CDBABY LINK for JOSHUA CRAWFORD: Play Me
It ain't easy being me, but someone's gotta do it, and that SOMEONE knew it before I was ever born and they merely chose ME to do it in. So I now feel it's an honor to have survived all the turbulant things that I've survived in my 32 years of life. I was raised in middle-America in the now-famous UFO-Capitol of the World; Roswell, New Mexico. But had a childhood far from NORMAL-America. Middle-kids aren't always important enough to listen to, so I guess I came up with other ways of being heard, never realizing that I would still be trying to accomplish that goal at age 30 as a singer-songwriter, author, and actor. I starting playing the piano by-ear at age 3, was caught trying to break open the family TV-set at age 4 with my playschool screwdriver because even though I knew Jody and Buffy on FAMILY AFFAIR were fake, I thought Cookie-Monster and Burt and Ernie were real and I wanted to take them out of the TV so that I could play with them. I was a bit mature for my age and I was very lonely ... with only the comfort of my baby brother, the local cinema, and my Winnie The Pooh record-player to serve as my friends. At age 7, the fantasy all came together upon seeing a little movie with my parents (who would divorce a month later) called "E.T." and realizing my life's goal from there on out was to go to work for some guy named Steven Spielberg and train under him to direct movies. Age 14 almost side-tracked me a bit from that goal when 12 of the top cardioloigists in the world told me that if I didn't have a heart-transplant, I would die. (Some mysterious virus had attacked my heart, causing it to swell up to 5 times its normal size, all within a 3-week range, causing what they call CARDIOMYOPATHY, aka 'Enlarged Heart'.) So since life was so miserable for me at that age anyway ... having survived the brutal divorce of my parents at age 8, and all the alcoholism and pizza-money and mean and abusive step-parents one could ever hope for while growing up in the ever corporate-but-lonely 1980s (including a hard-to-reach single-parent-dad), I took the NON-transplant route and ended up living anyway ... due to my belief that Steven Spielberg was reason enough for me to live on a little while longer. So at age 18, I flew up to meet the guy, but he was nowhere to be found. So I met his secretary (whom I'd already developed a realationship over the phone with from writing Steven letter after letter following my near-death experience at age 14 with the enlarged heart) and I toured the man's private office to look around a little, then headed back to Texas ... where I sat down at my father's BabyGrand Yamaha piano (where I always sat to fiddle around for some old movie score that my childhood might remember well enough to play a little) ... when out popped my first song; SING ALONG. Followed by another one, CRYIN' PARTY, and then a 3rd one, "PLAY ME" and so forth. I didn't think it was any big deal since I couldn't read music, so I merely thought, "Hmmm? Maybe I'll pe a pianist and novelist in my spare time," (for I started writing a novel that dealt with kids and alcoholism at age 15), "...and be a full-time movie director as my main source of income in life with plans to graduate from the American Film Institute." Then I learned Paul McCartney couldn't read a single note either on Good Morning America one day, so I just kept writing songs and working on screenplays. I've now got 300 radio-friendly songs ... yet no car ... and no money. I live off disability for my heart and merely give many of my 3-track CDs entitled "PLAY ME" away to fans in hope that one will end up in the right place with the right person who knows how to get someone like me signed. (CD is available at www.cdBaby.com) I recorded the CD over 12 years ago in the land of Buddy Holly (Lubbock Texas), but to my astonishment, it just now seems to be making a name for itself in certain industry circles (my last concert this past July was a complete sell-out!), as does my novel; SIGNATURE PLACE: a real life condominium complex that I once lived at here in Midland Texas when I moved here with my father after the divorce of my parents in the early 80s. The novel is about what life was like for my entire generation who grew up with all the ever-divorcing BabyBoomers as their parents who worked all the time ... leaving their kids home alone to not only play, but cook, clean, and raise all the OTHER neighborhood kids to the best that they could ... even when their parents stayed out all night at the nearby bull-riding bars to PLAY a little themsevles and celebrate how great they were for doubling their income that day in the ever decadent and competitive 1980s! (I'm not so sure my generation even knows what the word PLAY even MEANS? I think we mistake it for the word SURVIVE.) And I refuse to give up my destiny and the belief that my novel could help and inspire other generations, as well as educate parents on thinking twice before expecting kids to raise themselves before they've even reached puberty. My life was spared to not only be an entertainer, but to influence the world. "This much is TRUE!": (a lyric from the 1983 Spandau Ballet song I named my 1st book after; my favorite song of all time.) I'll always be a little sad Spielberg's office coudn't see merit in my efforts, as they once led me down a path of belief that I would ink a record-deal with them and their newly-fromed DreamWorks label in the late 90s ... in which didn't pan out. (They later sold the struggling label to Universal.) But oh well. Look what Ray Charles went through ... and HE couldn't even SEE! Yet he finally found someone who believed his music should be HEARD, no matter WHAT his limitations were! I've been at this game of trying to GET SIGNED for over 12 years now, so I guess ... why stop now? Columbia, Arista, J-Records, they've all passed on me after "careful consideration" several times. Go figure. I'm not sure I'd even know how to live if I wasn't reading Music Connection Magazine every chance I could get, touring anywhere and anytime with my songs and books (my concerts have never NOT been a sell-out), and contacting every A&R and soundtrack-man and woman in the biz ... as well as the entire publishing world from America to London ... and BACK! ... in an attempt to finally get SIGNATURE PLACE published. All just to get someone to think that maybe I have just a little more talent than all these one-hit wonders on American Idol and Lenno and Letterman. Maybe I have longevity and an entire career worth of 15 albums, 17 films, and 5 novels. Judd Nelson in 1985's "THE BREAKFAST CLUB" said it the best: "Screws fall out all the time. The world's an imperfect place." Well ... if they're falling out all the time, then SOMEBODY's gotta take their place ... right?!? If we didn't, the walls that hold up our evolution would collapse, and we'd be left without a roof over our heads ... as WELL as protection for our young; the NEXT generation.
