Nifty Noodles/ Bruised my Sneakers 8)
7/29/06 Yucaipa, CA White Rabbit Coffee Co.
I played for forty bucks to eleven people at a coffee shop last night.. it didn’t feel too good but I was doing something that I loved… it was a last minute fill in for some friends that couldn’t make their gig because of a major accident. Apparently their audience didn’t show up either… maybe that’s how they got their band name… “dead man walking”. I was looking forward to playing for people who know nothing about me and it seemed like a small opportunity to get the feel of a more realistic world view. The average man scenario.

Well nine were friends of mine who came out for fun.. and two who wandered to the back patio of this out of the way little coffee shop nestled at the foot of the local mountains.

There of course was no publicity other than “live music” on a little sign out front.

When I left I found a reason to enjoy the moment I was in… people I love were with me and a couple of new friends… Black Sheep bikers and their families… and we sat around and had some great conversation… (I got coffee and food for free) that’s called “Enjoying the moment” cause I couldn’t change much else…in fact after about forty minutes I blew a fuse on then p.a. system and couldn’t finish the night. Someone was on their cell phone telling a friend why they were on their way home so early… bryan “blew the speakers” which sounded to them like I “bruised my sneekers”… ahh cell phones… we’re not communicating…

So in this case I guess the “rabbit died”… isn’t that a sign of pregnancy? Something from the dark ages to signal a new birth? I can at least see how this experience will make a real concert more joyful than any I’ve done before this reality 8 )…. It doesn’t get much smaller than this! And I’m learning….I’m getting to travel a lot this summer and I can enjoy that or I can worry about the money that’s not coming in… I’m learning a lot about mission and what I have to do to get where I wanna go… and it’s a frustrating long road that I can’t travel if I don’t learn what I don’t know… I’ve been floundering for a while but I have to go do what is necessary and learn so I can make some kind of progress….. shiniest car in the world won’t run without those ugly looking spark plugs.. and a thousand other little parts under the hood… here’s to that overhaul 8).

Keep coming back… Bryan D

Nifty Noodles/ Radio Rehab
7/24/06 West Coast Office
I receive a few letters a week from people who are listening to radiorehab online… we’ve kept the shows in place for some two years I believe… but it’s been an expense that has not been covered financially except by the personal contribution of the webmaster James Bowles… I would be interested to hear from anyone who would like to contribute to this online effort as a personal ministry and perhaps answer the email that we receive on that website…this is just an opportunity for someone to reach out to people in recovery.

We’ve had some trouble this week with the site as the heat wave in California has caused some satellite problems for cell phones and server problems as well but I would like to see this website stay online and find ways to keep it visible. I would welcome any insights or volunteer contributions … perhaps a tithing to it… no money has ever been used for anything other than maintaining it’s presence on the web.

The summer months have been brutal this year in more than just heat… and I am looking for any opportunity to play music “outside the box” of the usual and expected venues I’ve always pursued… I just feel compelled to seek a different opportunity and avenue to the general public. Gone are the days I’ve said before where we hold a concert and expect people to come to us and so let me take it to the streets then…

I would be bored to death if my life didn’t change but in the changing there is a great deal of fear and befuddlement around how to go about pursuing a passion that won’t go away…my role has become more fully hands on with regard to “networking” with other ministries and promoters as I look for new ways to be more effective.

Pray for that continually…

O.k. so there that… continually 8) Bryan Duncan

Nifty Noodles/ Parks and Recreation
Placentia, CA 7/22/06
Danny Corea is the pastor of a small congregation in the middle of Southern California who recalls hearing my song: “Blue Skies” on the day he gave his life to Christ. “it’s not even the best song I’ve heard of yours” he adds “but it fit that moment perfectly… it was like my world opened up that day”. I played mostly for a gathering of high school agers from a collection of four smaller churches held at Kramer Park in Placentia on Friday night…it was a community center with folding chairs and plenty of “Fans” … the ones that keep the air circulating!! I opened with “I Love You So”… and everyone was on their feet from the first downbeat… I forgot how energetic teens are! They clapped and sang along in very good harmony… and the dance moves in the front two rows were worth having on stage!... I’ve never been more entertained by a crowd I was entertaining 8) ! Pastor Corea’s mom made me some fantastic home made enchilada’s to take home… I’ll be eating for a week I think!

