This Saturday, January 16^th, we will perform at Fiddlers Dream.  Our 8 pm set will be followed by Brad Colerick, a very fine singer-songwriter who lives in Pasedena.  Besides an outstanding singer-songwriter, Brad is also a Music Supervisor/Producer for television commercials. 

Follow the link and listen to his music.  You will not want to miss this show.  Bring a friend or two.

Scott will perform a couple of songs solo at The Mayo Talent Show…

to be held at the Paradise Valley High School Auditorium, 3950 E. Bell Rd. between 7 and 9 pm.  The show is free and open to all.  A reception will follow.

Work has begun in earnest on the new album.  I am thrilled to announce that Kyle Harris, PlayR Recording, will be producing the album.  More information on Kyle will be forthcoming, as I plan to spotlight him in a future newsletter/blog entry.  Suffice it to say, Kyle, Emily, and I are very excited about the project.

The tentative goal is to have the album ready in April 2010.

The “old” album (From the Dining Room) is just now receiving a small surge of activity over the pond, with a review expected soon from The Netherlands and one from Leicester, UK.  (Hopefully, glowing reviews– I supply the CD, they supply the opinion.) The recent availability on CD Baby apparently has brought us more attention overseas.

They like The 15th Floor and we like them  Besides playing our songs, they posted info about us and our album, From the Dining Room, on their site!  Yay, WRRW!   You can listen online.

Link to WRRW.

I’ve been to Nashville before, but representing The 15th Floor in Nashville during this festival (Sept 16-19) was like going to “good music Nirvana.” I proudly wore our motto, “Songs should make you feel something”, on my shirts and hat all that week; the songs did not disappoint.

Chip Taylor: I met Chip in Toronto in the 90’s when he was promoting “The Living Room Tapes.” (In Toronto, he performed for about an hour in a hotel room to about 5 or 6 people,

including Sherry and me.) One of his songs, “Angel of the Morning”, in various forms, has sold 13 million records! This trip, I heard him a couple of times, teamed up with his new young protégé/discovery, Kendall Carson. WOW!  If you are a connoisseur of good songs, check out his new album, “Yonkers, NY”, coming out in October.

Nitty Gritty Dirt Band: Yes, they are reincarnated, in a new/old configuration (very pure) with

Jeff Hanna, Jimmie Fadden, Bob Carpenter, and John McEuen. In about 1970, they (reluctantly?) became a “pop” group with Uncle Charlie & His Dog Teddy and Mr. Bojangles. But it was, Will the Circle Be Unbroken in 1972 that my friends and I fell in love with—hell, we were seventeen-year-old “old folkies” and very hip, using a reel-to-reel while we played pool in my best friend’s basement. The new album, “The Speed of Life”, brings back the memories. Last week’s concert at The Cannery moved me, but it was very late, the sound was suboptimal, and the local youngsters (who seem to “dig” them as much as we did in our day) finally chased me away with all the bumping, beer spilling, and shouting at each other, which seems to be the trend. (Are young concert goers always that tall?)

Baskery: Three sisters from Sweden. They all sing and play very well. They all harmonize, then one really belts out a song and the other two harmonize, and then occasionally the other two belt out their own. Most intriguing was a distorted electric banjo. You know the old joke: “I left my banjo in the back of the car and forgot to lock it. When I came back there were two.” Well now it can be: “I left my banjo in the back of the car and forgot to lock it. When I came back it was all distorted and plugged in to something.” They are a sight to see, live. I am not sure the songs will hold up well to just play the album, but I am going to try it.

Greg Trooper: I have known of this artist for many years and for some reason the name just hasn’t stuck. BUT I heard him in a songwriter’s “round” presented by The Bluebird Cafe and both his performance and his songs blew me away- I was late for a meeting just because I had to hear one more from him. A songwriter’s songwriter. His name stuck this time.

JD Souther: He looks really, really old. He sounds as young as ever. Totally enjoyed his set at The Mercy Lounge. Three young female back-up singers kept both his attention and ours. I never really heard their names- anyone want to fill me in?

Radney Foster: Comeback kid. He rocks for a country guy. Was that his daughter with him?

Kriegs

On that trip ten years ago, Emily’s main goal for the trip was to swim with the dolphins.  Her little brother, whose only illness that trip was a four-inch square severe sunburn where we had missed with the sunscreen, was able to go… and, gosh darnit, he wasn’t even all that excited about it.  
So, this year’s trip it was finally Emily’s turn to swim with the dolphins.  Here she is, holding the dolphin’s chin– not to keep him quiet, but to give him a big kiss, which she did. (Yuck!) 
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How about dolphin (and whale) songs?—

Dolphins make music that is supposedly soothing to humans (which I know nothing about) and humans make songs about dolphins (which I know a little about)- like the Flipper theme.  “They call him Flipper, Flipper, no one you see is smarter than he…”  Our kids were shocked Sherry and I could sing that song in its entirety.  They had only vague recollection of some dumb movie; we had years of television episodes and reruns. 

Or the lively little children’s song, Liam Lynch’s Dolphin Song.  And of course, the close relative, the beluga whale, has the most famous song of all, Baby Beluga, by Raffi. One of Em’s favorites when she was four years old.  She use to sing, “little white whale on the goat..” instead of, “little white whale on the go.”  We still all sing it that way with my grandson.  He’ll never get it right.

(Fiddle! I should have included that “blooper” in the Once and Future Songs column, “Chicken Go!”, from our last newsletter.)

Any other dolphin or whale songs that deserve mention?

