Colin Ward's Music and Sailing Adventures

2012-01-24T10:48:00.001-05:00

http://www.artcentermanatee.org/workshops1.html

Fw: Saturday 9/17

2011-09-16T18:41:00.001-04:00

----- Forwarded Message -----
From: Jeffrey Navarre <jeffrey_navarre@yahoo.com>
To:
Sent: Wednesday, September 14, 2011 10:30 AM
Subject: Saturday 9/17

Hari Om Yogi's, I hope that you are as excited about class starting as I am. I would like to know who is planning on attending class this Saturday.

I have heard from some of you but I would like to know if your plans have changed. Right now I know of 4 of you who cannot make it. If there are many more I might just wait until the 24th to start. I have a couple of assignments for you.

1. Please tell me what you want and expect from this training. Remember that we may not always get what we want. Manage your expectations.

I would like this written down ( typed or handwritten) and two copies made one for me and one for you. This way at the end of your training you can look at want you wrote and see how it compares to what you actually received.

2. Develop a list of at least 10 things you expect as a student in a yoga class.

Remember payments for the course are due by the first of each month.

See you on Saturday.

Jeffrey Navarre
www.suryanamaskaryoga.com
http://lightinshiningarmor.blogspot.com

Fw: TI Art Guild 2010-11 Scholarship Fund Raisers from W&M Comm.Ways & Means

2011-08-14T13:50:00.001-04:00

----- Forwarded Message -----
From: eleanor <ejadamo@verizon.net>
To: W.dwyer@Att.Net; gmroth58@yahoo.com; theoj6@aol.com; ParRmaison@AOL.com; symandalay@yahoo.com
Sent: Friday, July 1, 2011 10:48 AM
Subject: TI Art Guild 2010-11 Scholarship Fund Raisers from W&M Comm.Ways & Means

W&M Committee ...Scholarship Fund Raisers...TI Art Guild....2010-11

Oct.8,2010 - First Scholarship Fund Raiser...FALL ARTSY MARKET (no clothes please)....slightly used art stuff/ books etc

PLUS...something for 'Crafters'...donate Holiday Decorations...ie wreaths, ornaments, candles, 'trapings' for windows/doors!

Think Holidays...Halloween,Thnaksgiving, Christmas,Hanukkah, Kwanzaa!

Dec 10,2010....Party Time...Mini Deco Art Card Sale AND Homemade Holiday Candy/Cookie Sale

51/4x71/4 140lb cold press cards With envelopes will be passed out at Nov meeting ...members may decorate 1 or 2 cards.

cards will be original art of members. Can be framed, given as gifts, sent etc.; a way to have affordable original art!

March 10, 2011....Last Chance...End of Season Flea Market Thing (No clothes)

Remember Scholarship! Anything goes; Spring Cleaning of Art stuff etc.

This is what I will present to Board for approval; your input is vital! Wish us luck. Eleanor

Reverbnation

2010-07-22T06:25:00.001-04:00

Now on Amazon.com

2010-07-16T07:09:00.001-04:00

My new single Naked In The Rain is now available on Amazon.com

2010-06-30T18:22:00.001-04:00

Naked In The Rain

2010-06-29T14:24:00.001-04:00

Here is my new single on CD Baby ready for downloading!!!!

Naked In The Rain is about a guy who finds the perfect woman and then begins obsessing over losing her.......

Naked In The Rain

New Song! Say Goodbye Again

2010-04-17T12:18:00.001-04:00

Written in February and recently recorded.....

Say Goodbye Again

February Album Writing Month (FAWM)

2010-02-15T18:13:00.002-05:00

The goal of FAWM is to write 14 songs in 28 days. This is my second year and so far I have written 9 songs and recorded a rough draft of 8. The songs do not get polished and rewritten until later. The object is to get them done and roughed out, then move to the next one.

Here are mine:

FAWM

My latest video

2010-02-12T06:35:00.002-05:00

This song was written after a recent trip to Italy!

Music Video of Oh, Appalachia

2009-09-27T13:51:00.004-04:00

I recently wrote a song with lyricist Kimberly Kime called Oh, Appalachia. Kimberly and her friend Roy Cooper produced a video to go with my recording which is on YouTube. I think it's pretty cool!

Tonight in Clearwater!

2009-09-19T09:24:00.000-04:00

Don;t forget the Blue Island Beer Club is in Clearwater at the New Harmony Coffee Shop tonight, 9/19!

2009-09-12T17:47:00.001-04:00

Blue Island Beer Club

Will be playing Acoustictropipop

New Harmony Coffee and Tea

1949 Drew St. Clearwater,Fl 33765

September 12th

from 7pm - 9:30pm

Originals, Classics, Blues, Folk, Island

2009-08-22T12:21:00.001-04:00

Blue Island Beer Club

Will be playing Acoustictropipop

New Harmony Coffee and Tea

1949 Drew St. Clearwater,Fl 33765

August 29th

from 7pm - 9:30pm

Originals, Classics, Blues, Folk, Island

When an unpaid gig is a success!

2009-08-02T08:57:00.000-04:00

I was contacted by a friend of my wife's and asked if I could round up some acoustic music for a charity fundraiser. The fundraisers are a group of women who meet monthly, chip in a substantial amount of money, have a party and contribute to a local charity, in this case the Children's Dream Fund.

I asked my buddy Bruce whether he wanted to do a Blue Island Beer Club performance, plus I asked two young female singer/songwriter friends if they would like to perform
(Kate Amirault and Jayne Kelli). Everybody said yes, and last night was the event.

It was a success story in a lot of ways. First, it felt good to help raise money for the charity. Second, it was a lot of fun to play with my friends for a group of women at a beautiful waterfront house, where we overlooked the pool and Boca Ciega Bay. And third, we were approached by two different guests about future playing opportunities, including one who is connected to a Nashville publisher that places background/soundtrack music.

I am glad we did it!

Playing at a charity fundraiser plus a gig in Safety Harbor

2009-07-24T17:27:00.003-04:00

One of my wife's friends asked me if I could come up with any acoustic music to entertain the guests at a charity fundraiser. The event is organized by a womens' group that helps a different charity each month. This month it is the Childrens' Dream Fund.

I asked Bruce if he would join me for a Blue Island Beer Club performance and also asked two friends who are female singer/songwriters to join us. Everyone was enthused and accepted almost immediately. So Kate Amirault and Jayne Kelli will be joining us on Thursday. We are all excited.

And then on Friday, the Blue Island Beer club plays at Taste in Safety Harbor. A fun small restaurant with good food. Perhaps you can join us?

Lyricists

2009-07-09T08:13:00.002-04:00

There was a long discussion on a songwriting site recently about people who consider themselves songwriters but only write lyrics. These folks are not musicians for various reasons, but still are moved by music and contribute song lyrics in the hope that someone else will collaborate with them and add the music.

Before I began participating in songwriting forums, I was not really aware that lyricists were common. I knew about songwriting teams like Elton John and Bernie Taupin and Rodgers and Hammerstein, but I thought they were rare and in many cases, were playwrights who needed a spot of music for a Broadway type musical.

It turns out that lyricists outnumber musicians by leaps and bounds in the forum I refer to. The musicians encourage the lyricists to learn the musical side but in many cases they cannot.

I do not have a problem with someone being a lyricist as long as they have a sense of rhythm. A tin ear doesn't really stand in the way of writing lyrics, but a lack of rhythm does. Lyrics must have meter, prosody and rhythm! Some would-be lyricists obviously were not born with rhythm and probably are terrible dancers.

I am working with a couple of lyricists and putting music to their words. It is fun to collaborate because you can bounce ideas off each other.

So if you are "just" a lyricist, I say have fun at what you are doing. But if you can't dance, your words are probably not going to make a good song!

Sailing Adventures?

2009-07-04T12:32:00.003-04:00

The title here includes Sailing Adventures but I haven't posted much about sailing lately, so here goes.

