January 3, 2011: Added a link on the Links page to The Edge Church. This church is being put together by Eric Marshburn and Tony T-Bone Martin. Tony is one of the Cold Biscuit Band irregulars.
November 21, 2010: Over the last couple of weeks I did a complete facelift on this site. Also tonight I fixed some entries below that got mangled in the process.
Upon reviewing this area of the website I find a disturbing thing. Only 30% of the lyrics posted here were written in this century, and the most recent item is dated 2005. That’s a poor showing and it will have to change. So, he boldly predicts, watch for new lyrics coming soon!
October 30, 2010: Updated some notes, removed outdated videos.
October 10, 2010: Deleted some links from the Links page and added some others. Made some changes on the Contact page. Made some layout changes to this page.
In the future I’ll list those types of changes here and will use my blogs, Soaring Spider Squeaks and SyntheSpider Stuff to post updates on music and church activities and music technology items of interest.
September 5, 2010: There’s been a lot going on since the last time I updated.
I’ve been playing with Cold Biscuit for quite a few months now, and am having a great time doing that.
We’ve also gone back to a church we went to several years ago, New Song United Methodist Church. Coming back has been a real blessing, and I’ve been given the opportunity to play the Sunday services a couple times a month.
One of the guys in Cold Biscuit is involved with the Grady-Outlaw Literary and Historical Association and I’ve been helping with their web site.
I went for the King of the Blues contest again this year. Rather than do it again in Raleigh I signed up at the store in Durham. But the day before my first appearance the store called to cancel. There was only one other contestant scheduled for that day and he couldn’t make it. I couldn’t reschedule, so I called the Raleigh store. They said I might be able to do it there if anyone canceled at the last minute. Instead I went to Virginia Beach. I had the same results as last year, played the store final but no further. 2011, anyone?
And I’ve started blogging in New Bern (I’ll bet you thought I was going to say in earnest). See Soaring Spider Squeaks.
March 13, 2010: Over the last several days, set up a Cold Biscuit Band site.
January 1, 2010 and updated September 5, 2010: Decided to start the year out with some updates.
First off, last night I played my first gig (other than the blues contest last September) in a long time. The event was New Bern First Night and I played with a band called Cold Biscuit. We played inside at the Farmers Market and had a great time.
Second, I have some older news that I hadn’t gotten ’round to posting yet. Back in August, as I was prepping for the blues contest, I got an email from an old friend, Paul Sammarco. Paul was leader of Captain Nathan, a band that I played in back in – get this! – 1970 – 1971. This local Syracuse band was the background track for a great time in my life.
Paul is a composer, arranger, and producer, and president of P&J Records. I’ve since heard two records he produced for his wife, pianist Donna Sammarco, and another pair of his own offerings. I highly recommend these recordings, along with Paul’s skills as artist as well as the other skills mentioned above.
September 12, 2009 and updated September 5, 2010: I was blessed to be one of the contestants at the Raleigh store final. Thank you, Lord, for giving me this opportunity.
Although I didn’t get to the next stage I really enjoyed the two chances I had to play.
Being a firm believer that when one door closes, another one opens I know that the Lord has something yet for me to do, and I’m looking forward to discovering what that is. Meanwhile, the contest had me practicing more and harder than I had in a long time, and I intend to keep that up.
August 2, 2009 and updated September 5, 2010: Cleared out some dead trees from the site. Around here they call it bushogging (also sometimes spelled “bushhogging“).
July 17, 2009 and updated September 5, 2010: I did something really whacked out last week. I drove to Raleigh and entered myself in this year’s Guitar Center King of the Blues contest! I told you it was whacked out.
In older news son Eric joined the National Guard. He did basic at Fort Knox and his AIT at Fort Jackson, SC. A couple of years back I participated in younger son Andrew’s baptism at his church over in Lillington. His pastor did the talking and I did the dunking. It was awesome! Our daughter Brenda, back in the ‘Cuse, is doing well.
August 11, 2007 and updated September 5, 2010: Way back in the day I used to have a business repairing equipment for bands called Synthespider Electronics, and ran it for a few years before finally deciding I was working for less than minimum wage. I recently decided to resurrect the name, or at least the first half of it, in the form of SyntheSpider.com. This may turn into something like SyntheSpider Virtual Synthesis before I’m done, but for now it’s just a web site. Eventually I may move my gear oriented pages from SoaringSpider to SyntheSpider. After that I may do some articles about music technology in worship, and who knows, I may eventually develop some music tech type software.
January 19, 2007 and updated September 5, 2010: As One played our big gig back in October. It went very well. The Holy Ghost was in the house!
October 8, 2006 and updated September 5, 2010: As One Ministry prepares for our fourth outing, a two hour stint at a 24 hour worship session in Greenville, NC. Rehearsals for the big event (October 21st) are going really well. They all seem to turn into worship sessions, which is what we want to do anyway.
August 5, 2006 and updated September 5, 2010: As One Ministry made its first public appearance at the New Bern, New Birth event at Union Point Park in sunny New Bern, NC. Well, sunny it wasn’t, but we all had a wonderful time in the Spirit. This was a great opportunity for As One Ministry to step out for the first time. What a blessing it was to have that opportunity.
July 9, 2006 and updated September 5, 2010: Originally made this entry to announce: (1) having the chance to play twice at the church my son Drew attends, Crossroads Church in Lillington, NC, with the first of these times being the first time we played together in a worship service since the Central NY days; (2) realizing the CD project is taking a lot more time than I originally hoped it would; (3) playing at a worship event in New Bern on October 21st, 2006; and (4) working on a new song titled The Url Of The Chaldees, about (obviously) the address of Abraham’s first web site.
August 28, 2005 and updated September 5, 2010: Announced my first CD project: Focused. Flexible. Faithful. Sadly, I haven’t forced myself to finish this project yet. But don’t you give up on me; I’ll finish it yet!
I generally end up revising text in several places whenever I update; this usually means just a word here and there gets changed as I read something and don’t like the way it sounds.
