Fire It Up Tour 5

Hello, Everybody on the Update List! Hope you all had a wonderful summer. Autumn has arrived as 2013 continues to fly by. 

The second leg of the Fire It Up European Summer Tour has finished and all of us have dispersed, Left The Building, gone our separate ways for the final time in 2013. The tour and the summer as a whole was a huge success for Joe and his Mad Dog Touring Company. The second leg was seven and a half weeks of traveling with thirty one dates from Norway and Sweden to Bordeaux and Monaco to Pula and Minsk. The music festival circuit throughout Europe is a tribute to people's desire for live music, no matter the nationality and age group. Many of these festivals have been happening for decades now, and are well organized with the audiences being treated to not only a wide range of quality music, but fantastic food and a relaxed atmosphere in often beautiful scenic venues. It's a civilized way to spend a summer evening. Thanks to all the fans who showed up and rocked with us!

Arena, Pula, Croatia

This is one of the many Roman era ruins throughout the Mediterranean. Over the years we've played in these 2,000 year old venues from Sicily and Tunisia to southern France.

Backstage at the Pula Arena...

My heart-felt thanks to Joe, the whole supremely talented band and all the hardest working, make-it-look-easy, crew. It was a pleasure and an honor to work, travel and play with you all. After all the miles and all the venues, it was time for a break, but I hope we get the chance to do it again, someday in the not-too-distant future.

To say these people are good at what they do, is an understatement...

Flying into Nice and the Cote d'Azure on a summer afternoon...

Hangin with Laura Jane and Herman, the two "newbies" in the band this year, both seasoned and pro beyond measure...

Laura Jane Jones came recommended by our last love on background vocals, Kara Britz. Laura did a short promo tour with us last November coinciding with the release of "Fire It Up" in Europe to prepare for this year's run. 

On the other hand, at Joe's request we did an audition for the Hammond B3 chair to replace our beloved and irascible Mike Finnigan. I called my dear friend Tony Lewis, drummer with Smokey Robinson and asked who he knew to have a good gospel feel. He recommended Herman Jackson, hands down. Anyone who knows Herman, who has worked with Stevie Wonder and Gladys Knight, among many others, knows he can do much more. He's a consummate pianist, arranger and producer, as well. Loved working with you Herman. Thanks for the constant inspiration.

Laura Jane, Oneida, Gene, Me and Jack in the background, and Herman

Some of these venues have a wide variety of acts on their stages throughout the summer. This was the lineup at The Sporting Club in Monaco... 

Minsk, Bela Ruse has grown a lot since we were there five or six years ago. I still get the feeling they are going through growing pains. Here is a photo outside one of the nicer hotels in the city. This is around 10pm. Looks like it could be 3am...

The more I travel, the more I want to know about history. Here, Jack Bruno is checking out  the artisan work of a church door in the old town of Nurnberg, once a European financial center in the 1500s. 

Basel, Switzerland. One of my favorite old cities in Europe. It's easy to spend hours along the river at one of the many cafes, watching the world go by...

This was the scene behind the stage at the Loreley Festival along the Rhine. On the drive from Frankfurt, there were at least a dozen old castles along the way...

Our show at Loreley was the last show of the festival and the last of our tour...

I like to say, "Play like it's your last show". And, then every once in awhile, that is the overriding case. Here Norbert, Oneida and I are stage right with Stefan and Donny of the crew, getting ready to take the stage...

Oneida and I backing Joe. Judging by my posture, this is probably "You Are So Beautiful"...

I'll sail calm or heavy seas any day with this dear captain...

Thanks for all the letters and responses from the last update. It's good to know these are being useful in inspiring you in some way. Thanks, too, for those who encourage me to write more and more consistently. I will be posting all of these as an archive on either my website (www.milomon.com) or a blog page in the future. I think the first one was back in 2006, I have to look. Sometimes, the pace of the road, and my desire to not spend my off time sitting in a hotel room, prevents me from writing on tour. Now that I'm off, perhaps I can bring more of these stories and songs I have brewing inside me to life. 

I plan on doing another update in October even though we are off tour now. We recorded a live DVD and album in April from the Arena show in Cologne that will be released next week. https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=QVAM-XamwtU  Also, stay tuned for possible shows in 2014 Down Under and in the States. 

So much to keep up with in these digital days... If you'd rather not receive these emails, please reply to that effect and you'll be taken off the list pronto.

