Deja Blooze to Play the Front Street Grill

 

Deja Blooze is pleased to announce we have been booked into the Front Street Grill in Coupeville on January 4th as part of their weekly Wednesday night music offerings.  The FSG is a warm and inviting restaurant overlooking the world famous Penn Cove.  The Deja Blooze quartet will be providing the evening's entertainment with a nice mix of soulful and lively blues.

Upcoming Solo Deja Blooze Gigs

David  Gregor, lead vocalist, guitarist and songwriter, of Deja Blooze will be performing solo at several local establishments in the coming months.  As of today, he is booked at the 19o4 Public House in Greenbank Friday October 21st from 7-9 pm and Saturday November 12th the Ott & Murphy Wine Tasting Room on First Street in Langley from 7 -9 pm. 

The regular Deja Blooze band lineup will provide the music for the Kitsch & Bitch program at WICA Wednesday October 5th from 7:30 to 9:00 pm.  This month our three local chefs were engage in the great American Hamburger Cook-off, featuring Neil Colburn (Neil's Clover Patch) , Seib Jurrians (Prima Bistro), and Shirley Wilson (Shirley's Kitchen).  Our guest bartender this month is Chris Adams (Mo's Pub) who will prepare Mo's signature Bloody Mary. 

Then Saturday November 5th the Deja Blooze Trio returns to the Prima Bistro for another evening of easy-listening blues from 9-11 pm.  So pick a date or two and plan on sitting in with Deja Blooze in any of its configurations

Our Second Gig at the Useless Bay Coffee Shed Sept. 10th

On September 10th, the Deja Quartet returned to the Useless Bay Coffee Shed for another rousing three hour evening of lively blooze action.  Before the evening ended, Eleanor Fye joined the band for her soulful rendition of Angel from Montgomery.  Eleanor is an amazing talent. It is great to have her on Whidbey and a pleasure having her join the band for a guest appearance.  Our next scheduled appearance will be as the houseband Wednesday evening October 5th for the second installment of Kitsch 'n Bitch at the Whidbey Island Center for the Arts in beautiful Langley.  Show starts at 7:30 pm and will feature three of our local chefs in the Great American Hamburger Smackdown.  You can purchase tickets at www.wicaonline.com.

The Deja Boys at Useless Bay Coffee Shed

 

The newly formed Deja Blooze Quartet played its first public gig over the Labor Day Weekend at the Useless Bay Coffee Shed and were greeted by a steady crowd of music lovers.  With the addition of drummer Scott Small, the Deja sound has been enhanced (to say the least) and we're happy to have Scott with us whenever his busy schedule permits.

Some of the more visible Deja fans at our Shed gig.  We heard later that the Cantina was jammed full of folks who stayed for the music but chose to go indoors when the wind picked up and with the open spaces in the Cantina those indoors heard everything perfectly..  The nice thing about the Shed's accoustics is that sound travels from one end of town to the other; the result is that we were like the Pied Pipers drawing music lovers onto 2nd Street trying to track down where the music was coming from. 

Another shot of the boys at work, with a couple who moved up for a closer listen to the Blooze. 

All photos courtesy of Sharon Heath.

Deja Blooze and WICA's Kitsch 'n Bitch

Well, the innagural performance of the Kitsch 'n Bitch series featuring our own Sue Frause and the kitchen band  Deja Blooze in now in the can as they say in the film business.  Last Wednesday evening we officially launched KnB to a near full house of local inquiring minds who by all accounts enjoyed the program which featured three local film and stage directors and their passion for food and cooking. 

                                                Here are directors Andy Grenier (L) and Vito Zingarelli (R) talking pasta which Vito prepared fresh during the show for his special jabanero pesto dish which was very tasty with just enough zing to let you know you still had taste buds. 

Here is a snap of the guest roundtable when guest get to sample Vito's fresh pasta dish.  The band's own Dave "Langley Slim" Gignac was the creator of this month's signature drink...the Jabanero Martini.  I know it sounds a bit strange but having had a taste I can attest that the drink has legs as well as a kick.

Everybody had a great time and we're all looking forward to next month's installment Wednesday October 5th when two local chefs faceoff for the great American Burger Challenge. 

