Wow, it'll be the first Washington invitation they've declined!
Gatecrashers decline invitation to testify - washingtonpost.com
Posted using ShareThis
8/7/09
Yippie Museum Cafe, NYC
There were more musicians and staffers here than paying customers until we walked in. The five of us balanced out the paying/nonpaying ratio when we say our asses down, but it went back down again when two of us didn't order anything. The emphasis was on coffees, and at 75 cents apiece, I wasn't sure if I could afford one. In my pocket I seized a grubby handful of folded up ones, but inside the pocket they stayed. A leather couch vacated, and I made my home on the top left corner of it, straddling the side with my left leg underneath a tall tabletop. A tall slender woman in a sundress filmed the jazz musicians from the second set forward. No need to capture the first, I guess. The only stray noise in the place was from the quarter tip left atop a table. The rest of the noise came from the instruments tapping along together in harmonious cacophony. "It's like a flow of consciousness," the drummer told me while on a break. As he said this, his high seemed to wear off and he became serious, looking me straight in the eye and gesturing. I pictured a seesaw with a moving fulcrum and the sides all trying to find the happy medium. The balance would always be there. I never did get to ask the drummer if he knew what I was talking about. Here he is talking about months spent abroad and old contacts from the field of jazz befriending him on Facebook, and here I am getting off on his beats and originally thinking he was counting to 64 during the last piece.
6/28/09
What Michael Jackson meant to me
As I grew up, there were three artists I could reliably count on for making great new videos on MTV whenever they had new songs. They were Tom Petty, Madonna and Michael Jackson. As I think back on the chronology of it all, I guess it was Michael Jackson who started it all.
His earliest videos made him iconic. They defined his image. His face may have changed behind the hats he donned throughout his career, but his look always remained unique to him. His dance stylings were second to none. His obsession with touching his crotch ... OK, I guess that was a little weird.
His pop music made deep impressions on me, I admit. He was the king of pop, no doubt, and whenever he came out with a new song like "Smooth Criminal" or "Black or White," I was right there, first on the receiving line. The new video's debut was usually heralded as a world event on MTV or even prime-time network television. I was always tuning in for those.
He made pop culture enthralling. I remember watching the entire "Black or White" video when it premiered. It was not only appointment television, but it was the kind of thing I would count down to. I think I remember watching "The Simpsons" before the "Black or White" premiere and knowing I'd have to go pee during the last commercial break to settle in for the video. His videos weren't three-minute songs, that's for sure. You always knew something great was coming, and that it could take a while.
That's how "Black or White" was. The video may have aired in full only that once in the United States. It started off with Macaulay Culkin at home, his dad (played by George Wendt) telling him to turn down his music before he returned to his armchair, where his relaxing was uninterrupted despite him being blasted off -- his armchair intact -- to a faraway land that had Michael Jackson dancing with some tribe. I mean, I was eating this stuff up!
Only after he landed did the new Michael Jackson song start to play. And there it was, one infectious guitar riff, one blues pattern transformed into a rock-pop genre bender, and full of his trademark vocal workouts. It was that stuff that did it for me, not as much as the dancing. Just knowing what his music was about and how to reproduce it if I ever needed to.
He was a great dancer, I knew, and back in the "Smooth Criminal" days, I remember dancing along and my year-old nephew Ben, barely able to stand up inside his crib without grasping onto the sides, dancing along with me and Michael. But at whatever age I was, I knew dancing wasn't for me. I could appreciate what Michael was doing on the dance floor and knew it was something for other people to do. I could just see myself in his band, one of those off-camera people helping out with the music. Or maybe I could just see myself as a fan, telling him how great it is when the music breaks down and we hear, "I'm not gonna spend my life being a color." Even I knew what he meant. This was great stuff!
At the end of his song, after one person would change before our eyes into another, came the reason this video probably never aired twice. It was when Michael veered into a back alley behind the set where they were filming some blonde dancing for the video. Another great transition like the one that gave way to the song's beginning.
Now with the soundtrack completely silent, Michael got on top of a black car, started dancing on it, busted out some dance moves that in turn busted up the windows, and he turned into, literally, a black panther. Any symbolism there was lost on me. All I knew was he was a kitty, slinking around and acting violent. This was good stuff.
I don't remember whatever else happened, and I'm sure I could turn to YouTube to replenish my memory, but it doesn't matter. My point is this stuff was important enough for me to tune into and keep watching. Michael Jackson held my attention, on and off, for about a decade.
There was some kind of vicious backlash against Michael for this video, I guess for the way he destroyed the car. I didn't understand why. It didn't make me want to get up and dance, much less go break the windows of any car. I considered myself an impressionable kid, but did that mean there must have been other kids so impressionable that they would immediately run to the Honda Civic in their parents' driveway and let loose? That didn't seem possible to me.
But I also noticed that whenever someone on the news reported on the violence in this new Michael Jackson video, they'd cut to the clip of him doing this crap on the car and they'd show it. Suffice it to say it was OK to air it again as long as the voiceover explained how bad the message these images gave to viewers was.
The same thing happened when Madonna, in "Like a Prayer," started making out with a multiracial Jesus in a chapel. Everybody saw it as an abhorrence, so what better to do than replay it 17 times on the local news? "The furor over a blasphemous new music video. Story at 11." There, now it was appointment television. Make sure you go pee at 10:55 because you'll want to be back in time for this!
This kind of hypocrisy existed long before mild-mannered Bill O'Reilly learned how to pout over sex on TV and pepper his segments with file footage of bikini-clad bimbos on spring break as an example of exactly what he argued should never be aired on television. It's the kind of hypocrisy I love, which, too, makes me every bit as hypocritical.
Michael Jackson created videos not just for his fans but for everybody. People who claimed to despise his art still saw the videos anyway. He really had that kind of universal reach. This made him the sole king of pop in a way that nobody to this day has succeeded him and doubtfully ever will.
His earliest videos made him iconic. They defined his image. His face may have changed behind the hats he donned throughout his career, but his look always remained unique to him. His dance stylings were second to none. His obsession with touching his crotch ... OK, I guess that was a little weird.
