dann russo: News

Halloween
Ok I hate Halloween...well, hate is a strong word...I don't really HATE Halloween, but I certainly don't enjoy it or look forward to it as much as some people (that I happen to live with) do. I blame Sean Brereton scaring the hell out of me in 1st grade with some kind of mask that I probably still have nightmares about today. But that's not the point.

The point is that my costumes ROCK. Ever since the gauntlet has been thrown about 8 years ago to self-make costumes for parties, I have always tried to out-shine anyone there (although there are a few to whom Halloween is an art form akin to Rembrandt or even DaVinci (http://bostonerin.livejournal.com/ ) and I can hardly hold a candle) and have spent a lot of time on my costumes - my Julius Caesar with 27 stab wounds and a sword still in his back, the William Wallace complete with blue face and what the Scots wear under their kilt, the Frodo Baggins...well, that was just fantastic and I was practically made for it...and today I spent two hours creating a fantastic costume - I sewed a brown boa onto my courderoy jacket, more on my sweatbands to put on my knees, created a Temple University t-shirt, am planning ..ing my face, and my hair is perfect for tufts. I seem to put a lot of work into something I only kinda like...but I like the finished product a lot :-)

ok.

so everytime I log onto my website (http://www.dannrusso.com ) the first thing I check is the guestbook. Originally, it was to see if anyone who was at my last show, performance, sl show, met me at someone's house and to whom I gave my card logged on and had any comments about my music, my site, the pics, whatever. Recently there have been a lot of posts (by spammers I assume) that include such winners as "asian women free asian women blowjobs sdfiuysw asian" (that was on there today). And of course I delete the post, but it leads me to a few things:

1. I'm often horrified at the date these posts were put up. That means that anyone who has gone to my site in the last few days has seen it.
2. consequently I'm depressed cause no one went to my site cause they would have told me about it :-P

so...

do I stop allowing comments on my site?
do I just keep deleting?

so I played my first college show in a while and learned a few things:

1. MCPHS rocks. Awesome place, awesome people.

2. sitting down at an intimate venue is the way to go - even the rockier songs were cooler and more well-received than if I was trying to emote on two feet.

3. I need to always play Fix You in my set. I tried it as a lark, playing it for the second time ever, and the end of the song EVERYone sang. It was really cool.

So, thank you very much MCPHS.

And by the way, Casey Sullivan rocks. Check her out: http://www.myspace.com/caseysullivanmusic she is going to be way famous.

so I read this article about this guy who posted some songs online and has been able to become famous. Not FAMOUS famous but famous enough to pay his bills, play lots of shows, and travel. Basically exactly what I want to do.

I'm not jealous at all...ok, maybe I am a little...but he's GOOD http://www.jonathancoulton.com/ and plays all his own stuf, which makes it that much cooler.

That being said, I am planning on completely ripping off his "once a week" video posting and starting to post songs on my youtube account (with all appropriate links, of course) this week.

Do YOU, dear viewer, have any suggestions as to 1. what songs to start with 2. any covers to sneak in or 3. how to make this viral?

:-)

peace,

Dann

http://www.orange-island.com/?p=624

Not in theory, but in practice.

I have found over the past two weeks or so I have been vehemently frothing at the mouth defending someone who I didnt even vote for four months ago to people whose minds I'm not going to change anyway. This has proved not only fruitless but frustrating and does nothing but encourage bad feelings between people, which I really don't like.

That having been understood, I shall watch the coming two months for amusement and will not discuss any one politician's views on anything until after November 5th. If anyone would like my opinion on a specifc issue, I would be more than happy to give it.

You know that old adage where you're not supposed to discuss religion or politics over the dinner table? I'm finding some validity to that. If I happen to forget, I ask those of you whom I talk to regularly to please remind me that I said this, and that I am of course willing to give MY opinion on certain topics that I might even agree with both sides on, but I will quietly vote for who I want to vote for without getting into fights about it.

However, I will be more than happy to discuss religion :-)

Blessed are the Peacemakers, for they will be called Children of God.

thank you all for coming out on Friday night - the crowd was awesome and the National Underground is a place I cant wait to play again...the set list for you:
1. She Asks
2. Dreaming Without You
3. Ruby Red Hair
4. Fortunes, Forecasts & Lucky Charms
5. No Pain
6. Year
7. Believe
8. Café en San Juan
9. Good Morning, Chelsea
10. How Do You Spell l.o.v.e.?

ok so yesterday I admittedly was a little vervous at the St Columbkille camp at Boston College at Erin Dionne's first reading for "Models Don't Eat Chocolate Cookies." We sat in a classroom in front of about 20 6th graders who paid rapt (for the most part) attention to Erin reading the first 12 pages of the book. We introduced ourselves, Erin read, and then I played. I explained the two songs from the book, Ruby Red Hair, which I had written a few years ago, and Dreaming Without You, which I wrote specifically to be a Theo Christmas song, the character I play in the book. After that we took questions and I was...surprised is the wrong word...I was pleasantly pleased by not only the amount of questions, but the quality of the questions too...

