[sdiy] OT - awesome Chapman stick player

Wed Jan 26 19:25:54 CET 2005

Sorry All,

When I first hit the on line article about Tom Griesgraber, it was in the
current day's newspaper. To read a story from today's paper, you didn't have
to register. Unfortunately, you have to register to look up anything from a
previous day's paper. Anyway, for Nor Cal people who might be interested,
here's the gig info from the article (and some web links for everybody
else):

**************************************
Tom Griesgraber and Jerry Marotta
Where: Brookdale Lodge, 11570 Highway 9, Brookdale (moved from Henfling's)

When 8 p.m. next Tuesday

Tickets $12; (831) 338-6433, www.brookdalelodge.com

Also 8 p.m. Feb. 2 at Jupiter, 2181 Shattuck Ave, Berkeley; (510) 843-7625,
www.jupiterbeer.com

On the Web www.thossounds.com, www.jerrymarotta.com

On disc Tom Griesgraber, ``A Whisper in the Thunder'' (O3E, a subsidiary of
Spotted Peccary); Griesgraber and Jerry Marotta, ``Waking the Day'' (no
label yet, release expected in March)

*****
Here also is a short excerpt from the article (I can't reprint the whole
thing here...copyright laws and all)
*****
>From the San Jose Mercury News:
"The 31-year-old musician from Encinitas plays everywhere and anywhere --
from opening slots on big national tours to country fairs, coffeehouses,
bookstores and rock clubs. He has teamed up with drummer Jerry Marotta for
shows next week at clubs in the Santa Cruz Mountains and Berkeley.

Griesgraber didn't start with the Stick. He played piano as a child, but it
didn't take. It wasn't until he picked up a guitar in high school that he
decided he wanted to make music a career. He studied rock and jazz
performance at the Berklee College of Music in Boston and graduated in 1995.
``I was literally one of a thousand guitar players at Berklee,'' he says.

Then he saw Tony Levin, most famous as Peter Gabriel's bass player, playing
the Stick with Marotta at a national music industry trade show in 1997.

``When I heard the Stick, I thought `This is cool,' '' he recalls. `` `I can
have my own voice. It doesn't quite sound like guitar. It doesn't quite
sound like bass.' And I could kind of understand what he was doing.''

It's a little harder for the casual listener to understand. On CD, one Stick
could be mistaken for layers of instruments.

But live, jaws drop.

Griesgraber explains: ``It all starts with the technique. You are playing
with the tips of your fingers. It instantly becomes like piano. It fits
between the string world and the guitar world. It has the fullness of
two-handed piano and the expression of guitar and bass. You can be soft and
loud, like a piano, then you can add bends, vibrato, slaps for percussion
and slides.''

He also takes advantage of technology. He has a separate output or
electronic pickup for the six bass strings and two more outputs for the six
higher-pitched strings -- one for the guitar tone and another for
synthesizer tones. On top of that, he ``loops,'' using a digital recorder
controlled by foot pedals to layer parts and then playing over them."

(end excerpt)

**********************
Tim (now registered...sigh) Servo

"Imagination is more important than knowledge." - Albert Einstein

*******************************************************

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Scott Gravenhorst [mailto:music.maker at gte.net]
> Sent: Wednesday, January 26, 2005 8:20 AM
> To: synth-diy at dropmix.xs4all.nl
> Subject: Re: [sdiy] OT - awesome Chapman stick player
> 
> The artist is Tom Greisgraber, I'd never heard of him before, but he's
"awesome"
> as others have said.  I need to get his CD(s)...
> 
> CCartCat at aol.com wrote:
> >
> >Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
> >
> >Just FYI:
> >
> >Had a hard time with the Mercury News link, so I dunno if it was stick
playe=
> >r=20
> >Greg Howard (www.greghoward.com).   But he was slated to play 11 January
at=20
> >the Knitting Factory in L.A.
> >
> >Back to lurking,
> >Kevin Seward
> >
> >
> >
> >In a message dated 1/25/05 9:14:01 PM, tparkhurst at siliconbandwidth.com=20
> >writes:
> >
> >
> >> Sorry for the OT message, but our local paper (San Jose Mercury news)
just
> >> ran a neat article on a guy who plays Chapman Stick. He's doing a few
> >> concerts in our area, and the article has links to some VERY nice music
> >> excerpts. Awesome stuff, and he makes it sound like a synth sometimes
> >> (attempting to get on topic)... anyway, neat sounds and incredible
> >> musicianship. Give it a listen (especially if you don't know what a
Chapma=
> >n
> >> Stick is) at:
> >>=20
> >>
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/entertainment/music/10721604.ht=
> >m?
> >> 1c
> >>=20
> >>=20
> >> Cheers!
> >>=20
> >>=20
> >> Tim (and Chapman Stick is NOT something you put on your lips) Servo
> >>=20
> >> "Imagination is more important than knowledge." - Albert Einstein
> >>=20
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