The Hungry Boxer

Straight from the den of the Wolf.....

Last week we had a last minute show offered to us at a little place called Mueller College.  Jason Mraz used to play at Mueller.  We were pumped to get a gig there.  We asked our friend Skinny to play violin with us on a few songs for the gig.  He invited us over to his place to rehearse.  We were greeted by his beautiful roommate who was happy to have musician's rehearsing in her living room.  Her name is Danyelle Wolf.  After hearing us play she decided to come and see the actual show.  We were excited to have new ears hear our tunes.  The show went really well.  We made new fans and sold CD's.  The booker was impressed with the professionalism we brought into the space.  We did what we do best and spread a little YES.

After the show we hung out with our new San Diego friends, Danyelle included.  We learned that she is a professional boxer training for the 2012 Olympics.  She is also one of the loveliest spirits I've ever been around.  After a couple of hours of hanging out and getting to know all of us she asked where we were staying.  We told her that this is "The Kindness of Strangers" tour.  Sometimes we sleep at new friend's houses and sometimes we sleep in the van.  She told us she had a roommate moving into her home on March 1st, but we were more than welcome to stay until then.  What?!  We have our very own bedroom with a little balcony.  Danyelle's home is one of the most inviting places I've ever stepped into.  Not only is she a professional boxer and personal trainer, she's also a very gifted artist.  Her place is decorated with pieces that she has created herself.  She turned her garage into her own personal training studio.  There are fresh flowers and plants everywhere.  She has a living room full of acrylic canvases she works on daily.  She even turned her modest backyard into an absolute sanctuary of solitude.  This place is amazing...and we get to bask in it's comfort for a week. 
Please check her out online.....thehungryboxer.com.   She's the coolest. 

So we are safe.  We are sound.  We are protected by The Hungry Boxer

Yes Team, GO!

The Deal

...will The Yes Team prevail over the evil institution of man?

Check out our latest video blog...

A glimpse into the soul of a man.

Sunday Funday...

The plan was to have a slumber party with our new jam buddy/man crush Jackson Price. Jackson had just gotten out of rehearsal and invited his bass player, Tony Swanson, back to the house to BBQ (my first ever BBQ in February). Tony came over with shrimp kabobs and Reece's Pieces and we consumed way too much food and jammed the night away. Like we do. It was clear that Tony was an Affirminator.

Somewhere three-quarters through the Pieces, Tony mentioned that Bob Schneider was coming through San Diego to play Anthology, where Tony runs sound (and lights and 7 cameras). He said he could get us in FO FREE if we wanted to go. Now, I'm completely under-exposed to Bob Schneider. But people I trust musically recommend him very highly. My NY friend Natalie Newman has been inviting me out to shows of his for years, but it's never happened. Last night it finally did.

The show was completely SOLD OUT so Tony told us to go to the back of the club and he'd get us in. At this point Allie the intern shows up and asks if we were The Yes Team.

"Yes, as a matter of fact we are," we replied. She then escorts us into the classiest music venue I've ever seen. For you New Yorkers, picture The Highline Ballroom on steroids. She takes us directly to the sound booth to meet Tony. Tony then introduces us to the booker and tells us that WE ALMOST OPENED FOR BOB SCHNEIDER. Tony highly recommended us for the gig, but Schneider's peeps insisted on a lady at a piano. Tony assured us that we will be playing Anthology before too long. Like I said, he's an Affirminator.

Since the show was sold out we basically took some wall right next to the stage. The show was about to start and just like that, we're talking to Bob Schneider. He cracks a hilarious joke. He realizes the joke is hilarious and admits he'll probably crack the same joke at some point during the set. He then takes the stage. We collect our collective jaw from the floor.

Like I said, I knew nothing of the man's music. But the things that man did for the next hour and a half truly changed my world. He is the epitome of a one-man band. A master of the loop pedal, he creates a series of simple parts that add up to one giant cacophony of musical madness. My brain hurt trying to keep up with all of it, but he was under quiet control every moment. The man pulled trick after trick out his sleeve. His songs ranged from soul-seering ballads stripped down to simple strums on his beat up old nylon-string guitar to alcohol-inspired white trash hip-hop stomp songs. To say that this man wears his heart on his sleeve is a vast understatement. He wears his soul on his sleeve. I've never been let in to such a deep, dark, beautiful, ugly, real honest-to-God human place before. It took this road-heavy vagabond and gave me fuel to keep fighting the best of all possible fights. It gave me greatness to aspire to. After all...

"It’s the little things that separate
The good from the great."


All I know is it didn't take long. We open-mic'd at Longboard's in PB after the show and I've never felt such electricity on a stage before. We took a crowd of drunken college kids and turned them into Affirminators. I actually saw two girls singing the chorus of "The Inspector" before the song was finished. It was probably the single best performance The Yes Team has ever put together. And I will gladly say we have Bob Schneider to thank for that.


See you in Austin, Bob.

