Sound X 7
Feb 23 2008 Back to the Music!



I know you are asking, "what happened to sound X 7?" It's out there just not logged yet so hang in there for those of you who are following this site and watching it grow.

Well well, this session rocked like no other time. The February doldrums were quickly and thoroughly chased away this evening with the coming together of old friends and one bad ass drummer. My old friend Eric Simonsen was in town with his family for the weekend and he had a spare few hours to join myself and pro drummer (Bruce Nelson) for some serious work on our rhythm section.

Eric’s style of guitar playing to me sounds a bit like Joe Walsh from the confessor and some of Eddie Van Halen mixed in. This proved to be what pro drummer liked to jam with and this I did not know.

Pro drummer, comes to find out has played in many different hard rock and punk rock bands over the years. When Eric brought his trippy, wailing guitar and effects, with the didge’s heavy bass foundations, pure energy on an indigenous level transpired right in front of our mics, wow!

I can hear this session scoring an intense Indiginous drama, like Brave Heart or Last of the Mohegans on some level, truly fun and powerful sounds thank you pro drummer and easy E!

Fern Burn 2008
Ferns, Fire, Food, Friends, Music and Apple pie


Today we collected the Dead Sea grass that had been growing and scattered throughout the grounds. The dead stalks of grass make for a nice winter landscape and their tallness helps to provide shelter from what few neighbors we have. But once a year it is time to cut down the grasses and get ready for the new spring growth, that will soon brightening up our now brown country side.

This gives us an opportunity to release the suns energy that has been built up in those grasses over the past year. Only when we burn the grasses or anything organic, that the energy is released 10,000 times as fast as it took to grow them. This created an amazing, extremely active fire and is our reason for the 2008 Fern Bern ceremony!
This year we built an enormous hay pile next to our fire circle in the center of the back of blue star. Many people were coming to the gathering bringing food and drink, but only a few would make it for the sunset lighting. John Ellis, myself, Sarah, Slow dog, Kathy, John, Matt and Doug all made it in time. Pete Duke our Australian friend was there for a short time, until the wi- fi lost it’s connection to the internet.

I believe it was Kathy that said, “The hay pile looks like a huge bean bag chair!” With that we all quickly piled on to the organic hay chair for the last few minutes of the sunset. It felt like all the tension was being pulled out of me through the sea grass, being pulled back into the earth completely relaxing me. Matt silenced my chattering and we soon, all seven of us fell silent in complete and total awe of the fiery star quickly dropping on our planets horizon.

Two minutes left to the sunset and our dear friends Bettie and Jim show up with their two young sons. The hill stood there for a brief moment completely caught in the moment. As Ellis emerged from the northern pines the sun set. We all rose up and I lit the fire. There proverbial/ceremonial ribbon had been cut. At that point some of us stayed by the fire while the rest rolled into the house to ready some food and drink. Ending the night we ate apple pie till we were full and played music until we were sleepy.


The Fern Burn was a success we all said goodbye. Until next Feb, when the Fern Burn returns, thank you to all who could make it. Here comes spring!

Sound X Mex Feb 16 2008

Blue Star Sound X Mexico; These two musicians, although no didgeridoo present, were a perfect romantic addition to the end of a great day on the Island of women. To the locals this place is called Isla Mujeres. I highly recommend this tiny island on the tip of the Yucatan peninsula for a recharging and relaxing quick getaway from the day in and day out grind.
Here in this video clip Sarah journals our day sipping a Sol as we prepare for our tomorrows journey across the Yucatan.
Here Sarah stands in front Chichen Itza wearing her mochela, which means school bag, the most famous and best restored of the Yucatans Penninsula's Maya sites . The Mayan local told me much about the 2012 profecies, it was his beliefe that come 2012 nothing would happen. It just signifies the beginning of a new period, or time. Like resetting our watch or calander to yet another era. Our all time favorite ruin to visit was Ek Balam. Vegitation still covers most of this ruins but excavations and restorations continue to reveal stunning finds. We had this place almost all to ourselves this day with just a light drizzle. It seemed to keep out the would be tourists and it was truly amazing to see. After a very intense journey it was time to head back to Na Balam for the last four days to recover and get ready to head back to the north east. It was good to get home to Slow, who guarded Blue Star while we were gone. Thank you to Manaja and Trent two super dependable and smart guys who watched after Slow and Blue Star while working on their own very cool projects geared towards the progression of human evolution through the visual arts VERY cool stuff. copy and paste this site for a real treat! www.creativecamerawork.com

Feedback feb 15 2008

We love feed back on our site and this was a nice bit of feed back we wanted to share with you about Blue Star..

Feedback feb 15 2008

"I took a break from my Aetna work and checked out the site---WWOOOOWWW!!
It's way cool, I especially liked the music, photography fading in out and movement.(click on artist page) It was actually relaxing to watch.
I am definitely intrigued. And I really liked the Teepee too.
I appreciate that there was thought given to the interrelatedness of things (that food was included is a statement of it's importance/ mysticism/appreciation of art of and importance of surrounding yourself with good friends... )
Everyone seems very "centered" - definitely refreshing.
Keep up the good work! Looks like you have plenty of positive things to keep busy with.
Continue having fun and making music- it suits you!" Ilona Barber

Sound X 6
February 9 2008

I really liked how we came together today. The rhythm section was very tight and playing with John and Bruce took a turn for the better.
I felt more comfortable with these guys today and without any lead player it created a relaxed feel from which the musicians could take their time and find their own groove.

Bruce brought some new attachments for the drum kit, which added a nice medley of audible diversity to the grounding yet ethereal sound of the session.
Charley Kulinski stopped by again to play some killer didgeridoo, which freed me up to play a bit of Native American flute.

One of the great part about this combination of people is not just their musical talent and improvisational ears, but their ability to work with the less structured musicians like myself and really take the time to listen as well as talk out their thoughts. This makes it so enjoyable for all. I really enjoyed the session and look forward to our next gathering. Thank you Bruce, John and Charley

Sound X 5 Feb 8th

Today’s sound X was an unexpected one. I received a call from an old acquaintance named Fieke. He is a drummer that played internationally for 10 years, sang and traveled since his 11th birthday. He studied percussion in London and also in Enschede Holland. Fieke has played professionally and toured with the UK and US bands like Daniel Bedingfield and others. He’s now a freelance musician and a music therapist. I received a call from Feike a few days ago and he told me of a student of his whom is an exceptional bass player named Evan and wanted to come over to Blue Star to “plug in” and see what we have. I thought it would be a good idea and the next sound X transpired effortlessly and with much fresh enthusiasm. I found the beats to be easy to play didgeridoo and flutes to and Evans bass lines reminded me a bit of a young Trent Rezner or The original Shriek Back bassist Dave Allen. Paste and click this link for example
www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DPSQurIKoY
His style was edgy and prolific and it was awesome to play with this young budding talent. I hope to explore more sounds with this dynamic duo. Thanks you guys for the music!