Making Magic from Mishaps

I've already told the story of one of the songs I performed at the open mic at the Starbucks in El Cajon four weeks ago now on April 20.  But I also played two brand-new songs that day, "When Things Don't Go Right" and "1-Minute Song."  The video of my live performance of "When Things Don't Go Right" is above.  I'll post the video for "1-Minute Song" here later on.  As always, John "J-Rod" Rodriguez is on bass, and Dave Farrell is on the drums, backing me up.

"When Things Don't Go Right" just popped out of me one day when I was thinking what had happened to me one time at the Wednesday night open mic at the 710 Beach Club in Pacific Beach.  My name was called and it was my time to perform.  I hopped up on stage with my trusty Fender Stratocaster.  I plugged it into the guitar amplifier, which the performers before me (the world-famous and totally awesome Psycho Lizard) had used.  I didn't hear any sound coming out of it.  My guess is the sound operator had turned the microphone on the amp down to zero, thinking the next performer wouldn't be using it...most acoustic players at that open mic plug directly into the sound board with a different cable, not into the amp on stage.

When I didn't hear any sound coming out, though, I panicked a bit, and turned the knob on the far right up as far as it would go, hoping it was the volume.  I'm guessing it was the knob that controls the amount of distortion or "crunch" the amp would put out.  Finally, my guitar was making noise - most likely because the sound operator had now turned up the level on the microphone in front of the amp - not because of my panic-stricken knob turning.

At these open mics you're supposed to keep things moving, because there are so many people lined up to play.  So I went right into my first song, and something was...terribly, terribly wrong.  My guitar was sounding like a herd of cats screaming chaotically.  It was like the sound of Hell.  Not in a cool way, like in a Metallica kind of way.  In a really unpleasant, like, I'm-gonna-go-crazy-if-you-don't-shut-that-awful-noise-off kind of way.

But I had been triggered into such nervousness by the whole episode of not getting any sound at first, that my brain didn't have enough neurons available to process what was happening.  Instead, my instinct to just play through technical difficulties kicked in and I just kept going.  I finished the first song and went into the second.  And it was worse.  That song had more chords getting played all the way through, so the intensity of the awful Hell-sound increased dramatically.  People in the front of the audience were literally making faces of distress and walking away from the stage.

I finally finished the second song, thanked the much-dwindled crowd, and got off stage.  At first I still didn't have any clue what had happened, I was all adrenaline and confusion upstairs.  Then slowly it started to dawn on me, what I had most likely done in turning that one knob up as high as it would go.  I thanked the emcee and the sound operator on my way out, slinked into my car and drove home to Imperial Beach.

The ride home was not a pleasant one inside my mind.  I was really hard on myself, reprimanding myself for my mistake, for not catching it, for not stopping to figure out what was going on.

But in the days ahead, sanity began to return to my mind.  I realized it had been an honest goof-up.  There was no sound, so I did something to try and fix it.  I didn't realize what I had done, so I kept playing.  I'm human.  I don't ever do things perfectly.

I realized that I used to treat other people the way I treated myself that night after I got done playing.  When something didn't go the way I wanted it to, sometimes I got so angry I took it out on other people, when they hadn't done anything wrong.  Instead of owning my anger and expressing it somewhere in a healthy way, I attacked some unsuspecting, innocent friend with it.  Who of course had no idea what I was really upset about.  I'm a lot better at this today, thankfully, but sometimes I can still have angry fits at other people in my mind, when really I'm angry at some entirely different set of circumstances, that that poor sole had nothing to do with.

So I was practicing at home some time around then, and this song popped out.  I played it again a couple of weeks later at the Starbucks open mic.  Lots of people in the audience seemed to relate both times, and get a good laugh out of it.  

Which proves that with music, you can make magic out of mishaps.

Thanks for visiting my blog here and reading.  I truly appreciate it.

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Baah-Baah-Bap, or, How Accidents Are a Good Thing

The live video above is of my playing my song "Fly, Baby, Fly" at the Starbucks courtyard in El Cajon last Saturday, April 20, with John "J-Rod" Rodriguez on bass and Dave Farrell on drums.

When I first wrote this song a few weeks back, it all came out in one short episode of inspiration.  I was talking on the phone with a good friend who was sharing how she felt like a failure in pursuing her dreams, which sounded to me was distorted thinking, that I could definitely relate to!