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__WHO I'D LIKE TO MEET:
Couples who thought about getting a divorce and kids who thought about doing drugs or killing themselves and any disabled person that had given up on a career ... until they all read my book "SIGNATURE PLACE" and/or listened to a few of my songs. THAT would be somebody I would weep over if I met them. For THOSE are the world's true rolemodels and icons, not me. I'm just a guy who's trying to make the most out of his life ... and everyone else's. Meeting Spielberg would be a nice touch too, but I don't think I'm interesting enough to be in his presence. We're all only here for 80 years or so, and time moves faster as you get older. Make the years count. As the way you spend them plays a heavy role in the afterlife; trust me. Like NIKEY says, JUST DO IT! And before you know it, you will have climbed not just one or two mountains, but an entire universe. It's not about climbing to the top; as even the sky lies below the stars. And the stars lie below another universe. It's about what you learned and who you touched and which destiny did you alter for the better while you TRIED to climb. And for anybody who tells you, "It's all in timing kid" ... ask them which timezone their in? Earth's? Or Heaven's. 9 times out of 10, they won't even be wearing a watch. But they'll sure know how much money is in their wallet without even looking. It's not all in timing, it's about offering the planet something that no one else can offer except YOU. Earth has enough rappers. So be a Christian or Jewish rapper! The world is blessed with portraits of cactussus. So give the cactus a red ballcap and have him play catch with the stars! There's plenty of T&A music videos, so try wearing your clothes for one and you might just win an award for it! There's billion and 1 books about divorce, so try writing one about kids who do everything they can while they're still young in order to shape themselves into NOT getting a divorce before they've even married! -- whoops, I already wrote that so write something else. The world is astronomically graced with concertos and speed-metal. Try writing a simple 3-chord love song and it might just be the song that pays the most. Just look at all the great rock bands; it's usually their love songs that get the most airplay -- which means more royalties, and more lovers falling in love and babies being born INTO love. Indeed, a world without lovers is a small world. But a world without loners is an even smaller one. BE that weird loner. And you might just find yourself not only IN line, but in line with a line forming behind YOU as well!
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__YES IT'S TRUE!
I tend to write parts in my books for real-life celebrities to play when the books get turned into movies, not realizing that those celebrities are near death and will contact me shortly before they die to thank me for writing the part for them that they unfortunately won't have a chance to portray in the film-version becaue they're ... well ... dying. Call it a weird gift, or an accidental phonecall to the Death Angel. Beats me? (R.I.P. Chris Reeve and Jimmy Stewart. I miss you both dearly!) Needless to say, I've taken a break from writing any more novels for a little while!
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__YES, IT'S ALSO TRUE THAT...: It's on record that The Ejection Fraction of my heart at age 14 really was just 8% ... which has always been my lucky number.
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__THE QUESTION I GET ASKED THE MOST:
"Are those contacts?"
The answer is a kind, "No." Only 2% of the world's population have green eyes, making it the most uncommon color, and the rarest. (Brown is most common, blue is second in command.) Why my eyes are the mint color they are is beyond me. ("Hazel" is a term used only to represent eyes that change from blue to green and back again. Mine never change. Go figure! lol)
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__RECENTLY, Crawford's unreleased "BLOOD ON INSPIRATION" bootleg CD has been spinning around like crazy since it first leaked out of his private demo recordings last Christmas; becoming one of the most duped underground CDs ever by an unsigned artist who has yet to even chart!
Joshua Crawford also just landed a spot on the coveted SUGGESTED ARTISTS lists of VH1's SONG OF THE YEAR CONTEST at
http://www.songoftheyear.com/winners/2006/runnerups/dec/1206
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FAVORITE SONG AT THE MOMENT: "HONEYMOON IN BEIRUT" by Rick Springfield
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