BluesBro's World Downunder

That's right it is my very first Podcast. This is something I have been wanting to do for ages, but never quite sorted out the technology or taken the time to do it. If you have iTunes or any podcatching software, you can subscribe with luigicappel.libsyn.com/rss

It will hopefully be of special interest to anyone who is into songwriting or forgin a music career. Come check it out at least once:)

I know this is a big ask, but Music Forte is having a massive Music Forte idol competition. The winner is the one that has the most votes. There are two catches.
1. You have to join Music Forte, which is free and there are major benefits if you are a musician or a songwriter, or someone who wants to support other musicians and songwriters and listen to loads of great music for free.
2. It costs to vote. You can place 1 vote by using your PayPal account which will cost you a dollar. Or you can purchase 10 votes with your credit card for $8.

I know this is a huge ask, but if anyone likes my music enough to spend a dollar, I would be eternally grateful and you will be helping my songwriting career, even if I don't win, because lots more people will check out my music.

If you want to check out how to vote, you can do so at http://www.musicforte.com/idol/how_to_vote.php

You can also listen to my music at www.musicforte.com/member/bluesbro. That helps too cause in the last few days I have slipped from Number 1 to number 12 on the Country Top 20 and from number 1 to Number 2 on the Folk Top 20:( Every listen helps my rankings.

So anything you can do to help would be much appreciated. I would off course do the same for You:)

If you tried the links previously, my apologies, I used the Buzznet linking tool, but it added Bluesbro to the front, the URL's are now correct.

Yours always, BluesBro

I'm currently writing a new song - yes I'm a songe songwriter and if you want to hear some of my songs, you can hear them at www.musicforte.com/member/bluesbro.

Anyway I'm writing a protest song about the relationship between New Zealand and the USA. back in the late 1970's lots of US ships used to come to New Zealand for R & R. We would have thousands, well hundreds of marines with haircuts like mine, sailors, officers etc coming in and we took pride in hosting them. We had a dial a sailor program and each time a ship came in, we would invite a group of te guys to come stay in our flat, play cards, do some sight seeing and generally make friends. We also got to visit the ships and submarines which was an awesome experience.

Then our anti nuclear movement started, particularly in relation to the French nuclear testing in the Pacific, but that's another story. As a result and in keeping with our philosophy of being clean and green (which is why we have such a great eco-tourism industry) we banned nuclear ships from visiting our ports. We also banned ships that were carrying nuclear weapons. This was not a political protest and had nothing to do wit how we viewed the US, which had always been very friendly going back to the days that we shared the trenches in WWll, Korea, Viet Nam and other places. Because the US would not confirm or deny that there were nuclear weapons on board, they stopped coming and our relationship turned to shit.

The US decided that we were no longer an ally and put a stop to economic and military relationships. We had a local treaty called ANZUS which was between NZ, Australia and the US and the US refused to train and run war games wit us, which we had done for decades prior.

We are a peaceful nation and have always valued our relationships with our US friends, but because we wanted to eliminate the risk of any nuclear accidents, we were penalised and were no longer considered allies or friends of the US. There is a diplomatic term for our relationship, but I can't remember what it is called. The status is lower than the relationship with countries like China and Iraq to put it inperspective. Whether you agree with the policy we decided on doesn't matter, many Kiwi's don't agree with it or believe it is no longer relevant.

We are a small country in the South Pacific with a population of a few people over 4,000,000 in the entire country, the equivalent of a large US city! Despite that, we have sent small peace keeping forces all over the world including Afghanistan, Iraq, Korean Peninsula, Kosovo, Sudan, East Timor, Fiji, New Guinea, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bouganville, Sinai, Solomon Islands, Cambodia, Mozambique, Sierra Leone and more. I think that illustrates that we care for world peace and are prepared to shoulder some responsibility, even for a small country.

We have free trade agreements with Australia and many oter countries, but we can't get one with the USA, which forced us to seek and receive free trade agreements with countries like China, where we now have an official friend relationship which we can't get with the USA.

So I ask you, are we bad people? Are we a security risk to the US? We like Americans and many of us visit the US regularly for business or pleasure. I have been over myself probably 10 times and have personal friends all over the US. But te US won't recognise us as friends or allies. Is that appropriate?

So Mr Bush, why can't we be friends?

As to the song, I hope to record it in the next month and it will appear on my website at Music Forte. Maybe Mr President will come and listen? I doubt it, though. Don't you?

Now there's something to crow about. It seems like only yesterday when Aidan and Marc told me about this place. Now it seems to be a home away from home. I've really enjoyed showing my friends and others what I see through my lens and a bit about how we live downunder.

