Disease sucks

Man, I'd like nothing more than to eradicate disease.

My left eye is all red and producing tons of gunk. And my vision out of that eye is cloudy compared to my right one. It could be an inocuous irritation because my eye didn't like my contact lens today.

Or it could be conjunctivitis, which is highly contagious. My niece woke up with that on Saturday morning while she was staying at my place. But she's been gone since Sunday, and I just started experiencing these symptoms a couple hours ago, so I can't blame her.

Whether this is conjunctivitis or not, this is just plain uncomfortable. Undesirable.

I will be going home soon to take out my contact lenses. I will throw both away; they're one-month disposables anyway, and it was time to get rid of them. I'll see how long it takes for my left eye to improve before I put in another contact lens.

In the meantime, I'll just go without vision because I don't have a backup pair of glasses anymore. I think my only pair of glasses slipped out of my pocket on a bus, just days after I got these contacts. Apparently, the universe didn't want me to have a backup.

Just called in sick to Okra's, where I would have played a solo piano gig tonight. Given the circumstances, the bartender advised me to stay home and take it easy. Sucks, because I was going to try some new stuff out tonight.

This silly little eye condition of mine is stupid enough, but some diseases are terminal. A dear aunt of mine living up in Pennsylvania has three to six months left to enjoy, thanks to a newly diagnosed case of liver cancer. I just got word about that last Friday night. She found out a day or two earlier.

So, I want to visit her. Unless I scratch things off my personal calendar, I won't be able to take the two-hour trip to see her for any meaningful length of time until late July!

I wanted gigs, so I joined more than one band. Now between that and all the other things I do, I have so many things occupying my time on the weekends that I can't even slip away for family. How pitiful is that!

Without disease, life would still end at some point, but life would be more enjoyable. Also, I certainly wouldn't be compiling disease-related fact sheets at work. I'd be doing something else.

Why cover songs exist, and how to play them

When you start or join a band, one thing you need to define right on is whether or not the band is open to playing other people's pre-existing material. And if you are, you also need to establish what kind of mindset you'll have when playing covers.

Some bands make a specialty of covering songs note-for-note with technical precision. Hey, not exactly my thing, but some people get off on that, and more power to them.

Some bands play covers but add their own twist and develop their own sound. This approach was used by Cream, I think, and the Usual Suspects today. That's great; you want to put your own stamp on the song.

Some bands play covers but drastically develop them into something previously unheard. This approach is what the Vanilla Fudge ("Keep Me Hangin' On" and "Ticket to Ride") and Led Zeppelin ("When the Levee Breaks" and "Nobody's Fault but Mine") did with many of their covers, and that works great when you can be inspired enough to treat a song like that. I'm proud to say that the G Tones do a rendition of the Beatles' "Help" that's like this; it's in a reggae rhythm that musically has more in common with Bob Marley than anything Paul, John, George and Ringo.

But now here's the next leap in musicianship, and it has only to do with covers as much as you're influenced by them.

Some bands skip playing covers and just turn their influences into something absolutely new. To use another Led Zeppelin reference, it could be said that anything completely original they wrote was like that. "Trampled Underfoot" and "Sick Again" are prime examples.

It surprised me when the G Tones nearly went down that path at a recent rehearsal.

We were jamming out a part of "Superstition" by Stevie Wonder just to get the groove down. Shortty, our drummer, got off the beat by accident once, and although it was "wrong," it sounded cool to me. I asked him to do it again, and again, and to keep doing it.

He was accenting an off beat. Karlin and I caught on to this thing Shortty was doing, and we adapted to it. Now three of us were accenting the off beat! No longer was this wrong but merely a variation.

So, there are a few things we can do with that.

One, we can keep calling it a mistake and never play it again; we aren't playing a note-for-note rendition of the song as it is, so we haven't gone down that path I see as despicable (recreating note-for-note what somebody else has done before us). But we just ignore that this ever happened before. It was a fluke, and we should just drop it.

