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SAW Notes

  • 07/22/2014 5:41 PM | Deleted user

    Have you noticed that there’s an awful lot of acronyms these days?  It seems like every organization, business, government office and neighborhood coffee shop has their own share of insider’s lingo.  If you’re like me, you don’t often think about the meaning behind some of these monikers because they’ve been around for so long.  Let’s consider for just a moment what we identify with when we use the name “SAW”.  


    Firstly, we are “songwriters”.  We share a unifying experience, interest, livelihood and passion.  This first word unites us with millions of others who share that passion.  Second, we are an “association”...we are organized into a cooperative whole and have a connection to each other through formal membership.  Lastly, “Washington", is our common ground and local community.  


    These three words communicate some of what we are about, but not all.  We each have been members of SAW for various amounts of time and may have very different connections and experiences of what the association is all about.  For some, it’s a small group of folks to enjoy an open mic with every week.  For others, it’s an online Facebook community for making new connections.  For still others, it’s where we volunteer our time as a board member or support local events.  There are probably as many meanings and experiences of SAW as there are members, and perhaps that’s the beauty.  We come together, united by the three words in our name, but also as persons excited and passionate about community.  Artists can have a difficult time reaching out to others and sharing what they do with the world.  It’s a vulnerable place to be.  But when we unite ourselves with others who share our passion and interests, we find a supportive group that cares about many of the things we care about and that understands our individual need to contribute to something.  And that’s what can’t be communicated in a name -- that connection and contribution.  It‘s something that needs to be experienced and shared.  


    Whatever SAW is for you, we hope it continues to be a meaningful connection where all are encouraged to contribute to the ongoing song of life.


    Written by Nicole Belanus

  • 07/13/2014 10:36 PM | Stephen Coffee

    A beautiful sunny day on June 14th provided the perfect backdrop for SAW Community Day. Inside the Surge, a full slate of activities, concerts, and workshops kept members and guest busy. Consider this amazing lineup of events, all free for SAW members:

    First Impressions, on-the-spot feedback on SAW members’ recorded original songs. Panelists included Scott Moore of Focus Music, NERFA, and more; Michael Jaworek of The Birchmere; Jesse Palidofsky, Carroll Cafe Booker; and Steve Gnadt of Focus Music and Concerts at the Historic Cooper’s House.

    Performance by  Tony Denikos, Grand Prize Winner of SAW's 29th Mid-Atlantic Song Contest

     Lyric Workshop and Performance with Naked Blue

    Guitar Workshop with Reid Schoenfelder

    Speed Networking, Open Mic, Dinner! And more!

    Throughout the day, the song circle outside under the trees was a constant lure. Many a fine song was sung and heard. All in all, a fine reminder of why we love SAW.


    A beautiful sunny day on June 14th provided the perfect backdrop for SAW Community Day. Inside the Surge, a full slate of activities, concerts, and workshops kept members and guest busy. Consider this amazing lineup of events, all free for SAW members:

    First Impressions, on-the-spot feedback on SAW members’ recorded original songs. Panelists included Scott Moore of Focus Music, NERFA, and more; Michael Jaworek of The Birchmere; Jesse Palidofsky, Carroll Cafe Booker; and Steve Gnadt of Focus Music and Concerts at the Historic Cooper’s House.

    Performance by  Tony Denikos, Grand Prize Winner of SAW's 29th Mid-Atlantic Song Contest

     Lyric Workshop and Performance with Naked Blue

    Guitar Workshop with Reid Schoenfelder

    Speed Networking, Open Mic, Dinner! And more!

    Throughout the day, the song circle outside under the trees was a constant lure. Many a fine song was sung and heard. All in all, a fine reminder of why we love SAW.

    A beautiful sunny day on June 14th provided the perfect backdrop for SAW Community Day. Inside the Surge, a full slate of activities, concerts, and workshops kept members and guest busy. Consider this amazing lineup of events, all free for SAW members:

    First Impressions, on-the-spot feedback on SAW members’ recorded original songs. Panelists included Scott Moore of Focus Music, NERFA, and more; Michael Jaworek of The Birchmere; Jesse Palidofsky, Carroll Cafe Booker; and Steve Gnadt of Focus Music and Concerts at the Historic Cooper’s House.

    Performance by  Tony Denikos, Grand Prize Winner of SAW's 29th Mid-Atlantic Song Contest

     Lyric Workshop and Performance with Naked Blue

    Guitar Workshop with Reid Schoenfelder

    Speed Networking, Open Mic, Dinner! And more!