This friend has followed her dreams really well from my perspective, and is still doing so today.  So I envisioned this conversation between someone struggling with these kinds of thoughts and feelings, and a wiser, gentle, person or force, giving the person struggling the strong shot of encouragement and support they need right now.

I played it a few times at open mics in its original form - and made a live home video of me performing it you may have already seen.  But I've put below here, so you can compare this original version with the changed one.



After a while of playing it this way, I felt like it needed a change or two.  One theme that often occurs to me as a songwriter is doing more with less.  This is really a common theme throughout all Art, I believe.  To me, this concept means: I can spoil the creative stew by adding too much of too many ingredients, or, I can improve the creative stew by leaving one or two ingredients out.

In my music, employing this concept often means taking out one of the instruments, for a particular period of time in the song.  I was at a 7-Eleven getting my breakfast and decaf coffee this morning, and "Jack and Diane" by John Cougar Mellencamp was playing on the sound system.  If you know the song, in the first part of it, there are guitar chords, some guitar notes strummed, and some hand claps.  At one point before the vocals come in, we hear the guitar chords "Daaaaaaaaaah, daaaaah, daaah-dah-dah," a quick instance of silence, the strummed notes with the hand claps, then a couple more quick instances of silence.

That part of the song could have guitar chords playing straight through the whole time, with the hand claps underneath, and the strummed notes on top.  But for some reason, it sounds cooler to me when the chords stop, and I hear only the notes and hand claps, with little silences in between.  I've copied in the music video for this song if you want to listen to the first part of it and hear what I mean.



So I was messing with this concept of less is more at home with "Fly, Baby, Fly." and It seemed like it worked better when I just did the guitar chords quickly all at once, and then stopped them at a particular point in the lines, instead of playing chords all the way through like I had written originally.

The only trick to this was that, as I was singing and playing guitar at the same time, the original version was easier at first for me to pull off.  If I was strumming the chords all the way through the lines in the verses, I could kind of put my strumming and chord-fingering hands on auto-pilot, and focus mentally on the lyrics and vocal notes.  If I was going to do this start-stop of the guitar in each line, in the early going I would have to split my mental focus as I performed it.  I would have to keep my attention both on the start-stop guitar part, and the lyrics and vocal notes.

So at home I messed with the guitar in the verses a bit to see what worked.  What I eventually arrived at was a new, two-chord "Baah-bap" three times in each line, with no guitar in between, just vocals.  It sounded much better to me, and I was pretty satisfied with it.

There was a problem, though.

Sometimes, when I started the first part of the song, before the vocals began, I would do a three-chord "Baah-baah-bap" just naturally, thinking I was doing what I wanted to do.  Then I would get up to the first vocal line of the first verse, and realize that I had begun doing the three-chord "Baah-baah-bap," not the two-chord "Baah-bap" I wanted to do.  This would throw me off.  I thought to myself, well, if it's really the three-chord "Baah-baah-bap" that wants to come out, maybe that's what it needs to be, and I could practice it that way...

But the three-chord "Baah-baah-bap" was a slightly trickier rhythm for me to play for some reason.  I could do the two-chord "Baah-bap."  No problem.  I MIGHT be able to do the three-chord "Baah-baah-bap," but it would take longer.  It would require more practice to get it down.  I was trying to be easy on myself - in the past I've had a habit of making some things as hard on myself as possible. So I said to myself, "No, I'll stick with the easier choice."  I kept practicing the two-chord "Baah-bap."  I got to where I THOUGHT I had it down.

Skip ahead in time to the open mic at Starbucks last Saturday.  I get to the moment when I am going to play "Fly, Baby, Fly."  I have a bassist and a drummer now, who I have not rehearsed with.  They're just picking things up as I go.  So I start the song.  And do I start it right, with the two-chord "Baah-bap"?  Um, no.  I do not.  Probably out of a bit of stage nervousness, I start with the ol' problematic, three-chord "Baah-baah-bap."  Oh, dear.  We have a situation.

