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Museday Mumblings (Vol. 7): Gig/Band Stories

Museday Mumblings (Vol. 7): Gig/Band Stories

Since playing shows really isn’t a thing right now, for a variety of reasons all tied to the current Coronavirus pandemic, I figured I’d tell a few stories I could remember from my life as a gigging musician. Times when I learned something.

First one, early 1993. The band: Magic Garden. My first band playing bass. At the time, I was 100% focused on guitar. My brother Rob had bought a bass a little over a year earlier, and that was now “his” instrument. In fact, just to play the shows and not have Rob throw a fit, I paid him half of what I made at the gigs to use his bass and amp for the shows. It was a white Arbor P-Bass, and all we had in the family at the time to amplify it was a tiny Crate practice amp. I cringe thinking about walking into a show with that shitty-ass rig expecting to be heard. Anyway, first gig was at a bar that would later become like a second home in my more depressed, alcoholic days my last year in college. Maxie’s.

I barely knew the music, which was a mix of originals and covers. The leader of that band was this guy who was my first solid example of the Dunning-Kruger effect in music. This guy thought he was an AMAZING musician. He was mediocre at best. Even then, while I was still in heavy Dunning-Kruger mode myself, I could tell he was a big pile of “meh”. Anyway, we get in there and set up, and play some, and the owner of the bar brings us beers. Mind you, this is February of 1993. I’m 19 years old. Even though I was gawky and looked about 17, tops, he brought me beers, too. He asked if we were all of age, and I didn’t say anything but everyone else said yes. I didn’t expect to be served, but that Yuengling Lager was delicious. The gig went terrible – no one could hear me – which was good because I couldn’t hear myself, so I’m sure I was playing like shit. I wasn’t a bassist, really, at that point. Just a kid who WANTED to play bass. I think I played with a pick all night because I hadn’t developed my calluses yet. But I was so excited to have my first bar gig under my belt. Even if it was “just as a bassist”. I played a few more shows with the band and then quit (with plenty of notice) because they basically seemed more concerned with smoking weed than getting any better. I remember Mr. Dunning-Kruger was super pissed and then super weird to me after that, always throwing their new bassist’s talent in my face whenever he had a chance. What a prick. Shawn Gray – if you read this…fuck you, dude. You were an asshole to me for no good reason. (He’s never going to read this – there’s no chance he even remembers who I am…) But moving on. GIG NUMBER TWO…

Open mic night. Holly Springs, PA. 1994ish. Got up and did a couple of songs with my friend Mike (aka “Pizza Man”). I even did a solo rendition of Anthrax’s Dallabnikufesin (their goof on the hair metal power ballad). People really liked it and laughed really hard at the end of the song because it has a punchline ending. A few minutes later, Mike came up to me and told me his musician friend, who he had a ton of respect for, said, “Where’d you find this kid?” about me. Which was the first big vote of confidence I ever got for my singing. Prior to that, it had always been my friends kind of shitting on me for it when I tried to sing. Mind you, I’m sure it was terrible. I just really wanted to be able to do it. This was the first time someone seemed impressed. And it really gave me a boost. I still think about it now.

Neon Logic Band, 1998. Bass Guitar. Played a wedding that the band booked without talking to me, that I couldn’t get to until about 40 minutes after we were supposed to start because I had to work. Came in late. Sound was shit. Guys were sort of mad at me, but they knew it was going to happen. Wedding people were happy. First time I realized you could suck ass and still make people enjoy themselves.

Slaphappy, 1999. Bass Guitar and Vocals. Played a seafood restaurant called “Calico Jack’s” for Halloween. Got to sing lead on TWO songs (Surrender, I Alone) and harmonies on tons of others. It was EXCITING. People really loved the band. First show truly killing it in a cover band. Still makes me smile thinking about it. I think the lead singer dressed as a cow. Cut to about two months later (in early 2000), after playing a regular Thursday gig at this same venue, with varying levels of success, because it was a THURSDAY, the manager chose to fire us BEFORE we started our set. Up to that point, it was the most phoned-in show a band I was in I ever played. We just basically fucked around and played whatever we wanted. It was not good. But it taught me a lesson about professionalism.

