Posts Tagged ‘Gilles Apap’

Santa Monica Pier turns 100 today

Wednesday, September 9th, 2009

The Southern California pier has been a great music venue over the years, and served as a host to the renewed Ash Grove for a period of eleven months.

My fondest recollection of the pier was a public performance I did there as a duo with fiddler Byron Berline, before he moved back to Guthrie OK.

It was the afternoon of Super Bowl Sunday. Byron had requested that his wife tape the game. A nice stage had been set up outdoors, and we did two long sets, mainly fiddle tunes and a few songs thrown in. There was a good-sized crowd there. Near the end of our performance, a “street person” with a very disreputable outfit came up to the front of the stage and proceeded to empty his pockets of all the loose change he’d collected that day, spilling it across the stage front. Byron and I both agreed that it was the best tip we’d ever received, anywhere.

R - L: Peter Feldmann, Byron Berline, Gilles Apap

R -> L: Peter Feldmann, Byron Berline, Gilles Apap

Gilles Apap’s “Friends” CD — Studio footage

Saturday, October 11th, 2008
The CD is now available at better outlets...

The CD is now available...

Those who know Gilles Apap are aware that he’s quite a prolific fiddler, prolific in the numbers of fiddle/violin styles he performs in, prolific in his numerous CD releases, and prolific in his friends with whom he makes music.

His latest CD release, simply titled “Friends” , is a tribute to his many musical associates from the areas of American folk, old time, Cajun, and bluegrass music.  Gilles spent several months of 2007 travelling around the country to record tracks with a wide variety of musicians, compiled here in a collection of 21 tracks (plus an additional dozen or so recorded right off his phone answering machine!).  Visit his website at: http://gillesapap.com/ for a more detailed look, and perhaps purchase a copy.

Session for Gilles Apaps Friends CD - Jerusalem Ridge

Session for Gilles Apap's "Friends" CD - "Jerusalem Ridge"

Click on the image above [ or click here ] for a look and a listen to one of our tunes,  Bill Monroe’s Jerusalem Ridge, recorded last summer at Drew Daniel’s Sound Path studio in Van Nuys, California.  Note that Gilles, like myself, prefers to record “live” rather than the multi-layered approach used so often in recording circles these days.  The six of us sat in a circle, and played until we agreed on a “take”. The microphones, other equipment, and software used in this session are listed at the end of the video clip.  To make this session even more fun and relaxed, Drew just let the recorder run during the entire time of the session — so we started, stopped, etc., just when we felt like it.  Please note also the “&fmt=18″ at the end of the video’s URL: this enables replay in high quality stereo format (assuming, of course, that the video was recorded that way in the first place!).

-Peter