New Pictures

Use the Photographs link to see pictures posted this morning.


¶ 5:03 PM 0 comments

Santa Monica Pier

Didgeridoo Dave and I had a nice breakfast at a little greek cafe accross from the Apple store on the Third Street Promenade in downtown Santa Monica today. We have a few days off until rehearsals for the Yanni tour resume in Las Vegas this coming Wednesday.

I spent a couple of hours walking the beach and taking photo's this afternoon. Go to my Photographs page and click Hershey's head (thats the hansome dog at the top) and you can view the latest.
¶ 7:07 PM 0 comments

Hammer On! CDs

Paging all recipients . . . Paging all recipients . . .. Will those of you
who are first to receive your new 'Hammer On!' CDs drop me a quick note, or
perhaps just leave a message in the guestbook as to when it arrives? We
started sending them out Monday so I think some of you should get yours
today or tomorrow.

Be sure and send along any comments you may have after giving it a listen!




¶ 11:50 AM 0 comments

David Hello

I just posted a very short video of David saying hello to everyone this morning at "breaky", as they say down under. Check it out by clicking the Photographs link, followed by Hershey's head.

Dan


p.s. we're still in rehearsal . . .
¶ 8:49 PM 0 comments

David's Here!

I've had quite a few emails from people asking about whether David is here
or not. The answer is yes, he's here and just like old times were about to
have a spot of tea here in my room.

For those of you who are not regular readers, David (Hudson) an unbelievable
didgeridoo player/dancer who's been in Yanni's band since 1996. He had a
little trouble getting into the United States last year and actually got
sent back to Australia. He had no such problems this year.





¶ 12:04 AM 0 comments

On the way to rehearsal

This is a quickie update that I'm sending as we drive to rehearsals.
Testing, testing, squeeeeeeeeeeeellllll, is this thing working?

Thanks to everyone who has responded to the "Hammer On!' email.

A few people have told me they are not seeing the new pictures after they
click Hershey's head. Do me a favor and hit your browser's refresh button
after you get to the new pictures site. That seems to solve the problem.

I'm not 100 percent happy with the way they are appearing but the amount of
time it takes me to post them now and the amount of space I'm allotted on
the .Mac site means I'll be able to post more pictures.

We're pulling into Culver City Studios now so I have to go.

Dan


¶ 6:43 PM 0 comments

Sunny Santa Monica

I regretfully watched Chattanooga get smaller and smaller out the jet window Monday as I began the the journey to Los Angeles. We're staying in a nice hotel in Santa Monica this time which is within reasonable walking distance from the Santa Monica pier and the Promenade shopping district.

I spent the entire jet ride as well as the rest of the day Monday cleaning up my email list so I could send out the 'Hammer On!' announcement. Most of you should have gotten it by now. I had to send it from my Sprint account since I'm on the road. Apparently Sprint wasn't able to handle the volume of mail, and after an hour on the phone with tech support this morning I still can't receive mail at my danlandrum@sprintpcs.com address. If you tried to respond to the email I sent you, please resend your email to my dan@danlandrum.com address.

For those of you who only lurk on this web site and have never gotten on my mailing list I'd like to invite you to go to my music page and listen to a few samples from the new 'Hammer On!' CD. I love it and hope you will too.

I think I've just about finished with the whirlwind of tasks surrounding this CD which has taken up way to much of my time lately. I owe so much to my wife Angie for her patience while I spent most of my 4 days at home finishing this project. She's also the one who takes care of promptly sending your CDs when you order them from this web site. I hope she's going to be really busy for the next few days.

If you're planning to attend the buffet get together in Las Vegas please bring any of my CDs you've purchased so I can sign them for you!

While I was home I was able to slip in a couple of hikes and attend the birthday party of the beautiful miss Adel Pritchard who is now one year old. Adel is the daughter of our friends Ken and Carla.

I'm posting pictures again so don't forget to check out the Photographs link on this page from time to time. I thought would be fun include a short video of walking across one of the bridges on the Signal Point hike, I wasn't pepared for what was about to happen. Check it out through the Photographs link and keep your eye out for a very large wet leaf.

Thanks to my friend Philip Luckey for sending along the picture of me and Adel.

This afternoon it's back to rehearsal in Sony's Culver City Studio. I think we'll get a chance to see the new staging today as well. It should be fun. ¶ 1:23 PM 0 comments

Home Again

I thrived and survived our West Palm Beach rehearsals. Yanni told me I
could leave a soon as we finished the last run-through of World Dance which
was precisely at 4:30 eastern, Wednesday afternoon. My car was loaded and
ready to jump on the Florida Turnpike. Angie and I made great time coming
home despite several blinding thunderstorms and a few bouts with fog.
Shortly after 2:30 am Thursday we pulled into our driveway.

I spent Thursday catching up on a few things around the house including
sleep. Today, Friday, Angie is already on her way to Nashville with our
friend Vico to pick up my new CD "Hammer On!"

"Hammer On!" is titled after our band which includes me, Randy Clepper, Mark
Wade and Bob McMurray. I'm still working on putting samples from this new
CD up on the web site but hope to be finished by the end of the weekend.
The CD is now available for purchasing on the Store page.

Today I'm doing two radio and one newspaper interviews about the 'Hammer
On!' project and the upcoming live Yanni CD/DVD. For those in Chattanooga
tune in:

WGOW 102.3 news talk radio at 11:00am

WUTC 88.1 NPR/Jazz radio at 1:00pm

The Chattanooga Times story by Barry Courter will likely appear in a couple
of weeks.




