NEWS

MAY 2013

HEY YAAAAAAA!!! HEY YAAAAAAAA!!! HEYYYYYY YAAAA!!!!!! I LOVE THAT SONG! HAVE YOU HEARD THAT SONG HEY YA???
Im talking about "Hey Ya Nocturne Opus #4 in d flat minor with Severorsikov Blahatnik conducting the Minsk Philharmonic" from 1952 not that dumb Outkast song.

Hello fine friends of creative music. let's get this rig a runnin' shall we? let's hear the chimes at midnight! let's howl at the moon! let's set fire to the night sky with our passion!

let's eat a 2 gallon drum of Mike and Ike's from Costco laced with PCP and dance all night!! I LOVE DANCING AT SKRILLEX SHOWS AN I DONT CARE WHO KNOWS IT!!!! IM FREE FROM MY EARTHLY CAGE!!! WHEN I GO TO A DJ SET I WANT TO FUCKING DANCE AND LAUGH AND HAVE FUN AND GET A HAND JOB FROM A HALLUCINATING KOALA BEAR WHILE A 14 YEAR OLD GIRL IN FRONT OF ME CHOKES ON HER OWN JUGULAR VEIN AND THEN LASOOS HER 28 YEAR OLD BOYFRIEND WITH IT WHILE HE IS TRYING TO FIND PIECES OF HIS EAR ON THE GROUND!!!

I want to thank all of you lovely people that came out to see the Bad Plus and Bill Frisell play at Lincoln Center the other week! It was a real honor to be there and to play with Big Bill! The Bad Plus is out west right now so if youre out here check thebadplus.com for tour dates! Also thx to the Electric Fetus for having The Dave King Trucking CO. playing at record store day last week! too fun. The fetus has always been there for me and is one of the great indie record stores in the world! We just added a Minneapolis show this Monday at the Ice house playing with JT bates and I as "Real Bulls" opening! both bands!! please come!! 9pm!!!

OK BIG NEWS. THE DAVE KING TRUCKING CO HAS SET UP A KICKSTARTER CAMPAIGN TO RELEASE OUR NEW RECORD ON VINYL!
THERE IS A LINK AND WE PLEASE REQUEST THAT YOU CHECK IT OUT AND SPREAD IT AROUND! THIS RECORD WILL BE AMAZING AND WE WILL DO IT RIGHT! WE WILL HONOR ALL CONTRIBUTIONS! WE LOVE YOU!!
Keep checking in and thanks so much for the support.
Love Dave

APRIL 2013

Hi all of you sisters and brothers of the ya ya jazz nerdhood. Im gonna start this by saying that the Rob Lowe saxophone playing scenes in "St. Elmo's Fire" are the sole reason why the rain forests are being destroyed. It's kind of a quantum theory thing.

BIG BIG BIG BIG BIG NEWS!!...............MAD MEN IS.................wait..............HAPPY APPLE IS GONNA PLAY TWO FUCKING SHOWS THIS WEEKEND AT THE ICEHOUSE IN MINNEAPOLIS!!!! FRI AND SAT AT 11PM!!! PLEASE COME DOWN!!! OUR FIRST SHOWS SINCE LAST SEPTEMBER WHEN WE NEATLY BLEW THE ROOF OFF OF THAT FUCKING PLACE WITH ALL OF OUR COMPLEX YET PRETTY MUSIC SONGS!!
COME HEAR ERIK FRATZKE RE DEFINE THE ROLE OF THE FENDER BASS WITHIN THE MODERN "jazz" CONSTRUCT! COME HEAR MIKE LEWIS YELL IN BETWEEN TORRID SHEETS OF LYRICAL SCALE WAVES AND TONE POETRY!!! COME HEAR ME ATTEMPT TO "HANG" WITH THE "CATS" (these are jazz terms that are important to understand) WITH MY DRUMMING SET AND MY "BRASS" (cymbals) AND MY STICKS AND........wait..........what are these things??.........they look like some sort of mini shop broom................or like a comb for black men..........wait.......wait.......are these paint brushes?............oh wait!!!!.........THESE ARE DRUM BRUSHES!!!!! OH YEAH!!..........................JAZZ OUT!!!................I SHALL INCORPORATE THESE THINGS SOMEHOW ON A "BALLAD" (jazz term for a slow, quiet song to reflect about your life to).

COME OUT! WE NEED YOU! WE MUST BE VALIDATED! WE MUST GET THESE IDEAS OUT OF OUR HEADS BEFORE WE GIVE THE WHOLE THING UP AND MOVE TO CALGARY AND OPEN A SKATE SHARPENING SHOP!!

THANKS FOR CHECKING IN AND THANKS TO ALL WHO CAME OUT TO THE HALLOWEEN ALASKA SHOW AT THE HOPKINS THEATER THE OTHER NIGHT! WE'VE NEVER PLAYED NEXT TO AN ANTIQUE STORE AND A QUIZNOS BEFORE!!!
also thanks to all who came out to see the Dave King Trucking Co. at the Artists Quarter last week. We felt good about you being there and we felt good about our place at the top of JAZZ HISTORY.
LOVE DAVE
ps check the shows page!!

MAR 28, 2013

hi kind people. i am back at my computer machine writing to inform all of you of some really heavy shit going on...............ummmm.............ummm..............
ummm...........................................ummm....................................oh yeah netflix has lots of movies and tv shows.............................
lets see..................so does hulu.............and....................game of thrones is something people watch..................and...............spotify doesnt pay royalties unless you have a high powered expensive lawyer......................and.......................SKRILLEX GETS PAID 300,000.00 A SHOW BUT DOESNT CARE ABOUT MONEY.
hey.....so i played at an amazing memorial concert in nyc last week for my idol and biggest influence Paul Motian with the bad plus and joe lovano and bill frisell and ravi coltrane. Paul passed away late 2011 and it was fantastic to be asked to honor him and to play with those guys. THANK YOU PAUL FOR YOUR LIFE DEDICATED TO BEAUTY.
are there any paul motian concerts on hulu?.........................
i also played a great trio gig at the cornelia st. cafe in nyc with chris speed and the great young bassist chris tordini! it was a blast and thanks to all who attended. you are all nice and caring.
THEN I WENT UPSTATE AND RECORDED AGAIN WITH THE GREAT DAVID TORN AND DONNA LEWIS! YOU ARE BOTH FANTASTIC AND THE FOOD WAS GREAT AND THE HANG WAS NICE! THANK YOU FOR WANTING ME AROUND! it takes a special person to see my worth buried beneath high school wrestling scars and muted pain over my paper route laden childhood in a shady, hilly area of the north.

NOW I AM ANNOUNCING THAT THIS WEEKEND THE 29TH AND 30TH OF MARCH THE DAVE KING TRUCKING CO IS PLAYING THE ARTISTS QUARTER IN ST PAUL 9PM ALL AGES WELCOME! COME HEAR US PLAY NEW TUNES AND OLD TUNES AND NEW TUNES AGAIN! I SHALL TELL TOURING STORIES AND I SHALL OFFEND AT LEAST 14% OF THE "CROWD".
please come. i will be happy for a little while if you do.
ON A PERSONAL NOTE MY CHILDREN HAVE A NEW DOG! ITS A PIT BULL FROM A RESCUE SHELTER FOR PIT BULLS!!..........HER NAME IS "GLOW".............. IT IS SWEET!!! ......IT IS NICE!!!...... IT WILL RIP YOUR FACE OFF!! ......ITS IS INSANELY SCARY LOOKING!!!........ IT HAS A HEART OF DARKNESS I JUST KNOW IT!!........ IM IN TROUBLE!!....... AND SO ARE YOU IF YOU FUCK WITH MY KIDS WHILE THEY ARE WALKING "IT".
LOVE TO YOU ALL AND THANKS FOR CHECKING IN!!!
DK

MAR 2013

hello all you creatures of the jazz lagoon......... you who glide through the sodium lamp lit alley ways of jazz town...........yeah.......cool jazz town.........BOP BE BOP!.............SKI BOOP!.......yeah.........ohh....yeah.......SKEETLY BOP BOP!!! SSHHHHH.......yeah.......feather that kick drum daddy..............SKI BUM BUM YUM BOPITY BOP!!!!! let the sock cymbal chick chick on daddy...........BOP!!

ENOUGH OF THIS HORSE CRAP!!!!........wait.....................................BOOP BOP SKEET BOP BANG!!!!!!!!!

Enough.
I have just returned home from a little smattering of Bad Plus "hits" across the northeast and the good old middle west! thanks to the great supporters of our music for showing up and clapping!
Keith Jarrett (the really really really really really really really amazing amazing amazing amazing really really really really assholish really really amazing pianist) once exclaimed joyfully that his audience really doesn't need to clap.........BUT MINE DOES!!!! I NEED IT AND I WANT IT and by golly there have been one or two times in the last 23 years THAT I HAVE DESERVED IT almost.
So thank you kind people from the land of applause givers. We had a great time playing for you and meeting some of you and eating salmon salads backstage with our airline wine that we carry with us. Let's see what did we do offstage that is worth knowing.........................................bull roar............well Reid and I got up early sunday morning and found a gym in Iowa City.....umm............Ethan told me some stuff about jazz.......ummmm.......lets see......I drove most of the way and we ran out of gas on a lonely stretch of highway outside Burlington Vermont and Ben and Jerry themselves rescued us and filled our tank with their new flavor of ice cream called "toosie petrol"!! they are nice and weirdly sort of hippyish.

OK ONTO SOME MORE NEWS! I AM PLAYING THIS FRI AND SAT MARCH 8TH AND 9TH WITH MY GREAT NEW TRIO FEATURING BILL CARROTHERS ON PIANO AND BILLY PETERSON ON BASS AT THE ARTISTS QUARTER IN ST PAUL 9PM ALL AGES WELCOME! PLEASE COME!! OUR DEBUT RECORD CALLED "Ive Been Ringing You" WAS JUST NAMED RECORD OF THE YEAR IN THE NEW YORK CITY JAZZ RECORD (formerly all about jazz) AND IT GOT A 4 AND A HALF STAR (out of 5 you smart asses) REVIEW IN DOWNBEAT WITH A PHOTO OF ME LOOKING UNBELIEVABLY SEXY.......not too difficult in Downbeat.........pleated pants and Tommy Bahama shirts ring a bell? WHEN DID JAZZ LOSE ITS COOL?????...oh yeah........when Chick Corea formed "the Chick Corea Electric Band" in 1985 and hired the stylist for the off off broadway dinner theater production of St. Elmo's Fire and said "give us the Rob Lowe".
That's when.
SO WHAT ELSE???? Well in some very exciting and humbling news The Bad Plus was asked to perform at the Paul Motian memorial in NYC on March 22nd with Bill Frisell and Joe Lovano playing Paul's music. This is a beyond great honor and I cannot express enough what Paul meant to me as a drummer, composer, and band leader. thank you Paul for everything you gave to us kids.

AND THANK YOU LOVELY FOLKS WHO READ THIS AND SUPPORT MY MUSIC!!
lets see....anything else??...... oh yes check out that Gerhardt Richter documentary on netflix!!......so quiet and inspiring....... and maybe watch the Woody Allen masterwork "Manhattan Murder Mystery" sometime soon if you can. I forgot about that one over the years and re checked in recently.....so fucking funny its not possible. Woody you are a super bad motherfucker but you should allow yourself some basic humility and express that you might have really fucked up on that whole marrying the wifes kid thing. She's probably really cool but wow.....that takes a disconnected soul to pull off that level of baller destruction...........OH WHATEVER!!!!! HES FUCKING HILARIOUS!!!

