20
Apr
A World Apart – literally / Maine Maple Syrup / The best music you haven’t heard & a set list to long for! The Marcrescue blog – life in Maine with an 8 year old
Greetings all,
Been about a month since I last blogged about this and that…..and it seems in that span of days lots has happened.
You may remember that not so long ago…..our world here in Maine was all about ice, snow and cold.
So much so that I now have “Popeye” like arms – more than any other time in my life – because it seemed that every 7 minutes I was hauling, moving, stacking and then carrying wood upstairs to fuel up the woodstove and keep us warm in this much colder than normal winter.
Add in all that shoveling and I was tightening my belt one more notch.
Time to let it out again.
A few weeks ago I managed to stop to take a photo of the last ice fishing hut on the water near us:
It’s open water now….hope they got it out in time.
And it means it’s Sunday breakfast time with fresh from the tap pure Maine maple syrup:
That’s because we spend Maine Maple Day (it happens every March) touring our favorite maple sugar houses and stocking up on lots of syrup (seriously – if we time it right we get it hot right out of the tap) and various other maple syrup treats.
Hard to believe that it all starts with old buckets on even older trees:
It’s a party at all our favorite sugar houses and we see friends everywhere we stop.
First off we hit Sparky’s……as soon as you walk into the sugar house you get that unique aroma in the steam filled room from the boiling sap……perhaps my favorite scent of all time:
Sparky’s also has the best honey around – we buy big jars of his pure raw honey – nothing like it.
Then it’s off to Bradstreet – the most picturesque sugar house you’ll ever see:
Mark Bradstreet is the friendliest guy in the Maple business and when he’s not tending to the fire he’s smiling and showing off his fresh syrup:
And then the next moment he’s teaching everyone about how it’s made and about the different types of syrup:
They’re got live music in the corner:
And samples of waffles with fresh syrup and the best maple walnut fudge you’ve ever had!
We pick up some “Extra Dark Amber” syrup and fudge at Bradstreet and then off to Simmons & Daughters for more treats:
The Simmons eldest daughter was running the maple cotton candy machine and once you’ve gone maple cotton candy – you’ll never go back to cane:
At Simmons we picked up a half gallon of “Dark Amber” in a mason jar – so hot out of the tap we had to let it cool a bit before we could pick it up……out on the deck back at home…….it looks like the liquid gold it is:
Then it’s off to our last stop of the day – Kinney’s Sugarhouse….for some specialty maple items (maple cream among the items)…..and oooh the maple donut holes are to die for:
More live music:
And the final treat of the day – fresh maple walnut ice cream made with Kinney’s syrup by our friends the Chamberlains from Stone Fox Farm Creamery and served out of their “Mobile Cone”:
If you’re an ice cream addict like I am……I’m sorry – even though Stone Fox Ice Cream distribution is growing rapidly – it’s still local…..you’ll have to come visit to get some…..and it’s sure worth it.
My favorite “Salted Caramel”
And if you come visit – we’ll start with a main course before dessert.
Whadda think?
Burger?
Nah
Mac & Cheese?
Nah
Baked Potato?
Nah
Oh I know…..how about a Lobster Roll?
Sorry – couldn’t resist – it’s right before dinner time as I write this and I’m hungry……and the Mobile Cone will start hanging out at our local Farmer’s Markets which start shortly – at the same time all the local lobster shacks open for the summer.
Yum.
It’s been a long winter.
So while we’ve been wandering around Maine sampling maple products – two of my friends – who both have new albums out – been wandering a bit farther afield.
Peter Bradley Adams – who’s latest album “The Mighty Storm” moved up to 81* on the FMQB Non-Comm (Public Music Radio) Album Chart has been touring in all places – Mainland China!
The poster is great – I have no idea what it says but it sure looks cool:
And Connor Garvey – who’s new album “Meteors And Beating Hearts” debuted on the same radio chart this week (a great album and I love the artwork on the cover):
Has been traveling almost exactly 1/2 way around the world from Peter.
Connor’s been skiing in the mountains in Alaska:
That’s hardcore.
