Museday Mumblings (Vol. 64): When It All Goes Quiet…

Museday Mumblings (Vol. 64): When It All Goes Quiet…

So yeah, things are super weird right now. But in a healthy, good way.

After the frenzy of working on Yacht Z stuff, keeping up with Chandler and The Bings stuff, dealing with illness, travel, work that was all of a sudden SUPER FUCKING BUSY, getting my acoustic show back together, and life in general making me feel like I had no time for anything and it was just guiding me through it, I was completely overwhelmed and drained.

But now?

It’s really quiet.

Sure, work is still absurdly busy, with many evenings extending to 7pm or later. But because of making the painful decision to let go of Yacht Z, finally having the solo show reasonably ready, and the lull in activity with Chandler and The Bings due to half of us starting a new and amazing project with their past bandmate and one of our favorite sound engineers (who also happens to be a great guitarist), it’s pretty quiet right now.

I have time for my kids.

I have time for my wife.

There is “peace in the kingdom” for once. (Well, as much peace as a kingdom with a toddler can have…)

I am super excited because 360 UNO liked me enough to invite me back for TWO shows (that I have oh-so-cleverly booked around Chandler and The Bings, so there can’t be a conflict). So be on the lookout for those show announcements, and come check me out – the weather’s going to be even nicer, so it’ll be really fun to hang out on the patio with me and heckle me or whatever.

So that’s the current state of affairs for me musically.

A while back when I was up at 2 in the morning I bought Rick Beato’s Ear Training course, and it’s pretty amazing but I haven’t really had time to dig into it. So I’m going to continue working on that every day.

I found this amazing video by one of my favorite new discoveries where he shows you a daily independence exercise for your fingers on guitar, and I plan on learning that and working on it: Tomo Fujita’s Nightly Routine

I also want to work on this Paul Davids exercise that is an absolute finger crusher. Maybe this one, too.

I’m going to do them all both on bass and guitar because I’d like to be exemplary on both. But only if I end up having time. The ear training is more important to me than anything.

ALSO – I’m going to livestream my acoustic practices, so if you keep your eye on my YouTube channel, or perhaps even my Twitch channel, not that I ever really have used that yet. But my friend Mandy Prater’s doing great over there – check out her shows sometime!

Okay, that’s the musings for this week. Be safe, stay healthy, and remember to be kind to yourself and others.

Peace be the journey!
TMS

Museday Mumblings (Vol. 63): Life Choices and Balance

Museday Mumblings (Vol. 63): Life Choices and Balance

I mentioned a few months back how excited I was to be starting this new project called Yacht Z with my eager and wonderful friend and a real murderer’s row of talent to play the great Yacht Rock songs better than anyone out there. I worked really hard at first, making time as I could, then stuff happened during July and August that really slowed my progress, and I just never felt like I had enough time to get things together at the level that was expected. I even blogged about the lack of time. Well, it never got better, and I came to the realization that there was basically no room left in my life for me to be a properly-contributing member of the band.

It crushes me that I can’t do it, because I really love these musicians and want to play with them, but I have to respect my limited time with my family and my responsibilities. I really hope my departure doesn’t completely derail the project, because I still believe in the concept and will be their biggest fan. It just doesn’t fit with my life right now. Toddler + Day Job + Wanting A Happy Marriage are all more important. And I know I’m making the right choice. But I’m really sorry that we all devoted all that time and energy to the project and I had to bail on them. I hope it doesn’t go to waste and they find someone brilliant to replace me.

Striking a proper balance between work and family is hard for everyone. In the world we’ve entered because of the pandemic, a lot of us are working from home now, too, and man does that really blur the lines and make life all smeary. It’s too easy to start taking on work responsibilities during non-work hours. I like working from home, mostly, but I do find it really isolating and odd. I never considered myself to be particularly extroverted. I fake it well from growing up “the new kid” every two or so years from 5 to 18, and generally being a ham seeking others’ approval and trying to make them smile, but it’s very draining, actually, which definitely indicates I’m more introverted than extroverted. But I still feel like I need a little camaraderie.