Last year, we cruised on our Catalina 42 sloop back to the Bahamas for the 8th time (I think), and spent much of the winter in George Town, Exuma. George Town is a great place to hang out on land or on the water so there are lots of visitors there. One of the events that occurs annually is the Bahamian Music and Heritage Festival. It is a three day celebration of things Bahamian and includes live music on an outdoor stage every evening. Numerous Bahamian recording artists fly in from other islands to perform. Bahamian music sounds very Caribbean but is different from Reggae or Calypso or other well known island music. It features a strong rhythmic bass line, lots of percussion, and usually a personable frontman singing risque lyrics......a formula for fun and dancing.

The visiting boat people usually have a number of musicians in their midst and for the last three or four years have quickly put a band together to join in and show support for the event. In 2008, I was a member of the band which we called Folks on Boats. Our performance was well received. So here is a YouTube clip of our dress rehearsal - a song I wrote for the occasion called Eddie's Edgewater - a local watering hole that features Rake'n Scrape music. We rehearsed on board a catamaran called Freebird and the dress rehearsal took place anchored in the harbor with about 100 dinghies gathered around to hear us.....very cool.

How Many Songs Do You Write At One Time??

2009-06-15T14:44:00.002-04:00

No sure if this is an aberration or not, but I am presently writing parts of at least four songs simultaneously. This does not include the pile of partly written songs and song ideas that are maturing in my notebooks.

I am collaborating with a female lyricist in North Carolina who has an interesting rock 'n roll lyric that caught my eye (an internet connection on the Just Plain Folks website). My job is to write and record the music and fiddle with the lyrics a bit to make them work with the music as it unfolds. It has taken several weeks of on again/off again work to get the song to the point of happiness. There is more to go, but I see it as the home stretch.

Another project involves my musical partner Bruce from the Blue Island Beer Club and another lyricist, (this time from Texas) who found us on the internet - via Soundclick. The lyricist was inspired to write a cool reggae lyric while in Jamaica and it is our job to add the music and record it. We have finished an early run through which sounds quite good. The lyricist and Bruce have come up with some improvements and we are waiting for the right time to get together and put it to bed and get a recording done.

Meanwhile I am writing a new blues instrumental which is in the early stages. I have recorded the chords along with some drums, but the melody is still a bit nebulous. The chorus (do instrumentals have choruses?) is sounding good and I think is unique. So far the verses sound like generic jamming so I have to work more on a specific melody.

Finally, I have had a new lyric floating around in my head whenever I drive or walk anywhere. I have recorded a few bits on my portable so I don't forget it (easily done!), but there is a lot more work to look forward to.

So four songs are actively in the barrel. And there are a lot more in the notebook that I should get back to. I have plenty of time to work on songs, but I really need quiet time at home to make progress on songs, and quiet time has been a rare commodity of late. It would be nice to have a private quiet studio somewhere to get away to, but that is not in the cards at the moment.

So it's time to quit writing blogs and start writing songs!

Blue Island Beer Club has been busy!

2009-05-25T17:04:00.002-04:00

We played a couple of gigs at Taste, a nice little restaurant in Safety Harbor, Florida, and yesterday, we played in Hernando Beach at an outdoor artists and farmers market. It was only the second time the market had been held and we were the first "band". The weather was pleasant for the first time in about two weeks......we are catching up on our rainfall.

I may get the opportunity to sing with Valerie Carter this week at a jam. Valerie is in town and loves to sing even when she is off work - work to her is singing, recording and songwriting. She is a member of James Taylor's band and has also toured with the Eagles and a host of other top classic rockers.

So much for name dropping. I have been songwriting and recording a bit so I'm getting some songs lined up for another Blue Island Beer Club CD.

Blue Island Beer Club

2009-05-02T10:48:00.000-04:00

The Blue Island Beer Club is playing at a small restaurant called Taste in Safety Harbor tonight, May 2.

Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, and friends

2009-04-23T08:15:00.002-04:00

Here is a cool YouTube of a Jeff Beck concert. Eric joins Jeff on this one. Tal Wilkenfeld is the bass player.

Jeff Beck

Free Song Downloads

2009-04-18T08:32:00.002-04:00

The songs in my new collection , Off The Wall, can be downloaded for free at

ColinWardMusic.com

Just click on Music and Off The Wall.

Bullets and Beans

2009-04-06T15:21:00.001-04:00

I just added the new version of Bullets and Beans to my website. This is a song about a response to the current financial situation.

Go to the website and click on Music, then look in the album called Off The Wall.

http://colinwardmusic.com/

New Songs - Off the Wall

2009-04-05T20:09:00.002-04:00

I have been writing and recording a few new songs. You can now access them from my website:

http://colinwardmusic.com/

Click on Music and look under album title Off the Wall.......where you will find some off the wall songs like Distracted and others. Off The Wall is not a physical album (at least not yet), but a collection of songs that have no other home at present.

Let me know if you like any of them. You can download a low-fi version for free or pay a nominal fee for a very high-fi version.

Cheers,

Colin

New Music Site and new Blue Island Beer Club gigs

2009-04-03T19:16:00.004-04:00

I discovered a new site for uploading music which uses WAV files instead of mp3s. This means the recordings sound more like a CD when you listen on line. You can also download a high grade mp3 which sounds close to CD quality for your iPod. If you go to ColinWardMusic.com and follow the music link, you can hear my songs from the ICW Blues CD full length and in high quality mode.

I will be posting some new songs pretty soon but uploading the files is very slow which is the downside to using WAV files!

The Blue Island Beer Club played at Tucsons Southwest Grill in Clearwater last Friday night. It is a very nice place with excellent food at moderate prices. I used to play there with a previous group and it is nice to be back. We will be there again on April 17th. Tucsons is just off Ulmerton Road, just east of US 19.

Blue Island Beer Club updates!

2009-03-26T09:01:00.003-04:00

The Blue Island Beer Club can now be found at http://BlueIslandBeerClub.com which should be easy to remember and find. The site contains links to other websites where we have a presence such as CD Baby.

Since the last blog when I talked about the benefit for Kevin Thomas (which was very successful by the way), there has been a lot of musical activity. I went to see Roger McGuinn in concert in Largo, Florida and had an excellent time. Roger's show was great and brought back memories of the Byrds, as well as lots of great songs from his folkie side. His stories were terrific and the sold out audience loved the show. Roger's guitar playing is really great and his voice is as good as ever. Catch one of Roger's shows if you can.

I also made it out to see Richard Thompson in concert. Some people say that Richard is the best guitar player to come out of Britain, which is really saying something. His one man show was awesome and his solo acoustic guitar and voice sounded like a full band. I swear he was playing three parts at the same time while he was singing. His song writing is also terrific. He is also very personable and entertaining. I recommend catching a Richard show too.

The Blue Island Beer Club will be playing at Tucsons in Clearwater on Friday evening so catch us too!

Today is the day!

2009-03-08T07:51:00.002-04:00

Blue Island Beer Club at Ringside for Kevin Thomas

2009-03-05T05:34:00.001-05:00

I am reposting this as it is getting close!

Our friend Kevin Thomas is presently undergoing rehabilitation following a nasty stroke. Kevin's many friends in the music scene are getting together to play a benefit concert on his behalf at the Ringside Cafe in St. Petersburg. The Blue Island Beer Club will be on stage at 3:30pm on Sunday, March 8 to perform a 30 minute set. There will be lots of good music throughout the day and we hope you will come and see us and the others and help out Kevin. Here is the full schedule:

BENEFIT FOR KEVIN THOMAS
RINGSIDE SUNDAY MARCH 8TH
12 noon to 9 pm
$10 donation
Kevin has been hospitalized for more then three weeks . Bills are piling up. We can all help!! We need everybody to get as many people to this event and contribute.

12:00 PM Introduction jam with Jay Kiernan, Meyer Baron, Jerry Jakala, Scotty Rexroat and Steve Arvey perform New songs "Friends", Guns of Navarone and Pole Dancer.