Connor’s from Maine…..and I find it interesting that after one of the coldest and snowiest winters we’ve had in a long time – he went off to find MORE snow.
One of the songs on Connor’s new album is called “Old House” and it’s one of my two favorites on the album.
It’s the story of the house that Connor and his girlfriend bought this year and are in the process of restoring.
It’s a love song about the girl and the house (with a very tasty “Dire Straits” feel and guitar for about the last two minutes of the tune) – and the only photo I’ve seen of this house is this one……he did a FB post about the snow he had been shoveling this winter (as we all have):
The man loves his snow.
And I’m right there with him on that love of winter and snow.
Because of the severity of the winter this year – many of my friends in Los Angeles have been asking when we were moving back???
Not a chance.
Here’s my thoughts about cold vs hot.
It’s easier to get warm when you’re cold – than cold when you’re hot.
You can always layer on more clothes until you’re warm.
But you can only take so much off when you’re hot…..and the worst part about that…..it seems that too many people go beyond the limit of what they should take off – especially the older they get…..it’s scary sometimes.
By the way – my other favorite song on the Connor Garvey album…..is the last track on the album – a song named “Tattered Shirt”.
Lately I’ve noticed that “Tattered Shirt” and “Old House” have become the best researching tracks on the album and I love that – both creative and original songs. “Tattered Shirt” is unique in that Connor wrote the song with a female character speaking….and yet sings it totally straight. I suspect that twist in the lyrics really surprises people to start and captures them and then they find they love the lyrics, the story and the gorgeous melody.
Here’s a listening link on YouTube to “Tattered Shirt”:
And a listening link to “Old House”:
Let’s talk about concerts for a moment.
I’m headed to a Connor concert later this week – looking very forward to it – he’s great live
…..as a reminder…..here’s his live version of “Irish” that I wrote about on St Patrick’s Day:
A live album “Before The Meteors” – with “Irish” on it – available now at his live shows – will be released shortly on iTunes and Amazon…it’s a companion piece to “Meteors And Beating Hearts”:
I just saw Chris Ross at the Camden Opera House:
…..the first time I’ve seen him play since he won this well deserved award:
Here’s one of his new songs “Drunk Women” – coming this summer on a new album:
Speaking of new albums and concerts – I get to see Barnaby Bright AND Ken Yates together in concert in NYC on May 8th at Rockwood……and BB are in the studio!!!!!!
Can’t wait to hear the studio version of “Just The Same” – which is perhaps the best adult realistic love song I’ve ever heard.
Check it out on this amazing live 9am performance at WNRN radio in Charlottesville:
And did you ever hear the Ken Yates song off his recent album “twenty-three”…..
…..that John Mayer blogged about after hearing Ken play it – it’s a masterpiece – “I Don’t Wanna Fall In Love”:
Can’t wait to see Barnaby and Ken together in concert next month.
I feel very fortunate to be able to work with such talented artists.
But music has always been a part of my life.
Have you ever been to www.setlist.fm ?
It’s a wonder – people have posted the setlists for way over a millions concerts from over 60,000 artists and it’s a great way to relive your favorite shows.
Lotta talk about Springsteen lately…..and I thought “Hey is that first show I saw of his up on the website?”
Here’s the story – about a year after I got to LA…..I was a newbie in the record biz and had no contacts to get tickets to special shows in LA….but…..luckily a friend of mine realized that the night after Springsteen was playing what turned out to be a bellweather show at the Roxy in LA…..he was playing in Santa Barbara at UCSB in the gym……and it was easy to get tickets.
So we drove up and saw one of the great shows of all time in my experience.
Now just looking at the setlist and reliving the show – I realized how amazing a concert it was – my memory of it is strong – very strong.
I sure do wish someone would invent a concert time machine so we could all go back and relive those magic moments – especially when the distance of time confirms how truly special those nights were:
This one was truly a night to remember:
Check out Setlist.fm – it blows me away every time I think to look up a show.
I’ll post something else next time I write – already have something in mind.
One more note about winter.
