Honesty Sucks

I 've been a little remiss in
posting lately. Vasan tonight
at the Cedar Cultural Center
should be excellent (Sunday)- next
Fri, Sat, Su Floyd's weekend (May 5)
jam in Victoria, MN. details
are on my homepage,
http://glennbowen.biz/index.htm

My internet has been down for a couple
weeks, an in the interim, the webpage
got kind of screwed up, so I was planning
on going flying in the Blanik, but it's
raining, an I'm sitting in the basement
working on the webpage.
I am starting a major revision,
with some really nice CSS planned for the
home page, but that's going to be put on
hold - this is just pure troubleshooting,
and temporary measures- to get back to
a working website site (it's easy to forget
sometimes that Microsoft isn't the enemy).

I hope to post the phase 1 Demo CD today,
also- if I can get to it, if not, this week.

So, I handed out 9 copies of my Demo CD,
and asked these 9 people to be on my CD.
2 people said yes, 5 said no, and no response
from the others. This is a setback, I'll admit.

Basically, it means that I'm going to have
to add a phase 2 - with me doing all the
arranging, and then coming back in a couple
months, and trying to get some other
musicians involved. Everybody was pretty
nice about turning down the chance to be on
the CD, but a couple people were pretty
honest about what they thought of my
efforts, and I respect that, but since we're
all being honest about this, I got to admit,
honesty sucks.

the real mistake I made was that I put it out
at too preliminary a stage. If I was working
with musicians who were used to composing
and arranging I would have been fine, but I
was dealing with musicians who are used to
adding a part to a cover of someone elses
work, and it was too much of a leap of
imagination to ask them to make a
contribution with what I had so far, so it
was a "tactical error" on my part, you
can't ask people to step out of their
comfort zone.

I do have the equipment, and skills
to do this arranging, but its going to add
some time. I figure it sets me back three
or four months.

I purchased a really nice Roland electronic
drum kit a couple months ago, and now,
since I've got no drummer on the CD, I figure,
I better learn how to play the damn thing.
It's actually a lot of fun though, and I have
some serious software (Project 5, Sonar 3,
etc, ) so I can do it - just not on my initial
schedule. I just have to be good enough
to make a good backing track -I'll still
bring in a good drummer for the final CD.

So, after I post the phase Ia demo (which
is done all ready, I just have to post it),
I'm going to start posting the backing tracks
for the CD as a Phase 2, then I'm going
to get some more musicians to agree to be
on the CD, and go into the studio as Phase 3.

Later,

Catfish

Even if the waters dont come

Battlefield Band played Sunday at the Cedar,
and they were excellent. Still the best musical
group around, for my tastes.

I saw Toots Thieleman at the Dakota tonight,
and it was more moving then the last time I
saw him, wonderfull.

Plain and simple, my tastes are changing from
the Blues Harp, that used to be so important.
Not that I still don't respect Little Walter
or Sonny Boy Williamson, or Sonny Terry, its just
that no one ever came along to replace them, and
I can't even listen to the shit they play on the XM
blues radio station- I listen to Classic Jazz, Irish,
Bluegrass, Battlefield Band (a great group) - at some
point you start to realize - I don't listen the Blues
anymore.

So it's like I don't listen to the blues, I'm not in a
blues band, I practice the Tin Whistle (Irish Folk
Musical Instrument) more than I do the Harp,
What keeps me going - the songwriting, the challenge
of coming up with a harp phrase that works with
a song you've written- but performing, its' tough,
especially if you're not a good singer (and I'm not),
and especially if you're as shy as I am. And then
there's the non-existant pay.