Anyway I played mostly newer songs but as requested by the staff.. I added ‘Blue Skies” and “I Love You with my Life”…. And the feeling in the room changed. The die hard song enthusiasts broke into tears as their own memories of where they were when they first heard those songs came to life. I too felt something different in singing songs I remember from years ago… thinking about where I was when I wrote them and how I never had an idea they would have such an impact.

Songs are little seeds of hope I think… and even when I write a song for myself it always seems to resonate with someone else… this is where it’s nice to know that I’m a lot like everybody else whether you think so or not! 8) I leave for the Cayman Islands in a week… doing one concert… this is a rare time where it’ll take me a week to do one gig 8)!!!

Gotta make sure I get down there and work out all the details 8)… from the beach I imagine. Couldn’t be a better time to get away from Riverside, Ca and the West Coast Office… my air conditioning went out in a 114 degree heat spell that was near the worst on record here. we also had a small earth quake yesterday morning… a little wake up call.

O.K. so there’s THAT Bryan D

Nifty Noodles/ PE
7/19/06 West Coast Office
A few weeks ago I hired a management consultant agency out of Nashville to help me redirect my focus and find a way of rebuilding my career… it’s more like adding a wing on to your house I imagine… but I felt like I needed some help in defining my mission these days... “in the counsel of many there is safety” .. Proverbs. So I’m working with Pavilion Entertainment to try to move in some new directions with the Nehosoul Band.

Already Dez Dickerson at Pavilion has been an encouragement even in pointing out my weaknesses! He has offered some insights that have been helpful in “Redirecting my efforts”. I believe the Nehosoul band is a world class band and I need work on the development of it as such. Not to say I wanna be the biggest thing out there really. But I do want to be effective and I’m finding that my enthusiasm is falling on new venues… places I’ve never been before.

For instance on a solo level… I dropped in again on “open mic night” at Coffee Depot… this is a humbling little endeavor, playing to total strangers who really have no interest in what you done in the past. I become a “man of no reputation” to quote from a song from Rick Elias. But I went up a quietly sang four guitar tunes and three keyboard cuts…

I opened with “already in Heaven’ … a song I’ve never played in public till last night… “I don’t care if my life is worth livin” I sing “ I only hang around here to see what you might do”..

It was most commented on song I did… I followed it with “horse with no name”… “used again” and “Loving you”….then they called me up for a second set later when a keyboard showed up… I played “no Words” and “never lied to you” and “don’t help the devil”… they didn’t get the response of the guitar material but it was a fascinating experience to be on the ground floor of expectation again.

Anyway I met the promoter of “open mic” enterprises around my local area and we talked as he knows of my career and my new band… “I’m doing the entertainment for “Route 66 car show” in San Bernardino in two months… and we began to discuss the possibility of bringing the NehoSoul Band in for that event..” there’s about 300,ooo in attendance over a four day festival” he said

So this is a direction I want to pursue along with the motorcycle rallys and recovery programs. It’s a way of taking it to the streets and going where the people already are. I think gone are the days when you can invite people to an event you are having… at least for me. Playing clubs and rallys and festivals is a new adventure for me… and one I feel compelled to take.

Facing an uncertain future gives very little comfort or safety but it becomes easier to play it safe as you get older and in the long run get bored with your life… things become routine after awhile… so here’s something to be thankful for… my very circumstances in the last few years have removed any sense of the routine! I never liked that little book called “who moved my cheese” but I’m feeling like the mouse with the tennis shoes on right about now… gotta go find an audience who will appreciate what I love about music.

If yer of a mind to pray for things… pray for this… new direction and a sense of adventure..

