Retaining your style while playing in various musical situations.

I haven't been blogging as of late but I really missed it. I plan on getting back to a somewhat regular posting schedule.

I have however been really busy playing and recording. Played on a couple of CD's (Craig Thomson and Cod Gone Wild) and have been touring a bit. I had the opportunity to be part of a Canada 150 (non Canadians this is the 150 anniversary of us becoming a sovereign nation)  concert series collaboration with the Okanagan Symphony Orchestra and Ballet Kelowna. The choreographers were given the challenge of choreographing a ballet to some iconic Canadian music.

I played the famous Gordon Lightfoot song "The Canadian Railroad Trilogy" on my Martin D-18 with Neville Bowman singing along with the symphony orchestra.  The ballet dancers moved across the stage creating stunning imagery of the forging of the railroad across Canada as we played. I also played some spirituals with blues vocalist Shakura S'aida along with symphony and dancers. Great experience for sure. They had us set up on scaffolding as they needed space for the dancers. There was two rows, 6 feet and 10 feet up, and I was luckily in the middle on the 6 foot row. I'm a bit scared of heights so that was a bit of  a challenge at first. Amazing stage design.

I have also become a member of a modern Celtic rock band called Cod Gone Wild. This is a five piece band with a big following. We just released a new CD called "The Islander" which can be purchased at www.codgonewild or on i-Tunes. Great band and all new members with the exception of the leader vocalist and acoustic guitar player Andrew Mercer. The fiddle player Susan Aylard has been with the band for 2 yrs but the rest of us, bassist Martyn Jones and drummer David Mihal are all new since February. The nice thing about this new configuration is that we all bring different stylistic approaches to the band. I met Susan on the symphony shows I have played where she is in the violin section, so that was nice to see musical connections in action.
Here is a video of the band from this past March so the band is still new but sounding great. I am playing one of my PRS 408s through a Marshall JVM 215.

Here is a video featuring myself and my good friend bassist Bernie Addington shot at Frequency Wine and Sound in Kelowna. The song is an original of mine entitled "Cane". I am playing my PRS Custom 24 through a Fender Tweed Blues Jr.

That's all for now.
Sean