LOVE DAVE

FEB 2013

HI AVANT MUSIC COMMUNICATORS WITH THE FRACTURED GALAXY OF UNANSWERABLE QUESTIONS AND PRIVATE THOUGHTS OF HOW TOTAL PUBLIC NUDITY ACCEPTANCE WOULD PROBABLY TURN US OFF SEX FOREVER THUS HEALING THE PLANET WITH OUR DISAPPEARANCE!! that was one of my "pot sentences". i dont smoke the pot. i have smoked it tragically but dont indulge anymore. i say tragically because im the guy that does things when im high like attempting at full volume to break down the muppet movie (the original.....please) as a post post modern transmission from a remote aboriginal walkabout bliss space where being that fucking kind and earnest makes human heads explode in a million fragments of morbid neon plutonium self hatred therefore having puppets carry the load for all of us in a christ vacuum of the purest oneness possible in all dimensions with a light that makes the color field scene at the end of "2001 a space oddessy" look like karl lagerfelds funeral collection.

how do you spell oddessy? every possible combination says im wrong and i will not spell check. i will eat the liver of a beached male walrus that has been vomited half eaten out of a diseased bull shark before i will spell check a fucking thing because im right.
It has been a busy time for the factory of music that very few love but those who do are my beautiful soul mates! we are working on some new music over here for a bunch of music ensembles! wait a minute........THE GRAMMYS WERE ON THE OTHER NIGHT.........OH.......THATS WHY I STABBED MYSELF TEN TIMES IN FRONT OF MY WEAK HEARTED MOTHER!!!!

friends....lets be honest with each other............................................right?

THANK YOU LOVELY FOLKS IN DETROIT (jazz city motherfuckers! not rock city!!! fuck "kiss" and fuck any apes that dig that shit........wait........."beth" was good and.............well..........i guess i dug "lick it up") and APPLETON (birthplace of the great willem dafoe) AND PITTSBURGH!!!! THE BAD PLUS LOVES YOU ALL!!! YOU WERE SO KIND TO US!! pittsburgh is the shit......seriously bet on that place. the warhol museum and the capitol of heinz products within one mile of each other. that gets the biggest fuck yeah im capable of.
i have to say its a great pleasure to play densely whimsical songs for you people and have you react so kindly!
WE ARE OFF TO THE NORTHEAST! WHERE THE SNOW FALLS BRIGHT AND BIG! WHERE THE FRIED OYSTER EATING CONTESTS BELCH THEIR HEARTY CONTESTANTS ONTO THE THE NARROW STREETS AT MIDNIGHT!!! WHERE LAWS WERE WRITTEN AND BROKEN!!!! WHERE THE TEA FLOWED INTO THE OCEAN LIKE PATRIOT BLOOD AND ALE URINE!! WHERE TOM BRADY GOES TO HIS BARBER AND SAYS "give me the pete rose!"

we are playing the rite of spring this week! northeast look out!!! please check thebadplus.com for details!
what else?????? MY DAUGHTER MADE THE A HONOR ROLL IN HER FIRST TRY!! A 7TH GRADE SAMURAI!! MY SON GOT HIS HAIR CUT LIKE DECKARD IN BLADE RUNNER! HES TOO HANDSOME. I HATE HIM FOR IT....... I NOW HAVE MORE GRAY HAIRS IN MY BEARD THAN DENVER PYLE (uncle jesse from the super underrated television program "the dukes of hazzard" which originally was titled "the dukes and duchesses of hazzard manor" and starred a young jeremy irons as "young lord winthrop".........true story).

i shall update the site again soon with a few secret and then not secret projects that i may or may not need alot of help with.
i love you all that read this shit.
love dave

JAN 2013

happy new year my friends inside the swelling knees of the internet! its been a busy year end here at the "creative" music factory of king bull roar. i really dug the band C&C music factory. killing band......killing live band too........so killing. i was eating at boston market the other day where i usually order the baked ham with wilted greens and boxed corn bread with a 94 ounce mr. pibb. when i realized that the C&C music factory was not around long enough to fully express themselves. i hope they plan on a reunion tour and new recording soon.
i want to thank all of you nice people who came out to the bad plus's traditional year end multi night runs in chicago, minneapolis and nyc!
we had a great time playing and we appreciate the support from you all year after year!
we are going to be finishing the runs out in st. louis on jan 15-19 and columbia missouri on the 20th! we have been doing a 4 night stand in st. louis for 7 years now at the beginning of each year and its always nice to see those folks!
well lets see.......i had a great session in nashville in november with some really heavy nashville cats! Joe "guido" Welsh, Chris "christmas" Rodriguez, Viktor "the victor" Krauss, Steve "the king of blowing over end of tune vamps" King, Mike "mic" Poole, and Trey "they call me trey" Call. all awesome guys and seriously grooving motherfuckers. Guido welsh is also a widely respected organic food farmer (mostly bitter greens) and shared some of his secrets on why supporting responsible farming techniques is important under any circumstance! fuck yeah i agree! thats why from now on im only going to boston market when im in boston to keep it local!
so my little trio record called "ive been ringing you" on sunnyside records featuring billy peterson on bass and bill carrothers on piano got a 4 and a half star review (out of 5 motherfuckers) in downbeat mag this month and was also named one of the top albums of 2012 by "the new york city jazz record" formerly "all about jazz". thank you to those publications for the support! not bad for some snow pants wearing doofs from the north!
well my kids had a nice christmas! does anyone give a shit?
they ate metric tons of sugar plums and played with toy trains and ate sweetbreads and grandmother and i cooked a goose and took the toboggan out and flew through the icy woods! what fun it is!!! then i went to "the king of diamonds" and drank gin in front of some pretty good looking strippers.
i want you all to be safe this year and thanks again for all the support! its been a busy and productive year and i wanted to give a special thanks to modern drummer mag again for putting me on the cover in september thus cementing me in the closeted drum nerd circle hall of fame. that was seriously a teen dream come true and i dont give a hoot who knows it! AWESOME.
love you all!
dk

ps check the badplus.com for tour dates!

NOV 20, 2012

hi everybody! how you all doin tonight? good good! yeah! so who likes to go to the movies out there? the movies are cool right? yeah! i like the movies too! i take my girl to the movies and shes like "i want popcorn AND milk duds" and im like "are you fucking kidding me? i've paid less for escorts to the minnesota music awards shows in the 90's than all that shit costs!"
ive noticed that movies arent quite as well made as they used to be. right? like "teen wolf". that was a good film. Nowadays the wolf would either be a totally computer generated 2 dimensional video game graphic that morphed into a body obsessed date rape shitbag or it would be a sensitive bearded guy who listens to james blake and iron and wine like it was the god art of all time and makes his own belts out of bike tires and road kill fur and spike jonze would direct it and it would feature "new" music and would use claymation and puppets made in downtown l.a. by young creatives looking to shun the old l.a. vibe of excessive star wealth and casting couch banging.

I AM BACK FROM MY BAD PLUS EURO TOUR! I AM FEELING BETTER ABOUT MYSELF BECAUSE MY CHILDREN HAVE LET ME KNOW THAT I AM A DECENT MAN WITH A SLIGHTLY CROOKED SOUL BUT AN OVERALL SWEET DISPOSITION AND GENTLE CADENCE TO MY VOICE WHEN IM NOT YELLING ABOUT MAKING SURE THE CATS GET BRUSHED SO I DONT WAKE UP WITH RADISH EYES.

thx to all the lovelies that came out to the bad plus shows on our fall u.k. europe tour! we had a blast playing for you! reid was funny on the mic! ethan wore suits! we ate crepe nutellas in paris! we worked out in the hotel gym in sarajevo. we travelled alot on trains and drank bad espressos and talked about "jazz".
thx to all the great folks who support us out there! our record made possible is out and available in places out in the internet and world ether.

heres an update!
monday night the 19th of nov i am playing the icehouse in minneapolis with j.t. bates in our drum duet band "real bulls" and on this show we will be joined by special guests brandon wozniak and chris speed on tenor saxes! 11pm!! essentially it would be called "real bulls with horns". chris speed is in town from nyc to make the new dave king trucking co. record! WE MADE IT! ITS GREAT! IT WILL BE OUT IN THE NEXT 6 MONTHS SOMETIME! IT WILL BE CALLED "ADOPTED HIGHWAY". LOOK FOR IT SOON! COME OUT TO SEE THIS SPECIAL SHOW!
THEN THE TRUCKING CO IS PLAYING THE ARTISTS QUARTER IN ST. PAUL THIS FRI AND SAT NOV 23 AND 24 AT 9PM ALL AGES! LEAVE YOUR TURKEY FATIGUE BEHIND AND COME DOWN FOR THE AVANT AMERICANA BEAT DOWN! OR.....DOWN BEAT AS IT WERE.

my kids are good and looking forward to the long thanksgiving weekend! they had a halloween blowout and we have paved my driveway with leftover skittles.

again i appreciate all the support and please keep checking in!
love dk

NOV 2012

hi friends!...... "friends" was a show i never really checked out. i dont know why............ wait........i have an idea why........i think i saw the intro once and there was a gaggle of people who were clearly "friends" dressed like corporate banquet dining room servers and they were "dancing" with moves that made a 72 year old german man look like james brown........thats probably why.

FRIENDS! i want to thank those of you who came down to the cd release shows for my new trio record with bill carrothers and billy peterson the other week at the artists quarter in st. paul! great turnout! we had a blast! those guys are so great and i had alot of fun getting inside the dark corners of the tunes with them. thx bill and billy!
i am currently in berlin in the middle of a nice bad plus european tour supporting our new record "made possible". we had two great nights in london and then a great show in amsterdam then off to dresden germany then berlin last night and we are off to eastern europe today! thx to the nice "friends" that came out!
we have been taking the trains quite a bit including one day for ten hours making my knees feel like the chain of a bike that the american pickers guys found in a creek in michigan from 1934. those dudes on american pickers are a riot.
the shorter man is actually a pretty nice guy for the most part but the other guy......laurel? is his name laurel?.... he is a flat out cocaine explosion of day terrors compressed into dark, purified pill popping passion and filled to the tip of his soul with a deep, deep desire for hardcore trailer park porn and excessive wealth............ I LOVE HIM.
when is that danielle girl just gonna tell them both to fuck off and do a 3 million dollar spread in hustler?
I AM BEING GENDER POLITICALLY CORRECT. I AM USING SARCASM! ok please check thebadplus.com for tour dates! oh lets see.........my kids are excited for halloween but i will miss it this year because of the tour! my daughter is gonna go as howard cosell in a wide world of sports jacket circa 1975 and my son is gonna go as the singer of mumford and sons with an axe in his head...........NO THEY'RE NOT!!!!! THATS JUST MY OWN FANTASIES AGAIN!!!
I LOVE YOU FRIENDS!
DK

OCT 17, 2012

HI LOVERS OF "CREATIVE" MUSIC!!
"CREATIVE MUSIC CAN BE FUN AND SEXY" is the title of a book im going to write when im 94 years old.
im also going to start smoking pot when i turn 87. im also going to start eating beef jerky by the metric ton when i turn 76.
im going to ride a mechanical bull for as long as i can when i turn 69. im also gonna go to that pawn shop from "pawn stars" in the next few years to try to sell my earl cambell rookie card (near mint) which i had earl sign when i met him at his barbecue joint in austin at the 2001 south by southwest jerkoff desperation music festival. i asked him to make it out to "my great friend alan alda" as a nod to the surrealist art movement ive been inspired by when im not reading maxim.
OK!
Im so thankful to all the folks who came out to the bad plus's second "made possible" tour leg these last weeks! we appreciate your love and support!!
we head to the u.k. and europe next week! check thebadplus.com for tour updates!
BIG NEWS! I AM PLAYING THE ARTIST QUARTER IN ST. PAUL THIS FRI AND SAT OCT 19 AND 20 TO CELEBRATE THE RELEASE OF MY NEW RECORD CALLED "IVE BEEN RINGING YOU" OUT ON SUNNYSIDE RECORDS AND IT FEATURES BILL CARROTHERS AND BILLY PETERSON WHO WILL BE PLAYING WITH ME AT THE SHOWS!!
the record features "standards" so the show will feature "standards" as well. WE ARE ADVENTUROUS!! WE WILL EXPLORE HARMONY AND RHYTHM!! WE WILL PLAY INSIDE AS WELL AS OUTSIDE THE LINES! WE WILL PROVE A KNOWLEDGE OF MUSIC RULES AND HOW TO BREAK THEM! I WILL TALK SHIT ON THE MIC!
DO NOT MISS THIS!! BILL CARROTHERS IS COMING IN FROM HIS HOME IN MICHIGAN! MAKE HIM FEEL WELCOME FOR GODSAKE!

