Recently in Music Category

I haven't written much at all on my blog in the last month or so, and for those of you who come here to actually read it, I apologize. The reason is that I have had a lot on my mind of late, and one of the good things that I have had on my mind, was my preparations for the 2010 Stone Soup Reunion Music Festival, which took place in Barneveld NY, on the weekend of August 7th and 8th.

In January, I got a phone call from my good friend Jeremy, asking me if I wanted to be the Technical Director for this music festival that he and his mother Bronny were planning, for the first full weekend in August. Back in February, I posted a little bit about the event, promising more details in the future, but I guess I forgot to write that post. So now that the event is over, I will write more about it, now.

My duties as Technical Director were basically to be in charge of everything that requires moving electrons. So I had to make sure that we had stable power, and lots of it, a PA system so the musicians could be heard, and a minimal, but workable lighting setup, so that the musicians could be seen when the sun went down. In addition to that, I was also one of the Stage Managers.

Getting power for the event was fairly easy, it only required a trip, and several emails to the fine folks down at a local business called McQuade & Banningan, to rent a few Honda generators. I thought that a five-kilowatt unit, and an eleven-kilowatt unit should do the trick, with plenty of juice to spare. They ended up renting us one of each of those, and they threw in a spare 5K unit, just in case we had any problems. The 5K unit was reserved just for the PA, and the 11K unit was used to power anything and everything on the stage (guitar amplifiers, keyboards, etc...), our lighting setup, and house lighting in the tent.

In the above paragraph, I said that getting power was easy, and it was, but the kicker was that I had to build a custom distribution system to properly handle the power coming from the 220 volt, 50 amp twist-lock disconnect on the big generator. Once I got going building the Distro, it only really took a few days of on-and-off work to complete it.

Once the Distro was complete, I was confident that I had built a small, light-weight, plug-and-play system that would distribute all of the power that we could possibly use at an event of the size that we were planning, and fortunately, that turned out to be the case. On the Friday before the opening day, I began setting up the Distro, and had a small glitch with the main circuit-breaker on the big generator, but a quick call to Bob Bannigan helped me straighten that out, and we were off to the races. The PA guys set up a great system for our venue, and in no time we had a killer sound-check happening. We were ready to go home, and be back for the first performer, at noon the next day.

There is a full list of the performers with links on the Stone Soup web site, so I won't go into great detail about that, but suffice it to say, the music was amazing!

Each of our performers had an hour long set, which I recorded in full, and our crack sound guys were able to change the stage over for the next performers in a matter of minutes, to keep things rolling. We had about twelve or thirteen hours of music performed on the Saturday, and about six hours of music performed on the Sunday.

We did not serve any alcoholic beverages, because the price of event insurance went up considerably in that case. Despite that, anyone who wanted it, brought their own. There was certainly no lack of food on the weekend. People were cooking all day Saturday, including an actual kettle of Stone Soup, and on Sunday morning we had a jazz brunch, with bacon, scrambled eggs, hash-browned potatoes, and some good music.

By six PM Sunday, I was reminded why I chose to stop going on the road with bands, in the eighties. I hate the tear-downs. Yes, everything that we put up for the festival, then had to be taken down, and packed up. Oh man, I certainly don't miss having to do that every weekend, but despite that, it wasn't too bad, and I had all of my stuff taken down in an hour and a half.

As I sit here on my sofa, writing, and occasionally looking at my cat, I am still overwhelmed by what took place. We actually staged a genuine, rock-and-roll outdoor music festival, and everything went perfectly. No real glitches of any kind, no one got hurt, everyone had a fantastic time, and we're already talking about a possible 2011 version.

Believe it or not, it was so cool that I still need more time to process it, and when I have more thoughts, I will write about it again.

If you are reading this, and came to our humble little festival, I hope that you had an amazing time. If you did not attend, hopefully you will, in the likely event that we do one, again, next year.


 If you're on Facebook, you can check out our page there and see the photos.

Although the television show Mad Men has been on the air for three years, I only started watching it last week, when AMC started airing season marathons on Monday nights. This is a good thing, because I had seen the occasional commercial, and heard people talk about it, and had been wanting to see it.

This post is not a review of the show, or anything even like that. It's another of my good-old-days laments.

