*** Free For All – Rob Christensen Music News – Spring 2008 ***

Hello –

I hope you’re having a good Spring. I’m sure glad the winter is over!

I wanted to let you know about a couple of shows coming up. The first is next Sunday, April 27, at The Cave, in Chapel Hill, NC. I’ll be opening for Sound of Singles, and the show is set to start at 9:00 pm. Go to www.caverntavern.com for details.

The second is on Wednesday, May 14, when I’ll be playing a show with New York’s Matt Keating at St. Elmo’s Coffee Pub in Alexandria, VA. This show is set to go from 8 pm to 10 pm. Go to www.stelmoscoffeepub.com for more details.
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There’s also a slim chance that I’ll be playing at the Living Room in New York City on Saturday, May 3. Check back to my website or MySpace page for more news as soon as I have it.

I’ve got five new songs on the set list for the North Carolina show. If they go well I’ll play them again in Alexandria.

As for the rest of the year, I plan on mostly concentrating on writing and recording the next album. If the occasional show opportunity arises I’m not going to say no, but there are no tour plans or anything. That said, I do plan on coming out to California in October. While I’m there I hope to play a show in Arcata or Eureka. I’ll send out another of these notices as October gets closer to let you know what’s happening.

For several months now, my MySpace page has had the headline, “$5.99 CD sale ending soon.” At this point I’ve decided to keep my CDs at $5.99. In this economy, and with the changes in the music business, I think it’s the right thing to do. So help out an independent artist and buy a CD or two (or three or four…).

Finally, I’m putting together a free 8-song sampler CD. Three of the songs will be acoustic versions of older songs, while the rest will be tracks from my CDs. I’ll make everything on it available for download via my website and myspace. If you want a CD copy, send me a buck and a half for postage and I’ll mail you a copy.

For more news, song downloads, CD’s, and other wonderful things, please visit www.robchristensen.com and www.myspace.com/robchristensen.com.

Have a great spring and summer and write if you can!

Cheers!

New York City Weekend recap

The weekend trip to New York was fun, productive, and a bit tiring. I'd hoped to have this summary up by now, but between the lack of sleep and the cold I caught, it wasn't going to happen.

After catching up and relaxing on Friday, my pal Sash and I spent a few hours Saturday in Manhattan. We hit the 48th Street music stores – Manny's, Sam Ash, etc. – and played guitars & looked at things that we can't afford. From there it was down to Times Square and the Virgin MegaStore. That's a place where I could spend loads of money, but I kept it to one CD – a live Dylan session from '62. Sash was impressed by how busy the place was. After hearing all of the doom and gloom about the record industry he was pleasantly surprised at how many people were spending an evening in a record store.

After that we ventured over to Hell's Kitchen for burritos, then headed back to Queens for a solo-acoustic recording session. I did six songs. At least one of them will be on my upcoming free (Free!) sampler CD. Four were new songs that I'm working up for the next album. I tried a couple of those in different keys and slight changes with arrangements.

Sunday evening Lemonheads was spent at the Lemonheads show. Mr. Dando and his band are on tour performing their near-perfect 1993 album, It's A Shame About Ray. Opening, as I mentioned in the last entry, was Second Dan, who are friends of Sasha. I guess I can sort of count them as friends, too, as we first met at a studio opening party in New York last fall. Before the show we hung out a little bit, talking guitars and such. They played a good rockin' set with plenty of energy and warmed the crowed up real good for the main event. Obviously, Ray is a favorite of mine, so it was a real treat to see and hear the Lemonheads perform it in person, especially in a small venue like the Bowery Ballroom. I believe I even got a little teary-eyed seeing my fellow Gen-X'ers swaying along to "Buddy". All in all a fun night and a good capper to a great weekend.

Monday it was back to the daily grind – an 11 am bus back down to DC and home to the day (night) job in the bookstore (which is actually really quite fun).
Until next time…