O.k. so there’s that. Bryan D

Nifty Noodles/ Born To be Wild
7/16/06 Morro Bay, CA
There’s a little Nazarene church hidden in the back bay of Morro Bay… 12 miles toward the beach from San Luis Obispo where I pulled in to the hidden from view parking lot on a rented Harley Davidson Heritage Softail. You’d never know there were some two hundred and fifty bikers here… the parking lot was jammed with Harleys and leather clad members of the Black Sheep Motorcycle club. It’s a ministry to Harley Owners primarily and I asked Marty (slo dog) Edwards, (national president) if I might sing at their Western States Rally.

A few of the bikes of the Blacksheep

When I left home in Riverside it was closing in on a 100 degree july record breaker… but some three hundred miles later on the Central Coast of California at 6:30 p.m. the temperature was 50 degrees cooler. I couldn’t have imagined how cold that would make it on a bike without a jacket. Never the less I was more excited about this one gig than anything I’ve done all year. A chance to spend three days riding motorcycles along the most beautiful coastline in California… mostly because it has not been commercialized.. I just returned from Europe and wouldn’t have thought I could find more beautiful country but California can compete (in places).

Summers are cool here. The clouds seem to come and go on an hourly basis… you never know what yer gonna get. It’s a land lost in time… sand dunes and wild grass… manzanita bushes and scraggly looking junipers and eucalyptus trees. The roads are mostly two lane and they wind all around the bay and into the high hillsides where it looks like a scene from Little House on the Prairie”. It’s a perfect place to hold a motorcycle rally. I was late arriving as I made the trip an adventure. Sound check was a frantic five minutes before the event started. I was in a great mood and let fly with the four newest songs in my arsenal. It went over incredibly well… and my humor and commentary was received by people of like mind… yes… I’ve found people here who understand my story. My experiences were remarkably similar to many I would find out later.

I would describe Black Sheep members as “affable and independent”. Redeemed bikers with a sense of purpose! You could put most of em in a “pirates of the Caribbean” movie without any trouble at all. Their primary spark is servant hood over sermons I would say. More Light than heat if you get my meaning. ”Ministry is about walking with people through their circumstances, emotionally available beyond platitudes and advice”. Slo Dog says…and This is why I wanted to get to know them too. I’m reminded of what Oswald Chambers mentioned a few days back…”the Church ceases to be a spiritual society when it is on the look out for the development of its own organization” … but Black Sheep is none of that. Simply together to be of service to a community they understand. I love it.


EZ Rider circa 2006

I went on a “poker run” next day… where all the riders go to five stops on the map some 20 to forty minutes apart through the best countryside you can imagine… at each stop the riders draw a card from a deck of 52 and it is marked on a paper you carry with you. at the end of the run the person with the best poker hand wins a hundred dollar jackpot… well…I started out in the wrong direction and got lost… and made the first check point almost at the end of the line… the first stop I drew a five of clubs… and my friends and I rushed on to the next stop hoping not to fall behind. At the second stop I drew a five of clubs again!!! Wow how weird is that? Long story short… the third stop I drew a five of diamonds.. now I have a three of a kind! The fourth stop I drew … a five of clubs! Now I have four of a kind… and I ride to the final checkpoint after lunch at the ocean… and I draw… a five of hearts…

That’s not even a poker hand at this point … it’s Yatzee! I drew five fives… I’ve never been that lucky in my life… it’s a sign I tell you… that I’m where I’m supposed to be! 8)

I of course won the jackpot! , which I will put down on my Harley Davidson rental. I rented a bigger bike for this trip cause hey… it’s a “Harley Davidson” club and Matilda would have looked like an outcast at the Black Sheep rally… Let me say… I love this bike I’ve rented…for reasons such as possible back problems… I rode it for three days almost one thousand miles… and very little wear and tear on my joints… I’m gonna have to move up to a bigger bike someday…8)


Bryan performs for the Blacksheep 2006

Finally the second and last night I played the guitar songs “I probably Love you Delilah” and “Used Again”… told some of my own personal story with much humor added…

And did “No Words” “ Don’t help the Devil” and “Maybe I’m Amazed”… mostly I just endorsed the group and thanked em for letting me be a part of the wild at heart bunch. They were easy to be with. The real highlight though was a woman who sang a Ginny Owens song … a prayer to God that speaks of a willingness to trust… “I’ll go through the Valley if you want me to”…it was a stunning lyric that I’d never heard before… it seemed to resonate with this group too.

