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 Page 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’m already 9 songs into my next album project. I’m hoping to
end up with 18 as I did for the last two projects. I like the format of two
“programs” of 8 songs each with an intermission song between them and a bonus
track at the end.
Spring has definitely come to Southern Oregon bringing with it
warmer temperatures as well as wild weather swings over the course of a week or
even a day. We’ve had sun, rain, hail, wind, calm, you name it. And of course
with the spring comes flowers, flowering trees, and pollen. I’ve been doing
really well with hay fever for the past few years…hardly taking any medication
at all. This month I got slammed with what I thought was the worst hay fever
reaction I’ve ever had. Even with every medicine at my disposal I was barely
able to work. This happened right as the “Townes Van Zandt Birthday Bash” was
happening at the Wild Goose Café & Bar here in Ashland. I didn’t want to
miss it and neither did my buddy who also suffers from hay fever. We were
sitting there pretty miserable and finally he dashed over to a nearby drug
store and got us some of that generic “flow-nase” stuff…basically steroids you
shoot into your nose…and that finally helped a little bit. I went up and had a
great set. The band (Jef Fretwell, Jeff Addicott, and Dave Hampton) picked up
on the songs right away and played really well. And the crowd was great too. Unfortunately,
I put the wrong camera in my tripod and it ran out of batteries almost immediately.
When I got home I was so inspired that I took another snort of steroids and
recorded a little Townes Van Zandt House Concert. See link in Videos section
below.
I made it through one more day of work but the next day both my
buddy and I were full-on sick. We realized that we had colds not hay fever and
were both laid out for a few days. I was actually a little relieved to find
that it was a cold because I’ve been doing so well with the hay fever. Anyway,
it was a cold I wouldn’t wish on anyone that sapped my energy pretty good, but
I recovered relatively quickly and it’s now well behind me.
I got some good news this month. It looks like I’ll be playing
another “Green Show” at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival this summer. This will
most likely be the best show I get this year. Always a pleasure to work with
OSF. The details are being worked out but I’ll keep you posted as things get
confirmed.
I posted 8 videos this month, 1 T’ai-Chi and 7 music. The music
videos include the Townes Van Zandt House Concert and 6 videos from my 2009
album “Up For Grabs”. I also created an “Up For Grabs” youtube playlist which
includes videos for all the songs including “live” and Rogue Poetry Slam
versions. See links in 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 April 3rd, 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 our 7th
Annual “Songs About Fools & Foolishness” 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, May 1st, 2019: “Planes, Trains & Automobiles”
*A heads up for next month: Wednesday, May 1st, 2019: “Planes, Trains & Automobiles”
Saturday, April 20th, 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.
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.
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: 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.
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. https://www.paypal.me/GeneBurnett
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. https://www.paypal.me/GeneBurnett
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
1 new T’ai-Chi video:
7 new Music videos:
Album playlists:
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.
GB
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