Wow...look at the time! It's been a while since I jotted down a few lines on the blog. Was inspired today to write a bit about who I am. I was fortunate enough to recieve a lengthy review from a past show. It seems my performance was not authentic to this listener and is the reason I have not garnered more success.
Yes, it's true what they say; "you can take the boy out of the Ozarks but you can't take the Ozarks out of the boy". I am guilty as charged! I will say that I so appreciate any and all critiques of my songs and my performance. As a performing songwriter I need this feedback...it does make me re-refocus my efforts to get better. However, I never forget that I'm performing for YOU (the audience) and my desire is to entertain wholeheartedly. I believe most will leave my show feeling I have laid it all out there. Perhaps my performance did not feel true to you. If that's the case perhaps you don't know me that well and that could be both our faults. I'll work on it!
My country boy twang and my simple humility is honest. Perhaps not that marketable in todays music bizz but it is authentic. The songs I write are motivated by current as well as past events in my life or the life's of others who have crossed my paths. I do hope one of my songs connects with you in whatever way a song can connect. Maybe it's a memory, an ambition, or a common feeling we share.
My performance is changing just as my life is...I see/play/write things differently at 50 than I did at 30. I will take this feedback and wrap it around my truth.
Finally, performing for me is just away to share my songs that keep bubbling up inside of me. No one else is wanting to play them! Yes, I am new to performing and understand its importance to the audience to get that "a-ha" moment with the performer. I will get better over time. Be patient and continue to share your feedback. Who I am is changing but my roots are true...you'll continue to hear them every time. Promise.
Thank you all for your support and love!
Fish
REVIEW
Mr. Fish,
I was recently privileged to listen an enthusiastic performance
of yours, featuring your songs, which compelled me to write to you, and offer
some insight to what the experience evoked in me. Please keep in mind that my
perception and assimilation of feedback is not unlike that of the scientific
method, that being there is no right or wrong data, (it is simply what it is).
That having been said, attempting to effectively change the past, (i.e. my
perceptions of you) is to hedge the future, and your future is why I am writing
to you. The following is a review that I began to write of you: “Listening to
his music was like being beaten with a country bag of door knobs, punishment I
suppose for not wanting to be a good little hick soldier onboard… I suppose!”
Not that my ears were particularly assaulted, no, more my sense of being able to
discern and validate your actual talent was once again subject to the
country-boy shtick, and again I was deprived of experiencing the artist as
himself, instead I was treated to more trite, downhome, (home grown!) country
clichés of who the artist most likely isn’t, (as growing-up in the south, I know
we are all NOT all so stereotypical, (Minnie Pearl) and I for one want the
perceptions, and misconceptions to end: A played-out image direct from your
throat and stage, being forced down my throat, via my ears and eyes… and others,
those of the audience. As Mr. Nelson so often said: “You can’t write a song,
unless you got something to say”. Mr. Fish I feel you have plenty to say, but I
am not a dog who refuses to swallow the Vet’s medicine, you need not wrap it in
twang-flavored dough, it does not flavor well, nor does it create any desire to
ever want to taste it again, it is crap deception, feigned sincerity, which is
not a song writers ally. Your story maybe real, its presentation is not, you
seem to identify with the humble country-boy, (yawn) which you offer, and
therefore imagine we as an audience want to experience this inane and banal
presentation again and again… ad nauseam. I understand we all seek identity, but
it is an internal process, you identify well with your perceptions, those of
your world, but you would better serve yourself, and entertain us more, if you
allowed the world, (your audience) to identify with the person that is you,
rather than supply us with a pre-package country-boy generic identity; one that
is absent the real you, so please no more of the non-sense of what you once
might have been… roots are what women dye, not what we anyone is dying to hear
of… again. The “Hear & Now”: That is being in the moment is what truly
entertains, being in the “now” is where growth occurs. True, you can be yourself
and express this through your original music, but the presentation it requires
needs to come from a place inside, not from a string of country clichés;
entertainers are identified with not for what they represent, rather through
unique expressions through their art, so that others may identity with this
phenomena; you could be phenomenal Mr. Fish, when you finally realize this, as
your art in 180 degrees out of synch; be the music first, let it speak of and
for you, not you to speak of and for it… “country-boy-music”, truly who cares,
and your art suffers for it. I look forward to hearing you as you, and your real
music, your real voice, (absent Arkansas) let Nickelodeon supply us with Gomer
and Andy, both fine musicians, and when they sang as who they were, the world
stood amazed. Mr. Fish you do need to be creating additional gross
characterizations to overcome, as you don’t have fame as a precursor, no sir you
just need to sing your songs as they are, as a talented man touching the hearts
of other’s with his sincere music. Polite applause is never a goal, listen to
the difference when the crowd doesn’t have to the overcome bad taste of a faked
and phony play-out persona, rather the real response when they feel the benefits
of your music, when you become real your music becomes real, and something
miraculous occurs. Nuff Said,
Jo
Yes, it's true what they say; "you can take the boy out of the Ozarks but you can't take the Ozarks out of the boy". I am guilty as charged! I will say that I so appreciate any and all critiques of my songs and my performance. As a performing songwriter I need this feedback...it does make me re-refocus my efforts to get better. However, I never forget that I'm performing for YOU (the audience) and my desire is to entertain wholeheartedly. I believe most will leave my show feeling I have laid it all out there. Perhaps my performance did not feel true to you. If that's the case perhaps you don't know me that well and that could be both our faults. I'll work on it!