Two, we can do it a few times whenever we play that song. I think it sounded cool enough to make that a permanent fixture in our unique interpretation of the song and reprise it whenever the spirit moves. Play it normal before and after verse one but then play the variation every time thereafter. Just a suggestion. One of about 100,000 possibilities.

Three, we can call it a new rhythm and write a new riff over top of it and forget this ever had anything to do with "Superstition" in the first place. Add some remarkable lyrics and a breathtaking melody, throw in a bridge, and we have ourselves a brand new song in its entirety.

I suggested this at the time, and I think some of the guys had something of a revelation right there and then.

I wasn't there when any of the Led Zeppelin songs were written. I wasn't there when Tony and some former bandmates of his decided to put "Help" to a reggae beat. In fact, I've never been in a group setting when an original piece of work developed before my eyes, with contributions from everybody including myself.

If it's anything like how I imagine, I want to be a part of it.

There's a need, I think, to do something over and above playing strictly covers if you want to do something over and above playing strictly parties or something like that. There's a need to progress and start writing some good material.

Filling in, plus onstage acrobatics

Guess I have a little bit of an update as far as live music. This Saturday, I had the opportunity to audition for another covers band but do so in front of about 10,000 people.

I don't know what the attendance was for the Fiesta Asia parade a few days ago or, more appropriately, if everybody there actually saw and/or heard me play. But I do know that I had a good time playing with Gus Alzona's Trademark band, filling in for usual keyboardist Slim alongside two other substitutes on bass (Harvey) and drums (Rod).

We played a set of covers including "Twist and Shout" (by somebody before it was by the Beatles) and the Temptations' "Get Ready." But it wasn't until the half-hour set's closer, "Born to Be Wild," that the band and the audience got a feel for the keyboardist in their midst. My character emerged as I hammed it up with my keyboard-tilting and -lifting antics. I was the only person there who knew it was coming, but it was a last-minute decision on my part to do it.

The next afternoon was my weekly practice with the Usual Suspects. We're hunkering down to learn a few songs before our next gig, which is a graduation party on June 1. We're getting together again this Friday. But anyway, I was telling the guys about that impromptu gig with Trademark (Gus asked me to sit in with less than 24 hours' notice) and about how it ended up with the onstage actions that have really become my trademark. Unless you count that I was inspired at least in part by the dude from Wolfmother. And two of the guys stood around with me for a while helping me to come up with a way to move my keyboard around without the risk of it hitting the floor.

The only time my current board came hurtling toward the cosmos was at my first gig with the Usual Suspects, and it happened three times that night; I blame the alcohol. But since then, I have become concerned with preventing recurrence. I bought a new stand, and while it's sturdier, it certainly doesn't eliminate the risk of tipping over. I want a surefire solution, but it must also be one that will allow me to disconnect it quickly, mid-song, so I can pick up the keyboard and play it with the keys upside-down to me and facing the audience. So I'm not sure how to do that.

Why can't I just walk into any reputable music equipment store and say, "I want what the dude from Wolfmother has"? The guys in the band were telling me it's something I have to figure out; Matt said nobody could spin their guitars until the guys in ZZ Top figured out how to do it!

Past gigs and stuff

So, I've had a fair amount of live activity lately that I haven't written about. Here's a summary of what's gone on recently.

4/12/08 Usual Suspects gig: Fish Head Cantina, Arbutus, MD

This was a fun day. My schedule worked out such that I was in Annandale at the G Tones' home base rehearsing there with Karlin and Tony (no Spills or Shortty), so I would have to lug all of my equipment straight over to Arbutus, well over an hour away, to get to that gig. Karlin and Tony and I did work on some songs together that we were to be playing live by the end of the month, but we meandered off into jam territory, with me taking a seat at a drum kit for the first time in 2008. I played several songs and, while still not good at drums by any means, was vastly improved over any previous attempt.

