So, lately, I've been trying to write lyrics once again. I apologize if this phrasing sounds like I'm trying to revive my former stellar career as a lyric writer, cause, if you know me, you know that ain't true. I've always had a hard time writing lyrics. And there are any number of things I think are to blame for that, which I'll get to in a bit.
The thing is, I can write music at the drop of a hat. And, with as much modesty as possible, I don't mean stringing together the standard three chords in a Chuck Berry/12-bar blues pattern and calling it a song. I mean nicely formed and thought out chord progressions that sound like songs. Give me a guitar, and an hour or two, and I'll give you a solid song. It is the one gift I have that comes without a tremendous amount of effort on my part. Everything else to do with music - that's like pulling teeth. Can't sing - oh and just stand by, gentle readers, for my upcoming expose on the singer conspiracy; don't play all that well, although I guess I'm competent on guitar and bass and can't write lyrics. Damn, if I could just lose the ability to play and write music as well, I could be Puffy... But writing music - that I can do. Which is frustrating, cause I'm not getting any calls from Hal David lately asking me to make his words immortal. So the instrumentals just keep piling up. Maybe the Ventures will make a comeback and need some tunes.
As I said, I've always found lyric writing really frustrating, and until the last day or two, a complete mystery as to why. I think it's a number of things. Obviously, I can write to some extent. This blog and other writings I've done have shown that. But it is considerably different to get across a point in a paragraph or a page and to get it across in 4 short lines... that have to rhyme! Maybe I'm just too loquacious for my own good. I don't know. I'm certain that those who have to listen to me babble will have no problem coming to a conclusion about that question. But having a lot to say about a subject does not a lyric writer make. Having something interesting to say does. And I guess I just have nothing interesting to say most of the time.
Part of the problem is what I've listened to all my life. When your musical tastes run towards the likes of Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe, Chris DIfford, Jules Shear, Richard Thompson, Pete Townshend, Hank WIlliams Sr., Bruce Springsteen and a host of others who can make you laugh and cry, think and believe in the same line, it's a tremendous hurdle to pit yourself against. And that's an essential part of the problem.
I, as opposed to what all the songwriting books will tell you, edit myself constantly as I'm writing. I know - bad move. Gotta let it flow. In case you haven't figured this out yet, I'm not what you'd call a "flowy" person. I'm what you'd call a "make an appointment, plan for three months and then we can check out that new movie..." kind of guy. I always think my lyrics have to say something or mean something REALLY important - even though nothing I've ever done in my life has resulted in anything really important. I don't know where it comes from - just that I can't shake it. So rather than write something unimportant, I write nothing and wait for the important to come. At that rate, I ought to have some new songs sometime after the 1000 years that will follow the Apocalypse in 2012...
Stay tuned...
Showing posts with label music. Show all posts
Showing posts with label music. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Friday, February 6, 2009
Rhythm ≠ Responsibility
One of the bands I'm in - the younger one , no name yet - has been looking for a drummer. I know, I know. Drummers are notoriously untrustworthy, flaky, (insert unstable adjective here), so don't tell me you're going to complain about them. Well, I'm nothing if not predictable. But, actually, I'm not going to specifically complain about drummers. I've been playing music and hanging around with them for more than 30 years at this point. One of my best friends in high school, and the drummer in a number of my first failed bands then, was the living epitome of the flaky drummer. Great guy, but you, literally, could not believe a word that came out of his mouth. "I'll be there at 3:00." Look for him at 6:30 - two days later. "It cost me two grand for the "racing" transmission in my Camaro." He went to Ammco and they screwed it up, cause he only had $300, so now he has to downshift an automatic to 1st gear at a red light. So, I'm well aware of the lies that drummers tell.
Now, don't get me wrong. Not all drummers are problematic. The drummer in my other band - the older one, the one with a name - is, on the drummer scale of problems, a dream come true. Yeah, he's usually a few minutes late for practice - a few MINUTES - not a few days. And he STILL has my Kids are Alright DVD... but he's not going anywhere with it. And actually, I'm not centering my venom on drummers today as such, either. It's just drummers that have precipitated this.
We've run a couple of ads for drummers for this newer band. And gotten a modicum of responses - but for this town, and for what we're doing, that's pretty good. Now, there was a drummer, supposedly a very good one, attached to the project when I joined up. But, even before the first practice, he'd bowed out due to work commitments. Again, not unexpected as we're all workaday guys (or I would be if I could get a freakin' job), so this is only meant to be a part-time thing anyway. Anyway, we ran the ad and we got a couple more replies. And the ones who didn't fall off the edge of the planet after the first or second e-mail, were all gung-ho right up until the day before the practice where we were to audition them. And then, SUDDENLY, they realize they have other commitments in their lives and can't give up the time for a band. Which I'd have no problem with in a general situation. But, they had these same commitments a week or two before when we'd started talking to them. And as I've said, I'm not specifically attacking drummers. I've had this same thing happen with other bands, with players of other instruments. It's not just endemic to the folks who pound on skins (or, more accurately these days, plastic).
My main point of irritation here, is the general lack of responsibility of ANYONE who would do something like this. Perhaps it's literally the case of "your eyes being too big for your stomach", as my mother used to say. Which meant, in case you don't speak West Virginian, that the food was too inviting and you ate much more than your digestive tract could assimilate. Maybe these guys see the potential of a band that is exactly the description of what they'd always wanted in a band. Somehow I have doubts about that, but still. Maybe they're so excited that they might get into a band of (theoretically) like-minded folks, that they somehow forgot that they go out of town every three days on business or they have to be in another state everyday at 2:30 to pick the kids up from school or whatever their excuse is.
I don't ask for much. I simply want a grown man (or woman, although female drummers are few and far between) to have enough responsibility to understand their commitments and be able to imagine how a few hours of new dedication will fit into them. Is that too much to ask? Ba-duh-bump! (Thanks Ringo...)
Now, don't get me wrong. Not all drummers are problematic. The drummer in my other band - the older one, the one with a name - is, on the drummer scale of problems, a dream come true. Yeah, he's usually a few minutes late for practice - a few MINUTES - not a few days. And he STILL has my Kids are Alright DVD... but he's not going anywhere with it. And actually, I'm not centering my venom on drummers today as such, either. It's just drummers that have precipitated this.
We've run a couple of ads for drummers for this newer band. And gotten a modicum of responses - but for this town, and for what we're doing, that's pretty good. Now, there was a drummer, supposedly a very good one, attached to the project when I joined up. But, even before the first practice, he'd bowed out due to work commitments. Again, not unexpected as we're all workaday guys (or I would be if I could get a freakin' job), so this is only meant to be a part-time thing anyway. Anyway, we ran the ad and we got a couple more replies. And the ones who didn't fall off the edge of the planet after the first or second e-mail, were all gung-ho right up until the day before the practice where we were to audition them. And then, SUDDENLY, they realize they have other commitments in their lives and can't give up the time for a band. Which I'd have no problem with in a general situation. But, they had these same commitments a week or two before when we'd started talking to them. And as I've said, I'm not specifically attacking drummers. I've had this same thing happen with other bands, with players of other instruments. It's not just endemic to the folks who pound on skins (or, more accurately these days, plastic).
My main point of irritation here, is the general lack of responsibility of ANYONE who would do something like this. Perhaps it's literally the case of "your eyes being too big for your stomach", as my mother used to say. Which meant, in case you don't speak West Virginian, that the food was too inviting and you ate much more than your digestive tract could assimilate. Maybe these guys see the potential of a band that is exactly the description of what they'd always wanted in a band. Somehow I have doubts about that, but still. Maybe they're so excited that they might get into a band of (theoretically) like-minded folks, that they somehow forgot that they go out of town every three days on business or they have to be in another state everyday at 2:30 to pick the kids up from school or whatever their excuse is.
