You can listen to the tune on the Satori Myspace page!

Jesse Hayes and Chiquis Making Moves

On Tuesday, February 3rd Jesse Hayes, Chiquis and I set up at Chris Candy’s home studio to record tracks for a new album that will be released on the Japanese label Ska In The World.

It was actually a miracle that the session even happened.

Jesse who is on tour with the Toasters at the moment was going to be playing in Anaheim on the night of the 3rd so we decided after his show in San Jose the night before he would drive straight to LA.  At 6 in the morning I got a text from Jesse telling me that he was close.  Chris got up and we drove to meet him right off of the 405.  We slept for a few hours and then went straight over to setup for the session and we were rolling by 11 AM.

Later in the session, my good friend Matt Whyte from Earl Greyhound stopped by and played some sweet guitar with us.

I am really grateful that these guys were willing to do such a thing and we ended up being very productive.  We tracked 5 songs that sound great.

I should go right now and work on the tracks.

Wish me luck.

Steve

My good friend Eddie “Chiquis” Lozoya (Hepcat, Chris Murray Combo) said he would be available to record bass on the session with us.

Jesse Hayes will be in town that day since he is on tour with The Toasters.  I really can’t beleive this worked out the way it did.  Awesome.

We will be recording again at Chris Candy’s (Chotto Ghetto) house.  I will keep you updated with details once I have them.

Steve

Eddie "Chiquis" Lozoya playing with Chris Murray Combo

Jesse Hayes, Steven Jess Borth II, Casey Gruttadaria Photo taken by Diana Levine

Many may not know this, but Jesse has been a huge part of the Satori story.  He has been there for me time and time again.  When I started to do Satori as my full time project, Jesse was ready to go.  He took a flight to Los Angeles, where we  set up a mini studio in my friend Chris Candy’s garage, to record what turned into “Leaves May Fall.”

That session ended up being a lot of fun and the template that we used for songwriting is still the format that I use for most of my recording projects to this day.

Jesse also came through for me in the past year when I wanted to setup some shows on the East Coast.  He arranged everything for me, housing, a great band, and shows to play.  We ended up playing shows on and off last winter and it went really well.

I plan on working with Jesse for many years.  :)

Steve

My Girl (Satori UK)

I sent out an email to all of the people who have been involved in the Satori project for the past 6 years, asking them to send me a picture from a Satori tour/recording and a story about thier experience.  The first email I got was from Mikkel Szlavik.  Mikkel lives in Copenhagen, Denmark.  Here is what Mikkel wrote:

First time I met Steve I didn’t even notice it. My band was warming up for RX Bandits in Copenhagen and Steve saw me play. I don’t remember having any conversations with Steve, but suddenly two years later – out of the blue – I received an email from him asking if I would join him on a UK tour with Satori. I got a chance to check out his music and had three great weeks in company with Matthew Reynolds,Pete Miles and Chris Murray.

After spending only three hours together in the rehearsal room we started recording our tour EP “Welcoming in the Summer”. Steve never waist his time and quickly we realized that the four piece band he had put together was more groovy than ever. I don’t know how he does it, but he always manage to get the best out of the situation his in and the people surrounding him.

Luckily I got a chance to play with him again here in Copenhagen, in California where I also met his family and last time when I was visiting him in New York. It always inspires me to work with Steve and hopefully it will happen again soon.

Good luck with the EP
Szlavik / Babylove & the van Dangos

Here is a track that I wrote a few years back.  I ended up recording at Chris Candy’s house on the first session that I used my Tascam 388 tape machine.  Jesse Hayes (Void Union, Toasters) Mark Allen Piccolo (Soul Captives) and I did the basic tracking on the first day of the session.

About a year later Dave Hillyard from The Slackers was in town and he ended up taking a train all the way from San Francisco just to record a solo on the track.  It was really cool of him to do that for me since The Slackers had a late show the night before and from the looks of it they had a good time.

Enjoy!

Dave from the Slackers