DATE: 03 Jul 2008, 4:00 pm / MOOD: Almost Famous

check out -

They Said Yeah

new song on SONICJIVE!!!!

 

 

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DATE: 12 Jun 2008, 8:54 pm / MOOD: Mellow Yellow

I was thinking about gigs as I usually do and I was seeing other people listed in all kinds of things and not being included. So NOT being part of something, I was wondering WHY I was omitted or why I was or am missing in action. Then there are the gig offers of $50 on a Thursday night for 2 hours of work which is really 3 and it has to start at 9 pm.....well I work form 11pm to 7:30 am and what I make and hour is real close to that $50 bucks anyway and that makes it a part time job which sometimes it is and now I'm thinking....I don't want it to be that. I want it to be an inspiration to me and to others. A magical time of elves and fairies flitterying about with cold bottles of Bud-Lite not a grind, which is ,as we players know, what it does become time to time but we work thru it and don't court these feelings.

So now it comes to value. What am I worth? To me..to them booking people...to the audience....to God in heaven. I am worth more than $50 bucks at a bowling alley at 9pm on a Thursday. And I am worth more than filling a hole in an empty bar that gives you a dollar a person and it holds 30 max. I may have to work harder for a gig myself, but I am worth more than that, I believe. I've done my share of filling dates without filling my soul and now my soul is crying out for attention and since it is so much a part of me, I think I'll listen. Maybe you should too, musician or not. A crying soul is one to listen to. A happy soul is what we should aspire to possess. This is the wierd part, I would rather play for hours, free for people that want me to be there than to take a couple of bucks and hope it all works out. Make sense? Not sure it does until you put the happy soul item in there. I spent Saturday with amazingly crazy people on the Wabash Trace, a rails to trails bicycle group. What a blast! What a gig. I was sitting on the platform on the back of an old school bus, playing in the sun while the "bikers" came down the trail as it crossed an asphalt county road in the middle of nowhere. We drank and sang and had a ball. THEN..down the asphalt (stopped on top of a hill over looking nothing but future cornfields to talk to my lovely desert flower for a while in the serenity of the midwest country side) to Imogene, up the trail to the bridge, another short set on the trailer sitting along side the trail with nothing to see but trees and fields and someone handing me another cold beer....heaven! Then on to the Sugar Clay Vineyard.....8 people came by because it looked like storms again, but I met Frank and Amy and we had a great time, played for an hour or so, drank some great wine, got gas money and a couple bottles of Cedar Ridge Red and off I went, me and my fullfilled soul. Plus I might add, a sunburn on my legs and nose, no sunscreen, (they told me at chemo, I will sunburn easier now cuz of the drugs, so sunscreen when I leave the house......missed chemo this week, my blood doesn't come back like it should. Too low white blood cell counts and others.....nothing I did ....nothing to worry about....just gonna be in chemo longer.....shit.....but I'll be done when I'm done...I am lucky and blessed) and a mild wine glow....nice.

My brother in Seattle (Mississippi David Kie....on Keys) told me, we've been playing the blues since he was 16 and I was 14. We took to it like bees to honey. We love the music, the musicians, the writers, the singers of all races and sexes as long as they were true to the blues. It permeates in our hearts and souls. It's our musical hertiage now, after 40 years of playing, singing and writing. We do other musical things but thats where we are comfortable. Thats where we live. David was jammin with some of his friends and a sax player came in to play and Deek was on a B3 type of a key mode. The cat was real good and the jam was real good and David got going and nailed it. The cat said ( he is a brother talking to the bass player, who is a brother) I didn't know white people could play the blues like that...he said he thought he was back in Mississippi!! What a compliment..then the realization we have been at this craft for a while and we know it well and play it well......so much fun...such a full and happy soul. That you can't get money to match, when others realize what you thought is true inside and it becomes physical evidence that all those years have "paid" off.

So value....worth....is it monetary? Need some but not the focus. Happiness, fullfillment, these have their own value above and beyond money but it don't keep the electricity in the house, just in your body! What to do....what to do. I think you need to listen to yourself. I have to do this alot with the thing I'm going thru. Listen to what you can and can't do. Listen to what you want and don't want to do. If it feels like a fill in the blank kind of gig..take it and expect nothing else, fill the tank or put it in the tank and move on. It could be different, but high hopes in the face of frustration can be a BIG let down and we are tempermental artists are we not?...with a Bud Lite addiction :) So the secret is a balance of work and glee. Some gigs are work but look for the ones that you love to play. Follow that path and money will follow or at the least, you will feel great about yourself, your craft and your path.

