The rounds (Inst.)

"Magic is what we do. Music is how we do it." -- Jerry Garcia

Welcome to my page, my peers, associates, friends, and musical family. I'm a lifelong, multi-instrumentalist musician who records prolifically and joyfully. You'll hear me play guitar, bass (regular four string, and four and five string fretless), mandolin, banjo, keys (piano, organ, synth), lap slide, sitar, and sing on my recordings here. I've been in a few dozen bands in my life, playing everything from bluegrass, jazz, rock, jam band, reggae, funk, afrobeat, Middle Eastern, traditional Irish, singer/songwriter, pop/covers, to experimental/avant garde. 
  Since I found SoundCloud a couple years ago, I've found many talented, creative people with whom to create music. However, in the summer of '23 I formed a band called The Eclectic Collective with some of my favorite musicians I've met through here. It started as a loose collective of musicians and coalesced into a core group of musicians who find other musicians with whom we'd like to make music, then run their songs through our process, and in effect add a full band. That core of The Eclectic Collective includes Tez (Llanpsych), J.J. Terrel, Ken (K2 and the Three), Stephen (Texmex Shaman), Chris (cgmaness), and Mark (mistermark). A couple of other musicians are frequent collaborators, as well, including Artur of Surfers Like Us, and Steve Vervaet of Steve's World. More recently, we've been joined by Carl of The Beautiful Dark fame. 
  The magic of music is amplified exponentially by each person adding to it. So, we really try to add our sorcery all kinds of music from all kinds of artists. Sometimes, we keep it within the group, but a lot of what we do is collaboration with other artists. Therefore these days, 100% of what I do is collaboration, within the group or with other artists on the side.
  I, and we, are also available for hire if you have a song or lyrics and you really want to add bigger instrumentation or a band and good production to it. 
  A small sampling of the artists whom I consider primary influences, and whom you will hear coming through my fingers include Phish, The Flaming Lips, The Grateful Dead, Radiohead, Rye Cooder, Steve Earle, Miles Davis, Fela Kuti, Arcade Fire, Mikey Dread, Yellowman, Purpleman, The Meditations, Michigan and Smiley, Lee Perry, Dillinger, Django Reinhardt, Impossible Recording Machine, The Allman Bros Band, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Cream, Bela Fleck, Les Claypool, Sam Bush, David Grissman, John Prine, Talking Heads, Beastie Boys, MMW, Moe., Morphine, Ween, Steve Lukather, Michael McDonald, John Abercrombie, Dave Holland, John Scofield, Victor Wooten,  Cannonball Adderly, Thelonious Monk, Flea, Parliament Funkadelic,  Frank Zappa, Prince Paul, Pete Rock, Thievery Corporation, Amon Tobin, Chet Baker, Joao Gilberto, Stan Getz, Astrud Gilberto, Carol Kaye, Tame Impala, Mumford and Sons, Japanese Breakfast, LCD Soundsystem, Beach House, Sean Lennon, and Billy Strings, but of course there are many more. I also really like and am influenced by traditional Iranian, Palestinian, Indian, Sri Lankan, Sudanese, Mauritian, Somalian, Egyptian, West African, and Syrian music. I welcome anyone who plays non-western music to contact me for a collaboration, too.
 I'm overjoyed to have found my community on SoundCloud. This is a truly unique forum where everyone is sincerely trying to build each other up. The profoundly supportive and positive SoundCloud community has really opened up an exciting new world of collaboration for me. That is the main reason I'm in the Cloud, actually, to connect with other musicians and make music that I enjoy listening to, and hopefully others do, as well. I am ALWAYS looking to collaborate with interesting musicians, mostly though BandLab, which is where I record almost exclusively. It's a solid, free digital audio workstation hub where you can share recording projects, even if it's not where you make your recordings.
  Everything I do is live instrumental, not programmed, and using no computer beyond my phone. That's not to say that I would be opposed to using that kind of tool, it's just not my preferred medium with which to paint. If you like my music, please share it. If you want to collaborate, my BandLab handle is @bingo_pajama. Feel free to contact me at cornbreadband@hotmail.com, as well, even if you aren't on BandLab.
  If your music is primarily AI, please don't come around my page, as I'm not at all interested in complimenting a machine.
  Here's a link to music I've recorded live with a group of musicians here in Pittsburgh called The Northumberland Street Ramblers.
Check out The Northumberland Street Ramblers on #SoundCloud
https://soundcloud.app.goo.gl/fU4Me

[There's a knock at the door]
[We answer it] Hello
[You say] Hello, I've come to hear some music
[We say] Great, come in you're at the right place, we've only released eleven songs so far, but we've got some more on the way. Turn up your hi-fi to eleven and have a listen to what we've got.
[We then say] If you like our songs, please follow us, repost and like them.
[You say] OK, I might do that, stop talking and let me have a listen.

Watch this too https://youtu.be/upxfvLhJtQs

( REPOSTS  are  routed to Synthgrinder [REPOSTS] )
( https://soundcloud.com/user-813544615 )


++++. PROFILE NOTES ++++

Once a wannabe, not yet a has been.

It had been over a decade since I put together a song,
and for that matter basically walked away from music altogether.
Losing hope that I would ever have the time to put into music again,
I finally gave away my 3rd music studio.
I ran across SoundCloud around 2013,
and thought I might take what few songs I had recorded, 
and lay them to rest there.
And there they languished.

HOWEVER, around 2017 I went back to SoundCloud
and began listening a little more and a little more,
and actively taking a part in visiting the sites
of so many wonderful musicians and beautiful songs.
Also, more and more often I would discover that these artists
were blossoming everywhere around the world,
and most definitely worthy of high praise and compliments.

Then suddenly, these old dead soundtracks right here
began to have a bit of life breathed back into them.
From the kind words that began to come trickling in,
I thought, maybe, someday I might give this music thing a try again.

The thing that finally pushed me into action
was a particular SoundCloud artist…Sander Heerings,
AKA https://soundcloud.com/wane-of-summer
 

Not only was he encouraging,
but he began faithfully responding to a few questions,
then a barrage of them.

The final result seemed to be that after a couple of months,
the Old Grinder now has a 4th studio and, finally, a new song.
I hope there may be many more to come.

Thank you Sander, and to the multitude that have dropped in
to listen to these old songs, 
and most of all, for perking up my spirits.

The Manic Momma you need to know :)I play #indie #artist #music #daily on @facebook @instagram - you should be following me on there - always #free - always #postivevibes

There’s a treasure down deep in this wonderland
To find it, plug your nose, feel the dirt on your hands
The word and rhyme, a message, in a song it stands
my rock n roll Rosetta Stone 



The rounds (Inst.)

James Geer