    Throughout the day, the song circle outside under the trees was a constant lure. Many a fine song was sung and heard. All in all, a fine reminder of why we love SAW.

  • 03/30/2014 11:26 AM | Stephen Coffee

    Patty Reese is hosting a weekly songwriter series at the restored The Old Town Theater in Historic Old Town Alexandria. This weeks featured artist is Laura Baron! Laura is a DC singer songwriter known for her powerful vocals and passionate delivery. Laura has received many awards from the Mid-Atlantic Song Contest including three Gold Awards. Her Wammie nominations include Songwriter of the Year. Laura’s compositions move easily from contemporary folk to blues to swinging jazz. Her 2013 release Heart of The Great Unknown, produced by Marco Delmar features Laura with many of DC’s finest musicians.

    Also performing Tuesday night are SAW's own Kevin Dudley, Jean Bayou and Patty Reese. Venue information at http://www.theoldtowntheater.com/. Join the Facebook event at https://www.facebook.com/events/1469476109931071/

    $10 admission

  • 03/25/2014 3:18 PM | Stephen Coffee
    Looking for the March 2014 SAW Notes publication? Here it is.
  • 03/21/2014 11:43 AM | Stephen Coffee

    SAW members may be interested in this news item from Bias Studios, a long-time sponsor of the Mid-Atlantic Song Contest:

    Bias Studios’ new video service will be taping the Tom Principato Band’s performance at The Barns of Wolftrap on March 20th.  Other video projects in various stages of completion include the Texas Chainsaw Horns with the Hot Mess Burlesque at Bethesda  Blues and Jazz Club at their Feb. 28th gig, and, as Bobby Fagel predicted, now it’s just a memory and a couple of subpoenas.  Grammy Award winning Afro Bop Alliance with Roland Vasquez, live in Studio A February 8 and 9 will be available for viewing soon.  And we also have the upcoming video of Afro Blue performing April 7th at the Cramton Auditorium for the Howard University Alumni Jazz Concert.  

    Studios A, B and C have been hopping with audio work as well with Uptown Vocal Jazz Quartet, Jim Ebert and Sean Russell producing and engineering a project for Swell Daze, final mixing and mastering for Afro Blue’s next release.  South Rail’s new EP, produced in L.A. by Don Was, mastered and mix tweaks were done at Bias. Smithsonian Folkways has just released a new Seldom Scene cd recorded in Studio A “Long Time. . .” with Pete Reiniger engineering.  A video of the Scene’s song “Wait a Minute, “ was filmed mostly in Studio A with insider perspective from The Punch Brothers’ Chris Eldridge (Ben’s son).  Other guests for the sessions were John Starling and Emmylou Harris. Watch at  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKukd7rWZrs

  • 03/17/2014 10:41 PM | Stephen Coffee

    (In Part I, songwriter Jon Carroll introduced his analysis of Lou Reed's "Dirty Blvd.")

     

     

    Now with some notes, just for fun:

    (And it need not be said that these thoughts, interpretations and suppositions are this writers alone. Its perilous to analyze songwriting. Most writer dont enjoy doing it to their own work, and I apologize if the reader is repelled by this overstep. On the other hand, step offits just a song, a really good song.

     

     

    Dirty Blvd.

    (Lou Reed)

    Pedro lives out of the Wilshire Hotel

    He looks out a window without glass

    (The stage is economically set within 5 seconds with these first two lines.Taken literally: abject poverty. Figuratively, it might suggest there is no lens or protective layer of shelter between outside and in: One reality. Pedro doesnt live IN the Wilshire (will share?) Hotel, he lives out of it.

    The walls are made of cardboard, newspapers on his feet

    His father beats him 'cause he's too tired to beg

    (Further establishing the environment as deprived, abusive, flimsy to the point of ephemera)

    He's got 9 brothers and sisters--they're brought up on their knees

    It's hard to run when a coat hanger beats you on the thighs

    (The begging is reiterated as we learn there are many others there, and they are brought up on their knees, raised to believe that they are lower and worth less than most)

    Pedro dreams of being older and killing the old man

    but that's a slim chance he's going to the boulevard

    (Back to Pedro, he dreams. To wit, his pathetic visionary aspiration is to one day murder his parent. And our credibly world-wise narrator dryly and jarringly dashes even that demented hope as futile, pointing out that Plan A is sadly:

    He's going to end up, on the dirty boulevard

    He's going out, to the dirty boulevard

    He's going down, to the dirty boulevard

    (The signifiers here are quick and potent: end up, going out, going down)

    This room cost 2,000 dollars a month, you can believe it man, it's true

    Somewhere a landlord's laughing till he wets his pants

    (Reed introduces what will be a recurring device here and elsewhere throughout the album, using defecation as a handy expression of a total lack of dignity and respect.)

