The Best Music You’ll Ever Make

As a result of a personal growth seminar he is participating in, Philbillie is producing an event called "Twang for Tots," a benefit for a children's music in the schools. It all started with our dear friend and fiddler Marisa Martinez who teaches at one of the most financially impoverished schools in San Francisco. We kept hearing horror stories about funding cuts and teachers spending out of their own pockets for the most basic supplies like pencils and the books. All these years, Marisa has been quietly buying art supplies for her class and teaching them to sing and draw. Phil and I went there once or twice to sing for these little munchkins. Once was Halloween. They loved it, they all sang with us and we watched the parade in the playground. But there were some sad and troubled kids in that classroom to be sure.

It has been a long-standing dream of Marisa’s to create a children’s CD, and so she has finally done it with "ABC and Chickens," www.abcandchickens.com with our good buddies, Eric McFadden, Paolo Baldi and others. Philbillie produced and engineered it. Marisa did the artwork, sang on it, played on it, wrote all the songs except a couple. I was pleased that she covered an unreleased song of mine, “Schroedinger’s Cat,” whose subject matter I thought was pretty advanced for the kidlets, but Marisa assured me that the meowing cat on the track would work just fine for them. So bleary-eyed Phil went down to the school bright and early to record the kids singing on several of the tracks. As a treat Marisa bought a pizza. Some of these kids don't know where their next meal is coming from.

Phil and I have regularly played shows for Bread and Roses, an organization that provides music for people who live in institutions or are otherwise isolated from society. They are dedicated to promoting wellness through the healing power of music. We’ve played rehab centers, cheered up abused moms and kids in shelters over Christmas, played for mentally disabled adults who could barely talk, but sure could sway to the music. We always have an indescribable feeling when we do these shows. A light feeling in the soul. It’s why we do it. The best music you’ll ever make is for the ones who need it the most.

Twang for Tots Benefit for Friday, June 4^th, 7 PM

Restoration Workshop

630 Treat Avenue

San Francisco, CA 94110-2016

415 671-5219

Philbillie@gmail.com

Broken Record

Scarier and scarier, cried Alice (she was so much surprised, that for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good English); I wonder how we will ever make enough money for treacle and new shoes, now that we must give away all our beautiful music for free. No one wants records, or tapes or even CDs now. How will we ever manage? Poor dear little songs! What will we do with them? How will they ever find ears to appreciate them? And she began to cry. But slowly a plan began to take shape in Alice's mind. Why, we'll sell them outright to television shows and adverts and films...yes, we'll take them to market and sell them outright. No matter! she said bravely. And so she tucked her precious songs into a lovely basket with bright blue ribbons and started off for the covered market. But much to Alice's chagrin, as she approached the market, she saw a long line down the lane, full of other people carrying baskets with even brighter ribbons, even shinier songs. Poor Alice! It was as much as she could do, to gaze on the endless line meandering like a great snake; but to get through was more hopeless than ever: she sat down and began to cry again. And then she began to blog...

Blossom in the Dust

I promised myself I'd write once a month, and here it is, only 3 days late. Not like my new CD, which is, something like 2 years late. That's the blessing and the curse of the home studio.

Songs are like children. Early on, they must be nurtured. If neglected they eventually drift off like homeless waifs into the whorls of stars.

Odd that the saddest events in our lives can produce the most inspired songs. And what we hear out of the corners of our ears can become lines in those songs, and so I thought I heard my friend, Suz, say at the kitchen table one afternoon the phrase, "Blossom in the Dust." But she didn't say it. The song did get written, though. It was for my uncle, a wonderful man, a psychiatrist, naturopath and healer who decided inexplicably to end his life.

Around the same time I was contacted by a fan who lives in Belgium. He was grief-stricken. His son, Remy, had been killed by an automobile, did I want to write a song for him? As I listened to the grief of this man, while slung up in my own grief, I realized that this is a song for everyone who has had a loved one plucked too early from their heart.
http://jean-luc1952.skyrock.com/

It's been two years now that I've been trying to keep this child of a song alive, from floating off into the ethers. As the year comes to a close, I think I may too have finally finished it.

