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John William Gordon <johnwilliamgordon>

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	Ready for Tour	95 dagen geleden
	Ok, we start driving Friday, Sept 18. I'll pick up the minivan Thur morning. So, here's our minivan route (gulp): SEPT 19 (sat), PHOENIX AZ - The Lost Leaf (10pm) SEPT 20 (sun), MESILLA (Las Cruces) NM - El Patio (8p) SEPT 22 (tue), HOUSTON TX - Bohemeo's (8p) SEPT 23 (wed), TULSA OK - Living Arts (8p) SEPT 25 (fri), CINCINNATI OH - Midpoint Festival, Mr. Pitiful's (11p) SEPT 27 (sun), COLUMBUS OH - Victorian's Midnight Cafe (8p) SEPT 28 (mon), JOHNSON CITY TN - Cahootenany's JC (10p) SEPT 30 (wed), ATHENS GA - Rye Bar (9p) OCT 2 (fri), NEW YORK CITY, Otto's Shrunken Head (8p) OCT 3 (sat), POTSDAM NY, S.U.N.Y. Campus, Hurley's (8p) OCT 4 (sun), BOSTON MA, LilyPad (6p) OCT 5 (mon), ITHACA NY, The Shop (7p) OCT 6 (tue), OBERLIN OH, Oberlin University, Cat In The Cream (8p) OCT 9 (fri), TUCSON AZ, Plush Room Lobby (6p-9p) OCT 10 (sat), BAKERSFIELD CA, The Silver Fox (10p) then back to Oakland, CA How many miles is that? I don't want to know, really. I just checked the mileage between gigs to make sure we could make the next gig. My trio's down for it. Each venue has a little booking tale. Here's one. The Potsdam NY gig's a little out of the way, but their SUNY college radio station played my new CD (technot); a radio guy there who also books the campus music club, Hurley's, liked my cd and contacted me about gigging there, all without knowing I'd just started booking our first east coast tour. I didn't know Ryan went to college there until I told Ryan about the gig. Kind of a cool x-ray of interconnectedness, daddy-o. Oh, by the way, I just put our new t-shirts on my website ( johnwilliamgordon.com ). Take a look. They're kinda weird but I like 'em and had a good time designing them.
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	Why Touring in the West Kinda Sucks	95 dagen geleden
	While I booked my butt off for our upcoming tour, I noticed one huge regional difference: the southwest has far fewer venues than the east. Besides Google, I searched for gigs with the new Indie Venue Bible (6 regions in 6 PDF files). The puniness of the southwest region's PDF file jumped out at me. Why does the western U.S. have far fewer live music venues than the east? Online, I found the populations of states included in each of the Indie Venue Bible's 6 regions (northwest, southwest, northcentral, southcentral, northeast, southeast) and calculated each region's population. Then I calculated each region's area in square miles by adding the areas of each region's states. Some sick stats: The southwest* and northeast** regions have comparable populations: 51 million versus 56 million. But the northeast has almost double the venues: about 5200 versus about 2800 (Indie Venue Bible). - southwest: one venue per 587 square miles. - northeast: one venue per 35 square miles. Conclusion (no duh): the higher the population density, the more thriving the live music scene. L.A. and San Francisco don't make up for gargantuan areas of empty space in the outrageously huge southwest. Grotesque stat: Even though the southwest has far fewer venues than the northeast, the southwest has more booking agents! - Southwest: about 370 booking agents for about 2800 venues (8 venues per booker, but one booker per 12,220 square miles, about 111 miles x 111 miles). - Northeast: 350 booking agents for 5200 venues (15 venues per booker, but one booker per 520 square miles, about 23 miles x 23 miles). Actually, the picture out west is much worse. Compare by area in square miles. The southwest's area is about the same as the northeast's and northcentral's*** combined: - southwest's area: 605,709 sq miles - northeast's + northcentral's area: 581,372 sq miles (83,206 sq miles + 398,166 sq miles). Now compare the number of venues in those comparable areas: - northeast + northcentral = 9300 venues! - southwest = 2800 venues in the SAME AREA. The northeast+northcentral have about 3.3 times the number of venues in roughly the same area as the southwest! Based on driving time and cost, touring in the east might be 3 times "easier" than touring in the west, not counting bad weather. And booking also might be much easier because there are fewer booking agents contending for each venue. The numbers are rough, of course, and the Indie Venue Bible leaves out many venues and booking agents, but the owners of the IVB keep updating it; and each region suffers from this problem, kind of canceling out this worry of missing venues when comparing regions. So I think the IVB provides a good picture of venue realities in the U.S. For touring bands, especially new ones, the southwest sucks with... ...roughly a third of the venues as the northeast/northcentral; ...further-flung clusters of venues (and metro areas); ...more booking agents contending for each venue, especially in southern CA. *southwest= AZ, CA, HI, NV, NM, UT, based on "Indie Venue Bible" listing of venues by region. **northeast= CT, DE, ME, MA, NH, NJ, NY, PA, RI, VT, based on "Indie Venue Bible" listing of venues by region. ***northcentral= IL, IN, IA, KY, MI, OH, WI, based on "Indie Venue Bible" listing of venues by region.
