Tag Archives: MurfreesboroTN

Nashville, Don’t Let Me Down

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It’s about 8 hours from Lynchburg in Central Virginia to Nashville, Tennessee. You could do it faster if you pushed it, but I left early and wasn’t playing in Murfreesboro until Tuesday night.

When I was a writer and trying to push my prose up the mountain of recognition, Seth Godin was a “guru” of sorts. I know I’ll sometimes criticize the ubiquity of gurus, but there are some out there, like Godin, who are worth listening to and offer countless tips that move your craft forward: writing, music, maybe even mixed martial arts.

I’ve been following Matt Bacon on the ‘gram for a month or so. His stuff is so damn good (and practical) that I marvel that I’ve already started doing many of the things he talks about in terms of building a following. One of them recently was to find an area that you can tour regionally two or three times a year.

In many ways, this two-week tour is exactly that. Me, taking my all-original music, and playing cities and venues I’ve never played before. Including Nashville.

The DIY show I was part of on Tuesday night at The Shack was epic. Four different artists/bands, doing what they do, and showing support for me, the touring bard and minstrel passing through town. Chad James (aka, Karate Chad) seems to me to be a DIY force of nature in Murfreesboro. He’s originally told me he rarely does mid-week shows, especially Tuesday nights, but he made it happen. The link should be available soon on Twitch and when it is, I’ll post it, here. I’m also going to have some live footage of me playing what was about a 40 to 45 minutes set of originals.

[Shua, Murfreesboro singer-songwriter, covering Warren Zevon’s “Roland the Thompson Gunner”]

While Murfreesboro was sweet, my plan to play Wednesday night in Nashville fell through. The booking agent I’ve been working with texted me and told me that the venue has “discontinued all live music.” Wow! That fucking sucks! But, rather than let it derail me, I had a blast in Murfreesboro and I’m going to bring the same energy to Huntsville on Friday.

Ryman Auditorium-Nashville (originalfuzz.com photo)

But what to do with two days in Nashville. I mean, I could sight-see, and I’ll visit Ryman Auditorium at some point. But I’m not really a tourist-y kind of guy. I’m a musician who is determined to squeeze everything I can out of what I’ve been working towards now for more than six years since Mark Baumer was killed. As I talked about in this video, “it’s not about talent.”

One of the musicians last night, Mark, gave me a tip about Bobby’s Idle Hour Tavern, an iconic bar that has been hosting local songwriters and musicians since the late 1970s in The Music City. I wonder if Taylor Swift ever played there?

On Thursday afternoon, Ceefor Ebrahimi hosts a songwriters in the round. I texted her and I have a slot early in the afternoon to play a few of my own songs.

Who knows what will happen. But at the very least, I can say I got to play a few songs in Nashville and next time I come to town, I’m going to make sure my show’s etched in stone and I have a contract from the venue. As the old-timers say, “live and learn.”

Loading Them Road Cases

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Since moving to Lynchburg, I’ve been making a musical transition. Oh, I’m still making and playing music, but my journey has diverged from the path where it began seven years go. Back then, I was just hanging on, struggling with the loss of a son, and my guitar became a means of finding some way forward after a devestating and seemingly senseless tragedy.

I initially thought I wanted to see if I could work-up a setlist that would allow me to get booked into clubs and other venues on the “cover circuit.” Every state and region has one.

What I learned is that if you have enough drive, and you can get on the phone and/or craft a compelling booking pitch, you can play regularly. Or, at least that was my experience in Maine. Before I knew it, I’d moved into playing some clubs in Boston, thanks to making a connection with a small booking agency. My first few years of playing live music, I’d play 60 to 70 gigs a year. That changed when COVID hit.

Then, my wife and I made a monumental decision. Real estate was at its peak in New England. We realized that this was our time for a new adventure and no more winters in the northeast. Off to points south of the Mason-Dixon line.

Lynchburg had affordable housing and it wasn’t a dump like some places that are affordable. But Lynchburg also has been a very hard nut to crack in terms of trying to book shows. I’m not going to belabor the reality that I was initially bitter and then, disappointed in the lack of places to play original music in the city and nearby.

Lynchburg, Virginia, USA downtown skyline.

What that initial experience provided, however, was the chance to really work on my songwriting craft. I’ve been putting out material on a regular basis. Then, putting it out on various streaming platforms, the central one being Spotify.

What has happened over the past two years is that my streams on Spotify have slowly ticked upward. Unlike many of the local musicians who get all the gigs, but have less than 100 monthly streams, my numbers have shot beyond 1,600 monthly streams and continue hitting upward. I attribute this to being willing to “feed the algorithm,” or the “Al Gore Rhythm,” as one of my songs on my new release, Some Singles+ talks about. Continue reading →