Nifty Noodles/ Night before Thanksgiving
11/22/06 San Diego
I think it's important to remember that Thanksgiving comes before Christmas!
Giving is always more authentic when it comes with genuine gratitude and a thankful heart. Not sure if I ever made a note of it on the calendar. Maranatha Chapel has bible study rain or shine and the holiday doesn't come first. But because this was the day before TG the head guy, "pastor Ray" , bequeathed the opportunity to his son to deliver the insight. I expected the size of the crowd to be smaller but in reality... not so much!. Of course several in the crowd were visiting from other states this evening. Regardless this might be one of the biggest mid week Bible studies around. you can go on line and watch it at www.maranathachapel.org . nuff said... I played five songs. Took a chance here and sung "Christmas comes but once a year" a rockin blues tune. It's a way laid back community in San Diego almost sleepy in it's function. Not sure that Prozac isn't passed out before the event. 8)

I know I fell into a good mood from outta nowhere. I was on autopilot to a certain degree but hey ... I was thankful to be playin somewhere. I'll be back here in two weeks too... to stock up on Christmas cheer. I was back in Riverside before the cock crew thrice.

O.k. so there's that Bryan D.

Nifty Noodles/ Wool Gathering Weekend
West Coast Office 11/20/06
Monday for me is like the end of the week really… it feels like Friday after a long work week. Seems like life is just one series of campaigns after another. Finding a focus point.. pushing the agenda…and then starting over again. I get home and clean out the fox hole and prepare to defend against the “incoming barrage”. I look at the calendar and it’s Thanksgiving week already… now why does that not feel like a relief?… Thankfulness… gratitude… I look around at how many friends and family members I’ve left in the wake of my own “campaigns”. It’s nearing the end of the year… haven’t seen my parents since June and my kids? Six months maybe? Or was that a phone call we had… it’s been over a year since my grandmother died.. and two uncles too… I’ve been living alone for two years and one month... two people have visited in the last 8 months…truly the human race is a scattered flock of sheep.. all grazing somewhere… in search of greener pastures I suppose…me? I need to be sheared! The weight of my own overgrowth is pulling me down… where’s the shepherd? Where’s my flock for cryin out loud… how’d I end up in this thicket? I can’t even hear a sheep dog.

I clean house as a matter of regathering my own thoughts… my house is pretty tidy mostly because my thoughts are so unraveled… I lost my Oswald Chamber’s pocket devotional… had it for six years.. read it everyday… it was covered in duct tape and underlined till you couldn’t read it anymore… I can get another one… but that one was like my “Flack jacket”… it’s been through a lot of “campaigns” with me…pock marked and burned around the edges… I slump in a garden chair on my patio and groove to the click of the washing machine…my ears are ringing…Cried last night at a part in a chic movie where the woman was talking about her love of a new adopted family and I realized I needed one. Watched the discovery channel and learned about the community of Elephants and how they don’t survive well on their own…I feel the weight of a pachyderm on my chest in the dim light of a candle in my apartment too tired to make a phone call… I hate regrouping… my thoughts wash in around me and I consider the value of my efforts. I’m pretty sure I’m in a parallel universe! I’m on the wrong side of the glass again.

I rode a filthy Matilda Saturday morning and Sunday afternoon... hundreds of bikers around… and clubs… and still there is a tired kind of loneliness… it feels like waiting for a new vision… bikers are an anxious lot… don’t stay in one place long. Spent three hours on bikers alley at Toms Farm in Lake Ellsinore Sunday. If I was here every week end I’d probably know everybody… same guys come through… weekend bikers are all shiney… their bikes immaculate show pieces… it’s a parade through the parking lot mostly… there’s an awful band playin on the back patio… singer sounds like Burl Ives! But these guys are singin and I’m not … go figure.

I haven’t reached my goals for the year… but there has been more thanksgiving this year than any one before it! I don’t need a holiday for that but the day comes in hope of gathering with some definition of “family”. I’m borrowing one this Thursday… it might be happier cause I don’t know their issues as well 8)….my kids are both working… one paramedic and one “Entertainer” at Disneyland, holidays are work days for them! I’ll be thankful for the rest I’m gonna get this week and next I suppose as soon as the fog clears… right now I’m tryin to fold clothes in the spin cycle!!!!

O.k. so there’s a side of me you don’t see often… Bryan D.

Nifty Noodles/ From Pittsfield to Warsaw...............
11/10/06 Pittsfield, Mass. The Pittsfield Colonial theater wins the award for best venue I’ve played in for the last decade! 21 Million dollars in renovations said the manager. (where do they get that kind of money). Clean back stage as I’ve ever seen and roomy too. The sound was very nice even with a nominal keyboard, I had a great time at this one. Sponsored by Amira! She’s a long time fan and a transplant from California. She did more work than promoters often do.

