The Musical Schizo

Last night had a great show for the Rockdale Chamber of Commerce’s New Year’s Eve party. It was so much fun playing in a big hall like that. Broke my headset mic, but it happens.

Now for 2010, musically. Ten things. For this year, I plan to:
1. Start using my Zoom Q3 to record videos of me playing my songs solo and acoustic.
2. Start using the same Zoom Q3 to record videos of me playing cover songs solo and acoustic.
3. Start using the now oft-mentioned Zoom Q3 to record videos of the band so we can truly know what sucks and needs to improve in our live show.
4. Write more songs. One a month at the very least.
5. Master MIDI and using virtual instruments in ACID.
6. Start another fun project – one that exists without a profit motive that will just play whatever the fuck it wants to. It will be good because I will be in it.
7. Realize that #6 sounds egotistical, but like Dizzy Dean said, “It ain’t braggin’ if you can back it up.”
8. Realize that even with #7 as justification, I’m not comfortable with that sort of arrogant confidence, and I will retreat from that statement and re-state my intent with the last line of #6: It won’t completely suck because I’m in it.
9. I will take a more active role in getting the main band marketed effectively.
10. I will learn all the words to all the songs we play and be so good at them I won’t even bring my book to shows anymore.

Happy New Year from me, your humble Musical Schizo!
TMS

I had a great time playing with Moving Blues last Sunday (11/29).

I had fun having a little “bass practice” with Ned yesterday (12/6).

This Friday (12/11) Roman Holiday plays up in Killeen at our “home bar”, The Duckhorn Tavern at the Killeen Mall. It should be fun.

As for other aspects of my musical life, well, there haven’t been any. My non-musical life has trumped it all these past few weeks.

Hopefully I can get back to practicing and writing stuff at some point in the future.

That would be nice.

This weekend at Rabbit’s – Sunday night at 9pm I’m filling in on bass with Moving Blues for a benefit show. Come out and check us out – East 6th Street and Chicon.

Roman Holiday had a good show this past weekend, though I think I need to sit down with Mr. Ned and teach him how to play bass better. We aren’t booked very much, but everything coming up is good for us, so here’s hoping we can add to it.

Still going to figure out another musical venture that involves me playing guitar, whether it be the always-talked-about, never-realized acoustic act or another power trio with me on guitar.

We shall see. Come see the blues show – show up early for some really great blues on Sunday, then you can watch me guess my way through a show!

I’ve been inspired by a few dorks from Teignmouth.

The new Muse record, “The Resistance” came out recently, and I’ve been wearing it out.

I just love their complete abandon, stylistically, and their willingness to pretty much try anything that suits them. It WORKS on this record.

And so, it’s inspired me to remember what’s important to me where music is concerned: Fun!

Taking that brave leap and writing a sexy electro-R&B song with slap bass even if you’re a progressive rock band known more for distorted bass lines under soaring guitar and operatic vocals. Unabashedly aping Queen’s “massive choral harmonies and orchestral-sounding harmonized guitar parts”. It’s just great stuff, and all done well.

I’ve always been a bit of a genre-bender, at least in spirit, so for me, The Musical Schizo, this is MY prog band right now.

So thank you, Muse (Matt, Chris, and Dominic) for making a record that really touched me and reminded me what’s important.

I think I’m going to go record a song right now. We’ll see if I post it…

Had a great (though too sunny) show at Lake Belton for the 3rd Cavalry and their families. It was cool. Big props to George and John at Veteran Sound (www.veteransound.com) for their great work. Also to the Army for having us. It was truly an honor.

Had a less great show two weeks prior at Hayashi. Well, the show was great, but a discussion about our fee after the show soured the night. We won’t be back there, not because we don’t like the place, but apparently we’re too expensive, even with the discount we gave them.

We’ve been playing “Rebel Yell” at the shows, with me on Ned’s guitar (and him on my bass). It’s been pretty fun, but it’s still weird because I’m just not really used to playing his guitars. They feel weird to me, especially after playing a bass for the rest of the show. It’s harder to play and sing than I remembered, but only from a rhythmic standpoint – I can get through every part, it’s just kind of pat-head-rub-belly at times.

