From Gene Burnett
We are in the midst of a heat wave here in Southern Oregon...over
100 degree temps…forest fires are burning and smoke is clouding the
skies…It will pass eventually of course…but as usual, we are at the mercy of
the wind.
And now with more personal news…
And now with more personal news…
Folks, I’m in the process of getting out of the
hard copy business with my various creative endeavors.
I’ve already set it up so you can only get hard copies of my
books through amazon or iUniverse…I put my Water Study Chi Kung DVD up on
youtube where you can watch it free…I set up my Poetry page at my site so my
two books of short poems are now available as free downloadable pdf’s…and soon
the option to purchase hard copies of my albums will be gone as well. So if you
ever wanted a hard copy of any of my albums, now would be the time to buy one.
To be honest, I don’t really sell that many hard copies of anything I do and I’m tired of keeping all the supplies that are necessary to do that…blank CD’s, books, mailing supplies, printing for 30+ albums, jewel boxes...I’m de-cluttering in other areas of my life too.
To be honest, I don’t really sell that many hard copies of anything I do and I’m tired of keeping all the supplies that are necessary to do that…blank CD’s, books, mailing supplies, printing for 30+ albums, jewel boxes...I’m de-cluttering in other areas of my life too.
All my music will still be available for downloading free or
with a donation at my site, I’m just letting go of selling hard copies on line.
With new albums, I’ll make small runs in those little cardboard sleeves that
I’ll sell or give away locally, but when the run is done, it’s done.
I’m also going through my other stuff, including hundreds of
movies, getting ready for a big sale I’ll be having later this year. Feels good
to be letting all this stuff go…I’ve been somewhat of a collector all my
life…the world was like a store to me…a place to get stuff…now, it’s more like
a museum, a place to look at in wonder and let me. I’m not sure if I’ve just
gotten older or wiser or if the collector “gene” has just petered out in me,
but I don’t care. I’m just glad it’s done! As a consequence of all this sorting
and sifting through stuff, I only have one new video this month…Round One of
the Rogue Poetry Slam. So I’m going to leave the links here from last month and
just add this one.
In other news…I will be recording a new album this month. 15
new songs and one new version of a very old one I wrote in high school back in
1975. The title will be “Better Off Broken” and I should have it done an up on
my site within a month or so.
Links to the new (ish) videos as well as my “Crooked Love”
video playlist are below in the “New Videos” section of this newsletter.
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:
Sunday August 2nd,
I’ll be performing from about 4:40pm
until 5:10pm at Grizzly Peak Winery
as part of the Jackson County Fuel Committee’s 5th Annual Folk Music
Festival. There will be many musical acts donating their time for this
great organization which, among other things, provides free wood to help low
income folks stay warm in the Winter. The event runs from 4pm-8:00pm and there
is a suggested donation of $10.00. Please call 541-488-2905 for more info.
Monday,
August 3rd, I'll be playing at one of my favorite Ashland venues, Liquid Assets. A relaxed living room
vibe with great service, excellent food and wine, and a really nice place to
listen to music. I'll be playing from 8-10pm, maybe longer...
Wednesday August 5th, 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 second anuual “Stones or Beatles!” night, so musicians and spoken word artists
will be doing songs and poems that are either by The Rolling Stones or The
Beatles, or about or that mention either band, or hell, about actual rock and
bugs. 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. 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, September 2nd, 2015 ”Country
(ish) Songs”.
Friday August 7th, I’ll be playing as part of the annual
CelebratABILITY fundraiser benefit for D.U.D.E (Disabled United in Direct
Empowerment). The event will run from 3pm-into the evening. There will be free
refreshments, silent auctions and all kinds of good music. I’m sure at this
point exactly when I’ll be playing…but I think it will be in the early
evening…like 6 or 7pm or so. If you’re out and about for the Ashland First
Friday Art Walk, swing by the Ashland Community Center near Lithia
Park, donate a few bucks, bid on some cool stuff, and listen to a few tunes.
Tuesday, August 18th, I'll be competing with many other poets at the Rogue Poetry Slam which happens at Caldera Tap House in Ashland. Sign-up is at 7:30pm and the show starts at 8. $5 cover, all of which goes to the winning poets. If you've never been to or competed in a Poetry Slam, I highly recommend this one. Come to watch, compete, or be one of the judges. Some people think of slams as hardcore hip-hop events or places where people are mean and talk trash, but nothing could be further from the truth. All kinds of poetry are welcome and people are very supportive. And it's so nice to participate in an event that is all about the words, or in my case, lyrics. For me it's really not about winning or losing, but just the fun of sharing my words with people and seeing what happens.
Monday August 24th, starting at 6:30pm, I’ll be opening for
and playing a few songs as part of a reading of Sam Younghans’ new one man show
called “Jung, Cayce, Einstein, Me, Sex & Religion”. The reading will be
free and will take place at the Ashland Public Library. Sam has had a long and
interesting life and the show will be a recounting of his thoughts and stories
about sex and religion and how they relate the work of the men in the title.
Tuesday,
August 25th, I'll be
playing at The Wild Goose Café
& Bar. Just me solo
from 8-11pm. Friendliest bar in Ashland. Never a cover at The Goose.
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
My newest album is called Crooked Love and like all my other albums (31 so
far…), it’s available for downloading free or with a donation at my website: www.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. 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 (www.GeneBurnett.com) 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
New Videos
My
“Crooked Love” youtube playlist. Includes videos for all the songs from my
latest album:
My
“Doubles Hitter” youtube playlist. Includes videos for all the songs from my
previous album:
A couple of
videos from the annual Bob Dylan’s Birthday Bash at The Wild Goose here in
Ashland:
Three Rogue Poetry Slam videos from
the June slam:
One new Poetry Slam video from the
July slam:
And one new T’ai-Chi video:
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 1200 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. I made it through my second year recently, and
hope to create another video slideshow set to another of my songs. Stay tuned…)
"Head" and "Boot" (devoted to our two gerbils)
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 7 or 8 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.
GB
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