Unlike most musicians I know, I’ve had a very easy ride when it comes to being a guy in a relationship in a band. Part of that is that I’m just attractive enough for women to be nice to me, but not quite attractive enough for them to want to have sex with me. The opportunities or really, tests, have simply not presented themselves.
I know there are exceptions, like the woman who sexually assaulted me at Spinners the one time, but generally, I’ve never really gotten any action because of music. And that was more because she was drunk and thought I was hot, not necessarily because of the fact that I sang well sitting in with my friends.
I think that a large part of the lack of action is that I’m fundamentally not very cool or confident. It’s been a struggle for basically my entire adult life to develop a sense of self-worth. And you know, not being confident is an easy way to keep the ladies off of you.
And the other big reason is that for the majority of my life in bands, I’ve been “taken” – either actually being married or being in a similar serious, committed, monogamous relationship. And I’m a man of commitment.
Some might say I’ve never really enjoyed the “benefits” of being in a band, but the reality is that I’ve never really sought those benefits from music. I’ve detailed this before on my blog, but for me, music is MINE. It’s not a tool to get laid or impress girls or other people. It’s something I do for me, for my fellow musicians, and to make people HAPPY. That’s it. It’s been that from the beginning. I know that makes me kind of weird, but it works.
But back to music and relationships. My success with relationships has a lot to do with being with women who understand the situation and trust me implicitly. Making clear what the expectations are, what role music plays in my life, and how fundamental a need creating or playing is to my mental health. Both my first wife Heather and my current wife Erin got it. They let me have the space I needed to explore music, whether locking myself for hours in the studio writing and producing stuff (when I did that) or going out and having rehearsals or playing shows. They both were very supportive and trusting, and I never took advantage of that support or violated that trust. Plus we communicated clearly about our expectations and needs, and I would work music around the needs of our relationship and our children. It cost me membership in a few bands, but family’s always been more important to me.
I can imagine how it could be different for others, because I have always avoided relationships with people who expect me to be something I’m not or to give up my interests. Musicians I’ve known with unsupportive partners can really bring down the whole band experience, especially when they ruin the spirit of their partner so they’re not able to contribute to the group at an appropriate level because they’re distracted or sad or whatever.
Thanks to my wife Erin for always understanding I need to fill my “music meter”. You’re the best and I couldn’t ask for someone more supportive or kind.
And thanks to Katie, Jasmine, and Danelle for being good to the other guys about the band. We’re a lucky bunch of fellas.
I’m going to livestream soon. Not sure what I’ll play, but I need to play something that others can hear/see.
The usual admonishments apply: Wear your mask. Black Lives Matter. Wash your hands. Keep your distance. Call your family.
Most people who know me probably don’t know this particular fact about me, because I actually don’t talk about it much anymore.
I love Frank Zappa.
I love his crazy music. I love his family, especially Dweezil. I loved his crazy approach to guitar. I loved his obsession with being different.
Alex Winter (yes, THAT Alex Winter – “Bill S. Preston, esq.” himself) made a beautiful documentary that takes you on a trip through Frank’s life, telling it through unprecedented access to the Zappa Vault – Frank recorded as much as he possibly could of his life, his music, everything. There’s a TON of footage you’d never expect to see. It weaved a wonderful story, focusing on Frank’s music, but detailing how he related to his family, his musicians, the media, the music business, everything. It was fascinating to me.
Let me tell my Zappa story.
It all started when I was a little kid living in the Los Angeles suburbs – San Dimas, California, to be precise. Which I now realize is kind of crazy considering who made the movie. What a connection. Anyway…I heard this song “Valley Girl” on the radio. It was EVERYWHERE in 1982, including on a K-Tel compilation (“The Hit List”) that we got late that year (or perhaps sometime in 1983). The song was Frank’s only real hit, actually. It featured his daughter Moon Unit doing her best Valley Girl voice, in a time before people really talked about that as an American dialect. It was melodic, aggressive, and semi-dirty. It would cut between the refrain “Valley Girl” and Moon telling some story about something in the life of the titular teen in the verses, and then go into more detail in the band-sung refrain. I loved everything about it, from the bendy/slidey bass parts to the hyper-melodic choruses. It was weird and wonderful and so very LA. I don’t know that I really understood where it was all coming from, but the song stayed with me.
