Indian Summer Settling in......

Banking into O'Hare over the Chicago Skyline

As the Earth begins to finally tilt north I can sense the change in season, and in myself. Fall has always been my favorite season. I was born in September but don’t think that is it. In New Mexico we pick and roast green chilies in fall and the smell of them roasting in every parking lot and backyard is intoxicating. The smoky, earthy and musky smell is like no other. We have our major fiestas in the fall when it begins to hint of cooler nights. The sun is moving north over my beloved Organ Mountains. Myself, I become even more pensive than usual seeing the rich metaphors in natures and the seasons. The type of gigs I play also changes back to my stable of fall festivals and indoor concerts. I never feel I’ve worked hard enough by the time September rolls around. Must be some linkage to starting school this time of year from elementary to college—I don’t know. When you are an artist you never feel you have worked hard enough, dug deep enough, took enough time with a project. That is why live performance is so attractive to us as musicians. It is ephemeral. An album is a document people can listen to over and over and over, hopefully. So often it takes me months before I can really listen to my own album detached enough to enjoy it. Just after it comes out it is like a special dish you’ve tried for your friends and keep feeling like you need to apologize for it saying well this is my first time trying this recipe, there is probably too much this or that. A new album is like that too. Eventually it becomes your signature dish that everyone must have the recipe for. Humans are funny that way.

I’m in the upper Midwest again in Chicago then on to perform at Indian Summer Festival. I’m honored to be included as a performer after winning the ISMA Best Native Flute Album last year. What is amazing it the awards are judged by independent judges in the field of being music professionals. Several of the judges stopped by to talk to me after I won last year and I was humbled by what they said about my music without knowing a thing about me. That is validation that is priceless and wonderful to hear.  I was hoping to get to Iowa to perform after Indian Summer.  I didn’t enter this year and probably missed the NAMA’s too but that is okay. I don’t need to chase these awards. All things in the right time and with the right intention. I perform at the ISF Saturday at 12:30pm, then during the awards show and again Sunday at 11:30am. Come on out if you live anywhere near the area and be sure to get me to sign your CD for you. I’m always happy to do that. I was hoping to do some shows in Iowa after Milwaukee but some serious family health matter mean I have to clear my gig slate for the rest of September. I’m still plugging away and always interested in performing at House Concerts, for Flute Circles, Drum groups, concerts etc. Just email me at booking@randygranger.net for info okay.

I hope your fall is reflective and abundant. We are beyond fortunate to enjoy the quality of life we have in the US. Music is the glue my friends. The arts are the salve that reminds us of beauty and what we are capable at our best moments. My new album Pura Vida – This is Pure Life is available on iTunes now at http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/pura-vida-this-is-pure-life/id384128875.  You can hear song clips; download individual songs or the whole album at CDBaby.com, Amazon.com and iTunes of course. You can always order directly from my website and receive a signed CD on my order page.  I am getting really great feedback and I’m happy for that.

Thank you for reading these notes.

Randy

Radio interview with Randy Granger and KUNM-FM's Ear to the Ground

Hey friends forgot to mention you can check out a recent interview I did with KUNMFM up in Albuquerque while I was passing through to play at SF Indian Market. The show is called "Ear the Ground" with host Matthew Finch, KUNM's Music Director. We talked about my music, where some of the songs from my new CD Pura Vida - This is Pure Life evolved. How I write and compose. The instruments I play and being a musician on the road and in Las Cruces, NM where I make my home. 


To listen to  it go to http://kunm.org/listen/archive/index.php?archiveby=byprog 
Then under where it says Play archived broadcast audio by program you will select 
Ear to the Ground Sat, Aug. 21, 7:00pm to listen. 


When I do these interviews they are always spontaneous in nature and what you hear is what we actually said with very little editing and usually only them for time. I try to make sure I am speaking as myself and talk openly. I've been doing interviews a while but have never rehearsed or come in with notes. I hope that freshness authenticity comes through. This interview will be up until next Saturday, Sept. 4th. They keep them up for two weeks. Hope you enjoy it. 


Randy

Seeing through musician colored glasses

One aspect of being a touring musician is you put yourself, like any aware traveler, in situations that are unfamiliar. The difference is how well you connect and people enjoy what you do is directly related to the night’s end result. Whether you freak out and sleep in your car or rent a hotel room because you made enough to cover expenses. It really is that tight of a margin and has been for couple hundred years or so.  That is the business side of being a musician. The more ephemeral side of being an artist requires explanation of how we see and experience the world. It is different than our civilian brethren who most of the time takes life in digested doses via news channels, talk radio, the View, Oprah, Showbiz Tonight, Entertainment tonight or the TMZ websites. Not to be dismissive at all. I’ve watched my share of those programs. However, songwriters, poets, artists have a different filter that is a source of constant inspiration and pain equally.