May you all be heading into fruitful harvest time this Autumn.
Keep rockin'...
Nick

Nick Milo

Music Director, Mad Dog Touring
www.Cocker.com
www.Milomon.com

(Photos by Norbert Fimpel, Donny Clay, Marcus Busch and myself)

Fire It Up Tour 4

Greetings from the Road as the Joe Cocker "Fire It Up" European Tour rolls on. Yes, the tour continues, although now in another mode. After more than a month break from the full production leg, this is a festival tour. Traveling with backline only and sometimes using rental gear even for that, the crew arrives early, day of show and sets the stage that depending on the festival, may have several different bands on it in the course of the day and evening. Band and Joe arrive in the evening. No soundcheck. Just go up on stage and hit. And, sometimes do it all over again the next day in a different city, maybe even a different country. Of the thirty one shows on this leg, about half of them we travel and play on the same day.

L to R: Oneida James-Rebeccu, bass. Me on keys. Norbert Fimpel here on accordion, and sax and percussion usually. Jack Bruno, drums. Joe. Herman Jackson, B3 and keys. Nikki Tillman and Laura Jane Jones, background vocals. Gene Black, guitar.

We've been out since July 17th where we all convened in Montreux, Switzerland to begin a two and a half month long festival run. It was a beautiful way to start the tour. Montreux is one of the most prestigous and longest running festivals in Europe and the who's who of the program means you never know who's going to show up to say hi. That evening I recall Ray Parker Jr., Shania Twain and Chris Lord-Alge coming back stage to hang. We did miss Claude Nobs, the founder of the festival who passed away earlier this year. A tribute to him that the festival ran like clockwork and will continue. RIP, Claude.

Lake Geneva out my hotel window in Montreux. The swallows were swarming in the morning air. 

A lovely, but intense way to begin a new tour. Montreux Jazz! The audience came to Rock and the night did not disappoint...

Tony Joe White opened the how at Montreux. What a pleasure to see and hear him again! He toured with us in the States years ago. He wrote many great songs, including "Polk Salad Annie" and "Rainy Night In Georgia".

Gone are the buses. Down to one truck for the gear. Our mode of transport on a run like this is a private jet— the only way to keep this kind of schedule...

The airport tarmac, Nice, France...

Donny takes advantage of some of Stephan's other engineering skills...

This would be a flight with the night off...

Most of our our Illustrious International Crew here: Jason Banta, guitars. Bruce Jones, FOH. Franck Loeillot, chef. Stephan Huser, monitors. Donny Clay, drums. Yvan Sauve, monitors. Hunter Frith, Lights. Me and Herman Jackson fill out the salut! 

Band on the run... Norbert, Oneida, Jack, not sure who that is in the back seat, me behind Gene's hand, Gene and Nikki. Laura is that you behind Gene?...

These moments onstage are what makes sense out of all the logistics, crazy sleep cycles and strange food.

The settings of many of these European festivals are stunning.

As mentioned in previous updates, we recorded a live DVD last April in Cologne. It is set to be released in Europe and online October 4th. You can check out the trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=QVAM-XamwtU

And besides the work part of it, the traveling and the gigs, which take up most of the time, there's the places themselves. Try to squeeze in a hike or a walk in the old city, a new city to begin to explore, in some cases a once familiar place that over the years, has changed with new marks on its landscapes. 

It is a campaign, an expedition not dissimilar to setting sail for faraway places, requiring various disciplines to manage both one's craft and recreations, as well as the lathe of monotony that comes with living out of a suitcase.

This too, shall pass. Soon enough (perhaps not soon enough for some), we all will be home waking up in our own beds again. I for one will be ringing with some fatigue, some feeling rusty in my chops, and mostly Gratitude to Joe and the fans for making this adventure a success. For the fans, and of course, for all of us, these nights are a Celebration. Let the music take us...

Many more stories to write about, most of which will be sealed and not opened until a disclosed time after my death, far in the future. No!... Kidding! Stay tuned. 

Joe relaxing at home in Colorado.

Feel free to reply with extended or brief letters. It's great hearing from you. Please reply without the original attachments, if possible. Also, please share with any you think would be interested and they can write me to be included on the mailing list. Thanks.

I know we are inundated with information these days. If you'd rather not receive these emails, please reply to that effect and you'll be taken off the list pronto.

