That's right, my precious blog (so precious that I this is the first post in well over a year) is seven years old today! I'll celebrate by having a nice, cold beer after school today. And I may well continue to not post, since I do a version of micro-blogging, insofar as I update my facebook status regularly. I've become somewhat more guarded of my thoughts and private life, and so I'm reluctant to put it all on display in a blog.
At any rate, I thought that the Real Book's birthday was sufficient cause to do a quick post. Enjoy it for what little it's worth!
Thursday, September 03, 2009
Monday, June 02, 2008
NYC Tour Day 3/Epilogue: A Safe Journey Home
GP and I poked around the Village and found a good diner just across the Avenue of the Americas. By all the fetish sex shops with the leather-clad mannequins on fuck-swings in the windows. Ahh, New York. On the way back to the church we visited a street haberdashery and I bought a stylish straw fedora on the cheap. Ahh, New York!
We managed to dodge most of the inclement weather on our return trip. We got a torrential downpour in Manhattan while stuck in traffic on the West Side highway. Part of the traffic problems were created by a trolley-bus that had partially caught fire. As we past the partially blackened bus, the acrid smell of burned and melted plastic almost stung our noses.
We finally broke free of the traffic and hit the G.W. Bridge. GP remarked that New York is like an amusement park where they charge you to enter but it's free to leave; New Yorkers make sure you pay up front.
We made good time on our trek through Pennsyl-tucky to Scranton, listening to some great old-time and banjo music that GP had in his MP3 player. He had tunes from the Varnish Cooks' first album, and I hadn't heard them in quite awhile. It's interesting how we've changed the tunes and our sound has grown. Subsequent adjustments in tempo in several of our songs have made a big difference in the feel and delivery.
We met my dad at the Enterprise Rent-A-Car joint in Taylor, just outside of Scranton. We unloaded the rental and wearily climbed into dad's Subaru. We stopped off at a store off 81 and I got some junk snacks & a Coke, and the caffeine didn't keep me awake much. I spent most of the trip in and out of sleep.
I'm still in recovery from this odyssey, and it feels like it could take a few more days of extra sleep and rest to make up for all the sleep I lost down there on floors and a thin air-mattress. My brain is still on strike, and thinking about stuff is a chore today, so I can't really evaluate the trip as a whole. It's definitely going to make for a good yarn in the future... it wasn't a boring trip at all. We played a couple of good shows, I had great camaraderie, and it was cool to check out the Village, but I don't feel like it was a thoroughly enjoyable experience. I think maybe I'm too damn old to sleep on floors for not much money. I don't know. It wasn't exactly a thrill-a-minute though.
Perhaps I'm not as cut out to be a professional musician as I thought I was. Live and learn, eh?
In any event, it's oh so nice to be home, and to sleep in my own bed again!
We managed to dodge most of the inclement weather on our return trip. We got a torrential downpour in Manhattan while stuck in traffic on the West Side highway. Part of the traffic problems were created by a trolley-bus that had partially caught fire. As we past the partially blackened bus, the acrid smell of burned and melted plastic almost stung our noses.
We finally broke free of the traffic and hit the G.W. Bridge. GP remarked that New York is like an amusement park where they charge you to enter but it's free to leave; New Yorkers make sure you pay up front.
We made good time on our trek through Pennsyl-tucky to Scranton, listening to some great old-time and banjo music that GP had in his MP3 player. He had tunes from the Varnish Cooks' first album, and I hadn't heard them in quite awhile. It's interesting how we've changed the tunes and our sound has grown. Subsequent adjustments in tempo in several of our songs have made a big difference in the feel and delivery.
We met my dad at the Enterprise Rent-A-Car joint in Taylor, just outside of Scranton. We unloaded the rental and wearily climbed into dad's Subaru. We stopped off at a store off 81 and I got some junk snacks & a Coke, and the caffeine didn't keep me awake much. I spent most of the trip in and out of sleep.