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	My new CD "Technot" is available!	281 dagen geleden
	Hurrah! My my new CD "TECHNOT" is now available directly from my website www.johnWilliamGordon.com (with Paypal). CDBaby.com (search for "john william gordon") will start selling Technot in about 7 business days. Then iTunes and other online services will sell tracks and the CD in 10-45 days (search for "John William Gordon" on those services). Whew... I just finished updating my website, www.JohnWilliamGordon.com. I was going to make a new fancy Flash home page but it's too much work right now. I have to practice my geeeetar and send CDs to radio stations and book gigs. I started to make a new Flash home page and it looks cool so far, but it takes way too much work/time right now. How did I ever manage to have the time to learn Flash and make my first website? Oh yeah, it took me a month.
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	Uploaded new tracks	297 dagen geleden
	from the new CD, which is called, "Technot" -- also the name of the title track.
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	New CD sent to manufacturing	297 dagen geleden
	But I uploaded tracks here already. I'll have the CDs by March 15, but iTunes, CDBaby and others will take longer.
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	new CD almost finished	354 dagen geleden
	We're almost finished "mixing" the new CD. Mixing means setting the tone levels and balance between instruments. I'm digging it. I'm shooting to send the CD to manufacturing by the end of Jan. The CD artwork's done, too. This time I did it myself so I can use the image freely on shirts etc without paying royalties or asking the artist's approval. Whew, but it was 10 tonnes of work because I'm not an artist (though a painter and photographer raised me).
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	Two Zoller Moments	579 dagen geleden
	Back in the summer of 1994 I attended a jazz workshop in Vermont run by Attila Zoller, a jazz guitarist who pioneered free music on the guitar and helped jazz students for decades. He died in 1998 at the age of 71. I really didn't know Zoller much after just a week in Vermont with him (and Jim Hall, Jack Wilkins and several other jazz instructors) but I experienced a couple of unforgettable Zoller moments. The first occurred when drumming instructor Matt Wilson and a bunch of students, including me, were having a great time improvising very free but thematic crazy loud music in the main dining hall about 2:00 am. Suddenly, 67-year old groggy gray-haired Attila appeared at the other end of the dining hall about 80 feet away. You should know that in addition to being from Hungary, playing free jazz, rooming with Ornette Coleman, gigging with Jim Hall, discovering, encouraging and promoting teenage Pat Matheny, jamming nightly until dawn in New York city, helping numerous jazz students and speaking a form of Hungarian-accented hipster jazz English, Attila had a reputation for being a part-time curmudgeon with a big heart. Attila could get pissed, no doubt, as some students witnessed in his classes during the week. So, back in the dining hall around 2 am in the midst of us playing instruments (and furniture and kitchen equipment) while singing and occasionally shouting, Attila appeared. We woke him with our cacophony. We froze, waiting for his strangely accented wrath. "You guys woke me up!" he shouted. We gasped. Attila continued, "It sounds cool! I wanna get in on it!" What a cool 67 year old curmudgeon! We exhaled with relief and laughed. My second indelible Attila story is my favorite and one of the funniest things I've ever witnessed. As people drove off on the final day, a German guitar student and I stood outside on a dirt road by the dorms and chatted. Attila walked up and asked if we handed in our anonymous evaluation/feedback forms about the week-long workshop. "Yes," I answered. "No," replied the German, "but I have it right here," as he reached into his back pocket and pulled out the folded white form scribbled with his criticisms and suggestions. If the German had simply handed it to Attila without saying anything more, we would have exchanged idle chatter and uneventfully gone our separate ways. But with a profound lapse of judgment, the German added, "Oh, um, disregard what I wrote at the end," as Attila reached for and took the folded paper. I knew trouble was brewing and alertly watched the scene unfold like an exceptionally good sitcom setup -- you have a rough idea what's going to happen but are powerless to stop it and watch for the thrill of surprise. I wasn't disappointed. "What?...Disregard what?" asked Attila, who then unfolded the 8 ½" x 11" sheet in order to read and understand what the heck the German was talking about. With the feedback form's anonymity obliterated, neither the witness protection program nor Interpol could've helped the German. "Oh, um, just disregard my suggestion at the end," the German nervously repeated with feigned casualness as he fidgeted, apparently realizing his blunder. In halting English, Attila-the-tactless then read aloud the German's criticism: "You… should… have… more… modern …jazz… instruction …and… not…so…much… emphasis… on… traditional… jazz." Startled by the criticism, Attila shook for a split second, abruptly looked up, leaned forward until his face was about a foot and a half from the German's and yelled, "First you gotta learn the basics motherfucker!!!" I laughed hysterically. The German laughed, too. Then so did Attila, who then heartily shook the German's hand as we all continued to laugh. "First you gotta learn the basics motherfucker!!!" Talk about in your face with zero tact. I'll never forget it. It's been a great source of belly laughs for years.
