Part of Bryan's Band in Tupelo
Photo by Katie Allen
Nifty Noodles
Nifty Noodles/ What's Goin' On
Nifty Noodles/ Sweet San Antone
Nifty Noodles/ Corpus Revisited
Nifty Noodles/ Ride to Oceanside
Nifty Noodles/ Radio Return
Nifty Noodles/ Fine State of Mind...........
3/28/07 West Coast Office
Good news bad news… I’ve been busier this year than any in the last five I think. Good news is my accountant says there’s been an upturn in my financial status! Bad news I didn’t “anticipate” that and got slapped with a hefty tax bill this year… which of course sets me back to last year status again. I’ve had my nose to the grindstone. I used to complain about what the record company wanted me to do… and now I am the record company … and the artist.. I HAVE TOTAL FREEDOM… I get to do what ever I find a passion for…o.k. then… what is that?
I’m finding my own lack of creativity in the process. Every painting is about limiting yourself to a format.. water color, oil, pallet knife, brush.. can’t put everything in one painting! And so I’m struggling with the “surprise” record. Threw out a couple of songs cause they just weren’t pulling me in.. but on the other hand we’ve finished two songs and both are very authentic “old school” . One is a tribute to James Brown that we had to completely revamp after I spent hours listening to the Old James Brown stuff.. now “Papa Ain’t Gonna Quit’ is so authentic to JB that many I’ve played the song for think it’s a cover of his actual writing!
I also finshed the writing of a song Ricky B started over a year and a half ago… Old school sound again similar to “Rainy Night in Georgia”.. ours is called “you keep me coming back”…I love this song but it’s a recovery song done like a love song… (I say baby a lot) 8)…so there’s a little panic in my camp that I need to have a couple “overty” Christian songs… so people don’t think the “Surprise” in the new record is that I’ve abandoned my faith altogether! Well I can’t imagine people could think that but I got an email from someone yesterday who didn’t know I was a Christian at all!...
I hate having to explain myself all the time but I guess I make the general public wonder where I’m coming from sometimes.. I’m pragmatic that’s for sure and I recoil around people who are dogmatic on a theme! But Dogmatic sells in the music industry! It’s convincing and that’s what people are looking for … absolutes! We wanna feel like somebody is standing outside of the pit on solid ground and we’ll look to them for assurance even if they are completely full of … something.
That said.. I am trying to approach my own vision of my relationship to Jesus and find something ‘creative” to say about him that hasn’t been said a thousand times before .
I was complaining about this earlier in a noodle about the speaking gig I did at Azusa… well talk is cheap.. “what can you say that’s creative about God almighty?” now I’m stumped and I see my own lack of vision of him and how to describe him from my perspective.. it’s always about what he does for me and my wording is very “pedestrian”. I am not very visually descriptive really… especially when I don’t really “See” Jesus in my own head. He’s a mystery to me… a still small voice… the sun on my shoulder, behind me more than in front…Pointing out mostly…and silent except in letters.. I can see his finger! 8).. I can feel his hands on my heart… but they are faint impressions.. not dramatic immediately… subtle grazings like the breeze through my hair standing on a hill top…a faint whisper that I did not quite hear…
Wow … I’m afraid to describe that! I’ll look foolish I think..it’ll only highlight my deficiency in my relationship to him. It’s easier to talk about something people can see in their own lives.. that’s why its ‘for those who have ears to hear”…now I feel like it’s already been done better than I could do by someone else.. King David comes to mind … we steal all of his thoughts and visions in Christian circles. Too bad he didn’t copywright!!!
Anyway… I’m gonna go do some work on a new song… I’ve been listening to new neo soul by artists like D’Angelo and Erika Badu, … it’s all about sex mostly… that gets everybody’s attention doesn’t it? how do I take this somewhere else… the music I’m drawn to does have a sensuality to it… I think that’s what scares my audience sometimes… it’s an uncomfortable pairing … God and sex? The two most powerful themes in history! I’m praying for a song that is transcendent!
