I'm heading to St. Maarten. I'll check in down there. Marie's in charge so behave!

Behn is going to post some lessons while I'm gone. I'm making this like I won't see you guys for a few days, however, I have two routers with me, an Ipad a computer, an iphone, a synth, a set of vibes, a recorder. so let's see what happens.

I'm not a touristy kind of guy so between gigs I imagine I'll be practicing and hanging on the site, like usual.

This is a picture of my set of ludwig and ludwig vibes. All wood frame with non graduate bar, motor, red string, and nuts on the dampener for dampening adjustments.

Jean-Baptiste (mallets/organ) and Gildas (bass) Boclé are two french great brothers! Here is a vid from their last album "Keltic Tales", a clever encounter between celtic and modern music.

J.-Baptiste plays the organ, but on this sample he takes a shredding malletkat solo!! Watch out Tony!! The French are around!! :o)

Part 1 of the vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ieb7R-Xvxw&feature=related

A few info:

- Gildas played in Gary's quintet from 1986 to 89.
- Both brothers collaborated with Gary + Billy Drumond on an album: "Or Else".

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Are the TOTM's helpfully? Some of you guys are quiet but I know you're off practicing them.

What's our next tune? Another standard? Modal?

Here are some ideas:

So What - tap into some modal stuff. this tune is deceptively simple.
inner Urge - More advanced difficult head.

Blues - Deceptively deceptively simple
Minor blues - dive into the minor world, it's cool, funny and easily more quickly rewarding then the major blues.

Days of Wine and Roses - pretty song with a lot of 'meat' on it.
I'll remember April - another tune that I think is part modal and part standard.

Its obvious to me that people are signing up each day. The new members chart is constantly changing. Correct me if i am wrong, but i get the feeling that less than 25% of the members actually click on the forums. In other words, we need to get more people on the forums. Some forums have not been posted in for a year. some have no topics at all! In order to make this community better, we need more people on the forums.
Heres my idea

I APOLOGIZE! MY HEADSET IS TOO CLOSE TO MY MOUTH. SO YOU HERE SOME DISTRACTING NOISES. AND IT'S NOT SEPARATED. I NEED TO BUY A USB MIC FOR THESE INTERVIEWS, SO I CAN GET A LITTLE DISTANCE.

But it's amazing stuff here, so listen to Mike Balter talk about the history, and JUST WAIT UNTIL HE TELLS YOU HOW MANY MALLETS HE'S SOLD AT THE END OF THIS!

I got Mike to talk a little bit about Mike also! (He's a very humble guy)

Remember that tune Joe Porter played for Tony's b-day? This is a simple version played by the composer... I like the authenticity and simplicity of the recording... Enjoy, - M