This crisis has reminded me(and hopefully other fellow musicians)of my deep love of music. Sometimes we get a bit complacent/go on auto pilot about working, doing gigs, booking gigs etc. that we forget that we GET to play music for a living. How lucky are we??? I’d say very.

In closing, I just want to say that I’m still standing and playing music. I hope to be performing my steel drum music for you in the very near future.

Be well!!!

Tom & The Steel Tropics Steel Drum Band

Enjoy!

Hope everyone continues to enjoy the rest of 2016.

Steel drums via twitter

Enjoy!

Here’s a shot from the Queen Mary.

Solo steel drummer Queen Mary

Here was my killer view!

Solo steel drummer

If you are looking for great steel drum music or even a solo steel drummer, check us out.

Steel Tropics, the finest steel drum band music in Orange County California!

Here we are taking a break from the steel drum band music and playing some surf music instrumentals. This was a really fun band.

This was back around 1998. At this time I was playing at Sea World 5 days a week and doing numerous steel drum gigs all the time.

steel drum trio at Sea World

I’m super fortunate that I get to play the steel drums for a living.

Steel Drummer!

Here’s a shot of Coconut Frank gettin down on the steel drums.

Solo Steel Drummer

This was a corporate luncheon type of an event. For this particular cruise, the client didn’t need a full size steel drum band, but a smaller group that
could play a bit on the softer side. They really enjoyed both our steel drum music as well as our more Hawaiian tunes that we also played.

As one can see, Steel Tropics is a very versatile band!

Steel Drum Band

Here’s a little steel drum pic

solo steel drums

So if you’re at all interested in solo steel drums for your next party, give Steel Tropics a shout!

It seems when the weather stays nice for a while, the steel drum music inquiries start flying in. Gotta love that! We have been getting quite a lot of wedding, beach party and other special occasion inquiries lately. Our Spring and Summer calendar is starting to fill up quickly so please please book us as early as possible if you’d like u s to perform for you special event.

Steel Tropics Steel Drum Band:
Steel Drum Band Music that will make your event a special one!

We are really looking forward to performing our steel drum music for our many clients and friends in this new year. I think that 2015 is going to be an even better year than the previous one. We are already getting a lot more bookings and inquiries than we did last year so that is a very good sign.

Our steel drum band, Steel Tropics is all ready and fired up for this new year. Hope to see you at one of our many performances this year!

Tom & The Steel Tropics Steel Drum Band

Steel Tropics is going to continue to maintain it’s musical integrity and keep providing the most professional Steel Drum Music to be found in Southern California in 2015!

Steel drums work really well for many different types of occasions. Give us a try this Christmas Holiday time.

We have been starting to get some Christmas steel drum music requests and inquiries.

Give the Steel Tropics Caribbean Steel drum band a try this Holiday season.

Here’s a shot of us at the event.

Steel Drum Duo Newport Beach, Ca

Orange County: Newport Beach, Mission Viejo, Huntington Beach, Anaheim, Dana Point, San Clemente, Costa Mesa,Orange, San Juan Capistrano, Oceanside, Laguna Beach,

Los Angeles: Long Beach, Redondo Beach, Los Angeles, Ventura, Oxnard, Santa Barbara, Torrance, Belmont Shores, Santa Monica, Hermosa Beach, Malibu, Manhattan Beach, San Pedro,

Steel Tropics Steel Drum Duo San Clemente

Steel Tropics did a last minute event in downtown Long Beach just this past week. Well, it was a solo steel drummer engagement. So I guess it wasn’t the entire steel drum band but I represented us at the event.

Solo Steel Drums Long Beach

We will be updating our Youtube steel drum channel and keep adding steel drum videos as much as we possibly can.  Enjoy!

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7_zhlHUXqg&list=UU4ZhtR0YLdskRwdHy_CydRg

We will continue to post pictures and other relevant info on steel drum band gigs on Yelp.

The live music scene really started to change as far back as the 2nd half of 2007. At least that is when I personally noticed a slowdown for my live steel drum band gigs. It became very apparent in December of 2007.

I feel very fortunate that I’m still able to make good living in the music business. There definitely have been a few rough years in my career but I’ve managed to come out okay. Some of the keys for me have been: being flexible, keeping in tune with the latest tech stuff as well as social media, playing several instruments & staying in touch with fellow musicians. These are just a few things. Oh yeah, the most important one of all…..hard work.

Now on every gig that I’m on, I remind myself how lucky I am and how great it is to still be a working steel drum musician.

Long Beach Steel Drums

Did some really nice steel drum gigs this weekend. One of them was a last minute event that I did in Long Beach at the Westin Hotel. I played outdoors but I was in the shade and despite it being warm, it was around 6:30 pm so by then the weather had cooled off quite a lot. Also being in Long Beach right by the ocean it is naturally a lot cooler all the time.