O.K. so look to hear “BryAngelo” on the next tune… bryan d…
San Antonio, TX
This goes down as the best concert I’ve done in the last ten years! Sound system was off the chart fantastic! Powerful and crystal clear. The show was in the Barrio, outdoors in a church parking lot… maybe five hundred or so people and open to the whole neighborhood… I was given the whole night to play as long as I wanted. I did some 22 songs I believe… lost count.
Victory Fellowship of Texas put this one on. They run a number of outreach recovery homes with an astonishing 70% success rate. Compared to the average 15 to 30% stats of most recovery programs. Don’t quote my figures here but I think that’s close…
I was still in fresh thought from last night in Corpus Christy about simply “being a friend” of the “Bridegroom”. For some reason I worried not about who might like what, in my music. This night there was no comparison’s to what is popular in music styles… everything just sounded good and the purpose in the lyrics was evident to itself. It was effortless on my part… and I was hitting vocal notes I can’t remember hitting for many years… I was also doing songs from many years ago as requested… not as perfect on those lyrics.. but there were three generations in attendance who still remember my early songs. Of course “I love you with my life” was the biggest hit…
The best thing was that my new material sounded better than ever. And it resonated with the crowd. By the middle of the third song most of the audience was free style dancing in the perfect night air under the stage lights… it’s was a spiritual mardi gra of sorts… comfortable without being ‘policed”.
San Antonio is an all night town. Everybody comes outside when the weather’s fine. I felt more “spiritual” in my presentation than ever and I was singing songs that weren’t religious sounding for the most part… I had a sense that what I am doing in a new way is being “Blessed” by God and received…not by those I might have considered but.. right here on the mean streets of the dark side of San Antonio.
Not much else to say about this night… it was the way I dream all my shows to be… effective and subliminal and I drive off into the sunset with a wonderful sense that all I’ve done my whole life leading to this day was right and truly directed by a higher power…I was satisfied and confident that I’d done my humble part…. Got a chance to take in the Famous River Walk too and circle the Alamo just ten minutes away. Had dinner with Jubal Garcia primary promoter, and some friends at Mi Tierra, an all night eatery that tops my list of favorite after concert hangs as well. There should be a pic or two to follow… of the restaurant at least.
O.K. so there’s THAT! Bryan d
3/23/07 Corpus Christi, TX
South Texas has not always been kind to me…upon arrival this weekend I began to recount some of the most interesting gigs I’ve ever done in around the country… worst gig ever was in Corpus Christi back in the late 80’s. I started one of my first solo tours here and we’d hired a sound company for the tour who could not get the system up and running in time for the first show…left three hundred people standing outside two hours past start time.
San Antonio was where the Sweet Comfort Band left for Houston on a small private plane after our truck was vandalized and we were robbed… two hours later.. we crashed that plane near Bay City, Texas. South Padre Island was also the lowest point in my early solo career for personal reasons. Don’t know why all of these memories came up. I’ve had some great shows here as well like the first time I played with the funk band.. Salvador. But somehow the ugly moments speak louder to us over time.
This time was great although it started with not being “recognized” at the airport. Victory Home… a local recovery house sent some guys to pick me up, they were armed with an old clean cut photo of me from several years ago… and they could not find that guy! 8). I arrived in all black… levi’s and tshirt with a Harley Davidson jacket on and an old beater cowboy hat I picked up in Mississppi… and a pair of sunglasses… combined with the extra six inches of hair on my head… it didn’t dawn on me… that I wouldn’t look like someone anyone was looking for.
I finally took a cab to the hotel which was right on the water… fantastic setting… didn’t hear from the promoter till nearly 8:30 pm… I was here a day early for the gig. New Life Fellowship in Corpus Christi is a satellite outreach with a recovery home and they invited me down to meet the guys there and do a local concert. Everything was first class and the presentation was well worth the early arrival.
Met a 20 something kid at sound check who was such a good dancer that I asked him to show off some moves on the song “I’m still dancin’… I even learned a few steps from him and we did a little “choreography” during the show… it was the highlight of the night.