THE SHOWS ARE ALL AGES AND START AT 9PM! TELL YOUR FRICKIN FRIENDS FOR THE LOVE OF PETE!
WE NEED SUPPORT FOR THIS CRAP!

ok well.......lets see.......my car is still broken and i have written 7 childrens books. more on that later. my kids are well.......my son is dancing alot to michael jackson (on vinyl only because im a painfully hip parent) and my daughter is in the school play as a dancer and singer. she better not make any mistakes or she will be grounded and allowed only 50 hours of tv and 400 text messages a week........ oh and the wife is gearing up to go back and finish her degree in horticulture so we can grow radishes the size of everlast speedbags under the stairs with lights when the sun finally goes out!!! so we have that going for us......which is nice. (caddyshack quote for all of the 3,967,060 caddyshack quoters in the midwest.)
i love you nice people! thanks for checking in!
love dave

OCT 2012

YES........YES........SAY YES...........SAY YES AND MEAN IT.........SAY YES TO ME.....I SHALL SAY YES BACK.....im not talking about the bad YES im talking about being open to possibilities you dig?.....BUT.....i did see the band YES leaving the hilton in durham north carolina last year when the bad plus was doing the rite of spring. we were staying there too by the way because jazz musicians are deeply respected by the hilton family. i came up to the SUV's that they had just gotten in and said "hey you guys are YES" AND THEY SAID "YES" and we all laughed and then i went for a ride on the back of their unicorn named "randy". i had my spurs with me in my room and i put them on and gave randy a few kicks to the ribs and he flew me over the cousin's sub shop behind the tires plus next to the boston market across from the home depot next to the red lobster where we stopped and had the scampi lunch. too fun. thx "randy".

BIG NEWS! THE BAD PLUS'S NEW RECORD "MADE POSSIBLE" CAME OUT ON SEPT 23RD AND WE CELEBRATED WITH TWO NYC SHOWS! THX TO ALL THAT ATTENDED AND THANKS TO EVERYONE THAT CAME OUT TO THE PLUS SHOWS IN KNOXVILLE AND DURHAM AND D.C. AND PHILLY AS WELL!! and thx to rolling stone for giving us a nice concery review for our show in knoxville!
NEXT WE HEAD TO THE WEST COAST BY WAY OF WINNEPEG. PLEASE COME OUT PLUS FANS! BOSEMAN, SEATTLE, KIRKAND WA, LOS ANGELES, SAN DIEGO, PHOENIX, SAN FRANCISCO (doing the rite of spring) and DENVER!!! THEN TO THE U.K. AND EUROPE FROM OCT 22 TILL NOV 7TH!

Also in the news: MY NEW SOLO RECORD CALLED "IVE BEEN RINGING YOU" CAME OUT ON OCT 2ND ON SUNNYSIDE RECORDS! the record features the great BILL CARROTHERS and BILLY PETERSON and celebrates my love of the "jazz standard" as well as some more edgy odds and ends. it is available on itunes and in fine retail outlets!
WE WILL BE DOING TWIN CITIES RECORD RELEASE SHOWS ON OCT 19 AND 20 FRI AND SAT AT THE ARTISTS QUARTER IN ST. PAUL AT 9PM ALL AGES WELCOME!
im super happy with it and bill and billy sound amazing! i believe some positive reviews are coming in! thank GOD because reviews are my main focus in life........ummm....in fact if i didnt get reviewed either positively of negatively id probably just get back on "randy" and fly away to a land where the scampi buffets flow like wine and all my ideas are considered fucking genius.

please check tour updates if you wish and thx again to all the lovely people who care about my stuff. i hope the music i make makes you happy and gets you someplace good.
love dave

CHECK thebadplus.com for tour dates!!

SEP 2012

allright you old rattlesnakes!! you old cattle rustlers!! you old horses thieves! you old nice people who allow me a forum for internet charm mechanisms!! I AM CHARMING! ask anyone in my house over here in golden valley mn. right by the arts high school where as we speak young assholes are walking by my house with their cigarettes burning holes in their frail cool hearts! AMERICAN APPAREL!! YOU HAVE MUCH TO ANSWER FOR! most of this shit looked bad the first time around.
ON TO IMPORTANT THINGS!! im currently in upstate new york doing a record with DAVID TORN PRODUCING! DAVID TORN IS AN OSCAR WINNING FILM SCORER! HES DAVID BOWIES GUITR PLAYER! HES A GENIUS! HES MY ACTUAL FRIEND! HE HELPED DESIGN THE STEINBERGER GUITAR! (take note 80's nostalgia fools) HE'S AN ECM RECORDS LEGEND!
ok....thx to all the nice people that came out to the newport jazz fest where the bad plus played with my hero BILL FRISELL!! we played PAUL MOTIANS music and it was so amazing to get to improvise with bill. thx bill!!
ok also a big thx to those who came out to the dakota in minneapolis to hear the trucking band the other week!
yes!! and thx to all that attended the second jt bates dave king drum duet show at the ichouse....we are called REAL BULLS and we will gorge you with loving horns!!

SO ONTO THE BIG NEWS!
HAPPY APPLE IS ROARING BACK TO THE STAGE ON SEPT 7 AND 8 AT THE ICEHOUSE IN MINNEAPOLIS!! im sorry for making a big deal about this but its been two and a half years since we played live in the twin cites and we are PUMPED!
WE PROMISE BIG THINGS! WE KNOW THE TUNES! WE WILL TALK SHIT AND PLAY TONS OF NOTES!
COME DOWN JAZZ FANS.
fri and sat sept 7 and 8. different sets both nights!
we love you.
ALSO ATTENTION DRUM NERDS LIKE ME! I AM ON THE COVER OF THE OCT ISSUE OF MODERN DRUMMER! THANK YOU MICHAEL PARRILLO FOR WRITING A NICE PIECE ON A GOOF FROM MINNESOTA! i think its on stands on sept 6th. buy it so my profile gets big enough to be able to pay for my daughters 7600.00 braces!! MY GOD WHY ARE YOU SO EXPENSIVE BRACES?? WHY DO YOU WANT TO KILL ME WITH YOUR COST BRACES?? WHY BRACES? I DIDNT HAVE BRACES SO I AM SHOCKED AT YOUR COST BRACES! BRACES YOU ARE SO MEAN TO ME!!!
ALSO THE FILM BY NOAH HUTTON CALLED KING FOR TWO DAYS ABOUT THE WALKER SHOWS OF 2010 IS OUT ON DVD AND AVAILABLE AT kingfortwodays.com
THX NOAH! DONT KNOW HOW TO REPAY YOU!! check out chris speeds solo on "when in north dakota" in the trucking bands set to get a glimpse of a real motherfucker (chris speed) at work.
OK THX FOR CHECKING IN!
oh yes i forgot to mention i went to the mn st fair with the brood the other day and i brought my own food........raw kale chips and goji berries....what has happened to me?
love dk
gig update: happy apple at the icehouse in minneapolis fri and sat sept 7th and 8th 11pm first twin cities shows in 2 and a half years!!
halloween alaska sept 8th in the afternoon sometime at an event for summit brewery (info online?)

i also will be playing at dosh's 40th b day concert at the turf club sept 14th!
dave king trucking co. at the icehouse in minneapolis monday sept 17th 930pm
the bad plus u.s. tour begins sept 20th in support of our new record "made possible" out on tues sept 25th. dont steal it please! check for dates on thebadplus.com
new site up!!
check back for updates!!

AUG 2012

hey.........over here........hey!....look here!!!!!! for gods sake over here!!!!!! dude.............here!!!....im here!!!!!......right...right here....yes here... in the smallest corner of the worlds consciousness.....yes....i dont know why.........yes....maybe because the olympics is on?.......well high culture seems to always take a back seat to making balls go far and lifting heavy things and twirling around....i dont know........yes i am high culture!!.....you didnt know that?.........incredibly high culture!!......i make very smart music and art decisions!!...yes and the people who like my shit are very smart!!.........yes.......well yes the olympics seem neat i guess.......yes they are sponsored by mcdonalds and they promote low vibrating out dated concepts like nationalism and neanderthalism......ok....yes girls beach volleyball is porn i agree.
OK!!!! (by the way im not some art pussy whos afraid of the power of the body...i was a fucking varsity linebacker and a star wrestler and i can take a hit for real and i work out at an old mans gym near my house and i squatted 650 lbs last week..seriously...i just have the feeling we need to celebrate cy twombly more thats all). JUST BACK FROM THE BIG SUMMER TOUR WITH JOSH REDMAN AND THEN WE FINISHED IN NYC DOING THE RITE OF SPRING AT LINCOLN CENTER (just us not josh) and then WE PLAYED THE NEWPORT FESTIVAL WITH MY HERO BILL FRISELL!!!!!!! and it was "off the chain". I THINK IT WAS SO GOOD THAT JACK DEJHONETTE FORGOT TO SET UP HIS 4TH SPLASH CYMBAL!! we had a great time and thanks to all the folks that came out!
we finished the euro portion of the tour at the marciac festival in france and by the way.....THE FUCKING PRESIDENT OF FRANCE CAME!!! HES A SOCIALIST LIKE ME!! HES NICE!! WE TALKED ABOUT SOCIALISM AND HOW FREE JAZZ WILL CHANGE THE WORLD FOR THE BETTER!!
honestly too awesome. his bomb sniffing dogs also checked out our wine and told me that what i had ordered had a heavy finish with vanilla and leather overtones!
french bomb sniffing dogs know alot about wine!!
so does joshua redman!!
we had a great hang in nyc for the rite and we want to thank all of the people who attended and thanks to noah hutton and christina guadalupe for live triggering their movie along with the show!
super cool.
on my one day off i had dinner with tim berne and his lovely wife sarah humphries who's a big shot at ecm records. we talked about home improvements and equity. thanks to all from the bad plus!!
ok on to current news!
THE DAVE KING TRUCKING CO IS PLAYING THE DAKOTA JAZZ CLUB THIS SAT THE 11TH OF AUG AT 8PM! PLEASE COME SMART PEOPLE. IF YOU WANT I WILL WEAR MY OLD WRESTLING SINGLET AND DO SOME MOVES TO COMBAT THE FEELING OF MISSING THE OLYMPICS!
we will be playing some new tunes and would love to see you all there!
i will then be playing the icehouse in minneapolis on monday the 13th duets with j.t. bates again! show is at 930! we are calling our duet project "real bulls" and you should see this shit. it too is "off the chain".
ok that does it for now! i am home for a bit and would love it if people would come over and mow the lawn with me and talk about american pickers and if you think the thin guy on that show is mainlining speed or coke? which one do you think? not coca cola...official healthy sponsor of the olypmpics...i mean cocaine.
thanks for checking in!
love dk

