]]> http://www.alexnelsonmusic.com/2010/02/30a-songwriters-festival-video/feed/ 0 http://www.alexnelsonmusic.com/2010/02/i-think-its-time-to-euthanize-my-myspace/ http://www.alexnelsonmusic.com/2010/02/i-think-its-time-to-euthanize-my-myspace/#comments Wed, 03 Feb 2010 17:31:28 +0000 nelsone http://www.alexnelsonmusic.com/?p=733

Here lies myspace

Everytime I start to send out an email to you guys I just start typing and typing.  Next thing I know it’s super long and I start thinking “who is going to read all this?”  I can’t help it.  In my head, you guys are talking back to me so sending out emails is like having a conversation with you.  I promise though, I’m going to work on keeping those short.

Luckily, those rules don’t apply to me here. phew!  So I’ll begin my ramble now…

First off… myspace.  It’s dead.  let’s admit to that. I’m tired of updating it and looking at it. Like many people I have more than one.  One I started some time ago before I actually headed in the direction I’m in now and then a new one for the album.  I’ve noticed that things have been dying off over there for some time. In fact, for the last few months I haven’t gotten anything from you guys there.  Just about everything now is through facebook.  So I’m thinking of just deleting those account entirely or just putting a RIP image up.

Next…

The Wallflower Gallery

Some ‘are we there yet?’ videos are almost done.  I have three pieces that are going to go up first.  They are informational pieces on The Wallflower Gallery in Miami, Central Square Records in Seaside and DaVinci in Deland.

These are three places I played in January that the owners were very much into supporting music and pushing independent artists. I want to put these up as a thank you to them and to also allow them to introduce themselves in their own words to any other musicians/artists.  So if you’re a musician and looking for a place to play, I totally recommend looking up these three places.

Also, I’ve got Day1 of the 30A songwriters Festival all edited and just waiting on some other minor post editing shtuff to happen.   This project is taking a little more time than I thought it would but it’s worth it.  Definitely learning a lot of things about video production.

road trip (again)…

I’m getting ready for the trip up to DC. This should be interesting. I think I’ll document my travel into the cold part of the world for “are we there yet?”  In my opinion, there is a lot of stuff in the Element. It’s packed.  I even took a seat out.  I always try to leave space in case sleeping in the car is necessary.  It’s been awhile since I’ve driven in snow.  But this is going to be cool.  Hoping to ride up through the night and make it there by tomorrow.  Did something similar last year when I went up to North Carolina. I know know, this is further!

The main reason for going up is to play a show as Crash Basket.  A band I was formerly in with Paul Roub and Marhall Wilner.  We’ve been talking about getting together for years but things haven’t worked out until now.    On friday night, Paul and I will play individual sets and then on saturday we’ll rock it as Crash Basket.

I’m super stoked that I’ll also see Gordon Withers.  He’s my buddy that recorded the cello on my album.  Gonna try to rock out with him as well.

On the way back, I’ll make a stop over to Eddie’s Attic in Decatur, GA and see how things go.  I’m nervous and excited all at the same time.  it’s tingly.

So that’s all I got so far.  Time to go finish packing and getting everything ready. I’ll be in touch.  Next up I’ll do a follow up to killing the myspace.  The next will be killing the pictures musicians take with train tracks. No more train track pictures guys! ok?

talk to you soon.

hotel courtyard

late bed time.  I believe it was 4:30am when I finally laid down to try to get some sleep.

It was a overcast day and finally rolled out of the room around 11am.  Some friends that had come up from Gainesville to attend the festival (who are obsessed with the Indigo Girls) were already in line at that show.  I had gotten a txt from them around 8am that they were in the line already.  I was hoping that I would be able to make it to the show but having woke up late, I had some things I wanted to get done.  As a result of the Indigo Girls show, some of the events were postponed and this ended up working in my favor.

Central Square Records

One of the things that I wanted to do was to get to Central Square Records and have the guys film an intro to their store for my ‘are we there yet?’ project.   So we headed over the store, hoping that there wouldn’t be too many people there so that they would have the time to do it.  And… they did!  There were people there however as Louise Mosrie was just finishing up her in-store there, but the guys still made some time.  I’m hoping to post what they did soon.

