The Buddhist Lent starts on the first day of the waning moon of the eighth lunar month. The tradition of Buddhist Lent or the annual three-month Rains Retreat known in Thai as “Phansa” dates back to the time of early Buddhism in ancient India when all holy men, mendicants and sages spent three months of the annual rainy season in permanent dwellings. They avoided unnecessary travel during the period when crops were still new for fear they might accidentally step on young plants. In deference to popular opinion, Lord Buddha decreed that his followers should also abide by this ancient tradition. Today in Thailand it also means no booze on those auspicious days which this year fall on the 7th and 8th July which of course are also public holidays.

There ain’t many blues band in the Big Mango and just a couple of venues where you can catch what there is. Blue on Blues – a smokin’ blues outfit sadly missed by the former Tokyo Joe’s crowd can still be found plugging away in their own perfect style, and the good news is they play Saxophone Pub down Victory Monument (BTS) way every Sunday at 9 pm and should not be missed. For hands-on blues buffs, don’t forget the beautifully-equipped blues jam over at Overtone on RCA every Sunday night, hosted by blues drum legend ‘Soi Dog’ Thot. Great club, good food and a nice blues vibe as the kids get it on. That covers both venues by the way!

Fuck this!

That’s what John Muir said after being blinded in an industrial accident. A file pierced his eye and he thought his vision was history. But after a month in a darkened room, his vision returned and he walked from Indiana to Florida.

I know, I know, that was a hundred years ago. More, actually. But that’s not the point. The question is, are you working with your head or heart? At some point you’ve got to stop being who your parents want you to be and start being who you are.

I hadn’t been to Yosemite since 1973. Not much has changed. That’s how it is with the physical world. It outlasts us. We’re just a blip in time. We think we’re forever, but despite all the hosannas, even Michael Jackson’s music will soon be forgotten. It’s not human nature, it’s Mother Nature!

Yosemite is an amusement park of the mind. Rather than going on rides, being turned upside down by mechanical contraptions, you look at the landscape and your mind does somersaults. How did this happen? It’s hard to imagine a glacier that creates Half Dome, and how can El Capitan be almost perfectly vertical?

At the visitor center near Yosemite Falls there’s a bit of cell service. But you get no e-mail on your BlackBerry, you’re disconnected from everything deemed important. You’re placed in natural perspective. We’re here for such a very short time. What do we want to do, what do we want to accomplish?

Money won’t help you if you’re hiking in Tuolomne Meadows and it starts to rain. Rich people get no better view from Glacier Point than poor. In Yosemite, we’re all in it together.

On a nature walk behind the Ahwahnee Hotel, the ranger told us the John Muir story. It’s stuck with me. It’s shown me that those Americans not on the cover of “Us”, not featured in the “Forbes” 500 are not losers, but in many cases winners. Money is not the only priority. You need it to live, but how much?

Would you rap if there was no Biggie, no Jay-Z?

Would you play the guitar if there was no Eddie Van Halen?

Would you be in the music business if David Geffen hadn’t made all that money?

If not, give up. Please. You’re hurting yourself. And you’ll leave no lasting mark.

But if you need to play, don’t lament that you’re not a millionaire. The music should be enough. If you’ve got a roof over your head, if you can pay the bills, you’re on the map. Affecting a coterie deeply is more important than being a momentary comet, burning brightly and then flaming out.

So don’t do what you should do, do what you want to do. Even if your chosen field is not perceived to be a road to riches. Who knew all those chefs would become stars on the Food Network? Who knew you could make a career in extreme sports? Who knew gaming would outstrip both music and movies in revenue?

I’m not saying to forgo an education. Fundamentals are important. Only by establishing a foundation do you have a place to build.

It’s time to establish your own independence. To make your own decisions. So when you’re on your deathbed, surrounded by loved ones who will soon reach their demise also, you’ve got no regrets.

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Roddy Lorimer, trumpet player with perhaps Europe’s finest horn section, is putting together a band for a new club on Walking Street, Pattaya. He is looking in Thailand, Phillippines and the UK for drummers, bassists, guitars, keyboards, lead female vocals and lead male vocals and two more horn players. Rod has played trumpet with the Kick Horns for 25 years – four years with Eric Clapton’s band, touring with the Who and the Waterboys and recording with so many artists – check the website at www.kickhorns.com – including Rolling Stones, Dr John, Jamiriquai, Spice Girls, Blur, Kylie, Beyonce and on and on. Rod says the new band will be well paid for Thailand playing covers six nights a week, “but not the same old churned out stuff you hear in every other bar.”

Only good, very serious musicians and singers need contact him at roddy@kickhorns.com.

Whether blowing the blues with Eric Clapton, adding lustre to the latest pop hit, or helping a young band on a budget give life to the sound in their heads, the Kick Horns bring a unique passion and commitment to every project they take on.

In the early days they worked with Walter Becker on the China Crisis album Flaunt the Imperfection, with Bob Ezrin on David Gilmour’s About Face, and went on to supply the driving riffs on Pete Townshend’s Face the Face, later appearing in Townshend’s White City film and the legendary Deep End live shows at Brixton Academy. Telephones started ringing, and they soon built up a reputation with producers as the hippest horns in town.

