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Adventures in Rum Appreciation

Feb 1st, 2019
by ldavidson.
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So…a week or so ago, I got a bottle of Smith & Cross Jamaican rum. I hadn’t had it before, and only knew it by reputation. It’s a high-quality rum with a fair bit of what rum connoisseurs call “funk” (technical term), which is a common characteristic of Jamaican rum. It’s a bit strong and not exactly to my taste, so this isn’t a rum I’d drink undiluted.

Today I tried something that made sense: I made a traditional Mai Tai (Vic Bergeron/Trader Vic’s recipe) using the Smith & Cross. It made sense, because the original Mai Tai rum was made with a Jamaican rum – Wray and Nephew 17 year, which is virtually impossible to find these days. And thus, it would seem that the other ingredients were formulated in part around that particular type of Jamaican funk.

Wow. I’d never tasted a traditional mai tai that good before. Using Appleton (which isn’t as funky as the Smith & Cross) works, but something about combining the other ingredients with a true Jamaican funk rum…just *worked*. And the result was eminently drinkable.

I have a couple of other “high-funk” rums on my shelf right now, and I’m going to have to try them out in the recipe to see how they taste. But I’ve got a feeling it may be tough to beat the Smith & Cross, without spending a whole lot of money on a rum with a lot more age on it.

The recipe (as I used it today):

  • 1 oz. light rum (Cruzan light)
  • 1 oz. dark Jamaican rum (Smith & Cross)
  • 1/2 oz. lime juice
  • 1/2 oz. orgeat/almond syrup (I’m using Torani almond syrup)
  • 1/2 oz. orange curacao

Check it out, try it with your own favorite rums, and let me know what you think.

And while you’re sipping, enjoy this song from my Of All the Rum Joints CD, a fun ditty titled “One More Rum.”

Getting to the Keys

Oct 9th, 2013
by ldavidson.
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In just a couple of weeks, it will have been ten years since my first trip to Key West. I will, of course, be celebrating that tenth anniversary by spending even more time in the Keys than I ever have on a single trip.

(You can listen to my song, “Living Key West,” while reading this. Just click the link.)

Southernmost - beautiful beach!

Southernmost – beautiful beach!

As part of my preparations this year, I’m rereading the book that probably did the most, after years of Buffett music, to get my fundament out of its comfortable rut here in the Bay Area and on a plane to south Florida. The book is titled Callahan’s Key, by Spider Robinson, a somewhat wacky romp by a loose “tribe” of individuals, formerly the clientele of Callahan’s Place, formerly the clientele of Mary’s Place, sick and tired of Long Island, who caravan to Key West to open up a bar and get telepathic in the hopes of saving the Universe. The back cover calls it an “improbable tale of impending doom, a road trip, space, drugs, and rock ‘n roll.”

Oh, and they all tell puns.

I’m not making any of this up.

As a writer, Spider has been influenced by the likes of Robert A Heinlein and John D. MacDonald, among many others. His descriptions and characters draw you in and keep you reading, even when you’re not entirely sure what’s going on. This book introduced me to the Keys, to Key West, and to some of the fascinating places there – Schooner Wharf, Mallory Square, and more. And motivated me to go *see* these places for myself.

So I did. 🙂

And over the years, I’ve collected my own share of pictures and stories about being in the Keys.

Picture of sunset at Mallory Square

Sunset at Mallory Square

This is the way I want to go to work every day.

This is the way I want to go to work every day.

Reef them sails before we capsize!

Even the cloudy days are beautiful.

Ten years of memories…and more to be made! 🙂

So this year I’m arriving in Ft. Lauderdale on 10/26. Yes, I’ll miss Fantasy Fest again. So it goes. Instead of racing to get to Key West like I have the past few years – needed to make the trip quickly in order to make gigs – I’m taking my time. I’ll spend two days traveling the 160 or so miles from FLL to Mile Zero, checking out places I’ve never been before, taking pictures, making memories. I’m hoping that Eric Stone will have his new bar, Dockside, open by the time I get there on the 27th; if not, I can always hang out at the Sunset Grill. Or both – I’ll have the time. 🙂

My “big gig” of the week is Monday night in Key West at the Rum Barrel. It’s my second year there, which is another first for me. I’ve got a four-hour set starting at 7, I’ll have Allen “Frankendread” Holland playing steel pan with me, and I know that a few of my musical friends will be stopping by to play a few.

I’ve got a show at Green World Gallery on Thursday at 2:30, will be in Key West Chris‘ showcase at Durty Harry’s sometime after that, and will otherwise be roaming the island with my guitar, hopefully playing a few songs here and there.

