The Musical Schizo

So I moved the family piano into the studio, because our house just isn’t big enough to have it out in the den (it really makes the room small).

Then I set up the mic and recorded some stuff just for fun. Here’s a sample.

I also recorded some covers with just me and an acoustic guitar for fun. I was constantly being interrupted by the kids, and I forgot some words here and there (not to mention missed a few notes), but I think these show you that a good song is a good song regardless of how fleshed-out the arrangement is:
Just Like Heaven (The Cure)
Sunday Morning (Maroon5)

I like goofing around when I can. I encourage you to do the same!

I’m into the “tion”s these days.

Aggravation – as in, I get aggravated when I’m not feeling like the machine is churning behind me musically, especially when I’m giving a LOT like I was at the Light Bar last Saturday night.

Frustration – from having a complete night of clusterfucks.

Dehydration – having nothing to do with alcohol, but purely based on too much heat – no matter how much water I drank, I still felt like diarrhea the next day.

Remuneration – or more accurately, not much remuneration for all our troubles.

Destination – or perhaps…

Vacation – as in, it’s time for me to have one, and it’s good that the band has a break so we can get our crap together.

Circumnavigation – feeling like you’ve circled the “globe of emotions” in the course of one show.

Creation – I wrote part of a song…but just part, but it was still new and creative.

Isolation – I need some sometimes. I get really short and snippy if I don’t get it.

Recreation – taking the kids for a swim Saturday was actually quite awesome.

Violation – talking about other band members on here isn’t kosher with “band code”, but I was really frustrated by their performances Saturday night – I love ’em to death, truly, but I felt like I needed to get Casey angry so she’d actually hit the drums with some power (it just seemed really weak up on stage – I hope it was more “together” out front), and I wanted to get Ned some replacement nerves, because apparently the ones connecting his brain and hands (and his thinking and memory) weren’t working all that well Saturday night.

Conflagration – could be something that happens from my brash honesty on here.

Migration – moving to a new drummer will make things a lot different for this band, which isn’t a bad thing.

Satisfaction – that I used “tion” more than anyone probably should.

Salutations!

This was sent in response to a Roman Holiday e-mail list post by Ned:
“The other band that has rocked my world is Roman Holiday (http://www.romanholidayband.com/). They stepped in when The Recliners had to cancel out on a reception I was hosting for a conference last week. Roman Holiday is a three piece with one of the most amazing bass players I’ve seen on stage in a long time. He plays like John Taylor and sings like… well, whoeverthehell he wants to. They do AC/DC, The Beastie Boys, Smash Mouth, The Ramones… well the song list is on the web site. AND they’ll be adding Duran Duran soon! Woot! They are playing on Saturday at 10pm at The Light Bar, which is located across the street from the Frost Bank Building at 4th and Congress. Their regular drummer had to drop out due to work but the sit in (a chic drummer and she’s hot!) is really great and if they hadn’t told me I would not have known they hadn’t rehearsed.”

…and that was a show with barely any rehearsal, played with Casey, who had barely picked up sticks in five months.

Comments like these just remind me of the reality that no matter how much you think you suck, someone probably thinks you’re awesome. Thanks to the folks who came out to Stubb’s, and especially the hosts of the party for reminding me of that by sending these wonderful comments along.

I’ve been on a huge Jason Falkner kick these past few days, soaking up just about everything he put out – Presents Author Unknown, Can You Still Feel?, Bliss Descending, and even his guitar work in Jellyfish. The dude is just supremely talented, and completely overlooked except by songwriting musos like me.

His music almost sounds like prog-pop, in the sense that it uses very dense, complicated arrangements of guitar and voice. It’s just weird enough to not sound completely mainstream, but everything is a hook. It’s kind of like XTC, only an American version, with all the instruments performed by one guy (he plays everything on his albums).

I encourage everyone who reads this to go to your nearest record store or used CD store, and grab any of his records you can find. OR if you’re a Napster or Rhapsody member (the unlimited kind) check him out on there.

He has a new album out, but it’s still unavailable in the states except as an import from Japan. They get all the good stuff, including bonus tracks on almost all releases that aren’t available on the American versions.

Why is America so consistently denied the best in power pop?

In a world that actually judges its art based on merit rather than fashion, Jason Falkner would be a superstar.

