My Performance on Sunday

I played music this past Sunday.  It was my fifth time playing at Second Sundays, an event hosted by my friends Anthony Martinez and Starr Saunders that takes place at Sweet Inspiration Bakery/Cafe (incredibly good cake) on Market St. in San Francisco.  My sixth open mic type thing ever.  Second Sundays is a cool open mic because it's not open.  Starr and Anthony hand select the musicians in advance.  They've created this incredibly warm, positive, special environment for music.  I'm amazed every time they say I can play again.  Now I'm getting a little better, but after those first couple, I guess they just wanted to show people the range of talent.  I represented the range of very little talent.  But this last Sunday was good.  I'm feeling better about my music.  Still a LONG way to go.  But bit by bit, I'm slowly improving.  I stood up and played for the first time at Second Sundays.  I played a cover of Don't Be Cruel by Elvis and two original songs.  I felt more confident "on stage", better able to interact with the audience, which just means saying things into the mic.  I'm not leading sing-alongs yet.  My friend Rebecca from work came and she brought a couple friends, which was so cool.  She described my set as "Elvis, Evil and Irish".  The second song I played, an original, is downright evil in my estimation.  Rebecca thought the third one sounded like an Irish ballad.  My sister, who watched the video because she is now living in Las Cruces, New Mexico again, said the third song was also a little edgy.  I was glad to hear this.  My goal for this show was to let it rip.  So I tried, especially in the third song.  I wore a bow tie that my sister made. I got lots of compliments.

Here's the video from the performance:

http://tinyurl.com/76yhos7

Today I spent some time talking to someone who's going through some difficult stuff.  Anxiety and depression that's making it hard to do anything.  I was reminded that my musical adventures are wonderful for me. Fun, terrifying, important. But it's important to keep it in perspective.

with love and awareness for those suffering close to us,
Anthony

Incredibly Talented Elvis Sucks - Youtube!

In my ongoing effort to provide you fair reader with the most current online resources, I wanted to alert you to the website youtube.com. Youtube is a cutting-edge new site that allows anyone (you!) to post videos. It’s like TV on the internet, but it’s not filtered by anyone. Pretty much anything goes. There’s so much to see and learn! And there is no one making decisions about what is good!

In order to give you a better sense of what youtube offers, I wanted to share a personal experience I had on youtube. It has to do with Elvis. See, for almost all of my life I have hated Elvis. There is a simple reason for this: he stole all his music from black people. (I learned recently that this isn’t 100% accurate, but pretty much completely true.) I hated the idea of Elvis. I would rather listen to the Black artists who came up with the original songs. I didn’t really like his songs, and I wasn’t impressed with his little hip motion. Wow, he moved his hip. I understand that back in the 50’s this was mind-blowing, but for me, well, it just wasn’t that impressive.

I don’t remember how exactly, but about three months ago, I stumbled on a youtube video of Elvis performing live in 1956. And my God, it was a game changer. He looks about 18. Young, innocent, handsome, and having fun. It’s obviously before things turned bad and Elvis got bloated and started wearing sequins (circa 1957). In the youtube video, Elvis is singing Don’t Be Cruel, a song I now love. It was written by Otis Blackwell, a Black man.  According to wikipedia.org, another amazing source of accurate information on the internet, Otis was amenable to sharing 50% of the songwriting credits with Elvis.  I don't know the real story, but at least it seems Otis benefited from the deal.

Watching the youtube video, it's clear Elvis has more talent in a wisp of his perfect hair than 99% of musicians you hear on the radio today. He was one incredibly talented dude. Just born with enough charisma to knock over buildings. It's clear in the video, he's so young, he just wants to sing and have a good time.  In his early years, it's hard to fault him for wanting to sing great songs written by Black men and women.  But the white men around him that managed his career are guilty of stealing lots of Black music and getting rich having Elvis perform it.  In this video, the youthful Elvis is mind-bogglingly good.  Too bad it went so wrong so quickly.

Here, finally, is the video:

Don't Be Cruel

I have a performance coming up this weekend, on Sunday.  Second Sundays is a monthly event where local singer/songwriters have a chance to perform in a cafe/bakery, Sweet Inspiration on Market St. in San Francisco.  I've played the last four months of Second Sundays, and it has been wonderful.  This Sunday, I'm going to perform Don't Be Cruel along with two other original songs.  The show starts at 3:30pm.

much love,
Anthony

ps - A friend of mine, after reading this post, sent the following with the video:

boooooo boooooo elvis straight up racist...

Fight the Power!

If you have thoughts or videos you want to share, please comment below!  You don't need an account and you can do it anonymously, if you want.  more love : )

hodgepodge

It was Sunday, around noon.  I was practicing for the open mic I was going play at around 4pm, and this happened:




Then I went to open mic at Sweet Inspiration Bakery in SF and played these three songs:

Caught That Fish

Lindsay

Zorbing (Stornoway cover)


And then Corch sent me this:

Soul


And then my sister made this (she's teaching herself how to sew and make cute clothes):

And then my cousin Danny Wolohan sent around this video. Danny was interviewed about doing Cymbeline at Portland Center Stage. He was not clear about the purpose of the interview.

http://vimeo.com/38053730


And then my baby is having a St. Patrick's day themed Free Scone Event at her store, Park and Pond, which got picked up by a local, well-known blog:

http://sf.funcheap.com/free-green-irishy-homemade-scone-day-park-pond/


And then...

naw, just more love,
Anthony