Last week, I visited with a venue owner. It's a Hawaiian themed place, a Tiki Bar. It's somewhat small, seats 30, maybe 40 people. The owner seemed nice enough, didn't jerk me around the way so many of them do.
The first thing that came to mind was that I would brush up on my Slack Key. The second thought, was, "Nobody does that, what musician in the world prepares for what they're about to do?" That's a rhetorical, and the silent answer it, "Nobody". Nobody gives a crap about what they do, the only thing in their mind is, "Everybody better tell me how wonderful I am", and, the paycheck; oh, and probably the free booze.
I've prepared more times than I can count, when booking something that was different from what I had been doing. When I was getting ready to play at the Gunbarrel Tavern in Lake Tahoe, I not only pulled out my classical guitar, and played for hours and hours, but I put out hundreds of dollars to by two electric/acoustics. One steel string, and one Classical. I had been doing mostly Country before that, and I was used to it. I had also been using my tracks, so I had been playing my Telecaster (Electric Guitar), for the past 20 years. Before that, I hadn't played much acoustic at any point in my 30 some years that I'd been playing at that time. So, it was completely new to me. As it turned out, I loved it, and I play acoustic a lot of the time at the places I've been playing over the past three years - that's after five years at Gunbarrel.
In my 45 years of doing this professionally, I've been in many different types of playing situations. The first ten years was nothing but Country dance halls. I had learned Country Music from some old timers, they taught me the essence of it, the soul of it, the tradition of it, ettiquette, Sears And Roebuck intros, "Standards", and more; and it all stuck with me. I've always looked to learn new things, about playing, about being on a stage, about certain songs, about certain artists and bands. I even learn from the dumbest of the dumb. I don't play lead guitar the same today as I did a year ago, two years ago, five years ago, ten years ago, and so on. I'm not stuck doing one thing, one scale. In fact, I promised me early on that I would never approach the guitar in terms of scales, and I've kept that promise. I do lots of different things, I like to play in different styles. I like simple. Simple does not mean easy - "Simple" and "Easy" are two completely different things. I find so much inside of simplicity, and I have never been bored with my playing. This goes for all the instruments I play. And, I don't cross train. I approach each instrument for what it is, and I love what each instrument does as itself.
Another area of music that I've come a long way is in recording. I was a nuisance when I was in studios back in the 80s and 90s. I asked stuff, I tried stuff - some of what I tried ended up horrid, other stuff was ok. By the late 80s I'd bought my first digital machine. It was a Roland VS-880, an 8 track digital stand alone recording deck. It took me a couple of weeks before I could even record my first note. I'd actually wanted a tape based system, but nobody carried them. I had a horrible sounding tube microphone. I'm not sure of the brand, but I think Groove Tubes had a hand in it, it had "Groove Tubes" on one side of the mic, and I can't remember the brand on the other side. I paid about $600 for it. Well, I'd taken it to Peru with me, while I lived there for 3-1/2 years, and on the way back, one of the baggage people stole the mic out of my suitcase, so that was the end of that. I ended up buying an Audio Technica 4031, which was a thousand times better than the Groove Tube one. After using my VS-880 for a few years, I went to a Roland VS1880 - 16 tracks now. I did hundreds of recordings between the two over the years. Mostly making backing tracks for myself - to use in my live shows. I also did nine CDs, some of my own originals, some of other writers' songs, and one CD of songs recorded by famous artists and bands. I started to add the full band sound in part of my live shows - where I could play my lead guitar parts, fiddle, lap steel, harmonica, and ukulele. Soon after, it was computer based recording. I stumbled across a program called "Adobe Audition", which I've been using for maybe 20 years. Hundreds more recordings. When making backing tracks, I play all real instruments, one at a time, of course. I had to learn how to mic each of them - and they're all different. I do use a drum machine - especially on the older recordings, only because I didn't have room in my RV for a whole acoustic set with mic stands and the whole works. I programmed the machine to play the way I play. There are old live recordings of me playing drums, if you listen, you can hear that. Over the past couple of years, when I make backing tracks, I add the lead parts - guitar, pedal steel, fiddle, ukulele, lap steel, harmonica, and I make videos out of them. I now have about 120 music videos at my YouTube channel.
