This is an abbreviated version of my annual holiday note to friends with a pic of me around 13 (that would be 1957) - so cool (there's a white beetle painted on the left pocket - a few friends & I called ourselves The Beetles!):
Holydays:
During 2011 I finished putting simple recordings of the songs in my Songbook, 1969-2009 on youtube, so anyone with a book can search my name & a song title to see how it goes. Now I’m in process of recording them again in more finished versions, relative of course - they’re still demos compared to professional recordings. But it is such fun to lay down a track with guitar & vocals as a guide, add bass, drums, maybe piano, almost always lead guitar and do final versions of vocals, sometimes adding harmony. For this purpose I’ve gotten a bass guitar, mac-mini for recording & coordinated my P.A. equipment to put the sound into and out of the computer. I plan to put the songs on-line, in batches, like CD releases, designing a cover for each batch. When I figure out how to upload them: thinkspeak.bandcamp.com This extends my archiving project which is essentially complete regarding painting and cartoons. A memoir is in the works too, now about 180 pages but keeps expanding. The only readers I envision for this project are daughter Kallio (but she’s only a maybe) and me.
The six books I’ve published over the last year or two are available as downloads or hardcopy (includes the crime fiction novel Arrival): search my name at lulu.com The 15-song free download collaboration with KVpop is still available with links on my blog & painting website www.thinkspeak.net
Wednesday evenings I jam with a group in Inman Park where I first started fooling around with bass. They also have a drum set I sit down at sometimes. I created a drum out of a sheetrock mud container, painting it up with anti-war messages, for use at demonstrations since the illegal Iraq invasion, so have developed some limited drumming skill – cut broom-handle drumsticks. I’ve been to some of the OccupyAtlanta gatherings and am heartened by this way-overdue movement to question who rules for whose benefit. I’ve read Naomi Klein’s expose, Shock Doctrine, on this question as well as Ralph Nader’s profile of corporate CEOs. Currently reading The Smartest Guys in the Room, about the Enron fiasco. I usually review this kind of stuff on my blog. Been reading Swedish crime fiction lately and some Brits, Peter Robinson, John Harvey and rereading George V. Higgins. In a book club, we mostly read contemporary fiction. Of course I read some of the incredible volume of stuff I encounter on-line, about nukes, corporate crime, injustice, environmental degradation etc; democracynow.org, fair.org, commondreams.org, zmag.org, counterpunch.org, likethedew.org (which publishes my rants & drawings). I have to say, music is what pro-occupies me centrally these days, jamming whenever opportunity arises and doing my recording project, some new songs.
The six books I’ve published over the last year or two are available as downloads or hardcopy (includes the crime fiction novel Arrival): search my name at lulu.com The 15-song free download collaboration with KVpop is still available with links on my blog & painting website www.thinkspeak.net
Wednesday evenings I jam with a group in Inman Park where I first started fooling around with bass. They also have a drum set I sit down at sometimes. I created a drum out of a sheetrock mud container, painting it up with anti-war messages, for use at demonstrations since the illegal Iraq invasion, so have developed some limited drumming skill – cut broom-handle drumsticks. I’ve been to some of the OccupyAtlanta gatherings and am heartened by this way-overdue movement to question who rules for whose benefit. I’ve read Naomi Klein’s expose, Shock Doctrine, on this question as well as Ralph Nader’s profile of corporate CEOs. Currently reading The Smartest Guys in the Room, about the Enron fiasco. I usually review this kind of stuff on my blog. Been reading Swedish crime fiction lately and some Brits, Peter Robinson, John Harvey and rereading George V. Higgins. In a book club, we mostly read contemporary fiction. Of course I read some of the incredible volume of stuff I encounter on-line, about nukes, corporate crime, injustice, environmental degradation etc; democracynow.org, fair.org, commondreams.org, zmag.org, counterpunch.org, likethedew.org (which publishes my rants & drawings). I have to say, music is what pro-occupies me centrally these days, jamming whenever opportunity arises and doing my recording project, some new songs.
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