Slaphappy, August 2001. Bass Guitar and Vocals. We’d been playing with a fill-in singer since April, and then had a run of about 15 weeks in a row of gigs, and we were all tired of everything. We were playing at the Jacksonville Landing, one of our biggest venues by size, and it was DEAD. What? A gig OUTSIDE in Florida in August doesn’t draw a huge crowd? Anyway…nothing was going right, and the lead guitarist lost his shit. Threw his guitar on the ground and walked off stage. We had a show the following evening that was very tense. We talked it out and set some good boundaries, and “found the fun” again. But it was really hard to get there being so burnt out. He still has that guitar, and though the body got a crack in it, it never split, and still sounds awesome. Any time I wanted a reminder of keeping my cool on stage, I’d pick up his guitar and look at the crack, and it helped immensely.

Jumping back, Slaphappy, May 2001. Hurricane Hattie’s. This was at the beginning of the run. Our fill-in (now one of my best friends) was messing things up left and right, and who could blame him? That was a lot of material to learn as a lead singer with very little time to prep. I kept making mad faces all gig, scowling and basically being an asshole every time he messed up even a little. I can’t remember who pointed how terrible it looked out to me, but damn, I felt like a complete asshole. I apologized to him, and plotted a new strategy for myself for dealing with on-stage mess-ups. I’d smile, and if I could, laugh at them. IT WORKED! To this day, if you see me smiling on stage, it’s possible either I fucked up, or one of my bandmates did. And I guess sometimes I’m truly enjoying myself. Okay, most of the time. Now I embrace the chaos, when in the past, it would drive me to the brink of fury. That was a good lesson to learn. And it took basically one person pointing out how much of a prick I was. This seems to be a trend.

Forward in time…band named after the method you use to dial out of a hotel, 2005-2006. Guitar and co-Lead Vocals. I joined this band after they didn’t pick me to replace an important member earlier that year (in January 2005). The previous version of the band was kind of its “classic” lineup – with the most talented players they’d ever have all together. I really wished I would have gotten picked for that opening, but at the time Slaphappy was still a thing, and that paired with the fact that the other guy seemed more appealing to women (he was single and had more of a rock image), and already kind of had a solo fanbase sealed my fate, even though it was clear to everyone in the band I had powerful musical chemistry with the other guitarist/singer and the bassist. They went with the image rather than the talent in a 2-1 vote. It would bite them later. By May, the two super-talented guys would quit the band for family and motivation reasons. They weren’t having fun anymore. They might have stuck around had I been there, but we’ll never know…

Slaphappy had died in February, and I was looking for something new, so I joined. Now, new guy from January (who had an earlier stint in the band but was fired for a variety of reasons) had it in his head that he was the lead singer now. I guess because of his five months of seniority? Of course, that wasn’t the deal with me joining – I joined on the condition that we were going to share lead vocals equally, and each sing the songs we sounded better singing. It was discussed clearly, and he agreed. Cut to September and October, and he keeps making suggestions that he sing something and I play lead on it, edging me out so he was singing more of the songs. And worse, trying to take songs that were more suited to my voice. By the time we got to November, I was pretty livid, but not only because of the not-singing-lead thing. When I’m playing, I only care about making whatever ensemble I’m in sound its best. And me singing on the songs I was singing was us at our best. Honestly, me singing even more might have been even better. We’ll get to that in a second.

So, I’m still angry about being pushed down, but I couldn’t find a way to confront him directly about it because I didn’t have the communication skills, so I was going through the drummer/bandleader to express my frustration. Apparently he was getting it from the other guy as well, and he finally basically told me to shut the fuck up and talk to the other guy because he was tired of it. We finally figured it out, but it was still kind of tense, because he wasn’t really doing a great job singing the stuff that was his. Unfortunately for the band, he was really sounding like shit at the shows, to the point that one of the managers at our “home” venue came up to the bandleader and said, “What the hell is wrong with that guy? He’s terrible.” Referring to the other singer. “You should have THAT guy sing.” Pointing to me. This confirmed my sense that we were headed in the wrong direction. We sputtered along through the new year into 2006, and then a few months in, the other guy quit rather abruptly. We tried one guy and had a promising rehearsal, but then we had a horrible show – he did a terrible job and didn’t know the material and sang very poorly. So we moved on. We decided to go with me as sole lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist and got a great lead guitarist who wasn’t really a singer, and we played a couple of good shows with that group, which would prove to be the last shows I played with them. I moved to Austin in May that year. I still kind of give the bandleader shit for not picking me instead of the drama queen when they had a chance. That would have been an amazing band.