Whenever I had to leave to start my long drive to Arbutus, I did it right away and figured out where I was going. I was no sooner on the road when I got a call from the Suspects' Phil Thunder, to inform me of a crucial last-minute change in our lineup for the evening. One of the guys was incapacitated with back pain and destroyed senseless with pain killers. That was none other than our front man, who is our primary singer and lead guitarist, the only one of us who knows the lyrics to everything without reading them off of a sheet. A crucial lineup change indeed!

But having just jammed with the G Tones for several hours, I was already really loose and pronounced to Phil that this setback was no dealbreaker. I was up for anything. There was no way we were going to cancel our appearance as we needed this gig in order to be booked there again in prime time -- i.e. the summer! So the show would go on. And I wasn't the only determined one. Matty Fingers and Petey Numbers were inclined to go along with me, as was Phil.

So we gathered our thoughts when we got to the venue nice and early, and we declared that we would be a jam band for one night only. Making up lyrics was acceptable, as was singing from lyrics sheets. Long solos and unplanned (unrehearsed) songs were fair game. So that's what we went out onstage and did.

(The above provides more insight into why the gig was as improvizational as it was. I've previously reflected here on the improv itself.)

4/17/08 Solo gig: Okra's, Manassas, VA

Over time, I've been developing a fan club out there: the bartender, his girlfriend (who's often put there late for a nightcap even when she's not waiterssing) and a regular patron named Heather. This night, I played Pink Floyd's Animals in its entirety. Same with the Beatles' Abbey Road. I did not do Dark Side of the Moon as was planned though. Too much of one genre for one night.

4/18/08 G Tones gig: Brinkley's Restaurant & Lounge, Falls Church, VA

My first gig with the G Tones, and their first with either Karlin or me, was notable for one good reason. As Tony has mentioned, all eyes were on us. All ears were tuned in. We were a hit. Only complaints were about the sound, really. Tony's vocals were muffled, and we kept turning ourselves up through the night so by the end of the evening, Brinkley's was blaring and oozing with our songs. I've written previously about this show here, thanking all the people who came out and supported me particularly at the show. Now, I've met two more of the people who went to that debut show -- because they introduced themselves to me at our second show. More on that later (see 5/2/08 gig summary below)!

4/25/08 Blues jam: Ty and Karie Naquin's house, Bethesda, MD

Karlin and his wife Tracy and I all rode together to this at my suggestion. We arrived just before the house party switched from electric blues jam to acoustic blues jam to respect the neighbors' curfew. I introduced myself to barely anybody other than Karie and stayed to play tambourine for a few of the acoustic blues numbers. But without our own instruments and alcohol, we grew tired of it rather quickly.

Because the night didn't end there, we proceeded to an Atlas District bar in Northeast, the Argonaut. We spent the better part of the evening feeding the jukebox to play long tracks by Toadies, James Brown, Miles Davis, Led Zeppelin, Jethro Tull, Yes, Porcupine Tree, and others. Some fellow patrons were audibly and visibly disinterested in the odd choices of music. During the rousing and emotional flute improvisation from Jethro Tull's classic live album Bursting Out, I heard one young blonde ask her male drinking partner, who was slumped over, what in the hell this crap was playing. I myself was "bursting out" with laughter.

Another customer went to feed the jukebox himself, hoping to hear some stuff more up his alley. But the songs Karlin, Tracy and I had selected were all so long that this guy might have been gone by the time his selections came up. But, much to my amusement, the guy's choices were all Led Zeppelin studio tracks -- and ones you don't ordinarily hear in bars. They were some of the more complicated numbers in the Zep catalog. So I was rocking out, sipping my PBR, and explaining to Karlin how to play each song on bass. I was breaking down the songs into sections of only a few chords or notes, or whatever each called for. I specifically remember "When the Levee Breaks" and "The Song Remains the Same" being played, among many others. It was just song after song, all of them by Led Zeppelin. I can't remember if all the tracks were on Mothership or not.