The planet has become very small and I have met and made friends of all ages, all pursuasions and many races. It is a bit like music, where borders, languages and beliefs are broken down into the basics, that we are all human beings, fundamentally good and caring.

I have been thinking lately about the wars and battles raging around the world and how simple it all seemed when we were young. What is it that changes us from when we are kids and don't understand why we can't all be friends, to growing up and turning into adults, which should mean maturity and yet we learn to hate.

This isn't a soap box today though, but a celebration of Buzznet and the good friends I have here. Long may it remain.

I would like this journal to also remember those of us who are not here any more, through no fault of there own. Let's remember hem and be nice to someone today, even if you don't feel like it. You never know what could be around the corner. When I took this photo, I thought, life is good. I still do, but things have changed. The bottom line is that this world is about people and it will take people to keep it going and make good things happen. But I said this wasn't going to be a soap box.

Have a good weekend frie
nds:)

I have been hanging out for so long to get my first digital SLR. I was hoping to trade my old one, but it has devalued so much that its hardly worth anything, even though it cost me heaps.

So I am now the proud owner of a Canon EOS350D. It's not top of the line but the closest to a professional camera I've had for years. I've got 2 lenses to get me started and a high speed 1GB CF card.

Now of course I have to learn how to use it properly. One of the reasons I wanted it was so I can do some fast sport photography. I can now click at 1/4000 of a second and I don't have to have those cute cheerleader flapping wings anymore unless I actually want to.

It is a lot more bulky, so I'll still carry around my Olympus for those quick photo opportunities and as a back up.

Exciting!

When I wrote Only Memories Survive, I thought to myself, I've written a country song. The more I played it, the more I liked it. I still need to record it properly, but despite that it has gone No 1 in the Music Forte Country Top 20! 

How cool is that. I've called on my Buzz friends to go and listen there, so I can stay up there. This could be my first real break to get people to hear my music. What a buzz, pun intended.

If you haven't figured it out, I'm feeling pretty happy right now. I've had a really bad cold this wekend, coughing my lungs out and almost lost my voice. Managed to write the first verse of a new song though. Guess what, it's country again, what's getting into me? Is it something in the water.

I think it's going to be called Monday Morning Fever

It starts like this:

You said you'd be back Friday
But it seems so far away
The house just aint the same when you're not here
It was raining when you left
The door is still wide open
And the scent of your perfume hangs in the air.
It's only been an hour but I miss you
I guess I should get up and close the door

But I've got Monday morning fever
It's the worst day of the week
Monday morning fever's got me down.....................................

I haven't worked out what its about yet, believe it or not. It could be about a relationship that's over, or it could be about someone who's partner is a travelling sales person or something.

Wht do you think it should be about?

No it's not my Podcast, its Killer Innovations

They have an excellent podcast that I subscribe to with lots of ideas for people who want to go places, entrepreneurs and in fact anyone that wants to do things smarter. It's worth a l;isten anyway, but this week they are playing my song about a killer innovation, or not, Telephone Card.

I'm just rapt that more people will get to hear it.:)

At 3 a.m. this morning a line came to me. at 4 a.m. the second line arrived and this afternoon the song was almost finished, (home with the flu) now just needs some editing and need to learn to play and perform it. Don't know where it came from, but I like it. The first 2 lines are:

It thundered down the road like a yong boy racers dream
The Rockford Fosgate sub beat like a life-support machine

It's a sad country song, (aren't they all?) which I thought (sort of still do) is sort of a Johnny cash style, but the more I think of it, the more it sounds like something from Dire Straits with a bit of Strawbs thrown in.

Anyway, hope to have it up for you to hear before too long.

BB

Got Natural Progression recorded at last, you can hear it on my Buzz. I was tempted to add some lead to the chorus and bridge, but I'm holding myself back because the more I dad to it, the harder it will be for other people to perform with their own flavour. It will get tagged as being a particular type of song. As it is I wrote it for a female voice, but I can't wait for a female to learn it, so for now this is it. Of course it could be male or female, but I visualised a female telling the story. I feel funny saying female, but the point is it could just as easily be a girl or a woman:-)

Come have a listen and tell me what you think.

I played at an Open Mic last Thursday night, was a bit under the weather with a sore back and full of pain killers and didn't play that well, although I got plenty of compliments, so I guess my perception is sometimes different to the listeners. Anyway, I've only been playing originals and what with lots of other things to occupy my attention, I haven't written or played muh in the last few weeks.

