Diary | Jimmy Nobody official site | Jim Kam

Jim semi finalist in Texas Serenade songwriter's competition

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 17:42:26 -0500

I have just been informed that I have made the semi finals of the 2008 Texas Serenade songwriter's competition which will be held in Hallettsville on April 26th.

6 finalists will be chosen from 16 semi-finalists with one being named the eventual winner.

This is organized by Fiddler's Frolic. The event includes the Texas state fiddler's competition. I am really looking forward to being there. My friend Brian Kalinec won last year.

Update April 28th

Ended up not making the finals. Oh well, such is the way the proverbial cookie crumbles. The competitors included pretty worthy talent such as Abi Tapia, Jim Patton, Tiffany Ginn (of the Ginn Sisters). Abi was named the winner.

Jim makes finals of '07 Avalon Folk Festival

Mon, 30 Jul 2007 10:07:15 -0500

Breaking news! Just found out this morning that I have been selected as one of 6 finalists in the Avalon Folk Festival's Rising Star Performer Competition. This will be held in the Avalon Resort in Paw Paw, West Virginia from August 10-12th 2007.

Headliners for the show include my friends Carla Ulbrich and Randall Williams as well as some of my favorite performers such as SONiA and Amilia K Spicer.

The competition round will occur on friday afternoon, and the winner will get a 45 minute set saturday afternoon.

I am really excited and honored to be chosen and really looking forward to the event.

Update: Aug 13th, 10:45am

Just got back from the festival. Had a great time and met a lot of fine people. Got to meet Gary Jules who was one of the featured performers. He sang "Mad World" in the move "Donnie Darko" and was quite an amazing talent.

People were really friendly and open, plus the facility was was nestled in stunningly beautiful countryside. There are a huge number of people I'd like to thank and acknowledge, in particularly Avalon member Jesse was particularly encouraging and warm from the first moment we met, and Hank who generously shared his tent with me, having known me for only minutes.

I did not win, but was glad that my friend Joe Giocoio took the honors. Joe recently married my friend Carla Ulbrich, one of the funniest performers in the genre. Their household must be a riot. Joe, himself no slouch in comedic delivery, put on a great set and had the audience in stitches.

Jim's song named finalist in Unisong International Songwriting Competition

Fri, 13 Jul 2007 13:14:45 -0500

I have just been notified that my song "What Was He Thinking?" placed among the Top 20 Finalists in the Acoustic/Folk category of the Unisong International Songwriting Contest. While I didn't win, I am thrilled to have made it this far.

I wrote the song primarily to help me deal with the sudden passing of a young colleague. He was barely 30, diligent, smart, well liked, and had a brand new family including an infant child. He seemed to have a lot going for him, yet he chose to take his own life. While I didn't really know him all that well (perhaps nobody really did) I was nevertheless profoundly saddened by the event.

The circumstances and people named in the song fictitious. At the time I wrote it, I happened to be attending a songwriting seminar taught by Johnsmith at the Esalen Institute right on the Pacific coast, so the sea figures strongly in the song. While I do not know her at all, the song was written from his widow's perspective. I figure that if John Prine can write in the voice of and old woman, I can write in the voice of a young one.

I had considered sending her a CD with this song, but decided against it for fear of perhaps opening up as yet unhealed wounds.

An mp3 demo of the song may be found on my Sonicbids page under the "Audio" section. My friend Lena Shammas did the backing vocals on the track.

Some Reflections on Aging and Mortality

Thu, 29 Jun 2006 22:49:02 -0500

My dear aunt Sivakami (affectionately known to family and friends as Baby) passed away almost exactly a year ago. She was the last remaining of my mother's siblings.

Her husband, my Uncle NS had called me from Singapore in early march to let me know that she was ailing rather badly, and that her time was drawing nigh.

After taking a few days to settle matters and tie up loose ends, I caught a flight out there.

It was rather troubling seeing her looking as old and frail as she was. I had taken to visiting every year, and the last time I had seen her, while not quite sprightly, had been in reasonably decent shape given her age and physical condition.

We got her admitted to hospital a few days after I got there. I stayed for about 3 weeks, then had to leave to get back to work. We had arranged for a steady stream of visitors - my sister, some cousins, etc. to come by and help out. My uncle, being in his 80's no longer drives.

I had already scheduled a trip out to Singapore for the end of May with my family, as we have done annually for several years. She was still in hospital when we returned. Her condition had gotten much worse by this time. She had gotten very weak and while she was occasionally lucid, most of the time she barely spoke.

A few days before I was scheduled to leave, she passed away. I postponed my departure to help with the arrangements. In a sense, it was something of a release. Her quality of life was very poor, and there was no question of any sort of recovery.

All of her working life, she had been an eminent physician, and had risen high in the ranks of the Civil Service. Now she was reduced to an invalid unable even to feed without great agony. How strange life is.

I've recently written a song tentatively entitled "See the Mighty". My observations from last year figure highly in it. It's not quite done yet, still that hasn't prevented me from performing it on a few occasions. I hope to do record a demo soon, and I will release it on my podcast.

The second verse, which is largely about my aunt goes like this -

She used to read Immanuel Kant / Used to be a debutante /Second in her class at medical school / Never was she anybody's fool / But looking at her the truth be told/ I never want to get that old ©2006, Jim M Kam

She was not a debutante by any stretch - the family was of pretty humble means in those days. Instead it is a pun - debutante rhymes with "ma tante" which means "my aunt" in French, a language that Aunt Sivakami studied as a hobby. I'm have no idea what her rank in medical school was, but it was way up there.

Originally I had come back from a Johnsmith concert inspired to write a nice uplifting song. John does them so well. As I put pen to paper though, this is what emerged. Basically the message is that you may be pretty hot stuff now, but just give it a little time. Father Time has a wry sense of humor.

So there you have it. Started to write a jig, and ended up with a dirge. Seeing as even my more cheerful compositions tend to be laments, why should this be any different?

Kerrville Folk Festival 35th Anniversary, 2006

Tue, 06 Jun 2006 01:15:32 -0500

Went out to the Kerrville Fo…