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Tuesday, May 11, 2010 hello all- homesick today. That is, I'm at home not feeling well. Gonna try to finish a song I have been working on if I feel better after dinner Tuesday, May 04, 2010 Hello out there! web-site glitch is now fixed! Jpi updates are on the way! Tuesday, May 04, 2010 test Monday, May 03, 2010 test Thursday, April 29, 2010 ... Sorry for the lack of updates. I've been having some trouble with being able to access the update tool from my home pc. If you are reading this, that means I finally got it to work again. Alright! Thursday, April 29, 2010 test Thursday, January 21, 2010 okay... so the weekly updates have not that, shall we say "weekly". Happy new years, Merry christmas, and lets hope I can fit this weekly routine into my schedule. Friday, June 19, 2009 .....gave my home studio a makeover today. Not much into feng shui, but I find myself being more creative in a clean and organized enviroment. So I broke all of my musical "goals" if into three areas(finishing my cd, practicing and writing tunes for my live gigs, and music theory review), and re-set the physical layout of my studio with those goals in mind. I will re-visit this topic in 60 days to see if all of this did in fact make me more productive. -JP Tuesday, June 09, 2009 Hello All- Things are going well. Its a beautiful evening, I'm getting over my cold, my calender is filling up, and I feel hopeful for tomorrow. I played a great gig two weeks ago as a member of the two-piece combo "Gruve Tonic". We were at the Arabic of Solon(we play there again later this month- see calender), and it was a whole lot of fun. Playing with Mike is a real treat. He is a great conga player, and our gigs together are always a blast. We had a good turn out too. Lots of ex-co-workers from Insurance. com(my old employer). I also ran into a women in the audience who I had played for back when she was at patient at Metro Health recovering from an injury. She said some great things to me about how she really was helped by the songs I played for her as she was recovering. Anyway, it was a great night and I hope the next show will be too. Monday, November 03, 2008 Hello all My gig at the Solon Arabica has been changed from 11/14 to 12/27. See the calender for more details. Hope to see you there! By the way, make sure you vote tomorrow. Its the right thing to do. Peace -jp Wednesday, July 16, 2008 Hello all. Things are good. We are taking the summer off and will return to perfoming in the fall. Joe(the Bassist) is getting married this summer, Mike is going on vacation, and I need time to clear my head and re-focus. Keep us in you prayers, and we hope to see you soon. Also -thanks to those of you who purchased our first cd-single. Your support and encouragement means alot! We should have more material out by the end of the year. -John Thursday, February 28, 2008 Hello all Sorry for the lapse of weekly updates. On Saturday Feb 9th we played to a near capacity crowd at Seekers Coffee House in middleburh hgts. It was a great and memorable gig. We got a great response from the crowd and had alot of fun on stage. We struggled a bit with the mix(mostly due to me trying out a new amp that night- a total rookie error), and we were not as tight as we had hoped to be, but it was still a great night. We will be there again in early June(check the calender)and until then, we will be working on our way- overdue first recording. Thanks to all who came out to support us that evening! Wednesday, December 26, 2007 Hello and Merry Christmas! I hope that everyone reading this has had a great holiday season. I write this on the eve of my first day back to work after a nice 4-day off semi-christmas vacation. My family and I have had a great holiday season. Most of my realitives came to our house for chrismas dinner. That was alot of work, but the good times were well worth the effort.Those who couldn't be there were missed, but we still managed to enjoy the day. Please remember my nephew Clarence in your prayers. He is in Iraq and we long for his safe and soon return. -jp Thursday, December 06, 2007 Hello all- things are well. On 11/10 we played our first gig at Seekers coffee house & concert club. The turn-out was not as high as we had hoped but it was still a great evening. We got a great sound mix from the house system that night, and the performance was well-recieved.We wiil be playing there again on 2/9/2008. Mike Mahoney and I have also booked a bi-weekly gig at the Phoenix coffee house in South Eucild. Check the upcoming shows tab for more details. If all goes well we will have completed a 4 song cd by the end of the month. Stay tuned for more details...... -john Thursday, October 18, 2007 Hello All- Good things are happening. ......Played a fun gig with mike and Joe at this club on the west side. Ran into old friends, made some new ones and booked a concert date for next month. See calender for details -jp Saturday, July 21, 2007 test Saturday, July 21, 2007 Question of the month- How do you deal with hurt and fear? It has been four months since I posted that thought as the question of the month. My goal was to post my feelings on that topic by March 1st, but as you can see it has taken me much longer to come to do so. I would like to say that my response to the Q of the M is so deep and profound, that it has taken me these last four months just to finish it. The truth is that I have been busy and it was easier to put this task off than it was to try and get it done. It is also because this has been a hard topic for me to write about, because of the negative ways that I have sometimes handled hurt and fear in my life. So I write these words not as a learned scholar who has this issue down, but rather as recovering addict who must stand his ground every day against weights that would pull him down. Also, in order to really share my thoughts on this topic I have to talk some about my relationship with God, so if that’s going to bother some of you, you should stop reading right now. Anyway, we human beings will do any number of things to deal with hurt and fear. Some positive, some not so positive. We run, we hide, we fight, we steal, we over-eat, we over-work, and we over-sleep. We go shopping, we read books, we play golf and we surf the net. We get