Have you been to Neil Young's Living With War Today page on NeilYoung.com?

Well, not one but two R-Three songs are being featured there:
http://www.neilyoung.com/lwwtoday/lwwsongspage.html

The R-Three song That's OK is our latest contribution and, at the time of this writing, has climbed up to 192 from two thousand and some-odd.

If you're interested, go check it, and all the the other songs, out:

http://www.neilyoung.com/lwwtoday/lwwsongspage.html

Cheers,
Rhett

I'm a few days late getting this out but Jason, the man behind the Mental Nomad Podcast invited me to participate in Episode 42 of said podcast which is a birthday tribute to my good pal and one of my favorite musicians ever, Mr. Gustav Bertha.

Along with a couple of beautiful songs by Gustav, there's a beautiful song recorded in his honor and a song he and I worked on together last year that you really can't hear anywhere else but on the Mental Nomad Podcast.

If you're interested (and why wouldn't you be interested in some excellent Gustav Bertha?), go check it out at on the Mental Nomad blog at:


http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=165126984&blogID=291207568




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To those of you who have noticed a resounding quietness coming from me, thank you! It´s nice to be missed! And to those of you who keep asking about the new album, showing your support and your enthusiasm, thank you too.

What have I been up to?

Taking lots and lots of pictures, that´s what. I´ve rediscovered my love of photography and found that it´s deepened into a full blown artistic sensibility. I am on fire creatively only it seems to be taking the form of photography, rather than music (more on that in a minute). I think in photographs, I dream in photography. Instead of visions of Fenders dancing in my head, I see Lomos and Leicas, Canons, Mamiyas and Nikons, oh my! I see Hasselblad and Bronica, Voigtlander and Holga. I record the world in pixels and film, 35mm and 120mm. Day and night I scan negatives. I upload them to the internet and am rewarded by supportive words from my new photographic peers. I feel excited, rejuvenated and, yes, reborn!

"But what about the music, man???"

Yeah. The music. Yeah. See, I could tell you about the music… but I´m not sure if that would really tell you about the music. You know? Yeah…

Okay, here´s what´s up with R-Three music: About 3 months ago I was in a kind of dark place and, if you remember, I recorded myself playing a version of the Beatles´ "Help!" and putting it up as a video. Two days later, the fingertips of my left (fretting) hand split open, right across the finger little mouths. I tried bandages and Neosporin but nothing helped. I went to a dermatologist and he told me it was Eczema and that Eczema on the finger tips is very hard to treat. So I´ve been taking medicine and trying a little bass and guitar here and there but whenever I play enough to really get an idea down, ´pop!´ go my finger tips. It´s very painful.

Plus of which, due to a series of false starts, physical / emotional setbacks, personal losses that are finally taking their toll and R-Three music becoming more about me sitting alone in a windowless room with a computer and instruments than about collaboration and musical exploration with friends and artists I admire, the music just isn´t happening.. I still play with the instruments a little (careful not to over do it), I write the odd lyrical bit and I still sing. But when faced with writing, recording and performing everything by myself and carefully planning every tiny step along the way if only my body will let me do it… well, it´s easier to go outside into the beautiful day with my beautiful wife and take pictures than slave away in the little cave I call my studio. My day job is all about planning and managing and then, because I have no staff, doing it all myself. It´s a grind. Somehow I´ve let R-Three becoming a mini-grind instead of it being the escape. And it´s not just the songs. There are distribution tangles to untangle, there are tax questions, budget for a new album, promotion, etc… And I´m honestly wondering: if I haven´t had any real glimmer of success at this point, who am I really kidding here? It´s the suits that make the choices, pick the talent and move the wheels. We artists are just the fuel for the big machine. And I´ve never written music that´s particularly suited to pleasing suits or working in a machine.