This won’t be the last thing I do with the Black Sheep as I look for ways to play to a new audience and find people who will resonate with my music and life as I know it… I know a biker club can look pretty intimidating in large numbers as the reputation has always been “the wild bunch” but in smaller numbers I’ve been approached a lot by people with a longing to pursue their own free spirit… and when you are open to conversation and aware of the value of another human being the motorcycle can stimulate the most wonderful connections with total strangers.

Stay tuned there’ll be pictures with this on the website soon…. and O.K. so there’s that! Bryan D

Nifty Noodles/ Norway
7/11/06 back from Norway/Sweden summer festivals
O.k. this was the longest most traveled “weekend tour” in my career! Left on Thursday and home on Monday… we traveled through Munich Germany, Goteburg, Sweden, Sandefjord, Norway and Copenhagen, Denmark. The whole Nehosoul band was with me on this and it was a travel fest! We moved so fast that my lost luggage never caught up with me and I wore the same clothes for three days which gave me a new “european” rough cut look.. as I wore a cowboy hat most of the time to cover a mop of hair that won’t behave without a blow dryer in the near future. I felt like Dr Hook!

Bryan and NehoSoul in Norway

That said. These were the greatest gigs the Nehosoul band has ever done. We played all the new songs to great crowd response. The audience was made up of mostly teenagers too, who In Europe, seem to understand the details of good music better than they do in the States. In talking to people after the shows… they were comparing us to the band TOTO, and Koinonia. “this is the best concert I’ve ever seen” one 16 year old said… “and I saw Lenny Kravitz last week end”.

The first of three shows was in a small seaside town in Sweden called Halmsted. It was indoors though and the humidity was terrific. We played to maybe a thousand standing room only campers. The lights on stage were fantastic and they had video screens and the works. The Swedish people are a good looking lot or maybe they just look a lot like me I don’t know 8). They are very polite and like the Norwegian’s, seem alittle subdued. But the response to the Nehosoul band was encouraging… everyone was dancing!

Next day was the drive from hell… left Halmstead around seven in the morning drove nearly four hours to catch a two and a half hour ferry ride across the fjord to Sandefjord. Norway, it used to be primarily a whaling village. The scenery on the trip was fantastic even through jet lagged eyes! We crossed paths with the Band Stryper at the festival as we traded gigs too by the way. From Sandefjord we drove to the Island of Risor just north of Tvedestrand. We arrived in a travel daze at about 6:30 p.m. and were told we go on at 8:30… no time to find a shower or the hotel. Within an hour though I was talking to long time friends I met some 15 years ago the first time I played the “Skjaergards” (seaside) festival. Now in it’s 26th year it is an enormous effort and perhaps the biggest Christian festival in Europe with some 700 employees and volunteers. I met other bands from the U.S. that were playing here.. Stryper, Mary Mary, and Darrell Mansfield. And local pop icon from Scandinavia named Carole…who said she’d grown up listening to my music.

The Nehosoul band was more than ready to play after the long day though and we hit the stage without much of a soundcheck. We opened with the “one player at a time” coming on to the stage jam session… first drums and then bass and guitar and keyboards and the newest addition to our sound, Sax man Tim Coleman (TC)…then I came out… “deg feignt O vara har”…good to be back in Norway…I say… and we launch into “I’m still dancin”… and then “step by step”… and “If Only I”, “second chances”…and “ I love you so” and then an extended version of “wheels of a good thing” giving everyone a chance to solo extensively. Darrell Mansfield joined us on the harmonica on this one too. It went so well the crowd of some three thousand were screaming “one more”…. Doing an encore at a festival is seldom allowed but the stage director asked us if we could do another song… and we closed with “Clap your Hands”.