On the songwriting front, I wrote a chord progression yesterday, and had some ideas for a melody, which is good. I also recorded some drums just for fun and they ended up sounding pretty decent despite my crappy playing. I definitely need to plan out times when I can cut real drum tracks for all my songs. That would be splendid.

I think I just need to start writing as much as possible again. The juices need to be kickstarted to flow, and they just haven’t been.

And away we go! Roman Holiday’s got some time off now, perhaps we’ll schedule a rehearsal or two. Or not…

Mother Nature is a cruel BITCH.

Our gig on Friday got rained out. In the driest summer in recent Austin history (AFAIK). First a light sprinkle that didn’t seem like it was going to lead to anything that lasted for a while, then slightly more driving rain, followed by immediate deluge, Florida-style. We were set up outside on a deck next to a pool in a really dangerous thunderstorm. Needless to say, lightning hit really close, scaring the shit out of us more than once.

Seems like everything’s okay – we went to a dry garage (thank you Greg) and toweled everything down. Fortunately it’s supposed to be really hot all week, so the stuff should dry out well.

My biggest bummer was not getting to use my new bass. I got a great deal on a used Carvin B5 bass, and so far, at least at home, I’m loving the thing. It’s a little “loved” (way more loved than I expected based on the pictures on Craigslist), but worth the money I spent on it, for sure. It’s light, very flexible in tone, and an utter joy to play. Here are some pictures:

Public gig this Saturday night at Hayashi up in Cedar Park…it should be a gas!
TMS

It should be fun.

It’s definitely made me realize that I’d really like to get another band going to play maybe once a month or so, booked around Roman Holiday. I’ll probably play guitar and sing lead in the new band, which will most likely be a trio (to keep it lucrative), and most likely feature a lot of different songs than we play with Roman Holiday.

More liberties will be taken with song selection, though many of the usual suspects will appear. And my original songs (at least a few of them) will be part of the repertoire.

I’m not sure who else will be in the band with me, but we’re going to work that part out before the end of the year and hopefully get the band up to speed and ready to gig by early next year.

Time to put on my big boy pants and take control of something for a change.

Of course, we all know (from reading this blog) that it will not happen, since I haven’t managed to get my acoustic act (which is just ME (!)) up and running, either.

But you never know…
TMS

Cancellations:
So the two gigs I previewed in my last post, the apartment party on 7/16 and the Tilted Kilt gig on 7/18 were cancelled. The apartment party because Greg was still recovering, and the Tilted Kilt because they had new owners. So all gigs with them are cancelled, meaning we don’t have another public show until – get this – SEPTEMBER!

Which is fine by me. Public shows are nice to have friends come, but they tend to pay really crappy.

Frustrations:
Not enough time to write music or do anything creative musically, and even less inspiration right now. I don’t know why this is, but it’s extremely frustrating.

Machinations:
The tracks are coming along well – we should be ready to go with at least five of them at the next show. It’s exciting…and scary. And I need to invest in some really good rechargeable 9v batteries, because buying them over and over is not only environmentally insane, but EXPENSIVE.

Peace!
TMS

So in the past couple of weeks, here’s been the deal with the band:

Scene One:
We played up in Killeen, and saw a lot of our favorite people from up there – both the awesome staff (including the great waitress-who-I-managed-to-forget-her-name but who decided to actually work on her day off because WE were playing), and our great friends/fans who made the trip up there. It was a fun show, though a little weird.

Scene Two:
We played a 4th of July party for the same awesome lady who hired us last year – but this year was a little fucked up. Why? Well, Greg had just returned from a trip to Florida to take a cruise with family, and it seemed like he had a good time but was a little under the weather. Add his “coming down with something” to the BLISTERING heat (it was 104 degrees that day), the fact that our covered stage was situated facing the setting sun, a few unfortunate hot dogs, and well, it was a rough night. Oh, and did I mention what it turned out Greg had? A little thing most people know as “swine flu” – H1N1. He’s been sick all week, sometimes worse, sometimes better, but he’s going to be okay. I feel horrible for him, but I’m thankful I didn’t get it. Fortunately he had basically zero contact with people at the party (he was usually off laying in the trailer, trying to save energy to finish the show, which he did as much as he could, and he’s a real trouper.

