SubscribeStar Saturday: Yulestravaganza 2022 Review

Today’s post is a SubscribeStar Saturday exclusive.  To read the full post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.  For a full rundown of everything your subscription gets, click here.

It’s Christmas Eve, the most mystical and magical night of the year.  Last Saturday was the annual Yulestravaganza, the most bonkers night of the year.

The Yulestravaganza, for those wondering, is not a consonant-ridden Welsh holiday.  It’s the little Christmas show my buddies John and Steve O and I put on each December.

Well, not quite each December.  During the long years of The Age of The Virus, the Yulestravaganza was a no-go, and we have been unable to get it together in other years due to scheduling conflicts.

But we managed to slap it together this year—very nearly at the last minute—and had a grand old time.

The Yulestravaganza is a “songwriter-in-the-round” format.  Each of us plays a solo selection (usually with one or both of the others hopping in here and there for harmonies or additional accompaniment), then we play a group selection.  Rinse and repeat until the gig is done.

It’s a very fun, very loose way of putting together a show.  We don’t have a set list, just a mental or jotted list of songs we’d like to get in before the evening ends.

So, how did the Yulestravaganza 2022 go?

To read the rest of this post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.

Advertisement

SubscribeStar Saturday: Christmas Mayhem

Today’s post is a SubscribeStar Saturday exclusive.  To read the full post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.  For a full rundown of everything your subscription gets, click here.

It’s Christmastime, which means a mad dash of yuletide craziness for yours portly, followed by a stately glide into New Year’s.  Right now I’m riding the wave of insanity, hoping I don’t wipe out along the way to the crest.

Years ago, I worked for a municipal performing arts center as the Cultural Coordinator—a cool title for a stressful job.  The venue was a beautiful opera house of the kind that graced many mid-sized Southern towns in the late nineteenth century.  We did not host an opera company (as far as I can recall, not a single note of opera was performed in the venue while I was there), so the name is a bit of a misnomer, but we did feature a number of different performances, both those we booked ourselves through the city, and those put on by enterprising residents who rented out our facilities.

The month of December was brutal.  In addition to our own events, we were also slammed with rentals.  Friday and Saturday nights saw me splitting my time between an outdoor musical event and whoever happened to be in the opera house that weekend.  One Christmas, I was so stressed out I starting losing weight without even realizing it, leading to my 2011 weight loss odyssey.

Unfortunately, I was so busy and stressed, I started loathing Christmas—a holiday I love!

Fortunately, while I’m still pretty busy at the holidays, I no longer dread their approach.  That said, I have had quite a week, and have another major one ahead of me.

To read the rest of this post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.

SubscribeStar Saturday: Spooktacular 2022 Preview

Today’s post is a SubscribeStar Saturday exclusive.  To read the full post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.  For a full rundown of everything your subscription gets, click here.

The Spooktacular—my annual Halloween concert—returns in one week, on Saturday, 15 October 2022.  Since 2020—during the height of The Age of The Virus—I’ve hosted this annual celebration of musical spookiness (and spooky musicality) from my front porch.  It’s worked pretty well, and even spawned a published piece in Self-Reliance, so why mess with success?  We’re back on the front porch again.

I am adding one innovation, though, one that worked quite well with the TJC Spring Jam earlier this year:  like the Spring Jam, I’m turning the Spooktacular into a recital.  My buddy John and I will still play some tunes, and we’ll invite the kids up to play with us on “Monster Mash” and KISS’s “I Was Made for Lovin’ You,” but the opening segment of the Spooktacular will feature my private music students.  Indeed, it’s an open invitation to anyone who wants to play a tune—come on out!

Of course, I’ll be working hard this weekend to get the house prepared for the Spooktacular—and to remind folks about it!  There are many little tasks to complete and items, large and small, to prepare, both to give everyone a fun time, and to squeeze some buckaroos out of the event.

To read the rest of this post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.

Phone it in Friday XXII: Malmsteenian Excess

This morning I’m recovering from a late night of rockin’ out to the neoclassical metal strains of Yngwie Malmsteen.  At least, I’m assuming I’m recovering—I’m filing this post a day before the concert.

As such, a complete review of the post will be coming next week at some point.  I can only assume the concert was incredible, and that Yngwie showed up on stage, on time.  It’s not the 1980s anymore, so I doubt he pulled any Guns N’ Roses antics and showed up on stage two hours late, but who knows?  If so, you’ll know more next week!

Yngwie Malmsteen championed neoclassical metal back in the 1980s with his band Rising Force.  He revived Baroque and classical works and played them on electric guitar, which is pretty awesome if you just think about it for a second.

Naturally, his sheer technical brilliance gave him a huge head, and that ego was only slightly deflated when he suffered injuries in a car accident that made it difficult for him to play.  To his immense credit—and to our musical delight—he relearned to play, building back the strength and dexterity necessary to ascend to the level of guitar god.

