It may look like my friend Brian is paying close attention, awaiting the moment when he'll add some more harmonies. Actually, he's looking past me, at my iPad, attached to a nearby stand.

It's held there by an IK Multimedia iKlip mic stand mount. There are a number of products that do this job; this is the one I happen to own, and it does its one job very well.

So why is it there? I know folks who run GarageBand onstage this way, but in my case, it's just lyric sheets and/or setlists. So when I need a memory jog on a new song, the occasional cover or (as sadly happened last night) when I blank on an older song of mine, it's right there.

There's any number of ways to get those lyrics on there, but like any good nerd, I lean toward plain text files. Something I can edit on any machine I own, view on my phone if need be, etc.

The app used for viewing the songs is GoodReader. I like that it will read almost anything I throw at it, but especially like the way it syncs with Dropbox. I have a "Lyrics" folder on my laptop:

and I've told GoodReader to sync that folder and its contents. If I add a new song to that folder, it will automatically be mirrored to GoodReader. Tap a song, and off I go:

If I'm feeling particularly grown-up and professional, I'll "star" some of the songs ahead of time, and let GoodReader show me just those songs as something approaching a setlist:

That's it. No more binder of lyrics for me, and I'm pretty happy about it. I do recommend putting the iPad in airplane mode before your set, to avoid the temptation to tweet mid-song.

"Disappear"

"One Man at Best"

"The Great Unknown"

"Mind of Its Own"

All four songs are from my album "Acrophobe", available for purchase (CD or download) at music.paulroub.com.

Had the pleasure, last Saturday, of joining Michael Stock in studio on his Folk and Acoustic Music show. This is one of the songs performed therein.

And... uh... sorry about the sunburn. It didn't look that bad on the radio.

"A Little Bit Wiser" is $0.89 at Amazon MP3 - proceeds will go towards sunscreen and common sense.

The results have been amusingly... mixed. I may or may not release them into the wild.

A few of those involved actually chose songs they liked, rather than those that would make me regret my decision. My friend Michelle was extra-nice and asked for a Dylan tune, "Things Have Changed". I threw it together in about an hour last week; the lead guitar in particular is just me warming up and deciding "yeah, that actually feels good. Done." But people have said nice things about this, and I don't have new originals in the pipeline just yet, so...

Here's me, sitting at my desk, singing "Things Have Changed":

That was last week. 7 days later, this shows up:

I love that the guitar is recognizably mine. This just makes me happy.

Next up? Been having a lot of these discussions...

"Hey Paul, when are you gonna be back at the Sun Shoppe?"
"Now that you're back, guess we'll be seeing you at the Sun Shoppe, huh?"
"When can we see you at the Sun Shoppe?"
"Hey, Mark, can I come play at the Sun Shoppe?"
"Hey, Paul, when can we get you playing here?"

There seems to be a general agreement that this is a very good idea.

So... next Saturday, 8pm until, oh, let's say 11... I'll be at the Sun Shoppe in Melbourne once again.

Will I play all of the CD and then some? Sure!
Old songs I barely remember? Bet!
At least one Jonathan Coulton cover? Undoubtedly!

It's gonna be fun. All the more so if you're there.

Saturday, October 23, 8pm

The Sun Shoppe
540 E New Haven Ave, Melbourne, FL
(downtown Melbourne, nearly across the street from the Henegar Center)

Want a flyer to print out and plaster hither and yon? Sure you do! here (PDF).

Info on this, and all gigs, can be found at paulroub.com.

So after a brief flurry at the beginning, sales of my CD have pretty much dropped off. Instead, lots of free downloads are happening. I like this very much, and I'd like to see it continue. And you can help.

If you're reading this and haven't yet downloaded Acrophobe, by all means head to music.paulroub.com, click "Download", and enter "0" as the amount you'd like to pay. Then download away.

If you like what you hear, tell your friends. That's what this blog post is about - how to share. Sharing is good. Sharing is nice. Sharing gets the music heard, which is ultimately the point of the whole thing.

