Official homepage of the Guitarist, Jeff Wahl. - Jeff Wahl - News/Journal

80's Night at the Orchard

Fri, 23 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Thank you to everyone who made 80's night at the Orchard a rollicking success. Is that how you spell "rollicking?" I've never used that word before. Oh well. Anyway, thank you so much to everyone who dressed up, sang along, made requests and humored by strange personality for this great night!

What a weekend!

Mon, 20 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Wow. Amazing concert last night at Columbine Unity in Lafayette. That is a pretty wild church. Goodness! Anyway, that was great. When it started thundering and raining outside as soon as I started playing "Waterfall," wow. That was so cool and while it could have been classified as eerie, it wasn't, it was just awesome. Ending with the rowdy songs like "Rebel Yell," was great too. What a great crowd. The other musical acts on the bill were terrific and inspiring and wonderful too.

Playing the church services earlier in the day was great as always too. I improvised a lot during the services when I played 12 string. I guess I always improvise a lot when I play 12 string. I read the biography of Metallica, "Enter Night," last week and I watched the sort of documentary "Cliff 'em All," a tribute to Cliff Burton, the amazing bass player of Metallica, who tragically died very young. He was such an amazing improviser; watching that video really inspired me to let go and improvise on my Sunday gigs. Very, very inspiring. And, it was great to play in such a great atmosphere where the audience was appreciative of this. What a great place to play. Magical.

I also had gigs playing bass with Chadzilla and the Asteroids Friday night and Saturday afternoon, so it was kind of an exhausting weekend, but great. That band is such a great opportunity to rock out and actually work out while playing. My bass keeps falling off the strap because I jump around so much in that band. I bought some straplocks this weekend to remedy this situation. It kind of ruins the whole rock star image when I jump up in the air at the beginning crash of a song and my bass falls off. This has happened to me in that band, like 15 times. It's pretty embarrassing, and a real trick to keep playing while trying to put the strap back on the bass. O.K. So finally, straplocks to fix this situation. One more Spinal Tap moment.

Very busy

Mon, 31 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Haven't checked in here for a while, been pretty swamped. Anyway, catching up - a huge thank you goes out to Corey and all his friends who were terrific at the house party I played for them. Thank you. That was great.

Thank you over and over again goes out to Barney, Tony, and all the staff at the Orchard for having me back there so many times. Thank you to the great bunch of guitar enthusiasts from Longmont who came out there this last weekend and were so great there.

Thanks to Nick at St. John's for having me back so many times to play there. What a great band that is to be a part of.

Thank you to Kate and everyone at Mishkhah for having me play with their band last Friday. What a great gig. Very, very spiritual and the level of musicianship was astounding.

So, I've incorporated some new toys into the "act." I bought a Boss RC 50 looping station, a Roland HP-10 Handsonic drum, and an Epiphone Sheraton II. The looping station has a bit of a learning curve, but it allows me to build layers of sound, by recording myself playing and then it plays back while I can play over the top of it. So, I can record a loop of drum, then bass, then guitar after guitar after guitar. It's pretty cool. This is all done live, which is pretty fun.

The Epiphone Sheraton is a semi hollow bodied electic guitar which has a really wonderful tone. I got this one for half price because there is a very small flaw in the paint that I can't even see unless I look for it. Score!

The Christmas season was a blur with all the gigs, and luckily, the gigs have kept coming, so I'm as busy now as I was in December, which is nice.

I think maybe I'll do another album this year. I'm not sure what kind of album it will be. All classical guitar? All jazz guitar? Maybe an all looping album?

Anyway, that's all for now.

Great concert in Fort Collins - Christmas Album done

Thu, 24 Dec 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Thank you to everyone who attended the concert in Fort Collins at the library. What a great night that was. Wow. So much fun. Thanks to Norman as alwasy for booking me on that concert.

Also, thank you to all the people at Center for Spiritual Living in Lafayette for having me there last Sunday. Always great to play for you all.

And the performance at the Firestone Library on Saturday was great too. Thanks to all of you who attended and stayed for the whole show. That was fun, and the cookies were great!

The fabled Jeff Wahl Christmas album was finally completed this month. It was a bit late, but I had to set a deadline to get it done. I'll have it available online for sale by next Christmas at least! Thanks to everyone who bought the CD this season!

O.K. It's Christmas Eve. I don't think I forgot to buy gifts for anyone and I sent out all my Christmas cards. What a wild time the holidays always are!

Jeff

What a weekend!

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Wow. I played a great, absolutely terrific concert at Little Tree Acoustic House Concerts in Lafayette, CO on Friday night. It was a combined show with a poet named Chris Hoffman. I played some songs solo, then Chris read some poetry, then we mixed the two together. It was really cool and the audience really enjoyed it. Thank you so much to Joe for putting on the concert, to Chris for working so hard at the poetry and the rehearsals we put in prior to the show, to Kirby for the great poster for the venue, and to everyone who showed up for this concert. What a greeeeaaaaat time!

We're coming into Thanksgiving week now and I really have so much to be thankful for right now. It's interesting how the more thankful and appreciative I am of what I have, the more I seem to receive. I need to remember this.

I'm off to Fort Collins today for a photo session for the upcoming Christmas album. Being photographed is always a bit weird. I just need to remember to not be self conscious. I look like I look and that's just the way it is.

Jeff

Music bridging the space between life and death

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

It's been a pretty intense couple of weeks for me. My dad died a few weeks ago. I went to be with him when he died. He didn't know I was there until I started to play guitar for him. Then he recognized me and knew I was there. It was a pretty amazing experience. He said my name a lot and the music relieved some of the pain he was in. After this initial time with him, after he went to sleep, he lived on for a while, but he didn't say anything else that I can remember. While I was staying there at his home, I kept going in to play guitar for him when I would hear him in pain. It always soothed him and helped him to go back to sleep. About a day later, he died. It was a very nice and very powerful goodbye for me to be able to play for him as he died and to ease some of his pain.

One of his last wishes was that I play guitar at his funeral. This was pretty difficult to do, but I was able to pull it off. I just had to save my own grieving for later and be more in "professional mode." It felt good to be able to do it. It's what he wanted.

It's very strange to have a parent die, and I'm sure it's something that will sink in over time. I feel very fortunate that I was able to have this great goodbye that so few get to have when a loved one dies. Once again, I'm amazed at the power of music.

Great concert!

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Absolutely wonderful concert at Columbine Unity last night. That was a blast! Thanks everybody. I'm still buzzed from it.

Thanks to Unity in the Rockies

Sun, 13 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Thank you to everyone at Unity in the Rockies for having me play there this morning. What a great time! Thank you so much. That was well worth the drive to Colorado Springs for. Thanks again everyone.

Thank you Unity of Boulder

Sun, 06 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

As always, it was great to play at Unity of Boulder a few Sundays ago. Thank you to everyone there for continuing to have me back. Great as always!

Busy Friday night

Sat, 01 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

O.K. Two gigs, back to back, in different towns last night. A bit hectic, but it's better than being bored I guess.

Actually, it was great. I played for a society of Rolfing massage therapists at their party at the Boulderado in Boulder. That was fun, and I had the great help of Steve Clisset in loading equipment. That was terrific. Thank you Steve.

Then, as soon as that one was done, I zoomed off to Lafayette to play at Mojo Coffeehouse. That was a blast. Thank you to everyone who came out to that and who listened to the music and laughed at my pointless ramblings and stories. Lots of fun. Sleeping felt good when I got home.

Jeff