The Pittsfield Colonial Theater
Photo by Bryan Duncan

I guess the only way to get into New England is to come in with someone who’s moved there from elsewhere. I can count the number of gigs I’ve done in Massachusetts on one hand. This was by far the most rewarding experience. With several car loads of people driving three hours down from Vermont, as they had been involved with the concert up there a month ago. So.. it was something of a love fest. More like a meet and greet with friends really. The show was intimate and professional at the same time. I felt more like Santa around all the kids my new friends seem to have. I think a third of the audience might have been under the age of 12! 8)… nothing like starting over from scratch with that “looking for a new audience” thing.

Arlo Gutherie lives near here. I was hoping to meet him but alas he’s never heard of me. He’s playin here next week though and I wished I could hang around for that. New England isn’t a big “R&B” capitol so even with posters up all over town the audience was relegated to die hard believers looking for some fortification. The neighborhood religion here comes with a healthy dose of pragmatism I believe. And CCM has never blossomed up here. “It was refreshing” said one person to another, I was told later.

I also met a few members of CMA (Christian Motorcycle Association) who had a booth in the back. And there were some folks doing missionary work in Africa who presented a pitch in the middle of the show. I did a 50 minutes set on the front half of a break following a rare female blues guitarist named Robin on stage. I returned after “half time”… to play the guitar myself in the highlight moments of my presentation I think and I finished with the new NehoSoul cuts not yet released. The encore was some requested tunes from fans… Yes I will and Love Takes Time…

I’m glad I took time to feel the love in new England… it’s been a long time coming.

11/11/06 Elkhart, IN
After sleeping for five hours in a chair at the airport because my flight was cancelled. I finally showed up in South Bend with an hour drive to Elkhart Indiana for a concert at Trinity Methodist Church. Arriving 30 minutes late I went on after they flipped the “Sermon” portion of the evening with me to give me time to at least brush my hair out of my face and hit the “Restroom”. That was the extent of the rest too. I was mind numb from the thumping I received changing planes in Chicago and absolutely distracted to the hilt. I had trouble finding a good pace. I kept noticing how many here were actually older than I was! 8). I tried to keep the music mellow. The stage was completely hard word flooring and it was a very “live” sounding room.

I talked too much perhaps and found myself talking too much like I was already the recipient of spiritual sanity and we all know that’s a crock! I was pointing out a number of defects in others as I tried to speak of my own struggle. That’s never good. But later I heard back that at least one comment was received by a few. “you can be saved” I said “ but it doesn’t mean that you are fixed”… speaking of my own ability to find compulsive behavior even as I know Christ. “our people are pretty healthy” the pastor commented after the show. He might have thought, as I talked a lot about “recovery” that I might have come in with a special “word” from the lord about his congregation… NO… in fact I think I lost the hot line to Jesus back in Chicago Ohare…

I was back on Sunday morning for a special event week for this same church with all services brought together for one big service. I was a little more prepared this morning.

And I actually sat through the service in the front row… a real miracle! It was a great insight for me into how these people communicate with each other.. very stayed but warm and easy laughter is acceptable. I was able to attach a few jokes directed at the pastor as he finished and it was well received from his followers. You can trust people who can laugh at themselves! It might be the best sign of spiritual balance. The Pastor’s name is Mark Finstermacher!... now theres a mouthful… he goes by pastor Mark under good advice!.

I presented my music as reverently as I could here. knowing that just maybe my screaming material might not be appreciated… I opened with if you pray for me and I surrender all… and then Maybe I’m amazed…. I ended somewhere around A heart like mine… and Second chances. I made a mess of the Nehosoul Christmas tunes as I picked the songs with my vocal already on the tracks.. had to reset that in the middle of the show… that’s always attractive and professional. But I gotta say after all the songs I’ve done… “This Chirstmas and Peace and Silent Night sound absolutely radiant. I sold all the Christmas CD”s too by the way as well as everything else I brought. So you can’t judge a church by the sign out front!

DR. Finstermacher and his wife drove me an hour to Warsaw Indiana after lunch and the conversation was as insightful and relaxed as any I’ve had.

11/12/06 Warsaw, Indiana
As long as I was close I agreed to stop by for a visit to my booking agency’s home town… Streetlevel Artist agency operates out of this unassuming little village. I toured the new offices on a downtown street. Had lunch, hung out at Holly Benyouski’s house and watched football all afternoon Sunday and burned a fire out back at night and watched the icicles form on my breath. At least the air was breath taking!.