Now that it’s over – and the snow has disappeared almost all over town…..(not everywhere yet)…..weird things have been spotted coming out of the ground……we’re trying to identify them……some people are convinced they’re alien pods……so if these blog posts suddenly stop coming…..or if they start taking a very different tone…..(for instance….short, timely and totally business like)…..run for your life:
But then again……we might be safe after all – saved by Mother Nature……so much for Spring and probably Summer……I think we missed them.
Here’s what happened this week:
No wonder – I’d packed the snow shovel off to the shed….foolish me.
Marc
PS I posted a lot of great songs up above……if you like what you heard – we give away songs by Peter, Chris, Barnaby and Ken and a bunch of other artists on our free song page at www.misharamusic.com/freesongs
PPS We also have over 50 free songs on our Amazon samplers – easy to download at:
People seem to like them:
PPPS Ever wonder how we find all those sugar houses in the back woods of Maine?
Don’t need no GPS…..we have great street signs:
Marc Ratner
Mishara Music
E-mail: marcrescue@gmail.com
Website: www.misharamusic.com
WordPress: www.marcrescue.wordpress.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/marc.ratner
Twitter: www.twitter.com/marcrescue
17
Mar
A Song for St Patrick’s Day / Snowman wars – Winter love in Maine / Life in Maine with an eight year old – the Marcrescue blog
Greetings All,
Welcome to the latest Marc Ratner blog post (this edition and previous letters posted at www.marcrescue.wordpress.com) that of course is supposed to be about the music and artists from Mishara Music (www.misharamusic.com) but always ends up being as much or more about family life in Maine with an 8 year old.
If I were to do chapters for this edition – I’d have to include:
St Patrick’s Day
YouTube Views
Justin Timberlake
Mountain Rescue Association
Winter Box Races
Monopoly
Awards
Snowman Fight
Odds and ends.
How in the world am I ever going to make sense of all that?
I won’t of course.
But it’ll all be here in some form or another.
Let’s start off with St. Patrick’s Day.
Imagine your name is Connor Garvey.
And you look like this – notice the color of his hair:
Imagine you’re a singer – songwriter and because of your name you always get asked to play on March 17th – otherwise known as St. Patrick’s Day.
The only problem?
You don’t know a single “Irish” song.
Can make for a difficult evening.
So you write an “Irish Song” and record it at a live concert.
Something to be enjoyed – but especially on St Patrick’s Day (great for morning shows).
Here’s a YouTube link to hear the song:
“Irish Song” is on the live album “Before The Meteors” coming soon to Amazon and iTunes:
It’s a companion piece to Connor’s just released “Meteors And Beating Hearts”:
Next on the list.
YouTube Views.
There are so many artists with new music these days – it’s almost impossible to figure out who’s making an impact.
And who has time?
Peter Bradley Adams has a new album just out called “The Mighty Storm”.
You might wonder -what kind of audience does Peter have these days – this being his 5th solo album after debuting with eastmountainsouth a decade ago.
The simple answer?
A big one.
A very big one.
Everyone says that more music is listened to on YouTube than anywhere else these days…..
……so what happens if you go to YouTube and type in Peter Bradley Adams?
Turns out people LOVE to make photo and lyric videos out of Peter’s songs – he has an emotional connection with the audience that is amazing.
So type in his name and this is what comes up to start:
The list just keeps going on and on. Notice the lead track from his last album “Between Us” has OVER TWO MILLION VIEWS and they are hundreds of thousands of other views (including over 100,000 from a live performance at radio station WNRN in Charlottesville).
Not many artists have kind of connection with their audience.
Here’s the link to the “Between Us” video with over 2 million views:
What’s next on my chapter list?
Justin Timberlake?
An interesting story – half smart / half crazy.
I always love to surprise my wife with presents that she totally doesn’t expect.
Tickets to Justin Timberlake were one such present – she’s a big fan and I thought that he probably is very entertaining in concert and it’d be a fun thing to do.
I was right:
We had a great night.
But this leads into the “crazy” part and the next chapter:
Mountain Rescue Association
For twenty plus years in California I was a member of a mountain search and rescue team. On a pager 24 hours a day / 7 days a week / 365 days a year.
