I made my first music video today. I hope you like it.
Characters were made at Meez.com. I couldn’t just make the character and post it, I had to get excessively geeky with it. Sorry for the choppy production quality.
Music
well, another season of jasonackermanmusic is here.
just to let you all know, i’m playing at ice cream renaissance this saturday, from somewhere in the 7pm range to somewhere in the 10pm range. if you’re in vancouver, and feel the need to brave the weather, come on down and get some sort of ice cream dish – you won’t be disappointed, i’m serious, it’s the best ice cream you’ll find anywhere – and enjoy a few minutes of the rock and roll extravaganza that is jasonackermanmusic. i mean, i’m no tenacious d or anything, but i think you’ll enjoy your time nonetheless.
hope to see you THIS SATURDAY – i’ll be appearing again on december 8th, but let’s cross that bridge when we come to it. for now, we’ll concentrate on THIS SATURDAY, and not to sound beggarish, but if you can spare a little something for the tip jar, i would be forever in your debt.
peace out.
–jason.
well, we are back from orcas island, and let me tell you… that is one of the few places i’ve ever been that makes me not want to come home. there’s something magical about the place. i’m not sure i could really live there, because of the isolation factor… but it would be fun to try.
welcome to any and all new visitors to this site that we met at woodsong! it’s great to have you along. i’m going to be adding a nice long list of ‘musical friends’ to my links page. if when you see that list pop up, and you’re a musician, and you’re not on it, and we’ve actually met in person… drop me a line and i’ll be sure you get added straight away.
i’m not really going to post a huge trip report just yet. i’ll simply say that the island was wonderful, the company was fantastic, the music was amazing, the festival was joyful… already plotting and planning for next year.
peace to you all.
–jason.
ps: i leave you with this photographical proof of my performance on the woodsong stage:
we haven’t set an official release date yet, but the master is complete, and the packaging is being completed as we speak. i’ve been dodging the process of completing this project for a long time. it feels great to have it done. we’ll be celebrating the release of this project at a special release party show, with a full band, sometime in the next 4 weeks.
in the meantime, please keep checking here for show details, and check the brand new MySpace for a couple free previews.
–j.
it’s been a weird rollercoaster of a week. nice to be home, though the trip was nice as well. never did get that walk on the beach.
played another show at cornerstone coffee tonight. not quite as successful as the last. i’m not sure if i sucked that bad, or if mcminnville hasn’t yet heard of the courtesy “golf clap”. i got some good response, as i warmed up, but nothing like the last time i played out there. i wonder if i just came in with a lack of energy, and it transfered through to the audience. this is part of why i think gordon shumway is pretty much over, i’m ready to have at it fresh. i did come away with a small bit of cash and a pound of fresh roasted coffee! that’s the great thing about that gig… they actually pay!
began work on a freelance project that came in just before the holiday. the client immediately decided the concept sucked and began pushing for immediate changes and updates. when working in flash, this is very difficult to do. when he began to threaten to pull the job from the firm i’m contracting for due to “lack” of progress, i began to lose confidence in the project. this guy is a salesman who fancies himself a designer, which makes it worse. on top of that, he can’t compose a coherent written sentence, it’s like deciphering a teenager’s instant message screen to read his emails. we’ll probably end up losing the deposit, which isn’t really fair based on the time we’ve put in (i did multiple phone consultations with him and his accountant over thanksgiving weekend! i also put several hours into redesigning what i had done that he didn’t like), but based on how he’s been, i’m not sure he’s the kind of guy we want to do business with. i’m doubting his sense of fairness is developed enough to pay us for our time up to now if he indeed pulls the plug before we do.
on the bright side, i’ve been hired by derby to do their new website. these guys are simply amazing, if you haven’t heard them. take a few minutes to listen, they’ve got this tight harmony, energetic, beatles/shins thing going on. what a grasp on pop melody songwriting. wayne, their bass player, is engineering my project. it all comes around like that.
christmas is coming. fast. had our first rehearsals with the string section last night… this is going to be fun.