Cut to my senior year of high school. There was a kid a year behind me who was obsessed with really great guitarists. I can’t remember exactly the circumstances, but we were working on something for the school, and he had a boom box there, and he played two records: The first Extreme record, and Dweezil Zappa’s then-brand-new solo record “Confessions“, which just happened to be produced by the guitarist from Extreme, Nuno Bettencourt. Nuno was fast becoming one of my favorite musicians because of their second record “Extreme II: Pornograffitti”.
In the fall of 1991, I headed to college at the very large San Diego State University. The summer before, I had purchased the Dweezil Zappa record and that first Extreme record. I listened to them over and over. Especially Dweezil’s album. He had a song on there called “Vanity” that also featured his sister, and it got me thinking about Frank again. A few weeks into being at my very large university, I was wandering through the very large student bookstore at SDSU and one of the books they had there was this:
I HAD to have it.
It’s still one of the best books I’ve ever read by a famous person. It goes all over the place in scope, talking about everything from his life to music, business, politics, fatherhood – just tons of different topics, and I read it over and over. It just clicked with me in much the same way the comedy of my hero George Carlin did. He wrote things and said things that both confirmed what I thought, but expanded it in ways I never would have thought to think.
After reading Frank’s book, I was a fan. I hadn’t even delved that deeply into his music yet (at this point it was basically Valley Girl and Don’t Eat The Yellow Snow), and I just tried to find anything I could about him. I didn’t know a lot of people that shared this affection, so I mostly kept it to myself.
Then I moved to Pennsylvania and met a nice kid named Joel Niemann. He liked weird shit like Primus. I liked them, too, and because of our shared affection for Primus (who SUCKS – fans will get that), we became buddies, and I found out he liked Zappa, too. His friend from home, Brian, was way into Zappa, so I think he thought it was cool I liked him, too. Shortly after that I got the “Sheik Yerbouti” album, which featured a track that Joel used to sing that made me laugh called “Broken Hearts Are For Assholes”. Like the Dweezil record, I wore it out. The more I dig in to Frank, the more I find I haven’t even heard yet. He produced so much music in his shortened life that they’ll probably still be releasing “new” stuff for the next 20 years, and he’s been dead for almost 30 now. He died in December of 1993, and it actually broke my heart. I had just become a massive fan, and he was gone. Even worse, this same “love an artist and then they die almost right away” thing had just happened to me four years before that when Stevie Ray Vaughan died. When my daughter got obsessed with Michael Jackson in early 2009, I was extra sad for her when he passed just a few months later. But at least you always have the music.
Frank Zappa was a true iconoclast. A genius composer of truly modern music, rhythmically complex and dense, but performed with ridiculous attention to detail by the genius musicians he hired in his bands, and frequently sort of undercut by nasty lyrics or sophomoric humor. The pearl-clutchers in this country never quite got past that.
Despite his lack of commercial success in America, Frank was a truly American original, even though Europeans and Asians seemed to “get it” a lot better.
I’m not sure if he was too smart, too weird, or too filthy for “normies” to understand, but those three things are why Frank was so important to me and my development as a musician and a person. I joked to my wife Erin that if I were a table, Zappa and Carlin would be two of the legs. The other two would probably be Science and Mr. Rogers.
I highly recommend you check out The Real Frank Zappa Book and Alex Winter’s “Zappa”.
Spotify playlists for further listening:
A nice Frank Zappa playlist that doesn’t scratch the surface but features the songs I mentioned earlier plus some other cool shit.
The Hit List – That K-Tel record I mentioned earlier
In the spirit of this week, I’m going to dedicate this blog to giving thanks to people who have mattered to me personally as it relates to music. I did a whole blog post on the women who encouraged me (and discouraged me in a way that was motivating), so I won’t be repeating those ladies here.
Starting from the beginning and proceeding in generally chronological order…these are the people for whom I am thankful.
