marksaleski.com

The Internet is a funny thing. Here I am about to describe a couple of folks as two of my favorite creative people…and I haven’t even met them. They feel like they’re friends but all of our interactions have been via the ethers. I’m not sure what it means, but it’s definitely different.

Anyhoo, you should really check out this podcast. Mark Sahm and The Lovely Miss S.Rod do some seriously cool stuff in the realm of electronica. It’s loads of fun, very insightful, and will make you think. Or something.

Download right here.

Folk artist Ellis Paul has a great idea for funding his next project: go to the fans.

Here’s a guy who makes his living out on the road. Here’s a guy who is a fantastic songwriter. He’s got some songs in the works and wants to bring them to the studio…without record label backing.

It’s an idea whose time has come.

Since Alanis burst onto the scene (How many years ago was that? Don’t answer…), writers have been looking for reasons to say that she was washed up.

This seems to happen with just about any artist who attains a certain level of fame.

Yeah, well I don’t agree.

I was first introduced the the guitar of Bruce Eisenbeil many years ago during a speaker audition in the middle of nowhere at the very cool North Country Audio. After listening to all of the music I’d brought with me, Vladimir put on an Eisenbeil disc. It was like nothing I’d ever heard before.

Eisenbeil has been putting out very interesting music all of these years since. This time around, check out his new improvised music trio. It’s really quite amazing.

Last night I had the opportunity to listen to some great music on a really fine stereo. It had been quite a long time since my ears had heard anything so nice and boy, did they like it.

This morning, I gave the same record a second listen while sitting out in the early morning breeze.

If I had to name my top three guitar players in the world…well, it would be pretty easy. The first would obviously be Pat Metheny. That’s pretty much a given.

The number two and three slots, not in order really, are occupied by Bill Frisell and Marc Ribot.

Both Frisell and Ribot are musical polymaths. They can play just about anything…and they do!

Check out Ribot’s jazz power trio thang: Ceramic Dog.

I would like to say that I got all jazzed up at the instant gratification of buying digital music. The truth is that I got more annoyed at what seemed like 392 mouse clicks at Amazon.com.

Still, it is very cool to have this EP. I hope that every Bruce fan out there downloads the beegeezuz out of this release. Just do it!!

Anyway, check it out.

It’s only been a few months, but it seems like for-freaking-ever that I’ve written a proper review.  It’s time to get back into it.

As promised in a recent Friday Morning Listen, I’ve done some further sonic investigations of Tim Collins’ Fade and have posted a review at Blogcritics.

This is crazy. It’s getting to the point where when I read another article about a successful writer, I get all dreamy and stare off into space thinking about “what if….”

Is that any way for a grown man to act? Apparently, it is.

Though maybe the worry was premature, the events of the past several months had me very concerned about my future as a writer. It used to be that I’d listen to new music and the writing possibilities bloomed high up into my mental space. That hadn’t happened in quite a while and I honestly began to think that it never would again.

This made the occasional “Hi, have you received my CD yet?” email very problematic. Do I just ignore it? Tell the person what has happened? Tell them that I’m a little (OK, more than a little) behind and I’ll be getting to it shortly? That seemed like more than a little white lie.

Mostly, I let the emails slide…until a couple of days ago. Tim Collins queried me about his record and I got the idea that maybe it was time to jump back into the game.

Here is what happened.