All photos courtesy of Sue Frause

The Deja Blooze quartet at Useless Bay Coffee Shed September 3rd.  Great sunny evening, good crowd, and fine food & drink.  We had a great time serving up three hours of our signature lively blues with our newest member, drummer Scott Small. What a pleasure Scott is to have on board with us.  He really fattens up (musically) our sound.  Loads of locals and Langley visitors joined us for great night under clear skies.  Looking forward to maybe getting one more gig at the Shed before the weather moves music at UBC indoors.  (Photo courtesy of Priscilla Lowry-Gregor)

Deja Blooze Quartet Plays Useless Bay Coffee

 

Saturday September 3rd the Deja Blooze quartet with drummer Scott Small will play Dez Rock's Useless Bay Coffee Shed from 5-8 pm.  We've spent the last two weeks working with Scott on the Deja set list in preparation for this gig as well as our house band duties with Sue Frause and her Kitsch 'n Bitch foodie series at Whidbey Island Center for the Arts this coming Wednesday September 7th at 7:30 pm.  We're excited to have Scott as part of the Deja Blooze experiment; he adds a whole new dimension to the Deja sound and he's also a great guy to work with. 

New member of Deja Blooze for Kitsch 'n Bitch

Deja Blooze has engaged drummer Scott Small for our upcoming house-band duties with the Kitsch 'n Bitch series at WICA beginning on September 7th.  Scott is a Whidbey Island resident and brings with him years of professional drumming and drum instruction.  Scott will join David Gregor and David Gignac for the first two installments of Kitsch and when our bass player Russell Sparkman is relieved of day-job obligations the house band will  continue on as a quartet.  We're happy to have Scott as a member of the Deja Blooze project and look forward to showcasing his talents in future gigs. 

Deja Blooze House Band for Kitsch 'n Bitch Series

The Deja Blooze Band will be the house band for the Whidbey Island Center for the Arts' new monthly live program "Kitsch 'n Bitch" featuring the Island's own Sue Frause as the Mistress of Ceremonies.  This live program will feature celebrity foodies (both local and regional), good food, great company, signature drinks, lively music and a lot of laughs! The show debuts Wednesday September 7th at 7:30 pm on the WICA stage with the theme being “Directors Who Cook” featuring Whidbey Island film directors Richard Evans, Andrew Grenier, Vito Zingarelli. The series will continue every month through June 0f 2012.   The dates for the series are:
WEDNESDAYS@ 7.30pm
“Directors Who Cook” Sep 07, 2011

“Carnage Cooking”
Oct 05, 2011

“Turkey Talk”
Nov 16, 2011
“Big, Sweet Holidays”
Dec 14, 2011
“Seattle Bites”Jan 11, 2012

“Girls Who Dish”Feb 01, 2012

“Slocals”Mar 07, 2012

“The Yolks on You”Apr 11, 2012

“Let’s Do Brunch”May 16, 2012

“The Full Monty BBQ”Jun 13, 2012

For more information and to buy tickets please visit WICA online at:
http://www.wicaonline.com/2011-2012/WEDNESDAYSATWICA/KITSCHNBITCH.html
WEDNESDAYS@ 7.30pm
Make plans to join us

  Here we are at the July 2011 Langley Festival of the Arts--Choochokham--with the addition this year of drummer Dave Malony.  Malony has and continues to play with some of the best musicians on Whidbey Island and around the Northwest.  He also owns and operates Blue Ewe Recording Studio here on the island where we have recorded three times.  We went on at 3 pm and delivered a solid 45 minute set of original blues material written by David Gregor and arranged by the band.  It was great to play with Malony, something I've wanted to do since I first heard him play with Tommy and the Sharks.  He is the consumate professional and easily stepped in to provide the backbeat for our Choochokam gig which has totally spoiled us.  As someone pointed out...once you have a drummer you never go back.  All I can say is the band looks forward to future opportunities to have Malony on the stage with us.

All in all the gig was great fun and we surprised a lot of people who thought they knew what we do.  It's always good to shake things up and show folks another side of who and what you are.    

Photo credit: Sharon Heath.

On Thursday May 26th, Langley sound engineer and cutting edge photographer Robbie Cribbs stopped by our weekly rehearsal with some of his gear and captured a bit of us working on a relatively new original tune.  The song is Down by the River written by David Gregor.  The sound quality is not high quality or well balanced, since we were not planning on recording anything, but it does give you a sense of the song and the process.  Hope you enjoy.

