"Chance Predeterminates" by Austen Brauker

No electric guitars were used on these recordings! These are all new songs of ORIGINAL MUSIC written and performed by Austen Brauker from April to September of 2011. All of these songs were done on an acoustic guitar and an acoustic bass. Austen played his own drum tracks on regular acoustic drums, with traditional rattles and Native American hand drums, and with an electronic drum machine. Austen is a long time musician and has performed regularly since he started playing music over thirty years ago. Austen plays many different styles of music on acoustic and electric guitars, mandolin, banjo, bass guitar, lap steel and slide blues. He plays the Native American flute and sings with a traditional Odawa drum group in Manistee, Michigan. He recently scored the soundtrack for an educational sturgeon documentary that was filmed locally, spotlighting the L.R.B.O.I. sturgeon rearing program. He has numerous CD’s of different styles of original music, most of it available online. Austen is an award winning screenwriter. He is the author of two full length fiction novels, several theatrical plays, much poetry and regular newspaper articles at three separate publications in Michigan. Two of his short plays, “Crocophile” and “Look What the Cat Dragged In,” have been produced by West Shore College, where he has also was published in Dark Matter, as best fiction writer for 2008. His work has won several writing competitions and is posted at various places on the internet, on writer’s sites and bookselling sources. He has been printed in numerous hard copy anthologies. Austen Brauker Austen currently works as a Peacemaker/Probation Officer at the Little River Band of Ottawa Indians Tribal Justice Center and as an artist, painting murals, like the well known piece at the entrance of the Willows restaurant at the Little River Casino and Resort. He has been commissioned by the Mt. Pleasant Public Schools to create eight 5’x5’ stained glass windows for two of their elementary schools. He creates many different traditional native crafts and various other forms of visual art. His work was used by the National Congress of the American Indian for the N.C.A.I. conference logo in 2011 and the original hangs at their embassy in Washington D.C. Austen is a tribal member of the Little River Band of Ottawa Indians. He hunts and fishes as an expression of tribal sovereignty and to feed his family, physically and spiritually. In 2011 he was the first L.R.B.O.I. tribal member in recent recorded history to harvest a lake sturgeon, caught on hook and line, weighing 108 lbs. and measuring 6 ft. 1 in. In 2009 he was gifted with an 8 pt. bull elk. At 17 yrs. old, he brought home a 350 lb. black bear. He shares these special gifts with elders and other tribal members whenever possible. For Austen, hunting provides a direct connection to nature, builds deep reverence and respect, and ties him directly to the web of life. He is an advocate of spiritual unity among all of earth’s peoples and seeks to focus on our similarities as brothers and sisters, rather than arbitrary and divisive differences, hoping for acceptance and sharing as we evolve together in our collective world consciousness, as human beings. Austen is married to his beautiful love and best friend, his wife Victoria.