    No one here dreams of being a doctor or a lawyer or anything

    They dream of dealing on the dirty boulevard

    (Here again is the insistent mention of dreams, a term for aspirations, but now they lead irrevocably back to the dirty boulevard, perhaps as Robert Frosts After Apple Picking refers to the hauntingly perseverating images which cannot be dispelled by an exhausted laborer at the end of a long day)

    Give me your hungry, your tired your poor I'll piss on 'em

    That's what the Statue of Bigotry says

    Your poor huddled masses, let's club 'em to death

    and get it over with and just dump 'em on the boulevard

    (Boldly animating--then desecratingundefinedthe Lady in the Harbor, taking four lines to further dehumanize the immigrants to so much rodential detritus thereby conflating to national policy the landlord laughing while he wets)

    Get em out, on the dirty boulevard

    Going out, to the dirty boulevard

    He's going down, on the dirty boulevard

    Going out

    (Now we are introduced to the third act which offers some specificity to the job descriptions on the boulevard. Going out is a streetwalkers standard pitch, while going down is often at offer)

    Outside it's a bright night, there's an opera at Lincoln Center

    Movie stars arrive by limousine

    (We stay out, outside Pedros world, and the privileged and well-heeled are antithetically busy in theirs. Their night is bright, although Lou slyly and seductively reforms the word limousine into the name of a drug like mescaline or Dexedrine. Just as this listener is thinking this, the following lines affirm the theme):

    The klieg lights shoot up over the skyline of Manhattan

    But the lights are out on the mean streets

    (No explanation required.)

    A small kid stands by the Lincoln Tunnel

    He's selling plastic roses for a buck

    (I discovered that The Robert Frost poem alludes to “stem end and blossom end” as well as other salient images and themes that correspond not too remotely.)

    The traffic's backed up to 39th street

    The TV Whores are calling the Cops out for a Suck

    (A vivid scene,with metaphors for those who are looking. Economical phrasing right down to numbers and acronyms.)

    And back at the Wilshire, Pedro sits there dreaming

    He's found a book on Magic in a garbage can

    He looks at the pictures and stares at the cracked ceiling

    "At the count of 3" he says, "I hope I can disappear"

    (The cracked ceiling: figurative, literal with multiplied metaphoric weight and now, after all, Pedros dream and hope, is to disappear)

    And fly fly away, from this dirty boulevard

    I want to fly, from dirty boulevard

    I want to fly, from the dirty boulevard

    I want to fly, fly, fly, fly, from the dirty boulevard

    I want to fly away

    I want to fly

    (The Doo-Wop style backsing remember the doot da doot in Walk On The Wild Side--function as Greek Chorus and Uriah Heep, ushering the listener, and Pedro to whatever comes next. Another voice (a grown man) assumes Pedros persona with the vociferous desire: I wanna fly)

    This song is a wonderful example of how a simple, thoughtfully considered lyric can achieve amazing and transporting results.

    ManyThanks, Lou.

    ~JC

  • 03/17/2014 10:24 PM | Stephen Coffee

    by Jon Carroll

    Local songwriter and musician, Jon Carroll is famed for his work with Mary Chapin Carpenter and the Starland Vocal Band. He is a frequent Wammie winner and contributed this fascinating essay to SAW.

    Anyone nominally familiar with the mystique and work of Lou Reed would be aware of his status as a primary progenitor of the “new honesty” in rock: an unflinching stylistic trend that preceded "punk" in the mid to late 70's. Ian Hunter & Mott the Hoople, David Bowie, NY Dolls, Iggy & The Stooges, Alice Cooper, etc. were fresh new voices that returned to and embraced a stark expressionism. Vivid and lyrical, it was not altogether nascent, but a return to the blunter styles of early blues and rock. Eric Burdon & The Animals, early Rolling Stonesundefinedperhaps even Buddy Holly-- were ‘punk’ in that the delivery was direct, the message deliberate.

    Many a statement was brusquely made by sheer virtue of--indeed with and withinundefined the delivery itself: forthright and unadorned, stripped down to big notes and sounds with a won’t-run-can’t-hide mainline express approach that torched all chances for misinterpretation.