Around the time all this drama was happening, I was starting a new band (Schizophonic) with the genius drummer from Slaphappy, the brilliant bassist that just quit the band I joined, and an awesome-but-green keyboardist. Things were going great until we started to pick songs, and it became very apparent to the bassist that we weren’t headed in a direction he wanted to head in. Add that to the lack of gigs booked for this band, because we were trying to truly be something different and pick songs we hadn’t heard other bands play, and he decided it just wasn’t worth it anymore. He felt marginalized. And I felt terrible, because he was right. I mean, I truly still don’t believe the songs he was picking were all that marketable, but giving him at least an equal share of the repertoire might have made us sound really unique and awesome and not really hurt us in the long run. We ended up finding another player who was only okay, and we sputtered through a gig or two and died in the rehearsal space at the keyboardist’s house months later, after the brilliant bassist had joined another band and then taken the drummer for that band. I ended up filling in with them a couple of times later, so it wasn’t any big drama, but it still hurts, especially knowing it was largely because I lacked empathy for what my friend wanted to do and how not picking his songs made him feel.

There are so many more stories to tell, but I think I’ll stop here.

Learning self-confidence, professionalism, patience, equanimity, balance, and empathy through these situations has helped me make my band experiences truly the best they can be, and me a much better bandmate.

Hopefully reading these might serve as cautionary tales for your experiences in bands or as a musician in general.

Have a wonderful week, and I apologize for this being published a day late. Life is weird. We were working on the final mix of Chandler and The Bings’ new single. It’s pretty awesome.

Black Lives Matter. Keep your respiratory droplets to yourself. Wear your mask. Wash your hands. Keep your distance.

And peace be the journey.

TMS

Chandler and The Bings LIVE!

Chandler and The Bings LIVE!

Can’t make it to a show because of geography or other reasons? Here’s the live audio from our show on July 20th at Craftsman in Austin.

Set 1:

Set 2:

Set 3:

Featuring my bass playing and backing vocals all night, and my lead vocals on All Star, Hey Jealousy, When I Come Around, Creep (kinda), and Friends In Low Places (and part of It’s Gonna Be Me).

I love playing with this band!
TMS

You Can’t Always Get What You Want…

You Can’t Always Get What You Want…

I have a serious issue now. I desperately want a $2100 bass. You see, Ernie Ball/Music Man came out with their new Stingray Special series, with roasted maple necks that have stainless steel frets and updated bodies that are lighter, and updated electronics that are punchier and quieter. Of course, it’s not happening. I don’t have that kind of cash.

Cut to a few weeks ago, where I was doing my normal Craigslist perusal, and I came across a guy up in Cedar Park selling my $2100 bass for a mere $1295! I literally did not have the funds to scrape together to get this incredibly-cheap offering of EXACTLY THE BASS I WANT – Black. Maple fingerboard. One pickup. Just like the Sterling Sub series that I’m playing now as my #1 bass, but lighter and more pro in every single way.

So I’ve been anguished about it for a couple of weeks now. And the ad has finally timed out on Craiglist, so no more drooling over that which I can not possess. I did send the guy an email basically begging him to keep in touch if he still happened to have the bass next month (since I plan on scraping together money and selling things). I’ve heard nothing back. I’m sad.

So what does this tell me? Well, I snoozed and most likely lost. And I simply cannot justify spending almost $1300 on a bass, even if it is the $2100 bass I so desperately wish to own.

But if on the odd chance I do hear back from Allen from Cedar Park…well, I guess we’ll see how my willpower handles it.

I don’t NEED this bass…but damn if it wouldn’t be a hoot to have it!