JULY 2012

hello coolest humans on the internet and in real life. how's it going? im nearing the end of a 3 and a half week bad plus tour of europe with special guest joshua redman.
we are having some great shows and hangs. josh is funny, smart, nice, positive, experienced, and a team player.........oh and he PLAYS THE SHIT OUT OF A SAXOPHONE. holy cows.
i have found myself laughing out loud on stage at some of the impossible shit this dude can play. truly heavy. he's also an espresso and wine snob. two things i like having around to learn from. he makes our resident wine snob reid anderson look like a bartles and james sales rep from rural kansas.
ok we started the tour with a regular trio show in croatia where our presenters for the festival couldnt have been nicer and more generous. soulful people in that area of the world.
then we hooked up with josh and played the huge north sea festival in the netherlands then to ghent belgium and played that fest ON THE SAME DAY. that reminded me of when phil collins played both live aid locations on the same day in 1985. london then philly for a real showy bullshit wow reason!! way to go on the carbon footprint front phil. we took the eco train that runs on banana peels and folgers grinds. oh and reid and i had a nice chat with dave holland about........... dave holland. always great to see one of the warriors of creative music out here.
by the way........ phil collins......monumental waste of a bad ass. on par with nicholas cage. get it fucking together dudes.
ok then we hit a couple of nice shows in france including a double bill with a pianist named herbert hancock. nice guy. he stole one of our 4 comped heinekens though. not cool herb.
then we went to poland where the vodka is administered straight into the veins in your neck when you sleep by a guy named draculaski. holy god poland.
i hung with a couple of my homies matt mitchell (who plays piano in a duet with me called "piano and drum duets" where we play "music") and james "jim" black who always has a hug for me and some form of campers shoes on. always. never any other shoe ever. ive known jim for about 13 years now. never another brand of shoe. ever. they look good though. he and i discussed our love of 90's david bowie records. then on to italy where everything runs exactly on time and exacting itineraries flow like the gelato melting on annoying over loved italian kids faces. hey italy.........pasta makes us fat....why not you? oh yeah here's a fun tidbit......MONUMENTAL ACTOR WILLEM DAFOE WAS AT OUR SHOW IN ROME AND TALKED TO ME AND REID FOR QUITE AWHILE........gee.....that was fucking awesome. there is a guy i admire.....hey phil collins and nick cage, take a fucking page out of that book and study it. he had a handlebar mustache and was nice and cool. exactly how we wanted him to be and knew he would be.
ok! we then had a great hang in sicily where many friends were there at our show including my drum homies mark gulliana and johnathan blake! also jason linder and avishia cohen (trumpet not bass) and great bassist omar avital! i love omar's playing and we had a great jam session moment together in israel in january that was actually quite special. hope to play with him again at some point.
mark gulliana is one of my good pals and fucking funny as hell........oh he's also AN INCREDIBLE DRUMMER. john blake is equally all those things as well as a dedicated family man and all around Buddha personality. love those guys to death. we had major drum nerd talk that went to the wee hours. ok then on to spain where we rocked the vittoria fest! i had a great hang with one of my heroes JOEY BARON where we discussed everything from modern classical music appropriations on the drum set to mutual hatred of smoke machines to miles davis outtakes where tony williams makes mistakes and reminds us that even our gods have moments of frailty. important thing for all of us to remember. joey is beyond awesome and sweet and it was great to see him. im going into more detail on this post......cool? i dont want to run on and on but im attempting illustrate the ups and downs of touring creative music and on that note i want to thank all of you for the love and support of my work. truly. my kids eat because of you. touring actually can be quite grueling at times but im very blessed to have the opportunity to play this weird shit.
ok were almost done! headed to scotland from finland where yesterday we met AARON NEVILLE and HE SAID HE LIKED US!!!! swoon swoon!! truly one of the great contradictions of looks and voice in human history. he looks so bad ass (face tattoo anyone?) then of course sounds like clouds having gentle loving sex above a candy factory.
ok you all rule and i will send out a new news thing in a bit talking about august and the big newport fest show with BILL FRISELL (my hero) on the 4th!

love dave

JUNE 2012

hello again. i am counting on you sweet folks who check in on my little site and make me feel like the things i am writing hold a deep meaning in your lives.
i am nothing without my website! IT DEFINES ME. IT EXPLAINS ALOT ABOUT MY PERSONAL IDEALOGIES. IT GIVES ME SOMETHING TO DO WHEN IM NOT WATCHING DUCK DYNASTY. BEST SHOW ON TV.
in fact let me do plutonium grade tour boredom the honor of listing other things i think are neat. is that ok? a real list of things i think are worth checking out and if you so wish you may check in if you havent already and we shall extend our "harvard connection" (to borrow a phrase from a cool guy named marcus von zuckerberg) into a meaningful friendship full of love and dimension.

LIST OF NEAT THINGS
1. homemade waffles
2. keith jarrett's jeans on a live in tokyo vcr tape i have from 1985.
3. the criterion collections ultimate version, director approved restoration of "how stella got her groove back" on digital video disc.
4. carrot cake without nuts or raisons. fuck raisons. fuck those motherfuckers. fuck raisons in half. fuck them!.....except when placed side by side atop peanut butter on a nice cold crisp piece of celery by my mother who is kind of perpetually cranky but deep inside somewhere sort of sweet. this taste sensation is known as "ants on a log" for those non midwesterners who think they know tons of shit cuz you live near an ocean. whoa!! an ocean!! a tub of fish urine and plastic bottles!! lets settle here and do everything first and better!!
5. the 1998 minnesota vikings offense.
6. jeff hornacek's hair. (honky point guard for the mid late nineties fine utah jazz basketball ensemble).
7. the fact that a basketball team is named the UTAH JAZZ......a little known fact: outside of the obvious world jazz hub of winnipeg canada, utah has the biggest and most influential jazz scene in world history........and new orleans has hornets the size of honey dew melons. im serious they will KILL YOU so thank GOD when the jazz moved from new orleans (where the name made no fucking sense....enter hornets.....huge hulking hornets of world re known) to utah, they kept the moniker thus restoring it to the rightful home of jazz and new orleans can have their fucking hornets. HUGE HORNETS WITH GNASHING FANGS!!
8. a piece of 7 grain sprouted bread from those high vibrating cool motherfuckers at whole foods, toasted with a drizzle of olive oil and fine pink pinchy salt and a thick slice of heirloom tomato topped with a little mayo.
9. the public pool in crystal minnesota. i always wanted to re enact the caddy's swimming invasion scene from "caddyshack" and you allow me to do this any weekday i want between 1-6 during the summer for 8 dollars a head (fucking rip off). my son and daughter and i can be found there often dunking people, talking shit and unwrapping baby ruths.
10. and finally the erroll morris directed miller lite commercials from the early 2000's. too glorious to imagine. just perfection. check them out on errolmorris.com
im in europe for most of july with the bad plus! we are on a train headed to vienne from nice france today. we had some great shows so far and we are also joined on this tour by the great joshua redman on tenor saxophone!
thanks to all who came to our tour kick off show in st. paul the other week! and thanks to all who came out when the bad plus was in austin tx the other week! super sweet to see so many people turn out for the jazz. oh and thx for you all who came to see halloween alaska at the triple rock the other night! ART ROCK LIVES!!
also i had a wonderful time improvising a double drum show with the great j.t. bates at the new venue the icehouse a few weeks back. so fun and thanks for the love if you came out! and the trucking band had two great nights at the artists quarter!! thx patrons of creative music for your love!!
ok i hope all is well and please keep checking in! i added some new pics too and gig updates! with love!! oh...p.s. while i am not personally on facebook there is a page that some nice people have set up on me and if you want to check in there's some stuff on there. OK!! THX!!!
DK

gigs:

june 22 and 23 the dave king trucking co. at the artists quarter st. paul mn
june 24th toronto canada with the bad plus
june 29th austin texas with the bad plus
june 30th st. paul mn with the bad plus twin cities international jazz festival then later halloween alaska at the triple rock social club in minneapoils.
july 2 duets with j.t. bates at the icehouse minneapolis
july 5-28 the bad plus european tour check thebadplus.com for info
aug 2 the bad plus at lincoln center in nyc performing the rite of spring
aug 4 the bad plus at the newport jazz festival with special guest bill frisell!!
aug 11th the dave king trucking co. at the dakota jazz club in minneapoils

 

 

JUNE 2012

hi nice friends. how are you?..... really?.. thats good!.... really?...... no i didnt see it.............it was really that good?...............i dont go out much.......
yeah........yeah they are pretty good.............you know...it's not my favorite thing in the world but its alot better than most of the horseshit thats out there!....true...true......
TOTALLY!!....now they know what they're doing...........right?!!......its got tension in all the right spots but eases you out so smoothly and un self consciously.....right? YES!!!!....awesome.
uh huh......right.........no i dont know that one..............i will check it out when i buy a computer in the next 5 years........yeah im thinking about dell........actually im thinking about food that i cant eat anymore but dell is a good computer i've heard........apple?......ummm.....really?......they offer that?...........i think electronic things are neat too!!....yeah.....yes....well i dont know alot about it but i like knowing where the red lobster is located the second im craving it so maybe i should look into that one...............i know i used to find it by the smell too!........yeah.........umm.....yeah i just got back from a long bad plus tour of europe and ireland and norway..........yeah nice crowds........nice folks in ireland......good people ya know?....like no nonsense soulful folks......hang on, my son wants a 23% real juice box... (muffled voices) "put your tai kwon do outfit on were late.......umm...yes a full grown silverback gorilla could rip your arms out......so could i by the way....just get it on ok?......i dont know ask mama....she's in charge of that shit.......YES!!! for gods sake dude you have to clean the cat box....(back now) hey!!!!... ok so yeah i was gone for a while and now ive got a little time home so im gonna do a few shows.........really??? you would announce it on the doritos facebook site?....your boss doesnt mind???how many people check out doritos on facebook??......ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?

june is the month of "one-offs" by the way.

