I'll have this recorded soon. It's a fast Bluegrass thing: Better start learning your fucking rights:

I don't care if ya take my brand new guitar, I don't care if you take my new TV
I don't care if you take my bike, take any little thing you like but don't try to take my Freedom from me.

Now I don't care if you try to take my new truck, you can buy it with your fiat currency
The bankers own the equity as far as every eye can see but don't try to take my freedom from me.

Cause Freedom is God given, nobody can take away from you
and if you leave your Freedom in the Devil's hands the Devil's gonna take your freedom too

I don't care whatcha do in your own bedroom you got a right to your own privacy
Mr. Politician can't ya see it's supposed to be a free country, so don't try to take my freedom from me

Oh we got a right to keep and bear arms, to protect ourselves from Tyranny
Our founding fathers made it clear that a gun ain't just for hunting deer so don't try to take my freedom from me

Cause Freedom is God given, nobody can take away from you
and if you leave your Freedom in the Devil's hands the Devil's gonna take your freedom too

Solos

So don't ya take this message lightly, don't ya think your freedom is free
For the Tree of Liberty to Grow gotta let our public servants know, don't try to take my freedom from me

Chorus-Out

Copyright 2008 Sean Mormelo All rights Reserved.

Hey, I'm going to post an article I wrote for Make a Scene Magazine that they may or may not choose to publish. It's really my final thoughts on the waning Achorage/Mat-Su Valley Music Scene.....


Friends, fellow music and art lovers, I stand here today to report the state of our Scene is NOT Strong. It saddens me to have to say but it's downright weak. This is not to say that there are aren't some out there trying to make a difference. This is not to say that there aren't MANY wonderful musical performers and artists out there for you to discover and enjoy. However I must report as we stand here nearing the end of the first month of 2008, there are less and less venues to see Live music being performed around Anchorage and the Mat-Su valley. How do I know this? I'm a full time musician and singer songwriter and I've experienced it first hand. So have most of my colleagues. Let's take a look at how thing have unfolded over the past year.
First I should say that this is a Nationwide phenomenon and probably a global one to some extent too. I know this because i'm very active in professional musician circles around the country, on the music pro internet forums, and this topic is discussed and dissected regularly. On a local level I have experienced some ups and downs in the past but what has occurred in the last 3 months in my own personal career was unprecidented in my 20 years as a professional musician. For almost the last 2 years I had 3 regular steady gigs in the valley and then I would float at least another night and sometimes 2 in other venues between The Valley and Anchorage. However, between November and a week ago, the span of 3 months, I lost every steady gig I had. Live music venues for musicians to play have been either drying up of they've turned to Karaoke, DJ's and now some are planning to even Feature Video Game Nights (Rock Band, Guitar Hero.) Other Friends of mine have had similar troubles including one singer songwriter that regularly wins the PRESS PICK as the Best Singer Songwriter in Anchorage. I understand the psychology behind it and that people want to be Stars and onstage themselves and now technology exists that can Actually give non-musicians that ability to some extent. Instead of sitting out in the audience wishing they could play guitar, sing, etc on a professional level, that they could elicit the emotions a talented and skilled performer can now even a non-musician can play!!! Er..Well, Sort of....Anyway, these are the activities along with pub quiz type things, that are replacing Live entertainment in venues that formally used to feature musicians on those nights. The sad part is often, these types of activities that let the audience participate end up being well attended and often do better then REAL LIVE musicians.
I totally see why with our culture being what it is this is the case in our present climate. Add to this the present economic situation we are in, with our country basically bankrupt and most people in debt up to their ears living on Plastic with nothing in savings, and you have a recipe for what we are seeing now. I understand tough times but music and the arts are so much more important in our lives even if we don't personally realize it. These Video Games out there wouldn't even exist if there were no music and musicians to perform and write the material that inspired these new Musician based games which are all the Rage. I love movies, but would a movie have the same thematic impact without the score? Music is the soundtrack to our lives and we can trace many amazing memories by the music in your life at the time. Think about it.
In conclusion the state of our scene is weak and it's getting weaker. Across the board, musicians are seeing less and less people interested in coming to the shows, less venues interested in hiring them and current established live music nights, turning into Karaoke, DJ, Video game nights. Maybe we as performers aren't doing as good a job as we can. I don't know about anyone else, but I BUST MY BUTT to be good at what I do. Promoting the shows takes a lot of time and a lot of Money and we do the best we can do. I know a lot of people just want to come out, dance, and socialize with friends but I know in my bones, that Live music can set a vibe and build a nice scene at a venue. If done the right way Like for instance Chilkoot Charlies, Live music can build a business. You NEVER saw KOOTS cut back. They never skimped on entertainment. To the contrary, they have always and steadily over the years expanded...More music, more stages, more rooms, more more more..Gave the people More..And the business has thrived. I submit that Venues that want to cut music nights out, cut back on musician pay, cut cut cut everything without giving giving and giving are doing it wrong. Rather, they need to Give more to the people to pull in the business...As in Chilkoot Charlies, a business CAN be built on GREAT live music if you give the customer everything you can..superior sound, great music, fun environment, good service, and a good vibe. It's win win win for the Business, Musicians, and customers. Regardless of what people may think of him, Mike Gordon is about the only one doing it right and he's been handsomely rewarded. I can only hope other venues use him as a model as it will be a boon for everyone in our Live music scene. At this point it looks like 2008 is shaping up to be a very very rough year for the scene. Probably for people in general. As for me, I'm heading to Europe to play music until the end of May. Maybe things will pick up in the summer and I won't have to head back in July. I can only hope so because I'm a big believer of This scene and I want it to thrive. I hope you do too.

