JPF was my lifeline for a few years while I took care of my mother. She was bedridden and had dementia, and I was getting more and more isolated as the work became more involved.

I would come here and be free for an hour or two, while mom slept and I had a little energy. Listen to Louis Twinn and wonder how it was that he just had to start singing and I would get immediately choked up and oft times cry. I remember Ricki and Scott would get similarly affected as well. Something so honest in his voice that always killed me and still does to this day.

I remember the day Beth first said "musicate" and "musication" and it stuck..

I remember once I participated in a bunch of us musicators making demos for "lyrics only folks" who would each post a lyric in a special thread, then Mark, Geoff aka Niteshift, Mike Caro, Scott, myself and other musicators would each choose a lyric and then produce that lyric for that lucky JPF member. I remember how happy we made a lot of "lyrics only" folks feel when we did that. And when we critiqued each others work it was all respectful. That was probably thee most happy and fulfilling group experience for me, here.

A bird in a Kristi McKeever lyric was nixed by another collab partner's rewrite the day before the Kentucky Derby, and in the middle of Kristi and I working on songs together. I noted that in that 2009 Kentucky Derby there was a horse called "Mine That Bird" that had absolutely no chance of winning cuz it was 50 to 1..but I couldn't get over the feeling that the cosmos was trying to tell us something. So I bet it and it won triple figures, and that financed the next few demos of ours which included work by Halie Loren.

I have several friendships that started here and moved beyond..but JPF was ground zero..




Last edited by Michael Zaneski; 10/07/19 10:52 PM.
Fate doesn't hang on a wrong or right choice
Fortune depends on the tone of your voice

-The Divine Comedy (Neil Hannon)
from the song "Songs of Love"
from the album "Casanova" (1996)