    Since then, the tradition continues from mid to late 70’s to now with New Wave/Punk icons The Ramones, Sex Pistols, The Clash, Patti Smith, Black Flag (continually Henry Rollins…) into the Post-Punk 80’s & 90’s with B-52s, Talking Heads, Gang of Four, Severed Heads, R.E.M., Mission of Burma, U2 and on to post-punk revivalists like The Strokes, Social Distortion, naming but a comparatively prominent few: those who embrace a more direct style to convey many and varied themes, tales, rants and laments, the last of which may hazard to be romance and love if those particular yarns were abjectly truthful, proud and with no nod to vulnerability. Sweetness for its own sake was elementa non grata.

    Lou Reed was the principle writer of the Velvet Underground before a long career of collaborative adventure and solo works, and among the first of these artists to expound unabashedly on and of society’s underbelly, its underdogs, the underserved and underrepresented in and out of the drug culture, moreover, sub-culture and alternative lifestyle writ large with multitudes theretofore underexplored. His social commentaries were, for the most part, delivered through the lenses of vividly drawn characters, although he’s also known for not-so parenthetic rants directed at society’s soulless and villainous entities, albeit usually uttered in tones of street-corner commiseration.

    "Lou Reed doesn't just write about squalid characters, he allows them to leer and breathe in their own voices, and he colors familiar landscapes through their own eyes. In the process, Reed has created a body of music that comes as close to disclosing the parameters of human loss and recovery as we're likely to find. That qualifies him, in my opinion, as one of the few real heroes rock & roll has raised." Mikal Gilmore, Rolling Stone, (1979)

    Mainstream Pop music, as with film or any other medium, might include the merely sincere among its myriad characteristics, but it was Punk that flipped the switch refreshingly back to Rock and Roll’s original proclamatory (and in the purest sense, mandatory) adherence to the ethos of “saying what you mean” with as little incidental packaging as possible. The superfluous is an obstruction, no lightweight consideration especially when constructing a narrative arc no longer than a 3 minute record.

    During his final few years alive Reed returned to radio, hosting--along with old pal producer Hal Wilner--the gleefully received eclectic weekly 5 hour New York Shuffle on Sirius-XM which still continues, with the implicit “you’re welcome if you’re doing something interesting” playlist policy. His broad-scope spin choices reveal other interesting aspects to his top-shelf artistic taste.

    Throughout his artistic life Lou Reed maintained a loyalty to all that is straightforward.

    He mostly recorded and/or performed sure-handed cleanundefinedor broadly dirtyundefinedpresentations and portraits that relied on his deft ability to wrangle as much potency from a cunningly considered lyric, a true gift to be appreciated again and again in multitudes of well-turned phrases.

    During his early growth as a student of journalism, film-making and creative writing he was profoundly impressed by the high-octane possibilities of well deliberated minimalism, propelling his lyric writing ever more toward that ideal.           

    The basic, aurally strong-boned construction of Punk provided the perfect accommodation for Reed’s glib style which stands starkly and undeniably expressive, with imagery abiding in scandalous cahoots with primal rhythms and multi-entendre word craft.

    It’s this hybrid brew of narrative styles that that I find the most effecting throughout the Lou Reed catalog. It’s sneaky, as though there may all the while be one continuous chaotic sub-text, a slip-stream cum river raging beneath a mundanely dead-pan commentary. I find Reed’s dryly elegant effusiveness a deceptively rich archeological terrain begging to be upturned for closer scrutiny.

    One of my very favorite songs can be found on his 1989 album release New York, a contiguous three-act collection that was performedundefinedsometimes stubbornlyundefined in its entirety during its initial promotional tour.

    For those allowing the indulgence, I’ve chosen the song Dirty Blvd. for a somewhat granular and reverent, if you will, unpacking: an “under the hood” look at why I consider it an exemplary piece of great songwriting, its layout so vivid and masterful that I had somehow managed to overlook it’s mostly spoken delivery for years. That was until last Spring when I listened with a college class of young aspiring songwriters. One student exclaimed that it was “the weirdest rap song” he’d ever heard.

    Its urban universe revolves around the ambiguously young, cursedly poor, dreamily wistful Pedro. Within this relentless and cruel environment his pragmatic coping devices will inevitably, one might deduce, mature along with his hopelessness into an illicit and morally deficient existence.

    Bleak? Undoubtedly. But truthful and credibly fashioned as only a native empath of “the mean streets” would manage. Over the years the haunting tale would come to wrap ever closer around my head much as this harsh reality would tighten intractably around the pitiful boy’s choked future. See if you might experience the same reaction.

    First, the lyric only:

    (The mix of the recording is wonderfully narrator-centric, as if the storyteller waits just out of the frame during the compellingly simple guitar intro before stepping in, immediately nose to nose with us listeners)

    Dirty Blvd. 

