"Words are only words but we turn them into gifts... then we seem confused as their meaning slowly shifts"

If we don't protect it who will?

There's a huge difference between your and you're. If you're going to your friend's house, your not going to you're friend's house. Get it?

And it's must have, not must of. As in I must of left it somewhere. Wrong! You must have left it somewhere.

It's easy to see how must have becomes must've which sounds like must of. But a growing, developing language is a whole different thing to laziness.

And don't even get me started on texting! It will undermine the language in ways we don't even understand yet. I do it too and every time I use a stupid shortcut I hate myself for doing it.

Okay, pet peeve session over.

Never theft to glide electric kiss alert

Yes I know that title doesn't make sense. But trying telling technology that. Technology doesn't differentiate between rubbish and perfect grammar. It accepts what it's given and works from there. They're just words.

Here's what I mean.

Today someone, somewhere did a Google search using the phrase Elevator space poetic meaning time. And ended up visiting this blog.

Why? Because some time ago I wrote a piece about the fact that my building had put cameras everywhere including in the elevator. In a piece I wrote about my song Jaded Heart I said "I meant jaded in the poetic meaning of the word." And the words space and time appear in many of the posts.

So, to a search engine, the answer to Elevator space poetic meaning time is me.

I hope whoever it was enjoyed the visit.

You guys are so predictable!

So I post a pic of a naked woman (well part of a naked woman - who incidentally I do NOT know) and my visitor stats double!! Well, I actually have no problem with that. This country is still way too repressed for my liking.

I was reading only today that the original vinyl album of Jimi Hendrix's Electric Ladyland (the original is the one with yes, you guessed, naked women all over the cover) now sells for close to $2,000. The cover was banned in the USA, and quite soon after the record company stopped printing this cover (that had encountered few if any problems in the UK) and replaced it with the bland USA version in all markets. I used to have a copy but somebody had the infinite good sense to steal it from me somewhere in the past.

Here's a less well known example. And it's a GREAT album by the way if you've never heard it!

Daniel Lanois used a powerful photo by Jan Saudek for the cover of his 1993 album For The Beauty Of Wynona but it was considered unnaceptable by the American arm of the same record label that happily released the uncensored version in the UK. Angry at this, Lanois refused to change the cover art and instead had the words 'American Edition' cover the offending body parts. It was his way of pointing out where the real problem was.

The original 'beauty' of Wynona:

Of course they had absolutely no objection to the knife! Go figure.

One (or two) you should have...

As We Speak. That's the title of an absolutely stunning two-disc set by my friend and master of the bass Mark Egan.

Says Mark, "I wanted to capture both an intimate and progressive side of my playing and composing in a creative trio setting."

With drummer Danny Gottlieb and guitarist John Abecrombie, Mark has definitely succeeded in his goal. This is deep and complex music that manages always to be easy to enjoy.

Go to Wavetone.com to find out more.

Dangerous ground. Maybe a work in progress, maybe not

To a man the bed's a battleground
To a woman a place for sleeping
Love for a man is in the chase
For a woman it's in the keeping
There are times I know you wonder
Just what we are living for
All a man needs is a woman
But a woman
seems to need
so much more

©2007 Dave Tutin

Raised In Vain: One year young

August 31st. It's nearly here again. In a few days it'll be a year since my CD Raised In Vain/Afterthought was released.

And five years since my dad died. The event that started me writing and singing again after a break of many, many years.

It's been an odd experience. The album itself took three years to make. The process was a truly wonderful experience. It brought me closer to someone who was already up there as one of my best friends, Craig Snyder. Being my producer, and working with him that closely for such a long time was something I'll never forget. And something we'll always have.

Thanks to Craig I got to work with some superb musicians - guys who, like him, know their way around their instruments in a way I never will. I'm the lyric writer - I've never claimed to be a great musician, or singer for that matter. Larry Campbell (straight from nine years on the road with Dylan) Shawn Pelton (fitting me in between his Saturday Night Live regular gig and performing with Sheryl Crow and others) Mark Egan, Kevin Bents, Timo Elliston (who even forgave me for misspelling his name on the album!) the remarkable Eric Weissberg, Barry Miles, and the two cellists Caryl Paisner and Stephanie Cummings - they were all incredible. And they were all very kind about the songs. Believe me, none of them was paid well enough that they couldn't say no! Larry, Shawn, Mark, Timo and Kevin stayed around for the entire album. Thanks again guys. On the production side, Jon Tropea Jr., Rob Eaton and Ted Jensen made it all come together. More thanks.

I said it was a weird experience. But I didn't mean the making of the album - that was nothing but pure pleasure. The odd bit came when it was finished.

