I like fact that this is my 80th Museday Mumbling entry, because it honors the passing age of someone we just lost who was weirdly important to my lead guitar playing but I would never really think to credit until now.
Dickey Betts was a founding member of the Allman Brothers Band, and one of the most solid, unique, and melodic guitarists rock music ever saw. Honestly I always respected ABB but was never any sort of major fan of their music. I loved a bunch of songs, but not enough to ever consider them a major inspiration. That said, they were a major inspiration to Jive Town Jimmy and The Knights of the Purple Cadillac, the jam band I had with my brothers and brother-from-another-mother, but that was largely because the brother-from-another-mother was trying desperately to BE Dickey.
The Allman Brothers Band made fantastic music, legendary, classic truly capital-A AMERICAN music. A bit noodly, sometimes a bit plodding, but the stuff they did I loved I LOVED. Overall, generally not for me. But there was one aspect of their music that was 100% for me, and it’s something that imprinted on me and I’ve used in solos pretty much to this day.
So even though I was never a superfan, I did nick a scale they would frequently use. I’d always joke and call it the “Allman Brothers” scale, but more accurately you could call it a major hexatonic scale – adding the fourth to a regular major pentatonic.
Now, before you close the page, I hear ya…major hexa-what?
Here’s a breakdown of how the scales compare.
Let’s do an example in the key of C, since that doesn’t have any sharps or flats. A full C major scale is composed of the notes C – D – E – F – G – A – B, and a C major pentatonic removes the 4th (F) and the 7th (B) to make C – D – E – G – A. Dickey and the brothers utilized a scale that added back in the 4th, which added some beautiful suspension tension in for playing melodic lines. So that scale is C – D – E – F – G – A. That little bump between the E and F allows for some interesting texture that’s not available in a regular pentatonic scale.
Now for the multimedia portion of our show…A little “Major Hexplanation” for ya…
And there are actually tons of examples of solos I’ve cut on basically anything that even hints at being country, Americana, or whatever, where you can hear me add this little flavor in to a major pentatonic, because I just love the sound so much. That little suspended-sounding 4th adds so much to my ears and just makes me happy. And I have Dickey Betts to thank for that, because it was his beautiful playing that put that in my brain. Listen to the solos in the Allman Brothers Band’s classic “Ramblin’ Man” (a Dickey song, even). It’s ALL OVER THE PLACE…
So as tribute to the man, please hit up your favorite streaming service and go enjoy some more of his beautiful music. Start with the tracks “Jessica” (Top Gear fans might recognize that one) and “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed”.
Thanks so much, Dickey, for the fantastic music and being an unsung-until-now part of the fabric of my guitar playing, and may you rest in peace.
Thanks for reading and peace be the journey! TMS
Museday Mumblings (Vol. 79): Lorem Ipsum Dolor Sit Amet
Graphic design/publishing nerds will get the title of this one. I put it there as filler because I didn’t know what to title this catch-all musing.
Life’s been pretty dang good here through 2024. I released another one of my songs on streaming services, which was fun. I did a remix/remaster of it, felt pretty happy about the overall sound, and then realized once it was posted everywhere that I should have boosted the vocals about 1.5 dB. Ah, well, when I post my next collection of things, I’ll post a remixed version. Until then, just go to any streaming service (and I mean ANY streaming service – I got that sucker on all the big’uns) and give it a listen. It’s called “We Really Just Don’t Care” by your humble writer, “The Musical Schizo”.
I got to see two of my favorite bands of all time, Living Colour and Extreme at one of my favorite venues – ACL Live at the Moody Theater. Thanks to my hetero life mate Ned for snagging those tickets – they were AMAZING seats in the center section of the mezzanine – so basically directly across from the stage and only slightly higher up. The view:
Moving on to other stuff, Chandler and The Bings has been sporadically busy as usual, but with great gigs in FOUR cities (Laredo, Austin, Killeen, and San Antonio). And five if you count Cedar Park/Leander separate from Austin – it kind of is, since almost no one from up there would travel to our downtown Austin gigs. We’ll be hitting Houston and San Antonio on the same day at the end of April, so we’re certifiable. It’s been a crazy year so far, with only more craziness to come for the band. Love those boys.
I’ve been wanting to own an American-made Ernie Ball Music Man bass for the better part of my life as a bassist, and now I do. I saw an ad on Craigslist for a EBMM Sterling 5H, which isn’t my beloved Stingray style, but it’s a little lighter and more ergonomic. The ad mentioned they’d consider a trade for a Line 6 Helix. And wouldn’t you know it – I happened to have one of those sitting around the studio because I hadn’t sold it yet. So I got in touch with the seller, and then weirdly got a call from an old coworker/friend who used to produce my ex-wife’s radio show. I was like, why is he calling me? Turns out it was HIS bass! So we made the trade (and had a great reunion) and after a LOT of tweaking the setup, I’m a pretty happy camper with the ol’ Sterling 5H. I still think there’s some special magic in my cheapo Stingray that’s been my #1 since 2018, but this new one is definitely giving it a run for its money. Kind of hilarious that a $2000 bass is in direct competition with one I got for $330, but magic is magic. And price doesn’t trump magic. EVER.
On a more creative level, I picked the song that I’m going to collaborate with my old pal Dennis C. Miller on – actually, it’s going to be more me driving the bus on it – but it’s his song from about 20 years ago and I’m going to produce a version of it. That should be coming in the next month or two, so once we work that stuff out you should see it appear on a release from him later this year (and I might put it out, too, if that ends up being the deal).
On the mental health front, it’s been a rough go the past month or two. I don’t really reveal it much to most people, but I struggle with depression sometimes, and it’s been a dark time in my brain. Thankfully life has a way of keeping me just busy enough to not be swallowed up by it, and reminding me that I have so much value and I am loved no matter what my shitty-ass brain tells me. Just practicing gratitude daily and trying not to spiral, and it works for me. Meds might help, but my valleys aren’t persistent enough or frequent enough for me to feel like it’s necessary. Thanks to my lovely wife, and my wonderful children to help keep me from falling in the pit. If you need to talk, you know where to find me. I’m a good ear and I will love on you as much or as little as you need.
What else – oh, I’m also rather enamored with Olivia Rodrigo’s songs, and she just released a few more on the expanded edition of her record GUTS, including a BANGER called “obsessed” that you should check out. It’s awesome, and she put it together with the inimitable and excellent St. Vincent (Annie Clark). (The other four songs on GUTS (spilled) are fantastic as well.)
So that’s the update. I hope you have a fantastic day whenever you read this.
Lead with love, and peace be the journey. TMS
Necessity Being The Mother Of Invention (and all that)
I have a great day job. I get to make audio productions for the largest audio company in the world, with hundreds of radio stations, streams, thousands of podcasts, and just a MASSIVE footprint.
Sometimes this job requires the musical side of me to pop out and do some stuff because whatever resources I have aren’t quite good enough or exactly the perfect fit. This post will be about that.
I’ve been doing commercials for a local annual event every year, and am very proud and honored to have them as a client. The nature of my contract with the aforementioned day job precludes me from using their resources on stuff that falls outside the company, so I honor that. My library of music to use on outside stuff is minimal at best, and I’m not interested in paying piles of money to license music, because, well, times are tight. So, my composing and performing skills bailed me out. This necessity led to the invention of some music!
The first cut I created is a typical country-rock midtempo stomp tune:
Then that wasn’t quite working the way I wanted, so I checked their other ads to see what sort of things they had in them, and it was more rock-oriented. So to kill both birds with one stone, I came up with this one:
Then this client had some ads for a BBQ fest they were having as part of the larger event, and that one was just BEGGING for some Texas Blues. So I grabbed my Strat and made this little ditty:
It was so fun coming up with bespoke music for these ads that I think I might actually start composing more stuff to use for any non-company stuff I work on. It stoked my creativity in ways it hadn’t been stoked in a while. And it was all so fast and easy to make it all sound good using REAPER and my Line 6 Native, iZotope, Native Instruments, and Steven Slate Design plugins.
I’ve also created jingles and little ad sounders for clients for the day job, which I won’t post here, but if you’re curious, I’ll email them to ya – just get in touch with me.
Thanks for reading and listening, and peace be the journey!
I think I’ve addressed this before here on the blog, but I think sometimes you live life, and sometimes life lives you.
You feel like you have choices when you’re living life.
You feel like you’re just following a to-do list if life is living you.
Right now, it really does feel like life is living me instead of the other way around.
To be clear – some of the most fantastic things have been happening the past few months, from my 50th Birthday with surprise visits from my parents and a cousin I hadn’t seen in years to a couple of wonderful trips to North Carolina and Atlanta to see friends and band reunions. And reuniting with my best friend from high school who I hadn’t seen in over 20 years and finally meeting his wife and wonderful boys. SO MUCH LOVE!
But even as it’s been great, everything’s been SCHEDULED. My wife and I haven’t really had good alone time because we have a little kid and no good sitters. Work has been relentless for both of us, and SUPER STRESSFUL for my wife. Gigs have been very sporadic (which serve as a nice salve for my psyche, so that’s not good).
Some days I feel like I’m just driving people places and then sitting in a room for hours on a computer cutting up voiceovers I’m not particularly pleased with and mixing with music that’s ALMOST right for the commercials while periodically being interrupted by questions that have often already been answered.
I’m sure a lot of people go through this stuff, and honestly, I’m usually fairly good at forcing myself to be present and not just muddle through. But right now? It’s not going great. So I’m writing this at 1:41am to kind of put it out there so I can move on from it and take more action in my life.
Recently for the day job I had to create a jingle out of some really questionable a cappella singing, so I threw that pitchy mess into Melodyne (a wonderful software for naturally removing pitchiness), and wrote and recorded music to match the flow of the melody (which was a VERY atypical arrangement). Shockingly, it turned out fairly decent. I had polished the turd to a fine sheen (and they ended up going with the original a cappella…go figure).
The good part about that was discovering how quickly I can throw together music that is a full arrangement (the cleaned-up voice, along with guitar, bass, and drums I played on my Korg X50 keyboard). It really inspired me to possibly use those same techniques to get my songs done and start using my DistroKid account to make them available for people to listen and/or buy on all the streaming services.
So I know I’ve said it before, but I really do think that I’ll actually be finishing some songs in the coming months, and probably releasing them in chunks as EPs on Spotify and stuff like that.
That is, if I can manage to stop letting life live me and turn that shit around so I’m living life.
Wish me luck!
And if you also feel like life has been living you, I feel you. And I’m hoping for your sake you can turn that shit around as well.
Take care, and Peace be the journey! TMS
Museday Mumblings (Vol. 76) – A Case of The Musedays
Well, it’s a Museday. The last time I posted was in late September. Clearly life is having its way with me right now, as I’m not particularly inspired to even blather on here on the blog.
This series was meant to be almost a meditation – every Tuesday (or so) I’d post about some topic, whether it be musical or otherwise (but mostly musical), and it would keep me creating and creative. But a few things happened over the last year or so that really messed with my desire to share much of what’s going on with me publicly. People who are too sensitive. Beloved friends slightly younger than me who died suddenly. The tennis match-like back-and-forth of worthiness and worthlessness that is being a sensitive artist.
I desperately want to WANT to create. I desperately want to FEEL like people I depend on for music-related things are all on the same page. But time creates distance, distance increases anxiety, anxiety breeds worry, worry breeds resentment. I’m not saying anything is REAL about how I feel about the various things I’m doing or my relationships with music stuff, but it’s definitely making me feel less motivated in general, and kind of depressing me (and thus keeping me from working on stuff).
But let’s take stock. Let’s have ourselves one of them certified, Erin-phrase-coined “Gratitude Adjustments”:
In 2022, I played a PILE of wonderful shows with my boys in Chandler and The Bings. And I played my roles as bassist and singer well in the vast majority of them, which makes me very proud. We had a great bonding experience with our trip to Laredo that was only sullied by a bad stomach bug which led to the very first time I’ve ever left the stage to vomit…and then vomited off the side of the stage out of the view of the crowd. It’s quite a story that’s quite gross, and if you’d like to hear it, I’m happy to tell it in person.
My solo shows were mostly pretty good, and I was VERY consistent this year, basically playing every first Saturday except for July. I love the venue, the staff is wonderful, people tip very well, and I really need to grow this side of my musicianship. I think it would be good for my development to have some bigger crowds to play to, though. So I’m going to work towards that in 2023, stacking up the wonderful venue I already play and maybe even finding some more…
I got some very cool new gear and some of my existing gear got an AMAZING update that inspires me to play more, which is good. I keep meaning to make videos about the guitar and little amp, but that’s another casualty of life in general. Just hasn’t happened yet.
My body has held up pretty well considering I packed on an extra 15 lbs this year. Going to do my best to get that off in triplicate this year, hopefully by my birthday in September. That might be too tall an order, but progress toward healthy living is most important. My health is paramount and I need to stick around for my kiddos.
To close this out:
I am thankful that I can still do this music stuff.
I am grateful that my health so far has remained pretty good (gotta figure out the heart flutter, but…)
I am hopeful that I can stay disciplined and make the necessary changes to lead a more healthy lifestyle.
Now that this is turning into a “Goals” post – completely unrelated to the fact that it’s a new year, mind you – my goals are now to get healthy, get better at playing the songs I perform, get working on my ear training and theory knowledge, get the worthy songs I’ve written recorded, mix the old ones that were already recorded better (and improve the performances if necessary), get some new songs together, release some new music (having one song on the streaming platforms seems kind of sad), get my goddamn ass in gear in general, and get some MONEY.
That’d be nice, right? Rent is EXPENSIVE. Shit, everything is.
Anyway, thanks for reading and I plan to get back in this Museday Mumblings habit again. Have a happy day whenever you see this, and may you stay healthy and safe.
Peace be the journey! TMS
Museday Mumblings (Vol. 68): Inspiration, Machines, Cranky Old Mofos
My musical mission thus far in 2022 has centered on a few things: Playing good shows. Getting my gear all in proper operation. Learning how to use my new tools (patchbay, Behringer X18 mixer). Forming inspirations into ideas into actual songs.
I’ve succeeded at the good shows part – I played great in both of my Bings shows, and at times was so locked in with Jay every bit of both of our performances made the other’s even better. Excellent crowd in San Antonio, too.
My solo show was a bit hit or miss, working my way through my first on-stage slow-motion anxiety attack. I couldn’t get air, which made it extraordinarily hard to sing. Then, hilariously, I used the altered tuning feature on my Line 6 Variax to play Wonderwall with a “Capo” on the second fret, and promptly FORGOT TO CHANGE IT BACK! So the next group of songs (Drift Away, Crazy Little Thing Called Love, Always Something There To Remind Me, I’m A Believer, No Such Thing, and Hey Jealousy) were all played a WHOLE STEP HIGHER than I usually play them. Which made the whole “not having any air” thing even worse. And made it so I didn’t even end up playing one of my “standards”, the Turtles underappreciated classic “Elenore”, because there was no way in HELL I’d be singing that chorus in F#. I literally just stopped the song and moved on. I felt like such an unprofessional loser, and it ruined my evening. I came home a ball of nerves, and I think mildly freaked my wife out. Being someone who’s more of a depressive than an anxious person, it always freaks me out when the stress hormones get rolling, and it’s hard to recover. I think a pharmaceutical would have been helpful (perhaps a Xanax), but I don’t have that stuff. In the end, the venue was happy, and if I’m being honest with myself, even though I was falling apart inside, I still sounded pretty dang good. Just not as good as I normally would sound. I am kind of glad I didn’t record this one, though.