I'm still in recovery from this odyssey, and it feels like it could take a few more days of extra sleep and rest to make up for all the sleep I lost down there on floors and a thin air-mattress. My brain is still on strike, and thinking about stuff is a chore today, so I can't really evaluate the trip as a whole. It's definitely going to make for a good yarn in the future... it wasn't a boring trip at all. We played a couple of good shows, I had great camaraderie, and it was cool to check out the Village, but I don't feel like it was a thoroughly enjoyable experience. I think maybe I'm too damn old to sleep on floors for not much money. I don't know. It wasn't exactly a thrill-a-minute though.
Perhaps I'm not as cut out to be a professional musician as I thought I was. Live and learn, eh?
In any event, it's oh so nice to be home, and to sleep in my own bed again!
Saturday, May 31, 2008
NYC Tour Day 2: Disaster Lingers...?
I'm on a rooftop porch in Greenwich Village, sipping some good, strong coffee with my band-mate GP. I'm also enjoying the calm before the storm, quite literally. The Storm Prediction Center is predicting a moderate chance of severe weather for a large swath of the northeast, and we're going to drive right through it on the way home. Right through the Bermuda Triangle. Our shitty luck may yet be lingering; there's already a tornado watch box out for western PA and all that stuff is going to move eastward. Given the events of the past couple days, I'm a little concerned about our journey home.
GP and I have to return the rental van to Scranton on the way back. Getting shoved around the interstate by high winds and pelted with hail is an unpleasant enough concept, but I could do without seeing my first tornado today. If I do see one, and if it won't cost me my life, I'll be sure to get some cool pictures!
More to come later... (?)
GP and I have to return the rental van to Scranton on the way back. Getting shoved around the interstate by high winds and pelted with hail is an unpleasant enough concept, but I could do without seeing my first tornado today. If I do see one, and if it won't cost me my life, I'll be sure to get some cool pictures!
More to come later... (?)
Friday, May 30, 2008
NYC tour Day 1: Disaster Strikes
The Varnish Cooks embarked for Brooklyn yesterday at about noon. We managed to uncomfortable load all our instruments and amplification equipment, pillows, blankets and backpacks into a Mercury minivan with over 170,000 miles on it, and hit the road. Ben had created an iPod playlist for the road trip, and it was smooth sailing at first. We hit a rest stop about halfway to Syracuse and noticed that the tires were rather low, so GP gave them some air. After a quick bite to eat and a bathroom break and we pressed onward.
I'd settled in for a long, boring ride after we went through Binghamton and into Pennsylvania. This is precisely when things went awry. To preface this, I have to mention that Greg Paul (GP), our guitarist, has sworn that the road south of Binghamton is a kind of Bermuda Triangle, where odd weather patterns prevail and bad luck lurks like a heavy fog-bank.
While cruising down 81 and listening to the tunes, a loud bang shook the van and jarred all of us. It was followed by a heavy shudders as the engine cut out and the transmission bucked. Smoke began to fill the cabin and trail behind the van. Ben lost power for the steering and brakes, and struggled to keep the van on the left shoulder. We were on a downgrade and the van's momentum kept us rolling downhill. Luckily a Penn state trooper appeared behind us and was there when the van finally came to a halt. I took a look under the engine and the pooling oil suggested that a piston rod had rammed through the crankcase and the motor had violently converted itself into a paper weight.
View Larger Map
We spent the next 3+ hours scrambling to find a way to get us and our equipment to Brooklyn by 10PM for our scheduled gig. Ben was on the phone with AAA, and a tow truck came remarkably quick. We were taken to a garage in Harford, PA, ("B" on the map) a small town about 30 miles north of Scranton. Ben and the state trooper (who was incredibly helpful) were on their phones for almost half an hour with Hertz and Enterprise trying to find a van to rent. Nobody would drive one to us, so Ben & GP hitched a ride with the tow driver to Scranton and rented a van there, and drove it back to Harford. Greg Fair & I whiled away the nearly two hours by jamming in the shade between the dead van and a shed.
Ben and GP arrived, we loaded the rental van and hit the road for the final leg of the trip at about 6PM. This left us with little time to spare, and we called ahead to Aaron, our old guitarist who lives in Astoria, and asked him to grab some food for us and meet us at the venue. We finally arrived at the joint, Jalopy, at about 9:30, and ravenously attacked the Chinese food Aaron had generously gotten for us. Around 11:00 or so we took the stage and poured everything from this day into a fierce hour and a half set for an amazingly attentive audience. These were old-time and Bluegrass fans, and they danced and hollered for more. One of the best audiences I've ever played for, hands down.