For those of you who have actually noticed the title of my blog, you know that I was born in 1966. So, I have no real memories of the 1960s, yet I feel like I belong there. Seeing these Mad Men episodes only reinforces that belief. Not because men ruled the world, and women were objects of lust, either, as portrayed on the show. Sure, those were nice perks, but because it just seems like it would have been an interesting time to be growing up. The early 1960s gave us the dawn of the space age, as well as the dawn of computing. NASA was formed in response to the USSR's launch of Sputnik, and companies like DEC,  UNIVAC and IBM were manufacturing obscenely expensive, gigantic computers that you could actually purchase.

Those times were much more prosperous, as well, from an economic standpoint. The ever-present threat of nuclear annihilation from the Soviet Union kept the Military Industrial Complex rolling along at break-neck speed. This meant that well-paying jobs were plentiful, and a family could be supported by a single income.

I also like a lot of the style of the '60s. The decor of the houses appealed to me, as well as a lot of the clothing styles.

The politics of the '60s were far too complex to go into here, but again, they were interesting, and many positive changes took place. I am sure that it would have been rewarding to be a part of those.

The music scene was incredible, as well. That whole British Invasion thing, as well as many great American artists. I'm sure you all have your favorites.

And what commentary about the '60s would be complete without a mention of the original Star Trek television series? This program was hugely influential in countless lives, including my own. People who watched this show went on to do many great things in areas to numerous to mention, all because one man envisioned a unified world.

I've been meandering about, here, because I am still not certain what I am trying to say in this post which is not a TV show review, or a review of a time and place for which I was really not present. Hopefully it has made a little sense, at the very least.

Earlier this year I wrote another post about the good old days, so if you enjoyed my blathering in this post, you might enjoy the other post as well.

Ronnie James Dio (born Ronald James Padavona) died today, at 7:45 am, after a tough battle with stomach cancer.

Ronnie was one of the best heavy music singers, ever, and for my money, he was the best. He was best known for singing in the bands Rainbow, Black Sabbath, Heaven and Hell, and in his own band, Dio.

I was just talking about Ronnie with some friends, on Friday, because one of his tunes was playing at the gym when we were working out. I had mentioned that I was lucky enough to meet him once at the NAMM show four or five years ago.

He definitely had the golden pipes, and I always enjoyed his singing.

It's not widely known, but he actually lived in the central NY area, in Cortland NY, at one time in his life.

He will be missed.

There. I said it. And it needed to be said.

Like many of my blog posts, they were inspired by brief (and some not so brief) conversations on Facebook. This post is no exception.

A friend asked the question, who was the better band, the Beatles, or the Stones? As you can imagine, the question inspired many answers. In this particular case the overwhelming majority of responders preferred the Beatles, but one guy in particular expounded at length about how they were special visionaries, and once-in-a-lifetime prophets. This kind of talk just gets my knickers in a twist.

The Beatles were just a band, made of mere mortals.

I am not denying that the Beatles had talent (well, John, anyway), nor am I denying that they had a big impact, but they were not gods. Sure, they definitely could write a great pop song, and they got experimental in their later years, but what artist that did the drugs of choice in the '60s, didn't? People, in my opinion, also tend to over-state their impact. Many Beatles fans believe that all music today is an extension of the Beatles. Yes, I have heard people say that, verbatim. I have no idea how that Bach guy, or that Mozart guy were able to create such amazing music without having had the benefit of first hearing the Beatles.

My modest experience in the music business shows that when people make it big, it is more often a product of being in the right place, at the right time, than of talent. In today's world, making it big is often a result of entirely how you look. I mean Britney Spears? Seriously? She made it because she has such great song-writing chops, and talent? Tell me another one.

This deification and adoration of celebrities that we are surrounded with these days, just confuses me. Sure, there are celebrities that I admire, and might even become tongue-tied with if I suddenly ran into them, but they're made out of the same carbon atoms as everyone else on this planet. Further, when someone goes on and on about how special these stars are that they adore, aren't they lowering themselves in the process?

As I said, yes, many of these stars that so many people adore have talent, but in my experience, everyone has at least one thing that they're good at. Why should we value one more than the other?

Well, we shouldn't.

Last year at some point, I was asked by a local fellow to come to a Board of Directors meeting for a local music fest, and they would have some sort of job (unpaid) for me. I had been wanting to get involved with some sort of project like that for some time, so I ended up going to the meeting, and giving them my contact info, and an idea of what I'd like to do, and where I thought my skills might best be applied within the constraints of the jobs that were available. They took my info and I basically never heard from them again, which was a disappointment, since because of my twenty five years of working in and around the music business, I definitely think I have some skills and connections that would benefit such an organization.