Moving on to the technical stuff – using the wonderful substance Deoxit, in the past few months I’ve cleaned the pots and jacks on a bunch of my aging things and it’s brought them back to life, particularly my “first guitar” – which technically was my brother Robert’s first guitar – now all it needs is to have its nut glued in properly and it’ll be a fun little pseudo-Telecaster to bang around on. I also cleaned up the pots on my basses, bringing them back to proper function, and even rescued a presumed-dead guitar wireless by merely cleaning the output jack. All I need now are some new strings on some of these guitars and basses and we’ll be in business.
Speaking of guitars and basses, I sold one in December. A Dean ML bass (looks kind of like the guitar Dimebag Darrell from Pantera used to play). It never worked for me, and it was a four-string, so I wasn’t using it, it was basically just collecting dust, and since I only paid $49 for it on a blowout sale at Guitar Center over a decade ago, I still made money on the deal, selling it for $100. I probably could have made more off it, but I just wanted it gone and the dude seemed nice.
Last Thursday I had to head down to San Antonio for the day job and on the way home decided to pop by the Guitar Center down there, and discovered a two-pickup version of my “#1” Sterling by Music Man Ray 5 bass that I use in Chandler and The Bings. I couldn’t believe it. More than that, it was on sale for the same price as I picked the #1 up for back in 2018 (that model has since gone up in price, and this version was even more). I decided to snag it. I couldn’t help myself! Pics or it didn’t happen:
She pretty.
It desperately needs new strings and a cleaning/set-up. But I already love it, and that’ll only make it more awesome.
Back in 2021 I got an amazing deal on a Behringer X18 mixer and am just now learning all the little things it can do. It’s going to be central to the new studio setup as I streamline and get things in order. It has amazing routing capabilities and some really cool built-in effects I can play with for doing live streams and stuff like that. This with the patchbay and my ATEM switcher will definitely enable me to do some really cool, interactive stuff from the studio in the future. I just have to get it all plugged up and learn how to make it all work together. I think my Edirol M-16DX, which has been my trusty studio sidekick for over 10 years now, will become the center of my live solo acoustic rig, making setting up and running all that much simpler, because it can live in a rack bag that I can keep set up and basically just plug my guitar and my vocal mic into it and still have effects and stuff I can use.
The last goal is inspiration – and translating that inspiration into new material. I’ve already written down multiple new ideas for songs – concepts more than phrases, really, but really good, inspiring starting points. And I’ve got a bunch more I’ve collected over the past few years that will be worked into songs. I might even use music that I liked from my old songs and replace the dodgy lyrical content with something based off these new ideas. (It won’t be the first time I’ve done that.) Time will tell for all of it.
I was listening to WTF with Marc Maron and his interview with John Mellencamp, and it was really fun listening to two cranky old motherfuckers talk about all kinds of stuff relating to John’s career, music in general, and how to exist on the planet. In fact, two of the aforementioned song ideas directly came to mind as a result of their conversation. So I’m already snagging that inspiration wherever it may show itself.
In summary, I’m excited for the new year at least as my musical experiences are panning out. I love learning new things and feeling energized when it comes to this stuff, so I’m very optimistic that if I make sure I’m investing time in this instead of sitting on my ass watching Rick Beato videos (not that those aren’t awesome), I’ll actually make some headway getting my shit together and creating things. I like the progress my friend Mandy has made with her dedication to live-streaming on Twitch, and I think maybe I’m going to try and make a Musical Schizo concert there a regular part of my week, once I decide on a day and time to do it and get more used to how all that live-streaming stuff works.
Thanks for reading, take care, be safe, and remember to love one another.
So I got me a patchbay. What’s a patchbay? Well, it’s a rackmounted (in most cases) device that allows you to have your instruments and interfaces all hooked up in a way that allows you to easily change their routing as you need. So if you have a bunch of guitar effects things, keyboards, whatever, you can have them all hooked up to the patchbay, and you can very easily plug them in to each other or into whatever inputs on your recorder, mixer, or computer interface you want to use.
