De-Cluttering For the New Year!

Good Folks!

Coming to you with heat in the house and warm water pipes emanating from the water heater. SpragueLand once again sports the full featured amenities of the common first world order. Life is warm, life is sweet!

This is all to say that the gas leak is no more and we’re loving the comfort. Plus we’re also hoping for a slimmed down SDG&E bill.

Trenching the way to SpragueLand! Connecting in the new gas pipe and as you can see, it’s quite a distance.

Speaking of slimming down, over the holiday time I took up the effort to offload old CD’s, DVD’s, and vinyl records. I hope it’s not a mistake but the streaming reality is just too easy to overlook. Want to hear that tune now? Simple and that could lead you to other songs that you weren’t even registering —digital discoveries gone wild! I know some folks are into vinyl and there’s a lot to love about the ritual, the focus, the huge album cover real-estate and the liner notes. But having grown up with the scratches and the skips, that I don’t miss!

I have a friend who lives in L.A. and runs a record store up there called Atomic Records. He ventured down and went through my collection and gave me some bucks for the stuff that he could resell. An unopened Beatles record brought in $100 but most of the stuff was worth only a couple of bucks. But the cool thing is that this music will get played by someone else and I’m all in for extreme recycling.

I also explored an online company called decluttr that accepts your CD’s and DVD’s (you scan the barcode with your phone) and gives you money for them. They pay for the shipping too — low bucks for each item but if you keep at it you might be able to pay for dinner some night. Also, I scanned in one of my own CD’s too and according to them it was valued at 3 dollars! Wow, too bad they only except one of each title. Hah!

I highly recommend this company to help lighten up your trip.

Box ‘o Chet on it’s way to a new lucky listener.

And now on to MUSIC!

We had a great Christmas Eve concert and thanks to all that made it out for the wonderful vibe. My apologies to the folks that didn’t get in and I feel bad that you made the effort and we’re left out. Apparently there’s a fire code restriction as to how many people can be in that room and it was getting maxed out. Next year, weather permitting, we’ll move it back to the out of doors and everyone can partake. 

The music was killer and I’ll post some vids of the highlights soon. (Working on this later today).

Peter looking out!
photo by Danny Green

The view from Danny to Rebecca and beyond.
photo by Danny Green

At the end of the concert, the band attempts a bow. Super challenging and probably more difficult than playing the music itself!

Up for this week, on Friday at Dizzy’s award winning Danish vocalist Sinne Eeg joins up with Duncan, Mack, and me for a night of jazz classics, Brazilian bossa nova, beautiful Sinne ballads, and a Beatles tune included for proper balance.

Seven years back a friend of mine living in Denmark alerted me to be on the lookout for a rising vocal star named Sinne. The next time she was on tour in the U.S. I lined up a few concerts and that marked the beginning of a beautiful musical friendship. Since then we’ve played in L.A., San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, the Canary Islands, 3 country wide tours of Denmark with more great music on the horizon. (We’re heading to Denmark in a month for two weeks of concerts). She has the most gorgeous sound and her phrasing and delivery is just what the music needs. It’ll be a magical evening of music!

Sinne and Peter.

On Saturday afternoon Rebecca Jade, Tripp, and I are playing a house concert in Bonita. It all takes place at Casa Tortooga and it’s put on by Kevin and Tish. They do a wonderful job of curating food and setting the stage for a full on listening concert. The music with Rebecca and Tripp always takes off to new sonic vistas. It’ll be great and look below for details if you can make it.

Tripp, Rebecca, and me.

Leonard’s back in the house and on Sunday evening he and I will stir up the sonic cauldron for some jazz and beyond at Solterra Winery in Leucadia. This is a really fun gig and they have great food and wine. See you there!

Leonard and Peter
photo by Thomas Westerlin

Peeking around the corner into next week, on Wednesday we’re heading out to the desert to play Planet Cole Porter at the Rancho Mirage Library. Then back to La Jolla to play at the Athenaeum with Camarada on Friday. Then back again on Saturday to Palm Springs to play Pete Carlson’s Golf Shop with Sinne.

My car is my friend!

That’s it for now and thanks for tuning in, all best, Peter