Things are progressing, slowly.

I suppose now that I’ve rehearsed with 3 of the drummers who will be playing on my upcoming solo album/side project, I can start talking about it in more definite terms. This past weekend found me down in NYC and up in Johnstown, NY.  Or is it Gloversville.  One of those.

Saturday afternoon I met up with Mike Maenza (who has drummed for The X’s, among many others) in Manhattan.  I was super-impressed with Mike’s drumming with the X’s, so I asked him to play on a few songs.   He was up for it, and so he’ll be doing 3 songs with me for this.  This weekend we got some tempos mapped out and generally kicked some ass at a rehearsal studio down on 36th.  Mike can beat the ever-loving crap out of his drums, and I love it.  But he also has a sensitive side, and he’ll be showing off both sides on this project. He’s playing on “Blue Skies Black”, “Drops” (working title), and “Fish in the Sea”.

Later that evening, I found myself in Brooklyn with my good friend Tom Sposato.  Tom was the drummer in my first band, State of Nowhere, and we’ve jammed on and off throughout the years since.  One of the songs he’s playing on was actually a SON tune back in the day:  “Too Many Reasons”.  We released a fairly rough acoustic demo of it like 12 years ago (it’s on iTunes if you want to check it out!), and performed it live a few times, but this will be the first time that song gets the recording treatment it deserves.  That song rocks in a big way.  The other tune he’ll be playing on is a more sensitive song called “Nothing Much”.

Sunday, I drove out west to meet up with Rick Little in the Gloversville/Johnstown area for our second rehearsal.  I met Rick when he played with the Flying Bobbz a few years ago and The Velmas played a bunch of shows with them.  He is now the drummer for Split 2nd Alibi (who will be playing with Godsmack at SPAC this summer at Edgefest!).  Rick’s a real solid and versatile drummer, not to mention a real nice guy.  He’s playing on “Status Quo” and “Drive Me”.

That’s all the drummers I’ve been able to get together with so far, but there are at least 3 more I’m hoping to schedule something with soon.  I’ll post more about them once that happens.

I need to think of a “band name” and an album title for this thing still…