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- PICTURES:
First things first, here is my link banner graphic for those friends that link to my site:
Too big? Here's an avatar I often use, in MySpace's favored 90-pixel wide format:
Okay, enough commercials; On with the show! :
Me and my brother, Dan, layin' into some harmonies.
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A Straits Area Open Mic "finale". Left to right: Jeff Pope, Mike Welch, Mark Halverson, Travis Peterson, Randy Binger, Mike Pierron and Jimmy Fitzpatrick. Foreground backs of heads: Sunshine and Willie.
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My wife, Deb, helping out an Open Mic Night.
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Me hosting the Breaker's Open Mic in Topinabee.
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Regular Open Mic rat, Archie Reno.
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Most of Bionic Fonzy performing at Breaker's Open Mic Night. My friend Jeff Lynn, barely visible in the background, fills in on drums.
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A Straits Area Open Mic. Left to right: Crazy Moose (Mark Halverson, Sarah Halverson and Mike Pierron) collab-ing with Chris Barker of C&T Express.
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Me at Breaker's, "jangling out" with my 12-string guitar.
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Me at Breaker's, singing in my favorite "Blues Brothers" shirt.
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Camping jam, with my chosen iconic symbol "party lights" I like to use in my promotional image material in the background!
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A collab going on at Open Mic. Left to right: Me, Sarah Halverson and Teresa Fowler. Mike Pierron in left foreground.
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Me playing at Bayside Live, St. Ignace's weekly outdoor summer music show at the marina. It later rained!
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Me hosting an Open Mic Night at Rock Bottom Tavern in Moran.
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"My name in lights"! Okay, dumb, I suppose, but I just HAD to take a picture of it!
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The photo eventually used for the cover of my CD "It's Time".
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Me and Matt Serwach, on slide dobro, collab-ing for a church Christmas program.
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Another campfire gig. I "used" these friends and their families over the early years to get over stagefright and hone my playing to professional caliber, and for that I am greatful!
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Live well,
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A good silhouetted "mood" photo, but eventually rejected as the back image of the "It's Time" CD.
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and CREATE!
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What it's all about, above career and even music: Family. The rightmost four are me and my family, and the rest is my mom and dad, my brother and his family, and my sister.
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LINKS:
- "IT'S ALL ABOUT ME":
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Gene Perry News Message Board
Might as well list the most important and interesting one first, here! Swing by and check out my latest news, or even go farther than looky-loo and register up for free and post something to have a public, dialog-type exchange with me. I also often copy the e-newsletter I send out to friends here again, which contains a lot of useful east U.P. live music goings-on. (Thanks to the good folks down at northernmichiganfun.com for housing this!)
Gene Perry MySpace
MySpace is supposed to be this rage social networking site that everyone's on, but nobody ever SAYS anything useful or substantive on it once they're there (!). But, since it's popular in musician circles, I finally caved in and got set up. It has it's share of controversy, so it is blocked where I work, so it makes it hard for me to keep up with updates to it (which is another reason why I give it a luke-warm endorsement). I'll try to nurture it and keep it up, but for the best source of my current happenings, look to THIS website first!
Gene Perry Feature in Petoskey's Graphic
The Graphic, the arts and entertainment sub-paper of the Petoskey News-Review, did a short feature page on me in early 2008. Very cool!
Gene Perry NorthernMichiganFun.com Interview
The cool folks down at NorthernMichiganFun.com (link to homepage below) featured me once on their Bands page. This interview was done in late 2007, and has me going on and on with praises and rants about various things, like the local music scene, music tech, song-writing, performing, why I do all this, and other stuff. It's a mixed bag of fact and opinion, but it's an entertaining read, if I do say so m'self...
- LOCAL MUSICIAN NEWS:
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Petoskey News Entertainment Calendar
Who's playing where in the Petoskey area (hopefully, me!), updated Thursday afternoons. There's no consistant link to it, so follow this one and look for the "Entertainment Calendar" link on that page.
Northern Express Nitelife Listings
Northern Express is Northern Michigan's largest arts and entertainment free publication out of Traverse City. This listing is updated on Tuesdays, and lists entertainment goings-on in a broader area, stopping at approximately Cadillac and Mackinaw City.