It was midnight before we found the Hostel like hotel rooms.. the sun is only down for a few hours in the summer here.. and it was a beautiful full moon over the water and still light outside… a breathtaking view from our balcony. I’m not sure anyone on the Island was asleep before three a.m. . Norway is a rough “wild west” kind of country and the people here are a hardy lot, lean and beautiful with naturally rosy cheeks and shocks of mostly blond hair. Hey Remember this was the home of the early Vikings! The water is a deep blue and infiltrates every nook and cranny, colliding with a fragmented coast line and the countryside is strewn with bare rocks and dense forest. Houses are neatly manicured in a “life by the sea” style that is picture perfect. I’ll try to send some pictures when I have em….

The funniest moment in three days came on our day off when I observed Walter Finch, NehoSoul’s guitarist being approached by a woman in a car…. She rolled down her window as if to ask directions of him. “what ‘d she say” I asked him…. He looked at me with wide eyes and said “goobley goobley goobley”!.... “I don’t know what she was saying”… I laughed till I cried… it was his description of the language that was pretty close to what it sounds like for us illiterate Americans. They have an optimistic up turn at the ends of most sentences and even as you tune it out eventually in despair of knowing anything they are talking about, the language hangs in the air like trumpet vines. Most Norwegians know English as well as several other languages and here in America we get testy about having to learn Spanish.

Sunday morning we played a little unplugged set of songs at an open air closing service for the festival. On a stage in the woods nestled in a crevice, it was a stunning little piece of heaven that made you wanna worship! We played reinvented versions of “love takes time” and “Blue Skies… and I played “No Words” and “Don’t help the Devil” and talked slowly in English about gratitude!. I played “Loving You” and “Used Again” on guitar and we closed with “Maybe I’m Amazed” and “ I Love You with my Life”. For a last minute addition to our concert schedule this was a fine presentation, impromptu, that came off rather perfect!.


Sam, Walter, Ricky, Tim Coleman, Phil, and Bryan

After a Bar b que in Kregaro at the home of Morton Strand the promoter, we began the long trek home… which included another three hour drive back to Sandefjord and a hotel room there near the airport… and the only chance to shop for souvenirs. I was standing on a sidewalk in Sandefjord, Norway at eight oclock in the morning and by midnight of the same day I was back in Los Angeles, California with no luggage to wait for … and I was thankful for this opportunity to play where music is celebrated. I realize that God is bigger than a country or a social strata…bigger than one style of music and greater than a single race of humanity…capable of communicating his own love for people in any language and he doesn’t really need my help. My responsibility is simply to see him everywhere I go and let him show me a bigger picture than I know… and maybe in simply saying hi to others with a smile, I can let them know that I share a limited understanding of a power greater than myself too…

“deg feignt o vara har!”.... “it’s good to be here”…truly! “Tussen Takk” “thousand thanks”.... to the God of my understanding for giving me this opportunity!

Bryan Duncan “Soul Viking”

Nifty Noodles/ Off to Europe
7/5/06 West Coast Office...
I leave tomorrow for Sweden and Norway for a couple of festival dates in Scandinavia. It's the whole Nehosoul Band and it brings me hope that we can get things rollin even as we work on the new project. I just got the final mixes... of course you might have already heard em on "My space"... they were on there thanks to Ricky B before I could even get home with a copy.

The changes made were so minimal from the last "Draft" of the songs that I didn't really need to hear it to approve it anyway. Upon returning from overseas next week I'll get the songs to burnlounge and you can buy downloaded copies of the first four songs. It'll still take a several weeks but hopefully by summers end you can have the songs in your car or where ever.

I've made a huge mistake in allowing people to hear the demo's of songs written for this project because when we "define" the recording for presentation with the Nehosoul Band... the songs inevitably change. I've had several complaints about the differences in the same songs... this is not an exact science you know.. making music. And if you have 100 people in the room you'll have a hundred preferences.

The new project is set to be called "surprise". I think maybe I'll have to keep the next few songs quiet so I avoid having to change the record to "been there done that". All said I might need to assess the expenditure of money on remaking tunes as I find the first hearing is what people attach themselves too... I'd like to put "Demo songs" on my site at Burnlounge.com/papasoul for those who would like new songs that may never get placed otherwise... like my guitar tunes!