So, since I’m writing this before the concert, I thought I’d share some clips of Malmsteen rockin’ out in his distinctively technical way.

Read More »

TPP in Self-Reliance Magazine

It’s a celebratory time of year.  Sunday was Mother’s Day.  Social media was abuzz all weekend with graduation announcements.  Wedding season is gearing up.  And summer vacation is just around the corner.

So is the 2022 TJC Spring Jam.  This year, I’m making the first portion of the Jam into a recital for my private music students.  That’s going to make for a fun evening, and I suspect it will boost attendance—all those parents and family members coming out to hear L’il Billy play his piano piece.

Last fall, I submitted a piece to Self-Reliance, a magazine about independent living, entitled “The Front Porch Concert: Opportunity for Musicians in The Age of The Virus.”  They accepted it and cut me a check some time ago, and I’ve been waiting patiently for the article’s publication ever since.

Much to my delight, I arrived home from a school event Saturday evening to find the Summer Issue, Issue #25 of Self-Reliance, in my mailbox.  There on page twelve is my article, taking up four beautiful pages.

Read More »

Lazy Sunday CLX: Fine Arts Festival

It’s been a lazy weekend here at Portly Manor, as I’ve been recovering from a very long week of Fine Arts Festival-related activities.  It’s been pretty glorious being in bed by 9:30 PM and sleeping in until approximately whenever Murphy barks me awake to the use the bathroom, which is roughly around 6:30 AM.  I still need to file my taxes, so I’ll be working on that annual ritual of tedium later today.

For this week’s Lazy Sunday, however, it made sense to look back at this past week’s Fine Arts Festival, and to celebrate the achievements of the students involved.  I’ve also worked in a post about Son of Sonnet’s new Locals page:

Now to break the fast with my chubby dog, drink some coffee, and lazily get ready for church… and taxes.

Happy Sunday!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

SubscribeStar Saturday: Spooktacular 2021 Review

Today’s post is a SubscribeStar Saturday exclusive.  To read the full post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.  For a full rundown of everything your subscription gets, click here.

Last Saturday was my annual Halloween Spooktacular, marking the third Spooktacular and the second hosted from my front porch.  I hit upon the idea of doing a front porch concert around Halloween last year, when most venues were still closed to live music, or only very slowly bringing it back.  I’d heard of other musicians doing outdoor gigs, and though, “Hey, why not turn my front porch into a stage?”

That first at-home Spooktacular was wildly successful—far more so than I thought—and I followed it up with my Spring Jam in May 2021.  That event was also successful, though the turnout was slightly lower than the Spooktacular.

This year, I suspected that the success of the first two front porch concerts might be diminished somewhat, especially as the concert was on the Saturday before a Sunday Halloween, which meant most people were trick-or-treating and throwing parties that night instead of on Halloween proper.  Several of my biggest patrons, who usually drop some serious coin at these events, were unable to attend due to other plans.

Still, I was excited for the evening, and while my concerns about lower attendance were confirmed—and the event resulted in a substantial but not debilitating loss, at least in the short-run—it was a fun night, one that also carried with it some important lessons.

To read more of this post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.

Halloween and Spooktacular Preparations

It’s Halloween Week!  Besides Christmas (and probably Spring Break), it’s quite possibly my favorite week of the year.

It’s also the week of my third annual (and second on the front porch) Spooktacular!  As such, I spent a good portion of the weekend making the preliminary preparations for having lots of people sitting on my front lawn for a couple of hours or so.

Among the myriad tasks I completed (such as some long overdue weed eating, and applying more ant bait to the lawn), I engaged in my favorite Halloween season ritual:  carving a Jack O’Lantern!  I picked up a couple of massive pumpkins from Sam’s Club for $7 each, and this one made for particularly attractive gourd.  Just look at its perfectly jaunty, stout stem!

Read More »

The Joy of Live Music

Along with our civil liberties, a casualty of The Age of The Virus has been live music.  I’ve written about the strains the lockdowns placed on musicians frequently (including my many Bandcamp Friday posts), and have even hosted two front porch concerts to get around venue closures (and, it seems, the increasing number of venues that simply haven’t restored live music to their operations).

Fortunately, South Carolina is a free State, and live music is making a real comeback.  Indeed, I had the opportunity to hear my buddy, poet Jeremy Miles, play a gig with his new band, Jeremy and the Blissters, at a hopping coffee shop Friday evening.

The experience was electric—and not just because of the piping hot sound system and stacks of amplifiers.  The band—which, in addition to Jeremy, consists of good friends from the local music scene, two of whom have opened my front porch concerts—was stunning and powerful, offering up an eclectic mix of New Wave, punk, pop, acid rock, and more.

Beyond their impressive musical prowess and sweeping repertoire, Jeremy’s group reminded me of how fun live music can be—and how desperately we need more of it to return.

Read More »