A tribute to Jack Bruce

A tribute to Jack Bruce

When I was a small child, living in East Islip, NY, there are a few hazy memories that for some reason stick with me (we moved away when I was five years old). One of those memories was of our neighbors, the Infantes. I remember they had a dog. I remember they had a 1960s or early 1970s Chevy Impala that they used to park in the street. And I remember that their son Mike loved the album “Best Of Cream” that my dad had. So from a very very early age, Cream was on my radar.

When I got to be about 12 or 13, I started to become really obsessed with the idea of playing music – of actually making it myself. This new idea was largely a product of a new friend I made when my family moved from the Bay Area in California to central New Jersey near Princeton. His name was Ty Phillips, and he was very inspiring to me. He played trumpet, and he had a little Casio keyboard (an MT-100) that he used to make little compositions on. He also liked to hear music his dad would play for him. I always loved when my dad did that, too. And one of the bands my dad would play for me was Cream.

I remember being enchanted by the raw power of “Sunshine Of Your Love” and the weirdness of “SWLABR” and its tale of rainbows with beards, and I remember being moved by the propulsive live track “Crossroads” and its amazing guitar playing. But my favorite song – and still one of my favorite songs of all time – was “Badge”. Propelled by Jack Bruce’s signature bass line and his high-but-not-feminine vocal performance, it has lyrics that made almost no sense to me at all, and still don’t, but the music is so captivating I’ve never cared. That bass line is one of the first bass lines I ever learned – it’s a major part of what made me want to become a bassist. And that middle section before the guitar solo with the phase-shifted guitar pattern might be one of the most fantastic bits of music ever recorded.

Second to “Badge” was the song “White Room”. I always loved the thumping, almost orchestral-sounding intro with Ginger Baker’s pounding drum pattern and the sustaining guitar harmonies. Then the song takes off into muscular verses with a descending chord pattern that countless classic rock acts would ape in their own compositions. And then pretty falsetto singing in the chorus with wah-wah guitar that made me want to own a wah pedal immediately even before I knew what one was. It’s amazing that such a noodly, wanky band like The Cream had so many tightly-constructed pop songs. I guess they sort of lived a double life, though…tightly-constructed recorded music, insane improvisational live shows.

Over the years, I sort of wore out that “Best of Cream” record. Even when I first stole it from my dad it had a scratch on “White Room” that made me think that the line “black roof country” is going to go, “black roof-black roof-black roof…” When I finally got “Strange Brew – The Very Best of Cream” on CD in my 20s, I never even realized that the version of White Room on that vinyl LP I had was not only scratched, but it was an EDIT! There was even more of this wonderful song to enjoy.

And so, as a tribute to a major bass and vocal hero of mine, Jack Bruce, I submit the next Bathroom Schizo offering – “White Room” direct from my (off-)white (bath)room:

If you stay until the end, I’ve added a short clip of my old band from Jacksonville, Slaphappy, performing “Sunshine Of Your Love” at a show in January 2005, shortly before it ended. I hope you enjoy this little tribute and may Jack Bruce rest in peace. I’m glad his music is still around to make us all happy and challenge those of us who try to recreate it. I know I’m a better musician because he was one of the people I strived to emulate.

Badge:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSpW6MePb10
White Room: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkae0-TgrRU

A Spotify playlist of some choice Cream stuff (not sure if this will work, but hey, worth a shot): http://open.spotify.com/user/brianvitellaro/playlist/2KrjFpGVqca2qOpypFTOgK

Peace and love,
TMS

New poop from The Bathroom Schizo!

New poop from The Bathroom Schizo!

Here’s a video of me singing a Poison song. Which 15-year-old me would have kicked my ass for doing.

More to come…and this is all leading up to some live, non-bathroom performances of these songs in public, as soon as I book some shows.

Thanks and peace be the journey…
TMS

Back as a solo act…

Back as a solo act…

So my time with Nudge has come to an end. I won’t go into gory details publicly of my displeasure with how the situation was handled, but it basically came down to scheduling issues that I created by demanding that my weekends with my kids are free. Priorities, you know? I do wish them well…

The good thing is it frees me up for finally having more ownership in my musical endeavors. Whether that’s a new power trio with me back on bass with my buddies from The Extractors Ed and Lee, a bunch of solo acoustic gigs, an acoustic duo of some sort, or finally working on my album, it’s a brave new world, and this time, it’s going to be MINE.

I have to start making shit instead of just talking about it or regurgitating it. Talking about it makes you an entertainer, agent or a critic. Making it makes you an artist. And I’m tired of not being an artist. (Though I won’t stop being an entertainer, too, because that pays…)

And that’s all for now.
TMS

So things with Nudge are kind of taking off!