This morning while I was moving files to my new computer I thought I had better do some practice and also create more charts so that I can give them to the band when I am accompanied, which is something I should have done sooner! Bought some more clear files this afternoon so I can have 4 copies of everything when I need them, but that's beside the point.

I started a song earlier this year and it has been languishing waiting for the inspiration to complete it. Anyway, as I was working through my clearfile I found the song, which is called A Natural Progession, thought back to my songwriting course a few weeks ago and thought to myself "this song needs a bridge". So I wrote one which was full of energy and completed the form that Pat Pattison called Don and Donny with it.

So now the song is complete and I like it:-) I didn't know what all the chords were called, for my charts, so I downloaded a program called Super Chord Finder 5.0 after searching for what seemed like forever for a utility which lets you enter the chords on a virtual guitar neck. Now I can tell the rythm guitarist that I need chords like Fm7 add 11, FM+7 and Ddim. I can play them, but I don't always know what they are caled:(

So thus ends another successful songwriting day.

Next week I am exhibiting at the Small Business Expo and then will start attacking Open Mic's around Auckland. Time to play:-)

For the last 2 days I have been attending a Pat Pattison Lyric Writing Course along with many well known, many not well known and many soon to be well known songwriters.

Quoting one of the songs that was critiqued this afternoon, it was a 'Leap of Faith' in that most of us had no idea who this guy Pat was or whether it would be any good. I was on the list for a critique, but time was short and there would have been around 80 of us on the course. I was wishing I would be next and wishing I wouldn't. It is quite daunting being critiqued in front of your  peers. Well time ran out and I got my wish, I was on the list but we were out of time.

I will probably say a bit more about Pat on MySpace

It was a great weekend and if you are into music writing and get the opportunity, I would highly recommend attending one of his courses. As well as teaching at the Berklee School of Music he also runs online courses through them and has written 3 books. I bought a copy of 'Writing Better Lyrics' which he kindly dedicated to me with an autograph.

One of the many tools he gave us was Object Writing, which is an exercise I have committed to for 10 minutes each day, anyway, I said I would write more about this at MySpace, so I won't go on here. Needless to say I am feeling energised and keen to get to work writing more songs.

Hopefully there will also be networking opportunities as a consequence of the course, so I will get to meet and maybe collaborate with some of the other attendees. Meanwhile, back to work tomorrow to Pay the Piper:)

Went to a concert last night on Mount Eden, in a little natural ampitheatre which was obviously a small volcanic cone. When I say samll, there would have been 3,000 of us at a guess.

Anika Moa started off with some dry humour and her latest hits. She did a really good job warming up a typical Auckland crowd that don't show much enthusiasm for anything. Flight of the Conchord came on next and gave us some great humour, they are a 'band' well they say they are, like you can have a band of two people, you can have a one man band can't you, so you can have 2 one man bands and then join them into one. They do band kinda stuff, like they have a repertoire of sounds (strums one chord) like that was one of the4 many sounds they have on tap. Anyway, I guess you had to be there.

Then came Bic Runga for an excellent couple of sets including an appearance by Neil Finn of Crowded House fame. he did his best to stay low key because this was Bic's tour, promoting her new album Birds.Some great Kiwi music.

I forgot to mention an excellent Maori welcome by the local iwi with conches and a great haka. That's the sort of stuff that makes you proud of our Maori brothers.

Then after an excellent concert, we got back to the car and found that some bastard had smashed the passenger window and broken into it. Had to drive home with glass everywhere. Rang the police and they said that due to the large number of cars that get broken into in Auckland every Saturday nights, they wouldn't come out to print it, especially as nothing had been stolen other than the mount for my Navman GPS unit, which is safely in my drawer at work. It's pouring down with rain today, so I can't take it out to get it fixed. Sad ending to a good night.

Now there's a milestone. Just think how much time I spent taking them and then how much time I've spent putting it up on the site let alone visitng all my good friends here at Buzznet.

Marc look what you've done to me! One email all that time ago and I'm looking like a Buzznet junkie!

I wrote a really cool song a few weeks ago and on Sunday night when I got back from my latest travels I thought I'd sit down and record it to go on MySpace.

Do you think I could get it right? No! I've just done 3 weeks without a break and without my guitar, so now I am practicing like mad to get it down so I can record it on Friday when I have a day off in lieu of working the last 2 weekends and being away from home.

I was planning to play at the Devonport Folk Club on onday night but I was way too tired. I'm working on doing a few performances in front of gentle crowds just to get back into playing mode and getting back into full show confidence so to speak.

