• Sometimes You Get Left Out

    Sometimes You Get Left Out

    Been a hot minute since I have made a post. For the past several months, who am I kidding – this past summer, I’ve been holed up doing a lot of different things music related. Initially I had a plan to be releasing singles on a set schedule and then a monkey wrench came my way. A good monkey wrench mind you.

    I was asked to prepare a list of 8 things before I start releasing songs again. That’s 8 things per song as currently not doing albums any more. Most of that stuff I had already been doing, but there were a few things that I had not been doing. It lit a fire up under my ass to actually get the rest of the list done on anything new that I plan on releasing. But my workhorse self decided I needed to do this for several of my past singles as well. These are important things that were getting left out.

    Fortunately another friend stepped up to offer a trade of services. One of those services were on my list of 8 things I was missing. How awesome is that?!? I’m getting to trade something I need for something that I can do. That is the idea of music videos. Thus we’ve shot two music videos so far for previous releases. They’re done, in the can, ready to go. I’m waiting on VEVO to give my label control of my VEVO channel so they can start releasing them. They sure seem to take their sweet time responding to anything. Rest assured that as soon as VEVO grants us control to my VEVO channel, there will be new videos coming once they stop leaving us out of control of my channel.

    Another aspect I had been missing, lyric videos. I’m in process of creating several lyric videos as well as saying, I’ve got several done in the can, ready to go. Again, waiting on VEVO. Those video are feeling left out, but hopefully not much longer.

    There’s another avenue I’ve been traveling where I’m producing other artists. Sometimes it goes really well, other times it’s a process of explanation during recording. I’m a stickler. I can’t let things slide when it comes sonic quality and I strive to make it as awesome as possible to listen to. For some artists it’s easy and they can perform. For others, it’s difficult being under a microscope and coached to get that tingly hair raising vibe from them. That’s the gold standard, does it perk my ears up or make the hairs on my arm stand up? If so, we’ve nailed it. I don’t want other people to get left out of feeling those hairs stand up.

    Additionally, I’ve been working really hard on another project in my current home town. One that is meant to lift up the entire music community. To improve their songwriting, their performance chops and hopefully allow them to demand and earn more when they do perform. I was able to get a space from the city strictly for this endeavor. As of a couple of days ago and several months after initial approval then an out of the blue disapproval and back to re-approval, that space is ours to use. Songwriting events start to commence this coming Wednesday and people are excited. Which is just plain awesome. We don’t plan on leaving anyone out.

    Beyond this, sometimes you get caught up in other people’s bullshit. Which also happened this week. I was subpoenaed out of the blue for a lawsuit happening between two people I don’t even know. One is an artist. The other is a producer. The short of it is (for this post anyway, I do plan on a much longer post about all this as it is a good lesson for budding artists and producers alike), said artist sued said producer for breach of contract and won. Said artist then solicited bids for production from other local area producers to find the most expensive one to use as an example in suing for damages. That one happened to be me. Now I’m dragged into their mess, I really wish they left me out of it. As I wrote, I will be writing a much longer post about this in the coming days as it does make for a real good lesson.

    Finally, getting left out. It’s not a state secret that I’m an award winning songwriter and I’m not a slouch as a performer either. But I do pick my shows and my means of playing live carefully as I don’t like to lose money doing it. There is a festival going on right now in my home town where I’m getting questioned by friends, fans, and even representatives as far away as Nashville and Los Angeles as to why I am not on the bill. I know the main reason, but I’m not keen on sharing it. But it’s hard to not feel a little bit bitter about it when it is put on by local people and as an artist you are the one full time musician that has won awards and lives there full time but not invited to play with a large amount of other award winning songwriters from out of town. Fortunately I have friends who have sought to get me on the bill to no avail. And more fortunately one of the main peeps did grant me an access pass to at least attend the events I wish to attend with the words “We’ll work on getting you on the bill next year.”

    Oh, I’ve also been making some behind the scenes additions to my website. One of them is the addition of player buttons from multiple streaming services. Now I’ve added Apple Music, Deezer, Tidal, YouTube and Amazon to the main page. I’m still behind on adding them to all the previous releases, but I’m getting there. I’ve also been working on playlisting landing pages. Where a person can click a button and immediately playlist one of my songs on Spotify. The process works you can see the page for A Perfect Man as of right now. I have them for other songs. I’m almost to a point to be making them all public. Once I have the done I will start making it happen for Deezer and Apple Music as well as I believe those two services also allow us to do it via an API. They will come with time. So right now Deezer and Apple Music (as well as other services that don’t allow it) are getting left out.

    That is all for right now.

    Working on not going radio silent again.

  • Memorial Day 2019

    Memorial Day 2019

    It’s a rainy Memorial Day

    In a way that’s a bit fitting for the real reason behind Memorial Day. Generally most Americans are out partying BBQing and generally enjoying a day off. Then there are those Americans who are spending time visiting the resting sites of loved ones who have given their life in service of their country.

    That’s the intent behind a song written by Greg Watton and myself. A song called Forgotten Warriors. Greg is a military vet who is fortunately still alive and walking the earth. He wanted to write a song in honor of those who have given their lives and/or given their bodies and have been forgotten. I was all in on being a part of it.

    We released it last Veteran’s Day.

    Today we released an updated remix of the song to help beef up elements of the song and make it hit a little harder and deeper than the original mix.

    Hats off and heads down while we honor those Forgotten Warriors. May you have a reflective and amazing Memorial Day.

  • Maybe You’re The Problem

    Maybe You’re The Problem

    Maybe You’re The Problem: Once Upon A Time…

    There was a pop princess that was loved throughout the land. She came up thru the ranks and wowed people in one genre then shifted to another genre. All the while, she was growing up in front of everyone’s eyes – to a height of 5’10”. Being so public her dating life became fodder for chatting around the water cooler and for the gossip tabloids. She’d bounce from guy to guy, cavorting and having fun. Much as one would do as a teenager in anywheresville the universe.

    Yet, the songs this troubadour was creating dealt with how every guy had done her wrong. That she was a victim of the male counterpart at any given point in her story. Making them out to be “the bad guy” was the m.o.

    At one point in this tumultuous time of her dating life a comedian suggested that a male songwriter ought to write a song from the perspective of a former boyfriend who had been dumped by the songstress. What he went thru. How he felt about it. And then… His response.

    That’s where I stepped in. I wrote just such a song called Maybe You’re The Problem. Recorded a demo of it and made a makeshift music video to go along with it. All in good fun. Posted it to YouTube where a PR friend caught wind of it and posted the link to the video. All of a sudden it went viral! Racking up 10s of thousands of views in a matter of hours.

    Comments started pouring in. Lots of hate filled comments defending the songstress. Others were a bit more jovial, getting the joke and the fact that its only a song and meant to be on the humorous side.

    The song remained in its little silo for a few months getting more views and more comments. Then one day, POOF! It was gone. The video had been yanked from the video site claiming violations of the end user agreement. Or rather violations that were a bit more vague. Honestly, I’m still not clear as to exactly why it got deleted.

    Shortly thereafter a lovely woman wanted to be my manager and suggested that I rerecord the song and pull the reference to the songstress out. I thought, why the hell not. I can do that. No big deal. This manager really loved the song, just not the reference. Voilá the song now exists in the world without the reference to the imaginary songstress. It’s dressed up in new sonic beauty and ready to be shared in the world.

    Which is why you’ve spent time reading this far. Be my royal fan and press play: