An interview with Embers guitarist David Dixon, conducted by master bass player and visionary John Ray.  Special thanks to Nigel Maidstone Gillingham III for producing this podcast at his studio in Brentwood, England.

This podcast contains new information, a request for fans and an interview with a band member!

     I was walking my dogs near my house the other day, when I was stopped by a small group of swifts flying close over my head. I watched them as they flew towards a large flock not far from me. The place I was standing was overlooking a small valley with I-40 running right down the center, and houses all around as far as I could see. It was dusk, and people were all rushing to get home for dinner, and this flock of about a thousand birds was performing aerial acrobatics in the turbulent air above the interstate completely unnoticed by the human traffic on the ground.
     What these people were missing, listening to their radios and talking on their cell phones, unaware of anything but the cars in their immediate area, was one of the most beautiful, intricate dances I've ever witnessed. The immense group of participants wheeled around a large area of the sky, all turning in unison, different sections breaking off here, and rejoining there, and all of it coordinated perfectly and synced up so that the group moved as a single unit across the sky. More swifts were flying in and joining this mass of birds all the time, seemingly coming from all over the city to take part in this dance and then roost together when the daylight is finally gone. As soon as they reached the main flock, the small group of four or five would immediately fall into sync with the main flock, as if they were performing a three-dimensional dance that was rehearsed for months.
     It was not rehearsed in any way, though. Scientists have studied this flocking behavior, and have come to many conclusions about its purpose, but nobody can know for sure what these birds are thinking. When I look at this behavior, as a musician, it seems clear to me that regardless of the reason for it, what they are doing is dancing. They might be dancing as a way to determine the hierarchy of roosting or to scare predators, but the fact remains that they are all moving together as one using a form of instantaneous communication that is unknown to science, but very well known by musicians. It is this same form of communication that we use on stage every night when we improvise, when verbal communication and body language are not an option. The most that we can do on stage is yell out a word or two or give a look with an eye, but this is not in any way sufficient to communicate the intricacies of music. All the time we have to be aware fully of everything that is happening around us, while then figuring out how best to add our sound to this, and then listening to the whole of the group and make any changes that need to be made, at the same time we employ all of our years of accumulated theoretical knowledge about what notes to play, how to play them, and how to achieve this technically. It takes much more than lifetime of practice to master this, and I can say for myself that I am just beginning to learn how to dance this dance of music and artistic expression through group performance.
     These birds have mastered this dance. It is clear to me watching them that while there might be some underlying survival technique related to this dance, they are finished feeding for the day and are dancing as one; a whole society of swifts coming together for one last improvised salute to the fading daylight. This is something that we, as a different species of animal living in a much larger flock, should learn from, and something that we musicians should study very thoroughly, and try to imitate with our own dances.
-John Ray

Welcome to the Embers very first podcast! This is the first podcast in the history of the Embers and the first in a series to be aired throughout 2010! Join host Pat McCutcheason as he interviews band members and introduces fun and interesting segments throughout the series. You are invited to write in with your requests and suggestions for future podcasts!

This past weekend, we had the privilege of visiting a Veterans Hospital in Charleston, SC. It was an inspiring and humbling experience, to say the least. On Friday night we played a Veterans Valentines ball with our friends, The Tams. We both had a great time, and the large crowd was very appreciative. Thank you all that attended!
We were put up in a very nice hotel in downtown Charleston, and the next morning we made the trip to the VA Hospital. I don’t think any of us knew what to expect, or what we were even supposed to do, but we met with our contact there and she escorted us to a patient’s room. The first guy we met was from Conway, SC, and was very happy to see us! We just hung out with him for a few minutes, and moved on to the next room.
We visited with about 25 patients, and all of them were happy to see us, and just get a chance to talk to some people and be appreciated. Everyone in the hospital was a veteran, and some had obvious war injuries. We made sure all of them knew how much we appreciated their sacrifice, and I could tell that that made all of them happy.
The whole thing was a very surreal experience, and by the end of our 2 hour stay, I felt much smaller. We are entertainers, and our job is to make people happy; it seems to me that this should be part of our job requirement as well. Not just for veterans, but anyone who is in need of cheering up, for any reason. I got the impression from some of the people in there that they were not going to ever leave the hospital, and that they had almost given up on life. If we could make one person smile, just once, then I would say our trip was worthwhile. It was worthwhile.
-John Ray

It is way past time for another blog - Right!?!?!?

