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Congratulations, “Popcorn” Jack Terry!

Oct 12th, 2011
by lorendavidson.
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One of my Key West friends just got a cool new gig.

His name is Jack Terry, and for the past few months he’s been in competition to become Tommy Bahama‘s new rumologist. You can read the announcement here.

Jack is very nice people. He’s a bartender, of course, and an author in his Copious Free Time. I’d known him online for a while, and got to meet him back in June when I was in Key West. If anyone deserves something like this…it’s him.

I look forward to hearing the stories he’ll be able to tell by this time next year. I hope it’s a fun and worthwhile ride.

I’m featured on ConchTV!

Oct 7th, 2011
by lorendavidson.
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I love getting phone calls like this.

I got a call an hour or so ago from Artist Koz, the owner of Green World Gallery in Key West. I did a solo show down there back in June, it went well, and I’m playing there again during Meeting of the Minds (MOTM) next month.

He was excited because he’d recently filmed a video with Howard Livingston about the music series he’s hosting during MOTM and he’d just seen the results. He pointed me to ConchTV’s Website, and there they were in full, glorious Key West color! And I was one of the artists discussed who is coming down to play there.

So the schedule is also posted on ConchTV’s home page right now, including my performance on Saturday, 11/5 from 1-2. If you’re going to be in Key West during MOTM, I hope you’ll stop by for my show, and wander through the gallery and see if there’s some piece of art and a few CDs that just want to follow you home.

Follow my progress from Ft. Myers to Key West and back home on my Twitter feed, @lorendavidson, or on Facebook if you’re my friend there.

Muses Never Sleep

Sep 22nd, 2011
by lorendavidson.
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One of the hardest parts of songwriting is opening to the flow of ideas and creativity. It’s as hard as turning all of the stuff you get into polished songs that people might relate to. When my Muses are talking to me, I try very hard to pay attention and write down what they say.

Last night they started in around 10:15, and didn’t quiet down until sometime after 11. So I got to sleep before midnight. In between, I got four pages of fairly interesting ideas and lyrics. Most of them seem to be on a theme of dealing with everyday life, and most of them seem like I could possibly stick them into the same song. There’s no chorus yet, no hook. I know I need these to turn it all into a song or two, and they’ll probably arrive in yet another blinding flash of inspiration. Hopefully not at 2 AM, but it’s possible.

A rough-draft sample, just so you can see how my mind works:

(traffic)

Take a break before I break the brake lights getting in my way

Hate to decelerate; this waiting makes for longer days

(other)

My mortgage is under water; I don’t want to screw with it

I’ll call the bank next quarter; tell them what to do with it

This is the stuff songs are eventually made of. Either in the shower, or in the middle of the night.

Sadly, my Day Job won’t take “My Muses kept me up all night” as an excuse to not be on time in the morning. So it goes.

Technology and Music

Sep 22nd, 2011
by lorendavidson.
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We’ve come a long way from sitting around a campfire playing hollowed-out logs for entertainment. We have musical instruments of all sizes, shapes, tones, and varieties, and we have thousands of ways of creating a sound, massaging it to sound like anything else, and then delivering that sound to someone thousands of miles away.

As a consumer, I could easily be buried in all of the new music that exists in the world today and that keeps getting created, minute by minute. For example, I once saw a counter showing how many songs were on iTunes; it was adding a new song every couple of seconds. Wikipedia claims that there are over 14 million songs on iTunes now. At three and a half minutes average per song, that’s over 93 years of music, played 24/7.

That’s a lot.

As a creator of music, I’ve got plenty of options as well. It used to be just me and my guitar. Simple, right? Well, if I’m playing to more than three or four people, not all of whom are maintaining disciplined science, I need to amplify the sound somehow or lose my voice trying to make myself heard. 🙂 Hundreds of choices for amplifiers, speakers, mixers, effects…

And that’s not counting the number of options I have when I record.

Over time, I’ve found some gear that works for me and gives me a decent sound. And now I’m starting to branch out a bit into stuff that makes me sound like more than one guy with a guitar. I’m assembling tracks of the songs I do, as many as I can find – some of them I’ll have to do without or create my own. In my copious free time. 🙂 And I’m trying out other effects such as a harmonizer.

Will all these gimmicks and gadgets make me sound better, or worse? Come out to a show sometime soon and let me know.

Next show is Friday night (9/23), 8-10 PM, at Panama Bay Coffee, Livermore. Details on my Shows page. I’ll be trying out some of this cool new technology.

