The Unforced Life: June 2019

Saturday, June 29, 2019

July News

From Gene Burnett

My latest album, “Slow Down Fast”, along with over 30 others, is available for downloading or listening free, or with a donation here: Musical Recordings I also made a youtube playlist with videos from all of the songs: Slow Down Fast (Youtube Playlist) And you can find all of my music, including “Slow Down Fast” at CD Baby, iTunes, Spotify, and other e-retailers of music.

I recently shared the good news that I would be playing another “Green Show” at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival this summer. This will most likely be the best show I get this year. It’s always a pleasure to work with OSF. The date as been confirmed: August 17^th. And…for those of you who do not live in Ashland, there is a chance this show might be streamed “live” on the internet. I will, of course, keep you posted on that.

Last month I posted some comments about physical and creative practices and how good they are for health and well-being. I said I’d have a video about that soon and I made good on that promise. See link in “Videos” section below.

Last month I was 24 songs into my next album project, now I’m 27 songs in and counting. I’ve enjoyed continuing to write instead of stopping when I get ready to record. My favorite 18-20 or so will end up on this summer’s album and the rest will have to go on the next one.

I’m really happy with this batch of songs and I’m thinking I will record them more simply this time around, with mostly just me and one guitar. In the past few projects I’ve added second guitar parts to most of the tracks but this time I feel like a more “live” feel would suit me and the tunes. More like capturing a performance rather than a more layered sound. We will see how it turns out. I’m hoping to start recording some time this month. I made a home video of one of the new songs called “You’re Not Gone”.

I’ve been working on making youtube video playlists for all of my albums, at least since 2005 or so, and I’m finally done with that project. See links in the “Videos” section below.

In total I posted 4 T’ai-Chi videos, 2 Nature videos, and 2 music videos, including my set from “Waylon Jennings Night”. I’m not sure who July’s Birthday Bash will be, but I’m looking forward to learning a few of their songs, whoever they are. Links to all of these are in the “Videos” section below…

So here we go…I’m going to start with local shows in case you’re in the Rogue Valley and then proceed with the usual information about where to find my music, videos, and pictures, including information about new projects.

There is so much to listen to and watch on the net these days…I’m amazed anyone even gets this far in the newsletter let alone watches or listens to anything I’m doing. I’m sincerely grateful for every view, every listen, and every nice comment I receive. I’m happy if anything I post truly reaches even one person. I’m offering all this stuff in a “just in case you’re interested” spirit.

Upcoming Shows:

Wednesday, July 3^rd, I’ll be hosting my regular Themed Open Mike at The Wild Goose Café & Bar. Usually this happens on the First Wednesday of every month. This month's theme will be our 5^th annual “”Smokin’ & Drinkin’ Songs” so musicians and spoken word artists will be doing songs and poems, covers or originals, that mention or are about this theme in any way. We’re never too strict or narrow about the themes for this event. The main idea is to focus our attention a little to hopefully inspire and motivate us creatively. These are always fun community events. No Cover at the friendliest bar in Ashland. Sign-up is 7:30pm. Show starts at 8:00pm.
*A heads up for next month: Wednesday, August 7^th, 2019: “Cities & States”

Saturday, July 20^th, from 10am-Noon, my good friends Jesse Biesanz, David Brown and I are hosting a Hacky Sack session outside the former Caldera Tap House on Water Street in Ashland. We’ll be under the overpass. This usually happens on the third Saturday of every month. We missed the fun and camaraderie of a good friendly Hack Circle and…more importantly, we missed the practice! It’s fun, aerobic, cooperative, demands balance, coordination, quick thinking and accuracy…So whether you’re new to the game, or an experienced player who wants to brush up your skills, or an expert who just wants to meet some new players, come on by. Hacky Sack basically involves keeping a small footbag in the air, usually leather and fairly soft, using only your feet. When there are more than two players, it’s usually played in a circle. If the circle gets too big, it is split into smaller circles.

