Thursday, February 09, 2006

The Songwriter Summit

Lots of items on the music business agenda lately with particular regard to my involvement later this month with Atlantic Canada's premiere music industry association activities and awards showcase happening Feb 23-27 in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island.

The ECMA [East Coast Music Association] 4 day affair in my hometown will feature lots of great music and networking of course along with the ECMA awards show which will be hosted this year by The Trailer Park Boys and broadcast nationally on the CBC network.

Close To The Coast @The ECMA's in association with Sandbar Music will be sponsoring a very special feature into the musical mix of events this year with a great new songwriters gathering scheduled over 4 consecutive nights called The Songwriter Summit.

I have been invited to host as well as perform as a featured guest at all 4 nights of The Songwriter Summit and indeed I am very honored to say that I have accepted and that I am greatly looking forward to being a part of this premiere debut event which will be the first of many future songwriter events of its kind in Eastern Canada both at the ECMA's as a regular awards week showcase event and beyond.

There will be blog posts and update reports from Charlottetown throughout ECMA weekend as I navigate my way around my old hometown hooking up with old friends, new music business associates, fellow songwriters and maybe even a few surprises.

In the meantime, I just have to relate this...turned on the tube the other night to an old Saturday Night Live from the mid 70's and the musical guest was Chuck Berry playing Johnny B. Good complete with the Duck Walk ...turned then to the PBS Detroit channel showing an old Johnny Cash "Live from Tennessee State Prison" show with guests Roy Clark and Linda Ronstadt...now get this...I'm just coming from Chuck Berry and Johnny B. Good and suddenly I got J.R. Cash in his prime singing Folsom Prison Blues, Sunday Morning Comin' Down, Jacob Green, Hey Porter, The Orange Blossom Special and new song A Boy Named Sue, all within a half hour...then, Roy Clarke does his guitar thing which was always great...and voila...now here comes Linda Ronstadt belting out “Desperado”, “You're No Good”, “I'd Give Anything To See You Again” & “Silver Threads and Golden Needles”.

Seriously, I thought I'd died and gone to Heaven. I don't know about you, but I haven't seen or heard that much great classic music and songs on regular TV all at once since PBS showed No Direction Home. Afterward, a quick channel switch also brought Allison Kraus and Union Station to the evenings enjoyment. Man, I’m tellin’ ya, maybe I oughta watch more TV...I had no idea things were this good lately.

Linda Ronstadt's segment reminded me of a great Kris Kristofferson story actually which you'll get to hear about right here at FRANKtalk. I was a signed writer at Combine Music after all so Kris Kristofferson stories are well known to me…hell, I signed my songwriter contract with Combine Music in Kris’s office…anyway, when Kristofferson was just breaking as an artist/songwriter, his manager asked him if he'd like to open for Linda Ronstadt at The Troubadour in Los Angeles.

Kristofferson, obviously well acquainted with Linda Rondstadt’s album Silk Purse, replied, “…is that some kind of a trick question…”

Indeed!

Talking Points: My thanks to Kate at small dead animals for adding FRANKtalk to her blog site recently. I am very proud to be linked at SDA where you'll find my link under Kate's "Yanks, Mostly" blog roll. The worm has turned also, as this latest link add has now evolved my TTLB status to that of a Crunchy Crustacean. This may in fact mean that I'll eventually have to feature a "Lobster Roll" here at FRANKtalk instead of just a blog roll. The nice thing is that just like Mike Duffy, I too am from Prince Edward Island originally so that would not be a problem and indeed it might just be a pretty cool blog innovation.

On a more serious note, several major political stories have been resonating in the culture lately both at home and abroad so you'll want to stay informed via the most balanced and reliable sources of news information and commentary regarding all of the big issues.

Daily-recommended blog reads are Neale News, Bourque Newswatch, Drudge, small dead animals and Angry In The Great White North.


Spotlight: A brand new feature to announce here at FRANKtalk. Spotlight will focus on a particular blog link or linked item from my sidebar sections as the muse strikes. My six sidebar sections are all arranged in descending order as InDepth Links, Songwriters Gallery, Scribes and Illuminators, Grace & Gravity, I'm A Spirit Now & The Box

This weeks Spotlight is on The Lost Beatles, which can be found under the Grace & Gravity "cosmos" section. The Lost Beatles is a rare listen inside recently unearthed recording sessions capturing performances by the greatest little rock 'n roll band of all time.

Hope you enjoy!

Frank

Thursday, February 02, 2006

Higher Beings, Mortal Humans, etc...