I had high hopes I´d finish the second half of what I´ve been calling "album #2" by now but I´m frankly overwhelmed by the task I set out for myself and I don´t have the resources to really do it the way I´d intended. And I´m certainly not going to crank out something half baked. I´m not sure if I should just make the songs available for download via the SNOCAP store on my Myspace page or wait to see if my muse returns and complete the album in the right frame of mind. Thoughts? Opinions?


"Uh, weren´t you working on a video project? I think I sent you some pictures…."

If you recall, a few months ago I said I was working on my first video project (think YouTube not MTV) for a song called ´Love is Stranger than Fiction´ and I asked all of you for pictures of your loved ones. A lot of you sent me wonderful snaps of you and yours. Unfortunately not enough of you sent me snaps of you and yours for me to complete the video the way I´d hoped to; which meant that I´d need to make up the difference by taking more pictures myself. That´s okay, only it´s taken me far longer than I thought I would to do it and now I´m wondering if there´s any real point in going through with it.

So, if you sent me pictures and you´d like me to send them back or delete them or something, let me know. I´m not sure if I´ll finish the video at this point but if I may, I´d like to hang on to the photos, if not for this project than perhaps another one. If that´s not okay, just let me know.

I´m grateful to every one of you who showed me some kind of support in doing this music thing. I´m sorry if this is a bit of a let down. I´m not going away. I´ll still be here, using the website and MySpace profile to stay in touch. And I´ll still be creating; it just may not be music that I´m making.

Basically, I need a break and I need to out from under this mountain of expectation I´ve set up for myself and it seems better to write this and be honest about it than to stay silent and keep saying I´m working on new music when I´m really not. I´m not making new music and I don´t know when I will again. Or if I will again. I do know that I´m a creative person and I think of myself as an artist. Right now that takes a visual form. Maybe it´ll swing back. I´m not stupid enough to say "I´m finished" (that doesn´t count, it was in quotes!) or "never again" but I am stupid enough to say I´m taking an extended break. This profile will still be here and I'll still be behind it but there won't likely be any new music for awhile if ever.

If you want to keep up with what I'm up to, come see me here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rhettredelings/. We'll get together again in some crazy way. Maybe make a movie. Black and white...


Thanks again, every one of you.

Best,
Rhett Redelings
R-Three







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Please forgive the public address quality of this message. It's going out to a lot of people, so that's why.

Anyway:

I'm self producing a music video for my song 'Love is Stranger than Fiction' and I really want to include as many expressions of love in it as I can to kind of illustrate how real love is more varied, interesting and, yes, strange, than any fiction we can possibly write about it.

The idea is to show as many different people as possible, with their pets, in couples (straight couples, same sex couples, old married couples, young couples, you name it!), as parents with their children, as children with their parents, friends out with friends, people hugging, kissing, holding hands, crossing feet, laughing together, crying together, being drunk together, eat in restaurants, at amusement parks, you name it. The more varied and real, the better.

Here's where you come in: Rather than take all the pictures myself (I'm taking quite a few), I thought it would be more fun and considerably more interesting if I also included photos (or short video clips) from all of you. This is a not-for-profit thing so there's no money involved but I think it would be cool if this wasn't just my video, but your video too.

If you want to help me show everyone who sees this video what love really looks like, please email your photos and/or small video clips (less than 5mb please!) to
info at r-three_dot_com. Please ONLY send pictures and videos that you've taken yourself and that you have the right to send me and include a short (or long) note saying you give me permission to use your images in this video and you won't sue me the minute it comes out, blah blah blah. Any info you want to include about what's going on in the pictures would be cool too!

I'll send out a bulletin when the video is available so you can check it out. Closing date for this is next Sunday, March 11th. After that, whether I get 1000 photos or only 1, I won't be accepting any more submissions.

Thanks in advance,
Rhett Redelings
R-Three

If you're interested I've opened an account on Flickr and am in the process of moving the R-Three gallery to it and uploading photos that I've taken over the last few years.





Come by and take a look if you're so inclined.

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