12:30 PM Mike Jurgenson
1:00 PM John Kelly
1:30 Key of Life
2:00 PM Kevin Holloway, Dennis Wallace, Steve Hagood and John Richard
2:30 Jak Kelly
3:00 PM The Richard Mastry Band
3:30 PM Blue Island Beer Club
4:00 PM Gail Trippsmith
4:30 PM Jim Mason and Al Alvarez
5:00 PM Ronny Elliot
5:30 PM Gladys and Mitch
6:00 PM Leigh and Steve Humes
6:30 Shannon Lolligirl (Kevins Daughter)
7:00 PM Pete Gallager & Pat Barmore & Raiford Starke
7:30 PM The Chicken Chasers
8:00 PM Kirk Adams and Friends
8:30 PM Damon Fowler, Sarasota Slim, Steve Arvey, Jay Kiernan
Blues Blowout
Ringside is located at 2742 4th St N Saint Petersburg, FL 33704

The Blue Island Beer Club at The Ringside for Kevin

2009-02-15T15:40:00.002-05:00

Our friend Kevin Thomas is presently undergoing rehabilitation following a nasty stroke. Kevin's many friends in the music scene are getting together to play a benefit concert on his behalf at the Ringside Cafe in St. Petersburg. The Blue Island Beer Club will be on stage at 3:30pm on Sunday, March 8 to perform a 30 minute set. There will be lots of good music throughout the day and we hope you will come and see us and the others and help out Kevin. Here is the full schedule:

BENEFIT FOR KEVIN THOMAS
RINGSIDE SUNDAY MARCH 8TH
12 noon to 9 pm
$10 donation
Kevin has been hospitalized for more then three weeks . Bills are piling up. We can all help!! We need everybody to get as many people to this event and contribute.

12:00 PM Introduction jam with Jay Kiernan, Meyer Baron, Jerry Jakala, Scotty Rexroat and Steve Arvey perform New songs "Friends", Guns of Navarone and Pole Dancer.

12:30 PM Mike Jurgenson
1:00 PM John Kelly
1:30 Key of Life
2:00 PM Kevin Holloway, Dennis Wallace, Steve Hagood and John Richard
2:30 Jak Kelly
3:00 PM The Richard Mastry Band
3:30 PM Blue Island Beer Club
4:00 PM Gail Trippsmith
4:30 PM Jim Mason and Al Alvarez
5:00 PM Ronny Elliot
5:30 PM Gladys and Mitch
6:00 PM Leigh and Steve Humes
6:30 Shannon Lolligirl (Kevins Daughter)
7:00 PM Pete Gallager & Pat Barmore & Raiford Starke
7:30 PM The Chicken Chasers
8:00 PM Kirk Adams and Friends
8:30 PM Damon Fowler, Sarasota Slim, Steve Arvey, Jay Kiernan
Blues Blowout
Ringside is located at 2742 4th St N Saint Petersburg, FL 33704

Showcase on Sunday, Feb 8

2009-02-07T07:45:00.002-05:00

The Blue Island Beer Club is off to the JPF Showcase on Sunday afternoon. We will be playing at the Whistlestop in Safety Harbor with a number of other songwriters who participate in the Just Plain Folks songwriter's forum on the internet (Google for the site).

The fun starts at 1pm and continues until about 4. You will hear mostly original songs from a wide range of JPF members. You just never know who might drop by!

Here we are!

BB King & Buddy Guy - Legends in Town

2009-02-06T08:43:00.003-05:00

The Blue Island Beer Club braved the Florida cold and played at Beaks on Wednesday night. The shutters around the open area were closed and the radiant heaters were on so it was acceptably warm.

But last night we went to Ruth Eckerd Hall where it is nice and warm to see two smoking hot blues legends, BB and Buddy. Buddy took the stage first with his hot band from Chicago. He is about 72 now but can still sing and play with the best of them. He had no trouble climbing off the stage while playing and walking up the aisle, playing for the people sitting by the aisle, walking out one exit and back in another, all while playing a hot lead with the band. Pretty cool! Buddy played several songs from his catalog as well as some blues classics from his peers. His new song Skin Deep is excellent.

I expected BB to come out and join Buddy's band for a short show but boy was I wrong. During intermission, the set was changed and BBs own blues band took the stage complete with horn section and tuxedos. BB joined them after a warm up song and played and sang for almost two hours. BB is a trifle overweight and sits on a folding chair to perform these days (at 83 who can blame him), but perform he did. He still sounds like BB with his terrific voice and guitar licks that are his alone. He told a lot of stories (perhaps too many), but it was very enjoyable to listen to his humble perspective. It was almost midnight when he closed with The Thrill Is Gone. BB sat on stage and signed guitars and other items for the fans who were near the front of the hall.

A memorable evening. Buddy and BB are off to play at the Grammies this weekend.

The Colorado Wave

2009-02-02T13:47:00.001-05:00

What's a Colorado Wave, you may ask? It is an internet radio station that features independent music radio shows weekly. The Blue Island Beer Club is Waving this week so check us and a fleet of other indies here:

Colorado Wave

How To Get Inspiration To Write Songs

2009-01-31T12:36:00.003-05:00

Songwriters often suffer from writer's block, or just don't feel like writing, or think they have no reason to write anything at the moment! So how do you get past those barriers? Well, one smart songwriter has created a challenge known as FAWM which is intended to do just that.

FAWM stands for February Album Writing Month and if you accept the challenge, you will write 14 songs in February. You can post the songs to the website but there is no prize or pressure. You will just focus on your 14 songs - one every two days or several at a time. You can use notes you have made, hooks you have written down, or other ideas, but no old songs.

Most of us cannot write 14 songs and record them properly in 28 days, but a quickie recording is a good idea so you don't forget the chords and melody. You can go back later and develop and complete each song.

So who's in? Go to the website and sign up. Donations are voluntary and there is no penalty for failure, and maybe you will wind up with an album of new songs by March 1. I am going to try!

FAWM

Beaks Old Florida Report

2009-01-29T09:26:00.003-05:00

Last night we played at Beaks Old Florida along with several other musicians. The hosts were Liz and Jay, known as the Singing Monkeyz. Both Liz and Jay are blessed with great singing voices as well as the talent required to use them. Liz is also a very good guitarist and Jay, who can play the drums, accompanies the duo with a cajon (which is Spanish for box) drum.

Also on the bill were Jerry Jakala, the JPF coordinator for our region, Steve Murr a local semi-professional guitarist/singer songwriter, and Regina Aamacha, a transplant to the area from Delaware. Regina is a new friend of ours discovered by us on MySpace. She is a very good songwriter and performer and keeps everyone entertained with her amusing viewpoints.

There were several other artists present and I will touch on them in a later blog.

The Blue Island Beer Club introduced my new original called Bluesman and played Bruce's original Sailed So Well. We also performed Someday the Sun Won't Shine For You (a Jethro Tull song), Here Comes the Sun, and Man of Constant Sorrow (by the Bluegrass Island Beer Club?).

The Blue Island Beer Club

Cold Weather Wimp.........

2009-01-22T16:37:00.004-05:00

Last night's outdoor appearance was great, except it was the coldest day of the year here in Florida and the Eternal Florida Folk and Medicine Show is outdoors! Temperatures dropped close to freezing overnight and were well on the way down when we played from 8 - 9:30 or so. Fortunately, the musicians and the audience were all moved under a solid canopy out of the wind where there were several strategically placed propane heaters. Our set went well and we enjoyed hearing the other musicians. I walked out into the parking lot to tune up and it was Really Cold.

We have missed out on a couple of other gigs recently when it rained. Rain is worse than cold since it will ruin the equipment for sure and the audience is just not going to sit in the rain! (not the smart people who come to see us anyway).