So, here’s to you, Jason…I hope you’re able to shed those sideman shoes and get the recognition that befits a talent as great as yours.

Wednesday and Thursday were good in Roman Holiday-land.

Wednesday night, we auditioned a great drummer (Rob). Thursday he decided to join the band. YAY!

Wednesday night, we played with Casey (who we love). Thursday, we did it again at Stubb’s. It was great.

We’re going to take our time finding a fourth member of the band.

I think we’ll be pretty stellar as a trio (and we’ll make more money).

Rock!

So we played The Light Bar. It was relatively fun, but load in and load out sucked.

I saw a dude I work with there. It was funny seeing him out of context. It was funnier seeing him singing along to the songs I was singing. The staff at the Light Bar was great – especially Jennifer. It’s a cool place, and probably a really fun “hang” if you aren’t working (as in, playing music in the heat and humidity on the roof).

It was probably our last gig with Mike, which is sad. We’ve got a gig Thursday evening at Stubb’s to play for two hours for a private function. It should be cool – especially since Casey’s going to play with us (Casey was the drummer in Roman Holiday up until February).

It’s an uncertain future, though. We want to have good people who can also play to add to our little family, and so far, the guys we’ve auditioned have been good people, but none have been all that right for the band (either from their perspective or ours).

We’ve got another audition on Wednesday, and then we’ll rehearse with Casey for Thursday’s gig. It should be an adventure of sorts, since I haven’t played with Casey in months. I’m looking forward to it, though. The drummer we’re auditioning seems to be quite excellent from the stuff he’s recorded. We’ll see if he wants to play with us.

Well, off to do some more work…

I was listening to some XTC yesterday (a great and highly underrated group) and reading an interview with principal songwriter and lead singer Andy Partridge, and something he said struck me as interesting.

If you want to become a better songwriter, you should pick apart your favorite songs and analyze why they work, structurally. Eventually, you’ll come upon formulas that will help you express what you want in your own writing.

I realize that this isn’t something I’ve ever done consciously, but I’ve always done because that’s just the way I am – I pick things apart to better understand them as a whole.

I think that’s why when I listen to even the first songs I ever wrote they had good structure – distinct musical themes, good bridges between sections, the strongest hooks in the chorus, etc.

I guess it’s just the way I always thought songs should work, and so when I started writing, that’s how they came out. I even plot out rhyme schemes sometimes.

I wish I could have the same discipline with my technique. Then I’d be able to execute the songs a whole lot better.

Guitar World magazine just published Steve Vai’s 1990 workout again, which I’m going to accept as a sign that it’s time for me to really get into practicing guitar again and getting my fretboard memorization together. I want to shred. I’m tired of being a half-assed guitar player. I have all the relative and perfect pitch lessons (the David L. Burge stuff), and I want to work on those, too, especially the relative pitch lessons, because not only do they teach you great relative pitch, it’s a rigorous theory curriculum as well.

So in concert with the discipline I’ve always had as a songwriter, it’s time to achieve it as an instrumentalist.

After I tackle all that stuff (especially the fretboard memorization), I’ll work on reading music again.

So we had two drummers and a bassist audition on Saturday, and I really liked all the guys who auditioned.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that they’d want to play with us or we’d want to play with them.

The bass player didn’t have any time at all to learn the material, so he was forgiven for his mistakes. He had a good enough ear that it wasn’t terrible, and was a heck of a nice guy. The jury’s out on whether he’ll want to play with us, though we liked him enough to want to hear more, for sure.

The first drummer brought my monster to the surface. I really did not enjoy playing with him. Talking to him, sure. Nice fella. BAD drummer. I kind of knew it when I heard the way his drums were tuned, but I felt like giving him the benefit of the doubt (sometimes drummers are quirky). My suspicions were true, however, when we started to go through the audition songs. It was just a mess. Within the first song I knew he didn’t have the ability we were looking for, and I have to say I honestly felt Simon Cowell coming to the surface – I had this desire to ask him “why are you here?” because it was obvious that he just didn’t have the man-hours (or perhaps the talent) to be able to cover the various styles we needed for the band.

His time was nonexistent, his drums were all tuned too high (which sucked all the tone out of them), and it was just a slopfest.

As you can tell, I’m just talking about his playing – let me say again that he was a nice guy and definitely a personality fit – he just wasn’t there, skill-wise.