His pop music made deep impressions on me, I admit. He was the king of pop, no doubt, and whenever he came out with a new song like "Smooth Criminal" or "Black or White," I was right there, first on the receiving line. The new video's debut was usually heralded as a world event on MTV or even prime-time network television. I was always tuning in for those.
He made pop culture enthralling. I remember watching the entire "Black or White" video when it premiered. It was not only appointment television, but it was the kind of thing I would count down to. I think I remember watching "The Simpsons" before the "Black or White" premiere and knowing I'd have to go pee during the last commercial break to settle in for the video. His videos weren't three-minute songs, that's for sure. You always knew something great was coming, and that it could take a while.
That's how "Black or White" was. The video may have aired in full only that once in the United States. It started off with Macaulay Culkin at home, his dad (played by George Wendt) telling him to turn down his music before he returned to his armchair, where his relaxing was uninterrupted despite him being blasted off -- his armchair intact -- to a faraway land that had Michael Jackson dancing with some tribe. I mean, I was eating this stuff up!
Only after he landed did the new Michael Jackson song start to play. And there it was, one infectious guitar riff, one blues pattern transformed into a rock-pop genre bender, and full of his trademark vocal workouts. It was that stuff that did it for me, not as much as the dancing. Just knowing what his music was about and how to reproduce it if I ever needed to.
He was a great dancer, I knew, and back in the "Smooth Criminal" days, I remember dancing along and my year-old nephew Ben, barely able to stand up inside his crib without grasping onto the sides, dancing along with me and Michael. But at whatever age I was, I knew dancing wasn't for me. I could appreciate what Michael was doing on the dance floor and knew it was something for other people to do. I could just see myself in his band, one of those off-camera people helping out with the music. Or maybe I could just see myself as a fan, telling him how great it is when the music breaks down and we hear, "I'm not gonna spend my life being a color." Even I knew what he meant. This was great stuff!
At the end of his song, after one person would change before our eyes into another, came the reason this video probably never aired twice. It was when Michael veered into a back alley behind the set where they were filming some blonde dancing for the video. Another great transition like the one that gave way to the song's beginning.
Now with the soundtrack completely silent, Michael got on top of a black car, started dancing on it, busted out some dance moves that in turn busted up the windows, and he turned into, literally, a black panther. Any symbolism there was lost on me. All I knew was he was a kitty, slinking around and acting violent. This was good stuff.
I don't remember whatever else happened, and I'm sure I could turn to YouTube to replenish my memory, but it doesn't matter. My point is this stuff was important enough for me to tune into and keep watching. Michael Jackson held my attention, on and off, for about a decade.
There was some kind of vicious backlash against Michael for this video, I guess for the way he destroyed the car. I didn't understand why. It didn't make me want to get up and dance, much less go break the windows of any car. I considered myself an impressionable kid, but did that mean there must have been other kids so impressionable that they would immediately run to the Honda Civic in their parents' driveway and let loose? That didn't seem possible to me.
But I also noticed that whenever someone on the news reported on the violence in this new Michael Jackson video, they'd cut to the clip of him doing this crap on the car and they'd show it. Suffice it to say it was OK to air it again as long as the voiceover explained how bad the message these images gave to viewers was.
The same thing happened when Madonna, in "Like a Prayer," started making out with a multiracial Jesus in a chapel. Everybody saw it as an abhorrence, so what better to do than replay it 17 times on the local news? "The furor over a blasphemous new music video. Story at 11." There, now it was appointment television. Make sure you go pee at 10:55 because you'll want to be back in time for this!
This kind of hypocrisy existed long before mild-mannered Bill O'Reilly learned how to pout over sex on TV and pepper his segments with file footage of bikini-clad bimbos on spring break as an example of exactly what he argued should never be aired on television. It's the kind of hypocrisy I love, which, too, makes me every bit as hypocritical.
Michael Jackson created videos not just for his fans but for everybody. People who claimed to despise his art still saw the videos anyway. He really had that kind of universal reach. This made him the sole king of pop in a way that nobody to this day has succeeded him and doubtfully ever will.
5/27/09
Mixing algebra and camping
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile
5/23/09
Lorenzo Wolff: My Problem with Led Zeppelin
http://www.counterpunch.org/wolff05222009.html
Lorenzo Wolff revisits the first Led Zeppelin album and finds that it doesn't affect him. Not the same way Appetite for Destruction by Guns 'n Roses and The Battle of Los Angeles by Rage Against the Machine do.
OK, fine enough. It's his opinion. I'm sorry he doesn't feel the power described by the dozens of interviewees (myself included) who spoke to author Frank Reddon for his 40th anniversary retrospective tome, "Sonic Boom, The Impact of Led Zeppelin - Volume 1, Break and Enter."
But Wolff doesn't stop there. After he butchers Jimmy Page's last name (and fails to mention the first names of either Page or Robert Plant, a courtesy afforded both of their bandmates), he criticized the way he thinks the four of them played on the album. He writes: "Everyone is listening to themselves, making sure their runs are cool enough, that their fills show just how much time they've spent practicing. The problem with this kind of introspective attitude is that it leaves no room to listen to the other musicians, let alone the song itself."
It seems like he presumes to know what it was like in that recording studio so soon after the band's formation and only a handful of live shows. This is a guy who's done so much research he can't spell the guitarist and band founder's name right.
Yet somehow, Wolff describes what is missing from a replay of the album is any sense of humanity. He's the one that doesn't know anything about the musicians on that album or what it was like making it. Of course he's not up on their humanity!
His piece is a new low in reviews.
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile
Lorenzo Wolff revisits the first Led Zeppelin album and finds that it doesn't affect him. Not the same way Appetite for Destruction by Guns 'n Roses and The Battle of Los Angeles by Rage Against the Machine do.
OK, fine enough. It's his opinion. I'm sorry he doesn't feel the power described by the dozens of interviewees (myself included) who spoke to author Frank Reddon for his 40th anniversary retrospective tome, "Sonic Boom, The Impact of Led Zeppelin - Volume 1, Break and Enter."
