FEATURE OF THE WEEK

January 27, 2010

Stay tuned for the First Friday Art Walk coming up on the first Friday in February,
in beautiful Eugene, Oregon, 'home for the terminally hip'.
Live music will complement the art work, mine being one of the offerings
at the New Zone Gallery. Hopefully an eye feast, and ear feast,
and some decent walking-- that combination should benefit most of us.

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Well, we Three Basses sung and played our best on stage last Saturday
at the wonderful UU church of Eugene that we love so much.
The sound system was faulty as usual, but we performed our hearts out and raised over $900 for the church. I hope all were happy with the event.

Pictured on the left, yours truly, David Rogers; Pictured in the middle, Joseph Bonnevie;
pictured on the right, Kirk Taylor.

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"I can't see you--I can't see you--(I've got my eyes closed)"
Bigfoot Dave at the Portland (OR) OryCon Festival 2009
photo by: Angelica

Other performers at OryCon:

Jeff Hitchins (above)

Andrew Ross, a.k.a. Miles V. (above)

The star performers, Vixie and Tony

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Health Care Reform- Old Dave R on the Soapbox

[Copied from the Letter to the Editor published in the Eugene (OR) Register-Guard, Saturday July 26th:]

President Obama is right when he declares that health care reform has nothing to do with him. He and other government leaders, including Congress, have nothing to worry about in this regard; they are covered with the most complete health coverage plan ever devised.
But what about the rest of us? Take, for example, my friend Dave Marston, who supported his family all his life as a choral and orchestral music director until an incurable brain disease carried him away. He had no medical insurance, because after supporting his own family with their basic needs, he of course had no money left over to support them all on expensive private insurance premiums. Expand this example a thousandfold, and you can grasp, like so many of the most creative and hard-working people of our time, that universal health care is patriotic.
To all those who oppose Obama’s public sector health coverage option, because it competes with private health insurance interests: Using this same argument, does this mean we shouldn’t have public schools in this country because they compete with private schools? Or we shouldn’t have national parks and forests because they compete with private cattlemen or trailer parks? Or, we shouldn’t have a post office because it competes with UPS or FedEx?
This is crazy enough to warrant listening to the words of Winston Churchill, when he said, “Americans will always do the right thing, after they have exhausted all other options.”

[end of letter]

 

More music venues are making themselves available. Give me more, more!
I challenge all those out there who think you can overwork me as a musician-- Hire me and try me!
I need enough seed money to get my upcoming CDs mastered-- and still have time left over for my
part time day job as a drop in room monitor at Safe, Inc. with some wonderful people deemed crazy,
with whom I seem to fit right in-- I already know what that says about me...

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C heck out my own latest You Tube music videos.
My own are on the videos page on this website.
These, plus some additional ones I posted featuring other artists,
Plus some stunning selected favorites posted by other people,
are on my ever-growing channel: NewDave999

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Dave Rogers ponders for a moment as he haunts his old haunts in Ashland, Oregon:

[photo by Marvin Ratner]

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David Rogers on guitar at the Eugene Saturday Market
with a very young lady dancer.
[photo by Stephan Livingstone]

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'Celtic and Baroque' Classical Guitar
Recording Sessions are in Progress for an upcoming
CD of solo guitar works. Lots of Irish and Scottish airs..

From the harp strains of O'Carolan, thru Tara's halls did ring,
Comes the elegant and wonderous legacy these regal tunes still bring,
From bonnie Scotland came Oswald's guitar divertimenti,
To the parlors and chambers of Temple of Apollo cognoscenti,
Now lovingly adapted to the guitar of the western shores,
And re-tempered for the present ears of music connoisseurs!

 

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Quotes from wayward sages in the midnight choir:

"This is what you shall do: Love the earth and the sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown, or to any man or number of men-- go freely with powerful uneducated persons, and with the young, and with the mothers of families-- re-examine all you have been told in school or church or in any book, and dismiss whatever insults your own soul; and your flesh shall be a great poem, and have the richest fluency, not only in its words, but in the silent lines of its lips and face, and between the lashes of your eyes, and in every motion and joint of your body."

--Walt Whitman

 

"I get weary of people who use pessimism to avoid being responsible for all the problems in our culture. A man who says 'we're on the road to disaster' is seldom trying to wrench the wheel away from the driver. I prefer the troublemaker."

--Ken Kesey


"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind."

--Dr. Seuss