This past Friday, my old friend Ethan Tufts was in town. After having some good lunch at Local Burger in Northampton, we headed up to Sackamusic in Conway Rock City. Ethan added some great guitar parts to Fourth Floor and Pulverized.

Me, Ethan, and our friend Bill Belina started our first band back in 1989 when we were in middle school. All we had at the time were two keyboards and drums. I aspired to be the next ‘guy from Tears For Fears’ or maybe Phil Collins with a mullet. We played music in Bill’s dad’s basement, which was lined with polka records and wood paneling. We wrote tons of songs and learned how to be a band. Gradually Bill and Ethan learned other instruments and I learned how to play keys. A couple decades have gone by, and we’ve all played in various bands, grew up, etc.

Now Ethan lives in Los Angeles, has a record label, and makes awesome music asState Shirt. He manages to come home a few times a year to visit with family and friends, and we seem to get together and collaborate on music things all these years later. It’s nice to have him be a part of this record.

When Ethan visited Western Mass. back in October, we spent a couple of days recording two short songs and one not as short song…

You Were A Cynic (1:56)

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Other States (1:12) with Ethan on melodica

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Fight Or Flight (3:14)

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The new State Shirt cd, This Is Old was released just last month. Ethan has been busy promoting that and also scheming up some shows for himself. He and I are trying to get some sort of Matthew Larsen / State Shirt / ??? tour happening in late Spring…

This Friday, I have the opportunity to open for Western Massachusetts singer/songwriter, Mark Schwaber. I’ve known Mark for a long time now as most musicians in the valley do, having common friends and acquaintances. Mark writes a great music blog called Feedback for MassLive (where I work), he ran Night Owl Records in Easthampton where I purchased many a cd, and over the twenty or some odd years we’ve both been making music in the valley, we’ve been on the same bill a few times and attended many of the same shows. Aside from my normal appreciation that Mark is a ‘valley musician’, I can honestly say that Mark Schwaber is one of my favorite musicians anywhere. There are some of his songs that just absolutely floor me every time I hear them… ‘Dignity in Death’ for example.

Mark has been performing with Sara Gomes lately, and from what I hear, it’s nothing short of magic. Sara Gomes is the wife of Tom Gomes, who who used to play drums in a band called Killswitch Engage (and now owns his own drum company). The main guitar dudes in Killswitch are Adam Dutkiewicz and Joel Stroetzel.

Adam and I got together when Killswitch was still in its infancy to record the Smokejumpers album. (more…)

Last week, Kristen and I went with our friends to La Casita Azteca in Easthampton. The space was previously occupied by The Pirate’s Den and Mi Casa. Both of the previous places were mediocre at best, but I’m happy to report that La Casita Azteca is FANTASTIC. Here’s a copy of their menu!

I’m playing a very special show at PACE in Easthampton, Massachusetts this Friday, September 12th at 8pm (get there early if you want seats!). I’ll be opening for my friends, The Low Anthem, from Providence. This past winter, they spent about 10 days on Block Island and lovingly recorded their new album, “Oh My God, Charlie Darwin”. This show is to celebrate the release of this, their latest cd.

I’ll be playing some newer songs as well as some songs you may find familiar from my days as piano guy from Smokejumpers and Northernly. I’m gearing up to record and release a new cd in 2009, so this is exciting stuff! I’m looking forward to debuting songs still in their infancy.

Less exciting perhaps is that we are moving our announcement list over to a new web host. This means unless you’re already subscribed, you won’t receive any more messages from yours truly. It’s pretty easy to sign up though, won’t you?

Kristen and I have this big shindig coming up this weekend with family and friends in a park in my hometown. It’s going to be great. I’m really psyched about it. Being the non-traditional quiet types that we are, we decided that a traditional wedding wasn’t for us and semi-eloped to Martha’s Vineyard to get married. But we wanted to still be able to celebrate with family and friends, and that’s how this whole picnic idea came about.

My mom Judy was gracious enough to plan and procure and sort of take on a lot of the stress of putting this together. Our families and friends also helped my mom too. So we luckily got off pretty easy. We just have to shmooze and enjoy, for the most part. It’ll be nice to visit with everyone and have our families meet and get to know each other… and to celebrate with friends too.

BUT THERE’S LOTS TO DO!

We’re cleaning things, organizing things, figuring out who will be where at what time, what to drink, etc. It starts to get a little nutty. I hope we are able to make it a great weekend for everyone who is visiting.

WHAT IF SOMEONE DOESN’T HAVE A GOOD TIME?!

Most important is for Kristen and I to be able to look around us at this thing– recognize all the wonderful people in our lives, and move forward in our marriage knowing that we can count on their love and support.

I was looking at my site one day and began to realize how seemingly quickly things become out of date and never get updated. It happens to everyone, and I suppose I could tell you that it won’t happen here since I have a fancy new blog setup so it makes it easier for me to post things. I suppose I could pledge to keep this updated as frequently as possible, not acknowledging the inevitable slackage that will creep up from time to time.

Instead I’ll just post about how I’m kind of excited about the whole blog setup. Ever since I started working at MassLive, and since meeting my lovely fiancee Kristen, I’ve been keen to the idea of starting one, but just didn’t have the time to explore it. Finally, I did.

So here we are. As I get into the swing of things, I hope some of these posts aren’t total snoozers.