In other news: Things with The Bings are going as wonderfully as before, better, actually, because my voice has been solid. We’ve been killing our Thursday shows at Stereotype, with people showing up basically just to see us and then clearing out once we’re done (except on the Saturday gig – they hung out – we wish they’d hang out on the Thursdays, too, but it’s nice that they’re there for us specifically). Not sure what the future holds with that. 2019 might be something different there. We’ll have to see. I do look forward to seeing some of my “buddy bands” there, though (like HighRoad, Zoodust, and especially Hit & Run). They’re all being booked when we can’t make the shows.

I’ve been cleaning things up in my studio and getting things all wired up for proper use in preparation for work beginning in earnest on some recordings. I know if you look at the 10 years or so I’ve been writing this blog that that seems like more of the same promised bullshit, but this time I really have all the pieces together and am feeling some creativity, so it might not be any of the songs I’ve already written – it might be writing new ones from all the progressions, melodies, and riffs I’ve been recording on my iPhone for the past six or seven years. I’ve got good software and plugins and I’m raring to go. Now it’s just finding the moments of quiet necessary for getting things down. I think I can manage it. 🙂

I’m probably heading out to a jam night tomorrow to see some friends and maybe rock out a few tunes I haven’t played in a while. I might even see if they’ll let me play drums on something. I haven’t done that in front of an audience since a Slaphappy gig in Georgia about 15 years ago.

On the “gear I actually own” front, the HX Stomp has been PERFECTION for my gigs with The Bings. And I got a new set of quad-driver in-ears for cheap on Amazon that have been perfection as well. It’s crazy – I haven’t even been running a speaker or amp. Just BIG FAT TONE from a teeny tiny pedal.

Thanks for reading my update, and have a wonderful Christmas and New Year – if that’s your thing.

Peace, love, and good happiness stuff…

TMS

Life and Baby

Life and Baby

The last pieces I wrote for this site were back in March, before my youngest son was born. I had every intention of keeping up with this page more, and turning it into a site tracking the progress of my latest musical project, but baby is more important. This ended up on the back burner. Now that the little dude is 7 months old, and things are sort of normalizing in a way, I decided to pop in and be creative for a second, and maybe write something about what life has been like for me, but the reality is, life hasn’t really changed. Well, that’s not true – life has changed A LOT – but my musical life hasn’t changed one bit. I’m still not recording as much as I want, not getting my songs together for the album I announced over a year ago, and basically just playing shows with the Bings and hitting the occasional jam night when I can (far less frequently now that baby is here). It’s okay, though. I’m pretty happy these days in general. Because of some other life changes, my two older kiddos are living with me full-time, and it’s nice to have those turds around. They’re so good to their little brother, even if they’re incapable of babysitting him. Getting them here has been quite time-consuming, so even more time away from music and blogging. But again, things are starting to normalize a bit and as we get past the unpacking and settling phase for them, we’ll be ready to make some moves on the music part.

As all this is happening, the Bings have gone through some ups and downs, but mostly ups, and now we’ve got a sort of regular show happening on Thursday nights at a place called Stereotype. This past Thursday the evil “I suck at harmonies” monster came back and reared its ugly head, which when added to the fact that I was suffering some horrible back pain due to all the lifting and moving of things, made my night the worst show I’ve played in about five years or so. When I sang lead, things were fine, but outside of that, it was a shit show for me. The good news is that we’ve got another show this coming Thursday, so redemption is around the corner. I’m going to use different in-ears for this show, so hopefully I’ll be able to hear better and thus sing better. We shall see…

You’d think I’d have more to say, but I’m just tired. More to come in the next few weeks. It’s been four or five years since the last set, so I think I’m going to start posting new videos of me singing solo with an acoustic in the bathroom. I just have to decide which bathroom I’m going to use, and what songs I’ll sing. I think Elenore by The Turtles will make an appearance. Perhaps some more gems from my solo acoustic set just for fun. And maybe some Bings songs, too. Maybe I can convince Pat to come over and do a duet with me in the bathroom. That’d be a first.

Thanks for your continued attention and have a wonderful Halloween, All Saints Day/Dia De Los Muertos, and November in general.

TMS

P.S. Ba-by Shark doot do do do do do…Ba-by Shark doot do do do do do…Ba-by Shark doot do do do do do…Baby shark.

