The Nashville Musicians Club

06/13/2015

Well, the move into the new place was a long and difficult process, still not entirely squared-away, and getting a new internet connection is still a drama (even on my new smart phone) after a falling out with AT&T (lying thieves). Meanwhile, we've cranked up our jam nights again at my place, Bobby Pizzaz, Tom Rogers, John Di Baptista, and myself got into a pretty cool groove, and we missed our no-shows. Going to be a long process getting back to functioning again, my cancer got worse, hard to get out of bed after chemo infusion for several days, not much energy to do stuff. Peace, love to all. - Will

02/07/2015

A "heads up" announcement for NMC members.

"There's a change a'coming". If all goes well in the next few weeks, we will be scouting the Nashville area with the intent of renting or leasing a house which will be our first neighborhood NMC clubhouse. If any of you music folks know of or have ownership of a house that would be suitable (nice, 3 or 4 bedrooms, 2 1/2 baths, large living room, garage, and parking space) and could be made available before or by April 21 for us, please do leave a message and phone number. We would, of course, prefer a musician landlord, and under the right circumstances, offer a lease with option to buy. The features of the clubhouse for NMC members will include 2 recording studios, jam, rehearsal, and lounge room, an Internet PR team, graphic design, photography and videography, web site and FB page design, a co-writers round table, a greenhouse to provide organic foods for a Sunday feast with a Vegan chef and a Bar-B-Q chef, and a Gospel/Yoga meditation chapel, with classes offered by resident qualified, ordained teachers. We will be specializing in New Artist and Band Mentoring and Development, and helping our fellow members through hard times. "Musical Sojourn" means "musical hangout", and we will be open for our members to hangout and do business and have fun every day, 12 pm to 12 am.

02/07/2015

"There's a change a'coming". If all goes well in the next few weeks, we will be scouting the Nashville area with the intent of renting or leasing a house which will be our first neighborhood NMC clubhouse. If any of you music folks know of or have ownership of a house that would be suitable (nice, 3 or 4 bedrooms, 2 1/2 baths, large living room, garage, and parking space) and could be made available before or by April 21 for us, please do leave a message and phone number. We would, of course, prefer a musician landlord, and under the right circumstances, offer a lease with option to buy. The features of the clubhouse for NMC members will include 2 recording studios, jam, rehearsal, and lounge room, an Internet PR team, graphic design, photography and videography, web site and FB page design, a co-writers round table, a greenhouse to provide organic foods for a Sunday feast with a Vegan chef and a Bar-B-Q chef, and a Gospel/Yoga meditation chapel, with classes offered by resident qualified, ordained teachers. We will be specializing in New Artist and Band Mentoring and Development, and helping our fellow members through hard times. "Musical Sojourn" means "musical hangout", and we will be open for our members to hangout and do business and have fun every day, 12 pm to 12 am.

01/07/2015

For now and maybe the future, we're going to have to depend on live venues, paying from A to Z, to make a living... which still includes selling CD's (LP's if they keep coming back) at gigs... and T-shirts at least. All of that free play of our music on the Internet just promotes our on-stage gigs. How many CD's have we given away ourselves? Songwriters do that all of the time. OK, this present change would be Effective Cause, further making the difference between those whom are gifted, talented, and schooled musicians/artists/performers... and... those who are NOT gifted, nor talented, nor schooled... and have crappy Karma. The Arts do not die, artists die, at sometime in the middle or end of our great success phase or in our great failure phase. The good news for The Music Community is that our present culture raises its children to be concert goers, club goers, music buyers, and they're smart enough to get their music any way that they can. They can even find parking. And a nice portion of the rich ones buy or build new venues that pay from A to Z. - Will Butler

01/01/2015

New Year's Eve Office Party

12/31/2014

Downtown Nashville, 10:30 am... a really good band cranked up on one of the outdoor stages (brrrr!) to start the day's New Year's Eve celebrations. Music City really does take its partying seriously. Happy New Year to all of Music City's Music Makers, to all of our Nashville Musicians Club Members, and event promoters.

11/12/2014

Huge thanks to NMC member Michael Laidley for organizing the memorial and benefit events for Patricio Tower and his widow Roxanne. Huge thanks to Pat's talented friends who will be performing the music and contributing to the silent auction.

10/30/2014

Ok, most recent news: the culprit who fatally assaulted Patricio Tower has been arrested and charged with aggravated assault until the autopsy report is in and it changes to murder. If y'all saw the Channel 4 News interview with Roxanne Tower and Michael Laidley, at Michael's home, and you've ever been to Michael's, you'll give their news teams a lot of credit for how far they'll go, how difficult it can be, to get their stories. Michael's house is WAY out in the boonies.
There will be a memorial service at the Center for Spiritual Living on Charlotte Pike, Nov. 15 at 1:00 pm, and, so far, a short and sweet benefit show at the Commodore Grill the same evening, 6 - 7 pm.