A couple of years ago, I played in another group and we had a 6:30 am gig on a Saturday and Sunday morning to entertain the runners in a marathon race. A cold front passed through and the rain was blowing sideways at about 4 am. I was tempted to roll over and stay in bed, but we ended up going anyway. The rain stopped, but it was cold and windy. We were playing under a small canopy and we tied tarps around the "tent" to keep the wind off. A small propane heater kept our hands warm between songs. Roughly twelve thousand runners heard us each day although they only heard about one song each (except for the stragglers who were within earshot for a longer time).

Weather in Florida is warmer than much of the country but it still presents its challenges!

http://cdbaby.com/cd/blueislandbeerclub

Blue Island Beer Club featured at Jolli Mon's Wednesday!

2009-01-18T13:28:00.003-05:00

Yes, The Blue Island Beer Club will be featured this Wednesday, Jan 21, at the very cool Jolli Mon's in Dunedin. Come and celebrate the first full day of George W. Bush's ex-presidency.

The event is the Eternal Florida Folk And Medicine Show hosted by Scotty Rexroat. The music starts at 7 pm and we will take the stage at about 8:30.

You can check the schedule of acts here: www. myspace. com/jollimons

The all important address and phone number are :

941 Huntley Ave.
Dunedin Florida, 34698

Tel: 727-735-0498

And remember that Dunedin rhymes with Done Eatin', not Tuned In.

(we will have our CD, Lone Palm Tree, available for music lovers and souvenir hunters)

Rising Stars

2009-01-17T07:10:00.004-05:00

I attended a jam this week and was pleasantly surprised when Lorna Bracewell appeared. She is one of the most heralded young singer/songwriters in the Tampa Bay area and is thought by many to be on her way to national prominence. Lorna has the number one song of 2008 on Music Tampa Bay and has been on stage at the best venues around including Ruth Eckerd Hall and Skippers Smokehouse, performing along with artists like Amy Grant, Sarah McLachlan, and Dar Williams.

The jam is usually made up of electric instruments and drums. The acoustic musicians who have attended in the past usually were lost in the barroom din, so I was worried that Lorna would be too. But she played and sang just a few notes and the place quieted down and everybody listened.

Lorna plays her acoustic guitar in a way that emphasizes a bass line and a drum rhythm in addition to the usual guitar chords. Her vocal delivery of covers and originals is unique and very appealing. Her voice is huskier than you might guess from meeting her.

It did not take long for her to captivate the audience and make a great impression. If you get a chance, I recommend checking out her CDs or live performances.

Lorna

Colin

Now on iTunes and Amazon.com

2009-01-12T16:53:00.003-05:00

My solo CD for sailors, The ICW Blues, has recently joined the Blue Island Beer Club CD, Lone Palm Tree, on iTunes and Amazon.com. So you can download the entire CD or choose the songs you really love and download them for very modest fees. The best deal is on Amazon where you can download the entire album for under $9.

Thanks go to CD Baby which is a web based company that distributes music for independent artists, meaning those who do not have a contract with a record company (most of us these days). CD Baby stocks and sells physical CDs and also distributes the songs for download through a variety of vendors, the biggest of whom are Amazon and iTunes.

You can listen to song samples on any of these sites and download the ones you like. Or you can order a CD which will be delivered quickly through the US mail. I am happy to see the downloads available and i hope you will all check 'em out!

Amazon

Colin

Just Plain Folks Showcase

2009-01-10T06:46:00.002-05:00

The Blue Island Beer Club is off to the JPF Showcase on Sunday afternoon. We will be playing at the Whistlestop in Safety Harbor with a number of other songwriters who participate in the Just Plain Folks songwriter's forum on the internet (Google for the site).

The host, Jerry, is setting up his brand new PA system and I know of several good musicians who will be attending.

Be there!

Recording Technology

2009-01-07T09:14:00.002-05:00

The ability to produce professional quality recordings in a small or home studio is being continually improved. Amazing microphones are available at reasonable prices and the software that turns the computer into a recording studio continues to be improved, although digital recording came of age several years ago.

Finished recordings are actually better than CD quality and are converted to WAV files near the end of the process. WAV files are the same as CD quality. If you listen to mp3s on your computer or iPod, the files been compressed to some degree and the fidelity is worse than CD quality, but they still sound pretty darn good. mp3 compression can be done to varying degrees - the smaller the file, the less the fidelity.

I have just upgraded the analog to digital converter in my system. This improves the conversion of analog signals coming from a microphone or instrument into digital bits and bytes. I went from 16 bit 48 Khz (still better than CD quality) conversion to 24 bit 96 Khz. This means my digital recording is more faithful to the analog signal. After the recording is completed and mixed, it is lowered to CD quality, but should be better overall since the mixing was performed with super high quality tracks.

I am anxious to record a song using this equipment and see if the end result is noticeably better. I have been pleased with the sound quality of my prior recordings, but better is better!

Small Successes!

2009-01-03T10:14:00.003-05:00

Independent musicians have to brag about their small successes since the odds against them having big ones are tremendous unless they are young and beautiful. Alas, Bruce and I do not fit in the latter category so we are bragging about the small ones.

Our Blue Island Beer Club CD, Lone Palm Tree, has received lots of airplay on the internet radio station of Latitudes and Attitudes magazine. Lats and Atts is a national magazine targeted at sailors and cruisers everywhere and is sold in bookstores like Barnes and Noble and Borders as well as marinas and ship stores nationwide. We received a purchase order from Lats and Atts just before Christmas for a box of our CDs to sell in addition to the digital downloads which have been available for a while. Now sailors everywhere can order our CD from the magazine or on line.

Ship Store

Latitudes and Attitudes

The Blue Island Beer Club has also been featured on another internet radio station called Music Tampa Bay for some months. We recently learned that one of our songs, written by Bruce, has been included in the MTB Top 100 of 2008......And The Women.

Music Tampa Bay

Small successes, but we love 'em.

The Blue Island Beer Club at Jolli Mons

2008-12-31T18:18:00.003-05:00

We have been scheduled as the featured act on January 21 at Jolli Mons in Dunedin, FL. We will be on stage at 8:30pm, following a few other folks.

Jolli Mons is a cool restaurant/bar that has a nice outdoor seating area and a covered stage. Part of the outdoor area is also covered and I believe they have heaters for chilly evenings. Jolli Mons has a wide selection of casual dining dishes including seafood (it is after all only a few hundred yards from the water).

The host, Scotty Rexroat, will start the show at 7 pm with his environmentally sensitive Florida songs. Scotty has great equipment which helps us sound as good as possible.

Here is a link to Jolli Mons - Jolli Mons Dunedin

Incidentally, Jim Mason is the featured act on the 7th. Jim is an excellent singer/songwriter with a long list of credentials that includes singing backup for John Lennon and co-writing I Dig Rock 'N Roll Music with Paul of Peter, Paul and Mary.

Jammin' at the Katiki

2008-12-30T08:09:00.002-05:00

I went to the Katiki blues jam last night and enjoyed it as usual. Tommy McCoy is back in town and he played a great set with Pat Brogan and the rhythm section from the house band. There was a great crowd and I always credit the Roadhouse Rockers for maintaining a high standard at the jam which results in happy customers.

I got up a little later with the Roadhouse Rockers (Kent, Jeff and Pug) plus Bennie on harmonica and Dick on trumpet. Playing with the RRs is a pleasure because they are so good at picking up on a song immediately and making it sound good. The crowd seemed to like us and we kept the dance floor full. Happy customers keep the jam going. Some other jams I have attended have almost no customers except for the musicians themselves........they don't last long.

Happy New Year,

Colin

A Blue Island Beer Club update....

2008-12-28T06:45:00.003-05:00

The Blue Island Beer Club (Bruce Kula and Colin Ward) is alive and well and ready to play some gigs in 2009. We have been practicing regularly and our repertoire of songs is up to 80 originals and covers and we have tested a wide variety of new brews.

We have added new original songs from both Bruce and Colin, plus we have dug back in the archives to find some great cover songs that you may not have heard for a while. Think Badfinger, Ten Years After, Otis Redding and of course The Beatles.

