Jezen Thomas Musician //. Educator

Becoming sick of being turned down again and again for pitiful menial labour that I am too over-qualified and over-skilled to partake in anyway, I decided the time is nigh to make the leap of faith into the entrépreneurial world of going-it-alone business.

So, the sheer magnitude of brilliance exuded by Zsolt Korompay's, Lutz Mayer's, and Terry Branam's transcription powers have just short of brought me to tears. I can barely comprehend the patience and persistence involved. I am not worthy.

However, this is no reason to keep my humble efforts to myself. I had been working on this piece for quite a while, but to be honest, I lost interest half way through. I don't know if this is because my eyes are bigger than my stomach, or because the solo is a bit too far on the chopsy side. Nevertheless, here we are.

Not to be outdone in the transcription community, and as a sort of christmas gift to all online drummers (the reading ones anyway), I am releasing my transcription of Ronald Dorsey Jr's solo at CymbalFusion in Houston.

I recently spent a couple of days with a Swedish bag design company called Walk on Water, filming their latest bag review/advertising campaign. It features some Butterfly Imp music, a water slide, a big truck, and an olympic boxer.

Butterfly Imp's first studio album entitled Walking Tall is now available to listen to in its entirety, absolutely free.

Here's a little excerpt taken from Sunday night. I thought it would be nice to learn more about how the recording studio works so I booked it and together with the help of some of my friends, we set the mics up and had everything working. I recorded my playing over a Billy Cobham track called Street Urchin from a play-along book/CD called 'By Design' (which corresponds with the album of the same name).

The following three journal entries are from a tour I was doing in Spain in 2008. I don't ordinarily keep a journal, but I tried to make a habit of it whenever I was travelling.

Butterfly Imp's album 'Walking Tall' is finally finished. It isn't pressed yet, so until further notice the music will only be available online. The official release of the Walking Tall single will be on the 24th when we play at Havsbadsparken, Lysekil, with Swedish rockers Takida.

I'm not too impressed with the audio quality on the myspace or our own page, but a couple of songs from the album are on there nonetheless.

Here's a great little idea that I've been familiar with for a while, but I especially like the subtlety of this instance which I found while watching Evan Esposito's Guitar Centre Drum Off performance.

Finally, my Mandala Drum from Synesthesia Corp has arrived! I haven't yet seen many videos on the internet of users playing their Mandalas alongside their acoustic kits, so I thought it would be nice to give it a try.

I feel like I've only scratched the surface with this thing, even after spending an entire evening exploring its sounds and features with the proprietary software. I know it works with Logic, Cubase, Ableton, and any other DAW but I haven't come that far yet.