Sorry, I haven’t posted much on here in the new year, but things have been hectic, what with getting out of the holidays and dealing with all of the weather. Still, it isn’t as I haven’t been working at the writing.
Lately, I’ve been working on a spoken word performance. I’ll be opening for Nashville singer/songwriter Stephen Simmons at The Empty Glass in Charleston, WV on Saturday, June 12. I’ve planned on doing about a 45 minute set, but I’m thinking about shortening that to 30. It’s not that I won’t be able to do a 45 minute, no notes set by that time, but that might be a little long on attention spans at 10:30 or so on Saturday night in a bar. Plus, as I’ve been going over the material, I’ve seen that a couplefew of the pieces, while they read well enough, just don’t completely lend themselves to spoken word in that format.
We’re hoping for a monstrous turnout.
I first met Stephen Simmons in July of 2006, when, as a solo acoustic guitarist on his way from Virginia to Michigan, he happened to stop in Charleston to see he if he could see about playing The Glass. If you come to the show, maybe Stephen can tell you the story better than I. All I know is that he happened into my bar at Chili’s in the Town Center, and he, James Crowder, and I sat there at the bar and talked for two or three hours. I think it was a Sunday, because it was awfully slow in the bar, and the three of us had the opportunity to really sit there and speak in philosophical terms about life and music and such.
Stephen came into Chili’s just after Josh Boggess was murdered and before my study/writing trip to Mexico, two events that were eight days apart, and in our conversation he shared a piece of wisdom that would have a large impact on The Little House of the Devil, the book whose first draft I wrote during that trip, in terms of the actual story of the book as well as how the book made it from me onto the page. So, for those of you who have read Little House, he’s the Nashville Singer/Songwriter that I mention.
You can check Stephen out at stephensimmonsmusic.com, and also on youtube, iTunes, and cdbaby.
Thanks. I’ll talk to you soon.
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