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	Recently added more live recordings to my website	579 dagen geleden
	DOWNLOAD LIVE SHOW recordings http://www.johnwilliamgordon.com/non... I recorded these tracks on my little Edirol recorder during our SXSW (South by Southwest) shows. We drove to Austin, TX from California to play in SXSW and played shows on the way there and back. Electric guitar - John William Gordon Acoustic Bass - Gabe Davis Drums - Rick Rivera In the Elephant Room in Austin, Texas, our tunes were shorter than other gigs to accomodate the 50 minute limit, as we shared the bill with other bands. We played at 9 pm and had a great time! Kudos to my drummer and bassist for covering a few botches on my part. We were tired but loved it. I made the mistake of carrying my drummer’s 40 lb hardware bag on top of my bassist’s heavy bass cabinet. Even together, the load seemed like a breeze weight-wise, but after lugging it down the venue’s stairs, through the venue and into the back room, my forearms were pumped as if I just went rock climbing! We had to play in an hour and I massaged my forearms and held them up in the air trying to get them back to normal. It worked ok, but I didn’t feel as facile on the guitar until the next day. Doh! I won’t do that again. At The Lost Leaf in Phoenix, Arizona, we created a tuned completely from scratch live (free playing), and I named the tune "Found Leaf." Basically, Eric Dahl, the owner of The Lost Leaf was so cool (booking us twice, letting us crash at his house, taking us out to dinner), I wanted to create a little art piece for him in his club. "Found Leaf" is it. It’s mellow, rusty, rough and odd in different places. Gabe Davis, my bassist, Rick Rivera, my drummer, and I didn’t have any preconceived ideas about it, except I said it would be for the owner, Eric Dahl, about 10 seconds before we started. Our show at Mia's Lounge in Flagstaff, AZ was my favorite. In our exhausted state, which sometimes boosts improvisation and listening, we lost ourselves in the music and made up long intros to our tunes right on the spot. Check out the recordings on my website. The link's listed at the top of this post.
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	My booking is improving	684 dagen geleden
	I posted a while back how I dreaded booking and was so bad at it. Well, I've improved. I went to the NARIP (national association of recording industry professionals) last Oct or Nov in Burbank after a booker in L.A. who had once booked us invited all his clients to hear him and other professional promoters, managers and bookers talk at a NARIP seminar. I'll admit I had a bad attitude and dragged myself there, knowing that I really needed to improve my booking but expecting to watch people offer to "do lunch" all day. I soon realized, though, that these people really love music, are mostly straightforward and very hard working. I learned all sorts of very practical stuff that's helped, but the biggest thing was reorienting my attitude. One panelist said, "unfortunately, networking is really how most of the business gets done," but the moderator interrupted and said, "it's not 'unfortunate,' it's fortunate, since we get to meet interesting people." She clearly likes the relationship part of the business, and I couldn't help but notice how her positive view of humanity delighted her, yet she didn't seem to be a Polly Anna and had an obvious tough side. I realized I had a bad attitude. Rather than prejudge bookers as schmoozer do-lunchers, I decided to drop my adversarial point of view and think about them openly as my fellow human travelers. Whew, this has taken 95% of the dred out of booking. And I've since enjoyed talking and corresponding with most but not all the bookers on my mini-tour I'm planning to SXSW. I also thought how I must not try to over-impress anyone but instead focus on stating my desire in a straightforward simple way, as if I'm composing or soloing, and listen to them clearly. They are all very busy, swamped even, so I try to help them by being succinct (not like here . So for the South by Southwest gig coming up, I'm booking a mini-tour for the first time and have had a great time with most of the bookers. Most have been very helpful, even directing me to other venues when theirs were booked (this led to 3 gigs). I like it best, though, when the booker is a musician. They seem to be the most responsive and understanding, but I'm biased, of course.
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	CD track in Final of International Song Contest (ISC)	684 dagen geleden
	The ISC (Intl Song Competition) sent me an email yesterday telling me the track Quidnunc Mo is a Finalist in the jazz category. The jazz judges were Ornette Coleman, John Scofield and others this year, but I think now listeners vote. So go here and scroll down to the jazz category and consider voting for Quidnunc Mo: http://www.songwritingcompetition.co... These contests are really kinda hokey, since I'm going to compose my weird and semi-weird tunes regardless. But they can help with the marketing, so hurray. Last year, btw, 2 other tracks (Harm Alarm and Belly's Bounce) made the semi-final round in the instrumental category.
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