Maxx Vaxx Music

Slidin’ In This is the latest upload for my peeps to dig. I recorded this in a studio I built for a guy that traded me time for my services. It’s funny how this song came to be, and it’s got a little bit of drama to the back story, too, making it an eventful session. I had written a country song which needed a Pedal Steel Guitar to make it real Nashville. So I got this guy from someone at the local mom&pop music store where I was working in the Palm Desert area(nothin but cows and speed freaks around me!). He comes to the studio and sets up. His pre-amp gear was so old that it made a lot of noise, so I hooked him up to my stuff and while we were setting him up earlier I had pushed record to get levels and hear what would come out. When we changed gear, I had forgotten to stop recording, cuz my back was towards the console. Anyway He was noodling around on some jazzy chords & stuff which sounded cool. After half an hour I turned around and saw the ticker going, so I stop the program(Steinberg’s Wavelab- how’s that for product placement?) and we hear back what he did. I said to him, “man there are some nuggets in there. mind if I keep it around and see if I can come up with something around it?” Rick (Shmitt) says “Sure why not.” I keep meticulous notes on every session and it’s activities, so I put this all down in my journal, because I am in the process of writing my book. Later that night I call him & tell him that I can make a song from slapping together some of the samples from his noodles and that I would share writing credits with him if anything came out of it. So I proceed to make what you are now listening to, over the next month or so. Then I put together a simple split letter agreement which he signed. Months later, I’m talking to some guy a neighbor forced on me to talk to, who was down on his luck & wanted to make some music with some one. Hesitantly, I returned the guy’s call, and during the conversation found out he knew Rick the pedal guy. He asks me for his number. I didn’t want to give it to him without asking Rick first, but he relented & I was tired & let my guard down. Well. Try to be nice & it comes back to bite you in the ass. He calls Rick,who I now know has horrible memory recall. He tells this cat that I sampled him and used his playing on some tune, forgetting that we had an agreement and insinuating that I did something wrong. The guy calls me back & yells that he won’t want to work with some one who steals music! I was flabbergasted! To say the least. I call Rick and ask him what the hell he said to the guy, and he totally forgot we had been cool with the whole thing. To the point of having signed an agreement! Which he totally forgot about. So I told him to call the guy back because I don’t work unethically and he needed to get that straight. To this day I don’t know if he ever did because he has dropped off the face of the earth. Even his family doesn’t know where Rick is. Karma? I don’t know. But I am concerned as to his whereabouts because he may have some writer’s shares coming to him if this song is any good. If anybody knows Rick Schmitt’s whereabouts please let me know. Well , I hope you enjoyed a story from the wonderful hell that is my life.LOL… Enjoy the tune as well. TTFN

Well it looks like the Los Angeles Music Awards were nice enough to declare my album “Return of the Phoenix” Best Jazz Album of the Year and “For You I Would” as Best Lounge Artist/Song of the year for 2006! It is an honor to receive these awards considering I had retired from music in ‘98. The album was begun in 2004 with the help of my old friends Jake, Jeff, Carl and Tim among many other good people. The support from family and dear friends has been unprecedented and glorious, and I appreciate the folks at L.A. Music Awards for their generosity as well.