the all new Martin Blasick blog

This blog is all there, all of the old posts and files – everything. The only reason for the move is to put it in my normal website. Wednesday’s Song lives on there and is ready to move ahead toward infiniti and beyond.

Love and peace,

Martin

So this week I hung out long enough to get on stage. Special props go out to RAMEKEGA for playing so great and GigChannel for shooting and posting this video. Way cool and thanks. Google RAMEKEGA and you’ll be in for a treat, 3 charming young ladies performing sweet originals.

What’s to shoot when you’ve got a new video camera? A video for A Credible Threat, of course. I’ve been shooting waterfalls in slow motion since last August when I bought the Sanyo Xacti HD1010 cameral. It’s got a 300fps mode. At first I wanted to see what it looked like and needed a subject. Waterfalls are totally patient and cooperative. Many thanks to waterfalls from Palmdale, San Diego, Las Vegas, Huntingon Library, Palos Verdes and more.

Open mic at The Talking Stick in Santa Monica seemed like a good place to dust off the performing cobwebs. There’s always folks I know; the new location is bigger and sounds better; the stage hasn’t had me on it yet. But signup goes fast. I was there about 2 minutes past the 7pm signup and the list was full with a couple of teeny names squeezed at the bottom. Knowing full well I wouldn’t play, I wrote my name at the bottom as big as a house and prepared to enjoy the show without thinking about my own performance. The end of the story is next cause it’s not so interesting; at 9:45 I left (didn’t play – could’ve made it on the next name, no worries) with a great turkey sandwich to present to my understanding wife who was pampering herself in prep for her next day’s acting job. 

The show itself was interesting musically to be sure, but more so on the human level. People really do like to perform. Special props the the 87 year old dude who plays electric autoharp. Heard him many times and love that he’s doing it. There’s a trio of teen girls (Ramakega – didn’t hear them this time cause they, too, hadn’t been called up yet) dutifully prepared to go onstage while their incredible patient dad hung in through it all.  CanyonEllen singing songs about tech. The twentysomething hipsters practicing right out the front door like it’s really important to do a great show. All in all the talent level is pretty danged good. Even the occasional stinker has some redeeming quality. For me, without the performance thoughts running through my head it was fun to watch the show as opposed to waiting my turn. 

Folks want to communicate. Some are better at it than others, but that doesn’t really matter. Next Wednesday there will be another open mic with a room full of messages. btw if you want  to perform there, try to arrive before 7pm or the list is sure to be full.

All the noise and all the folks converged once again in Anaheim this January. That was me at the Samick booth talking about my Royale RL3 again.

I’m hip, sort of. It’s cuase I’ve joined up with Twitter. martinblasick is my account name.

Now that I’ve taken a nap and recovered, the Long Beach Marathon goes down as a really great time. I volunteered for 4 hours of jamming for runners. I played all originals except for Blue Suede Shoes. And only one song got repeated. Everyone was running on by so I didn’t worry about playing cover tunes. I must’ve played about 40 originals. Lots of determined faces.

Spent about 5 days in the high desert near Palmdale, CA while Natasha was shooting nights on a movie. I took time to experiment with my new camera, the Sanyo Xacti HD1010.

This song is called “Your Grace” You might not be able to hear the words so well because of the wind. But it was fun to shoot in the middle of nowhere. I used the 320×240 “web” setting.

It’s gig time!! I’m jamming on Sunday, Oct 12 from 9am til 1pm on the path of the Long Beach Marathon. My job is to keep the runners energized. It’s up in the air who’s going to be playing bass and drums. Just like Sarah Palin says “I’ll hafta get back to ya on that one”

It’s going to be an early load in – 5am – because the roads get closed off for the marathon. The day will be a good one. I’ll try and shoot some video or audio. The runners will be running and I’ll be melting in the sun. Time for this vampire to get to the beach.

I’m indulging my filmmaker side again. Indeed, the script has begun. I can’t help but think of story ideas. It must be because of doing so many songs for picture over the years.

I love recording the songs. But I’m longing to put together a bigger puzzle. Now I’m not talking about a multi-million dollar affair. More like the micro budget indie type of movie. I love that stuff. Always have. My friends have made indies over the years and I’ve participated to varying degrees. The thing is it all comes down to the writing. Not so different than music in that respect. I’ve written some scripts but something always keeps me from pulling the trigger on going into production. Story problem. Unreliable people problem. Not following through so the momentum is lost. Though usually it’s something about the story that keeps me from directing my first movie.

There’s more constraints for the microbudgets. No airplanes, nuclear explosions, or even normal looking locations with 40 extras. You gotta write with what you have. And it’s gotta feel like spending 45 minutes in a coffeehouse is the most natural thing in the world, not cause you couldn’t get any more locations.

In my case I gotta wrap a story around a middle age guy that includes my music. In a natural way. And I’d like to officially introduce my wife, Natasha, to Wednesday’s Song. She’s an actress. You guessed it. She’s in the movie, too with her darling, slight eastern European accent. She’s an ingenue type. That’s sounds like a natural doesn’t it? Well, I think I’ve got my brain working on a good scenario. I wrote 21 pages since last week. I’ve been stewing on the idea for quite a while but there was a moment driving around where I met the characters. More to come on that.

As of now, Wednesday’s Song, is about the movie inspired by the songs.