Check out a live track from my weekend in Port Aransas for the Terri Hendrix and Lloyd Maines workshop last month...we did a show that weekend and my tune was "Fortunate." That's Lloyd doing the introduction. Hear it on Myspace, yo!
Well this took me a while. I seem to be wandering between solid internet connections all the time, and it took me 3 days to get 13 photos uploaded to Flickr properly. There's no excuse.
Needless to say, the Life's A Song workshop with Terri Hendrix and Lloyd Maines was a great experience and I met and re-met a lot of great folks this year. Not a bad way to spend a birthday, either. I got play some of my new tunes for Terri that are possibilities for EP 2, and the feedback was definitely useful. The jams were awesome, even if it got cold enough to make us move inside and away from the campfire. I didn't think it got cold in Port Aransas. (In my mind if you drive that far to a coast, you're pretty close to Jamaica. My mind isn't very geographically accurate, however).
Here's some photos...and while you look, go to Terri's Myspace page and listen to her new tunes! Some from her new retrospective album and some from her Christmas EP. "Bring 'Em All In" has been a favorite of mine at live shows for quite some time...
Cruising around Port A...
Lloyd and the dobro go together like PB&J.
Campfire Jam!
Inside jam!
Terri harmonicas it up.
I recorded "Switzerland" with Lloyd being his kickbutt producer self.
So there you go. If you have any interest at all in the craft of songwriting, I encourage you to attend a workshop like this...get yourself on the list for Life's A Song or check some of the other ones across the country. They're good for you.
Time for the Life's A Song workshop, folks. My good buddy Kate Hearne and I are going to drive down to Port Aransas in oh, about 20 minutes and get our songwriting on. Very excited! Reports from the scene, of course. I have all my cables wrapped and chargeable items charged.
It was lovely and glorious fun to hang out with Kelli and D.C. -- both Life's A Songers -- this past Sunday. The Scenic Loop Cafe is a ritzy kind of place for a folkie like me. Best wheat bread EVER, too.
Here's an archived version of the webcast. If you hit up the 2nd song, you'll hear a brand new one never before played out...when I decide to debut, I go all out and make sure it's on the internet forever, haha. I think it's called "West."
Um, yeah. So Saturday night was cool. Any time Terri Hendrix plays at the Cactus, it's a good time. The place is always full, and it's a definite electric atmosphere. BettySoo started the night off with her fantastic tunes and some hilarious stage banter. Stage banter is an art form, and being hilarious while doing it is like...triple the talent. Go see BettySoo's web site for more joy (and fabulous design!)
Then it was time for Terri+Lloyd+Paul+Glen. I have pretty much gushed about their performances before, maybe a few times, perhaps...so in an effort to keep gushing to a minimum, we'll do a list.
- It was the week of Terri's birthday, so that was cool. Happy (late) birthday, Terri!
- It was also the birthday weekend of my friend Melissa, who I met at Life's a Song. (Once you attend a Life's A Song workshop together, you kind of just follow each other around all the time. Melissa studies at Red Leaf, too. See what I mean?) So Melissa was there partying it up with her awesome friends. They let me sit with them. That made me happy.
- Happy Birthday, Melissa!
- It was also, if you hadn't noticed, Valentine's week. Terri did a love song in honor of the holiday. It was called "The Masochistic Tango," and here's an excerpt:
Take your cigarette from its holder And burn your initials in my shoulder Fracture my spine And swear that you're mine As we dance to the Masochistic Tango
- I can hang with that kind of Valentine's Day song, hehheh. (That one's by Tom Lehrer).
Right. So...awesome show all around, and then it was time for the last 2 songs. Somehow, in some blinding awesomeness of Terri, I ended up singing a little bit o' harmony onstage with BettySoo and Melissa. Yep.
Ron Baker takes awesome photos, and he was kind enough to share!
Music is clearly all work and no fun.
Everyone had to duck so Paul could rock out on his solo.
And take a bow.
All those photos were taken/copyrighted by Ron Baker, and you can check out his most excellent collection of photos from this show, more Terri shows, and a BUNCH of great musicians in general at his Flickr site or here.
Oh everybody's doing it, so I guess I will, too. All the blogs I read are doing their "best of" posts of 2007, and I have officially, as of January 1st (TOMORROW!) been blogging for a year, so I have a whole 12 months to pick from. What a year it's been. I guess it'll also serve as a little "2007 Year in Review" because life looks considerably different now except the whole point hasn't really changed at all. Let's make that make sense:
I launched the re-design of jpo.com which is what you're looking at now. Yes, before there was NO BLOG ON THE FRONT PAGE! Gasp! Now it would seem weird to have anything different.
Still a little slow at blogging.
March:
Jana Susana Banana Rama happened, and it was my first time playing with Susan Gibson and it was SO COOL. Plus, I got to meet Jana Losey and Melanie Peters (who of course, added the Jana and the Rama to the Susana and the...I guess that makes me the Banana. Hrm.) Jana L. is releasing a new album called "Blocks" and you should probably own it.
Rama. Susana. Jana. Banana?
My first SXSW left me in a dizzying realization that Austin pretty much rocks. I saw a bunch of killer music, and interestingly enough a little band I like to call porterdavis (well, actually...that's what they like to call themselves) with some dude named Dan in it who I had never met before. And I didn't meet him then, either, haha. Shy Jana.
My blog exploded thanks to a week of touring around New Mexico with Susan and hanging out with business partner Josh, who logged and filmed and took notes the whole time. The video blog (vlog) became a fixture. I like having business partners who know things. Well, just one, because he knows it all.
Now it's December and you're reading this post. Are you exhausted yet? I'm not. My point is...I did not have a clue most of this stuff was going to happen. In January I knew I was taking steps to build a business with Josh and start working toward the path of being a self-supporting singer/songwriter/entrepreneur/freelancer. That happened...but 2 tours to New Mexico with one of my very favorite songwriters ever, folk music grad school, a producer for my EP, and lots of new people and mentors in my life were pretty much all...surprises.
All I can say is, chart your path with purpose and then let your chart get re-written as you go, but keep the purpose. That makes things go smoothly, I think.
2008 is going to be fun. Thanks for hanging in there! Have a SAFE and HAPPY New Year, kids!
Seems to be a lot of us crazy Scorpios around these days. I'm playing a gig in Austin tonight, but my good friend Kate Hearne is celebrating her birthday up in Winnsboro, TX and I'm definitely there in spirit.
One of the coolest parts of the Life's A Song workshop in October was meeting a bunch of people who I immediately connected with. Kate was one of them...when I heard her play a song around the campfire (the prevelance of campfires in my life is interesting) the first night of the workshop I was blown away. We jammed a little bit that night and workshopped together all the next day and stayed up until 4 AM writing a tune the next night.
Kate is a young one! She's turning 18 (if her bio isn't lying, haha), and she is one of the most accomplished guitarists I have had the privilege of playing with.
Here's Kate playing her song "Shine" at Life's A Song with none other than Lloyd Maines...
Happy birthday, Kate! Here's to many more songs and adventures. :)
It's not every day one of your songwriting heroes introduces you onstage...
Breakfast was at 8 AM yesterday, and I returned to my room at 4 AM...now it's 9 AM and time for some workshopping and a 4 hour drive. Back to Austin. Don't make us leave!