Erick Morin has world class ability in my estimation. And I’m discovering that Christian or not… people lean in to watch fun moves…
“I wasn’t allowed to dance when I was a kid in Pentecostal church.. “ I said… “but I know that God was pleased with King David once.. and he was dancing in his underware” I finished. You just can’t dance and stay up tight! And you have to lose a certain self awareness to let go like that… the same self awareness that often stifles our spirituality.
Oswald Chambers was speaking to me specifically about this weekend… March 24th’s reading called “decreasing Into His Purpose” he talked about simply being a “friend of the bridegroom’…”if you become a necessity to a soul, you are out of God’s order”…your great responsibility is to be a friend of the Bridegroom”. “ At last they are to see the bridegroom…it is the absolute effacement of the worker, he is never thought of again”
I was worried about my presentation of new songs here at first….not real “church sounding” … but I long to be totally understood in my relationship to God. Feeling the need to explain how everything in my life ties into a relationship with God and yet doesn’t always speak directly to the simplicity of who he is in my life…but I can’t totally relate to the experiences of other believers either. New believers in recovery have an enthusiasm that I’ve lost a few times…the descriptions of their new faith sound old and tired to me frankly and I often feel the need to fill them in on the “ambushes” that await them in the Valley of the Shadow of death.
“Just be a friend” God whispered to me… and lose the self awareness! I did.. and the show might have been the most connected in recent months! I stopped by the recovery home earlier in the day and played my guitar tunes for the guys and talked of my own struggle in recovery. “giving back..is more for me than you” I said… “but I’ll tell you when you start to give to others you lose some of that self absorbed depression that drives you to seek out pain relief”
Corpus Christi this time was a painless experience!
O.k. so there’s that
3/17/07 Rushing Wind, Oceanside, CA
Fred Zariczny is a biker/preacher and national president of Bikers For Christ. Remember that wish I had to start a “biker church”… well it’s already been done… Fred started doin a bible study in a biker garage and it’s turned out to be a full time position! I was honored to be asked to come play a Saturday night concert at the official church site… they call it Rushing Wind. (I’m sure they’re not talking about the sermon) 8)
“I’m comfortable around Hells Angels” Fred said… “it’s golfers that scare me” 8) . and the ‘church goers’ here? well I expect they remind me of the original apostles… like fishermen these guys are rough cut and genuine from the first bear hug!
It was standing room only.. bikers don’t sit still very well either… gotta be movin around I think! There were a hundred bikes in the parking lot. At least 20 rode down with me, from the Inland Empire and Riverside chapters of Black Sheep and Bikers For Christ. It may be my most coveted endorsement.. havin guys ride with me to a gig or two. The Inland Empire Black Sheep Chapter had some cancelled plans and joined the Riverside group for breakfast Saturday morning to start the day off. I was euphoric with the fellowship… we met at Toms Farms at a little Mexican restaurant, next to a petting zoo.. and I wish I had pictures of all the bikers standin around the Petting Zoo 8)… there’s a lot of jokes floatin around about the movie “wild hogs”… “so that’s the name of your little gang?” an outlaw biker says in the movie.. “yep a doodle” was the answer… Saturday morning it was dozen Black Sheep petting the baby goats! And a wild chicken or two.
At least half of that morning crowd reassembled on the east side of Riverside around three p.m. for a perfect 70 degree ride to Oceanside…71 miles away. An hour and a half before the service/concert.. most of the bikes were already in the parking lot. The camaraderie starts long before the meeting does. The sound was great from the opening lines of the new material… “what a difference a week makes” I said at one point … last week I was in Mississippi singing for coat and tie wearing southern Baptists and this week there’s more leather in the room then the cows could provide that I herded in that pasture in Florence.
I gotta say here that in the last few years… I’m lovin all God’s children regardless of there style. It seems God continues to show me what I’m missing in my estimation of people. Falling into the same trap we all do of judging the book by the cover… I think we all fear being “unacceptable”. Last week was a trip to an older congregation who’s form of worship was very traditional. And God reminded me that the older generation feels like their ways are slipping away with the incoming audience… as I know from experience with the high school kids… my music is not what is hip in younger circles sometimes… and I feel like I’ve lost the edge and I’m not willing to change much.