As well as getting off the beaten track every now and then to recharge and maybe write something new.

I bid farewell to Key West on Monday the 4th, and fly home on Tuesday the 5th.

There and back again, ten years after my first trip.

Should be fun.

Packing for Paradise

Oct 26th, 2012
by ldavidson.
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As I write this, I’m three point something days away from hopping a Southwest flight, on my first leg of a weeklong trip to the Conch Republic, mka Key West. Hurricane Sandy is very considerately staying out of my way, so I expect a safe and relatively uneventful flight east, followed by a lovely if not leisurely drive down Highway 1 on Monday.

What does one pack for a trip like this? In his book “A Pirate Looks at Fifty,” Mr. Buffett devotes an entire chapter to talking about all the cool goodies he packed his seaplane with for that particular trip. It was an entertaining read.

I, however, don’t have an entire aircraft at my disposal. I get two bags, plus the guitar in its case and my “portable office” shoulder bag. And I have to keep each bag under 50 pounds, or a) Southwest will charge me a small fortune for the privilege of hauling it for me and b) I will hurt myself trying to schlep it. Until I have a significant fraction of Mr. Buffett’s money, that’s how it’ll have to be.

So…what *does* one take, on a week-long journey to Paradise? I’ll spare you the details of the entire list, but share some highlights:

Guitar case – I take the soft case with shoulder straps; on Southwest, I can carry it on-board and put it in an overhead bin:

  • Guitar – Martin HD-28V, my “go to” guitar since roughly 2004
  • Spare strings
  • 1/4″ coax cable to plug into someone else’s amp, for when I need to do that
  • Songs I’m learning, in case I feel like dragging something out that ain’t completely baked
  • Capos – the regular full-neck version, and the “short cut” capo I use on “Green Flash.” I’ll eventually write and/or cover more songs that use it, maybe re-learning “Piece of Work.”

“Portable office:” CDs to sell, stickers and sampler CDs to hand out, sign-up sheets for my newsletter, coasters, pens, Sharpies, CD opener, Square widget for my cell phone, mini recorder(s), change envelope for events where someone else is selling my stuff. Paperwork folder – air reservations, hotel reservations, car reservations, parking coupon, MOTM confirmation for my membership, printed schedules. (Yes, I’m old-school about that. And in the habit of marking up the printed copy with where I have to be and where I want to try to be.) Music journal, because I always write something new while I’m in the Keys.

It will also contain my iPad. This will be my third trip without a laptop. I can do pretty much everything I *need* to do with just the iPad, and they don’t make you take it out of the bag going through airport security.

Merch bag: New for this trip, this will hold T-shirts, swag, and probably some CDs. It’s a rolling duffle from LL Bean in a Hawaiian shirt print; it should be impossible to miss coming off the baggage conveyor. I won’t put anything in here that can be broken. I *might* pack some costuming in, as I’ll be in Key West for Halloween.

Suitcase:

  • Clothes for a week. I expect to do laundry sometime around Saturday, so I don’t have to carry clothes for the duration. There’s a great laundromat on White Street that has a Cuban deli attached; they make a decent Cubano sandwich. Clothes will mostly be Hawaiian shirts, 1-2 pair of shorts, and a waterproof windbreaker in case it decides to rain.
  • Pills and remedies. I ain’t twenty-something no more, so I schlep along the stuff I need to stay healthy and comfortable while I’m away. Also toiletries, sunscreen, similar stuff.
  • More CDs and/or shot glasses. This trip, I need to give out some of the extra “goodies” that people who supported my new album on Kickstarter get. And I might sell a few shot glasses along the way; they’re kinda cool. These go in the suitcase, so that Southwest has a harder time breaking them. 🙂
  • Headset mic and cabling. I *think* I’ll have what I need everyplace I’m gigging this time. But just in case, I want to be prepared. I don’t need the rest of the portable PA, which has its own suitcase, but I’m going to take the mic.
  • Ear plugs. I need to preserve what little of my hearing is left, and some of the music is *loud*.
  • SunPass transponder (Yes, I got one!), maps of FL and the Keys.
  • Possibly an insulated cup to carry my own potables in.
  • Hat, to keep sun and/or rain off my face.
  • Power cord(s) – to recharge my iDevices, mostly.

It’s not an exhaustive list…but some items just really aren’t “need to know” for the Internet. 🙂

On the Road: Partying with Parrotheads in Utah

Aug 31st, 2012
by ldavidson.
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I spent last weekend hanging out with the Wasatch Mountain Parrothead Club in the Salt Lake City area. And I had an incredibly good time.

