so, i come up in the cassette time. like when my older brother came home with chuck berry, or skip james records when we was young, or they played a REALLY good country song on the radio, the music would be put on tape to be repeatedly enjoyed later. or if i borrowed a killer banjo record from tom ludwick {this local cat that had a big pile of bluegrass records}, i’d tape it of course.
 
in my later adult life, there were these legendary tapes that were kind of circulating {nationally and/or regionally}. metal ones, joke ones, really strange ones.

i’m working on this series of concerts and workshops in portland, oregon for the month of february. all on sundays at artichoke music. workshop during the day and concert in the early evening. 

first off it would make sense to say a brief thing about portland itself. as far as the components of a “scene” {more accurately “scenes”}, things are popping pretty good down there. here are some various things that work well there:

that diagram may be a little off ratio-wise but i think that’s generally the deal with that overall correspondence. a couple points appear in considering this. [and of course it seems like if someone is really into music they kind of are from birth, and if they aren’t they just aren’t.] one point is that i think if a person was interested in music, it would be good to fall in love with it. i guess i’m speaking to the fan impetus, which comes before the desire to play an instrument, in my experience.

in taking a look at some of the various smaller music scenes around the country, a possible conclusion to be drawn or point made in regard to outcomes, would be the construction of a somewhat complex formula, describing the interrelation of the componentry. it would appear to be a bit of a “soup” with different elements tossed in or available, and if one aspect is a little shy, compensation can be made by goosing one of the other variables.

i’ve heard tell of music festivals and look forward to going to one someday! ha just kidding. i just wanted to write a little thing about
music festivals, it being that time of the year and so forth.

i kinda go through these different periods of study where i get on something and read and watch and listen as much as i can. that’s ONE good thing a person can say about all the computer hooraw and so forth. the average working person has access to books and music heretofore unavailable. the database of ALL that exists. {in a sense every guitarist/instrumentalist you see should be a flaming badass because there’s more free lessons available on the ‘net than you can shake a stick at. by the Masters.} therefore, it’s possible to study the best stuff like crazy.

in the last few weeks i did this run up a section of the north east[dc-boston] then flew back west for three shows in the northwest. lots of ground covered on that. a bit of the old I 95 shuffle.