Add to this: John on bass and Dave on guitar choose to match the three-chord "Baah-baah-bap" EXACTLY.  I'm guessing, because they don't know what this new song, which they've never heard before, will sound like once we're into it.  So the smartest thing for them to do is match what I'm doing on guitar as closely as possible.  As the song really gets going, they'll be able to figure out more what to do.  But now my misstep has tripled in size.  ALL THREE OF US are doing the "Baah-baah-bap."  Remember: up to this point, the "Baah-baah-bap" has messed me up in doing the vocals EVERY TIME.  And because of that, I NEVER practiced the whole song doing the "Baah-baah-bap."  But here we are, three guys playing music up in front of people, and we're all completely committed to the "Baah-baah-bap."

Well, I briefly - like, for a nanosecond in my mind - considered calling the whole thing to a halt and starting over.  But I have this punk rock aesthetic, anchored deeply somewhere in the back of my brain, that tells me to always keep going.  No matter what the heck feels off or seems to be going wrong.  Just keep going.  I think I got an album title, or something like that, from that somewhere...

So I kept going.  I started the vocals, committed to doing the completely un-practiced, three-chord "Baah-baah-bap" throughout and just...see how it went.

You can see the results for yourself, in the live video of everything I just described, at the top of this post.

Thanks so much for visiting my blog here, and reading, watching and listening.  I enjoy reading what you have to say, as well, so please leave a comment if you're so inclined.

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Songs in Santee Part 2 - Night Drives and Secret Agents

Musicians and Patrons Outside During the Open Mic

Continuing to tell about what transpired at the Open Mic at Kaffee Meister last Thursday night...

John Movius is a great electric guitar and mandolin player who plays this open mic and the Open Mic Rancho San Diego - typically held at the Starbucks in El Cajon.  He's one of several performers at these open mics who loves to find songs from the past and bring them to life today by playing them for us.

One of John's selections last week was a surf rock song which I really enjoyed.  I fell in love with surf rock at a very early age, when my Uncle Tom would bring me along to see the University of New Hampshire ice hockey team play.  Ironic, right?  Yes, it's true - my first exposure to music inspired by riding the waves in sunny California at an ice arena in the dead of winter in Durham, New Hampshire.  How, you ask?  Well to get the fans riled up, the sound man always played the song "Wipeout" as the UNH hockey team came out of the locker room, got on the ice and skated around for their pre-game warm-up.  It was the perfect music to get all the UNH fans riled up for the game.  "Wipeout" was released by The Surfaris in 1964.

John Movius played an instrumental by The Ventures, whose hey-day was the 1960's.  The Ventures had many hit songs, but are probably most widely known today for authoring the original theme song to the TV show Hawaii 5-0.  John played a song called "Night Drive," off their fifth LP.  You can listen to it on the YouTube video below.



To bring the song that got me into surf rock, "Wipeout," together with the band that created John's cover, The Ventures, here's a video of The Ventures playing "Wipeout" along with Max Weinberg, of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band and currently Conan O'Brien's TV show.  The drumming here is pretty awesome...



The open mic's closer was Greg Gross, who played a bunch of interesting covers.  He played Neil Diamond's "Sweet Caroline," but I'm planning on dedicating a whole post to that song, and its relationship with Boston and the Marathon tragedies, on Sunday or Monday.

The other one Greg played that caught my attention was a song that I have loved since I first heard it as a kid.  There's something about the guitar riff at the end of the chorus, the overall guitar sound, and the vocal rhythm throughout that has always got me.  It's "Secret Agent Man," which was written by Steve Barri, P.F. Sloan, and uses that guitar riff that hooked me, which was originally written by Chuck Day, a guitarist and bluesman from the South Side of Chicago.  It was recorded and released by Johnny Rivers in 1966. 



Thanks for visiting my blog here, and for reading and watching.  I hope you got some enjoyment out of these fun songs!  

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Songs, Songs, Songs in Santee: Part One

Just outside Kaffee Meister in Santee last
Thursday night, shortly before showtime

I played the open mic at Kaffee Meister in Santee last Thursday night for the second week in a row.  It was an absolutely beautiful early evening as we began, sunny and just the right temperature outside.

To my surprise, my name got drawn for the first time slot at 6:45PM, so I had to guzzle down the decaf coffee I had just bought, tune my guitar up, and go play pretty quick!  

Incidentally, I ended up leaving my guitar tuner and cable at Kaffee Meister because I tuned right before I went on, but did so in such a rush I forgot that I had just left it by the performance area.  Thanks to Open Mic organizer Tim Woods and musician Cliff Niman, for seeing that these crucial little pieces of musician gear both found their way back to me on Saturday.