But Wolff doesn't stop there. After he butchers Jimmy Page's last name (and fails to mention the first names of either Page or Robert Plant, a courtesy afforded both of their bandmates), he criticized the way he thinks the four of them played on the album. He writes: "Everyone is listening to themselves, making sure their runs are cool enough, that their fills show just how much time they've spent practicing. The problem with this kind of introspective attitude is that it leaves no room to listen to the other musicians, let alone the song itself."
It seems like he presumes to know what it was like in that recording studio so soon after the band's formation and only a handful of live shows. This is a guy who's done so much research he can't spell the guitarist and band founder's name right.
Yet somehow, Wolff describes what is missing from a replay of the album is any sense of humanity. He's the one that doesn't know anything about the musicians on that album or what it was like making it. Of course he's not up on their humanity!
His piece is a new low in reviews.
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile
4/17/09
4/10/09
Good Friday
Today during that time was a similar chronology for Dessie and her son and me as we took her dog Shelby to be euthanized. She was an old dog and had horrible arthritis, and Dessie's family's impending move to a fifth-floor townhouse apartment would have made it impossible for Shelby to continue to live with her human companions. So, Dessie did what had to be done. We'll miss this family friend. Dessie keeps saying Shelby was a good dog and loved us all.
I had a friend out in Colorado, Christie, who died in January. She and I talked on the phone for hours on end, on several occasions, about the subject of death. Calling her was a natural thing to do when my last natural grandparent died, because I knew she would have some consoling words for me. She definitely did. Likewise, last year and into this year, I had planned on making her the first phone call I would make when I received the inevitable news of Aunt Rose's passing. That changed when Christie up and died of breast cancer in January, preceding Aunt Rose in death. So, Christie and I couldn't speak over the phone, as I had planned, when Aunt Rose died a month later.
However, I think having known Christie, and having had those conversations we had before, made it a lot easier to deal with Aunt Rose's death. And I saw a signal a few times today that made me think of Aunt Rose. Looking for signals is something I never did until Christie told me to be on guard for them. But it was definitely there, this iguana that I associated with Aunt Rose. And because of this, I told Dessie that either Aunt Rose was taking care of Shelby now or Christie was. Christie was a dog person for sure, and Aunt Rose was an animal person.
For those with faith, the Good Friday story ended happily three days later when their friend Jesus was said to have risen from the dead. Those who had faith back then said, "Yeah, that's just like him." Those who didn't have faith said, "Rose from the dead? Impossible. Show me the proof." I guess now, dealing with a dog's death, the leap of faith is that there are other people now taking care of that dog. Shelby just has new friends now, and they're taking great care of her. And she actually has a full tail now, not just half of one (I'm not sure why that's all she had here).
3/31/09
3/26/09
All things "Mr. W"
Dessie's sister, Ashley, came to town for a week with her 5-year-old daughter, Olivia. I was meeting both for the first time, and Dessie and her three youngest kids were seeing them for the first time since the time they spent visiting Ohio last summer.
Waking up from a nap when we got to where they would be staying for the week, Olivia was shy with everyone right at first. Our little girl of 8 exhibited a nostalgic, almost parental relationship with her cousin, two years her junior. Olivia's the cutest little thing, and her face is a miniature replica of her mom's. Within minutes, she was revived and animated, laughing with the girls, chasing and being chased from the sun deck to the house. We adults kept to our own group, shielding our eyes and allowing that behavior to continue for a little while. Ashley became the first to get sick of the running around, showing the first sign of an impatience I would recognize often over her seven-day stay in our area.
The seven of us got some grub and went bowling. After we selected our bowling balls and rental shoes (after which we noticed barely anybody rents shoes anymore -- what's up with that???), the next step was to enter our names onto the electronic scoring machine. We were paying for only one hour of bowling, the first five minutes of which consisted exclusively of typing in four kids' aliases, names like "Captain Vengeful" and "Stretchmark." (Not those exactly, but wouldn't they be cool names for next time?)
It was in the cumbersome process of doing this that we recognized how difficult it is to type with that junky keypad -- overly sensitive one moment and virtually unresponsive the next. Names as long as "Layla" and "Steve" would have taken another full minute each to type in, so I suggested we just go with the short and sweet "R" for her, and I would be "W." Just random letters that purposely didn't coincide with our own names, yet neither signifying anything either.
Once Olivia got through the awkward not-knowing-who-I-am phase of a little while, she came out of her shell toward me. Forgetting the name under which I had been introduced to her only once hours earlier, she instead called me "W" because, after all, that's what the screen says my name is, doesn't it? Cute! No need to correct her. She added the "Mr." later on, out of courtesy, and the name stuck through the rest of our action-filled weekend and the rest of the week she and Ashley were around.
The very first time Olivia called me that, I couldn't help but think I had made a mistake in choosing a good one-letter name for myself: too reminiscent of an awful president who just left office. But I don't regret the name. Olivia's 5 now, and that's probably one of those things she'll never forget every time she talks to me in the future, and she'll never let me forget it either. It's painfully cute when Olivia says it. That, and her Aunt Dessie is sometimes "Mrs. R," which is equally cute. They're names I made up!
One absolutely wonderful thing about Olivia (a.k.a. "Fuzzball" or "Snowflake") is that she's still in a young and pure stage of life when she still trusts human beings. That disintegrates eventually, tarnished usually first by parents' well-meaning lessons about talking with strangers, and compounded by experiences with thieving schoolmates, jilted lovers, oblivious drivers, uncaring bosses, soulless corporations, unhelpful customer service, elevator music, corrupt governors and the like. Back when you're unaffected by any of that, you have such an inherent sense of well-being with everyone you meet. Olivia is still the sunshine girl riding in the shopping cart at the grocery store who smiles and waves hi, effectively melting the hearts of virtually everyone around.
Except for those responsible for elevator music -- they're just plain evil.
Dessie reminds me it's too late in her kids' lives to feel that way and have such an affinity toward me. That, and I'm fighting the additional uphill battle of being a stepdude to three little kids who still don't know why their mom wants to be with anyone other than their dad. I know it's tough, but there's a long-term award ahead. Keep your eyes on the prize!
