Thursday, December 27, 2012

Greater Hamilton Musician: A Sure Way To Get More Attention And Gain Reputati...

Greater Hamilton Musician: A Sure Way To Get More Attention And Gain Reputati...: I'm fishing for something. I'm not sure what I'll catch, but I'm putting my "fishing line" out there to see what I get. Come fishing with ...

Thursday, September 27, 2012

The Campfire

The Campfire 

Tired soul hunches in
To warm the hands and soul
Life's demons and angels
Attend as sparks fly
And smoke ascends

Connecting
Stars and Earth
Love and Ashes
Forever and Flickering

Toss in temporal
Wood and Whimsy
Garbage and Guilt
Failings and Fear

Soak up eternal
Life and Love
Wind and Warmth
Sky and Stars

Flames consume all
With crackling resolve
Body warmed
Troubles dissolve

Awaken new soul
Renewed and revived
Cleansed by the flames and
More fully alive

The campfire!
Earth's mystery
The great equalizer
The great servant

- Glen Brown, August 27, 2012, revised December 16, 2012, October 5, 2019




Sunday, September 09, 2012

Music Biz Bits: We Are Musicians

Music Biz Bits: We Are Musicians: We Are Musicians. by Glen T Brown We are the stewards of ceremony and celebration, love and leisure. We preside like wizards and...

Saturday, August 25, 2012

Selkirk Provincial Park

Aug. 25, 11 pm Campfire

Coming to the end of a very, very nice summer. Brenda and Elinor in tents. Olivia in Chippewa with U of T former roommate - partying. Ian - home - alone. What is great about this moment? Life. My beloved Brenda and I are aghast at the prospect of sending our 3 beautiful children off into another school year - let alone life! Elinor - 12 - doesn't even want to "think" about grade 8. Ian doesn't want to be finished high school so quickly. And Olivia is about to become a student of bass-playing! (Mohawk year 1, or maybe year 2 if she's given some credit for her U of T work). Brenda sets off for the first time into a year of teaching ONE THING: kindergarten at J.H. Ballard. Both of us have a battle to join - with our fellow teachers, this week, in a Queen's Park "Rally4Education." Contract strips, trampled laws, ignored rights. No need! We'll get through this - together! Our Education Centre in Hamilton being torn down as we march on Queen's Park for our rights!??

Monday, June 25, 2012

Summer With Sudbury's Blue Saints

Yesterday I attended the Welland Rose Festival Parade for the first time in, oh, about 35 years. The last time I was there was with the Teen Tour Band. It was ironic that as my younger daughter, my wife and I walked through the marshalling/staging area we saw the BTTB.

Not only the sight of all the bands and floats brought back a flood of great memories, but the sound too.  Horn players warm up under a tree; flag bearers sit around chatting; bands line up to warm up together with uniform jackets neatly piled with their caps at their feet. Everyone can see everyone else.

The diversity of groups shows up during the "hurry up and wait" period. The Chinese Fulan marching groups are all in perfect uniform standing at ease in formation, and it's thirty minutes until parade time. Other groups are standing in half uniform chatting while others are sitting around on the boulevard. A late-arriving bagpiper runs from his car.

We're looking for Sudbury's Blue Saints. The Blue Saints is Canada's oldest continuously operating community drum and bugle corps, now in its sixtieth year. We mistakenly were looking for formal blue uniforms, but as I phoned the director Mark Ripley, I learned that they were in their summer parade T shirts and were looking much more informal than I expected.

My two daughters are going to spend five weeks in July and August with the Blue Saints. Today we were introduced to Meghan the drumline leader. She looks barely out of high school, but is self-assured and friendly to Elinor. We shake hands all around and meet the show choreographer and band director, whose name escapes me. He too is a young man, university aged. He came up from North Texas State University to work for the Blue Saints this summer. He arranged all the music and the choreography for this year's show.

A half hour later the parade was under way. The Blue Saints marched by, supported by their enthusiastic alumni group marching along behind. What the corps lacks in numbers it makes up in spirit.


Sunday, May 27, 2012

Music Biz Bits: Feeling The Beat With Hamilton Area Drumlines

Music Biz Bits: Feeling The Beat With Hamilton Area Drumlines: Just when I was getting my head wrapped around the idea of two secondary school drumlines in the area -- Burlington's M. M. Robinson Percuss...

Friday, April 06, 2012

Ron Palangio Group: New Gigs Are Opening Up - WOOHOO!!

Ron Palangio Group: New Gigs Are Opening Up - WOOHOO!!: Our winner of last October's Win the Band contest has booked us for their farm party on July 14. MOOO. We're playing for a fundraiser at th...

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Every Gig Matters

Music Biz Bits: Every Gig Matters (click for the full post):

You peer out from backstage, fifteen feet above the ground, gaz­ing out at a sea of peace-lovin’ hippie humanity half a m...

Tuesday, February 07, 2012

Music Biz Bits: Why Play on the Facebook Freeway? You Can Meet Me ...

Music Biz Bits: Why Play on the Facebook Freeway?
This post is #1 in my series, "How to Get on the Internet for Fifteen Dollars a Year." I live in my inbox. Don’t you? It’s like this. I s...