Erin got a whole lot of questions about the book - how you write a book, what it was about, about the characters in the book, who came up with the title, who made the cover, about the main character Celeste, and then I got a whole bunch of questions too - how you write a song, how long have I been playing, do I have a band, do I have a CD, do I know any famous guitar players or singers, what is my favorite Pearl Jam song, and of course I did my best to re-direct most of the questions back to Erin's book and site (www.erindionne.com or her blog http://bostonerin.livejournal.com/) , but I must admit it tickled me a little that they were so interested in my music.

and I got an encore! One of the kids asked me what the first song I ever wrote was, and so I told them Believe (which is almost 100% accurate although I'm not completely sure) and they asked me to play it so thats how we ended the presentation. I think I need to write more Theo Christmas songs :-)

now I can't wait for the next reading

It's not often that you get to go to the singing of a book...tomorrow Dann will be performing songs he wrote from the upcoming Penguin/Putnam release of "Models Don't Eat Chocolate Cookies" by Erin Dionne. You can check out the book's website here: http://www.erindionne.com/models_home.html

The reading takes place tomorrow (the 7th) at 2pm at Boston College - should be fun!

I take back anything bad I have ever said about Paris Hilton...this is genius http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/64ad536a6d

check it out!

http://www.mvyradio.com/local_musicafe/

rocking the drums for ..... years

Hey y'all...wanted to let you in on a few things

1. tomorrow's show at the 169 Bar in NYC needs to be rescheduled, so if you want to see Dann this weekend, come to the Lizard Lounge in Cambridge, MA on Monday night (ok, not REALLY the weekend, but...) I hit the stage around 11pm www.lizardloungeclub.com for info and directions

2. Dreaming Without You is currently ranked 138th in the 92.9 citystage contest at Ourstage.com BUT Ruby Red Hair is 12th in the Alt-Country voting...log on and vote! thank you I need the support http://www.ourstage.com/judge?channel=67-americana

3. */*...wait I mean 8/8 at 8pm I will be rocking out at The Knitting Factory in NYC - come on down, bring your friends, this might be a benefit show so the money goes to (another) good cause not just my gas tank - details to follow...

as always,
peace,
Dann
www.dannrusso.com
www.sonicbids.com/dannrusso
www.myspace.com/dannrusso
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Dann-Russo/36658671856

how do I know it was a full moon on Wednesday and Thursday?

1. all 4 of the most nearby Shaw's grocery stores have "coinstar" machines - where you put in your change and get money back...I travelled to all of them with a big water bottle full of coins in tow and all four were out of order

2. So, we go home and find that SecondLife has deposited money in my PayPal account - whoo hooo

3. going to my show on Wednesday night at 7 PM in Cambridge, MA, (which is never less than 30 minutes door-to-door) I'm sitting in the kitchen waiting watching La Patoot feed pizza to her toy lion and tiger until 6:47 (no one's fault - just traffic)

4. sprint out the door, guitar in hand, get to show 23 minutes later.

5. find spot directly in front of the bar

6. rush in in a flurry of activity to find three bartenders playing pool and the sound guy trying to make shots. Emphasis on the trying. NEVER drink an "Alice in Wonderland" (which he consequently tried to give to everyone at the bar) they are terrible.

7. find out that my 7 pm show actually has no one there

8. find out that the panel of songwriters who I was supposed to host in a storytellers-type of thing is not 4 people, but 1. Me.

