Tomorrow night I’ll be performing with my live hip-hop group, Out From Inside, featuring emcee Matt Ecklund (Unus), Cory Grossman on bass/cello, Andy Thornbrough on drums, and Jana Nyberg Meckler on vox.  Doors open at 7:30, there’s a $5 cover, and there’s a full line up of really awesome bands playing with us, including Lothario, King Tuesday, and much more.  I hope you can all make it out!

Ok, so, now that the advertising stuff is out of the way, I’ve got some new updates to share.  Performed last night with the Adam Meckler Orchestra to a full house at O’Gara’s in St. Paul, and it was awesome!  In honor of Mr. Meckler and his accomplishments, I thought I’d post a recording we did a while back that I’ve had sitting on my harddrive.  This recording was done at Signaturetone Recording in South Minneapolis by the awesome Adam Tucker, who was also recording the Orchestra last night.  ”I Remember Clifford” features Adam Meckler (trumpet), Graydon Peterson (bass), and Pete Hennig (drums).  Adam was just getting over the uber-flu when we recorded this, but I still think he sounds great.

New updates coming soon, with transcriptions, analysis, essays on performance and teaching, and maybe even some nerdy musicology stuff.

Coming up this Tuesday the 6th, I’ll be playing at Jazz Central from 8-11:30pm with Park Evans, Matt Peterson, and Pete Hennig to celebrate my birthday and just to play some sweet music!

Jazz Central has been around in Northeast Minneapolis for well over a year now, I believe.  It can be a bit hard to find, as it’s in the basement of the building and there’s no sign outside, but once you get inside it’s a very cool atmosphere.

For the show I’ll be bringing some delicious beverages, but encourage you to bring your own if you like.  There will also be cake.  NOM NOM NOM.

The first set will just be the quartet, but we’ll be opening it up for the second half if anybody would like to sit in.

I’m very much looking forward to the show, I hope you all can make it out!

As a fun little bonus thing this week, I thought I’d post up on the blog a video of “Nude” with some dudes at the Artist Quarter in St. Paul.  Featuring Kevin Gastonguay, Andrew Foreman, Zach Schmidt, and Max Corcoran.

\”Nude\” by Radiohead

Hola senors y senoritas!

So after I think more than a year, we’re bringing the website back in a new format, with new music, and new info!  This is a very exciting time, and I’ll be posting more frequently on the blog here about it as we go, but we’ll ease back into things with a brief music update.  I’ve uploaded three new tracks from a recording session I did this past Summer with Matt Peterson and Jay Epstein here in Minneapolis at Bathtub Shrine Recording Studio.  Thanks to Greg Schutte for sending me over the rough mixes right away, I thought they sounded good enough to put up on the website here so I could share them all with you!  The new tunes are “Nude”, “Stella”, and “You and the Night and the Music”.  I’ll be attempting to do updates 3 or 4 times a week from here on out, so be on the lookout for all new material!

Thanks for checking out the website!

P.S. If you’re gonna check out one of the new tunes, make it You and the Night.  It’s my personal favorite.

So apparently when I say I’m going to update the site that means after a couple more months of insane happenings and whatnot.  I’m (oddly) happy to say that things have calmed down considerably, and I can finally start sharing some of the awesome things that have been going on over the past few months.  I’ll briefly summarize in this post and then dedicate some longer posts later to a more detailed account of certain events.

First up:  Summer Tour 2010!

The Jana Nyberg Group went on it’s official tour this past summer, and my goodness it was crazy.  We played something like 20+ shows in 30 days, and went everywhere from Door County to Appleton, WI, to Milwaukee, to Iowa City, and finally back to Minneapolis where we had our first show at the Dakota.  There really isn’t a better way to bond with your bandmates and friends then sticking yourself into a small confined space with them for several hours at a time.  Uffda.  If you check out Jana’s website though, there are some really great and funny videos of us on tour, including some live performances from our shows!  You can find her here.

The Departure of the Woodsbies and One Mr. Derek Dreier

We were also saddened this past summer as several great friends and fellow musicians moved away from Minnesota and made their way out to Massachusetts.  I hope that if Greg, Ellen, or Derek are reading this that they know they are missed, and I hope to see you all again soon!

New Jana CD!

Before leaving us, however, Derek was able to spend a few days with the rest of the JNG recording our new album!  I’ll be keeping you updated as we get through the printing process and move closer to a release date.  I will say this though: our new CD makes our first one look like a piece of junk.  Seriously, it’s gonna knock your socks off.

The Emergence of Social Juggernauts, aka, Dr. Montgomery’s 100% Natural Good-Time Family Band Solution, aka The Evan Montgomery Quintet

I recently had my debut in the Twin Cities as a bandleader, and I’m pretty psyched about getting out there with this group and playing some more.  I’ve been really blessed with the chance to play with some wonderful musicians, such as Jay Epstein, Matt Peterson, Park Evans, and Adam Meckler, who filled in for our usual saxophonist Aaron Hedenstrom.  I’ll be posting links to their websites shortly, but in the meantime you can visit the bandcamp page I set up and hear a live recording of our first performance!  You can find it here.

The Rise of Out From Inside

We’re getting things moving with the hip-hop group I play with, and some exciting developments are in the works.  I’ll be sure to keep you guys updated as we go.

Building Up a Studio

I’ve begun teaching at a couple different spots in the Twin Cities area recently, mostly with Signature Music Studios in Rogers, MN, and now with All Things Musik, in the northwest suburbs of Minneapolis.  I’m also very excited about a new project I’ll be starting up in January with Inspiration Dance Academy in the East and Southeast suburbs of St. Paul.  I’ll be starting group guitar classes in January as well as private lessons, and I won’t give too much away, but Inspiration DA may also be offering lessons for many different instruments other than guitar.  I’ll be sure to post with more updates soon.

Last but not least, I wanted to give a little shout-out to Mizuho and Abi in this post.  I met Mizuho briefly two and a half years ago in Door County while I was working for Tim Nyberg at his gallery in Sturgeon Bay (which you should all go and check out, btw, his artwork is amazing. You can find him here).  I remember that Mizuho was there with her mother-in-law, and during our conversation I found out that Mizuho was visiting from Japan.  I took a few years of Japanese in high school and college, and made a pretty lame attempt to say hello to her, at the time thinking I had embarassed myself pretty badly.  But a year later I got a message out of the blue from her saying that she had found my website and had been following the updates and video/music postings.  We kept up an email correspondence for quite some time, but recently things have been insane and I haven’t made time to write her back.  So, I wanted to take this opportunity of the vast free time I had at 6 in the morning to write this mini-update to all of you folks out there, but mostly for Mizuho and her adorable daughter Abi.  If Mizuho lets me, I’d love to post a few photos of Abi that she’s sent me.  There’s one of her playing with a clay dinosaur that she made – and I swear it’s so cute I could die.

From me to you, thanks for visiting the site, and I hope you come back soon.

~Evan

p.s. Check the videos page for some updated goodies from the past few months.  Enjoy!

Sorry for the hiatus on posts, folks, but it’s been an insane 6 months.  I will, of course, give full updates soon, but I’ll be doing it in installments so I don’t have one 10-page long post.

I have, however, reposted my entire album into the music player on the left, so you can now listen to the whole CD at your leisure.  It’s still available for purchase on iTunes or from the website here, but I figure what good is your music if you’re not sharing it?

Thanks for visiting, check back soon for more updates!