An old Seattle music friend of mine--Jesse Stern--was passing through Ashland the other day. He played bass for free for me on my Time Of Wonder album back in the early 90's. It's a gift I'm still grateful for. I missed his visit but Samarra had lunch with him. He sent me an email to say--"Sorry I missed you. Hope all is well"
Here's my response, sort of a "What Comes Back--Part Two." I guess it's a similar post from a slightly different angle:
All is way well, especially musically. I'm making a little money and getting some good to great responses around here and on line, and that is encouraging. But mostly I'm just personally very happy with the songs I've been writing and for the most part, with the way I'm performing them. I guess I'm just happy with my "aim" as a writer and performer. I think I'm hitting the targets I'm aiming at pretty well. These targets have more to do with the way I'm playing and singing than with getting a particular response from the audience. Whether anyone else agrees either with what I choose as targets, or whether or not I'm hitting them is interesting, but not really that engaging or important to me right now. Public favor and success in "the industry" is not what I'm after. I want to write and record everything I want to, in any way I want to, and post it online free for five years and see what comes back. I have a Digital Tip Jar, a myspace page, a blog, a web site and a youtube channel, so there are plenty of ways people can "give back" if they feel moved to. Not just with money either. Kind and honest words mean more to me than money. (But hey, both together is Awesome.) What I hope is that enough genuine support, encouragement, money, and appreciation comes back to enable me to continue writing, singing, living, recording and posting. I'm in the second of a five year experiment. So far so good.
While I was writing this I was listening to Jesse's myspace songs. Man, he's got it going on. What a great relaxing, yet invigorating vibe. Reminds me a bit of Steely Dan minus about 1000% of the irony. Don't get me wrong--I love irony; but I also love sincerity. He's come a long, long way since the old days in Seattle.
Check out his myspace page:
Nice, nice work my friend.
GB
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