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Showing posts from 2016

Apparently, I need to get cable.

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These are the cable shows that have licensed this song . I've never seen any of these shows. The last reality show I watched was "Project Runway" during the first couple of seasons. I kind of gave up TV when I went to graduate school and while I can certainly binge it out on Netflix with the best of them, I never have enjoyed reality TV much. As far as I can tell, "Kardashians" is, well everybody knows what that is, and the "Bellas" and "Divas" are about female pro wrestlers, and "Challenge" is a "Survivor/RealWorld" thing, and "Bad Girls Club" is, well, probably what it sounds like. And "Born This Way" is about people with Downs' Syndrome and that sounds really great. Despite my lack of, uh, experience with these shows, I'm very excited. In the world of placements this is definitely starting somewhere near the bottom. Don't ask me how much money it will make. But it's still somet

Sometimes you're the pearl #2

Sometimes you're the pearl, sometimes you're the swine. This is my cute thing that I say when my song(s) don't do well. And boy did my songs tank in the Smoky Mountain Songwriters' Festival Competition. I entered a few, and the last time I checked they're as good as the ones last year, but not one made the finals. This, as it turns out, is not the end of the world. Is it braggy to say that winning contests held me back in some ways? yeah probably. Contests were helpful to me when I needed confidence, but like David Wilcox says, "you can get what's second best but it's hard to get enough." ("Eye of the Hurricane" lyric). Apparently confidence is something I need to generate on my own, and I'm working on it. In the meantime, I get to actually have fun at the festival playing out and seeing my friends, and making new friends, instead of being in my own head about nailing the performance at the finals, and who's gonna win. Does

Also

Remind me to tell you about 1) the guy who didn't read what he signed and 2) Cheesy. I keep forgetting to write about those.

Patience.

When I was single, as a grownup, my friends and I came to realize that meeting someone, liking someone, feeling hopeful, talking, messaging, maybe even going out once, were no guarantee. So we stopped telling our friends. Because when you're 11 (or, in my case, 33), it's fun to talk to your bff for hours about what it meant, really meant , when he said "see ya later" or "I like that song too." But then when your friends ask you a week later "so did he call?" and (in my case), he didn't, it got old. Because, really, there was nothing to tell, so I stopped telling. I was just looking for someone to hope with me. When I was infertile, a good friend said that she would hold hope for me, because when you hope and then are disappointed, it's like the hope burned you; and you get to the point where you wish you could just stop hoping. But you can't. I've tried. I'm grateful that my infertility ended, and no waiting-for-music-business

FIRED UP

This is the second song I've written with Adam Byrd, who is a great collaborator who has taught me a lot. I wish Reverb would make it easier to say who wrote the song - when I go looking at artists it's really hard to figure out who wrote the song, and it's really hard for me to credit co-writers when I post a song. Sorry Adam. The guy who cut this song for us ended up not wanting to be associated with it, which is super flattering, the tale of which can be filed under "the guy who didn't read what he signed," which will be a spinoff blog post I will get to. Sometime. There is too much that is good right now for me to think about a that minor bit of unpleasantness. I like his vocal track well enough.

I can't make up my mind.

#bullying Bullying is kinda hot right now. A thing that a lot of us have been through (some from both sides) is now being talked about in a sympathetic way, when it did not used to be. It's hard to understand bullying when it's not a mean kid at school who hits you. It seems to me that when someone has power over you and abuses it, that's bullying. Except I am still not sure. I've experienced a particular thing that hurt a lot in the past several years where a couple of people in positions of power have used it to advance themselves, and had to throw me under the bus to do it. Is that bullying? Maybe. Am I just a crybaby who didn't get what I want? Also maybe. Can it be both? I think so. I know that I was raised to be tough and resilient, and I am, but I was also knocked around in ways I wish I hadn't been, by life and by people who I thought were on my side. Since the bullying has given me the tough and the resilient, I kind of appreciate it. The recent bu

The Worst Thing You Can Do to Me

In the songwriting context, that is. In the songwriter-education industry, there are lots of opportunities to get song feedback and critique, which I love and use. For the past couple of years, I've had access to an industry pro who's generally blunt, sometimes kinda caustic, and generally straight to the point from a commercial standpoint. I loved it. The first time she heard one of my songs, she hated it. So much. She thought that the verse was so long that she couldn't stand it (the chorus came in at about 45 seconds.) She wasn't rude or mean but she made it clear that the song was a little bit pathetic. I hate being treated like a beginner (it is, however, not The Worst Thing You Can Do to Me), and I was newer at this than I am now. I couldn't sleep that night and I felt raw and miserable from that kind of critical assessment. I can process all kinds of criticism and become grateful for it, but it's not pretty. She was right, and she helped me. A lot

Fireball

update: So it turns out that when you move songs around on Reverbnation, the links don't go with them. I move the bodies, they don't move the headstones. Thanks for that Reverb. I wrote the above song, which isn't linked anymore, with my co-writer Adam Byrd, who is a great writer and we have a great cowriting relationship that features millions of text messages, long arguments featuring lots of bad language, and good songs that actually get finished. Speaking of actually getting it finished, we are still revising. But it's coming along and you'll have to trust me.

This was fun

Really, really, really fun. This is "Bear With Me," at the Open Chord Brewhouse. Which is a great venue and I can't wait for my chance to gig there. More about that later. Special thanks to Diane Shelton for filming this. What I am saying before the clip starts is that I wrote the song with Fish: "he writes with everyone. He's kind of a songwriting.... slut..." P.S., I am not really this fat. The camera adds at least 35 pounds.