Down to the Wire

Still in the thick of this Kickstarter campaign, with only hours to reach another 19 percent to get to my all or nothing funding goal, I took time out to get out.

Pat @ Vermont Apple Festival, Springfield VT, October, 2022

The Vermont Apple Festival was a blast, particularly in watching the young girls and boys dance or stare as they took in live music, so close and personal, mixed in as it was with craft vendors and raffle promos.

Now, I am absorbed in making Time to Stray: A New England Collaboration the next creative endeavor.

But there’s literally less than three days left to reach my goal of $4,665 in funding, so I am feeling reflective as well as under the gun.

However I land, this has been a journey of incredible growth, validation and gratitude. Undertaking a Kickstarter project is work, as it should be, but it’s exciting too, and so being out of my comfort zone has not only been at times uneasy and scary, but fun and exhilarating.

Here is my team from Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont, the first people to believe in what my songs and I have to offer: resilience, joy, introspection, honesty, and a determination to face life in all its facets.

Kala Farnham, harp

Luke Selden, banjo

Melissa D. Moorhouse, vocals

Josh Hall, producer

Suzanne Waldren, vocals

Jay Osborn, percussion

Dana Takaki, violin

Besides these incredibly talented artists, several of them songwriters and multi-instrumentalists, there have been behind-the-scenes supporters, guides, muses — without whom I would not have gotten this far. They know who they are and would rather, I think, remain in the background, but I want to thank them. They are the ghosts in the machine of my brain, making it all make sense.

So, if you’ve read this far, and are so inclined, I would love for you to click the link above or below and consider backing this folk album. Choose a “reward” or perk, come to the show in the spring. I would love to meet you and share what for me is an avocation and something that I just have to do.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/p88/time-to-stray-a-new-england-collaboration

Folk Songs, Folks!

As recording gets underway with one track completed except for a banjo lick or two, I have been busy figuring out what marketing means to a sometime singer-songwriter who still works an ordinary (though no less important) day job.

First, I rejected crowdfunding through Indiegogo as a means to fund my recording project as too labor intensive and too far removed in ways from the creative process.

Ah! but when considered for a gig recently, my talented and gig-rich friend George Nostrand advised I get an EPK. A what? Electronic Press Kit. And so, I’ve started … with this:

I knew that Master’s degree in interactive media would come in handy someday. I tinkered and managed to preserve my domain name at https://patdaddona.com, and transformed the site from a freelance-based anchor to a songwriting destination. (I did hang onto some of my former career’s best work and house them in a tab called “Meaning and Moments”.)

And then … I noticed an option to “get found” more easily on Google. Folk. Singer-songwriter. Keywords and a few rewrites and lo and behold, a site that, while still under construction, is serviceable for now!

While waiting for vacations to stop interrupting the recording effort, I am definitely searching for gigs and have landed a couple. On May 29, this happened:

WALLY’S CORNER GRAND OPENING ~ May 22, 2022 PHOTO CREDIT June Brink

Bill Brink, a good friend, and his wife, June, connected me. Wally’s Corner is a small gift and antiques shop on Route 103 in the Cuttingsville section of Shrewsbury, VT. Bill loaned me that tiny brown and black Fender Acoustisonic 40 amp you see in the photo to the right of my guitar case. The sound is so clear for both guitar and vocal that I bought one!

Here’s a closeup:

Fender Acoustisonic 40

So, if you’re looking for updates on the recording project, keep an eye out for late summer when the work really begins, and more gigs in between. Yours in the folk music tradition,

Pat

Ch-ch-changes!

Have guitar, will travel.

Pretty soon now you’re gonna get older
Time may change me
But I can’t trace time

— David Bowie

It’s been a year of changes, fundamentally for the better.

Besides splitting with my partner of 12 years — amicably — and working at a job I love empowering people with mental illness, I have begun a project I hope you will join in sampling, supporting and enjoying: “Love Letters.”

The evolving compilation’s title track represents the kind of songs I write: heart-felt, real-life stories with a message and universal meaning. I am embarking on a journey to pull together select songs that celebrate love, family and spirit, record them with the help of dynamic musicians and a fine producer here in Vermont, and share them in digital downloads, a few hard copy CDs and in performances around New England.

You have fueled this adventure — with your attention as I posted rough cuts on Facebook and played out at open mics and venues around Springfield, VT, which I now call home. You and a lot of coffee, musical inspiration and encouragement from fellow artists and fans.

Many artists move me to pursue creating on a molecular and spiritual level: Janis Ian (now on her final tour, which I will see in April), Tracy Grammer — often accompanied by acoustic co-conspirator Jim Henry — who both have fabulous budding Patreon communities, and Cody Jinks, whose rendition of “Ready for the Times to Get Better” I consider my personal anthem. That song is written by Allen Reynolds and has been performed by Crystal Gayle but it exemplifies my mood and mantra.

Cody Jinks

Last September, I was given a gift — to lead a songwriter-in-the-round at Stage 33 Live in Bellows Falls, VT.

That’s where I performed “Love Letters” and told the story of my mom and dad’s courtship.

“Love Letters” at Stage 33 Live.

This version is stripped down, but I imagine it with violin or cello, brushes and a vocal that has evolved since my “shy singer” presentation here.

Why do it though? I am short on funds, so Kickstarter, Go Fund Me or Indiegogo will figure in at some point as I make a push.

Well when I play a room, and a woman at a far table, chin in hand, sits listening despite the clatter of utensils and the dim rumble of voices, and then later comes up and says she likes my voice or an original, I am moved to give more of myself. Or when a fan comes to more than one show and harps on a song he likes, and how he can hear other instrumentation in his head, I am moved to give more of myself.

“Don’t die with your music still in you” is good advice. I am to take it.

Please follow this blog and my Facebook profile for updates.