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Greetings Blainreaders on Lockdown. It's wearing me down a bit… you too I expect. But even though I'm not very motivated, I've been keeping up the Sunday Blaincast (2pm at facebook.com/brianblain.musician). I've been doing a batch of original tunes every session and now, at Episode 12, I'm starting to run out!
The month of June is African-American Music Appreciation Month (decreed by President Jimmy Carter in 1979) so maybe I'll dig up a few old blues – not that I have that many in my repertoire. I want to do my bit for Black Lives Matter – I won't be out there marching (I get tired walking around the block) but as someone whose entire musical output is so rooted in the music that came out of the black experience, I stand in solidarity. Last week I sang a song by Bruce Murdoch called "Down in Mississippi" which is pretty heavy. Not your usual Brian Blain fare.
But the good news is I've had a bit of a flurry of new songs. Part of the momentum came from my new Blaincast segment, "Write-a-song-with-Brian." Three tunes in the last 2 weeks and another one percolating. I've had some participation on my last two "Write-a-song" sessions though I've not used any of the lines provided so far and those songs are pretty much wrapped up. I guess they were very close to completion already. This time I've got one line: "You Won't Hear the Shot that Kills You". Or "You Never Hear the Shot that Kills You". And I've got a preliminary riff to go with it and a few ideas floating around but I hope I could encourage a "professional" songwriter or two to jump in this time. You've got between now and 2pm Sunday to collect your thoughts. Maybe we could even do it on Zoom and play with the chords a bit…
Regular Blainreaders will know how I love to jam and, in the current socially-distanced reality, the "holy grail" I've been seeking is a program that would allow real-time jamming over the internet – and now one just showed up on my radar thanks to Alex Pangman who will be doing a live jam with her band on Saturday (on Facebook, she's Alex Parker). The program is called JamKazam and I just saw a pretty impressive demo. There will be jamming online….I knew it! The Campfire will rise again!
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I'm always doing a couple of things at the same time but this is ridiculous. At top of mind is the MapleBlues newsletter which I have to wrap up but instead I'm sitting in front of 3 screens and flipping audio on and off from a couple. On the iPhone I'm attending an online webinar at a music convention that would have been happening in California but is now online (and free). Modernmusician.me At this moment, it's about songwriting "try to go deeper on one idea. Instead of moving on after you have a couple of good lines, but ask yourself "what else can I say about this?" So the whole verse says one thing.
On the computer screen I just watched the Spacex launch (success!) And, as it ended one of my blues heroes was playing on Facebook Live. The amazing Jimmy Johnson - surprised to hear him talking about his 90th birthday. But there he was, playing tunes and hoping for a few tips so he can get his amp out of the shop. And if I had another screen I would have been watching the riots on CNN just to see if America will self-destruct before our eyes.
If I had sent this a little sooner, the lead item would have been "Bandcamp waives their revenue share in order to help artists and labels impacted by the pandemic." I am new to Bandcamp but I've got a couple of singles up at brianblain.bandcamp.com and if you buy yours before midnight, ALL the $$$ will come to me. We used to say "there's hundreds of dollars to be made in this business" but these days, it's "pennies". Not complaining…pennies add up to dollars (eventually)
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I've been spending more time on the iPad than the TV these days. Amazing to discover so many new artists playing Live on Facebook or YouTube. This month's MapleBlues has a good list of blues-friendly events coming up and I've added a couple of other links:
The June MapleBlues (digital edition) is now online and includes a nice list of upcoming blues streaming:
http://torontobluessociety.com/june-2020-loose-blues-news/
Here's another great link to who's streaming when:
https://www.cbc.ca/music/an-up-to-date-list-of-canadian-live-streams-to-watch-during-covid-19-1.5500113
If you're streaming yourself...
