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We were featured on the Weather Channel the other day! They gave us the ending…

The Flame-O-Phone: the only saxophone that I’m aware of that spews up to 5 feet of flames out of its bell. Activated by a simple keyboard sustain pedal, 3 cans of propane, 2 9V batteries, and a whole mess of plumbing equipment, this vintage Noblet bari sax is totally…. hot? wow.

This idea has been brewing for about 4 or 5 years, when I was on tour with the Pontani Sisters. Their 14-piece troupe included the fire-breathing, sword swallowing MC, Tyler Fyre. He was an absolute trip to be on tour with, and we spent many hours talking about how to make something like the Flame-O-Phone an actuality. Though he was a genuine Fire Breather, and knew his way around the basic flamables, he was by no means a fire ARTIST.

Needless to say, the Flame-O-Phone stuck in my head for several years, and every once-in-a-while I would bring it up in random conversations. I always got that look I seem to know so well at this point, which said: “You’re crazy.”

A few months ago, Tin Pan was asked to provide a live soundtrack to the alternative play, The Wonderneath. They include fire art in the play, and were open to extreme and crazy suggestions from the band : I told them of my long dream to create a fire-breathing saxophone. Ali introduced me to Claire. Claire introduced me to Ben. Ben Bartelle is an absolute Fire-Art specialist. One of those guys who makes giant flying creatures that spew fire out of 9 spots on their gilded wings or exposed endocrine system. Wild and crazy and brilliant stuff….. and he doesn’t catch the theater on fire while doing it. Which, by the way, is important.

We got to work right away, and within 2 weeks we had this first prototype that you see here. As far as I know, nobody’s done anything quite like this, though people have included small bits of pyro here and there throughout the youtube chronicles. But nothing that’s fully integrated, and can be triggered to, literally, accompany individual notes; cadences and nuances within the music; spontaneous and improvised fire-music improvisations.

I won’t go into the details of how it works here, but I’m not afraid to share the small bit of information I have. I hope you enjoy this video, and stay tuned for more extensive videos and demonstrations, as I become more comfortable on this new instrument, and perhaps even stream-line some of the mechanisms.

Enjoy : the Flame-O-Phone!!!

Day 3 of our 28 day blogathon

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Got a call from an intrepid young journalist from ABC news. She’s hungry, she’s got a cam recorder and she’s got some great ideas. I picture her as a Lois Lane type. We haven’t met yet but she seems like a pretty interesting person. Here’s the thing, people that are interested are interesting.

Her idea: make a series of short films about fascinating New York City people that work every day to make New York City the colorful vibrant place that it is. So far she has interviewed three subjects. The first was a court room sketch artist who has had the thrill of making drawing of the most notorious criminals around. Imagine what its like to make the official court room rendering of John Gotti and Bernie Madoff. Another subject is a woman auto-mechanic from Queens. The third are two Mormon Evangelists. You know the type. They are wearing crisp white shirts and ties and have name tags and a copy of John Smith’s bible. I’ve always wanted to talk to them to find out how the hell they are enjoying our fair city.

Tin Pan is next on the list… We’re meeting next Wednesday for an interview and she’s been filming us, following us around in cognito, when we are at street hits and I know for a fact she will be at our Googie’s show this Friday.

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FYI: I have some practice shaking off evangelists and bible thumpers. If you want some tips or wanna hear some outrageous stories let me know…

Loving this photo and photo journal from New York Portraits!.

We just created a new You Tube Channel. So far there’s a sexy video we made with a burlesque dancer, Veronica Varlow. There’s a clip of a dance event in Amsterdam where DJ Shorty George is playing one of our tracks! There’s also a whole mess of captures from live performances that people from all over the country and from all over the world have been moved to share.

This channel will be growing steadily. Do drop by from time to time:

Your trusty link: Tin Pan Video Network.

Apparently it made a big impact. Here is some more found video courtesy of the fine folks at fiveoutsiders.com. Nice editing!!

We’re gonna do this again tomorrow. That’s to say, Wednesday from 3-6 at the same exact location with the same dancers. Yumsky.

We had a wonderful MUNY hit the other day at Union Square. This is the very first time that we actually got some dancers to busk with us. It was George Yi’s idea. He’s a great dancer and we’d been enjoying his moves for a while now. He brought Akemi with him and they were quite a team. It really did add to the whole specialness of the flavor. We plan to do it again soon!

One person sat down with a whole mess of magic markers and made us the drawing that you see here. The name he wrote on the back of the drawing was Eric Champagne. Lovely. Thanks Eric.

A few different kinds of people were taking video and photos and we encourage it because you never know where its gonna go and its good to get the music out there into the world. Well this time it went all the way to the talent scouts at “America’s Got Talent” and they invited down to audition on Sunday! We have 90 seconds to perform. Hmmm. Just short enough to not quite be long enough to do a song. I’m sure its by design to see how well we can arrange something stellar that fits their format. A good challenge I think! So wish us luck.

So much to do and say. I’ll err on the side of Brevity.

