Community Online and Offline

Jana, Josh, and Kina I had a really awesome warm fuzzy gig Thursday night at Club 115 downtown. I got to songswap (and meet, for the first time) Kina Grannis; she just moved here from California. Austin is such a town of transplants, but I think that's what makes it happy to live in. People aren't very involved in geography or customs here, so we can all just get down to the business of making music. Kina has wonderful songs and a powerful voice...she'll fit right in here. Kalu James was kind of our herder for the evening...he got us all booked and onstage at the appointed time and no one had to be booted out for inappropriate behavior. Always a concern when you book me, folks. JUST KIDDING. Kalu hails from Nigeria by way of Rochester, New York. See what I mean about transplants? His voice will knock you on your butt. No, I did not drink anything to obtain said warm fuzzies, that's water. Josh Britt swapped songs with Elizabeth Hobbs...go to Josh's Myspace page and listen to "The Hatchet." It is my favorite song ever, and you should hear it. Elizabeth is full of totally clever lyrics and gorgeous voice to go along with it. I am slightly reminded of Lisa Loeb when I hear her, and that's a compliment from my camp. Camp Loeb. Or something. Have you listened to Josh yet? DO IT. Kalu then swapped with Miguel Briones...which, if you compare their styles...is a really interesting combination. Both being really powerful voices to the stage in very different ways. That's the joy of these collective songswap nights...it's like getting a scoop of butter pecan WITH your mint chocolate chip, or whatever tingles your sweet tooth. And I am piecing together, as we have nights like these, that the point of all of these online communities like Myspace and Facebook and Twitter and Flickr and whatever...the point of them all is to share and bring people together in this Brave New World of technology. I think somewhere along the line people got kind of stuck at home at their computers, playing round 87 of Minesweeper, and got really lonely. So all of these social networking tools are not made to reject this new way of life, but to make it better. And then the obvious continuation of that is...apply it to the OFFLINE life. We all still have those, right? Gather according to interests. Educate each other. Build each other up. The more your friends succeed the better off your world is. I feel that connection with all these fine songwriters. We gripe about the perils of finding paying gigs and we swap stories about flakey booking people, but we also find encouragement and strength when we all do what we love to do...together. So thanks, Kalu-Josh-Miguel-Elizabeth-Kina! I'm glad you're in my offline world...and that you accepted me as a Myspace friend. ;)