I don't ask for much. I simply want a grown man (or woman, although female drummers are few and far between) to have enough responsibility to understand their commitments and be able to imagine how a few hours of new dedication will fit into them. Is that too much to ask? Ba-duh-bump! (Thanks Ringo...)
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Gateway Drugs
So, I'm watching television (as always), mindlessly (as always), and yet another "ask your doctor" drug commercial comes on. I think this is the third in a row. Yep, that famous trilogy - Cialis, Advair and Caduet. By the way, for those that don't know, those were the actual first names of Gladys Knight's Pips... Anyway, it got me thinking.
For years (and years, and years), we've been told by the US government that Marijuana is a gateway drug. As anyone who's heard this over the years, and/or seen Reefer Madness, knows, one simple toke of a joint will forever set you on a bender of giggling rape and pillage that would be the envy of Calligula. Well, I'm not disputing these findings. They are the work of the US government and Hollywood, so they must be true. But, this is where my midnight thought train to Georgia let me off. (See what I did there?) Is MJ the ONLY gateway drug? And barring that, is MJ from the Spiderman movies any sort of gateway? Mmmmm, MJ in the rain...
OKAY, back now... So I'm just asking. Are any of these governmentally approved TV dealers pimping a new gateway drug? I mean, take Restless Leg Syndrome - please (© Henny Youngman). Suppose you've taken the prescribed dose of Requip and your legs stop shooting out at all angles randomly at night or whatever happens. Does that make it easier for you to get a good night's sleep, so that you can get up earlier the next day and get outside? And once you're outside, with nothing else to do and no one to talk to except the drug dealer on the corner, does that mean you'll buy some heroin? Probably not.
Not because you couldn't use some nice smack right now, but basically because I think that the known side effects of Requip - fainting, dizziness, increased gambling and sexual urges, narcolepsy, nausea, vomiting, drowsiness... are gonna stop the average person from EVER getting to sleep in the first place. But if you're one of the lucky ones who does derive some help from this drug without forming an ulcer worrying about the side effects, I really doubt you're going to run out of your house to the nearest crack dealer you can find. What's most likely going to happen is that you're gonna feel rested and relaxed from a good night's sleep and so you're gonna go for a nice long walk in the spring breeze (assuming you can stay upright and clothed - don't forget the narcolepsy and sexual urges side effects...). And then you know what's gonna happen. Your eyes are going to get red, your nose is going to run and you're gonna discover you have developed allergies from the greenhouse destroyed atmosphere. Which means you're gonna run back into your house and start surfing your cable for that allergy med commercial you saw the other night while you were up with your restless leg syndrome.
So are these TV drugs gateway drugs? Well, not in the conventional sense. They won't cause you to kill your mother or rape a neighbor's cat or eat an entire large three-topping Domino's deep dish the way pot will. But they are gateway drugs. They're a gateway to buying OTHER TV drugs!!, They're a gateway to depleting your paycheck and your savings by buying other drugs you also don't need. If you went to your doctor once a week and asked about a different drug you'd been told to ask your doctor about by TV, you would quickly be taking 50 meds a day for the rest of your life. I can hear you now - "But my doctor wouldn't prescribe ALL those drugs for me...". Wanna bet on that? Because once you "cure" your osteoperosis, you'll feel like walking more. And then you're gonna realize that all that couch potatoism has left you overweight. So the TV tells you that your doctor has some nice weight loss drugs, just for the asking. But they'll cause your metabolism to increase and along with it your heart rate and blood pressure. So now you need BP drugs. And on and on and on...
Who do you think is actually supporting your doctor's 6+ figure lifestyle anyway? Not you with your $10 co-pay. Ever notice the paraphernalia in your doctor's office. No, not the tongue depressors, but the canister they are in. I'm talking about the charts on the wall and the note pads on the desk and the pen you filled out the form with and the gumball decanter on his desk. Look a little closer. I'll bet every one of them bears the logo of a drug company - you know, the folks who brought you Restless Leg Syndrome in the first place.
