dann russo: News

tomorrow morning -

coffee and crank it up!

Dann (Numbers) will be rocking out Jester Inn at 5am slt (8am est, 7am central, I think 1pm gmt)

for those of you not in SL - listen to it here: http://69.13.151.54:8670 and for those of you in SL - here is the slurl: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Strayling/234/45/54
peace,
Dann (Numbers in SL, Russo in RL)

http://www.dannrusso.com

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFgLyxQSAHo
its the video preview for Models Don't Eat Chocolate Cookies

go Erin!

http://www.erindionne.com

so - waiting for me on my desk at work this morning was a brand new copy of Models Don't Eat Chocolate Cookies by Erin Dionne. You need to get it now.

peace,
Dann

this is one of the coolest things I have ever seen...

and I was just reminded that it happens next thursday...

Models Don't Eat Chocolate Cookies by Erin Dionne (www.erindionne.com ) comes out and MY SONGS are in it...

that in and of itself is pretty cool...but then Erin wants me to go around and actually play them at her book signings/presentations.

I'm honored and in awe.

so it just came to me in a flash!

well, kind of...I have always wanted to write an album called "Paradiso Lluvioso" and guess what I'm doing in February?

well, yeah, that...

and WRITING PARADISO LLUVIOSO! (http://www.rpmchallenge.com )

here is the initial track listing (subject to editing for time or content)

1. It Looks Worse Than It Is

2. Means Justify The Ends

3. Rain Is The Same (rewritten)

4. E A B

5. Para Que No Tengas Sed

6. Dice

7. Frank Advice

None of the songs will be written until February, although some of them have had a head start ;-)

peace,

Dann

a video for Parking Lot Kings has been filmed in Second Life! check it out:

so cool - Dann music added here:
Bohemio Radio - Listener Supported Radio for Independent Artists Around the World. Check it out at http://www.bohemioradio.com/index-8.html
thanks Bohemio Radio

so I'm gearing up...in the vein of that National Novel Writing Month a phenominally genius person came up with the idea of doing it for music too!

here is the info: http://www.rpmchallenge.com/component/option,com_frontpage/Itemid,1/
If you are a musician, check it out and ITS ON! Especially if I tagged you - then we all have to meet in Portsmouth and listen to each others music.

:-)

10 songs? 35 minutes? in February?

hell yeah.

peace,
Dann

Happy New Year!
So - for some people, me included, New Years is a cool way of looking back and seeing the stuff that happened in 2008 as History - and making sure that some of it gets repeated in a vicious circle of fabulousness but making sure that some things will change forever for good. I for one am taking a mulligan on pretty much everything since Thanksgiving, teeing up the ball a little higher, and getting out the club that I hit the best with.

If you didn't catch the golf analogy, I'm pretty much going to rock out 2009 as well as I can. There are many many good things that are happening and that are going to happen and I can't wait. I'm not going to be upset about stuff that is in the past and I can't do anything about, but I am off to the races and I don't lose races. ;-)

and if you haven't seen this, its pretty cool: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Dann-Russo/36658671856
peace and love for all.

Dann

don't forget to put the Christ back in Christian today - wish the greatest violin player of all time Happy Birthday!

please to put a penny in the old man's hat

and if you haven't got an old man, how about some struggling musicians?

;-)

remember - there is some awesome new music available out there - many can be given as Christmas presents too! Please check out my "top friends"who are musicians at my myspace page (http://www.myspace.com/dannrusso ) and grab some of their music to give and give them some support too!



peace,

Dann

it's kind of upsetting when the day you get the tree is dark and rainy and cold...where is the snow? where is the nice winter that comes from the north and brings down Santa and Rudolph and presents and jolliness? or is it jollyness? Maybe that's the reason my new song "Her Majesty Cry" is about Orpheus and Euridice - the greatest love story ever told with the saddest ending ever. You see, Euridice got bit by a snake and died. Orpheus was such a great singer and songwriter that he was able to go down to the underworld and convince Persephone, queen of Hades, to shed a tear and let Euridice go back to the land of the living. He wasn't allowed to see her until he got back to the outside world, and about two steps from making it to the top, he turned around and saw her vanish.

Halloween
Ok I hate Halloween...well, hate is a strong word...I don't really HATE Halloween, but I certainly don't enjoy it or look forward to it as much as some people (that I happen to live with) do. I blame Sean Brereton scaring the hell out of me in 1st grade with some kind of mask that I probably still have nightmares about today. But that's not the point.

The point is that my costumes ROCK. Ever since the gauntlet has been thrown about 8 years ago to self-make costumes for parties, I have always tried to out-shine anyone there (although there are a few to whom Halloween is an art form akin to Rembrandt or even DaVinci (http://bostonerin.livejournal.com/ ) and I can hardly hold a candle) and have spent a lot of time on my costumes - my Julius Caesar with 27 stab wounds and a sword still in his back, the William Wallace complete with blue face and what the Scots wear under their kilt, the Frodo Baggins...well, that was just fantastic and I was practically made for it...and today I spent two hours creating a fantastic costume - I sewed a brown boa onto my courderoy jacket, more on my sweatbands to put on my knees, created a Temple University t-shirt, am planning ..ing my face, and my hair is perfect for tufts. I seem to put a lot of work into something I only kinda like...but I like the finished product a lot :-)

ok.

