Belated Tidings, BOTB Results, IWSG Distractions, and Groove-Floatin'

"I Was Tardy" by Alan Foster -- Saturday Evening Post cover (9/27/1930)

Allow me to wish you a belated "Happy New Year!"

I apologize for the fact that it's belated -- I'd planned on posting the results from my Jan 1st BOTB on Monday, posting the first Tuesday Newsday 200 (TN200) post of 2014 on Tuesday, and then taking part in the January IWSG yesterday, and I ended up being woefully tardy on all of them.  You'd think that after having two weeks off for the holiday and then getting an extra two days snowed in would have given me plenty of free time to get those posts written and ready to go, but...

I don't have a good excuse -- I took some time away from the blogosphere, and like my Holiday, it ended up being unexpectedly extended.  Maybe I can blame the Polar Vortex. 

Well, at least let me try and offer penance:

I was tardy. I was tardy. I was tardy. I was tar--

No, that's no good.  Who wants to read that 500 times???

So perhaps I can try to catch up a little -- belated tidings are better than none, right?  I'll save the TN200 until next week, but here are abbreviated versions of the other two topics:

1/1/2014 Battle of the Bands Results


I have to tell you that the voting on the three versions of Auld Lang Syne surprised me a little.  I thought David Grisman's bluegrass rendition would have received a few more votes. True, the holidays and my own blogging absence probably helped to lower the number of votes, but it still ended up not being much of a contest, and Grisman was left in the dust.

I was familiar with Grisman's version of this tune before posting and discovered the others on YouTube when I was searching for a version to match against Grisman's.  I've been a fan of Grisman's since hearing his Mondo Mando album back in the early 1980's -- the tune "Dawg Funk" from it is a particular favorite of mine.  And being a Deahhead, the collaborations between Grisman and Jerry Garcia are fun to me, too.

I do think all the BOTB versions are very good, and there wasn't a wrong vote -- it's just interesting to see how the votes turned out.  The Viva Girls version is extremely cool.  The mix of the beat and the Chinese instruments is great, and the playing is fabulous.  Plus, as a guitarist, I can't help but admire the playing on the Hero for the World metal version (and I suspect it would have gotten an extra vote if Ninja Captain Alex had been around). Still, I personally would vote for Grisman, although it doesn't change the results at all -- the Viva Girls won this one going away:

Viva Girls 4.5, Grisman 1.5, Hero for the World 1.0

January 2014 Insecure Writers Support Group -- "Distractions"

This (belated and very shortened) edition of the IWSG blog event relates closely to my IWSG post from last month where I shared my concerns over not writing enough:

"How can I stay focused on writing when there are so many distractions?"

I have a job, a house, a family, and many other things I spend time on -- and right now I have to confess that playing my guitar is a big one.  I love writing, although it can be a slow and painful process at times.  I have many story ideas I want to get down, and am growing more and more excited about a new novel that has been taking over my thoughts with demands to be written. But how can I stay focused on just writing on a consistent and regular basis when there are so many other things in my life tugging on my sleeve for attention?

How can I shut out the distractions and turn the stories I want to write into stories I've written?

I'm open to any feedback and pointers as to what works for you.

Floatin' in the Groove

  Finally, as my final act of contrition for my belatedness, let me try to appease you with music.

HERE's one of the pieces I put together over the Christmas holiday. A bit of a spacey jam with several guitars on top of a wikiloops drum and bass track. I call it "Floatin' in the Groove" and it's on the wikiloops shared jam site.

I found the drum and bass groove (drums by user "Gibson" and bass by user "bendeg") and just kind of started jamming against it -- I ended up actually looping the original bass and drums track twice to make it longer. :)

My playing on this piece is kind of all over the map -- the effect I was going for was kind of trippy and spacey with at least a defined bridge, and I think it succeeded at that, but overall I'm not sure if it is what I would consider a very coherent tune.

Still -- it was fun to do and I hope you enjoy it.  Thanks for listening!