So no, TV drugs aren't gateway drugs. They won't lead you to heroin and weight loss and theft and ruin. Until you start taking all of them. Then they'll lead you to bankruptcy... and starvation... and probably alcoholism... and ruin. Now, in this economy, which of those is more the American way? God I'm depressed. Luckily, the TV just told me to ask my doctor about Zoloft...
For years (and years, and years), we've been told by the US government that Marijuana is a gateway drug. As anyone who's heard this over the years, and/or seen Reefer Madness, knows, one simple toke of a joint will forever set you on a bender of giggling rape and pillage that would be the envy of Calligula. Well, I'm not disputing these findings. They are the work of the US government and Hollywood, so they must be true. But, this is where my midnight thought train to Georgia let me off. (See what I did there?) Is MJ the ONLY gateway drug? And barring that, is MJ from the Spiderman movies any sort of gateway? Mmmmm, MJ in the rain...
OKAY, back now... So I'm just asking. Are any of these governmentally approved TV dealers pimping a new gateway drug? I mean, take Restless Leg Syndrome - please (© Henny Youngman). Suppose you've taken the prescribed dose of Requip and your legs stop shooting out at all angles randomly at night or whatever happens. Does that make it easier for you to get a good night's sleep, so that you can get up earlier the next day and get outside? And once you're outside, with nothing else to do and no one to talk to except the drug dealer on the corner, does that mean you'll buy some heroin? Probably not.
Not because you couldn't use some nice smack right now, but basically because I think that the known side effects of Requip - fainting, dizziness, increased gambling and sexual urges, narcolepsy, nausea, vomiting, drowsiness... are gonna stop the average person from EVER getting to sleep in the first place. But if you're one of the lucky ones who does derive some help from this drug without forming an ulcer worrying about the side effects, I really doubt you're going to run out of your house to the nearest crack dealer you can find. What's most likely going to happen is that you're gonna feel rested and relaxed from a good night's sleep and so you're gonna go for a nice long walk in the spring breeze (assuming you can stay upright and clothed - don't forget the narcolepsy and sexual urges side effects...). And then you know what's gonna happen. Your eyes are going to get red, your nose is going to run and you're gonna discover you have developed allergies from the greenhouse destroyed atmosphere. Which means you're gonna run back into your house and start surfing your cable for that allergy med commercial you saw the other night while you were up with your restless leg syndrome.
So are these TV drugs gateway drugs? Well, not in the conventional sense. They won't cause you to kill your mother or rape a neighbor's cat or eat an entire large three-topping Domino's deep dish the way pot will. But they are gateway drugs. They're a gateway to buying OTHER TV drugs!!, They're a gateway to depleting your paycheck and your savings by buying other drugs you also don't need. If you went to your doctor once a week and asked about a different drug you'd been told to ask your doctor about by TV, you would quickly be taking 50 meds a day for the rest of your life. I can hear you now - "But my doctor wouldn't prescribe ALL those drugs for me...". Wanna bet on that? Because once you "cure" your osteoperosis, you'll feel like walking more. And then you're gonna realize that all that couch potatoism has left you overweight. So the TV tells you that your doctor has some nice weight loss drugs, just for the asking. But they'll cause your metabolism to increase and along with it your heart rate and blood pressure. So now you need BP drugs. And on and on and on...
Who do you think is actually supporting your doctor's 6+ figure lifestyle anyway? Not you with your $10 co-pay. Ever notice the paraphernalia in your doctor's office. No, not the tongue depressors, but the canister they are in. I'm talking about the charts on the wall and the note pads on the desk and the pen you filled out the form with and the gumball decanter on his desk. Look a little closer. I'll bet every one of them bears the logo of a drug company - you know, the folks who brought you Restless Leg Syndrome in the first place.
