Awake in the Dream

I recently talked with the third small local venue in the past two weeks, that is being harassed by one or more of the powerful PRO's....

For those who don't know, the Performing Rights Organization's( or PRO) job is to collect performance royalties for the Artists in their repertoire.  Now, I'm not an attorney, or an expert on entertainment law, which is partly the domain of the PROs. With that disclaimer being said, I do have some strong opinions about this subject.  
The way I see it, some troubling issues…Read more

As the days grow shorter, and the cold weather moves in, we look fondly back at the awesome summer we had. All the great shows we got to do; the festivals, the outdoor shows by the river, the clubs, bars, and benefits, shows in town and out.
We are super happy to have had such support from our fans and 'family', the venues we love, the help from all of those who worked with us to rock out this past season. We have to sadly, say goodbye, to one of our fav venues, which recently closed. It seems that's the…Read more

Oh yeah, it's getting closer every day to one of our fav gigs!
We've been fortunate to have had a personal involvement with this festival from it's very inception; it had a very humble beginning, a really small event, with a small number of loyal and enthusiastic attendees. It's grown a little bit every year, for the last six years, with a huge, huge, boost this year; energy, capitol, and effort. It's exciting to see the changes, the improvements, and if you've been there before, you will be blow away with…Read more

We're really getting excited, and into the mode of promoting the WNC Nature Center benefit, 
and we're reaching out to as many people as we can, to get involved and help. Please join us and
help out the Nature Center; there will be food available, and Asheville Brewing Co.'s great beer on tap.
The date is this Saturday, June 21st. 
The venue is the Millroom, and the address in 66 Asheland Ave., in downtown Asheville.
We will be kickin it with our style of high-energy rock, and unleashing some of our new original…Read more

As the weather improves, and musical things start happening, it gives us lots to do, and we step up the pace for all of our plans. We can dust off the big gear, get new material tweaked and ready to perform, and feel the anticipation of lots of upcoming shows. 
We're very happy to say we already have our first invite to perform at a festival for 2014. The SoulShine farm music festival will be held on the 14th, 15th, and 16th of August this year, and will be featuring a great lineup of Artists, and groups…Read more

Ok, I know there's a lot of time spent lately, blogging and writing about, well, writing. That's indicative, however, of how much 
we like it, and how focused on it we can be. I'm no expert on the art of songwriting, so I'm going to give some personal observations here, not objective opinions. 
So, the process of writing music is a somewhat unique one. It has some similar qualities to writing fiction, or  screenwriting, and 
has other qualities or skill sets that compare to painting, and other fine arts as…Read more

One thing we hear sometimes, especially around our home town of Asheville, is how cover bands are lame, playing covers is stupid, expresses no creativity, requires no talent, etc, etc.
As someone who writes, arranges, and records original music, as well as playing music written by other artists, I definitely have an opinion about this. Maybe the Music Business needs another term to apply here. 
Out band certainly plays some covers, but what we really like to do with others songs are to create remakes of some…Read more

Sometimes success as an Artist is mostly about one thing - refusing to listen to "them". 

"They" said no one could ever break the 4 minute mile.
​"They" told Walt Disney he was crazy, and his ideas could never be accomplished.
They told the Wright brothers no one could ever build a flying machine, man was not meant to fly.
They told Gene Roddenberry that no one would ever want to watch his far out TV show, and it would quickly be forgotten.
Thomas Edison was told repeatedly that he could't possibly create the…Read more

Well, once again we're back at the recording/mixing process. 
It's been said that we spend too much time doing this, and we should just "be musicians" and spend more time playing shows, like so many other 
bands do. Just support what we have, the 'powers that be' at the Labels would say. 
Do we really want to emulate 'so many other bands' ?
It's our belief, in part to working with our old friend Tim Sweeney, that the big mistake so many 'other bands' make is thinking of themselves primarily as musicians.
Our…Read more

Hi to all of our super fans and all of our wonderful family of friends:
We just can't get enough of the marvelous support that we rely on to keep striving to do more, be more, and create better music.
Especially during the challenges of Winter. To those of you who might be big lovers of winter, please don't take offense, but we're not.
As musicians who need to travel frequently, over distances, move gear in and out of clubs, bars, and venues, not to mention the outdoor shows, 
that just don't happen now, we…Read more