The second drummer was a pretty nice dude from San Marcos. He came in with a reissue sparkle Ludwig drum kit, and played it really well (with the exception of playing almost every song too slowly). I don’t think, even with his skill, he’d be happy with Roman Holiday, because he seems to be much more interested in funk and dance music, and that’s something this band will never be. Which indicates to me that he should find something that suits him better. I don’t want him to expect something that’s not going to happen.

He seems to be a bit younger, and still thinks bassists who play with picks are not worth his time. He’ll learn. I think Carol Kaye, Paul McCartney, Mike Gordon and the ghost of Allen Woody might take him to task on his criticism of pick playing. It’s an extremely silly thing to be anti-pick. If it grooves, it grooves, no matter what you’re using to strike the strings. Half of the best soul bass lines were recorded with a pick. I play fingers, thumb, pick, and slap because the songs that we play were recorded with those techniques. Bassists in cover bands who don’t master all the techniques cause the sound of the band to suffer. It’s similar to a drummer who never learns rod or brush technique, but plays songs that require it using sticks. It’s never quite right. But I digress…

In summary: Good drummer, probably would hate being in our band. We’ve been through a situation like this recently, and the sad part is, we really need to have someone who WANTS to be in the band as it is, and doesn’t need it to completely change for them to be satisfied, because that simply is not going to happen.

So we didn’t find a drummer fit at this audition. Both guys are great, personally, but neither seems to be right for the band.

If my honesty is painful, remember that I named no names, and if pressed by these gentlemen, I would be glad to share these criticisms to their face. I just needed to confer with my co-conspirator in all things Roman Holiday (Ned) before I could comment.

I’m seriously wondering if this is at all worth it anymore…can anyone blame me?

So, I broke down and purchased a new pair of isolation earphones, because the cheapie Philips ones I bought sounded like horsecrap.

Talk about night and day…these things are AWESOME! I hope they sound as good when I use them in the band, because they sounded fantastic even with the mp3s on my iRiver H320.

The only thing that worries me is the size of the cable – its length – but I’m no size queen…I’ll make it work.

I changed guitars at work. I brought my Ibanez. It’s cool. I use it with my old Korg Pandora (the PX-2 from many moons ago). People always look at me weird when I crack it out, though. Such is life as a guy who doesn’t really give a hoot what the folks at work think. If I’ve got to wait around for a computer that won’t run fast enough (or co-workers who aren’t working fast enough), I’m going to have something productive to do while I wait.

There’s a patch I made on the Pandora that sounds utterly fantastic. One of these days I’ll record a sample and post it. I didn’t think it was capable of that good a sound, but I managed to make it work. Yeehaw!

Next gig is a week from Saturday at The Light Bar. We have two drummers coming in tomorrow for auditions. I really hope we find just the right guy…I’m tired of looking.

No progress on the creation front, but I think I’m going to start writing lyrics just to write them at work. More “be productive with forced downtime” activity.

Oh yeah, and I do love music. It just doesn’t always love me back. Reminds me of a girl I once knew…who am I kidding? Most of the girls I once knew… 😛

I think I’ve finally figured out my problem.

I have musical ADD.

Even with music I love, I always end up changing the track before it’s over.

I think about the task of creating something in a studio, and it makes me go, “that takes too long”.

I think about spending time learning the words to the songs I have to sing, and I go “I’ll memorize them eventually” because I simply do not have the patience to sit through the original recordings of the songs we play for any amount of time, especially not over and over again.

I’m constantly flipping stations on the radio, and I can never decide on a CD, and when I do, it usually goes in for about four tracks and then I move on to the next disc…

So it comes down to this: I can’t stand music…and yet I love it.

It really has become the PITA girlfriend of my life. You love her, but she’s a bitch that treats you like crap.

Thank God my wife isn’t like that…then I’d have two.

I keep thinking of a silver lining in all this, or at least an explanation, and I think it comes down to these two things:
1. I’ll still do it, no matter how much it wrongs me, because it is such an important part of who I am.
2. The reason it happens is just an overabundance of stimuli in my life, from work to traffic to kids. Sometimes peace and quiet is in short supply, and music isn’t exactly peace and quiet for me.

So let it be known that the MUSICAL Schizo can’t stand music. A truly Schizo behavior…