Katey Angel and I had a nice time playing at the Mudder Rudder this past weekend. Unfortunately, warnings of snow and ice seemed to keep most people in for the night. Luckily, I will be back at the Muddy Rudder on January 23rd. Hopefully, we’ll have our usual mild weather in January and lots of folks will head out on the town.

There was a nice surprise at the gig. It turns out my friend Joe Baker works a couple nights a week at the Rudder. I haven’t seen him in a little while and it was quite nice to catch up with him and hear about all he is up to these days. Joe is a talented musician and a fine lad. If you get a chance you should certainly head out and hear him play.

Great to see you Joe!

I stumbled upon an interesting interview with Hank Williams III about his latest release, “Damn Right, Rebel Proud”. (I’m a big fan of III) I found this part interesting and rather funny:

“We just had issues with the guy recording. The guy I was recording with had never worked on a country project, and he thought he was coming to party instead of work. That caused a big problem right there. I had never had to call out someone, and lean over and say ‘Do we need to take this shit outside because you are acting like a little fucking bitch.’ When I have guys like Johnny Hiland and Randy Kohrs in doing their thing, it is not the time to be an amateur.”

“In fact, whether joking or not, if you check out the liner notes on DRRP, you will see it clearly stated ‘Recorded By a Bitch.’”

Hank Williams III interview at American Roots

Well, I did something a wee bit stupid that resulted in all the comments getting deleting from this blog. Oops. Not a big deal, there were not many.

Since comments are the topic, I thought I would mention how comments work on my blog:

• All comments are put in moderation and must be approved (by me) before they will appear on the blog. Why moderate comments? It helps reduce spam and allows me keep this blog neat and tidy.
• I won’t approve your comment if you are a grouchy asshole. “But what about freedom of speech?” Get your own site and say anything you want.
• If a blog post was merely a link to another story or site and you, for some bizarre reason, decide to give me hell about the story I won’t approve your comment. 
• All reasonable comments will be approved.

There you have it.

“A German website, Pundo3000.com, has conducted a study of 100 different products by comparing the look of the products as shown by the packaging with the actual contents inside the boxes.”  Check it out, quite funny >>>

May you all have a wonderful holiday season and a new year full of pleasant surprises. Thank you to everyone who purchased a CD, came to a show, or otherwise did nice things for me in 2007.

If you need something to do on New Year’s Eve, we will be entertaining folks at the La Center Tavern starting at 9PM.

A big thank you to everyone in attendance at my CD Release Party. Special thanks to Greg Johnson from the CBA for coming out. I appreciate the support.

I’ll be having a CD Release Party on Saturday, October 20th, at Albina Green in Portland. CD’s will be 10 bucks, no cover and we play from 8-11PM. Come on out!

I heard on NPR today that Radiohead is releasing a new album. Well, what’s so interesting about that? They are making the album available for download on their website and, here’s the interesting part, they let you decide what you want to pay for the recording. Fans can still buy CD’s and such when the album is in full circulation, but the digital version of the album is free-or-$1-or- $100-or whatever you decide to pay! Interesting.

It is no secret that I just released a new album and I thought long and hard about releasing it solely in digital format. (But, unlike Radiohead, I wasn’t going to give it away for free!) I ended up getting CD’s because of this simple fact - only a small percentage (12% or something) of consumers purchase their music in digital format via services like iTunes and Rhapsody. I am a member of that small group…I haven’t bought a CD in almost 2 years.

It should be fun to see how the music industry changes over the next few years. Perhaps the record companies, mostly a group of evil bastards, will start to lose some power? Perhaps not. Hats off to Radiohead for being a mainstream band that is doing something different - may you sell a million records with not a single penny going to a record company.

The Long Road is now for sale. The cd’s are $10 at CDBaby and will be the same price at all live shows. The recording will also be available on iTunes, Rhapsody, etc. within the next 4-6 weeks. (Just waiting for stuff to get processed.)

If you buy The Long Road and like what you hear, I would truly appreciate it if you’d take the time to write a kind review. If you purchase via CDBaby you can use their commenting/review system. If you buy the cd directly from me you are welcome to email me your review.