Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Off Stage With Meyer and McGuire

Hey Folks,

As always, hope you are all doing well! If you have some time for reading, viewing and listening, here's what I have for you this month.

Since Siobhan and I received some great feedback for our first "back porch" video of our song, "Just One," we decided to share another one of our new songs with you, "When You Were Cute and I Had All My Hair." Before you watch the video, here's a little background information as to how the song got its start.

Many years ago, somewhere between ten and fifteen I think, Siobhan and I met up with our Friends Jim and Margie Hastings. Jim, Margie, and their youngest son, Danny came to see our show at Borders, a bookstore in Henrietta, NY. Unfortunately, we were double booked at Borders. Yes, you heard it right, double booked at a bookstore. Since Danny, about eight at the time, was with Jim and Margie, we decided to get a bite to eat at Chucky Cheese, a restaurant with many games to keep young kids occupied.

As we sat in the restaurant listening to the high pitch laughing and screaming of little kids and the bells and whistles of numerous games, Jim told a story of an event that occurred for Margie and him somewhere back in the early 1980s.

Although I do not remember the event, I do remember Margie being unable to recall it. Jim tried triggering her memory with several different approaches, but all of his efforts were in vain. Finally, after being totally frustrated, Jim threw up his arms and said, "It was back when you were cute and I had all my hair."

Well, needless to say, Jim's line imprinted itself somewhere deep in my memory bank, where it remained dormant for several years. When it resurfaced a couple of years ago, the song unfolded rather quickly, as so many of my songs do. The song is a biographical depiction of Jim and Margie's life with their children, but on a larger scale, it is a fairly close description of the lives of many of our friends who are in their 50s, 60s, and 70s.

Here is a link to the video. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. Hope you enjoy it!

The "Singer/Songwriters in the Side Room" concerts at Buffalo Bill's in Shortsville, NY, seem to be getting better and better each month. The concerts are on the third Thursday of the month from 7 to 9 PM. In my last post, I played you a video of Leslie Lee and Steve Gretz doing one of Leslie's songs, "Til September."In this post, we have a video of Scott Regan playing his song, "The Marriage of Time and Money." In a somewhat John Prine fashion,
Scott delivers an entertaining ballad about the issues that quite often create conflict within a relationship. His use of irony, metaphor, and personification is simply exquisite. Here is the video. Hope you enjoy it, and I hope it encourages you to check out this venue. We have some great songwriters in this area, and if you like original music, you owe it to yourself to experience some of these artists. Stay tuned for more videos of other songwriters we have showcased.

Since I am on the topic of the songwriters' series, I want to thank Steve Piper for the awesome show he did for us in April. Word about Steve's easy going performance style must have spread around Shortsville since his performance last year, because the room was nearly full for the second set of his show! On May 16, we are having John Dady of the Dady Brothers. In addition to being an outstanding musician, John is a terrific songwriter. He has performed all over the United States, Canada, and Ireland, and has shared the stage with such greats as The Clancy Brothers, Tommy Makem, Pete Seeger, Arlo Guthrie, Rick Danko, Bill Staines, and many more. Like his brother, Joe, John has many great stories of the road that I am sure you will enjoy. You can learn more about him right here! Hope you can join us on May 16!

Since songwriting seems to be the main focus of this post, here is a link to "The Ballad of Bruce Weaver," one of my original songs. You can read about the development of the song, check out the lyrics, and listen to the song. If you like the song, you can download the MP3 right here at the iTunes store. If you have been reading my blog for awhile, you may have seen this one already. If this is a new song for you, I hope you enjoy it!

For those of you who have stumbled upon this post accidentally and have no knowledge about Meyer and McGuire, here is a link to our web site. Hope you enjoy learning about us!

Well, once again, it's time for me to stop babbling. I often go walking at night, and much to the chagrin of Siobhan, I am a daydreamer who should be paying a little more attention to my surroundings. Many of you pass through my thoughts, sometimes for a fleeting moment and other times longer. I want to thank you for being in my thoughts. You have contributed to my life much more than you will ever know. So, see you on the streets somewhere!