Artwork produced by Luke Flowers, of course. And in addition to my voice, Gavin also made liberal use of violin parts from the always amazing Leora Gardner on 743.

I find this project exciting on a few levels. First, the arrangements are just moving. I love how Gavin takes the melody / vocal tracks of a song that I’ve produced and, with little input from me, creates something totally different and unique. The songs have a catchy, memorable quality all their own and a few that were upbeat are now downtempo and vice versa. I’m also excited by the fact that a lot of people will hear these tracks that would never stumble upon my music to begin with.

Have a listen to a couple samples in the orange playbar on jeffcaylor.com and you can compare 15 Minutes Away with the new 15 Minutes Away (Leonid’s Mix). You can also hear the remix of A Way to Say, as well. If you’d like to listen to any of my music, for free, the best place to go is grooveshark.com where you can simply search “Jeff Caylor.”

Pick up the new remix album today at the store. In a couple weeks, you’ll find it on iTunes and I’ll be selling the physical discs as well.

The pop icon definitely shaped me as a musician, vocalist and artist, I’m not ashamed to admit. Thriller, while it said very little to me lyrically, I have to say, it spoke volumes on a musical level. I wanted to be like this Mike, way before others wanted to be like the other Mike. And I tried. I never had enough money to get the red leather jacket with zippers (though a couple friends did) and I never could pull off the moonwalk when it really counted (though a couple friends did) but I do distinctly remember wearing a red bow tie with a pink tuxedo shirt a few times. And if I would have owned a sequined glove, I probably would have tried to work that into the ensemble as well.

Unfortunately, the thousands of tributes to Michael Jackson today will also include references to his bizarre private (and sometimes public) life while off the stage. He seemed to redefine the meaning of artistic eccentricity. In a time when we know so much about so many who make confounding choices, it’s challenging to think of anyone who tops Michael Jackson on the “Strangest and Most Shocking” list. Whether you call him a victim, a fiend or a genius, of one thing I’m certain, there IS NO such thing as bad press.

At least when it comes to music sales. Michael Jackson is proof that you really can’t stop someone from buying a good song. Seriously.

But just how important is the way people remember you?

I was telling a good friend recently that I was feeling busy and overwhelmed and just kind of needed to have some time to myself. I admitted that sometimes, recently, I avoided people who were likely to take a little more of my time than others. Just because I was busy. My friend’s response was simple and to the point.

“Don’t be a jerk.”

His response was actually harsher than that. He told me that he knew way too many “jerks” and the world doesn’t really need any more of them.

After trying to justify my “boundaries” for a minute, I finally had to agree. The world actually needs more people who will give you the time of day and less people who complain about the time you stole from theirs. The world needs more people who think about the impact they are having on the people around them and less who only focus on what they can get from the people around them. The world needs more people who are less concerned with the way they invest their money and more concerned with the way they invest their time.

We’re all here for a pretty limited number of days. Make the most of yours.

I’m gonna make a change, for once in my life
It’s gonna feel real good, gonna make a difference
Gonna make it right.

As I, turn up the collar on my favorite winter coat
This wind is blowin’ my mind
I see the kids in the street, with not enough to eat
Who am I to be blind? Pretending not to see their needs
A summer’s disregard, a broken bottle top
And one man’s soul
They follow each other on the wind ya’ know
‘Cause they got nowhere to go
That’s why I want you to know

I’m starting with the man in the mirror
I’m asking him to change his ways
And no message could have been any clearer
If you wanna make the world a better place
Take a look at yourself, and then make a change

Rest in peace, MJ.

As of today, June 2, What Birds Dream is available as a CD or digital download via my web store. You may also purchase What Birds Dream at Amazon.com.

The CD will be available on iTunes in the coming weeks. Thanks for your support!

1. Write a blog review. Do you have a blog? Use that medium to tell your circle of friends about your indie artist friend (referred to here on out as your IAF). Even if you don’t think you have a lot of readers, you would be surprised what one little inbound link can do for a search engine ranking.
2. Write a peer review. Chances are, you probably don’t have your own blog. You can still review your favorite IAF. Go to where ever your IAF’s work is for sale. Amazon.com? CDbaby.com? iTunes? All of these stores have a built in customer review mechanism and studies show that people who buy products online are VERY INFLUENCED by peer reviews.
3. Request them. Do you listen to any independent music podcasts? Do you listen to the radio? Some stations would never play an “unknown” artist, but you’d be surprised how many would. You don’t have to be annoying about it, but if you know of a station or podcast that’s friendly to music that’s out of the mainstream, you’ll probably have some luck requesting your IAF’s stuff with them.
4. Support them in word and deed. Of course I would expect that you would contact them and let them know you love their stuff, but sometimes people don’t feel comfortable doing that. Trust me, it means a lot. By word AND deed, I mean, tell a friend. Pass it along. Give a recommendation on Facebook. When it comes to my music, I know the only way I’ll make a living doing this is if more people than my friends are fans. Make a copy of my album and pass it along.

I do want to take a second and recognize that there have been many people who have done these things for me. Had I not been encouraged to pursue my music, I wouldn’t have a CD (and now two). Had I not been reviewed by a blog or magazine here or there, I probably wouldn’t have been taken seriously by other people. If no one was willing to buy my music, I wouldn’t have bothered duplicating a CD. It really does snowball, to exploit an overused metaphor. So thanks–you know who you are.

I’m not complaining but when an opportunity comes along to level the playing field a bit between the record label somebodies (them) and the indie artist nobodies (me), I take it.

Recently (I’m convinced by way of Divine intervention), I was asked by the producer of the Dove Awards pre-show to come and hand out some awards. That event took place just over a month ago on the evening of April 23rd, 2008.

There were a few highlights from that day that I wanted to share, with “not tripping on the stage” being in the top 3. Things started when I met a good friend downtown for some lemonade at Starbucks. I recognize the irony there.

12:02p – I return to my car, which is 10 minutes past due on the $4 parking spot and now has a bill for $23 under the windshield (independent artists pay their own parking citations too).
12:30p – I meet my sister at the hotel and I get changed. She paid for us to stay at the Opryland Hotel, which was a nice bonus, but each trip to and from the front desk is an Everest-esque trek.
1:20p – I’m 20 minutes late to my call-time at the Grand Ole Opry thanks to the hotel treks and other general lateness.

The time from now until 4:30p, when the Dove Awards pre-show begins, is unique and incredible and kind of boring. At first I was like, “Wow, I’m eating nachos with Phil Joel!” or “Hey, is that the guy from Mercy Me changing clothes in a tiny stall in the men’s room?” but after awhile it’s just crowded. It’s a crowd like any crowd you might find yourself in at the bank or Laundromat except the people have fantastic fashion sense and really great hair. Plus, you recognize most of the faces from your CD collection.

4:30p – The pre-show starts. This is the part of the show where they hand out most of the awards. Probably one of the weirdest moments is watching the closed-circuit TV in the greenroom with Jordan from PureNRG, Bibleman*, and Warren Barfield (among others).
4:35p – *I think to myself “I’m glad I don’t have to wear a purple cape tonight.”
5:02p – They call me backstage where I prepare to present with the guys from Need to Breathe. It’s funny how someone’s song starts going through your head when you meet them in person.

ME: Hey guys. How’s it going?
THEM: Good man. You?
ME: (thinking to myself) Yahweh, Yahweh!!
ME: (outloud) Good. Yeah.

5:08p – Bibleman comes backstage with the kids from PureNRG to get ready for their segment. He dons his “helmet of salvation” which looks a little like the “helmet of Power Rangers.”
5:10p – Overheard backstage: “So that’s Bibleman. He’s kind of a freakshow, isn’t he?” It wasn’t me. I’m just saying…
5:15p – The very funny host of the show, comedian Nazareth, introduces the guys from Need to Breathe and me. We all walk out without tripping.
5:15p – We’re at the edge of the stage now and each of us has a sort of “deer meets headlights” look as the teleprompter is slowly counting down from 30. Instead, it should have my first line, “The first award we have the honor of presenting tonight is for Country Album.” After what seems like way too long, I remember my line and the teleprompter people catch up to where I am. The 5 of us get to present 4 awards.
5:20p – I announce the winner for Pop/Contemporary Recorded Song of the Year.

ME: And the Dove Award goes to “East to West,” Casting Crowns, blah, blah, blah (The blah-blah stuff is important, but it’s drowned out as the applause swells).

Mark Hall and Casting Crowns will win a truckload of hardware tonight. Odds were pretty good that we’d get to deliver some.

5:21p – Mark Hall takes a second before accepting his award to tell the guys from Need to Breathe that he loves their music and has it playing in his car. In his head, he’s going “Yahweh, Yahweh!!”

The rest of the show was great. Another highlight from the pre-show was when someone announced David Crowder as the winner of the award in a gospel category in which he wasn’t nominated. After a long awkward pause, they said, “Sorry, that was the wrong envelope. The actual winner is Mark Lowry.” It was a really good moment.

Of the whole pre-show, my favorite performance was Phil Wickham, joined by his brother Evan Wickham on keys and vocals. Evan is the only other indie artist I met that night.

Later, in the televised portion of the Dove Awards, David Crowder put on an amazing performance and I sang along during the Michael W. Smith tribute.

Overall, I had a blast. I got to hang out with my sister, which is rare enough. It was a big honor to present at the Dove Awards and I got to meet lots of nice people backstage. It did take some restraint to not hand my CD to every person I saw, but honestly I’m more comfortable making friends than “contacts.” And for the record, Robert T., the man who plays Bibleman, is a pretty cool guy. I just would have to ask him to leave the cape at home if we ever, say, go out for lemonade at Starbucks.

Oh, and have a great Memorial Day weekend!

UPDATE: A couple behind the scenes photos from the shoot at Flickr:

Thanks to everyone who has supported my music and thanks to the amazing musicians and artists who have contributed to this project. You guys are the best!

To my knowledge, I was the first one to crack the thing open and circuit bend it. I made a song from the weird sounds it made. After that, I got a new button and replaced the soundboard with a circuit board from a Radio Shack voice memo recorder. Here’s the video that came out of that.

Incidentally, I also had some detailed instructions for how to do it, but lost most of the work when my hosting company pulled the plug on my server without telling me. I lost two years worth of blogs including the easy button stuff. Here’s a basic recreation of that.

First, get a Staple’s Easy Button. You can get them in Spanish now, too. Flip it over and take off the little black rubber feet. That reveals 4 screws that hold the thing together. Take it all apart and

You’ll want one of these too. I picked it up at Radio Shack. It was like $8, I think. It’s a voice memo recorder.

You need to unscrew the case and remove the circuit board. Hang onto those batteries. There are easier ways to do this (see below), but this is how I made mine.

After that, I cleared out the plastic where the old circuit board sat so I could fit the new board in place. I had to get rid of the metal clicker too. I used a soldering iron. I recommend a dremel tool.

These are shots of the voice memo recorder showing where the record button attaches and how things are wired roughly. You should be able to derive where things should go based on what buttons and contacts did their thing in the voice recorder to begin with. There are larger pics at Flickr.

And here’s the original board from the Easy Button. I’m not using it’s audio anymore. Just the switch–that rubbery white thing–to “play” the memo recorder. The switch is still triggered with the huge red button, just no clicker.

And the coolest part. Take out the batteries and use the space for the record button, microphone, and an LED that tells you you’re recording. Just drill proper holes and fish the button through from the inside.

The way I did it took quite awhile and the inside is a mess. In fact, so much so that the batteries have gone out awhile ago, but it’s such a rat’s nest, that I don’t really want to open it to change the batteries.

The project has appeared on Hackaday.com and Makezine.com. I think it’s the reason my site is on stumbleupon.com. I felt badly that these links have been dead for about 5 months now, so I wanted to rebuild some kind of Easy Button resource page for people looking to hack this thing. Seems like a lot of people are interested…

EASY BUTTON HACK WEB LINKS

• A garage door opener project that came shortly after mine. His Flickr Photos are beautiful, too. He got dugg for this one.
• Here’s the “Evil button” (pdf). It was the one linked at Hackaday. It had a video.
• Here’s the Easy Button as a Musical Interface.
• And this one is just too cool with the big potentiometer on the front. Be sure to listen to the sounds it’s making. Crazy.
• This hack is the one you want, but the video moves pretty quick. Fortunately, he put the detailed instructions on his page.
• And just to round out this list, here’s a virtual easy button you can put on your computer to get to Staple’s Web site.
• And a Mac dashboard widget Easy Button.
• A few interesting blog posts on the Easy Button:
  Sundog.net
  2020church

BY THE WAY: Since you’re here, why not take a look around. I’ve just released a new CD and you might like it. Check it out at iTunes or at amiestreet.com/jeffcaylor. You can buy the CD online at cdbaby.com. Peace out!