Athena

I will get this out of the way first:

For those interested:

Hotel Herodion

tel. 30 109236832

room 304

till Friday. Vc mail will pick up if I'm out.

Got in to Athens yesterday the 21st @ 10:00am or so local time - 9 hour flight. This post will register 7 hours earlier than I am act writing it, as I'm assuming the timeline will remain EST, absent my changing it (yes, it is 4:20 am!! - but I'm up).

First off I have to say, for whatever the reason(s), I LOVE this city. This is my third (technically fourth - once on a ship, for a day, hardly counts) time here and each time has been a different feeling. The first was just walking wonder at the ridiculous archeaological remains seemingly around every corner in the Plaka neighborhood we're in.

The second was a dedicated effort to walk around and get to know some of the streets that are around the hotel and the club (Half Note), which are about a 5 minute walk from each other.

And now this time, it really has a feeling of return - of visiting an old friend that I have missed and want to catch up with. It continues to blow my mind what you are constantly presented with here: Temple of Olympian Zeus, framed by Hadrian's Gate (Hadrian the ROMAN), the Acropolis (of course!), etc etc etc.

We opened tonight with Quinn Lemley - David Epstein on piano, Marcus McDonald on alto sax, Peter Retzlaff on drums and I'm on bass. Went well. We are sold out all 7 nights and have now added a matinee on Wed. They dig her here. We all heard a radio spot for her in the van on the way in from the airport, with clips of the gig we played here last time, now on a CD - pretty funny.

Eric Alexander's group was playing at the club last week, so we went and hung last night and heard them (David Hazeltine, Nat Reeves, Joe Farnsworth). All swingin'. I hadn't seen Eric in years and years. He did a couple of gigs with me at a restaurant 10 years ago (he was killing then too!). Funny to see those guys, who are fixtures at the club Smoke in NY, so far from home.

This is going to be a fun week. More to come...

To Athens

Here's a pic from a previous trip.

Heading back!

Postings

Put some more photos up on MySpace. The slideshow on the first page is pretty cool.

Had a nice night on the Bateaux Sat night. Jim Ridl played his first gig with us on piano and sounded wonderful. I've known Jim a long time and I don't get to see (or hear) him enough. It was great to play with him again.

Speaking of Jim, he's also playing on a record that I did with my buddy Marc McDonald that will soon be released. Marcus just got his MySpace/MarcMcdonald page up and has three of the tunes from the date streaming. That's my hometown KC boy Steve Cardenas on guitar on some of the tracks.

And we had Brad Shepik back last night on the boat. Brad's great. He was just out recently with Cardenas (ironically) playing with Joey Baron's two guitar group "Killer Joey".

MySpace

I put up a myspace page - check it out!

Updates to come - (yeah sure)

There's also a link on the blog sidebar.

http://www.myspace.com/karlspicer

Pearl Harbor

On the 50th anniversary of Pearl Harbor - Dec 7th, 1991 - I happened to be working as a musician on the (now defunct) American Hawaii Line "SS Constitution".

I was also filling in for the bandleader who was on an 8 week vacation.

So it was up to me to lead the band in a memorial service held out on deck.

I was a 24 year old from Kansas (though I had moved to NY by this time) trying to piece together the meaning of what I was experiencing.

The navy never lets commercial ships into Pearl Harbor, but on this day they allowed us to pass and we sailed right up to the Arizona Memorial.

You could see the interminable oil circle on the surface from the leaking behemoth underneath.

There were a number of veterans on board and there was a period of silence and a wreath laying ceremony right around that fateful 7:00am hour.


It was one of the heaviest things I've ever witnessed on or off ships, and certainly an incredible departure from the normal vibe on a cruise ship.


We played WWII era songs and the air was suffused with contemplation and the silence of grown men weeping at what was.


To be fortunate enough to be in THAT place at THAT time is something that has never left me.