Had a really fun show at Speakeasy with the Chandler and The Bings boys, and then Saturday evening, BRIAN V. RETURNED…to play to his daughter, his friend, and his other friend, and then a few people who showed up five minutes before the end of the show (so he extended it another half-hour – worth it for the amazing tips…).

It wasn’t particularly well-attended (UT football game was happening at the same time) but it was FUN and my voice held up super well. Here’s a little footage of that from my YouTube channel (GO SUBSCRIBE AND RING THAT BELL SO YOU’LL BE NOTIFIED WHEN I POST NEW VIDEOS)…

Brian V. at 360 UNO – A Couple of Songs for Erin

And speaking of the YouTubes, here are a few musical things I enjoyed this week on that wonderful platform:

Walter Ino’s YouTube Channel – based on the songs he covers on his channel, I feel like we have quite a lot in common musically. AND I didn’t even realize it until I saw a couple of familiar faces in his videos, but he’s in a band with an old internet pal of mine, August Zadra, called Waiting For Monday – they released their debut in 2019 and it’s like arena rock for a new age. If you like the Journey-Boston-Foreigner-Styx era of radio rock, you’ll almost certainly love that band.

Phil X visiting Rick Beato (with Rhett Shull hanging out as well) – just a silly but kind of informative video of Phil showing some crazy Bouzouki licks he’s adapted to guitar, and some other neat stuff. It’s fun watching Rick and Rhett react to Phil’s shredding.

METAL – speaks for itself. (HAHAHA)

Thanks for reading and take care of yourselves and the people around you. It’s been a haul and we all deserve some kindness. Sorry again to Heath, David, Chris, and Matt – I hope it works out where we get to play together at some point when I have proper time to devote to it.

Love y’all…

Peace be the journey!
TMS

Museday Mumblings (Vol. 62): OUCH

Museday Mumblings (Vol. 62): OUCH

I’m turning 48 this Thursday.

I feel EVERY SINGLE second, minute, hour, day, month, and year of this age. Often, I actually feel older.

The majority of the reason for this is purely my fault. I don’t take care of my physical health. It’s something I’ve struggled with my entire adult life, because I really don’t get the same “kick” from exercise that most people do. It doesn’t make me happy to work hard physically – it just makes me want to lay down. Even in my most “exercisey” periods of my life (shut up – I’m going to use “exercisey” if I want to – I know it’s not really a word), I got smaller and more fit, but it never really made me feel any better than sitting on the couch (and before you suggest it, I REALLY don’t like people trying to motivate me, so having a trainer isn’t likely to help me over that hump to the “I LOVE TO EXERCISE” feeling that so many get). So I’ve just gotten fat and old. Of course, I hide it fairly well, since I’m of above-average height and my limbs are slim and athletic, but I’m a solid 65 pounds overweight based on my height. Even factoring in the fact that my family tends to run a little heavier than most people anyway (we measure a good 10-15% heavier than people who look exactly our same size – and it’s true of my dad and all my brothers, too), I’m still a solid 45-50 pounds overweight. The stress this is putting on my body is really becoming apparent. I hurt. Often…OUCH.

So that’s a long paragraph about my fatness. Why is that popping up here on this blog? Well…because I just spent the last 90 minutes singing and playing guitar standing on the comfortable carpet in my office, and my back and legs are killing me. I’m actually considering sitting down to play Saturday’s acoustic gig – which is something I just DON’T DO. And of course, I won’t sit at the show unless I must (I had an unfortunate gig back in 2015 or so that necessitated a “lean on a stool” performance because of a tweaked back, and that’s the only sit-down gig I’ve done since the “Brian V.” era started). So…OUCH.

Worse, my voice started shitting out on me about 20 songs in – you could hear it getting tired and raspy. Not good. Also…OUCH.