After that, it was a walk around the town and trying to decide what to eat.  While we were getting some outside shots of the Central Square building we ran into the sound guy from Bud & Aly’s from the previous day.  Since everything was pushed back for the Indigo Girls show, he was waiting in Seaside for things to get back on schedule.  He couldn’t make it down to the IG show because he was driving a large shipping truck so we just told him to hang with us.

We ended up at a nice restaurant right next to the record/book shop.  I can’t recall the name.  Mostly because my tooth, which had started to bother me the night before, was really killing me.  Needless to say, I worked through the pain and ate my lunch.  The highlight?  The sound guy telling our waiter that he was serving a ‘platinum selling recording artist.’

After lunch it was back to the room for some string changing and warm ups.  I had no idea where the time went, but it seemed to me like the day was flying by.  Well, waking up late couldn’t have helped.  I thought I was going to have to rush, but we received word that the IG show was being delayed a little bit.  From what I understood the show was being held at a stage on the beach.  I was just imagining it being super cold and perhaps windy and wet.

So then, with new strings on it was time to head to the venue.  Packed the guitars into the car and headed out.  The venue was Caliza at Aly’s Beach which was where we saw Matthew, Susanna, Amy and Shawn the night before.  This venue was also right across the street from where the Indigo Girls were playing.  The parking situation was crazy.  Lines and lines of parked cars.  Luckily, we were able to park near the venue entrance.

Once there, we were able to listen to the last few songs of the IG show while we let the sound engineer for this show to warm up and setup some additional equipment.  This show was with Bob

Corley, Effron White, and Blake Guthrie.  Once the Indigo Girl’s show was over, people started pouring in over to our venue.  It filled up rather nicely. The host for the night was Kevin Boyle whom I had met at my show on Friday night.  All in all, this was a great show. It was a little cold and I think you will see in the video that I’m rubbing my hands together a lot.  But it was great.

After the show I stood around the merch table and met some of the people that came out. It was great to see people who had seen me from some of the previous appearances I had done.  It meant a lot that they took the time to come back out to see me.  I’m super appreciative of this.  I think this is a little better than selling things because it reaffirms for me that the feeling that I am doing what I think, what I feel,  I should be doing with my life.  Performing. Playing music. Is right.  I’m making a connection.  (don’t get me wrong, I like to pay my bills too!)

Once things settled down at the merch table I started to pack things up. This was my last performance for the festival (this was the last night) and I wanted to head over to see Carmel Mikol and Cody Copeland play.  I got distracted on the way out because the guy who wrote “people are crazy” was up on stage.  So I watched a little bit of that before heading out.

Carmel and Cody were at the Rosemary Beach Town Hall.  We were lucky enough that on our way in we ran into Mr. Troy Evans.  On the phone, of course. This is how I remember him for most of the weekend.  HA!  Kidding.

The Town Hall was an amazing indoor venue.  Cody and Carmel blew my mind.  They were performing alongside Ryan Parker and Michelle Luchese.  An amazing round of performances.  As with a lot of the performances at the festival, I wish it could have gone longer.  Troy, Christy and  myself had a great time.

Matthew Sweet

After that we left Cody and Carmel to deal with the swarm of new fans and headed over to see Matthew Sweet.  That would be our last show to attend for the night.

went back to room. packed and watched psych. got ready for leaving next day.  bummed it’s over.

It was called Central Square Records.  They already had someone playing upstairs as we were walking by.  Ed & Tom were super nice.  I was able to book an additional in-store for the next day at 4:30 following my show at Bud & Alleys which was just a short walk across the street.  At Central Square I’d be able to play a full set as the other performances I was scheduled for were ‘in the round’ style.  Tomorrow there will be a workshop with Shawn Mullins.  I think it’s at 1pm.  Oh boy. I’m gonna have to wake up early.