Others have written more eloquently about how artists assimilate then distill their experiences but I’ve found that when you accept the Job so to speak you don’t really have an on and off switch. You are at a café and a man comes in with his wife assisting her on her walker, he hovers over her, orders for them then attentively makes her comfortable. Why in such a public place? Because it is something familiar maybe from their past, regardless it is a self-contained and intimate, if not public, moment for them. A songwriter looks for a few seconds and can write an entire album about their life, this day, the imperceptible way he adjusts her skirt. We take a mental and emotional picture of this moment. We slow time down, notice every smell, sound, color and gesture. We immortalize it because we see the story unfold. To do that you have to open all the time; you are detached and storing it like a digital photo. There is recent research that demonstrates how the brain and senses are heightened during an emotionally charged moment like an accident. What they have found is that your “brain space” for remembering the event is turned on so you do record every detail and later it feels as if time stood still or happened really slowly. That is how I feel all the time. Whether driving through the endless dairy hills of Wisconsin or getting threatening looks and body language in a bar in Amarillo I’m taking it all in with a perception and sensitivity that would drive the civilian crazy. I’m not sure it hasn’t done that to me already.

SF Indian Market 2010
by Melissa Dominguez

Spending so much time away from home and on the road you lose sense of day and time. Sometimes your hotel base becomes your  locai. You get comfortable then have to move on. The sense of stability and familiarity fades like a book left out in the sun. As I drove the three day plus drive back from the upper Midwest to New Mexico and longed for the familiar. Something about crossing into New Mexico does that. The air is drier, the horizon further away, the earth redder, the fauna a familiar olive/sage green, the people browner and redder. Home. I remember my bones, hair and skin are of this land, this soil, these minerals, this muddy water and air. My long hair, Native/Mestizo look and dress not so alarming to big, cap wearing, family types who stop talking when I walk into a place leaning into each other looking at me laughing like what happens in the lower Midwest states and all of Oklahoma and northern Texas. I’m undisturbed not because I feel any more accepted by anyone else but because I know who I am. I’m confident in myself and smile easily. In Amarillo a group of men were laughing so hard at me and my look and went to their table, sat down and started talking with them. A couple of them wanted to kill me it was clear, the others were fast friends finding out I was Native American and a musician. They had been discussing Pink Floyd which is how I opened up the convo. Personally I can’t stand the band, but was just looking for an in. 

SF Indian Market 2010
by Melissa Dominguesz

My new CD, Pura Vida is out and getting some airplay if not many sales. I posted on Facebook a link where you could get a signed copy of it for $15 and got exactly one response. Guess that tells me what I already knew. But it’s cool, I take it in stride. I don’t make CD’s to be played in spas, to get played on some particularly picky programs. No, I record the music that speaks in me, through me and to listeners. Screw the rest right? It is a Punk attitude I’ve had since my first band. If it means I eat beans, so be it. I love beans haha. You are either in the business to please others or yourself. I guess I’m in it because I’m compelled to. Sure I headline festivals, I rank high on charts, I win awards, I do interviews across the country, I play venues to total strangers and I love it all. I’m authentic to me and my music and that is enough. I was fortunate to play last weekend at the Santa Fe Indian Market and the Roots and Rhythms Festival a venue with over 100,000 attendees and 1300 Native artists. It was great and hot and dry. Made some new fans and that is always a delight. No one I recognized or knew from the "Native flute community" but I don't have a clue how to get those people out to my shows truthfully.

Okay so I’ll be performing at the Franciscan Festival of Fine Arts Labor Day weekend, Indian Summer Festival in Milwaukee September 11 & 12, the Renaissance Festival in Las Cruces, NM, St. Paul Methodist in Las Cruces and a return to the Hillsboro Community Center all solo shows this fall. Check my calendar www.randygranger.net/calendar for details. To listen to clips and order the new CD “Pura Vida – This is Pure Life” go to my website or Amazon.com, iTunes or CDBaby.com.

Thank you for your support and for reading this blog. Please share it and share my links. 

Randy

Here is the second video from Pura Vida “Rain in the Canyon”  Enjoy.