    (Lou Reed) 

    Pedro lives out of the Wilshire Hotel

    He looks out a window without glass

    The walls are made of cardboard, newspapers on his feet

    His father beats him 'cause he's too tired to beg

     

    He's got 9 brothers and sisters--they're brought up on their knees

    It's hard to run when a coat hanger beats you on the thighs

    Pedro dreams of being older and killing the old man

    but that's a slim chance, he's going to the boulevard

     

    He's going to end up, on the dirty boulevard

    He's going out, to the dirty boulevard

    He's going down, to the dirty boulevard

     

     

    This room cost 2,000 dollars a month, you can believe it man, it's true

    Somewhere a landlord's laughing till he wets his pants

    No one here dreams of being a doctor or a lawyer or anything

    they dream of dealing on the dirty boulevard

     

    Give me your hungry, your tired your poor I'll piss on 'em

    That's what the Statue of Bigotry says

    Your poor huddled masses, let's club 'em to death

    and get it over with and just dump 'em on the boulevard

     

    Get em out, on the dirty boulevard

    Going out, to the dirty boulevard

    They're going down, on the dirty boulevard

    Going out

     

    Outside it's a bright night, there's an opera at Lincoln Center

    Movie stars arrive by limousine

    The klieg lights shoot up over the skyline of Manhattan

    But the lights are out on the mean streets

     

    A small kid stands by the Lincoln Tunnel

    He's selling plastic roses for a buck

    The traffic's backed up to 39th street

    The TV whores are calling the cops out for a suck

     

    And back at the Wilshire, Pedro sits there dreaming

    He's found a book on Magic in a garbage can

    He looks at the pictures and stares up at the cracked ceiling

    "At the count of 3" he says, "I hope I can disappear"

     

    And fly fly away, from this dirty boulevard

    I want to fly, from the dirty boulevard

    I want to fly, from the dirty boulevard

    I want to fly, fly, fly, fly, from the dirty boulevard

     

    I want to fly away

    I want to fly 

     

    To read Jon's analysis, continue to Part II...

  • 03/10/2014 7:49 PM | Stephen Coffee

    Music for Life provides after school guitar lessons for youth who otherwise do not have the opportunity; primarily low income. They were recently awarded United Way grants to expand their program in Arlington and Loudoun Counties in Virginia and Washington DC. They’re in the process of opening new class locations and are looking for volunteers to teach. Classes are for beginners and no prior teaching experience is required. Classes are on weeknights, once a week for an hour and usually start around 5 pm. You can learn more about them out at www.musicforlife.org.

    New locations include Lubber Run Community Center, 300 North Park Drive, Arlington, VA 22203 on Mondays; Douglas Community Center, 405 E. Market St., Leesburg, VA 20176 on Wednesdays; Sterling Community Center, 120 Enterprise St., Sterling, VA 20164 (day/time to be determined); Lamond Rec Center, 20 Tuckerman St. NE, Washington DC 20011 (day/time to be determined); and Sherwood Rec Center, 640 10th St. NE, Washington DC 20002 (day/time to be determined). If interested or want more information contact Skip.Chaples@gngnca.org.

  • 03/10/2014 7:41 PM | Stephen Coffee

    Michael Smith, the internationally celebrated songwriter and performer now offers Songwriting Workshops in addition to-and in conjunction with-musical concerts. He has taught songwriting at conferences and hundreds of venues over his five-decade career including the Kerrville Folk Festival, Old Town School of Folk Music, and Lamb’s Songwriter’s Retreat. This self-taught musician is a Tony and Jefferson award-winning composer and contributes original scores to the finest theaters in US. Michael adapts his presentations for small groups, on-going classes and for conference-size gatherings. Speaking engagements on are available as well.

    March 19, 2014 | 1 p.m.
    1749 Dressage Drive | Reston, VA 20190

    Registration required

  • 01/27/2014 1:42 PM | Stephen Coffee

    On Saturday, January 25, nine wonderful volunteers from SAW including President Rob Veale and VP Larry Mediate, cooked and served a hot beef stew dinner for over 80 clients at the Embery Rucker shelter in Reston VA. This shelter houses both families and singles (men and women). The staff there treated us very well, and the clients were happy for the home-cooked food and the tunes we provided after the meal. We were invited to return, and we probably will go there again. SAW Serves has now provided local shelters in Maryland and Virginia, over 200 hot meals and three concerts. We fill the tummies and then feed the soul with music!


Songwriters' Association of Washington is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization.

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president@saw.org

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Bethesda, MD 20814

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