The event went off really well. I received many nice comments on my steel drum music so I was very pleased as was my client. It’s always nice to get nice compliments while on my steel drum band events.

Steeldrums

Sometimes we get lucky and get a great picture and sometimes we think you have a great one but look at it and it’s a no go. Once you get the hang of it you can take a picture, add it to Instagram, crop it a bit, add a few relevant hashtags and share it. The current social media that is going down these days makes all of our Caribbean music gigs a bit more fun and makes those of us who are somewhat older feel a lot more in touch with the current technology:)

Check us out on Instagram. Click da icon!
 

Here is a short video clip of me playing Yellow Bird at a birthday event in Orange County Ca.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJ96WKPMoL8&list=TLNyJMCRhTfAqCOv5TuuZIfjoJ40zPOIT8

To date we are at over 270 likes on our steel drum music page.  Pretty cool. We always do our best to post the best quality pictures and videos that we can on our Facebook page. I like to bring my nice Canon digital SLR camera to every gig. Not only do I take photographs while on the gigs, but a lot of times I will also ask someone who is working on the event to take a few pics of us as well. Sometimes we luck out and get some really nice looking pictures. You never know!

Facebook is really turning out to be a great vehicle for bands, musicians and others artists to showcase their talents and what it is that they do. Check us out!

We recorded each song mostly in one take which is pretty rare these days. Some of the selections on the disc are fairly standard, classic Caribbean songs with a smattering of some other jazzier tunes thrown in.

Steel Tropics with Tom Liston

The tune is called My Little Suede Shoes and was composed by the legendary jazz alto saxophonist Charlie Parker.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gmuP2BRKxQ&list=UU4ZhtR0YLdskRwdHy_CydRg

We actually performed some short tropical tunes for the wedding party to walk down the aisle, some Hawaiian music for the recessional and some Caribbean steel drum music for the bride and groom’s first dance. The entire wedding went off really well with no problems at all. Everybody was very pleased. The bride and groom were both super nice people and that made our job very easy to perform.

Here’s a shot of us at the wedding this weekend.

Steel drum & ukulele duo wedding music

Sometimes the warm temperatures continue on into the month of October. Some folks who live near the beach are able to squeeze in that last Sunday party. And what better way to have a great event than having us perform steel drum music at the soiree!

Steel drum birthday party

Well, my usual response is that we normally perform in the Southern California area. Our steel drum band primarily plays in Orange County as well as Los Angeles and San Diego counties. We have on occasion performed events in Santa Barbara, Santa Maria, Big Bear Lake, Lake Arrowhead(a favorite of mine), Palm Springs & many other cities in the Southland.

Every now & again I get an inquiry from someone from a long distance away. Normally they are wanting to hire a local band in their vicinity but they don’t often realize that we are a steel band out of Southern California. It doesn’t bother me (unless its 3 am!)and I try and be courteous and point them in the right direction.  I also give them a link or some info to our recorded music on iTunes etc. just in case they are looking for some great steel drum music recordings.

steel band

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7_zhlHUXqg&list=TLBturMNh5dieYMH9FIUmDXvfgTfaaf4M2

Fortunately for our steel drum band, we have had Entertainer Liability Insurance for many years now. It not only protects our clients in case something should happen on an event, but it also protects us as well. It’s a relatively small yearly premium to pay and it gives us and our clients peace of mind knowing that Steel Tropics is a fully insured steel drum band. It’s also a business expense/tax write off for me so it’s not a big deal really for us to carry a policy. To date we have had zero occurrences on our events so that is great. We intend to keep it that way.

Steel Tropics-Fully Insured!

Steel Drums at Albertsons

Every year I seem to forget just how early some people like to start their Holiday gift buying. Our Christmas steel drum music is by far one of our biggest sellers every year.

That reminds me……..it’s almost time for me to reorder more copies of several of our CDs. I don’t like to get too low on inventory.

Melekalikimaka!!!!!!

Tom on Ukulele & Steel Drum

Our hands down favorite is iTunes. They seem to do the best all around job in our opinion.

I also love playing by the beach. In the summertime it is almost always quite a bit cooler than it is inland. This can make a huge difference. It’s much more comfortable to perform in 75 degree weather than it is in say 95 degree heat! We have performed in weather as hot as 108 degrees and let me tell you, it zaps the energy right from you.

Here is a shot of me playing my steel drums yesterday afternoon. 73 degrees, wearing shorts, sandals and my brand new tropical shirt that I picked up in Maui last week.

Steel Drums in Orange County