Random Thoughts | StreetJelly.com Blog

Home » Archive by category "Random Thoughts" (Page 5)

Frankie’s Awesome Hot Chocolate Recipe

Posted on November 21, 2012

Frankie’s Awesome Super Great Hot Chocolate Recipe

Photo from www.RadishesAndRhubarb.com

This has nothing do with anything …except maybe comfort …which I suppose is similar to enjoying music.

I came up with “Frankie’s Super Great Hot Chocolate Recipe” a few years ago. It was a wintery day and I was jonsen for some hot cocoa. Dang, we ran out of the typical powdery instant packaged crap. But, I had a bag of my favorite Dove Dark Chocolate candies on the counter. So I thought I’d throw some of the chocolate pieces in warm milk and see what happens. What’s the worst that could happen, I make a mess? Not like I’ve never done that before.

Eureka!

It was amazing. I couldn’t believe it, the little chocolate squares all melted without a problem and made the milk creamy smooth and delightfully chocolatey. (Do I have you craving for some, yet?) I experimented a little with the amount of chocolate squares, and came up with the recipe below:

1 cup milk
2 Dove Promises squares – Silky Smooth Dark Chocolate
2 Dove Promises squares – Silky Smooth Milk Chocolate
Warm the milk in a sauce pan over medium heat with the 4 Dove chocolate squares (unwrapped – foil tastes weird). Stir continuously until all is melted. You’re heating up milk, so be careful not to boil it over and make an ungodly mess. Makes one serving.

For my taste, I think the key is mixing the flavors of Dark and Milk Chocolate. If you don’t have both in the house, just one flavor works, too. To make more than one serving, add more chocolate. 4 chocolate squares per cup of milk is actually quite rich, so adjust according to taste. Using 6 squares (3 dark, 3 milk) works great for two servings.

That’s it, enjoy!

Newfie Sing-a-longs

Posted on November 19, 2012

My business friends can all relate to the statements from our marketing departments: tell a story when promoting your business. I certainly have the gift of gab, thanks Mom, so telling a story is never a problem. But actually trying to pull out a compelling story from the day to day drudgery of business is not that easy. I mean really, in my world of software development and data analysis, I beg that even the greatest bullshitter can’t consistently spin up interesting yarns every week.

Along comes StreetJelly, the streaming live music website I founded. (Dang, he plugged the site and hasn’t even started his story yet.) I have already witnessed numerous great moments of live broadcasting: wonderful music, passionate singing, hilarious out takes (I’m looking at you, Maestro, lol), and so on. All of which are moments you can never see again because we don’t record anything on the site. Crazy, I know!

Last week I was watching ImageAndFamily on StreetJelly. This is a family from Toronto who loves to perform sing-a-long tunes, Newfoundland fishing chanties, and singer/songwriter classics. I’ve only met Merv and Amanda online through StreetJelly. If I got it straight, Merv is from Trinidad and Amanda is from Newfoundland. She’s the Newfie! Their son, Robert, performs on keyboard and vocals with them.

Robert is 13 and autistic. I would have known this if I read their profile, but Merv was telling me his story in a chat conversation. You see, Robert didn’t talk or communicate much with the world before the age of 7. That’s when Merv introduced him to music. Something clicked! Robert responded to music like he was a virtuoso of 75 years. I’ve seen him on keyboards and singing on StreetJelly. There’s great talent there. The amazing thing is how music rescued Robert from his quiet world. While playing keyboards with his family, he sings chorus and melodies in a sweet innocent voice. Precious! And Robert follows along with the chat window, says hello, and suggest songs himself.

I don’t know what else makes a more amazing story than being let into the living room of Merv and Amanda and sharing in with their family sing-a-long. Try that with a digital download mp3 site!

No, You Can’t Upload a Video

Posted on September 25, 2012

Can I upload videos and mp3s to my profile?
No, you may not!

Did we just break the cardinal rule and say “no” to our customers? I guess so. But I’m not really the type to do what everyone tells me to do, anyway.

We’ve been asked a few times at Street Jelly if an artist can upload their videos and mp3s to their profile. When an artist is not performing live, understandably, they would like their repertoire of songs and videos to be easily accessible. We can totally agree with this.