9. my 7 pm show is now an 8 pm show

10. go on at 8, start to plug things in, play Fortunes Forecasts and Lucky Charms from about the halfway point (the loudest part for soundcheck)

11. have the sound guy say "keep going!" and walk away from the stage

12. have a Tiger beer delivered to the stage

13. keep playing the second half of Fortunes, throwing off my chi even more, flail through 10 more songs

14. break string

15. realize there are no strings in my bag

16. retune and keep playing

17. see bagpipers walk in

18. mercifully end my set with 5 strings and humidified Q-tip of hair style

19. walk of stage put stuff away

20. prepare to leave

21. listen to bagpipers

22. bagpipers rule

23. have sound guy make sure I book at least two more shows with him before he lets me go

24. find out beer was free

25. call home cause I was later than I said I was going to be and am responded to by a request for beer

26. find 4 messages on my cell phone from my sister that sound like Bon Jovi live

27. see texts that they actually ARE Bon Jovi live

28. man in moon looks like he is smoking something...

so last night at the Lizard Lounge's open mic I had a series of accomplishments and really cool things happen...

first, a bunch of my friends from work showed up to help celebrate my birthday - and anytime four attractive women are at a show just to see you its a win/win situation.

secondly, I was telling the story of my song "Fortunes, Forecasts and Lucky Charms" and I got a majority of the bar to join me in singing "robin hood and little john were running through the forest laughing back and forth at what the other'n had to say...etc" it ruled.

thirdly - I got called back up! The way this open mic works is that at the end of the night, 3 performers get called back up to play a third song and the prize is the door...now there were a lot of people there and the door would have been really nice. I mean, I didnt go there with any intention of winning, but I was psyched that I was called back up...and I was able to tell the whole "Models Don't Eat Chocolate Cookies" story and how Theo Christmas plays this song called "Dreaming Without You..." So the third time I have played the open mic I get to play a third song...maybe the fourth time I'll go all the way :-)

ok - totally cool story. My friend Erin wrote this book. "Models Don't Eat Chocolate Cookies" and Penguin/Putnam thought it was good enough to publish. Cool for her! She then asks me if it's ok if one of her characters (a rock star) sings one of my songs...and could I write another for the book. After some gentle arm twisting (ok, none) I agree and then they want me to record the songs and have them on her site too. Cool for me!
Consequently, the two songs are Ruby Red Hair and Dreaming Without You - they are done and up on http://www.dannrusso.com and http://www.erindionne.com and a couple various other ones...

except for maybe during interleague play if you're at a NL ballpark in the top of the inning and the pitcher is on deck.

then, you might think about it.

stupid mets.



more on this later :-P

So tonight I went to an open mic night.

As a rule, open mic nights are situations that can hopefully benefit performers, but if there isnt a good crowd/vibe/scene can just lead to the musical masturbation of playing with oneself in front of 7 random people and then going home after you are done.

The crowd/vibe/scene at the Lizard Lounge in Cambridge, MA is awesome. Fantastic in every sense of the word.

My eyes were opened a month ago by Grace "cylindrian" Buford http://www.myspace.com/gracefolk to the wonders of the open mic at Lizard Lounge. Anyone who is a musician needs to run over there. Not only is the room awesome and the mics great and the crowd receptive and responsive but it is creative. It feels like a real room of musicians. Everyone there are amazing singers and songwriters - its a constant situation of getting your mind blown - and it ranges from 22-yr old street musicians to a guy who sang a "love song to someone I lost touch with" 35 years ago.

there are stories upon stories and the entertainment and talent are measureless.

OH

Bo Diddley.

So, it seems that Mr Diddley shuffled off his mortal coil earlier today, and as a prize (they have 4 prizes - 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and other) there was a Bo Diddley CD. Now, usually when it comes time to announce the winners of something like this I merely find the bottom of my guinness and sometimes get another. However, they called my name as the "performer who rocked the most and the best." I guess its ok that I didnt win world reknown at the Lizard Lounge tonight or that I didnt win my share of the door. In fact, I'm really psyched that I walked home after playing "She Asks" and "Good Morning, Chelsea" to a pretty packed house who seemed to really like it, to hear some amazing (and I mean AMAZING) music, drink some Guinness and go home with a Bo Diddley CD.

I think tonight, no matter what had happened earlier in the day, I won.

OH, and I'm going back on the 16th to celebrate my BD if anyone wants to come - Mass Ave in Cambridge

:-P

THANK YOU GRACIE
So Grace Buford (Cylindrian Rutabaga in SL) dragged me out of the house when she visited from Atlanta and made me come with her to an open mic night in Cambridge...it was awesome...they loved me, invited me back, and Gracie even made me these videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6R_w1_15Xk


peace,

Dann

Hey y'all - we've finally finished a song! Dann and Frank locked themselves in a studio on Saturday to start and finish recording "Dreaming Without You" which is going to be available soon on http://myspace.com/dannrusso and http://www.dannrusso.com Pics are up in the photos section of the website too!

peace,
Dann