Bo's Blog — The "Eat More Kale" Guy

The band I play in will be playing in Burlington, Vermont for the first time at the RADIO BEAN CAFE. We’re playing on Sunday night, July 22nd. We’d love to see your friendly face there. If you’ve been there, you know what a great cafe it is and how cool, Lee, the owner is. If you haven’t been there, well come on then. We’re calling ourselves Rogue Birds. ( we did call ourselves The Road to Judevine). Check out my recent blog entry about the band to hear a couple of our tunes. See you on Sunday I hope.

I just got back from vending this weekend at the Vermont Solar Festival. It was a beautiful weekend and a very progressive event ( powered by the sun!). I sold a shitload of shirts and had a great time doing it. I must have listened to 500 hundred stories from 500 people and must have told them 1000 stories while they where under my tent. My jaw is tired. My feet are dirty. The music was good, the weather was great, the scenery was mind-blowing and the people were “easy like a Sunday morning”. Here are just a couple of people I met: …….just kidding… I can’t list you all, and if I can’t list you all I’m not going to list one. You know who you are. Seriously… I met some great folks this weekend. There’s some good stuff going on in Vermont, New England and EVEN TEXAS! No really, people from all around the nation and world where at the fest to share, learn and support small time artists like me. It blows me away.
If you where there, I’ll see you next time. Contact me or send me a picture of you and your new shirt. If you were not there, come next year and in the mean time……..do something worthwhile.

Hi there everyone. Happy 4th of July to you. I have some advice I’d like to share. DON’T BLOW YOUR HANDS OFF WITH FIREWORKS. Keep this in mind tonight after your 10th beer.

About 9 months ago I was ask to play music with a local farmer named Duffy. He’d written a load of songs on guitar and wanted some folks to help fill up a room with music. Carl, a friend of both of ours , and a cello player joined us at the next practice. We’ve been playing weekly since. We’ve had a few gigs and a great time at WGDR radio. These following tunes were recorded at the radio station early in May.
We’ve called ourselves..The Road To Judevine. We’re still wrestling with names for our band. If you have any ideas, let us know.
Enjoy the following tunes. All are original except for Railroad Man a song by The EELS.
If you like them, let us know.

DUFFY=GUITAR/VOCALS CARL=CELLO ME=DRUMS/SHAKERS

we now call ourselves ****ROGUE BIRDS*****

New music tracks:

• Fast Moving Water
• Canticle of the Sun
• Railroad Man
• Pieces of Me
• Persephone

Jackson Browne played in Barre, Vt. this past weekend. I got to make and sell the concert t-shirts for L.A.C.E. ( the sponsor and new wonderful food project in downtown Barre). They sold out TOO FAST. So if you did’nt get one but want one, order a shirt from my website then “note” to me to make it a “Lace/JB” shirt. I hope you had some fun, I did. Thanks to Jackson Browne and LACE.

Because of something called a “sitemeter” on my website, I can see where people are visiting my site from and how they got there. As it turns out….@10 people in Europe, per day, do an image search online and wind up looking at a semi-nude picture of me playing guitar posted in an earlier blog. That’s pretty wild huh?

Funny thing, as my “micro-business” grows people are starting to borrow/steal my designs for their own profit. I’m beginning to get more and more familiar with copyright law…..I’ve even had to get a lawyer! Can you believe it? People must think that it’s no big deal to use my designs. I must assume that because they don’t see a copyright symbol, they think my art is theirs to use. These people are quite wrong. Because I can prove the age and originality of my designs, they are mine to use only. Just today, an online t-shirt printing business had to remove a number of items featuring the phrase “Eat More Kale”. These were cheap, mass-produced wears with no heart and soul. The rip off artist must have known I was going to fight for what was mine. I’m no pushover. Do me a favor please, contact me if you ever see a website or retailer illegally using and selling my designs.

Alright kids….what is up? If you’ll look below at a recent blog entry called “Let’s Trade”, you’ll see I have a really good and fun offer for you all. So why has NOBODY taken me up on this? I feel like the guy outside of a concert with an extra ticket to GIVE, but upon offering it to folks they look him as if he is a CRAZY MAN with bad intentions. I have no bad intentions. I just want to trade you something/anything for a limited edition t-shirt. Look at the earlier blog entry for details. Please don’t leave me hangin’.

Back by request! I’ve had a number of people say they’d heard about it, but could not find it, so here it is again. My first and only album. What do you think?

Long story short: I’m a novice musician, I play many instruments very poorly. One night, for fun, I used a $75 digital 8 track recorder to record these 6 songs( the day I purchased the recorder). I’d never written or recorded a song before nor have I since. All 6 of these tunes were made up on the spot and all recorded within 4 hours. This is truely a case of: give a dude, with no talent, some electronics, a guitar, a jaw harp and a maraca or two and let him see what a mess he can create. Well, here it is. If you are up for some music pulled from my ass, go for it. ( I did have a friend tell me, “these songs aren’t bad with a set of headphones and a head full of Shrooms!) ( ****if you don’t have headphones, simply hold one speaker to each ear, or lay your head on your laptop****)
To download, right-click a link and choose “Save target as…”
Music mp3’s you can download:

click on track # to hear
• Track 1

THE ARM THAT SWUNG THE STICK features: drum/bass loop, a vocal sample from the “Free Tibet Concert” video, me on the: jaw harp, bamboo drum, keyboard

• Track 2

JOURNEY INWARD features: drum/bass loop, PBS Special audio sample, me on the; spoons through a synth, keyboard, light maraca

• Track 3

DO YOU LIKE WHAT YOU SEE? features: drum/bass loop, me on the: electric guitar, cow bell, vibra-slap, cymbals, vocals, wooden block, chestnut shaker

• Track 4

JACK THE RABBIT features: me on the drums, vocals, shaker, jawharp

• Track 5

SHIT ON MY SHOE features: bass loop, me on the; guitar, vocals

• Track 6

ALL SORTS OF ELECTRONIC GOODIES features: drum/bass loop, Pink Floyd (David Gilmore) vocal sample, me on the; electric guitar, jaw harp, wooden block, vibra-slap, trash can lid, keyboard, harmonica

Some pics from that night:

I have an offer for you. I’d like to trade you one of my hand-made shirts for something from you. You could trade almost anything….art, crafts, a pick from a Bon Jovi concert, photos, music, t-shirts, poems, autographed napkins, a food that your town is known for, you get the picture. My shirts are worth @$23 per…so I hope you’ll send me something worth more than a buck or two…dig? You can just send it (whatever) to me, or you can email me ahead of time. Contact me through my site. So, in return for your trade, you tell me what size and whether you want a men’s, womens, or kids style. I’M GOING TO SURPRISE YOU WITH THE COLOR AND DESIGN. It will not say “Eat More Kale”! I’m going to send one of my more “limited edition” shirts. I will only do this for a short time, then I’ll erase this blog entry. So if you are motivated and want to TRADE, come on with it. My address is #3 Taplin St. Montpelier, Vt. 05602 Be creative please.