The first person who showed any interest in my musical curiosities was my mother. She rented me a clarinet in fourth grade so I could be in band. She rented me another one in fifth grade and I quit because the teacher was mean. Then she used birthday money for all four of us to purchase a cornet so I could try that. And I quit because the teacher was mean (it was the same jerk – not sure why I thought a change in instrument would make a difference). Then in seventh grade, we moved to New Jersey, I met an awesome kid who lived diagonally across a couple of streets from me who was a MAJOR influence. We’ll get to him in a minute. My mom and dad bought me the same Casio MT-100 keyboard my new friend had for Christmas in 1986. It was the best day ever. I had an INSTRUMENT. I could make sounds and figure out songs. It had rhythms in it. It was so much fun! A few years after that, we made a deal that if I made Honor Roll I could get a nicer keyboard with full-size keys. For Christmas of 1988, she also got a guitar for my brother Bobby, and let me help pick it out and get it all set up. I even got to go to the music store and help pick out an amp. I kind of stole it from him later. I feel bad about it, but we’ll get into how much I love Bobby (he became Rob when he got to about 6th or 7th grade) a little later.
So moving on to the second important person – Steve Parise. He was my friend when I was 8 and 9 when I lived in San Dimas, California, home of tasty waterslides – I hear the high school football rules, too. But back to the story. Steve’s family was very musical. I may be misremembering some of this, so I will update if I’m wrong, but his mom and dad ran some sort of percussion ensemble, so Steve was way into music. We were in band together (he played Alto Saxophone), and he eventually went on to become a most excellent drummer. But that was after I moved away. Steve liked a lot of music I couldn’t really “get” at the time, but we both bonded for our love of pop radio (KIIS-FM – which you can sometimes hear my voice on, today, thanks to the day job), and rock. He was the only kid I knew that was as obsessed with KISS and AC/DC as he was with Michael Jackson and The Go-Go’s. I thought that was an incredible way to be, so I guess you can credit Steve for nudging me into being a Musical Schizo. Because it was all cool. Thanks, Steve. The big ears I have for music might not be quite as big as they are without you.
Sliding back to my mom for a second, since we’re on the “big ears” topic, I have to thank her for buying music for me when I was little. She definitely didn’t have to get some of the things she got, but I loved it so much. I remember the two K-Tel albums I had back then, “Night Flight” and “The Hit List” which had a lot of popular songs of 1980-1982 on them, and I ate them all up, because when you’re 8 years old, you don’t really think about what people might think about what you love. And Men At Work’s “Business As Usual” – that rarely left the turntable. I still have that one saved to my phone on Spotify. It’s a masterpiece, in my opinion. And I would be remiss to not mention my Dad’s support over the years – he always put up with our racket, most likely in hopes that we’d write “that hit song”, but though that never materialized, his ambition for me definitely stuck in the back of my mind. And I definitely have to be thankful for my parents’ record collection. I stole everything, and it was wonderful. Let’s get back on track, though…
When I lived in Fremont, California, one of my best friends was Greg Gardner. Greg is notable in my life for being the first kid I knew that had a guitar. And he was taking lessons. Which was crazy. I remember his guitar was a black Ibanez – I’d later learn that it was a Stratocaster-style guitar. I thought it was SO COOL. I used to share any sort of crazy guitar things I heard with him, and I remember one occasion where I loaned him my dad’s Chicago Transit Authority record so he could take it to his guitar teacher because we were freaking out about the song “Free Form Guitar”. His teacher thought it was cool. I felt like a hero. Greg never really stuck with music, but having the guitar around when I’d be over at his house was sort of big for me. It definitely made me interested in playing. That would be later…
Next I’d have to give thanks for my friend from when I lived in New Jersey, Ty Phillips (he’s the one from diagonally across the streets). Ty was a tall kid from a nice and very creative family. His mom is a relatively famous author (though she only had one or two books out when we were little). His dad played guitar and liked rock and blues stuff (though I admit I don’t think I ever saw him actually play in front of us). Ty and I bonded over just about everything. We both loved music (he was studying trumpet), comedy, cars, BMX freestyle, and skateboards. We both had little brothers. He was smart and sensitive, like me. We used to write little jingles and stuff, and do “radio shows” which usually involved busting out his Casio MT-100 at some point to make silly music. He was way more advanced in his understanding of music than I was, but it was so inspiring. I desperately wanted to understand it the way he did – which was kind of funny because he was basically just starting, too. He was around until the summer after 8th grade, and is still the only friend in my childhood who actually moved away from me. I was always the one leaving after a few years. He made me want to be a musician. After that, it wasn’t “if” I had a band, it was WHEN.
