On The Highdive. Issue #3

This week I'm getting ready for my show at the HIGHDIVE in Fremont. My friend Greg of THE BRADBURY PRESS and 17th CHAPTER set me up to open for TREVOR RAS this Saturday for a early Happy Hour show @ 6:00pm. $5 gets you in the door, and I'm really looking forward to getting back as the last time I performed there was the one-shot show with ULTRAVIOLET. I still call it "Suite G" all the time on accident (the former name of the club) because LT would play there every month for a while there. It's going to be a blast to get back to one of my favorite places to play, and above is the poster my good friend BRIAN MEREDITH made for the event. Brian is a Comic Book writer/Local business owner who regularly helps me in making up for my lack of Photoshop skills. It took me a while to find someone who would be paid in microbrews and Aquaman pics attached in emails. They're hard to find...

I went down to the Highdive on Thursday to put up flyers, and also checkout my friend Patrick of EXPLONE play with Brinton Jones of PALOMINO. Brinton is in town putting the finishing touches on his new record, and a couple of months ago I had the chance to sit in and listen on one of their final recording days. It sounded great, and we're all looking forward to hearing the final tracks. Patrick also plays with RED JACKET MINE, a band headed up by songsmith Lincoln Barr. Their new record should be coming out in the next few months as well, and with a few friends having soon-to-be released albums, it really kicks and inspires me in a good way to get something out soon.

As we live more and more in the era of digital downloading, I find myself in a very different place perspective wise these days as to how I would like to release future recordings. All through the LT years, we would spend thousands recording in big studios and printing up beautiful packaging with lyrics, photos, etc.

Part of me still longs for the time of cassettes, but that's another story...

What I'm trying to say here is that I firmly believe in the very near future that CD's and record shops will be a thing of the past, and that album releases (not only physical) will be dinosaurs as well. You will be able to get ANY album, ANY song, ANY movie, ANYTIME you want. There might be some of you who say, "You can do that now, so who cares?" Well, it will also be LEGAL, and that leaves us musicians to question how will we ever make up for the 13 cents the record company would otherwise give us off of each album sold? Seriously though, I believe that fans of music and art will go back having more interest in live performance due to the anytime access of free media, and that will be a great thing. One side is the argument is that with the mass stream of free media we will become increasingly closed off to the outside world in a 24-hour bombardment of entertainment. Possibly, but I'm seeing people wanting to be even more connected in the physical way as a kind of a rebellion of sorts. Having good performances will start to hold more weight in the grand scheme of things, and more emphasis put on a real connection with the audiences in general. What is the artist really about? What do they stand for? What are they trying to say?

Does anyone else feel the same? Let me know...:)