March 27, 2009: In play for over a year, my anthem "Long Way Home" currently stands at No. 1281 on Neil Young's Living With War page . It's been on a roller-coaster ride, peaking out at No. 124 in '07. Now that Obama instead of BushDork is President, it looks like it's time to upload another submission. Thank you all for visiting and listening!
August 13, 2008: I'm back with two gigs in August, my first since my wrist got broken in March. Check out the X-rays:
I'm not quite 100% but am improving all the time. Thanks to everyone for their well wishes and support!
March 11, '07: Here's a video clip I made for a Bob Dylan-imitation contest in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer in the Fall of '06, reprising a schtick I used to do on the East Coast back in the 70s and 80s during my acoustic-bar-whore days, as Blind Bob Dylanski, "World's Oldest Living Polish Blues Singer." As Blind Bob I was the great artiste, struggling under the yoke of Communism, whose songs young Bobby Zimmerman from Minnesota allegedly stole after rewriting them slightly; he even stole my name. (Hey, don't laugh - it paid the bills.)
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Bio I started to get paid to play music in 1974 while still in industrial-design school. Before and since I've operated a nuclear propulsion plant, oversaw work gangs, catalogued obscure books, translated software into German, designed websites, and did other dull crap during my 'adult' career. Music is much more fun, and the challenge of making it the sole provider of food and rent keeps a fellow alert. (And we all know lerts have more fun!)
My mother turned me on to American pop on the Armed Forces Network in Germany, where I was born, and I totally soaked it up when we came to America in 1957. I started playing guitar in 1962 while gorging on everything from folk to the British Invasion, but have since landed squarely on the blues side as an acoustic Delta- and Chicago-style slide player. 15 years ago I started to write lyrics that matter in relationships among humans and have also turned out a rant or two. No matter how bad things get, though, there's always room for fun, so I've always been a huge fan of Dixieland, which early on led me to jug-band music, where Jim Kweskin and Dave Van Ronk were big influences. Visit the Emerald City Jug Band site for the current state of the jug-band arts.
Fellow ECJB band member and good friend Jim "The Emergency Folksinger" Nason and I also write a number of folk-pop and samba-rock tunes and other weird combinations that don't fit into the jug-band idiom, and for some dumb reason we thought Teeth, Hair & Eyeballs might be a cool name for that kind of band. We came to our senses, though, and renamed the new group The RooTsters .
When I have disposable income, I spend it on - what am I saying? I don't HAVE any disposable income! For diversion I hang with friends or try to figure out how to set my diesel to run on veggie oil w/o spending a mint or (learn to) cook or suck up car & pop-sci magazines and trashy airport novels (Elmore Leonard rules!) or go out on long bicycle rides.
And don't forget to boogie! Bluesically Yours,
- Stan