4/26/08 Usual Suspects: University of Maryland, College Park, MD

OK, we were back to our full roster for this date. It was unlike any show I've ever had before. We played on a decent-sized stage set up on one side of a regulation-size sand volleyball court. Six teams of beautiful sorority girls competed in a volleyball tournament. Their entrance fees benefited a juvenile diabetes charity. The event was sponsored by the university's Sigma Nu Fraternity chapter and hosted in their backyard.

What made the show particularly unique was that the crowd was wholly unresponsive to our music due to the nature of the event. There's a game going on that all participants are intent on winning. If we finish a song during the middle of a play, they can't stop to applaud for us. Likewise, if there's not a play going on when we finish a song, no applause then either because the next serve is only a moment away. So, we were not applauded very much at all.

Heretofore, I had always assumed gigs had to be appreciated in order to be energetic. Such was not my experience at this gig, though. Despite the fact that nobody could display any appreciation for our performance, we played two long and awfully good sets. As planned, we skewed our song choices toward stuff created and popularized within the past 10 or 15 years, for the college crowd's sake.

Another great aspect of this performance is that Phil Thunder recorded it. And while the levels aren't 100 percent what they should be, it's a very listenable and enjoyable "official" recording of our show! I just got a copy at rehearsal yesterday and was immediately impressed with both the performance and the sound quality. Like I said, you have to strain to hear certain instruments (both guitars, and Phil's backup singing), but that's typical of my experience listening to soundboard recordings of Led Zeppelin shows that have surfaced on bootlegs. It would be nice if a certain instrument were higher in the mix, but what you're hearing is the show without the interference of outside noise. In this case, you can hear the constant whistling denoting the end of a volleyball play, but that's only between songs or in the quiet moments toward the beginnings or ends of songs. All in all, this 2-CD set is really a brilliant spin, and I anticipate moments from it will appear on a box set with unreleased live performances from the archives. Here's hoping for more live recordings like that!

5/2/08 G Tones gig: Fat Tuesday's Raw Bar, Fairfax, VA

Now here's a gig that should have been recorded. My second-ever G Tones gig was scheduled only a few days in advance. And by that, I'm talking we found out on only Tuesday that we had a Friday show. So no advance promotion was really there, but everybody in the band still had at least one significant other, blood relative or close friend who showed up. In my case, it was Ben and Clay (along with Clay's date). They also showed up for the Usual Suspects gig at the Grog and Tankard in March, as well as at least one Alowishious Farhatt show last year. So I'm glad they seem to be enjoying themselves. Or maybe just humoring me. Either way, I appreciate their presence. I also got to meet Spills's fiancée, Sue, and Tony and Jen's friend Michelle. Both had been at our first gig too, I learned.

What complicated things was that, upon arriving, we were informed two other bands were also scheduled to share the stage with us, playing separate sets -- but that neither was showing up. So we had the stage to ourselves all night long, and basically we figured we could possibly end up doing a lot more than just the one long set or two medium sets we figured on playing. What we wanted to do was nearly the same as our first gig, but dropping the Beatles' "Help" from the set because they felt like it didn't work last time we played it. So I was insisting that since we basically had all night, we should restore it to the set! Tony kept objecting, up until the moment, while walking back onstage with him, I talked him into opening our second set with it.

5/3/08 G Tones recording session: Omega Studios, Rockville, MD

We went into the studio with the intention of nailing "Metacognition," possibly Tony's best original. Our studio time was four hours, enough to perfect one song. That was our pick. I describe it as what would have resulted if Pink Floyd had written "Stairway to Heaven." Quite the compliment coming from me; the statement involves my two favorite bands!

Well, when it came time to overdub the piano part, my job was to talk Tony into letting me do it instead of him. I was telling him we could let him do a take and me do a take and compare the two and go with the one we like better. I had a possible leg up on him because I've been playing piano ever since I had a name, whereas he's new to the instrument. But on the other hand, he might have taken so much pride in the song that hearing somebody else play his part -- even his bandmate -- might have been unacceptable and grating to him. It was a serious concern for me, that he may not want me to overdub what had always been his part. But he graciously told me he would let me try it, and he even told me one thing I was doing that I shouldn't do. I kept that in mind because all I wanted to do was impress him, do right by him, improve his song, and really make it a band effort. So he allowed me to record the part.

