2025 Thankful & Wrap-Up

Thankful for so many things in 2025!

Agatha & me in Nashville

Lots of ups and downs....

On the personal front we saw some kid drama, health scares with parents, & more, but everything wraps in 2025 on an up note: Parents both doing well, kids & grandkids are good, siblings are out there rockin' it! And, as many of you know, Agatha and I have been together a year come January!

On the professional front, we're making a LOT of changes to music education (group vs private lessons and more), I've stepped down as executive director of the Lexi Music Awards to hand the torch to the VERY capable Angelee Feltner while I work on satellite projects (like two educational scholarships, UKY &/or EKU projects, "Walk of Fame", etc), and finally getting my focus on several album projects for 2026. Story on the official Lexi Music Awards blog.

You might also wanna check out the new Skinny Devil Music Lab website!

My Favorite B-Sides!

Readers of a certain age will have no idea what I'm talking about when I say "B-sides", but we'll dive in anyway - hahaha!

Jimi Hendrix

I live in Lexington, KY, and my buddy "Beerman" (he's a DJ on Classic Rock 92One) has a show called "Beerman's B-sides", which spurred a conversation between me and several others. So, I'm going to keep the list to a mere Baker's Dozen just to make it manageable, but I'd LOVE to hear YOUR favorites in the comment section!

Now, there are some very famous examples of B-sides that became hits and/or fan favorites, like "Beth" by Kiss (flip side of "Detroit Rock City") and "Good Riddance" by Green Day (A-side was "Brain Stew"), "Hound Dog" by Elvis Presley ("Don't be Cruel") and "Revolution" by the Beatles ("Hey Jude"), and many more by CCR, Doobie Brothers, Rolling Stones, Pearl Jam, and on and on....but I'm running with my personal favorites. Usually something that grabbed me in an unexpected way or a song I liked better than the A-side.

In writing this, I did have several surprises....like "Carry On My Wayward Son" was actually the A-side (I always thought it backed "Questions of My Childhood").

I'm going to mostly hit songs from my youth (I'm old, so enjoy the trip to the land of dinosaurs haha!) because that's when I was buying singles, but I'll probably have a few from the last days of the 45rpm!

So.....in chronological order, my baker's dozen (though I could easily list a dozen more):

Happy 61

Kenneth shredding on "Ain't No Sunshine", birthday jam!

“There are two great days in a person's life: the day we are born and the day we discover why." -- William Barclay

My annual birthday post often begins with a quote. The Barclay quote makes me think of another. So if you'll indulge me two this year:

“It is never too late to be what you might have been." -- George Eliot

And if you'll indulge me once more, let's stop, together, in this moment right now....and ponder both of those quotes. 

Hmmm....

From "Undermain" Arts Magazine

HUGE thanx to David T. Miller for the very flattering interview!

From the piece:

“There’s such a concentration of musical talent here. I honestly think it's comparable to Memphis and Nashville and L.A. and Atlanta. I think there’s a higher concentration of musical talent [here] than in those places, to be honest.” -- David McLean

Skinny Devil Music Labs: 25 Years of Making and Teaching Music

Miller: What’s your earliest musical memory?

McLean: I think it was “Peter and the Wolf”, which I'm guessing was the Leonard Bernstein recording. The first time I think I saw anything like rock music was sitting with my grandparents at five or six years old and David Bowie came on the television doing his song “Space Oddity.” This was, I think, 1969. They were horrified but I was hooked!

Read the entire piece HERE.

OCT 5: International James Bond Day!

In celebration of the very first Bond movie, October 5 (the day "Dr No" was released way back in 1962) has been dubbed "James Bond Day" and is celebrated globally.

Ian Fleming created Bond in 1953 with the release of the first book, "Casino Royale". Fleming went on to write nine short stories and a total of 12 novels before his death in 1964, and the first Bond movie starred Sean Connery and, as stated above, was released in October 5, 1962.

Many more books were written by others following Fleming's death (sadly, he died of a heart attack at only 56 years of age) and 25 films, the last (as of this writing) was "No Time to Die" starring Daniel Craig.

My focus has primarily been on the music of James Bond, which, in fusing big band, surf rock, orchestral, and shots of "world musics", has become almost a genre of its own!

See my lesson article (complete with info and song charts) HERE.

October '25 Lifestyle Challenge

Long time, no see!

Kicking things off on my birthday month with a BANG!

For those new to the challenges, it isn't to compete against others. It's to push yourself to greater heights, have some company & inspiration along the way, and a few ideas the help get us focused. For example, you can use this waving of the analytical knife to help organize your goals:

1) Exercise/Diet - Set a specific plan or goal(s). Keep us posted weekly (or more) on your progress!

2) Creativity - Music, art, writing, acting...set a goal to complete by month's end. Keep us posted!

3) Personal life - Re-affirm your personal relationships, get to that project/chore you've been avoiding, or just read a book you've always wanted to read!

4) Professional life - Set a work goal or change jobs or....just tell us what it is and keep us posted!

My personal goals include:

Musical Slang 101

For all the years I've been teaching, you'd think I would have written this article a long time ago! The music world is full of slang terms (I'm guessing all industries are, but....) and its good to know the language if you're surfing these waters, kids!

We will avoid genre-specific slang and focus on general terms....and I'll up-date this piece, so feel free to contact me directly or leave a comment if you have any terms you think I should add.

We'll start with general musical terms and then look at some other specific terms (like studio lingo or business sayings).

Also note: I've utilized AI for the time-frame/origin of the terms and, in most cases, my personal understanding of the terms confirms the research. However (as personal knowledge falls into the category of "the fallacy of small sample"), I'm interested in YOUR views on the terms and origins. So please contact me or comment any corrections!

Finally, there are many outstanding genre-specific resources out there, and I'd refer you to those for specific musical styles. Books like Debra Devi's "Language of the Blues", "STREET TALK: Da Official Guide to Hip-Hop & Urban Slanguage", by Randy Kearse, "Barrelhouse Words: A Blues Dialect Dictionary" by Stephen Calt, and many others exist for those who dig the language exploration, both contemporary and historical. I highly recommend taking the dive - the water is warm!

Here we go!

Happy 60

How on earth did I neglect, WAY BACK in October of '24, to do my birthday post???
 

Vintage, baby!! Scotch is the only way to fly!

Apologies, y'all!

OK, I usually start these off with a quote, so here we go:

"The great thing about getting older is that you don't lose all the other ages you've been."
― Madeleine L'Engle

Another frenzied dance around the sun, making music, playing with my kids, teaching guitar and bass and ukulele and percussion and songwriting and improv and more, hitting the gym, recording in studios and playing on stages, hosting open mics and recitals, doing radio & TV....a massive FREE summer session of guitar for all the kids due to school budget cuts (we served 100 kids and gave away 50+ guitars).....and our 10th anniversary for Lexi Music Awards (which turned out to be our final year at the Lyric Theatre, as we switched in 2025 to the Singletary Center for the Arts on UK's campus)!