Oh by the way, speaking of guitars, some people were asking to hear my son's music... You can hear Devin Duncan's group on their site www.myspace.com/exteriorsdecieve ... Devin, my youngest son works at Disneyland doing hospitality and costumed characters. He plays the local coffee houses and participates in shows at Disney as well including a casting for ABC t.v. . He's quite the personality these days... scares me to see something close to myself in my 20's! 8) .... I'm deeply proud of his efforts as well...I helped him write a song with a "Peter Pan" story line ... he didn't take all my advise and his music is clearly his own so enjoy as you will with my blessing.

O.K. so there's that Bryan Duncan

Nifty Noodles/ Special Olympics
7/2/06 Ames, Iowa National Special Olympics at Iowa State University Hilton Arena
I joined Tom Arnold, Hootie and the Blowfish, the Iowa State Governor and Senators, among others, in the opening ceremonies for the first ever National Special Olympics games. I was asked to sing two of my own songs as well as the S.O. theme song, Flame of Hope. Some fifteen thousand athletes and family members were in attendance and I was the first to entertain the Participants after the patriotic presentations which included a former Tower of Power horn player, Jesse McGuire, who played an outrageous version of the Star Spangled Banner on a trumpet.

I was introduced once all the representatives from most of the 50 states filed in. (That took more than an hour)… so when I came on to sing “Climb on the Wheels of a Good Thing” I had no trouble getting the crowd jumping. “there’s never been a man, woman or child… who ever lived on this planet…. that wasn’t born…. with something to overcome” I said as I set up my other song… “it usually starts with that little voice…. in the back of your head… that says…… I’m nothing special and I have nothing to offer…. Well here’s what you say to that…Yes I am…. yes I do… and yes sir…yes I will”… I had taken the time to think through the exact wording for an introduction at this event because I tend to forget how to speak to people when there’s more than ten thousand listening… it has to be said with specific intent and said very slowly or it will be missed…. Even “how is every body?” or “get up on your feet” or “clap your hands” can be off the cuff sayings that can be bungled before a big crowd… at least for me… I kind of glaze over in front of an audience that big… I don’t see anybody at all and I tend to mumble incoherently… cause I get alittle nervous o.k.?.

So I planned out exactly what when and where I would “interject” little enthusiasms. It’s the biggest crowd I’ve played for since at least the turn of the century. I had waited in the halls since five oclock in the afternoon to come on at 9:40 and sing two songs… and then waited another hour to sing the anthem: Flame of Hope… which turned out best of all. Of Course I had “dancers” on stage with me for that one 8)…. Average age was maybe 12. … So at least I didn’t have to add any choreography of my own.

In the standing around time I got to talk with most of the band members and crew of Hootie and the Blowfish… they were all very low key and unassuming. Tom Arnold too is the most unassuming, good natured guy I’ve ever met in “show bizness”… I’d met him once before at a Superbowl a few years ago. We went through the food line together at the after party for the SF 49ers. He’s a lot like me!

I also had a chance to meet families of the athletes, the chief of Police in Ames Iowa and the entire guard of the Knights of Colombus… as well as the marines and the navy flag bearers. I got a bracelet from the “guardians of the flame”. I shared a dressing room with an Irish opera singer named Tyrnon I think… loved his accent. He looked more like a rugby player than a singer though. I hung back stage with the camera crew and the volunteers and background vocalists for other singers on the bill.

In the end there were some moving moments in highlight videos of what many of these special Olympians have overcome to do something outstanding. The organizers and team leaders too were of a kind of human fabric you just don’t see everyday… all about others… maybe more so than many in the “Christian community”.

“but for the grace of God and a variation in a chromosome or two I could be in these kids situation” one team leader told me…”I’d want someone to encourage me! “ . Two former participants spoke towards the end in slurred speech one introduced the other… saying “this is my buddy … for life… and we all need a buddy to make it through”…. It was a sweet poignant tearful moment that brought home a truth healthier people often over look . There were lots and lots of wheelchair athletes too… and behind them pushing were human saints never to be acknowledged on stage.

I was reminded here how much work goes into a few transcendent moments of inspiration.

Hats off …. To the Special Olympics and it’s organizers. Bryan Duncan

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