On the Radio, Playing at the Carrot, and old friends

Today was a great day.  I got a call yesterday from Michael, the music director for the Heart of the City Festival.  He asked us to head down to CJSR radio to talk about music and the HOTC Festival.   So today Brian and I drove down to the University where the CJSR studios are and met up with Michael and David.  David is the same radio host that interviewed us at the Audition.   The session started off with a great honor.  David played one of our songs "Sittin' Here" over the air.  We got a song on the radio.  Very cool!   You can hear our discussion on CJSR below.

The other day an old Friend from Bethune sent me a note on Facebook that he was in town and would like to come hear us play.  Since Brian and I were heading out to the Carrot Cafe, I told him to come see us there.   I haven't seen Tom for probably 25 years, maybe more.   It was nice to catch up on the Reid family.  

Since Don is on some Island off the west coast and probably cursing at the rain, Brian and I decided to do a duet.  Did 3 songs - Sittin' Here,  Green Valley Monsters, and Blueberry Pie.  Brian's been working on the vocals for Blueberry Pie, so it was a first on stage with him doing vocals on it.  It wasn't a busy night at the Carrot, but still a fun night.  Since there was more evening than performers, we got to do a second set.  We played a song we haven't played for a while - My Dream Automobile.   Then we did Johnson  Browne.   

Wanda told when we were leaving that all the ladies at the Carrot were all tapping their feet to our songs.  The other performers were great, but they weren't playing toe tapping songs.  Tonight was our night to entertain.  

All in all,  a great day.  

Recording Our Songs

The other day, I got an email from David, who is the Co-Chair and Publicity Coordinator. He's the fellow who interviewed us for CJSA and now he's asking for some audio clips of our music.  Another reason we have to take our song into a studio, but there's little time for that.  

We have a few audio clips that we have done over past couple of years.  They are kind of like bootleg recordings.  Simply recorded from ambient sound with no mixing.  This is all we can do for now.  I'll spend a good part of this week-end going through the audio clips and pick out the best we have. 

But things like this give us good reason to take recording of our songs more seriously.

The Idiom Song

I've been working on a new song that I call "The Idiom Song".  This was an idea that came to me on the road home from work.  Bubba was on CKUA and somehow the subject of idioms came up and it got my interest.   I knew that this was a song that was going to take a bit of work to pull off.  If fact it might take me several weeks to pull it off.   By the way, "pull it off" is an idiom.  

As a teaser, here's a verse, still in draft. 

Every dog has its day
Have your day in the sun
A bird in hand's worth two in the bush
And baby you're the one

Stay tuned.(another idiom)

Reworked Song

A few weeks ago, I had this verse going through my brain.  "I was standing at the station, by the railway track, waiting for the noon train, to bring my baby back".   I put it together with a 12 bar blues in E, but "I just wasn't satisfied".   

The other day, I was playing around on my Blueridge guitar and started playing a rift with E and B.  I figured it should go somewhere else, so I added in a C#m and an A.  Interesting combination of chords. 

Been playing with the music and the lyrics all day today.  Finished late in the afternoon.  So another song in the book.  

What's that 7 for the year?  I forget already.   so 13 more to work on!