there is much more to be said, but it will have to wait for later posts.
as of tonight, i have officially played my last show as “the gordon shumway project”. tomorrow morning, i enter the studio to begin recording a new project.
the long and short (mostly short) of it is that the gordonshumway thing has just played itself out. as my music changes, my songwriting changes, it just doesn’t really fit anymore. i’ll be adding band members over time, and releasing this new project, and it just seems fitting that if i’m going to take this thing seriously, g.s.p. needs to be put to rest.
so there it is. gordon shumway is no more. sometime over the next six weeks, as the cd is finished, mixed, duplicated, and prepared for release, i’ll be posting release details as well as announcing the new name/formation of the project that contains my music.
thank you all for your interest. things will only get better from here.
–j.
Returned this evening from the Woodsong Festival. Let me tell you, I come back more refreshed from these few days in the woods than I ever could on a week long vacation anywhere else. There’s just something about the island life, and I think it’s taken me a few times there to get it. The San Juan Islands lifestyle is just different. I’ve never been to the Bahamas, but I’m guessing life in the San Juans is even different from that– climate differences aside.
I’m not sure anyone who hasn’t been there really understands the caliber of musicians that play this festival. Many are struggling to climb their way out of obscurity, but from a pure talent and artistry perspective– these guys are the best in the world, I guarantee it. One guy has written so many songs, that he even has songs in his catalog that have been picked up for movies, and others that have been recorded by superstars like Johnny Cash. And I got to sit in on a free 1 hour songwriting seminar he led. From the singer-songwriter straggling in from Colorado by way of Austin, TX, to the most experienced guys there (Bill Mallonee, Johnsmith, Pierce Pettis), the quality was top-notch. Amazing. Leaves me breathless every time. I’ll be adding a section to this site of links to many of these folks, because most of them you really need to hear– it’s a salve to the wound the Christian music “industry” has inflicted on us.
The camping was a bit of a hassle with the 3 kids, but overall we made it out unscathed. Dirty, tired, and such, but none the worse for the wear. Made some new friends, caught up with some old friends, and shared the biggest backyard barbeque ever with them all.
I can’t possibly capture the whole trip in a single late-night post– so I won’t try. But I will leave you with these two bits of news:
1. I will likely be discontinuing my livejournal– I won’t delete it, or anything, I’ll just be backing off on the regular updates, and restricting my posting to the blog. I’ll post the RSS feed for anyone who wants to follow my updates from the LJ friends page structure, but anyone who wants to comment or otherwise interact, should head to the blog for that. I’ll continue reading the friends page as well… just not as religiously. The reasoning behind this is pretty simple– it’s easier for me, and accomplishes my purpose in the blog more precisely.
2. At our house, Wednesday, Katy Bowser, and her husband Kenny Hutson, will be gracing the “stage” at the Monster Cafe (aka, our living room). We’re super thrilled to be hosting our friend from Nashville, and her husband’s guitar skills are simply out of this world, and will be a treat to experience up close. There is still space available, so if you want to come, email me, preferably by Monday evening, and we’ll see what we can do.
You know you’re in trouble when your gig is at the ice cream shop, and yesterday’s 80F weather has morphed into classic Pacific Northwest fare: overcast, rain giving way to showers, then back to rain. The crowd was thin (odd for an ice cream shop, hehe), and the interaction was even thinner.
I could just keep playing the same song 12 times over and nobody would notice.
Ultimately, the few who seemed to enjoy it left tips, meager though they were. It was at least nice to have that expression of appreciation for the hard work. It is hard work to play such a small gig– way more challenging than something larger.
—
WordPress is a work in progress. Basically, the format is fine. I’m just experimenting with some plugins. All the image handling plugins are stupid… I have yet to find one that’s any easier or more manageable than just throwing photos into my own hosting directory, and reference them image by image.
I’m wondering if I’ll set up a second blog for Compass stuff… probably not. But I could, it’s easy enough to do. It’s hard to keep working on this thing and updating it without knowing if anyone is ever reading it…
