Top 10 events in my life I didn't expect in 2008

Phone the neighbors and wake the kids. Or is it, Wake the neighbors and phone the kids?

Well, either way, get ready, because here are the top 10 events in my life that I didn't expect in 2008.

Hang on to your wigs and keys. Here we go.

10. Getting a Hollywood vet as a boss.

An upheaval last year at the leadership of the Foundation for Biomedical Research resulted in the hiring of a new vice president. Fresh off of a year working for the U.S. government in the literal war zone of Iraq, Paul McKellips was one of those larger-than-life figures who's compelling from the moment you meet him. Like him or hate him, this cigar-chomping font of creativity who for years labored in Tinseltown sure commanded one's attention. Ignoring Paul McKellips is impossible. In my case, I approached him with caution, but the moment he said he worked as an uncredited crew member for the hit TV show "Moonlighting," a favorite of mine when I first idolized Bruce Willis and had a crush on Cybill Shepherd, my suspicion of him immediately subsided and I resolved to myself, "You know what? I'm gonna like this guy."

He had impact on me, but so did the four guys I saw in New York City early this year in something I could not have foreseen last year ...

9. Seeing Clapton, Winwood, Shaffer and Letterman all in one day.

There may never be a 24-hour period with more influential celebrities, and if there is, I don't know how I could handle it. One day in February, my brother and a nephew and I hopped into a car to take a train in New Jersey up north to Manhattan for an evening of entertainment. I'd nabbed us a trio of tickets to Madison Square Garden for the first of three performances by Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood, reunited onstage for the first time since they were Blind Faith bandmates in 1969. To make the excursion even more wild, I somehow also acquired tickets to the same day's taping of "Late Show with David Letterman." Both Paul Shaffer's CBS Orchestra and the Clapton-Winwood band played "Them Changes" by Buddy Miles, who died the very next day. Also appearing in the Clapton-Winwood band was Chris Stainton, whose piano playing for Joe Cocker's Grease Band was nearly as influential to me as a young keyboardist as both Shaffer and Winwood turned out to be. Clapton was an early influence on my singing. And Letterman? Well, I'm writing a Top 10 list, aren't I?

Which brings us to ...

8. Stepping into the unemployment line.

The boss and I were lock in step when we simultaneously realized how uninspired I was in my senior writing position for the Foundation for Biomedical Research. I had just come off a weekend of leisure in which I wrote morethan 2,500 words all about music when I realized that it is my passion and it would be great to pursue a career in that passion. My boss told me the same thing. He let me go but did so compassionately, offering to help me reestablish myself under his guise. He told me about how he drove to L.A. without a job and conned his way into writing for a TV series. Inspired that dreams do come true, I spent the rest of my summer trying to figure out exactly what my dream was.

So then, there was ...

7. Checking out Nashville.

I did a lot of exploring this great land of ours this year, and most of it was in the Central time zone. I endured some awful Greyhound bus rides to spend some time in Music City. Using some contacts I had there, I always had a place to stay and friends to show me around. Plus, I didn't mind jaunts by myself. I even became a regular at one of the honkytonks on the main drag. PBR was affordable and surprisingly tasty to this beer snob. I checked out the Nashville music scene and dispelled any notion that it was all about country. Hank Williams and Johnny Cash are important but more out of a debt owed to tourists expecting them. Otherwise, it's just all about making good music, and doing it well, rather than strict adherence to any particular genre. When I interacted with most of the musicians I saw, to find out to what extent I would fit in if I moved there, I discovered three concrete skills or traits I would have to develop to blend and be competitive. That would take time. So while I didn't entirely rule out making a living as a career musician, I decided against moving to Nashville, at least for the time being.

One of these trips helped me accomplish another unexpeccted feat of 2008 ...

