A couple of weeks ago I attended a rally for Andrew Yang who is a 2020 Presidential candidate, a respectable, intelligent man with insightful ideas regarding the fast-approaching tech revolution that I have previously written about on this blog. The crowd was youthful and enthusiastic! Andrew Yang will appear on CNN THIS SUNDAY at 7:00pm …
Regarding Fleetwood Mac cancelling as replacements at Jazz Fest for headliners, The Rolling Stones due to illness of singers on both accounts. I said, “This is what happens when the industry doesn’t invest in a younger generation. All the giants are dead and dying. There is a big hole where great big bands from the 2000s …
How about a glimpse into the evolution of my ‘Free Your Mind’. At rehearsal our 11 year old keyboard player Daniel Oliver cracked the code of the chorus. Lenky Marsden did in fact simplify my chord changes on the chorus. I wrote some pretty cool chord changes under that simple and catchy melody, but I’m grateful for everything he …
Spent my day off working on a hook for Reggae Powerhouse Band with the magic Mell Dettmer. Mell helped me overcome the dilemma that the hook I wrote for the outro the band leader loved, just doesn’t fit on the chorus section. This is my first experience crafting a Riddim. There will be other versions of this song …
BANNED! You wanna know what shocked me more than anything about this whole Jamaican adventure? This has Tuff Gong International scratching their head, and let this be a dire warning to us all: Artificial “Intelligence” has determined this FREE YOUR MIND video is explicit sexual content and CANNOT be boosted to a wide audience. A …
Tuff Gong International adventure update: my Ace on the squad just got me added to some radio stations in South Florida, and he asked me… …to record my first drops and radio promos for ‘Free Your Mind’ with Mell Dettmer. He’s giving me a list of stations. The program director said the same thing Conrad Denke mentioned to …
While in college on the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving, I rode in a car, a behemoth Buick Wildcat, with four other people en route from Chicago to Minneapolis. A winter storm pummeled Wisconsin as we drove, and we saw dozens of cars and semi-trucks* in the ditch. Tow trucks kept busy that night…ca-ching! We were …
A certain venue I used to write creative posts for is still using my writing somewhat disctinct style, which is…pretty awesome actually. They paid me well considering, right up until I got back from my first trip to Jamaica. That was a paid position I kind of invented and it really helped the club reestablish …
“Slap Shot,” the 1977 movie about a minor league hockey team, is widely hailed as one of the best sports comedies ever made. It’s certainly got strong trailer material with Paul Newman smiling rakishly in the rink and a trio of affable brothers clotheslining opponents with a smile. The movie may even be brilliant as …
“There are lies, there are damn lies, then there are statistics.” – Mark Twain Just do good work and you’ll find an audience is a damn lie in 2019. Even if that was once true there is too much noise. Do good work and have no marketing ploy and you’ll starve and die an unromantic …
This is the guy from Trip Shakespeare: February 14, 2019: Today, GRAMMY-winning songwriter Dan Wilson released a new song “Fly Safe” following his announcement last year that he will begin releasing a new song each month in lieu of full length album in 2019. These songs, which include “Uncanny Valley” and “We Ain’t Telling,” follow the release of his critically-acclaimed 2017 solo album Re-Covered where he revisited …
So glad I came to work today, against all odds and islands of ice. It was wonderful and quite unusual. First my ace budtender I love to close with broke her ribs sledding on a fire hydrant. She came and I am her ride home. My bosses called and said to take good care of …
“For the love of Stephen Hawking…” That is my new way of saying “for the love of God” so I don’t trigger Christian friends saying I am taking the Lord’s name in vain, …whatever that even means. …and for the risk of offending my friends who look at me, saying God does not exist, as …
I just found out the reggae singer Bunny Brown just passed away. He was the first one at Sly & Robbie’s studio that pulled me aside and wanted to hear what I had to say as a songwriter, and to just be friends. The last time we spoke we talked about working more on this …
