|
March 27, 2010: Added the video from recent
downtown New Bern events.
March 13, 2010: Over the last several days,
set up a Cold Biscuit Band site.
February 6, 2010: Started playing around with WordPress, normally a
blogging tool, to see how it works for content management in a non-blog setting. Set it up to work in a subdomain
I've had for a while as a test bed for whatever I might decide to mess with. It's called Area 75. So you can
see the beginnings of my WordPress CMS experiment here.
January 9, 2010: Embedded the First Night New Bern 2010 video on this
page, replacing the link.
January 1, 2010: Decided to start the year out with some updates.
First off, last night I played my first gig (other than the blues contest last September) in
a long time. The event was New Bern First Night and I played with a band called
Cold Biscuit. We played inside at the Farmers Market and had a great time.
Second, I have some older news that I hadn't gotten ’round to posting yet. Back in August, as I
was prepping for the blues contest, I got an email from an old friend, Paul Sammarco. Paul was leader of
Captain Nathan, a band that I played in back in - get this! - 1970-1971.
This local Syracuse band was the background track for a great time in my life.
Paul is a composer, arranger, and producer, and president of
P&J Records. I have since had the opportunity to
listen to two records he produced for his wife, pianist Donna Sammarco, and another pair of his own
offerings. I highly recommend these recordings, along with Paul's skills as artist as well as the other
skills mentioned above.
And third, I have removed the links on my site to my OnlineRock blog, since OnlineRock opted
to drop this service. I wish to thank the operators of OnlineRock for the few years that they hosted this free
blog service, along with other benefits. Before the files were erased from their server they gave me the
chance to download all the entries. I plan on formatting these and adding them as a page to my site. It should
be great fun to have that here.
September 12, 2009: Great news! I was blessed to be one of the
contestants at the Raleigh store final. Thank you, Lord, for giving me this opportunity.
Although I was not picked to go on to the next stage of the competition I want to thank Guitar
Center for providing the opportunity, and in particular I want to thank the Raleigh store staff, the judges,
and the other contestants. Everyone was great to work with and I really enjoyed the two chances I had to play.
I'm a firm believer in the old adage that, when one door closes, another one opens. I know that
the Lord has something yet for me to do, and I'm looking forward to discovering what that is. Meanwhile, the
contest has had me practicing more and harder than I have in a long time, and I intend to keep that up.
September 3, 2009: Great news! I was one of the two contestants at
the third preliminary night chosen to return next week for the store final. Thank you, Lord, for seeing me
through this event.
I've already chosen a new track to play with for the store final. Just need to practice hard
for a week.
August 27, 2009: So we drove on over to Raleigh today after work
to try to catch a little of the second preliminary session in the King of the Blues contest. Of course the
earliest I could leave work was 5:30, and I had to run home first, so we didn't get there until almost
quarter to eight, just in time to hear most of the last contestant's performance.
But I did accomplish something. I verified they still have me on the list for next week. And I got
to see the selection of amps available for use (one of the rules of the contest is that you don't bring your
own amp; instead you use one of several provided by the store). And of course I got to see the layout of
the performance area.
I've narrowed my choice of songs for the preliminary to one of two. I'm working out some
basic ideas for that song and will know for sure before the weekend is out if it's going to be the one.
Hopefully I'll have good news to report next week.
August 11, 2009: More on the Guitar Center King of the
Blues contest: Store preliminaries are held on Thursday, August 20, on Thursday, August 27, and on
Thursday, September 3. I signed up to do my thing on September 3rd in Raleigh.
Right now I've gone into the accelerated phase of preparation. You get to choose
one out of 25 pre-recorded tracks to solo with. I started narrowing down the choice on Sunday,
eliminating 10 of the 25 songs. Last night I eliminated 10 more, so I'm down to five to choose
from. My plan is to have my selection chosen by Friday and start working out the details of how I
want to play it.
I'll be reporting my progress here, without revealing a lot of detail.
August 2, 2009: Cleared out some dead trees from the site.
Around here they call it "bushogging."
July 17, 2009: Wow! It's been a while since I last
updated the site - almost two years! So I've spent some time this evening doing a little bit
towards a facelift. This first step involves mainly just cleaning out a few things and giving
some quick updates. This phase will hopefully be completed in the next week or two.
The next phase will be an actual facelift. A new look and feel is long
overdue, and I plan on moving some features from here to my SyntheSpider.com site.
Right now I want to give a few quick updates on what's been happening over the
last couple of years. After spending several years at the same church we finally decided it was
time for a change. Nothing against the old place; our needs have changed. So now we attend
Temple Baptist Church. This has been an unlikely move for us in a couple of ways. First, we thought
we wanted to go to a smaller church and ended up at the biggest church in town. Second, we
began back in the Cuse as United Methodists, but when we mooved [spelled correctly if you live
in New Bern] down here we stayed UM for a while and ended up Church Of God. And now, Oh Lord,
we're Baptists!
Segue -> Since leaving our old church a little over a year ago I've had little
opportunity to play out. That's about to change. A few of us are forming an as yet unnamed
contemporary P&W band. So far the practices have been good, and we've got some opportunities to
play out in the (fairly) near future. The intention is to be playing where we can have an impact
on folks who normally, for a variety of reasons, are not in church. This has been my goal for
several years now. Playing in church can be rewarding, but seeing people moved to know Jesus
in a non-church setting is what my heart desires to be involved in.
Also on the music front, I did something really whacked out last week. I drove to
Raleigh and entered myself in this year's Guitar Center King of the Blues contest! I told you it
was whacked out.