3/16/09
A return to baseball
This morning, a radio DJ informed me the Washington Nationals would be playing a spring training game against the Florida Marlins. The stadium is less than an hour from me, and I had nothing better to do, so after thinking about it, I decided I had an afternoon date at Roger Dean Stadium!
It was good to see the guys again. Lastings Milledge looked great at the top of the order. Austin Kearns had a good eye and smooth moves. Garrett Mock impressed as a closer. The real heroes were starting pitcher Shawn Hill and reliever Jordan Zimmermann, a newcomer. Josh Towers wasn't bad as a reliever either; I can't figure out where he was last season, but I welcome him.
I got pulled over driving my girlfriend's car on the way to the stadium. Apparently, her registration isn't up to date. Well, it would be if today were last June, but the state trooper didn't agree with my argument. So, it looks like I have some fines to pay, and I also must strongly encourage her to get that registration thing taken care of!
The kids are doing well. I sometimes don't get 100 percent acceptance by all of them, but hey, life would be too boring if everything worked out perfectly all the time! Which is why that cop pulled me over, eh?
It was good to see the guys again. Lastings Milledge looked great at the top of the order. Austin Kearns had a good eye and smooth moves. Garrett Mock impressed as a closer. The real heroes were starting pitcher Shawn Hill and reliever Jordan Zimmermann, a newcomer. Josh Towers wasn't bad as a reliever either; I can't figure out where he was last season, but I welcome him.
I got pulled over driving my girlfriend's car on the way to the stadium. Apparently, her registration isn't up to date. Well, it would be if today were last June, but the state trooper didn't agree with my argument. So, it looks like I have some fines to pay, and I also must strongly encourage her to get that registration thing taken care of!
The kids are doing well. I sometimes don't get 100 percent acceptance by all of them, but hey, life would be too boring if everything worked out perfectly all the time! Which is why that cop pulled me over, eh?
2/8/09
If I could choose a place to die: Tribute to Aunt Rose (1931-2009)
As many relatives as could make it filed in and out of Aunt Rose's room this week. I was so happy to be one of them. When I saw Aunt Rose last weekend, she was grateful to see me. It's that whole absence making the heart grow fonder thing. She had always been happy to hear my voice on the phone whenever I called, but to see me in person and have me kiss her hand were additional treats for her. And it worked both ways too. Hearing her voice on the phone was one thing. I knew she was still with it, that she still had a cogent mind on her shoulders. She attested to being somewhat frustrated that her instant recall was sometimes diminished, but she also never had an unkind word to say, even about the less-than-ideal living conditions of her previous nursing home and being awkwardly shipped around from one place to a hospice to a nursing home. Aunt Rose always looked at the positive. "Well, at least the food was good." What a saint.
The photos here are from my third birthday, in 1982, and this week. The latter is the last picture taken of her and me together. My niece Nikki took that shot when I asked her to, on Thursday. I wouldn't have even thought of getting the shot were it not for a request from Dessie back in Florida. She'd never seen Aunt Rose and wanted to know what Aunt Rose looked like. I even doubted whether any pose would be good enough since she was in a hospital bed and there was no real way to get close to her without sort of stepping behind the bed or something like that. All I had to do was try. And Aunt Rose put her hand on my cheek both times we posed for a picture. Since I'm an idiot, I had my eyes closed for the first photo and Nikki had us get back into position and retake it.
A lot of family members were over visiting with Aunt Rose yesterday, and she was hanging on through it all even if she wasn't totally aware since she was more often asleep than not, and when she was waking up she was a little disoriented. And in the thick of it all, Nikki said something that kind of makes sense. She said she thought Aunt Rose might not want to die in front of everybody, that she wanted to go alone, so as not to worry everybody. That's Aunt Rose for you, taking on even death on her own. And that's what happened. She died at probably about 3:15 a.m., peacefully and alone. When Helen last saw her, Aunt Rose was breathing normally and not with the apnea that had ruled most of her last couple of days. When she last checked on her, there were none of the sporadic heavy breaths and 20-second periods of silence. Helen said Aunt Rose was just peaceful, calm. What a way to go. If you could choose a place to die, this must be one of the better choices.
I'm going to miss Aunt Rose, but not as much as had I not been prepared for the news of her passing. And Aunt Rose was prepared for this too. Thank goodness for that, and thank goodness for Aunt Rose. She never had kids of her own, but she sure influenced a lot of kids in our family. We saw in her true generosity and serenity.
2/2/09
Man, I love music
So far today, I've been stranded at my parents' place with nothing to do but play the piano. Left to my own, without an audience, I played whatever came to my head. Turns out I am inspired musically by Friedrich Chopin, Jimmy Page, Jethro Tull and various blues musicians. I played a surprising version of Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive" with an arrangement not unlike that of Chopin's Prelude No. 3 in E minor, which Page has also played live and in the studio, and I led from this into Tull's "Locomotive Breath" with a pentatonic lead over some of Chopin's chords (again, in the brilliant way Page played that prelude). Chopin fit nicely into the piano intro to "Locomotive Breath" too! I love the chords to Prelude No. 3.
I got to meet Aunt Rose yesterday. It was excellent visiting with her. I learned that she was a good writer. Something compelling she wrote in 1954, on the topic of selling the Lancaster area, won a competition and was published in a local newspaper. She earned a $100 award for it that was presented to her by the local mayor. A cropped photo of this occasion appeared in the newspaper, and a larger version of the incropped photo is in a frame in her room. So great to see her!
Then I learned something else about Aunt Rose too, once three of my brothers and their significant others were in the room and toy musical instruments were divvied out to everyone present, including two of my brothers' kids. She likes music too, and she sang along as we played "When the Saints Go Marching In," "Bridge over Troubled Water" and the hymn "Be Not Afraid."
Music can provide consolation and cure boredom. Music can do lots of inspiring things. Thank goodness for music! I'm so glad to have it in my life.
Tonight, I'm meeting up with some friends I first made in kindergarten and knew all the way through high school. I have some more such meetings scheduled for this week. That should be cool.
