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