Thanks for reading, listening and participating.
Keep rockin'...
Nick

Nick Milo

Music Director, Mad Dog Touring
www.Cocker.com
www.Milomon.com

(Photos by Norbert Fimpel, Ray Neapolitan, Pam Cocker, Oana Turcu and myself)

PS, I recently updated www.Milomon.com. Come by for a visit and a listen. My album with Rocky Maffit, "All The Lost Angels" available there as well as iTunes and CDBaby. Please support independently produced and marketed music. Thank you!

Fire It Up Tour 3

Greetings from the alpine region of Austria. The Joe Cocker, Fire It Up European Tour 2013, is on break at the moment in between the production leg and the festival leg of the Spring & Summer tour. 

I

I'm chillin at the end of the rainbow apparently, as a late afternoon thunderstorm cools down a hot summer day. Imagine the smell of rain and pine in the mountain air, on the breeze the sound of soft thunder rumbling in the distant peaks, like the gods conversing over an early evening beer. 

The first leg of the European run is complete. The tour came to a close in stages. We left the full production, May 29th in Warsaw after thirty two shows in eight and a half weeks. It was tough to say goodbye to old and new friends, only because it seemed that the time was too short, but we were also ready to keep moving. It's all part of the gig, and part of the gig is the letting go.

Ingolf, the band bus driver, an old friend, a great driver...

Boarding a charter flight, we flew to Kiev to begin the final segment of four shows that included Moscow, St. Petersburg and Kazan, Russia.

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Travel days alternated with show days until the ninth day, we flew out of Russia and (most of us) headed home. 

The Russian audience showing their love for Joe and Rock&Roll...

Ritz Carlton, Moscow...

Friday night, Moscow... (early Saturday morning)  Not the Ritz Carlton!...

Kazan, Russia...

Joe and management, band and crew, we were down to twenty people traveling light and at the mercy of local rental gear. Thanks to Eddie Shea and our lean and mean crew that remained, the shows were all a success, finishing off a two month run that altogether was one of the best tours I personally have ever been involved with. Best, in terms of how smoothly it was run, the consistency of the music and the audiences in their response and number. What a pleasure, an honor and a joy... Thanks to all, and the audiences, too!

(Photo, Norbert Fimpel)

At the risk of sounding cliche, we have become a kind of professional family. (A friend of mine likes to say, "I love cliches, because they're true!") Life on the road and its day-to-day can be stressful enough. The possibility of something going wrong is there every moment of every day, and it does from time to time. People do their gig to insure as best they can that gear works well, and the music is played well. As the tour gets rolling and the band is consistently rocking, we all fall into our rhythms of how we hang, play, and how to find those solitary moments to balance the time spent together.  Meanwhile, the music keeps pouring out, and the kilometers and countries keep rolling by.

Hang time with Nikki and Oneida after the gig...

Jack and I brought Herman to a favorite Amsterdam bar after the gig there. (It's grainy because the original photo was dark.)

In regards to gear and the keyboards themselves, one of my favorite sayings is, "The less moving parts, the better."  This music is best played and played hard. There are no backing tracks, no ProTools beds, no computer sequencers at work contributing to the sound coming off the stage. There have been tours in the past where we've used them— an extra percussion bed, rhythm guitar track, a bed of violins or synthesizers playing along to a click track that the band plays with. And, given the way music is made to sound these days, it is not out of the question that it may happen again in the future, especially if the band wants to faithfully reproduce what's on record. But, for now, we have taken the recordings and made decisions how to make them work live. To recreate some of the sound of Matt Serletic's production on the record, I've used arpeggiators and delays to recreate the sequenced sound and layered orchestration of the record. And thanks to the rock solid drumming of Jack Bruno, we make it work, live in real time. 

Jack, Ready to Rock!...

Here's a short video I did last month for my friends at Muse Research, who make an instrument I use called Receptor. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIWQRcLeNWg&feature=youtu.be

The way I see it, we're not about to orchestrate "Little Help" with synthesizers and computer tracks. Better if we make choices with the new songs, making them work without the machines. This gives a consistency of sound to the whole set keeping Joe the focus, not letting the production overtake him in any way. In order for this to be successful, two things have to be in place— the songs themselves are good songs, and the musicians can play. As for Joe, you can always count on him. 

Evening in Prague, Czech Republic...

This tower is in Kazan, Russia. Coming up to it on an afternoon walk, Jack and I pondered, what is it?  

It's too small for a church...