I agreed on Monday morning to sing for the local Christian high school chapel service. I haven’t played for a group of High School students in nearly ten years I think. I’m scared of teenagers really! It’s hard to tell if they like you cause they can’t show enthusiasm for much when they are all together as that might not be ‘Cool’. 8). But upon arrival I found everyone dressed in their pajamas’ for school spirit week. O.k. how pretentious can you be if yer wearing yer pajamas!!! The kids were attentive and I was honest.

“this song is called no words… it’s an unfinished song…. Kinda like yer homework I imagine”…. Was the way I addressed this group. That went over well… “ I imagine yer hearing a lot of what you should do concerning spiritual life” I added later… “I’m not here to tell you anything really… just that you are worth coming to see… and you get to make decisions about your life for yourself that I believe you’ll work at”…” just know that every decision good or bad comes with a sacrifice and God never takes away your will to choose”. I left it at that and they liked the new NehoSoul tune “I love you so”… a song I didn’t have the nerve to do yesterday in Elkhart! They were calling out “one more song”.. when I left…”I think they are just trying to avoid math class” I told one of the teachers…8)… but it was nice to know that I made a good impression with the “soon to be adult crowd”.

O.k. so there’s that… and the trip home was a twelve hour nightmare through O'Hare in Chicago again missed another flight… it’ll take me another three days to recover from this past five days… but well worth the effort in every way.

Oh I also presented Pam Kistler with a plaque at the show in Elkhart for 15 years of service as my booking agent. Thanks Pam… for putting up with my BS! (that’s bright smile btw) 8)

Bryan D

Nifty Noodles/ Back to Patrona
11/07/06 Patrona Studio, Riverside, CA
Took Matilda to Patrona this morning to put a lead vocal on song number six for the Surprise project that I wrote with Bob Carlisle for the NehoSoul Band.

Man if it’s possible this is a dance-ier tune than “I’m still dancing”…(reminiscent of Sly and the Family Stone’s tune “thank you for letting me be myself”)… “Chains” is so funky after Walter Finch laid down his Guitar tracks that I had to add a few new lyrics to accommodate the funky bridge… it’s like a “B” section AFTER the Chorus.. (B sections usually lead up to the chorus). Any way the last of four lines of this section came to me as I was on the mic… singin it down… the song is called chains….and the bridge has these grunts and groans (james brown style) as I sing “break”… “come on ..break”… while the band cracks down hard on the groove… and the added lyrics go:

“take more than cutting on these round little things…

ain’t got no metal file.. ever gonna break these rings..

still hooked to somthin… locked around my brains….

Ain’t broken nothin but my heart around these chains…”…

and then there’s a little back ground ”call and response”, “groans” …”Uh huh”…. “Un huh”. …. I know yer not getting the picture here… but man I walked out after just a few hours… and I could not stop dancing to this tune!

Patty Cabrera once again recorded the vocal with me… and once again captures a great sound on the track… also suggested the “groan” idea… The song was supposed to fade out eventually but the cold ending is fabulous… we even left in an off the mic comment I made after the last take..”ahh that’s nice!”..

I gotta say… my “Happiness factor” goes up 200% when I’m in a creative place!!!! I was born to do this… don’t care who’s listenin… I was born to do this…I just wish people could feel the electricity of “light bulb moments” in the studio …cause it fades quickly… like finding a better way to tag the sentiment at the end… original rough draft was “ain’t one thing broken but my heart about these chains”… and after singin it for a while.. realized there was a better way to fit it in to the track… “ain’t broken nothing… but my heart around these chains….”

The difference was amazing to the song…. I was feeling it all today… about how heart broken I’ve been over the things that have held me back… like the song says…”brain things”… the way I think about myself and the way I often see the world and the people in it….

I can’t fix everything but it’s sure nice to put yer finger on where it hurts… feels kinda good!.... and so does this song!

O.K. so theres’ THAT…. Bryan D

Nifty Noodles/ Belly of the Goose
11/04/ 06 McMinnville, Oregon
The Nehosoul band converged on McMinnville Oregon for a Celebrate Recovery state wide summit. Some of my friends flew up on their own as well to see the band “live” in the United States for the first time since… well when did we play here last? I’d have to look it up now... oh yea it was Pueblo Colorado.. we’ve been involved all year in getting the Surprise record recorded.