We like the new Guinness in bottles with a widget and most India Pale Ales (although there is a wide variation within that class). Neither one of us likes the peculiar taste that comes with any beer from Belgium.........awful stuff..........right down the drain with it.

In the interest of practicing in front of live people, we went to a coffee shop open mike/mic in Indian Shores. It is small and intimate, but they had a nice P.A., appreciative people, and decent coffee and drinks. A bit of a jam ensued and we had Tom sitting in with us on saxophone for a few songs.

To listen to samples of The Blue Island Beer Club, you can go here. Lone Palm Tree.

To try the aforementioned brews, you can visit your local liquor store (but watch out for Made In Belgium).

Valerie Carter is in the house......

2008-12-24T14:20:00.004-05:00

......were the words spoken by the blues jam coordinator the other night. Valerie has relatives in the area and she and her sister regularly drop by a local blues jam whenever she is in town. So you may be asking who Valerie is. The short answer is that she is a singer who Music Row Magazine once described as "possibly the best female voice on the planet".

Valerie has been a member of James Taylor's band since 1975 and she has been on tour with James, as well as Jackson Browne, The Eagles, Linda Ronstadt and a host of other artists. Her mentor was Lowell George of Little Feat. Valerie is totally down to earth and jumps up to sing backup with the folks playing at the jam (including me which makes me feel very honored!), plus she sings a couple of songs by herself.

One of the things that comes home to me when I see Valerie is just how good someone of this caliber really is. We hear good singers in local establishments all the time, but frankly Valerie can blow them all away without even trying. Her vocal power, pitch, timing, stage presence, whatever, are just fantastic.

Check out her website.

and her MySpace page

Cadillac Records

2008-12-22T06:21:00.004-05:00

I've been resting a sore back which I hurt either playing tennis or moving an amplifier last week. But last night I hobbled to the movies to see Cadillac Records.

It was worth the effort, especially for someone who like blues music and appreciates learning about the history. I don't think the story was 100% historically accurate, but it makes for good entertainment and is probably close enough for most people.

Chess in Chicago

Without giving away any spoilers, the story is about Muddy Waters leaving the cotton fields and traveling to Chicago to sing and record the blues with Chess Records. He runs into other blues musicians throughout the story including Little Walter, Willie Dixon, Howlin' Wolf, Hubert Sumlin, Chuck Berry, and Etta James. Leonard Chess is also central to the story.

There is some great music in the film. Lots of drama too.......including the birth of rock 'n roll. Convincing acting too. Definitely worth seeing if you are interested in the history of Chicago blues. When I got home I dug through my old 45s (which I never throw away) and found one of Muddy's records on the Chess label -I got A Rich Man's Woman backed by My Dog Can't Bark - pretty cool!

Christmas Lights and Chappy's

2008-12-18T07:24:00.005-05:00

One of our smartest friends learned about a Christmas light display in St. Pete that was said to compete with the gaudiness of the house in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. So with Yahoo Map in hand, we planned a visit to a nearby outdoor hamburger joint to be followed by a drive-by at the Christmas house.

So last night, after burgers were consumed, everyone piled in our van and headed for the display. The streets were quiet and dark until we arrived at the "place with glowing sky" where we were greeted by someone in the road handing out religious flyers and taking a head count of visitors. We were advised to park on the street and walk through the display which we did. A half-acre lot was covered (except for the pond) with lights, inflatable Santas, a model railroad, talking Christmas trees, a large serpent right out of the Garden of Eden, a menorah, several mangers complete with plastic farm animals, and did I mention lights? There was a 60 foot TV antenna that supported strings of lights pointing heavenward and at least one 60 foot tree that was completely outlined in strings of lights. And finally, there was a blaring television featuring an evangelist reminding us what Christmas is really about - although I did not hear him mention lights or Santas.

So was it spectacular, huge, beautiful, tacky, cheap and nasty, a ploy to pass out religious messages, a way to raise money, a means of irritating the neighbors, an obsession, the hobby of a madman, something you would see in the Guinness Book of World Records? er...Yes. Does it eclipse the house in Christmas Vacation? Easily. Does it look nice in the daylight? I doubt it.

IN OTHER NEWS - The Blue Island Beer Club will play a short set at Chappy's Hurricane Alley tonight at 8 pm. A mixture of original songs and some classics you have forgotten. Be there. 247 Central Ave, St. Pete.

Doing well on OurStage

2008-12-16T06:50:00.003-05:00

OurStage is a cool website where musician's can post their original songs and compete with others. The musician chooses a genre in which to compete and then audience members can judge pairs of songs within a chosen genre. As the month progresses, the songs all compete against each other and a chart of standings is developed from the data. There are prizes available to the winners (or so I am told!).

I have put a few songs on OurStage and have usually ended up in the middle of the pack. At the moment though, my instrumental, The Pioneer, is sitting at number 5 out of 427 entries in the instrumental genre. Towards the end of the month, the top twenty songs are moved into the finals and a lot more judging occurs with the best song rising to the top. If you would like to check it out, you can start here.....

Our Stage

The Intra-Coastal Waterway (or ICW)

2008-12-14T06:50:00.002-05:00

We have cruised on our sailboat for almost ten years and during that time we have taken two trips to the Chesapeake Bay and back to Florida along the Intra-Coastal Waterway or ICW. The Atlantic coast ICW is roughly 1000 miles long and runs from Miami to Norfolk, Virginia. There is actually more ICW on the Gulf coast and in places north of the Chesapeake Bay, but most people think of that 1,000 mile stretch when the ICW is mentioned.

The ICW is protected from bad weather for the most part.......not that the weather doesn't get bad, the water just doesn't get very rough. So you can make progress north or south even when it is too nasty outside in the ocean to sail (which is most of the time during the periods when north and south transits are made). So the benefit of the ICW is that you are protected from rough seas and there is usually a place to stop for the night every night, meaning that there are no overnight passages to deal with.

The negative attributes of the ICW are legion among sailors. The channel is narrow, often not very deep, and often busy with other boat traffic. Many of the other boaters are casual weekend skippers who do not know or care about the rules of the road or courtesy. Still, the ICW is very beautiful and interesting much of the time and there are plenty of challenges when it comes to passing barges and dealing with bridges, 8 foot tides, shoals in the middle of the channel, alligators, drunk jet skiers and so on.

I wrote the song The ICW Blues about our second trip along the ICW and the other songs on the CD of the same name were also inspired by our sailing adventures.

The ICW Blues

The Children's Dream Fund Concert

2008-12-13T06:20:00.004-05:00

Today in the park downtown by the pier (Spa Beach) is the Children's Dream Fund concert to raise money for children with terminal health problems. The organization is local to the west coast of Florida and is based in St. Pete.

The weather for the concert should be good.....sunny and a bit cool with some wind. Better wear a jacket.

The performers are some of the best area musicians. I have heard most of them (all except for the drum circle) and I recommend them. Here is the schedule.

Jak Kelly and Kevin Thomas 3-3:20

John Kelly 3:30-3:50

Raiford Starke 4-4:20

Jules 4:30-4:50

King James and the Sun Drummers Treasure Island Drum Circle Sunset Jam 5:00-5:30

Sandy Atkinson 5:40-6:00

Scotty Lee Rexroat 6-6:20

Ronny Elliott 6:30-6:50

Steve Arvey 7-7:30

Steve Arvey has been active in organizing this concert. He is a very talented bluesy musician who has toured extensively both in the US and overseas. Please give him and the Fund your support!

Maggie and Chappy's

2008-12-12T13:56:00.006-05:00

The Blue Island Beer Club played at Jolli Mons on Wednesday before Maggie Council took the stage. We played all originals until the last song, an Otis Redding number called Dreams to Remember - a great old soul song from the Stax catalog - wow Otis has been dead over 40 years. Most of the originals we sang are on our CD Lone Palm Tree.