I'm still dreaming of being full time in this merry-go -round. If I get there, great, if I don't, I'll have stories to tell. But for now I have gigs to play and songs to write and recording that needs to get done, working those nutty hours, plus over time when I can and I have to get well, heal, get thru chemo, get to my birthday and FREEDOM!!! Make sure you aren't under selling yourself to ANYONE. Spouse, boss, freinds, booking agents, make sure they understand your value. Make sure YOU understand your value, as a person, as an artist. Go find where your soul is happy. Go where YOU are happy. Black Elk, a Sioux holy man said why are we not here but to give and experience joy? You have value. Make sure other people understand that. Take the time to listen to your inner voice. Listen to Mr. Soul, cuz that is the ultimate you.

All the best to everyone

Stephen Monroe

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DATE: 25 May 2008, 11:39 pm / MOOD: Instant Karma

Well my friends, I am a lucky man. No doubt. Not even a smidgeon of a wonder, I am a lucky man going through a tough time. There are people that love me BIG TIME and I can't deny that no matter how everything else goes and sometimes it goes hard.

I am trying to rearrange my life so it has more meaning to me. Yes, me. How egotistical, how self serving, how how how howiln wolf....that is why there is so much turmoil. We spend all of our time giving ourselves and our lives away to others we hope someday will come to recognize our Herculean efforts and repay us with loyalty, love and greater understanding of how this sacrificial lamb idealogy works. It works like shit. They get off easy and we end up on the block table at the top of the temple waiting for some hallucinogenic priest to cut our hearts out and they WILL rip your heart out. SO why not take a chance and see if making you happy will make someone else happy and while you are growing happier exponentially, they will be there with you growing happy exponentially and you create this great sun of happiness and then planets form (friendships/children) and they are part of your happiness universe and you all get to swirl in the beneficial light of the sun that you created when you started putting yourself first.How evil and egotistical! How wonderfully full of bliss and contentment. How easily done without the parameters put on us by other invasive species.

Tonight at a bar in Council Bluffs, Iowa, across the river from this town of my birth, I am a benficiary of rock-n-roll friends putting on a benefit for me by doing what they do best, rocking the house. I am so humbled by all of this that I really don't know what to say except "Thank You". I love these people and they love me back. WE are cut form the same bolt of cloth, in a way. All nut case musicians that have a dream and a drive that keeps us up late, that keep us alive with no guarantee it will ever come to the place we dream of and we know that and accept our fate, knowing as much as it might not happen, it just as surely could happen. Which universe do you want to live in? Possibilty or futility? We are aware there are consequences, like partners not sharing the dream or frustrations of non-recognition, people leaving our universe but the ones that remain true to their vision get a clearer picture of how life is for them. they get stronger, the people around them get stronger. the vision gets clearer and passion begins to pump into your viens and you get this aura of contentedness that few people really attain. Musically, I feel myself there. The rest of my life is a complicated mess of frustrations, pains, things that I have no control over and wonderful rays of sunshine that makes my soul leap with joy and an awareness that there is a joyful life out there.

This year started slow and then I found out I have colon cancer and surgery was imminent. Since then it has been a struggle to get better with the help of everyone in my family, especially my Ma and Pa. The day I talked to the surgeon, I found out Mike Canter of SONICJIVE.COM had picked "Traveling st the Speed of Steve" as one of his top ten CD's of 2007...cut me up....lift me up. That's the way my life is going. I had surgery and spent 7 days in the hospital. I got cards and letters from so many people. Friends dropped by to lift me up when I was in that bed good and solid. On the 7th day, my daughter and her boy friend got married and the people at the hospital brought up a cart with a cake, a bowl of punch and ice cream for everyone. I had my daughter bring up my guitar and I played song I wrote for them and played 'Moondance" for their wedding dance while I was in my hospital gown. I got out later that day and got better so I could start chemo therapy for 12 sessions that have been periodically delayed because of blood counts that are low because of chemo therapy. I have come to the conclusion that chemo therapy is either like a forest fire or napalm getting dropped in your system. A lot of stuff burns up, but the hope is that the good stuff comes back since I am inherently a healthy person and that is the redeeming characteristic that will eventually cause me to look at this as a win.

