iLike me

For all my fellow Facebook peeps out there, I decided to add my music to the iLike service. It's kinda cool; when you are in Facebook you can add, listen to, and create playlists of samples or full versions of songs from your favorite artists. Of course, I have posted all FULL versions because that's the way I roll. I've also added my iLike music and fans to my Facebook artist page.

Since I joined iLike, nine of you have already iLike'd me - thanks! I've taken the liberty of putting that button at the top here so you can iLike me too, if you're into that sort of iThing.

New Song - Every Candle Has A Name

This month's download is a song about the Luminaria ceremony at the American Cancer Society's Relay For Life event. It was mostly written by my friend Jack Storey - it was his words and his ideas for the music that I had the privilege to work with and complete. He was kind enough to offer me co-writing status for my contribution, but I am just honored to be associated with the song and the event.

Jack asked me to finish this song and perform it for the Relay For Life Nationwide Summit in 2008. I posted about that event earlier - Jack videotaped the performance and posted it on YouTube. Since that event, I promised to record a version of the song to make available to anyone who would like it for their Relay For Life. After many months, I finally decided that what I recorded for the original demo I shared with Jack really captured something raw and good, and so I post that version here. Maybe someday I'll re-record the song with a much fuller arrangement, but for now, I give you the simple, heartfelt piano and vocal demo. I hope you enjoy it. Please do let me know.

By the way, the picture above is courtesy of  "Cowboy" Ben Alman via Flickr.com and shown here under a creative commons license. It's from the Luminaria ceremony at the Watertown, MA Relay For Life. Thanks Ben!

My Podcast Now On iTunes

Attention all iPod owners: you no longer have to go through all the messy trouble of downloading my new songs from my website and importing it into iTunes. Just subscribe to my podcast on iTunes, and like magic, all the exciting sounds will just appear in your music library and ultimately on your iPod. I can almost imagine the electrons traveling over thousands of miles of internet cabling from Apple's data centers to your computer, gently placing all the ones and zeros in the precise order required on your hard drive to digitally reproduce the sounds that originated in my head. And when you connect your iPod to your computer, more electrons spring into action, speeding down the twists and turns of the USB cable into your iPod where they once again faithfully copy all the ones and zeros there so you can carry them with you wherever you go. Ain't technology grand?

So move your hand as quickly as you can over to that mouse and get busy subscribing by clicking here: the tom willner podcast on iTunes. Last month I suggested that we all need more stuff. Well now you can get more stuff more easily.

The Key of G Broke

2009 started off right for me with a gig on Saturday the 3rd, making music with my favorite group of musicians known as Urban Blue. The New Year is fresh, the music is loud and fun. But only a couple of songs in, something happens and I'm suddenly thrust back three years. (Cue Mike Myers' Wayne's World flashback sequence.) It was November 2005, I'm recording in my basement studio when the unthinkable happens - the "G" key, G4 to be exact, the G just above middle C on my favorite keyboard, breaks. Breaks, for crying out loud. And let me tell you, I'm a sucker for G4. I use that key more than I care to mention. Without her, I'm lost, fumbling around unfinished chords, searching other octaves for solace. Alas, with visions of the construction worker suspended by his hardhat from a steel beam in the 1980 TV commercial, I break out the Krazy Glue. Certainly, if Krazy Glue can suspend a grown man, it could hold my precious G key together. Well, it can. For just over three years. Fast forward to Saturday night's gig. I stumble through about two and a half songs, lamenting the repeat loss of G4, when it hits me. The one thing that could mend the pieces of my broken key that just might exist at the gig: duct tape. Krazy Glue may have been around since 1973, but duct tape was created in 1942 to repair military equipment in World War II. And yea, as it turns out, it doth exist in the gig bag of the saxophonist, and he saw that it was good. I finish the rest of the show gingerly using the taped and broken G key, my Kerri Strug ankle.

Could this event be a telling metaphor for the year ahead? Will I, when faced with adversity, look to history and respond quickly with practical solutions? Perhaps. Or maybe in 2009, I will find myself older and wiser, and get the damn thing fixed before it happens again.