March 9, 2008

Posted by: Doug

This has been a busy month for TLP.  We have been cranking out several new tunes and finishing up others.  We were stymied a bit by Fil's computer crash in Italy, but he is back on track and able to record once again.

Paul Wheeler had a slight interruuption because he went and got married.  Can you imagine placing that as a priority over recording? 

Bob Johnson and I brainstormed an idea to do a medley of a couple of Grover Washington tunes.  We are working on Mr. Magic and Winelight.  Bob's sax style lends itself well to this project and I must say that these tunes will stand out amongst the many TLP songs.

Rob Denton and I have been at this a long time.  I'm surprised that we continue to find ways to approach recording from different angles, but we have, and that's a good thing.  Rob's signature sound is elemental in the TLP concept.

Doug Jenkins, our PR man, has discovered a new ProgRock band called Dante that he's pretty excited about.  We have set up a link to the group's site here.

February 13 ,2008

Posted By Doug: (a response to an e-mail I received)

There was one ray of hope in the (2008) Grammy Awards. Herbie Hancock taking Album of the Year was a real coup. Jazz over Country, Rock, and Rap? Gee, what'll happen next? I suppose we'll hear people whistling in 7/4 time.

As an Independent Musician and producer, I can tell you that the marketing model that exists today virtually shuts us down. Small genre musicians work like crazy to just try to recover their costs. Somehow we need to educate the listeners out there that there is more available than the drivel they hear on the Top 40 radio (sometimes it feels like it's top 6 or 7 radio with how much they overplay stuff). A good location for exploring alternate genres is Live 365.com. Out of my own pocket I run a Live 365 radio Station that costs me about $225 a year to maintain. I do it so I can direct people to a location that features Jazz Fusion material, and to promote our own music. You can visit the site at www.live365.com/dmillaway.

In addition, being an independent, I maintain a website for our group at www.thirdlevelmusic.com. This is also an expense to me as well, both financially and in time commitment. On that website we promote our newest CD "Connected" as both a physical product at $8.99 and as a digital download at $3.99 in order to make things available to the public at a reasonable cost, and to help us defray some costs. (Not even close.)

So, my advice, mantra, words of wisdom, whatever you want to call it is this: Bag the industry and support the Independents that are creating and playing the music you love.

February 11 ,2008

Posted By Doug:

My main project for the past few days has been to revamp the website and get it up to speed.  This newest addition is a blog that I hope will be updated frequently to allow visitors to learn what we are up to.  We will also use the blog space to let visitors link to works in progress such as tunes like Groove 101 that we just recently finished up. 

The Dungeon Dweleer references a paper newsletter that I published 20 years ago when I lived in Detroit Lakes, MN.  There weren't as many of us with home studios at that time, and of course the quality of productions was far from what we can do today.  We still had fun, and I still have some of those old newsletters buried in my studio.

We are currently working on another tune called Metamorph.  As we progress through that tune I will post updates.