Wednesday, April 4, 2012

April music news for John Roy Zat

Hi – I hope you are doing great and enjoying more daylight and much Springing   Dark days of winter be gone.  Love and life is in the air !!

I heard some nice news about radio airplay this month.  My CD "Solo" debuted at #6 on the Roots Music Report Internet Folk charts, and hit #78 with on the Roots Music Report Chart for California for the week ending March 30th, 2012 - - up from #79 in the middle of March.   This sure keeps me inspired and motivated !!

Back on earth, I am diligently working on my French Canadian fiddling foot tapping.  It is fun but it does take awhile to build up the endurance (it's like jogging in place), not to mention the coordination.   I am planning to do a least one foot tap fiddle tune this Saturday at Chester’s.  I have been polishing lyrics to “On My Radio” and I revived a lyric for one of my favorite fiddle waltzes “My Old Home” also.

Speaking of Chester’s, I am sharing the bill this Saturday with Randy Rood and the Rounders.   Randy is the guy who engineered my Solo CD, and is a fine musician also.   He’s played with the likes of Merle Haggard (shameless name dropping) and his buddies are in the same league, so I have no doubt that some good music will be made.  I am thrilled that Patty Hammond will sit in with me on bass  (Her band Kicking the Mule ROCKS http://www.myspace.com/kickinthemule), and rumor has it that Dorcas Moulton may join for a tune or two on accordion.   If you are on Facebook, you probably already know I’ll start at and we play to .   If you can make it by, it will be nice to see you.

And, I’ll be playing Chester’s again on Thursday, April 19th with Don’t Look Back, and Zoe Carter and Maria Kersey.

Video and animation is the focus of my energies these days, and not yet much to show for my efforts.  I have been taking an animation class at Berkeley City College and learning so much.  Here is some fun for you: 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQcUqrKM3mc, and lots more here:http://www.nfb.ca/channels/Animation/.   Video is about 24 frames per second, which means a three minute song requires about 4,300 images.  There is some great animation software out there, but it still takes time.  I am working on an animation of “Crazy Glue” and it will be awhile before it's on YouTube.

My friend, Lisa Esherick is working on an animation of my song “Long Train Coming” and I saw part of it last week.  Very nice !!   Her friend, John Reilly an experienced animator, is also involved and they are using images from her paintings.   Lisa does wonderful art which you can see some of here: http://www.lisaesherick.com/    

I am working on videos of some children’s songs with Michael Hannah, and I am planning to do a few more of my songs for YouTube in the next month or two.   I have no shortage of aspirations :-)

Last month, I took an excellent workshop on music marketing put on through the West Coast Songwriters Association and sponsored by Media Local Studios in Menlo Park.    Learned a lot and have yet to take full advantage of it, but little by little we get there.   I have been working with Jeanette Lundgren at Mother Hen Promotions for awhile now, learning the ins and outs of Facebook and indie radio among other things, and that has been first rate.

Life is full and good over my way, and I wish very much the same for you.

Happy Easter/Passover/Nowrooz/Equinox -- and all the best,

John
Roy Zat
Croizat
Whatever