Open Mic Tour – Cowpie – Bio Update
Cowpie MUSIC Festival, in it’s new Michigan-music-focused direction, debuts August 10-11, 2012. This month is also the debut, and possibly the last performance by “The Arrowheads.” The name may phase out, but hopefully not the band…. (The “and the” band name worked fine for the songs we sang at last year’s Founder’s Bob Dylan Fest, but now, maybe not so much…)
As “J Oscar and the Arrowheads” will be “batting lead-off” on Friday, August 10, at 5:30pm – I have arranged an “Open Mic Tour” to get warmed up. Come join me at one or more (see right sidebar for listings) – learn the chorus to several of the new songs – and you can lead the fans in front of the Festival stage….
Manager, Sid G., has been quite busy – he posted 2 new songs, “Hot Night” and “Like Kerouac” in the LYRICS section AND he wrote up the blarney for Cowpie profile page – so check it our below, or there (’cause he worked soooo hard on it…)
J Oscar Bittinger writes and plays Acoustic-Pop. He rocks traditional styles and brings the “city smooth” to the rural rough. Smart and soulful songs bring the uplift – you feel “this is happening now” – whether the setting is modern, in the past-made-present, or imagining some future. J Oscar’s lyrics are plain-spoke poetry, a “word guy” some say. But the tales and talk are carried along on melodies that sound traditional one moment, then move to something more pop and modern the next.
A “humorist” not because he’s “funny” but because he “thinks funny thoughts” – then sneaks them into songs…
The Arrowheads are :
- Eddie Either – drums
- Chris Ranney – keys
- James Hughes – bass
The Arrowheads add weight and bite. Instead of a screaming lead guitar or a screeling fiddle, key-master Chris Ranney fills tunes with rolling piano, un-sanctimonious gospel organ, a chamber of baroque-pop strings or a fog of ominous, yet beautiful, tone. Eddie and James ground the changes with bedrock jazz and pop grooves setting up a mood for dancing, daydreaming, or singing along.
“I hear every single singer/songwriter I love from the early 60s….(J Oscar is) on at The Bitter End, right after Tom Paxton, and just before that kid Bobby Zimmerman. Powerful ethos of innocence and joy and well-deserved weariness.”– Joel D Canfield