All the best to everyone for 2011, and I hope everything you’re working toward comes to fruition this year.  I’m sure many people made New Years resolutions to work on improving one thing or another, and since it happens to be New Years Day, you can get away with it, but how about this… starting now, what if you treat every single day like it’s New Years?  That way any day can be the day you start working harder to accomplish your goals.

You don’t have to wait until a New Year begins to start working on something.  You just have to start.

I never got to meet Joe Strummer, but one time I was at a bar in Toronto and saw this guy who looked exactly like him – he was standing there, hanging out by himself, having a drink.  I was almost going to ask him if he was Joe, but didn’t feel right about it.  What the hell would Joe Strummer be doing here by himself, right?  Turns out, The Mescaleros had played a show earlier that night at another bar down the road, and it actually was him.  I missed my chance, and not long after that he passed away.  That was eight years ago on this day, Dec 22, 2002 and that’s my Joe Strummer story.

Regardless, no matter what type of musician you are, you should know about The Clash.  Great songs, incredible performance energy, pure integrity,  a sense of purpose and lyrics that have intense meaning.  It’s pretty much the definitive checklist any band should work toward.  Have a look at WestWay To The World if you’ve never had the chance.  Or give it as a gift to a musician you know and tell them to watch it.  Three times.

I thought this site needed one, after my not having posted anything up for quite some time.

It’s not the greatest idea, to stop output for so long, but musicians go through this all the time.  Sometimes it does some good to take a step back for a while.  You get rejuvenated, and re-inspired.  You can re-discover what it was that got you excited in the first place.  Then again, sometimes it’s a bad idea because people forget about you, or you get so used to not-doing-it that you never do it again.

But that’s why you need to do things for yourself first and foremost.  Write, sing, make music, paint, act…. do it because you’re compelled to.  Not for any other reason.  If other people like what you’re doing, they’ll come around.

Hopefully you’ll come around again too now that I’ll be posting a bit more frequently again.