I’d been hired to play for their summer party, along with a local duo called Marmalade Chill. They played a lot of cover songs exceedingly well, with two-part harmony and good guitar work.

My outbound flight ran about an hour late. This was a good thing, as I was somewhat less than fully-organized and needed the extra hour at home (thank you, Southwest, for the phone notification before I left for the airport!) to get everything done, including a couple of press kits into the mail and my Day Job stuff to a good finishing point.

I always arrive early at the airport, because one never knows how long the security lines will take. As my gate was right across from the Gordon Biersch micropub, I stopped in there for a Marzen and some garlic fries. Tasty!

Picture of The view from Gordon Biersch, at Oakland Airport

The view from Gordon Biersch, at Oakland Airport

Well, they finally let me on the plane, we left the gate, and off we flew! I was looking out the left side hoping to see the America’s Cup races going on, but apparently they were done for the day by the time we took off.

Upon arrival, I was whisked away by Kathleen to the home of my friends Mike and Rene, who were also going to be hosting the party. Several other WMPHC folks were there, having helped set up the stage and various other stuff. We then hung out until it was time to get a token amount of sleep so that we would be ready to party the next day.

Morning dawned with a few unexpected sprinkles. This worried us a bit, as a downpour would make it a bit harder to have a big outdoor party. But the storms went around us all day, so we were good. I even made myself useful, hanging lights and such:

Picture of me hanging lights

“Just a little to the left…”

The place looked wonderful, as we awaited the arrival of a bunch of fun people:

Picture of the party yard

Popcorn beneath the willows 

 

picture of the stage
My “office.”

We had a good bunch of people there, as the day wore on into night. I played about three hours’ worth of music, with Marmalade Chill taking a few hours in the middle. After the raffle prizes were given out, some folks wandered off, but we ended up with a hard core of partiers who stayed right to the very end, and even demanded a couple of encores! 🙂

Here’s a shot of me from the middle of the day, taken by my friend Sharron Lukens:

Picture of me performing

“Good afternoon everybody!”

Alas, all good things do come to an end, and eventually we all crashed. The following morning dawned bright and sunny, and I got a couple of good pictures of the Wasatch Mountains on my way back to the airport. Here’s one of them:

Picture of the Wasatch Mountains from SLC

A beautiful morning in Utah

My flight home was reasonably uneventful. I had the pleasant surprise of running into an acquaintance I hadn’t seen in about six or seven years, and we spent the flight home getting caught up. That was enjoyable. And I got home early enough to get a few things done around the house!

Thanks again to the fine folks of the WMPHC for inviting me out to their party, and to Mike & Rene for their incredible and comfortable hospitality! Thanks also to everyone who bought raffle tickets, bought jewelry, or just made donations to Buffalo Blessings, our charity. We raised quite a bit of money for them!

Partying with a purpose. That’s how we roll.

 

 

 

 

 

Self-Worth and the Internet Marketplace

Jun 28th, 2012
by lorendavidson.
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What makes something worth X dollars and not Y? And how do we determine our own self-worth, in this age of free downloads, crowdfunding, and instant everything?

In this article, Doug Shineman talks about YouTube’s business model for embedding advertising. In it, he builds his case by talking about retail vs. auction methods of sales and valuation.

In the retail model, stores sell a widget for, say, $10. At an auction, the widget will sell for the highest bid. That might be $1 one day and $25 the next, depending on the crowd and how many people want it how badly. Same widget – different prices.

If you the reader have been following me at all, you’ll know that at the moment I’m running a Kickstarter campaign to help fund my newest CD, Of All the Rum Joints. As that campaign has developed, I’ve been learning some interesting things about my own self-worth and how I determine it.

It’s been eye-opening. I expect I’ll learn even more about myself by the time it wraps up next week.

You see, I don’t always have the strongest self-image in the world. This may surprise you, because I’m pretty good at “faking it ’til I make it.” And I’m not good at asking for stuff for myself like this, because I occasionally doubt I’m “worth it,” and like most folks I hate rejection. 🙂 But what determines that worth?

In the case of this project, it’s apparently the number of people willing to put their money behind me and my music, and how much they’re willing to pledge. I had a “panic moment” of “what happens if nobody signs up,” and how embarassing that would feel to me. But I went ahead and did it anyway, figuring I really had nothing to lose but a bit of time and perhaps a bit of face.

