Memorial Day Newsletter and Summer TOUR Announcement

Hello!  Happy Memorial Day!  I hope your long weekend is filled with hammocks, grills, and grinning!  I have a bunch of  announcements for you...a whole bunch of great things happening in the Windsor Oaks and Young and New camp including our summer travel and tour plans, some recording dates for a October 5th release, some exciting music licensing stuff, and my  cable TV acting debut! 


Summer Travels and Peaceful Picnics Acoustic Tour
So I am getting older.  And I know this because some of my dear friends have begun to get married.  Since I reside so far from my native homeland of Rhode Island, attending these weddings will be some serious mileage.  So instead of just traveling up north for only the wedding festivities, we decided to make a bit of a Summer Acoustic Tour out of it.  We or I will play lots of smaller bars, coffeeshops, and living rooms up and down the east coast from North Caroloina to Massachusetts.  I'm so excited to attend these marriages of some of my dearest friends, and I am even lucky enough to be a best man in one of them, for someone who really is the best man, if you ask me! See the full schedule, as of right now, HERE:  http://youngandnew.com/shows

No More Big Green Van!
This is my/our 5th summer on the road, and this is the last time we will do it for a while.  We downsized our vehicle from the familiar "big green van" and swapped it out for a 1998 Saturn Wagon.  For a good part of the summer it will be only Shane Smith and I out on the road, and some of these summer shows will be me solo.  With some luck, we will get some help from the  Windsor Oaks and Young & New crew when within range.  We are striving to add more house concerts and backyard-style cook outs to our schedule.  And if you take a look at our calender and realize you can and want to host a party or event, then check out what our musical compadres The Whiskey Boys and Brian Vander Ark (the Verve Pipe) have been up to....http://www.whiskeyboys.com/book-the-boys/house-concert-faq/ 

Recording News
Alex has been busy writing up a storm for some new Windsor Oaks songs, and I have been busy lining up a studio to get some recordings of some of my solo and Young & New stuff.  Some of the recordings will feature Chad Campbell on drums and John Federal on bass, courtesy of the JDC Funk Project.  Demos on SoundCloud HERE: http://soundcloud.com/brandonscottmclean  I will put out an EP of new music on October 5th, 2012.  My birthday.  Windsor Oaks is still narrowing down the release date, and we will keep you posted.


"I'm So Lucky Today" Got LICENSED in a movie!
Cindy Hsieh, an aspiring film graduate in Greensboro, NC made a movie called "Degrees of Lucky" and used my song, "I'm So Lucky Today" as the ending credits song.  She will submit this movie to lots of regional film festivals and stuff, and I feel very honored that she used my song in her movie!  I also appeared in the movie as an extra, as a runner in the park!  Hear the song on SoundCloud HERE: http://soundcloud.com/brandonscottmclean.  Learn more about her film project at http://filmstudies.uncc.edu/.

Angel Dolphin Scholarship Winner Chosen
We got over 70 applicants for the 2012 Angel Dolphin Scholarship award!  And after legitimizing the Scholarship into a legit entity with a selection committee of 5 close friends and family members, we have chosen a winner!  We have not yet notified the winner and made the official announcement, but expect more news about that soon with the winner's artwork to be featured on our site shortly thereafter.  Learn more about the Angel Dolphin Scholarship HERE: www.angeldolphinscholarship.org 

One Last Thing:
THANK YOU for being part of this musical community.  I cannot wait to see you this summer or in the future.  


Much peace and love,
Brandon Scott McLean

Weezer: The Blue Album (what I think about the Blue Album and how it changed my life)

 Weezer: The Blue Album
(what I think about the Blue Album and how it changed my life)


“Brandon, please turn that down. He sounds like he’s dying....” is what my mom said the first time she spoke that evening in her white Chrysler Sebring coupe when she just couldn’t take any more of Rivers Cuomo singing “In the garage I feel safe, no one cares about my ways...”   And I, as a young student of music, disagreed this time, whole-heartedly, with her all too often 90’s rock lead singer critique: “He sounds like he’s dying.”  I say disagreed this time, because there were actually countless times that I have agreed with her (although I dug the tune anyway) that yes, sometimes they did sound like they were “dying.”  Kurt Cobain’s “hello hello hello hello" in "Smells Like Teen Spirit” I can see, and maybe some Layne Staley (Alice in Chains) or Eddie Vedder (Pearl Jam), whining and moaning, respectively.  But Rivers?  Hell no. Rivers does not and did not sound like he is “dying!”  I wanted to scream out, “Mom! The meticulous harmonies...the short and sweet well written guitar solos...motown-worthy catchy hooks and phrases....how you gonna say it sounds like he’s dying?!”  But I didn’t.   I just let her take my favorite blue CD out of her built-in CD player and endured one of her favorite blues bands, Roomful of Blues crank out a few songs in a row in typical 12 bar, one-four-five fashion.  I remember thinking how it sounded so plainfully noisy and showy-boring compared to anything offered by the artful perfect plain-ness of the choices made by drummer, Patrick Wilson, on track 5, “Undone - The Sweater Song.”


That happened in probably 1997 or 1998, when I was middle school, probably still playing in Planet Penguin or Wound Up.  Since then, I’ve been in a couple bands who have all independently agreed it would be an excellent idea to actually cover the entire Blue Album, and maybe even do it under a pseudonym (Teezer, or Teezer Blue), but it’s never actually come to fruition.  I think it’s mostly a crazy dream of mine, but I hope it still happens someday.   As a result, I have listened to that 30-something minute epic tape, CD, and digital files (I would bet) over 569 times.   There was a time in my life where it would stay in my little green truck’s tape player for 4 or 5 weeks at a time while I analyzed it.....front speakers, back speakers, right speaker, left left speaker, right, both, left, rewind, play, rewind, play.....listening to this note or that, counting repetitions, counting choruses, counting beats.  You’d be surprised in the layers and voices and guitar tones you can pick out if you look for them.  Weezer’s blue album is quite possibly one of the best albums I have ever heard in my life.  To be honest, I have not actually gotten into any other Weezer album like I have this one.  Sure, I like tons of selections from the host of all the other albums, but I don’t think I have ever owned a copy of any one of them.   Not even Pinkerton!...which I probably know 70% of the lyrics from every single song I know of from it.   Now that I type this I have decided I would like to get my hands on a copy of Pinkerton, and listen to it a few times in a row and see if I can get into it even half as much as I fell for the Blue Album. 







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My name is Brandon Scott McLean. I am a lover of music first, and a maker of music second. Feel free to check out my "solo stuff" and download a FREE TRACK.


I am not a music critic, no one cares what I think or type and nor should you. Read at your own risk and take everything I say with a grain of salt....