It's amazing how things often come full circle in this life, and the other day, I got a call from a friend who is organizing a small but local, outdoor music festival for this summer, and he asked if I would like to be Technical Director. Well heck yes! This is exactly the kind of thing with which I've been wanting to be involved. This event is scheduled for a weekend in August, but I can't give out any other details yet. As things become more concrete, I will be able to do so.

At Salon last night, we also started a kind-of ad hoc committee to organize a local Spring picnic, to as one attendee put it, "Bring in the Spring with great exuberance!" This event will be in May, and again, once details become a little firmer, I will be able to divulge more information.

Sunday, was one of those days where I had a lot of psychic coincidences. You know, those cool but coincidental moments when you think about something, and it happens? Well it happened several times.

I had been thinking about Frank a lot; don't know why. When I went to look at my email, I noticed that in one music list to which I subscribe, people were talking about Frank, and his autobiography, The Real Frank Zappa Book, which I had read twenty years ago, when it was first published. I jumped into the conversation, mentioning that I had been meaning to dig up my copy, because Frank had a great quote in there, about people who think they like music. By music, I mean the day to day, pop drivel, that is force-fed to them on the corporate air waves, and music channels. Well, as you can imagine, Frank had something interesting to say about that, and then, someone on the list was kind enough to locate that in the book, and transcribe it into an email for me. Then, later in the day, I turned on the TV and began watching a show called Hot Rocks, on the Science Channel, and the host was in Peru, talking about Inca Roads, and I almost fell off of my easy chair, because Inca Roads is the name of the first song on Frank's One Size Fits All, record. I was being psychically assaulted by Frank, and I don't know why!

This led to one fellow Zappa fan, contacting me off-list, and we continue to have an on-going conversation about Frank, which has led to even more thoughts about Frank, from myself.

Moments like these remind me about just exactly how vibrant Frank was, and how involved he was, in so many areas. He liked to call himself a composer who happened to play guitar, but he was so much more. In addition to his musical talents, he was an astute observer of pop culture, a writer, humorist, social commentator, business man, film maker, and political activist. I'm certain I am forgetting something.

Another thing about Frank, was that he was widely and wildly misunderstood, misquoted, and mischaracterized. Frank would often make racial references in his works, not because he was a racist, but to point out the absurdity and pointlessness of racism, itself, by using racism as a device. People who did not know Frank, also felt free to judge him based on the unusual names that he chose for his children. What that has to do with the price of tea, in China, I will never know.

Thinking about Frank's life, and Frank's death, reminds me that we simply don't encounter people like him very often. People capable of defining, and inspiring a generation. He was one of several musicians and composers who opened my eyes to complex and interesting music. I have many friends, who would say the same thing.

In addition to writing interesting music, Frank always toured with a band full of world class musicians and performed the music, as well. His shows were a kind of variety act featuring music, and all sorts of fun, and absurd nonsense. I had the pleasure of seeing Frank several times in the '80s, and they are experiences that I will never forget.

I am not sure what the point of this post, is, but it sure was nice to go down the Frank Zappa memory lane these last few days.


P.S.

If you're interested in knowing what that quote was, for which I had been looking, here it is:
 

So, if music is the best, what is music? Anything can be music, but it doesn't become music until someone wills it to be music, and the audience listening to it decides to perceive it as music.

Most people can't deal with that abstraction -- or don't want to. They say: "Gimme the tune. Do I like this tune? Does it sound like another tune that I like? The more familiar it is, the better I like it. Hear those three notes there? Those are the three notes I can sing along with. I like those notes very, very much. Give me a beat. Not a fancy one. Give me a GOOD BEAT -- something I can dance to. It has to go boom-bap, boom-boom-BAP. If it doesn't, I will hate it very, very much. Also, I want it right away -- and then, write me some more songs like that -- over and over and over again, because I'm really into music."

I've been a little down-in-the-mouth for the past few days, and haven't felt like writing, but I thought that I'd share this quick story with you.

I am a part of this little group of talented, interesting, and cool musicians (I don't count myself among them) who frequent the same IRC Channel, talk a lot online, and also sometimes collaborate over the internet. Another thing that we sometimes do is broadcast concerts to the other people in this little clique, using an Icecast Server. Two of the guys in our group set up dedicated Icecast servers, and if I want to broadcast myself playing guitar from my home, I send my broadcast to one of the Icecast servers using a tool called BUTT (Broadcast Using This Tool), and the other people in our group hit a particular URL at the Icecast server, and they can listen. Don't worry, this is relevant.

