Guestbook

<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large; color: #000000; font-family: &quot;Franklin Gothic Medium&quot;;"><br />&ldquo;THE MESSAGE STICK&rdquo;</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial;">&nbsp;</span></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; line-height: 150%;" class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="font-size: medium; color: #000000; font-family: Arial;">The album, "The Message Stick"&nbsp;incorporates the talents of&nbsp;25 incredibly gifted musicians and songwriters from across the globe that are true artists in their chosen disciplines! </span></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;" class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="font-size: medium; color: #000000; font-family: Arial;">&nbsp;</span></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; line-height: 150%;" class="MsoNormal"><span><span><span style="font-size: medium; color: #000000;">David&nbsp;Pendragon, an independent music producer/sound engineer&nbsp;living in Canberra&nbsp;created this&nbsp;album with the collaboration of musicians playing together over the Internet in their own home studios.</span></span></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; line-height: 150%;" class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="font-size: medium; color: #000000; font-family: Arial;">Musicians from as far away as&nbsp;Europe, U.S.A, Canada, U.K, India, Singapore, and various other&nbsp;Australian states showcase their incredible talents on this album.</span></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;" class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="font-size: medium; color: #000000; font-family: Arial;">&nbsp;</span></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; line-height: 150%;" class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="font-size: medium; color: #000000; font-family: Arial;">'Tribe&nbsp;World Ensemble' has&nbsp;evolved out of&nbsp;the Canberra Australia band called &lsquo;Tribe&rsquo; who are&nbsp;well known for their album &lsquo;The Gathering&rsquo;&nbsp;[New World Music] and the single &lsquo;The Bushfire Song&rsquo;</span></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;" class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="font-size: medium; color: #000000; font-family: Arial;">&nbsp;</span></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; line-height: 150%;" class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="font-size: medium; color: #000000; font-family: Arial;">&nbsp;After the&nbsp;success&nbsp;of&nbsp;'The Gathering', the idea of a follow up&nbsp;high-quality, well-recorded album of World music, played on real instruments rather than keyboard sounds,&nbsp;seemed a very&nbsp;natural progression. </span></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;" class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="font-size: medium; color: #000000; font-family: Arial;">&nbsp;</span></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; line-height: 150%;" class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="font-size: medium; color: #000000; font-family: Arial;">Early in 2005 Pendragon began to explore the Internet as a&nbsp;way to promote Tribe and&nbsp;'The Gathering'.</span></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; line-height: 150%;" class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="font-size: medium; color: #000000; font-family: Arial;">Through&nbsp;his investigations Pendragon&nbsp;became inspired with the idea&nbsp;to use&nbsp;the Internet to produce, write and coordinate an entire&nbsp;album of quality music, with musicians who had never met and in many cases, had never even conversed with each other. </span></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; line-height: 150%;" class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="font-size: medium; color: #000000; font-family: Arial;">While many ' online collaborations' had been created previously, no-one at that time had ever produced an entire ALBUM!&nbsp;<br />David realized that this,&nbsp;for him,&nbsp;was the true meaning of World&nbsp;Music.</span></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; line-height: 150%;" class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="font-size: medium; color: #000000; font-family: Arial;">Without the Internet as a tool it would never have&nbsp;been possible for them to work together due to the vast distances involved. </span></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;" class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="font-size: medium; color: #000000; font-family: Arial;">&nbsp;</span></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; line-height: 150%;" class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="font-size: medium; color: #000000; font-family: Arial;">&nbsp;&nbsp;Each of the musicians involved, are artists well known in their own communities for their musical expertise on instruments such as: violin, cello, sitar, guitar, lap-slide guitar, drums and percussion, Native American flute and&nbsp;many, many&nbsp;others. </span></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; line-height: 150%;" class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="font-size: medium; color: #000000; font-family: Arial;">Pendragon enlisted all the musicians needed to create this album through Internet forums&nbsp;and independent music sites. He&nbsp;recorded&nbsp;'back track'&nbsp;parts in his studio&nbsp;and made them available&nbsp;via the Internet to enable the contributing musicians to record their parts and then return&nbsp;them to the Canberra studio.&nbsp;David then mixed these parts into the main mix&nbsp;of the final songs.&nbsp;</span></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;" class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="font-size: medium; color: #000000; font-family: Arial;">&nbsp;</span></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; line-height: 150%;" class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="font-size: medium; color: #000000; font-family: Arial;">Some song writing and creative development took place during late-night intercontinental or interstate&nbsp;'voice-over-internet' conversations;&nbsp;Humming a tune in Canberra to a sitar riff, or&nbsp;choosing a drum sound over the&nbsp;Skype phone, with the accompanying player&nbsp;somewhere on the other side of the world!</span></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; line-height: 150%;" class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="font-size: medium; color: #000000; font-family: Arial;">A documentary covering this incredible musical&nbsp;journey is currently being made.<br /><br />Combine all this with the talents of local&nbsp;and interstate musicians and&nbsp;vocalists, and you have a world-class album, pieced together in a very unusual way by&nbsp;one of&nbsp;the planets very first truly &lsquo;World Music&rsquo; band. This is fast becoming one of&nbsp;the ways musicians and artists will&nbsp;work together in the future. </span></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;" class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="font-size: medium; color: #000000; font-family: Arial;">Following is the bands collective statement about &ldquo;THE MESSAGE STICK&rdquo;:</span></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;" class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="font-size: medium; color: #000000; font-family: Arial;">&ldquo;Message Sticks were used by the Australian Aboriginal people and other tribal cultures to send messages from one place or tribe to another. The messenger was a protected person and&nbsp;allowed free passage across traditional boundaries. We can learn many things from&nbsp;the Native Indigenous&nbsp;People from all areas of&nbsp;our World. </span></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;" class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="font-size: medium; color: #000000; font-family: Arial;">A common thread that runs throughout all cultures is a caring and unconditional love for the land that clothes and feeds us. </span></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;" class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="font-size: medium; color: #000000; font-family: Arial;">In this album we are sending out our own heartfelt message to our fellow inhabitants of this incredible place we all call home, Planet Earth. Each song expresses a feeling about some aspect of human co-existence and relationship, with ourselves, with our Planet and with each other. We ask you to join with us.&rdquo; </span></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium; color: #000000; font-family: Arial;">&nbsp;</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium; color: #000000; font-family: Arial;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #000000;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>&ldquo;May you enjoy the journey as it unfolds, may we meet you in the music&rdquo;</span></span></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;" class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="font-size: medium; color: #000000; font-family: Arial;">&nbsp;</span></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;" class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="font-size: medium; color: #000000; font-family: Arial;">&nbsp;</span></span></p>
<span style="font-size: medium; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">David</span><span style="font-size: medium; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"> Pendragon&rsquo;s work on this album has already won him the 2006 International Online Music Award (I.O.M.A) for &ldquo;Best Online Music&nbsp;Producer.<br />THIS ALBUM HAS TAKEN THREE YEARS TO PRODUCE. It is a work of love.</span>