I’m fighting a lot of old programming to get to this place. My Mom, bless her soul, left me a number of interesting mental “tapes,” including “don’t make a fool of yourself,” “what will people think,” and “be prepared for disappointment.” She meant well…but these are exactly the wrong tapes to support me in doing what I’m doing as an artist. And I’ve had to put a lot of work into resolving those tapes and creating new ones that serve me better.

Well, so far I’m doing almost as well as I hoped on Kickstarter, and maybe better than I expected. I’m over 2/3 of the way to making my goal, and at this point even if I don’t make it, I’ll feel like I’ve given it my best and gotten a good response. And that my music really *is* “worth it,” at least to enough people for me to feel validated.

And for better or worse, that helps me to feel better about myself, doing what I’m doing.

Which I think might make Mom happy, even if she *was* a bit overprotective along the way.

If you haven’t already checked out my Kickstarter project, I recommend it. It’s good reading and you get videos of three new songs, whether you pledge anything or not.

But I hope you will. After all, I’m worth it. 🙂 And what I’m offering is well worth your support.

Taking it on the Road

May 9th, 2012
by lorendavidson.
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I’m going to be a bit busy with travel the next few months. Well, actually with travel *and* working on my upcoming album *and* the 97 other things that make up a Life. 🙂 But I’m really excited today about my upcoming trips.

May 17-20: Phins to the West, Laughlin NV

This just in: I’m performing on the Horizon stage (at Registration) on Friday 5/18 at 2:30 PM. If you’re out at PTTW, I hope you’ll stop by. It’s a short set, so it’ll be all-originals, and I’m thinking of weighing it a bit heavily on new material.

PTTW is one of the big West Coast Phlockings that happens every year. It attracts some extremely talented musicians and a whole lot of fun people. It’s at the AVI Casino and resort, right on the Colorado River at the pointy end of Nevada. I’m looking forward to a good time.

June 13-18: Meet Me in the Keys mini-tour, Key Largo to Key West

This is part of what I love about my weekend job. I get to go to the Florida Keys twice a year on business.

The Coconut Castaways, Howard Livingston’s fan club, has an annual weekend-long party in Key West. This year, they’ve invited me to join them and make some music. Being no fool, I accepted. I’ll be playing for them on Wednesday night, and then wandering around town doing my usual two-songs-here, three there thing the rest of the time if I can find friends who’ll share their stage. I’m still hoping for a house concert or some such in the Upper Keys on Sunday; if you want to help make that happen, give me a call.

This will be the first time I’ll be in Key West with some actual time to kick back. If you’re going to be there, let’s get together and have drinks somewhere.

July 4-8: Upstate NY – Trop Starz & Tiki Barz mini-tour

The third trip of my summer touring trifecta comes to my old stomping grounds of upstate NY on the Fourth of July. Anchoring this trip will be my appearance at Trop Starz & Tiki Barz, a Phlocking in Binghamton, NY. This will be another fun, fine event with lots of excellent live music. I’m still available for other shows on July 5 and July 8, anywhere within a couple of hours of Binghamton and preferably not more than a half-dozen hours out of my likely flight hub of Buffalo.

Three trips, time spent with friends and fun people listening to excellent music, and making a bit of it myself. All of it coming up in the next couple of months!

I hope to see you somewhere on the road!

New Album Update – “Of All the Rum Joints…”

Mar 31st, 2012
by lorendavidson.
2 comments

Cover for "Of All the Rum Joints..." - new albumI’ve been working hard with producer Kevin Johnston and with artists Dave Daily and Albert Hinojosa, and some of the early bits of this new album are starting to fall into place.

The title, as you may have heard, will be “Of All the Rum Joints…” It’s my fifth album, and the second on which I’ve used a song lyric for the title.

Albert is responsible for the new Cafe Tropicale logo, visible in a slightly altered form in the album cover graphic. Dave took that logo and some other bits of guidance from me and created this way-cool cover concept. They’ve both done excellent work so far. Dave is also working on a couple of T-shirt ideas for me right now.

Another bit of trivia: Partly by design and partly by happenstance, I do album covers that alternate having and not having my picture on them. So albums 1, 3, 1nd 5 (this one) have my picture on the front; 2 and 4 do not. So the odds are good that the eventual album six won’t either. But as I haven’t even finished this album yet, I’m not making too many plans that far ahead. 🙂

Meanwhile, Kevin and I have approximately finalized the song list for this one. There will be eleven original songs and two covers. The covers will be a reggae version of John Denver’s classic “Sunshine on my Shoulders” and my own interpretation of an old Doors tune, “Moonlight Drive.”