The only rules of this Hack Circle:

1. You’ve got to use your feet to keep the sack in the air and off the ground. No hands! (10 voluntary pushups if you do)

2. If you miss or otherwise screw up, you can’t say, “I’m Sorry.” (10 voluntary pushups if you do)

3. No serving to yourself. (10 voluntary pushups if you do)

4. No hotdogging. Meaning this is not about how many tricks you can do before the sack hits the ground, and it’s not about working obsessively on tricks. Tricks are fine but in general, we want to keep the hack going as a friendly group and keep everyone involved.

See you under the bridge rain or shine. The overpass provides shelter from the rain and once the circle gets going, you’ll be plenty warm regardless of the weather.

And later that same day, Saturday, July 20^th, weather permitting, and it usually does this time of year, from 2:30pm-4:30pm, I'll be playing at The Lithia Artisan's Market, behind the Plaza in Ashland. Come support local music and art!

For more info about these and all of my shows, and to confirm that there have been no cancellations, click here: Calendar

Since I'm putting this newsletter out once a month, it's possible there may be a cancellation of a given show by the time it happens. Please double check with my web calendar if possible to be sure the gig is still happening. I'd hate to have you come out for nothing. Also another gig or two might be added or times or locations might change, so do check the calendar for the latest info.

Recorded Music

All of my over 30 albums are available for downloading free or with a donation at my website: GeneBurnett.com

Videos In General

Overall Mission: I post a lot of videos on youtube, over 1000 so far! I'm not trying to build a fan base. In fact, I'm not trying to build anything. I'm not expecting you or anyone else to follow what I'm doing or watch all of these videos. Posting videos is just part of my overall plan to make my music (and my T’ai-Chi and Nature videos too) as freely available as possible and see what freely comes back. I think of each video as sort of like a message in a bottle...and more I toss out there the more likely one of them will land on a friendly shore and something good will come back to me.

A Note on Monetization: I won’t be able to monetize my videos on youtube anymore. Monetization seems to be an option youtube wants to reserve for bigger more ambitions channels. I’ve always had mixed feelings about having ads on my videos, so to some extent, this is actually a bit of a relief. On the other hand, it was nice to make a little money from my videos and nice to think of “views” as adding slightly to my income. But such is life. I’m happy to be rolling free and clear of ads. With the help of some savvy facebook friends, I was able to ad this paragraph to the descriptions on all of my videos at once:

I hope this video has been helpful to you or touched you in some way that leaves you a little better off for having watched it. This is not a big time channel and I have no plans for it to become one. I’m too small to have ads on my videos and I’ve always had mixed feelings about them anyway. If you would like to support and encourage what I do here, you can make a donation to me directly via paypal. No donation is too small, (or too big!) and all donations are very much appreciated. Paypal Me

So here are some video links in case you're interested:

How to Find My Videos: First of all, I've set up a Videos Page on my website with a menu similar to what you see below as well as a digital tip jar in case any of you want to contribute to my cottage industry. Every little bit helps and not just financially.

I've also set up some blogs that make navigating and viewing my various videos much easier. You can go to any of these blogs and see thumbnails for all of the videos posted there. Scroll across the thumbnails and you will see the titles of each video. Click on it and a page will open that will let you watch the video right there without going to youtube. My latest videos are always in the upper left hand corner.

To see all of my Music videos in one easy to navigate place, click here: The Unforced Videos

To see all of my T'ai-Chi videos in one easy to navigate place, click here: The Unforced Movement

To see all of my Nature videos in one easy to navigate place, click here: The Unforced Nature

For a quick and easy way to sort through, listen to, or download all of my albums free or with a donation, click here: The Unforced Music

To see my regular blog “The Unforced Life”, click here: The Unforced Life

To visit my youtube channel and possibly subscribe, click here: My Youtube Channel

To see all of my youtube playlists click here: My Youtube Playlists

And here are links to my individual album youtube playlists.

You Are Wrong
My Song Now
Terms Of Surrender~Parts 1 & 2
Undiscovered Country
Plan B
Where Will You Sleep Tonight?

