Anyone in Maui can hire Don V. Lax, a violinist, to play music at events like weddings or dinners or I guess bat mizvahs. He’s got a Web site you can go to to contact the guy and book him. In his biography, he has this to say:
Since moving to America, he has performed and recorded with numerous jazz, folk and rock musicians, and also with symphony, opera, ballet, and chamber groups. His credits include playing in orchestras for such luminaries as Ella Fitzgerald and Pavarotti, opening for Rickie Lee Jones, recording on CD’s with Airto, Paul McCandless and Michael Manring, and many others.
Fitzgerald and Pavarotti, sure. Everyone knows them. I don’t think I know who Rickie Lee Jones is and I’ve never once in my life heard of the other folks.
Did you know that Don V. Lax is the same Don V. Lax credited with “additional violin” on Camper Van Beethoven’s flawless and incredible Key Lime Pie album of 1989? Morgan Fichter was the woman put in the actual band’s lineup, but other than the rather grating violin on “Pictures of Matchstick Men” and the mostly forgettable violin on “Flowers” she was just a young fresh face.
Continue reading Don V. Lax, Where Art Thou?
Here’s what may be my favorite all-time song, based not so much on what I revere the most right now but more on what song I’ve listened to more than any other. The chords for this have been online longer than you have, probably, thanks to Pittsburgh-based BBS geek John Fail, a kid I knew only through the Camper Van Beethoven listserv, whom I then I had the pleasure of meeting a few times while living in Pgh doing