My posting on social media’s days are numbered.  I had to deactivate my FB page since being hacked … yet again … this time thanking all for being ‘fans’ … which sounds so like me!  What’s next, me proclaiming ‘I’m from the government and i’m here to help’?

This is my internet space, and I will post songs, photos and what’s on my mind here.  If no one reads it in this lifetime, perhaps one day someone will see there was a guy who received no Grammy, no AMA, no awards whatsoever save a few BMI airplay achievement medallions and certificates, but was an artist true to his form, no matter the audience.

So many proclamations I read about what it takes to be a ‘real artist’.  John Mellencamp said you have to do it, you have to tour, because it’s in your blood if you’re a real artist.  This may be true, but I see little correlation between being an artist and touring.  In fact, to me they’re almost polar opposites.

Writing, rewriting, demoing, recording, producing, mixing… these are an art form of their own.  It starts from nothing.  Eventually you end up with something that is your signature sound,  lyrics that reflect your life experience.  Well, if you’re not just hacking the latest radio or Spotify trend that is.

Many say it’s a gift from the universe that if you don’t snatch up, someone else will.  I always liked that description because for me, that’s the closest to how it feels.

Touring, in my opinion is in large part a carny act.  You have a lobby call, early.  You head to an interview or two, then it’s time to eat.  After lunch you have sound check.  Then you have an hour to go to your hotel room or bus and relax, hang out, shower and prepare for the show.  Once the show starts, typically speaking you do the exact same thing you did the night before.  Then it’s back to the room or bus and onto the next city.  It’s groundhog day.

This is not to say it doesn’t take some creativity to invent an entertaining live show.  I’ll tell you this, it certainly takes an athlete.  But once it’s created you do it night after night, week after week, month after month.  zzzzz 

Ok mr. devil’s advocate, I know there are a few performers who are free-form and wing it.  Jazz musicians have to play live to keep up their skill, their spontaneity, and I get that.  But with popular music that’s not the norm.  The norm is “HELLO CLEVELAND, I LOVE THIS CITY!” … followed by the next night’s “HELLO PITTSBURGH, I FUCKING LOVE THIS CITY!”

To me it’s brutal.  Living with, again typically speaking, 4 or 5 guys in a bus is not an intuitive way for a man to be. We’re not designed this way after the age of 25.  This is why so many bands stay together but don’t like or even speak to each other anymore.  In the case of The Who, for example… Roger and Pete exit the stage from different sides, get in their limos and see each other at the next show, onstage, never uttering a word to one another.  It’s been that way for many years.  Just not in our DNA to live in tight quarters with other men.  Women same.  Men/Women, yikes…

Lennon/McCartney knew it after a few short tours, and  in 1966, 2 years after going to the toppermost, they stopped.  They were like, wait, we could be writing new songs and instead we’re out here taking bows for the songs we already wrote… not what we want to do!  So they stopped.  And the world thanks them.

For li’l ol’ me… I did many other things to keep from touring.  I managed for 22 years,  produced some records, ran a small label for awhile, developed many new artists… and now I get to enjoy what I love most, songwriting and record making.  I hope you enjoy my new home and the songs, photos and videos I offer.  They are mine, based on a life lived and devoted to what I love… music.

-Jude