Can I Compete With Nashville's Best?

October 5-9 is Pensacola's Songwriter's Festival. It features some of Nashville's best songwriters with credits as long as my arm. They share the stage, tell stories about how they wrote songs, where, or why. If you've never done this before, it's a real eye opener.

Here's a photo of me next to the Paradise Inn, the closest sound stage to my house, where the songwriters gather to share their music with us. It's a very intimate setting with much of the talent in rotation at the Bluebird cafe, known for its small embedded "stage" surrounded by ticket holders.

After I saw two shows, I said to myself, "I can totally do this. I wonder how you audition?" Well, I found by looking online, that local songwriters can play at Paradise on Wednesday (which is too bad because that's a day I work pretty far away from here).

And here's an interesting thing I also noticed, every song that was played was either gospel, country or folk. There wasn't any rock. So, image what it would be like with me getting up there with a rock guitar and my original music piped in? Or better yet, a band? Hmm...

So, I think I'm going to try this out and see what happens. I have to admit I'm a bit nervous about it. It's been a few years since I played out in a club. And I'm not sure my music is as good as everyone else's. But what the heck? Right?

What's up next, you ask?

Well, "I wanna rock" as they say. I need to get working on my next song called, "Mister Daydream". It'll be part 2 of my guru challenge.

This time I'll feature a riff by Metal Method and combine that with Ronnie James Dio kind of feel. I'll try to couple that with some Beatles and see where it goes.

That'll be about song 6 on my new EP coming out (as soon as I get it finished).

See you next time!

Love & Rockets,

Russ