The Spokane Youth Music Consortium

Jun 14, 2010 News

A message about the Spokane Youth Music Consortium forwarded by the Spokane Arts Commission:

5th and 6th Graders need your help!
* Learning a band or stringed instrument is a challenge.
* Individual attention at the very beginning makes all the
difference!
How Can You Help?
Join the Spokane Youth Music Consortium’s Music Support Team!
* Volunteer in the classroom with beginning band and orchestra
students.
* If you play an instrument, you can help teachers by giving
sectionals, tuning instruments, helping students learn to read music,
and more!
Don’t Play an Instrument?
No Problem!
There are many helpful tasks for non-musicians, from taking attendance
to checking out instruments during the first weeks of class.
Contact Holy Names Music Center for more information, or go to
www.hnmc.org and get started!

Janet Napoles

Manager of Education Programs
Spokane Symphony
818 W. Riverside/PO Box 365
Spokane, WA 99210-0365
Ph. 509-464-7062 Fax 509-326-3921
janetnapoles@spokanesymphony

Stacey Earle and Mark Stuart

Jun 14, 2010 News

Touring songwriters Stacey Earle and Mark Stuart will be performing a house concert in Spokane on October 9th. Details about exact time and location to come but for more information about Stacey and Mark check out their web site at:

staceyandmark.com

Bill Miller

Jun 14, 2010 Members

Bill Miller, a former adman turned chaplain, writes and sings songs about awakening to the transcendent in ordinary, everyday life. His story songs celebrate a wide swathe of human experience from Jack the demented janitor to Mattie the poet-prodigy. In between, his music explores life, death, wonder and awe with unique sensitivity and humor.

Jerry Reynolds

Jun 14, 2010 Members

Jerry Reynolds wrote his first two songs on a Silvertone acoustic guitar bought from Sears-Roebuck catalog in 1962. Then one day, someone came along that knew how to play a guitar and very respectfully asked Jerry if he could tune up the Silvertone. Jerry was delighted, and said, “Sho nuf, man! Tune that baby up.” Jerry has been searching for those first two songs of his ever since.

Jerry was fortunate to have the opportunity to contribute music to “The Most Dangerous Woman In America”, a play that finished a run at The Odd Duck theater in Seattle on June 5th and will soon be performed in L.A. as part of the 2010 Inaugural Hollywood Fringe Festival. For those interested in the project more information can be found at theresediekhans.webs.com and some of the music Jerry wrote for the play is in rotation at myspace.com/jerrylynnreynolds.
theresediekhans.webs.com
myspace.com/jerrylynnreynolds

Host Notes – June Brick & Mortar

Jun 7, 2010 Brick & Mortar shows, News

By Laddie Ray Melvin

Sunday morning, and the lawn can wait. If I’m lucky it will rain, and I can put cutting the grass off for another indeterminate amount of time.

Time is a thread that runs through many of Tri Cities singer and songwriter Mike Skalstad’s songs. There is clock time, and the kind of time, free of clocks, that moves through our lives, and it’s the latter that slides in and out of Mike’s tunes. It appears as a “sweet summer wind,” as a reflection about being “in love and out of control,” or as life lived one day at a time in the song “Just Along For The Ride” in which we are reminded to “enjoy the ride” whether confronted by life or illusion. This song was one of my favorites, and it flat out rocks. In the song “Eventually,” we are reminded that time haunts the dreamer, but is a healer as well. Mike opened and closed his set with songs about love that lasts. He closed with “Just Because Of You” a ballad that succeeds because it deals with a true sentiment. The song is honest not sappy or sentimental. In his opening song—your host didn’t get the title because he was twiddling knobs—he writes, “The road up ahead is lookin good again.” It’s love that puts us on the true path.

Steve Schennum, Spokane’s latter day Jonathan Swift, took us on a satiric journey and reminded us that “most people like wars” concluding that it’s a matter of being “tricked into it.” Steve’s writing deconstructs history, our relationship to the constitution, and dysfunctional relationships. In his song “Hypnotized” he sings, “we’ll be together when our caseworker says it’s all right.” In his “co-dependent dysfunctional love song” the hero is happy she’s left him because his dog comes back. (I should say that Steve is one of my favorite guitar players, and surrounds his lyrics with a fluid and jazzy ambiance that I really appreciate.) In his “Parasite Blues” he satirizes the stereotypical musician who wants to be subsidized, the not-too-subtle message being he deserves nothing. In the song “Allen Can’t Smoke Reefer Anymore” he reminds us that it ain’t fun to have that “bureaucratic needle in our skin.” Steve then discovers his libido on the internet and his “strong right arm,” then ends his set with his Amway seduction song reminding us it’s easy to get hustled.

It is a pleasure to be host of the Brick and Mortar concert series, and to be a member of this community of very creative folk at work on songcraft. I am always delighted, informed and inspired by the work of the writers who show up and sing a couple of songs during the open-mic session opening every show, and by the featured writers who play longer sets. Thank you.

July Brick & Mortar show

Jun 2, 2010 Brick & Mortar shows, News

Join us Thursday, July 1st, 7:00 pm, at the Coffee Social, 113 W. Indiana for the Brick & Mortar show featuring Bill Miller and John Watson (bios below), plus an open mic to start the show!

Bill Miller, a former adman turned chaplain, writes and sings songs about awakening to the transcendent in ordinary, everyday life. His story songs celebrate a wide swathe of human experience from Jack the demented janitor to Mattie the poet-prodigy. In between, his music explores life, death, wonder and awe with unique sensitivity and humor.

I have been playing around the Spokane/Couer D Elene area for the past year or so performing original instrumentals, Folk, Love, Rock and Classical songs that I have written. The response has been Great and I truly love what I am doing right now.
I have a Web-Site where I have posted several of my original pieces and Video of what I have been up to with my Classical Guitars.
You can reach me and information about my upcoming shows on my site at: www.myspace.com/johnwatson2