Singin' n' strummin' at
Kaffee Meister

I started my set with "First Step to Starlight," then played "Picture of Your Touch."  I played "Home of Love" third, and then had a few minutes left.  I wasn't exactly sure what to play, so I played "20 Faces of Love."  That ended up being the first time I played that one for a live, in-person audience, ever - I played it a few times for my live, online audience on LIVE from The Basement last year.  It's a fun tune to do. I was glad that was the one that popped into my mind to use as my closer.

There were lots of great performances throughout the night, too many to list them all here.  But I did want to mention a few covers that really jumped out at me for various reasons.

Amos Jessup played a song by Al Grierson called "Til the Circle is Complete."  In the few times I've seen him, Amos has a real knack for finding songs from days gone by, not widely well-known, and honoring them with great renditions of his own.  I wanted to share this song with you, because I had never heard it before, and it really moved me.  You can listen to what I believe is the original version by Al Grierson below. I've posted the beautiful lyrics underneath the video as well.

Both the turning of the season and the ticking of the clock

Say the planet's one year older -- so are you

But I'll leave the speculation and the silly idle talk

For another time and someone else to do

There'll be a celebration at the end of every street

When we claim our bread and roses, and the circle is complete

So if destiny should drag you down, or dress you up in style

May you never be too weary

To walk another mile

And may you never cease your growing

And your learning as you grow

May the things that you discover

Be the things you want to know

May you gain in strength through sorrow

And may all your love be true

May you turn your hand to something

That you really want to do

May your friends encounter fortune

And your comrades find release

Though they see the hopes of others disappear

May your parents die contented, and your children live in peace

Though the hands of desperation hold them near

Should the future find you lying with a lover by your side

Or left alone with broken arms, and all your dreams denied

May your footsteps ring like rifles through the darkness of defeat

May your spirit never falter

'Til the circle is complete

And may you never cease your growing

Your learning as you grow

May the things that you discover be the things you want to know

May you gain in strength through sorrow

And may all your love be true

May you turn your hand to something

That you really want to do

May your life be like a love song in the act of every breath

Be a poem to the purpose that it serves

May you set your shoes to dancing in the hour of your death

And meet it with the courage it deserves

May your shadow pass in pirouettes of such amazing grace

That the tears of those who mourn you disappear without a trace

In the smoke that shapes their sorrow to the fading of your feats

In a ring around the rainbow

Where the circle is complete

And may you never cease your growing

Your learning as you grow

May the things that you discover be the things you want to know

May you gain in strength through sorrow

And may all your love be true

May you turn your hand to something

That you really want to do

May you turn your hand to something

That you really want to do

I'll finish up my story of the Kaffee Mesiter Open Mic here tomorrow, with more cool songs brought to life by my fellow performers.

Thanks so much for coming here and reading.  I sincerely appreciate it!

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Can I Look Into Your Eyes?

Last night I went to the twice-a-month gathering of the San Diego Songwriters MeetUp Group, the first time there for me.  I had such an amazing time and met so many wonderful people.

For the first hour, special guest speaker Katherine Zimmerman spoke about performance fears and anxiety, and taught several techniques for relaxing oneself before a performance. I found this extremely helpful.  Most of her talk centered on relaxing before a performance.  But one during-a-performance issue she discussed was whether or not to make eye contact.  She talked about how there is an old technique for public speaking that gets retold and re-taught quite a bit, that of looking at the back wall, above the audience's head, while speaking.  She stated her own feeling that as a public speaker herself, this did not work for her, as it prevented her from really connecting with her audience.

I was very active in politics many years back, and even held public office once for a year.  Having to speak in front of large groups of people was terrifying for me, but suddenly I had to do it all the time, sometimes multiple times in a single day.  I had heard the look-at-the-back-wall technique somewhere before, and began using it immediately.  I may have made eye contact with someone in the audience every now and then, but for the most part I stuck to my reliable friend, the back wall.

After my days in politics, I was a stage actor for a while.  I was still up in front of people a lot, but for the most part, it was required that I look into the eyes of my fellow actors on stage, not at the audience.