When No News is Good News

Sep 21st, 2011
by lorendavidson.
1 comment

Are you tired of reading all the depressing stuff in the daily news? I get that way sometimes. I’ve gotten better at skipping over the absurdities and the depressing bits, but it’s often hard to ignore things. Especially in the comments sections, in which everyone feels entitled to their own facts, rips other people just because they *can*, behind that mask of anonymity, and so forth.

I’m starting to collect Websites that I can go to when I want to distract myself, but don’t want to depress myself. So far I’ve been focused mostly on humor, but am starting to do more with travel and nature. Here are some of the sites that help brighten my day:

  • Not Always Right: Weird customer service stories. Some of them are a bit on the “ohmighod, people are *that* dumb?” side, but a lot of them are out and out hilarious.
  • Texts From Last Night: Things people say when they’re drunk, hooking up, skipping class, and other odd things. Oh, the humanity! Warning – much of it is NSFW and in truly questionable taste. To me, that’s part of what makes it funny. Others might have a different opinion.
  • Farallones Webcam: There’s a marine life sanctuary on a few islands off the coast of northern California. This is a nice place to just watch Nature for a while.
  • Private Islands Online (for rent or sale): Ever want to live on your own island? Here are some places you can escape to, without leaving your chair. Ignore the price tags.
  • Windjammer Cruises: Want to sail away? Here is a fun site that offers vacations for that. Check out the photo galleries as a bit of an escape.

What are your favorite “escape” sites?

September is Salsa Time!

Sep 5th, 2011
by lorendavidson.
1 comment

I just finished making my first batch of salsa for the year:

photo of salsa made at home

Fresh Salsa!

I do this every year, generally along the time I have enough tomatoes to do it. This year, I happened to have all the *other* ingredients around the house as well, so it qualifies as “garden salsa.” And *that’s* something I’m very proud of – that I can create this out of plants I’ve grown myself.

I *did* have to cheat a little bit. I didn’t quite have enough left of my last onion, and the pepper I had looked a bit anemic. So I went down to the corner market and got another onion and another pepper. But everything else comes from my garden, organically-grown.

If you want to try this yourself, here’s my recipe:

  • 5-6 cloves garlic
  • 1-2 peppers – I use one jalapeno, or a jalapeno and a milder pepper. If you like the heat, add more and hotter peppers.
  • 1 medium to large onion – I prefer purple
  • 6 large tomatoes, or equivalent
  • juice of 1/4 lime

I put each ingredient in turn into my food processor and turn it on high until the ingredient is thoroughly shredded. Then I add the next ingredient, top to bottom on the list. The tomatoes get blended in partly on medium, partly on high.

You can, of course, add or modify ingredients to this, depending on how hot you like your salsa, what types of vegetables you have, etc. But it’s a relatively fast and simple recipe that almost anyone can use.

Bon appetit! 🙂 I’m serving this with some Trader Joe’s unsalted corn tortilla chips and a rum ‘n Coke Zero, with another bit of that lime squeezed in.

Facebook Friends and their Birthdays

Aug 25th, 2011
by lorendavidson.
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On my way into work this morning, I was listening to KCBS – our local news station. They had an interview with the appropriately-named David Plotz, who wrote an article for Slate Magazine about a recent experiment in which he put three fake “birthdays” on his Facebook profile, to see what people would do. Well, apparently a lot of people wished him happy birthday three times.

So he wrote this article about how phony it was for all these people whom he didn’t really know to wish him a happy birthday. He says that while he appreciates that sort of greeting from people in his “real circle of friends,” it’s meaningless when it comes from people who don’t know him.

Okay Mr. Plotz – I have one question for you, which the good folks at KCBS didn’t think to ask this morning: If the people who aren’t in your “real circle of friends” are so “meaningless” to you, why did you accept them as Facebook friends? If you’ve just got them there as experimental rats or as “networking” resources, you’re guilty of at least as much superficiality as you accuse them of. Mr. P(l)ot(z), meet Mr. Kettle.

At this writing, I’ve got close to 3,000 Facebook friends, or nearly twice as many as David does. I don’t manage to send birthday greetings to them all, but I do try to get to most of the people I’ve met in person – and I’ve probably met close to a thousand in person at one time or another and keep up irregular correspondences with quite a few. And when someone turns up on my birthday feed, I go to their page and use it as an opportunity to remind myself of why I “know” them – did I meet them at a show? While down in Key West? Do they know somebody I know?