JUNE 9TH THE BAD PLUS ARE IN FLORIDA SO IM MISSING THE HALLOWEEN ALASKA SHOW IN STILLWATER MINNESOTA WHICH SUCKS BUT JEREMY HANSON FROM TAPES N TAPES N TAPES N TAPES N TAPES N TAPES N TAPES N TAPES N TAPES N TAPES N TAPES N TAPES N TAPES N TAPES N TAPES N TAPES N TAPES N TAPES IS FILLING IN FOR ME AND HES A BAD MOFO. THANKS JEREMY!! I WILL BUY YOU SOME COLOGNE FROM THE MARSHALLS NEAR MY HOUSE.
JUNE 11TH THE TRUCKING BAND IS AT THE NEW TWIN CITIES VENUE THE ICEHOUSE!!
THEN JUNE 15TH IM IN IDAHO FALLS DOING A DUET SHOW WITH THE AVANT GUITAR MASTER CRAIG GREEN! WE MADE OUR SECOND RECORD CALLED "MOONTOWER" AND IT COMES OUT SOON ON THE ITALIAN LABEL LONGSONG. LOOK IT UP ON THE INTERNET IF YOURE INTERESTED OR TELL YOUR PHONE TO PLAY IT FOR YOU!! AND THEN ASK YOUR PHONE IF IT UNDERSTANDS THE BINARY LANGUAGE OF MOISTURE EVAPORATORS BECAUSE IF IT DOES I KNOW SOMEONE WHO NEEDS THAT INFO. HIS NAME IS UNCLE OWEN.
JUNE 22 AND 23 THE TRUCKING BAND IS AT THE ARTISTS QUARTER IN ST PAUL MINNESOTA
JUNE 24TH THE BAD PLUS IS IN TORONTO
JUNE 29TH THE BAD PLUS IS IN AUTIN TEXAS
JUNE 30TH THE BAD PLUS IS PLAYING WITH TWIN CIITES JAZZ FEST WITH SPECIAL GUEST JOSHUA REDMAN ON SAXOPHONE (hes a whale of a talent and a sweet man) THEN HALLOWEEN ALASKA TAKES THE STAGE AT THE TRIPLE ROCK SOCIAL CLUB LATER THT NIGHT!! COME!!
THEN THE BAD PLUS IS ON TOUR THROUGHOUT EUROPE IN JULY WITH JOSH. EUROPE DOESNT KNOW THE HARD JAZZ RAIN THATS GONNA FALL ON THEM SOON.
I LOVE YOU KIND COMPUTER OWNING OR RENTING SUPPORTERS OF MY JUNK. THX AGAIN FOR CHECKING IN!!
DK

MAY 2012

hello the few.... the proud..... the most beautiful....... possibly slightly bored supporters of my musings!!! thanks for taking the time to read my little news page, transmitting from little hotel rooms or little firework stands on the sides of midwestern highways with wifi or little basement desks in minnesota................... or along the riverbank cafes in paris...........picturesque views of..............HOLY BALLS CAN YOU IMAGINE IF I MEANT THAT? the riverbank cafes of paris? the only thing cool about those is you can possibly run in to the guy who manages the bubba gump shrimp co. in the mall of america on vacation thinking hes doing some real parisian shit and tell him otherwise in a demeaning parisian tone.
the real paris is urine smell, dog shit and bad espresso but its somehow THE SHIT. I LOVE PARIS. coolest city on the planet. WHO'S WITH ME HERE? EVERYONE? YES EVERYONE. im mentioning gay paris because the bad plus is hitting good old europe this week and we are making our routine stop in the city of love! reid and i will be having a crepe nutella before the show and then we will slap each other in the face with our white gloves!! we love crepes with nutella!! we love urine smell!! please check the gig page for exact info! OK we just got done with a bunch of great gigs criss crossing the u.s. thanks to all the people who came out! we did 3 nights at yoshis in oakland! then 4 nights at u.c. davis in davis ca! THX COLLEGE KIDS FOR MAKING ME FEEL ANCIENT! i dont want to meet adults who say the words "i was born in 1991". damn! by 1991 i had already peaked as a drummer and gotten married! DONT SAY THAT TO ME YOUNG PEOPLE! I LIKE YOU BUT YOURE UPSETTING ME WITH YOUR YOUNGNESS.
then we went to nyc for a week at the blue note! thx nyc! 2nd hometown for the bad plus!! we had a blast and played lots of new music! DAVID TORN CAME OUT! TIM BERNE CAME OUT! CHRIS SPEED CAME OUT! BILL MCHENRY CAME OUT! DONNA LEWIS CAME OUT! DEBRA WINGER(yes that debra winger) CAME OUT! ARLISS HOWARD (full metal jacket ring a bell?) CAME OUT! NOAH HUTTON CAME OUT! MARK GULLIANA CAME OUT! DARCY JAMES ARGUE CAME OUT! ZACH MANGAN CAME OUT! why didnt wynton come? do i have to beg? am i too "loud" or "melodramatic" or "ok i guess"?????
COME ON!! THE BLUE NOTE HAS SALMON SALADS AND AIRLINE WINE!! COME OUT NEXT TIME MOTHER FU#%%$ERS!! FEEL THE MIDWEST HEAT!!
then we trained down to washington d.c. then flew to indianapolis then drove to chicago then flew to baton rouge then drove and flew to houston where we played the rite of spring! I WENT TO THE CY TWOMBLY MUSEUM AGAIN. impossibly good. also the rothko chapel. unreal. people meditating in pure quiet in front of purple black monoliths of pained paint. sounds like a saturday night at dali lamas miami crash pad.
I LOVE YOU ALL INDIVIDUALLY AND AS A GROUP. THX FOR CHECKING IN! AND THANKS FOR COMING TO GIGS CUZ THATS HOW I FEED MY KIDS.
DK

APRIL

hi my good friends......SPRING IS HERE!!! I AM RE BORN!!! I WILL PLAY THE DRUMS BETTER!!! I GOT THE B FLAT ON MY PIANO FIXED SO IT DOESNT STICK ANYMORE SO I WILL USE IT IN NEW COMPOSITIONS!!
lots of news!! the bad plus is in the middle of a west coast swing right now! we just had 3 lovely nights at yoshi's in oakland! thanks bay area for representing for team plus!!
we are at uc davis this week for 4 nights as well! come out college students!! we wont pepper spray you unless you interrupt our precious music with "your" needs.
HA!!
I AM BEING A FUNNY PERSON!! I DONT MEAN THAT!! THE ONLY PERSON I WOULD PEPPER SPRAY IS EVERY MEMBER OF FOSTER THE PEOPLE!!
ok enough of this. i have big news! the doc film about my two night concert at the walker art center 2 years ago is playing at the st. anthony main theater in minneapolis on monday the 23rd of april at 7pm as an official selection of the minneapolis/st. paul international film festival! congrats to the director noah hutton for making this wonderful documentary! it always feels good to know that this music can reach at least one person that owns a film camera!! it helps that noah is a super talent and a sweet guy. he and i will do a quick q and a session after the film and then there is an after party at astor cafe where my trucking band will be performing!!! live!! at 930 at the Astor Cafe!!! please come so i dont feel so silly about the concept of an after party celebrating super dense often difficult slightly atonal noisy odd niche nerdy musical choices.
COME OUT OR I SHALL BE FORCED TO FORM MORE BANDS!!
then the bad plus hits the blue note in nyc for a week!! come out nyc? its not like anything else is going on. I AM JEALOUS OF BANDS THAT HEADLINE COACHELLA. THERE I SAID IT.
i have never been invited there. the bad plus played bonnaroo in 2004 and it was a blast and 4 thousand people watched us play all that out shit and we thought it went over great and weve never been asked back or to any other big rock fest since. WHY DO YOU REJECT US ROCK AND ROLL PROMOTERS?? ARE YOU AFRAID OF THE POWER OF INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC THATS CAN BE BORING AND PRETENTIOUS?? WHY IN GOD'S NAME DO YOU SETTLE FOR THE MARS VOLTA WHEN YOU COULD BOOK THE GANG FONT? WE MAKE THEM SOUND LIKE THE CHUCK E CHEESE PUPPET HOUSE BAND. IF YOU WANT TO CELEBRATE PROGRESSIVE MUSIC THAN WHY NOT GO ALL THE WAY AND DO IT FOR REAL??
ok maybe it's not cool of me to say these things BUT I WANT TO FIT IN!! I WANT TO HEADLINE COACHELLA!! or at least play a small stage and go get a snow cone after the set with nice kids.
speaking of kids mine are doing well thank you! my son is dancing alot these days to michael jackson's fine record "bad" and my daughter is starting a website that directs people to thier favorite charities! more on that later. lets talk about ME!
ok lets not. THANKS AGAIN FOR CHECKING IN AND I TAKE BACK ALL THE NEGATIVE THINGS I SAID AND I REPLACE THEM NOW WITH LOVE. i love foster the people and mars volta i love foster the people and mars volta i love foster the people and mars volta etc etc.......................

DK

APRIL

hi friends.......hello?.........i think i'm gonna have to admit that maybe no one is out there. that wouldn't be a bad thing at all....it would make me face my fears of the internet being a lame way to promote your shows and art life. I DONT CARE! I LOVE PROMOTING THROUGH THE INTERNET! it beats the days when mike lewis of happy apple and i would be at the airport post office at 11:49 pm feverishly putting stamps on 460 post cards to our mailing list supporters.
LOTS GOING ON IN THE NEXT MONTHS!
first of all a big thanks to the people who came out last week to the bad plus shows in victoria bc and vancouver and tacoma. we saw whales on the ferry! we ate bad salads!
i had an espresso next to my kit at soundcheck and the sound guy kicked it over AND DIDNT APOLOGIZE! he got away intact by the skin of his frickin teeth.
WE PLAYED THE RITE OF SPRING IN TACOMA AT A LOVELY THEATER! our good pal and collaborator noah hutton was with us running the multi media aspects! FILM! LIGHTS! SHADOWS FOR MY FLEXING CLOSE UPS!
ok on to more news! the bad plus is finishing putting together all the elements of our new record due out in sept! the music was recorded last nov in upstate new york and we have been finishing the art and mastering and what not. it is titled "made possible" and we hope you all like it!
i also recorded my next record as a "leader" in an old church in minnesota with my super bad partner in crime matt linquist on mobile recording unit duty! matt is a dear pal and super sound talent (head of sound for first ave main room) and he scouted the joint and hooked it up! sounds like an old lp done in the 60's! it featured this music called "standards" ive heard about! so so exciting! my mates on the record are my deep homey and genius pal bill carrothers on piano, and the super heavy bassist billy peterson. we recorded in 5 hours and carrothers wore mirrored sunglasses the whole time. i said "bill.......this isn't a poker tournament it's a jazz record" and he said "same thing". i'm still thinking about that one.
look for that on the sunnyside label soon! OK THE BAD PLUS IS ABOUT TO HIT THE ROAD! please check the gig page for that and other live appearances! we hit the east coast for a little run this week then off to the west coast in april and then to nyc for a week at the blue note then on to the south etc! im excited to play the rite in houston in early may! houston has the amazing CY TWOMBLY museum and THE MARK ROTHKO CHAPEL! both are very heavy and inspiring.
OK ON A PERSONAL NOTE I CLEANED MY GARAGE FOR 8 HOURS YESTERDAY AND ORDERED MY KIDS AROUND AND KICKED THINGS AND BLEW IT OUT WITH A LEAF BLOWER AND FOUND DEAD MICE!
THANKS ELLA AND OTIS FOR HELPING THE OLD MAN! MY MUFFLER FELL OFF MY CAR TOO WHEN I WAS COMING HOME FROM THE GROCERY STORE!
i love you creative music supporters! stay safe and happy!