Lone Palm Tree

Maggie performed solo with her beautiful Buscarino guitar. She also did originals from her CD Not In The House. She is an accomplished guitarist as well as a great singer and songwriter.

Last night I went to a a new venue in St Pete. to check it out. It is called Chappy's and there is a cool bar where the music takes place. The bar is in what looks like a tunnel between Central Avenue and Jannus Landing. A nice stage and friendly people should make their Thursday night jam a success. I played a few songs solo, mostly from the ICW Blues CD, The ICW Blues, and then jammed a little with some other musicians. It is a cool place and a lot of fun. Check it out on a Thursday evening.

Blue Island Beer Club at Jolli Mons

2008-12-09T07:47:00.003-05:00

On Wednesday, we will play a short set at Jolli Mons in Dunedin, FL. We will be preceding Maggie Council who has an excellent new CD out (http://cdbaby.com/cd/maggiecouncil) called Not In The House. I have not heard Maggie in person yet but Bruce has known her for a number of years and reports that her live performances live up to the promise of her CD.

Jolli Mons is a cool place with an indoor restaurant/bar and a similar outdoor section with a nice covered stage and lots of tables. There are strategically placed heaters for cooler nights and the food we have tried has lived up to the description on the menu.

The BIBC will definitely play Lone Palm Tree since it has been requested by Scotty Rexroat, the organizer of this event.

Florida Sunshine

2008-12-08T07:25:00.002-05:00

Believe it or not, one of the reasons we head off to the Bahamas on our boat in November is that Florida gets chilly.....at least in the Tampa Bay area and north. There is a ten degree temperature difference between Tampa Bay and Miami and the Keys in the winter. It's much more comfortable in the Keys. In the Bahamas, we go to George Town where it is another 5 - 10 degrees warmer. It rarely gets below 70 at night in George Town and gets into the eighties almost every day except right after a cold front......that's my kind of weather.

The good news is that Florida is sunny in the winter and the sun warms the daytime temperatures up nicely. I am about to go and play tennis and there is a real chill in the air. But the sun is coming up and I know it will be clear and bright and the temperature will soon be acceptable, at least for tennis if not laying in the beach.

I know some of you are in snowy, cloudy places and I feel sorry for you......I cannot take long stretches of cloudy days any more. I did time in Ohio, West Virginia and Chicago and could not go back there now.

The ICW Blues is mostly about sunny places!

The ICW Blues is Here!!!!

2008-12-05T19:04:00.002-05:00

The new CD The ICW Blues is now available on CD Baby! I am excited that it is ready and I am pleased with the way it turned out. You can hear samples at the CD Baby site and order a CD or download the digital version for your iPod or computer.

Give it a listen......if you are a sailor, cruiser, or just someone who likes that kind of music, I think you will like it!

Cheers,

Colin

In Good Company at Beaks

2008-12-04T18:07:00.003-05:00

The Blue Island Beer Club played at Beaks Old Florida last night. We had a tough act to follow and were followed by another tough act. In fact, the acts we saw were all very good. My wife came along with some old friends who were visiting from Texas. Colleen had a great time (a good thing!) and enjoyed all the performers........and she leans toward the discriminating side!

I don't know the name of every musician who was there so I will do my best. John Kelly was there to support a couple of his friends and they were all good. J Kolb did a nice job solo laying some good harmonica parts down on Tupelo Honey and singing a fun Dan Hicks song. Steve Murr and Jay Kiernan started playing together and by the time they were finished they had Kevin Thomas, the owner Jamie, and a singer named Bob on stage with them doing some very good covers of James Taylor songs among others.

We followed that bunch and did three originals and two covers. Three of our songs had not been performed in public before so we thought we had put a lot of pressure on ourselves. Colleen gave us a good review but I recognize that she is biased. I had fun on While My Guitar Gently Weeps which Bruce did an excellent job of singing while I wailed away. Bruce also sang his original Spent which is a song about being a mature employee who is cut from the workforce abruptly......unfortunately a timely song.

Pete Merrigan and TC Carr followed us. Pete is an area mainstay and did an excellent job. TC is a harmonica player par excellence who reminded me of Fingers Taylor, Jimmy Buffett's outstanding harpist. They will be playing at the St Pete Saturday Morning Market.

Jerry Jakala played some of his bluesy originals and was accompanied by Kevin Thomas and Douglas Lichterman. Jerry is the chapter coordinator of the Just Plain Folks chapter and can be heard at lots of local events, some of which he organizes. Good job by Jerry.

There were a couple more acts but it was time for us to go home. A fun St Pete evening.

My solo sailing CD is finished and is in the hands of CD Baby where it will soon be for sale on the internet both in CD and digital download form. It will also be available on iTunes and Amazon.com although that will take a little longer. The album will also be playing on Latitudes and Attitudes Magazine radio and will be available in their download store, along with the Blue Island Beer Club CD. I am happy with the results and look forward to getting the CD in the hands of some sailing enthusiasts for some feedback. Standby..........

GAS (or Guitar Acquisition Syndrome)

2008-12-02T12:40:00.002-05:00

With the proliferation of acronyms and syndromes in our modern society, you will not be surprised to learn that GAS stand for Guitar Acquisition Syndrome and that most guitar players suffer from it. Every guitar player needs a variety of guitars to do the various jobs that need doing (or so I tell my wife). There are of course acoustic guitars, electric guitars, bass guitars, 12-string guitars (acoustic and electric), guitars with single coil pickups, guitars with humbucking pickups, fat ones, thin ones, tall ones, short ones, etc. etc......and various combinations and permutations of the above.

Like so many things today, there are way too many choices to be made. If you go to a big box music store like the Guitar Center or Sam Ash, the choices can be so overwhelming that it is just easier to go home empty handed (which is one reason the economy sucks IMHO). My guess is that Fender makes at least a hundred variations of the Stratocaster alone......maybe more if you count all the color choices. Add to that Telecasters, acoustics, basses, etc. and I bet they are manufacturing several hundred different guitars.

I have recently acquired a couple of used guitars that are nice additions to the stable (see a previous blog for photos of my Ventura acoustic). I am starting to feel that I need to pare the collection down a bit though. Actually, I do play and use nearly all of the guitars pretty regularly. I know I used at least six guitars recording the new ICW Blues CD. In my circle of guitar playing friends, I cannot think of anybody who has less than three guitars.

So call it an obsession, call it an inventory of tools in the toolbox, or call it GAS.

On another subject, I went to the Katiki last night to play in the blues jam. I was milling around with some acquaintances when I saw a guy walk in who looked exactly like a face from my past......my boss in Chicago in 1978 and again in Texas in 1989. He retired from the company in 1990 or so. I asked the guy who walked into the Katiki if I knew him and he recognized me at once. Sure enough it was Don and he had his lovely wife with him. Turns out he still lives in the Chicago area but he also has a condo in Seminole. What are the odds of him wandering into a local beach bar and being recognized I wonder? Very interesting.

So Many Good Songs..........

2008-11-23T08:56:00.002-05:00

The Blue Island Beer Club likes to mix our originals with good cover songs from the rock 'n roll era. We have about 30 originals between us that we can perform live and another 45 or so covers. We like to learn new covers to stay fresh and keep it interesting but there are so many great songs we could do that selecting them becomes a challenge.

Usually one of us (Bruce in most cases) starts playing a great song that he thinks would work. We try to stay away from songs that are overdone to the point of nausea (e.g. Margaritaville) and pick ones that we can do with acoustic guitars that may be familiar but unexpected. We think our Cream repertoire might fit that description.

We haven't learned it yet but Bruce has identified a song that he feels is the greatest song in the universe. I will not reveal its name but it was written by Tom Waits and only has about seven lines of lyrics. Come and hear us and maybe we will be playing it in the next couple of weeks!

