Hello on this rainy Friday morning. It looks as if "Railroad Avenue" is finally launched, in spite of everything. The interview aired last night on WBHM's "Tapestry". (The title song is their MySpace profile song at the moment...cool). "Left Turn at Albuqurque", an instrumental piece from the album, was their end theme last night as well. (Thanks, Tanya, Michael, and Greg.) I was thinking about selling the Ibanez hollow-body electric I played that tune on, but now that I've heard how it sounds on the radio, I don't think I can bear to part with it. The title comes from the old Warner Brothers cartoons...a recurring punch line delivered whenever Bugs Bunny ends up lost in some out of the way place...the Himalayas, a haunted castle, the Gobi Desert, etc..." I knew I shoulda taken dat left toyn at..." you know the rest. My dream job in the music business would have been to write scores for those old cartoons. This tune is what one of those scores might have sounded like (also witness "A Squirrel in Cincinnati" from my last CD).

Cover art should be ready to pick up today, so I'll have some copies to intro at the Frank Brown International Songwriter's Festival next week. I have to say I'm pretty happy with the final product. I learn a little more about recording technique every time I do this. Love the way the White Falcon sounds! The powerhouse background vocal duo of Kristy White and Kim Dometrovich...soulful pedal steel by David Wetzel...Maury Levine's understated and flawlessly executed drumming...Thanks and well done one and all!

I'm trying to put together a CD release concert/event in the near future...I'll let you know how that progresses. I'm taking pre-orders for the CD on my website
www.rondometrovich.com
Available soon at cdbaby.com and Renaissance Records in Birmingham.
Enjoy!

All the Best,
Ron
               

It is with a profound sense of loss that I note the passing of Richard Wright, keyboardist and founding member of Pink Floyd....a man whose artistry was understated and yet transcendent...co-author of one of the most beautiful and poignant pieces in the rock repertoire ("Us and Them" from Dark Side of the Moon).
His work inspired my early feeble attempts at the keyboard and inspired me to explore its use as a tool of composition...leading me to some of my better efforts as a songwriter. Thanks Rick...we'll miss you. Godspeed.

Greetings one and all,
You may have noticed that there are a couple of new tunes on my site. These are "works in progress"...rough mixes presented here as a preview for my next album due out this Fall. As soon as I have recorded a few more background vocal tracks, editing and remixing will commence, so it won't be long now.
"Railroad Avenue" (the title track), sketched out on a train trip I once took, is a tribute to the working poor in this country, a class more and more of us seem to be joining, thanks in large part to the failed economic policies of the Bush regime. Mostly electric guitar-driven, it features several layered tracks of my beloved Gretsch White Falcon, played through a Peavey Classic 30 tube amp with minimal effects.
"Mobile Bay" is a re-tooling of an older tune of mine composed at the piano. The arrangement here is fairly minimalistic...intentionally so...to convey the sense of isolation that comes from our separation from the Natural World. Lead lines are played on a Paul Reed Smith CE-22 with the pickup selector at the center position...nice fat sound...with a touch of delay.
Hope you enjoy!
All the best,
Ron

Greetings Friends,
"Well, I think I'll try my hand at this blogging thing", he said, as the Four Horsemen on the Apocalypse came thundering over the horizon. It's just hard to sit still for that long.
Nervous energy, that's my problem. In the words of Hawkeye Pierce, "Ten minutes sleep a week ought to be enough for anybody."
And while we're on the subject, let's talk about energy. Not the kind that makes you say "I think I'll vacuum the dog" or "lets build an experimental aircraft in the garage".
I speak of the energy that is your unique life force. Here's the problem...you've got it...somebody wants it (usually someone with no sense of their own purpose), and someone always wants to stick a tube in you and siphon it off.
Nervous energy makes us more susceptible...those of us who feel we always have to be doing something "constructive". That's ok, as far as it goes. Just don't let anyone else sit at the helm, if you get my drift. The trick is learning the difference between what gives you energy, and what takes it away...particularly since one will frequently disguise itself as the other...no mean feat, as they say.
This week finds me anxious to finish a project too long in the works. So many things try to intervene, to pull focus, to distract, to diffuse. But no longer. The creative fire, the torch that illuminates the dark places will be lit. Look for the next project to be complete later this summer. Thanks for listening to what has gone before, and for waiting for what's to come. Focus... and "simplify, simplify, simplify". I'll let you know how things are progressing.
Ron

This Saturday!!

The Dining Scene: Pickling At Pepper Place

by Jo Ellen O'Hara -- Birmingham News

Friday June 06, 2008, 6:15 AM

Haller Magee, executive chef at Satterfield's on Cahaba Heights Road, will be the featured chef at Pepper Place Saturday Market this weekend.

Magee will take to the stage at 9 a.m. and will show market visitors how to pickle vegetables using red wine vinegar, sherry vinegar and rice wine vinegar as alternatives to traditional pickling with distilled vinegar.

Magee will be pickling fresh vegetables including okra, beans, radishes and other vegetables from Snow's Bend, another participant at the Saturday market.

Music will be by Wayne and Marvin on the Richard Tubb stage, and Ron Dometrovich on the Interiors Market stage.
Pepper Place Saturday Market, at Second Avenue South between 28th and 29th streets, is from 7 a.m. until noon.

There will be farmers with crops fresh from the fields, flowers, baked goods and other pastries, sauces, candy, and arts and crafts.

Had an eventful trip to Knoxville...of course, there was the radio interview, which was why I went in the first place. Writer's Block is an hour long radio show every Wednesday at 10:00 PM Eastern on WDVX in Knoxville that is dedicated to promoting independent, unsigned performing songwriters...such as yours truly. I met the host Karen Reynolds, a fine songwriter herself, at the Frank Brown International Songwriter's Festival in Gulf Shores AL last Fall. A really excellent annual festival that takes place each November..you should go..but I digress. You never know if you're going to have enough to say and wind up sounding like a crashing bore on those interview things...but somehow it comes from somewhere, and you find yourself talking about things your haven't thought of in years...and then you play a tune. It was great fun and the hour was over before I really said all I wanted to. It helped that Karen is a good interviewer.
Anyway, I wandered into a guitar shop on the way home, and, well...fellow guitar players will have a pretty good idea where this is leading. I've wanted a Gretsch White Falcon ever since I first heard Neil Young and Stephen Stills jamming on theirs in back in the day. Sometimes you just have to do a thing because it's time, and deal with the consequences later, so it followed me home...honest. No regrets, especially on the occasions that I have strapped it on to cut some tracks for the new album...which is progressing nicely, by the way. I'm in the process of applying for a grant from the local cultural alliance to help defer some production costs and improve quality. I'll let you know how that progresses. I'm still ruminating over how I will word the grant application. More later...

Hi friends!
Just a note to let you know I'm the featured artist of the month for March at Cambridge Coffee/Lee Branch. I'll be playing there on the 3rd and 31st of March and CDs will be on sale. Hope to see you there!
R.

Hi All,
Eddie Russell, well-known indie radio DJ and host of the "Outlaw for Peace" radio show on KULM in Columbus, Texas posted this review of my "Broken Hill Ballet and Repertory Company" CD:
"this is saying a lot , but I think ' Broken Hill...' is his best ever....
material & instrumental savvy just gets better & better. As a whole , the album has the 'listening experience' factor glued by the very tasty instrumentals...and the variety of subject material. Outstanding..."
OFP also broadcasts in Barcelona, Spain and Waterford, Connecticut.
More to come...