Yea, it's fun. Yea, it's cool and difficult to master (nowhere near on the level of a real musical instrument), and yea it's an escape from your miserable existance but it's not something I want to see LIVE ONSTAGE in a venue that should have a REAL musician Performing! Anyone who has even the slightest bit of culture and refinement would agree. GUITAR HERO belongs in the home, at house parties or in a Frathouse basement but it DOES NOT BELONG AT HUMPY'S GREAT ALASKAN ALEHOUSE, REPLACING OPEN MIC MONDAYS!!!!! What The fuck are they thinking??? Now, I've dealt with some clueless fucking bar managers/club owners in my years of gigging but this one ranks among the most fucked up things I have ever heard! First of all, Open Mic Monday is Anchorage's if not the state of Alaska's most established and well known open mic Night, bar none. It's THE venue for acoustic based singer songwriters to come out and perform, work out kinks and new material, or just meet up with friends and chill. For Humpy's to cancel a popular and generally well attended open mic is fucking INSANE and sounds like some bar manager's attempt at self edification..Like they are so fucking hip and with it man...Yea!!...Yea Right! This is a stupid fucking Idea for stupid uncultured jerkoffs who have no appreciation of real art. If that offended you then you are part of the problem. :)

What can we do on a local level? I'll tell you. VOTE WITH YOUR WALLET. DO NOT patronize these establishments that disrespect the arts and disrespect the customer with bullshit non-entertainment like Karaoke and Guitar Hero. Oh, there is a place for these things...At home, at a party, in some Frathouse basement BUT NOT IN A LIVE SETTING at the expense of a REAL MUSICIAN!..I mean WHAT THE FUCK??? Again, if you disagree PROMPTLY remove yourself from my friends list because I do not want to know you and most likely we aren't friends anyway!

I strongly encourage everyone to call Humpy's and voice your displeasure with their decision for replacing Open Mic with Guitar Hero. If we use our voice we MAY be able to enact some change here and make the management rethink their decision.

It's no wonder I'm heading to Europe where they still have an avid appreciation for culture and the arts. It's LONG-STANDING over there and artists and musicians are revered and compensated. It seems like we've lost something in our society. Maybe it's due to the dumbing down of our educational system, our propagandized control grid media that keeps spooning us disinformation or a combination of several things. I do know that many people want to be the star even though they lack the talent and skill to justify being on stage. I can outsing, outplay and out write most of the American Idol winners and contestants since it's inception and Local Karaoke gives me a fucking nightmare headache inside of 2 minutes. How deep in the minority can I be? Are they majority of people out there THAT fucking tone deaf that they think these drunk college chicks actually sound good screatching their way through a totally off key version of a Carrie Underwood song? And I can play a guitar pretty Damn well...A REAL guitar that is..So you mean to tell me, watching some drunk ass GI or Fratboy attempting to play "Sweet Child O Mine" on a guitar shaped GAME CONTROLLER,. flubbing notes at that, is a more soulful experience then hearing me play and sing? IF so, FUCK YOU! That's what I have to Say...That says it all. Remember....We Reap what we sow and we've got some major fucking problems. I say we who do give a shit, need to vote with our wallets.

THIS IS A CALL TO ARMS. IT'S IN YOUR HANDS PEOPLE.