(A church in Salzburg) 

Maybe it was a lighthouse for ships on the river?...

Later we heard the story from Joe, who went on a guided tour with one of the local promoters. The story goes, the Russian ruler, Ivan the Terrible wanted to marry a woman here. She told him okay, but first he must build her this tower in seven days. He had it done, completed in seven days. When he showed her his accomplishment, expecting to finally take her hand in marriage, she promptly ran up the spiral staircase to the top... And, threw her self off the tower to her death!  (Who's got the movie rights to this? Amazing no one has jumped at the chance! :-)

City workers in Kazan...

With Joe Cocker and his music, there's a depth and history to the book itself, the book meaning the tunes in Joe's repertoire. As Kenny Aronoff pointed out to me once, Joe's book is not just one writer, but a collection of great ones! Lennon and McCartney, Randy Newmann, Arthur Hamilton... Joe's music carries an imprint of the history of Rock&Roll itself.

The set list from this first leg of the production tour had seven songs from "Fire It Up", the most of any of the last five albums since I've been working with Joe in the past twelve years. The upcoming live DVD we recorded in Cologne will have eight songs from "Fire It Up".

Backline tech for keyboards, Ben Sherazi. Thanks, man, for a job well done. And, try not to have security escort you out when I'm not looking!...

Hope you are enjoying these reports from the Wild Blue Yonder. I do enjoy hearing back from you. Please reply without the original attachments, if possible. Thanks. As some of you have asked, please share these with any and all you think would be interested. And, have them contact me if they would like to be included on the mailing list.

Last week at the beginning of the break, I was invited to teach a workshop for keyboard players at the Popakademie in Mannheim. Hope they got as much out of the experience as I did! A great group of folks!

I know we are inundated with information these days. If you'd rather not receive these emails, please reply to that effect and you'll be taken off the list pronto. 

Wishing you strength, clarity and inspiration!

Keep rockin'...

Nick

Nick Milo

Music Director, Mad Dog Touring
www.Cocker.com
www.Milomon.com

(All photos from my iPhone except where indicated)

Fire It Up Tour 2

Greetings from Zurich today, after an amazing string of cities since the last update, including Amsterdam, London, Paris, Prague, Salzburg and Vienna.

Life on the Road can have an overall calming effect. It may take a few days or even weeks, once a routine of no-routine is established and the old home-bound ones fall away.  Hotel beds that change almost nightly, or in the case of the crew, sometimes no bed at all.  Each place has a best place for coffee, a regional wine, a meal of unique pride. In Germany it can be a sausage or a beer, in Austria it's the schnitzel.  Regions in France are as defined by their cuisines as are differing countries. The no-routine of being available to these nuances can be a calm center to appreciation, the finite x and y of relishing the infinite.  

Norbert's shots from the Hamburg show...

Norbert #2...

It's always great when the days off decide to cooperate. This is London!

Soundcheck, Hammersmith Apollo, London. Joe's microphone.

James from Lighting and Charlie from Catering keeping things running smoothly...

Mel from Production, Our Guardian Angel...

Jason, guitar and backline tech in his office...

Stuart from Lighting waiting for it to break again...

The routines that emerge— living out of a suitcase, a bunk on the bus, a wardrobe case at the gig— are the daily rituals around personal items and activities.  Simple pleasures in returning to a book or a blog, brushing teeth or brushing up on Bach after soundcheck become little sanctuaries of private time, as the schedule is now coordinated and running like a clock. Each of us, band and crew has a job to do and no one is an island in the whole of things. And the whole if it is Live and Real Time, epitomized in the darkening of the house lights and the opening music rising out of the cheers of the waiting audience. No one gets to do it over. Each moment is here and past in a downbeat. It is the way Life always is, but perhaps a little more in evidence on the Road, at least for those of us who find the calm in the storm. 

Stuart's sanctuary, once the tour work is done for the day...

Stuart painting #2...

View from my hotel room. Checked in at 3am. Checked out at 3pm...

Thanks to all who responded on the last update. Give me your news as you see fit. Please reply without the original attachments, if possible. Thanks.

I know we are inundated with information these days. If you'd rather not receive these emails, please reply to that effect and you'll be taken off the list pronto. 

Wishing you strength of body, clarity of mind and an open heart.

Keep rockin'...

Nick

Nick Milo

Music Director, Mad Dog Touring
www.Cocker.com
www.Milomon.com

(Photos by Norbert Fimpel and myself)