3rd Street Block Party--Word? Word.

Wow! Last night's performance was a rush! So I'm working, and I'm about an hour from being done, and I have the instinct to look at my phone--I can feel someone has contacted me (cue creepy alien music). Lo and behold, my boy Dom has texted me, asking me to come perform at the block party that night as a band couldn't make it! Oh snap! I was so tired from work, but I was excited to spontaneously take on this opportunity! Spontaneity...mmm, tastes good. So I said yes. I hadn't felt this excited to perform in a long time! So once I finished work I got everything ready for my set. I wouldn't go on for another couple of hours, but I liked that--gave me time to get a few short practices in. Good thing I'm not a high-maintenance performer--yet, anyway. All I needed was my guitar and my ipod shuffle. So anyway I get my stuff ready, but I'm so picky in choosing which stage versions of my song I want to put on my ipod that I'm just a tad bit late, which wasn't a big deal because another band was playing and I'm so low maintenance. We plug in the ipod, mic the guitar and my voice and we're good to go. My man Brando appeared like a magical ninja and introduced me, which was really sweet of him. Then I began with my song Body Wisdom. I think, even if you don't listen to rap or hip-hop, everyone who is or wants to be conscious has something to appreciate here--Love your body, love yourself. My next song, 'Fire', which I'll be releasing in a few weeks, is about a girl I met (is it you? Is it you?) whose personality is so intense that I had to constantly remain strong just to be in her presence. The song is aptly titled, as her astrology is dominated by the fire element (don't know what I'm talking about? Maybe I'll do an astrology blog as some point). It's got an old school feel in the drums, with space-age arpeggiated and bass synths. Really cool. Then I did my song Paper Tiles , which is another alternatively sounding hip-hop track about how people put too much energy into maintain their flimsy egos, their 'Paper Tiles'. The ego is weak ground to stand on. Stand in the reality of the heart. Okay, then I did an old song. Well, old to me. It's called Zero Point . Zero Point, according to Science is a space of infinite energy. According to me, it is the core of existence where everything comes from. This song is about humanity needing to find its center in order to transcend the reality of oppresion. Okay where am I at now? I only had 20-25 min for my set, so I asked Dom (or was it Jason? or was it Nicholas?) how much time I had left. "You can do one more, they said." Initially I asked the crowd what I should play (those who knew me and my work). A few suggestions where put out there--wait, I had promised my friend and Yogi Chiraj that I would play one of my songs he really liked--Master . This song is about connecting with the soul and seeing that as the ultimate teacher, the ultimate parent, the ultimate guru. How am I doing on word count? You bet your ass I'm rockin' it. So anyway, even though I flubbed up on my lyrics a little bit in my songs, the crowd was compassionate and didn't boo me. They seemed to genuinely not care that I messed up, and just was diggin' the essence of what I was communicating through the songs. You can't ask for a better crowd than that. This time I did not come unprepared. I brought some copies of my latest album UNeedVerse and sold a few copies for $3 bucks--a discount from the original pirce of $5. My friend Christina eve asked for my autograph! Really? Wow! Now I have to make it big so she'll have something worth millions of dollars! LOL. Thanks everybody for coming and showing love. Many more performances to come, and hopefully I get to connect with more and more of you out there in the crowd. Excelsior, G.A.B.E.