Photo by Jliba

I am thrilled to announce a couple shows in the Northeast. I have never… repeat NEVER played my solo material in the Northeast so it is a real treat to finally be able to share my music and make some new friends in that region. I will be doing 3 shows: Two shows at the Stoner Mansion in West Harford CT October 8th & 9th, and one show in the Empire City (NYC for the uninitiated) on October 10th. I want to make these all a blast and get a chance to hang with you all. Please invite your friends to the show… it will rock! (I guarantee it) And if you aren’t in the Northeast please let your friends who do live there know about it. I want maximum friend making potential!

HERE IS SOME INFO ABOUT THE SHOWS:

OCT 8th (Friday) & 9th (Saturday) 2010: I will be performing with special guest Aubrey Wood at the famous Stoner Mansion in West Hartford CT. These two shows will be to benefit Unified Theater. United Theater is an an amazing organization which serves to enable students with disabilities, who are often marginalized, the opportunity to discover and express their theatrical abilities. Truly an inspiring organization that I am thrilled to be able to help support their work. Aubrey Wood will also be performing.. Aubrey who? what can I say? Remember that name… she is an amazingly talented musician, singer, songwriter who is as yet undiscovered…  she is going to be a HUGE success… and I had the honor of producing her first self titled EP (More on that later…) This is a 2 times in a lifetime event that is not to be missed… not to mention it benefits an outstanding cause.

***FRIDAY OCTOBER 8th (West Hartford, CT)***

Click Here to Get Tickets

***SATURDAY OCTOBER 9th (West Hartford, CT)***

Click Here to Get Tickets

OCT 10th (Sunday) 2010: NYC is one of my favorite places on earth and it is also one of the only places I can say that I have never performed any of my solo material! This had to be corrected so with the help of some dear friends in the area I am putting on what we hope will be an amazingly powerful and intimate acoustic show in the heart of the city. Seating is extremely limited so you may want to get your seats now.

***SUNDAY OCTOBER 10th (New York City)***

Click Here to Get Tickets

photo by Yuki

Sony is commemorating the 10-year anniversary of Santana’s Supernatural by releasing a special Deluxe 2-CD edition of the album, with a lot of extra material including three more cuts involving Yers Truly. Cool!

That’s right – 10 years. It’s hard to believe it’s been that long since Carlos’ chart-busting, Grammy-sweeping comeback album came out. How does it hold up in retrospect? That depends who you ask, but I go to The Onion for most of my information, so let’s leave it at that.

But even if you burned out on the endless rotation of ‘Smooth’ on the radio, it did put some long-due attention on one of my musical superheroes, and it was a welcome surprise to see Supernatural beat out the sales of both ‘N Sync and Britney Spears in 2000 (for those of you under 30, they used to make you pay for music – like 16 bucks!).

I’m sure if I produced a Santana project on my own, it would sound something like Daniel Lanois and Tchad Blake remixing Abraxas, and it would sell about 12 copies (6 of those to me and my Mom). So no, Clive Davis’ concept of what makes the ultimate Santana record doesn’t vibrate at my frequency, but I’m proud to have been a small part of Carlos’ big moment. The song ‘Primavera,’ which KC Porter and I wrote for the album, came from a good place – paraphrasing the Bahá’í Writings for most of the lyrics – and has been praised as one of the more ‘old-school’ Santana tracks of recent years, so that’s cool too. And last but not least, being part of a mega-hit project helped me afford my first proper studio setup – I cannot lie. So thanks, Rob Thomas, wherever you are.

The second is a collaboration between Santana, Ozomatli, KC Porter, me and a few others, called ‘Olympic Festival.’ Carlos was interested in something that would sound good at a huge international stadium event with tons of people singing, like a global soccer chant. So we used that as an excuse to call up LA Latin funk collective Ozomatli, all of whose shows have that celebratory vibe. It was great to work with them for the first time, as well as the awesome Greg Bissonette on drums, and the song ended up on the soundtrack for the movie Girlfight with Michelle Rodriguez. And now it’s getting some more love on the Supernatural reissue.

The third is an alternate version of ‘Primavera’ with Puero Rican salsa singer Jerry Rivera. It sounds like Miami. This track made its first appearance on the ’Ceremony: Remixes and Rarities’ compilation back in 2003, and I forgot all about it until now.

And thus the Supernatural era comes to a close. It sold 27 gazillion records (give or take), the Last Huge Album of an era when major record companies roamed the earth. It brought Carlos back into the limelight, paid my rent for awhile and got me several free cappuccinos from my publisher. What more could you ask for?