Readers will be well acquainted by now with the magnitude and breadth of the growing conservative blogosphere and the iconic heralds [Higher Beings] of that realm such as Hugh Hewitt and Michelle Malkin. The significance of blog networks and rankings systems such as The Truth Laid Bear have established an ascending order of increasing importance and credibility for those blog stars whose dynamic new voices are changing the world of news reportage and media information commentary much for the better these days.

Besides Higher Beings, other evolved bloggers include Mortal Humans at Mudville Gazette, La Shawn Barber, Scrappleface & Wizbang [to name but a few of the better known sites] as well as Playful Primates which high category currently includes the enjoyable and informative James Lileks and the true intellectual vigor of Victor Davis Hanson.

Large Mammals abound and while they’re all too numerous to count, for my money small dead animals here in Canada has all the right bases solidly covered. Kate MacMillan is on top of everything that moves and many times is ahead of the curve in her astute awareness despite corporate leftist broadcast news and print media saturation dominating our cultural and political landscape. Kate is first class.

Given this reality, you can imagine my reluctance and unease at this early point in my own blogging efforts in considering adding to my humble site my current lowly category in that TTLB ranking system.

Suffice it to say, I am currently NOT a Large Mammal nor indeed am I even a sprout legged belly dragging marsupial in the TTLB system.

In fact, I am presently ranked in the TTLB system as a wiggly worm.

Bait as it were. Protein and particles of earth. I've at least advanced on the evolutionary scale this past while from having been previously identified as a multi-cellular micro-organism, which I must admit was troubling so I'm relieved & grateful for the progressive development.

So it is in this spirit of gratitude for any & all unsolicited recognition whatsoever from within that system, that I express my appreciation to those who have links to Frank Trainor and FRANKtalk at their sites. Right Wing Bob, Either Orr, Faithmouse, Pro Ecclesia and Right Ho! who, as it happens, is taking a sabbatical so we wish Right Ho! all the very best until his eventual return to regular blogging.

Special mention to Bob at Either Orr for including Frank Trainor in his Feb 1/06 post satirizing the President's State Of The Union Address with a Robert Palmer song parody. Thanks Bob...very cool indeed. My Grace & Gravity CD is on its way. Hope you enjoy the songs & music.

Highly recommended this week is James Taranto’s Opinion Journal commentary Bad News Bearers and also kudos and recommendations to Right Wing Nut House for this article from Rick Moran which first appeared in The American Thinker.

Other important pieces lately include recent posts by Nicol Dumoulin The War Room who I am more impressed with every time I read him and also, pundit Andrew Coyne takes off on our nations regulatory media watch dogs with his column links regarding the CRTC & more. Great stuff Andrew. As someone who has long recognized that its impossible to keep trying to quiet the creative cattle stuffed in the regulated Can Con barn once the big access door has been swung open wide, I have to say, you have it absolutely correct and I applaud and salute you as a true freedom fighter and brother in arms.

Incidentally, for those who may not know Andrew Coyne, he happens to be one of the smartest, most respected, recognized journalists and pro political pundits working in Canada and has been for years.

When Andrew Coyne speaks, even the skeptics listen very closely.

There are few to challenge Andrew Coyne's intellectual brilliance when it comes to politics, culture and conservative philosophy.

Old media's rapid downfall is rooted in a deep inability to accept that the world has moved on from the dated altruistic journalism culture of the 1960's with its leftist liberal values & knee-jerk anti-war media opposition to government which was seen only as a hostile opponent. The appearance of objectivity despite liberal biases was paramount and all-important in determining legitimacy in old media journalism.

But trumpeting bias is what actually drives wider interest in the market place today. That's why conservative voices are so hugely successful in all media currently. Pioneering icons like Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter, inform their audiences from their conservative perspectives, which stresses exactly who they are and why they are very proud to educate listeners as conservative voices.

Old media [Dan Rather, Walter Cronkite] would never ever dream of exposing themselves as liberals or admit their extreme leftist bias in their broadcast reporting. Rather [Dan?] they would have you believe they are merely neutral, responsible, objective journalists with no political bias one way or the other. Yet, that's why all old media is failing to remain credible or relevant. They're lying and we know it.

In this new reality a cluetrain manifesto must be our first guide.
Stylish deceptions simply won't fly anymore. People demand facts and truth in advertising. That's why hard hitting Blogs and intelligent conservative commentary and opinion are in such high demand.

They will continue to be in high demand for many years to come.

And that's the way it is for this day February 2006...

I'm not Walter Cronkite...and this is not the CBS network news.

Talking Points: Discover my Scribes and Illuminators sidebar scroll.
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