dk

MAR

hi beautiful creative music supporters and all around fucking nice folks. man i have alot to type. holy shiznit.
i am in a world title fight with a mid life crisis and im kicking its fu#$%$ing ass. i weigh 171lbs (4 lbs less than when i graduated from high school with a 1.9 grade point average) which means i'm trim and ripped and i drive a 1976 mercedes benz with a little more than a little rust on it because i drive it in minnesota winters and its only really worked for a little while but i look like a pbs, nova, paper chase watching mother fucker in it. I WILL ASK THIS ONLY ONE MORE TIME!!! DOES ANYONE WANT TO WRESTLE ME??? ive been watching college wrestling late at night on cable and wait.........does anyone say "cable" anymore?? side note: i want to bring back the innocence of motel signs that say "free HBO" on them. I think it would be funny if i stood outside a courthouse with an old motel sign that said free HBO and just check out the reactions. you know...as in HBO should be let out of jail. IM SURE I CAN GET A GRANT FOR THIS. THIS IS POST MODERN.
i saw the film "the artist". ok its great.
ive been painting again. here are some of the painting titles. "1970's bi-racial so as to be comfortable for white tv audiences peripheral character in semi political comedy show still life with fuji apples and fake italian modernist ceramics"
and "horse racing venue latrines in bold color essence" and "fuck it...... i like instrumental music sometimes".
and finally "i like george clooney but he says "eeeen" for "ing" when he's pronouncing "ing" words......without fail...no matter where the character is from and i really can't hang with that". i think i will show these paintings some time. should i?
I PLAYED WITH DAVID TORN AND TIM BERNE AND CHES SMITH IN BEARSVILLE a few weeks ago. so awesome. thanks people of bearsville/woodstock for coming out! it was fun to improvise for y'all. i imagined that the woodstock festival was actually a show that had all that promo but then none of those acts showed up and it was albert ayler and milford graves and milton babbit sitting at his mainframe and the shit fucked people up and took off big time commercially and then somehow FOSTER THE PEOPLE WOULD NOT EXCIST.
im headed to victoria and vancouver and tacoma with the bad plus this week. please come and feel the heat. we're gonna drop the heavy.....or some other 90's phrase on you lovely people. HOW COME NO ONE HAS COME OVER TO WATCH SWAMP PEOPLE? I AM NICE.
hey i should mention that there is a lovely film about the walker concerts i did in march 2010 by the great doc film maker noah hutton called "king for two days" that has just debuted at the big sky film festival in montana!! I HAVE HEARD THAT IT WENT OVER NICELY!
check out the site kingfortwodays.com if you want!
i think it will be appearing in more places soon and i am thankful for any attention being paid to this music. ok halloween alaska had some nice shows with the band "other lives" in the midwest last month. nice shows and big thanks to those who came out! then we hit eau claire wisconsin for a few shows and i taught a little master class at uw eau claire. thanks for having me and if im a master than delta airlines has their baggage scene organized!!! as in im not a master of nothin.
well i think that might cover it for now. i will put up a show update too!.......oh...my daughter is almost done with grade school and is a lovely young lady getting ready for the world of young adult land. shes gonna meet the challenge head on and i love her dearly. my son is now a purple belt in tai kwon do and HES 7 YEARS OLD. HE LOOKS LIKE ROBERT PLANT DID IN 1968 AND HES A PURPLE BELT............ATTEMPT TO FUCK WITH THAT...hes figuring it all out...i love him.
i love you nice folks too. thanks for checking in.
dk

FEB 2012

allright the heat is on motherfu%#$*ers!
i have some news........what you dont think i do???........you think im just sitting around watching pawn stars and listening to seal's first record?......
I AM BUSY WORKING ON STUFF. I AM A PRODUCTIVE PERSON. I AM YELLING. I GO TO THE GYM MORE TIMES A WEEK THAN I GOOGLE IMAGE SEARCH MYSELF.
ok frIends.....the bad plus gave israel a thing or two to think about when we landed the rite of spring neatly on the red sea festival's head last week.....I ONLY MADE 3 MISTAKES!
thanks you lovely folks who attended! i then participated in a "jam session" back at the hotel. I am not the "jam session" type usually but i had a nice time playing!
people in the crowd were overheard saying to each other "i didn't know he could play swing rhythms and actual jazz" and "it appears that he can hold his sticks with traditional grip fairly convincingly and he owns brushes" and of course "he seems to almost know how to count 32 bar forms" and "he's a great wrestler".
THANKS ISRAEL FOR BELIEVING THAT I HAVE A FAIR TO MIDLAND KNOWLEDGE OF THE JAZZ MUSIC THAT HAS NO BEARING ON MY ACTUAL LIFE EXPERIENCE BUT I DO AN OK JOB OF FAKING IT OUT OF A GENUINE LOVE FOR IT JUST LIKE EVERYONE ELSE THAT PLAYS IT WHO WAS BORN AFTER 1955!! next up was the bad plus in st. cloud mn at the old paramount theater! thanks st. cloud peeps! what a nice theater and super nice people! my dad came up to the gig from minneapolis and he said "good job son..........clean your room". then he said "you sound like you have been listening to alot of ronald shannon jackson's decoding society on vinyl lately" to which i replied "fuck vinyl...... try cassette from vinyl transfer dad.........you never understood me"
ok then we hopped a flight to kalamazoo michigan where we rocked a lovely chamber music hall and then played a matinee concert the next morning for at risk youth! thanks great proud people of michigan! when the shit goes down the michigan folks are gonna be teaching all of us how to kill and cook squirrels im telling you what. thats not to say that they arent some cultured, refined people thats just saying that they know their way around a fucking gun barrel and a skinning blade that's all.
ok on the horizon!!!
THE DAVE KING TRUCKING CO IS GONNA BE HITTING AT THE ARTISTS QUARTER THIS FRI AND SAT FEB 3 AND 4 AT 9PM ALL AGES WELCOME!
do you want to feel good about yourself?? huh?? huh?? then come down and i will compliment you on your choice of entertainment. are you kidding me? you might consider doing some other dumb shit when you have a chance to see and hear erik fratzke play the guitar? seriously get it together and come down. erik fratzke is a 17 year collaborator of mine as well as the baddest cat to ever improvise with cut off short shorts and a tight robin trower jersey on.
then im off to play the bearsville theater outside albany new york on feb 11th with master guitar player david torn and super bad alto freak tim berne and tall great badass drummer ches smith. have you listened to david bowie for the last 12 years? have you seen films like "traffic"?? then you have heard david torn owning you.
then look out for halloween alaska in st. louis feb 6 and lawrence kansas feb7 and minneapolis at the entry on the 9th of feb all dates with oklahomas own "other lives". they are a great band who just happen to be opening up radiohead's american tour this year! well done chaps!!
thanks for asking us to come along and throw down!!
OK LOVLIES! KEEP CHECKING BACK!
love dk

JAN 2012

all right.......yeah..........that's what i'm talkin bout............yeah...........uh huh............cool...... yeah.........i feel you.........uh huh...........i hear you.........all right............yeah.....
ENOUGH OF THIS NONSENSE!!! I HAVE GOT TO GET A FUCKING GAME PLAN FOR 2012!!
ok
first i want to thank all the nice people who attended all the gigs i did in dec and early jan!!!!
YOU RULE AND ARE MUCH SMARTER THAN PEOPLE THINK.
I started the month off in seattle with the bad plus performing our piece with the world famous mark morris dance group called "violet cavern"! we havent played this piece in 4 years and i was sweating it a bit but it went well!!
Mark Morris himself said i look "chic" these days.
ok then i went to nyc and did a week residency of shows with lots of projects.
first was duets with guitar master david torn at the stone. IT WAS AWESOME AND DAVID IS AWESOME AND YOU ARE AWESOME IF YOU CAME!
then david and I and the sax master tim berne and the young jedi pianist matt mitchell tore up the cool people club "rockwood" on the lower east side.
WE PACKED IT! WE GOT 60.00!! IT TOOK ME 2 HOURS ON THE TRAIN TO GET BACK TO THE FLOOR I WAS SLEEPING ON AT AGE 41. I DONT DESERVE ANYTHING SO WHY AM I YELLING? i keep it real that's why.
then the next night i played duets with my man matt mitchell at barbez in brooklyn. so fun to play with matt and to do the INDELICATE record live. thanks to the 14 people that came out in the freezing rain including my cats reid anderson and erik motherfucking fratzke. you both will be spared when i wield my mighty sword 2012 style. side note: does anyone want to wrestle me? im in a blue period and i need some shaking up. i will kill you but it will be fun!! next my trucking band tore up two nights at rockwood! i love you members of trucking band! thank you for your generous hearts! you are true pals. then finally chris speed and reid anderson and i played a nice set at the stone. great turn out and so fun to play with those two masters. then my lovely pop band halloween alaska played a show at the cedar cultural center in minny and we had a great time. you are nice for coming if you came and i hope you dug it! ok then the bad plus kicked 4 nights in chicago! thx windy city for the love and good vibes! my kids came with and we tore it up! THE SHEDD AQUARIUM COST ME 220.00! THE NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BLED ME DRY! THE KIDS FOUND THE FUCKING GIFT SHOP! DAMN YOU MUSEUM GIFT SHOPS!!
then the plus hit minneapolis for 3 nights. what can you say about the motherland? love love love love.
then we did a week at the village vanguard in nyc. the other hometown! thx to the lovely "heads" that attended! then we went to st. louis for 4 nights and ended the run in witchita kansas!! they have a great donut shop there!!
we had a great time and love playing st. louis every year! my kids came again and they had a blast at the city museum and the zoo!! we saw a cheetah up close! my son said "i think he's pacing because he's bored" and i was reminded of the great Rilke poem "the panther" and i cried all the way back to the hotel. my kids asked "why are you crying daddy" and i said "because drum magazines won't put me on the cover and also because i hate zoos and youre bleeding me dry with all these gift shops".

COMING UP: the bad plus will be performing in israel next week. we will be doing our rite of spring project! i hope i remember it! thats a long way to travel to fuck up music! and also chris speed and i will be doing a duet concert in tel aviv! get there!! then in feb im playing a show with david torn and time berne and ches smith in upstate new york at the bearsville theater! double drum beat down! ches is great and tall. he makes me look like fucking r2d2 when i stand next to him and im not short. im 5 '11 and im 6 '5 when im standing on the jazz critic bill milkowski's head. anyway I actually will be around alot in feb so if anyone wants to come over and watch "swamp people" let me know. I live in Golden Valley Minnesota right by the arts high school. THANKS FOR CHECKING IN AND I LOVE YOU. dk

DEC 2011

Hi folks!
Lots of insanely important news. So insanely important. So so so so so so so so pressing. So so so so so so needing attention. My artwork needs. My art needs your attention so so so so so so so so so so so so so much. I am doing a little NYC residency if you will Dec. 4-9 but before we get into that i want to announce that The Bad Plus is going to perform our piece "Violet Cavern" with the world renown Mark Morris Dance Group in Seattle Dec 1-3! We haven't played the piece since 2007 and i'm sweating it.
COME DOWN AND SEE ME SWEAT IT!
I should say a big thanks to the folks of Seattle who attended our Earshot Festival show there on oct 29th! We had a blast and we are looking forward to this quick return to your fair city.
Halloween Alaska finished our U.K. and Ireland tour with the great Anna Calvi and band! A big thanks to her great drummer Daniel Maiden-Wood for hooking that up and making us feel so welcome and appreciated! Thanks to the whole crew too! We enjoyed eating your catering the minute you guys went onstage!! Have us back and we will eat your food again!!
Well let's see........The Bad Plus has recorded our new record!!! We are excited and we think it will be out early next fall! please be on the lookout for updates!
NOW ABOUT THE NYC RESIDENCY. I will be playing shows Dec. 4-9 with different projects every night so New York better look the fuck out. Dec 4th I will be playing duets with the guitar soundscape master David Torn at The Stone. On Dec 5th I will be with David Torn and Tim Berne playing trio at Rockwood main room at 11pm! Tim is a great mentor and pal and I always look forward to our hook ups!
Then I am bringing The Dave King Trucking Co. back to the big city for two nights Dec 6th and 8th at Rockwood little room at 11pm! Full band in attendance!! Then on Dec 7th I am playing duets with the great pianist Matt Mitchell at Barbez in Brooklyn at 8pm! We will be doing music from my record Indelicate again and some of Matts insane music. Please come out! And finally I will be back at the Stone on Dec 9th with Chris Speed and Reid Anderson playing trio! You must come see this! This show will feature actual swing rhythm!
Then I travel back to Minny where Halloween Alaska will play the Cedar Cultural Center on Dec 10th!
Thanks again for checking in and I hope to see you at the gigs!