So things with Nudge are kind of taking off!

In a pleasant turn of events, the new band is doing great! Even with summer vacations mucking things up and the occasional on-stage brain fart, we’ve managed to string together some truly decent shows and are being booked back at all the places we’ve played, which is fantastic.

Progress is being made in the repertoire department as well, as we’re adding eight new songs for the next show. As a special treat to my loyal readership, here is the list of songs we’re working up:
*All Star – Smash Mouth
*Harder To Breathe – Maroon 5
Epic – Faith No More
*Lithium – Nirvana
Psycho – Puddle of Mudd
Somebody To Shove – Soul Asylum
Everlong – Foo Fighters
Song 2 – Blur

Kind of an eclectic list, but all 90s and newer, as is the Nudge way.

I’m especially jazzed about playing “Epic” because I got to come up with some effects to cover the guitar harmonies in the solo. It’s pretty dang neato.

We’ve got a little chunk of BUSY coming up, so here’s the list of upcoming shows (COME SEE US!):
Friday, July 25th – Fast Eddie’s at 620 and 183
Saturday, August 2nd – Baby A’s Stonelake
Thursday, August 7th – Blind Pig Pub (on 6th Street)
Friday, August 8th – Shooters Billiards on 620

Then I go on vacation.

Like us on Facebook!

Hopefully you are having a wonderful summer!
TMS

Reflections on guitar…

Reflections on guitar…

So I really love playing guitar. It somehow manages to excite me, infuriate me, please me, challenge me, inspire me, and calm me all in the span of whatever stretch of time I’m playing. For the past 15 years, since I’ve been regularly gigging in cover bands, I’ve played a whole lot more bass than guitar, and though I absolutely love that, too, there’s something about returning “home” to guitar, which was my original “serious” instrument, even if it wasn’t the first one I wanted to play (I wanted to double on keyboards and bass – being John Paul Jones before I even knew who that was).

So as I said in the last post, I’ve joined a new band called “Nudge” as a guitarist and doing some singing. It’s been a really interesting and inspiring experience. Kind of like going back and revisiting an earlier part of your life, but with the added knowledge gained from years of additional experience.

The last time I played guitar in bands was from 2005-2006, before my move to Austin. It was a few mixed experiences. The main gigging band I ended up playing with had just come off their most successful lineup when they lost a critical founding member at the end of 2004 – their singer/guitarist. I auditioned for the job and it went very well, including an incredible jam on Stairway To Heaven. But they replaced the singer/guitarist with a person that had been previously fired from the band instead of picking me. I found out later it had less to do with my ability as a singer/guitarist and more to do with my image/perceived “coolness” and worries about whether I’d be available because at the time I was still playing bass in Slaphappy (little did any of us know that that band would be defunct less than a month after they made their choice). So they brought the new old guy in and he did okay, but within months, the rest of the band was falling apart and burned out. The lead guitarist was leaving the “band lifestyle” behind to start a business and a family, and the bassist was completely tired of the grind and wanted to do something more creative and original. So I got the call. After having me fill in for one show on bass with the old guitarist, which was FUN, they found a new bassist and I slotted into the singer/guitarist role vacated by the MONSTER guitarist they had previously had in the band. We agreed to split vocals and lead guitar duties 50/50, and we were on our way, playing much of the same exact music I’m now playing with Nudge. It was quite a challenge learning that many songs, that many lead parts, in such a short time frame, but I did it. And I was beginning to shine as a singer, too. This became a problem because the other guitarist/vocalist fancied himself the de facto lead singer, which was weird because of the agreement that was reached when I joined the band. He kept shifting lead guitar duties off to me and taking vocals away – which was only annoying to me because it wasn’t improving the sound of the band to have him sing the songs. We actually received complaints about his singing on numerous occasions, so if anyone was going to be vocally marginalized, it probably should have been him, not me. This led to some serious drama and his eventual departure from the band. I take responsibility for making it dramatic, too. It was a lesson I needed to learn – how to stick up for myself without just being a dick. But anyway, through all that, I learned how to sound good as a guitarist live. I still believe that if they had chosen me in the first place, the band would have continued and had its most incredible lineup ever, but we don’t know because that “Alternate 2005” never happened.

During this time, the just-quit bassist from the band and I decided we wanted to try and get something together – less pressure than our previous bands, more focused on stuff we wanted to do rather than what we expected to work, and also to work in originals and all sorts of other cool stuff. We recruited a keyboardist with a great ear and my musical soul brother Jon from Slaphappy and started trying to figure out what we’d become. As time wore on, though, it became less and less what the bassist wanted to do, and he ended up leaving. We sputtered along with a different bassist, even playing a show, but it wasn’t the same, and we lost interest by the end of 2005. I did really work up my singing/playing chops – even learning how to play semi-complicated lead fills while singing, so that was positive.

