Whasup y'all!

So, I am happy to announce that I will begin production on my new Album January 2006. I am working at The Study recording studio, here in Hollywood, Ca. I have two very talented recording engineers working with me, and I am very excited to begin work.

I will be recording a collection of 10 songs I have written over the past year. I'll be featuring camios by local musicians you may know. So, keep an eye out!

I am in pre-production mode at the moment, recording demos in my home studio so that I am ready for the studio sessions in January.

Everyone is invited to the CD release party so please keep April 22, 2006 free! It's all going down then!

That's it for now. Hope to see you all over the holiday season.

Peace out!

Last Tuesday I went to the Ground Zero Coffee Shop at USC for my friend Jen Hira's show. She was playing with her band and so I thought I'd go check it out. I met up with Pinakin and Neha and her friend Sonali. Then we walked over to te campus.

The show was great! Jen sounded great as did her backup band. That is actually a good venue. You can check out her website. She should be posting some samples soon ... coincidentally produced by yours truly.

http://www.jenniferhira.com

Hey y'all,

Been a long time since my last entry. Did you miss me?

So, I went to Boston to visit my old roomate Chetan.

Good times as always. i go in Friday morning, so I slept in till about noon. Then I went out for a walk and met up with Chetan for lunch. We went to the MIT campus for lunch.After lunch I decided to walk around town. I pretty much walked all around boston in a few hours.

We then met up for dinner. I wanted to have New England Clam Chowder so we went to this place called the Salty Dog. Kind of a nasty name I guess but the Chowder was great. Mid way thru the meal this big group of Ladies came in. they had clearly been partying. Of course they decided to plop right next to us. They appeared to be 40 something women getting away from their husbands for the weekend. We were all sitting at the bar and there was not enough room for everyone (one short) so one of ladies asked if she could sit on my lap! Of course I entertained her, but the whole while I was thinking Hell No! Get way from my Auntie! Anwyays, the dinner turned out great and we ended up having a good time chatting with the Geriatrics! From here we went on to hop from bar to bar and then head home.

Saturday we head to New York since Chetan decided to run the New York Marathon. We hpped on something called the Fung Wah Bus. It's an Asian run Bus company that specializes in Boston-New York  trips. It's super cheap at $15 each way. So, we took it. It was fine... not luxury by any means, but it got us to where we wanted to go.

Once we got to New York we had to haul ass to the registration center so Chetan could sign up. They had a huge convention going where vendors could have one last crack at the runners before they race. Chetan of course bought two pairs of shoes.

That night we we checked into the Pennsylvania Hotel and headed to dinner. Italian food. After dinner Chetan went back to the Hotel to get some sleep. I went to the Knitting Factory which is a club that has Rock shows. I wanted to check out some bands. Along they way I met a few interesting characters. It was a Punk show actually so the freaks came out! I of course was in a button down shirt, jeans, and dress shoes (we are in NYC after all) so I stuck out like a sore thumb. But it was coo. The band ended up beeing wack! But the experience was great.

Sunday was the race, so I slept in (no point in me getting up if I aint running!). I then showered and head out for the day. Now my questions was, waht the hell am I supposed to do until 5pm?  Since I had not really planned any site seeing out in NyC, in typical amit Fashion decided to start partying again. I knew that the race would end at Central park, so I aligned my self at Madison and 30th. Then proceed to chek out every bar and pub along the way. There were 5 that I checked out. They all had the race on so I was able to catch the action from the comfort of my bar stool. Again, I met a lot of interesting characters. I met this Irish dude who specializes in import/export from Ireland to the US. He told me about some "interesting" shipments that he had to transport. Then I met this really hot Brazillian chick who was just visiting and did not know where anything was. I of course pretended to know what I was talking about (just so I could keep talking to her) and pulled my trusty map.

I finally made it to the rendevous spot near Central Park, met up with Chetan and haulled ass back to the Bus stop in Chinatown. We were both pretty tired at that point so no dilly-dallying for us, we just head out. It was back on the Fung Wah for us. But, this time around there were a lot people waiting so they had to charter another bus from a company called Peter Pan. We got on that one ... big mistake. 30-40 min into the bus ride, we all started getting really hot since the A/C was busted. so, we decided to open up the vents in the ceiling. That provided us some relief. Then after another 30 min or so, it started raining. So, now the dilemma was: if we close it we bake, if we leave it open we get rained on. We left it open. The rain then got really heavy so we were forced to close it. When the rain let up we opened it again. Then closed again when the rain picked back up. After about an hour of this, the driver told us that the Windshield wipers broke. Crap, so now we had to pull over at an exit and see whta we could do. No one could fix it, so we had to just chance it all the way back to boston. The wole process took like 6 hours when it should have taken 3.5. What a mess!