The icing on the cake was that I busted one of the scroll ears off my bass. It's a cosmetic piece and doesn't affect the structure, but it was another unwelcome addition to this wickedly crappy trip. The owner of Jalopy generously offered to glue it back on, and it's left there overnight to dry.
Bermuda Triangle in Pennsyl-tucky? You betcha.
Today: busking around Manhattan and an 8:30 show in Greenwich Village. Let's hope we spent all our bad luck yesterday.
I'd settled in for a long, boring ride after we went through Binghamton and into Pennsylvania. This is precisely when things went awry. To preface this, I have to mention that Greg Paul (GP), our guitarist, has sworn that the road south of Binghamton is a kind of Bermuda Triangle, where odd weather patterns prevail and bad luck lurks like a heavy fog-bank.
While cruising down 81 and listening to the tunes, a loud bang shook the van and jarred all of us. It was followed by a heavy shudders as the engine cut out and the transmission bucked. Smoke began to fill the cabin and trail behind the van. Ben lost power for the steering and brakes, and struggled to keep the van on the left shoulder. We were on a downgrade and the van's momentum kept us rolling downhill. Luckily a Penn state trooper appeared behind us and was there when the van finally came to a halt. I took a look under the engine and the pooling oil suggested that a piston rod had rammed through the crankcase and the motor had violently converted itself into a paper weight.
View Larger Map
We spent the next 3+ hours scrambling to find a way to get us and our equipment to Brooklyn by 10PM for our scheduled gig. Ben was on the phone with AAA, and a tow truck came remarkably quick. We were taken to a garage in Harford, PA, ("B" on the map) a small town about 30 miles north of Scranton. Ben and the state trooper (who was incredibly helpful) were on their phones for almost half an hour with Hertz and Enterprise trying to find a van to rent. Nobody would drive one to us, so Ben & GP hitched a ride with the tow driver to Scranton and rented a van there, and drove it back to Harford. Greg Fair & I whiled away the nearly two hours by jamming in the shade between the dead van and a shed.
Ben and GP arrived, we loaded the rental van and hit the road for the final leg of the trip at about 6PM. This left us with little time to spare, and we called ahead to Aaron, our old guitarist who lives in Astoria, and asked him to grab some food for us and meet us at the venue. We finally arrived at the joint, Jalopy, at about 9:30, and ravenously attacked the Chinese food Aaron had generously gotten for us. Around 11:00 or so we took the stage and poured everything from this day into a fierce hour and a half set for an amazingly attentive audience. These were old-time and Bluegrass fans, and they danced and hollered for more. One of the best audiences I've ever played for, hands down.
The icing on the cake was that I busted one of the scroll ears off my bass. It's a cosmetic piece and doesn't affect the structure, but it was another unwelcome addition to this wickedly crappy trip. The owner of Jalopy generously offered to glue it back on, and it's left there overnight to dry.
Bermuda Triangle in Pennsyl-tucky? You betcha.
Today: busking around Manhattan and an 8:30 show in Greenwich Village. Let's hope we spent all our bad luck yesterday.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
You go Joe!
Congrats to Senator Joe Biden for calling a spade a spade. Most of the time we appreciate good rhetoric and eloquence from our representatives (but not our president, it would seem). But this is a great example of righteous indignation and moral outrage at the myopia of our president.
I'll let Biden say it best himself, “This is bullshit. This is malarkey. This is outrageous. Outrageous for the president of the United States to go to a foreign country, sit in the Knesset…and make this kind of ridiculous statement,” Biden said angrily in a brief interview just off the Senate floor."
Hats off to you, Joe! We need more genuine (even angry at times) straight-talk about what is clearly bull-shit.
CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time Blog Archive - Biden calls Bush comments ‘bulls**t’ � - Blogs from CNN.com: "if the president disagrees so strongly with the idea of talking to Iran then he needs to fire his secretaries of State and Defense, both of whom Biden said have pushed to sit down with the Iranians."