So far, it’s not all the way hooked up, but I’m so stupidly excited about having everything hooked up and patchable from one place that it’s occupied a lot of my mental real estate related to music/production/etc. Thinking of the various ways I can get it hooked up, and what I’m going to patch into it, all of that…it’s so wonderful and exciting to me. And that’s very inspiring.
Finding new ways to work can be such a wonderful thing to light the fire around creating music. This new way to work really has opened me up to the possibility that I don’t have to get behind stuff and plug and unplug things to make them all available to me. I can just patch them on the front panel, or if they’re already hooked up to the specific input I need to use, just leave them there. It’s great and I really can’t wait to get it all set up and ready to go.
So find something that shakes up your workflow to get you inspired to get in there and make some music. It’s working for me. (Now if I could only do that with my songwriting…)
The first quarter of the year was pretty lame. Not a whole lot going on that was new.
Started back with gigs in May. (YAY!)
Joined an awesome Yacht Rock band but punked out because I had to accept reality the playing level expected didn’t fit with my current lifestyle. It still makes me sad when I think about it.
Blogged many, many times but got super inconsistent at the end of the year (depression does that to you).
Made many great improvements to my home studio building on all the great improvements from 2020. Hey, I figure if I live in this room for work, it might as well be decked out, right? Upgraded the live bass rig from a little HX Stomp to the HX Stomp XL, which has more footswitches. Very happy with the change.
Went to California for a family vacation. It was more of a trip than a vacation, because it was the opposite of relaxing, but it was wonderful to be back “home” and see some California family and friends. The Golden State is as much a part of me as anywhere else I’ve ever lived, and I still miss it. If I win a large sum in the lottery, I will buy property there.
Discovered great new music – Mammoth WVH’s debut album is EXCELLENT, as was their live show. I Don’t Know How But They Found Me (aka IDKHOW) somehow escaped me when they were the alternative music press’ retro darling a few years back, but now I know who they are (thanks to my bud Dennis) and dig the SHIT out of their stuff. They’re 80s in all the best ways, but current – if you like the idea of Duran Duran and The Cure having a baby, you’ll probably dig this.
Wrote ZERO songs. Didn’t even compose riffs or anything this year. Not sure why…just not all that inspired. I did do some livestream noodling.
Returned to the stage as a solo act thanks to my friend (and excellent livestreamer) Mandy Prater recommending me to the awesome people at 360 Uno.
And I think that’s about it.
Definitely going to get things set up in the studio in 2022 for easier musical creativity and make it a point to make stuff. I might even make videos of the process since I have that awesome-but-basically-unused live streaming mixer. And Bathroom Schizo videos!
Or not. Since I like to believe I’ll do creative things but I rarely come through because life and my mental state often get in the way. STAY TUNED!
One thing that’s definitely happening in 2022 is a return of the weekly format for the Museday Mumblings. I slacked hard in Q4 and I find that embarrassing.
Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful 2022! TMS
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
A few things that I’ve consumed “in these uncertain times” that I liked:
Greg Renoff’s two biographies – “Van Halen Rising” and “Ted Templeman: A Platinum Producer’s Life In Music”
Toto/studio legend Steve Lukather’s autobiography – “The Gospel According To Luke”
Wolfgang Van Halen’s album Mammoth WVH and…
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.)
Anthrax guitarist Scott Ian’s autobiography – “I’m The Man”
Ex-Black Crowes’ Drummer Steve Gorman’s amazing book – “Hard to Handle: The Life and Death of the Black Crowes – A Memoir”
Pink Floyd/Toy Matinee/studio bassist Guy Pratt’s autobiography “My Bass and Other Animals”
Former Van Halen manager Noel Monk’s Van Halen autobiography “Runnin’ With The Devil”.
Pat Benatar’s “Between a Heart and a Rock Place” autobiography.
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.
