Why dontcha play one of my songs from the player in the left column while you’re reading
A leisurely drive up the coast was uneventful with two very pleasant stops, approved First in Amelia Island Florida to dine and visit with or dear friends Davis and Pam Turner and to later watch their gig, Drove to Stoudton, Virginia the next day. Cute little town and on to Narrowsburg, PA to spend some time with my Mom before we went up to Kingston, NY to have a birthday dinner with my daughter. Then we went to our rental house in Rhinebeck to not find a Fedex containing most of our clothes and other important items, which was to have arrived before us. Seems the Clinton wedding took over town to the point that Fedex used it as an excuse to turn around instead of looking at a map for an alternate route. We lived grungy and annoyed for a few days before they got around to delivering 5 days late.
Okay, over that but I woke up Thursday morning to discover that my Gmail and Facebook had been hacked and taken over by the London Scam. I regained Gmail but he destroyed my address book and asked everybody I ever communicate with for $2250 because I had allegedly been mugged while on tour in London. If you fell for it, I’m deeply sorry but if you follow me and open my fan mail, you know I’m on a NY tour. Not London.
I got many sympathetic calls and messages from fantastic friends all over the world. I feel so blessed by that. It makes it so much easier to get over this catastrophe. Facebook is another major problem. I’m not sure they will restore me to my 1200 friends. I do a TON of music business there and this is no small problem for me.
Reverbnation has been stable, secure and very useful. If you’re not on that fan list I hope you will use this widget:
NYC is beautiful this weekend and my first show at UC Lounge in the East Village went extremely well. They want to have me back. Sunday night’s show uptown at SIP Acoustic Soul Lounge also went quite well. Smaller venue but with a very appreciative audience.
We watched a movie being shot right below our hotel room on Broadway at 103 St. A chase scene for a movie called Maximum Rush involving a bicyclist and a car and many extras of both the two legged and four wheeled varieties. Then when we went to play the SIP gig. Nearby another crew for the same movie was shooting more scenes involving a female cyclist. Word is the production company closed down three blocks of Broadway and two of Amsterdam Ave. for two weekends. Think that was cheap?
Makes me look forward to my role as a featured extra in the Beautiful Noise Movie, being shot in Sarasota next month. Getting ready now for the Musikfest gig in Bethlehem this Wednesday.
If you sign on the fan widget below, you can have two free downloads:
Been back in Florida a few weeks and have stayed very busy gigging and catching up. Nursing an injured shoulder too as I am my own roadie. I have two good demo recordings I did with Helen Avakian. Just the two of us on acoustics. Denial, ask
you may recall, healing
is the theme of this collection. Denial takes many forms and the theme will become more clear when the entire collection is finished and out and out into the right order. But for now I’ll probably offer the two I have as free downloads to my Reverbnation fans. If you are not one of them yet, click the link below. I’ll send out an international e-mail when they become available–for free. HONEST.
The Movie Beautiful Noise is in production and my scenes will be shot on September 29 and 30. Also my music videos will begin production soon. I have some raw video of the NY gigs that I’ll attempt to edit down into a montage. I don’t really expect anyone to sit through an entire concert video.
Slow Cooking
Through all of this, I continue to play a regular restaurant/bar gig at Back Eddy Bistro in Venice and other assorted gigs around the Sarasota area. And, of course, there is the songwriting. And rewriting. Anybody can write a song. Just try and see if you have the endurance to rewrite until they are as good as they can possibly be. It’s very hard and that’s why I hire Helen Avakian to crack the whip on me until they are as good as they’re gonna get. Every writer should have an editor they trust that much. And they should never depend on the stated opinion of those who already love them. It is always nice to hear that from those you love but the true test is in getting praise from a variety of people who don’t know you. Anybody who is serious about measuring the appeal of their art (not just the intrinsic value) needs to find a way to get an editor who isn’t afraid of hurting your feelings. Helen and I are great friends and have that understanding–a rare combination but extremely valuable. I worked hard to nurture that.
With that in mind, I am normally slow to put my stuff out there. But it’s coming, it’s coming.