After Ty moved to the Chicago area in the summer of 1987, I was kind of desperate for someone to connect with about music stuff. Not terribly long after that, I met the Murphy brothers, Dan and Mike, who were a few years younger than me. Their mom actually hired me to watch them during the summer of 1988 when she had to work. It was fun mostly because I got paid to hang out with a couple of great kids. Dan was a drummer. Dan’s friend was this boastful and annoying child named Scott Dickscheid who was an aspiring guitarist, and desperately wanted a “Jade Green Ibanez”. Scott’s very attractive and nice sister Stacie was in my grade at school – we had biology class together. But that isn’t necessarily something I’m thankful for, though I do recall biking past their house with my cousin and seeing her laying out by their pool getting a tan. She was kind of a star at our school – always in the theatre productions, and later ended up being a professional actress and agent. But now we’re on another tangent because of a kid that used to annoy the shit out of me and his hot sister. I should also mention that Stacie and Scott’s older brother Chris was a pretty excellent drummer (or so I thought – what did I know at the time?). I think the thing with Scott is that I was mostly just jealous that he was closer friends with Dan and Mike. I was kind of just the babysitter and kind of pathetic hanging out with middle schoolers when I was in high school. It was a weird relationship and I was in a very awkward, desperate, and sad time in my life. Anyway, back to the POINT of mentioning Dan. Dan’s drums were set up at the house, and he would let me play them sometimes. I LOVED it. I’m sure I was terrible, but having that experience with drums helped me understand how drum parts go together and the basics of playing the drum kit. So I’m thankful for that. We also listened to a ton of music and watched MTV a lot. Dan was the first person who tried to turn me on to Rush. I didn’t get it. Three years later I did, and they’re still probably my favorite band of all time. But hey, timing. That was the last blog. Thanks to Dan! (and sorry to Stacie if she reads this and is embarrassed by it).
Now, one of the most important people in my musical development – someone who probably has no idea how important his presence was to my advancement as a musician or my continuing love for it: My brother Rob. Now, I’m sure he thinks it’s just the whole “stealing the guitar” thing, and later the “stealing the bass” thing, and yes, those two things definitely were part of me becoming the musician I am today. BUT it’s important to note that I wasn’t trying to steal anything. I just got obsessed and didn’t care enough about how it made him feel. I wasn’t always the best big brother, unfortunately. Rob getting that Sears Telecaster copy that looked like Prince’s Hohner guitar and a Gorilla combo amp for Christmas was a major event for me. I just wanted to play it. All the time. I even convinced him to keep it in my room, since he was sharing a room with his twin. Eventually, he sort of lost interest and I just kept on with it. I traded him a semi-rare baseball hat for it once we moved to Bakersfield, which was sort of a shit deal for him, but he really wasn’t using it. As he tells the story, I forced him to trade me. He’s probably right. I think I’ve blocked out a lot of my shitty behavior when it comes to my brothers. After I went away to college, Rob decided he wanted to play bass, so I helped him acquire his first bass – an Arbor Precision Bass copy, white with a black pickguard.
Here’s a picture of me playing it in 1992:
It looked AWESOME. (I did not.)
He loved it and started playing like a fiend. After a move to Pennsylvania, we eventually played music together, and this bass was the bass that launched my bass-playing career when I rented it from him to play with the illustrious “Magic Garden” for a few months in early 1993.
But back to Rob himself. We always had a very close bond – my Mom assigned each of her older boys one twin, and Patrick got William, and I got Robert. He was “my baby”. But that responsibility also meant I was pretty hard on him sometimes. I loved when he started playing and we got to play together, even if I corrected him a lot. It just brought me immense joy. I don’t tell him that enough, I don’t think. Hopefully he will read this. He was also kind enough to let me sing for one of his high school bands, and we had a band together called Porque (pronounced “pork”). Later we formed our jam/swap instruments band, Jivetown Jimmy and The Knights of The Purple Cadillac, and we traded off on drums and bass. His twin William played guitar along with our brother-from-another-mother Caleb. We’ll cover those guys a little later. I don’t know how much more I could say about how important it was to have Rob be into playing and have him play with me, but it was huge and I am very thankful.