But then I moved away.

And the only work I found in Austin was as a bassist, so the guitar fell into the background. I played a few songs on guitar in Roman Holiday for a little while, but it always felt forced and I never was fully comfortable because doing both in one show feels really weird.

All those years of being focused on the arrangements, and singing, and more than that, the GROOVE have improved my guitar playing so much that I look back at 2005-2006 and think, “Wow. I really didn’t know shit about playing guitar in a band.” And I’m sure in 8 years I’ll look back to now and think the same thing…but the parts are coming together more and more easily than ever, and it’s so far been a fantastic experience. Let’s hope that continues.

Interesting side note: The last time I grew my hair this long was in 2005-2006, too. I cut it when I moved to Austin. So long hair = playing guitar in a band? 🙂

Shows coming up:
June 14th at Steiner Ranch for the SELF benefit
June 20th at Shooters on 620

All info can be found here: http://www.nudgeatx.com and you can like us on facebook if you like (please do…)

Thanks and peace be the journey…
TMS

NUDGE Me Back To Guitar

NUDGE Me Back To Guitar

Crap grammar aside, it’s my silly way of saying that I have joined a new band – and I’m back on guitar! Yes, I have joined the local 90s-and-more cover band Nudge (www.nudgeatx.com) as guitarist/vocalist. This is big because I haven’t played guitar in a band on any sort of regular basis since my days in Dial-9…and that was over 8 years ago! I’m very excited. I played a great show with them Friday night on minimal rehearsal and it seemed to come together really easy. I look forward with what we’ll be able to accomplish.

Regular readers of this blog might wonder what’s going on with the project I was putting together with Lee – that’s still likely to happen in some form. It will be worked around the new band and hopefully with it I will continue to get to sing a lot of lead (sharing with Lee, of course) and play bass, because I know that’s an itch that I will need to scratch.

For now, I have a lot of guitar to play and a lot of songs to learn. But it’s totally worth it.

Check out www.nudgeatx.com and come see a show. And have a great June!
TMS

It takes two…

It takes two…

And on my baby-steps path to being a solo act, I’m starting a duo with my pal Lee. You may know him from such past MusicalSchizo musical experiences as “The Extractors” and “Roman Holiday”, and if you know him from there, you know he’s a drummer and singer.

But if you really knew him, you’d know he’s a guitarist, too! So Lee and I are starting a crazy duo that will have us playing various instruments (he guitar, percussion (cajon, etc), and singing…me guitar, bass, maybe some foot percussion and singing). We will have a relatively atypical but still very pop-oriented song selection (choosing songs people don’t tend to play). And we will bring the acoustic rock.

It should be a lot of fun once we get it off the ground, and I’m going to exploit some of my new contacts to book shows for this group in addition to the shows I’m planning on trying to get for the full Roman Holiday (because it’s been too damn long since that band’s been playing). Maybe since this is 2/3rds of Roman Holiday, we can call it “Tooth Herds” or something punny like that. I guess we’ll see.

GIG ALERT: ATM (Audio Time Machine) is playing on April 23rd and May 14th. So that’s nice. 🙂

And that’s the update. Have a happy St. Patrick’s Day!
TMS

Life Changes Through Life Changes

Life Changes Through Life Changes

So in my last post I talked about being divorced. I know that a lot of great art comes from pain, and I think that some of my best songs arrived via the “pain train”, but there’s also a lot of utter shit that comes from drawing inspiration in something so emotional. I can think back on at least a few songs that were overly sentimental or really heavy-handed dealing with tough emotions. I consider that a problem I have – wielding the pain as more of a sledgehammer rather than a gentle brush. I think the time and perspective that comes from being out of the bad part of the situation (while things are still falling apart) can really work toward expressing something interesting if you’re brave enough to revisit it after the fact with a little perspective.

Of course, I’m nowhere near that phase yet – this is all pretty new and raw. I’m just exploring the concept of making adult friends who might turn into more special friends. Putting myself out there and actually dating for the first time in my life, really…because every relationship I’ve had has been one of convenience – we were in close proximity, we liked each other, things happened…boom – relationship. I’m trying to break this pattern and figure out who the heck I am, because honestly, I have no idea. Removed from being “Heather’s husband”, I’m not really sure who I am. I know that my physical changes (lost 20 lbs, grew about 20 lbs of hair) have garnered a higher level of female attention than I expected, but I’m honestly still in mourning of my life as I lived it for thirteen-plus years.