6. Seeing Robert Plant and Alison Krauss five times.

Five times all in the span of April through July, I saw Led Zeppelin's lead singer teaming up with the bluegrass sweetheart aided by a band of some of Nashville's best. And that band gelled as time went on, much to my pleasure, witnessing a better concert each time. Plant, who may have been a tad intimidated at first, was really coming out of his shell on that tour. I'm sure he was soaking it all up and making the most of his time. It was great to see this firsthand and report my conclusions to the folks reading me at www.LedZeppelinNews.com. Even if it wasn't the best news for anyone wanting to see Plant fronting the world's best rock band, it was great for those of us who loyally followed him. In doing so, I made my first voyages into Knoxville, Chattanooga and Atlantic City. My second time at Merriweather Post-Pavilion was Plant's second time performing there; the first was in '69, the only time Zep shared the bill with the Who).

My summer of exploring also turned up one other unexpected discovery ...

5. Falling in love with a woman who has four kids.

Now there's a big surprise. I've always been open to falling in love but never quite open to kids. My biggest fear of raising kids, though? Changing diapers. These kids are all out of diapers! They're too old for them! The youngest is 8, and the oldest is twice that. Sounds great! Not only this, but I got some new grandparents out of the deal -- great news since last year my own supply of parents' parents depleted for good. And the girlfriend? Her name, Layla, helped attract me to her, but it was everything else about her that drew me in and made us inseparable. We just spent a few days in the Florida Keys this month. I hadn't been that happy since Election Night!

Layla and I met at a conference in August that also provided another unexpected highlight ...

4. Performing "Abbey Road" and "The Dark Side of the Moon" in their entirety with an amateur group that sure seemed professional.

A little bit of coaching via e-mail and long-distance telephone, plus one long onsite rehearsal, was my method of getting this ragtag group of garage-band building scientists, who meet annually at a conference anyway, to practice up a prescribed list of tunes they like. We worked out and ran through a bunch of crowd favorites from the Stones, Bob Marley and, of course, Derek & the Dominos (added at the last minute to help me impress Layla). They were also game for pulling out two complete albums, and neither is all that easy: "Abbey Road," the Beatles' best studio set, and "The Dark Side of the Moon," Pink Floyd's most popular. Our performances of these took place in front of 100 or so lingering partygoers. Each was a highlight of my summer. That sure set the stage for what transpired in December ...

3. Performing "Houses of the Holy" in its entirety with a professional group.

Led Zeppelin is my favorite group of all time, and that's no secret. Whenever asked what my favorite album of theirs is, I often reply with "Houses of the Holy" (that is, if the "Complete Studio Recordings" box set doesn't count). The variety and expertise on that album are second to none. So when I was asked to join up with Classic Albums Live for a six-show performance of the entire album and a slew of other Zeppelin songs, I jumped at the opportunity. There was no reason to be nervous; I was made to feel right at home within the band because I was a good player and exuding the requisite amounts of professionalism, aptitude, confidence and likability. Those shows were amazing. Best of all, I've been asked back.

2. Moving to Florida.

My six years in the D.C. area were great, but there are cheaper places to afford rent. I had already decided to move when I met my girlfriend over the summer. Since I had just ruled out my first choice of Nashville, I was back to square one. She was living in Boca Raton, FL, so I decided to visit a few times to check it out. Good excuse to spend some relaxing time in a state I'd been in three times previously but only for business trips. When my second investigation concluded that indeed I liked the Sunshine State -- surprise, surprise -- my next move was to cut the distance between Layla from 1,000 miles to four. And so, I headed down I-95 by myself on Halloween night with a U-Haul full of everything I could fit into it. The plan was simple: Florida would work so long as I could afford to live there. Rent was cheaper in Boca than in D.C., so what's the problem?

That's what I found out when rent was due ...

And the No. 1 event in my life I didn't expect in 2008:

1. Paying double the rent.

One little unresolved problem up in the nation's capital was the issue of my lease, which was valid through May 31, 2009. I couldn't just leave on Oct. 31 without paying November rent unless somebody else was taking over on Nov. 1. But that wasn't possible since the management company insists on renovating the house between tenants and doing some other maintenane work. Once all that was done, it was December, and few likely tenants emerged, with nobody sealing the deal for an expedient transfer, freeing up my end of the deal. I'm facing the proposition of paying my third consecutive month of paying for rent in two parts of the country, all while unemployed and making virtually no income. Yay! But it all works out, doesn't it?

