Bob Peace at the Loma Club. Photo by South OB GIrl.
By South OB Girl
A native New Yorker, Bob Peace (his website) brings a loaded resume from his time on the East Coast. He previously performed live with Phish drummer Jon Fishman at a benefit concert in Vermont, and his album “The Peace” charted a few spots away from Jack Johnson on jambands.com.
I felt a world away as I listened to his music at The Loma Club last Thursday, where Peace will be playing as the Thursday evening guest artist for the next two months. The warm summer evening was as beautiful as could be, as the sun set over the golf course. And Peace’s mellow, soulful tunes filled the air.
He describes his music as “uplifting soul music with reggae and blues roots.” A Bob Peace show does just that — lifts up the soul.
After achieving widespread musical success in New England, Bob Peace surprised many fans by taking a break from music to travel, adventure, meditate, explore the USA and above all, gratefully celebrate life.
Every musician’s story must have somewhat of a starting place. His or her first piano lessons, church choir, or perhaps a high school band.
For Peace, that start was his high school band out of Westchester County, NY, Blue Moon Tower. And some of the guitar lessons his parents arranged for him when he was a teenager. That high school band was not your average high school band. The band rented a school bus to take kids into Greenwich Village and sold tickets to kids for the bus ride and watching the band.
Bob played guitar then — but he sings and plays guitar now. And his live set also includes a loop pedal and various funky effects — including a tambourine, drum sticks, and various percussion instruments.
It was a little bit of everything in high school — Zeppelin, reggae, jam band, classic rock. And he personally loved the music of Dave Matthews. Peace writes his own songs now, but still plays to please the crowd. If the crowd wanted Beatles, he would play Beatles. And that would remind him of his days playing in subway stations and Central Park, as he began to explore performing solo while he was working at a non profit in the Big Apple in his early 20s.
As for who inspires him — anyone “who is real” inspires him now. Especially those no longer with us — Janice, Jimi, Kurt, Tupac.
His passion for music has been a constant through several moves to several different cities and states, and he has taken his music career from its beginning in New York and Vermont, to San Diego, over the past year and a half. In Southern California, Peace has found a culture, people, climate, and lifestyle he can truly embrace.
Since moving to San Diego, Peace has been aggressively booking and promoting himself, and his promotional efforts have been landing him some regular gigs. He is playing Thursday evenings at The Loma Club and plays frequently at Hennessey’s in La Jolla.
Prior to the closure of OBistro he was playing there regularly. And he anticipates playing regularly at their new location. This month he will be playing at the exclusive University Club on Aug 18. He opened for LA artist, Sudan Archives, at Winstons on Aug. 2, and he hopes to play at Winstons more regularly. Aggressively booking and promoting himself is beginning to pay off.
Bob has enjoyed playing in OB and Point Loma — he feels he should make his mark in the town where he lives. His next show is Thursday Aug 11 at The Loma Club. Starting at 5:30 pm. His schedule of performances can be seen here:
http://www.bobpeacemusic.com/tour.html.
A video of Peace performing live can be viewed here:
http://www.bobpeacemusic.com/video.html.
We can expect great things from Peace. For starters, he is planning to cut another record soon. And if anything like his first record — it will be a hit.
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