Who reads this??  I was just wondering that the other day.  Do people really read my blogs.  I'm not the most prolific blog producer on the web.  Amidst my self-proclaimed A.D.D., it's usually not at the forefront of my to-do list, but I love reaching out across the digital world to share some of my thoughts.  My life is an interesting up and down of a lot of different activities that includes music as a large part of that.  I just got off a personal growth retreat with the Wright Institute called Tracking and I got a lot of cool shit out of it.  One of the things I learned is that I actually remember a lot more than I give myself credit for if I only stop and actually try to do it.  Too often days go by as a blur and when someone asks me "hey James, what's been going on?"  I draw a blank in my fog of memory.  So it's a good thing to think back on my day and wonder what did I do and what stood out and affected me??? 

I do a lot of cool shit and often I get lost in just doing it all.  Each week I study wing chun martial arts, I'm a digital hardware engineer as my day job (currently doing a project for NASA), take a personal growth class, practice with my band Discofist, try to keep in shape, spend time with friends and family, and of course keep up with my independent music I post on my site.  I never realized how friggin involved every activity is!!  Honestly, I wouldn't have it any other way, but I need that time to reflect on all the different things I do in my day so that I'm thinking about it as a person who actually reacts to things and not just some robot that crosses activities off a to-do list.

In thinking about my own acoustic music, I've got a couple things brewing in the fire.  My friend Jon has access to a studio in the city and told me he wants to record four of my songs for me!!  He's a badass recording engineer with a degree from Berklee and a musical mind that keeps going.  I've sent him my songs that I recorded in my room (you know the ones on the page - www.myspace.com/jimmythered) and he's going to choose the ones that he wants to record.  After writing a couple more songs, I'm ready to record an album and I'd like to get that done by the end of the year.  Since recording an album with Discofist, the bug's bit me and I'm ready to get that going.

Now, what else??  Oh yeah!  I have a new concert coming up a week from Saturday!  April 18 at Bill's Blues. The time hasn't been confirmed yet but I requested 6p.m. from the booking company so more people can make it out.  I'm trying to learn the song Neon to perform it.  It's one of my all time fave songs but it's a monster to pull off.  I love this place and Bill's a really badass guy.  Even better, there's a tiny chance I may be able to open for my friend Armando at Goose Island in May.  I say tiny because there's no promises and they may want a full band which I don't have right now, but I'm sitting tight hoping I can get the gig.  Right now it's his band, Lovers in Arms, and a couple others.  I would LOVE to be an opener for that!

That's allllllll that's cooking for now.  Let ya know if I come across anything else.

Late.

Boy it's late and I'm sleepy, but I'm going to blog.  Even if no one is awake to talk to in person, the web is always here to listen.  Kinda scary.  Anyways, I had a pretty sweet show this past Saturday and my faithful few showed up: my family and my kung fu brothers.  This was a different sort of show too because most shows at Bill's Blues are full of really bad high school and college metal bands who make me feel like the ugly duckling.  But no, Saturday was almost a full slate of acoustic song writers that I just fit in with and they were pretty damn good!  The guy that played before me was an asian guy who's name I can't even begin to remember it was that unique and he was phenomenal.  Great voice and great chops on the guitar.  He certainly raised the bar for me and I am more than obliged to meet that.  The band after me was a bunch of middle aged blues and classic rock guys called Blue Fog and they brought in a serious audience for me - 60 people!!  Bless your hearts, Blue Fog, bless you.  Unfortunately, no pics or vids, but that's all the more reason to have another show soon.  You know what that means, right?  Hours and hours of emails to venues across chicago and nearby suburbs with faint hopes of a positive reply for a show.  Until then, I bid you good night.

I just had a concert at Red Line Tap last Sunday.  Red Line Tap.  Amazing dive bar type of place right off the red line (train station).  I was so impressed with the 20-person turn out on a Sunday night.  Love you guys!  Anyways, I put up my first video clip on youtube.  Here's a cover of Drive (Incubus) from the concert.  Enjoy!


Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gy4yPEEOTXY

Here's a training video posted on Youtube from NFMA school a couple weeks back.  I started chi sao'ing recently and here's the evidence.  I'm the one getting smacked in the face at the end.


Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULhD7V2ub_4

Is anyone else having a feeling that there's becoming way too many social networking sites and wondering how to prioritize them?  I remember when I first signed up for facebook at its first inception and almost no one joined, so I left it alone.  I next joined Myspace because all my friends were doing that and once I started getting heavy into song writing and recording it was the perfect forum to showcase and promote my own music.  Soon enough, there was mass exodus from Myspace to facebook and I preferred FB's event invites to Myspace.  Then facebook decided to get all fancy and competitive by creating way too many options for a typical user.  There are now fan pages for artists which I haven't explored yet and after five concerts I realize that I'm going to have to find a consistent way to advertise my shows to people that want to hear about them (and you know you do!!). 

Alivenotdead.com, I can thank my Sifu, Phil Ng for bringing this gift to me from H.K.  Thanks Phil, this now makes three sites in my online social network (four if you count both the personal and musician profile on Myspace).  I think each page serves its own purpose.  Myspace serves a mass population outreach that targets the bored web surfer looking for new music or to those random people I send friend invites to.  Facebook is for the homies, acquaintances, and soon enough to those I can call fans, more the personal touch.  I see Alivenotdead.com as my international bridge and blogspot.  Ideally, I'd put the same blogs up on myspace and facebook but only my diligence can prove that in the future.

As a quick aside, I just had my fifth concert up in Evanston at Bill's Blues.  It was nerve wracking on stage because my fans were a minority at the venue and the majority of people there were fans of the two heavy/death metal bands that went before me.  It was easy to wonder what these tatooed slam dancing fans would think of my acoustic set that would kick off with a Dave Matthews cover.  Lucky for my boyish good looks and silky gruff voice, I made temporary fans of the metal lovers.  I can say it was my best show so far, and it ended with my index finger sliced open from strumming too wildly.  I laughed to myself as I used to make fun of my friend Jon for always bleeding on his guitar for playing too crazy.  Touche, Jon.  Touche.