The last chemo tore me up! That was 3 of 12. I went in this week and my count was down and sorry, no chemo....shot a day of vaction for that. So I went to see a old buddy of mine I had played basketball in high school with and we had our own chemo therapy of Bud Light. SO now it is delayed another week but JOY OF JOYS!! my job has pumped me to a graveyard shift that nearly killed me when I was healthy, 11pm to 7:30am, M-F. There is no hope of ever getting off that shift unless my dream comes true....another time..another blog...There are pluses, I can still gig if I want to and no more vacation days for chemo, all  I have to do is move Mr. Sleep around and I can do whatever I need to...instead of sleep. 4 o'clock in the morning is the suckiest time to try and stay awake.......but I must do it. No choice....for now.

I really felt my bucket was full. I knew it was full. I want to regain my independence but I must go through the paper work all by myself and do it all by myself to hope that I can begin to encorparate the light of all this good that is happening to me into a new universe of music and love....yes I am a hippie at heart. Chemo is neccessary and whimsical and comes and goes and I must fly on that breeze until October, when I should be free of it. Well, this is all well and good but when I heard about having to work the graveyard shift (great for blues players to write about when its true..) my bucket was over flowing. Then I saw someone approach me with something new and shiny. It was the gift of a bigger bucket! And this spirit looked me in the heart and said. " Just cuz it gets tough, don't mean it  gets any easier. The cheap ones fade. The survivors keep going and they are the ones that can reap the reward." "The reward of what?", I asked and he said, "Honest effort. The results are unknown and part of another riddle but knowing you faced your challenges and did your best begins the glow that becomes your sun.....that begins that universe of your joy so that it may shine on others. Bask in it the glow brother. Bask in its glow"

So tonight, I will be basking in a glow and feeling the love and giving the love. I am amazed at all of this.I never thought I would be the sick one, the one in need. I never thought I would have stage 3 cancer and going to chemo where women wear scarves to hide bald heads and a man talks through a voice synthisizer and we sleep in chairs in an open room with nurses darting to and fro, while our hopes of never being in that room again drip into our blood streams. I never envisioned a need for a benefit for me and I would truly need to meet this stage of my life and all the troops would come to my aid and I would feel safe in my vulnerability.

So when I go to work at 11 pm Monday night, I will still be reeling from my forced exile from regular hours. I'll still be glowing with the love sent my way. I'll still need to fill out the forms that could free me to a new life and chemo is coming on Wednesday, the 46 hour drip bag fanny pack and a follow up endoscopy on Friday afternoon is coming! WHOO HOO!! These are all temporary distractions and it is tough at times, but just cuz its tough don't mean it gets easier. It doesn't have to hold you down. Cuz YOU know what you want out of this life. You know the love that is out there. That love is so strong you can stand on it, build a house on it, start the fire of your own sun with it and create the universe sitting inside you. I'm gonna give it a go. Why dont' you? Happiness is not a event, it should be a way of life. Black Elk said we are here to have joy, create joy and give joy. What else is there to do??

I am sending a healing vibration that has enveloped me. I am sending you love that has poured my way. I am hoping for your joy to become the sun you revolve around. Grant yourself the right of peace and contentment. Most importantly give it to others....that is so-o-o important. It starts a nartural recycling of love. I'll be witness to that tonight. I am lucky and a blessed man.