NOV 2011

Hello from The Bad Plus fall 2011 Euro tour! We are on the train to Amsterdam from Paris as i am writing this and have been having a nice time! We were in Germany for a few gigs and will be hitting Sweden and then back to France before we are through. Thanks to the lovely folks who have attended the gigs! Oh yeah....Thanks to the motherfucker who stole my ipod, headphones and digital camera that had photos of my young children on it! YOU ARE A SUPER COOL PERSON AND IM GONNA KNOCK YOUR TEETH OUT IN THE NEXT LIFE. SERIOUSLY.
OK on to the positive! I am gearing up for the big Halloween Alaska U.K and Ireland tour in November! We are supporting the wonderful artist Anna Calvi on her fall tour! It's the first overseas full tour for that band and we are excited to bring the ART ROCK to the island. Also in October The Bad Plus will be stateside in Boston and Seattle! Nice routing Bad Plus!!
I am also excited to announce a few Gang Font shows in the Twin Cities this fall! Oct. 26th we will be at the Nomad for their fall jazz series and then November 12th we will be opening for the legendary "Meat Puppets" at the Turf Club in St. Paul! Oh yes I want to mention that The Bad Plus is recording our new record in November! We have been playing alot of new music this tour and we will hopefully have it ready. We are very excited about this new batch of songs and can't wait to get them out. On the homestead side of things my son and daughter are doing well in their little Montessori school and are feeling the beautiful Minnesota autumn which lasts for 2 and a half weeks. They need to clean their room..........and the hamster cage.
Thanks for checking in!
DK

OCT 2011

Ok people that give a shit about my trials and fits and starts and boring nonsense and totally fully conceived heavy art decisions! NEW NEWS FOR YOU BEAUTIFUL GIVERS OF LIGHT.
I am playing a couple of benefits this week starting tonight Sept. 28th at the Kyber Pass restaurant in St. Paul. The owner, Emel Sherzad is an old friend and fervent supporter of the jazz and creative music scene in the Twin Cites with his KFAI radio show which is dedicated to the avant garde and experimental music. His establishment needs your patronage to make it and the food is amazing and offers the real Afghan dining experience you can't get anywhere else in town! First, I am playing with James Diers and James Buckley and J.T Bates and then Friday Sept. 30th with The Trucking CO. Both shows start at 9pm and are all ages! COME DOWN!! Then the Trucking Co. hits the Artists Quarter this Sat. night Oct 1st 9pm ALL AGES! Then Sunday Oct 2nd The Trucking Co. plays an outdoor event on Hennepin Ave for the grand opening Of Chef Jack Reibol's new joint at 4:30!! Jack was the head chef for The Dakota for years and years and is a dear friend! Come on out Twin Cities!!
My Daughter is getting her hair cut today and donating the hair to LOCKS OF LOVE charities. You should do the same people with hair!!! I DONT HAVE ANY HAIR. NONE. ZERO AMOUNT. JUST NOTHING.
My son is an orange belt in Tai Kwon Do now. look out for a roundhouse kick to the jaw if you are a bully in St. Paul. For real he will kick the shit out of you. KEEP CHECKING IN!! MORE CONTENT TO FOLLOW!!
Love Dave.

Locks of Love>>

SEPT 2011

Hello cute furry friends of the musical forests in the dark corners of the post modern, totally self conscious, pained art planet. I am going to say more shit about the goings on for any and all who care. Since we last updated I had a wonderful gig at the Saalfelden Jazz festival in Austria with The Bad Plus and special guest Joshua Redman. It was epic to play with that towering inferno of all things sax again and we had a fun hang. After the gig I had a nice talk about Van Halen's record "Women And Children First" with the fine bassist and all around nice guy Trevor Dunn. Then the avant drum master Jim Black spilled a tray of grapas on us. Not too smooth Jim. I should mention Jim and I had a wonderful "two drummers on one drumset" improv set at the Undead fest this year in NYC that was a blast! I hope we will do it again!! Halloween Alaska released our new album "All Night The Calls Came In" with a big show at the First Ave Mainroom the other night! Thanks to the lovely people who attended and we had a great time playing for you! Thanks to The Current and City Pages for sponsoring and promoting as well! More News: This weekend the 16th and 17th of Sept. I will be at the Artist's Quarter in St. Paul playing with the great pianist Bryan Nichols and my old mate and creative ally Anthony Cox on bass! Anthony is one of the great jazz musicians of his generation and a very nice man too. COME OUT TO SEE THIS. IT IS ALL AGES. Also The Trucking CO. has a few gigs. We play the Studio Z series curated by Zacc Harris on Sat. Sept. 24th in St. Paul with a 1pm workshop followed by an 8pm performance! Please come help this wonderful series get started on the right foot!! Then we are at the Artist's Quarter on Saturday Oct. 1st!! One night only all ages!!!
Finally The Bad Plus will be performing in NYC at the City Winery venue Sept. 19th and 20th!! DONT MISS IT NEW YORK!
On a personal note my kids are back in school and doing well. They came to the Halloween Alaska show at 1st Ave and stuck around for a bit of the after hours club hang.
Watching my 10 year old daughter dance to Joy Division was a wonderful thing. THANKS FOR CHECKING IN!!
LOVE TO YOU ALL!
DK

AUG 2011

Hello...........anybody out there?
OK if anyone really cares I shall post another update!
The Bad Plus finished a nice Italian tour last week concluding with a one-off show in Switzerland with the great band "Fly". Always a blast hanging with them! Thats Larry Grenadier, Jeff Ballard and Mark Turner's collective trio. I had a gelato in Sicily that im still tasting. You know something? The Italians know how to make good food. Is this new information to anyone out there? My god I hope not. How they all do not weigh 300 lbs is beyond me. All I want to do is eat when i'm there. I also went for a jog one day and was attacked by some diabolical fly species that tried to disembowel my soul. They were so vicious thats it's seriously not possible. I don't care if you're frickin John Muir you would have run away screaming like a jazz critic after The Bad Plus played the theme from "Chariots of Fire" at The Village Vanguard.
On another note The Bad Plus just finished our teaching residency at Stanford University this week! It was a blast and the students and faculty were all sweet, cool people. I GOT TO PLAY A CONCERT WITH JOE LOVANO!!!!!! I GOT TO PLAY TRIO WITH LOVANO AND GREG HUTCHINSON!! DOUBLE DRUM BEAT DOWN!! I GOT TO PLAY WITH MARCUS BELGRAVE AND GEORGE CABLES!! I GOT TO PLAY WITH LARRY GRENADIER, LOVANO, AND IVERSON IN A QUARTET!! I can't say enough about all those fine musicians! Huge hearts and huge talents. The shows were all deep and fun and awesome! The students were hungry and dedicated and super cool. THANKS EVERYONE FOR THAT!
My kids were with me and they tore up the hotel pool as well as the local frozen yogurt joint. They saw redwoods and banana slugs on a hike and they walked on the Golden Gate Bridge. THE KINGS LOVE YOU BAY AREA!! OK big news!! Happy Apple is returning for a concert at the Square Lake Film and Music festival on Aug 13th! We are "headlining" so don't go back into your tents because of the evening mosquito attacks or you will miss the post, post, post modern jazz party. Thanks to Paul Creager for including us! It will be our first show in Minnesota in a year and a half! WE CAN'T REMEMBER THE TUNES! WE HAVE TO REHEARSE! WE NEVER REHEARSE!
Now i'm getting ready for the duet concert of Matt Mitchell and myself at Barbez in Brooklyn on Aug. 17th. We are gonna play the music from my solo record "Indelicate" as well as some of Matt's amazing music! Come on down hip Brooklyn avant jazz people!
OK I hope this finds everyone well and let's hang on together ok?
Love Dave

JULY

Hello people of smart people land! You are smart and funny and interesting! For real.
Things have been busy over at the King shop lately. The Bad Plus finished some great shows out east and in brother Canada the last few weeks. Thanks to all the "heads" who "represented" for "avant garde populism". We played a great double trio show with Jason Moran and the great Bandwagon (Nasheet Waits and Taurus Mateen) for the Celebrate Brooklyn Festival thingy. It was "off the chain". Those guys are formidable improvisers on the highest level and we all have a good natured vibe together. The sound was like Ornette's Tone Dialing band meets Land of the Lost episodes playing backwards on a beta VCR through Henry Threadgils megaphone. Other news: The Dave King Trucking band made our NYC debut the other week with a show in Brooklyn and a show at the Undead Festival in Manhattan. New York Time Out picked the band as the NUMBER ONE thing to see at the whole fest!!! Thanks for that love!! The New York Times also did a great review of our show naming us a highlight of the festival! We also have a great review in the Sunday Edition of the New York Times on July 10th with a big picture! Not bad for some goofs from Minnesota. I guess it's only downhill from here!! The Trucking Co. record comes out July 12th on Sunnyside Records and is called "Good Old Light". Please pick it up if you have the balls. We have a big CD release weekend coming up at the Artists Quarter in St. Paul on Fri and Sat july 29th and 30th at 9pm all ages welcome!!! OK and the Gang Font is playing the hidden mysterious club Medusa this Saturday. Please come out!! all ages!!
Let's see..........My kids are in swimming lessons now and the wife LIVES IN THE GARDEN. I haven't seen her without dirty knees or nails in 2 months. She is a master gardener though and is going to go back to school in the fall for her horticulture degree! WE CANT AFFORD IT!!! PLEASE SOMEONE PUT MY SONGS IN YOUR FRICKIN TV SHOW!! YOU DON'T THINK SOME OF MY SHIT WOULD SOUNDS GREAT ON "TREME"???? OH THAT'S RIGHT..............IT DOESN'T SWING ENOUGH.

THANKS FOR CHECKING IN LOVELY FOLKS WHO CARE!

JUNE 2011

Hello fine friends. I am in Sau Paulo with The Bad Plus right now where we have a couple of shows then off to California where Arnold Schwarzenegger lives a life of passion.
Hey I wanted to thank all the great folks who came out to our 2 night stand in Minneapolis where we played the Rite Of Spring. So great to have my hometown support!
I am using less exclamation points in these posts because Tim Berne told me I look desperate when i use a bunch of them and i think he was right!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Also a big thanks to the peeps at Lawrence University in Appleton Wisconsin that came out to the Happy Apple show there a few weeks back. We have not played in almost a year and it was a blast to reconnect and make the same mistakes we always made. Look for a new record from that group this year!
Hey for those interested The Gang Font is returning to the stage on thursday June 9th at the Turf Club in St. Paul. GET YOUR CANDY ASSES DOWN THERE IF YOU WANT TO HEAR A BAND THAT MAKES MOGWAI SOUND LIKE COLOR ME BADD. I AM OPINIONATED AND COMPETITIVE......................THATS WHY I SAID THAT AND THATS WHY I AM YELLING.
Lets see............my daughter is about to finish 5th grade and my son is almost done with kindergarten! We have started a family band called "Dave King and the Kings" featuring Dave King.
IT'S MY MUSIC AND MY BAND.........AND THERE WILL BE NO REHEARSING WHEN SWAMP PEOPLE IS ON!
There is a raccoon living in the tree in my front yard. He has been coming to the back door looking for scraps. Should I blow his head off? Thanks for tuning in and see you soon i hope!