Alright Folks. Time to let the cat out of the bag so to speak. Some of you already know but for the rest of you, i'm heading to Europe to gig for 3 months. Here are the details. I'm leaving the end of the month and I'll be starting February 1st playing pubs in Copenhagen Denmark for 2 weeks, then I head to St. Mortiz, Switzerland for the 2nd 2 weeks of February. For those of you who don't know, St. Mortiz is like the Vail CO of Europe. It's a ski resort village high up in the Swiss Alps on the sunny Eastern side, not far from the Italian border. That gig should be insanely fun but difficult as it's 7 days a week for 2 weeks straight! After that, I head back to Copenhagen where I'll be playing March through the end of April. Those gigs are 6 days a week and i'm told they will be in English/Irish Pubs and a very fun party atmosphere. At the end of my gig Laura will be coming over and we'll be riding Eurail checking out sites around Europe for a couple of weeks, then I'll head home to FL for a LONG overdue visit with family. Finally I'll return home to Alaska in the 3rd week of May. So all told, this is going to be a 4 month Adventure..at least 3 and 1/2 months living and gigging in Europe. Should be a crazy experiences and the kicker is these gigs are a year round opportunity so i'm already planning on returning in the fall and will definitely be doing the Switzerland ski gig again next winter. Hopefully this is the beginning of a fruitful European touring regime for me. That is the goal; to get my music released over there and build a little touring career in Europe where everything is relatively close and it's easy to get around on trains, buses, planes, etc. We'll see.

As far as the the setup goes over in Europe, they have a musicians flat in Copenhagen which is an 8 bedroom place where 8 of the musicians stay in our own rooms while playing the pubs that this particular company owns. Apparently this particular company i will be working for has 10 venues around Copenhagen. So living accommodations as well as dinners at the club are taken care of the whole time for me while i'm there and the money is decent as well. Having to work 6 days a week (well, nights!) is a bit limiting as far as being able to get out of and seeing a lot of Denmark but I'll be able to really dig into Copenhagen at least and after the gigs are done I'll make up for it on my Little jaunt around.

This brings me to Alaska music stuff. Most of you know I play guitar with Woodrow. I'm taking a leave of absense while i'm gone and Jared will be getting someone to sub for me but I will return in May for our Annual Memorial Day extravaganza which is a camping trip/ gig weekend playing the yukon in Seward! I can't wait for that!! This will be my 3rd one in attendance and the first one I'm playing as part of the band! You all NEED to plan on being there and you won't regret it! On the Sean Mormelo music front i'm planning on gigging around Alaska solo as well as with a small ensemble i'm putting together, this summer. I have mucho new music that I need to get out and I think you're all going to dig the new direction and growth that is evident in the material. I'm UBER excited about it. Playing the new material every night in Europe will give me a chance to digest it and get it completely down before I record and put it out this summer. All in all this Summer in Alaska is shaping up to be world class musically speaking so I hope you are all as excited as I am!

One more piece of info is my website, www.seanmormelo.com is in the process of being revamped and I'm basically using Wordpress to turn it into a blog-based type site where i'm going to have a sort of travel blog going. This format encourages people to interact and comment and i'll have a pics, video, links to places i've seen and will be seeing. I'll let everyone know when it's up and when i updated it, I'll post on myspace as well. So, that's all the news that's fit to print. I'll still be available via email and chat and on the net while over in Europe but it doesn't look like my phone will be working over there. I'll check my messages but I plan to get a pay as you go phone in Denmark so I'll be able to communicate without a problem. Anyway, that's about it. I hope everyone has a great winter/spring and please keep in touch

Dan Fogelberg Died yesterday and i'm profoundly Sad. I liked Dans Music but I wasn't what you would call a fanatical fan. But today I find myself reminiscing of the beauty of his songs and the subtle tenderness of his vocal delivery. Dan, you will be missed but you made your mark on the world my brother and I have to give it to you. Good job and I hope you are on to bigger things in this Universe.

Death though..There has been so much of it lately in my periphery. I guess it's always lingering around all of us though most of the time we don't think about it. I'm going to die though. I know this and it does scare me when I really think about it but there is still a sense of peace associated with it. A knowing that it the beginning of something more, or the continuation of a journey. That doesn't come from any traditional religious teaching per se but just an inner knowing that I've always had. But still, Life is Beautiful I tell you and I love living it!!..I'm older now and things I used to love to do no longer excite me. The Roman candle streaming furiously hot and bright isn't really my thing these days. Now it's more of a slow steady burn that excites me but it has to keep going to keep me interested. Hence I feel like I always have to be moving forward toward some mythical place of peace. I'm without a doubt the most restless soul I know. I mean i burn!! I burn WHITE HOT inside with a passion that I rarely let anyone fully see. It's like a fusion generator that propels me artistically, spiritually, and personally through the dark times into the light times out of the hard times into the lean times on through to the peaceful moments then the cycle starts all over again and i'm twisted and torn up once more. Life though...It's so fantastic and when I think about it my eyes well up. I'm going to just leave my journey open to the Universe and see what becomes of it. I can only hope I remain consumed in it and I hope you are too.