The important thing about rehearsal is also cross training. I am obviously not a personal trainer or health expert. The struggle is real. – Musician and writer Davin Michael Stedman has many ventures, such as the AMAZING blog, 100milesofmusic.com. Davin’s new song has become a global earworm and Caribbean dancehall hit. Listen here on Reggaeville: …
A work in progress. This song ‘Life Yard’ has a great story behind it. I wrote it right on the spot on location at my ‘Free Your Mind’ music video shoot when I meet the young folks behind the organic community farm, The Life Yard. They would be at first glance to some, Rude Boys, …
Not to in any way diminish the Weather Horrors currently being visited upon so many parts of Our Great Nation. All atmospheric phenomena are of course relative, and very few towns or cities in America are notably prepared for significantly sub-zero weather conditions. But “facts is facts”, as Will Rogers surely said! And my hometown …
One thing that has changed the way I see the world around me, is witnessing so many people in my little algorithmic universe struggling with depression. I wonder about those hiding it. Talk therapy is powerful stuff. I can say I am not depressed. Seeing those struggle I realize that can change. I feel like …
My boy Benny Franklin refused to patent the Lightning Rod and his Franklin Stove, because he said, “Look, I’m rich. I’m already hella’ famous. I have enough money. What am I gonna’ do horde all this money like some chump, and have my own vanity Space Program?” America rose because of people like Ben. But …
Lately we’ve seen this term in every article, think piece, blog, Tweet, podcast, and broadcast. Books are using it in their titles, and it’s being printed on everything from socks to t-shirts. It’s even been co-opted by advertising, to sell products for corporations. But what exactly is a “Badass Woman”? There is no universal, objective definition of …
Finally finished both Fyre Festival documentaries, then read about why the midwest is so cold — (due to climate change ice melt, the polar vortex is no longer contained to the North Pole) — and realized that we are all trapped at Fyre Festival. — Emily Pothast (@emilypothast) January 29, 2019 Finally finished both Fyre …
Bigotry is dumb on every side. Playing the music in your Soul is what it means to be human. These humans teamed up with other humans to lovingly record and collaborate on so many of the iconic productions we associate with the greatest fist in the air Black Power anthems of all time. This is …
Time to try to level up once more. My friend and fitness trainer Corey Galusha was always trying to get me to write down what I eat and keep track of it. I saw this last night for under $10, and it’s a small investment if I can fill it up. It tried to write it …
Quincy Jones once said that it’s hard to know what the future held for Tupac, because if you killed Malcolm X at 25, you killed a Pimp named Red. Well the same can be said for the weirdest muthaf☆cka in history, Rasputin. You kill Rasputin at 28, you killed a slutty farmer named Randy. No …
Singin’, thinking…trying not to write a hook a day. There are few things better to fail at that, than not songwriting. I can’t help it. I programmed my mind at the tail end of college to make playing my upside down guitar like a diary. A way to think outloud and collect my thoughts. To …
Well this is quite epic for me. This my dear grandmother Audi with her beloved Grandfather that raised her. She tears up every time she talks about this wonderful man. This is man is my strongest link to Africa, Jose Rosario. There is legend of his father being referred to as “The Frenchman,” which is …
Fyre Festival was our generation’s Woodstock. Our culture is dominated by Rich thieves selling fake things that are doomed to fail, because they are built on big lies. We create billion dollar companies that are built on nothing but disruption, in a less than zero sum game that is pushing the middle class out of …
Check out this song idea! Should I call it ‘Old Bold Pilots’ or ‘Young Man’s Game’? This hit me when this story about Sinatra arguably inventing the album said “Sinatra was on the wrong side of 30 in a young man’s game.” Then before I could pull over to write this song a train stopped …
Stories give our lives meaning in a universe where there may be no meaning, by Davin Michael Stedman
Stories give our lives meaning in a universe where there may be no meaning. I like stories. They sound good with music. We have only been able to record them for a little over a hundred years. We’ve been jotting them down for centuries, passing them from one singer to another for thousands more. When …