Burlap and Blues, The Blues Blog

I can’t think of a better way to end this month that National Honesty Day. We started this month off with April fool’s day, a day dedicated to politicians, and we end this month with national honesty day, a day dedicated to everyone who is not a politician.

Every month I monitor the number and amount of music, photos, blogs read etc from the Burlap and Blues site. This Month (April 2009) we have had over 100 hours of music downloaded from our music database. This is an astronomical amount of music played! Thanks to our many contributors.

What kind of musician are you? Yesterday we talked about “Loud Boy”, “The Arrogant”, and “The Mad Bass Player.” Today we will discuss players that are just as bad, “I don’t need a tuner”, “four four is one more than three three right?”, “I’m not screaming I am singing!”

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Busking, or playing for tips, is a new thing for me. I gave it a shot this weekend at a local breakfast place called Brother Junipers with mostly good results.
I got in around 8:45 in the morning, got set up and started playing. Traffic was pretty slow at first – it was a Sunday morning after all – so no tips for awhile. But as traffic picked up I started to get a few bucks here and there. I stopped to eat breakfast, which by the way if you are ever in the Memphis area you HAVE to eat at Brother Junipers at least once – absolutely delicious breakfasts; then went back to playing for about an hour. All in all I ended up with about 17 bucks, which I suppose isn’t too bad for about 2 full hours of playing.
It was an interesting experience and I learned some things. One, I shouldn’t expect too much – after all I’m really there to provide ambiance, not to put on a full concert. Two, location is important. I was kind of back in a corner at the end of a short hallway - good for acoustics - but people actually had to go back to my corner if they wanted to listen – or give tips. Three, I think I’m better playing with a band than by myself. While I love playing that fingerstyle Andy McKee type stuff what I really thrive on is playing with other people and the interaction you get as you trade licks back and forth and explore grooves and riffs. Also I’m more of an introverted person so it would be nice to have someone to work the crowd. Four, I learned to just relax and have some fun with it – after all people aren’t paying really close attention, not like they would at a concert.
Overall it was fun. My wife was there taking video and clapping for me so it felt like I had an audience. Next time I may try a different location – maybe outside. Also I’m gonna try to rope some friends into helping me out so we can jam on a few tunes.

What kind of musician are you? Are you a confident and quiet, noisy and boastful? In the next few days I will comment on different types of musicians. Today I will start with the “Loud Boy”, “The Arrogant”, and “The Mad Bass Player.”

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How do you teach your self how to play? What ever you do in life in you have to decide how you are going to learn and how you are going to improve yourself. Every task that we do we have a responsibility to do more than just learn what we are taught. We have to improve ourselves by taking what we have learned and molding into our self. Do not keep yourself too wrapped up in being one specific musician’s copy.

Yes today is national zucchini bread day. Did we really need a day to celebrate the bread made from the vegetable that most closely resembles a weed? Have you ever seen a monster zucchini? These veggies can grow upwards of 3 feet easily. As much as I am not a fan of growing these odd veggies, I have a soft spot and zucchini bring back good memories for me.

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I would rather play with someone who knows that they can't play then someone who can play and lets the world know how darn good they are. There is something to be said about playing with a talented musician, and there is something about playing with someone who knows what they don't know

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We have all received that E-Mail telling us that we have won Lottery International for Sum of Dollars Million Three U.S. Three Thousand Sum of. With scams like this infiltrating our email box every day, sometimes a new scam can throw you off, and I almost got suckered into a new one targeting musicians.

My Myspace account has several songs that are very guitar heavy. Last week I received a MySpace message asking if I wanted to open for this national known shredder group. I replied, hey what the heck... What I did not know almost cost me a little money, and maybe even my equipment.

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Happy Earth Day to you. What ever sparked us to have an earth day? Was it because we needed a wake up call, or what. You may know that I am not a believer in global warming, but I think we should take a little time and thank whoever we consider a higher power for our earth.

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Released last week to a few select press memebers, a secret document from Wilson's personal papers was introduced as verified. This document stated clearly that Wilson, in a frustrating moment, wrote this relating the whining of the American people.

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Have you ever needed to contact tech support and wondered who you were talking to? I am going to relay and actual story that occurred with me when I contacted AOL tech support 4 years ago when there was a service outage in my area.

Just to give those of you who do not know me a little background. I have been programming computers since the 1980’s. I programmed computers in high school, while I was in the military, and most recently as a partner in a small software development company. I know a little about computers, and I know when the internet service is not available.

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Blues, and just aint gonna be the blues, that's just the way it is. I wrote this not blues manifesto a while ago, but decided today was a good day to share this with my friends here

Dings in your SUV. Can't be blues, that's just the way it is.

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Happy Birthday to BURLAP AND BLUES dot COM. Yes, today is the day of our creation. Created out of the uprising of the ashes...

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Today is the Anniversary of the death of the KOTB website. www.gckingoftheblues.com. Happy deathday to you!

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Americans are now in a daze from intaxication. Do you remember the days of writing out your taxes and bringing out the abacus.

A businessman was near death and made arrangments for his remains to be sent to the Internal Revenue Service with the following note: "Now you have it all." Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust, Income to the IRS..

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It's 12 O'Clock (central time) DO you know where your guitars are.. I do!

