Renew Your Perception

Uncle Johnny’s Grave (Part Three)

K. Colgate — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 03:18:42 +0000

I knew that it would be very difficult to locate my Uncle Johnny’s Grave. Especially when you consider all I had to begin a search was his Veteran’s burial flag. But after that dream I had about my mother and her very vivid conversation with me about Uncle Johnny, I had a feeling that divine help was with me and it would only be a matter of time before something happened that would lead me to Uncle Johnny’s Grave. Little did I know that I wouldn’t have to wait too long for that divine intervention!

We happened to be getting ready to move a few weeks after I had the dream, and anyone who has moved knows the hassle of gathering all your “stuff” into boxes and going through your current place of residence to make sure you get everything packed and secured for the moving trucks. Our move

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Uncle Johnny’s Grave (Part Two)

K. Colgate — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 00:02:20 +0000

My wife wasn’t home. She hadn’t been for several hours but I swear I heard her call me into the house. When she did arrive home I told her what had happened and she and I agreed that I must have been hearing things. I have been known to do that often. I am not sure some of the things I hear can be explained, but I know I have voices in my head so I pass it off as that. Sometimes those voices help me get through things, sometimes they get me into trouble. Most times they just irritate me.

I couldn’t get my Uncle Johnny’s flag out of my mind that night. As I said, when I went into the basement it drew my attention so intensely, as though I was supposed to see it and think about him. Can’t really explain that to anyone, that feeling,

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Uncle Johnny’s Grave (Part One)

K. Colgate — Sat, 09 Jul 2011 08:03:53 +0000

I hardly knew my Uncle Johnny, but I loved him dearly.

When I was a little kid I remember the day my Uncle Johnny moved away from New Jersey. When I asked my parents why that had happened I remember my mother telling me that Uncle Red (that was his nickname) wasn’t coming back to New Jersey for a very long time and I shouldn’t be sad he had left. She told me that I should just remember the good times I had with him and those happy moments where he would pick me up, put me on his shoulders and run around the house or the yard and act like a wild horse or a raging bull. She told me to always think about the times that he would make me laugh so hard that I couldn’t catch my breath and also all the presents he would give

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The New Jersey Music Scene is Dead if YOU Believe It Is

K. Colgate — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 02:23:07 +0000

I keep hearing that the New Jersey Music Scene is dead. Well,spend any time with us at ARK Recording Studio and it’s obvious to ANYONE that the vibe is happening and the many musicians that come in the place aren’t walking zombies. In fact,they are as creative and talented as musicians that you could possibly find. Not only that,but they are mostly from The Garden State. They rock like no others.

The problem isn’t in the venues,yes,there are less places to play then there were years ago,but they still exist in numbers and there are shows going on all the time. You just have to know where they are.

The problem isn’t in the fans,because there is as much interest in music as there was years ago by the average fan,in fact,in this day of abundant indie music spread all over the internet there’s probably a hightened interest.

The

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“Treat Others Like You Would Like To Be Treated.”

K. Colgate — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 19:00:50 +0000

“Treat others like you would like to be treated.”

The other night a colleague said this to me. Told me it was his motto. I really dig that statement and I feel it’s a great way to live life.

There are so many times that I have done things that I am not proud of and I know others were hurt by it. Without going into the gory details of particular experiences, let’s just say that at some point in time (whether it’s the next day or years later) those things I have said and done to hurt others have come back to haunt me. I DEFINATELY understand Karma. May not necessarily be the same scenarios with the same results, but there is always a cause and effect nonetheless. Payback is a bitch.

I may have gone into something with only the best intentions, but at some

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The Tug On My Sleeve

K. Colgate — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 19:03:48 +0000

On a cool Summer night in 1987 I was driving on Route 280 East in New Jersey at about 2:30 in the morning. I was not tired at all, wide awake in fact. This drive late at night was not really a big deal for me, as I always have been a night person because of my playing gigs and leaving clubs this late most times.

Moving along at a good pace (around 75MPH) and in the left lane I had the strangest feeling that came upon me. A feeling that there was someone else in the car with me. Looking around inside the vehicle there was no one. “I must be insane” I thought to myself. Driving further on, maybe another 5 or 6 miles the feeling came upon me again, this time much stronger. Out of the corner of my eye I saw someone sitting in the

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Women and Knives

K. Colgate — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 07:18:06 +0000

There I was walking down the staircase in an old Victorian mansion. I can remember the carpeted stairs vividly. Bright red, plush, soft. The railings on both sides were wood, polished smoothly, slick to the grasp. The walk down the staircase was slow and arduous. I remember thinking that I didn’t want to go down both flights of stairs, you see, there were 5 steps down, a landing, and a turn left and down 7 more. It was what was in store for me at the bottom of those stairs that I dreaded, though I wasn’t sure why. Call it a hunch, intuition, an odd feeling.

When I reached the bottom of the stairs I stood in a huge main room. On bright white walls in the main room hung many paintings, and I can also remember seeing what looked like ancient artifacts on several tables scattered throughout the

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The Kerri Edelman Show

K. Colgate — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 05:07:57 +0000

Last night I was lucky enough to do an interview on The Kerri Edelman Show on Kerri’s BlogTalk Radio podcast. It was such a great interview for me, not because I was something special, but because KERRI is.

Kerri asked the right questions, making me think about so many things in a way where it wasn’t just a “straight ahead, twenty questions, what do you do with your companies” interview, but instead the questions were ones of analysis, with interjections by Kerri so on the mark that it was obvious to me that Kerri’s knowledge of the music industry is extensive. Coupled with her ability as a clinical psychologist to get into serious discussion and analysis I felt made the listener think more in depth about subjects and ideas we were discussing. It was funny how we were both trying to get our thoughts in, I felt myself cutting her off way

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Renew Your Perception

K. Colgate — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 08:18:21 +0000

A few years ago I was sitting quietly in my studio and I distinctly heard a voice say to me “RENEW YOUR PERCEPTION”. It startled me, I thought there was someone else in the room. After I realized the voice was in my own conscious mind I was perplexed. I couldn’t imagine why I was thinking this, after all, I was convinced my perception of reality as I understood it was accurate, why this sudden thought popping into my head without warning?

Perception is the process of attaining awareness of the environment by organizing and interpreting sensory information. I began to realize that maybe my conscious self needed an overhaul and that I may not be so accurate in the way I interpret things and events. Maybe that would explain why I was always fighting with family, friends, acquaintances and people who I had never met before. It also could

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Music in My Soul’s Journey

K. Colgate — Sat, 04 Jun 2011 19:27:45 +0000

I have always loved music. Ever since I was a kid, I would listen to 45′s on a beat up stereo record player that I got from my older sister. One of the first records I remember spinning was the Beatles “I’m Down”, a cool song that was never really one of their hits (it was a B side to “Help”), but I liked the tune a lot. What really struck me was the vocals, man, those guys could sing! I started to mimic McCartney’s vocals, I was only about six, but I thought I sounded pretty good. I kept on listening to Rock and Roll, because that’s what I was told The Beatles were. That led me to borrow other 45′s from my sister, including some really heavy stuff, like Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin. I was hooked.

My sister was really cool, she was a hippie, ten years

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