I have effectively signed a recording deal with Pacific Records in San Diego for two records, one a covers album which is being recorded currently and a second rarities collection of as of yet unreleased archive.  Should be some entertaining stuff.  New material is being written but whether it be released by my own label Bergmusic or not is

editor Cuitla Huezo did another cut for the song NOTHING ELSE WILL DO.

So I decided to post a song to a songwriting competition since I thought it was for

a good cause.  All monies go to an organization that helps locate missing kids( and

adults).

I entered a song called AM I  and ended up selected as one of ten finalists.  So Sunday

the seventeenth I guess I will perform that song for some judges live. One of the

judged is a favorite songwriter of mine so a bit anxious about that.  Should be

interesting.  The time and location are listed on my page.

Well I resisted for awhile but ended up going to ASCAP's music conference this past weekend and it ended up being a great time.  The one panelist that could have alone made the whole thing way worth it was former ELO singer/producer Jeff Lynne.  And this is not to discount how good the experience was as a whole. 

His stories, as I sat 20 feet away, sent me into inspiration mode.  I had a few tears in my eyes as he talked about his first meeting with George Harrison at George's house and how terrified Jeff was to meet his idol.  How even though Jeff was a massive international rock star, meeting Harrison gave him the willies. He was really scared and almost turned away when he got to the gates of his house.  Dave Edmunds, a fellow rock and roller was having dinner with Lynne when after three hours at the dinner table, Edmunds told Lynne that George asked him if Lynne would produce his new album. He wondered why he waited 'til the end of the dinner to tell him this. Probably worked out good as he would not have been able to eat.  So he went to meet George, they got in a boat that traveled around the grounds of his home and Lynne was told to not use his arms to steady the boat but rather to plant his bum.  They discussed many things and the rest was Wilbury, Beatles, Tom Petty production history. Other stories were told but I will only mention one more.  After everyone was asked to join The Traveling Wilbury's (Petty and Dylan etc.) and accepted, the one guy left to find was Roy Orbison.  George and Jeff found out where he was doing a show and afterwards, went backstage to meet with him.  Harrison simply said to Orbison, 'hey, would you like to join our group and he accepted after a short pause.  It was the beginning of a revival for Orbison and Lynne said he was so happy during this period shortly before he passed away.  Bye the way, in the room during this interview with Jeff was Dhani Harrison (George's son and twin). Jeff could be seen giving Dhani the thumbs up as he talked about his dad.  

hello, very happy about the upcoming Inaug...hope it all goes smoothly...I think it will. In personal/music news, a while back, I filmed two music videos and unfortunately production was haulted due to the directors schedule. I have finally taken matters into my own hands and grabbed the HD digital footage with the well wishing of the director and found an editor named Cuitla Huezo who is fantastic. We have been working on the first video for the tune Lifebed and it is near completion. Of course, these clips will be a modification from what the director would have done if left to his own methods but I feel it is meant to be this way. I am enjoying the process of creating something that might help spell out the intended meaning of the songs while making a nice little visual statement. I am keeping things simple as opposed to the original special effects version that might have come into being if things had gone as originally planned. That version might eventually see the light of day but I choose to shoot for these versions to be the one's I would endorse as official. Time will tell, still only one is close to done and what I did in this case was use images of a photoshoot of the LACMA LA lamp post exhibition outside the museum and create a performance around those images. Huezo really created something that I liked and I hope the viewer will find it interesting. It's moody and creates a good emotional template for the song Lifebed. The next project might be more story driven perhaps? So that is it for now and I hope to have something posted soon. In other news, writing some new songs that I am quite happy about and getting ready to do some house concerts in February to promote my new 'Re.versions" album of solo live performances. Looking forward to officially having our new president sworn in this week. blessings to all...let's stay hopeful and healthy this year, J Scott

So I put songs up at this site called 'Garageband' a while back. I think it's an OK
resource where people can review your music and critique. In my mind it's like
a human study more than a musical one. When you ask people to give there
opinion, boy do they love to do that. Sometimes the comments are insane and
ridiculous in my mind and sometimes good and even my perception of such
criticism or praise is a projection of sorts. Like I said, a human case study more
than a musical one. Anyway, one of my songs called "End Of The Year" got
song of the week recently. Not sure how that Garageband computer tallies such
things but I thought it a good opportunity to talk a little bit about my Garagethoughts.

Thanks Garageband and those who disliked or loved the song.

recently I put into action an idea I have had for a while to make a live solo album.
By way of fate, I met a guy at a show in Santa Monica named Robin Danar who had
moved to L.A. recently from New York. He ended up introducing me to Nic
Harcourt who was there that night as well and we talked for a while. Turns out Robin
was the soundman at CBGB in New York during its golden age and worked
as a recording engineer during the daylight hours back in N.Y. He was producing
records now including his own, the first under his own name as an artist.

I figured he would be the perfect guy to produce a live album for me so we
made a deal and now it is in the works. Mind you this is not a band record.
this is me captured solo. I get a lot of comments out there about how my
live solo performance is the best way to hear me and now that version of
me with hopefully be available on record soon. To me it's not better, but a
different flavor. I'm all for that. I do know that it will be called 'Re.Versions'.

I was selected on a very cool European music site called Melodic.net
as there artist of the week. They also gave the new 'Ours Is The Time' album
a nice four star review. my 2004 album 'Maybes Are Fading' was discovered
back then by there music editor Par Winberg who was just surfing the music net and found it. He reviewed that one so of course I followed up with the new release.