When I’m getting ready for a big show like yesterday’s, I wonder what an introvert like me is doing in a place like live music. But I soldier onward - change strings, replace batteries, load gear and head out for sound check - because there’s nothing more worth doing than a good live show.

Last night’s was excellent. Musicians dared their best. Listeners showed their colors, which in a world of cynicism and skeptics is a fine blend of innocence and risk.

It is risky to seek out live music when technology delivers the canned version so well. Why bother? I guess people bother because they still hope to be moved in a way recorded sound can’t move them.

In yesterday’s big show, Walt and I encountered an audience ready to engage. The audience filled the room with its collective personality, gathered from years of lived life. Our listeners entrusted us with their memories and desire. We belonged to them. We expressed what they gave us and the songs became more than we'd experienced before.

Hyperbole? Unverifiable speculation? OK. How can anyone explain the rush of inexplicable connection? I’m an introvert; I love to paw through experience and find meaning. But this kind of connection remains a mystery the audience and...

‘You’ve internalized, Bob Dylan - his spirit comes right through and we all feel it,’ says a Dylan fan gesturing toward rows of chairs recently filled with hushed listeners AKA noisy clappers in Fairview Park’s Meeting Room A.

Libraries, we are told, are no longer meant to be quiet zones.

Good thing, too, as Muscle and Bone sets up camp in county branches this spring. On a given night, Dylan songs seep into the fiction and non-fiction, the computer labs, story nooks and teen crannies - much as his poetic observations of life, liberty and love have marinated our music over his decades long, unofficial reign as songwriter laureate to the nation.

Library patrons, Bob Dylan and National Poetry Month turn out to be a potent mix. An early sign of audience enthusiasm was how many people signed our email list as they came in, before the concert. These listeners expect their library to enlighten and engage. They’re open and eager for inspiration.

After the show, we packed up gear and scanned the site for missed pics and stray capos. We spied the stack of feedback forms kindly filled out by our audience - libraries are big on data - and if we had surreptitiously perused those surveys before switching off fluorescent lights and heading home, we...

This is a music video for Wish Them Well, an original song from my rock album, Monet’s Orbit. The sound recording was done at Dark Tree Studios by Susan Weber, guitar and vocals; Walt Campbell, bass, vocals and harmonica; Trees Mausser, drums and percussion; Jay Bentoff, engineering. I edited the video in Final Cut Pro X. 

Once again I thank the filmmakers who share their video for re-mixing in this project. Here are the attributions for their work:

Animals
By Cephas (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons  
By Cephas (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons  
By Sheetal Bhujbal (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 or...

Wide Open is track four of Monet’s Orbit, my album of original rock. Similar to my Flare video, Wide Open uses opposite environments to tell a story. I’m fascinated by new possibilities that emerge from the either-or contrast.

Wide Open’s soundtrack was produced at Dark Tree Studios with Susan Weber, guitar and vocals; Walt Campbell, bass and vocals; Chris Solt, drums and keyboard; Jay Bentoff, percussion and engineering. 

Once again I thank the filmmakers who share their video for re-mixing in this project. Here are the attributions for their work:

ALMA
ALMA — In Search of our Cosmic Origins (Atacama Large Millimeter Array) by ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO). [CC-BY-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Artisans
Legacy of math at work and play by Comet Media Foundation (Own work) [...

This is a music video for Painted Moon, an original song from my rock album, Monet’s Orbit. The sound recording was done at Dark Tree Studios by Susan Weber, guitar and vocals; Walt Campbell, bass and vocals; Chris Solt, drums; Jay Bentoff, slide guitar, keyboard, percussion and engineering. I edited the video in Final Cut Pro X combining my own clips with those of generous artists who make theirs available for re-use. Attributions follow.

Birds

By H.sch.57 (Own work) [GFDL or CC-BY-3.0 via Wikimedia Commons] 
By Phil Fried, via Vimeo group Free HD stock footage

Cat

By Phil Fried, via Vimeo group Free HD stock footage
By Phil Fried, via Vimeo group Free HD stock footage

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