drunk, we watch porn, we take drugs and we use people. We do all those things and worse. I have had a relationship with the Lord since I was a kid and yet I still struggle with some of the same hurts and fears that have plagued me since I was young. And I freely confess to dealing with these hurts and fears in ways that do not become a child of God. However as I have I got to know the Lord better they are two great things that I have learned. First, is that God wants me to have complete and total dependence on him. Not just for salvation, but in every thing and every way, He wants to be my sanctuary. When I am driven by my own hurts and fear towards behavior that is distracting, delusional, or even destructive, He wants me to stop in my tracks and turn to him. Second, God will never give up on his children. In Christ we are loved, forgiven, accepted and forever a part of Gods family. The Lords grace and love is vast and deep beyond our comprehension. And he will patiently stand right beside us each day of our lives, as we learn to let our love and trust in him answer all of our hurts and fears. These two truths are the fuel to my soul that keep me standing up and walking tall while I breath air on planet earth. That is how I am learning to deal with hurt and fear. -JP Sunday, February 04, 2007 Question of the month - What is the posture of your soul? (Warning!! Artist-on-soapbox alert!) Lately I have been watching what I eat and spending more time in the gym. Used to be that I could eat whatever I wanted, never work out and still stay reasonably fit. Those days are dead and gone. If I don’t pay consistent attention to my gut-to-butt ratio, I will quickly find myself overweight and way out of shape. One day while checking myself out in the mirror and wondering if I would look any better if I could improve my posture, the question of the month came to my mind. How is the posture of my soul? For me, the answer to that was easy; it’s not what it should be. It’s really easy for me to deceive myself into thinking that, all of the great things in my life are there because I was smart, or cool or talented enough to have made them happen. I mean, I would never say that out loud(let alone expose it to the world-wide-web) but I know that there is a part of me that is( or at least wants to be) standing tall like a conquering hero, when I should be on my knees like a grateful beggar. I am not knocking the importance of confidence, self esteem, or of reaping the benefits of making good choices. I am just trying to remind myself, that no matter how good (or bad) I do my part, I will always be dependant on God to do his part. You know the old saying…..the farmer gets up early, works the land, and plants the seed, but the sun and rain come from the Lord. I believe all of us should have souls that are permanently set in the posture of gratitude. -Jp Wednesday, January 31, 2007 Happy New Year!!
Monday, December
18, 2006 Hello Again ......... First, I want to thank everyone who has visited the site and emailed me with their comments and words of encouragement. TheJPI.com has been up for two months now, and we have had a way above average number of hits (visits) to the site. I also want to take a moment to apologize for not updating the site sooner. In addition to my full and part time jobs, I have gone from not perfuming at all, to performing two to three times a month. That change has made it difficult for me to find the time to record new material and post it on the site. I am by no means complaining. This gig is growing and turning into quite the adventure, (getting paid to do what I like...what a concept). I just have to change things around a bit so I still have time to make new music. I have some time off coming up over Christmas, so I hope to have at least one new song done by the end of the month. Change is good............... My friend and web designer Matt, from webgoose.com (check out his site) has come through again and added something cool to TheJPI site. I will now be able to add weekly updates to this page, that will allow visitors to keep up with the latest goings on in the JPI universe. Last Saturdays gig....................... We had a blast. Guest performances, our largest crowd ever, people from the audience jumping on stage playing along with the band, women throwing money, (I'm not making this up), and a visit for the United States Marine Corps. Our best Incident yet. The line-up that night featured the electrified core of the JPI (Joe on Bass, Mike on drums and me on the electric guitar), and the witty and talented non-profit drummer Mikel Mahoney on congas (by the by, that Mahoney is one heck of a graphic artist. Check out his work at www.Mahoneycreative.com). We were also joined on stage by guitarist and fellow co-worker, Doug Schunick. He joined us onstage for several tunes and really brought down the house when he took center stage for a rocking version of Santana's "Black Magic Woman". It was at that point that some guy from the crowd, jumped up and pleaded with us to play to congas on that song. His name was Monty and as it turns out he is quite the percussionist. Mahoney graciously gave up his post and Monty really helped us knock that tune out of the park. We also opened up the second set with a solo guest performance from keyboardist and vocalist, Chris Collins. Chris performed four original compositions and that really displayed his abilities as a performer and a songwriter. Everyone really connected with what he brought to the evening. My nephew Clarence (we call him C.C.) was also there that night. He is in the Marine Corps and just recently returned from completing boot camp in Parris Island, S.C. That was the first time I had seen him since his return, so I was very proud and happy to introduce him to the audience that evening. He is a great guy. It was a memorable evening that we hope to repeat again next month and in the days that follow. We don't have anything scheduled for the rest of the month and that is fine by me. I am going to take this short time off to rehearse with the guys and get some new material written and recorded. Thanks for visiting. Talk to you in a week or so ps Thanks to the kind lady who threw money at us. We definitely want to run into you again -jp |
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