I've been talking a lot about streaming with a lot of colleagues and listenened in a few online webinars and workshops I have gone back to some notes I made to put this together for a meeting at the Toronto Blues Society to see how we can support the blues community and put on a few streaming events ourselves. The TBS will be streaming a guitar workshop on
I'm no expert at streaming but I've been doing it longer than most - I was streaming from my back yard more than ten years ago and I wouldn't be surprised if I was the first person to stream a showcase from the Folk Alliance. It was 2011 in Memphis and I had one of those late-night room showcases so I set up my little Macbook and used U-Stream (which was probably the only game in town) and did my set for a handful of viewers. It went OK and after me was a group called The Sweetness with Chloe Charles and I asked if they wanted me to stream them as well and they said sure but after them I had to restart and next up was a young and eager singer songwriter called Melanie Brulee. She also wanted to stream but I was having a little trouble getting it going again and I could see her starting to fume as she was watching the precious minutes of her time slot being wasted and finally she (or maybe it was me) said "never mind." It's one thing to be streaming yourself from your back yard and something else to be making it happen for someone else with a strict time limit.
Some guidelines that I've ignored (at my peril)
- Test, Test, Test (before you go Live) If you make a change to the setup/settings, test again. Facebook allows you to make your stream visible to "Only You". YouTube lets you make it "private."
- Have a back up plan. If a battery dies or the computer crashes, have another device available
(I have a few more tips I picked up and I'll be adding them to my Streaming Guide on www.torontobluesdiary.com).
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I think last month I was raving about the webcasts from Kid Andersen's Greaseland Studio. So creative and phenomenal performances – from Rick Estrin among others. This month my discovery also has the name Andersen (no relation that I know of). San Diego-based Missy and Heine Andersen knocked me out – his approach to guitar is so great. That's how I want to play. Check them out at www.missyandersen.com
The Toronto Blues Society is going online with a couple of events:
- Monday, June 15, noon - TBS Presents Meghan Parnell & Dave Barnes (of Bywater Call) as part of City Hall Live Series. Funds will be raised for Unison Benevolent Fund. Live on @ CityHallLiveOnline & @TorontoBluesSociety Facebook page.
- Monday, June 15, 7pm - National Arts Centre Road to Canada Day - TBS 35th Anniversary Concert presented in association with Music By The Bay Live. Livefrom the Small World Music Centre w/ Jenie Thai (7pm) and Jack de Keyzer (8pm), both in trio format.
- Thursday, June 18, 5pm - Cootes Paradise Video Premier. Shot at Hugh’s Room Live and drawn from their soon to be released EP “Downstream”, the live version of “The First Time”.Followed by a virtual interview of the band by DJ Ken Wallis.
- Saturday, June 27, 2pm - Guitar Workshop. Hosted by Jack de Keyzer w/Fraser Melvin, Suzie Vinnick and Madagascar Slim.
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I'm playing at a music festival not far out of town (maybe it was Hillside). I don't have a guitar and I have a last minute opportunity to play on the big stage. I'm running around asking anybody/everybody if I can borrow a guitar but no will lend me their guitar. I wake up thinking I'm going to have to get back to the city to get my guitar but it will probably be too late. And then I remember the time back in the early 70s at the (first) Winnipeg Folk Festival when I was playing with Fraser & DeBolt. They were about to wrap up the night with everybody on stage (probably to sing "Dance Hall Girls") and Daisy comes up to me and says Bruce (Cockburn) is going to play with us but he doesn't have his guitar so can you let him use yours because mine doesn't have a pick-up. I said no - that I wanted to play my own guitar so Bruce played hers and it was all good except I'm probably the only person on the planet who wouldn't let Bruce Cockburn play his guitar. And now it comes to me in a dream fifty years later....
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Thanks for reading this far. Feel free to forward this to any friend you think might enjoy my occasional ramblings (and maybe my music, too). These clips and more are always available on my blog, www.torontobluesdiary.com.
See you out there, eventually...
BrianB, aka Butch, Nappy, Shaker, Two-Lane Blain, Colorblind Brian, Stringbuster, Buddha of the Blues
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