But at the same time, Street Jelly is about LIVE performances. We don’t allow musicians to broadcast recordings, presumably over and over, to put up some kind of tip jar filling machine. There is a craft to entertaining the public for tips. The great performers do it for the love, and the tips come naturally.

We thought long and hard about adding the ability to upload files to a Street Jelly profile. Our decision was to stick to our guns about LIVE music and not allow uploads. After all, there are plenty of websites out there for uploading videos and songs. The last thing we want to be is yet another place on the web where musicians feel obligated to put up their “store front.”

We also believe that the delivery of music will fundamentally change again in the near future. Digital downloading, piracy, copyright infringement, etc. has made one big unsustainable mess of things. But one fact hasn’t changed – we humans love our silly love songs. And we will be seeking that love by any means practical. (Note I said “practical,” not free.) It’s our guess that people will seek live music more and more for its true entertainment value.

So Street Jelly is not a digital uploading / downloading site. Hurray! We do what we can, however, to help promote our artists. We made it easy for them to place links to their YouTube channel, ReverbNation, etc. right on their Street Jelly profile. In fact, we encourage it. This week, we released a feature that now embeds YouTube videos directly in the artist’s profile page. Now music lovers can watch artist videos on Street Jelly without having to pop over to another browser window. This should make life easier for musicians.

Humbled by Recent Endorsement

Posted on September 18, 2012

A few days ago, a musician and StreetJelly fan posted this testimonial on our Facebook page.

StreetJelly you are awesome and I LOVE you! ♥♥♥
Let me just say I have been a part of a few “upcoming” music things, and you are the first to be so incredibly supportive and active! I’ve got $16 in my tip jar and I can’t wait to schedule more shows- so fans if you haven’t signed up it’s FREE and musicians you can get in on it too (also free), go listen to music from around the world online LIVE, no more youtube videos!

We’re makin’ history y’all!
– Amelia Y.

What a delight, and we are so humbled by Amelia’s kind words. Without getting all mushy, it should be known that our goal is to be in this adventure together, with all the artist and fans. That’s kind of the point of live music anyway – making a connection, face to face.

I’ve chatted with Amelia a few times, she is definitely a cool chick – and an awesome musician. Don’t forget get to add her, MeiaMusic, to your StreetJelly favorites and catch her next performance. Let’s fill up her tip jar some more!

Why the Name Street Jelly?

Posted on August 10, 2012

Frank Making Jelly Guitars

A lot of folks have been telling us they really like our name, Street Jelly. That is always followed by, “what does it mean?” Simple enough, “street” is for that live, spontaneous street music. The kind of music you can hear literally anywhere at anytime. Of course, it doesn’t have to be only from street music – it’s any kind of improvisational music. Jamming!

Yep, I said jam. Naturally, jamming is a the heart of live music. And jam is, well, also “jelly.” And preserves. And marmalade. How do you make a name out of all that? The first step is to start checking available dot-com domain names. No matter how great a name you come up with for your band, show, website, company, etc – if the domain .com (or .whatever) is taken, you are pretty much screwed.

I searched and searched and searched. Eventually I found StreetJelly.com was available. I nearly fell out of my seat when I found it. I coudn’t believe I found two English words together in a dot-com name that was not parked and held for ransom by some URL broker scoundrel.

Jelly Guitar Photo Shoot

As instantly as street and jelly came together – the image, the voice rather, of a musician popped into my head. I seemed like yesterday (it was more than 20 years ago). I was living in Germany and knew a Scottish musician who played the local bars and played in the street on sunny days by the Nürnberg Castle. I think by day he was a construction worker. He had a real thick Scottish accent and he told me one evening, right before he was about to perform, he says, “Frank, I feel like jelly.”

I was like, “what?” Actually, I should have started off this story like I usually do, “I was a little drunk at the time…” Any way, he proceeded to tell me no matter how many times he performed, he was always nervous before going on stage.

But it’s that phrase, in that wicked harsh accent, “I feel like jelly” that has always stuck; burned in my brain. When Street Jelly came up in our searches, I knew that was it. We were done, we found it!


StreetJelly BLOG: Community News, Video Streaming, Online Busking, and more…