so everytime I log onto my website (http://www.dannrusso.com ) the first thing I check is the guestbook. Originally, it was to see if anyone who was at my last show, performance, sl show, met me at someone's house and to whom I gave my card logged on and had any comments about my music, my site, the pics, whatever. Recently there have been a lot of posts (by spammers I assume) that include such winners as "asian women free asian women blowjobs sdfiuysw asian" (that was on there today). And of course I delete the post, but it leads me to a few things:

1. I'm often horrified at the date these posts were put up. That means that anyone who has gone to my site in the last few days has seen it.
2. consequently I'm depressed cause no one went to my site cause they would have told me about it :-P

so...

do I stop allowing comments on my site?
do I just keep deleting?

so I played my first college show in a while and learned a few things:

1. MCPHS rocks. Awesome place, awesome people.

2. sitting down at an intimate venue is the way to go - even the rockier songs were cooler and more well-received than if I was trying to emote on two feet.

3. I need to always play Fix You in my set. I tried it as a lark, playing it for the second time ever, and the end of the song EVERYone sang. It was really cool.

So, thank you very much MCPHS.

And by the way, Casey Sullivan rocks. Check her out: http://www.myspace.com/caseysullivanmusic she is going to be way famous.

so I read this article about this guy who posted some songs online and has been able to become famous. Not FAMOUS famous but famous enough to pay his bills, play lots of shows, and travel. Basically exactly what I want to do.

I'm not jealous at all...ok, maybe I am a little...but he's GOOD http://www.jonathancoulton.com/ and plays all his own stuf, which makes it that much cooler.

That being said, I am planning on completely ripping off his "once a week" video posting and starting to post songs on my youtube account (with all appropriate links, of course) this week.

Do YOU, dear viewer, have any suggestions as to 1. what songs to start with 2. any covers to sneak in or 3. how to make this viral?

:-)

peace,

Dann

http://www.orange-island.com/?p=624

Not in theory, but in practice.

I have found over the past two weeks or so I have been vehemently frothing at the mouth defending someone who I didnt even vote for four months ago to people whose minds I'm not going to change anyway. This has proved not only fruitless but frustrating and does nothing but encourage bad feelings between people, which I really don't like.

That having been understood, I shall watch the coming two months for amusement and will not discuss any one politician's views on anything until after November 5th. If anyone would like my opinion on a specifc issue, I would be more than happy to give it.

You know that old adage where you're not supposed to discuss religion or politics over the dinner table? I'm finding some validity to that. If I happen to forget, I ask those of you whom I talk to regularly to please remind me that I said this, and that I am of course willing to give MY opinion on certain topics that I might even agree with both sides on, but I will quietly vote for who I want to vote for without getting into fights about it.

However, I will be more than happy to discuss religion :-)

Blessed are the Peacemakers, for they will be called Children of God.

thank you all for coming out on Friday night - the crowd was awesome and the National Underground is a place I cant wait to play again...the set list for you:
1. She Asks
2. Dreaming Without You
3. Ruby Red Hair
4. Fortunes, Forecasts & Lucky Charms
5. No Pain
6. Year
7. Believe
8. Café en San Juan
9. Good Morning, Chelsea
10. How Do You Spell l.o.v.e.?

ok so yesterday I admittedly was a little vervous at the St Columbkille camp at Boston College at Erin Dionne's first reading for "Models Don't Eat Chocolate Cookies." We sat in a classroom in front of about 20 6th graders who paid rapt (for the most part) attention to Erin reading the first 12 pages of the book. We introduced ourselves, Erin read, and then I played. I explained the two songs from the book, Ruby Red Hair, which I had written a few years ago, and Dreaming Without You, which I wrote specifically to be a Theo Christmas song, the character I play in the book. After that we took questions and I was...surprised is the wrong word...I was pleasantly pleased by not only the amount of questions, but the quality of the questions too...

Erin got a whole lot of questions about the book - how you write a book, what it was about, about the characters in the book, who came up with the title, who made the cover, about the main character Celeste, and then I got a whole bunch of questions too - how you write a song, how long have I been playing, do I have a band, do I have a CD, do I know any famous guitar players or singers, what is my favorite Pearl Jam song, and of course I did my best to re-direct most of the questions back to Erin's book and site (www.erindionne.com or her blog http://bostonerin.livejournal.com/) , but I must admit it tickled me a little that they were so interested in my music.

and I got an encore! One of the kids asked me what the first song I ever wrote was, and so I told them Believe (which is almost 100% accurate although I'm not completely sure) and they asked me to play it so thats how we ended the presentation. I think I need to write more Theo Christmas songs :-)

now I can't wait for the next reading

It's not often that you get to go to the singing of a book...tomorrow Dann will be performing songs he wrote from the upcoming Penguin/Putnam release of "Models Don't Eat Chocolate Cookies" by Erin Dionne. You can check out the book's website here: http://www.erindionne.com/models_home.html
The reading takes place tomorrow (the 7th) at 2pm at Boston College - should be fun!

I take back anything bad I have ever said about Paris Hilton...this is genius http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/64ad536a6d

check it out!

http://www.mvyradio.com/local_musicafe/

rocking the drums for ..... years