New Videos

5 new T’ai-Chi videos:

Start! Creative & Physical Practices
Hiking Backwards

Wagner Butte & Another Lems Testimonial
Balancing Form & Flow~A Way To Approach Practice
How T'ai-Chi Helps Me With Other Arts

2 New Nature Videos:

Ant Nest
What Are These Birds?

2 new Music videos:

Waylon Jennings Night
You're Not Gone

Pictures

 I've stopped posting as many pictures on facebook, (for many reasons), and started posting them instead on Flickr, which I like much better.

Here's a link to my "home page" at Flicker: Photostream.

I have many photo galleries there but a few of my favorites are:

Small Miracles (mostly Nature related stuff)

The Dish Whisperer (I started posting a daily picture of my dish stacking work over a year ago. I recently crossed the 2000 straight days mark. I have no idea how long I’ll keep doing this. I’m so used to it, it hardly takes any effort at all to continue. I made a video for my song “I'll Do The Dishes Tonight” that featured a slideshow of the first year.

 Website

I continue to offer all of my albums for downloading, free or with a donation at my website: www.GeneBurnett.com I started doing this about 10 years ago and considered it a 5 year creative experiment. Well the 5 years passed and I decided to start calling it my "ongoing creative experiment" as I have no plans to stop. Since I returned to my folk roots and stopped climbing, or trying to climb, the industry ladder, I've been enjoying music in my life more than ever before. And enjoyment, rather than achievement or worldly success has always been dearest to my heart anyway. So now I focus totally on what I love most: writing, recording, performing and sharing what I create. If other people like it, so much the better, but getting other people to like me or what I do is no longer my goal or focus. I'm out to please myself first. I want to do my music exactly the way I want to do it and see who likes it that way, not figure out what people will like and try to do it that way. I put it out there freely and see what comes freely back. So far so good. I've never had more success and appreciation than I have since I started doing it this. Go figure.

Thanks, as usual, for your support and well wishes even if you don't make to any shows.

www.GeneBurnett.com

Sunday, June 2, 2019

June News

From Gene Burnett

Last month I shared the good news that I would be playing another “Green Show” at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival this summer. This will most likely be the best show I get this year. It’s always a pleasure to work with OSF. The date as been confirmed: August 17^th. And…for those of you who do not live in Ashland, there is a chance this show might be streamed “live” on the internet. I will, of course, keep you posted on that.

Summer weather is upon us and I can just about hear the sound of 20,000 people collectively crossing their fingers that we don’t get any fires and smoke. Local businesses, including the Shakespeare Festival, were hurt pretty badly by the smoke last year and some even went out of business entirely. The only bright side to the smoke is that it’s been nudging house prices a little bit closer to reality.

My T’ai-Chi practice and teaching have been going great lately with a focus on posture and basics, which thankfully I never seem to get tired of. One of my T’ai-Chi videos this month, Basics Basics Basics is about not being afraid to revisit the basics of your art whatever it may be.

I’ve also been thinking a lot lately about physical and creative practices and how good they are for health and well-being. Any practice, if it’s a good one will challenge you to improve what you’re doing in a mindful intentional way. You’ll be looking for your weaknesses and what you can do address them. Your weaknesses may be obvious, but many of them likely will not be, unless you put some pressure on yourself in order to reveal them. Pressure, if it’s not too much or too little, will reveal your weaknesses. That pressure can come from an injury, the aging process, or some internal “raising of the bar” or scrutiny, that you apply to yourself. When I find my weaknesses I can choose to address them directly or I can choose to accept them. Either way, doing this consciously intentionally is a good thing. When I do choose to address them directly, the answer, or at least most of the answer, is almost always…basics. I’ll have a video about creative and physical practices up on youtube soon.