Ah, the moon
Is scarred with silver
And its face
Too far to touch
So pale
In the branches
Like a blossom
In the dust

Ah they told you
Life would hurt you
But they didn’t
Say how much
Cast your pearls
Back in the ocean
Cast your blossoms
In the dust

Take this flower
From your heart
Your tears have turned it
White with rust
Let the wind
Strip the petals
Scatter blossoms
In the dust

Love until
You are empty
Love until
You love too much
Love until
Love undoes you
Makes you blossom
In the dust

Halloween with Kelli and Metso

Why is it so hard for me to blog? I kept journals for years...Well, I guess there are paper people and techie types.
Oh well. Anyway, we've had our dear friends from the UK, Kelli Ali and Metso staying with us for few weeks. We met a few years back at Zihuatanejo Guitar Fest. A couple of weeks ago we did a beautiful show at Yoshi's, with Barry Melton, Stevie Coyle, and Caroline Aiken. Philbillie and I backed up Kelli, a refreshing change of pace for me. She has delicate haunting songs that really get under your skin. The organizer confessed aside to me, "I lost my virginity to a Kelli Ali song!" He told me was "Six Underground." Kelli laughs when she says she has heard that from a lot of fans. How many, I ask. Hundreds, she sighs...
Hallowe'en is our favorite time of year, and they have really got in the SF
Hallowe'en spirit. Metso, Kelli's beau, photographer extraordinaire, carved the most exalted pumpkin for our Hallowe'en this year. Also he took some magical photos, which you can view on Adrian Metso's facebook page (blogger not letting me post link, grrr!!) Like I said, there are paper people...

Rollin'!.....

Here's a cool feature about a recent session here at Okey Doke Studio working on Eric McFadden's latest CD co-produced by our own Philbillie. This was produced by SPINearth.tv correspondent Narayana and you can check out the full story at:
http://spinearth.tv/city/san-francisco
and...
http://7x7.com/blogs/clamour/studio-local-singer-songwriter-eric-mcfadden

See full report...

The Red Light Is On

Here at Okey Doke Studios, at a secret location somewhere in San Francisco, we have been making the Jenny Kerr Band records for, lo, these many years. And although mainly a private project studio, our facility has been host to some very special outside projects as well. Most recently our man, Philbillie, has been engineering and co-producing the latest effort from our good buddy and local guitar legend Eric McFadden. This one is the long awaited follow-up to the deeply acoustic "Devil Moon" CD of 2003. Also mainly acoustic based, Eric and Philbillie have brought in some more orchestral textures to this one.


Carla Kihlstedt, of "Sleepytime Gorilla Musuem" who has recorded and toured with none
other than Tom Waits, lays down her trademark ghostly violin.










Sam Bass of "Loop Station" and "Les Claypool"on cello












The Ringleader.



















Accordion Goddess (and Accordion Babe calendar girl)
Isabel Douglass. She also plays with "Rupa & The April Fishes".
















A fine, handsome group of kids and talented, to boot. This new disk is slated to drop this spring, including wide European release on Bad Reputation records in France, and we here at Okey Doke Records couldn't be prouder.

Well, it is inexcusable, even my mother has noticed the absence of a new blog, and you know mom's ALWAYS right.

So here we are back for 2 weeks from Zihuatanejo where we played for the International Guitarfest. It's our fourth time there. And this I think was the best festival yet. Over the course of the four years, we've made some wonderful friends, Jeanne, Rick, Catherine, Kelli Ali (from previous years) and of course, Heidi Nygaard, who was our most gracious hostess. She has the most beautiful house. Eric McFadden came with us for his second time on the festival. We all got to stay in this fab house! The house became music central for the festival, and there was jamming many a balmy Mexican night into the wee hours.

www.tomatis.no/mexico/Zihuatanejo.html

Eric's friend and mentor, Stan Hirsch, and supercool wife Trish came too. They stayed in the bungalow which is also on the property.

Stan does blues yes, but also mixes in his own edgy thing...he had some hispanola trippy melange in there...and he's got this crazy thumb/tremolo fingers isolation technique that is humanly impossible, yet he does it. It's been driving me crazy for years. How, Stan? How do you do it? www.stanhirsch.com

Stan and Trish shared with Patrick Sweany, one of my fave new players on the festival this year www.patricksweany.com. He made a grand arrival, getting totally soaked by the cabbie who had driven Pat way out of his way, on purpose and was trying to charge him like $100 bucks for a $10 ride. So there was a big yelling match in the street.

Now Patrick has the most soulful voice, plays gutbucket guitar, blues, ragtime, R and B, great obscure tunes and great tunes of his own...and knows song after song after song after song. But GOOD ones. The last night of the festival he was one of the last guys standing, 5:30 AM, I think it was, and he was still singin' 'em, fresh as a daisy. Well, maybe not that fresh, but at least he sounded good...







Here's the bungalow where those guys stayed: Oh yeah, I almost forgot this totally crazy kid guitar player, Lenny or Jay Leonard, Juatco...a young sweet guy, pretty fresh outta Berklee, and played as fast as a jackrabbit. What the heck IS your name, Lenny? Anyway, a whole lotta talent, and hysterically funny guy. The kind who leaps flying fully dressed with a guitar into the pool, although he didn't actually do this, it would be easy to imagine him. Hope I get to see him again sometime...

A special hello to Marianne, who inspired me and taught me a couple of truly magical things, but they're secret!

So here we are back in cool San Francisco, with only a few mosquito bites that are fading along with the memory of this year's Guitarfest.