I wrote a play called "The Acts of Cain", and for several
years, I really poured my heart and soul into it, and
got something that I was really proud of, but I was
unable to market it, so I ultimately gave up the
playwriting , after writing "Nobody Cares"- a
play about a harmonica player. When I wrote this
play I realized that what I really wanted to do was
devote myself to playing Blues Harp, and I did,
and with this album, I've taken my song writing
and harmonica playing as far as my talent will take
me, but it is going to be a struggle to really get this
album completed, and my ability to market it
when I am done it just about nil, so if I spend
$3,000 on this CD, that money's pissed away.
That's a lot of money - I don't mind doing it,
in fact, you couldn't stop me from doing what
I can to get the best CD I can, (and it is a labor
of Love) but when its finally done, honestly,
I think it's time to move on -

(I want to go to Ireland and play the Tin Whistle
in a pub in the County Clare, which would be really
cool.)

But down to business. I trimmed down the song list
to (8) songs. I've been writing songs a long time,
and plain and simple -this is the best I got.

1. Make A Miracle Happen
2. Born To Make That Little Girl Dance
3. To Make You Believe
4. lightnin' (Surges)
5. Rain Falls Down (On A Freeman)
6. Talking 'bout Robert Johnson
7. An Ark In The Basement
8. Catfish Bones Solo

So that's the songs. I will be posting the Phase 1A Demo
CD with these songs by April 23rd, so you can listen to
what the general outline of these songs are - but I am
going to start doing some more serious arranging, and
looking at instrumentation for these tracks - I'm
far from done.

Later,

Catfish

The Sorta True Story of "Catfish Bones"

I got to see Jonathan Pascaul at the Cedar last night
(Flamenco guitar) overall very good, but it ranged
from aimless procession of notes, to some burst of
just amazing drive- the combination of the percussive
tapping on the guitar body, plucking the low bass string,
and rapid chording can really drive a rhythm - I'm still
trying to break down some of what I heard-there's
something there to listen for, for pure driving music.

Tonight I'm going to use my free pass to see Eight Head
at the Cedar - for four nights volunteering get you
into one show. I don't know anything about this band-
but someone said I should go. April 9th at the Cedar
again, Battlefield Band!! (my personal favorite musical
group for the last year or so - excellent) Then April 12th
I'm going to sign up for the open stage at the Cedar for
a 10 minute set (3 songs off "An Ark In The Basement").

I just got back from seeing a presentation by
Jim Brandenburg (an amazing Nature photographer
for National Geographic), check this out:
http://www.jimbrandenburg.com/gallery/wolves/wh01.html
I like to think of myself as a photographer, but nothing
like that, these are my aviation pictures:
http://glennbowen.biz/avpics.htm
(not as cool, I know, but Brandenburg is world class).

Anyways, Brandenburg was speaking at a Fishing/Hunting
show, and I walked around to look at these fishing boats,
and the cheapest of them, even the cheapest pontoon boats
cost more than the houseboat I used to live in.
I lived for two years on a 35 ft Lakeliner, that I bought used
for under $10,000 - and it was not luxury living, but it was
mine.
Anyways, I ended up moving to St Louis, and losing everything,
before moving to Chicago, before finally, deciding to go back
home to Minneapolis. So when I talk about "living on the
houseboat, fishing out the bedroom window" that is true.
You could cast out a line - but it is not true that you could reel
the line back in from the bedroom (the hook would catch - so
you'd have to go out on the deck to reel the line back in), also
I would drive to a local lake, and catch Crappie and Sunnies,
and cook those up, rather than eat Catfish out of the Mississipi,
so while I'd catch a few catfish, I didn't really eat them - that's
artistic license. If you want to hear a Leperchaun recite part
of the "Catfish Bones" song, go here:
http://glennbowen.biz/catfishwords.htm ,
what is true about the song was how very, very, poor I was at
that time, and for the next several years, and it's tough to
forget how people treat you when you're down like that. so you
laugh - the next verse goes:
you're always welcome for dinner, but usually I eat alone,
you're always welcome for dinner, but usually I eat alone -
I'll serve up a little ol' catfish, raw catfish, with catfish bones.

later,

Catfish