The Winter Months

     The winter season is upon us! Where do our plans take us for the winter, you may ask? Well, I plan to hibernate and record until late January, then get busy traveling! First, I’m off to Nashville and Memphis for some shows with folkie pals from all over the country. (Sasha Colette & the Magnolias, The Iveys) Then in February, we’ll be in for a real treat playing a string of shows along our northern border from Cleveland to Syracuse, NY. It will be my first time in New York, so I’m really excited! We’re meeting up with Scott Bravo hopefully earlier in the trip and heading back toward his Syracuse home. Also, plans are in the works to play a show in Covington, KY with some folk/punk heavies, including Cory Branan. So there you have it: My winter in a nutshell!

From Charleston, With Love

     Ok, so this is no longer from Charleston or even WV by this point, but I still want to write about our weekend there.

     Shanna and I left last Friday afternoon on our way to see my photographer friend, Justin Brock and his wife, Haley. After having dinner at the Portsmouth, OH Sonic, we ventured across the river and into the Blue Ridge Mountains. Since we arrived in Huntington late, the four of us stayed in and had cervesas and laughs well into the night. After sleeping in and a spectacular breakfast, we set off for Charleston. Our plan was to get some photos of Shanna and I as a couple and Shanna in some digital shots for her website(s). It turned out very well and we all had some fun along the way too. (On an editorial note, Men Who Stare At Goats is an excellent movie, and it’s totally not gay to buy a male friend gourmet teas for his birthday, even if he made you a penis cake for yours.)

Purging Old Notebooks

I’ve kept a notebook for years now.  Several, in fact.  Some are barely holding up now, with scraps of paper hanging out all sides, deformed and watermarked from use.  These notebooks contain every lyric I’ve ever written, but what of the rest?  I intend to make this a regular part of my blog, as I purge these pages for prose and poems that never made it into a melody.

Rip-off

     These ideas I have about art.  Art as life, a beauty within one’s soul.  These words I arrange, pretensiousness inherent, believing I can change minds, behaviors, social consciousness and be the shoulders the next generation will stand upon.  My precious art… Original art.

     I wonder if I am a copy of greater men, simply writing what has gone before.  A rehash.  I’ve ripped them off and stripped the bones of some long-dead poet’s soul.  I pore over notebooks wasting ink and paper to plagiarize and capitalize on others’ labor.

     All I can do is continue writing and pray I never have to answer for being a theif  an inadvertent theif of personal thoughts.

At breakneck speed…

[I'll just open up right in the middle.  You'll catch up quickly, I'm sure.] 

     The picture above is of my new obsession.  It’s a Michael Kelly Deuce Phoenix (guitar).  I’m hoping that it will become my new stage guitar for the next incarnation of my live performance.  Over the past several years, I’ve used an acoustic guitar almost exclusively.  I enjoy it, but I don’t feel that my music or personna fits in well with other singer-songwriters using acoustic instruments.  I want to branch out, and hope to avoid the stereotypes that get thrown my way.  Also, I want to entertain; to give people something enjoyable and rockin’ instead of dreary and loathesome. 

     In other news, I’m planning a few weekend tours for January 2010.  Tennessee is a definite destination and more places are in the works.  I’ll be sure to post updates as the tours develop. 

B

Those first few words…

An Introduction, of sorts

There’s just no easy way to do it.  You stare at a blank text box, searching your brain for any scrap of something clever or entertaining, but that field of digital white has blown it all away.  Hopelessly, you pore over pictures on your hard drive to find that these are no way to introduce anything at all.  Then it hits you; write what you’re feeling!  Be off the cuff, conformity be damned!

But then, what will they think?  Will they read again?  Do they know why you blog?  Hmmm…

B