News International whistleblower's death 'non-suspicious,' police say....

Oooooooookay ................

Joe Perman Bass Guitars

Ladies and gentlemen,

introducing the first Joe Perman Custom Fretless six String Bass. Joe has been making me basses at Modulus Guitars for almost 20 years. Here's the next stage in his evolution! I really want to help spread the word about his amazing artistry. I'll be using it on my new record too so you'll get to hear it soon too! Believe me, he sounds as good as he looks. He's so pretty in fact that I named him

"Pretty Boy Floyd"

Much love to you Joe!

ob

Australia and New Zealand

Australia and New Zealand

Its cool when two brothers can share some firsts together at 46 and 49. As many of you know I went ten years not playing with my brother on a regular basis. Somehow I've also managed in that same time to never play or see Paris, London, AMSTERDAM, Australia, New Zealand.............. Well I can check two of those off the list thanks to God and the Tedeschi Trucks Band. (On a side note, my brother told me that as far as he can tell we are the only two in in our extended family to have made careers together. Its almost like that special feeling twins must have.) Anyway, even though Kofi had been to Adelaide Australia with DTB he had never been to Sydney, Melbourne, Byron Bay, Tweed Heads Australia or Auckland New Zealand. So we shared all those firsts together in one whack!

Australian and New Zealanders are some of the friendliest I've ever met. So far I found the people of Italy to have the friendliest general attitude. But I think Sydney, Byron Bay and Auckland may have surpassed it! The Byron Bay festival might have been my favorite festival I've ever played. The line up was sick, (Our dressing room was next door to Mavis Staples' and I had a meal quite randomly right next to Elvis Costello.) The staff were over the top in kindness. Tweed Heads, where the hotel is, (not joking folks) is apparently the "tweed" capital of the country, and, thankfully, there was a lot of it to be found so far from home.

People are so appreciative of American music over there. It was truly amazing to see so many of my friends from America at the same hotel breakfast buffet in Sydney. We broke early morning bread with George Porter from The Funky Meters, members of Little Feat, Fishbone, Blind Boys of Alabama, and WARREN HAYNES BAND! All the way round the world and old friends meet up. New Friends were made too, and we saw some new talents that lifted and inspired. Check out Gurrumul! Wow! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8-YMpYbRqY

And also with his brothers (or friends/cousins harmonizing with him.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-i0FQBbO8E&feature=related.

And just one more for the hell of it! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgRCBN9nyzI

There's nothing I can say about this music except do yourself a favor..........

Other quick highlights:

My first time on a surfboard with Ryan Murphy and Falcon in Australia close to where World Champion surf competitions are held.

Hugging Mavis Staples in the hotel lobby in Auckland.

Seeing Kofi play a really long flute solo backed up by none other than his biggest hero on earth; Herbie Hancock. All who know me well know that it was real blurry from tears the whole time but I could hear it clear as a bell! Then Herbie came out front with his "key-tar synthesizer" and Kofi backed him on his grand piano.

On Chameleon.

I wish my mom and dad could have seen that. God's not kiddin' about that whole "cup runneth over" thing folks.

Shalom,

ob

Tribute Time Again

Kofi.

Its tribute time again and I think before I go into my Bass guitar heroes any further that I have to take the time to pay homage to my first musical hero, my big brother, Kofi. He was the first musician that I saw play on a regular basis, my biggest influence, and my most important teacher. Fortunately I'm getting to play with him again on a regular basis.

They discovered my brother Kofi had perfect pitch when he was around seven years old. My parents were naturally elated and I'm quite sure my dad had him learning classical music and transcribing solos by all his favorite jazz musicians in no time. I think my dad's only religion was music. He is a disciple of musics of myriad styles. Growing up we heard Jazz, Classical European, Gospel, Classical Indian, Opera, Folk, Country, R&B, and other styles on a daily basis. I think music was the only thing on earth my dad trusted and felt was totally honest, besides my mother. Deeply hurt by the racism of the culture, politics and religion he grew up with in the 30's, 40's and 50's, he found his spiritual and emotional refuge in the commitment of his musical heroes to their craft. He actually played flute and wanted to be a professional musician himself but thought it too risky to raise a family with that career. He had one the the most interesting record collections I was ever exposed too. It wasn't until I saw some of my friends' parents' record collections that I realized what an expert my dad was and how deep his passion really was for it. I had taken it for granted as with so many other things.