And I was having trouble matching pitches I played on my guitar while doing the “sing the guitar melodies you’re playing” thing I like to do to help keep my voice and hands in sync. With my voice, I was physically doing what would normally feel “right” for those notes, and I was just missing them. Sometimes a complete half-step off. It was very disconcerting. It’s been kind of an ongoing thing for me, though. So that’s more of a brain or spirit “OUCH”, but still…OUCH.

Well, I’ve got a physical on the 29th where I’ll address all this stuff with my doctor and maybe get another referral to an ENT who has specific skills related to those of us who depend on our voices for a living (my day job depends heavily on my voice being healthy, too).

Not trying to be a bummer or crap on myself or anything, just musing honestly about my health and how it relates to my music. I’m going to get better. I think. Because honestly, I don’t know how much more I can take of always being so wrecked when I play music. There will come a time when it won’t be worth it. But wouldn’t it be better to just lose some weight and give my joints a break? Then we can stop dealing with the OUCH.

Peace be the journey and take care of yourselves better than I take care of myself.

And please come hang out with me Friday the 17th with Chandler and The Bings at Speakeasy in Austin OR Saturday the 18th at 360 UNO up in Westlake for my solo gig.

TMS

A quickie about me…

A quickie about me…

I talk a lot about my musical stuff here, and that’s obviously the point. But I’m going to go a little into my personal philosophy here for this one, and promote a new thing I’m doing. First, my personal philosophy.

I believe my fundamental purpose in this world is to be a kind person.

It sometimes doesn’t happen, because I am a human being, but I do my best. I want to leave this place better than it was when I got here. I want every interaction I have with people to leave them better in some way than when the interaction began.

In The Before Times, when I was in the office every day, every time I talked to my coworkers I would always make sure I learned how they were, then figure out a way to lift them up and make them feel better. On my best days, I’d leave them laughing and happy and feeling good.

I still do that in the limited contact I have with people now, which mostly consists of people I meet at my live shows and the occasional video meeting for work, or randomly at the store. I had some random dude start talking to me like we were old friends and used the same sort of techniques I’d use on my coworkers, and it worked great – he was happy and laughing when we parted.

I treat people with respect for their humanity, and approach them with kindness and love. I used to call it #leadwithlove but found out there was a leadership/marketing company already using that for a sort of different purpose, and I didn’t want it associated with them. But I’ve been looking for subtle ways to put a little more happiness and gladness into people’s lives, because it’s what I love to do. I love to be a nice person who makes people glad they met me.

In that spirit, I’ve launched a new endeavor, which will consist of some social media stuff and perhaps even a second blog focused on happy stories and spreading news of kindness and goodness that will hopefully make you glad you followed us. So check it out – it’s called “The Gladapult” and can be found on Twitter and Instagram – @gladapult and on Facebook as well (just search it – it’s the only thing that will come up because I literally invented the word – obviously a portmanteau of “glad and “catapult”).

Thanks for reading, and look out for a new Museday Mumbling this week.

Take care!

TMS

P.S. If you have any great personal stories that might make people glad, no matter how trivial, please feel free to share them with me and I’ll GLADAPULT them out there.

Museday Mumblings (Vol. 61): 10 Things I Didn’t Hate About 2020-2021

Museday Mumblings (Vol. 61): 10 Things I Didn’t Hate About 2020-2021

A few things that I’ve consumed “in these uncertain times” that I liked:

  1. Greg Renoff’s two biographies – “Van Halen Rising” and “Ted Templeman: A Platinum Producer’s Life In Music”
  2. Toto/studio legend Steve Lukather’s autobiography – “The Gospel According To Luke”
  3. Wolfgang Van Halen’s album Mammoth WVH and…
  4. Mammoth WVH (the band)’s live show here at Emo’s in Austin last Thursday. Kid can PLAY…and he has a GREAT band. (Also weirdly met and had a nice chat with the guy from #1 on the list here (Greg Renoff) at the show. Crazy.)
  5. Anthrax guitarist Scott Ian’s autobiography – “I’m The Man”
  6. Ex-Black Crowes’ Drummer Steve Gorman’s amazing book – “Hard to Handle: The Life and Death of the Black Crowes – A Memoir”
  7. Pink Floyd/Toy Matinee/studio bassist Guy Pratt’s autobiography “My Bass and Other Animals”
  8. Former Van Halen manager Noel Monk’s Van Halen autobiography “Runnin’ With The Devil”.
  9. Pat Benatar’s “Between a Heart and a Rock Place” autobiography.
  10. Toto’s “40 Tours Around The Sun” and “With A Little Help From My Friends” Blu-rays

I’m sure there’s more stuff I am forgetting that I’ve actually talked about on here, but these are the things I’ve read or listened to that come to mind right now as stuff that’s been enjoyable. There are TV Shows and Movies and stuff that have been pretty great, too, and I may make a list of that stuff as well (music-wise, I liked that first Billie Eilish movie and the Beastie Boys story on Apple TV+).

Anyway, take care, be safe, etc. Same old shit since March 2020. How the fuck are we now almost 18 months on and still dealing with this crap? Oh, that’s right, because America is STUPID and CHILDISH and SELFISH. And politicians care more about POWER than PEOPLE. That’s a rant for another place.

Peace be the journey…
TMS

Museday Mumblings (Vol. 60): BRIAN V. IS BACK!

Museday Mumblings (Vol. 60): BRIAN V. IS BACK!

Yes, my solo-guitar-and-sangin’ alter-ego has a gig on the books!

I’ll be entertaining folks at 360 UNO on September 18th from 6:30-8:30pm. Playing all your classic “Brian V.” favorites.

(MEGA THANKS to my good friend and Twitch superstar Mandy Prater for the hookup…)

Hopefully my voice will be solid and the extra work will benefit my other bands as well. I’m probably going to purposefully play mini-sets of songs from each of my bands, some I don’t even sing in those bands, so it should be a fun time for all. Going to post a flyer and all the details later this evening, but I’m super excited.

My summer has sort of driven me into a place where I just don’t feel like writing much. I just don’t feel like doing much of anything. But I will get back in the groove here with some rantings and musings about things. I have a lot on my mind, and probably have some stuff you might find interesting and might want to engage with, too. Just have to get them all together. Of course, with this, Yacht Z learning, Bings gigs…I mean, when is there time? Here’s hoping I manage to squeeze it in.

Take care, get the damn shot if you haven’t, and be safe out there.

TMS

Museday Mumblings (Vol. 59): No Time

Museday Mumblings (Vol. 59): No Time

I realize it’s been over a month since the last one…probably going to be at least a few more weeks before it calms down and I can really do some good ones…I just have ZERO energy.

I’ve been through some serious shit the past month and then I was on vacation. The shit part is nothing I’d like to talk about publicly, but I will talk about vacation – I absolutely loved my week in California and I didn’t realize how much I missed it and how much it’s a part of me until I was there. I love my Aunt Eileen and got to see her, and got to spend a lot of time with my favorite ocean (even if it’s not the one of my birth). I hope I get to live there again someday, hopefully on the central coast (because LA is just TOO MUCH even though I do love it, too).

And that’s all for now.

GET YOUR GODDAMN SHOT

Love you. Mean it.

TMS

Museday Mumblings (Vol. 58): Marketing and Puffery

Museday Mumblings (Vol. 58): Marketing and Puffery

I have a love-hate relationship with marketing.

I understand its purpose. I actually have a day job that is directly related to marketing clients via radio and other audio sources (streaming, podcasts, etc.), so I appreciate it, I know its power, I understand the psychology, and all of that. It is truly great and serves its purpose.