But I miss my girlfriend and her kids. I was happy to see a photo of Layla and me on a dresser of Aunt Rose's, and I want to get some photos of us and the kids on my parents' shelves and piano (the equivalent in their home to a fridge in other people's homes).
1/30/09
Ah, remember the Usual Suspects! And family next week
Got a nice e-mail earlier in the week from Matty Knuckles, one of the guys in the Usual Suspects. He was letting me know how things have been going since I left the band upon moving to Florida.
Coincidentally, Matt wrote to me on Jan. 25, three months to the day since my last show with the band. That last show was at the University of Maryland, inside the alumni center just before their Homecoming game. It was raining cats and dogs for that last gig, but we were indoors. That Homecoming game was outdoors. It was a whole lot nicer indoors!
The last dude in the band I saw was the other Matt -- Matty Fingers -- when he dropped me off at a train station after the gig. He wrote me today to let me know of an e-mail address change and then to tell me about this video he'd just posted online:
It's a compilation of clips from my first gig with them, which was on Feb. 16, 2008, at the Fish Head Cantina in Arbutus, Md. Most of this stuff has been online before, but I was surprised to see and hear what starts at 3:06. We get a good half-minute of our reggae version of the song "Hotel California." And of course that song is now more important to me this month as I've just finished playing the entire Eagles album of that name onstage note-for-note three times.
But it was always a great number to play live with the Usual Suspects, and I didn't know any other band to make a reggae version of the song. That changed on Nov. 23, 2008, when Dessie and I were relaxing on Islamorada with a Red Stripe on lounge chairs by the water's edge, and the reggae band playing nearby launched into a similar version of that tune around 4:30 p.m. Upon hearing this, I busted out my BlackBerry and sent off a quick message to my former bandmates, although it didn't send until after midnight, when my handheld's Internet connection was restored.
This weekend, I'm doing some cool stuff.
Coincidentally, Matt wrote to me on Jan. 25, three months to the day since my last show with the band. That last show was at the University of Maryland, inside the alumni center just before their Homecoming game. It was raining cats and dogs for that last gig, but we were indoors. That Homecoming game was outdoors. It was a whole lot nicer indoors!
The last dude in the band I saw was the other Matt -- Matty Fingers -- when he dropped me off at a train station after the gig. He wrote me today to let me know of an e-mail address change and then to tell me about this video he'd just posted online:
It's a compilation of clips from my first gig with them, which was on Feb. 16, 2008, at the Fish Head Cantina in Arbutus, Md. Most of this stuff has been online before, but I was surprised to see and hear what starts at 3:06. We get a good half-minute of our reggae version of the song "Hotel California." And of course that song is now more important to me this month as I've just finished playing the entire Eagles album of that name onstage note-for-note three times.
But it was always a great number to play live with the Usual Suspects, and I didn't know any other band to make a reggae version of the song. That changed on Nov. 23, 2008, when Dessie and I were relaxing on Islamorada with a Red Stripe on lounge chairs by the water's edge, and the reggae band playing nearby launched into a similar version of that tune around 4:30 p.m. Upon hearing this, I busted out my BlackBerry and sent off a quick message to my former bandmates, although it didn't send until after midnight, when my handheld's Internet connection was restored.
This weekend, I'm doing some cool stuff.
- On Saturday, I'll be assisting with an interview of Mark Stein, original lead singer and keyboardist for the Vanilla Fudge. (I saw a reformed version of that band at the 9:30 club in D.C. back on Jan. 18, 2005, pretty much headlining over Canned Heat and Mountain, with Pat Travers joining some Fudge members for a closing set.)
- And Sunday being Super Bowl Sunday, I'll be catching an early-morning flight up north, ultimately to see my family for the first time since October, watch the big game, catch up with some friends, spend the better part of a week up there, and once again visit Aunt Rose, who's been sick for a long time.
1/27/09
Malfunction, or the swooping sound from hell
For the past few days, I've been back home in Florida after my Hotel California tour. I was looking for some semblance of normalcy, but instead I spent Sunday night in an emergency room with Dessie (she's OK now) and Monday trying to recover from not sleeping overnight.
Then last night, I couldn't find the plug for my laptop and didn't remember packing it with me when I checked out of a hotel in Gainesville on Thursday. Housekeeping confirmed that it was recovered in my room, and so now that ever-important $30 piece is being shipped to me at half its value.
In the meantime, what I do all day long -- use it to write and connect to the Internet for my muses -- is more of a challenge. But I do remember, and may never forget, the single biggest obstacle to my successful performance on this tour: a stupid malfunction on the main keyboard I was using.
Swoop!
It's a downward swooping noise that sometimes comes out. I heard it once over the course of six days using it for the Houses of the Holy shows in December, and I thought nothing of it. These things happen, and it did only once. It was in a rehearsal, not in front of an audience, so no sweat.
I'm using the same board on the Hotel California tour, and I got through the first day and the first concert without hearing the sound at all. I wasn't even listening for it, as it had totally slipped my mind from before. It was only that once, and it was long forgotten.
Forgotten until the second day during rehearsal.
Swoop!
What was that? Was it something I did? Did I accidentally press some button near my hand that makes it do that? Did I press a key too lightly, or too hardly? I tried several things that might trigger the noise, and nothing worked. And nobody else had heard it because I was using headphones and wasn't plugged in to the PA.
This sent up a red flag, so my inclination was to alert Nick, who was much more familiar with the keyboards I was using. But was this really important enough to be brought to his attention? After all, it was something that happened only once that day, and nothing I was doing would trigger it again. Besides, I had already bugged Nick a few times in the previous 20 minutes about some other issues with the keyboard that were under my control. Maybe I ought to let this slide.
We finished rehearsal, and the sound hadn't recurred, but it was still on my mind. Casually, I approached Nick later on. We shared some small talk about the concerts and about some other gear, and I mentioned the phantom swoop. He knew the sound I was talking about. He said it happens on that keyboard from time to time, and he assured me it was no big deal.