All the best to you all

Stephen Monroe

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DATE: 25 May 2008, 4:01 pm / MOOD: Captain Fantastic

I wrote this song to say thanks to everyone that  has given me strength during my trying times. This applies to so many of us that never thought we would be the one that needs help. We can ask....there are angels in our midst

Read on brothers and sisters.....read on

 

 

THEY SAID YEAH - SMonroe

 

Can I get some help? They said yeah

Can I get some love? They said yeah

Can you talk to the man upstairs for me?  They said yeah

I’m goin through a bit of a tough time

I could use some help if you don’t mind

I just asked and they said yeah. They said yeah

 

You never know what is comin up

And even if you do sometimes that ain’t enough

You need a friend to help you

Through your troubled times

Don’t be afraid to ask for help

Lots of things we just can’t do ourselves

When you do you’ll allow the power

Come your way

 

Can I get some help? They said yeah

Can I get some love? They said yeah

Can you talk to the man upstairs for me?  They said yeah

I’m goin through a bit of a tough time

I know I can win if you’re on my side

I just asked and they said yeah. They said yeah

 

To survive we’ve got to be so strong

But sometimes that answer’s wrong

What you really need is to do

Is ask for a helping hand

I’m telling you that when you do

The ones that care will come shinin through

There’s people you don’t even know

That will be there too

 

             I know you don’t want to seem weak

             Remember that story ‘bout the other cheek

             Sometimes givin in ain’t exactly what it seems

             Just cuz you can’t do it alone

             Don’t mean your back ain’t got no bone

             It just means you used more brain than braun

 

Can I get some help? They said yeah

Can I get some love? They said yeah

Can you talk to the man upstairs for me?  They said yeah

I’m goin through a bit of a tough time

I  know I can win cuz you’re on my side

I just asked and they said yeah. They said yeah

 

I can’t tell you how good it feels

When you see this love revealed

I just asked and they said yeah. They said yeah

I just asked and they said yeah. They said yeah

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DATE: 08 Apr 2008, 12:09 pm / MOOD: Mellow Yellow

I just received the email from Mike about the new demographic software for us.....it appears amazing and really a great tool for us. I also, like many of us, have a Myspace page that I send people to to ( I said to to ) listen to my music, check out my schedule, look at pix.....well I think its time we start to use SONICJIVE the same way (if you are already doing this......my hat is off to you). The demographics will help loads and I really think Mike is working his tail off to make his dream come true like we are working to make our dreams happen in real time. Our support and his hard work seem to be a winning combination that we all can benefit from. Our dreams are what its all about. This community of insane people that think life is something we can sculpt are here because we dream. We hope. We want more than 9 to 5 (although we need it a lot of times...to eat). Some are hear to spread the word of their visoins of art, some are here to participate in other slants on things. These people are intergral parts of artists lives, the listeners, the viewers, the fanatics (fans). All of us need to share in this vortex of experssion that is SONICJIVE...and SONICJIVE is us.

So before this soap box breaks into splinters, lets get some focus on us here at SONICJIVE. Tell other artists, other music lovers. Send 'em this-a-way and say it loud and proud at your gigs and in your emails.....I'M PART OF THE INSANE COMMUNITY KNOWN AS SONICJIVE.COM.......get on the bus with the rest of us!!!

 

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DATE: 17 Jan 2008, 6:10 pm / MOOD: Sitting, Waiting, Wishing

Hey folks, how is winter treating you? It's colder than a snub from a venue owner here in the Big O. I am posing the question in the title because it really is a question we music people....booking agents, musicians, managers, venue proprietors...must ask ourselves. Are you contributing to making something happen where you are or are you limiting the participation of people outside your click? Are you opeing doors or shutting them in the perfectly qualified faces of people that want no more than a chance.

One way of telling is, if you are open to anything new. Not like a new way of doing anything, just new people. To create a scene, for lack of a better word, there needs to be a ground swell of talent either in running a joint or people that are talented, opening the ears and eyes of people to experience something that seems to come out of nowhere....a light in the darkness. Here in town there are people that book gigs that have control over the venue and who plays there. The venue owners have been paying that one person to book the music. They leave it up to them to find out if these performers are good enough to play there and really don't question that person's motives or expertise. That person has clicks of people and will not allow others to play anywhere, basically shutting the door on anyone they do not personally know to get a job there. This can literally close any opportunity for anyone that is not in that click and can't travel around the area banging on other doors. I'm sure a few have just quit because it is so hard. This person is placing themselves in a great spot to find and promote talent and create a place that people who want to play and be known around town could come to this person and know the access this person has to venues and exposure. It could be a launching platform for the performer and the booking agent.......no such luck. Door slamming.....BAM!

