Yesterday’s video reminded me that I did a sort of naturescape video/photo tour of Redding last February, and then never posted it. Take a look.

Fairy Rings in our fair city from Skip Murphy on Vimeo.

During a break in our Winter weather, I went to a bluff overlooking the Sacramento River to shoot some panoramas of my town, Redding California, poised beneath newly snow dusted mountains. While shooting, I noticed the really interesting activity that was taking place at my feet. Fairy Rings of mushrooms were scattered about around the Valley Oaks on the bluff. Evidently this is a good year for fungus of all sorts. Back in the studio, I tried to create music ’scenery’ that reflected the photographic images, and the spirit they evoke. My first attempt at using Vimeo, which is a quite nice service. As an early experiment, I think it turned out interesting. But that’s just me. It is Really Redding.

Over at SOMA-FM, they are doing live online Space Music to the live audio feed from Redding’s (okay, the entire U.S’s) Shuttle mission currently spinning overhead. Thought provoking music.

It’s a very unique idea. Maybe not something you’d listen to every day, but very nice on this rainy day, for sure. And think of it. There’s a group of intrepid humans whizzing silently through space, and creative space music playing humans in San Francisco putting it all to music. Art.

There are only a few of our Shuttle missions left to go before they end forever. Ponder that idea while you listen to the music.

Safe journey, astronauts. We are thinking of you today, and we are twice as inspired.

Craig Padilla and his music was featured recently at the Sonic Immersion webzine from the Netherlands authored by our friend Bert Strolenberg. Whenever I read interviews with musicians, I am reminded of the old saying “talking about music is like dancing about architecture.” For musicians, music is the form of expression. When you try to put things into words, something gets lost in translation. Be that as it may, it’s always interesting to see that appreciation for our local music crosses the Atlantic, and across all languages. Music is sort of a universal language in that regard. But if you care to witness this dance about architecture interview, click on the image below. Thanks Bert!

In case you haven’t see this viral video. It made my morning.

Not ReallyRedding, although it would be fun.

You can listen to ambient and space music free at the Earth Mantra website. Here’s a link to the latest collaborative release of a few friends of ours, and longtime fellow travellers, Jim Combs, Jez Creek, and Kevin Haller. It’s interesting and evocative music. Good for late evening reading and such, where the music finds focus in some other region of the brain. There is much other free music to be found at Earth Mantra. All worth exploring.

The Earth Mantra label was started by our friend Darrell Burghan a few years back, mainly to offer an outlet for space-ambient works that would probably not find a home elsewhere. We remember Darrell as the artist Palancar, from the old MP3.com days. A thoroughly decent chap, whom we hold in high regard. We applaud his work to keep this small but interesting genre of music vigorous and growing. The music is free, and can be used non-commercially under the Creative Commons license, which on a website looks like this:
So you can listen to this music, and share it, but not, oh say, use it for background music for your cool online photo slideshow, which you then post on a commercial, revenue generating website. Well, maybe you could use it that way, but you really should ask the artist for permission first. It’s just common courtesy, even if they work cheap, or even free. If you are interested in licensing the work of local starving ambient artists, or any of these unpaid Earth Mantra artists I’ve mentioned here for your local new media project, I can help put you in touch with them. It’s Really Redding.
PS Don’t miss listening to Silvercord – Symphony of Sighs. Perfect for writing.

Our CD Beyond the Portal was nominated for Best Ambient Album of 2009 by ZoneMusicReporter.com, a music industry website.


It would be nice to win, but it’s very gratifying just to be nominated. And I’m a big fan of Deborah Martin and Erik Wollo’s wonderful work, Between Worlds, as profiled at this blog earlier, so it would be great if they won. It’s very moving music. Congratulations to all the nominees!

Ran across this bit of poignant humanity on Craigslist. Would you be willing to sell Rick his guitar back?

Sometimes a guitar is just a guitar…

Craig Padilla put up a video we made while recording some music in the studio a while back, and it’s been viewed 11,800 times since he put it up. That’s kind of fun to think about.

But there’s an oddity about the viewership. Craig divided the whole video piece into 4 parts. The first segment has garnered over 11,000 views, but the second part drops to 7,159 views. Okay, it’s not your thing, so about 4600 people chose not to watch the second segment, which had only 7159 views. But then about 3400 people skip over the the 3rd segment for total views of 10,615. Huh? Then it drops down to 8283 for the 4th and final segment. Just odd. So maybe 7,159 people watched all 4 segments? Who knows. Anyway interesting to think about our many viewers. Although not exactly viral, we had no idea it would reach so many. What would life be like without YouTube? Thanks to all viewers!

One of the big bonuses to being on the artist run label Spotted Peccary (aside from the occasional royalty check Yay!) is getting new discs in the mail from a fellow label artist. Yesterday I received a copy of Deborah Martin’s “Between Worlds” collaboration with Erik Wollo, and it’s really beautiful. When Deborah passed through Redding a few months ago, she stopped by and played me some preliminary tracks, and I was really impressed. What was really fascinating about the project was that she was given permission and access to use extremely rare recordings of Native American songs recorded in 1894 on metal cylinders! She and Erik used songs from those ancient recordings along with their modern instrumentation to make a really unique hybrid of music that spans more than a century. You can link to her project HERE, or listen to a sample of the title track, which is my favorite track, “Between Worlds” HERE. The ancient recordings of voices and melody lend a ghostly quality to some more modern and very spiritual music. Both from a technical and emotional standpoint, I found the music very moving. Highly recommended!

Summer Schappell is the granddaughter of my colleague Bill at C&C Properties. She’s an up and coming singer who has performed here and recorded in Nashville. She and her band gave a terrific performance for an appreciative audience and I took some photos. We were told that many of the drive-thru customers heard the music and got out of their vehicles instead of just driving through for food. The weather was perfect, the food was really good, and there was lots of it. I have some more photos of the BBQ to post later.