Sunday 15 September 2013

What's happening September 2013

I ran another poll a month or two ago, this time I asked "If Jawmunji made a product it would have to be..." Here are the results, from 37 responses:

54% a music DVD of songs with interesting booklet, tab data and other cool stuff
27% an instructional DVD, c'mon man!
10% an Audio CD of songs with an interesting insert
8%  just high quality 99c downloadable mp3s

There weren't nearly as many voters I would normally have for a monthly poll, less than half. Either the traffic to the site was down, it was a boring question, or a Jawmunji product is not really called for. But hey, I liked the results! A video DVD with cool stuff appeals to me the most and it was the most voted. It would be a large amount of work, but not as large amount of work as an instructional DVD. I didn't mind the idea of an Audio CD, but, they seem to have passed their use-by date. Thanks for confirming the 99c downloadable mp3s though - I don't like that either. One song might be a cash cow for an artist, but the amount of art you are buying might be the tip of the iceberg from that artist. They might have so much to offer, good stuff you'd enjoy, but all you did was download "the most popular song".  Buy the album!

I'm still working away a lot - 2 weeks on site, 1 week in Perth. While in Perth I get the weekends off and only work a 40 hour week, but up here on site I work a 12 hour day 7 days a week. Sure, all my meals are catered for in the mess, my room is regularly cleaned, all I do is work...but I get weary. Hence I haven't been doing as much writing to you as I thought. I'm still playing the '74 Yammy a heap, it's just not "productive" playing. Generally I will sit and just play my regular tunes, most nights with the lads over a few beers. I've done a little bit of working out new tunes - in the pipe I've got "Without You", "Lean On Me", "Bright Side of Life", "Something So Strong", "Bad Moon Rising" all basically ready to record. But I'm not recording while I'm here, and when I'm back in Perth I don't set aside the time to do it either.

Someone commented last month "you should do a Tame Impala cover"...and I youtubed a song of theirs or two, discovered they are a local band, and my favourite genre - psychedelic rock.  Closest sound would be early Beatles and Pink Floyd.  I enjoyed them so much I bought the album and I have listened to it a lot.  I might cover "Only Going Backwards" or "Mind Mischief" to pay homage, it would be lost on 99% of my listeners, so it would have to be a quick and easy cover.  But alongside Dark Side of the Moon (I listen to it about once or twice a month, to keep inspired...as well as "Dub Side of the Moon") it is what I'm listening to.

In fact, what do I listen to?  Kinda nothing.  I'm totally out of touch with modern music, and I don't feel the need to constantly relive the past either.  I'm not a headphones-all-day sort of guy, it just makes me further deaf. I do listen for 70's and 80's music if I'm driving somewhere, songs that I might be able to cover, and I do listen to other fingerstyle guitarist covers, but I'm just not a regular listener.  Does that sound strange?  It does seem a bit rude of me to not pay attention to new music!

Well a quiet What's Happening this time, I do have some stuff in the bag waiting, I just need to get some long term rest so it can come out in flying colours :)

JAW