A Songwriting Workshop with Walt Aldridge

Saturday, August 22, 2009
Hit Nashville songwriter Walt Aldridge will present a songwriting workshop at the PALamazoo Barn from 10:00-3:00 (with lunch at noon included).

Walt wrote Heartland’s “I Loved Her First” as well as hits for Travis Tritt, Reba McEntire, Tim McGraw and other major country artists.

During the morning session, Walt will involve songwriters in various songwriting activities including importance of the title, developing the hook, learning the craft and the business side of music.

In the afternoon Walt will give song evaluations based on a specific song assignment designed by him. Walt will develop expectations for a song that will be targeted towards a particular artist, with a designated title, genre, style and other variables. That song assignment will be given to you once you're registered. Then your task is to write a song matching those details and presenting it at the workshop either live or in recorded form. Walt will determine upon listening to the tune at the workshop whether or not you hit the target.

It is an interesting note that at Walt’s 2006 Kalamazoo Workshop, Frankie Ballard attended and caught Walt’s attention as a writer and performer. Thanks to Walt’s support, Frankie eventually got a writer and artist deal in Nashville.

There will be an evening concert presented by Walt Aldridge and Friends on the same date. The Saturday, August 22 concert starts at 8:00 p.m.

Prices are as follows:

$40.00 for NSAI members (includes workshop and the evening concert).

$50.00 for non-members (workshop only).

$10.00 for the concert (open to the public).

You can join NSAI at:

www.nashvillesongwriters.com

You can register by making your check out to NSAI and mailing it to:

Palamazoo,
P.O. Box 131,
Plainwell, MI 49080.

Please include:

Your Name
Email Address
Phone Number

Upon receiving full payment, we will email you directions to the event and the songwriting assignment.

The Palamazoo Barn is on the east side of Kalamazoo.

Contact the Kalamazoo/Battle Creek NSAI coordinators:

Susan Harrison palamazoo@yahoo.com
James Leo Oliver zorozero@sbcglobal.net

Visit: www.nsaimich.com.

Walt Aldridge’s web site: www.waltaldridge.com

James Leo Oliver
Listen to the songs from my 2008 recording project "You Say It's Your Birthday" at:
www.songu.com/members/jamesleooliver
www.myspace.com/jamesleooliverlogjam
www.myspace.com/jamesleoolivr

THE JOYFUL GIRL RETURNS:
ANI DIFRANCO’S NEW STUDIO RECORD, RED LETTER YEAR,
IN STORES SEPTEMBER 30, 2008.

“I’ve got myself a new mantra,” Ani DiFranco shares on her new studio album. “It says ‘Don’t forget to have a good time.’” This attitude has clearly influenced the dozen tunes on Red Letter Year, which celebrate existence, profess love and tackle thorny political issues with an infectious sense of glee. It’s one of Ani’s most joyous records to date.

And it has been a long time coming. Red Letter Year was sculpted over the course of two years, a period in which Ani continued to hone her songwriting, performing and recording skills, all the while balancing her new role as a mom. “I think I sorely needed to be slowed down, and finally a little person came along powerful enough to do it,” Ani reflects. The end result is an album of focused, layered, panoramic music.

“When I listen to my new record, I hear a very relaxed me, which I think has been absent in a lot of my recorded canon,” Ani explains. “Now I feel like I’m in a really good place. My partner Mike Napolitano co-produced this record – my guitar and voice have never sounded better, and that’s because of him. I’ve got this great band and crew. And my baby, she teaches me how to just be in my skin, to do less and be more.”

Ani’s band – upright bassist Todd Sickafoose, vibraphonist/percussionist Mike Dillon and drummer Allison Miller – is a major source of Red Letter Year’s singular personality. On “Emancipated Minor,” Miller’s driving beat tethers to Ani’s killer electric guitar hook, while Sickafoose’s bass adds the perfect counterpoint to Ani’s acoustic guitar work on “Way Tight”. And on “Alla This,” Dillon’s vibes are as rich and open-minded as Ani’s defiant, anthemic lyrics.