Beaks Old Florida again

2008-11-20T11:56:00.003-05:00

The Blue Island Beer Club played at Beaks again last night. Bruce and I played two of his originals, one of mine (Stocking Island), and a couple of covers from our repertoire. Beaks is a cool place and draws musicians ranging from aspiring beginners to seasoned professionals. Although musicians usually arrive prepared to play solo or as a duo in our case, it is not uncommon for others to join in on bass or drums or guitar or vocals when they know the song. Somehow they do this without messing up the soloist too much and usually add something. Last night Steve Arvey helped us out with some drums and vocals. Later on there were about five people on stage having a great jam. Lots of fun and sounded good.

Our friend J is back in town and played a set last night. He wrote Way Beyond Midnight a couple of years ago and I contributed a few lyrics. We both had plans to write music for the lyrics and I have a rough draft but no more. So last night, J sang his version which is shockingly different from mine. I was surprised! It all goes to show you.......

CD Finished and "new" guitar

2008-11-18T17:08:00.005-05:00

The ICW Blues is finished and is being mastered with help from Bruce Kula (Thanks Bruce). It will be off to CD Baby by the end of the week as well as the Latitudes and Attitudes Radio site. I am tentatively planning to make it available at the Cruisers' Thanksgiving celebration in Vero beach.

In other news, I purchased an elderly acoustic guitar. It reminded me of a Stevie Ray Vaughan story. Stevie reportedly walked into a music store and saw a well-worn Stratocaster hanging on the wall and just knew it would sound good, so he bought it and it became the famous #1 that he used for most of his recordings.

While I do not claim to be Stevie Ray Vaughan, I do like to fool around with older guitars and I have picked out some good ones. I was making my rounds of pawn shops this week and I saw an old Japanese Martin knockoff that was intriguing in that it was a 000 size and looked well made. I took it down and played it and really liked the neck and the construction. It has a 24 3/4" scale length. It didn't sound too great but the strings looked about as old as the guitar (about 30 years) despite the fact that the owner said he had replaced them.

Anyway, I went back and bought it for a favorable price and have spent the afternoon doing some setup work and replacing strings. It now sounds great and has a worn in feel with a smooth, comfortable neck. It has suffered a few dings over the years but I will just live with those. It's called a Ventura V12 and was built in Japan by Matsumoku or one of the other contract builders from the seventies. I took a couple of photos before I fixed it up..........

Goodbye Island

2008-11-14T06:48:00.006-05:00

I am wrapping up the last song on my sailing influenced CD, The ICW Blues. The song is called Goodbye Island and is a sort of protest song about a development in the Exuma Islands of The Bahamas.

The island is called Crab Cay (Cay is the Bahamian equivalent of Key and is pronounced Key). Crab Cay is within huge Elizabeth Harbor near George Town, a favorite spot for us and other cruisers. Between Crab Cay and the "mainland" of Great Exuma, there is a well protected smaller harbor known as Redshanks. Redshanks is a hurricane hole with good holding and not much fetch. It can accomodate 20 or so cruising boats, several more if they have a shallow draft. Crab Cay has been uninhabited for a long time, but there the are ruins of a plantation left from the days when Royalists left Virginia and Carolina and moved everything they owned including their slaves to the Bahamas (immortalized in a book called Winds of the Carolinas). Interestingly, the slaves took the last name of the plantation owners when they were freed, hence many of the folks in George Town today share names like Rolle. They also have rights to "generation land", former plantations.

So now Crab Cay has been purchased by a US developer who is a member of the family that is the largest pork distributor in the US. The island is being developed for the super rich and includes a marina with slips for 100' + yachts and lots that are for sale for several million dollars.

Crab Cay

While I recognize that tempus fugits and developers develop, the aggravating thing about this one is that the developers have pressured the Bahamian government into giving them the rights to the water several hundred feet from land effectively eliminating the right of boaters to anchor in Redshanks. Normally, a landowner only has rights to the land down to the high tide line. They have also built a low bridge from Crab Cay to Great Exuma which prevents most boats from taking the shortest route to town..

The Bahamas are littered with failed developments and this one could well join the rest of them, especially when recession rears its ugly head. The trend of the Bahamians to kowtow to the wants of developers is unsettling however.

Goodbye Island is a lament to this situation. Money talks!

Two Girls and Jolli Mons

2008-11-12T12:16:00.003-05:00

The ICW Blues CD is nearly finished and I have posted a new song which is going to be included in the final CD. It is called Two Girls and, contrary to popular expectation, it is about our "his and hers" inflatable dinghies that are tied up behind our sailboat Mandalay when we are anchored somewhere for a while. Here is the link.

Two Girls

Tonight, Wednesday, The Blue Island Beer Club will play a set at Jolli Mons in Dunedin, Florida, which is just north of Clearwater. We are on at 7:50. Jolli Mons is a cool restaurant with a nice outdoor eating area and a covered Tiki style stage. Dunedin (a Scottish name pronounced like Done Eatin', not Tuned In) is a cute town full of shops, restaurants and winding streets and is located right on the Gulf of Mexico. Come and see us!

Jolli Mons

Just Plain Folks Showcase (JPF)

2008-11-09T20:02:00.003-05:00

Today The Blue Island Beer Club made one of its irregular appearances at the JPF Showcase. JPF is an international organization of songwriters and musicians. It primarily exists on the World Wide Web in the form of a set of bulletin boards. But the people are real, and the members get together and perform their music in different gathering spots around the world.

Just Plain Folks

The Tampa Bay Chapter holds a monthly showcase at the Whistlestop in Safety Harbor. Each musician plays a few songs to entertain the audience and demonstrate his or her songs and skills. The local chapter coordinator is presently Jerry Jakala who organizes and publicizes the Showcase.

Today's Showcase included 9 performers - all solo except for Bruce and me. Everybody played a guitar and sang - one guitar was electric and the rest were acoustic. We played five songs......some from Wednesday's setlist including Bruce's new song I Didn't Know It Was Wrong.

Lots of fun!

Seven String Acoustic Guitars

2008-11-08T07:04:00.004-05:00

If you see the Blue Island Beer Club playing in person, you may notice that Bruce and I each have an acoustic guitar with seven strings......what???? Seven strings? What for?

There are a number of seven string guitars on the market but most of them are electric guitars with an additional low string tuned to B below the low E. These are for the shredders of the world who want to go loooow. What we play however, is a seven string with a second G string tuned an octave higher than the normal G string. These two G strings are located close together and are played in unison and sound like a pair of strings on a 12-string guitar. On a 12-string, all the strings are paired, whereas on a seven string, only the G is paired.

The advantage is that a seven string plays and sounds like a six string except that it has a little more jangle. Solos can be played normally or can feature the paired strings for the 12-string jangly sound. Roger McGuinn, founder of the Byrds, worked with Martin to produce two signature models with seven strings. He uses a seven string so that he can quickly switch between his folk/blues songs and his Byrds jangle.

Seven strings are very uncommon and we always are asked about ours when we play them in public.

Post Election Party at Beaks

2008-11-06T06:56:00.003-05:00

Last night was the post election party at Beaks Old Florida. The Blue Island Beer Club debuted a new song by Bruce called I Didn't Know It Was Wrong which is about the criticism that Florida condominium owners receive from native Floridians......and how their holier then thou attitude is not really justified based on some of the stuff they have pulled over the years. A cool song. I hope the audience could understand the lyrics.

And then we did some hippie songs to celebrate the election results, not to mention the fact that it is over. I'm So Glad (Cream/Skip James) and Volunteers of America (Jefferson Airplane) and a couple of others.

Bruce played the Ebow on Breathe and I tried it on Lucky Man but could not get the buzz going. (Of course it worked fine at home when I practiced).

A fun evening with some good players.

