jam session in San Carlos at a new venue, the Tasting Room of Domenico Vineyards. It was led by vocalist Candice backed and a trio (Larry Chinn, piano; Perry Thoorsell, bass; Jerry Pannone, drums). There are two more dates in October, Sunday October 22 and Sunday, October 29, from 4-7pm; depending on turnout, it might be continued as a regular thing. I'm planning to be there again the next two weeks; hope to see you there!

9 October 2006 Another jazz jam at Community School of Music and Arts in Mountain View. Thanks again to Marty Honda for putting it all together.

9 July 2006 Another date with vocalist Bonnie Thomas and tenor sax player Bob Olson at the Redwood City Public Library on Sunday, July 9.

2 July 2006 I played with vocalist Bonnie Thomas and tenor sax player Bob Olson at the Redwood City Public Library on Sunday, July 2.

11 April 2006 I finally am back at the JazzSchool after a long break. I'm taking the class "Improvising Eighth Note Lines" taught by Anton Schwartz.

9 April 2006 Another jazz jam at Community School of Music and Arts in Mountain View. Thanks to Marty Honda for putting it all together.

26 March 2006 I participated in a jazz jam at Community School of Music and Arts in Mountain View.

January-March 2006 I've been working on recording demos with vocalist Bonnie Thomas and we're starting to shop our duet around, and look for some others to play with (bass, sax, drums). I've also been working on a couple of personal recording projects, samples of which I hope to post here in the near future.

02 November 2005 I played at a small party in San Jose where I got a chance to jam with the wonderful mridangam player Shriram Brahmanandam.

14 October 2005 I accompanied vocalist Bonnie Thomas, performing at a wedding on Treasure Island.

25 July 2005 I accompanied vocalist Bonnie Thomas for a short set of standards at the 1751 Social Club, San Francisco.

14 June 2005 Our mainstream jazz ensemble workshop at the Community School of Music and Arts in Mountain View played our semester-ending recital.

22 February 2005 The mainstream jazz ensemble workshop at the Community School of Music and Arts has started up again.

25 January 2005 Our mainstream jazz ensemble workshop at the Community School of Music and Arts in Mountain View performed our semester-ending recital.

17 November 2004 Things have been slow these last several months. I started a few duet projects in the summer, but none have reached the looking-for-gigs stage yet; soon, I hope. In the meantime I enrolled in a improvisation class and an ensemble workshop at the Community School of Music and Arts at the Finn Center in Mountain View.

14 May 2004 Another gig at the Emerald Garden Vietnamese Restaurant in Alameda with sax player Jason Davis's Jazz Pirates. This time we were joined by a terrific vocalist, Mary Filson. She's performing with a quartet featuring Jim Grantham on sax, on Wednesday, May 19 at Club Jazz Nouveau in San Francisco at the Cannery, 2801 Leavenworth Street (entrance on Beach Street). Go see her if you can!

6 May 2004 I played again at the Emerald Garden Vietnamese Restaurant in Alameda with sax player Jason Davis's Jazz Pirates. This time it was a drummerless trio, which was an interesting challenge.

Recently, I've been on a quest to find some other musicians to partner with on duo gigs. Mostly I'm seeking intrumentalists that can play the medlodies and improvise while I accompany them. It's been a lot of fun and hopefully will bear some fruit pretty soon.

I also went through that nightmare of every computer user, the catastrophic hard drive failure. Lost a bunch of recordings but nothing too critical.

24 March 2004 Posted the first two solo and duo demo recordings, "Autumn In New York" and "Georgia On My Mind."

7 March 2004 I played at the Emerald Garden Vietnamese Restaurant in Alameda (great food, check it out!) with sax player Jason Davis's Jazz Pirates (along with Reed Cooper on acoustic bass and Bobby Castro on drums). I've been playing about once a month with them since late November.

Meanwhile, I've been working on my solo/duo demo recordings and on some original compositions, and working hard at digesting all the stuff I've been learning over the last year or two that is finally beginning to bubble up to the surface. It's a really exciting time for me in many ways...

16 December 2003 The guitar ensemble class I took this Fall quarter at the JazzSchool in Berkeley performed our "finals week" recital on Friday evening, December 12. The repertoire was:

"Think On Me," composed by George Cables and arranged for guitar ensemble by Steve Erquiaga
"My Romance," composed by Rodgers and Hart and arranged for guitar ensemble by Jack Petersen
"Lachrimae Antiquae," a lute piece by John Dowland (1563 - 1626) arranged for five guitars by Charles Postlewaite
"Coccobeans," composed and arranged for guitar ensemble by Steve Erquiaga

Thanks to my friend Rob Robinson, I have a videotape of the performance, which I am in the process of editing. A pair of video clips are on the Examples page.

22 August 2003 The HomeRecording.Comp II compilation CD containing works from members of the HomeRecording.com BBS has been released. One of my pieces, "Arti's Party," appears on it.

18 June 2003 The composition workshop class I took this past quarter at the JazzSchool in Berkeley performed a few of our pieces during the "finals week" recital on Wednesday evening, June 18. I performed two pieces I wrote for the class, "Three Reasons" and "Brain Farm."

8 May 2003 I performed a piece at the 10th Annual College of San Mateo Electronic Music concert. The piece was titled "Threshold," and it was a live guitar improvisation over a backing track of audio loops made using Sonic Foundry's ACID Pro software. There's a video clip of the performance on the Examples page, and audio-only versions at my artist page at NowWhereRadio.com.