My country boy twang and my simple humility is honest. Perhaps not that marketable in todays music bizz but it is authentic. The songs I write are motivated by current as well as past events in my life or the life's of others who have crossed my paths. I do hope one of my songs connects with you in whatever way a song can connect. Maybe it's a memory, an ambition, or a common feeling we share.
My performance is changing just as my life is...I see/play/write things differently at 50 than I did at 30. I will take this feedback and wrap it around my truth.
Finally, performing for me is just away to share my songs that keep bubbling up inside of me. No one else is wanting to play them! Yes, I am new to performing and understand its importance to the audience to get that "a-ha" moment with the performer. I will get better over time. Be patient and continue to share your feedback. Who I am is changing but my roots are true...you'll continue to hear them every time. Promise.
Thank you all for your support and love!
Fish
REVIEW
Mr. Fish,
I was recently privileged to listen an enthusiastic performance
of yours, featuring your songs, which compelled me to write to you, and offer
some insight to what the experience evoked in me. Please keep in mind that my
perception and assimilation of feedback is not unlike that of the scientific
method, that being there is no right or wrong data, (it is simply what it is).
That having been said, attempting to effectively change the past, (i.e. my
perceptions of you) is to hedge the future, and your future is why I am writing
to you. The following is a review that I began to write of you: “Listening to
his music was like being beaten with a country bag of door knobs, punishment I
suppose for not wanting to be a good little hick soldier onboard… I suppose!”
Not that my ears were particularly assaulted, no, more my sense of being able to
discern and validate your actual talent was once again subject to the
country-boy shtick, and again I was deprived of experiencing the artist as
himself, instead I was treated to more trite, downhome, (home grown!) country
clichés of who the artist most likely isn’t, (as growing-up in the south, I know
we are all NOT all so stereotypical, (Minnie Pearl) and I for one want the
perceptions, and misconceptions to end: A played-out image direct from your
throat and stage, being forced down my throat, via my ears and eyes… and others,
those of the audience. As Mr. Nelson so often said: “You can’t write a song,
unless you got something to say”. Mr. Fish I feel you have plenty to say, but I
am not a dog who refuses to swallow the Vet’s medicine, you need not wrap it in
twang-flavored dough, it does not flavor well, nor does it create any desire to
ever want to taste it again, it is crap deception, feigned sincerity, which is
not a song writers ally. Your story maybe real, its presentation is not, you
seem to identify with the humble country-boy, (yawn) which you offer, and
therefore imagine we as an audience want to experience this inane and banal
presentation again and again… ad nauseam. I understand we all seek identity, but
it is an internal process, you identify well with your perceptions, those of
your world, but you would better serve yourself, and entertain us more, if you
allowed the world, (your audience) to identify with the person that is you,
rather than supply us with a pre-package country-boy generic identity; one that
is absent the real you, so please no more of the non-sense of what you once
might have been… roots are what women dye, not what we anyone is dying to hear
of… again. The “Hear & Now”: That is being in the moment is what truly
entertains, being in the “now” is where growth occurs. True, you can be yourself
and express this through your original music, but the presentation it requires
needs to come from a place inside, not from a string of country clichés;
entertainers are identified with not for what they represent, rather through
unique expressions through their art, so that others may identity with this
phenomena; you could be phenomenal Mr. Fish, when you finally realize this, as
your art in 180 degrees out of synch; be the music first, let it speak of and
for you, not you to speak of and for it… “country-boy-music”, truly who cares,
and your art suffers for it. I look forward to hearing you as you, and your real
music, your real voice, (absent Arkansas) let Nickelodeon supply us with Gomer
and Andy, both fine musicians, and when they sang as who they were, the world
stood amazed. Mr. Fish you do need to be creating additional gross
characterizations to overcome, as you don’t have fame as a precursor, no sir you
just need to sing your songs as they are, as a talented man touching the hearts
of other’s with his sincere music. Polite applause is never a goal, listen to
the difference when the crowd doesn’t have to the overcome bad taste of a faked
and phony play-out persona, rather the real response when they feel the benefits
of your music, when you become real your music becomes real, and something
miraculous occurs. Nuff Said,
Jo
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