This week I heard the insecurities of the biker community who want to be who they are and follow Christ as they know him… still knowing that they don’t fit the “Christian” look. There’s a patch I’ve seen on many biker vests that says “these ARE my church clothes”… signifying the awareness that this is not what is expected… but ain’t that just like God himself to put all kinds of fellowships together. I’m lookin back at my resentments of the ‘Over enthusiastic” believers that have cut me emotionally because I wasn’t in the same place…. And God said to me on the cold ride back home… “not everyone has the luxury to be skeptical like you do”… in desperate circumstances we’re sometimes forced to grab a hold of any sanity we can find… for some that may mean a dogmatic insistence that what they know is right!
Well I’m comfortable enough to know I’m not right most of the time… I’m just trusting someone whom I think is… he’s the power greater than myself that I surrender too (eventually) 8)….I have embraced more immediate joy in the moments in recent years and a better attitude in recent months out of my own desperate need to find the right pursuits.
Because I need the hope that I’ve often scoffed at in the past, I’ve had to let go of some of my own sarcasm.
This weekend on motorcycles was my birthday wish come true and the fellowship was the icing on my cake! Rushing Wind was a blowing out of the candles on it !
I look forward to returning.
O.K. so there’s that! Bryan D
3/13/07 San Gabriel, CA
Now that a Chaplain in the Navy (Jon Settlemoir) has been handed the keys to a radio station in Iraq with plans to put Radio Rehab on the air four times a week, I decided it was time to start finishing what I started six years ago. My plan was to offer 52 weekly shows of musical encouragement for recovery. I met David Rowe again for the first time at his new studio that I have dubbed “The Wood Shed”. After dusting things off… we down loaded the music into protocols and delivered the first line of every show like always… “THIS… IS THE ROAD TO REDEMPTION”… and for the next four hours we put together shows number 43 and 44…On the “Responsibilities of Happiness”.
My comments felt too wordy but the music was grand. And it felt good to be doing something I’ve always loved… talking over the music bed mostly. Here’s an excerpt from show number 44:
“I’ve discovered that most of my unhappiness has been a result of depending on other people to make me happy… it’s not their responsibility… imagine that… I have another messed up thought process.. I can see a lot of people standing in the way of my own Reasonable happiness…it’s time to change course…cause there are some basic rules of responsibility I must accept as my own… and that’s what we’re gonna be lookin at again this week…. I am responsible to find my own interests…”
The music under this is of course screamin funk music!. I once did a whole series of shows on the Serenity Prayer but the one line that says “so that I may be Reasonably Happy always bothered me… I wanted to know alittle more about how to maintain that practically.
These shows don’t come across as “spiritual” in their content but I am trusting that it brings an insight built on a spiritual foundation to begin with.. I’m assuming you’ve heard the previous shows before you reach this one but if not I still think there’s a knot at the end of this rope to hang on to…
I had to leave before David could finish balancing everything out so I haven’t heard how they come off but it was like old times doing the show and the ebb and flow of my delivery and David’s producing was in harmony… I know it won’t fall below a certain level of professionalism and I’d like to say that is above any “Recovery” oriented shows I’ve ever heard.
Stay tuned.. and look for the shows to appear on line at Radio Rehab. Com.
O.k. so like I say at the end … “KEEP COMING BACK”… bryan D
3/11/07 Tupelo, Miss
Jason Palmer is a drummer I met in Hollywood a few years back who bought a grocery store and moved to Mississippi. Trouble is he’s still aggressively passionate about funk music. He asked me to come up to his church. The Orchard is famous around these parts for the music talent. “people talk about this church all the way to Memphis” someone told me.