On the home front, our oldest son, Eric, has entered the National Guard. He completed
his basic training at Fort Knox and is now finishing up his AIT at Fort Jackson, SC. We plan on
seeing him graduate early next month. A couple of years back I participated in younger son Andrew's
baptism at his church over in Lillington. His pastor did the talking and I did the dunking. It was
awesome! Our daughter Brenda, back in the 'Cuse, is doing well. Meanwhile, amidst everything else,
Wendie is recovering from recent knee surgery.
August 11, 2007 and updated July 17, 2009: Just got home a
while ago from this year's New Bern, New Birth
event at Union Point Park here in New Bern, NC. It was overcast and pretty hot out, but we
all had a great time. I got a chance to play with some musicians I worked with last year
and some new ones as well. So this evening I'm just taking it easy.
When we first moved to New Bern from Liverpool we bought a house. Then a
couple of years ago we decided to simplify things and move to an apartment. Well, it
turns out that we really need to have the privacy you get from living in a one family
dwelling. So we're buying another house, this time a brand newie.
One of the advantages of being back in a house will be the fact that a home
studio works better in a house than in an apartment. To complement the new studio, I have a
new mixer, a very nice Audioarts D-16. It's designed as a radio board and doesn't have EQ,
but I do my EQing either ahead of the board in the mic pre, or later in the mix, so this
will work out well.
I've also started a new web site. Way back in the day I used to have a
business repairing equipment for bands. I called it Synthespider Electronics, and I
maintained it for a few years before finally deciding I was working for less than minimum
wage. Well, I recently decided to resurrect the name, or at least the first half of it,
in the form of
SyntheSpider.com .
This will probably turn into something like SyntheSpider Virtual Synthesis before I'm done,
but for now it's just a web site. The first step, hopefully to be done soon, will be to
move my gear oriented pages from SoaringSpider to SyntheSpider. After that I will probably
do some articles about music technology in worship, and eventually plan on developing some
music tech type software. More later.
January 19, 2007 and updated July 17, 2009 and January 1, 2010:
It's been a while since I last updated, so let me do a brief summary of what's been
happening over the last few months.
First, As One played our big gig. It went very well. The Holy Ghost was in
the house! Not sure what the future holds for As One. Time will tell. -- [Update: Time did tell.
We didn't do anything as a group after that.]
Next, the blog.
[Update: I used to show a link here to my blog at OnlineRock. This blog is now gone, but one of
these days I'll post the material on a separate page on this site.]
One cool thing has already come out of it. I had forgotten, but when OnlineRock first offered
the free blog to members they mentioned that a prize would be awarded to the person who
made the best use of the blog during the first three months. So guess who won? That's
right, SoaringSpider Notes was the winner, and a few weeks back I received my prize, a 2
gig iPod. Cool and cool. -- [Update: 2 gig doesn't sound so big any more but it was pretty
darn cool at the time!]
And I'm also seriously looking at a second CD project based on the blog's
list theme. You'll have to wait until I post the material here to see what I mean. Right now I'm not sure which
CD project will get done first. -- [Update: So far neither one has gotten done first.]
October 8, 2006 and updated July 17, 2009: As One Ministry has
played out three times now, and are getting ready for our fourth outing, a two hour stint
at a 24 hour worship session in Greenville, NC. Rehearsals for the big event (October 21st)
are going really well. They all seem to turn into worship sessions, which is what we want to
do anyway. I'm excited about this.
August 5, 2006 and updated July 17, 2009 and January 1, 2010: As One Ministry made
its first public appearance today at the New Bern, New
Birth event at Union Point Park in sunny New Bern, NC. Well, sunny it wasn't, but
we all had a wonderful time in the Spirit. This was a great opportunity for As One Ministry
to step out for the first time. What a blessing it was to have that opportunity. We also
were asked to do some worship at a church in Washington, NC, next Sunday. And speaking of
opportunities, I also took the opportunity this morning to start using the free blog that
has been provided for OnLineRock users. [Update: removed the link here since the blog is no longer available at
the old address.] That's right . . . dw in the blogosphere. That's an interesting concept, having a place
where you can journal and the whole internet-connected world can see what you have to say.
Makes you want to try to say something important.
July 9, 2006 and updated July 17, 2009: Originally
made this entry to make a few announcements. First, I had had the opportunity twice in the
previous two months to play at the church my son Drew attends: Crossroads Church in Lillington,
NC. The first of these times was the first time we played together in a worship service
since before moving down here from Central NY. What a blessing it was to have that
opportunity! Second, I'm still working on the CD project, but it is taking a lot more time
than I originally hoped it would. I'm not prepared to set a new date, but I'd like to
finish it up this year. Third, I'm scheduled to play at an upcoming worship event in New
Bern on October 21st, 2006. For more details
see this page. During update I revised the linked page to remove some unnecessary info. It now tells you about the
special event (now well in the past) and a couple other gigs the group assembled for that event also
played. Fourth, I'm working on a new song. I just wanted to get the title online before anyone else
thinks about using it: The Url Of The Chaldees.
It's about (obviously) the address of Abraham's first web site.
August 28, 2005 and updated July 17, 2009: Announcing my first
CD project:
Focused. Flexible. Faithful. At the time this was first announced we were in an apartment, so the following clever and witty line
was included: I will be recording most of this in my apartment studio. Sadly I haven't forced myself
to finish this project yet, having let too many excuses sidetrack me. But don't you give up on me;
I'll finish it yet!
I generally end up revising text in several places whenever I update; this
usually means just a word here and there gets changed as I read something and don't like
the way it sounds.
|
