New Projects

Well, we've been back for a while and have been hard at work on two new projects. During our trip to Central America we fell in love with the Costa Rican community of Lanas and Verdenergia. It is our goal to get back there and do what we can to help the local community as well as promote some great opportunities for musicians, artists, activists, and like minded people.
To do this we've implemented two programs. First of all we are actively seeking donations of musical instruments, laptop computers, school supplies, and money to create educational programs for the local communities in and around Lanas. The people there are living in poverty and do not have access to most of the things we take for granted here. Many children don't even have the means to get an education past the 5th grade. We want to do what we can to enrich these children's lives by offering classes and equipment to teach workshops in music, science, computer, art, and more.
You can find out more about this and what you can do to help at http://www.muddandbones.com/outreach.html

Our second project is a songwriters retreat program. We will be offering a two week retreat in February and March of '09. We will be having guest musicians, workshops, classes, performances, and more. These retreats will be a great opportunity for musicians who want to get away for a bit and focus on songwriting, while learning and interacting with a great group of people. In addition to paid retreats we are giving away at least one, and hopefully two, scholarships to musicians who don't have the resources and money to make it down on their own. These will include free airfare, room & board, and access to all retreat activities.
You can learn about and register for our retreats at http://www.verdenergia.org/retreat.html

You can apply for the retreat scholarship at sonicbids
or contact us for more information.

Here's a video of a new Mike Mudd tune. He played it for the community we stayed at in Lanas, Costa Rica. They're very friendly and inviting, but maybe the video doesn't show it that well. Of course no one speaks much English there, so they had no idea what he was singing. Too bad the end got cut off, you should have seen the standing ovation he got!

Down the Drain
Uploaded by Mike_Mudd

Goin' South

We're packing our bags and heading South. We'll be on our way to Central America in three weeks! We'll be traveling by bus across Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, and Belize (Give or take a couple of countries). There are a several awesome places we'll be visiting along the way. We'll be blogging the trip as we go. We should be compiling some great video and pictures as well as some interesting stories.

We've been planning our adventure for a while but now the clock is ticking down. We're in the process of selling most of our stuff and consolidating down to our backpacks. Our departure date is February 24th.

Synchronicity...

Interesting coincidences keep happening with our trip to Central America. Last night we went to see Joe Mac's band 'Dark Skies' (See March and April '06) at Audiocinema, down in the warehouse district. Great show by the way.

Anyway, it had been several months since we've gotten together, so we did some catching up. It turns out that Joe's going to be in Costa Rica at the same time we're going to be there! We're going to meet up and spend a week or two traveling together. It's pretty strange... everything that happens seems to just reinforce the fact that this is exactly what we should be doing.

2 Years and Running -Pt. 6 Cinco Meses (5 months)

Less than 5 months to go before our big trip to Central America. It's been close to 6 months since we decided to go, and it's going by fast.

Why did we decide to go to Central America? A whole slew of reasons. It's relatively close, relatively cheap, and relatively safe. We want to learn Spanish, and what better way to do it? Willie is at the age right now where he needs to see more of the world than this little 2 mile square area of the city and whatever attractions there are on the freeway between Oregon and Arizona. We know that there are other, healthier ways of living (for ourselves and the planet) than we know right now, and we want to learn more about them. It turns out that there are many farms and eco-villages in Central America, that will let us stay with them for free in exchange for working on various projects.

Some people think we should be afraid of spending several months in Central America, that it's somehow risky. What a joke...I almost get hit on my bike by some dumb$%#@ on a daily basis, and I've talked to more people than I can count on my fingers and toes who've been down there, and not one of them has told me a horror story. The worst that people can come up with -'you have to be as careful in the cities as you would be in any major U.S. city.' The State Department says we should avoid college campuses...that's where the politically active people are...wouldn't want to go anywhere near that!

We'll be learning and helping out in green-building in Panama and Costa Rica, farming and teaching children in Nicaragua, checking out weaving communities in Guatemala (one of which makes guitar straps for Artichoke Music), visiting coffee plantations and artisan communities in El Salvador. We'll also be meeting Samantha's mother in Beliz and checking out Mayan ruins and getting involved with a former college geography instructor's non-profit. That's only a partial list. And I am making a project of audio recording musicians all along our journey. We're already wondering if the 3 months we had planned on will be enough time. Especially because most places want us to stay at least 2 weeks. And we're reserving the option of staying as long as we want. You never know, our skill set may be of much more value down there than where we are now -many places are specifically looking for musicians, artist and people who can build websites. And brewers!

The picture at the top is of a place we'll be staying in Costa Rica -'Verdenergia' (www.verdenergia.org). It turns out that some of the people who live there have a connection with Portland and are visiting right now! We're having dinner with them tonight, and are going to stay with them for probably close to a month, helping in the garden, building, brewing, teaching, learning...we might help them build their website as well.