If the pager went off I was out the door.
Rescue work took lots of training……before joining the rescue team I did a lot of mountaineering and training with the Sierra Club and my rescue team was a part of the Mountain Rescue Association (www.mra.org).
Every year we attended a state wide training with all the other California MRA teams and had to certify in one of three disciplines that rotated every year – rock rescue, search and tracking or snow & ice rescue.
After all those years of training, rescue work and rescue management experience (I was Captain of the team for seven years and spent a term as the Vice – Chair of the Calif Region of the MRA) I now travel back to California to work as an examiner for the testing that’s held the first Saturday of March every year.
This year the Search and Tracking testing was held in Placer County California – (somewhere between Sacramento and Lake Tahoe).
Here’s the crazy part.
Usually I plan in advance – fly to Los Angeles a few days ahead of the test and have some music business meetings before I head to the testing site.
Was just about to click on the “Buy Ticket” button on my computer to get a really inexpensive ticket to fly to LA for my regular trip…..when I thought…..”Oh oh – when’s the Timberlake concert?”.
“Crap!”
Thursday night….in Boston.
The MRA test was Saturday morning in Placer County at 7am.
Think you’re tired?
Here’s what I had to do.
My wife and I drove 4 hours to Boston for the concert.
Had a great time.
Drove 4 hours back to Maine.
Got home at 3:30am
Got up at 6am – left the house at 7am to drive to Portland, ME to catch my first flight to Newark – where I connected to a flight to LA (had to fly in and out of LA)……we got to LA an hour late because of the strong winds from one of the big winter storms blowing across the country…..at 6pm (now 9pm my time in Maine).
Then I proceeded to enjoy that wonderful rush hour traffic on the 405 freeway (the busiest in the country) and finally got to pick up my search gear and leave for the training at 9pm (now midnight East Coast time).
Got the training site at 4:30am after the all night drive (caffeine is my very good friend).
Put the seat back in the car and napped for an hour and a half and then got ready for the testing.
(If you’re counting that’s about 4 hours of sleep in about 36 hours – not counting some dozing on the plane).
Had a great time working the test – I was one of the examiners for the Santa Barbara Search and Rescue Team and they aced the exam.
Here’s the 7am morning meeting for the briefing for the examiners:
Here’s all the members of the MRA certified teams gathering for the annual photo – (that’s a lot of people that volunteer their time to rescue people in very dangerous situations):
Here’s the Santa Barbara team command post – planning the search:
Another command post photo – notice the snappy vest I get to wear hanging over the chair – such a fashion guy I am:
After the testing was over – I headed out for a three hour drive to Carson City, NV to visit my Aunt and Uncle……and get some glorious sleep……ahhhhh.
Then back to LA for a day of meetings and then back to Maine.
Funny thing about being in LA after adjusting to a colder than usual winter in Maine.
As soon as the outside temperature on the rental car dashboard read 64 degrees – I turned the AC on – It was too warm for me!
After the normal 12 hour travel day – from Los Angeles back to Midcoast Maine – I arrived home at about 2am to a much more comfortable temperature – ahhhhh. (Although finding the battery in my car totally dead at midnight in the parking garage at the Portland airport because I left the dome light on was not the most pleasant of return surprises – Doh!):
Which leads me to the next chapter “Winter Box Races”.
If you read my last posting you would have seen all the photos (and video!) of our annual US National Toboggan Championships.
A great way for adults to act like kids and have fun.
The kids want their day as well – so last weekend was the 3rd Annual Winter Box Races.
Sort of like the Pinewood Derby other places do in the summer.
Uh uh.
No summer breezes and lazy days for us.
We do cardboard box races on the tubing hill:
We even had a Jamaican Bobsled:
Alas – history has a tendency to repeat itself – the Titantic hit the iceberg once again:
But nonetheless – a great day was had by all!
Monopoly!
Ethan decided one evening a week or so ago that he was ready for the real thing – no more kiddie version of Monopoly – he wanted to play the adult version.