10/28/2014

Several of us who are friends of Patricio and Roxanne and members of the NMC are agreeing that we need to, and want to, organize a benefit for Roxanne to help her through this crisis. And everyone wants to play for it, so we already have a start on a lineup. Michael Laidley, Bobby Pizzaz, and I are going to start setting up for it, please give one or more of us a heads up if ya want to be on the playbill or contribute something to the event. We'll keep y'all posted on our progress. Good ideas for a venue are welcome, and we'd really appreciate it if our Nashville Musicians Club members would make a point of attending this fellow-member benefit as a Club event.

10/26/2014

Update on Patricio Tower: at 10:51 a.m., Sunday, Pat was taken off of life-support and passed on, mostly due to brain damage resulting from the horrific criminal assault he suffered at the downtown clinic on 8th Ave. South. This is the second murder of a musician that I know of in that area. Lesson learned, change to a vegetarian diet and stay well away from the Mission - Room At The Inn area. We're already missing our multi-talented, good-hearted brother.

10/25/2014

Update on Patricio Tower: as of 11:30 am, Sat, Pat is still in a coma, kidneys are shutting down. His family has put a "do not resuscitate" order into effect, so if he (very likely to happen) suffers another cardiac arrest, he's gone from us. Pat's been a close friend for a lot of years, I'm at a loss of words - Will Butler

10/25/2014

Bad news report: hate crime: long-time NMC founding member, Patricio Tower, was assaulted in a downtown clinic's waiting room while peacefully sitting, waiting to pick up a prescription, by a black assailant, who broke his jaw in three places, broke the eye socket above the left eye, both collar bones, and several ribs. And this was just a couple of days after getting out of the hospital in a much weakened state with his second stroke and still wearing a neck brace. We won't get the incident report until tomorrow, but currently he is in the ICU at Centennial on life support and in a coma. Please send out prayers for him and his wife Roxanne.

09/16/2014

Young Talent on the Rise

Young Talent on the Rise

08/18/2014

Ok, lemme explain this "what's happening to Country Music" question. The millions of folks who loved '60's and '70's rock n roll were THE major music market, and then rock turned into awful grunge heavy metal. As Fate would have it, the "Nashville Sound", "Hot Country" or "Rockin' Country" sprang into the limelight, the bands rocked (Reba) and it sounded good to both rock fans and Country girls who just love to dance. The trend grew and grew and the big labels found that they were making tons of money with Country artists whose bands rocked. Keith Urban is a rock guitarist in-disguise. Face it, electric guitars rock, whether playing rock or country, and the Country and rocker girls still love to dance, and still pay out the big bucks to hear bands that rock and get them up dancing. That's where the big money, big radio, and big venues are today. However, Traditional Country, Bluegrass, Americana are still doing fine and can be heard all over the country in the mid-level venues and radio, and TV... good music is still good music, and nobody has to worry or complain about "what's happening to Country Music". In my job, I get around to a huge variety of music and songwriter venues in Nashville, and what I am hearing more than anything else is Traditional Country, and what I am seeing is tons of Country artists getting gigs all over the world and keeping busy (if they're talented). So, fear not, guys and girls, there's a place in the musical universe for you and your music, and that universe is still expanding. You just have to live with it, and there's nothing hard about that.

06/27/2014

Ooops. Ok, here's a better shot of John Di' Battista.

06/27/2014

Jamming, songwriting, and rehearsing at our now-too-small downtown office, with Patricio Tower, Thomas Rogers, and John Di' Battista.

06/06/2014

Definitely, we have tons of talent "in the wild" that is yet to be discovered, but the cool thing is that more and more venues are blossoming in our present culture, more and more ways to get talent "out there" and being discovered and given opportunities to "kickstart" their careers in the biz. More folks trying to help them to do it too. I meet and know a rather large number and variety of music folks, and, oddly to me, I keep running across this sometimes nasty criticism of the industry's top-shelf country music, Rockin' Country, and it's so negative (hatred) that I feel like I have to say something about it from the NMC's standpoint every chance I get. I agree with everyone who does not like seeing certain bad influences coming into country music, rap and heavy metal, too over-the-top sexed-out, and profanity in lyrics, for instance, but when super good musicianship and singing and songwriting and originality is criticized for not following some narrow-minded, stuck-in-the-past formula, it hits me as it did when my jazz-babies parents lamblasted great rock n' roll when it first hit the music scene and refused to listen to it, while all of us kids super loved it and had to organize our school dances ourselves, off-campus, 'cause school officials condemned it. I learned music appreciation while playing in my high school's symphony orchestra (great teacher), dancing to rock n' roll with my much-loved girlfriend, and getting high with my best friend while listening with headphones (hearing every note of every instrument) to the best progressive rock bands in the world. So, I understand the popularity of Rockin' Country... and Bluegrass... and I'm looking forward to the next major, original, innovative sound in Country Music. Peace.