So no, TV drugs aren't gateway drugs. They won't lead you to heroin and weight loss and theft and ruin. Until you start taking all of them. Then they'll lead you to bankruptcy... and starvation... and probably alcoholism... and ruin. Now, in this economy, which of those is more the American way? God I'm depressed. Luckily, the TV just told me to ask my doctor about Zoloft...
Rave On
Wow! Blog #2. Who thought we'd make it this far? Just think about all we've seen since yesterday... well, uhm, Heroes? Yeah, that was okay...
Today is Feb. 3, 2009 - or 3 Feb. 2009 for our friends "from a different land" as Robert Klein used to say. So what's special about today? Well, I'm sure it's someone's birthday or someone's anniversary somewhere. And, of course, it's that special day of the year that Tom Cruise checks the mark on the doorway to see if he's any taller. But it's actually an anniversary of sorts for everyone. It's, as Don McLean so kindly inflicted on us years and years ago, the day the music died. Today is the 50th anniversary of the plane crash that killed Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and JP Richardson (even I think that it's criminal for someone to have to be remembered forever as the Big Bopper...). Mostly I'm here to talk about Buddy.
First, and foremost, Buddy Holly was not the stammering amphetamined buffoon that Gary Busey made him into. And don't get me started on the technical/equipment mistakes in that movie. From what I know of him, Buddy Holly was, in addition to being a certifiable musical genius, a fairly shy, retiring guy who lived for that few minutes on stage when people would hear his music and hopefully like it, the time he could be in the studio recording that music and the time he got to spend with his wife.
Of course, these days, Buddy is all but forgotten except by old codgers like myself. His name and songs are owned by Paul McCartney - or maybe Heather Mills. If the children (and by the way, I use the term children to refer to anyone who hit puberty after 1984)... anyway... if the children these days know Buddy at all, they know him as the title of a Weezer song. I'd bet half of them, upon seeing his picture, think Elvis Costello is Buddy Holly and vice-versa. And while I think Elvis is also a musical genius (which is NOT a term I throw around lightly), Buddy was one of the first of the rock era. Along with Chuck Berry, Buddy was the most influential musician to come out of the Eisehhower years. Buddy inspired everyone to come after him, from the Beatles and the Stones and the Grateful Dead (and I've said it before - Jerry's dead and I'm grateful) to the aforementioned Costello and his fellow "new wavers" who colored my own musical coming-of-age.
Buddy was an innovator as well. One of the first rock musicians to arrange strings on a track - not as a wash to fill space - but as a textural element, pizzicato approximating falling drops in Raining in my Heart. And he certainly predated the Beatles use of "foreign" instruments in rock tracks with the celeste on Everyday. And then there were the rockers - That'll be the Day, Peggy Sue, Not Fade Away and my personal favorite, Rave On. As a guitarist, Buddy had one of the best rhythm hands in rock, possibly only topped by Pete Townshend. For the guitarist's out there - just give it a try - play Peggy Sue only with downstrokes as Buddy did. If your arm isn't killing you by the time you're done, you're a better man than I.
And try this on for size. People often talk about "what would (insert favorite dead rock star) have done if they'd lived longer?" Always a valid question, but just think what Buddy would have done had he lived longer. Hendrix's career was about 3 years. Janis' and Morrison's too. Brian Jones' about 5. Brian Wilson's was about 6 before the breakdown. Buddy Holly did what he did in one and a half years. 1.5 YEARS!!! Hell, his star rose so fast and was extinguished before the general public even had an inkling of who he was. Imagine if other careers had stopped after 1.5 years. There'd be no Sgt. Pepper, no Exile on Main Street, no Pet Sounds, no Village Green, no Blonde on Blonde, no Armed Forces, no Sound Affects etc. etc. I'd personally like to see what another year and a half would have produced from Buddy. I think it would have been marvelous.