¶ 10:25 AM 0 comments

Rehearsals Stage Two

We officially completed the 'band' portion of our rehearsals Saturday
afternoon. Yanni says the show is tighter than he's ever heard it and the
new songs fit in nicely. Today (Monday) we'll be joined by select orchestra
members to work on their solos.

We got out of Saturday's rehearsals early so I was able to pick Angie up
myself at the airport. We had Sunday off so we spent the day at the beach,
shopping, eating and resting. Angie will be here with me the rest of the
week and we'll drive back to Tennessee after rehearsals end Wednesday.

Use the following link for a couple of new pictures.


http://homepage.mac.com/danlandrum/PhotoAlbum14.html

I see that a large group of Yanni Message Board members are planning a get
together before the show in Las Vegas. I plan to attend unless it conflicts
with any required show prep.


¶ 9:30 AM 0 comments

Update on updates!

OK, OK, OK I know I said I was resuming updates and then disappeared again.
So count this as an update on updates. A typical day here in south Florida
has gone like this:

I wake around 7:30, check my email, go to the hotel lobby for a really bad
cup of coffee, swim for about a half hour, call Hussain and make
arrangements to go to breakfast, go back to the room and shower, meet
Hussain and walk about a half mile down to a Panera Bread for good coffee,
stay and talk too long, go back to the room and practice, pack my gear
(which is no small task, Hussain has taken to calling me inspector gadget),
round up everyone who is riding with me, travel to the rehearsal site about
30 minutes from the hotel, tune for half an hour, endure - uh, I mean enjoy
rehearsal which lasts until 7 or 8 pm, round my riders back up, get out of
there by 8 to 8:30, usually somebody needs to stop somewhere on the way back
so it's 9:30 to 10 when we get back, call Angie, respond to a few emails,
sometimes exercise again to work the kinks out of a day of sitting, and then
go to sleep.

That, in one of the longest run-on sentences I've ever typed, is what we've
been doing.

Rehearsals have been upbeat and I'm actually having a good time regardless
of the long hours. The show has some new twists and turns that I'm not a
liberty to talk about and I can't wait to see what the DVD is going to look
like. George Veras has his camera crew at rehearsal now taping the behind
the scenes stuff.

Thanks to everyone who has been signing the guestbook! Those messages get
forwarded to my email so I read them regularly.



¶ 12:05 PM 0 comments

Good Morning

Yesterday was a pleasant day off as I slept late, had lunch with friends and
fell asleep during a baseball playoff game while reading a book.

I did do a little productive work on a new method of posting pictures
directly from iPhoto. I don't have all the bugs worked out yet but you can
see where I'm headed by pasting the following link into your browser.

http://homepage.mac.com/danlandrum/PhotoAlbum13.html

Let me know if you have any problems with this link.

I'm off to rehearsals in about an hour. So far so good.



¶ 10:03 AM 0 comments

Saturday Afternoon

I'm sneaking a quick moment during rehearsal for short update. We had a
long day in the studio yesterday and I got back to the hotel in time to see
the last 30 minutes of the presidential debate before falling asleep.
Today's rehearsal started early and is scheduled to end by dinner time.
We get the day off Sunday to relax a bit and work on our solos.

We're getting through about three songs a day and preparation for the
upcoming recording means we're hyper focusing as every little thing is now
a big thing.

Right now Yanni is working with Charlie and Hussain on tightening the groove
for a new song that is fast and hot. I'm sure this is going to be a crowd
pleaser.

Gotta run, we're all being called back in.



¶ 2:31 PM 0 comments

Hello to all Guestbook signers

Hello to Kathy, Donna, Angel, Johnna, and Louise

It's nice to see all your names back in the guestbook. It sounds like
there's going to be a really big party in Las Vegas and I'll plan to stop by
and say hello!

I'm headed back to rehearsals in a few minutes and I think I've got my
ability to post via email working again so the journal updates will become
more frequent. I plan to start posting pictures again this weekend as well.


¶ 11:14 AM 25 comments

Posting via email

This is a test post to see if I can post via email.


¶ 11:02 AM 0 comments

Rehearsals: Day One

Our first day back at rehearsals started off with lots of hellos and hugs as we all caught each other up on how we spent our summer off.

Everyone looked healthy and it was obvious that the low carb craze has hit the band. Yanni told us about a few surprises we'll be working on for the upcoming Vegas show and tour. (Don't even bother asking, I wouldn't want to spoil the show.) ¶ 10:54 PM 0 comments

Guestbook repairs

Thanks to those who've written to let me know my guestbook is acting up. The problem appears to be on the server side so I requested a little technical support this morning. They usually answer quickly. I'm hopeful I can get the guestbook running again this evening. It won't hurt anything if you want to go ahead and give it a try. Click on the guestbook link and see if you can sucessfully say hello!

Dan ¶ 8:28 AM 0 comments

Knocking down the cob webs

It's time to blow the dust off my journal. I'm writing this from my hotel room in south Florida which will be my home for the next couple of weeks.

Rehearsals begin tomorrow afternoon for a new Yanni tour. The only thing I really know so far is that this show is going to be called Yanni Live and kicks off officially November 6, at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, and that the show is going to be filmed for a television special. I've heard it rumoured that it will be released as a DVD/CD package as well. I guess we'll learn more about that tomorrow.

I had a very busy summer which I'll talk about more in coming journal posts. For now I just want to say hello again and invite you to start checking out my journal occasionally.

I plan to start posting pictures from this summer as well as upcoming rehearsals and concerts but I'm experimenting with a new method of posting. For now here's a picture from the Sawdust Festival at which I played this past weekend.

Dan

¶ 11:12 PM 0 comments