Having dreamed my whole life of putting out an album like this, I ran out of steam.

I knew that promoting an indie album would not be easy. My expectations, sales-wise, were modest to say the least. But I was determined to give it my all.

But, like so many times in my life, life got in the way of my plans. All sorts of things happened, not least of which was bringing my mother to live close to us in America. At 80 years old it's a huge transition. And she's required a lot of time and help in making it.

I also walked away from a very lucrative career in advertising. After 25 years working in major advertising agencies I was not unhappy to say goodbye. The business is not the one I joined, that's an understatement. But the money was helpful in financing all the other things I wanted to do - like making an album.

So here I am. A year later. I've sold a good few CDs. I've performed a few live gigs and gotten better each time (I hope). Prior to this my last time on stage was 1977! I was a finalist in a major songwriting competition and got Honorable Mentions in a couple of others.

But here's the question. Can a one-year-old album be considered new music? So much of what happens today is based on newness. The latest. The new thing. That's what sells. So how does a now 55-year-old songwriter get his work to a broader audience, now that all his friends, family and a good few strangers have his album and seem to almost universally like it?

Nothing has happened in the last year to diminish my faith in my work. But it's still enjoyed by only a handful of people. And although I have many new songs I cannot afford to go make another album like Raised In Vain.

But I'm not giving up. I'm not even close to that.

So do me a favor. On August 31st, play my CD. If you still like it, if that year has had no effect on the timelessness I tried to write into every song, then tell a few friends that it's still out there to be discovered.

I'm still hoping my voice was not raised in vain.

Craig recording his 12-string guitar part on Nowhere Near The Sea

Through the whole experience of creating this album I kept a diary.

On August 6th, 2006 - the day the finished CDs were delivered - I wrote:

After all these years, holding a real album of mine is unbelievable. My only sadness is that my dad is not here to see and hear it. But the truth is without him it would never have been made.

Random acts of time

Right. I'll try not to get all philosophical but I've become fascinated recently by time. It's a huge subject. The more you think about it the less sense it makes. And the more your head hurts.

When Kurt Vonnegut died earlier this year I was going to read Slaughterhouse Five again but decided instead to read Timequake. And I'm glad I did. It's a superb little book about how the universe took a breather. The theory goes that the universe is expanding and that this is what creates the phenomenon of time. But it's also known that all explosions breathe. There are tiny moments of contraction within the overall expansion. And in Timequake this is what happens to the universe. It contracts before continuing to expand and everyone on earth is forced to relive a period of time over again. But it's exactly the SAME time - so nothing can be changed. Someone who just died will still die. Accidents that happened cannot be avoided second time around. Brilliant idea.

Of course, ultimately, chaos ensues when after a period of knowing exactly what will happen next, free will is restored!

Maybe this sent me off on my time kick. Or maybe I've always been on it. Looking back at some of my earliest writings time seems to crop up disturbingly often.

Anyway, this made me want to share a little detail of my life that few people know about.

Around my neck (or in my pocket) at all times is a piece of jewellery my friend Stuart made for me here in New York. His store is called StuART and it's in SoHo. He cleverly combined two coins into one.

On one side is a gold coin featuring my Chinese birth sign, the Dragon. I had no idea when I moved to live in Hong Kong from England back in 1987 that I'd one day have a Chinese wife. I got interested in things Chinese when I lived there and it's only increased since - for obvious reasons.

On the other side is a silver shilling from England. It's from the late 1800s when there was still silver in the coins, so it's quite soft. It's worn quite smooth. But not just from everyday wear and tear. This was my grandfather's 'lucky' shilling. He carried it with him through World War I. He would rub it for luck whenever he felt luck was needed. He kept rubbing it until he died when I was 11. Then I started rubbing it.

Somewhere in the future someone will find this piece - probably for sale in some backstreet store, if such things still exist then. But they will have no idea how these two items from radically different times and places came together and what they meant to the person who wore them both.

It's a little Timequake on a chain. Which is why I didn't even redo the out-of-focus photography. It seemed appropriate.

Back to the music...

OK, enough about bullet-proof backpacks and crazy evangelists and the thieves of Canal Street (hmm - sounds like a Dylan song) let's get back to music:

I don't like it when people mess with the design of guitars just for the sake of it. But this I love! It's the headstock of the guitar I bought in Montreal recently (as regular readers of this blog will know) from a new American builder named Larry Goedde. Today I finally got the guitar back from my good friend Norio Imai who put a pick-up in it for me so I can use it on stage. This also meant adding strap buttons as it came totally naked!