For all intents and purposes, I did it in one take because for the first take I did, I wasn't hearing the backing track in my headphones. I got the whole way through the song and then was greeted by everybody wondering why I wasn't synching up to the recording. That's because I couldn't hear it. So my first take of the whole part didn't count.

It was on a nicely tuned grand piano. Playing those is rare for me these days. Playing it inspired me. It felt great. And maybe that's why my take was note-perfect. Not only that but the song climaxed with a power that it never had before. After I let the last note ring out, I walked back toward the booth, and as soon as the door opened, I asked, "Is Tony happy?" Tony emerged, smiling, beaming really, and gave me a big hug. He said that's exactly what he was looking for, and that I refrained from doing the one thing he didn't like and, meanwhile, took the song to a new level of intensity. Well, it always had been like that in my mind. After all, this song to me was "Stairway to Heaven" if it had been written by Pink Floyd. That climax is simply a part of the song that Tony hadn't consciously written yet. But I knew it had the potential.

We also did a quick single take of Stevie Wonder's "Superstition" that may or may not be any good. We'll see when we play it back when it eventually is mixed. That track came about when we were messing with the song during soundcheck and the head engineer said he would like to record a take of it. That's because he just really likes the song, he told us. In fact, when he was driving out of the parking lot after our session ended, that's the song that blared from his car speakers, to our delight!

This makes it the second studio session for me this year and the second Stevie Wonder song I've done in a demo this year. (The other was his "I Wish" when the Usual Suspects recorded it in February for our demo.)

That's about it! More gigs coming soon with both bands, plus solo gigs at Okra's in Manassas every three Thursdays at 9 p.m. (formerly 10) with the next one being this week.

Laundry detergent

Something happened recently that's nothing short of a revolution. And it involves laundry.

Oh, how cute would it be for me to make a pun about the revolutions of the laundry as it twirls inside the dryer?

But I'm not talking about that kind of a revolution. I mean the one that forces permanent changes on life as we know it.

This weekend, I was hunting for my favorite laundry detergent in as big a container as I could cart back home. That's how you get better savings.

But there was no economy-sized detergent. Unless you, unlike the president, believe we're in a recession and, therefore, these little containers of detergent were the size of the economy -- or more.

Every shelf had little detergent. Row after row of tiny containers. Where was my big and bulky kind?

Seems they no longer make them big and bulky. It is obvious that all you can get now is detergent that's twice as concentrated as the old formula. You need to use only half as much for a load compared to what you would have used before.

Makes sense. Less fluid makes it better for the environment somehow I guess. I don't know.

But are you telling me I can't get the container in the same size anymore? Even if its contents are twice as concentrated, all I can get are these dinky little things?

Furthermore, every company was in on this. Every brand. Even the store brand and the generic stuff! Not a single container was the same size or had the old formula.

Something's not right here. All the old containers were "Wisk"ed from the shelves overnight and replaced with somebody's blue-ribbon science project? This is a revolution, for sure. But it was an unheralded one.

Something like this ought to be proclaimed from the mountaintops. Something like this ought to have been accompanied by shouts of praise and blasts of trumpets. Word of it would be spread til kingdom come. If we live long enough, we'd tell our great-grandchildren where we were the day they switched to double-the-concentration Cheer.

Maybe I missed the evening news the day this happened. Maybe there was a huge announcement in the newspaper that I glossed over. Maybe the media did recognize that the "Tide" was turning and gave this the attention I think it deserved.

But somehow, I'm doubting it.

And what upsets me the most is that I may never again trot home a container of detergent that's as big and mighty as Montana.

The detergent I knew and loved? "All" gone.

And honestly, what do we stand to "Gain"?