I had the honor of playing sax on a couple of tracks of Tracy Jane Comer’s album released this year called “Quietly There” that was recorded at Randy’s Recording. Tracy and the band were invited to perform on the Urban Theater, sort of a follow up promotional appearance for the album.

John Urban is the host and director for the thirty-minute television piece that features local musicians and bands. He’s a very talented and humorous figure in the Madison music scene. A fairly influential cultural figure in town, he has done a great job hosting the Madison Area Music Awards the past two years.

Each band performs three tunes at the television studio and John does a short interview between the second and third song. It’s amazing how high-end professional the final product turns out, especially once you see how quickly they tape the show and how little post-production goes into the job. Credit John and his staff for knowing how to produce high-quality show in a short period of time. For instance, the entire show is taped in less than an hour between the local 5 o’clock and 6 o’clock news. There really are no second takes, so you do your best the first time and that’s it. And they do add on the spot all the lead in titles and graphics in real time while the tape is rolling, so there’s little or no post-production editing when they’re done.

Anyways, John’s show is a great assett for the local music scene and Tracy is a savvy promoter too. I just found a nicely done online reproduction of our John Urban Show performance. Enjoy!

Adolphe Sax, inventor of the saxamaphone, was born November 6, 1814.

Thanks for all the good times!

It’s not every year that Halloween falls on a Monday, and even more rare is it a day when you have a gig and can play in costume. We had a pretty nice turn out Monday night, especially considering that the Halloween State street parties on Friday and Saturday night drew +70,000 costume partiers.

Many of us in Clyde’s band didn’t let the official October 31st date pass us by without dressing up. Our singer Carolynn Black and her husband Tom arrived as the Purple Fairy and Nosferatu, complete with bite marks on her bosom.

Pete Nelson won my vote for favorite costume as Frankenstein. His first solo involved lumbering to the singer’s mic and grunting in monotone. A true crowd pleaser, he was hilarious!

Clyde had a good time, too, though we couldn’t persuade him to be anyone other than “the Funky Drummer”.

Joe donned some face paint to give him the look of youth (an hair!)

Alex dressed up as Ted from “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure”. All of us old folks in the band were shocked that he wasn’t wearing a wig. Yes, that’s his nature head of hair (go figure, eh Joe!).

Not to be left out is the other side of the stage. Here are Steve on keys, Paula on the congas and Dave on the bass. We’ll get them costumes next year…