Add to the inspired, re-invigorated Ani the uncanny production skills of Napolitano (Joseph Arthur, The Twilight Singers, Squirrel Nut Zippers), the otherworldly string arrangements of long time collaborator Sickafoose, and the inspired playing of guests such as Jon Hassell on trumpet (Brian Eno, Peter Gabriel, Ry Cooder), and you’ve got the makings of a DiFranco classic.

And Ani’s songwriting is up to the challenge, reflecting her place in life with warmth and clarity. Highlights include “Smiling Underneath,” a rumination on love’s power to make everything better, the achingly beautiful ballad “Way Tight” and “Alla This,” a quintessential Ani anthem full of brave statements like “I won’t pray to a male god/cuz that would be insane.”

If there’s a fourth band member on Red Letter Year, it’s New Orleans, LA. The Crescent City has become Ani’s second home and favorite place to record, and its cultural and spiritual wealth is in this album’s bones. Louisiana artists are all over these recordings, including the Rebirth Brass Band – the stars of “Red Letter Year Reprise” – pedal steel player Richard Comeaux and Lafayette’s own C.C. Adcock (Bo Diddley, Buckwheat Zydeco).

But for all the cultural influences, eloquent statements and captivating melodies that inhabit this album like a friendly Louisiana neighborhood, nothing encapsulates its overall meaning like the warm, united laughter that concludes it.

“I have this subconscious bent to open the curtains all the time, and let people see into the process and the time and place,” Ani muses. “I think that’s what’s behind all those little moments of talking or laughter that seep onto the records. I’m out in the world and back in my happy self, ready to have a party.”

Ani DiFranco’s feeling good, and she’s in a giving mood – Red Letter Year isn’t just a party, it’s a music lover’s gift.

INAUGURAL “PEDAL TO THE METAL TOUR” FEATURING MUDVAYNE AND BLACK LABEL SOCIETY TO LAUNCH THIS SUMMER

LOS ANGELES — This summer just got a whole lot hotter, harder, faster and louder.

THE PEDAL TO THE METAL TOUR 2009, featuring MUDVAYNE and BLACK LABEL SOCIETY, will kick off July 24 in Portland, ME, and conclude September 9, in Oklahoma City, OK (see complete itinerary below). Joining the two metal juggernauts on the road will be STATIC-X, SUICIDE SILENCE, DOPE, BURY YOUR DEAD, and the extremely twisted HELLZAPOPPIN sideshow review, performing during set changes throughout the evening. Pre-sale tickets are available to all of the bands’ fan club members beginning Wednesday, June 10, at 12pm local time at www.pedaltothemetaltour.com .. (website will go live June 10), with general public on sale beginning Friday, June 12, at 10am local time.

“The tour started as a summer tour with us and Black Label Society, but as we started fleshing out ideas, it transformed into this really cool concept,” says Mudvayne frontman Chad Gray. The final result is the inaugural run of THE PEDAL TO THE METAL TOUR, a road ready and battle-proven assemblage of hard rock and heavy metal bands guaranteed to raise temperatures and melt asphalt over the summer months. “We’re really excited, because this package is a merging of great bands, good people and fucking amazing fans. It’ll be great to bring them all together.”

“I was looking forward to a full throttle assault with just Mudvayne this summer, but when Chad said ‘Let’s do more,’ I was all-in.” declares Zakk Wylde, the iconic and self professed General Patton of Black Label Society. Adding, “On behalf of JD, Craig, Nick, the Doom Crew Inc. and myself, we can’t wait to see our Black Label family and the entire Black Label nation once again, rollin’ through hell and destroying everything in our path! Fire up the barbecues, fire up the tunes, and get ready for the rest of your Pedal To The Metal family to fire it up and let the engines roll… Game m-f-’n on!”

