 I'm moving right now Yes friends. Hello and welcome to the music zone with pits quatrone We're broadcasting from the heart of the green mountains in Montpelier, Vermont And the music zone is brought to you by our friends at Aramedd Essentials specializing in essential oils and diffusers CBD tinctures and pain reducing topicals Aramedd is also a hemp flower bud dispensary and they have the glassworks Smoking those buds located at 8 State Street in Montpelier online at Aramedd Essentials comm phone number 802-505-1405 Also making the show possible is our friends at snapdragon flower farm featuring produce vegetable herb and flower seedlings Early season custom orders are welcome as well as hanging baskets potted flowers tulips for Easter and cut flowers and you can do a cut your own option by appointment only 521 Merrill Road is the address for the snapdragon flower farm in Danville, Vermont online at snapflowerfarm.com and by phone 802-748- 2001 Well joining us this time around on the music zone a guy who plays in pretty much every band in central, Vermont guitarist extraordinaire and Montpelier's own D. Davis Hey, D. How are you? Great tits? Thanks for having me on this is quite the honor It's fun. We have fun and we talk about music we play a couple songs and and the word gets out the music gets out there But thanks for your time who are stopping in today It's great So some folks who may not be familiar with you outside of the central, Vermont area because the show it goes all over Tell us a little bit about your background my background Musically speaking is I've moved to Vermont in 1997. I was living out in the southwest I also before that played in Philadelphia pretty much when I graduated college in 1992. I left and joined the circus So after New Mexico, I toured a little bit with the Dave the The new writers of the Purple Sage and the Dave Nelson band really I never knew that was a great experience and then I Moved back east my family's from New Jersey and a great story I was I was on a plane about a month before that and I was wondering if I should go up to the northwest or the northeast and My mother called from Florida and said my uncle had a dream and he dreamt that I was gonna meet somebody on that plane that was gonna Give me direction on where to go. Geez. So sure enough on the second flight back. I was visiting her in Florida I met a woman who had a little two-year-old who was giving me the eyes and you know Just being really adorable and I started talking to the mom and she had a sister that sang in Santa Fe that I knew And I told her my story and she said you belong in Burlington, Vermont So when I was driving up north and got to Colorado it could either go north up 25 or east towards, you know, 70 Geez, I died There was like a sleet storm came on all of a sudden and I just had 70 east and went back to New Jersey Spent a little time there and then headed up to Vermont in 1997 and I haven't left That's when my my music career up here began in 1999 mark Galbo He was a well-known musician at the time was running an open mic at the cactus cafe in Burlington And he left to move out west and he asked me to take over the the open mic and that's when I started meeting All the musicians in Burlington and then it just became one thing after another after that and And that's when my music career here. I would have to say began. Well, so that's 1997 ish. Yes Okay, cool. And so Musically, well, who are your influence? What influences you? I know you you play a lot of different styles with a lot of different people. What's some of your favorites? Yeah, I like to call it the rainbow genre nice of genre My favorites growing up. I was honestly really in the progressive rock I was really in the old. Yes old Genesis and that's what really got me in the guitar And then after that I went right to the Grateful Dead and the Almond Brothers and really enjoyed I knew how to read music at an early age, but I didn't really have the eerie yet And all that music taught me how to improv. Yeah, and really Be flexible with music and then I met a gentleman when I moved up here Who was at the school of Berkeley and he was the one that helped me out with all the theory like he's like Do you know what chord you're playing? I was like, no and he was like, well, that's a sharp nine flat seven You know and that got me into learning all that so over the years that all kind of combined and now it's just I enjoy That's why I play in a number of bands because I enjoy all the genres from classical guitar to blues guitar to jazz the swing and I just you know, if I have four shows during the week with four different bands. I don't get bored And you stay busy working. I stay busy working, which you know as a musician. Yeah, you have to find that niche Yeah, you got to be flexible man. Very flexible All right, so full-time musician you are yes, and I've been since I've been since 2009 2009 2010. Okay. That's when I was able to Quit the day job and I I think at that time I was playing in about 10 bands Al Lemory had knee surgeries. So Starline needed a guitar player. I was playing with Myra Flynn Bob Wagner and the Book of Blues band and it just Patrick Fitzsimmons needed a guitar player and then I was just really wearing myself out then. Yeah, and then I decided Let's keep it the three or four Sanity prevails. Yeah, I just kind of honed it in I mean, you know You can only be so all over the place for so long. So all right. Well fast-forwarding to to now Yes recently you Wrote a song and submitted it to help with a big Collaborative collection of songs which I put my hat in the ring as well Yes, but tell us about the song and tell us about first of all, what is the collection and who is it for? It's in memory of Rachel Bessex who was a well-known singer-songwriter in the folk scene in Vermont and I always heard about her ever since I moved here, you know, I was always very curious about her I have to say I didn't get to see her much or hear much of her music But her name was always present in any of the music circles. I was in and out of and I love writing folk music and Being a part of folk music, but I have to say it hasn't been prominent in my life, but I got a message from Lynn Cordozo and She said if you're interested we're having this, you know collection of artists submitting songs and in memory of her and You know, they have a it's great because during a