Now as performers, are we willing to let someone know about a great act we have seen? Will we give the name of the music contact at any venues if we believe these people aren't just leaches but need a boost to get in the door? Are you afraid someone will "take our jobs" if we part with any wisdom about gigging anywhere. Look, I know a  lot of people do alot of work to find the gigs that we do get and we put in a lot of time calling and calling and getting led down the rosey path and in so doing are never guaranteed anything. But have you ever met a true professional in the biz?? They give you names, hand out CD's like "honey dew vine water". They speak highly of your attempts at making your dreams come true and bolster your resolve until you feel there is nothing that can stop you. I met so many of them in Cinncinati in 2005 at The Midpoint Music Festival. People from England, New York, Indiana, Ohio, North Carolina, even Nashville. We were talking up gigs and trading CD's. It was a euphoria that comes with a bunch of nuts that love the same thing banding together......then I came home. It broke my heart to see such a closed place. My home, cold and uninviting. This may not be true where you are. Fantastic!! I hope you live where there is a real community of creative power and it grows and grows. A communal spirit that has an open door policy. You are so lucky. There are organizations like Just Plain Folks and webistes like....oh I don't know...SONICJIVE.

We as music people must ask ourselves if we are helping to create a phenomenon or throwing a bucket of water on the campfire. It is more than me and you.  We know that when we perform or host an event and we see the euphoria that exists in people as they go off after it's over. Something physical has happened to these people that just happened to be there. Just think about it. There is something potenially powerful here.

In closing, yeah I am one of the snubbed, locally in a few areas and no I haven't shown up drunk and naked for a gig.....well none I can remember....though there was that one time....nah...I had my pants on....I digress. I am bothered by these things because I have been to a mountain top and it was beautiful and it can be beautiful anywhere.....if we just realize how fun it can be. After all you worked your ass off to get this far and to you, a bow and a spotlight cuz many more have quit along the way. But wouldn't it be great to help someone, give a hand, be that person they thank from the podium? Why be alone in potential oasis....take a chance on someone. You would be here if someone hadn't done it for you. Now would ya?

All the best to you and yours

Stephen Monroe

 

 

 

You keep pluggin away. Mike has creayed a place for us all to go and meet other nutcases and write things like this. I hope you can afford to give a little. You'll get a lot more back. It's a fact of nature.

 

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DATE: 01 Jan 2008, 11:55 am / MOOD: Here Comes The Sun

I've woke up the last few days with visions of sugar plums dancing in my brain while the hounds of hell tip at my feet. Basically a vision to extend my world domination while reality would try and preclude my attempts at salvaging this interesting, yet I must admit, a financial failure of a life so far. A wiz of the coin I am not and guitar playing son of a bitch is what is and I'm finding out more about me after my over indulgence created an epiphany that has me redirected. Now having said that, do I have the balls to follow thru with it? Do I have the self discipline to stay the course and not revert back to what I have been doing these oh so many years? Cuz we all know what we need to do to make things better, but we are comfortable in our malaise and Lord knows we want o be comfortable. .....and comfortable NOW!!!! I think that is the problem these kids today are going through. I have a youngest child that is so bright and such a baseball player it would scare most people to death. He is cute and charming and witty but as you can tell, they do not grade on cute, charming and witty. The teachers let him get by when he was younger and now he is really good at getting by but adult life catches up and the grades you need to graduate are hard to come by and it gets down to dirty, ugly, torturous work. There are extenuating circumstances that have really made it hard for him but the hard work part has evaded him and I myself lay as guilty as him for not doing the hard work to get what you can get out of this life....I am more guilty for my love of drink. I thought a music career was to get as high as possible for as long as possible and fuck as many women as possible and the music thing would fall right into place. Oh I was writing and performing but I was clever and all that so I skated for years I could've been networking, getting professional...but I didn't and here I am.So what do you do?? Been here before, right? "Been down this road so much it echoes when I talk...... I find no comfort in this familiarity..." One thing you can never do is....GIVE UP!! That is not an option. You keep working it until something pops or at least you are doing something you enjoy or you're with someone you enjoy and ...this could be a miracle...they enjoy you too. My boy will be fine. It's going to grind a little. He has too things that really help, talent and love. Something will pop.My vision that I have come up with, and waking with for the pass two days...no not that...this....I want to play colleges. I will start out with small colleges to hone this whole concept.....it is not just a show it is a show.....a writing workshop for song writers from the college and surrounding areas. The show would be first so people could get to know me and my work and what I do. I may start out with an after the show Q & A as opposed to the T & A of the past....but I digress..The workshop would not be for the..I WANT TO BE ON THE CHARTS type of person....it would be more about self expression..exploring the creative process for an individual that may never want to play a gig but writes and wants to step into a room with other people that love to write and love music and not a critique, a boost. I will offer critiques if people want....and sure there will be nominal fees for everything but access is more important and expression of a true spirit is the goal.....and world domination....So step one...a show....a workshop.....then I must come back to check on the progress and keep the communal connection with.....a song writers showcase with the kids from the previous visit.....I can either let them have their own show...and then I can perform later in the evening and acknowledge them or finish off the night with doing a longer set after they are done but giving them their own stage would be better.There are song writer groups, there are people that go around doing showcases so another part would be to show them ways to do this on their own or organizations they might want to belong to but I know there is talent everywhere and it is crying to get out while we have American Idol and all those..get to the top in one leap type of shit that is out there and like pro sports, a small percentage actually makes it to the proverbial top but there are a millions that love the game, play the game, love the music, play the music that don't aspire to be #1 or get into the business part of all the crap that goes on but they are creative, wonderful people with a story to tell and if the chance come to them, they may be more comfortable pushing the envelope and step thru the looking glass and see where the adventure goes....and really, isn't that what we're all doing? So lets embrace a new calendar year with its challenges and opportunities, take the bull by the horns ( almost said his horn :) and let’s see what we can do with this ride thru Wonderland. Will you fall back on old ways that went no where? Will you hang with people that love you and believe you are the sunshine or will you fall back on the sofa and pop open another bag of chips and fall prey to the TV set which now costs $3000 and takes up a whole wall.....why?Whatever you do...NEVER GIVE UP.....NEVER QUIT TRYING....never quit loving...yourself and others.....one more thing....take a bath once in a while..for cryin out loud!!Peace

