Here's an archive of mailing list newsletters I've sent out, minus the gig dates:

Sept 09':

Hi,

This is my first ‘mass emailing’ letter I’m sending out to promote my music. Yes, I know, blatant self-promotion bordering on spam. However, as those of you in the music biz know, if you don’t promote yourself, nobody will.

The danger in self-promotion is that it’s easy to come across as egotistical and self centered. The danger in not promoting is that you may play a gig with only 3 people in the audience and not get re-hired by the venue.

At least promotion via email is relatively easy. I’m saving a lot of time, money, and trees verses the old way – back in the 90’s when my band Blinddog Smokin’ was touring full time, we were spending upwards of $5000 per year just on postage for our mailing list. I knew the taste of stamps well then. That was back when you still had to lick them, for anyone reading this who is under 20.

Speaking of the CD, it received a cool review from Scene magazine in Ft Collins last month, and next month will be reviewed in Blues Matters in the UK. www.bluesmatters.com/

By the way, anyone who missed the Snowy Range Music festival sure missed a lot of great music – Johnny Lang, Derek Trucks, Susan Tedeschi, Bobby Rush, Carl Weathersby, and many more. I had a great time playing it and hope to be involved with next year’s festival. You should too. www.snowyrangemusicfestival.com/homepage/

Oct 09':

This past week I had the pleasure of playing a few shows with Chicago harp legend Billy Branch. For those of you may not be familiar with Billy, he is a grammy nominated Chicago bluesman who has played and recorded with Willie Dixon, Muddy Waters, Johnny Winter, Johnny Winter, Koko Taylor, and many more. But perhaps even more than this impressive record, Billy’s legacy is his Blues in the Schools program. While accompanying Billy with my guitar, I got to see first hand how he captivates kids with his music, while teaching them about the blues, harmonica playing, and American history. Then Saturday night he brought the house down at Oskar Blues in Lyons. It was one of the funnest shows I’ve played. The whole experience turned out to be both inspirational and educational for me.
www.billybranch.com

End of year 09':

It’s not often I feel intimidated while playing guitar. I’ve played a lot of big shows with big names, and feel confident with my guitar skills. However everyone once-in-a-while some unexpected situation happens that instills me with a little bit of stage-fright.

About a month ago I was doing another acoustic jazz trio gig at the Boulderado hotel. We set up in the lobby and play for a couple hours for people checking in. Background music for atmosphere mostly, and hardly a gig where one would expect to be nervous while performing. This night, there was a group of young adults sitting in the lobby having a couple drinks, chatting, and listening to my band.

As we began to play I was struck by the fact that one of the young ladies in the group looked very familiar. After a few songs I realized that she was Imogen Heap, a great musician in her own right, and singer for my all-time favorite guitarist - Jeff Beck.

The unexpectedness of this made me a bit self-conscious while playing, and it also reminded me that no matter what the gig, you should always take it seriously enough to play your best, because you never know who might be listening.

For those of you not familiar with Imogen, here’s a link to a video example of her constructing a song with a looper (electronic device that plays back echos of a performance to allow a soloist to accompany themselves several times over.)
www.youtube.com/watch

In other news, I got a call recently to do some gigs with the Roadhouse Joe Blues Band, and have been having a lot of fun with those guys. www.roadhousejoe.com

January 2010

I’d been experimenting with playing electric guitar without a pick for a while, and inevitably I’d go back to using one out of frustration of not being able to play things with my fingers as fluently as I could with a pick. Then, I ran into another guitar player named Phil Brown ( www.philbrownguitar.com ) who was playing brilliant pick-less electric guitar. On the way home from a show I played with him in Ft Collins, I rolled down the window of my car and threw all my picks out. And I’ve never used one since. I also went to Phil for a guitar lesson to learn more about pickless playing. However the lesson turned out to be much more than that. One of the main things I came away with from that lesson was that most musicians work on the same things, and if I want to find my own voice, I have to consciously avoid falling into the copy-cat rut.

So in writing these little blurbs each month, I’ve tried to keep that lesson in mind. I’m on a lot of other mailing lists of musicians, promoters, and venues. Almost all of them fall into two categories:
1. List of gig dates. Dry, nothing but the facts.
2. List of their recent accomplishments and how great they are along with a list of gig dates.

So, while I’ll still put a list of gig dates at the end of these notes, I’m going to use this forum to try to help promote a lot of other musicians and music industry people who have influenced or helped me, and who I feel deserve more recognition than they get. So this month, if you’re looking for some cool new music, I’d suggest checking out Phil Brown on the link above, not only for great guitar playing, but also for his singing and songwriting.

Musically,
Jasco