But I also am someone who hates both bullshit and self-promotion. And at its core, pretty much all effective marketing involves some level of bullshitting and/or at the very least allowing others to rain their puffery upon you via a marketing medium. I really wish it wasn’t this way, but I think it’s true. I think honesty isn’t the commodity people like to think it is. People actually want someone to tell them the true things they want to hear but then be lied to about everything else. They don’t really want honesty. That goes with marketing, too. Marketing would be very different if it were honest. (watch the movie “Crazy People” if you’d like some good examples)

As much as it’s kind of validating, I’ve always been uncomfortable when people say nice things to other people about my playing. I’m made even more uncomfortable when I have to say nice things about my own abilities. It just seems wrong. This past weekend, I was watching a new series on Netflix called “This Is Pop”, and was moved particularly by the episode called “Stockholm Syndrome” because I really identified with the Swedish producers they had on the show – in particular their description/mentioning of a Swedish cultural phenomenon/informal rule called Jantelagen. Basically it’s the concept of always keeping in mind that you’re no better than anyone else. Not really common in this country, for sure, since we’re all about the bragging. But I’ve always found it unsettling and a little unseemly. But that’s part of why all these amazing Swedish producers/songwriters have OWNED the pop charts for literal decades and yet we don’t see them flaunting anything ever or demanding people’s attention. In fact, sometimes they’re hard to track down, at least as public figures. You’d know their names, but their work is really all you know about them. The mystery contributes to the magic, though, which is almost an anachronism in today’s social media driven society.

All that said, I’m not Swedish, so I’m going to say if you’re anywhere near San Antonio, Texas, USA Saturday night, you need to get your butts to Picks Bar to hear Chandler and The Bings play piles of songs for you to sing along. We’re fun.

I took a pause when I first started this week’s entry and now I can’t think of more to write. So I’ll spare you any verbal flailing and hope you have a wonderful weekend and thank you for reading.

Peace be the journey…
TMS

Museday Mumblings (Vol. 57): A Gaggle of Geeks

Museday Mumblings (Vol. 57): A Gaggle of Geeks

So the band I mentioned in the previous post – this casual project by my “eager and wonderful friend” is REALLY SOMETHING. I mean, we’re doing a specific kind of music (Yacht Rock, with some “friendly to the smooth vibes” songs thrown in), but it’s the very first time I’ve ever been in a band where the entire band geeked out about tiny little details during rehearsal, trying to get them right, and not one person in the band sat back and checked their phones or tuned out. Everyone participated in trying to figure it out. It was WEIRD. But kind of weird good, you know?

Now, I’m not in any way saying that it’s wrong when tune-outs happen in other bands – for sure instrumentalists dialing down on some subtle nuance when rehearsal time is at a premium is annoying and possibly kind of boring to everyone else not involved in working out the part. I totally understand that and have, on occasion, been “that guy” (though honestly not that often). But that didn’t happen a single time at this rehearsal. We’re all music geeks…and all excited about getting the parts just right.

To be CRYSTAL CLEAR: This new band isn’t planning on taking up massive amounts of anyone involved’s time, as we all have tons of other stuff to do musically. We’ve got five songs in process, and are working on the next ten for a rehearsal set for August. This is a SLOW process, but it’s definitely worthwhile. The best we’re hoping for is playing on a semi-regular basis and bringing the smoothness where no other band in Austin really does.

Rehearsal went better than it had any right to. We all complement each other very well. There’s not really a clashing of styles or attitudes so far, and some stuff came together so easy it was surprising. Of course, there were plenty of things that were disastrous, but it was the first time I’d ever played with any of them, save the one or two shows I played with David. Playing guitar again was a thrill. You never really know how much you miss something until you get to experience it again. It happened at Speakeasy when that crowd started singing with us. I almost started crying. Woodshedding guitar parts is really challenging, but it’s the kind of challenge I think I need to keep my mojo as a guitarist. Working on tight multi-part vocal harmonies is also insane and amazing, since I’ve never really done that to any large extent in any band I’ve played in. And Yacht Rock and the 70s stuff we’re tackling has SO MANY VOCALS. It’s great – I love the music, the song I can’t stand is growing on me pretty well now (this seems to be a trend the past few months) and I appreciate the opportunity and the challenges ahead.

