Tag: live music

Open Mic Adventures XL: “Parada”

The Portly Politico20 Comments

I’ve just got a couple of more open mic nights before I get into my school year schedule and become a slave to the grind, but I’m going to do my best to keep pumping out the goods.  This time in two weeks, I hope to have a new song uploaded for your delectation; stay tuned.

In the meantime, I’m continuing my deep dive into my obscure deep cuts, songs that I’ve never managed to get recorded in a studio.  Some of these songs are very good; some need some polish.  Whatever the case, I’m realizing that I have enough material for another EP, and I might need to get back into the studio.

This week’s feature is “Parada.”  I wrote “Parada” in 2015 during a particularly fertile period of open mic attendance. The Spanish word “parada” roughly translates to “stop” or “bus stop/station” in English. I wanted to capture the notion of lingering in a moment—stopping a poignant moment in time, trying to freeze it in place as long as possible.

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SubscribeStar Saturday: Spooktacular 2022 Preview

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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.

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TBT: The Frisson of the Night

The Portly Politico2 Comments

The night has always been a time of excitement, a time when—as I wrote a year ago—music “lives.”  There’s something exhilarating and fun about the night, which is why I chose the word “frisson” to convey the tantalizing possibilities of the night.

I’m more of a morning person these days, rising early, well before the dawn.  Well, isn’t that just another way of saying “the late, late night”?  There’s not much exciting happening at 5 AM (other than reading the Bible and talking to God), but it’s still pretty dark out.  Try waking up then and you’ll see!

Still, there is a real appeal to the night.  I’m at my most alert and mentally focused in the morning and—you guessed it—at night.  Afternoons would be naptime for yours portly, if I had my druthers—and a schedule that permitted it.

Regardless, night is when everything interesting happens.  It’s the time when things go bump.  It’s probably when Bigfoot comes out to play, too.

With that, here is 15 September 2021’s “The Frisson of the Night“:

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Open Mic Adventures VII: “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes”

The Portly Politico2 Comments

It’s been a few weeks since I’ve been able to make it out to open mic night, but I’ve built up enough of a back catalog, I still have some goodies to share.

My schedule has been bonkers lately, especially with lessons, and interim reports are due this week.  I’ve also been on the road a great deal lately, so everything is a bit tight at the moment.

Fortunately, I have a real gem for your listening pleasure this week:  a cover of “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes” by Crosby, Stills & Nash.

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Phone it in Friday XXII: Malmsteenian Excess

The Portly Politico4 Comments

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.

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Concert Time!

The Portly Politico12 Comments

Tonight my students have their big Spring Concert.  It’s one of the two busiest days of my year (the other being the Christmas Concert), as there is much to be done to prepare.

The students are well-rehearsed and ready to play.  Today will be spend putting instruments on stage, and making sure everything is mic’d up properly.  That’s not difficult to do, per se, but it is quite time-consuming.

There are also a million little details to get sorted:  making sure extra copies of music are run off; ensuring that cables are taped down or covered to prevent tripping; checking the sound levels; making sure students know how to get on and off the stage efficiently; etc.  It’s a lot to do, but the payoff is worth it.

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Lamar’s Sesquicentennial Celebration

The Portly Politico22 Comments

My little adopted hometown of Lamar turns 150-years old this year, and we’re celebrating!  The town is planning a full slate of events over the next nine months, kicking off with the return of the famous Egg Scramble Jamboree and a community worship service the first weekend in April.  The Egg Scramble usually lasts the entire weekend, but as it’s the first since The Age of The Virus, the committee behind the event is doing a one-day event, dubbed “The Egg Scramble: Over Easy.”

That cracks me up every time.

Longtime readers know that I love festivals and small-town boosterism.  It’s no surprise, then, that I am super excited for all of these events.

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The End of Bancamp Friday

The Portly Politico50 Comments

Well, all good things must come to an end:  much to my readers’ relief, I’m sure, Bandcamp Friday has come to an end.

Since March 2020, Bandcamp has dedicated the first Friday of most months to Bandcamp Friday, a day when the service waived its share of proceeds paid for musicians’ music.  That meant that musicians got almost the full value of the sale, minus whatever PayPal takes out.  In other words, a musician who sold his entire discography for $19.98 (like yours portly) would receive almost all of that amount, as Bandcamp waived its customary 15%.  That’s $3 more going to the musician; over, say, ten transactions, that adds up to real money.

For now, though, it looks like it’s over.  Bandcamp introduced Bandcamp Friday as a way to help musicians during The Age of The Virus, when most venues were shuttered and musicians couldn’t play gigs.  No gigs, no merch and CD sales.  No sales, no money.  My performance royalties—never a huge source of income, but a nice extra couple of hundred bucks, dried up almost completely in 2021 (royalties are paid on such a long delay, it wasn’t until 2021 that I experienced the effects of having not played my original music live in 2020).

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SubscribeStar Saturday: Yuletide Mania

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The Christmas season is upon us, and nary did Thanksgiving end did the insane scrambling of the season commence.

Regular readers know I’m a hustler—I’ve always got some moneymaking schemes going:  primarily private music lessons, but also gigging, writing, calling sporting events, staging concerts, selling t-shirts, hawking weird art, etc.  These are all fun activities in addition to being lucrative, but it’s easy for them to get overwhelming, especially when they all hit at once.

Well, Christmastime—at least the first couple of weeks of December—seems to be a time when everything comes to a head at the same time (thus today’s later-than-usual post).  This past week was particularly grueling, with a number of events requiring my attention, sometimes nearly at the same time.

For those interested in the opportunities of perils of juggling different side gigs and responsibilities, today’s post will detail how I managed to teach almost all of my lessons for the week and setup lighting and sound for a pageant; reset that lighting and sound for a play; attended play tech and dress rehearsals; played a dinner at church and will play a longer Christmas set today; rode in a parade; and successfully made it through two stagings of the aforementioned play.

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