It’s been a running theme on this blog about me never actually getting my solo acoustic act off the ground, and one thing that has come from the therapy and other things I’ve been through the past few years is the discovery/acceptance that I have serious self-worth issues, mostly because I don’t ever give myself the credit I deserve. Not as a person, producer, performer, musician, or songwriter. Not even as a father sometimes (that one’s improved a lot, even with my departure from the home…I know I’m a good dad, and I do my best to be there for them as much as I can under the circumstances.) I think perhaps the reason the acoustic thing has never happened isn’t just laziness, it’s also a subconscious self-hate campaign my psyche has been playing on me for years – that I shouldn’t book it because why would I subject people to my singing and playing? What makes me think I can entertain people with just my voice and guitar.

Well, I’ve finally accepted that it’s a shitty way to live, bowing down to some imaginary judgment that hasn’t even happened. The fact is, when I’m emotionally clear and healthy, I know I’m a better singer/guitarist/entertainer than most people who do the solo acoustic thing out there. Sadly, I’m just not usually emotionally clear or healthy. As that improves, so will my confidence. But so far that hasn’t really happened, so I’ve decided it’s time to fake it until I make it.

The first faux-confidence display will happen this coming Wednesday, February 12th, when I join my friends Paul and Greg for a gig with our little ragtag trio, “Audio Time Machine” (ATM). I think it’s going to be a really fun show, and I know that I have a bunch of people who have said they are coming to hang out, which is awesome. Friendly audiences are always confidence-boosters. And right now, my sad little brain needs all the help it can get.

But back to the songwriting. It’s weird – it’s been so long since I really wrote a SONG that I’ve almost forgotten how to do it. I’ve been collecting a lot of riffs and musical ideas over the past few years, but nothing seems to every really coalesce into something complete. It’s scatterbrained and seems relatively indicative of how I’ve lived my musical life for the past few years – just taking things as they come with no set plan or organization. This sort of informality can be good to reduce stress levels, but all it does is render everything you do as sort of half-assed. I think that’s why no clear SONGS have come together. And I’m sure that’s part of the reason that in my performing musician life there haven’t been any Roman Holiday gigs since last June. Audio Time Machine is very informal so that takes basically no effort, but we go for long stretches without playing shows. And my sad little brain needs to be playing shows. It’s a really important part of my happiness as a human walking the planet.

So it’s time for me to organize this part of my life a little bit and really make it happen. Get my new solo website together (brianvsings.com) instead of just having it point here (which it does for now). Get my songlist together and start really tightening up my performances of the songs – make them full of feeling, personal, relatable, and very memorable for the audiences. Maybe have some stones and see if I can launch my little act by performing for my day job co-workers in our facility’s live music lounge for happy hour or something. There’s a bunch of built-in fans who like to get drunk after work! (Heck, they like to get drunk AT work sometimes…)

So hold me to it, people. If you see that I haven’t made major moves on this stuff in the next few months, give me crap about it. I deserve it!

Thanks for reading and peace be the journey!
TMS

So I’ve been absent for a long time, and there’s a decent reason…

So I’ve been absent for a long time, and there’s a decent reason…

I got divorced.

Yup. Your faithful servant is now The SINGLE Musical Schizo. No worries, though, it’s very amicable and the ex and I get along splendidly. One of the things that this might actually open up is that I’ll have a little bit more time to focus on musical pursuits, but so far I haven’t really done that. In fact, I haven’t played a show since October. It’s driving me CRAZY! The good news is that I have a show on February 12th (Stompin’ Grounds Grill on Anderson Mill Rd in Austin), so that little drought will come to an end.

Speaking of droughts, I haven’t written a song in a terribly long time. The emotions of what I’ve been through the past couple of years are way too intense to try and turn into art just yet, but I’m hoping with a little perspective and distance that it will give me some good material.

One thing that is interesting to me is the concept of being a gigging performer that isn’t married. I’ve never experienced that. I’m wondering what sort of extracurricular fun that will bring. I’m not one of those musicians who started playing to impress girls – in fact, I’ve never understood that, because I’ve always done music for music – but there’s a distinct possibility that girls, or better yet, women, will be impressed with my musical performance. I already look more the part of “the guy in the band” now that I’ve grown out my hair (It’s almost as long as it’s ever been, actually), so that might bring some fodder for future blog posts, too.

I’m going to be a better, more consistent blogger this year, and really turn this into a place for good commentary and perspective on music from a part-time professional musician.

Thanks for everything, and peace be the journey!
TMS