Tape Don’t Lie

Tape Don’t Lie

With apologies to (and endless admiration for) Shakira’s hips, there’s another thing that don’t lie: Tape. If one ever wants to be made to feel like you’re nowhere near the musician or singer you think you are, you need to record yourself. Humbling is GOOD. But it’s also NOT FUN.

I pulled a multi-track recording off the Allen & Heath QU-16 mixer that me and the other Bings were playing through, and HOLY FUCKING SHIT.

I SUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK as a backing vocalist.

My lead vocals and bass playing aren’t terrible for most of the show. They have suck moments, and are often mediocre rhythmically, but my backing vocals are almost all terrible.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m sure casual listeners of music might not notice most of the suckage, but when you reach a certain level of knowledge and understanding of music, you really hear all the warts. There were many times we were performing this same list of songs where I thought something was off, and often I could pinpoint it, but I had never really recorded something that isolated all our performances like a multi-track recording. Talk about brutal honesty. There are times in life when you are blind to your own fetid stench. You get used to it, so you don’t smell it. It’s like I didn’t have a nose and the mixer gave me one. I really thought I was doing an okay job. It didn’t sound awful in my in-ear monitors (which tend to be very revealing of flaws), so I had no idea.

In times like these, my first impulse is usually to quit, because I’m horribly embarrassed that I put that chunge out there in front of people. I always want to impress, because it makes people happy (and usually they express that happiness by saying something nice to me about my performance). Fortunately, my next impulse after wanting to hang it all up is usually SOLVE THE PROBLEM. In this case, the problem is my crap-ass, out-of-tune backing vocals. I’m going to have to go through the parts and learn them right and then practice them over and over so they’re just in my muscle memory. I’m also going to do my faux custom molds for another set of in-ear monitors I own because I think that the lack of overall clarity in the ones I’m using might be contributing to the suckage. I’m not blaming the tools, but I definitely want to be more aware when I’m stinking up the joint. Maybe better monitors is the key.

The recordings also reveal a lot of flaws in my bandmates’ performances, too. Taken all together, it actually doesn’t sound horrible, but if I decide to do something with these recordings other than make myself sad, there are definitely times when I’ll be either re-recording or simply removing failed attempts at harmony and other mistakes.

The moral of the story is record early and record often, and don’t be discouraged. Turn your discouragement into encouragement. You CAN learn those parts. You just have to put in the time and effort. I know in my lead singer days I’d record stuff, notice parts where I was straining for a note and took the time to work out how to do that more effectively. I think it might be time to get back into that habit. I also think that you, loyal reader, should do the same if you are a performer of any kind. Don’t be afraid of the tape, and don’t have so much of an ego that you can’t be open to SUCKING HARD sometimes. We all fall down. It’s how we get back up that matters.

I believe musicians in bands that do interpretations of classic songs and aren’t trying to be “note perfect” should be brave and try things. We definitely do a lot of that in Chandler and The Bings, since generally we care more about playing a fun show than being “perfect”. I remember reading an interview with Edward Van Halen where he talked about his philosophy on taking risks musically and jamming – he said it’s all “falling down the stairs and landing on your feet”. I have always tried to follow this philosophy, and there have been times that it’s worked out and times when it’s been awful. Since the band isn’t purely an improvisational experience, and there are defined things I need to be doing, it doesn’t directly apply, but the way I approach my bass playing on the songs is definitely adventurous and I’m very proud of it most of the time. In these contexts, I do generally fall down the stairs and land on my feet. I am not as skilled a backup singer as I am a bassist, though, so I think I need to spend a little more time on the basics of singing backups so that when I do go for it, my percentages get higher. Most of the big swings for backing vocal stuff at the show were misses. The bigger problem was how often my defined parts were misses.

I was going through the songs, and there were so many times I was off it was disheartening. When I sang lead, I pretty much killed it (pretty much), but so many times I tried to get in when Pat or Alon were singing, I was off. I hate that. I don’t want to be the piece that’s making things sound like shit. I want to be the piece that makes everything come together and sound AWESOME. So it’s time to put in some work. And I better do it quickly – I’ve got a baby coming in a few weeks.

I’m looking forward to being a smoothly lubricated, quiet wheel instead of the squeaky one I am right now. Practice will be the grease to get me there. And the fact that the “tape don’t lie” got me to notice I need some work.