I'll let Biden say it best himself, “This is bullshit. This is malarkey. This is outrageous. Outrageous for the president of the United States to go to a foreign country, sit in the Knesset…and make this kind of ridiculous statement,” Biden said angrily in a brief interview just off the Senate floor."
Hats off to you, Joe! We need more genuine (even angry at times) straight-talk about what is clearly bull-shit.
CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time Blog Archive - Biden calls Bush comments ‘bulls**t’ � - Blogs from CNN.com: "if the president disagrees so strongly with the idea of talking to Iran then he needs to fire his secretaries of State and Defense, both of whom Biden said have pushed to sit down with the Iranians."
Friday, May 09, 2008
Networking pays off
Heidi's always said that I'm a great schmoozer, and my propensity for networking with other musicians has begun to pay off more and more lately. A couple months ago, the mandolin player (Greg) in the Varnish Cooks suggested I drop into Beale St. Cafe one week that the band wasn't practicing. On Thursdays there's an acoustic blues jam session there hosted by a prominent musician, Gordon Munding. He's been in the old-time/Delta blues scene for years, and pays honest tribute to Son House and other early blues players. I started sitting in with my upright every couple weeks or so, getting to know some of the great musicians who come to this jam. It's almost exclusively acoustic players, and everyone has a fondness, if not reverence, for the tradition of the early blues. As per usual, at least a couple bands have been born of this collaboration.
I'm one of only about three bassists who show up there with any regularity (a treat I'll thoroughly enjoy for now!) and one of those bassists plays electric, although it's a 70's Precision Bass, so we won't hold it against him! Once I take the stage with whichever arrangement of players is up there, I'm usually up there for the duration, being invited by subsequent players to hang out & add that big doghouse sound to their tunes. The most surprising result of this has been that the jam's two top musicians have begun to take me on for separate performances, which is a huge honor for me. Gordon Munding's one of them, and the other is harmonica player Curtis Waterman. Curtis is an award-winning blues harpist from Syracuse who's played in numerous bands around central NY and now lives in Rochester. I've been invited to play with them (and a washboard player!) at the Hot Blues For The Homeless at Water Street Music Hall on June 8th. We're opening up for some local & national blues luminaries and it'll be a great show, and only the second time I've played the big side of Water Street (there will actually be people there this time!). Also, Gordon, Curtis & I just booked a private party up at Kirk's family's land on the lake, during the July 4th weekend. That'll be a real pleasure to play, a lot of fun, and we'll actually make some pretty damn good money on it too. Curtis was looking at some other Rochester-area joints for the three of us to play too, so long as the places in question are actually willing to pony up some bread for us. One benefit (aside from the musical benefits) of playing with people of Gordon & Curtis' caliber is that they won't do ordinary bar gigs for free, or for "exposure."
So perhaps the concept of playing bass as an actual part-time job is becoming a reality? And the idea of doing this on upright was something that I didn't think would happen a couple years ago, but apparently I just had to make some connections in the right niche, which is the acoustic blues, folk & bluegrass genres. There are already a lot of classical and jazz bassists around town, so I'm just jumping into the styles that aren't flooded with bassists. One of the smarter moves I've made in my musical pursuits, it would seem.
I'm one of only about three bassists who show up there with any regularity (a treat I'll thoroughly enjoy for now!) and one of those bassists plays electric, although it's a 70's Precision Bass, so we won't hold it against him! Once I take the stage with whichever arrangement of players is up there, I'm usually up there for the duration, being invited by subsequent players to hang out & add that big doghouse sound to their tunes. The most surprising result of this has been that the jam's two top musicians have begun to take me on for separate performances, which is a huge honor for me. Gordon Munding's one of them, and the other is harmonica player Curtis Waterman. Curtis is an award-winning blues harpist from Syracuse who's played in numerous bands around central NY and now lives in Rochester. I've been invited to play with them (and a washboard player!) at the Hot Blues For The Homeless at Water Street Music Hall on June 8th. We're opening up for some local & national blues luminaries and it'll be a great show, and only the second time I've played the big side of Water Street (there will actually be people there this time!). Also, Gordon, Curtis & I just booked a private party up at Kirk's family's land on the lake, during the July 4th weekend. That'll be a real pleasure to play, a lot of fun, and we'll actually make some pretty damn good money on it too. Curtis was looking at some other Rochester-area joints for the three of us to play too, so long as the places in question are actually willing to pony up some bread for us. One benefit (aside from the musical benefits) of playing with people of Gordon & Curtis' caliber is that they won't do ordinary bar gigs for free, or for "exposure."
