REAL LIFE LIVERS

Toe Knee Stanger Album cover. "Under Construction" c.2k T.K.S.

The album took almost 2 years to build. I added tracks to live sessions that included hand picked musicians. My right hand man was Emo Langbeen, a former manager of one of my midwest bands. This time around he played bass, brought the micro-beers and held the groove together. I still have many tracks to build from sessions Emo and I did, before the rest of the band showed up.

From foundation to launch , I was designing/creating a sound/image and marketting strategy that was intelligently built from years of experience filming live shows of Bay Area bands (filmed by me) for my cable access tv show, The Toe Knee Show (10 years in Palo Alto and continuing). I'd filmed bands that played similar music and watched the women feeling so much joy (for those other bands) that they danced in ecstasy (but not because they were on ecstasy) ... sometimes ripping their shirts off to let the boobs spring up and down... I bet that feels great!
.........

Those bands got those responses because those life giving sounds encouraged their audience's, inspired their audience's dreams and helped solidiy their worlds. And this is what it takes to build a true following. Band or no band.

I had seen the audience that (if bands I had been in , back in Iowa and elsewhere) were brought from the past to those moments of that present time were comparable...in other words, I had seen huge audiences , first hand, dancing to similar music (to the stuff in my past catalog)... and I knew the audiences I had moved in Iowa in 1984, would have been 300 times as huge in California... if I had done it here back then... There was still an audience for that music. I searched the similar bands, similar sounds and saw those huge smiling dancing friends.
In theory, this was still waiting for me in 1998... so, I ponyied up what I had to offer.

For the first time, I targetted a sound for meeting that audience via intelligent mixes, and far better voicing (than my past preformances)... so I knew it could happen, it ws just a matter of time.
I wore myself out giving speaches about it in every practise (my band then called "the Dream Acres"). I knew where I had built myself up to... so I hand-picked humans ahead of musicians, but ones who could play from the heart... the only problem is that none of those other players seemed to be able to envison the goals I saw so easy to meet.

The cd survives, .... Emo got transferred to another state by his company and my nearest/dearest musician friends did not understand ... so that process was almost incomplete. When they lagged, I put a couple of thousand hours into the production of our times shared, in the form of this cd.

There are live radio broadcasts (two shows, two different stations) and other journies that will eventually be released as separate projects.

All those people temporarily faded away. and I have taken the last few years to squeeze all the learning out of that recent band in order to create something better NOW.
So.

EVEN IF I am left with the reality that I can use this cover and shop myself as a solo tourist, I still keep on the look-out for newcomers who want to come along...

Interestingly enough; The folks I know touring to support their music make less money on tour than some folks make working at Mc Donald's.

Internationally known musician friends tour non-stop and their bus is their home, the road seems to try to tear them apart... but the shows they do empower them for the ride and the next show... it's a cycle that feels (for them) at times, like just a long streatch of dirty backstage rooms....
... and they seemed to have become addicted to the only way they can keep sales of CDs happening. They were famous at first, but now they are reaching out to that audience directly in each scattered city/town/ country/state/ Ouch.

Then, of course, there is (are) the folks like Willie Nelson, who has done that stuff and everything in between. Every place he goes, he visits old TRUE friends he has collected along the way. As far as I can tell, he is actually happy while he does it... and that's something to shoot for;

Celebration, friends and happiness.

I guess the dream of getting good enough at it to bring along (re-meet) family and friends is even better than any money ...that other stuff just doesn't compare to really enjoying the process like Willie does.

I guess it helps Willie to know (empowers him to keep moving, through sobering real life loss of his dear friends Johnny Cash, June Carter and Waylon Jennings - also folks I have met) .... It makes a difference if you, like him, know that you have to make the steps you are walking in REALLY COUNT.

Philosophical questions for you and me:" The question I ask myself, is this... IS it equal ? ,
If you work at a Mcdonalds or a Burger King, you meet a couple hundred people one on one each day....is it equal to meet people and connect one at a time over making chance, hamburgers and french fries... or is there something more to risk - taking on behalf of your talent/music/comedy (whatever) that benefits all concerned if you leave your safe home, travel hundreds of miles each day, through the cold of winter and deliver your music to 30 or 150 people?

2 weeks ago, if I'd had the $, I would have filmed yet another musician acquaintance on that path, trying to expand their future by doing so.

How would time between now and the time I try again be best spent?

For example, Would time be better spent (instead) just practising before I do my own tour, separate myself from people long enough to polish my skills for the next tour, or would a day's moments be better spent just going to the Kentucky Fried Chicken stand and saying hello to a freind who survived Breast cancer that works there?

Wouldn't affirming her life, and loving her as she filters a reflection of me, here, combined with her kindness match an audience of 150 encore?

Or better it???

So many people claim to do music, tv, business, live... just to get laid. If they just did that, directly, wouldn't that be a singles club and practise with schmoozing, and wouldn't we all be better if they left the music , film, business aside?
Our lives would be definitely better if they just went for their happiness and left us out of it.

This is the yardstick I apply to my own process. If I believe in my music/art/life/creativity, for me, that means honoring the gifts I have been given by developing them for the betterment of others.

There would be less struggle for me, if I could just deliver that when I am ready again. But I know it will be uncomfortable to share stages with other bands who may have different goals for why they do what they do.


Since we all know that the challenges of the modern day involve being able to manuever through intense competition with people who just want fame, have no real music.... and worse, once they get paid huge dollars, they just buy a yacht.

I have been inclined to study the way folks give back to their audiences, and enrich the world through opportunities/money they share with the forgotten.

Bruce Springsteen has done this consistently, which is why I contacted him to just give him a painting and thank him.

He has enough people selfishly slipping him cds and expecting what they hadn't earned.

If I earned something, it will seek me out.

Let's hope it's more than just battles waiting.


... but in the end, Aren't the ones who serve us coffee at Starbuck's, and our friends right next to us more important to holding our world together then musicians/artists or others who travel through but have no vested interest???

...I want to live indoors again (and not illegally in my rustic studio), I could possibly change that faster on 8 dollars an hour working for Starbucks.

It's a sacrifice to keep improving d be here to bring this to you.



You have never seen this blog. But you do now. I have hundreds of images, hundreds of songs and in theory I have become better at what I do. Let's hope it inspires folks who work their counters for us, to bring their visions forward... because, we all know we need more beauty in this world.

What you have to creatively express, we all need.



What we have TOO FEW OF , are paintings, songs stories from real life livers....So, bring it on forward, folks!!!!
... and if you are not yet ready/polished enough, then polish and practise whatever it is, until it's good enough to present on a stage/canvas/in a show or in your smile...

.... then sing it from your soul deep.

Thank God for Mp3s and file sharing!!!