Thanks for reading, and come see us Chandler and The Bings fellas sometime. I’ll be singing better.

RECORD YOURSELF!
TMS

Musings from my new machine

Musings from my new machine

My 44th birthday is next Saturday. I officially am starting to feel old. My lovely fiancee decided that she wanted to do something super nice for me for the occasion, so she purchased a really nice 2-in-1 laptop for me, which is the “new machine” mentioned in the title of this post. Even better, she decided to let me have it early! I am so excited because this allows me to take any sort of productions I’d like to do portable. It’s got more than enough power to do everything I need, recording-wise, and it plays nice with all my recording software. I will be able to use it to write and blog more, and be more creative in general.

I really had committed to doing more creative work earlier this year, but I somehow let life get in the way again. I’m still not doing what I really want to do in that respect, though I did come up with a good song idea for Chandler And The Bings that we should be adding to our show soon. It’s just going to take some vocal work and “Bingsification” to really make it special, but it’s got GREAT potential. I’ll have to be satisfied with that for now.

As for my Bings, we’re kicking every type of ass. We just did a benefit last night for hurricane victims where we raised a small pile of money, and it was a really fun show. Listening to my live recording of the show, it’s not as musically “there” as a lot of other bands I’ve done, but it is more energetic and fun, and the crowd is loving every minute.

The one thing that’s truly been nagging at me musically is not playing any shows where I’m doing most of the singing. I really didn’t think I’d miss it as much as I do. I like being bass guy, harmony guy, and once-in-a-while lead vocalist for the Bings, but it’s kind of weird how much of a hole the lack of lead singing leaves just mostly being an instrumentalist.

Anyway, that’s the update from here. Peace be the journey and #leadwithlove!
TMS

Further Musings on The Bings (and Chandler Bing)

Further Musings on The Bings (and Chandler Bing)

Chandler Bing was by far my favorite character on the sitcom “Friends”. I had already been a huge fan of Matthew Perry from some of his earlier shows, and he’s the reason that I even decided to watch “Friends” when it hit the airwaves in 1994. Well, not the only reason, because I had seen Courteney Cox in a few other things at that point and was a little obsessed with her. But together they were for sure a win for me – funny quippery from a familiar face and an absurdly beautiful woman I could watch? Sign me up. It premiered when I was in college. September of 1994 – so it was my second year living up in the dorms. Friends became an event back in these pre-widespread-internet days. Groups of coeds would gather in the TV lounges every Thursday night for this bit of “Must-See TV”. At this point in my life, most of my friends were young women, so of course I was going to be roped in for the Thursday night festivities even if I hadn’t been a Matt Perry and Courteney Cox fan. I thought the show was a little ridiculous, but I really loved their wisecracking ways, and aside from Ross, who was a whiny bitch, and Rachel, who embodied pretty much everything that could go wrong with a woman to me, I really enjoyed the show. It was so thoroughly white-person-90s that it seemed targeted directly to the Gen-X temporary denizens of my very small, very white college town. And every time you hear someone say, “I was SO not happy” or something to that effect (the emphasized negative), you have “Friends”, specifically Matthew Perry as Chandler Bing, to thank for that.

So how does it all relate to music or me being the Musical Schizo? Well, there was another character on the show, Phoebe Buffay, who was an aspiring singer-songwriter and would play her hilariously bad songs at “Central Perk”, the coffee house where all the Friends hung out (and one of them worked). Around that time, perhaps a year later, a coffee house opened up in my very small, very white college town called the Java Hut. There were plenty of Phoebe Buffays that played that place. One of them was actually not terribly bad, and he was the roommate of a friend of mine. This singer-songwriter would enlist my help because I was the only person he knew who owned a PA system. I’d cart my rig (Peavey XR600B and two 10″-12″-horn column speakers) down to the Java Hut and get it all set up so he could play his music for the caffeinated clientele. He wrote songs about all kinds of things – life, love, Star Wars – he just wrote endlessly. His notebook of songs was ENORMOUS. At this point, I think I had written about 20 songs, and they were all pretty terrible blues songs or things forced into some neat riff or chord progression that I had come up with that didn’t really have a story or any sort of decent melody. After meeting this person, I was inspired to write more – and better – and to figure out what it was that I really wanted to say. I went through a five- or six-year period where I wrote a lot of songs, most of them still terrible, but more and more they started to represent things on my mind, or stories about characters in my life or characters in my head. Then I got married, had children, got full-time work, and life started to distract and intervene.

