R. Hyde Guitars Promo

UPDATE: Hyde has launched a Kickstarter campaign! 

My good friend Ryan Hyde builds exquisite bass guitars, and I'm honored to have my music be a part of his vision. Here's a recent promo video for R.Hyde Guitars, featuring music from Megalodon's first release, Edible.

Edible [CD]

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Artisan Luthier Ryan Hyde is building some of the most forward thinking, futuristic bass guitars yet. And He's doing it all by hand.

"I've created a distinct new line of bespoke bass guitars that epitomize the fusion of modern and classic design.

These Instruments satisfy the stringent needs of modern musicians, and address design issues such as weight, balance, tonality, and reliability;  Yet each model occupies a unique /original niche in the cloistered world of custom basses. 

Bassists are always working to expand the vocabulary of music and I'm trying to expand the vocabulary of the instruments they play."

Galludo! Dogfish are in the news, for once.

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It's as simple as using a dogfish as a baitfish, but makes for one hell of a photo. According to NBC News, Marine Biologists at the University of Delaware's Ocean Exploration, Remote Sensing, and Biogeography (ORB) Lab set out to get themselves a healthy sand tiger shark, and were met with a food-chain of events:

"This unlucky smooth dogfish couldn't resist the menhaden used as bait and, unfortunately, fell victim to one of the top predators in the [Delaware] bay," ORB researchers wrote on their Facebook page. "The dogfish was about 3 feet (1 meter) long and completely swallowed by the sand tiger shark."

The dogfish - one of the smallest known sharks, and also a great little sax and drum duo - was devoured by the sand tiger verily. 

We feel for you, my small icthyofriend. Listen here to our elegy for the Dogfish, and be sure to check out the whole article over at NBC News.

A rare live performance of the Dogfish Duo at State College's Best Music Festival. Greg Johnson, saxophone; Charlie Heim, drums

Shark Attack [Live]

Megalodon - Summer Sessions

Summer Sessions

The water's safe... 

An unreleased set of untreated studio cuts, replete with unfettered ferocity.  

A prehistoric beast of a band, featuring Greg Johnson on saxophone and EWI, Scott Kruser on guitars, Erek Kapusta on keyboards, Mike Dougherty on bass, and myself hitting things. 

Formed in 2007, played some shows around Pennsylvania. 

Released debut album, Edible , in 2009. 

Went back into the studio in 2011, and tracked some new material. They're unfinished tracks - this is the band raw and unaffected. Featuring compositions from Greg Johnson, Scott Kruser, and Erek Kapusta.  

Recorded with Dave Villani  

Megalodon - Edible

Edible

Click to hear the entire album for free

The debut album from a Jazz/Fusion/Funk/Classical beast of a band.

Megalodon has been in gestation for years now, mostly through various groups I've been in with my good pal Greg Johnson. In the summer of 2009, the five members first convened: Greg Johnson, Saxophone; Scott Kruser, Guitar; Erek Kapusta, Keyboards; Michael Dougherty, Bass; Yours Truly, Drums. Armed with some fresh charts by Greg and Scott, we played our first show EVER at the Central PA Festival of the Arts in State College - on a sunny Friday afternoon at the Festival Shell. We performed around SC a few more times in the ensuing days, and then went our separate ways for a full year.

Our devotion to the prehistoric beast pulled us back together in the summer of 2010, but this time with an agenda: record an album, and get this thing going. In June, we did just that - spent a week rehearsing our faces off, and two days with Dave Villani in Altoona recording. The result is Edible, a record of epic proportions that we're quite proud of. We released it in October of 2010, and are currently hocking it at all of the finest retailers:

Edible

By Megalodon

Buy on Amazon

Charlie and JazzPA: keeping the music alive

Megalodon performed at JazzPA's 2009 Summer Jazz Celebration, and the Daily Collegian spoke with me about our group, and the proliferation of one of America's most original art forms. The annual festival hopes to keep jazz accessible, and to attract younger listeners to this great American music. 

“Charlie Heim (graduate-music education), a performer and co-founder of the band Megalodon, said free concerts like the Summer Jazz Celebration are great things for locals to support and people are always going to want to listen to live music no matter what the economic situation is. Heim and his friend Greg Johnson started the band.

”It’s outdoors. It’s all free, and it’s a family affair,” he said about the festival. “It’s not in a smokey jazz bar with an elite audience.”

...Heim said studying and working with jazz music for a long time has made the genre his “main drive in music” for a while. He added that even as a college-age musician, the energy jazz provides, along with the technical and musical challenge, is what appeals to him the most.

The band Heim will perform with on Saturday attempts to link jazz, rock and pop, even though Megalodon is not necessarily a “fusion” band. Megalodon just recently played at the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts, and Heim said he hopes that the performance at the JazzPA festival will also make his music available to a diverse audience.

”It’s not high brow jazz,” he said. “We’re getting down and dirty with the stuff we’re playing.””

Click the link below to read the full article

"Sax Virtuoso" plays his last gig in State College →

We performed a great set of music as Outgroove, one of the iterations of Central PA jazz groups that myself and Greg Johnson were involved with. The Daily Collegian covered this performance with some great reporting, and it so happens that I recorded the set.

They caught me talking about our music, jazz, and keeping it (funky) fresh:

The band's music is based around improvisation, Heim said. He added the band members try to take the music they listen to and incorporate that into the jazz they play.

"We want to make good music, but also challenge ourselves and stay sounding fresh," Heim said.

As far as influences for the band go, each member has his own which include everything from hip-hop and rock to classical and funk, Heim said.

"Jazz, as a 'living music,' is looking at what came before us as an influence and working off of that, but adding our own spin to it," he added.

Read the article, or listen here!

Last Night In Pennsylvania [Live]

Click to listen to the full concert online