HAPPY EVERYTHING! BIG OLEDUDE NEWS!
Wow! I cannot believe it has been almost three months since I last posted here! It’s nice to have a blog, but when your life seems to move at 100 miles per minute (and you are ADD/ADHD), stopping to document everything just doesn’t seem to happen. My sincerest apologies! And please accept my best wishes for a happy holiday season (the trifecta alignment of Christmas, Hanukkah and Kwanzaa won’t return until 2035) and the happiest New Year!
Let me start with the big news! We are coming alive in ‘25! Please attend the MLK MEETS INAUGURATION DAY concert that I am producing on Saturday, January 18th at the Peoples’ Voice Cafe in Greenwich Village. I am also a performer, along with many excellent songwriters and performers. On Monday, January 20, 2025, we will celebrate the birthday and legacy of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. We will also witness the installation of America's 47th President. As we all wrestle with the intertwined futures of our nation and our world, there are waves of thoughts and feelings that wash over us.
On Saturday, January 18th, we ask these questions: What would Dr. King say about where we are today? How does his legacy impact the choices we will be making going forward? How do we celebrate this important holiday when uncertainty chokes the air we breathe?
I have invited various performers and presenters to build community by sharing their voices with all of us. Saturday night will be an intense and uplifting experience for all, so please join us! The evening's event will also be livestreamed, so don't let cold weather stop you from attending!
My shows are GOOD! You can attend live (seating is limited) and via live-stream (you can watch or re-watch the recording as many times as you like within two weeks of the performance date.) This means that you have no “cold weather” excuse! :)
Requested admission is $20, but we turn no one away so please attend and pay what you can. (You can also tip the performers.) Go to https://www.peoplesvoicecafe.org/ to get all the details and purchase your tickets early!!! Or you can purchase them using the links provided below.
In April, I will be releasing my first “real” album: PREACHER MAN - VOLUME 1. This will be a stunning collection of old and new songs with social justice themes that you will listen to over and over. You can also help make that happen on time with a direct donation at https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-chris-oledude-make-music-for-you or by becoming a monthly supporter on my my Patreon!
Make it stand out
By the way, remember my song “George Floyd”? Remember that 2020 video, “George Floyd: Say Their Names”?
That video — my very first music video — was accepted and reviewed by some 300 film festivals and earned 150 accolades, including “Best Music Video”, “Best Song”, “Best Short Film”, “Best Director”, and more. This was all made possible by a then 18 year-old woman named Alyssa Dann, the nudger, editor and Co-Director with me. After participating in the song’s recording session, she walked up to me and said “I love this song. If you do a video for it, I want to help make it.” We had just met a few hours earlier.
Well, we have now kicked off the compilation of PREACHER MAN by releasing the rollicking and updated “Orange Blues 24” with an accompanying video from none other than Alyssa Dann (now a college graduate!) Alyssa has done it again! After more than a year of work and some 2,000 photos, the stop-motion animated video “Orange Blues 24” is also on a roll with film festivals around the world!
Find out the exciting and impressive details by visiting https://oledudesongs.com/ .
Next summer, I will be releasing my second album — LOVER BOY - VOLUME 1 - which will also include old and new songs of different flavors. I am thinking of these albums as two periods of my life — one channeling the person I have been and must be in today’s world, and the other looking forward to the person I hope to eventually become in the fullest way possible. Maybe you and I have this in common?
MORE MUSIC …
I am working hard to “build my brand identity”. This is the part of the “bizness” that I like least — the marketing — and I am not alone. That is why I try to confront my fear and discomfort with all of this social media stuff (though I don’t think I will ever “like” Instagram). I now have a TikTok account: https://www.tiktok.com/@chrisoledude (just in time to be banned!) I am reinvesting in other social media outreach, as well. No more X for me; I am now on Blue Sky: @chrisoledude.bsky.social ! I am also on Threads, but that seems to be going nowhere.
Anyway, the best places to see updates on Oledude World will be my website, Facebook and through one of my blast emails or texts. If you are not currently on my contact list, please sign up now at https://www.oledude.rocks/contact . We want to be totally ready to explode the new albums as they are released and YOU (and everyone you know) are such an important part of our hopes and dreams!
So… about last November…
Obviously, the national election did not go as many of us hoped. I spent six days in the Pittsburgh area dragging my feeble, ole ass from door to door in search of less-active registered Democrats. I was honored to be part of a great cohort of Harvard alums who teamed up to go to various areas and do this work. Overall, despite some whacky conversations, I did think that the energy in PA was good for Harris. Alas, like others, I optimistically misread the level of dissatisfaction with the current state of affairs for many folks — and their willingness to overlook a clear and present orange danger when looking for someone to blame and for someone to make change. As with losses by Gore, Clinton and now Harris, we will never know how world history may have been warped due to American Presidential and Congressional elections. But we can and must embrace the power that we have!
The November Republican margins were thin across the board. Real (non-violent) resistance during the upcoming years can and will make a difference. Gunning down a corporate leader won’t reform health care, for example, but people uniting behind a Medicare-for-all health delivery model will do that! This iteration of the U.S. Supreme Court may not hold the criminal-in-chief accountable for all of his transgressions, but we can keep voting in local and then the mid-term elections fo put democratic roadblocks in his way and local judges in place who truly respect the rule of law. Both murderous Hamas and the murderous Israeli government keep pushing the hard work of peace away (with the help of multiple “maggots”), but that does not mean that you and I need to be silent!
I could go on, but that’s not why you’re here! You’re here because of my music and I really appreciate that. But I would not be the son of my parents if I did not clearly state that my art is rooted in my world perspective… and my world perspective supports respectful, caring and inclusive approaches to challenges. As human society evolves technologically, we must continue to evolve emotionally and spiritually. To survive, the extreme rigidity of absolutist ideologies will need to dissolve (on all sides) and the primacy of profit over people will need to end (please note how I phrased that and resist misquoting me). This will be the hard work of generations to come, but I have faith that we can do this.
As we enter the new year, I wish you peace and love always!
Chris Oledude
THE PEOPLES’ VOICE CAFE UPCOMING SCHEDULE:
