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This page is out dated and battered and beaten. Please visit gabrielsullivanmusic.com for up to date ramblings!

Special Tucson Nights...

It's been a very busy couple of weeks. I've been playing, composing and arranging so many different styles and forms of music lately. It'd been a blast.

The last couple weeks I've been working out my first string arrangement for a string quartet and contrabass as part of Chris Black's Chamberlab I. The concert was held Saturday May 8th at The Screening Room. It was a lot of work seeing as how I hadn't written out music in almost 8 years. After a couple of days of correcting notation errors, I finished my piece entitled "Danza Del Torero (Dance of the Bullfighter)." It was a 3 and a half minute song in the key of melodic Cm and was inspired by the Balkan music of Southern Romania.

We took Chamberlab to KXCI Radio for a live performance...

That week was also Salvador Duran's 60th birthday. We did the only thing we knew how to do and threw him a party at Che's Lounge. We played songs of my own, Y La Orkesta, Calexico, The Jons, Brian Lopez and even some of Sal's. Everybody pitched in and got him a Bud Light pinata, 4 cakes, and a shit load of candy. Definitely one of the most special nights in Tucson I've had in a while.

Playing Brian Lopez tunes...

Singin happy birthday to Sal...

Doin some Calexico songs...

DRUUUUUUUNK...

Currently trying to decide how to package a 3 song live demo of my new 9 piece band The Taraf De Tucson... ideas?

Gabriel Sullivan

Tucson, AZ 5/10/2010

We're all gonna die from the Black Lung

So. My punk rock/ rage n roll band The American Black Lung has put up a new song featuring the one and only, Salvador Duran. It is one hell of a track if I don't say so myself. And not only that, but we've put a live album, our 2009 demos, and the new track all up for FREE download! That's 11 previously unreleased songs!

CLICK HERE to download your ABL rage pack!

In other news - A bunch of songwriter friends and myself did an hour and fourty minute performance at The Historic Rialto Theater last Saturday that consisted of 8 people all trading off and fronting their own songs. It was a one time event and it went off amazingly. Rumor has it there was some good video shot that night...

We had a lotta fun rehearsing this stuff...

The desert wants to rain.

Gabriel Sullivan

Tucson, AZ 4/20/10

Live EP for FREE download!

Okay. So a few weeks ago I opened for Exene Cervenka and decided to make a big ol' night of it. Brian Lopez opened the show and naturally, there was some blending of bands. Brian and Sergio helped me out along with Andrew Collberg on one of my new songs "None Of This Is Mine." I joined Brian playing the Bajo Sexto for one of his songs. Having just moved into a new rehearsal space with all these guys, it seems like this is something that will be happening a lot more often.

This was also the first night where I tried out the band I want to use for my next album. All of which focused around a powerful brass section. We did new arrangements of old songs and tried out a couple brand new ones. It was a special night.

Here are four of the songs from that night, recorded with a little hand-held, bootleg promoting device. The download includes four mp3's, artwork taken from the show's poster, and a credits page.

If you dig the free stuff, check out my not free stuff... I gotta eat.

CLICK HERE FOR GABRIEL SULLIVAN MERCH

Gabriel Sullivan - Live at Club Congress 1/24/10


CLICK HERE FOR DOWNLOAD

Gabriel Sullivan
Tucson, AZ 2/11/10

Pepita the cat

There's a new musician in the house...

Pepita


We've already written a song together. It is in melodic Cm and has a Reggaeton beat behind it.

Gabriel Sullivan
Tucson, AZ 2/3/10

Dark in the borderlands

Tucson, AZ 1/28/10


It's a dark day in the desert. The sky is black and the ground is moist. My clothes are all soaked in mud.

Tonight Chris Black and I will play our first Tucson show with our new band "Bajo Turbato." It is low. It is rabid. It is Gypsy and it is Sonoran. It feels good to have a band where you can completely lose your shit and know that anything goes for the 45 minutes of broken noise. Isn't that what rock n roll is about? It's easy to forget. The rat race of trying to "make it" sure fucks up a lot of people. Townes knew what was up.

Black Lung is almost done tracking the first half of our new record. Imagine Iggy Pop and Dio drinking sipping on sweet agave, cooking carne asada in the back yard, singing along to Mariachi Tecalitlan and you'll have an idea of the new record.

New instruments


Still loud


Salvador Duran lended his voice


Chris Black & Vicki Brown


I'm working out a lot of new songs for a new record. They're fast, they're dark, they're balkan, they're latin, they're tex-mex. Can't wait for everyone to hear them!

Here is a video of one of those new songs. The video was shot 1/24/10 at Club Congress and features Brian Lopez, Sergio Mendoza, and Andrew Collberg. We were opening for Exene Cervenka.

"None Of This Is Mine"


Gabriel Sullivan
Tucson, AZ 1/28/10

The cowboy way is the only way

Drive about 40 miles south of Tucson towards Ajo, turn left on Hayhook road, follow the signs to "Keeylocko" and before you know it, you'll be sipping bottom shelf whiskey in a dirt floored bar while a guy named Oatie sings Johnny Cash karaoke songs. Step outside and you'll find a handful of ranch animals roaming around, a few battered wood buildings that read "church," "Keeylocko Bank," and things of the sort, and you'll gaze at a night sky that goes on as far as your drunken eyes can see. Cowtown Keeylocko was started in the 70's by Ed Keeylocko - A 79 year old African American cowboy who lives on his land, lives by his rules, and lives everyday like it's his last. It's a real western town with none of the bullshit gimmicks you'd expect to find in "cow towns" nowadays. Folks from Tucson make trips up there every once in a while. Sometimes for "Keeylocko Days" in October, sometimes just to get away, and sometimes to see some of the Tucson musicians kick out the jams on the dirt floors.

I've been out there a good number of times. I've played some songs, danced, passed out drunk, been woken up by a bull... the whole bit. No matter what happens, you always leave with an aching body, some stories, and some life lessons. I returned from our most recent trip with my mind wrapped around the idea that the Keeylocko locals have managed to strip life down, and stripped happiness down to its very core, and when it comes down to it, these "poor" folks are the happiest people I have ever met. I've liked to think I understand that a person does not need much to be happy, but I think only now am I even beginning to see what it really means. You go out there and play your songs with your delay pedals and vintage amps and fancy guitars, and everyone loves it. But it is not because your analog delay sounded so great, or because you had the oldest supro guitar, it's simply that you're playing some tunes, and why the hell shouldn't people have a good time! It's a really beautiful thing, for even just one night, to really understand the way life is meant to be lived - loud, passionate, and with people you love. Being back in Tucson I've been running Ed's speeches in my mind on repeat and remembering the way it feels to be care free and really living to the fullest. What it feels like to not care about putting out records and booking tours in a certain amount of time. Fuck time. Worrying about how much time you've got will kill you. Live now.



I don't ever put too much time into these online blog things, but I felt this was something worth writing about. If you're ever in Tucson, you make sure to take those dirty, bumpy roads to Keeylocko.

A ling to a video of one of Ed Keeylocko's speeches:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adcK1HrIXzY

Gabriel Sullivan
Tucson, AZ 1/4/10