Category: my music & performances

my songs and shows

November News

We opened November with another great Sundaysong Singalong in Stacy Park. They keep getting better and the coolest people keep showing up.

Maile made a pot of Chai Tea and I passed out the first Singalong Songbook. This is the first draft of what I hope will eventually be a nicely bound book of dozens of songs with drawings in the margins. Listen to us sing on Soundcloud:

Sundaysong Singalong 11-2-14, Soundcloud player

I’m now on a perpetual search for songs about peace, gratitude, wisdom, friendship, higher love… Please email me if you have or hear any good singalong ideas for a Sunday morning.

As a musician trying to focus on what I do best and present it in the easiest, most authentic way, I’m frequently wondering about the seven music strategy questions in this survey:

Please click here and give me your perspective by taking
my 1-minute, 7-question, multiple-choice survey.

Thanks for any help with those question,
j

p.s. I went to Santa Fe for the week of Thanksgiving, took a ton of pictures and found a few artists I really liked.

November 2014 Singalong at Little Stacy Park

It was a gorgeous day and a gorgeous set of people this morning singing along in Little Stacy Park. Maile made a pot of Chai Tea for everyone, Gray played along on uke, lots of old friends and kiddos showed up, and the weather could not have been nicer.

My printed songbooks seemed to be a vast improvement on the transparency projector… we sat in more of a circle and people could actually read the words! Listen below to a few clips from our singalong set, on Soundcloud.

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October News

October was a month of fantastic firsts. We threw our first Sundaysong Singalong outside at the park to great effect. A bunch of cool folks came and really dug it, singing Beatles songs while kids make chalk art on the sidewalk. We’ll do it again the first Sunday of November.

Ralph and J Play Along on Waller Creek

And I played my first gig with my new battery powered pedalboard and vocal amp. My dream of amplifying the magic paid off, and I think Ralph and I were able to make that sweet spot into a dreamy space for the Friday lunchtime crew. This stood in stark contrast to the campus gig Ralph and I played the week before, by the turtle pond, without amplification, where I belted out the songs and struggled to be heard over all the distracting background activity.

Maile, Anais and I also checked out a cool festival an hour north of Austin called Art Outside. Considering that art outside is basically what I consider my mission these day, I had to check it out, and I’m glad I did. Cool music, vibe, grounds, and format. Weaving visual and performance art in with the music festival added a real richness that made it feel more participatory and authentic than just a hipster-hippy party.

hipster hippy,
j

Tunes for Turtles

Ralph and I played a set at the turtle pond this afternoon. It was a gorgeous, sunny, 85-degree day and all the turtles came out, along with a bunch of friends from around the UT-Austin campus. Carlo snapped a great set of reflections in the water, presented here, upside down.

We opened with one of my songs, I Can See You. Check out all the background noises: birds, planes, bells, trucks… the hum of the buildings and the buzz of the Friday afternoon exodus was our backdrop.

We closed with a cover of Cat Stevens’s If You Want To Sing Out Sing Out:

j and ralph w guitars, reflection in turtle pond

Jessica snapped a pic of me after everyone had gone and caught some cool colors in the sun flair.j w guitar infront of turtle pond

LOVE by John Lennon (For Gray and Lauren)

Gray and Lauren got married a few weeks ago, so I worked up this old favorite to perform at the wedding. How much more simple, beautiful and true can a song get?!

Love is real, real is love
Love is feeling, feeling love
Love is wanting to be loved

Love is touch, touch is love
Love is reaching, reaching love
Love is asking to be loved

Love is you, you and me
Love is knowing we can be

Love is free, free is love
Love is living, living love
Love is needing to be loved