Session Drummer | Studio Drummer | Touring and Worship Drummer for Hire | Dale Baker | Durham, Chapel Hill, Raleigh, NC

Under Pressure...

Wow.  This is a powerful little movie about debt and credit cards.

People in Order

From the folks at the "Portable Film Festival," comes this beautiful video which is part of a series of films by Lenka Clayton and James Price.  I found this little blurb about the video series:

"A series of films about human lives. We toured Britain in a camper van, driving from London to the Pennines and filmed portraits of 471 strangers along the way. The portraits are in order according to age, length of relationship, yearly income and stage of pregnancy."

This is the first one I watched (Thanks to Brandon for the link.):

"Thanks Scientology!"

Man, for the sake of Tom Cruise, I hope this writer's strike ends soon. From watching his video, I'm struck by how much he, as an actor, needs a writer to make him look and sound cool.  I just finished watching the Jerry O' Connell video, and then that led me to this one:

Video: Flying into Y2K

Remember all the fuss about Y2K?  Well, it just so happened that the best time my wife and I could find to visit our friends in Europe was over the Christmas - New Year's holiday of Y2K.  My wife was in school, and so a vacation between semesters seemed to work well for us - summer was out because I was touring in Sixpence then and summer was a busy time for us.  So we found ourselves in Dallas, New Year's eve 1999.

The flight had so few people on it, the airline upgraded everyone.  Business Class became First Class.  Coach became Business class.  It was the only time I've ever flown Business Class.  What an awesome treat.  They served us Ice Cream in the middle of the night somewhere over the Atlantic.  I remember fighting off the sleep, because I didn't want to miss the incredible food they were serving us throughout the night.

I remember getting up at one point in the flight and peeking behind the curtains into Coach.  There was no one in coach...all the lights were out and a few flight attendants were sleeping on the empty seats.  It was a little spooky.

It's a blast from the past, but thanks to Ardyn, this memory was preserved for my wife and I to enjoy (and now you too!) 8 years later!

Video: Martin Short Show

This video was taped back in 2000 when Sixpence (with me on Drums) played on The Martin Short talk show. 

I remember the show because the house band was comprised of some awesome LA session players, including one of my favorite drummers of all time:  Will Kennedy.  Will played in the Yellowjackets and was also on some Andy Narell albums I used to listen to back in college.  The band leader was Sheila E's brother, part of the famous Escovedo family of musicians and percussionists (Pete E, played with Santanna, Alejandro E, is a great songwriter/ musician and of course Sheila E is pretty well known, and I'm sure there are more of them...those are the only ones I know of...).   

Also, I remember being back stage before we were about to tape our segment and Martin Short walks by to get to his place on the set, and graciously offered his hand and welcomed us to his show.  I thought that was a wonderful gesture.  He could've totally blown us off, but instead treated us with respect.  Thanks Marty!

Also, many thanks to Ardyn for the video!

Where I've been Recording lately...

Here are a couple of videos I took tonight.  Mark Williams came over to record drums and bass for a couple of Christmas songs he's working on.  Jamie played bass and I played drums and perc (shaker and tamb) and of course when you're working on Christmas songs, they wouldn't be complete without the requisite Sleigh Bells, so I played a few tracks of those as well.  I was eating some chocolate covered peanut brittle that some students made for me...so that's not a southern drawl you're hearing, it's just me talking with my mouth full. (How rude...sorry about that...)