I do get to turn Facebook friends into real-life friends at least a couple of times a month, and it brings me great joy to do so. I have some truly amazing friends.

And when my birthday – my real birthday – comes around, I will appreciate the notes I get from everybody, like I did last year. Before Facebook, not that many people knew when my birthday was. Life can be as much of a drag or a blessing as we want it to be. Taking the little “positive strokes” that come my way, whether they’re “real” or not, helps keep my world on the “blessing” side.

I guess I’m glad I don’t have to live inside Mr. Plotz’s life. It sounds like a drag.

Crowdsourcing Contest!

Aug 19th, 2011
by lorendavidson.
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I’m going to try something new and fun on Sunday.

I’ve got this show over at Forbidden Island in Alameda. It should be a good show in a very visually-interesting place. I’d like to get recordings of parts of the show, and if you’re going to be there, I’d like your help. To make it fun, I’m going to make a contest out of it.

I want to try it like this: If you’re coming to the show, film one or more songs, either on your smart phone or borrowing my Flip camcorder. Afterward, upload your videos to YouTube or Facebook and tag me in them. I’ll look them over, and the best one gets a free live CD, personally autographed – either the physical CD, or downloads; your choice. I can’t autograph the downloads though. 🙂

If this works out well, we’ll do it again. 🙂

Feeding the People

Aug 17th, 2011
by lorendavidson.
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I’d like to ask for some help, and I’m not entirely sure the right way of doing it. I’m a little awkward about stuff like this.

One of my passions is gardening and food. I don’t grow a lot of my own food, but I’ve reached a point where I keep myself in fresh fruit all summer and garlic all year, plus other bits here and there.

I get to eat three square meals (or junk meals, as the case might be) a day. I’m fortunate. Not everyone does. Food is one of those basic things we don’t notice until we don’t have it. And it’s hard to concentrate on *anything* else if you’re hungry. Especially if you’re a kid.

Part of being a Parrothead is the whole concept of “Party with a Purpose.” In order to be a Parrothead club, you must do charitable work – it’s part of the charter. And a lot of my Parrothead/Trop Rock musician friends put on fundraisers, raising tens of thousands of dollars for worthwhile causes. I envy them their ability to do this.

Today I decided to get off the stick and do something for our local food bank. It looks like they’re doing a decent job – every dollar they receive buys up to $5 in food, and a whopping 96% of every dollar they receive ends up helping feed someone. That’s a pretty good percentage.

They have a virtual food drive that you can join. You can either donate money directly, or you can click on items in a shopping-cart format and see just how far your dollars will go toward feeding someone who for whatever reason isn’t managing to feed themselves.

I’d like to offer something to encourage you to donate to help feed people. If you’d rather donate to your own local food bank, that’s cool too – I believe in helping people locally when possible. If you donate $20 or more by the end of August, I’ll send you an autographed live album. Donate $50 or more, and I’ll throw in copies of my last two CDs, Every Day’s a Holiday and Island Standard Time. All autographed and personalized. Just forward me a copy of your email receipt to music1 -at- lorendavidson.com, and include your mailing address and whom you’d like me to make the CDs out to.

I’m not good at asking for stuff, so I hope you’ll see past any awkward language here and hear that I really want to do something positive, and hopefully leverage that beyond my own meager abilities. I made my own donation today, and I feel pretty good about that. Will you make yours?

Thanks for listening,

Loren

Wasting Away Again at my Desk

Aug 16th, 2011
by lorendavidson.
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I’ve written a few songs about Key West, and other spots in the Keys. The first one came about after my first trip down there, and was somewhat about my re-entry into my previous life, already in progress.

You see, while the weather here in the Bay Area beats heck out of, say, Michigan – especially in the winter – coming out of the front door of Oakland Airport into 53 degrees and a drizzly overcast was a bit of a shock, after 80s and sunshine. And I had had a particularly marvelous trip, the like of which I’ve been able to replicate, more or less, pretty much every time I go.

Well, to make a long story short, I started spending way too much time watching Key West webcams. And nine years ago, there were only a few – Mallory Square, a couple of cams pointing toward the sunset, things like that. I don’t even believe that the Live Duval St. cam had been set up yet. Now there are over 60 cams covering life in the Keys from Key Largo to Key West. And I still go look at them, now and then. I think the cam feeds may be blocked at my office, but I’m only there three days a week. And I can still look up YouTube videos like this one, even at the office.

I’m very much about creating Paradise wherever we happen to be. But sometimes it helps if you can look up pretty places online and just kick back and enjoy them for a while.

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