Hattiesburg: Played at Bennie’s Boom Boom Room which was a trip. Bennie himself was on hand. What a cool cat. The show was even recorded so hopefully there will be some useable stuff there to listen too later. I will keep you posted. We did a hit up at Southern Miss during the day to try to generate some interest in the evening time hit and around 11pm it started to work. Over 40 Southerns came down to the show. It seemed like the real party was out on the street in front of the club. Everyone could hang out and smoke and the air was perfect. For our second set we started out on the street and then paraded everyone in to the club On our third set, we just stayed out in the street. 1am Downtown Hattiesburg with blaring trumpets and honking saxes out on the street. Grindy dancing, shouting frat boys, beer in a cup. etc… The cops didn’t seem to care – or rather they seemed pre-occupied. A high speed chase went by at some point. It was wild.

New Orleans: Played out at Jackson Square where we made friends with the artists there and the restaurant across from where we were playing. A good sign, when the local business approve. They protect you in a way. When the cops come by and in New Orleans this seems to happen a bit, they look and listen but they also look to the business people around us to see if we have the thumbs up or not. In this case we did. Bourbon street itself was fully spring-breakified and not fertile ground for doing anything constructive. We wound up heading over to Frenchman Street where we would have had luck. Instead, we opted to eat Japanese food and drink beers. Tired. Sousaphones are very prominent in New Orleans These funky, one-chord, drum / tuba driven bands. Honestly, there were only a few that were bringing it. Most were just noisy and weren’t getting much response. A fun town though. I would love to hang out there more and know what it feels like to be a local.

Lafayette, LA: Did a swamp tour during the day. Large carp jumping out of the water and flopping in the air before splashing back down. Beautiful herons with HUGE wingspans covering the silent mirror of the bayou. Later, we drove and picked up some Boudin and Cracklins from a local spot. Dang, that was one good meal. All this courtesy of Drew Landry. A great musician and the guy behind the Bourque Social Club. A hall made of cypress and sweat on the outskirts of Lafayette. This was one of my favorite shows of the whole tour. Drew himself had a gig elsewhere so he just left us the keys to the joint and split. We had about three hours to hang out and get used to the place. Set up the sound, eat more boudin, read, nap etc… Eventually the peoples started to show up and it all turned out more than alright.

At one point I had to go around to local business to get some small bills so folks could get change when they paid the $5 cover. (no bar, no cash register at the bourque) One of my stops was the bar next door. The bartender gave me smalls for forty bucks but she apparently told her boss about it. This guy was a true ragin’ cajun. He was an older dude and after the second song of the night he showed up and just starts getting into the band. First he comes up and just throws a fistful of bills at the band. Stefan was jumping all crazy doing the Stefan thing and he just stuffs more bills down his horn. At one point point he tries to make fun of me and asks if I have enough change now! He asks us what we’re drinking and Clifton yells “gin.” He leaves and comes back with a bottle of Tanqueray and a bottle of tonic, 12 beers and a bucket of ice and some cups and HIS BARTENDER. Apparently everyone from his spot had come over so he figured he’d just shut down for a while and get everyone over to our show. At one point I was singing “Comes Love” and he takes out a twenty and shows it to me and then he folds in half length-wise, comes right over to me and while I’m singing on the mic he UNZIPS MY FLY and sticks Andrew Jackson halfway in there. What could I do but smile and keep singing.

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There’s a lot of things we learned on this trip. Maybe with a little more reflection and some time I’ll write them up here on the blog. And now we’re back. At some point my horn got a little busted up and I went to Josh Landress‘ repair shop over on 48th and had him do some work on it. I’ve said it before but I will say it again: Josh is always ready willing and able to give great advice about technical stuff. A real resource. Thanks Josh!

So yes, back. Back to the lovely Central Park for about 5 more weeks of the season. Back for many weddings and private parties. We have at least 5 this month! Rumors about a trip to Italy in November. Stay tuned.

July 5th in New York is a little like Christmas day except instead of everyone being at home with their families, they are in bed nursing their hangovers. Christmas cold keeps everyone home to snuggle and yesterdays glaring, beating sunshine kept headaches and fear of sudden death behind shady, air-conditioned curtains. Alas, not Tin Pan.

We finally decided to take Barry up on his offer to have us play in front of the FSC Barber Shop on Horatio Street in the West Village. He saw us performing at Café Moto and immediately proposed the idea. I got there early to case the joint again and was dismayed to find so much bright, bright sunshine and no shelter. Also, very few people on the street. My expectations were quite low. Inside the shop, however, everyone was so friendly, cool, dapper and encouraging that it made it really hard to just show up and then put the kibosh on the whole affair. By 1:45pm we had begun to play.

From our first song we were stopping traffic. Literally: a cabbie had stopped at the red light directly in front of us and was so transfixed that he needed a honking car behind him to nudge him into drive. A crowd gathered across the street within 60 seconds. For our perspective, it was very surreal. We were squinting, lazy, hot, and instantly weary and the music was sloppy, silly, loopy, and loose. But I forget the simple power of performing as much as we do. As soon as we begin, something magnetic is happening regardless of our mood.

In a word, it was a scene.

We hammered through the sun for about two or three hours and then needed much re-hydration. But again, the folks at FSC were so wonderful, encouraging and generous that we will go out of our way to make it back there at some point. I asked Barry what he had hoped for from our appearance and he had a great answer. He said that the barber shop didn’t need the business, they were doing just fine. So it wasn’t a promotional thing for him. It was just that the vibe of the band and the vibe of the barber shop seemed to be a good fit and he thought it would be fun! And there you have it. Mission Accomplished! See you soon, Barry.