Moving Mandalay

2008-11-05T17:07:00.003-05:00

We are moving our sailboat Mandalay from one slip to another. Today, we set up some dock lines but the tide was pretty low and we were concerned that we might bump the bottom. We will do the actual move on Thursday since the tide will be up nearly two feet in the morning. We have been renting a slip that was unused in the summer and used by the owner in the winter. This year, we are not going cruising to the Bahamas so we need a slip all winter long. A little digging uncovered another neighbor who has one he is not using. Sure beats going to a public marina. It's only a five minute walk from our condo.

Recording Audaciously.......

2008-11-04T13:21:00.003-05:00

When I started recording in my home studio (or as some people refer to it, the bedroom), I wanted to test the waters without spending a lot of money. A friend purchased a dedicated recorder for about $800 and while I thought it sounded great, $800 was not in my budget. I stumbled across a recording program on a CD on Ebay for $15 which claimed to do everything you could want using your computer. I could afford $15 so I purchased the CD and went to work.

I soon discovered that the CD contained a version of the free software called Audacity along with some sample recordings and a few extras. I could have downloaded the software for nothing, but the seller was within his rights to re-package and sell Audacity and it was worth $15 to me to discover that it existed. It is available here....http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

Since then, Audacity has been revised and updated and is still the program I use for all my recordings. If you are interested in using your computer as a recording studio, I recommend giving Audacity a try. The quality of the recordings is the same as you would get from any purchased recording program. Since Audacity is free and is developed by "h0bbyists", it is simpler than most of the other programs. Audacity is probably not the program to use if you want to use a lot of MIDI samples or use loops to make rap "beats". But if you just want to record actual music and overdub as many tracks as you like, Audacity works very well. You can perform all kinds of operations to the recorded tracks, like adding reverb or delay, equalization, compression, etc. You can cut and paste tracks after they have been recorded and so on. This free program can do in five minutes what the Beatles' engineer would spend days doing.......and it does it with higher fidelity and more control.

Isn't technology amazing?

(note to all recording artists - this does not mean your songs will be better than those of The Beatles!).

The Blue Island Beer Club

2008-11-03T16:47:00.005-05:00

The Blue Island Beer Club is a duo consisting of Bruce Kula and myself. We rehearsed yesterday and drank a couple of our favorite adult beverages (India Pale Ale from different breweries is a favorite). In addition to the beer, our influences are the blues and the islands hence our name. There is also a Chicago suburb called Blue Island which the grapevine describes as seedy but I have not been there in many years to verify.

We have a CD available on CD Baby. http://cdbaby.com/cd/blueislandbeerclub with samples available.

We worked on one of Bruce's new compositions yesterday and plan to debut it on Wednesday at Beaks Old Florida. We also plan to do a song or two inspired by the election and then do a couple of hippie songs.

Come and see us if you are in St. Pete!

Finally bought a keyboard.........

2008-11-01T13:30:00.004-04:00

I took piano lessons for a while as a kid. I was not very successful, perhaps due to lack of motivation since the stars I watched on TV played the guitar. So I am not a keyboard player by any means, but I do know where the notes are and can figure out chords and such.

I have been mulling over getting a keyboard so I could add some new sounds to my recordings, but I was unwilling to commit a lot of funds. I almost bought one in a pawn shop on two different occasions, but both times I backed away thinking that a new one with a guarantee and no beer stains was not much more expensive.

So on Thursday, I went to the Guitar Center where they had a Yamaha on sale for $80, plus I had a 10% off coupon. The keyboard was compact and offered lots of tones and some percussion. I bought the keyboard and by the next day was adding tracks to the CD. It has some good quality sounds including an excellent piano. The keyboard has one amazing feature that is akin to using a capo on a guitar. If you want to play in a key with too many sharps and flats, you can simply adjust the keyboard pitch up or down a half step at a time and play in a more amenable key. I can play in C a lot better than E!

Today was garage sale day at our condo complex. What a waste of a beautiful morning. We were rewarded with a little more space and a few (very) extra dollars, but it was not worth the aggravation of people beating up on our prices which were already about a tenth of what a similar item would cost in a store. We did get to chat with the neighbors a bit.

Cheers!

12 String Fell into My Lap!

2008-10-31T18:14:00.003-04:00

A friend, J, needed to ship his guitar here and needed someone to receive it so I was elected. It is a Martin acoustic 12-string and it just happened to show up as I was putting the finishing touches to a couple of songs for The ICW Blues. He wanted me to unpack it and and try it out for him to make sure it did not suffer any shipping damage, so what better way to test it than to record a few tracks with it? So now it is immortalized on The ICW Blues CD.

He bought the guitar used a few weeks ago. It is in excellent shape and looks new, but like so many new guitars even from the Martins of the world, it needs to have the slots in the nut cut deeper. The action is too high on the first few frets which not only makes it hard to play, but ruins the intonation when you press the string down. In effect you are bending the string too far when you fret the string which makes it sound too sharp. A good test to determine if the nut slot is too high is to fret each string between the second and third fret and then see how much clearance there is between the string and the first fret. The string should just barely clear the first fret - a couple of thousandths maybe? Any more than that and you are fighting it.

I would probably be tempted to pay a pro to file the nut in this case. First it's a Martin which equals pretty expensive, and second, it's a 12-string which makes it hard to see what you are doing. I don't mind tinkering on a knockabout guitar, but this one is not! Scooter at Granville Guitars is a local tech who could be trusted with this job.

Anyway, you will be able to hear the 12- string on The ICW Blues some day soon.

Happy Halloweenie!

Lots of Work........

2008-10-30T06:38:00.003-04:00

Recording and mixing an album is a lot of work! This is probably not news, but it keeps coming home as I constantly am tweaking the mix, improving the parts, and so on. I think I will simplify the title of the forthcoming sailing oriented CD to just The ICW Blues.

Wednesday evening is normally a Blue Island Beer Club adventure. This week, the World Series pre-empted the music at our local venue so we took the night off. I will be glad when the elections are over too. Hopefully normal life will resume. I am not a baseball fan per se but it would have been nice if our local team had won. The team had been pushing for a new stadium but as I watched the wet and cold game in Philadelphia, I kept thinking that if they were in St. Pete, the sun would have been shining, they would have been in a covered stadium with convenient ample parking, and the Rays would have probably won.

I am optimistic that the stock market and the economy in general has bottomed out and I have made a few moves with that in mind. Trying not to end up as a Walmart greeter.

Cheers!

ICW Blues progressing....

2008-10-29T07:39:00.002-04:00

All of the tracks for The ICW Blues, And Other Sailors' Laments have been written and nine of them have been recorded. Some fine tuning of the recordings is under way and there is a little progress each day. I hope to have the remaining two songs recorded in the next week or two.

The Song ICW Blues was very popular with cruisers when I played it live in ports along the East Coast and in the Bahamas. Any boaters who have traveled the ICW immediately connect with the song.......

I am excited about the song Eddie's Edgewater. It was written in George Town Bahamas for the Bahamian Music Festival earlier this year, but it has not been recorded until now. Lots of heavy Bahamian rhythms on this one!

Katiki Jammin'

2008-10-28T07:13:00.003-04:00

I played at the Katiki jam last night with Tim, Bill and Pug. I sang Texas Flood, Tore Down and Killin' Floor. Bill did LaGrange, Can't Hold Out, and I Wanna Make Love to You. Tim did his Robert Johnson Medley and Mercury Blues. Pug is just about the world's best drummer......and what a difference it makes to play with someone like that holding it together! Pug is a hired gun and works about 6 nights a week with various bands. He has a gold record hanging on his wall.

http://www.myspace.com/pugbaker

Pete Dorian played at the jam and sounded good. He played a G&L Tribute Tele with P90 style pickups which sounded good through his Mesa amp.

I did not do any of my blues originals......I really need to write some fresh ones.

The ICW Blues is coming soon!

2008-10-27T13:59:00.000-04:00

For all you sailors who love music, the new version of the ICW Blues is finished and soon to be released on my latest CD. Not too surprisingly the name of the CD is The ICW Blues.....and Other Sailors' Laments. Production is well along and I expect it to be released in mid-November.

Stay tuned!