All right. Take care, folks! Have a happy 2009! Hope it is an interesting one!

Dessie's kids, the music stars

I had the pleasure of shooting a video for the kids last weekend and then making it into something presentable on YouTube for them. Here's the fruit of that collaboration.

Dessie's kids

In my last post, I remarked that Dessie's friends are now my friends too as a result of hanging out once at a party. If only kids were that simple!

Dessie's kids are great. And they're my friends too. But you can't substitute the word "kids" for "friends" in a sentence about making her friends mine. It doesn't work that way.

Her kids are still very much attached to their father, who sees them almost every day and likes to keep tabs on what they're doing in between their sleepovers at his place and their impromptu phone calls to him just to say hi and then go silent. So yeah, he's still involved.

In their lives, that is. Well, by extenstion, in Dessie's life too. I don't mind that. In fact, I just suggested to her that they should all go to my gig this Thursday night. Her, him, and their three kids. OK, so part of that reason was so I could use her car.

But no, I haven't met the guy yet. He knows I'm a musician, and he plays guitar. Heck, he's been sharing that with his son, whose playing is a level above that of the average 11-year-old. So I figure, what better venue to present myself to him than when I'm doing my best work? And, in case I make a bad impression on the guy (or if I already have by dating his wife), there will be 100 or more witnesses to save me.

Point is, I'm glad to be involved in these kids' lives. And they're his, not mine.

But I had the opportunity to play Mr. Mom to them last night when I was over and Dessie was overly tired after dinner. I suggested she go to bed and I would take care of the kids and get them to bed when it was time. She was so sleepy that she had little reason to turn down the offer. I'm so glad I could lend a hand to her. What would she have done otherwise? No need to think about it.

So I got them to put on their PJs and brush their teeth. They helped me clean up the living room, which was something their mom wanted done. Then I got them to turn in. Two slept in their mom's bed with her, and one cuddled with me on the couch until we were both asleep. Overnight, I helped move two sleeping girls into their beds.

I'm not a parent, but I'm an involved adult. I realize that makes me nothing more than a babysitter. But I love these kids, and that's what makes the difference.

Awesome-weather friends (hey, it's Florida!)

This past week has been great for me. And I'm not just talking about the three killer shows I've just played with Classic Albums Live. (My accounts of the second and third shows are on my other blog, LedZeppelinNews.com.) It's also been cool just getting established in other ways here in Florida and with my girlfriend.

Dessie has this group of friends, basically some girls who all went to high school together. She didn't go to the same school and didn't even live around here when she was in high school, but she's been absorbed into their little group nonetheless. So they have these parties, and people show up and have a good time, and whatever.

Dessie asked me to come to their Christmas party after I was done with my Saturday night gig. And that show, by the way, happened to be the best concert I've played in my life. So I'm coming from that, I'm heading out on 595 to get from Hollywood to Coral Springs, and the mood is right. I just can't wait to see Dessie and tell her about the gig. At that point, I don't even care about meeting her friends.

So I get to the party, and what do they have on the stereo system inside? Led Zeppelin's Houses of the Holy. Well, good choice in music. But it's precisely the album I had just played onstage three nights in a row and was practicing for a month before that. I thought, Who's the wiseguy who put this on to annoy me as I arrived? But no, it was just by sheer coincidence that that's what one of the hosts picked! Like I say, good taste in music. And I got to turn up "The Ocean" at 1:38 and point out the phone ringing in the background. I had to play that part twice for the two guys listening with me because neither heard it the first time!

Anyway, I gladly accepted the co-host's invitation to take over the music selections for the rest of the festivity. So, we shifted forward two decades and listened to Cake's Fashion Nugget, Lenny Kravitz's 5, Beck's Odelay and Mogwai's Ten Rapid. These are classic albums of the future.

It was great interacting with all the folks at the party. Dessie's friends are now my friends. And it's a pleasure being able to say that. It's something I lacked in previous relationships. I always had those friends who looked at me funny as if they were suspicious of me. Not so with these folks. I think they can tell how genuinely happy Dessie has been the whole time we've been together, a marked improvement over the neutral status quo of the past few years. I'm glad I can make her happy, and I'm glad these friends like me. So I'm looking forward to more parties like that, and just hanging out in general.

