Episode #19 - WinterLong

The Song Writer's Gig

Episode #19 - WinterLong

Dave and Gift Venezio perform as WinterLong and have a well-earned reputation for appealing melodies accompanied by wonderful harmonies.

Music has played a part in their lives from a young age. Gift remembers her childhood in the Philippines as having music “everywhere”. In the 1970’s Dave was introduced to a wide range of artists by his older brother (KISS & Queen) and sister (Joni Mitchell and Led Zeppelin).

Dave’s first band experience was playing guitar in an all original band (1992). He remembers their first gig (a big success) being followed by a Battle of the Bands in a big theater where anything that could have gone wrong did (Bass drum had to be held in place by a friend so it wouldn’t tip and one of the guitar amps fell over).

Dave shared that playing in a theater made it difficult, if not impossible, to hear the other band members (there were no monitor amps). His advice is to make do with what you have – if you have rehearsed then just go for it and trust that you will pull it off.

Last year, during one of Rick Barth’s Songwriter Series events, Gift and Dave had the good fortune to meet Arnold Connelly and his lovely wife, Sonya. This resulted in a trip to Nashville and Arnold’s studio where they recorded a 2 song, EP titled “WinterLong Nashville”. This is an awesome collaboration where two of WinterLong’s beautiful songs “Free” and “Let Me Out” receive the full Nashville treatment. The final product is special indeed.

For The Song Writer’s Gig episode, Gift and Dave perform two songs: The first is “Spaces” which has such a catchy melody line through the verses and wonderful harmonies throughout. The second song is “Babies & Bears” which is a personal favorite for two reasons: 1) The music really draws your ear and the imagery in the lyrics is exceptional, and 2) It shows the power of music to help us cope with difficult times in life. The story is about a scary time for Dave’s mother (she is fine now) but the song tells the story in a very hopeful way.

So join George and me as we share time and music with WinterLong!