CGT in Vienna

CGT in Vienna

Milan and Innsbruck

Innsbruck Austria

11:20am. It’s a really beautiful sunny and warm morning here in Innsbruck. I spend the morning walking around the old part of the city. We have been to Innsbruck before but I never had time to walk around the city. It’s an amazing place with beautiful views of the Alp Mountains surrounding the city.

Yesterday we rode the train from Milan to Innsbruck via Verona. Traveling by train is so much more relaxing that by van or plane. The train ride from Verona to Innsbruck goes straight through the Alps, passing lots of small mountain towns with vineyards and castles. We arrived in Innsbruck last evening around 6:30pm and checked into the hotel. We met up with our good friend Markus Reuter who took us to a local restaurant for the best Schnitzel I have ever had. Markus is a touch guitarist and record producer that has done a lot of work with Pat Mastelotto and has lived here in Innsbruck for 3 years.

On Tuesday evening, we played a show at the Blue Note Club in Milan. What a great venue. The production manager at Blue Note is Fabio Mittino, who we know through the Robert Fripp Guitar Craft courses. Fabio did an excellent job of taking care of us at the venue. And I enjoyed hearing about his recent guitar lessons with jazz guitar legend Pat Martino. The show at Blue Note was very good with the Moonlight Sonata being one of the highlights in the set.

Tyler at the Milan Train Station

Milan Train Station

Castles and Vineyards on the way from Verona to Innsbruck

Arrival in Innsbruck

Hideyo looking for the route to walk from the Train Station to the hotel.

View from my hotel room looking south

View from my hotel room looking southwest

Here are some photos from my walk this morning:

Mozart stayed at this hotel in 1773

Milan

We arrived at the hotel late last night in Milan. Bert, Hideyo and I just had a very nice lunch at a local Italian restaurant. Of course it was an Italian restaurant, we are in Italy!

Here are some links to the show in Portugal:

Eve with Tony Levin in Portugal

Blockhead with Tony and Pat in Portugal

More Goveia

Nuno Leonardo Melo Alves at the restaurant in Seia. I think Bert is doing some after dinner yoga.


Gouveia Portugal
10:56am. Today we are traveling from Gouveia back to Porto and then flying to Milano Italy.

Yesterday was the final day of the festival here in Gouveia. Before the shows began, Bert, Hideyo, Tyler and I had a very nice lunch in Seia Portugal with our new friend Nuno Leonardo Melo Alves and his wife Maria. Nuno is a Chinese Medicine specialist and a big fan of CGT. I met him two years ago when we played at the Gouviea festival the first time. We had an amazing meal of Portuguese specialties, which included a desert buffet of over 20 different kinds of cakes, pies, creams and my favorite was a kind a cream caramel they call “Camel Spit”, which is also a favorite of Maria's.

One of the highlights of the festival for me, besides the CGT/Stickmen performance, was David Allen and the University of Errors. David is one of the founding members of a band called Gong, and his own band is very innovative and original. After their concert, we met the guys in the band and enjoyed talking with them sitting on the patio area of the hotel enjoying the beautiful Portuguese spring weather. Josh the guitar player, and Warren the drummer live in San Francisco and also play in a band that I am a huge fan of called Citay.

Here is a photo from Tony Levin, taken at a cafe near the hotel in Gouveia:

Gouveia Portugal

View from my hotel Room

Theater of the Gouveia Festival

Dinner with the Promoter

My Dinner!

Gouveia Portugal

10:15am. After 3 flights and 24 hours of travel, I arrived in Gouveia Portugal last night. Bert Hideyo, Tyler and I had dinner with the festival promoter last night. At the table next to us were the guys from the band “Focus”. I have a very vivid memory from when I was a teenager in Utah, driving my car along Bountiful Boulevard late one night and hearing Hocus Pocus by Focus for the first time, and being blown away by the amazing guitar playing and unique sound of the band. I look forward to hearing them at this festival

Gouveia is a small city located on top of a small mountain in Portugal. It is a beautiful clear morning. I had a café and Portuguese pastry and then I took a walk and enjoyed the views. We’ll begin rehearsing in just a little while. 

Here are some photos from my walk this morning:

Our hotel in Gouveia on the left.

Gouveia

Cemetery in Gouveia

Church with Portuguese Blue Tiles

Gouveia

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VG-99 and packing for tour

My new Roland VG-99 and FC-300 pedal board that was delivered yesterday. CGT are now officially Roland endorsers! Yay! We've been using Roland gear for many years, in fact the very first guitar effects pedal that I bought as a teenager was a Roland Chorus pedal. We are very happy to have this endorsement! I played around with this pedal for several hours yesterday, but it's going to take some time to program it so it is ready to take on tour. So, I'll be bringing the vg-88 for the European tour and then use this vg-99 for our June tour.

I'm busy packing up for our mini tour in Europe. I leave tomorrow for Portugal. I am trying to fit everything into one suitcase. Normally I travel with two suitcases, one for clothes and one for gear. But on this tour we will have more restrictions on baggage with the flights and train travel between shows.

This Saturday, we are playing at a festival in Portugal with the Stickmen! I'm looking forward to that! And to our other shows in Italy and Austria, and to the beer tour in Belgium with Tyler and Bert.

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Menomonie to Chicago

CGT at Swallow Hill in Denver. Photo by Brian Berger

10:35am. Bert, Hideyo, Tyler and I are traveling down I-94 in Wisconsin from Menomonie to Chicago. Today is the final day of this month long tour, and what a great tour it has been. We did not have one “bad” gig, and played in some really, really great venues. I was a bit concerned that we’d have problems with getting people to come to shows with the bad economy, and there were a couple places that we had slightly less people, but there were many shows where we had more people! I’m actually sad to see the tour end, but will be happy to have a break before we do our mini European tour beginning the end of April.



In the photo is CGT with Brian Berger and his wife at Swallow Hill in Denver. Brian was my band mate in my very first band when I was 15 years old attending Bountiful High School in Utah. The band was called Black Diamond with Brian Berger on guitar, Jerry Rose on guitar, Scott Sharp on keyboards and vocals, Jeff Bradford on keyboards and vocals, Brett Bradford on drums, and I played bass guitar. I wanted to play guitar in the band, but they only needed a bass player, so I borrowed my brother’s bass guitar and joined the band. Our first performance was at a Mormon “Road Show” and we played a song called “Driver’s Seat”. One of the main things that I remember about that concert is that the bass amplifier I was using was not grounded electrically, and just before we were going to play, I touched a metal railing by the stage, and received a huge shock! Fortunately I was okay and able to do the performance. Black Diamond practiced in Scott Sharp’s basement and developed an repertoire of the current top 40 hits. During the summer, we played every Saturday at the local amusement park called Lagoon, and during the school year we got many gigs playing for high school and church dances. I was amazed to be 15 years old and earning money playing in a rock band! The band was only together for about 1 year, as the guys who graduated from high school moved away for college. After Black Diamond broke up, the drummer Brett and I were still in high school and we formed a new band called Matrix and we enlisted various friends of ours to play shows at the high school assemblies, playing Led Zeppelin, Rush, AC/DC, Journey, April Wine, Foreigner and other rock band hits from the 80’s.