Cranium is a great game, but cheaters never prevail. This means you, Heather!

While I'm on the topic of my new friends, I did have a few friends for a while that I knew only from the Internet that I have now met in person since I've been down here. And then I ran into one by accident the day after meeting him! Had I not met him in person the day before, that chance meeting would have happened but would not have been known to either of us. And one friend and I are talking about launching a band. We'll see!

More later... I want to write about Dessie's kids! They're the absolute best.

Classic Albums Live, Houses of the Holy: Soundcheck rehearsal and performance one of six

Some last-minute scurrying to figure out a way to get myself to play the keyboard parts of Led Zeppelin's pivotal album Houses of the Holy, and a few other songs we included as encores, paid off. Yesterday was a wonderful day, meeting some very talented and very professional musicians and having the immediate chance to play a proper show with them to an attentive audience.

Now I just have to keep the momentum from that initial experience alive for another week and two nights for the five remaining performances on our schedule. Classic Albums Live tackles the fifth Zeppelin album in its entirety again tonight and tomorrow at 9 p.m. and then again next week with the same schedule (Thursday, Dec. 18 at 8 p.m., Friday and Saturday, Dec. 19-20 at 9 p.m.) on the stage of Paradise Live at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Hollywood, Fla.

The only band member I knew at all before yesterday was Nick Hildyard, who executed lead vocal duties for Classic Albums Live last month when I saw and reported on their handling of Led Zeppelin's 40-year-old debut album, note for note, cut for cut. And I knew him only because after he read my critical analysis of their performance, he contacted me, figuring I have a pretty good ear and must be a musician. When I told him I was indeed a keyboardist, the first thing he did was rejoice at having discovered another local keyboardist.

Then, without hesitation, Nick invited me to try my hand at Houses of the Holy, which I of course jumped at. For one thing, I'd just moved down to South Florida, and all the musicians I knew were still 1,000 miles north of me. An opportunity not only to get onstage again but to play a better gig than I'd eve had before? Sure, it was going to take some work to ready myself, but it was a challenge I would have been foolish to turn down.

Nick and I got together a couple times between early November and yesterday, and he also often checked in on my progress by e-mail while he was off flying around to distant Classic Albums Live shows in Canada and the United States. Busy guy, but accommodating and also pretty relaxed. I told him I was worried about some keyboard sounds not being totally accurate, but he said not to worry. He lent me a midi console with hundreds of instrument sounds on it.

Unfortunately for me, I never was able to practice with that console on my own because it was incompatible with my primitive keyboard equipment at home! In fact, we discarded my keyboard altogether yesterday because of its limitations. We were at a professional gig, so we were going to use only professional equipment. Nick provided me with some good stuff, and I took some time onstage at our afternoon onstage setup sorting out what sounds would be good for what songs and making copious notes to boot. Now I was starting to sound like the John Paul Jones Orchestra.

As I auditioned this plethora of sounds in my headphones, most of the rest of the group rolled in straight from the airport, where they'd just flown in from Toronto, home of a six-night stint playing nothing but AC/DC's Back in Black. They were jet-lagged and complaining of ringing in their ears and admittedly in need of showers, but it was time to get themselves musically ready first. I was told that we were on an accelerated rehearsal schedule because normally we meet each other a day in advance of our first show rather than the day of it. That wasn't possible this time, so we wouldn't be able to run through everything before showtime. I don't think anybody wanted to anyway.

These guys were getting in, and I shied away from interacting with them except just to introduce myself by name and say it was good to be making my Classic Albums Live premiere with him. I honestly expected them to be inaccessible and arrogant, but no: They were as friendly as Barney the Purple Dinosaur and as neighborly as Fred Rogers. Then, when they heard me play, they were as complimentary of me as my mom!