Sure enough – he picked it up quickly….it wasn’t long before he held that exclusive title to “Boardwalk”.
And wouldn’t ya know…….4 houses later…….dad landed where he shouldn’t have:
Which I guess is a good thing…..because dad loves his music business company – and as wonderful as it is – it’ll be nice to have a real estate mogul in the family making those big bucks!
But it sure is satisfying when Mishara Music artists get Awards.
Connor Garvey (he of the “Irish Song” above) is currently touring supporting his new album “Meteors And Beating Hearts” and has been attending festivals and winning some nice trophies in the past couple of years.
He won the 2011 Maine Songwriters Association Grand Prize after being nominated against some other great songwriters:
He also won the songwriting prize at the 2012 Texas Wildflower Music festival:
Connor was nominated for Male Performer Of The Year at the New England Music Awards a few weeks ago – didn’t win this time but it was a great category of performers:
But then comes another winner – Connor just got voted by the fans as “Most Wanted” for the upcoming 2014 Falcon Ridge Folk Festival:
Might be worth taking a listen to the above mentioned new album “Meteors And Beating Hearts”.
Here’s a recently posted YouTube Listening Channel where you can hear the entire album:
Tracks I love a lot include “Bright Morning”, “Old House” and “Spark”!
I’m curious to know what other Connor fans like???
Speaking of Awards and specifically those New England Music Awards from a couple weeks ago…..(.I do believe Connor got robbed in his category ask me why and I’ll tell you) but Mishara Music had a great night nonetheless.
Why?
None other than our Chris Ross won in his category:
And those voters have no idea what’s coming – they haven’t heard the newest songs yet…..Chris just posted three acoustic versions of new songs on YouTube that will be on his next album – due this Spring / Summer and they’re great.
Want to sample them?
“Burns”
“Easier Said Than Done”
“Drunk Women”
And while I’m talking about new songs – if you haven’t seen these two performances by Barnaby Bright of new tunes that will be on their next album – also due this summer – you ain’t seen / heard nuthin’.
There is no better realistic love song than “Just The Same” and this simple version recorded at 9am at a radio station visit is a perfect rendition. I’ve heard people gasp out loud at some of the lyrics at shows:
Here’s another new one “Sail” – recorded live in Portland Oregon on tour opening when Barnaby Bright was on tour with Vienna Teng:
Snowman Fight
Every year my wife loves to get outside and make snowmen during those wonderful winter days when we have great snow and bright sun……every year she does something different.
Earlier this year she started winter with the annual traditional snowman:
But you’d be surprised to know that snowmen are territorial.
If you build them too close together – they’ll start fighting.
How?
With snowballs of course:
But alas….if you’re a snowman…..no matter who wins the fight….ol’ Sol is always the victor – a good lesson for all of us:
Odds And Ends
So learning the lesson of the snowmen – we make the most of winter – it’s here, it’s cold, it’s fun.
Nothing like a family snowshoe hike:
On a sunny day in winter:
But the snow will be gone soon – at the harbor you can feel the change in the air and that Spring is close by:
We’ve loved winter – I’ll keep you posted on our Spring adventures in Maine.
My only problem until then……with Spring in the air it brings rapid changes in weather – warm / cold / warm / cold – we tend to get icy rain and then immediate freezing.
I’ve become an expert in shoveling and clearing snow…..just can’t quite figure out how to “shovel” ice:
Marc
PS Snowmen and landscape photos by Kim Ratner!
PPS One more music mention – Ken Yates album “twenty-three” continues to garner great airplay all over the country and he continues touring to support the album. Here’s the YouTube listening channel:
PPPS Don’t forget – over 50 free songs available on our Mishara Music Amazon.com free song samplers:
More free songs on our http://www.misharamusic/freesongs page – and we never require an email address or registration of any kind to download our free songs!
Enjoy and share.
Marc Ratner
Mishara Music
E-mail: marcrescue@gmail.com
Website: www.misharamusic.com
WordPress: www.marcrescue.wordpress.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/marc.ratner
Twitter: www.twitter.com/marcrescue
Home In Maine 