I played some music at a fun house party last night. There were lots of good folks, a bonfire, some kegs, etc., plenty of refreshments of every variety, but I think despite all of the other distractions, this girl got most of my attention:
The folks who lived there had this cute puppy that probably never gets any attention (yeah right), so I was sure to play with her a bit. I almost snuck her out with me in my guitar case.
Best,
SJ
If you play ukulele and guitar, then you probably already know this, but I just (finally) figured out a cool way I can practice ukulele when my ukulele is out of reach. It’s very simple, simply put a capo on the 5th fret of your guitar and play the four highest (D G B E) strings just as you would a ukulele:
Now you can play all your ukulele chord shapes easily. Like I said, most people probably already know this trick, but I’m a little slow and I was recently missing my ukulele (it’s in Venice right now) and all of the sudden an image flashed in my brain of the capo on the 5th fret, I tried it and it worked, I was back in business. The sound is not the same, it’s more like ukulele methadone, but it’s still pretty fun.
Best,
SJ
Dear Music Lovers,
Most of you are probably aware that there are two major competing music streaming services out there, Pandora and Spotify. Pandora is cool for discovering new music because they have very smart robot elves in the background learning about what you like and then they recommend songs you may have never heard before by different artists. Fortunately, we have some songs on there so you can try it out:
http://www.pandora.com/saint-john-revelations
And then Spotify is cool because they have bazillions of songs in their catalogue that you add to playlists and listen to on demand and share with your friends on Facebook and Twitter etc. If you’re tempted to give Spotify a chance, feel free to add some of our songs to your playlists that you create:
http://open.spotify.com/artist/5hwEiNPiEfXbGH1YQSClFt
For me it’s not a question of Spotify “or” Pandora, I use both to listen to music because they really are very clever in their own ways. I play Spotify when I want to hear exactly the songs I want to listen to at a given moment, but if I want to sit back and set a mood with perhaps discovering some cool new artists or tunes, then I listen to Pandora.
Enjoy!
SJ
PS. There are other differences between the two services such as price, sound quality, use of advertisements, etc., but we figure that they more importantly also share one very very valuable quality in that they both enable you to relax and listen to our music when we’re not around to play it for you ourselves.
Bathsheba and I are digging in again, we now have a plan, mostly via 4th dimension bargaining and guitar slavery.
I need to check on the crew and then we’ll be back at sea.
Shows: https://www.sjatr.com/shows
SJ
When I was a kid I loved big dramatic songs like this that had over-the-top intros and weird sounds and effects, Elton John ‘Funeral For A Friend/Love Lies Bleeding’:
Also included on this melodramatic song list are a bunch of 1967-69 Beatles tunes, ‘The Unknown Soldier’ by the Doors, ‘Killing Moon’ by Echo and the Bunnymen, etc etc.
Enjoy!
SJ
Bathsheba and I are having a staring contest.
If something ever happened to me and I wasn’t around for whatever reason, I would really like it if she went to a songwriter. She makes it very easy. She loves to play shows also, and she may look simple, but she should still be treated like a lady.
But until then, I’m determined to win this staring contest.
Best,
SJ
It’s been kind of a boring Monday so far, but at least Margaret Thatcher is dead.
She died 40 years too late, and she never had to defend herself at the International Criminal Court, but at least we know that Evil can’t keep these assholes alive forever.
SJ