Last month I was 22 songs into my next album project, now I’m 24 songs in and counting. In the past I’ve always stopped writing as I get ready to record a new batch of songs, and then resume once I’m done with the album. But this time around I don’t feel like stopping, so I’m going to keep writing. It will be a bit of an experiment. I have two folders in my computer that are labeled “Best” and “Next”. The “Best” folder contains whatever I think are the best, or least my favorite, 18 or so songs. The “Next” folder will contain the rest. Any new songs I write will either replace one of the “Best” songs and bump it to the “Next” folder, or will just go into the “Next” folder. I was thinking I might just continue this way. Whenever I’m ready to record, I’ll record the 18 best songs I have at that time. But really, it’s just an experiment at this time. I like the idea of not stopping writing. I’ll have to see how it works out.

I posted a whole bunch of videos this month. I’ve been working on making youtube video playlists for all of my albums, at least since 2005 or so, and I’m finally done with that project. This involved not only creating the playlist and putting the album versions as well as “live” and Rogue Poetry Slam versions on that list, but also making new videos for the songs I hadn’t made videos of yet. This was fun and reacquainted me with many songs I’d forgotten about, sometimes forgotten entirely. Sometimes I ended up dusting off a song and playing it out again, which was a nice bonus. This month, I completed youtube video playlists for You Are Wrong, My Song Now, Terms Of Surrender~Parts 1 & 2, Undiscovered Country, Plan B, and Where Will You Sleep Tonight? as well as a few videos for songs that had slipped through the cracks for earlier playlists, for a total of over 60 new videos! I know. It’s ridiculous. But the project is done…at least until the next album. You’ll find links for these newly completed youtube playlists as well as all the others below in the “Videos” section of this post.

I also posted a “how to play” video for my song “Rumble Strip” and a video from our annual “Bob Dylan Birthday Bash” at the Wild Goose. So much fun. Next month we’re going to do “Waylon Jennings”, an artist I like but don’t know any songs by, so that will be fun to delve into.

So in total, I posted 65 Music videos, 4 T’ai-Chi videos, and 1 Nature video. Links to all of them are in the “Videos” section below…

Upcoming Shows:

Wednesday June 5^th, I’ll be hosting my regular Themed Open Mike at The Wild Goose Café & Bar. Usually this happens on the First Wednesday of every month. This month's theme is “”Songs Of Summer” so musicians and spoken word artists will be doing songs and poems, covers or originals, that mention or are about this theme in any way. We’re never too strict or narrow about the themes for this event. The main idea is to focus our attention a little to hopefully inspire and motivate us creatively. These are always fun community events. No Cover at the friendliest bar in Ashland. Sign-up is 7:30pm. Show starts at 8:00pm.
*A heads up for next month: Wednesday, July 3^rd, 2019: “Smokin’ & Drinking”

Saturday, June 15^th, from 10am-Noon, my good friends Jesse Biesanz, David Brown and I are hosting a Hacky Sack session outside the former Caldera Tap House on Water Street in Ashland. We’ll be under the overpass. This usually happens on the third Saturday of every month. We missed the fun and camaraderie of a good friendly Hack Circle and…more importantly, we missed the practice! It’s fun, aerobic, cooperative, demands balance, coordination, quick thinking and accuracy…So whether you’re new to the game, or an experienced player who wants to brush up your skills, or an expert who just wants to meet some new players, come on by. Hacky Sack basically involves keeping a small footbag in the air, usually leather and fairly soft, using only your feet. When there are more than two players, it’s usually played in a circle. If the circle gets too big, it is split into smaller circles.

The only rules of this Hack Circle:

1. You’ve got to use your feet to keep the sack in the air and off the ground. No hands! (10 voluntary pushups if you do)

2. If you miss or otherwise screw up, you can’t say, “I’m Sorry.” (10 voluntary pushups if you do)

3. No serving to yourself. (10 voluntary pushups if you do)

4. No hotdogging. Meaning this is not about how many tricks you can do before the sack hits the ground, and it’s not about working obsessively on tricks. Tricks are fine but in general, we want to keep the hack going as a friendly group and keep everyone involved.

See you under the bridge rain or shine. The overpass provides shelter from the rain and once the circle gets going, you’ll be plenty warm regardless of the weather.