Nate Update

I know I haven't posted in a while, and I have a few mintues before I have to jet for my ride home before the conference calls start so here's an update from Nate.

New appliances

I realized my life has reached an ultimate low when the most exciting event in the last four weeks has been the arrival of my new appliances. This includes a new clothes washer, new fridge, new kitchenware (yup, i just used the word kitchenware) and most exciting of all....A CLOTHES DRIER!!! You have no idea what a luxury that is in India. Driers require more energy than almost any other durable good, and power comes at a premium in India. Now if the landlord will only hook up the damn thing, I'll be in heaven.

Gig with Skinny Alley

My buddy Arool called me on Saturday saying I had to come meet his guitar teacher and his band. The band is called Skinny Alley and they're a rock band from Calcutta. Apparently they're a big deal. They have an album released on Virgin Records and have been together for the last 25 years or so. Skinny Alley was hired out by a rich couple to play at their wedding, which was at the Leela Palace. Not too shabby.

Then Arool said I should bring my horn and jam with them during their sound check. Well I played about 7 minutes and they asked me to stick around and play for the gig. I mean, what do they care? It's a wedding! I've played my fair share of weddings and believe me, you do it to pay the bills, not to rock out. This wedding, however, was something different. Most South Indian wedding won't have alcohol present. Let's just say this wedding was different. Very different. At least that's what the guy who passed out on the dancefloor half way through Elton John's "Crocodile Rock" would so.

So while this band has a significant following, at least by my standards, they were instructed to play classic rock. We played Beatles stuff, we played Moody Blues, Steely Dan and everything from "Johnny Be Good" to "Country Roads." They had a sax mic so I was able to move around a lot on stage and ended up having one of my best nights in Bangalore.

Open bar. Jamming on some classic rock. Awesome.

Meeting David Binney

For those of you who don't know, David Binney is a bad ass sax player from New York City who may very well be one of the top 3 or 4 alto saxophone players alive. He's been around for quite a while and has several albums. Some of the stuff I really know him from is his band Lost Tribe, which was a project he did in the '80s that I'm a big fan of. He played at Opus (the bar I usually play at) as well as Take 5, the only "jazz club" in Bangalore. Both shows were great, but the second show was with Prassana, an incredible guitar player from India who now teaches at the Berkley School of Music. I got to hang out with him for a while at the bar which was nuts, especially cuz it happened in India! Apparently he's dating an Indian girl and she finally convinced him to come to India to meet her parents. Little did he know he would get roped into several gigs and recording sessions. Not much of a vacation, eh? He left a few days ago to slum it in NYC with his Tuesday night gigs at the 55 Bar, the same place I saw Wayne Krantz play when I was in the 'States a few months ago. He actually got a text message from Wayne, as well as Antonio Sanchez, while I was with him at the bar.

It never ceases to amaze me who finds their way through my little Indian town.

More to come....