So perhaps the concept of playing bass as an actual part-time job is becoming a reality? And the idea of doing this on upright was something that I didn't think would happen a couple years ago, but apparently I just had to make some connections in the right niche, which is the acoustic blues, folk & bluegrass genres. There are already a lot of classical and jazz bassists around town, so I'm just jumping into the styles that aren't flooded with bassists. One of the smarter moves I've made in my musical pursuits, it would seem.
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
Myanmar tragedy
Each time I point Firefox to CNN, I see a higher and higher death toll from the typhoon that struck the former Burma on 3 May. It's shocking and horrifying that this estimated body count surges by tens of thousands each time... it's practically exponential. As an avid NPR listener, I heard earlier today that the military junta that controls Myanmar refuses to allow any aid personnel in to help; just supplies or funding, please. Over 100,000 people may have perished and these vermin won't allow an agency like Doctors Without Borders in to help? Or Red Cross or Red Crescent in to help distribute medical supplies or food? Or help despose of bodies in a sanitary manner, instead of letting people throw corpses into rivers? What kind of inhumane, amoral monsters are running the show there anyway? And what about fucking China? I suspect that Myanmar is in their sphere of influence. Maybe China should think about leaning on those animals in the capital before the death toll runs up into the millions in coming months due to starvation, disease, and lack of sanitation.
How is this happening in 2008? Come on, Earth... let's take care of our fellow humans!
U.S. envoy: Myanmar deaths may top 100,000 - CNN.com
How is this happening in 2008? Come on, Earth... let's take care of our fellow humans!
U.S. envoy: Myanmar deaths may top 100,000 - CNN.com
Old friends anew
In the last few months I've had a rash of people "friend request" me on Facebook & Myspace. People from both high school and Cazenovia College. Old friends, girlfriends and roommates have gotten back in touch with me after 15+ years, and it's been a regular blast from the past. Some people I was hoping to hear from (a friend who wrote and directed a play I starred in) and other people I never thought would want to talk to me again. But time has a way of putting things in perspective and smoothing over the rough edges of relations.
High school was four of the least pleasant years of my life, but I'm finding myself possibly willing to let go the old resentment towards classmates (none of whom have contacted me... so far it's only been people who were actually decent to me).
When I went to Cazenovia, it was a clean slate socially, and I developed many friends and very few enemies (if any, really). It was how I began my healing, by leaving behind the nerd who was regularly shoved into lockers and ridiculed. I got along with everyone, and I was perhaps more popular than I figured. I'm somewhat surprised that I had enough of an impact on some of these folks to make them want to get back in touch. Especially from Camp Caz, where I only knew them for 2 years, and only during the academic year, not the summer in most cases.
So though I'm not likely to go out of my way to establish contact with everyone I went to high school or college with, I'm feeling pretty warm towards those "friending" me. I'm glad that I was memorable enough to bother with... thank you!
High school was four of the least pleasant years of my life, but I'm finding myself possibly willing to let go the old resentment towards classmates (none of whom have contacted me... so far it's only been people who were actually decent to me).
When I went to Cazenovia, it was a clean slate socially, and I developed many friends and very few enemies (if any, really). It was how I began my healing, by leaving behind the nerd who was regularly shoved into lockers and ridiculed. I got along with everyone, and I was perhaps more popular than I figured. I'm somewhat surprised that I had enough of an impact on some of these folks to make them want to get back in touch. Especially from Camp Caz, where I only knew them for 2 years, and only during the academic year, not the summer in most cases.
So though I'm not likely to go out of my way to establish contact with everyone I went to high school or college with, I'm feeling pretty warm towards those "friending" me. I'm glad that I was memorable enough to bother with... thank you!
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