It’s a Wrap on 2023 (JimBaumerME Newsletter)

Bunker Rock/JimBaumerMe

Movin’ On (A New Musical Home)
Vol. 3/Issue 2

I’m actually working on this newsletter on the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year. I don’t love this time of year, where, at least in these parts, the days start out dark and the light fades far too early.

Dec. 20 follows Dec. 19, which this year would have been the 40th birthday of our late son, Mark. It was nearly seven years ago that he was hit and killed by an SUV along a desolate stretch of highway in Florida’s Panhandle while attempting his second walk across America. Many of you know the story, so I won’t elaborate.

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A Summer (and Fall) of Music

Bunker Rock/JimBaumerMe

A Full Season of Music
Vol. 1/Issue 3

Sitting at my dining room table in June, I wrote a song that in many ways is my “Alice’s Restaurant.” By that I mean that it’s a song written in a vein similar to Arlo Guthrie’s late-60s classic—a sort of talking blues that spans nearly five decades of my musical journey from the age of 8 until now.

At the start of summer, I was just coming out of the chute relative to booking gigs. A mere few weeks into a calendar of bookings and venues that ran well into the fall and the eventual closing-down of many outdoor places catering to warmer days and music.

The cold and darkness of November now morphs into full-blown winter. My crowded calendar of the summer now has a smattering of dates marked in January, with other possibilities confirmed out into 2022.

Since I write my own songs, like “Finding a New Path,” the song I reference above, and my penchant and preference for the indie side of the rock landscape, I began seeking opportunities to play original songs, versus the summer-long slog of three-hour sets spiked full of cover material, even if what I cover tends towards my own preference for the more obscure side of music. There’s nothing wrong with playing covers if that’s your thing. It’s not really mine. So, where to look for opportunities and perhaps, a scene that still understands what indie once meant when it was still vibrant. And yes, Virginia, there are still places where indie still has street cred.

Apple orchard rocking

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