I'm sitting here at 7:50am on Sunday Oct 17th. I've just spent the weekend at the Ontario Council of Folk Festivals conference in Ottawa ON. Three nights of performer showcases, three days of workshops and conference info and three solid days of networking. It's been awesome and I have reconnected with old allies and made some new connections that I hope will help me as I go forward into booking next year. One thing is becoming clearer to me. I need to scrap some of my recording efforts and start over. Good thing that there is a recording pannel this morning chaired by several great record producers. Maybe I'll learn something? We can only hope.
As for the fall tour, I'm sad to say that it's not much of a tour. Due to family issues and timing I wasn't able to book very much work so I'm going to table the grand tour idea for now and start working on a proper tour next spring. Fear not maritime fans I'll get to your town to bring the gospel of blues ukulele to you! I'm also beginning the process toward working in Germany in 2011. If you have any contacts in Germany you'd like to share, please send them my way! It's a very exciting prospect and I think it will be an awesome tour but for now it's just thinking. I need help.
I think sometimes as artists we stare into the abyss that is our career choice and can whither and fade or feel energized. I have felt the fear and found myself second guessing my gut and I'm sad to say that I gave in briefly to that fear. But I have found my resolve and turned the car around and am now headed down the path I had intended to travel once again. After my summer tour I was a little freaked out by my choice to play only the ukulele going forward and started to think I needed to showcase guitar as well. I think that is true in my live show but the real special thing I do is play the uke. I play it like the devil is dancing on my fresh dug grave and that needs to be seen and heard. So in so much that I am a ukulele player and that my passion and joy is the ukulele I hearby resolve to not shrink in the face of adversity but instead to buckle down and overcome the challange with the four strings that have sustained my spirit thus far. Do I hear a seconder for the motion?
I second that, with gusto. And frankly, I'm not sure you need the guitar at all even in live shows. The sound you get out of those four strings is absolutely mesmerizing!
ReplyDeletein the words of the immortal Bob Dylan- "Don't Look Back".
ReplyDelete