They say major life events like getting married or divorced and having children can really inspire creativity, but weirdly my most creative periods have come when I’ve had nothing going on. When life is really boring and I have nothing else to do. Periods where I’ve gotten over the initial grief or joy of some big life event and psychologically feel “okay”. My most recent big tough life event was probably my divorce in 2013, and to date I’ve gotten basically zero songs out of it. I did meet a wonderful woman and she’s inspired a song or two, but my writing output has been utter shit for the past 10 years. When I have the time I don’t have the energy, when I have the energy I don’t have the time. I’m sure many creative people have the same issues. It doesn’t help that I generally assemble my song demos in the same digital audio workstation software I use for my day job. When I come home from staring at that for eight hours, I’m not exactly inspired to stare at it any longer just to get song ideas down. I’ve thought about using other media to write stuff, and every time I have something vaguely inspiring I make a note of it on my phone’s built-in recorder. Thus far, that’s resulted in one new song. The song inspired by my fiancee but not directly about her necessarily. It’s been through a couple of demos and I’m not fully satisfied with it just yet, but it is quite a stylistic departure for me:

But moving on, I have in my head that I really want to be more creative. I feel like I want to write new and better songs again. I have a studio space where this is possible. But it’s not happening because I can’t decide exactly how I want to focus my creative musical energy. I don’t know if I want to write new songs or improve myself as a musician in general, by working on my relative pitch and understanding of theory, so that when I do write, I can connect things more easily. So my life with music has been one of pleasant distractions for the past few years, since my songwriting output went down the tubes. I’m not sure if the pleasant distractions are WHY my songwriting output is in the toilet, but they have been very pleasant – my long and satisfying (if up and down) run with Roman Holiday, my abbreviated tenure with Nudge, my many fill-in gigs with Texas Players and Mark Chandler, my even-more-abbreviated time with Flext, my false start that was The Dangerfields, and all of my wonderful solo gig experiences. Which brings us back to my current pleasant distraction, Chandler and The Bings.

I detailed in my last post that they have managed to soften the hard candy shell that represents my “musical perfectionish” tendencies (not “-ist” because that’s unrealistic). We come up with clever reworked versions of songs and that’s pretty inspiring – to hold on to the essence of the song and make it relatable but put a new spin on it that better fits our personality as an ensemble. It’s the same bit that I found endlessly inspiring working things out with Roman Holiday, creating rock band versions of 80s synth-pop tunes. Our wonderful shows with engaged and happy audiences have made me understand more and more that if you just have fun, they’ll have fun with you. I want to carry that fun back into my creative endeavors, so I think my next plan is a fundamental lifestyle shift. Taking a little bit of time every day to just create something, good or bad. Just to remind myself that it’s fun and that I love creating things. Because I DO! So, much like realizing that I need to have some physical exercise every day, and committing to that, I’m going to make the commitment to have a little creativity exercise every day, too. This blog post is the first example of that. Musing about life in the mid-90s, my love for “Friends” and how inspiring it can be to just love creating music, art, whatever. I AM A CREATIVE. It’s time to start behaving like one again. A creative that doesn’t create is nothing. I’m tired of being nothing.

Related unrelated comment: I once wrote an episode of Friends in college with my wonderful roommate Mary because we had a TV Writing and Criticism class together. It was great. Well, we thought it was great. But it was certainly great fun to create!

Expect new stuff from me soon, because I’m going to document my creations here on the blog.

Thank you for reading, and peace be the journey!
TMS

P.S. Come see a Chandler and The Bings show – it may not be perfect, but it sure is FUN!

Well, things have definitely not gone according to plan…

Well, things have definitely not gone according to plan…

So word of the resurrection of Roman Holiday were premature. Sadly, no matter my efforts, I haven’t been able to get the band booked anywhere. I am a terrible booking person. I’m sure it didn’t help that we never updated our marketing materials, etc., but I want to apologize publicly to Lee and Ned for not making it happen yet. Moving on from that…

I’ve joined the 90s “phatness” that is Chandler and The Bings.