So after being the record store for a while we headed over to have some lunch before the party got started.  Walked over to where the party was taking place (Bud & Alleys) and the line stretched out pretty far so decided to get a burrito at the burrito bar.  Can you say delicious?   When they opened the door to start letting everyone in, we headed over to the artist entrance to check out the festivities. Many thanks to Adam for escorting us over to the entrance after I ran over to grab John Oates to let him know to come with.

The party was killer.  Packed.  After opening up everything with a song by a fellow member of the community (I can’t remember who, sorry), Susanna Hoffs and Mathew Sweet came out to perform songs from their new cover project.  We stayed for as long as we could and I would have stayed longer if possible, but it was time to go back to the room and start getting ready for my own show that night.   If I wasn’t so responsible I probably would have stayed until the end of their set.  HA!  I had to be dragged out.

After about an hour or so of practice it was off to Stinky’s Fish Camp for the first show.  It was really cold out.  Much colder than I’ve been used to in a long time.  This particular venue was a ways off so we had to drive there.  From the name, I was a bit weary of the place, but once there, it wasn’t what I thought it would be. Mental note:  stop assuming the worst.  it was actually a great venue and it was packed.   It was the name that threw me off.  It seemed half locals and half people attending the festival.   Either way, the audience was attentive and the talent amazing.  It had started to drizzle a little bit and I went outside for some air.  There was a side door open for us to have some space to stretch out as there was no room in the venue to do this.

Effron White

Another cool thing about the night (and later with the other venues) was that there were large paintings at each venue from artists that were hung behind the stages as backdrop.   This particular painting had a local musician on it who was rather popular in the area.  Unfortunately, I cannot recall his name.   I played with Effron White, Kailey Billings and Bob Corley.   I had seen Effron earlier in the day at Central Square.  Effron is from Arkansas.

Kailey is actually near where I’m from.  She is a student at UM.  She had a style that, to me seemed like a mix of

Kailey Billings

Jazz/pop.   really enjoyed it.

I was sandwiched between Kailey and Bob Corley.  Bob was great.  He gets you laughing and thinking about the things you don’t think about.  And that’s a big bucket, from not putting out a new TP roll to the strong arm of large corporations.

All in all, a successful night.  A special thanks to Kevin Boyle for the beer and kind words!

Bob Corley

Now I’m back in the room.  Getting ready for another marathon of Psych.  What?  I’ve got three seasons on DVD to get through?

Or perhaps Day zero?  It’s Friday morning or Thursday night.  Depends on how you look at it.  Woke up early this morning around 6am and started the drive up to Santa Rosa Beach to the 1st Annual 30A Songwriters Festival.  The festival officially starts tomorrow but today the organizers are holding a private party for the performers.  A little get together to celebrate the start of the festival.  Tomorrow evening will be the ‘official’ kick-off party which will be open to those who were able to buy tickets.  The festival sold out a few days prior to today.

Tonight I met several of the artists that I’ll be performing with over the weekend including Bob Corley, Kailey Billings, Carmel Mikol, K.C. Clifford, Cody Copeland as well as many of the event’s coordinators.  So many people so many names.  Some pretty big names here as well.  Headliners include Matthew Sweet, Susanna Hoffs, Shawn Mullins, Rodney Crowell, Jeffery Steele and the Indigo Girls.  I got to meet Emily Saliers tonight at the party.  Super nice.

It was a great night.  I haven’t heard anyone play yet aside from what I’ve heard on the myspaces and such, but just from meeting them I have a good feeling things are going to be really great.  The event is SUPER ORGANIZED.  Amazing.

I arrived in the afternoon and proceeded to check in. Everything went smooth. The accommodations they provided were amazing and the area was gorgeous.  Santa Rosa Beach is located in Florida’s panhandle.  It’s got a super soft, super white sand on the beaches.  Just amazing.  Anyway, just checking in tonight.  Gotta start getting ready for tomorrow.  Show starts at 8:30 pm over at Stinky’s Fish Camp.   I’ll be collected some video to be posted later when I get some time to go through it all.  In the mean time, here are some photos.  The motel had a courtyard with restrooms.  I liked the way they labelled them “men” and “women.”