Here’s a list of the other songs on the album. The links, where provided, are to “snapshot in time” and “homebrew” versions; the songs have continued to evolve, and will likely be different on the album. But still worth listening to.

  • “Green Flash” – upbeat and using an alternate guitar tuning, this is a song about watching sunsets for that elusive and rare atmospheric phenomenon known as a “green flash.” And it’s about the journey being as important as the destination. Stuff like that.
  • “Looking at You” – A few months back, I realized that the song “Margaritaville” and the movie Casablanca pretty much had the same premise – boy meets girl, girl dumps boy, boy goes someplace with palm trees to drink it off. Which may be powerful, but isn’t very empowering. So I wrote this song, which is really “Margaritaville” meets “How Do You Like Me Now?” It provides the album title and theme.
  • “Voodoo Lounge” – I’ve written earlier about this song, which has undergone some revision since the earlier version I posted about. We’ll be going musically to some of the less savory corners of New Orleans to flesh this one out.
  • “Fly Away” – This was inspired by a couple of other songs, that I won’t name here. It’s upbeat and lively and hopeful, because I think we all need that to look forward to every now and then.
  • “One More Rum” – This song took shape one day as I was contemplating one of the Greatest Lies in the World – “C’mon, man, we’re only going to have one more round and then we can go home.” Never happens. It’s becoming the signature “last song of the night” when I play, and will be the last song on the album.
  • “Pontiac Motel” – This song has no beaches, no boat drinks, and no bars in it. I’ve had the title kicking around in my “hook book” for at least five years. It’s really a counterpoint in some ways to everything else I write – we fantasize about walking away from our jobs now and then, but there’s an entire class of people who don’t have jobs – the homeless – who probably fantasize about having lives like the ones we fantasize about escaping from. And if your employer were bought out tomorrow, or went out of business, or just decided, “hey, let’s let a bunch of people go,” how many paychecks are *any* of us away from living on the streets?
  • “Island Moonlight” – Everyone loves being in love…right? But even the best romance has its bad days, and sometimes you question whether it’s all going to work out. In this song it does, thanks to the magic of island moonlight.
  • “Way Out” – In addition to an interesting play on words in chorus, this song is going to put the “rock” in “trop rock.” Really. I was stretching my writing skills in a particular direction, and this is what emerged.
  • “Somewhere, Someday” – One man’s dream of Paradise.
  • “Tropical Therapy” – Because I’d been trying hard *not* to write Yet Another Margaritaville Near-Clone for many years, and realized that I’d succeeded. So, having proved I could write nearly everything else, I proved I could write this too.
  • “Living Key West” – One of my friends is musician Howard Livingston, who posts about his carefree, happy life in the Florida Keys. A lot. Some might even say to excess. I say it’s easy to live on Key West Time when you’re in the keys; it’s a bit more of a challenge for those of us in the “upper 48.” But it can be done, and this song is about how I do it. Any resemblance between my song and Howie’s is out of love, done with his blessing, and as far as I can tell, doesn’t cross any legally bad lines anyway.

Song of the Week: Voodoo Lounge

Dec 29th, 2011
by lorendavidson.
2 comments

Hey there!

I’m going to try to share as many new songs as I can, over the next month or two. These are songs I’m thinking about putting onto my next CD, in draft form. The mix is my “homebrew” version, and will likely be very different when the album comes out next summer. It’ll almost certainly be better there. But it’s a chance for you to start to get to know the songs themselves, and a chance for me to hear what *you* like.

Today’s offering is something I call “Voodoo Lounge.” It’s something I wrote to fill a hole in my catalog – I don’t have a good New Orleans blues number. I expect it’ll get the whole “smoky blues” treatment by Kevin.

The story behind the song is…well, I made it up. 🙂 That said, anyone out there who actually knows something about Voudou isn’t likely to get *too* annoyed at me, because I tried to get enough of the details right.

I’d like to know what you think of it, so please leave comments or send me an email.

Here’s the song: Voodoo Lounge

I hope you like it.

And Happy New Years!

Loren

Living my Bliss – What I Did on my Vacation

Nov 15th, 2011
by lorendavidson.
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(Yes, the title of this post is a tribute to post-summer essays from my childhood. My vacations have improved somewhat since then.)

I’ve now been home almost a week from this year’s Key West vacation at Meeting of the Minds (MOTM). It’s a working vacation for me, because I need to be out performing, networking, and otherwise promoting myself as a Trop Rock artist. So there’s always this inner conflict going on between “need to be at X event(s)” and “want to sit by the water and do nothing.”