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Playing guitar is awesome. It's more than just fun, for me it's an outlet, an
expression of myself. There are few things more fun than learning new licks
or working out chord progressions or learning a new song. But it's even more fun to get together and jam with friends. One of the most relaxing things for me is to jam for hours on end with friends and just make stuff up along the way. This is what Dan and Jeremy and I did over Easter weekend.

Saturday afternoon my friend Gabe and I headed over to Dan's house on the river. It's a bit out there in the boondocks but I think that might be part of what makes it relaxing for me - the house is out of the city and overlooks a real pretty stretch of the Tennessee river with the Appalachian foothills in the background. We got there early afternoon and thankfully we had a dedicated drummer and bassist this time so Gabe and I didn't have to put our very rudimentary drum/bass skills to use. We got set up and just jammed for about 4 or 5 hours with a few breaks here and there. The drummer and bassist had to take breaks but I didn't and Dan jokingly said that "as long as there's a beat Brian'll keep playin!" I suppose he's right, but I was just happy to be there! Everybody was in top form that day - Jeremy, as always, bringing the killer riffs, Dan playing some great blues harp fills, the bassist and drummer laying down a solid rhythm section, even Gabe, who insisted he was rusty, brought some great licks. Someone would come up with a riff and everyone else would fall in, adding some chords here, some
fills there, then the drums and bass would fill it out and we'd have a great jam goin. At one point Jeremy even had some nasty sounding slide work over a driving blues rhythm (and by nasty I mean awesome). The only downer was that we weren't able to get any pictures or video this time, but that's okay. There will be other times I'm sure.

As I said, jam sessions are great. There are few things more fun than jamming with a bunch of friends. Some guys bond over fishing, some over bowling, for others it's football - for me it's a good jam session with my buddies. But what I'd really like to do is resurrect Max's old plan. Before it fell apart, Max had a plan for a meeting at Dan's house for any and all who would like to come, a weekend long jam session for any who wanted to participate. I still think it's feasible sometime in the future and if there's serious interest in it I say we work it out.

Today is blame someone else day. So take a little time to do something horrible and blame someone else.

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Okay, this has nothing to do with BAB, KOTB or anything else that is relevant to what we have been talking about, but when you are routing for your team and they fall down 12-1 them's the blues.

Sometime during the week of April 7, 2008 the decision was made to disembowel KOTB. Harmony Central was contacted and agreed to host the refugees from KOTB. On April 14th Harmony central made the post and developed the forum for reception of KOTB refugees.

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After the online contest was completed, KOTB decided to give away a few guitars. I believe one was an SG and I couldn’t be 100% sure what the other one was.

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For those of you who were a part of the 2007 GC KOTB contest, you may remember the neat little packet of information that you got once you signed up for the comp. In fine print on the bottom of the page was a little statement talking about how GC was looking for community as well as hold a competition. Even though this was a great idea, it finally backfired on GC and their holding company.

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Do I need to say anything else?

We have had some great funny band names contributed by the BAB'ers over the past 12 months. I wanted to dedicate a post to all of the great band names that were created or rediscovered on BAB and originated on KOTB previously!

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As we are all aware, there has not been a King of the Blues contest for a few years, and there is no plans on having one any time soon. Each year though American Idol gets millions of voters every week calling in and voting for their favorite vocalist. After my experiences with KOTB and American Idol, there are some similarities and many differences!

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Tuesday finally came and my wife and I made our way down to Rockford IL. I got all dressed up, polished the LP, put new strings on her (at that time I was using 9’s), got my shoes all polished and shiny and made sure that there were no particles of food stuck in my teeth. As a meticulously obsessive person, I got there as early as I could. They asked that performers not get their before 4 P.M., but not later than 5:30. I pulled in the parking lot at 3:58 and waited to go in.

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In late January 2007, I was visiting the local Guitar Center looking to purchase a small PA for some upcoming small shows and noted all of the signage relating to their 2007 King of The Blues Contest. Having recently placing in the top 5 of the winter 2006 Johnathan Coulton Code Monkey Remix contest, I decided that I could go forward and enter the contest. They took all of my information and gave me a CD and I was set that I was going to enter this contest and do well.

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Burlap and Blues has set up the first weekend contest of 2009. This contest is unannounced and the winner will decide who gets to pick the genre for the next contest.

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Today is national Tweed Day. Tweed has a very important place in our lives. We have tweed covered amplifiers, tweed covered guitar cases, and even a tweed-e bird on the cartoons. Tweed is a rough, unfinished woolen fabric, of a soft, open, flexible texture resembling cheviot or homespun, but more closely woven. It is made in either plain or twill weave and may have a check or herringbone pattern. What would the blues be without tweed?

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Yes, we were called the Valets, let me explain before you pass judgment on me!

After I finished my service time in the U.S. Army, I continued with the desire to want to play in a band on a regular basis. The last few months when I was in the service I became friends with a dude who showed me some great music including the Strawberry Alarm Clock, The Chambers Brothers, The Buckinghams, and other great unheard of bands from the 1960’s. So when I met up with a bass player who was looking to start a band who played unheard of music from the 1960’s I was excited to join.

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Yes, it is April 1, 2009. If you are reading this, you probably have not been completely pranked yet, or if you have you are reading this to let off some steam.. But maybe not.

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