Life carried on, and we played the Lake Worth gig. We're on the second song, and I'm playing a string sound. Mine is a really delicate part with long, sustained chords. In fact, the whole song is like that: It is a slow song with subtle instrumentation that at times can be almost nonexistent. Toward the end of that song, while four singers are intoning "ooh" harmoniously, there's a strange sound nobody expected to hear.
Swoop!
Onstage, people look around. Somebody said afterward he thought someone was setting off a firecracker.
Swoop!
Only a few seconds later, the sound comes out again. This time, most of the musicians all turn toward me. I shrug my shoulders and adopt a quizzical look on my face as if to indicate that I have no idea what is causing the noise. I also gesture, with my unused left hand, toward the keyboard, as if to name the culprit.
As the song ends, having featured this pair of alien spacecraft landings, I'm not sure how the audience will react. But they applaud and cheer just like they had for the opening number. Good. They didn't notice. Or maybe they thought the noises were part of the song.
Swoop!
I become a little more suspect as the night goes on and the noise makes itself known again. Would the audience fall for this being a part of that song as well?
Swoop!
And that one?
Swoop!
All throughout this album? Because of this malfunction, the show goes from near-perfect to near-perfect with an annoyance.
Swoop!
Hoping there's some solution to this problem, I turned off one of my machines between songs and turned it back on again. I don't know if that reset some portamento setting or something like that and made the noise go away, but thankfully, that was it for the night. There was no more swooping noise after that, but still, that was six too many. Doesn't that keyboard know I could lose my job over this if it makes me look bad? Or is that what it wants?
Backstage after the show, the conversation turns squarely to the one distraction that kept it from being near-perfect. Everybody's imitating the phantom swoop and asking me about it and making jokes about it. Even though Nick assures everybody that the noise is the fault of a keyboard and not mine, Lake Worth seems destined to go down as "the swoop show" on the Hotel California. We're all laughing and having a good time about the noise that reared its ugly and unwelcome head six times that night.
Next night onstage, in Jacksonville?
Swoop! Swoop! Swoop! Swoop! Swoop! Swoop! Swoop! Swoop! Swoop! Swoop! Swoop! Swoop! Swoop! Swoop! Swoop! Swoop! Swoop! Swoop! Swoop! Swoop! Swoop! Swoop! Swoop! Swoop! Swoop! Swoop! Swoop! Swoop! Swoop! Swoop! Swoop! Swoop! Swoop! Swoop! Swoop! Swoop! Swoop! Swoop! Swoop! Swoop! Swoop! Swoop! Swoop! Swoop! Swoop!
I lost count after the first 600 times in the first two songs only. Now our tour finale is plagued with this noise. My fellow musicians onstage keep looking over at me as if there's something more I can do. And I shoot them back this exasperated look. I truly want to go home. I'm making them look bad because I'm sounding bad, and I have no control over it.
Swoop! Swoop! Swoop! Swoop! Swoop! Swoop! Swoop! Swoop! Swoop! Swoop! Swoop! Swoop! Swoop! Swoop! Swoop! Swoop! Swoop! Swoop! Swoop! Swoop! Swoop! Swoop! Swoop! Swoop!
After a viciously noise-plagued instrumental orchestral number featuring only Nick's keyboard and my malfunctioning one, he looks over at me from across the stage and mouths the unmistakable words, "Stop playing that thing." So now what? Just give up playing? Actually, he means I should figure out a way to ignore my main keyboard and play all the same parts on the one on the side. So that's what I do. And no more of that horrid sound effect gone wrong. It's early in the show, too, that he demanded this switch of me, so there was a lot of time to get over it and start thinking positive about how good the rest of the show was.
That is, until we got backstage. Now nobody is even saying any words. All they are doing is swooping at each other! And at me! And I'm speechless, almost hurt, as if I had just pissed my pants and everybody is calling me "Pisspants." I worry aloud to one of my bandmates that I'm going to be famous not for the notes that I'm playing but for the notes that I'm not playing. She assures me that's not the case, that everything is fine. Nick reiterates that it's the keyboard's fault and not any human's, and that I sounded good otherwise. So I'm feeling a little better, which is good because we still have some encores to do. And all I have to do for them is sing (and do a little hand-clapping). No keyboards! And it goes well, so I'm glad to put that whole ordeal behind me.
In the middle of my strange day yesterday, I got an e-mail with updated lineups for upcoming Classic Albums Live shows. It seems that in addition to a few more shows this year that I was already planning on, I was assigned to some others including a Pink Floyd show in May and a Beatles show coming up sooner with the Miami Philharmonic Orchestra! Dessie I had been planning on attending that show anyway, but now she'll be going to see me! This is sweet. I'm also flying to Newark for another Zeppelin show in May.
So the good news is this newbie's tour last week was a success, and the glitch that plagued this last tour didn't count against me. The powers that be are impressed with me and willing to keep me on through the spring. This is excellent news! I'm looking forward to my new assignments.
One of which is advertised at the right.
1/23/09
Taking copious notes is key
There was a time back in high school that a music teacher encouraged me to try out to sing in Diocesan Chorus. I don't know how, but I made it. Vocalists from all over the area congregated early one morning and spent the whole day just learning one song after another. I remember there being a lot of Latin. The itinerary was very strenuous, allowing us only so much time to learn each song and then call it quits.
The final activity of the day is the concert. Our parents would have to come out and get us home anyway, so why not have a little performance before they go. And some other folks come for the concert too because it's been talked up in the local churches ahead of time.
Singing for that is a trip. You are standing next to some strangers, hoping they'll blend in with you. If you partake two years in a row, or three or four years in a row, you'll recognize some people. But I did it only the once, so I knew only the people from my school. And we were quite outnumbered.
So that's similar to the situation of meeting up with these guys when we're playing with Classic Albums Live. I knew Nick pretty well because we had played six shows together in December, and he's the guy who's been coordinating all the Florida shows. Other than Nick, I had met Joe and Marcus once each when they came out to those Zeppelin gigs last month.