A nice side note was that while he was tearing down his stuff, I kept playing – did acoustic solo stuff for the remainder of the show. Here’s what I played:
Don’t Stop Believin’
Hotel California
Baby One More Time
Cheap Sunglasses
Brown Eyed Girl
and maybe a few others – I can’t remember.

It was fun, and people really enjoyed it (from what I could gather).

Scene Three:
Because of Greg’s illness, we were left sort of scrambling for someone to be at the ready for this weekend’s big wedding gig – it was a big payer for a kind of high-profile person – so we wanted to make sure the show could go on even if Greg was still too sick. Enter (or more appropriately, RE-enter) Rob Wade.

Yes, our dear departed drummer Rob came through for us this weekend – we called him early in the week to find out if it was even possible for him to make the trek to Austin to come play with us if necessary. As it turned out, he was available – and actually excited at the prospect of playing a show again. The money didn’t hurt, either. So Ned sent him the setlist and he got to work, and we hoped Greg got better, happy to have a great back-up plan. Come Thursday, Greg’s fever came back a little, so we had him make the call, and he said to get Rob to do it. So having no idea what to expect from a guy we hadn’t played with in over a year, who really hadn’t been playing all that much himself since he moved from Austin, we nervously all got set up for the show. We ran through a few songs as a sound check at the beginning, and it went surprisingly well. Save for a few moments during the show, no one who even sees us regularly would have any clue that this wasn’t the “regular” band. Rob did an EXCELLENT job, and the couple who hired us were VERY pleased with our performance. Greg’s still recovering (baby steps), and we hope he’s all better soon.

For a variety of reasons, we’re still not running the backing tracks yet, but they are coming. And if things go well enough, we’ll be identifying more songs that could use the help and just fleshing it all out. I plan on tracking bass and backing vox on the “acoustic” songs I do with the band, and we’ll go from there.

Thanks to Greg for trying so hard even though he’s suffering from our current plague, to Rob for driving all the way down here to play with us again (and for investing the individual practice time to get everything together this past week), and to our clients for being so awesome to us. Honorable mention goes to the staff at the Stephen F. Austin Intercontinental Hotel for being great, too.

Public gig at Tilted Kilt on 7/18 (come see my ever-so-sexy headset mic). Private party at some apartment complex (I don’t know which one) on 7/16.

And I am really going to start booking my acoustic show. After sitting in with Alon and half of “More Cowbell” last Tuesday at Molotov, I find it just stupid that I’m not doing that. I LOVE just strumming a guitar and singing – I love the creativity involved in coming up with interesting ways to flesh out arrangements of songs with just one guitar and one voice. It’s rad, and I’m actually pretty damn good at it.

It’s a gift, and I find it sort of shameful that I don’t share it with more people (and have them pay me for it…)

Until the next outbreak…
TMS

Roman Holiday is becoming a robo-band, at least partially.

Yes, we’re acknowledging our shortcomings on certain songs and fortifying our performance with some backing tracks.

I’m not sure if I’m happy with the concept, because I feel like tracks are better as an all-or-nothing proposition. But I’m not sure what it’s going to mean or how it’s going to work for this band.

I think (sub?)consciously I’m really frustrated with my current situation, because almost everything we do engenders some sort of negative reaction in my brain, usually leading me to shooting off a semi-pissy e-mail. I’m just now recognizing this, although it’s been going on for a long time. I don’t know why, because I do like these guys, and I like the songs we play, and I like playing bass and singing lead. I just have this weird chip on my shoulder about all of it. Maybe my previous blogs about being burned out were manifestations of these same feelings.

I feel like a psycho, because it’s almost like I’m denying something just to deny it, but I like it, but when I think of doing anything else I hate those ideas even though they seem appealing, too.

I think it’s just facing what change would mean: a lot more work.

Which brings it back to the tracks – I think the fact that now I’m not allowed to mess up and come back around on the tracked tunes makes me realize I have homework to do so that doesn’t happen, and I guess I hate the fact I have homework.

I’ve always thought I really had something to say as a songwriter or an artist, and as I get older, I just feel like I don’t, mostly because I don’t allow myself the luxury of concentrating on writing songs and creating stories or messages through music. Recently I’ve been more satisfied just parroting other crap and noodling around.

I’m such a whiny titty baby.
TMS