I’ve written and rewritten the opening to this blog post, composed apologies and offered excuses, and now I’m deleting all of that to start again.

If anyone is interested in helping me get this podcast up and running in a more timely manner, particularly if you’ve got experience with Garage Band software (or Audacity), I would love to hear from you.

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Today I had lunch with a dear old friend, Pam MacLaughlin, a wonderful local musician and writer (and now, nursing student). She said something that I expect others of you have already said, but somehow I heard it more clearly: this little “audio magazine” that I’ve had in my mind and been struggling to bring to fruition? I need to remember that an actual PHYSICAL magazine has dozens if not hundreds of workers to get it done — writers and photographers and designers and ad salespeople, not to mention printers and distributors! — and I am trying to do this relatively complex podcast on my own in an unreasonable timeframe, while continuing to parent my children and have a life! She suggested (as many of you have already) that I post individual pieces, which is more managable in terms of time, and that I can still wrap together a series into a larger whole, if I want to, after the fact.

I think I finally get the point. Thank you to all who’ve already offered me this advice.

So today, taking this advice and with permission, today I offer you a song written by Pam’s husband, Joe Donnelly, and performed by Joe, Pam, and their group, Orquesta Son. The song is entitled Sugar Mama and comes from their Sí Quíero disc, copyright 2000. (Click on the link to download the song to your computer.)

“Son” in the name of their group, rhymes with “phone” and refers to the Cuban-style salsa music the group performs, along with mambo, rhumba, son-montuno, and songo styles. The group specializes in the merengue of the Dominican Republic and the cumbia of Columbia. Although most of the music on their Sí Quíero disc is new, dancers can do the traditional steps to the carefully arranged rhythms.

Enjoy! (And thanks again to Pam, Joe, and the rest of Orquesta Son!)

More interviews and more music to come, in smaller chunks and (I hope) a more timely basis. Thank you for listening … and for your patience!

Here’s the link to the NEW show. You can listen to it in your web browser by simply clicking the link or you can right-click (or on a Mac, click-and-hold, then select “save”) to download it to your computer and then move it to iTunes (or whatever) and listen to it on an mp3 player. This episode is nearly 50 minutes long, featuring quite a LOT of music as well as an interview with the director of The Lotus World Music & Arts Festival, and a quick review of The Turkuaz Café, my favorite ethnic restaurant in town.

Show notes for EP001:

These first two links will always stay in the left column, but for clarity’s sake, here they are with the first episode that’s relevant to them:

The Lotus World Music & Arts Festival That’s the basic link where you can learn lots more than what I was able to include in this episode (more episodes on the Lotus to come!). You can also find lists of all artists who’ve performed at the Lotus over the years at this page on their site.

eMusic.com is not an official sponsor (right now), but if you click through here to there and sign up, you will get 50 free song downloads and I will earn some extra downloads for myself. For your free selections, you might want to check out:

Balkan Beat Box at eMusic
Seu Jorge at eMusic
Lisa Germano at eMusic

or maybe you’d care to sample other musicians who played at that first Lotus festival back in 1994 while you’ve got a chance to grab some of them for free. (I regret that I couldn’t get permission OR have enough time to let you hear all of them on this week’s episode!)

Guardabarranco at eMusic (Nicaraguan pop/folk musicians. I love their music, but couldn’t reach them to ask permission to use the songs.)

Martin Hayes & Dennis Cahill at eMusic (Clare-style Irish fiddle music)

The Dirty Dozen Brass Band at eMusic (R&B, Traditional, Gospel amazing music in classic New Orleans style!)

Ingrid Karklins at eMusic (Latvian style music from an American woman)

Featured musicians’ websites:

Balkan Beat Box is … well, if you ever get a chance to see and hear them live, take my advice and GO! Their music is wonderful on disk or mp3, but there’s nothing that can replace the excitement of standing or dancing in their audience.

The Dorkestra is not playing together anymore, but you can read and hear more at their website.

Sabá is also not playing together anymore, but Shahyar’s current group, The Silk Road Ensemble, has a website.

Lotus Dickey website has info and materials for old-time musicians as well as enthusiasts.

Seu Jorge can be found in many places on the Internet, and I had a very hard time deciding which song to include in the podcast. I very nearly used his version of David Bowie’s Life On Mars (the link is to Jorge’s performance of this song on YouTube. And yeah, I like Jorge’s version much better than Bowie’s.)

Lisa Germano also has a rich diversity in her music, making it difficult to choose a specific cut for the podcast. Fortunately, she’s also given me permission to use more of her music in later episodes, so stay tuned!

Lunch this week came from The Turkuaz Café – 333-7908, 301 East Third Street.

Photos of musicians and Lotus events courtesy of Kevin Atkins and Michael Valliant.
Thanks, once again, to all the artists who gave me permission to use their work, to Lee Williams and everyone at the Lotus, to Kevin Atkins, Dmitri Vietze and Grey Larson.

And listeners/readers, please, if you have any suggestions or comments, please post them here or e-mail me at host@thisismybloomington.com. Thanks for listening!

Although I’d originally intended to delay posting anything until I had a few episodes completed and I could anticipate how much time each episode would take to produce, I decided to post the Introduction to the Podcast, Episode 000.

You can listen to it in your web browser by clicking this link or you can right-click (or on a Mac, click-and-hold, then select “save”) to download it to your computer.

After I start posting regular episodes, I’ll let you know how you can subscribe.

And after you listen to this introduction, I’d appreciate any comments you’d care to leave here. Thanks!

One more thing: the music in this episode is from the Podsafe Music Network, rather than by any local Bloomington group, unfortunately. I haven’t had the opportunity to make the right connection locally yet. But this lovely piece of music is “Joy” by Michael Mucklow.