So, being that I don't have time to water this down, I'll just say what needs to be said. I promise you, my ego is not part of any of this - never has been. You're welcome to go to my YouTube channel and listen for yourself, and I almost always include a video with my blog entries. Of the 350+ songs that I do, of the 120 or so videos, playing all the instruments, I have to make the songs sound as much like the originals as possible. I don't believe in changing them just for the sake of changing them. The songs, the videos come out very professional, clean, present, recorded and mixed very well. And, I have to play all those instruments in a way that will compare with the original guys who played them. I guess most people don't notice any of this, mostly because I don't have the million dollar a year hype that the "Major" artists and bands do. And please, listen for yourself, even compare the original recordings to mine, and PLEASE, use a good pair of headphones, good speakers, even a decent pair of earbuds - where you can actually hear the recording quality, the mix, and all the instruments. Be honest, listen with your own ears. Keep in mind, I didn't learn how to play all those instruments, and didn't learn how to record at a professional level overnight, it took years of trial and error, years of practice on the instruments. Also keep in mind I'm not stuck doing only one kind of music. There's traditional Country, Classic Light Rock, 60s and 70s Folk, and authentic traditional Hawaiian music - including traditional sounding lap steel, ukulele, and real Slack Key Guitar. Just the other night, I laid down all the basic tracks for 4 Slack Key instrumentals. I'll get to the Slack Key parts maybe early next week, along with the lap steel, and possibly ukulele - to make videos. As for Slack Key, there are not many people in the world who can do that anymore. All the greats have passed, and there may be a small handful who are dabbling in it, but I guess it's not as cool as all that "Reggae" stuff they've been doing over the past 45 years or so, so nobody cares to do it. On Country and some of the other stuff, you might pay attention to the bass, the drums, and the rhythm guitars. Notice that the bass isn't all over the place - as so many players do - thinking they're doing something. Sure, I could do all that monotonous, walking in and out of every chord change, and into chord I'm already in, it doesn't take super talent to do that, in fact, what it does take is a frustrated lead guitar player who is bored with keeping the bottom end solid. Take note that on the drum parts, I'm not banging all over the toms and the cymbals, I'm much more concerned with locking into that sweet spot, keeping the beat, and not cluttering up the song. Same goes for the lead instruments - I leave plenty of space for the songs to breathe, and I hate clutter. Oh, and I'm never there to wow the audience. Take note of the finesse of the acoustic rhythm guitar parts - no banging, so pseudo jazz chords, no mindless jumping around, just a good solid backdrop. As for the vocals, it comes to mind what one of the waitresses at Gunbarrel said to me a couple of times, "You're the only guy who doesn't sound like he's playing the same song all night". Then, I guess what happens when I sing is that I kind of instinctively try to capture the essence of the song, and of the original artist - without mimicking, without any fake southern accent - as most or all of the modern "Country" acts are doing.
One last thought. Earlier tonight I went to a club - huge - 3 or 4 different rooms. While talking to the manager, he at one point said, "We're cutting back on bringing in bands, because, well, they're all the same, people lose interest, the DJs seem to be more enjoyable, so we're doing bands only about once every three or four weeks". Ok, so here's my commentary on that. I've heard the bands in this town - they're the same as in every other town - they're horrible. They play the same "Funk" beat that they all seem to think is so ultra cool. The guitar players do one thing (One scale) on every song, over every chord production. The bass player and drummer are busy and monotonous - and their drums either sound like cardboard boxes, or plastic buckets. The singers are either croaking or screaming. They sound like four or five people all in different rooms, playing four or five different songs all at the same time. Oh, and the girl singers - either sounding like a bzillion other girl singers, or like cheap imitations of Janis Joplin. A person close to me described these bar bands as sounding "Like a washing machine". So, I don't blame these managers and owners if they don't want live music in their place, or if they're cutting back on it. Why pay a band $800 or $1000 to bore the customers out of their skull?
So, have I learned to do all this stuff for nothing? Have I come all this way to be fighting with shitty musicians, and ego driven venue managers and owners, just to work? On "Ego driven managers", I have been locked out of more venues that I can begin to count, because the owner or manager got their feeling hurt because in their fragile little minds, I "Showed up their homeboys", or, because they were frustrated musicians who could never connect with their listeners. That's not my statement, that's theirs. I never go up onto a stage to show up anybody, or for them to tell me how wonderful I am, I go up there to give people something
And here I still am, playing footsie with managers and owners just to work, and it gets really sickening and tiring, and disgusting. I do well in places where the management cares about their customers, and about their till. The ego driven guys - I've never been able to get near those places. I guess I wouldn't want it any other way - being that if I can't get hired on my merit, then I wouldn't want to work for such people anyway.
All for now.
#Blogs #Corruption #MusicVideo #LiveMusic #Nashville #ClassicCountry #CountryMusic
Shenandoah
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