Welcome back to the website. As you can see, there are a lot of new things going on.

I can now ride my bike to all of my local gigs, because I built a bike trailer. Last week, I rode my bike to the Piola show at East 54, and it saved me about 10 minutes versus driving my car because of the awful traffic in downtown Carrboro and through Chapel Hill at rush hour. Plus it was TOTALLY AWESOME!

The term Mobile Unit, as it applies to musicians, was coined by drummer Andy Burns in Brooklyn. Over the years, he perfected a mobile unit that was easy to carry on the subway. I believe his most recent and successful is Mobile 2A, which is a snare drum, hi hat, splash cymbal, brushes and sticks, and occasional cowbell. Thanks for the inspiration, Andy! Mobile Unit 3 is my Nord organ, a powered PA speaker, and keyboard stand. I’m going to be riding my equipment around Chapel Hill to shows such as Piola and The Station. (Under development: Mobile Unit 2.1Beta – For local gigs, first trip will be carrying my Leslie on the trailer, then go home and make a second trip with my organ and the rest of the stuff.)

If you’re interested in seeing where I’ll be playing organ this month, check out the gigs listed to the right. We will be playing shows in Pittsboro, Burlington, Raleigh, Carrboro, and Chapel Hill. I wanted to especially mention a benefit show in Chapel Hill this saturday with Greg Humphries- details to the right.

Lastly, I’d like to remind my North Carolina friends to vote on Tuesday, May 8.

See you all soon.

Frank picks up the keyboard and gives it a shake. BAD KEYBOARD!! YOU’VE BEEN A BAD BAD BOY!!

Also, thanks for Jeanmarie at A Remix Gallery in Carrboro for having us play on Friday night, and for making this awesome sign.

- On April 1 we will prove that we are no April Fools when we play in Downtown Pittsboro with funky drummer Robert Hudson.
- Dr. Ira Wiggins continues to put up with me playing upright acoustic bass with his quartet at Beyu in Durham.
- We’re at Raleigh club Oliver Twist for the first time.
- dot.Combo will be rocking the Remix Art Gallery in Carrboro. Check out our special features “From Mahler to Moondance”, where the audience tries to stump the band with any song in any style, and “InstaMeters”, where we improvise a Meters-style song on the spot.
- Monday nights at the Blue Note Grill are still swinging, and all of the Cats have been shedding and giving the house band a run for their money.

TJ is back in action and he sounds just as good on the drums as ever- stop by one of our April shows and give him some love.

See you all soon!

We have a new demo video to the right, courtesy of Beery Media with special thanks to Matthew Krieg for some deft editing. It’s made up of footage of us recording some songs over at Brad’s house for Nic Beery’s documentary Sayonara To Hello. I’m glad to have it, it’s much nicer than our old one.

The Blue Note Grill jam session band now has an official name: dot.Combo. It’s me, Ben Palmer, and Todd Proctor. Now that we have a name and a song list, all we need is to get business cards made, then we can officially break up as a band. That’s always the way it is- business cards are a band’s kiss of death. Check us out at Sullivan’s on March 3rd.

Speaking of Todd Proctor, I’m super psyched to tell you-all that he’s going to be joining us for some shows this month. What can I say about Todd? He’s the only drummer I know that can play 4 gigs in a 20-hour period, and show up happy and ready to play on each show! And he’s really good!

In non-organ-related news, I’ll be playing acoustic bass with Dr. Ira Wiggins at the Beyu Cafe. With all of the fantastic bass players in the area, it is definitely an honor that he would choose me to play with his quintet. Right now, I’m not sure who all of the other musicians will be, but I know NCCU Saxophone instructor Bryan Horton will be part of the group. If you get to hear us play, I’d like you to know that I’ve played with Bryan since 1992 in various groups, and also when both of us lived in NYC, so we have some serious history together.

Sayonara for now. P.s. follow us on Twitter.

http://www.ibiblio.org/wcom/podcast/mp3s/mp3s/SpeakEasy%202.28.2012.mp3