First I spent a couple of weeks helping friend Bill prepare some of his cool home made instruments for his first art show! This event will take place in Fribourg at the Atelier-Galerie J.-J. Hofstetter on September 9th at 8pm. He has programed a series of concerts with them (the instruments) and various other musicians so check out the schedule if you happen to be near by.
Bill, as it has already been mentioned here and there in this blog, also plays with the Fanfare du Loup Orchestra, a Geneva based Big Band. They where just down the mountain last Sunday at the Auvernier Jazz Festival where they played a selection of tunes from their Play it again, Bill program. The sketch is from that event.
Eric Bibb ended what was really a great day, the festival is situated on the west shore of the lake of Neuchâtel and the storm that came through this area Friday evening had left the air sharp and clean. Sunday was warm and sunny, the view of the alps magnificent, superb sound (I salute the festival’s sound engineers!), perfect to just hang out and enjoy it all.
Otherwise besides a few days with the folks and the Swamp Train Gorgier beach gig (previous post), I’ve been reorganizing my workshop space with hope to gain some storage space, the prolific artist’s plight… Have begun building my first cigar box guitar (more on that soon) and been practicing a lot on the drum set since I absolutely need to improve my stick control. Swamp Train is among the 4 bands selected for the finals of the 1st Swiss blues challenge !