Yes Team, GO!
The Mess

Later that Saturday

I'm on a blogging kick.  Today was just a little amazing, and I feel the need to share.  After leaving the office (McDonald's) we headed to Ocean Beach.  I've been walking into various bars and restaurants and giving them a CD of some of our live tracks and our one-sheet.  A one-sheet is basically our picture/bio/band info.  Every place I walked into today was very receptive of what I was handing them.  Doing this is typically hit or miss.  Today was hit after hit.  My bases were loaded and we set off the water to start busking.  Ocean Beach is a hippie beach...not a lot of money but there's a lot of spirit.  One of our new San Diego friends, Brian, met us down there for fellowship and sunshine.  While playing our very first tune, two more of our new San Diego friends, Vince and Molly, randomly walked by.  They started a small dance party.  It was great.  Then we met Ashley, the photographer, who wants to take some bands shots of us.  Then Paul, who we met Wednesday, stopped by to say hi and strum a little on TJ's guitar.  We shook some shakers with little Julia (4) and Alexandra (5).  Kenny came over with his mandolin and played on some tunes with us.   Jesse stopped and listened for an hour.  He had other people stop and listen to our harmonies.  Karren stopped and took some pictures.  Then she called her husband.  Then she threw a cool Lincoln in our guitar case.  Then she and her husband took video.  Then he threw a couple bucks in.  Then she bought a our t-shirt.  Then I offered her one of our live track CDs I hand out with our one-sheets.  Then she handed me another ten bucks.  It's not about the money.  We made $50 dollars today.  It's about the people we're connecting with daily.  It's about the music we're creating to give to whoever will stop long enough to listen.  If it's a broke hippie giving the last of his change or a real estate broker who believes in our cause, we're just glad people are listening.   

The Deal 

In the early morning light they emerged from the belly of a purple beast...

there ain't no road too long...

My goodness it's been a while since I've blizzogged. Life has been running amuck. Just amuck. But love, sister, is just a kiss away (it's just a kiss away). So let's try to get you all caught up shall we?

Picture this...we're standing on The Book and Stage at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas about to kill our final set of a stellar three-day run and our bass player Jesse Johnstone (son of Elton John's longtime guitarist Davey Johnstone) plants a seed. A seed that will more than likely produce a great Redwood in the bigger forest called LIFE. He offered to record our EP at the late, great Guy Babylon's home studio in Agoura Hills, CA. We were basically handed a golden opportunity to cut our EP in a studio where legends have recorded. See Grammy below.

Seeing as how The Yes Team was only a month old when we hit the studio, we had to figure out how to record this band, these tunes, these harmonies. And when the dust settled we ended up doing something that just seems absurd this day and age in this auto-tuned world in which we live: we sang together in a room! WHAT? Who does that? On the title track "Back to the Sea" we actually all sang into the same microphone at the same time. There are little to no overdubs on the entire EP. We sang as God intended, with voices coming together in harmony. We have yet to hear it, but we're very hopeful. Oh yeah, forgot to mention the reason for the whole thing. They're gonna pass it on to Sir Elton himself. Either way we got ourselves an EP so it's about to be officially official.

Which brings me to my next bullet point. We need to get this thing finished and printed. So we're back in San Diego getting our heads together and it occurs to us that YOU can help. We've applied to Kickstarter.com to get a project going. We're gonna need your help, however large or small. We'll keep you posted as things progress. I'll leave you with some wise words from Sesame Street:

Don't look back don't you turn around
Just keep your eye on where you're bound
And you're bound to get from here to there
Cuz a dream can take you anywhere
#takemetocookies

Yes Team, GO!
The Mess

Van Night: Follow that BAND!

I awoke this morning on a San Diego side street near Pacific Beach in Purple Reign.  With the sun beaming directly into my eyeball I accepted the beginning of this Saturday.  I cracked open my sleepy lids just in time to see Nanny Tracksuit slowing down and getting a good look at the sleeping hippies in the big purple van.  I slept captain and had various clothes strewn about the dashboard.  Very classy.  TJ held down co-captain and was cocooned inside his favorite blue blanket.  No sign of life from the outside world.  From inside the van just the heavy, steady, and slightly constricted breathing from one being in a confined space with no new air.  I turned back to see Jo Jo looking exhausted even in sleep.  The guy is not little and obviously had quite a time trying to figure out a semi-comfortable way to get a few hours of REM.  He had positioned himself horizontally across both seats in the back.  Dreams of a king size bed dancing on the backs of his eyelids.  Purple Reign is packed to maximum capacity.  If this was Thanksgiving she'd be in a food coma.  All of our gear, plus a strapping papa bear, a statuesque mama bear, and a compact baby bear equals a lot of reality.....slapped right across our starry-eyed faces.  I wouldn't trade our van nights for anything.  Who needs a bed when you can eat leftover chinese while falling asleep sitting up and watching Follow That Bird with your best friends?  Not this girl.


The Deal