When I began performing as a musician in 2006, I wasn't really sure how to handle where to look, and I never asked anyone about it or discussed it with anyone.  I guess I had seen lots of musicians perform by that point - some of them looked at the audience, some didn't, some seemed to be using the old tried-and-true back wall method, some looked away, and some even kept their eyes closed a lot of the time.  I guess I just figured it wasn't that important.  Over the years, I've mainly used the back wall method, making eye contact occasionally here and there, but only for quick, fleeting moments, and only a few times at most each show.

But a funny thing has been happening at the open mics I've been playing recently here in San Diego.  Most places I play, the venue is fully lit.  Back in my NYC rock band days, quite often the venue would turn out the lights in the audience area and turn on bright stage lights, so I couldn't see the audience if I had wanted to.  But here, most times (the notable exception being Lestat's West, which follows the audience-dark/stage-bright model) I look out and can clearly see everyone watching and listening.  

So I've been feeling strange using the old back wall method, because all these eyes are pointed towards me and my performance.  But I'm looking over them, and I almost feel like I'm shutting them out or intentionally blocking myself off from them.

I was glad to hear Katherine's suggestion of welcoming and getting used to audience eye contact.  I performed one song for the group last night, my new one "First Step to Starlight," and my intention was to start practicing making eye contact as much as possible while performing.  I was startled to find how scary it felt at first.  But the more I did it, even over the course of that one song, the better it felt.  

I'm excited to try this out at my future performances.  I think feeling connected to the audience is a big part of the joy of performing, and I've been unintentionally cutting myself off from this for a long time.  

I also met a bunch of great people last night from the group and got to chat with some of them after the formal event was over.  Big thanks to Cliff Keller for organizing the event last night and doing such an amazing job running it.  Thanks also to songwriters Karin Keller, Star St. Claire, Brian Frankel, Roy Schultz, Omar Musisko, and Len Guerzon for chatting with me and being so incredibly welcoming to me afterwards.  Everyone who played one of their new songs last night did great, but I wanted to mention that Star St. Claire's song, which she sang while accompanied by Len Guerzon on guitar, was truly wonderful.

I'm going to play the Kaffee Meister open mic in Santee tonight, the drawing for time slots is at 6:15PM PT and performances begin at 6:45.

Thanks so much for visiting my blog here and reading.  I deeply appreciate it.

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Music and Money, Money and Music

The Cover of My New Single, "Pretty Blade Trickster:
Live at Lestat's," Which is on Sale Today on Bandcamp

Today I am excited and proud that my new live single, "Pretty Blade Trickster: Live at Lestat's" is on sale on my Bandcamp site.  It is 99 cents, and there is an option on Bandcamp for people to pay more if they feel moved to lend additional financial support to my music.  You can buy it HERE.

It was somewhat challenging to decide whether or not to put this single on sale.  There has, for years now, been great debate over at which point it is best for an artist who is not well-known far and wide to begin selling his or her music.  There are many people out there who recommend that musicians and bands give away just about everything they offer for free, until they have a very large and measurable fan base.

Their theory, if I understand it correctly, is that someone may listen to the music for free and become a fan, someone who will buy music from that artist in the future.  But that same person might not even listen to the music if they have to pay for it before even becoming familiar with the artist.  In this line of thinking, charging a price for the music is seen as a deterrent to accumulating a fan base of large enough size in the future to sell lots of music.

There has also, for several years now, been a trend in selling music towards offering people the choice pay whatever they like.  Radiohead was the most widely-known of this a few years back, when they put a new, full LP on sale and allowed fans to pay whatever they liked for it.  They could pay 1 cent or $100.00.  

I still hear a lot of people say, that because of the impact of the so-called Digital Revolution, that "no one is buying music anymore." But in 2011, music sales worldwide went up for the first time since 2004, and in 2012, they went up in the U.S. for the first time since 2004.  There were 330 million total albums sold worldwide in 2010, and 330 million in 2011.  Last year in the U.S. alone, a total of 1.6 billion individual units (including sales of singles, music videos and albums, in both physical and digital form) were sold.  To me, numbers like 330 million and 1.6 billion would seem to contradict that claim that no one is buying music.  

So who knows...it's another mysterious step on this mysterious musical journey of mine.  In the end, I decided, this is what I want to get paid to do with my life, so...I might as well charge for at least some of the music I put out.  I spend a lot of time writing, practicing and rehearsing, and I try to put out the best songs I can.  After that, it's really beyond my control and up to you and others out there, what happens next.