Imagine my dad being told by Kofi's music teacher that his seven year old already has perfect pitch. I'm surprised it didn't make him reconsider his atheo-agnosticism. It still seems like magic to me and most other mere mortals. I have relative pitch which means I can distinguish the interval between any two pitches, but I can't tell you what the exact notes are, much less if they are in or out of tune! That's what people with perfect pitch can do. They are a rare occurrence in humans. Well by nine years old Kofi was sitting with major jazz musicians like Donald Byrd and Ron Carter. He went off to music school in North Carolina at fourteen years old. That seemed like another country to me. Kofi was in the newspapers and on television in Washington, D.C. and was always amazing teachers and peers alike for as long as I can remember. Naturally he was my hero and I always wanted to be like him but although I exhibited a talent for music my parents felt they were taking a huge risk with Kofi as it was and didn't want to gamble like that twice. Fortunately for me I didn't realize just how much better than most people Kofi was so when I was practicing that was the standard I was holding myself to.

I can still hear the sound of Kofi practicing his classical flute exercises in the my head. Its one of my earliest memories of childhood. He was equally at home in the classical or jazz world. His talent combined with being exposed to and absorbing such complex music at such a young age revealed a young composer as well. One of the songs we recorded for Jimmy Herring's first solo record was a song that Kofi wrote when he was in the tenth grade! I still want to record all of that old stuff that he wrote in high school and college. Its still really challenging music. I learned harmony and rhythm from learning Kofi's originals that he wrote as a teenager. Each song was like a semester of music school. Kofi had a secret though, he always wanted to be a keyboard player. Not just pianist, a keyboardist. Kofi was and still is a huge tech head. He was in love with synthesizers and computers from the first. Anyone that knows Kofi knows how into sci-fi he is. He was into the Ray Bradbury, Robert Heinlen, and Arthur C Clarke books, Naturally he was totally into Star Trek and any kind of sci-fi on television. You can imagine what happened when he got his first laptop. This is a man that reads instruction manuals for fun!

Kofi loved jazz and classical but he also loved funk and rock. Keyboardists like George Duke, Joe Zawinul, Herbie Hancock, and Jan Hammer were some of Kofi's favorites because they were fearless about exploring the latest technology through electric and electronic keyboards. They withstood criticism from purists and pressed on into new territory inspiring young minds like Kofi and myself. How lucky for me to have a brother that not only had such knowledge of the history of music past but also a passion for all things new and cutting edge. When he got his first synthesizer he was consumed with creating new sounds that were opened up to him. Later when he got a keyboard that could sample sounds and do sequencing he would create entire songs all inside the keyboard. You should hear some of the Straight Ahead Jazz stuff he did all inside his keyboards. I cut one of those songs on my first record. Its called Inside Outside. Maybe one day he'll let me post the version that he did in his keyboard on the web so people can hear it. That's probably the hardest stuff to recreate electronically but his drums tracks are swinging as hard as ever.

Kofi was so patient with me, giving me the keys to unlock the harmonic mysteries when I was young. I was a drummer and understood rhythm well but harmony was a whole other ball game. He used the music of Stevie Wonder and Maurice White of Earth Wind and Fire to teach me Jazz harmony because we all we're singing those songs with the radio. Learning Kofi's music taught me about odd time signatures, harmony, and composing among other things. Now that we are older and playing together on a regular basis again I'm hoping to record Kofi's music from the various stages of his life. He has a library of compositions ranging from Funk to Jazz, Fusion to outer space music. Hopefully we can also explore his other "secret" passion which is doing music for an animated sci-fi series or video game. He's never followed the path assigned to him. He's been on another road that we couldn't see and he's still following it. Its a beautiful street to walk, bike or drive down if you have the time.