If you want to let your Facebook friends, your Twitter followers, etc. know about the whole CD, head over to the CD page and click "Share":

Follow the instructions from there. Thanks!

Have a favorite song you'd like to point them to instead? Here's how.

Let's use "Mind of its Own" as an example - I'm kind of smitten with that one at the moment. Click on "Mind of its Own" in the tracklist:

Then click the "Share" button on the song page. Thanks again. You rock.

If you, or your friends, want to know when gigs are happening, or other (occasional) updates, please either "Like" my Facebook fan page, or head to my front page and join the Mailing List. Or both.

Thanks again for helping me give stuff away.

If you pre-ordered, you should have your CD by now. If not, please let me know.

If you'd like to order a CD, you can order them directly from me at music.paulroub.com - they're $6 plus shipping. You can pay more if you like, but that's up to you. $6 is fine by me.

You can also order the CD at amazon.com if you like — although that'll cost you more, and Amazon keeps most of it. Hint, hint.

It's solo, it's acoustic, it's essentially a live set without the audience. No overdubs, no edits. If you like what I do live, you're in luck. If not, you'll really, really hate it.

There's a tip jar; pay what you want, or pay nothing. Seriously. Please. Free for the taking.

How can I do that? First, it's a selfish move - "free" means easy, means shareable; which means more people hear the music. The whole point, no?

But more practically, I can do it because these people? They rock. They're awesome. "Hey guys, would you pledge some money so I can make a thing? And later, you'll get the thing, even though it will also be free?" Apparently, yes. I can't say "thanks" often enough.

$1050 in one month seemed like a stretch, which is why I chose that timeframe. Deadlines work for me. I assumed that come the last week of March, I'd be begging people to donate just a bit more, handing flyers to strangers... Instead, the whole thing was funded 10 days in. Friends are wonderful things, especially when they're glad you've finally gotten off your ass and done the thing they've been telling you to do for years.

I'd love to see more people just pre-order the CD (you can still do that), just because the ultimate point of this is to make music and have it heard.

But I highly recommend Kickstarter's tiered rewards setup, especially the fact that you choose your own rewards. You know your audience (if you don't, figure that out first). Gordon knew that music geeks (like me) would want the limited-edition vinyl. JigGsaw knew their fans (like me) would want T-shirts and their back catalog.

I knew my friends would want to make me sing songs that I hate.

I can't take credit for the original idea. In December, at a charity live-band karaoke, Mike Ingram promised to sing any song on the band's extensive list for a donation to the cause. Making my fellow indie-acoustic-singer-songwriter sing "9 to 5"? Worth it, and many others agreed.

I knew that people who had been in bands — or high school, or the workplace — with me were well aware of my pointed musical opinions and dislikes. If you've been around me even once when Journey came on the radio, I imagine forcing "Open Arms" on me must be enticing.

Know your audience.

Which brings me to the second interesting facet of this project, vs. any I'd done in the past: I haven't touched my mailing list yet. Like most artists, I have a good-sized email list I've built up over the years. More years than most, dating back to when I had to explain what email was.

And I know some, but by no means all, of those people. And many of those emails are out-of-date, or silently bouncing, never checked...

Instead, I talked about the project on Facebook (both my personal profile and my fan page) and Twitter. Where I know who I'm talking to — the exact same people most likely to show up at an eventual release party. The exact same people most likely to take me up on the "tell your friends" request. And they don't just sign up for a CD, they chime in and taunt me with song requests, rubbing hands and discussing the possibilities. These are the people who will listen as work-in-progress mixes are shared (a backers-only bonus). Feedback rocks. Feedback inspires.

It's not news: conversations are better than announcements, for both sides. I'll have the CD soon enough, and it will be available from CD Baby, and for download on iTunes and elsewhere, and I will hit the mailing list, and that will be fantastic. I'm not sure it will be as fun as this part has been.