One of the guitarists is Rob, whom I met very briefly under the same circumstances, but I also watched him play a Zeppelin show in November. He's part of the reason I joined this whole thing! So now I get to play with Rob and chit chat with him backstage. He certainly knows how to do voices. He was just doing Pete Townshend's speaking voice. He also speaks in a British accent, all prim and proper, when he's goofing around. He used that British accent to great effect when he handled the litany of "numba nine"s in a performance of the Beatles' White Album. And we were also sitting around talking about Van Halen, and the guy lets loose a perfect David Lee Roth vocal line.
Then there are the other three, exceptional players. Our female vocalist came in on schedule a day after everybody else, and she wowed me. Two other guitarists were there too, including one who's only 19 and whose dad drove him up. Other dude flew in from San Diego with less than a week's notice as a last-minute replacement. He was right on.
The difference between Diocesan Chorus and Classic Albums Live is we all know the material ahead of time. Diocesan Chorus shows up and learns the stuff all really quick. (Wait, I'm now questioning whether or not we did have the sheet music ahead of time. I can't remember.) Anyway, we've been practicing this rock stuff our whole lives, not to mention playing it on constant loop in the month leading up to a show.
I take copious notes. I jot down things that I'm learning on the spot. If we talk over harmony parts, I'm jotting it down in ink so I can refer to it at the show. Because the show is right after rehearsal. And then my notes are there for the second and third shows too. I would never remember everything we discussed without those notes.
What's funny is no matter how hurried we are in our little rehearsal time, we are so prepared by the time we take the stage in front of the audience that we can really relax. All we're doing now is keeping promises. We said we'd do such-and-such, and now it's time to honor those promises and follow through with it. No sense in talking a big game if you aren't going to provide the onslaught.
We brought it hours ago in Gainesville, I'm pleased to report. And next, Lake Worth is up for round No. 2 of Hotel California. Then, Jacksonville gets our third serving.
The final activity of the day is the concert. Our parents would have to come out and get us home anyway, so why not have a little performance before they go. And some other folks come for the concert too because it's been talked up in the local churches ahead of time.
Singing for that is a trip. You are standing next to some strangers, hoping they'll blend in with you. If you partake two years in a row, or three or four years in a row, you'll recognize some people. But I did it only the once, so I knew only the people from my school. And we were quite outnumbered.
So that's similar to the situation of meeting up with these guys when we're playing with Classic Albums Live. I knew Nick pretty well because we had played six shows together in December, and he's the guy who's been coordinating all the Florida shows. Other than Nick, I had met Joe and Marcus once each when they came out to those Zeppelin gigs last month.
One of the guitarists is Rob, whom I met very briefly under the same circumstances, but I also watched him play a Zeppelin show in November. He's part of the reason I joined this whole thing! So now I get to play with Rob and chit chat with him backstage. He certainly knows how to do voices. He was just doing Pete Townshend's speaking voice. He also speaks in a British accent, all prim and proper, when he's goofing around. He used that British accent to great effect when he handled the litany of "numba nine"s in a performance of the Beatles' White Album. And we were also sitting around talking about Van Halen, and the guy lets loose a perfect David Lee Roth vocal line.
Then there are the other three, exceptional players. Our female vocalist came in on schedule a day after everybody else, and she wowed me. Two other guitarists were there too, including one who's only 19 and whose dad drove him up. Other dude flew in from San Diego with less than a week's notice as a last-minute replacement. He was right on.
The difference between Diocesan Chorus and Classic Albums Live is we all know the material ahead of time. Diocesan Chorus shows up and learns the stuff all really quick. (Wait, I'm now questioning whether or not we did have the sheet music ahead of time. I can't remember.) Anyway, we've been practicing this rock stuff our whole lives, not to mention playing it on constant loop in the month leading up to a show.
I take copious notes. I jot down things that I'm learning on the spot. If we talk over harmony parts, I'm jotting it down in ink so I can refer to it at the show. Because the show is right after rehearsal. And then my notes are there for the second and third shows too. I would never remember everything we discussed without those notes.
What's funny is no matter how hurried we are in our little rehearsal time, we are so prepared by the time we take the stage in front of the audience that we can really relax. All we're doing now is keeping promises. We said we'd do such-and-such, and now it's time to honor those promises and follow through with it. No sense in talking a big game if you aren't going to provide the onslaught.
We brought it hours ago in Gainesville, I'm pleased to report. And next, Lake Worth is up for round No. 2 of Hotel California. Then, Jacksonville gets our third serving.
1/22/09
Johnny-come-lately, the new kid in town
Everybody's new sometime. Today, I'm it.
Yesterday was a travel day. I didn't know exactly what was in store. I knew I was hopping into someone's rented van and heading north. The details of where we were going to go and how many people we were picking up were a bit shady. I knew we were bringing musical instruments and sound equipment. I thought some of my stuff would be along for the ride, but it wasn't. Then I met a bunch of guys in Orlando and helped them load a bunch of gear onto a truck.
Hell, this could have been organized crime. We could have been stealing equipment. I have no idea whose stuff this is!
We split ourselves into two cars and drove up north some more and ended up in Gainesville. We checked into a hotel and ate pizza and announced what time we would congregate today: noon.
It really is pretty cool what we're doing and how the whole thing is organized. And it's all on the up-and-up.
What we're doing is taking our stuff to the Phillips Center at University of Florida and rehearsing for our show there tonight. We're playing Hotel California, a collection of nine songs by the Eagles including the hit title track, "Life in the Fast Lane," "Victim of Love," "Pretty Maids All in a Row," and the song that describes what I am now, "New Kid in Town."
I've never been on a tour before. I've played plenty of gigs before, and the most successful run was a three-consecutive-night residency at one venue. That didn't include any loading or unloading for me. Everything I was going to use was already set up. This is a whole different enchilada. I've also never traveled so far for a gig. We're eight hours north of my place in Boca Raton. As Dessie pointed out to me by phone this morning, that's halfway to Washington, D.C., isn't it?
It was really strange being introduced to these folks last night. I traveled far, but some of them traveled even further, hopping on planes in Toronto and flying into Orlando. But here I am in the middle of all of this, meeting these people whose names I barely knew, and barely knowing who plays what instrument. All I know is we're all going to be playing music together soon, and it's going to sound an awful lot like the Eagles.