So, tonight, my friend Mike and his girlfriend Valorie played a few gigs, and their second gig was at some sort of dive bar in the sticks of North Carolina. After their set, he fired up his netbook and started chatting with us on IRC. Then he fired up BUTT, and let us listen to the band that played after them. The band was called Cattle Truck, and they sounded exactly like you would imagine.   :-)

So there I was, sitting on my sofa with my earbuds in, listening to Cattle Truck, drinking a brewski, and eating vegetarian chili (that's as Redneck as I get). It's almost as if I went out to get rowdy, without having to leave my living room, and it was fun!

I couldn't help but be transported back in time to the original Blues Brothers movie, however, when I heard bottles breaking in the background. I am wondering if the stage in this bar had chicken wire in front of it, like the stage in Bob's Country Bunker, in the movie. I'd like to think it did.

I don't know how this developed so quickly, but I really am at the "shit or get off the pot" stage with my record label idea. I have an artist ready to go now, and I have no infrastructure.  This guy is a super talented guitarist, who is starting his own publishing company to promote his original compositions.  He hopes to get them into commercials, and movies and such.

I contacted him at apparently the exact time that he had been thinking that he needed a label to help distribute his music, as well.  How fortuitous!

The problem is that we will need a real E-Commerce web site, and I have no skills in that arena, and I really don't have the money to pay for it.

How did the Vanderbilts and Guggenheims get their start?!

For many years now I've had the idea of starting my own record label.  Call me crazy.

It would be my kind of label, where I am the A&R guy, and I get to choose what artists appear in our catalog.  The primary focus of the label would be to feature artists who write interesting and original music, that you simply don't get to hear on most radio stations and in most clubs.  I sometimes refer to it as "player's music."

Me?  I prefer the creative end.  I want to find artists and record them and I want nothing to do with the paperwork end.  But, we still would need a paperwork end, and that's what scares me the most.  I want to be sheltered from the paperwork end.  I want nothing to do with it, but in a venture like a new boutique label featuring non-commercial music, I guess that in the beginning I would have to be the only employee, most likely working for free.

Do people really do this kind of thing?  I mean I know I read about stories like this, but is it like winning the lottery?  Does anyone actually succeed at such a crazy thing?

As of this writing, I have actually purchased a domain name, and contacted several people whom I would love to have as artists in my galaxy of stars.  Most have agreed, or at the very least have been very receptive.

I'm bursting with ideas, and my friends are being very helpful and supportive.  Now the only question that remains is: Do I have the Gonadicals to attempt the difficult parts of starting a project like this.

When I started playing guitar years ago, I always dreamt of the day when I would finally be able to own a Gibson Les Paul guitar.  I loved the look, and the symmetry of the design, long before I had ever even plugged one in and heard their amazing tone.  Then after I had been playing for only a few years, a fortuitous thing happened.  A friend who needed money badly to pay his rent, offered to sell me his Les Paul.  He had done some customizing work to it, and really, had messed it up a bit, but I offered him all of the money I had been saving for the day when I would finally be able to buy a Les Paul, and he accepted.  Three hundred dollars later I was the proud owner of a 1977 Gibson Les Paul Standard (pictured), and I started the difficult task of trying to undo the work he had done, and bring it back as close to stock as possible.  I had a friend who was a Gibson dealer, and he sold me the needed hardware at cost, and after a short period of time, I had it the way I wanted it, and own the guitar to this very day.

Why am I talking about my silly guitar, you ask?  Well, it's because on Thursday, August 13th, Les Paul died at the age of 94 years.

Many of you might not realize this, but Les Paul is responsible for so many of the things that musicians take for granted on a daily basis.  He gave us the first solid body electric guitar.  Before that, the guitars that people played on stage were likely likely to be hollow with arched tops, and if they had a pickup, and were plugged in, they were much more likely to feed back.  Solid body guitars have a completely different sound, but allow you to play with your amp set really loudly, and they won't feed back.

Les also gave us multi-track recording.  The idea that an instrument can have its own separate track which gives you ultimate control over how that instrument/track sounds, and how it sits in the final mix.

Les also pioneered the technique of close-miking sound sources.  Prior to Les, microphones would typically be placed far away from the sound source that they were recording, which would result in a more distant, less present sound.  Les decided that it might be cool to put the microphone more like six inches away from the singer, or instrument, which resulted in a more present sound, and to this day is the way most things are recorded.

The guy was also one of the greatest guitarists who ever lived.

Quite a legacy, eh?

So the next time you pick up your solid body electric guitar, stick a microphone in front of your amp, and record it to its own track on some sort of multi-track recording device, think of Les.