In Classic Albums Live, these performers don't specialize in any one particular group. They're jacks of all trades. The seasoned veterans have each played dozens of different albums by a wide variety of artists. One Houses of the Holy guitarist, Tom Mcdermott, was pretty new to the thing, but he already had albums by the Eagles and AC/DC under his belt. But they are as competent and fluent in Led Zeppelin's music as any Zep tribute band member I've ever encountered. This made it as awesome to talk with them as it was to play with them.

Of course, I don't think they were expecting to hear that this unknown 29-year-old keyboardist had interviewed John Paul Jones seven years ago, almost to the day. Our bass player, Johnny B., was tickled to find out from me that he's not the only bass player in the world who likes to stay close to the drums when performing live; Jones says the others in Zeppelin would encourage him to play at the front of the stage but he would find himself drifting back toward Bonzo's kit within a song or two.

In the case of our drummer, Rick Vatour, it's with good reason. Those two play off of each other unbelievably well. They possess the same chemistry that Jones and John Bonham did, and that Jones evidently has rediscovered with Jason Bonham for quite some time. Johnny B. and Rick Vatour form a tight rhythm section, one that really can't be described as tight but loose like Led Zeppelin's was. This is only by virtue of the fact that Classic Albums Live reproduces with precision the run-through of every song as it was laid down in the winning take in the studio. They aren't improvising; they're faithfully reciting the improvisation that was rendered on tape and played back on home stereo systems and on radio stations billions of times through the ages.

At the show last night, I sat onstage, unoccupied at two keyboards that were useless to me for seven minutes or so, while the band around me ran through an encore version of "Dazed and Confused" when it occurred to me, during Dom Polito's violin bow section with vocal responses, that the real action was happening on the bass and drums. These two guys were essentially playing a duet with each other, not taking their eyes off of each other. They had it all meticulously written out for them in their minds and memories, and the playbook was 40 years old. It was incredible to see, and I look forward to seeing that again soon.

The show wasn't without its gaffes, the majority of which can be blamed on the rookie on the keys. They were things I recognized right away and did what I could to correct them or file them away for future reference. A few notes into my "No Quarter" introduction, I recognized that I didn't have the phase filter on my Rhodes piano sound, but fixing that was just a quick switch away. I inserted one clavinet phrase too late at the ending of "Over the Hills and Far Away," but I won't make the same mistake tonight.

And I committed a song structure error during "Kashmir" that also used to trip up John Paul Jones during live performances to the point that he would have to refer to his own handwritten notes about the song structure at his keyboard to help him from getting off track. Perhaps that's good advice for me too!

I went over some of these blunders with my bandmates after the show, but they were more interested in congratulating me on doing certain things that I did that most keyboardists they've worked with don't. For one, Johnny B. said I was correct in playing low notes on the Rhodes piano sound during the verses of "Stairway to Heaven." He said most keyboardists wrongly believe that's a bass on the record, and he said he was surprised to have finally found a keyboardist who agrees with him that there's no bass in the song until the third verse after the 12-string and Rhodes enter.

Meanwhile, the only constructive criticism I received from Classic Albums Live founder Craig Martin wasn't musical at all. It was on my wardrobe! I shouldn't have exposed the Foo Fighters T-shirt I was wearing underneath my button-down, and socks and shoes should have replaced my flip flops. (Hey, the guy's Canadian, not Floridian, so I'll give him a break!) But Craig did tell me that I had "big eyes and big ears." By this, he meant I was capable of following the other musicians' lead, being ready to interpret musical cues whether by listening or keeping my head up, and blending in accordingly. Craig said, "That's what it's all about." Yes, it is.

And that's something I've been trying to convey to all my bandmates throughout my years of playing. It's the ability that made Led Zeppelin a band of such great performers, and it's what kept them together all the years they were. It's probably what Jimmy Page is experiencing with the Jones-Bonham rhythm section of the 21st century and is drawing that trio back to wanting to work together again, whether or not they're joined by Robert Plant. It's a good thing that magic was there for Tom Mcdermott and me as we worked with the polished band of Nick Hildyard, Dom Polito, Johnny B. and Rick Vatour for the first time. Since our rehearsal time was so limited, it was excellent to go out onstage at showtime and be able to present our magic act to "The Ocean" that had gathered to witness it.