pandemic, you know, they have gig money So if you know, they're gonna select I think 25 Vermont artists that they are gonna Donate $100 to further submission of the song So it got me going when I got the message and I hadn't written a song all year I've been busy with my seven-year-old the teaching him music and he knows everything and Helping him with school because he's in virtual school But as it was getting closer to the date the deadlines April 1st about a week ago I had been working on a song on and off for the last few months and it's called unconditional love I mean during this time for for me. My family has gotten a lot closer There's been a lot of positive things from this pandemic for me personally I do miss hugging people and I miss a lot of the things but In a positive retrospect, it's really done some wonderful things for me and my family and I Just sat down a few days ago and it finally came together and I just recorded it on my phone and submitted it So coming here to join you on the show was like out of the thousand things I could do. I was like, I think I'll share This song today because it's fresh. It's right out of the oven and there might be one word flub So excuse me, but um, you know, we do our best when we don't rehearse. So all right. So this is unconditional love By D Davis here on the music zone Up above is this love Stars are bright Through the night. I just might Stand inside me Restore there's a play with unconditional love There's a fade in us Where love is rising up and change Play inside Up above D. Davis on the music zone. It's his original tune unconditional love part of the Rachel Bissick's collection of songs that is happening right now online and So D moving a little bit back Through the pandemic early on middle of that Everyone's getting creative as far as like, hey, how do we earn some money because live gigs are just not happening So everyone goes online does the virtual concert thing that type is live in your living room But I have to tell you you are one of the most creative online artists I've seen because It's not just like Friday night at 8 o'clock. D's gonna play a concert. No It's I got a list of things that you've done online and almost on a regular basis And I think they're fantastic and we have morning music with D. Davis lullaby songs classical guitars in your pajamas outside of your house on St. Patrick's Day a Collection of songs. I mean this is beautiful stuff And I guess it's like you have to adapt and in do make do for yourself My son once dubbed the name a great name for a band. He said would be pretty little dress rehearsal So we kind of see life like that and so I never announced the shows, you know It's seven o'clock and on Tuesday, you know, I just when the feeling comes and my son's very helpful with that too Like he'll come downstairs. I'll show him this wah-wah pedal I haven't taken out of the closet in ten years and he'll plug it in be like we got to do a live stream right now And I'd be like, well, we have nothing rehearsed and he's like, well, what would Pete Townsend say? So I'm like hit the go button And so he's very helpful with that but I that's how I kind of live my life I mean anybody that plays music with me in any of the bands They know me well for this I and I also sometimes like purposely book shows with somebody, you know unrehearsed I tried to book one with you. Yeah, and I love booking shows unrehearsed and just Letting that happen cool. And you know, like I said before you take a risk You know, you might bomb some but to me if you bomb or you hit a wrong note that to me sets up this Thing that Dwayne what happened with Dwayne Almond a lot or other musicians I love where they they come back stronger Garcia Garcia exactly and you come back stronger from that Flob and so I like putting Music in the moment. Yeah, and letting it breathe and you know be this raw Unpredictable thing because I like both things about music the science and the mathematics of it and also the mystery and the unknown and I think when you can Blend those two and have a relationship with those two. That's where the magic is. Absolutely. Yeah well, you have to take a risk to Explore or find something incredible. Exactly. It may not work every time but when it does man, that is absolute magic. Exactly. You know We're preaching to the choir for each other here, but it's cool We got that with us for me. My experience was the Grateful Dead Yeah, those guys they taught me how to listen Adventurously exactly first and then from there you build exactly so that's so cool So you mentioned your son Flynn is his name. He's seven years old seven years old. Okay, and there's something else I have here On your list of virtual events. You know Flynn and D's music school Yes, that might be something that might be in the works I mean I I do teach music and I consider myself more of a music teacher than a guitar teacher I play every instrument So I just try to guitar is my main instrument But I try to teach music in a way where let's let's learn how to read it first. Let's learn what the notes mean Let's learn what all that means because then you can teach yourself It's like that old saying, you know do you want me to teach you how to fish and Do you want to learn how to fish by yourself? You know and be able to catch your own fish So with Flynn I he's my it's not that it's an experiment But for the first seven years I let him just play And feel it as he says good, but then I'm teaching him now how to read notes And you know I get a lot of arguments and protests But you know it's teaching me how to teach people like that because I have a few six seven year olds and They like to play like you know, let's see how much I can get away with this before he You know gets on my case. So with my son He's now learning how to read the music and now learning tempo and and now it's that you know Approach of doing both like I said before and he's he's getting it So now I think with the pandemic it's a little hard But there might be some opportunities for me now to get kids together and teach them how to play together And also maybe get the parents involved and have the parents and the kids playing together Um, it's not as difficult that you think I just gifted my wife a cello for Christmas Because she always dreamed of playing the cello and it's like well, it's not too late And so she's just learning how to bow