Wow! This was, indeed, a killer day… And I’m going to tell ya why right now… After a relatively sleepless night in a little room that reminded me of a scene out of “Being John Malkovich” down in San Luis Obispo, CA, I made my way north to the wine country of Paso Robles, CA to play a mini showcase set at Sculpterra Winery as part of local promoter/songwriter Steve Key’s “Songwriters at Play“Â performance series. It was a hot one by San Francisco standards (anything over 60 degrees feels hot these days!), so I found some relief inside the Sculpterra Winery barrel room where the stage and PA were set up for the show. Very cool on several accounts.

The outdoor garden around the back of Sculpterra Winery. Ahh...
Steve booked a number of great acts throughout the day including Martin Paris, who happened to be the featured performer for the day. Martin plays beautifully and writes some really interesting songs while putting together super unique arrangements of old standards for the guitar (I personally got a serious kick out of his rendition of “Little Wing” being a huge Hendrix fan). Martin plays in a number of alternate tunings and since I’m heading in that direction these days, myself, I took a special interest in some of his phrasing and voicing for his melodies and chord movement.

Martin Paris performing at Sculpterra Winery in the barrel room.
Bringing up the rear was lil’ ol’ me at 3:45pm. I opened up with one of my favorite new tunes “It’s Alright” and, right before the bridge, broke my D string. Ack! I figured I could pull off the rest of the song without it, so I quickly removed the end pin, pulled out the broken string, and kept playing in more or less one fluid movement. I was then was faced with trying to come up with alternate fingerings on the fly. Not as easy as I thought, but I made it through to my surprise. Fortunately, I had another guitar up there on stage with me (my new GC8 from Taylor Guitars). I continued on with my set and when I was finished, the audience asked that I keep on playing. (That feeling never gets old!) With host Steve Key’s approval, I kept going for three more tunes and had a great time. Afterwards, I hung out with the good folks working the tasting room at Sculpterra Winery and enjoyed chatting with several members of the audience. Honestly, I really do love playing along the central coast. The people are GREAT down here! They really are…
At about this time, I ran into bassist and inventor Peter Sanford who I met last Friday at Vinoteca Wine Bar in Paso Robles, CA with Jody Mulgrew. He came out to see my performance and check out some wine. Turns out, Peter owns a plane that he keeps in the local Paso Robles airport and he was headed up for a flight that afternoon. He asked if I’d like to join him (after reassuring me that he hadn’t had more than a “taste” of wine) and, of course, I said “Heck, yeah!” So, after downing my glass of “Reserve” from Sculpterra Winery and bidding them farewell, I loaded up my truck, got on Peter’s six, and raced out of the winery to the Paso Robles airport to doing some flying.

Bassist, inventor and pilot Peter Sanford prepping his aircraft for flight.
Peter ran through the entire pre-flight procedure with me and taught me all about scoping out the plane for cracks, structural weakness, etc. outside, running the systems check, etc. It’s a lot to cover! Finally, we climbed in, yelled “Clear!” and cranked ‘er up. I put on those cool noise canceling headphones with a mouth piece so we could communicate with air traffic control and ourselves during the flight and then buckled up for take off.

A lot of instruments to read! Wow...
Taking off was really cool. This little plane accelerated really quickly and it seemed like we’d only traveled 100 yards before we lifted off traveling at about 160mph. Once we leveled off at about 4,500′, Peter flew us on a westerly heading over the coastal hills towards the Pacific. We turned south when we hit coast and flew towards some familiar spots that I recognized from surfing with my buddy Adam over the last year. It looked pretty different from way up in the air! At that point, Peter confirmed our plan with control, checked the immediate area for any traffic, then asked me if I was ok with doing some real flying. I tentatively agreed, whereupon, he demonstrated everything that the plane could do. He dropped the wings so we tipped at nearly 90 degrees to either side, then he played with the trim, the yaw, and then the fun part… he pulled up super hard, then dove the plane at a really steep angle. It felt as though we just came over a massive arc on a roller coaster and were heading down for the ride of our lives. So cool! After all this, Peter asked if I’d like to give it a try… What?! Me?! Of course! So, he relinquished the controls, told me to grab the yoke, and recited a few quick things to look out for while saying “There’s really nothing you can do that will endanger us…” Hm… rrrrright. So, I played around, dropped the nose, climbed, made some hard turns, got some g’s going, flew through some turbulence, crossed mountains, water, took a heading to a town and flew there, and basically had the time of my life!

One hand on the yoke, one hand on the iPhone. Yep, this is me flying!
After a while, it was time to head back down and grab some grub, so Peter took the controls and brought us back to Paso Robles, CA and got us on the ground safely. As easy as it was to fly this thing up high, it seemed awfully hard to take off and land. I got the sense that one needs a lot of training and practice to get it right. And, like almost anything else, it’s not just about getting it done… it’s about doing it with style, and this dude maneuvered his aircraft pretty darned smoothly.

Peter taking us out over the hills to the Pacific while checking in with air traffic control.
So, when we landed, we did a quick post flight check, got the plane back in the hangar, and headed into town to grab some Thai food.
What an awesome day… You know, I’ve been heading out on the road off and on for a while now, and you just never know who you’re going to run into or what’s going to happen along the way. I’ve met some pretty cool people and done some neat things along the way, but his day was one of those rare, amazing experiences that I will definitely remember with a smile for a long, long time. Thanks, Peter!
Monday, I took the day off and bumped into an old friend for some catch up time and some food. Not bad, not bad at all… Tonight (Tuesday, July 26th), I’ll be playing a featured set at Kreuzberg from 8:00pm until 8:45pm. There’s music starting at 6:30pm and it will run all the way through about 9:30pm with a bunch of great performers, both from near and far, so come out early, grab a seat, order up some food and drink, and let’s rock out! Find details on the show here and meet us there!