Here goes: Man the first of the year has been rough so far! Why you ask? The transmission crapped out in my van. I bought this van from the Chrysler Dealer here in Raleigh this past May. It was used with only 62K miles, leather interior and decked out to the max. The perfect family hauler. Well - I learned the hard way the history behind this model van and its transmission woes. This is a really long story........ fast forward - It broke down on I-95 south (with less than 80K miles) at about 10pm just after new years. We got the van back today after four garages and three tows. I won't talk about the expense, ongoing inconvenience or sitting on the side of the road for hours (at night) with the wife and kids. Far too sad - although, I did enjoy the time spent with them. It was nice considering the mandatory circumstance. I just want to send a special thanks to my really good friend that helped me through it all. His tireless drive to help us and get this taken care of accompanied by the same caring attitude from his wife saw our family through this mess. They even loaned us a cool old school Jeep to drive in the interim. Were it not for them, we would have been ran over or popped between the eyes by the 8-ball instead of just being behind it! Thankfully, our friendship has grown through this ordeal and for that our family is very thankful. They know who they are! I owe you one (or more)!!

Things are brighter today. We got the van back late last night and drove it to Virginia today (we made it there and back with no issues) to get another car. This vehicle is a family heirloom that has been in our family for years and was once owned by my father-in-law, then his brother. We have it now and needless to say, my wife is tickled as she will be the principle driver. She has always loved the car and has very fond memories if it. My little red car, that I bought new several years ago for cheapo band travel, will be handed down to my nephew Stenson - a first time driver this year! The only draw back to all this - I'm now mini-van guy. Anything for my family. I love them very much! These are our cars as they set in our driveway tonight…



This is Tracie's new ride.



This is my nephews new ride minus the cool tag of course.



Finally - this is my new ride. At least I know the transmission is good and it has a killer stereo. Not to mention the automatic doors and liftgate! Just look for the old guy cruising the mall wearing a cape and providing car care tips and rides to the less fortunate…


-free

      My friends, I’m here today to tell you about a brand new organization I am founding. It’s called the Rick Sanders Save the World Federation (RSSTWF). With my plan I will:
1. Solve the gasoline crisis
2. Reduce work related stress by half or more
3. End world hunger and possibly the need for food altogether
4. Cure all deadly diseases
5. Reduce traffic accidents and save millions of lives.

     Today I will tackle three of the problems I have mentioned.
1. Curing deadly diseases.
     Think tanks! Now wait a minute! Hasn’t that been tried before, you ask? Yes, and with less than satisfactory results. However, they are GOING ABOUT IT THE WRONG WAY! Have you ever noticed how amazing the new video games are? These people who design these are brilliant, witty, clever, innovative people! And computer geeks do research better than anyone! Put these guys in the same room with the top surgeons and medical researchers in the country. The computer guys will look at the problems from a completely different angle. Ideas will bounce around and sooner or later solutions for a cure of all deadly diseases will be found! You could throw in brilliant architects, engineers, professors and philosophers! And maybe a Beach Music musician or two?
     Ok, we’ve solved the disease problem, on to the gas crisis and saving lives on the highway.
     Pass a law – maximum 35 mph speed limit. Whoa! Before you organize a posse to do me bodily harm, hear me out. Due to reduced speeds the world would need half the gas it uses. Prices would plummet to well under a dollar a gallon leaving more money to spend on you and your loved ones. Of course we would need a special lane or two at the regular speed limit for emergency vehicles and people with the important job of spreading joy and beauty to the world, such as actors, clowns, jugglers, and Beach Music musicians. And what would you do with that extra time it takes to get to work? Well, for starters, I would suggest you purchase the entire Embers CD collection because nothing reduces stress better than good old Beach Music. As a by-product, reduced speeds would save not thousands, not millions, but BILLIONS of lives in traffic mishaps!
     If everyone in the entire world donates a quarter (more if you have it!) to my foundation we can save the world! The Embers could embark on a world tour to promote my plan and spread the happiness and joy that beach music brings!
     Next up - - solving world hunger and work related stress. Till then, your friendly guru, philosopher, soothsayer visionary and all around good-guy Ricky Paul Sanders will be working tirelessly to SAVE THE WORLD!!

