Howdy, Patrick -

Sure sure. "United Breaks Guitars." This is one online video that proves that "going viral" doesn't at all mean what it used it used to mean back in college. It's good now, apparently. And if you've not seen "Hitler Finds Out That United Breaks Guitars" please click away from this newsletter right now and check it out before Bruno Ganz's lawyers find out about it. Preposterously funny meta-humor, that.* But why is there no "United Breaks Banjos" yet, I wonder? That's shootin' fish in a barrel, folks. Low-hanging fruit. Get busy, you camcordered YouTubers! You wouldn't even have to take every shot yourself. There must be tons of stock footage of cheering crowds and smiling babies and snickering guitarists available for nothing. My $.02. Your mileage may vary.


SPANKING-NEW WEBSITE

"There it is. It's coming this way. Just over there ... yes! It's the oft-touted and much-vaunted new Stevie Coyle Dot Com! Fnnn-tastic!" Yes, friends, just click on the sleek, shiny black screenshot and you will be magically whisked away to All-Things-Stevie Land. Wheeeee. After years of homemade websites - solo and otherwise - I decided I'd had enough of that tres-1993 look. The good folks over at Argo Arts / OTR Studios, who assembled the new site kindly protested this characterization: "You're too hard on yourself, man. Your old website was solidly '1995'." WhatEVER.

At any rate, I think you'll agree that the old homepage has gotten quite a facelift. Let's take a look, shall we?

Right off the bat, I should explain that the photo over there that features Yours Truly was taken at the recent Healdsburg Guitar Festival, and you can probably tell from the "cigarette, ma cherie?" look in my eye that I was experiencing a profound attack of Guitar Acquisition Syndrome. GAS, they call it. That guitar I've got my arms wrapped lovingly around was made by luthier Alan Perlman. Other lustable guitars I snorgled there were luthed by Howard Klepper, Tony Yamamoto and Bruce Sexauer. GAS. It's bad. Some contend that its curable only by spouses.

The site is all in flux, and subject to ongoing refinement. But at the moment there are home page modules for:
- Show schedule: brief overview of whens and wheres   
- Online guitar lessons: yes, Virginia, they DO work.
- Tune Widget: get a quick hit of samples from the album
- Twitter Status: just in case you need to know what's on my mind at any given moment. I often consult this myself.
- info about house concerts and suchlike
- Merchandise: Click here and be astounded at what sort of goods you can purchase, all emblazoned with the SC logo. Dog bowls? We got 'em. Intimate Apparel? That's just got to be a Near Occasion Of Sin, but, you bet, we got 'em. What's a few thousand more years in Purgatory, anyway, at this point?

So ... once on the home page, if you do nothing else, click on the jolly, candy-like "Downloads and CDs" link and find yourself spirited off to a page where you can listen to every doggone note of the new Ten-In-One album without cracking your wallet at all. ("Talk about try-before-you-buy! I must be CRAAAAAAZY!! ) But should you decide to ... mmm ...  formalize your relationship with the music, though, you will at this point have an opportunity to purchase either the physical CD or full-CD downloads. It seems that lots of folks who grew up with LPs are starting to feel that they would rather trade off being able to carry around 30,000 favorite tune on their iPods for several fewer, but at higher fidelity. MUCH higher. Try it out. Even us AARP-ers can tell the difference between grainy MP3s and silky-smooth, full-res CD files. Nudge nudge.

Now, a stop on this page not to be missed, I'd suggest, is the album graphics tour, accessible by clicking the CD image over along the left-hand border and then clicking subsequent left arrows. Remember those thrilling days of yesteryear, when you'd bring home a fresh new LP and listen to both sides at one sitting, poring over the cool and hugely intentional album artwork? You can do that again here, thanks to a brilliant young graphic artist by the name of Jimmy apRoberts. Check it out. Again, this is hi-res stuff, and there's much more to see than showed up on the physical CD booklet and jacket. This tour asks the visual question, "Is it art or merely carny?"


SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES

MyFace? SpaceBook? Sure, I'm on 'em. Not sure why, yet, exactly, except that there's a coffee klatch on my desktop waiting for me any time I want one. And Twitter? Heavens, I'm quite sure that until recently, public tweeting was considered extremely rude, (even if accidental) but lordy, folks do it all the time now. Clearly, we are just now catching up to Ben Franklin, who wrote a whole book all about that long, long ago. (Oh ... special note to Facebook pals: please don't think me a lout if I don't respond to polls like "Which Era William Shatner Hairpiece Are You Most Like?" Tempus really does fugit, you know.)


UPCOMING MIDWEST / GREAT LAKES TOUR

A special howdy goes out to all compadres in the Midwest and Great Lakes regions. I would like to cordially invite myself to do a house concert for you and a couple of dozen of your dearest friends (in whomever's house has got the biggest living room) sometime from the very end of October through the middle of November. Email me if that idea is not totally objectionable. House concerts are very literally The Wave of the Present, as far as touring solo and duo acoustic acts go. Why wait to see your favorite folkies at Venue X? Go populist! Go native! Go the way folk music has happened for thousands of years before the rise of the concert hall. In the home. By the hearth ... or BBQ ... or George Foreman-flogged appliance. Whatever. It's huge fun. And best of all, it's easy. Yes, Patrick, you, too, could be a house concert host. In your copious spare time, please just click the photo and famed folkie Bob Bossin and his friend will tell you just how easy it is.

How To Put On The
Perfect House Concert
by Martha Stewart and Me

Well, that's about it for now, aside from Left-Leaning, Barely-Avoided Abuse of The Bully Pulpit Item #1 and Left-Leaning, Barely-Avoided Abuse of The Bully Pulpit Item #2. Thanks for tuning in, all. Drop on by Mr. Stevie's Neighborhood any old time. Won't you please be ... my neighbor?

Gigs listed below. Come say hey.

S

*Extra credit available for those with a taste for meta: click here.

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