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1906627939996&comments

Deja caught live in rehearsal

Last night, Langley recording engineer and cutting edge photographer Robbie Cribbs stopped by our weekly rehearsal with his cameras and caught the night's activities.  The following link is a test run though a David Gregor original called Down by the River where we are warming up and getting bassman Russell Sparkman's recently injured wrist a test run. The sound quality is rudimentary at best but then we weren't planning on recording anything at practice.  Robbie just hit record on his hand-held video camera and the camera mic is all that caught the sound.  But Robbie has a keen eye for making the ordinary...visually interesting. 
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1906627939996&comments

The History of the name "Deja Blooze"

In the summer of 2007, I was looking to put a blues duo together with a guitar player and singer I had met at a local jam night at the Smilin' Dog Restaurant. We got together a couple of times and played some old blues numbers to get a feel for how we fit together. This fellow was renting a little cabin on the water at Possession Beach on the south end of Whidbey Island, and one night we were just talking about the effect blues music had on us and I commented that the old Delta blues gave me the deja-vu's...kind of like the deja-blues. I immediately liked the sound of the two words together and the play on Deja Vu. There was also the connotation of revisiting something that one may have previously experienced.

Unfortunately, the fellow couldn't find work on the island and he and his wife packed up a week after our last get together and moved back to New England. I had just found a like-minded aficionado of the blues, a guy who could both play and sing the blues and just like that he was gone. I was back where I had started, but the name Deja Blues came out of brief friendship.
It seemed to summarize how I felt about blues music...my deep connection with the basic forms of the music style and the heartfelt experiences captured in the song lyrics of the old blues pioneers from the Mississippi Delta region. The more I sat with the name the more connected I felt to it and then I decided to play further with the name and changed 'blues' to 'blooze'. It made the name unusual yet musically recognizable so that the name identified the style of music I wanted to play. The name stuck with me and I kept it on the back burner until a short while later I found another guitar player to team up with. As soon as that pairing jelled, I brought out the name Deja Blooze and in November of 2007 my original blues duo made its first public appearance at a now defunct coffee shop in Clinton, Washington. The duo became a trio a year later when we added a bass player.

In the Fall of 2009, that original trio dissolved and once again I endeavored to reform the Deja Blooze experience.  After playing several gigs as a solo act, I enlisted an occassional sit-in artist--Dave Gignac on harp--to join me.  We subsequently added Russell on bass and most recently Scott on drums.  Deja Blooze continues today as a "blues experiment" whether I'm working as a solo act or with other configuarations of the band, always exploring the possibilities that this original American genre has to offer.

Hollywood 1976 Re-Visited

That winter 1976 junket to Los Angeles where I spent two days in the company of Tom Waits was a jam-packed week of non-stop celebrity events. My host was a talent agent with whom I had been in contact with in Seattle regarding my reporting work at the UW Daily, and his list of clients was impressive. In addition to Mr. Waits, his talent list included Stevie Wonder, Frank Zappa, and singer/comedian Gary Mule Deer. I had never heard of Gary but agreed to get together with him and find out more. I don't believe I ever wrote anything on Gary but I do remember that we spent probably an hour together and he was extremely cordial and funny. I have not followed his career over the years but according to other sources he's opened shows for a lot of major acts, performed at corporate gatherings, played Las Vegas and made a ton of TV appearances including Jay Leno and David Letterman. But in 1976, I couldn't connect him with UW students or a Seattle audience so nothing came of our interview though I remember his off-beat humor.

I was staying at a Ramada Inn (long gone) on Sunset Boulevard just up the street from the famous Tower Records store (also long gone) when I got an impromptu call from my local guide. It was his job to fill my week with as much "client contact" as possible. I was asked if I wanted to go to a Frank Zappa press gathering. I was game though I wasn't really a "fan" of Frank's musical endeavors and was taken to a snazzy hotel in Beverly Hills. We took an elevator up to a beautiful suite that was full of people milling around and to this day I have no recollection what the event was for other than it had something to do with a Zappa film project. I didn't receive a press packet or any information but I was immediately upon arrival greeted by the maestro himself; the wild mane of hair and signature soul patch under his lip were unmistakable. We shook hands and he gave us directions to the bar. My guide and I spent about an hour in the suite. We helped ourselves to the liquor and I was introduced to numerous people I was told were industry heavies. I met a couple of writers from Rolling Stone Magazine whose names I knew from various articles I had read but no one was interested in talking to anyone they didn't know. For someone interested in the entertainment world (especially music) this was where the action was...all in one room but it was impossible to penetrate the walls of separation. We soon left as unceremoniously as we had entered. I wanted to go find Tom Waits and get real. Instead I just had my guide take me back to the Ramada. I was reminded of the surprise birthday party for Stevie Wonder on Friday night and that my guide would pick me up and together we would go to the restaurant. What had already been a busy day and evening was still not over; I was about to meet one of the developers of the hologram and discover world traveler Burton Holmes.