That's what brings us together from all these different places: the music.
When I used to work as a journalist covering the indoor air quality industry as my beat, I would attend various conferences all over the country. People would fly in from all over because of their common bond, some aspect of buildings. They were all on a mission, or several missions: to educate themselves, to network with others like them, to catch up with colleagues past, to protect or change their lifework, or maybe simply to escape the office or home. Point is they'd all show up for one reason or another and see some of the same faces each time.
This music thing is kind of like that. Only difference is we are flown out here on the promise of a big paycheck in addition to our hotel with continental breakfast and complimentary wi-fi access. That's because we've been deemed worthy of the task at hand; each of us must go out and recreate integral parts of the Eagles' landmark album and other numbers from their catalog.
We're the type of guys who pay attention to how many times a rocker played the rhythm this way and then switched to a slightly different rhythm on the seventh time. Like on "One of These Nights," the piano chords are simple. I can play them with my left hand behind my back. It's just how many times to strike them and on which beats that I have to pay attention to. Once that guitar solo is over, the piano chord pattern is twice as long. He hits the chords not only on beats 2, 3 and the & of 3 but also on the next measure's 1, the & of 1, and the & of 2. He does that pattern six times before adding another one on the second beat 4 for the CMaj7 chords and two additional between-the-beat strikes on the GMaj7 chords (or, since my part omits the tonic, the Bm7 chords). He does that, and I'm going to replicate it. It's my job to know that and to do it just the way he did.
And people love this stuff. They've been posting for months about how excited they are for this Classic Albums Live tour. We're in Gainesville today, down in Lake Worth tomorrow, and finishing up in Jacksonville on Saturday. Some of the band is playing a bunch more shows in Canada after that. Me, I'm just heading home, having done my part.
It's great being brought in for this. I'm already booked on a few more gigs, with some of the same musicians, and then the summertime will probably be full of these shows. Then somebody else will be the new kid in town. But there doesn't seem to be any harassment of Johnny-come-lately. We're all equals in this environment. No jealousy, few gripes. Just know your part, show up, and do your part -- all while dressed right. These seem to be the rules. Adhere to them, and you'll be fine.
I like it.
Yesterday was a travel day. I didn't know exactly what was in store. I knew I was hopping into someone's rented van and heading north. The details of where we were going to go and how many people we were picking up were a bit shady. I knew we were bringing musical instruments and sound equipment. I thought some of my stuff would be along for the ride, but it wasn't. Then I met a bunch of guys in Orlando and helped them load a bunch of gear onto a truck.
Hell, this could have been organized crime. We could have been stealing equipment. I have no idea whose stuff this is!
We split ourselves into two cars and drove up north some more and ended up in Gainesville. We checked into a hotel and ate pizza and announced what time we would congregate today: noon.
It really is pretty cool what we're doing and how the whole thing is organized. And it's all on the up-and-up.
What we're doing is taking our stuff to the Phillips Center at University of Florida and rehearsing for our show there tonight. We're playing Hotel California, a collection of nine songs by the Eagles including the hit title track, "Life in the Fast Lane," "Victim of Love," "Pretty Maids All in a Row," and the song that describes what I am now, "New Kid in Town."I've never been on a tour before. I've played plenty of gigs before, and the most successful run was a three-consecutive-night residency at one venue. That didn't include any loading or unloading for me. Everything I was going to use was already set up. This is a whole different enchilada. I've also never traveled so far for a gig. We're eight hours north of my place in Boca Raton. As Dessie pointed out to me by phone this morning, that's halfway to Washington, D.C., isn't it?
It was really strange being introduced to these folks last night. I traveled far, but some of them traveled even further, hopping on planes in Toronto and flying into Orlando. But here I am in the middle of all of this, meeting these people whose names I barely knew, and barely knowing who plays what instrument. All I know is we're all going to be playing music together soon, and it's going to sound an awful lot like the Eagles.
That's what brings us together from all these different places: the music.
When I used to work as a journalist covering the indoor air quality industry as my beat, I would attend various conferences all over the country. People would fly in from all over because of their common bond, some aspect of buildings. They were all on a mission, or several missions: to educate themselves, to network with others like them, to catch up with colleagues past, to protect or change their lifework, or maybe simply to escape the office or home. Point is they'd all show up for one reason or another and see some of the same faces each time.
This music thing is kind of like that. Only difference is we are flown out here on the promise of a big paycheck in addition to our hotel with continental breakfast and complimentary wi-fi access. That's because we've been deemed worthy of the task at hand; each of us must go out and recreate integral parts of the Eagles' landmark album and other numbers from their catalog.
We're the type of guys who pay attention to how many times a rocker played the rhythm this way and then switched to a slightly different rhythm on the seventh time. Like on "One of These Nights," the piano chords are simple. I can play them with my left hand behind my back. It's just how many times to strike them and on which beats that I have to pay attention to. Once that guitar solo is over, the piano chord pattern is twice as long. He hits the chords not only on beats 2, 3 and the & of 3 but also on the next measure's 1, the & of 1, and the & of 2. He does that pattern six times before adding another one on the second beat 4 for the CMaj7 chords and two additional between-the-beat strikes on the GMaj7 chords (or, since my part omits the tonic, the Bm7 chords). He does that, and I'm going to replicate it. It's my job to know that and to do it just the way he did.
And people love this stuff. They've been posting for months about how excited they are for this Classic Albums Live tour. We're in Gainesville today, down in Lake Worth tomorrow, and finishing up in Jacksonville on Saturday. Some of the band is playing a bunch more shows in Canada after that. Me, I'm just heading home, having done my part.
It's great being brought in for this. I'm already booked on a few more gigs, with some of the same musicians, and then the summertime will probably be full of these shows. Then somebody else will be the new kid in town. But there doesn't seem to be any harassment of Johnny-come-lately. We're all equals in this environment. No jealousy, few gripes. Just know your part, show up, and do your part -- all while dressed right. These seem to be the rules. Adhere to them, and you'll be fine.
I like it.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)