Winter Sun - RPM Challenge 2008

A few moons since my last blog entry......lots of great stuff happening in my life :)

My overhanging project of the moment is participation in the RPM Challenge.  The challenge was a great idea thought up by a couple of local musicians in the Portsmouth, NH area in collaboration with The Wire....a small Portsmouth paper.  In their own words: "The RPM Challenge is simple: record an album in 29 days, just because you can".  In the first year, a couple of hundred folks signed up and maybe 160 finished albums were turned in.  2007 saw 850 completed albums turned in, and now for 2008, there are musicians and bands registered all over the world (check out the hyperlink for a world snapshot of participants) who are interested in taking the plunge (about 2200).

In the last two years, I played in two different projects, Trio Encompas, and Rivermouth Kings (with 14 year old guitaris Andy Nagashima).  This time around, I am focusing on an album of my own songs, which I haven't given any attention to in seven years.  In this case all of the material is new.  The "finished" albums aren't expected to be perfect.  The only contest is with oneself.  The great thing is that it gets a lot of musicians off their butts to do something with their time, skills, experience and heart.  I make no claims that Winter Sun (working title) will be a masterwork, I just hope to make some decent home recordings that I can feel good about while I get back into the groove as a songster.

ps.  Great thanks goes to my enormously talented younger brother Dan Blakeslee, who in part is responsible for getting me back on the song train.  A year ago for my 38th birthday, he gave me a Yamaha acoustic guitar with "For my brother Jonathan, Love Dan" inscribed on the headstock.  What a sweet brother.......