Well Helloooo New Folks!!!! I hope all you old farts are paying attention, but we are getting young nubile hot girls and guys coming around, so make sure you come out and say hello!
THE NEW ROOKIE CREW
Simone was the Austrailian woman that spent some time with me on a tour a few weeks ago. She and her boyfriend Todd, are from Melbourne and both are great folks. They did those things that Aussie's seem to do and take off on these seven week, six month,two year vacations, and see the world. They ended up in New York that they loved then made it to Nashville. I thnk we passed our audition, if nothing else to show them that Memphis was scary in places. Even had a cop to tell them to get out of that town, LOL! Had a great time with them. So glad you are here Simone.
It's funny when you get a really cute couple with those cool accents. Just love to hear them talk!
RiDawn, is one of my favorite people to work with because she is so excited about everything. You usually get very burned out in this town, by music. You just get worn down because it never seems to go anywhere. RiDawn is very talented, even more than she gives herself credit for. She is a very good artist as well as singer, so we are getting her to explore that as well. She and our friend Alice Bargeron have some really unique music related art, paintings, sculputres, that are really cool and unlike anything I have seen. I hope to be promoting them on my web site soon.
My biggest thing with RiDawn is almost a "Professor Henry Higgins" thing is that I want her to show what she can do. She has been around for a long time in town but never been able to show people what she can do as much as she can. She has always taken a back seat in her career as life or whatever got in her way, and her friends don't take her as seriously as they should as far as wanting to write with her, get her into writer's rounds, etc.
That is all about to change.
Jarod Nichols is our lawyer/singer from Birmingham. He is brand new, about two years into doing this for real and three months with me. He is going through the first growing pains of getting out, performing and having to write songs at a higher level than he has ever thought about before. Think of Justin Two years ago.That's where you have with Jarod. What is it with these guys with "J" names? When you write by yourself, there are no boundries, no critical assessment, no rules. When you start getting around other people, doing open mics, writers shows, or trying to make forays into a town like Nashville, it all changes. Even if you just want to step out and see what's out there, you suddenly realize it is ALL DIFFERENT than what you thought it was. Those six minute songs suddenly feel like twenty minutes.You hear other people drone on and on and you start looking at your own songs. You have to wait longer and longer to get onstage because other people drone on and on. You're own songs don't get the reactions you thought they would. Those things you thought HAD TO BE ON THE RADIO and you JUST HAD TO GET THEM SOMEWHERE, are actually just kind of average takes on average ideas, that pretty much everyone else is doing the same way.
All this comes and you feel like everything title you want to write has been done forever, you bore yourself, and get unendingly frustrated and thinking you totally suck! We all beat ourselves up all the time. Don't worry, it passes. You will bore many other people before you are done!
Jarod is at that stage, and is starting to get exposed to all of it. He will be back up here soon and I will be able to get into MARINE DRILL INSTRUCTOR mode. Having him running up and down the driveway with four guitars on his back, is somewhat rewarding to me. I love to torture lawyers!!! LOL!
Those are our NEWBIES.
I hope you Veterans will come out and continue to say hi and maybe ask them some questions. You gotta help me out here. Now Newbies, here are what you have to do:
We have designed this as a VERY INTEREACTIVE forum. I answer every questionan and try to tie it into a lesson plan, because there are other people with your same experiences reading along. As you are all on your journey, you are finding that one question, only leads to other questions, ASK THEM!!!
You are among friends here. Everyone here wants to be. They have all endured my grilling and all have worked with me in one way or another. Even ones that have never physically made the trip, might have experience with not only me, but the real world of writing. Many have never been around a lot of writers but have been through a ton of the web sites. That have learned a lot of what THEY DON'T WANT TO BE INVOLVED WITH. So they come here to try and find out what they WANT TO BE INVOLVED WITH.
We try to give it to them. We avoid any negativity. (Except for me talking about the realities of the music business. But there is always a ROPE OF HOPE.) WE don't get into polititcs. We don't get into ragging on someone without making sure they know we are joking. Some times we get off subject and it gets really silly.
Stay involved. Read along every couple of days. The conversations and subject matter are usually very practical. You can learn things about your own writing styles and subject matter through other people's journey's. You can find out things about performing, networking, the business, that other people just don't know. If you are making a trip, going out to network and perform, learn the things to do and most importantly, WHAT NOT TO DO, before you get a chance to make that BAD FIRST IMPRESSION.
But we move pretty fast. A page or two a day. So stay involved, read along, ask questions.
Enjoy. Glad to have you hear.
MAB