The Interstate Chronicles
The tales of a songwriting road gambler...
Friday, December 20, 2024
Random Chrustmas song thought...
Thursday, April 18, 2024
Stay Tuned...
Haven’t posted here in awhile, but I’m going to do so on a much more regular basis going forward, considering blog content is now going to be an offering for Inner Circle subscribers.
Huh?
Yeah, I know. Part of
the reason I haven’t been posting is because I’ve been caught up in developing a
marketing campaign strategy for Interstate Island, through a stellar program
developed by the guys at “Modern Musician” for, well, modern musicians. I thought it interesting that Sheryl Crow
posted something recently complaining that no-one buys music anymore… yes Sheryl,
in this age of streaming, that’s what life will be like in the 21st
century and beyond.
Recording artists now need to get very creative when it comes
to developing pathways to sustain careers in this industry. And that’s extremely important, because without
those pathways to support the development of new music, there will be no more new
music. It ultimately comes down to the establishment
of a new covenant between artists and listeners… artists will do their best to continue
creating the kind of music listeners want to hear, and listeners will do what
they can in order to support those efforts.
That new bond can manifest itself in a variety of different
ways, but where I think it significantly benefits listeners is that they will
now have access to artists in ways that were simply never possible before. In the 70s, Elton John would release a new
album, and within a few weeks, millions of people paid roughly $10 for the
right to hear it whenever they wished.
But… if you could go back to that time and ask a fan what it was like to
connect with Elton on an internet livestream, or spend a week with him on a
luxury cruise – what would that fan say?
(Spoiler alert: she’d say, “what’s the internet”?)
So, yes, as everyone knows, times have changed dramatically –
in some ways that have presented a great many challenges for creators, but also
in others that present amazing opportunities for artists and listeners to
connect in ways that were never possible before.
Stay tuned, my friends...
Monday, November 6, 2023
Miscellaneous Thoughts on a Monday Morning…
The Islanders have a .650 points percentage ten games into the season, which looks decent on paper – but they are not playing well. Still not convinced Lane Lambert is the right coach for this team.
Returned a week ago from a blackjack trip to the heartland during which I was backed off from three straight sessions – which I’m sure was the result of a local flyer. So, I played poker the last couple of days, along with catching an Isles’ road game, which they won with a shutout. Always nice to experience a win in the opponent’s barn. Heading to the PNW Friday, where I will catch yet another Isles’ road game…
Found an interesting poker “home” game this past week… was looking for something closer to home so that I don’t have to travel as far to the local poker room to get some hours in. It’s an interesting setup, with two full tables and professional dealers. A bit like Molly’s game, which makes me wonder if they are somehow compensating the local authorities to keep themselves in action…
On the music
side of things, the album was officially released a couple of weeks ago. We’re apparently getting some play at college
radio at various locales throughout the country (and even some spots in
Canada), which I thought was pretty cool.
The reality is, in this day and age, any chance for real success will
have to come from licensing revenue derived from film/tv/ad sources. The marketing guys in London are working on
that; fingers crossed…
Wednesday, August 16, 2023
Preparing For Social Media....
The whole social media concept is very new to me - but the reality in today's age is if you want to build a career for yourself as an artist, you've got to do a lot more than just record and release songs. Particularly if it takes four years to record an album. (Well, hopefully that was just for the first one... lol)
Discovered a website that allows for things like the recording of splitscreen interviews; I've reached out to Matt to set aside some time where we can both chat about the recording of this record and related topics... should be a cool item for the facebook group, and make for some nice additional shorts on youtube.
The video for "Requiem" is coming out Friday; I'm hoping it comes across as a fitting tribute to 9/11s heroic first responders. Filming the final video for the album on Sunday, for the "All Of Our Lives" ballad. That'll be the the most introspective track of all for which we've created and released videos...
Sunday, July 30, 2023
Driving through Minnesota...
Friday, July 14, 2023
The River Checkraise...
2-3 is a minefield. With position and KhTh on a JT7K7 rainbow board, I went for what I considered a reasonable value bet of $60 into a $175 pot (particularly given his river check), and got checkraised all-in for effectively another $310 by a middle position limper. Well, I'm not going to call that bet when he could have easily had a straight or spiked trips... what else was he representing? After my fold, he proceeded to table AK.
Limped with AK, and then checkraised all-in with one pair on a board replete with possible straights and boats. Now, here's the thing... if he had some kind of read, figured my bet showed weakness and turned his pair into a bluff, then props to him (I still haven't been able to figure out how the whole "blockers" thing plays into that). But that wasn't the case... I asked him if he thought his AK was good there, and he responded affirmatively that there's no way he could fold a hand as good as that.
Maybe I'm an idiot for ever folding two pair in a low-limit live game!
Anyway will try again this weekend before heading out next Friday for a blackjack trip to points in the north/central U.S. Location with phenomenal games... lots of 4 deckers with good rules and deck penetration. And so it goes...
Thursday, June 22, 2023
Hearing It For the First Time...
It's come up in a few recent conversations how it's pretty much impossible to hear your own song for the first time, since by the time you've finished writing it, recorded the demo, tweaked it, and gone through the formal recording process, you've heard it hundreds of times over. By the time it gets to a finished stage, you're almost kind of sick of hearing it.
Yesterday I came up with the chorus for a new song for the first time in awhile... I was inspired by a lyrical concept as I was heading out the door for about a twenty minute drive - and by the time I had arrived at my destination, I had the lyrics fleshed out along with a melody that I was able to sing into my phone recorder.
Listening to it fresh today, it dawned on me that this is pretty much the only way that I can truly hear one of my own songs for the first time... when I first come up with the melody and work it out on the fly, I haven't memorized it yet. So... when I listen to it a day or days later, it's brand new to me - and it's somewhat similar to that concept of buying an album and hearing a song for the first time. It's the only way I can ever experience that feeling with one of my own songs.
Thankfully, this one's a keeper - and I'll look forward to it appearing as an actual release at some point over the next few years... lol.
Flying out in the morning for a west coast blackjack trip; first extended one since January...