As to my marathon ambitions, I'm STILL having physio, seen more doctors and been referred for a pressure test for Compartment Syndrome, which involes painfully inserting a pressure guage into my shin muscles and then exercising to see how much they swell up. I've postponed that one for a couple of weeks, because I don't think that's my problem. In the meantime having 2 lots of deep tissue massage to see if that helps. This is not the nice gentle relaxing massage folks, its half an hour at a time of wishing I could kick my physio:-)

Otherwise all is good. Hope it is for you too:)

I've been trying to get more Kiwi's to join in at Buzznet and NetGuide Magazine is the place to do that. They have a competition for best web sites and one of the categories is best blog.

If you go to this URL http://www.netguide.co.nz/webawards/ and vote for http://bluesbro.buzznet.com hopefully I and we will get more visitors and more people joining us from Downunder. That would be a good thing, wouldn't it?

Why can't people learn how to get on and off the freeway? Last night it took me 1/2 an hour to get on because people were going on at all angles and just caused gridlock. As I was inching forward at 5 metres per minute I got a call saying the powers out, get fast food. And traffic lights not working at Tristram Ave offramp, take the next one.

Once I got on the motorway (that's what we call it downunder) traffic was almost normal, but the weather was lousy. Blowing a gale. When I got home I found the swinging chair cloth top had disintegrated and a couple of recliners were floating in the pool.

Long story short, huge gale, floods around town, bnoats lost their moorings again and our power came on at 10:30 p.m. We were amongst the lucky ones. Others in the area had floods, trees down, fences down etc. Have had a perfect month of sunshine, and last night a month worth of wind and rain came in one blast. I'm, not complaining though, I'm back at work and its gotta rain sometime:)

I finally got to see this movie tonight and it has instantly become one of my favourites. If there are any Kiwi expats reading this who haven't gone to see it yet, do it now, today. It epitomises (I know big word) the Kiwi spirit of don't tell me it can't be done while I'm busy doing it.

His 1967 land speed record for a sub 1000cc motorcycle on the salt flats still stands today, on a 1920 Indian motorcycle that was designed with a top speed of 57m.p.h. I remember hearing stories about how he once made and drove on a piston smelted from baked bean cans.

A great story and true even! Check it out.

My resolution for this year is to become a professional songwriter. It's going to take a fwe years if I am successful because I can't do without the money from my job. Muso's don't earn much and being a songwriter even less, unless you do really well.

So in recognition of that, I have changed my profile pic which will hopefully also satisfy those who keep complaining that I don't post many pics of myself. There is of course a really good reason for that, which is that I am always the one holding the camera and I'm not narcistic enough to take mobile pics of myself, although I don't mind looking at other people's:-)

As to my shinsplints, I did lots of walking while I was away without any worries, although I started getting a few niggles over the last 2 days on the treadmill, beats me.

Looking at starting to train next week for my first half marathon. Haven't found one yet, so will go light for the first week or 3 until I sort out a location and date, don't want to peak at the wrong time, but it's time to get into it.

How you folk? Have you made any new years resolutions?

So I finally made it back to sunny Auckland after a huge drive around the country with my Uncle who was over from Holland. He has hosted me 4 times in the last 10 years so it was a real pleasure to be able to return the favour.

The weather forcast was for rain and wind, but we only had about 4 hours of rain on the whole trip and most of those were while we were asleep.

Took lots of photos to remind me why Middle Earth is a touch of paradise. Missed my Buzznet friends, but only found one place on my travels that had Broadband and I was pretty tired that night. For some reason 28kbps in a motel doesn't rate with me any more.

Anyway, it's great to be back. Now I have to plow through 300 emails and start posting some of my new pics so you can see where I have been:)

As of tomorrow I will be hitting the road for a couple of weeks to travel around the South Island of New Zealand. No that's not just below Wyoming:)

The weather has turned to shit, its raining and trees are falling over in gale force winds. I'm glad I bought a couple of new tyres for the car and it will be well laden down with necessities like clothes and beer.

Just hoping that the ferry trip isn't too bad. The ferry leaves from Wellington and goes through Marlborough Sounds (which is very scenic) into Picton. The route it takes is notorious for bad weather and hundreds of thousands of people have spoken to Herbie down the long white telephone (upchucked) on this trip, so I'll be taking a seasickness pill for good luck. Basically the boat crosses Cook Strait (famous for the sinking of the Wahine) which is where the Tasman Sea and the Pacific Ocean meet.

So keep an eye on my buzz, cause whenever I can get internet access, I'll have some cool pics to show ya'all. This is a great country if I say so myself.

Hope you all had a great New Year. I have big plans for 2006, but I'll tell you about those when I get back:-)