Greg Byler and The Branded Souls: News

Just an announcement to say that I am resurfacing from months of subterraneal travel. It was an informative journey. I do apologize for any delays.

I've got a gig this weekend, finally, at a studio warming party for Adele Shaw, a really great painter and friend. Please check out her website... www.adeleshaw.com

It's not open to the public, sorry.

As for future gigs, I'll keep you posted.

I'm going west. I'll be by the Golden Gate from the 13th to the 25th looking up old friends, searching for keys to hidden doors (management, record labels, publishing houses), and playing a gig or two. I've got one gig confirmed at a bar called Amnesia on Sunday the 16th. Check my calendar for details. It'll be a solo gig as my branded buddies won't be able to make the trip this time around. I'm looking forward to it though. It's been a long, long time since my days over across the bay in Berkeley. I stayed there only a short while, 8 months or so, working as a craftsman, building fine furniture at Berkeley Mills. They were some strange days indeed. They had a sort of Kafka mole-like feel to them. But there are some good people living underground, and we passed the time well. I believe the bar was in Berkeley where I first saw someone play the flamenco guitar. I was transported, truly (not a difficult thing to do to me in those days, but that's another story), and I began to wonder if I might one day fly myself over to Spain and learn how to do that, which of course I did about a year and half later. I also studied some jazz down in Oakland during that period with Jim Grantham, owner of Nightbird Music (check out his site on my links page). Jim was cool. I liked his teaching method even though my time with him was cut way short when I caught wind of some family emergencies happening back east and I had to hit reverse and move everything back. That was alright though, cause as we know, going from point head to point toe is not a straight line. That east-bound trip was surely one of my best... me and my haggard but faithful Honda Magna braving the elements (blue skies and juicy bugs) the whole way back to Pa. I didn't wear a helmet when I didn't have to, and there was no windshield on my bike. You remember Jim Carrey in Dumb and Dumber? That was me. Dead bugs in my teeth and ears. I almost died on that trip, no joke - I took a bird to the face at 75 mph one fine moring in Idaho. Luckily it hit me in the only place where I was protected - the eye. I had good professional wood-working glasses on. It hurt like a bastard though. I never stopped. When I realized I wasn't dead, I laughed, hard. Other than that and a run-in with a back-woods homo-erectus truck driver in Colorado, the trip was seemless and beautiful. Anyway, I gotta run now. Hope to see you out there.

Well, sadly, it appears that my time in Granada, Spain has ended. Now that Harold and I have finished the cd there's no real reason for me to be there. Of course I would love to base myself out of that spectacular town, but honesly, it's tough to get anything done there. You want distractions, go to Granada. It's too good. Luckily I was blind the first two years I spent there. I don't know how I avoided the social scene, but I did, and spent all my time in my apartment playing the flamenco guitar and recording my demos. My friends (I did have a few) thought I was insane spending so much time alone with that damned guitar, me always declining barbecues, trips to the beach or to the mountains. It cost me a few relationships too. What can I do, that's the capricorn in me. I set my sights on something and I don't stop until I get it. Well, I got it. Now here I am, loaded down with a disc wondering what the hell am I doing in Lancaster county. I reckon I'll go down the street here and git me a piece a shoe-fly-pie and some of that dark-ish water they sell around these parts that some call coffee and try to concentrate on the good things that you can find in such a fine, humble?, and complacent town.

I just got a call from my old friend, the percussionist/beat poet Fredriko who years ago kindly took me on as a singer (when I wasn't much of a singer at all) in one of his line-ups. We did a few shows together. I played the digeridoo while he banged away and frothed at the mouth spewing his words in a style not unlike Captain Beefheart crossed with Bob Dylan gone hip-hop! A true visionary with his heart set on the truth is Fredriko. We've been discussing a recording collaboration for a couple of his tunes over the last year or two. Looks like we'll finally get it done now that I'm back. Wow, it's really true, I'm back...

Excuse me, I'm gonna go have me a piece of that pie...