APRIL 2011

Hello. Well the Bad Plus made it back from Japan and Singapore. It goes without saying that our hearts and positive energy go out to the super beautiful Japanese people as well as anyone harmed by the recent disasters. We literally missed that by a few hours. Japan is a wonderful place and so supportive of Jazz and creative music. Not much else to say about that scene except all the love being sent that way.
The Bad Plus also just got back from Duke where we debuted our Rite Of Spring. It was thrilling to say the least and a huge thank you to all involved in the production as well as the lovely folks who attended! We also had a great session with the PHD candidates that we have been working with. All sweet guys and great pieces!
In the light of all the insanity being kicked up across the globe right now I will say thank you to anyone who checks in on my little bullshit site and a special thanks for giving me the opportunity to play creative music and support my family.
Love to all.
DK
P.S. The Trucking Co. is returning to the Artists Quarter in St. Paul this Fri. and Sat. at 9pm all ages!! Please come down!! New Tunes!! Good intentions!!

MAR 2011

Hello fine friends of weird overplaying drummers!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm in Japan for the 5th time in my life and what can you say about this place?????? Super cool and frickin WEIRD. By the way has anyone out there tried the Whole Foods brand Barbecue Soy Crispies snack? INSANE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Try to eat only one serving size. Try hard my friends.
I'm here with a little outfit called THE BAD PLUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ho!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We are moving on to Singapore next and I plan on loudly ordering a "Singapore Sling" at a tourist bar. Always order the local shit I say!!!!!!
Then I will proclaim loudly that I don't think caning is really a punishment!!.................Just ask a few of my ex's!!!!!!!!!! Ha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I might litter and spit at the same time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Enough of this cute "Dave King riffing" nonsense (I assure you I have a lot of sad downtime in between being really funny).
Halloween, Alaska is edging closer to the final mix stage of our new platter!!!!! The verdict is in.........................quite good!!!!!!!!!!!
We had a great show at the 7th St. Entry the other night so a big thanks to all the nice humans who came out!! Every time I play The Entry (first time in 1989) I think to myself "This is the exact spot that Paul Westerberg might have thought up some of his Disney songs!!". I'm fucking tired of so called punk lore. Ornette Coleman was more punk while he was rinsing his mouth with comped Scope at the Hilton Berlin wearing his worst polka dot 80's suit than any honky with a beat up Roadmaster will ever be. Can you dig?
Question: Should you eat the shrimp cocktail offered to you on a plane? I think it's ok.
Dave King Trucking Co. had our first Euro show last week in Brussels!!!!! Too fun!!!!!! Chris and Brandon did the sax geek hang (What? He uses that mouthpiece?? What a fool!! HA HA HA HA HA)!!! while Fratzke, Linz and yours truly (the cool kids) demolished a fine chocolatier. Good times.
My son Otis who is 6 years old said this to me as we went on a long cold walk the other day. "Daddy.....why does Rush sound like 5 people when it's only 3"?..........I cried with joy for 2 hours. My lovely daughter Ella who is 10 years old said nothing as she was bravely crossing very thin ice on a foot deep frozen creek bed.......more good times.
Ok i hope this finds everyone out there doing the exact thing they should be doing at the exact time they should be doing it and thanks always for checking in!!!!
New blog post up too!!!!! P.S. I like Paul Westerberg. He's just not very punk that's all.
DK

FEB 2011

Hello from The Bad Plus's Feb. European tour!!!! A big THANK YOU too all the lovely, well dressed Europeans who have come out to the shows!!!
We started in Bern Switzerland where the watches and chocolate flow like private bank accounts!!!! Every time i'm in Switzerland i ask random people on the street how much money is in their savings account and can i have the passcode. THEY LAUGH HARD AT THIS!!!!!!!!!!
Then we made our way to gay Paris where i enjoyed a crepe Nutella with Reid moments before our show.
Then to Austria and then back to Switzlerland and now to Prague for 2 nights. Prague is a great town to pretend your'e in the C.I.A. Then to Germany and then Copenhagen and then back to Switzerland where this time we are in Geneva where they have a nice convention center. Bob Newhart wrote me that joke.
Other news: The Dave King Trucking Co. will be playing our first European show on Feb. 25th in Brussels at a great festival run by a nice guy named Cis!!!
We also recorded our debut record and hopefully it will be out this fall!!!!! It's called "Good Old Light".
My daughter and my son and I went exploring around Theodore Wirth parkway near our house the other day and we unearthed a completely intact frozen raccoon!!!! This is quality family time. I urge any of you parents to bond with your kids over finding dead animals and setting them up in your yard like we did. Thanks again for checking in and I will have the blog up and running soon (it erupted under immense humor pressure).
Take Care!!
DK

JAN 2011

The Bad Plus made it through another great run at the Dakota in Minneapolis and the Village Vanguard in NYC over the holidays! Thanks to all the lovely people that came out!!!! We are currently in St. Louis doing our yearly four night residency at Jazz at the Bistro!! Thanks to all the great folks of St. Louis!! My kids are with me here and we are tearing it up!!! Sorry about breaking that juice bottle in the hotel lobby last night. Oh and sorry my son almost died on your treadmill!!! I promise his face looks like Rocky's because of that and not because of me. HE DID IT HIMSELF!!!!!!!!

OK well the big news is THE DAVE KING TRUCKING CO is playing an all ages show at the new Loring Theater (Formerly the Music Box Theater) in Minneapolis Saturday the 15th of Jan!!!!!!!!!!!!! We are flying the great saxophonist Chris Speed in from NYC for the shows of course and it's official that Saxophone Master Brandon Wozniak has officially joined the band so we have a two sax attack cocked and loaded!!!!!!! ARE YOU KIDDING ME?????? TWO TENORS??????? DOES MUSIC GET BETTER???????????........................no.

Please come down!!! doors are at 7pm and the show is at 8!!!!!!

OK thats it for now!!!!! Take care and thanks for checking in!!!!!!!

DK

DEC 2010

Hello from The Bad Plus U.S. tour!!! We started in Grand Rapids and have made our way to the west coast. THANKS TO ALL THE LOVELY PEOPLE WHO HAVE COME OUT!!!!!
We are out until the 20th of Dec. and are excited to play for Americans that are hungry for the modern jazz music!!!!!!!!
Also Halloween Alaska had a great show in Minneapolis on Nov. 27th at the Varsity Theater. Thanks for the great turnout!!!! Our new record is taking shape!! My daughter and son are excited for Christmas!! They want a few things. A Kindle. A sword. A desk. A light saber (a real one). A Cy Twombly Painting.........ok I want that.
OK I was playing some great drums by TPdrums out of Morgan Hill CA on the San Francisco and Santa Cruz shows. Todd Plummer is the maker and he's a genius with wood. Thanks Todd!!!!
Well, i hope this finds everyone doing what they need to do and please have a safe and happy holiday season. There is a new blog post by the way. Check it out!!!

NOV 2010

Hi from Dave!
On tour in Europe and the U.K. these last weeks.
Shows have been great!! Thanks to all who have come out and if you didn't then I don't know what to say. Why? Why didn't you come out?
Is it the way we play? Is it the tunes? Is it my attitude? I AM NICE!!!!!!!
Ok......Halloween Alaska will be finishing tracking the new record in the next two weeks!!!! THIS IS EXCITING!!!! I AM NICE!!!!!!
My daughter is done with the chicken pox!! My son has begun guitar lessons with the master Erik Fratzke!!! HE MIGHT NOT CHARGE ME!!!!! HE IS NICE!!!!
Let's see........I have been trying to find gyms on the road when the hotel doesn't have one. NOT EASY!!! I went for a run in Madrid at midnight the other night. The Spanish do not go jogging at midnight. They smoke and eat ham at midnight. I felt like I was a man alone. I have been getting back into shape the last 3 years after putting on some lbs in my early thirties. I think they call it baby weight. Wow i miss eating ham at midnight. I AM CUT!!!!!!!!!!!! I AM BACK TO MY ALLEY FIGHTING WEIGHT!!!!!!!!!
I took the drummers Jeff Ballard and Matt Chamberlain out to the great organic soul food joint Brasa, Ellis Drum Shop and Kopplins Coffee Shop when they were in the Twin Cities with Brad Meldau the other week. They freaked out at how good Kopplins is (a common reaction). The show they did at the Walker Art Center featured the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and it was great!!!!!
Jeff and Matt are homies and great guys and true masters of the drumset. They are also lighthearted goofs and we had some laughs. On that note please know the blog content is meant for fun and I AM NICE!!!!!!!!! Thanks for checking in!!!!!!!!!

NOV 2010

The Dave King Trucking Co. invades The Artist's Quarter this weekend Friday and Saturday Nov. 5th and 6th 9pm all ages!!
please come down!!!!!!!!!
The Bad Plus had our first run as artists in residence at Duke University last week. Thanks to all involved and we had a great visit and ate some great BBQ.
More on Duke to come.
A feature on the Bad Plus in the new Downbeat mag with PAUL MOTIAN on the cover!!!!!!! My hero!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
My daughter has the chicken pox.
Halloween Alaska began recording our new disc las week. THANKS TO ALL WHO DONATED on Kickstarter!! Very heartwarming!!!
Thanks to all who check in and see you this weekend i hope!!

OCT 2010

The Bad Plus has released our latest record called "Never Stop" on E1 Records in the United States and Universal Records for the rest of the world and we are touring hard on it this fall and winter. Thanks to all involved with the making and distributing of our 10th anniversary recording!! I'm excited that it's also available on vinyl!!!!! Wow, I wish we could convince Columbia Records to press the three albums we did for them on vinyl. That would be the bomb.

Also Dave King's Trucking Co. is gonna hit Europe in Feb/March 2011 so be ready for the alt/country/avant/blues/postmodern/noise explosion!!! Look for a record from that band in 2011. Hey, Halloween, Alaska enters the studio this month to begin our 4th record and The Gang Font has finished our new record so look for that once it finds a home!!!! Happy Apple still on hiatus and Golden Valley Is Now is strategizing for the future!!! Look for recordings from both in 2011. Buffalo Collision wants to tour again soon!!!! Any takers????

I am also trying to put together some live dates for the "Indelicate" music (my solo record) with the great pianist from Philly, Matt Mitchell (Tim Berne, Claudia Quintet). Actually all we have done is talk about it but that's how it gets started people!!! More to come soon on that front. My son started kindergarten and my daughter is in 5th grade now. It was only yesterday that I had to bribe them to give up their pacifiers. We had big birthday blowouts this fall for them. I'm still cleaning Tootsie Pop goo out of my rugs.

Thanks for checking out the site and remember that the acerbic/antagonistic nature of the blog is all in good fun until someone gets hurt....then it gets really fun : -) Yes I just made a smiley face.........you got a problem with that??? I was a high school wrestling champion. Don't forget that.