I knew it was a great guitar when I bought it but this evening I haven't been able to put it down. Except to photograph it:

Thanks Larry. It's magnificent in every respect. A joy to play.

Acceptance is a poor way forward

The Swiss have always had little problem with duality. They have been a major arms dealer at the same time as being known for the humanitarian efforts of the Red Cross. It was during time spent in Switzerland many years ago that I learned of another frightening aspect of the country's mentality. They decided long ago to focus on surviving a nuclear war rather than preventing it. This photo shows one of the elaborate nuclear shelters that can be found all over Switzerland. I once visited a hospital in Geneva and was proudly shown around the underground shelter. It was a mirror image of the entire hospital complete with operating theaters, food and medical supplies for months if not years!

But why mention this now? Well, it has nothing to do with the Swiss but a lot to do with that mentality.

It was announced a couple of days ago that a company here in the USA is about to start marketing a bullet-proof backpack for school kids.

Perhaps I'm the only one who feels this way but when you shift, as the Swiss did with their nuclear fallout shelters, from prevention to acceptance a critical line has been crossed.

I think this company will make a lot of money. Its backpacks aren't cheap. And what parent wouldn't want to give a child every protection available? But, to me, every single one of these that is sold is one more step toward saying that kids, guns and school is an acceptable mix - or at least one we have to live with.

It isn't and never should be. Disarmament is the answer not body armor for all.

And of course, the company is off to a flying start with free media coverage on just about every news program in the country.

Take me to your leader

I cannot be the only person to find the recently aired TV interview with Billy Graham, the three living ex-Presidents (and Hillary Clinton) disturbing. The Charles Gibson interview - presented as a 20/20 episode - was triggered by the release of the book The Preacher and the Presidents.

Here's what troubles me. It seems that a whole string of our Presidents, when facing the ultimate, difficult decisions of high office like whether or not to throw bombs at another nation, have turned to Billy Graham for advice. He in turn, as an evangelist and 'spiritual guide' turns to God. Who else can he turn to?

So we have the leader(s) of our nation turning to a man who was created by the media for dubious purposes...

"According to Ben Bagdikian's The Media Monopoly, Graham was catapulted out of obscurity by news moguls William Randolph Hearst and Henry Luce who thought that Graham would be helpful in promoting their conservative anti-communist views." - Wikipiedia.

...who then turns to the ultimate higher power that some folks believe in and some do not. And at the very least it's impossible for him to turn to anything other than one religion's version of the higher power. A higher power, incidentally, that the men who created modern America chose to specifically exclude from politics when they intelligently divided Church and State.

America may be flirting with having a female President or a black President. True change will have arrived when this country can elect an atheist President. Or when a brilliant leader's agnosticism is not a black mark so huge as to make him or her unelectable.

Keeping the Church out of politics and vice versa was a stroke of genius. One, apparently, that has secretly been ignored by every President since Truman.

In a review of the book it says the authors " foreground Graham's difficulty in negotiating the separation between church and state."

What seperation? He came running when they called and every time he did he crashed through the wall of seperation. No doubt enjoying every minute of his unexpected power.

Who knows what 'decisions' this man had a hand in?

Want to know if Johnny is all grown up?

Show him this. Apparently children - with, as yet, no memory of such encounters - see only the Dolphins!

Dolphins??? What Dolphins?

Is it good? I don't know. It might be good. But...

Journey To Your Heart was just awarded an Honourable Mention in the 2007 Singer-Songwriter Awards.

They describe an HM like this:

Artists with Honourable Mentions are those that the judges could not agree on and, therefore, had to be listened to several times and submitted for multiple listening pools. We award you with an Honourable Mention because, ultimately, your submission was very strong.

I hope you'll take this as an excuse to go back and play my CD again - this track in particular. Listen to the incredible violin playing by Larry Campbell...the wonderfully subtle guitar work of Craig Snyder...take in the inventive build that Shawn Pelton coaxed out of his drums...and hear for yourself what confused the judges!

As someone once said #16

"The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side."

Hunter S. Thompson (1937 - 2005)

Theft on Canal Street

Yep, that's where I live. To many people it's one of the last remaining un-gentrified areas of Manhattan. But believe me, once you climb above the ratty, cheap stores selling all manner of crap, the real estate prices are true New York!

But Canal Street itself is enough to test anyone's love of humanity.