It was a four hour drive to arrive at five and I knew Jason was putting a band together to play some of my songs… but, I wasn’t prepared for the festivity… no less than 15 people on stage! Two of everything almost and the entire event was video taped by Jason’s wife Anne … she’s the video director for the Orchard. She told me of a presentation she did called “pimp my church van”! I haven’t seen it but I like the way she thinks! 8)
Nifty Noodles/ Missing in Mississippi
3/9/07 Jackson Mississippi
“thars a hump inna road n I rekin a fella’s fixin ta haf ta scrape hiss” … was just one of the phrases I heard here… I waited for an interpretation! which was just as entertaining! “Yu ought notta make fun o the way em air faulks tawk”…8)…
Something about Mississippi that makes you wanna adopt that southern drawl…it’s my second time back with youth pastor Scott Heron and upon leaving the airport I was already pickin on his accent. We were still laughin about things from last years “disciple now” event. There’s a camp ground outside of Florence an hour or so away from the nearest airport where I’ll spend another two days with sixty teenagers. Scott may be the only youth director that sees the value in having me around kids that are clearly forty years younger than I.
With anyone else maybe I’d be nervous about playin my music for this age group. “Christian Music has a lot of praise style and rock style groups but this guy is one of the few soul singers” is how he introduced me. I had the freedom to do what I do. “Mr Bailey’s Daughter” and “Holy Rollin” were bigger hits even than my new stuff. And I played Short People for the first time since these kids were born. They liked it but didn’t remember the original song!
Nifty Noodles/ Michigan Again.........
Nifty Noodles/ RR Re-entry
Nifty Noodles/ Local Loco's
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3/3/07 Monroe Michigan
The snow is blowing sideways and there’s ice out on the lake. “we’re starting to catch the scent of spring in the air” Randall Hartman said… He’s the pastor of Monroe Church of the Nazarene and a Motorcycle enthusiast… (and obviously an optimist too)…. He’s started a Celebrate Recovery at his new pastorate in Monroe, it’s the hometown of General George Custer, I saw the statue!… hey the perfect icon for the unmanageability of our circumstances.
“I’m addicted to food” he stated flatly the night of the concert…he’s lost 80 pounds he said since starting a 12 step program. He sold 1500 pounds of motorcycle too in an earnest decision to become debt free. (“I think I would give up my mortgage before my bike payments” I joked. My bike hasn’t become unmanageable yet! 8)
I’m not sure all of his constituents are making the connection with 12 steps in church here. They were really quiet as he spoke of the need for Recovery…they’re just now getting “Dial Up” on the internet 8). I tried to clue people to Radio Rehab on line and found several folks on Sunday morning after the Saturday concert saying they were having trouble with the website… well… yea…dial up aint gonna help you recover!. Adds a whole new meaning to “keep coming back”…8).
I stayed for Sunday morning to sing a couple of songs and then again for about 60 high school kids on Sunday evening. There was a lot of hang time here. I milled around in the lobby mostly and got a real feel for the folks. Yes there is a real need for recovery.. one woman spoke of losing her son to an overdose. And several other stories of family dysfunctions were discreetly shared. Everybody has relatives and there’s always a rub.
I told the “youth group” Sunday night… “I know you all watch yourself around adults…but most adults are afraid of you”…”they’re afraid yer gonna turn out like they did”! “That’s why there’s so much do as I say and not as I did”.” I’m here to tell you that you can know Christ and still find addictions… cause God never takes your will away from you… and he never begs you to follow his plan or surrender to his will…” that said… “he knows what yer gonna do before you do it… so he can’t possibly be disappointed in you either”…”So there’s a load off”…” yer free to surrender to his will when ever you arrive at your conclusion.. but it’s still a daily decision that has to be worked out”
I can only hope that I didn’t come off as a pontificating blowhard.. or a science teacher… I tend to worry about being approved of even as an adult. I sung mostly the new tunes.. hoping they might connect with my music… “I’m still dancing” went over well… and I danced home after two days in 24 degree weather at night… it was a balmy 74 degrees when I got off the plane in California… and I made a bee line for Jezebel. It felt like true “entitlement”.
I left Randall Hartman in the trenches of his calling. First to God and himself, and then his family and on to those around him…keep dancing…it’ll keep you warm in the cold. 8)
O.k. so there’s THAT! Bryan d
West Coast Office 3/1/07
David Rowe and I are getting together March 13th to record two new shows for Radio Rehab after a three year hiatus!
