Bulletins

Mike Errico covering "Lights," by Journey
Filmed live at the Floating House Concert, Sausalito, CA, Aug 27, 2009
(Click picture above, or here)
Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-n3KSxd8SM

See all videos at the official Mike Errico YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/Tallboy7Vids

[Latest post on The Velvet Rope]

A video-enriched guide on how to deal with the inevitable speed bump of live performance: the drunken, howling d-bag.

By Mike Errico

Read the rest HERE.

(See, if you were on the MAILING LIST, you'd know this kind of stuff...)

FREE TICKET GIVEAWAY

The first 10 to email this address will be on the guest list for the Friday night show.
Please give your name and specify one or two tickets. Ready... and... GO!

Friday, March 13, 2009
Le Poisson Rouge
158 Bleecker Street, NYC
8p/$12.00
For Tickets: http://lepoissonrouge.inticketing.com/evinfo.php?eventid=32429
or 212-505-FISH

Facebook invite, with video: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=53070902013

[Latest blog post on The Velvet Rope]

If you’re reading this, chances are you’re not at Mardi Gras. Wherever you are, take a moment to conjure an ecstatic and impossibly colorful place — that’s New Orleans, and in particular, that’s New Orleans at Mardi Gras.

Antoinette K-Doe, the widow of rhythm & blues legend Ernie K-Doe, died early Mardi Gras morning of a heart attack. She was 66.

Read the rest, and see my video interview with her from last year's Mardi Gras HERE

Or just skip to the video HERE: http://www.blender.com/Antoinettekdoeinterview/video/804.aspx

[Latest blog post on The Velvet Rope]

Taunted by idiots up front? Tired of getting beer thrown at you?
Some nights you just want to kick someone's ass. Let the experts - Axl Rose, Angus Young, Billie Joe, Henry Rollins, Dave Grohl - show
you how it's done...

Read it HERE: http://velvetrope.com/starpolishlife/tallboy7/2009/02/21/how-to-kick-a-fans-ass/

DC: New song, screaming teens

Jammin Java, Vienna, VA: Many thanks to the awesome Sketches for having me. The show was pushed back a little to make room for a super secret The Academy Is... acoustic gig sandwiched between stops on their in-store tour of Hot Topics throughout the great nation. The place was full of screaming 15 year old girls and camera phones twinkling and filling their memory sticks full of terrible shots of the boys. Fun. I had chili and a bourbon and waited.

I've been writing a lot, and have mustered the courage to begin leaking them out to the public. A few hit the holiday show (Til I Get it Right, Wish You Well and Everybody Knows), but Java was the maiden voyage of "On the Other Side," which is either awesome or meh, I can tell or decide. Perhaps that's not my job anyway. I just make the donuts -- I don't eat 'em all. Well, I will have a few...

On the Other Side

Cathedral bells in rain that falls in sheets
My missing piece now puzzle-locked in sleep
Make our great escape

The time reminds we can't take anymore
Our lesser lives left standing by the door
Take our leap of faith

If I should go
Before you know
I made it safe and I'll be waiting there for you
On the other side

I could hear that it wasn't set in my voice yet (how could it be) but that it has potential, and stretches me out, soncially. It's a good kid. I'm a little sweet on it. I won't lie. I hope you'll like it too.

Fun to research, fun to write.

Our Favorite Eyepatch Heroes

Inspired by Tom Cruise´s depth-perception-deficient German soldier in Valkyrie, here are some of our favorite badass cyclopses.
By Mike Errico

(click the image)

Last weekend I had a small party to debut some new material and find out what is and isn't working. Some new ones will definitely be making the cut, I'm very psyched to announce.

Til I Get it Right - An upbeat, uncharacteristically optimistic rocker I wrote to fill in a hole in Act II of a proposed musical that will use my songs (I'll tell you about it sometime later... it's only in "wouldn't that be cool" phase). The song is about simply trying and trying again... I couldn't really ask more from a song than what it gave.

Everybody Knows - Mellow, fingerpicked. I really like the lyrics and the shape of it, but didn't think it reached out and punched anyone in the face. Which is what I go for, I guess. In fact, I was sure this was going to tank. I messed up some of the words up top and I thought I'd nailed its coffin shut.  But then I settled in, and it transported the room gently, and the fingerpicking really opened up the guitar part and by the end I knew I had something. That song gets Most Improved.

Wish You Well - I worked like a dog on this ballad, and had high hopes, but I also came up with a story about my relationship to stalking that was really pretty funny, and I think it might have overshadowed the song. So the song might still be good, but I couldn't tell from the show. The story though: that went over big.

Johnsburg Illinois - I arranged this Tom Waits song a while ago, but have never played it. It's pretty hard, and I have been chicken. It's just a gorgeous little thing. I want to get it into the cycle of material. One must always be prepared to screw up.

Wind Says Shh - A lullabye I wrote for my sister's kids. Works for kids. Put my drinkin' friends to sleep.Sorry, drinkin' friends. Won't happen again.

Please Stop Leaving - Never played it live with any authority. Worked on it, and now I like it very much.

1000 Miles - I came up with a new arrangement, without the pedals and the nonsense. Shocker. It works better. Less gadgets. Better. Consider your romantic life. Same deal.Right? Well, maybe not. But probably.

I gave poor "Monday Morning" another crack, and wow. No good. That time is past.

and a couple others...

...and then we all got into the Jim Beam. Thanks to those who came to the show and acted as focus group. It was incredibly helpful.

Moonwork is a long-running variety show in NYC that I've always loved. It's mostly comedians, with a musical act in the middle. The people, in the crowd as well in the group, are really cool and the beer is cheap, though I wasn't drinking. Or eating. I was in day three of a five day "juice cleanse" which basically means I was living on premade fruit/vegetable juices and water. I learned that stretching limits is cool, and also that solid food is important. I was pretty light headed. And with a caffeine withdrawal headache. Basically I felt like the average model. Crappy. But the new glasses work, I think.

blip.tv/file/1460724

Click To Play

Wow. Wild night in the studio last night with Kraz (Eric Krasno) working on a non-Soulive project of his, Chapter 2. A couple weeks ago he gave me a track, and I worked up a song about a guy who’s trying to calm down a jealous girlfriend. It’s either called “Thinking of You” or “Only Thinking of You,” I’m not sure. I think I like the “only” in there… well… anyway, I sang it to them and they flipped. Nigel Hall ( http://www.myspace.com/nigelhall) couldn’t wait to jump into the booth to sing it. He is just amazing. Kraz got inspired to get the guitar out, and ripped. The track just came together instantly. Psyched w the result, and psyched to do more.