Thanks so much for visiting my blog here and for reading, I appreciate it very much.

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Boston, Massachusetts

I was in Manhattan, working at my office temp job at 55th Street and Park Avenue, on September 11, 2001.  I've told the story of what my day was like many times since. 

Of course the number of those physically impacted by the events in Boston yesterday are lower than those affected on 9-11.  I suppose this is some sort of blessing, but at the same time tragic deaths and injuries are tragic deaths and injuries.  On a spiritual level, I can't distinguish.

My journey as a professional musician began in Allston, Massacusetts in October of 2004.  I had moved to New York in April of that year, and I was now a 4-hour bus ride away from my friend Dan, a drummer, singer and songwriter himself, who was working as a programmer at a software company in Boston and living in Watertown.  My sister Kelly, a singer, was living in Portland, Maine, just a two-hour drive from Boston.  So I asked them to meet me in this rehearsal space called The Music Gym in Allston, just to play some songs I had written and have some fun.

Playing at the Music Gym in
Allston, Mass., late 2004/early 2005

When we got back to Dan's apartment in Watertown after the practice/rehearsal/jam session/whatever-it-was, I had an inner knowing stronger than any I had ever experienced in my life.  I wanted to do THAT, more of THAT, as much as possible, as often as possible, until I didn't want to anymore.  It was one of the clearest and happiest moments I'd ever had.  Creating original rock music became the primary focus of my life from that day forward.

We met again, in December I think, at the same studios, but in the room across the hall from where we had been in October.  In the room we had been in before, was this other incredible band we kept hearing through the walls, whenever we stopped playing.  Before we left, I asked the guy at the desk who they were.  He said they were a local band called Plumerai.

A few months later, Kelly decided to go to Chiropractor school in Atlanta, Dan moved to NYC, and he and I made the band Victor Bravo a reality.  Dan and I caught Plumerai on one of their East Coast tours at Piano's on the Lower East Side, and we met Martin and James Newman, the brothers who had moved from North Carolina to Boston and founded the band.

Over the next several years, Victor Bravo played Boston many times, often on the bill with Plumerai on a show they set up for us.  I remember one time when we opened for them at The Middle East Upstairs to a huge crowd, where both we and they played incredible sets.  This was after the sound man told me one of the two speakers in my amp had been completely blown at some point in the past - somewhow I hadn't noticed.  We also had Plumerai come down and play with us.  I recall one amazing show at The Charleston in Brooklyn, just a rectangular, cement floor basement, with Plumerai sounding like a chorus of a thousand angry angels, the whole space almost entirely in darkness, with only a single, solitary, working light bulb providing the smallest bit of illumination.

As a kid who grew up in a small town in southern Maine, watching Channel 4 News every night with my dad, hearing about places like Roxbury, Dorchester, and Woburn, and watching the Red Sox and Patriots, it felt good and right that my connection to Boston continued with my musical endeavors.

So when I was on Twitter yesterday and started to see Tweets like "Thoughts and prayers with those in Boston today," and "So awful, can't bear to hear what's happening in Boston," my heart sank.  I didn't want to hop on GoogleNews.  I knew it was going to be bad, really bad.  And it was.

There's something about being human that for most of us, I think, makes us want to be a part of something.  Everyone's different, of course, but I think most of us like to belong.  Belong to something other people are a part of.  Something that makes us feel good about being a part of it with those people.  It can be a school, a religion, fans of one particular sports team, a charity, a band, a city, a town, a nation.  When we're a part of something, connected to it, and something good happens, we get to share in the victory, in the celebration.  And when something bad happens, we all feel the wound, the pain, the hurt.

Sometimes the wound is big enough that even people not associated with our thing feel it.  They feel bad for us.

There's something people who have lived in Boston their whole lives or for a long time are feeling today that no one else can feel.  Even people like me who went through 9-11 in some way can't...because it's something done to them, their thing, their city.  It was done on one of their big days, at one of their big events, in the midst of one of their victories and their celebrations.

But I am so grateful that Boston always has been and always will be a part of my life.  I'm a lover, a constant visitor, and a friend of Boston.  And I'm proud to be so. Today and forever.

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