The next few years brought tours of America and Europe with The Who, The Waterboys and Deacon Blue as well as sessions for The Rolling Stones, Primal Scream, Spiritualized and the influential Stereo MCs album Connected.

In 1993, they joined Eric Clapton’s band for his blues-only concerts at London’s Royal Albert Hall, the start of an exhilarating ride that took in From the Cradle and three and a half years of touring and recording in the company of heroes like Steve Gadd, Richie Hayward, Jim Keltner, Duck Dunn, Nathan East, Chris Stainton and Andy Fairweather Low.

In the same period Kick Horns made a huge contribution to the sound of Britpop, recording Modern Life is Rubbish, Parklife and The Great Escape with Blur, as well as playing on hits by Supergrass, Suede and Dodgy. Not to be typecast, they also worked with Finley Quaye, Gabrielle and Baaba Maal. There were two number ones with the Spice Girls, while German star Westernhagen called them in for three albums and tours.

By the turn of the century, the Kick Horns had achieved a wide-ranging body of work including the funk of Jamiroquai, the Algerian Rai of Khaled and Faudel, the New Orleans grooves of Dr John (Anutha Zone) and the cool club beats of Groove Armada.

In 2005 Eric Clapton called them in again to play and arrange on eight songs on Back Home, followed by tours of Britain and Europe in 2006.

Recently, they have been a part of Baaba Maal and Damon Albarn’s Africa Express collective for shows in London, Glastonbury and Liverpool, while studio highlights have included Rufus Wainwright’s Want One, Hard-Fi’s Once Upon a Time in the West, Beyonce’s Greenlight and new albums for Michael McDonald, Ben Taylor and David Ford.

More than two decades of dedicated teamwork have created a European horn section of world class.

Click MM to interview

By Cliff Goldmacher

Cliff Goldmacher is a songwriter, producer, engineer and the owner of recording studios in Nashville and New York City. When he’s not writing songs, Cliff is also a regular contributor to EQ Magazine and Pro Sound News as well as a number of online blogs. He can be reached at cliff@cliffgoldmacher.com

When I’m hired by a band to produce their album, it’s often up to me to decide the best approach to take in the studio. The principal choices are live (all the band members at the same time giving a “live” performance in the studio) versus overdubs (creating a band sound by tracking members of the band separately and then putting all the instrument parts together in the final mix). By reading a little about the advantages and disadvantages of both approaches, hopefully you will be better able to decide which one will be best for your band.

Advantages of Tracking “Live”

If (and this is an important “if”) the band coming into the studio is well rehearsed and experienced, a “live” studio recording can be a great approach. I put “live” in quotes because the recording studio (whether everyone plays at once or overdubs one or two at a time) is seldom a truly live experience. Part of the reason that studio recordings sound as polished and detailed as they do has to do with the fact that the studio is a very controlled sonic environment. There are isolation booths so that individual parts can be fixed without having everyone redo their parts and even if everyone is in one primary room to record, it’s not often set up like the stage of a local club or venue with an audience, applause and general room noise. All this to say that what “live” really means is that the members of the band are given the opportunity to listen and respond to each other while they’re all playing together in the studio. If, as I said earlier, the band is well rehearsed then this arrangement can produce excellent results.

Disadvantages of Tracking “Live”

The studio is, by its very nature, an intense and often stressful environment. By tracking a band all together and hoping for a perfect (or almost perfect) take, you’ve added a lot of variables that wouldn’t ordinarily be present in an overdub scenario. For example, if the drummer is having an off day, it could color everyone’s performance. This is why I brought up the well-rehearsed and experienced qualifier in the earlier paragraph. The more rehearsed the band members are, the less likely one member won’t be able to hold his or her own when the light goes red. There are, of course, ways to minimize the risks in a live tracking scenario including isolating each instrument in its own room or booth so that individual fixes can be made after the keeper take is selected. Also, by using a click track while recording, the engineer and/or producer can create a composite (or “comp”) performance by splicing together the best parts of several performances.

Advantages of Overdubs

Using the overdub approach, the band has the option of tracking different instruments separately. This allows the band, for example, to get the drums and bass parts exactly right before overdubbing electric guitars or keyboards. It also allows the producer and/or band members to focus on one thing at a time and get it the way they want it before moving on. The way I generally approach sessions like this is to track the drums and bass with a scratch version of one additional instrument and a rough vocal so everyone knows where they are in the song. It’s also useful to have a click track running in these sessions as it provides a common rhythmic link that everyone in the band can use to keep him or herself in time. Then, when the drums and bass are solid and provide a good foundation, we add acoustic and electric guitars, keyboards and finally vocals and harmony vocals. This lower pressure and increased focus on individual parts can lead to tighter arrangements and performances.

Our telephone rang this morning at 5 am local time. Michael Jackson has died in California of cardiac arrest. Rehearsing for a series of concerts in London soon, he would have been 51 on August 29.