Now back to concentrating on the CD itself. I find myself practicing and thinking about guitar parts I've played for years. I'm more excited about my music than I've been in years.

Somehow, over the years, recording a CD of just-me-n-a-guitar has always been the next thing I was thinking about. Despite being the first thing, or the only thing, everyone asks for at gigs and in-between.

Stars are aligning, though, since I'm actually excited to do just that. Studio? Chosen and booked. Mastering and duplication? Priced. Artwork? Who knows; haven't come to that bridge yet. Funding?

Funding. That's where you come in, I hope.

In short: $1 or more is a helpful and appreciated boost. $10 pre-orders a CD, shipped to you and signed, as soon as one exists. $25 gets the same plus early peeks at the tunes. $50 lets you make me squirm, cringe, and bite my tongue as I cover the song of your choice. (you could also pick something I'd enjoy singing, but how's that fun?)

If you're unfamiliar with Kickstarter, where the project is living, it's kinda awesome: you pledge what you want towards my goal. If the goal is hit in time ($1050 by March 31st), you get charged. I don't hit the goal? No charge. All or nothing.

Take a look. Hop over to music.paulroub.com and take a listen. Tell your friends via those nice little Share buttons on the Kickstarter page.

Every little bit helps; and anything you can post on your Walls and your Timelines and your Twitter Streams is hugely appreciated.

I've set a short schedule because I'm stoked; this is going to be good. I'm proud of it in advance.

In particular, I think this piece of software is going to let me write more songs. Leaving aside the question of whether this is a good or bad outcome for the world at large — as someone who (a) is a songwriter and (b) find himeself blocked more often than not — it's certainly a win for me.

I had the germ of an idea a couple of weeks ago. A lyric, in this case. Sometimes it's a fragment of melody, a chord progression, a theme... in any case, usually quickly forgotten. In this, I grabbed my phone, added a new note, titled it "Lyrics", and added one line:

He's been anything but kind

Had an inherent rhythm, suggested a lot of ways to continue. A good start. And now, I wouldn't forget it.

Fast forward a couple of days, I have some ideas for more lyrics, as well as some of the tune. New Audio Note time, and I warble this little bit of ridiculousness:

humming and la-ing like an idiot

and then some chords:

barely audible chords

Not done, maybe not good, but not forgotten. A few days after that, stuck for progress, I headed out to see Kayla Brown play. Well, not see; I sat at the counter, out of site, and just listened. Kayla's fantastic, I got inspired, and started free-associating lyric ideas, discussion of lyric ideas, arguments-with-myself, etc. Later, I scanned the scribblings in. Not forgotten:

Started to actually type out the lyrics into Evernote on my laptop (everything synchs everywhere, so all of my reference points were present).

Had most of the verse/chorus figured out, and recorded those to the laptop for future reference:

almost there

Finished it up, took it out and played it, and earlier this week recorded an actual demo. Here it is:

Paul Roub - A Little Bit Wiser

What I liked about the whole process was how unobtrusive and immediate it was. Evernote was my pocket notepad that can handle sound and pictures. The whole thing just came together so much easier than it has in the past.

Now watch me not write anything new for nine months.

Update: The song in question, "A Little Bit Wiser", is the third track on my new CD, "Acrophobe". Seemed silly not to include the final version in this post - you can find it right here.

This is not quite a week old, but I think I've mostly found it now, performance-wise. I think this will age well; finding something new every time I sing it.

So I'm bringing a PA. And some friends. And I'm planning to take over for about an hour, in return for you, me, and your dear friends buying delicious caffeinated beverages and things. We'll see how it goes.

Your friends? Tell them. Please.

Address, etc., at paulroub.com/gigs, as ever.

What's it gonna sound like? Me, pretty much: paulroub.com/audio/

There's a Facebook event page here. Be a fan, sign up, I don't know, I'm not the boss of you.

Don't mind the vocals... body and voice are tired right now.

Paul Roub - One Man At Best (demo)