Sunday, April 14, 2013

Weekend Wind-Down



I'm excited about the release of my new live single this Wednesday.  It's a really good recording of my song "Pretty Blade Trickster" that was recorded at Lestat's West a few weeks back.  It will be on sale for 99 cents as a download on my Bandcamp site, with the option to pay more if you would like to support my music in an even bigger way.

I took yesterday off from performing.  Recently I've been playing the Open Mic Rancho San Diego on Saturday afternoons, which is usually held at the Starbucks in El Cajon.  I didn't get my e-mail request in on time last week to get a time slot I could make - I was offered the 7:00PM PT slot but already had another commitment at that time.  I thought about going to support the other performers, and sometimes they can sneak someone who is not on the list on stage for a song or two here or there.  But as it turned out, I really needed the day off and it helped me feel a lot better.  I have been running myself pretty hard lately, so the rest was much appreciated by my mind and body.

The staples of my most recent open mic sets, where I usually only get to play two or three songs, have been "Pretty Blade Trickster," "Picture of Your Touch," and "First Step to Starlight."  I've been tossing in "Home of Love" and "The Door" when it makes sense to do so.  

I really want to get five new songs worked into performance shape, so I can play them live, too.  The first of these is my slightly-redone version of "Fly, Baby, Fly."  The second is a song called "New Home," inspired by my thoughts and feelings of moving to San Diego right before I actually did.  "The Road Between" is a very new song I wrote last week, about the distractions of focusing on the past and the future too much, and the rewards of staying in the present.  The writing of that one is finished as far as I know, and I've almost got it all learned.  

"Throne of Gold" is the one that's taking the longest to figure out and learn.  It's a lot of loose imagery about denial, egotism, alienation and self-righteousness.  It's a faster tune than most of what I've been writing lately. It's got a really odd guitar pattern for me in the verses, and I haven't quite nailed down what the vocal melody in the chorus should be.  

The final one of the five I want to start playing live is "Bittersweet Departure."  I wrote this right before I left the East Coast, so the subject material should be pretty obvious.  I did make a live video of it on the LIVE from The Basement set before my trip west.  You can watch it at the top of this post if you haven't seen it.  Let me know what you think of it in a comment, I really enjoy hearing and reading people's reactions and responses.

I'll be going to the open mic drawing at Lestat's West tomorrow (Monday) night.  If my name gets drawn, the performances begin at 7:00PM PT, and I typically pick a time slot of 9:00 or later, so I can let some local people know I'm playing.

Charlie California's Tuesday Night Open Mic at Rebecca's in South Park is always off on the third Tuesday of the month, which is this week, so I won't be playing there.  I will be going to play the Wednesday Night Open Mic at 710 Beach Club in Pacific Beach, which starts at 9:00PM PT.  I'll also be playing the Thursday Night Open Mic at Kaffee Meister in Santee.  The drawing there is at 6:15pm and the performances begin at 6:45.

Thanks so much for visiting my blog here and taking the time to read it.  I appreciate it!

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