I first heard of MySpace through a friend who boasted that it was helping get bands a lot of attention. In some cases, it even lead to recording contracts with reputable labels and management. I immediately had to see what all this talk was about. I signed up for a profile and began inserting all of my information and a few images of my band and myself. At first I went for as many “friends” as my fingers could take clicking on. Then I decided that this was a waste of time and stopped with the friend adding. So, I proceeded to add new pictures and songs, and video clips and let it go on to be what it was going to be. I checked every few days to accept friends and write a reply to them, and get into the flow of it all. I noticed that Jesse Cook, Johannes Linstead, and Ottmar Liebert and others had profiles too. I have enjoyed friendly communication with guitarists Johannes Linstead and Jeff Golub who are a really cool guys and I have a lot of respect for them both as artists and as a quality people.

MySpace has helped me reach people around the world with whom I otherwise would never have made a connection. I have people that I often correspond with in South Africa, Europe, Australia + New Zealand and many other far away places. My CD sales have gone up considerably through CD Baby + Amazon and I have even picked up real distribution as a result.

A few weeks ago I bragged, I know “tsk-tsk” for doing this, that I was very close in the number of plays I had to my competition on MySpace. When I say competition, I use the word loosely, I mean really, these are all guys that have been on the Billboard “new age” charts at some point and have either Gold or Platinum CD sales. I am just a guy who loves to play guitar, create music, and hopes for some measurable monetary success. Though you might look at my videos and listen to my music and think otherwise, my CD sales pale in comparison.
That said, I was sad to see Ottmar leave Myspace this past week. I was enjoying watching my plays come close to his number of plays, and I think in a few weeks I might have caught up to his. Oh well maybe “E” will show up again, huh? A milestone is only a milestone if there is already a marker in place.
Ottmar said on his recent blog March 23rd
“Anyway, musicians should use their spare time playing their instrument rather than networking.” So while this may be true for OL, as he was fortunate enough to get the lucky break way back when, the rest of us need to work at it, no matter what that means to us as individual artists. For me, Myspace has given me the opportunity to play my guitar more than if I had never used it. I have requests to perform in new venues as a result Myspace.

MySpace = now or “Web 2.0″ as MacWorld Magazine called it. MySpace is the reality of the musician of today, and the musician or guitarist who does want to get out there and play his or her instrument more. Guitarists such as myself use MySpace to make more things happen. MySpace is a good thing. Next week, month, or next year, there will be something new, something that causes MySpace to fail and lose market share. This is the internet. This is our world today.

Below (myself making real world “connections”):

The other day when I was down hard with the flu, I began to think about my heroes and what they meant to me in my formative years of playing guitar. I remember back when I would study the CD cover art, or album art, and look with great wonder, thinking about the attractive aspect of that collection of music I was holding in my hand and listening to over and over again. If you are a musician that is reading this, then you certainly can relate to the idea that the cd you had been holding in your hand was really cool and your heroes are worthy, right? Then years go by and you start hearing these stories about them that forces you to be taken back with an almost automated response like “really”?

There are at least two or three of these guitar heroes of mine, that this happened to for me. One guy I keep hearing about, and I will hold back his name, has the worst reputation for treating restaurant staff poorly when he dines out. He is known as a real “jerk” mostly in his home town. Meanwhile his entire entourage is programmed to say only good things about mr. hero, so to the fans waiting for an autograph all appears normal, but heres the catch; it is because he is “still ON”, at least until the bus pulls away from the site of the concert. That’s when the real personality comes out. The personality that is either nasty or cannot deal with normal communications that don’t involve some sort of worshiping tone from the other person’s voice. He thinks of himself as “with great wisdom” so to speak. But here’s the thing, he is extremely jealous of his competition, and says curiously harsh things about others in his field. I have lost all respect for him as a result, to the point where I feel like he is dead or something. I know, weird, huh? This is a guy that I pictured as being really cool when I finally got to meet him. I must admit he was polite and shook my hand, but thats kind of it. One time I was performing in Florida and met someone that interviewed this guy on a radio program that she hosted years ago, and good old mr hero was a pompous prick. From that point forward I was really disheartened by these facts and decided to remember him as a good composer and take him out of my thoughts for good.
There is another mr. hero that I completely lost respect for due to an ego that was so far gone that he did not want any contact with seriously devoted fans, and I’m not talking about the stereotypical psycho-fan that we all have heard about, no, I’m talking about numerous stories about guys waiting outside the backstage area hoping to have a guitar autographed by their lifelong guitar hero. Every story involved complete disregard for the fans.

At the end of the day, we are defined by our actions. How many people have we affected in a positive way, how many people could we have been a little nicer too? How many times would it have taken a second longer to smile and look someone in the eye when shaking their hand? We all put our pants on one leg at a time. But some people were destined for fame and fortune, others were destined to grow in negative and jealous ways, and others are happy and content with operating on the same level as the people and truly deserve all the adoration of fans and super-stardom. I’m talking about guys like Paul McCartney. Yeah he and his wife hit rocky waters, but haven’t you heard time and time again about how he treats every fan, on his level. It blows their minds too. Nobody suspects someone that has achieved such greatness to be so humble.  I guess what separates the deserving, from the undeserving so called “heroes”.

Today I was a guest on AZTV’s “AM Arizona”. I have to say that the staff and crew are always really great there. With me were Gabriel Browne and Sean Vasquez. This was both for the CD that I produced for Sean’s “The Gathering” project and also to promote a concert at the Yavapai Performance Hall on Friday, October 12th. In a last minute tuning check, we noticed that flute Sean was to play for the song “Sedona” was very flat. Last we checked, it was tuned really well, before the many cotes of lacquer that were sprayed on since. Gabe and I scrambled to tune our guitars flat, to match the new tuning of the the flute. It is amazing how much a milimeter of paint makes on a native american flute. I hear R. Carlos Nakai plays a PVC flute to be able to retune his flute on-the-fly. This definitely sounds like a good thing for bandmates and fast tuning issue resolvement. After our performance, we had a good laugh about it, but the 30 seconds before the “live on air” light went on, it was a bit stressful.

I recently posted my old rock guitar used on a NWOBHM or new wave of british heavy metal album on Neat Records. This guitar was built by master guitar builder Audric Jankauskas. I’m not sure if anyone even cares about stuff like that anymore, but I have no need for this type of instrument any longer. It is easy for me to say goodbye to material possessions like old guitars that just sit there and remind you of your past. Its this pointy-jaggy looking guitar that truly needs be played by a metal guy. I think it has been about 21 years since I actively used this guitar. I will try to post a picture of it soon. Other guitars such as my old Dan Electro (silvertone) guitar went pretty quickly on ebay.

This weekend members of Puerta Del Sol and myself will be supporting Native-American Flautest “Sean Vasquez” + “The Gathering” in one of the largest Native-American gatherings of the year and of the globe. Producing Sean’s CD was an absolute pleasure, as Sean is both very talented and very easy to work with.

Please take a look at Sean’s web site: www.myspace.com/SeanVasquezMusic. I hope that you enjoy what you hear!

We’ll be performing at 10:30 AM on both Friday, August 17th and Saturday, August 18th.

 Sean will have some Flutes for sale, built by Sean himself!

as the new year approaches, I can reflect on many good things. My band for one, have been a real blessing. Three Trees has surpassed my expectations as far as a world-class percussionist and as a very balanced person.
The video, although not high-definition by any stretch of the imagination, has been fuel for the next level.
The Iraq war seems to be coming to an end soon, the change in congress most likely will move that forward.
My recording of a new cd with good mics finally is happening.