FAWM ~ Song #1

 Acoustic/Groove/Folk, FAWM, New Songs  No Responses »
Feb 052011
 

I’m always trying to figure out how to write songs more efficiently and be a little more prolific. I love to write songs, but I go at it in fits and spurts. I may write two songs in a given month and then go three months without putting pen to paper and melody to lyrics. Yes it’s a sad situation, but that’s the way my creative/manic soul works. I guess…

What I actually need is some discipline – no not a spanking… What I need is a goal and a community to help me to reach the goal. Enter FAWM.org!

FAWM is an acronym for February Album Writing Month where we’re attempting to write 14 songs in the 28 days of February. So there’s the goal: 14 songs and there is the community: FAWM.org. What more can I ask? Well I still have to write the songs.

My main question was do they have to be “finished” songs? By that I mean a song that I would be happy to play at a gig. I tend to take a long time re-writing the lyrics and then practicing the song with the guitar and recording it each time to critique. But when you’re writing 14 songs in 28 days, there’s not a lot of for retrospection. So i feel that if I get 14 songs that are at least at a beginning stage, I can then go back and refine them at a later date.

So here is my first offering. FAWM-ers will often post songwriting challenges and this week’s challenge was to write a song that had to do with ‘numbers’. This song is titled “I Can Count On You” count – numbers – get it? hmmm

Let me know what you think!

DG

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I Can Count On You

One day I’ll take you for a ride
Two of us sittin’ side by side
Three dollars for ice cream at the mall
Fortune shines down on me
Five kisses are all I need – then the
Six O’Clock news ain’t so scary at all

‘Cause I’m rollin’ sevens
And there’s eight ways to heaven don’t cha know
Nine Steps up to your place
I knock ten times and then I see your smiling face

It all adds up
Again and again
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8
Nine and Ten

If I run out of fingers
And I run out of toes
You’ll let me borrow some of yours
Because I know
That you love me
You love me
You love-love -love -love -love me
And baby yes it’s true
I can count on you

© February, 2011

Diary of a New CD #3 ~ Reaching into the Past

 Blues Songs, Diary of a New CD, New Songs  1 Response »
Nov 062010
 

I’ve got just a couple of more songs to demo out before I start hacking away and formulating a working set list for the CD. As I was thinking about songs I’d like to still demo I thought about this little blues song that I perform every once in a while and said why not at least demo it and give it a chance to be on the CD. This is a song that I wrote ages ago, 1988 to be exact. Shoot, over 20 years ago! I wrote it about a roommate I had at the time who desperately wanted to play the guitar and write blues songs, but he was so bad at the guitar and could not sing on key to save his soul. But he had the attitude of a blues-man. He was a loner. He was not one to get “tied” to a woman. He traveled and had very few possessions. He just did not have the voice to yell at the world like a blues-man. His name was Earl. This is the song I wrote for him called “Blues for E”.

Let me know what you think!

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direct link: Blues for “E”

Blues For “E”

Babe I’m a loner
Don’t need love
Or that sentimental foolishness
I can’t rise above
I just play my guitar
And sing the blues
For a fool like me
For a fool like me

Well I ain’t got no worries on my mind
I just watch the world going by
And I take what I can find

Well you say you love me
That’s alright
But babe I’ll be travelin
I’m gone tonight
On the road with my guitar
Just singin the blues
For a fool like me
For a fool like me

Well now I don’t need a woman by my side
I put my stuff in an old knapsack
And I wait for a freight train to arrive

Babe I’m a loner
Don’t need love
Or that sentimental bullsheet
I can’t rise above
I just play my guitar
And sing the blues
For a fool like me
For a fool like me

MSi9W – Week 7.2 & 8.2~ Building the List & Networking – addendum

 Music Success in 9 Weeks  No Responses »
Aug 272010
 

I want to add an update to these two post topics and it comes from an experience that I had last night at an outdoor gig.

When I was up on stage playing I could clearly see that people were digging my music. People were smiling, laughing at my banter between songs and bobbing their heads to the groove. Yes! They like my stuff. They will definitely come up and talk to me afterward, I know it! I made a point of inviting people to talk and to sign up on the list.

My set ended and another performer was up. Out of respect to the performer I did not work the crowd when she was up. I was preparing myself for the networking that was coming up after she was done. I was going over things in my head that I wanted from this crowd and it was mainly email addresses. I didn’t expect to sell CDs since the crowd was being asked to donate money for a charity, but I had them out anyway. I created a goal for myself of getting at least 5 email addresses. That was reasonable and it was a large crowd of about 40 people and their kids and dogs.

Dickenson Park, Newtown CT

This is what happened that makes me take a different look at collecting emails at gigs. I was on stage for a last song with all of the performers and prior to getting on stage I happened to ask my lovely wife to pass the email list around until I got off the stage. That was the key: asking my wife (or someone other than doing it myself) to work the crowd. As the song finished I saw people stand up and start to leave! I had to put away my guitar, unplug, get off the stage, talk to a few officials who were thanking us, etc. I was stuck on or near the stage and people were leaving. WAIT! I want your email addresses… I finally got off the stage and started to network in the crowd, but then I got caught up in single conversations that took time; people were leaving!

