Today I had the pleasure of not only having his company, but also of having Hey Skipper of the Daily Duck treat me to lunch. He's every bit as insightful, thought provoking, and witty in person as he in his posts and comments and I thoroughly enjoyed my time with him. This is the first time I've met in person a "virtual" friend from the blogosphere and given the positive experience, I hope to have the opportunity to meet more blog friends in the future.
A second blog friend, Jeff Shattuck from Cerebellum Blues, just finished his first album. I've listened to it several times now and it's an amazingly, stunningly, jaw-droppingly good album. In fact, it's really two amazing albums as there are 14 songs. As a song writer I'm feel very humbled by his accomplishment.
Jeff Shattuck's narrative prior to the release of his album was that he suffered a brain injury and "woke up" with a "rekindled" desire to write songs. My feeling was that this was a great human-interest story that could be leveraged to help sell his music if he wanted, almost regardless of the quality of the songs.
That's all out the window now as he's proven himself to be a truly great song writer. The background is no longer interesting in comparison to the music.
My 15 year old daughter also likes the album a lot so the music appears to have wide appeal. The chord changes are innovative and sophisticated so I was concerned that it might be what I call "an album by and for musicians", where the appeal to mere mortals was limited, but my daughter walked into the room when I was first playing it and quipped, "I really like this song - who is it by?" and has since really enjoyed the rest of it as well, so I think most people will enjoy it.
5 comments:
Bret, thank you, thank you, thank you. Your feedback means the world. Can I ask what song your daughter heard first?
Jeff, I think it was "Coming Together (By Falling Apart), but that's because it's toward the beginning. She's since heard the whole thing and likes many of the songs. When she heard "Indecision" she said, "I've heard this one on Pandora." Is that possible? Or is she just confusing it with something else?
Bret, thanks. To my knowledge nothing is on Pandora, though I would like it to be. Will work on that... someday.
[Hey Skipper blushes]
Interestingly, I asked Bret how your music was getting along.
At the risk of genre pigeonholing, most of what I have sampled so far of CB would fit comfortably (both in terms of style and talent) on our local country music station.
Country isn't my first choice, but it is my first choice among everything else. My wife, for whom country is sine qua non, will love it.
Pushing the iTunes download button in 3, 2, 1 ...
BTW, Bret you make excellent road trip music.
Hey Skipper,
Glad you enjoyed the music. Thanks again for lunch.
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