This new experience has really challenged my perspectives on how to be in a band. First, because this band has actual heat – people seem to really love what we do more than anything else I’ve ever done in a cover band. Second, because even though the quality isn’t necessarily where I’d let things stand if I were the music director, these guys are such a hoot to play with that I actually don’t care. WHAT? THE MUSICAL ASSHOLE LETS THINGS GO? Yup. For some reason I do.

We are playing stuff by all kinds of 90s artists – Green Day, Spice Girls, TLC, Salt N Pepa, Gin Blossoms, Celine Dion, Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears – and it all seems to work. We don’t play the songs right – we chop up arrangements or rearrange them. But people still love it. I think it’s the amount of fun we bring to the stage. It in some ways reminds me of Slaphappy, because that silliness always made people dig us, even if we didn’t sound perfect.

Regardless, I’m happy this has come along, but I’m really sad about having no solo gigs and no Roman Holiday comeback. Perhaps this will light a fire under my butt and bring that stuff back sooner than later.

Time will tell.

Thanks for reading, and check out the new band!
TMS

The Dangerfields are in peril, but ROMAN HOLIDAY IS BACK!

The Dangerfields are in peril, but ROMAN HOLIDAY IS BACK!

So The Dangerfields might be a dead concept, with Shawn moving back to Jacksonville, but with that news also came the news that Roman Holiday is coming back from the dead!

I’m so excited to play with my musical brothers Ned and Lee again all together as a trio. Our first practice back really didn’t feel like three and a half years had passed since last we played together. We just sounded like us. It’s so weird. But good weird.

So look out for more news on that front in the coming weeks. We should have some shows booked soon, hopefully for the next few months! WOO HOO!

#leadwithlove,
TMS

The Dangerfields, Solo shows, keyboard, fitness, etc.

The Dangerfields, Solo shows, keyboard, fitness, etc.

Updates:

The Dangerfields are still in progress, and we’ve played one more show since my last post. Okay, that’s not really accurate, because it’s not The Dangerfields, really if Lee isn’t playing drums. But it was a nice try, although an overally unpleasant experience for a variety of reasons. (Kudos to Ernie for filling in and doing a good job) We’ve had a couple of rehearsals since then and the last one was very inspiring – we’re starting to sound like a BAND – which is really good. Finding time to schedule shows around our lives and Lee’s other band is the next trick, but we’ll get to that. So life is good in the world of no respect. 🙂

I booked a few more solo shows at Scoreboard, and I’m very excited to be back there. I’m going to try and make my PA and light rig even more simple for easier setup-teardown, which is a delightful challenge.

I bought a Korg X50 synth at a pawn shop, and it’s already inspiring me with its sounds. I’m excited to become a better keyboardist, and I might even learn some songs on it for the solo gigs. Wouldn’t that be weird?

Finally, I’m back at the gym on a regular basis. Time to get in shape and stay in shape. It’s already making my joints feel better, and once I’ve worked out a way to eat better with my weird sensory food issues on top of the regular gym activity, I’ll get lighter and will be able to start exercising a little harder.

I have been inspired to improve my overall musicianship, but I also really want to tap into whatever emotions are flowing through me now. I’m very happy with my life in general – my work is pleasant, my home situation is awesome, and I feel very loved. And that sort of peace usually keeps me from being all that expressive with music – I just don’t write all that much. I have had some serious moments of worry and pain, though, with family far away, first from Hurricane Matthew (everyone is okay, but it was scary), and then through a friend’s loss this past weekend.

One of my best friends in the world, both musically and non-musically, just lost his brother. I can’t really imagine the emotions he’s feeling, but it’s made me very, very sad, because his brother was always such an encouraging spirit, supporting our musical endeavors and really just showing us “the love”. If I ever had to do a crying scene in a movie, I’d think about losing one of my brothers – the very idea is that level of pain for me, and I wish there was something I could do to help my friend through this horrible time.

I wish there was a way to express it as well as I think Neil Peart and Rush did on this song:

The world will miss you, Darin.

Peace be the journey, all!
TMS