I’ve been in “subsistence,” mode in this crazy expensive place (San Francisco) since I was summarily dismissed from my cube farm day job. But recently I’ve slowly been migrating toward the idea of “following my bliss.” After a recent trip to the annual Guitar Show at the San Rafael Civic Center, I bumped into an old acquaintance, Steve Stein, owner and proprietor of Steve’s Guitars on South Van Ness at 15th St in the SF Mission. Turns out Steve needed some assistance getting his brick and mortar shop in order, updating his web presence, Reverb and Ebay sales sites and production assistance with his first foray in a recording studio.
For the past few days I’ve been busy (re) - setting the shop for direct sales, updating the electronic sales channels channels and jamming jazz on bass in accompaniment of Steve, who is a masterful jazz, classical and baroque guitarist as well as a skillful piano player. Steve also teaches guitar and piano and has decades of experience. Today, we are heading into the Recording Studio to lay down tracks on a few Realbook Jazz Standards (with me on double bass) and Steve will most likely record some piano and classical guitar pieces.
The “something fun,” referenced in the header of today’s blog is that I’m heading to Anaheim along with my son, Stuart to the NAMM show - the National Association of Music Merchants convention which showcases incredible amounts of new musical instruments, recording and PA gear and anything having to do with music sales, performance and education from a gigantic slate of vendors from all over the planet!
I have the thinnest of credentials as I’m not a NAMM member (yet) but I have a few irons in the fire in terms of connections to individuals, web sites and organizations that I’m hoping to leverage to further my access and to enable me to create video and journalistic content to TedToob, to cross-post to social media in a modest attempt to create some buzz. I also plan to network as extensively as possible toward a music or music media day job - but that, at the moment, is the dream and the bliss I am following!
Stay tuned for more updates from the road!