  Day three in Korea: after going out and playing at “Woodstock,” getting up at 9:30 was a little more difficult than usual. I’m still not adjusted to Korea time, and my schedule is still a little out of whack. We hopped on our bus and headed to the Seoul Station, to get on a bullet train to take us to Daegu. I tried to sleep on the way there, but was too interested in watching the scenery. The train went 300 kph, or about 190 mph. On land, that is by far the fastest I’ve ever been! It was surprising to see how developed Korea is. As we passed through the countryside, it seemed tha even the small towns all have high rise condominiums, and the towns are all very compact, leaving all of the factories and farms outside of the cities. We passed through tall mountains which reminded me of the cascade mountains in Washington, except much older and covered with trees. All of the vegetation I saw was basically identical to North Carolina, and none of it felt very foreign.
We arrived at the base to find our crew had already set up for the show, and the stage looked amazing! Those guys are good. Our sound crew consists of nine guys, who make quick work of setting up and tearing down, leaving us to worry about music and sound checking. The show was great, and the sound was awesome, even though we played in a gym with high metal ceilings and concrete walls (about as bad as it gets for acoustics). It was nice to do a show with our costumes and tuxes, and all of the skits tha go in the show. The audience was very appreciative as well.
Nothing eventful happened after the show, this time. We took the train back to Seoul, and went to the hotel and to sleep! It was nice to get a full night’s sleep for a change!
-John Ray

  Yesterday was our first show, and despite a major setback (no luggage), the show came off beautifully. We played in Seoul, on the army base, for a small crowd of about 75 soldiers and families. If you’ve seen our Christmas show, then you have seen that we wear two different tuxedos, and we all have several costume changes. All of that stuff, including a lot of our gear, was in our luggage. Awesome. We had all been wearing the same clothes for 4 days, and some of us were getting pretty full of smell. Hwong our helpful escort, got us some military shirts, and some of us washed our clothes in the bathtub. We found out, however, that Korean t-shirts are sized a little differently than American shirts. Hwong brought us two shirts each, one a XXL and one a 3XL. On me, the XXL fit about like a large, and the 3XL fit like a XL. Korean people are just smaller than we are. Walking around, none of us could find any clothes that fit us.
At the show, we met up with Ms. Shirley Commander, who is our liaison with the MWR (Morale, Welfare, and Recreation). She went out and bought us all new clothes! Not everything, but enough to get us through the show and rest of the night. The worst part about wearing the same clothes for four days is the socks. Yes, our underwear smelled very bad, but the socks just got horrible. They get very uncomfortable, very smelly, and amazingly stiff. OK, enough about our clothes. So we did the show, without most of the skits, and wearing blue jeans and sweaters. The skits we did do were the Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra skit, and Johnny Cash. Both were heavily improvised because they basically rely on costumes! JT, Wayne and Rick all held it together, though, with a lot of “Now imagine I’m wearing a wig and black vest” kind of things. The crowd loved it, however, and all of the improv made it almost more funny! What could be more funny than me dressed up like a ballerina, though. Nothing. Im the funniest.
After the show, we were presented with gifts from the commanding general (he gave us blankets so we wouldn't get cold without our luggage). Then Ms. Shirley took us all out to dinner on the base, and took us, exhausted, back to the hotel. Well, some of us still had some energy......
We got back to the hotel to find our luggage! Or, most of it. As it turns out, we got 12 of the 14 bags we initially checked in Raleigh. 5 days later. Thanks, D***a. You suck. David and Linda Tomlinson are now the only two without their luggage, and they are taking it pretty well.
So after we put on clean clothes, Eddie, our monitor tech, Dave, Stephen and I head downtown to see if we can find something fun to do. We head into a bar called “Woodstock,” because we hear Jimi Hendrix blaring from the window. A sign on the door says “Open mic night,” in English, and as we walk in to the tiny club, we see a stage with a mostly full band setup. There are lots of amps, a couple guitars strewn around the stage, a PA with a couple of mics, and a drum kit with at least 1 1/2 sticks on the floor. We sit down at the bar and begin talking to the bartender, whose name I dont remember, and ask if we can go play a little bit. There were only about 7 people in the bar and none of them looked like they were participating in the open mic night, so we got up on stage and played some blues. There was no bass, so I played a keyboard through a bass amp to sound like a bass, Stephen played drums, Dave played guitar, and Eddie sang and ran sound for us. The “crowd” loved it! We got wild standing ovations after every song, and calls for “encole!” Immediately after we finished, the bartender ran on stage with a schedule book and offered us a gig Saturday night! I wish things worked like that in the US! My life would be a lot easier. Anyway, it’s 3 am here, and I need to get to bed tonight. Until next time.......
-John Ray

We had our meeting with Bobby and learned that we will hear around 6pm whether or not our luggage can be located. We have to perform a show tonight without our charts, outfits, props and more. We plan to go over and perform our Christmas music with whatever we have when we get there. We may be issued Army Fatigues to wear. That'll be very cool. We're still playing this one by ear but one thing is for sure - We will make this happen irregardless of our situation.

I found some really thin socks and cardboard underwear at the mini-stop. Things are looking up!

Tonight will be exciting. Check back for updates. Ray and I plan to send updates as often as possible. We wish you all were here to share in this experience with us - assuming we all I had our luggage!


-free