Having just returned from Scotland, and having visited many ancient & mysterious places (like the Prehistoric Burial Cairns of Balnuaran of Clava - estimated to be nearly twice as old as Christianity, Edinburgh Castle, Rosslyn Chapel - you may remember it from the movie “The Davinci Code,” Loch Ness, and so [...]
Recently someone gave me grief about playing a lot of instrumental music. You know, “songs” without vocals. They said something like “No singing? Nobody in rock has ever done that. It might be okay in jazz or classical, but it will never be accepted in rock.” I couldn’t help myself. I had to point out [...]
Why will you want a nap on Nov 28? Because you’re going to want to see this concert! The band called Clark Plays Guitar will be performing their last Rockford area show for the year at Bar 3, 326 E State St, Rockford, IL on Saturday, Nov 28. This show is going to be so [...]
A while back I was struggling with a booking agent who had made claims of being able to book my band as many gigs as we were willing to work. Once he had collected a retainer fee from me he suddenly had a change in his story & claimed he could not book us because [...]
I’ve been thinking about MySpace, Twitter, & Facebook a lot over the last few days. I feel guilty when I’m not posting something every day, mostly because of how hard all the music-biz “consultants” and “gurus” pound us musicians on the subject. Nearly all of them say it’s “critical” to participate heavily in all of [...]
Off we go into a new year! I’ve talked with quite a few folks who are feeling pretty optimistic about 2009. Many of them feel the change in elected officials will be good for the country, many of them think the economy is about to turn around, and in general it seems everyone is just [...]
The first real snowfall of the season just fell, & I have had to be out driving in it. Now, it’s not like we had a blizzard or anything. I don’t know what the “official” amount is, but in my driveway this morning, the average depth was about 4 or 5 inches. It looks about [...]
Experts crack me up. Really, they do. Each one is absolutely convinced that he (or she) is right, and everyone who disagrees is deluded. For instance, within the last week I have seen two “experts” from the music industry expounding on the best way to get your promo pack opened by whoever you’re sending to, [...]
Almost a month has gone by since my last post, and I feel like it’s only been a few days. That’s what happens when you get really, really busy - time compresses, or at least it feels that way. Sometimes that’s a good thing, I guess, like when you’re anxious to have a cast removed [...]
Time flies, whether you’re having fun or not. It’s been just one day shy of six weeks ago that I tore the muscle in my forearm & strained the tendons in the palm of my right hand. I still cannot play bass for any length of time, and I cannot pull very hard with that [...]