At some point, as the sun was disappearing beyond the trees, I bumped into my wife and she handed me my clipboard. It had 10 email addresses! I had gotten 2 using my iPhone to automatically sign them up to my Constant Contact service. So, wait let me do the math… 12 emails! 200% of my goal!

Here’s the takeaway: I will get more from an audience in terms of email addresses, tips, CD sales, etc, if I have a team member there to help out.

To have someone whose task is to simply ask for an email address is a huge asset. I, as the performer, am at a disadvantage. I just got done with a performance, I have to pack up. If I do talk to people, they want to have a conversation which keeps me from mingling. But having a person work the room with just 2 questions to ask: Did you enjoy the show? Can you sign p for Darryl’s list? That’s creating a system that works.

Now I just have to get my wife to come to ALL of my gigs with her clipboard!

Rustbelt Mini Tour Day -1

 Articles  1 Response »
Aug 112010
 

photo by Tain Gregory

I’m setting out on a little “tour” of sorts and I’m already in the hole. Well, I need to be clear about this and that before I say something so negative as “in-the-hole”.

I’ve never toured as a solo musician before and I was planning on doing a small 4 gig tour this summer that took me from Sandy Hook, CT to Cleveland, OH and back. I successfully booked the Cleveland show and anointed it my “anchor gig”. It was almost too easy to book it and the venues was located right in the middle of the community where I grew up so I knew I would have an easy time getting an audience. I then went on line to search for gigs along the I-80 corridor and to solicit house concerts from people in Ohio. Here is where I ran into a wall.

I found several appropriate venues along I-80, sent my EPK, followed up and got nothing. Well not exactly nothing. I had a very strange email exchange with a booker from Williamsport. He emailed me several times saying – I just found your email what exactly do you do? – I go this from him three times and I told him three times what I did. After the third time I never heard from him again.

I then got an email from a booker in Pittsburgh who was very apologetic about not seeing my emails earlier and offered me a gig on the way to Cleveland. This booking was a little late so I didn’t really get to do my media press as I did for Cleveland, but I’ve been tweeting. So I’m 2 for 4 and I still could get a house concert while I’m in Ohio, you never know.

I was being picky about where I went for these gigs. I didn’t want to go to far afield because I have my wife and son traveling with me. Yes, I’m on the road with my family in tow and I’m combining this with a visit to the family relations in Ohio. So is it a “tour”? Probably not in the traditional sense, but I am traveling and playing while I visit family. This is an experiment, a toe in the pond to test the water.

Getting back to my financial declaration: Why am I “in the hole”? Well since we’re all traveling together we are taking the 10 year old Subaru Outback that needed new rear brakes and four new tires. The bill? Brakes and tires = $700. I’m in the hole.

But my rationalization is that this needed to be done to the car anyway for the upcoming school commuting season. This is the car that my wife uses to take my son to school and back in the sun, rain and snow of hilly Connecticut. But if you think about it in terms of a working/traveling solo musician: I’m in the hole. That’s what scares me about touring. I think the romance of traveling to places where I haven’t played is alluring, but the reality of not making money to pay for the travel is sobering.

Please check back in as I blog from the road. We’ll be in Pittsburgh tomorrow where I will play at Howlers Coyote Cafe at 9 PM. Travel on Friday to Ohio. Perform in Middleburg Heights (a suburb of Cleveland) at Seekers Coffeehouse on Saturday.

Venue Ambiance – How does it affect your gig?

 Articles  No Responses »
Jun 232010
 
How much does a venue’s ambiance affect the way you perform? All of us performers know how a crowd can influence us in the way we play and perform. If the crowd is listening and involved we tend to play better and more intensely. But what about the decorations and the way the room is lit. What about the art on the walls, the sounds in the background. What about the color scheme and the type of furniture in the place? Do these have an effect on the way you sing your songs?
 
I was recently playing in a local pub, you the kind of place that has the game on three big flat screens, free chicken wings at happy hour and a row of guys sitting at the bar drinking and just waiting to yell ‘Freebird man!’. Being ignored while I play is not such a big deal for me, I’ve busked on the streets and in the subway and plus I was getting paid for this gig. But what really got to me was the ambiance. The lighting was odd, neither light nor dark and the sports memorabilia mixed with hunting trophies and other oddities really distracted me. I would be playing a song and just as I looked up to scan the crowd I would set my eyes on the severed head of a deer mounted on the wall – yikes. I’d start thinking about the deer and then I’d lose my concentration on the song and well… The mixture of patron sounds, kitchen sounds, the lighting and the decor just made me feel itchy and awkward and I know it affected my music even though I may have been the the only one to notice.
 
On the other hand, I have been in similar situations where I am performing as a background to the goings on of the establishment, but I feel more at ease because the surroundings are inviting. The colors of the walls are warm, the sounds are subdued and the decor is more like a home. I play more easily at a place that feels good and that feeling is directly related to the ambiance. I can tell immediately when I walk into a coffee shop or a pub or where ever I’m about to perform and know if it’s going to be easy like butter or a struggle through molasses.
 
What are your thoughts about ambiance? Does it matter to you? Leave a comment.
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