My musical life is an embarrassment of riches. I adore my brothers Patrick, Alon, and Jay in Chandler and The Bings, and we’re working to make that experience even more awesome for people. And I feel like I’m set to make my relationships with my buddies Heath and David even closer and better, and forge new friendships with Chris and Matt as we take our “Gaggle of Geeks” to new levels of Yachty smoothness with Yacht Z.

My music meter is very full and happy right now, and I’m so excited for the next Chandler and The Bings show at Picks Bar in San Antonio on July 10th. I absolutely love that place.

I hope you’re all doing well. If you’re into the prayer thing, please send some out for my dear Aunt Eileen – she’s fighting cancer right now and could use all the universal help she can get.

Peace be the journey!
TMS

Museday Mumblings (Vol. 56): Mustering Up The Courage To Challenge Yourself

Museday Mumblings (Vol. 56): Mustering Up The Courage To Challenge Yourself

So right now my eager and wonderful friend has rounded up a bunch of his musical buddies in the interest of creating an amazing Yacht Rock band. To be honest, I love the music of the genre (as I define it, which matches the creator of the web series’ take), for the most part, and this is very exciting to me. The people involved seem absolutely awesome, and our first rehearsal/hangout is this coming Wednesday. There are a few things on the list that I don’t really think belong, but they’re close enough in vibe to fit, so I don’t object to their inclusion. Unfortunately it’s been an extremely rough go for me trying to get the parts together. I haven’t had much time with other responsibilities, and honestly, my confidence as a guitarist is nonexistent right now.

As long-time readers of this humble little blog know, I generally only play guitar at home, and not nearly as often as I like. That doesn’t translate into having chops that really make you feel like you can handle Steely Dan songs or the complicated changes of many of these Yacht Rock songs, which were performed by the best studio musicians in the world when they were recorded. Your humble servant feels like his hands are made of plaster covered in molasses. And though I’m close to getting all the chords down (which is AWESOME) – trying to come up with a means to perform the little ornamental guitar parts in “Peg” is an exercise in futility. I mean, I fudge them reasonably nicely, but I don’t want to fudge with this band. To fuel the fear even more, it’s the first time I’m really playing with ANYONE involved – I’ve played precisely one show with one member of the band, and that was a last-minute shit show covering for people who have no sense of organization. Just pure “get through it” – not actually really knowing anything or having a chance to truly connect or hear what the other is capable of when you play together.

I’m fairly certain my eager and wonderful friend will read this blog (he’s a regular reader as well as a wonderful blogger in his own right), and I’m sure we’ll talk about my fears and misgivings, as we’re both that sort of person, but at the moment I just really feel like I don’t have a chance of succeeding here, and it’s bumming me out. We haven’t even STARTED doing anything – there’s no plans for gigs yet, not a single note of music has been played together, and I’m scared shitless that I’ll walk in there and everyone’s going to go (hopefully to themselves), “ha ha – you fucking suck” and I’ll embarrass my eager and wonderful friend since he brought me in (everyone else in the band has experience playing together).

I just haven’t had the energy or confidence to think I have much of a chance of getting anything right. But I’m working on it, because pushing through is sometimes the only way to do it. I just spent the past few hours working on the songs and some parts are pretty easy. Some songs I’ve listened to hundreds if not thousands of times so I know them in my head but have never really put them into my hands, and that’s been surprisingly tricky. Others I’d never heard before in my life that I could remember (and honestly, I wasn’t missing anything).

So consider this a whine/vent/worry blog. I’m going to keep at it in the limited time I have before the first rehearsal, and maybe I’ll surprise myself. I just have to pretend I can do it until I actually can. Easier said than done sometimes.

Have a great weekend and I apologize for missing a week – it’s been hectic around here and I just haven’t had much to say. Thanks for reading and peace be the journey!

TMS