Zach Wahls Speaks About Family

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSQQK2Vuf9Q&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Shalom,

ob

Premeditated Resentments........

My wife and I went to this church a few Sundays ago and the lady who gave the sermon talked about expectations and how they tend to make us unhappy. She referred to her own expectations as "premeditated resentments".

I thought that was special.

It called Oakhurst Baptist Church in Decatur, GA.

Shalom,

ob

Jim Wallace Sojourners..........

Dear Jim,
 I'm a huge fan of yours and have always pointed to you as one the the Christians that's a model of a "good Christian". So many people think the idea of a "good Christian" is little more than a bad joke these days. I used to be mad at Bill Maher cause he never had Christian's like you on his show, just super right wing ones. You like Rachel Maddow have really let me down recently though. You can attack the Tea Party all day long but when you then try to say that Libertarian philosophy is anti Christian then I feel you've gone way over the line. I'll go point by point through your recent blog.

You said:

"Libertarian abandonment of the the most vunerable, whether its unborn lives or the poor." 
I am a Libertarian and a Christian and as a Christian I am against abortion. I am also against heroin but that doesn't mean I think its the government's right to tell people whether they can have it not. If we got to keep more of our tax money caring citizens like myself could fund places that would take the unwanted babies and raise them with love and care, giving the parents an alternative to abortion. How dare you say that we Libertarians don't care. All of our money is taken for war and Wall Street so I have scant left to give. And by the way Jim, you say Libertarians aren't holding the Government accountable for their fraud and theft of citizens property, money and their very lives for unjust causes. Have you never seen Ron Paul in the last thirty years? That's all he's ever done!

"An anti-government ideology just isn't biblical."
If that's true then why were all the the Apostles, according to tradition, put to death by the state? Why was Paul and all the other Apostles sentenced to capital punishment if they were so pro government? Government is fallen just like the rest of humanity so why should I have such faith in it when its doing such a crappy job? I am not against the existence of Government, merely its size. Canada's health care bill was 8 pages long. That's a good size for a health care bill, not what we got. Also, Libertarians can't be pro constitution and be anti government. We just want the government to be for the people and not for central bankers and corporate elites.


"The Libertarians' supreme confidence in the market is not consistent with a biblical view of human nature and sin."
Libertarians don't think that the Market is the solution to sin. That's what the courts are for. We also are not stupid enough to think that the Government is the answer to sin either. Everything the Government touches goes bad. Medicare will be bankrupt soon. Social security will follow soon after. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac did a great job with the real estate sector. The Federal Reserve has been such a force for good in battling sin and injustice. Listen to yourself man! Like Ron Paul said, the states can take care of BP in the courts. Its no different than if you dump a bunch of pollutants in my yard. I then sue you for destruction of my property. True Libertarians don't think there's no need for a meat inspector but the more the regulatory system grows the more of a monster it becomes. Big Corps. pay off or even install their own in the regulators position. Watch "The Warning" on Frontline. They gave Brooksley Born's job as Wall Street watchdog to a guy from the Fed! Obama did that. When will you realize that its the size of, and corruption of, and not the existence of the regulatory machine that we disagree with. We don't say "no" government, we say "small" government. Elizabeth Warren doesn't need a newly created position, they just need to listen to someone like Brooksley Born when she sounds the alarm in the first place.

"The Libertarian preference for the strong over the weak is decidedly un-Christian."
When Jesus helped people was that the strong helping the weak or vice versa? Who in the hell else is supposed to help the weak but the strong? Again, the more of my tax money that the Government takes from me, the less I have to give to the needy. Jesus said what Caesar does is dealing with a totally different Kingdom than His. For example, while there was slavery in society at that time, slaves were sometimes over their masters within the church hierarchy because what happened outside the church was Caesar's business. but what happened inside the church was God's. Jesus never tried to make the government take care of the poor. He inspired those inside the church to do it. If these modern churches weren't so full of crap then the three the biggest ones in any city in America could get together and end homelessness and hunger in their towns. Do they do it? NO. And they don't even have to pay taxes. Now you're saying the government should take my money do it because you think they can do a better job of it than me. I say, you're crazy.

ob