This year I made sure to do some of both. I was going eight days in a row partying, and I knew that if I didn’t pace myself, I’d never make it through. So I did, and I did, and my voice was in better shape on my second Monday than on my first as a result.

I did get out to play in quite a few places, and you can see a lot of the pictures on my Facebook pages. I played with and around a bunch of my fellow Trop Rockers, and had something I was invited to play at every day this year – a first.

Here’s a partial list of the cool and talented folks who either invited me to gig with them, or whom I actually did gig with: Captain Josh Ramsteck, Chris Sacks, Dusty and Barry of the Conch Fritters, Gary PhillipS, Barbara Smith and Scott Paulsen, John Friday, and the good folks at BeachFront Radio. Thank you, one and all, for inviting me to be part of your party.

I also wrote drafts for two new songs down there, one more than usual. 🙂

Even cooler than that: I’ve been doing a lot of spiritual work the past year around embodying and manifesting bliss in my daily life. It’s easy to be blissful, driving through the Keys and looking at the gorgeous scenery. Something I consciously focused on this year was drinking in all that natural beauty and the magnificently-elated mood I’m in when I’m down there and “storing” it inside me. Now that I’m home, all I have to do is remember one or more of those really cool, magical moments when I could look out at the water or breathe the air, and no matter what’s going on, I feel better. And I’m still smiling about 95% of the time.

My friend Howard Livingston calls that “Living on Key West Time.” I call it “Island Standard Time.” It’s the same thing no matter what you call it – remembering what it’s like to be in that beautiful place, surrounded by several thousand of your closest friends, excellent music, good booze, and spectacular scenery, no matter where I am or what I’m doing. Heck; I’m even smiling my way through rush hour traffic.

If you were down there too, try that the next time you’re faced with something that’s been stressful for you in the past. If you weren’t down there, remember the last really wonderful and blissful time you had, breathe that in, and remember it when things threaten to get a bit shitty. What’s the worst that can happen?

Sunday 11/27 – Loren Davidson Music in Your Living Room!

Nov 15th, 2011
by lorendavidson.
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Good news! I’ve finally assembled a gift bag full of round tuits, and am scheduling my next online concert via StageIt. Here’s the link:

http://www.stageit.com/loren_davidson/post_thanksgiving_recovery_show/5820

For approximately 50 minutes, I’ll be playing music, telling stories, and sharing a good time with whomever shows up. And it’s all as close as your computer! 🙂 Expect a few of my songs you might already know, maybe a cover or two, and a few relatively new songs that I’m thinking of putting on my next album.

My friends who showed up for my last StageIt show had a great time, and most of them have been gently nagging me to do another one. So here it is. Nobody wants to leave the house on the Sunday after Thanksgiving anyway – the football games are mostly over, the turkey remnants have been frozen, and either you’ve made it home from your relatives’ place or you’ve tossed all your guests out by then and told them to go home. And if you’re a shopping fiend, you’ve probably done that to death by Sunday and you’re ready to mellow out a bit.

How it Works

In order to watch the show, you will need to create an account with StageIt if you don’t already have one. Sometime between now and the show date, go to their home page and click the “Sign Up” link at the top right. They’ll want some info from you like an email address and payment info, and they’ll want you to buy at least $5 in “notes,” which is what you’ll use to buy tickets to shows and to tip performers. Like me. 🙂 Each “note” is worth ten cents, so 50 notes is worth $5.00.

While I do list a suggested ticket price of $5, I’ve left it editable, so you can adjust it all the way down to zero if you want. But I hope you’ll consider paying the price and helping me afford to produce my next album. Or pay my next bar bill.

A few minutes before show time, click the link I placed up above, sign in, and kick back with a cold one. The show will appear, Webcam-style, once I start it at my end. The quality is relatively good – a couple of my friends had it on a big screen TV last time!

You’ll have the ability to type comments to me during the show, and I will be interacting with you, reading your comments between songs and talking to respond – it’d take too long for me to type replies. 🙂 I won’t be able to see you, but we’ll be having a conversation.

After the show, we can move the conversation to my Facebook page or some such, but they let us continue to chat there for a while after the end of the show – they did last time.

Note: I’ve had issues using Firefox with the StageIt software. Consider using IE or Safari. If your screen freezes or crashes, reload your browser and the concert URL.

Thank for reading all this, and I hope to “see” you at my show on the 27th!

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