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Dec
Winter arrived / Autumn was terrific / This is the anti-cyber buying post – everything is free / The marcrescue blog – life in Midcoast Maine with music, family & an eight year old
Greetings All,
(Note – this is the Marc Ratner / Mishara Music – occasional blog / email. It shows up these days about every other month. Who has the time to write anything worthwhile more than that? That doesn’t mean that anything contained here is worthwhile….except of course the photos…I get lucky taking some and steal the really good ones from my wife…she’s the great family photographer. If you’re receiving this via email and want off the list – just hit reply and ask off. If you’re seeing this via the blog post on WordPress and would like to receive it via email. Email marc@misharamusic.com and I’ll get you added to the list.). Another great way to keep up to date on when I write is to follow me on FB at www.facebook.com/marc.ratner or Twitter at www.twitter.com/marcrescue
So it’s “Cyber Monday” as I write this.
Everything, everywhere is about – buy this – buy that.
So I’ve included a whole bunch of free song links in this letter – consider this the “Anti-Cyber-Buy” letter.
The letter is also all about our family adventures during this autumn season – mostly things we did for free.
Yes, for free.
It’s our way of getting away from the commercialization of everything.
Winter is definitely here – early and fierce – this is what we woke up to Thanksgiving morning:
How did we get here?
Last I checked – autumn was in full swing and we were making the most of it here in Midcoast Maine.
The wonderful thing about living in Maine is it’s easy and inexpensive to ditch the 21st century and remember that family adventures are the best way to spend time.
We attended the last fair of the year – the Common Ground Fair – put on by the Organic Farmers of Maine:
No fancy midway or rides here….and it might be the last refuge of people that started wearing overalls as hippies in the 60’s – but that’s a good thing.
A kid doesn’t need hi-tech rides – he can have just as much fun at the cardboard sliding hill:
Exploring the fair hiking trail:
Making a homemade hat our of natural materials:
And there’s no more fun than the hay bale jump:;
It’s a refreshing day away from electronics, video games and cell phones (virtually no service at these fairgrounds – makes dad’s hand shake).
We also did our annual exploration of Beth’s Farm Market corn maze….another wonderful family adventure away from the lure of computer games.
This year they really upped their game. They made it a contest. You had to try and find all the secret locations.
It was torture:
Dad thought: “Let’s make it a race!” So he competed by himself again Mom and the Kid.
An hour and 1/2 later I dragged myself out of the maze and we compared scorecards.
Notice the scorecard on the right with the two blue arrows pointing out two missing checkpoints?
That’s Dad’s scorecard.
Mom & Son skunked me. They got all the checkpoints and had been waiting for me for 20 minutes when I finally admitted defeat and found my way out.
Before we left Beth’s we did a little pumpkin shopping:
One of the great town events every autumn is the Camden International Film Festival….which features documentaries and is now recognized as one of the top festivals for documentaries in the world.
Every year Kim works as a volunteer at the festival and it’s a highlight for her:
We attended two films this year – including a terrific documentary about James Brown – with the director in attendance to answer questions after the showing:
And we always love the closing night festivities where they present the awards at the beautifully restored Camden Opera House – built in 1894:
As the festival closes – we notice that the town is getting ready for the changes in the weather. It’s always interesting to watch the sailing schooners in Camden harbor put on their protective winter wrap:
The change in the weather also brings our autumn leaves season.
Time for some hikes….along Hosmer Pond:
Then a family hike up Mt Megunticook.
Amazing views:
It’s rewarding getting to the top:
But also tiring…it’s a long hike:
During all this – work continues.
Mishara Music didn’t release a lot of new recordings this year because of the curse of all music companies…..delays in recording. Artists do their best work on their own timeline….which does and should have nothing whatsoever to do with business plans.
So not many releases in 2014 but that means we’re looking forward to a wonderful roster of releases in 2015.
But that doesn’t mean everyone wasn’t busy.
Lot’s of touring, recording and marketing.
A few weeks ago I checked a bunch of our artist’s social media sites at random – always fun.
Connor Garvey had an amazing summer festival season.
Awards all over the country:
Here’s a free song from Connor – my favorite song from his last studio album “Old House”:
Barnaby Bright social media is always fun to read. They have a great relationship with their fans.
Isn’t that the way it should be?
How about a free Barnaby Bright tune – “Made Up Of” – achingly beautiful:
The streaming world has been very good to Clarensau:
A favorite Clarensau song of mine is “Endless Melody”.
Here it is – endlessly free:
Chris Ross has the best FB page ever. His posts are 2nd to none.
He had some wonderful thoughts about election season:
Chris has also started recording at Hearstudios in Camden.
Here he is with studio owner / producer / engineer Jason Hearst during playback:
He started with some acoustic recording.
For his fans – while waiting for the new 2015 album – he recorded a new acoustic version of “Mostly Sober” and we’re giving it away.
No email or registration of any kind is required – just click on the link for the free download:
Chris will have two other acoustic tracks – (one classic and one brand new song) on the next Mishara Music Amazon Free Song Sampler – # 6 – which you’ll see released before Christmas:
Oh by the way – great news about Ken Yates…..he won a major songwriter award in his native Canada:
Here’s the song that won Ken the award – as always with Mishara – no email or registration required to download it for free:
Ken’s award got me to thinking…..we sure have a lot of award winning songwriters on Mishara Music:
It makes us feel good about what we do.
We’re a low key independent music mgmt & recording company and we do what we do for the love of music.
It all starts with songs for us.
Here’s one of our latest favorites – “Rain” by Meggan Waltman.
Another free download:
Of course the rainy season has pretty much passed us by here in Maine.
We figured that out pretty quickly after Halloween.
We had a terrific Halloween as always.
Did some pumpkin carving.
This year Ethan drew out a plan for the carving and I did my best to match:
The family selfie as we headed out for trick or treating….(Ethan was the only one that got treats though):
We got home in time for our favorite Halloween TV show:
36 hours later the first Nor’easter snow storm hit.
We lost power for 26 hours and finally woke up to this sunrise looking at 16 inches of new snow through the Halloween decorations on the window:
We couldn’t get out the front door:
If you were a tomato plant in a pot on the back deck – you probably weren’t happy:
So starts my winter exercise program:
And Kim got to make the coolest snowman ever:
Luckily we’re big fans of winter – we love sledding, snowshoeing and the change in seasons brings amazing visions….this from last winters ice storm:
But sadly – there’s one thing that goes away until spring.
The local lobster roll shacks all close up for winter.
We hit our favorite – “Red’s” – on their last day of the season about 30 minutes before closing.
Breathtaking as always:
It was a busy autumn.
We made the most out of it – but it was exhausting.
So much so that somedays you don’t even realize that you put on different shoes for work until 3pm in the afternoon:
Luckily no one else noticed either.
Hope you had a great autumn – here’s to a wonderful winter for all!
Marc
PS In keeping with this letter’s anti – buying mania – there are tons more free songs from Chris Ross, Barnaby Bright, Clarensau, Connor Garvey, Ken Yates and many more artists on the first 5 Mishara Music Free Song Amazon samplers. Way over a million free downloads have already been given away.
Enjoy our gift of music:
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