Says Static-X frontman Wayne Static of the tour: “I’m very picky about who we tour with. I think Static-X slaughter most bands live, and I pride myself in our show – I refuse to open for a band that I don’t think is worthy, so that says a lot about Mudvayne, Zakk Wylde, and this entire package.”

ABOUT THE ARTISTS:

MUDVAYNE
Mudvayne are one of the most creative and distinctive bands in the aggressive music world, and one of the only acts in heavy music to hold the distinction of seeing every one of their five studio albums attain at least gold certification by the RIAA. Not bad for a band that never cared about following trends or playing to the masses. Latest release The New Game was released in November ’08, and is a lesson in controlled chaos that tempers hard rock, heavy metal, prog rock and sadistic splatters of pop into an onslaught of metallic highs and emotional lows. Mudvayne have sold more than five million units worldwide, and performed for more than one million fans on every continent. They
were nominated for “Best Metal Performance” at the 2005 Grammys, and also shared headlining status on that year’s Ozzfest, performing immediately before Iron Maiden. The Pedal To The Metal Tour marks the next step in Mudvayne’s live evolution.

BLACK LABEL SOCIETY
In the two decades since Ozzy Osbourne hired him away from his job at a New Jersey gas station to become his new guitarist, Zakk Wylde has established himself as a guitar icon known and revered the world over. He spawned his now legendary Black Label Society in 1994, and in the fifteen years since has turned the outfit into a heavy metal institution true to his vision of uncompromising, unfiltered and unrestrained rock and roll. Inspired by guitarists including Frank Marino, Robin Trower and Al DiMeola, as well as the vocal stylings of Elton John, Gregg Allman and late Lynyrd Skynyrd frontman Ronnie VanZant, Wylde has won every guitar award imaginable and is a major influence to the new wave of heavy metal guitarists. Wherever Zakk Wylde’s Black Label Society travels, one thing is for certain: brewtality is sure to follow.

STATIC-X
Since the release of their Wisconsin Death Trip debut a decade ago, Static-X have sold more than three million records worldwide. Their latest opus, Cult of Static, was released in March and debuted in the Billboard Top 20, marking their most impressive first-week showing since 2001. Known for their high intensity fusion of metal mayhem and industrial fervor, Static-X have one of the most allegiant fan bases in heavy music. “I jokingly call it a cult, but our fans have that kind of loyalty,” says frontman Wayne Static. “We’re one of the biggest underground bands ever.”

SUICIDE SILENCE
The winners of the Best New Talent award at the Revolver Golden God Awards in April, Suicide Silence have emerged at the forefront of the new wave of American heavy metal, and have sold more than 70,000 copies of their 2008 debut, The Cleansing. Hailed as one of the “100 bands you need to know about” by Alternative Press, their sophomore release No Time To Bleed will hit stores June 29, just in time for Pedal To The Metal 2009.

DOPE
Dope aren’t the heaviest band on this summer’s Pedal To The Metal tour, but they can stake a claim at being the most brutal: Their track “Die Mother Fucker Die” was on a short list of songs used by the United States government to aid in the interrogation of enemy combatants in the war against Iraq. They’ve sold more than one million albums in their decade-plus career, their latest release being last year’s No Regrets.

BURY YOUR DEAD
Written and recorded in the wake of an accident last September that flipped and rolled the Bury Your Dead tour van, there was no shortage of inspiration for the bone-crunching and chest-pounding canons that mark new release It’s Nothing Personal. Armed with grinding music, spitfire lyrics and melodic interludes, the album packs everything fans have come to expect from the New England metal-core veterans – and, as always, a little bit more…

HELLZAPOPPIN
Hellzapoppin bill themselves as “The Greatest Show In Hell,” delivering a burlesque and macabre flavored take on Barnum’s more family-friendly sideshow attractions. Featuring a penguin boy, fire eating, sword swallowing and a self-professed torture king amongst their off-center oddities, the Hellzapoppin sideshow review promises to keep fans eerily entertained and darkly amused between sets on the Pedal To The Metal Tour 2009.