MUMBO JUMBO | January 2010
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
I hope that 2010 is a good year for you all, and if 2009 wasn’t so great, maybe the coming year will be better! The world of Tropical Rock isn’t so hot at the moment as Key West is going through a pretty fierce cold spell! Miami is chillier than Seattle right now and snow is in the forecast for some spots in the sunshine state. I’ve had to shake the termites out of my leather jacket; and gloves, wool hats and colorful scarves are the new fashion statement for the girls of Key West! A nice touch for the holidays, but when your only source of heat is a turkey in the oven the charm wears off quickly! Hell, it’s actually warmer in the strip joints than it is outside, and that’s saying something!
The chilly weather aside, Dave and I are loving our new venue at The Ocean Key Resort on the Sunset Pier Stage. We recently began a 16-week engagement there (please check my web site for exact schedule). We generally appear Tuesday through Saturday each week from 7PM until 10PM.
Photo by Tom “Hawk Channel Chase” Corcoran www.tomcorcoran.net
I’m starting off the new year working on a completely new web site. This has been on the agenda for about six months and after a couple of meetings with the Conch Republic Media Group we’re on our way to a brand new look on the web. The fresh site will include some high definition video and photographs, upgraded news articles, TV interviews and of course, regularly updated information on concerts, new music and merchandise and some new free downloads for our friends. We’ll also be expanding my lyrics catalog and gradually adding chord charts to some of my songs for you guitar players out there. But please… don’t try to take my job!
We haven’t really done any major upgrades in years and hope the new site is easier for you to navigate and encourages you to visit more often and spread the word to your friends. And speaking of your friends, it would be much appreciated if you could encourage the music lovers among them to go to my web site and sign up for the MUMBO JUMBO so we can do a better job of letting folks know when we might be in the neighborhood. The new site should be up and running in a month or two, so stay tuned!
2010 SUMMER AND FALL TOUR: WEST OF KEY WEST!
As I mentioned, we’re here in Key West until May, but then we hit the road for some extensive touring through the summer and fall, and this year hope to get out and see some of our friends on the left coast! In recent years our touring has been mostly restricted to the eastern half of the country, but in 2010 we hope to hit the West Coast and a bunch of new places in between. By next month’s MUMBO JUMBO we’ll have more concrete dates on where we might be and when, and if you‘d like to bring us to your town for a show, contact Terry Lederer at terry@scottkirby.com and she can help you with that. Believe it or not we’re already booking dates as far away as August so it’s never too early!
EUROPE IN THE FUTURE????
With the advent of the web and the continued shrinking of our world, we’re pleasantly surprised by the number of fans we’ve heard from in Europe and elsewhere abroad. Shortly after the release of ROW ME HOME, we were contacted by a promoter interested in marketing the new CD over there! So, several weeks ago we came to agreement and already we’re getting airplay in Denmark and positive reviews in Sweden. We’ll see where this takes us over the next six months, but who knows, a European Tour might be in our future sometime. Country Dave in Paris…now that would be worthy of a video!!!
ROW ME HOME ON RADIO MARGARITAVILLE!!
Satellite Radio on Sirius and XM has been a huge benefit to many independent artists such as myself and fellow LITTLE FLOCK artists Peter Mayer, Roger Guth and the Massacoustics. Radio Margaritaville has been incredibly supportive over the years and I’m really pleased that cuts from ROW ME HOME are wafting over the satellite waves into your homes, cars and boats! PORT OUTBOUND, STARBOARD HOME played heavily throughout the fall as well as BLOW ME DOWN TO CAYO HUESO and now IT’S ALL ABOUT THE GIRL is in the rotation I know a lot of you folks are responsible for this by requesting my songs from your favorite DJs at the station and all I can say is THANK YOU!!!
TALES BEHIND THE TUNES
In my continuing effort to try to explain where these songs came from, this month’s subject is NORTHERN TOWN off the live A NIGHT ON THE BEACH CD. It seems only fitting as the past week here has felt more like October in Maine!
I kept an apartment in a quaint old colonial town on the New Hampshire coast named New Castle. From my living room window I looked directly over the Piscatiqua River to the shores of Kittery, Maine. One of my favorite views from any home I’ve ever been in! New Castle was founded in 1623 and the first armed conflict of the revolution took place a couple of hundred yards down the street. The river view there was something special because my large window was a constantly changing seascape. Some mornings I would stumble out of bed bleary eyed and be shocked to see a gigantic 600 ft freighter seemingly sitting in the front yard, slowly lumbering up the river with a load of road salt for the coming winter.
From spring through late autumn the river was in constant motion with the traffic of lobster boats, commercial fisherman, mega yachts and hundreds of sailboats! On any sunny day the colors were amazing: the shimmering blue water and sky, the bright green trees and manicured lawns of the Maine coast were a perfect backdrop for the colorful spinnakers flying up and down the river between two states.
Come November… everything changed. Within a matter of weeks, all the vibrant colors of autumn drained from my window. One bleak gray morning I found myself blankly staring across the slate river and realized that with the exception of one orange buoy, my once colorful seascape sat now completely motionless in black and white. After an hour or so, I realized the only thing I could do about it was write a song so I spent the entire day with my little Martin guitar and yellow legal pad. Unfortunately, I no longer have that gem of an apartment, but at least I have the song!
Well the sun goes down on this northern town so early
Shadows long and low by 3 o’clock
And the icy haze hangs above the fisherman
As they gather round the barrel on the dock
And the sky and sea and trees all dance together
In a thousand shades of silver gray and black
And the only color visible to me today
Is the buoy on that lonely lobster trap
Enough babbling for this month!! Stay warm and as always, Thanks for listening!
Scott
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