- LOCAL MUSICIANS:
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Last Call
A band from St. Ignace that I got to be good friends with through Open Mic hosting. I've seen them evolve from individual musicians to being an acoustic duo to being a full band, and they are a typical Open Mic success story I like to somehow think I had something to do with. Always a treat to catch, I try to whenever I can, and you should do the same!
Bionic Fonzy
Another band I've gotten to know well through Open Mic hosting, and you've really gotta see 'em to believe 'em! They play a few crowd faves, but mostly eclectic rockabilly and blues stuff (plugged and unplugged) and they love to surprise, and have a good time doing it. They aren't really genre walled-off, and don't follow rules other than if it rocks, it's in!
Tricky Dicky and the Spoonmen
These guys certainly need no endorsement from me, but I can't contain myself! This band has experienced, seasoned pros and is TIGHT, but all that pretense goes out the window when they start to play, since they prove to you quick that they know that it's all about the FUN of it! Paul Bedour is in this band, who is probably my favorite local singer of them all (and I've seen a LOT of local bands!).
The Bait Shop Boys
I think the term applies to both the loose affiliation of musicians that get together Sunday afternoons at various places in the east U.P., and the core band that plays out professionally that you can usually find there at that time. Whatever it is, it's great; Pop in and check it out sometime to see what I mean!
Stephanie Sabatine
Sault Ste. Marie area musician and friend, and honorary Bait Shop "Boy".
Dave Morrison's "farfenoogan"
Pickford Bait Shop Boy musician Dave Morrison's all-purpose website. Check out his Music page for some free audio clips and the Pictures page to see many local musicians being caught doing their thing, and find other local musician links here, too.
Petoskey's Graphic, Local Bands Page
The Graphic, the arts and entertainment sub-paper of the Petoskey News-Review, has done SO much to nurture the local live music scene and making it what it is. They're "my guys"!
Michigan Artists
A website specializing in promoting Michigan bands and artists, which are definitely deserving of support!
- OTHER MUSICIAN FORUMS:
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Michigan Bands
I never endorsed this one before, since it had no forum for people to contribute in, but that's all changed now! A good friend of mine moderates a real forum here. It looks to be mostly Grand Rapids and Lansing based, but it's trying to branch out state-wide. Looks to be promoting, educational, and fun!
Acoustic Guitar Magazine's Guitar Pro Forum
A favorite internet "hangout" of mine, where I go under the moniker of "Guitarminator". Great internet culture and a bunch of fun and knowlegable guys. I have learned so much from here, I doubt I could ever repay it, but I try to by offering advice myself to newer members. It's a great thing! They also have Gear, Playing and Players sub-forums as well.
Acoustic Guitarist's Talk Talk Talk
Once an off-topic sub-forum of the above, it broke off to go out on it's own, with some interesting results. It's mostly acoustic musicians talking about non-music things. I don't contribute there (mainly because it looks so addictive!) but I lurk there. Has a lot of funny moments; A bunch of chuckleheads. It has sub-forums for Performing and Songwriting as well.
Northern Michigan Update
Okay, this isn't a music forum only, per se, but it is a local one, and music can be found there and it does come up as a topic a lot. If you're a resident of Northern Michigan especially, register up here and start having fun!
Northern Michigan Fun
This also isn't a music forum only, and is more targeting to the local area audience generally, but this up-and-comer is giving a lot of attention to the local music scene with band features and a few other music features, too, so keep your eye on this one! They featured me with an interview in late 2007 (link given above on this page), so they are definitely on my good side!... Definitely worth checking out!
- OTHER MUSICIAN FUN:
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Music Plasma
A very graphic website, sort of like a Seven Degrees of Kevin Bacon game except with musical artists and how they connect with each other. Controversial and informative, but mostly it's fun. Try it!
Virual Guitar Chord Tool
If you have speakers, this is an awesome little experimentation tool (when you don't have a real guitar around right now) and a great theory learning tool. Very cool!
Dizzler
This is a REALLY nice online audio player with a catalog of thousands of songs. Simple, no-BS (like registering, pop-ups, etc.), efficient, and it's FREE! You've gotta give this a spin! :
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