Dave Mendenhall was the man to make the band decision. “I’m on sabbatical” he kept saying when I was up there. He is rather unassuming and easy going But I couldn’t see how he wasn’t still in charge of things. He’s the state Rep for Celebrate Recovery programs which have gone from 13 to some 40 plus programs around the state in the last year. I agreed to come up for a local meeting and sing on Thursday just to promote the band show. Ricky B joined me early and the Thursday night regular Recovery meeting was nearly a full house on it’s own. I played a full set of songs which only included one song scheduled for the band concert at the same location on Saturday night. I gave my “Testimony” of recovery… it’s a newer version of my story which is including a more positive outlook on recovery. Even I am seeing how my attitude has changed about the things I’ve been through as I have made more of an effort to give back to others as a result of working the 12 steps. I also am working at making Radio Rehab more visible as a free source of help in Recovery.

We had the day off on Friday so we went to the local airplane museum with our friends: James, Rich and Veronica. McMinnville is a town small enough for the map to fit legibly on a letter sized sheet of paper and get all the street names. But it is now home to the largest Sea plane ever built. The “Spruce Goose” built and flown once by Howard Hughes makes it’s home here… I had to go see it.. it was nearly across the street from where we were staying.

Bryan, Ricky, Rich, and James on the Spruce Goose
Photo by Veronica Davis

Spent most of the day in the museum. I was fascinated, they had planes from the earliest days of aviation to a recent lunar landing module in a life size replica. We got a few pictures .. and there was one taken from the inside of the Spruce Goose that was so cool we got the idea to use a slide of it as a backdrop on the huge computer screen at the church where NehoSoul was to play the next night. I still haven’t seen the picture but I’m sure it will show up with this noodle on line…


Bryan in McMinnville with the Belly of the Goose in the background
Photo by Veronica Davis

It’s been raining all day every day since we got here but Saturday was the worst of it. The rest of the band drove in from Seattle. Four hours north of here. By 2:30 we were set up and running the set list to refresh our memories and cue four local singers who offered their services for the show. I had picked a few songs for them to learn. But these girls (Shari, Petra, Vanessa, and Angie) were so good that I gave em all the tunes we were doin and they did the whole show with us. They were right on time. We did have one minor scare as the tiniest of girls (Vanessa) passed out during the show…. No it wasn’t cause she was excited to be singin with us 8) … she is expecting her third child and I think should have been sitting through the solo sections. The band took a long solo during “I Love you with my Life” while I went back to check on her. I never saw anything of the incident but I was afraid she might have fallen off the back of the stage riser.

I was assured that she was fine and being attended by a medical professional who was at the show.

It left us one short on vocal parts right as we approached the two Christmas tunes we had chosen to highlight with the girl singers… “Silent Night” and “This Christmas” still came off wonderful and the girls demonstrated a recovery of a different kind… adjusting to compensate. We played to a great response from the audience and we added the first four of now six songs nearly completed for the NehoSoul Surprise project. There is a strong difference in the energy and attitude of this new material. It’s happier lyrically than most of my old songs but it sounds “tougher”, “meaner” and more “street savvy” I think… but it fits the recovery themes perfectly as rare “non praise and worship” kind of material. Something you can hardly find in Christian music circles these days.


Bryan & The NehoSoul Band in McMinnville Oregon
Photo by Veronica Davis

It was an hour and a half presentation with an hour and a half of time spent signing records and talking to people afterward.. man by the end of this day… I felt like a bug on the windshield of the Spruce Goose. I thought the band looked pretty sharp… Sam went through about six sticks on this show…. During his solo I was throwing the broken ones into the audience. Stage looked great and the sound was nearly perfect. I called a special friend on stage at the intro of “I Love You So” and left my phone on through the whole song. I wasn’t the only one holding up a phone as a way to invite people to the event that couldn’t make it either.. I noted several attendee’s holding up their cell phones… of course calling someone is one of the first things I learned in the recovery process to stay out of isolation and talk through the temptations to give up the fight for sanity and sobriety. I mentioned none of this of course but I think the example was set in a fun way… and I had the chance to “entertain” myself at the same time.




Phil, Bryan, Ricky, Walter and Sam Signing Autographs
Photo by Veronica Davis

I’m learning to make the best of my every moment of life these days. I look for ways to make my odd “Routines” of life more enjoyable. And I’m meeting people around the country that I share a real bond with as a result of finding what I truly believe and find interesting. It was great to see the band members again… I’ve missed the hang time with them.

After the show, Phil Curry played us the latest recorded update on the song “Chains” with Walter Finch’s fantastic new guitar tracks and the whole band stood around the rental cars and danced to the new best tune on the record. Although that’s gonna be hard to pick in the end. Tuesday I will go to Patrona Studio in Riverside to lay down the vocal for song number six. It will be the replacement song I think for the “Wheels of a Good Thing” jam session we do currently and it’ll give Ricky B a chance to really shine as well.. the bass track is off the hook.

O.K. so there’s that… wish you coulda seen my boys up there on the stage at this one… it was a night to remember!.... Bryan D

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