Amazing Performance! (Terry, Alex & Doug)

I spent Friday and Saturday night at a club in Hollywood called the Baked Potato watching four amazing sets of some very difficult and wonderful music being performed by Alex Machacek (guitar), Terry Bozzio (drums) and Doug Lunn (bass). Terry is one of my favorite drummers of all time, and he's also of the most exciting drummers that you could ever see. I discovered him while he was a member of the band U.K., and also a member of Frank Zappa's group as well as Group 87. He then founded a band called Missing Persons in the 1980's. Doug is one of my favorite bassists, and I'd never heard of Alex until Doug told me about this gig. I'm glad I now know who he is because it was really wonderful listening to him play. Needless to say, I was really excited about seeing them all play together on Friday night, and I loved it so much, I went back on Saturday night to watch another two sets!

So the story is: Alex and Terry have a band with Gerald Preinfalk (bass clarinet and saxophone) called BPM and recorded a CD titled Delete and Roll. They had had planned this gig in L.A. without Gerald, and so they decided to call Doug. Doug rehearsed with them for about four hours and did an amazing job playing this music that most accomplished musicians could not even read (lots of polyrhythms, time signature changes, etc. - Kind of similar to doing complex math equations while rubbing your tummy, patting your head, chewing gum and feeding your pet hamster!)