Posts from long ago, for posterity’s sake.

When I first heard John Mayer – what struck me was how old and wise his guitar playing was.

Bastard.  🙂

I’ve not been a follower of his – nor do I own any of his stuff… but there’s no doubt that he’s incredibly talented, and has worked at it.

I came across a BerkleeBlog post about a clinic he gave in July, and I was struck by how much of what he talked about related to me, my process, and what I’ve gone through in writing – not just in the current project, but in writing and representing myself as an artist over the past 5-6 years.  A few choice quotes that struck me:

“…This is not a time to promote yourself. It doesn’t matter. This is the time to get your stuff together. Promotion can be like that. You can have promotion in 30 seconds if your stuff is good. Good music is its own promotion.”

“…I stopped using twitter as an outlet and I started using twitter as the instrument to riff on, and it started to make my mind smaller and smaller and smaller. And I couldn’t write a song.”

“You got the distraction of being able to publish yourself immediately, and it is a distraction if you’re not done producing what the product is going to be that you’re going to someday use the promotion to sell…I had to go through the same thing I’m talking to you about – what you have to go through – which is to completely manage all the distraction. Manage the temptation of publishing yourself.”

So my dear, dear friend Laura Kaye long ago mentioned Nikka Costa, and how much she loved her.  (Nikka’s got a voice wayyy beyond her years… an old-soul funktress.)

So when my FB friend Alisa B Anderson posted a link to an awesome new Nikka track a few days ago… I took notice. I heard it once – just once – and this came into my head.  So I had to make it – I couldn’t help it.

So here – with all due reverence…

p.s. – if Mizz Costa would care to give up a high-res copy of the audio, I’d be willing to re-create it in better fidelity. I could only do it with MP3.

So I was writing lyrics about the am radio I listened to when I was 6…

And this came across my “desk”…

The first performed & recorded music in space…

And I wept. Dunno wy – just something beautiful about it.

🙂

Enjoy.

M.

UPDATE: The following morning, I awoke to a very bright moon… 5 minutes later, this incredibly bright object passed overhead. It was the ISS:

THE FOLLOWING ISS SIGHTINGS ARE POSSIBLE FROM FRI MAR 25 TO SAT APR 09

ISS
Sat Mar 26/06:01 AM
3 32 11 above SSW 29 above ESE

So those of you who know anything about me know that I don’t play out live very often.  There are several reasons for this – not the least of which is, as an original artist, you have to either be a band, or else have a band that can play your stuff – neither of which applies to me.

However, about 2-5 times a year, I get out to play cover material.  Sometimes, this is under the rubrick of Max Night and the Rocketlaunchers, sometimes it’s at an open jam, and, in this case, it’s because someone offered the space and time.  I’m tremendously grateful that he did. Read more

The opening lines of my bio sum up this blog post pretty well. How does an artist present themselves to the world when they don’t fit into a predefined box?

I started using a service – headliner.fm – which allows you to selectively share your social media space with other artists, on a case-by-case basis. So, for instance, I’ll receive a request from PeteBongoPlayer to “broadcast” a message for him across my Twitter stream, or Facebook / MySpace page.

In the end – this message comes from me – and followers are very very very dear to me, so I absolutely won’t accept one of these if I don’t love the music.

Read more