Last evening was the last wedding of the 2011 season for we of the Grippo Funk Band.
Dave (Grippo) and I both are turning 55 shortly. I think it is high time to start getting some of my thoughts, memories and observations of our musical escapades (since 1983!) down and maybe as The Kinks put it, "my politics and theories on religion".

Just kidding there, but that should help set the tone...and they will bleed through anyway Im sure.

So in no particular order I will proceed.

Our band is a highly evolved musical-social unit. We work extremely well together. We are in fact family.
Musically we have had enough time to become completely familiar with each others playing, and can be totally reactive in the moment often group improvising , and at best ,its as good as it gets.
 So losing a member is a very big deal. We haven't had to deal with it for years , and in the past when we did it was usually stemming from some extreme negative that had to be dealt with.

      Not so with our guitarist, David Diamond. Sent to us at 19 years old by master guitarist and teacher Paul Asbell at the start our ten year Monday night run at Red Square in Burlington VT, he became a master himself. Between the two of us, we had mostly intuitively worked out a guitar and piano/organ concept that served the band well , and was part of our sound and creative bed, which is what we thrive on.
Dave. D and his wife are expecting their first kid, and have family in the N.Y.- N.J .area, so Dave got a Masters in accounting,  became a CPA, and moved to New Jersey 2 weeks ago. He let us know in June, and all I could say to him was that he was irreplaceable. And, we love the guy. Its hard.

We have a gifted young man, Max Bronstein -Paritz in the chair now, who is more than up to the challenge. It wont take too long for him to integrate into what is a heavy duty situation for sure.
His first few gigs have also been without our regular drummer , Russ Lawton who is out on tour with Trey Anastasio. Aaron Bellamy is a killer drummer from Boston, but again, how do you come into a situation with 15 years of stuff worked out that we dont even think about at all?

Im off to chauffeur daughter no2 to soccer in Burlington. Plenty of material for the future here.