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DATE: 29 Dec 2007, 11:21 am / MOOD: Instant Karma

So here it is again.....the end...my only friend.....NO dummy just of 2007...so we look back over our shoulder like a punk having sex in prison. What worked? What didn't work? What felt good and what hurt like a freight train mistaking your ass for a tunnel.....well there was both and alot of both. So was it a win or a loss? If there is ever anything new that happens...ANyTHING good...it's a win cuz there will always be bad shit happening. ITS NOT ALL SUNSHINE AND LOLLIPOPS...and rainbows...etc.. although sometimes it is. I'm swinging both ways todays..like a barroom door in the old west on a friday night after the cattle are sleepin...sorry.....a sleepin.

SO this is why the end of the year is a good thing. Even though it really amkes no difference WE get empowered enough to say...I CAN MAKE CHANGES. And for the good humanity I hope you do. There is always great tragedy and great loss of some kind. Always a reason to quit, to give up the ghost (what the hell does that mean??), consider yourself a failure at some point and Einstein at some other point so.....keep on chooglin until you get to be Einstien...and not just to yourself. A huge ego smells of rotted camel entrails and old tennis shoes. Confidence and giving smell like a pine forest in the cool of spring with waterfalls and pumas lurking in the cravasses ( reference The Smothers Brothers).

SO what will we keep doing and what will we chop off like a gangrenous limb? Or better yet..cut out the bruise on my banana...better? I feel trying to shove me up the ass of Omaha has created a laborious work with little consequence. I am looking for a manager, booking agent that can get me to colleges and more of a concert feel. I am working on my new CD by writing a recording on an old stolen 4 track casstte recorder that I recently blew out with lemon scented air so it doesn't make those..snap crackel pop sounds that make me want to launch the whole thing into the universe. I hope I get to play Chicago again and become a regional sensation that has cassette tapes that smell of lemons.

I must go and take my preacher friends child to the museum and on to the airport...and dear reader.....put some close on this emperor....you should try blogging naked....it frees the...well the clothes are in the dryer and no one is around....it's not llike I'm running up and down the street.....yet

Cut out the bruise on your banana and you still have a tastey treat. Enjoy your tasty treat and toss out the black oozing parts of your existance and then your life will be a tastsy treat!!! Enjoy

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