Blog

<p><span style="font-size: small; color: #ffff00;">Yep! Me and my music buddies -- Paul Sylvain &amp; The Rockin' Road Dogs -- are appearing at the 2nd Annual Nashua Folk Fest at 2 p.m. Sunday, August 31, at Greeley Park, in Nashua, New Hampshire. The park is located on Concord Street, about one mile off Main Street from Library Hill.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: small; color: #ffff00;">This is a two-day music festival, starting at 1 p.m. both Saturday and Sunday this weekend. There are 14 total acts, with different performers each day. Our time slot is 2-3 p.m. this Sunday.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: small; color: #ffff00;">The event is free (and even the bands are doing this free, although we'll be trying to sell some CD's, of course). Consider that we're not getting paid for our one-hour set, but that I'm flying back from Texas to honor the commitent, and the bass guitarist and blues harp guy are driving 330 miles (5 1/2 hours) down from Maine, and staying at a hotel overnight Saturday just to play a free one-hour show! Pretty incredible bunch of guys. Talk about doing something for love of maiking music with friends.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: small; color: #ffff00;">We normally play a handful of gigs around Machias and Eastport, Maine, each year. The guys have never played in my home town, so it's pretty exciting for me.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: small; color: #ffff00;">If anyone is in the Mass.-N.H.-western Maine area this weekend, pop on by and catch me and my guys. Heck, stick around and have a picnic with us (they have grills and stuff around the park) and catch a day of great indie music. Hope to see you there.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: small; color: #ffff00;">Here are some related links:</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: small; color: #ffff00;">FESTIVAL PERFORMANCE SCHEDULE</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: small; color: #ffff00;">ARTISTS AT THIS YEAR'S FESTIVAL (PROFILES)</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: small; color: #ffff00;">NASHUA FOLK FESTIVAL HOME</span></p>

Hi, folks. I have to appologize for being so scarce around here. As some of y'all know, I've been on a five-month work-related detail in Texas since early May. I am wrapping that up Tuesday and will begin the three-day, 1830-mile drive back to New Hampshire around 4:30 a.m. Wednesday, Oct. 1<br /><br />There is a good chance I will be moving to Texas sometime before hard winter sets in, or early next year. If the opportunity presents itself, I'll be DFW-bound in a heartbeat. But, the instructing job, combined with three huge projects I've been involved with here in Texas, has eaten up a bunch of time. Hopefully, once I get back, get some vaction time in Maine done, and get settled back "home" (mid October) I will be back here visiting with y'all a bit more often.<br /><br />Finally, I hope you'll check out a few "live" recordings I posted here this morning. They were recorded on Aug. 31 at a festival gig me and my band did in New Hampshire while on a home visit from Texas. <br /><br />These songs ("Rumble". "Skat4Alvin/Living On The Edge", and "Mustang Driving Mama&quot are rough at best, and represent the mix of the tracks as they went through the master board (we had no control over that feed). I certainly didn't play my best, but the energy more than makes up for it.<br /><br />It's amazing that we pulled it off at all. Because of my detail in Texas, Dave (bass) and Doug (harp) and I hadn't played or practiced together since last October! Kris, the drummer, was amazing -- he has never shared the same room with any of us, even though he is the drummer on most of the "Mustang Driving Mama" CD we finished earlier this year. We captured his drum parts for the CD via electronic track swap, but we never met face-to-face or played together until the day we did this festival.<br /><br />Enjoy the tunes.

<div class="postbody"><span style="color: #0080ff;">Peter Mercer just sent me an email asking if something he received from me with the subject line "Dear Friend", was really sent from me. In looking at his forwarded message, I noticed that virtually everone in my email address book for that account, was apparently sent the same message. In fact, I received one at one of my secondary email addresses (which is listed in my primary email account's address book), as well!<br /><br />I have just sent everyone who apparently received the bogus email the following message, and I am posting my note here as a heads up. I'm not quite sure what to do, short of starting over with a new email address, provider, etc. Any suggestion anyone here might have would be greatly appreciuated. I have never had this happen in the six years or so I've used my main email address.<br /><br />Anyway, here is what I have sent out in response (some of you folks, like FM, and others I have email contact with should have received this email from me):</span><br /><br /><span style="color: #ffff00;">All, or most of you, probably received a strange email with a "Dear Friend" subject line. I received one, also, sent to one of seconday yahoo addresses, supposedly sent from my main yahoo address (this one). Those of you who know me, know I would not use such a vague subject line, or send the kind of ad that comprised the message.<br /><br />Clearly, someone has managed to hack my email address. I've used this address for more than six years, but clearly will have to change it, I guess. I'm not an expert on this kind of thing, but any suggestions from anyone here who might be more knowledgeable would be great. If there's something I can do instead of closing or changing email accounts/address, please let me know.<br /><br />Meanwhile, if you receive anythging remotely suspicious, let me know. I do not operate any such business, and would not be approaching you to buy or invest and so on.<br /><br />It amazes me how people can expend so much time and energy to crap like this, instead of something meaningful.<br /><br />Paul</span></div>

Yep, this song was my contribution to the Same Song Title Madness thing we did here back in February. It wasn't bad, but admittedly there were some issues in places where the bass guitar and drums weren't together as tightly as they should have been. I had thrown it together quickly to meet the submission deadline, and couldn't muck with re-recording some of the bits over. It was "close enough".<br /><br />Well, I had some time this weekend (still in Texas on work detail) and pulled out my Boss recorder and mixing/mastering machine, and discovered I still had the song and all its track in it. <br /><br />I deleted the original bass and drum tracks, but left intact the original lead and rhythm guitar tracks and vocals.<br /><br />I&nbsp;pulled out my bass and re-recorded a whole new bass guitar track, playing to the song and to a drum loop set to the basic time of the song. Next, I deleted turned of the drum loop and built a new drum track from the ground up, playing "live" in "real time" to the song. It is not a programmed drum track.<br /><br />Finally, I remixed the whole thing from scratch, kicking up the voacl a bit more, adding more thump to the bass guitar. It might not be perfect, but it's as close to perfect as I can get. It is the blues after all. It shouldn't be perfect, right? lol<br /><br />Anyway, give the remixed, partially re-recorded song a spin and let me know what you think.<br /><br />Paul