My 1976 Tom Waits Interview

For my last two years in the journalism program at the University of Washington, I wrote for the Entertainment Section of UW Daily Newspaper. I had a piece in most every issue from a photo essay, jazz review, rock concert, an interview with a visiting musician to any event with some entertainment value. During my winter break in 1976, I accepted an invitation from an artist's manager in L.A. to visit the southland and spend a week meeting and interviewing some of his clients. His roster of talent included Stevie Wonder, Frank Zappa and a rising talent named Tom Waits. Tom's third album Nighthawks at the Diner had recently been released on the heels of The Heart of Saturday Night. I loved both efforts and jumped at the opportunity to spend some time with the singer with the gravelly voice. The result was a long piece in the February issue of The Daily, which I have linked below. I spent time with Mr. Waits on two occasions: he invited me to join him for a taping of his appearance on the Dinah Shore Show and then I met him in a bar on Hollywood Blvd where we just talked one-on-one. No attitude, no entourage, no handlers, no bullshit. Just a breath of fresh air. Enjoy.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/44992205/Tom-Waits-Daily-Article-Pt-1

http://www.scribd.com/doc/44992197/Tom-Waits-Daily-Article-Pt-2

The New Deja Line-up

This is the current and future line-up of Deja Blooze. Russell Sparkman [L] on bass, David Gregor [C] lead guitar and vocals and Dave 'Langley Slim' Gignac on guitar, harp and vocals.

Photo courtesy of Russell Sparkman.

First Saturday at Prima

Well, the first Saturday Langley Art Walk with the lively blues of Deja Blooze is upon us once again. The Deja Trio will play at Prima Bistro this coming Saturday evening from 9 to 11 pm. Put on your high-heeled sneakers and bring your mojo into town and join us for another rousing evening of top-tapping blues--Deja style.

The Deja Blooze "Live At WICA" CD is now available. This live recording features fourteen songs, nine of which were written by guitarist and vocalist David Gregor. The song list includes: John the Revelator, Gone Up Country, Someone's Calling My Name, Sky is Crying, Going Down Slow, Lonesome Woman Blues,Long-Legged Blues, We All Gotta Change, Look What Love Has Done, Photograph Blues, Good-bye Blues, Guitar King/Crossroads, Jacksboro Highway, and Who Do You Love.

Cost is $17.00 domestic postage included and can be ordered directly from the band off our secure website at http://www.gregorbooks.com/cgi-bin/gregor/20122.html International postage at cost.

New Deja Blooze Line-up and gigs

The Deja Blooze concert in January as part of the Whidbey Island Center for the Arts' Local Artist Series was the highlight of the Deja experiment that began in the fall of 2007 with a handful of listeners at a coffee house in Clinton Washington. To play WICA's beautiful theater to a sold-out house of 250 fans, some of whom took the ferry over from Seattle to join us, was an exhilarating experience. Playing with four of Langley's best musicians made the whole evening sizzle and is something I would like to reprise in the not too distant future.

The January show had been scheduled since June of 2009 and was to feature the original Deja Blooze trio. In September of 2009, the Deja lead guitarist and bassist left the band leaving the WICA Concert in jeopardy. Not wanting to cancel a great musical opportunity and firmly believing in the old coda that the show must go on, I quickly solicited the help of the best players I knew and all four of them immediately signed on to the project. As they old saying goes, you never know who your friends are until you need them, and I quickly found out who my friends were. The show did go on and it was even better than I had initially envisioned it when I applied to the Local Artist Series. The end result of several months of focused rehearsal was an electrifying evening of inspired playing on everyone's part. And the enthusiastic reception of the audience contributed greatly to the success of the evening. Luckily, we recorded the show and is now available on a CD called "The Deja Blooze Electric Band--Live at WICA." The CD can be ordered off my secure website at the following link: http://www.gregorbooks.com/cgi-bin/gregor/20122.html

Since January Deja Blooze has been rebuilding itself into a new trio with the addition of Langley resident Russell Sparkman on electric bass. There is a great new energy with the group bringing a freshness in arrangements as well as new material to the group especially with more original songs. All three of us are enthusiastic about our musical direction and our future public performances.

Starting in November of 2010, the new reformed Deja Blooze Trio has been booked for the first Saturday of each month to play at the Prima Bistro, coinciding with Langley's Gallery Walk openings. The Gallery Walk starts at 5:30 pm and goes until 7:30 pm and then we play at Prima from 9 to 11 pm. Makes for a great evening of art and entertainment on the first Saturday of each month.

Deja Blooze Live at WICA on Youtube

Deja Fans,

My wife took a rough video of our encore at the WICA show and I offer here the links to that video. It is in three parts because of the size of the files so watch them in the order presented at your leisure.