So, when we got back it was like midnight so we just ordered a pizza and called it a night. Monday was my sit seeing day. I met up with Chetan for lunch, then went to Mike's Pastries for Canoli. Excellent stuff man! I definitey recommend it. I then took a trolley tour to see the rest of the town and the historical spots. One of the spots however was the New england Aquarium. Now if any of you know anything about me, you know I love aquariums and all things of the sea. So, I hopped off and checked it out. They also had an IMAX theater showing a 3D Shark adventure. Now this is simply too good to be true! This thing was awesome ... definitely worth it. You really do feel like you are swimming with the sharks.

After that I headed back for dinner and we met up at Middle East. This is a really cool bar/restaurant. They have an excellent vibe. They get a lot of good bands that come around. I was pissed becuase Digable Planets were coming there on Thursday and I was leaving on Tuesday.

After a few drinks we headed to Dinner at Fire and Ice. This place was cool. It was kind of like Mongolian BBQ, where they cook the food in front of you, but the food was like a hodgepodge of cuisines. They had everything from Italian, to Chinese, to Carribean. Good food.

We then stumbled home since I had an early flight the next morning. Overall ... a great weekend! Boston is a beautiful place. Especiialy in the Fall, with all the leaves turning color.

----- MY FIRST BIG GIG ------

So, July 28 I had my first real gig at a place called Highland Grounds. It's a coffee shop/bar in Hollywood. They host a weekly open mic which is one of the more well known events. If you recall, I played for the first time a few weeks ago. Well, they ended up liking my sound and called me back for a showcase ... and here I am. I had a 20 min. set at 9:30 pm. It was tons of fun and it seemed to be pretty well receieved. I had some peeps come out to support me. Chaitra, Suniti, Omi, Neela, Omkar/Neelam, Anu and her husband, and a few others whom I just recently met.

A total blast. I actually got a CD of the performance which I will be posting onto my website soon, stay tuned. http://www.amitapte.com

The ladies

Me and the ladies

Waiting to get on stage

On stage from a far

My "oh" face

They like me ... they really like me!

This past weekend, Samir came down to visit with his co-workers from MGM, for one last hoorah! Their projects are now over and the consultants are moving on to other projects. One of guys is actually going back to his native Brazil. So, of course, being the animal that I am, I joined them. Heck ... I just moved to LA, and I don't know a lot of people so I went along for the ride. Plus, in the few times I hung out with them, we seem to hit it off.

Good times as always. Friday night we got it started a little late. I got to Christiano's place at around 11pm for some pre-partying. Then we hit the bars around mid night. We went to a place called Shane's bar. It was pretty cool with a patio bar in the back. Definitely college hang out ... with all the sorority blondes out and about. But, I'm ok with that! Nothing wrong with that at all!

After a night of drinking we went to eat Korean food at this all night restaurant. We had to rejuvinate right? Then at around 5am we decided to go karaoke! So, in our drunken states we went to go sing hits from the 70's, 80's, 90's, and Now! At around 7am we decided to call it a night and get our asses back to Christiano's place to crash. Got up around 1pm and started planning for the next night!

Sat., was pretty much more of the same. Of course, we were much more tired from the night before, so we all set a curfue of 4am. We started the night at Betty's place for a little prepartying. Since Chritiano (Baeta) was leaving fro home, we had a lot of left overs to finish off. In the course of the night, we killed an entire bottle of Absolute. As if that were the highlight of the night! ... oh hell no!!

Betty had this awesome toy Monkey stuffed animal. Now, I know what you are thinking ... well some of are thinking "oh, how cute" and if you are female and find a grown man who is entertained by stuffed animals, attractive ... please email me. Some of you may be thinking "is this guy switch hitting?" ... and to you folks ... screw you! I was really drunk!

Anyhoo ... this monkey is the bomb. We just so happened to get it all on video, but it's on my phone, and I need to by a bluetooth adapter in order to get it onto my machine. But, I'll post the videoall in good time!

Now, we hit up a bar or two, then decided to go to an after hours club off of Cahuenga in Hollywood! It was lame!! But, we had good company so it was fun. By the time we left for home ... it was 6am again!!! So much for the curfue. What's worse is that we needed to drop Baeta off to the airport at 8am! So, we went back to his place and slept for like an hour. Then got up and dropped him off.

Needless to say, Samir and I went back to my place and crashed till about 2am. We got up and met with Chaitra and Suniti for coffee. It was nice to see them after a while. After that, I dropped Samir off at the Burbank airport and went home.

Phew! what a weekend. I was wiped. I pretty much crashed at like 10 am.

Well, that was my wekend. Pretty crazy huh? Salil, his friend, and Vishal are coming this weekend. Lord only knows what trouble we'll get into then.

Until then ... peace!!!!