Okay, so not so much vitriol in today's blog - sorry bout that. I'll try to be madder next time. But til then, pull out that dusty vinyl or that cracked CD case (and if you don't own any, you should just be ashamed) and give Buddy a spin. I think it'd be nice if we'd all just do a bit more raving on.
Postscript: Tom Cruise remains at his current height...
Today is Feb. 3, 2009 - or 3 Feb. 2009 for our friends "from a different land" as Robert Klein used to say. So what's special about today? Well, I'm sure it's someone's birthday or someone's anniversary somewhere. And, of course, it's that special day of the year that Tom Cruise checks the mark on the doorway to see if he's any taller. But it's actually an anniversary of sorts for everyone. It's, as Don McLean so kindly inflicted on us years and years ago, the day the music died. Today is the 50th anniversary of the plane crash that killed Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and JP Richardson (even I think that it's criminal for someone to have to be remembered forever as the Big Bopper...). Mostly I'm here to talk about Buddy.
First, and foremost, Buddy Holly was not the stammering amphetamined buffoon that Gary Busey made him into. And don't get me started on the technical/equipment mistakes in that movie. From what I know of him, Buddy Holly was, in addition to being a certifiable musical genius, a fairly shy, retiring guy who lived for that few minutes on stage when people would hear his music and hopefully like it, the time he could be in the studio recording that music and the time he got to spend with his wife.
Of course, these days, Buddy is all but forgotten except by old codgers like myself. His name and songs are owned by Paul McCartney - or maybe Heather Mills. If the children (and by the way, I use the term children to refer to anyone who hit puberty after 1984)... anyway... if the children these days know Buddy at all, they know him as the title of a Weezer song. I'd bet half of them, upon seeing his picture, think Elvis Costello is Buddy Holly and vice-versa. And while I think Elvis is also a musical genius (which is NOT a term I throw around lightly), Buddy was one of the first of the rock era. Along with Chuck Berry, Buddy was the most influential musician to come out of the Eisehhower years. Buddy inspired everyone to come after him, from the Beatles and the Stones and the Grateful Dead (and I've said it before - Jerry's dead and I'm grateful) to the aforementioned Costello and his fellow "new wavers" who colored my own musical coming-of-age.
Buddy was an innovator as well. One of the first rock musicians to arrange strings on a track - not as a wash to fill space - but as a textural element, pizzicato approximating falling drops in Raining in my Heart. And he certainly predated the Beatles use of "foreign" instruments in rock tracks with the celeste on Everyday. And then there were the rockers - That'll be the Day, Peggy Sue, Not Fade Away and my personal favorite, Rave On. As a guitarist, Buddy had one of the best rhythm hands in rock, possibly only topped by Pete Townshend. For the guitarist's out there - just give it a try - play Peggy Sue only with downstrokes as Buddy did. If your arm isn't killing you by the time you're done, you're a better man than I.
And try this on for size. People often talk about "what would (insert favorite dead rock star) have done if they'd lived longer?" Always a valid question, but just think what Buddy would have done had he lived longer. Hendrix's career was about 3 years. Janis' and Morrison's too. Brian Jones' about 5. Brian Wilson's was about 6 before the breakdown. Buddy Holly did what he did in one and a half years. 1.5 YEARS!!! Hell, his star rose so fast and was extinguished before the general public even had an inkling of who he was. Imagine if other careers had stopped after 1.5 years. There'd be no Sgt. Pepper, no Exile on Main Street, no Pet Sounds, no Village Green, no Blonde on Blonde, no Armed Forces, no Sound Affects etc. etc. I'd personally like to see what another year and a half would have produced from Buddy. I think it would have been marvelous.
Okay, so not so much vitriol in today's blog - sorry bout that. I'll try to be madder next time. But til then, pull out that dusty vinyl or that cracked CD case (and if you don't own any, you should just be ashamed) and give Buddy a spin. I think it'd be nice if we'd all just do a bit more raving on.
Postscript: Tom Cruise remains at his current height...
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