Kriegs

Yes, a fan of The 15th Floor really asked this question and fortunately I have an answer, but it is a long list (29 so far) of radio stations all over the country.  (And, I believe there is a station in The Netherlands and one in Poland playing our music- not to mention internet radio, e.g. Jango and The Sound Machine radio- at least by request.) Some stations only play us on certain programs, so find programs in the Americana, Folk, or occasionally even AAA genre.

Go to the next page to see the list, with links and find a station near you, or one you would like to “stream”…

The station links show a map of the coverage area (the city link is a Yahoo map of the city.)  If you click the link on the coverage area page, it will usually lead you to the homepage. Or just “google” the station to find the homepage.  Almost all of these stations stream to the internet and many archive their programs, so you can listen later.  Call-in or email requests would help us out immensely!  Kriegs

WIUP (Indiana, PA)

WSYC (Shippensburg, PA)

KSMT (Breckenridge, CO)

KAFM (Grand Junction, CO)

KAXE (Grand Rapids, MN)

KBUT (Crested Butte, CO)

KCSB (Santa Barbara, CA)

KCSN (Northridge, CA)

KDNK (Carbondale, CO)

KEUL (Girdwood, AK)

KGNU (Boulder, CO)

KLCC (Eugene, OR)

KVNF (Paonia, CO)

WDPS (Dayton, OH)

WEFT (Champaign, IL)

WERU (E. Orland, ME)

WETS (Johnson City, TN)

WJFF (Jeffersonville, NY)

WJMQ (Shawano, WI)

WRRW (Virginia Beach, VA)

WRUR (Rochester, NY)

WTSR (Ewing, NJ)

KBOO (Portland, OR)

KDHX (St. Louis, MO)

KGUR (San Luis Obispo, CA)

KRCL (Salt Lake City, UT)

WCVF (Fredonia, NY)

WFCF (St. Augustine, FL)

WJCU (University Heights, OH)

When Emily was eight-years-old, we traveled to Colorado for a family reunion. (Incidentally, during that trip I finished the song, Listen to Me Breathe, which is on The 15th Floor’s album, From the Dining Room.) My father was undergoing chemotherapy for advanced colon cancer and this was his last hurrah. One of the highlights of the reunion was a river rafting trip.

Because of the chemo, my father was not feeling particularly well, but stoically managed to participate fully and enjoy himself—I am sure well entertained by our bumbling rafting expertise. Emily, by far the youngest to participate, was a bit afraid and on the drive to Fort Collins from Estes Park took a lot of convincing it would be fun and very safe. At the rafting company headquarters, all decked out in wet suits and ready to go, we congregated outside for the final set of instructions. →

In the photo, Emily and I are in the back, my father is front right.  In front of me on the left, my daughter, Amy, my niece, Keli. Behind my father, my niece, Carolyn, sister, Lee Ann.

__________________________________________

The speaker, one of the guides, started with these words: “When you fall out of the boat…”

Emily heard no more. Totally freaked, she headed toward the changing rooms, feeling tricked and betrayed.

At a point, when I had resolved to stay behind with her, our friendly neighborhood river rafting guide took over and performed a miracle. He made an eight-year-old distraught girl trust him and willingly go where no one in her family thought she would ever go—into the boat. She did not fall out of the boat. As a matter of fact (and pride), ours was the only boat that did not capsize, i.e. tip over, dumping everyone into the raging river!  So it goes. She trusted the right guy.

This became a song, but has since been forgotten. Oh well.

(This is a feature article from our “Once and Future Songs” column, which can be found in our newsletter and is archived on The 15th Floor blog.)

Oddly, music (even The 15th Floor’s “From the Dining Room” album) cannot consistently soothe my road rage monster, but a good audio book can. My drive to work isn’t long by most standards, 20 minutes, but through a part of Scottsdale and Phoenix rife with the type of drivers that can wreck my mood– and thus my day– in a hurry. Yes, I know, I shouldn’t take it personally, and I try… but by the fifth time the Camry pulls out in the fast lane forcing me to brake, then goes ONLY the speed limit, AND the Range Rover (or BMW) on my tail is so close I can see the driver’s shade of lipstick in my rearview… it’s a good thing my car isn’t equipped with missiles. It has always been clear to me the only one harmed by my frustration and anger is me and the best way I have found to be almost completely oblivious to it is through audio books.

A good book puts me in the slow lane and if I get cut off or miss the light, yippee!, more time to listen to the book. Music can help, but the standard 3-4 minute song is too short to keep my mood and emotions controlled for the entire 20 minute trip. In fact, if a driver breaks the mood of the song I am listening to, it pisses me off even more, especially when I find that rare song that really moves me. Classical music lasts longer, but thanks to my mother playing piano at bedtime, it puts me to sleep. With a book, I hardly notice the other drivers. (I suppose some would say this could be a bad thing.)

There are many ways to listen to an audio book while driving, but I mostly use the old fashioned, simple cheap method of checking out the CD’s at the library. This option has a more limited selection. Other downsides include the time it takes to go to the library, frequent skips or damaged CD’s, and the safety factor of changing CD’s while driving (not recommended) especially when the CD case has slid onto the floor behind the passenger seat. It is very frustrating to reach the end of disc #5 and not be able to put in disc #6 until exiting the highway or coming to a red light (in which case a red light can produce a major YIPPEE!)

I have just started downloading audio books from the library. So far, this has worked well to listen on my IPOD on the airplane, but I haven’t hooked the IPOD to my car recently (need new connecting device.) Downloading from Audiobooks.com, Audible.com, or even iTunes, can get pricy for the number of books I would go through—and I almost never read a book twice (notable exceptions: Tolkien, Vonnegut, Douglas Adams) so no need to own– it would cost a minimum of about $15/month for the cheapest of these plans.

I suppose I could put in the soundtrack for Les Miserables every day, but then I would be crying instead of shouting all the way to work.