Now, let me make this clear for those who may be new to this blog. I'm extremely liberal. I do not care in the least what anyone does on their own time, in their own home with a consenting partner or partners. I do not care what color, race or religion you are as long you extend me the same courtesy (I hate missionaries). As long as you harm nobody in the process of what you do, then my attitude is go do it. If you want to shorten your life with drugs, fine. Mine is alcohol, which happens to be legal, but to each his own. But if I commit a crime under the influence I deserve to have the book thrown at me. That's only fair. Society has to protect itself. The lines are clear. And it's clear when they are crossed. Freedom and anarchy are not even cousins.

Now, that said, "hurting others" does not always mean physically.

I have watched over the past year as the number of people selling counterfeit items on the street – not from the stores – around my neighborhood has risen to ridiculous levels. Bags, watches, music, movies and more. Coming home this evening I was approached five times in the length of one block by young women selling counterfeit CDs and DVDs.

As a musician, with many musician friends, this alarms me.

As someone with many friends in the filmmaking business this alarms me.

And as a New Yorker this alarms me.

But what alarmed me the most and why I'm writing this piece is what a New York cop said to me when I asked why this was all allowed to go on under the noses of the NYPD.

His answer was "We're told to turn a blind eye because it brings so many tourists to the city."

I wonder if Mayor Bloomberg knows this? Or maybe he's the one doing the telling? I'm sure the Mayor (who I quite like, incidentally) does not read my blog. But I wish someone would explain to him that not even in the New York of 2007 do two wrongs make a right.

We need tourists, agreed. Getting them by condoning and encouraging the theft of copyrighted creative ideas in any form is just wrong. Even with the handbags – which I care less about – the companies and the designers have a right to own their ideas.

I know that the advent of digital technology is raising all sorts of questions about intellectual property rights. And the issues are too complicated to get into here. But right now selling these fake CDs and DVDs is a crime. The music and movies they contain has been stolen. The city of New York is, apparently, telling its cops to look the other way. And that too is criminal.

In keeping with my last post...

Grove Street Winery

If, like me, you enjoy a little red wine. OK that's an understatement, I freely admit. You should check out the wonderful Grove Street Cabernet. 98% Cabernet Sauvignon, 1% Merlot, 1% Malbec and under $20 a bottle. Significantly less if you join their club and buy by the case. Always a good idea because, hey, wine keeps!

It drinks like a wine of several times that price! That's rock 'n' roll in a bottle.

It's official: Rock 'n' Roll is dead!

As an indie artist I was convinced a while ago that an EPK (Electronic Press Kit) at Sonicbids.com would be the kiss of life for my musical aspirations. Well, it hasn't worked out quite that way. But at the same time I recommend Sonicbids to other musicians all the time. It's better than nothing and, as long as you're playing regularly (which I don't), can lead to a lot of opportunities.

But you have to wonder when they send out an email to their members that - and I'm still laughing as I write this - says the following:

Being Healthy On The Road
Being healthy is not just about what you eat, it’s about how you live. Eating better and living a healthier life on the road can provide you with more energy, better moods, greater self-esteem, and weight loss – all of which can positively affect your songwriting, performances, and relationships.

Before you head out
Stock up on water, and make it your drink of choice while traveling. Bring a camping stove and some pots and pans to cook your own healthy meals (make sure you bring spices). Also, bring some good knives – you’ll need a small one and a big one.

Fender Strat? Check.

Water? Check.

Camping stove? Check.

Honestly, I'm no longer afraid of dying! What the f*** happened?

The things we lose

The song I wrote for my dad - When All Else Fails - is naturally one of my favorites on my album. I think the final mix that Rob Eaton did is brilliant. But it hit me as I was clearing out some old files the other day how much great playing had to be sacrificed for the full power and meaning of the song to come through. Here's an early version with Shawn Pelton playing big hits that didn't make the final mix and Larry Campbell playing amazing lap steel guitar all the way through (we used this take but brought him in only half way through the song). It's unmixed so the vocals get lost in places and the whole thing is musically out of balance. But for the sake of the playing that never made the album, here it is.

Download 05_when_all_else_fails_f.mp3

Dedicated, as always, to my dad. It's five years this month since he died. I had no idea at the time that this would be the last photo of us together, on a train from Boston to New York. If I look a little different, I'd just had my head shaved for surgery and my hair was growing back!

They mean well...

.

Those nice people at amazon.com are always making recommendations based on your past purchases. It's a good way to discovered stuff you otherwise might not have. But sometimes the connection is simply impossible to fathom. This morning I received this:

As someone who has purchased or rated books by Bob Dylan, you might like to know that ALPHABETICAL LIST OF THE OFFICERS OF THE INDIAN ARMY 1760 TO THE YEAR 1834 Bengal is now available. You can order yours for just $44.00 by following the link below

I don't think so.