those open strings while we're playing You know, you are my sunshine or let me call you sweetheart any of the wonderful old Songs that are only three chords and she's getting it, you know, and that's where it starts. So Even though I teach individually, I think I might try to start moving into teaching People how to play together and making that part of me, you know a music school So it's everything's in the making like you said, we're trying to get creative during this time And you know, I don't know if things are going to be safe next fall When you know we and if we can't be indoors, I'm going to have to find a way maybe to teach virtually how People can play together. Yeah. Yeah, how to sync up on rhythm how to sync up on timing. Yeah To me, it sounds like it's benefiting everyone including you the teacher Yeah, awesome. Yeah, so we're going to jump over to the music studio now and tell us what song we're going to hear Ah, I was really happy to pick this. So pits is joining me on this on on the didgeridoo and This is a song in the key of D. This is the first song off my album hopeful Which is the beautiful painted cover right here by Brooke Monty of burlington. It's an instrumental album I did with jody peterson here at cliff house studio if we had a nice barter I painted most of her closets in a couple of her rooms and she let me record all this music in her studio Beautiful. She did a wonderful job and it's 11 songs. It's all instrumental but besides the last one so I chose the first instrumental because D goes well with the didgeridoo and I wrote this song from my mom when she Was about the last week or two of her life and I was spending time with her I was at my uncles in new jersey overlooking the river in the ocean and he had like a little perch really up high And I was just up there by myself and the song like came through me Nice kind of a thing and then luckily I remembered it And then it's it's my paying homage to my beautiful wonderful mom who really taught me so many things as all moms do And uh, it was my tribute and and the title of the song is called homage This is homage d davis on the music zone with pits quattrone Welcome back to the music zone with pits quattrone. D davis is uh the guest today Beautiful song there homage for his mom with yours truly on didgeridoo seems to work nicely with that combination Yeah tour is coming up soon We'll just do that song for like an hour Thank you. Good night I'm in You booked the gig. I'll be there. I'm in homage. All right. So d davis guitars in the Montpelier area Before we go any further. I want to know tell people how they can get in touch with you how they can hear your music Where do they find you? Okay? So d davis, uh, I'm on facebook. I I recently got on facebook And it's de on facebook because I couldn't use the letter But you also see just d davis the letter And then I'm noticing there's a lot of d davis is out there So I had to use ds davis for like my gmail ds davis music at gmail.com Um, so those are the ways you can get me. I had a website for a while But it just wasn't working out for me for but I think um talking to you about the music school and some other ideas I have I might Invest in something like that but for right now you can find me on social media as de davis Or any of the wonderful bands I play in which is red hot juba The lark spurs and cookies hot club. You can all find them online. We all have websites just by typing in the band name Okay, say those bands again. Yep. The bands are red hot juba cookies hot club and the lark spurs Okay, cool all with d davis on guitar and various and various other instruments. Yeah Excellent that sounds good and uh, so Uh Real quick. We're almost out of time. But if you can describe what are you doing this summer? You have some plans for the next few months. Yeah, I'm very fortunate even last summer during the pandemic I know a lot of people like tom moog and johnson and moog's place in morrisville and the zen barn And all these clubs that have an outdoor You know patio or something. Yeah where we can have live music So I was able to actually still play live music, you know, four to five gigs last summer and Already everything's booking up for this summer. So wow and you know I'd be more than happy to play at the end of your driveway. I can come serenade. I can come play classical guitar I'm open to anything but um, yeah, all the bands have been booking lots of concerts on the green from brandon to middle sex um And any club that has an outdoor option like moog's joint or the zen barn or A few others That of course I can't think of right now. Um, so I'll be playing with red hot juba or mart martels is another one in jeffersonville I'll be playing with red hot juba the larkspurs and cookies hot club at all these venues if you want to see what's going on Just check out their websites and all the dates will be there. Okay, so folks can find you easily Yes, and you can just yeah, just give me a call or just message me on that that thing called facebook I think there's something called instagram too. I've been hearing about this thing this new thing called instagram So, uh, maybe I'll figure out how to use that at some time. We'll see I actually think it's instant grand. Oh, it is And you can always use the good old-fashioned telepathy. I'm always there for you telepathically tuning in Any time of the week you want to have a word we can we can tune in with each other beautiful All right d davis. I want to thank you again for stopping by it's been a wonderful Conversation and great playing music with you and just thanks for coming by the music zone. Thanks pets. You got it I really appreciate it. All right friends that wraps it up for today But I want to mention our sponsor once again aromid essentials in downtown montpellier specializing in cbd tinctures and pain reducing topicals Essential oils and diffusers Aromid is also a hemp flower bud dispensary and they have the glassworks for smoking those buds eight state street is the address downtown montpellier online at aromid essentials dot com and by phone 802 505 1405 And please mention to aromid essentials as well as our friends at snapdragon flower farm in danville that you Heard about them right here on the music zone with pit squadron Friends that is it for this week this Program and this episode. We will talk with you next month. Thank you for tuning in and take care