Upon my divorce I stopped recording Radio Rehab shows. A lot of things contributed really… the need to address the details of “dismantling”… “changing the things I can”…and finding new responsibilities in living alone were all part of the equation but at the source…. I felt that maybe I needed to take a break from my contributions of pat answers… things needed to be looked at for me personally.
There’s a point for all of us I think where we need to check our surroundings and make some new determinations and ask for our own directions. I didn’t feel lost really (sad maybe and definitely desperate)… but I certainly wasn’t recognizing the scenery either!
Anyway the point I’m making here… is that with the recent addition of Radio Rehab airing in Iraq… I went back and listened to the shows… and I was inspired again to finish what I started… my goal was to have a years worth of shows…52! Weekly presentations.
I’m loving the finding of songs that fit recovery… it’s always been an encouragement to me first! I forgot that. As I began to look for ways for the show to be “Successful” on a career level… I got discouraged and I lost interest.
But lately I’m pursueing the shows simply for what I need to look at for myself… and if it contributes to someone else’s sanity… well then that’s just a plus. My curiosity has fallen to what “reasonable happiness” looks like. And so I’ve decided to do some shows on “The Responsibilities of Happiness”. No body really talks in those terms. It’s the details and the step by step process of being happy!.
I have some experience about that now and the way my pursuits have changed my own attitude. The “sink or swim” reality of my own hardships as served to light a fire under me… I’ve found a real sense of worth and accomplishment in finding my own way. My attitude has changed with my own sense of purpose!... and so we’ll begin again… with show number 43! “I am responsible to NOT act out of obligation”… and show number 44… “I am responsible to find my own interests”…
Found some great funky songs to use from Ben Harper and Eric Clapton and old friend…Vince Ebo… others include the NehoSoul Band, Ginny Owens, Joe Cocker, Paul Thorn, Average White Band, and Aquarium Rescue Unit! It’s mostly upbeat funk tunes that I’m loving… and I have to go outside the CCM box to find that kind of music. The shows are less “spiritual sounding” but I think the message is there in a more practical way. We’ll see…
O.k. So there’s that…. Bryan D
Colton, CA 3/29/07
For the last three years I’ve dropped by a little Recovery program In the city of Colton. In the basement of a Baptist church I would sing to around 17 soul survivors in recovery. Well this year they moved up stairs and across the parking lot… to a new “youth” facility. I discovered that at least 20 or so Black Sheep and Bikers’ for Christ riders were goin to this church all along. And they rolled up on all sides of the parking lot upon seeing the announcement in the bulletin. Everyone of em guys I’ve met in the last six months or so without realizing their church affiliation!. Wow small world… but getting bigger.
I rode in on Jezebel and James rode his bike with me. This time there was more like 50 people at the meeting. I was in a euphoric, almost too happy, mood this night. “God is doing for me what I cannot do for myself” I blurted out at the beginning. I remember now why the happiness… I was given my tax bill earlier in the day and upon further revue found some discrepancies that cut the number in half … and I sold Matilda, My first motorcycle, on the same day … just enough to cover my taxes with some to spare! Seemed like a “God’s Timing” thing.
Plus, I recognized the support from friends I’ve gained in the past few years, mostly from recovery and biker communities … a rebuilding of my own community again. Rick Thomson, the drummer from my Sweet Comfort Band days also paid a surprise visit as did a former Word records exec both had just heard I was singin locally.
I was really seeing my own true recovery coming to me as I have made the effort to give back to others… and I talked about how the working of step 12 “giving back to others” has been changing my attitude and perception of purpose. It hasn’t happened overnight though… I was in a treatment facility in 1990! Let’s see it’s been 17 years getting to this little bit of euphoria. But this was a uniquely new feeling this evening and I was remarkably grateful.
There’s something about watching all the motorcycles pull up… coming to hear me sing that makes a loud announcement of support .. like I’ve never quite heard before. It was probably there before too but a bike makes itself known in a bigger way 8).
O.k. so there’s that…on Thursday… Bryan D