I thought I would write today and touch on our local live music scene. I'm sad to report it's not doing as well as it could. I live in the Mat-Su valley and until yesterday, I ran an open mic at The Great Bear on Wednesdays. The canned the night because business had fallen off and jammers had been scarce the last few months. Now, at first I had to do an honest assessment to see if I was the reason. I always gave everyone ample stage time and made sure they sounded as good as they could and although I'm sure I could have done more promoting the night, I feel i did the best I could. After a day or so of thinking about it I came to the conclusion there were other mitigating factors that caused the demise of the open mic night that had more to do with the bar then myself. That said, I feel the musicians failed ourselves as well and squandered a great opportunity to foster a little community or scene as it were. I took the gig over in April 06 and it was already on the downswing. The original people who started it seemed to have a little scene and had a nice little jam going for a couple years so I'm told. But after people quit running it and it changed hands, jammers left, the scene changed and it had to be built up again. By the time I got it there were only a handful of Jammers. I started to get a nice little core group happening by last summer then in July 06 The Ill faited move to the Mat-Su Resort was forced upon me and the jam fell off sharply. Although we did continue to have a handful of people continue to come out through last winter the Jam never caught steam at the Mat-Su. I jumped at the chance to move the Open Mic back over to the original Great Bear when the Mangement changed hands at The Mat-Su and the place became a smoke-infested nightmare. We took the Open Mic back to the Great Bear this past spring but it wasn't the same anymore. New Crowd, New staff and management style with a new focus and different vibe. Friends of mine commented and noticed. Musicians that Had jammed there noticed it was different, didn't like the way they were treated and stopped coming in and more importanly NO SIGNIFICANTLY NEW JAMMERS showed up. My core group having stopped coming on a regular basis and other changes and a dropping off of business as a result caused worry and then the Jam was canceled......Where am I going with all this you ask?

I believe we had a chance to get a little community of like minded music lovers together but it didn't happen because people didn't come out to support the scene. Plain and simple. The reasons for this are many and life is complicated and there are so many things that occupy a person's life now that it's just more difficult to make the time. I understand this and accept this. Simply put, I just don't think live music is too important to many people anymore. My observation has been that everyone wants to be the star themselves..They want the focus on them whether it's deserved or not. That explains Karaoke to me perfectly(Which gives me a fucking headache after about 5 mintues of some mediocre verson of CRAZY). All I can say is we reap what we sow and I encourage you when you are able, to please get out and support local live music or I'm here to tell you as a professional musician who has been doing this full time for almost 20 years, THERE WILL BE NO MORE LIVE MUSIC. If you don't come out, all the gigs WILL GET CANCELED..Plain and simple. It's economics to the venue.

Anyway this is for those who give a shit. Those who do not, I apologize for wasting your time.

OMG, I've decided to start blogging....So here goes. This related to my last bulletin on prevailing thoughts about music.

Ya know, I think it's important to support local music..Yes most of it sucks but we should go check it all out to determine what's good and whats not. Then after we find a few artist we like, we should support them by spreading the word, buying merchandise, coming to shows, etc. We as the artist in turn have a responsibility to the fans to put on great shows, and give everything we have for the fans. It's give and take.

I've had some time to really think about my last bulletin on the attitudes now and I have to say I now agree with what Bob Lefsets says in his most recent Blog http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/ (I LOVE this blog and encourage everyone to register!). Music may we be free now. I can accept that. It's the major labels that fucked up and caused this by allienating the fans..FUCKING SUING THEM!!

This is all the more reason to come out, support the scene where you are and if you can get a few people to chip in and buy some merchandise directly from the artists so they in turn can buy the gear to create the music and pay for the studio time to record the music for you to enjoy. I'm personally more into the live experience these days anyway as I don't think anything on a Disk can represent seeing an artist live. And ya know, it's all good too..If people come out to see me I'm more then happy to make my music available to them. I think its tit for tat..As I said in the last message, I was always cool with giving it away, but I didn't like the attitude that people were ENTITLED to it, ya know? Most of the artists I know are stuggling and would be more then happy to have as many people as possible hear our stuff.

So, ya know if ya can afford to buy a disk at a show you should and i'm sure some people out there like to hear the music in a higher quality then MP3's but if you can't or aren't sure you are going to be into the music, I think we should have Mp3's available for people so they can decide if they want to become fans. As for me, I think I'll make my entire catalog available for download on my site for free. I suspect other artists that aren't doing this now will begin to do so. It's give and take and really I got into this to give and just playing the music for people is such a great feeling that it's worth it.

If you haven't been going to local shows, I encourage you to find some artists that you enjoy and get out there because if you show up, the artists will be inspired to play better and this will in turn inspire you, enrich your life and just make you feel good!