One of my best friends in my Bakersfield years was David Decker. He was an odd and interesting kid that almost no one at my Catholic high school seemed to understand. My little group of friends did, though, and he was kind enough to let us in to his crazy little world. We bonded over guitar, and frequently would jam together when we’d stay over at each other’s houses. We’d sit near each other in the multiple classes we shared, and it was non-stop guitar talk. I don’t think I would have even thought about the pentatonic or blues scales had it not been for him laying them out on paper and showing me. And I always felt like I could learn anything when being encouraged by my friend. As she grew up, she realized that her biological gender didn’t match what she felt, so she transitioned. Please ignore all the “he/him” pronouns I just used – they’re more a matter of how I’d describe them at the time than anything. David Decker is now Tammy Lynde, and she is an awesome person that I am very thankful to have had as a friend for so many years.
I’m also thankful for Jason Gerena for being another guitar buddy in my senior year of high school. We bonded over Stevie Ray Vaughan and Nuno Bettencourt.
I am also thankful for my brother William (aka “Billy”, among other things). He started late (a few years into living in PA), but he had a personality on the guitar from the start, and that always impressed me and encouraged me to have my own voice and focus on what made me special. We had fun in the JTJKPC days, and he still plays some when he drags out the guitars – he has a bunch of kids and his youngest, Samuel, LOVES music. I think if we lived closer we’d play together a lot more. I’d definitely be trying to teach Sam everything I know so he could get an early start.
I am also thankful for my friend Domonic Woodring – who was part of Porque and is still my pal to this day, always up for a chat about some 80s debauchery and good old rock and roll.
I am thankful for my brother-from-another-mother Caleb P. Rose. His enthusiasm for playing has always been an inspiration to me. Watching him grow as a musician and a tone snob has been fun, and I’ve always been motivated to do more when I see him doing musical stuff. I really wish we lived closer to one another so we could play some music together on a regular basis. I think it’d be fun.
It’d be silly to mention Caleb without mentioning the amazing gentleman Caleb introduced to me – Ryan Kennemur. Singer-songwriter, guitarist, leader of the excellent band “Dragmatic”…and all-around wonderful human. He’s another person I need to live closer to so we can do music stuff. I’m thankful for you.
I am also thankful for all my musical compatriots while in college – my freshman-year roommate Lote Thistlethwaite, dorm-mates Scott Reiter, Gary Vetter, Marco, and Doug Weinberg. Shippensburg buddies Joel Niemann, Mike Leib, Jason Jones, Bill Brown, Mike Circo, Merle Stepler, John Nelson, Josey Bjurström, Jason Hurst, and Ai Blakeslee.
I am very thankful for my former bandmates in Slaphappy – Jon Kretzer, Dennis Miller, Mike Craig, Rob Kisfalusi, and Brent Perry, for being there as I discovered myself as a performer, singer, and bassist. I wouldn’t be where I am without you. And thanks for all the fun times in the non-musical parts. I love you gahz…
I am thankful for the people in the Dial-9 family – Chris Condon, John Palmer, Ron Rodriguez, Chris Burks, Bryan Smith, Larry Schroeder, and TJ Overman. Fun times but way too brief.
Of course I am also thankful for my bandmate pals from other Jacksonville-era projects – Tim Farren, Doug Scott, Joe Fortunato, Jim O’Callaghan, Chris Booras, Nate Dickinson, Mark Frank, Chris Ashton, Steve Snelgrove, Matt Connell, and Emerson Merriewether.
I am eternally thankful for my Roman Holiday pals, especially Ned Cullen and Lee Thompson, but also Rob Wade, Greg Gonyea, Mike Jaramillo, Casey Lewis, and Patrick Burns.
I am very thankful for my other Austin music friends, especially Mandy Prater, Paul Betts, Robin Mordecai, Shawn Abrams (he’s back in Jax now, though weirdly I didn’t know him there), Ed Webb, Bobby Jamerson, David Houston, Heath Allyn, Marc Swearengin, Stuart Bailey, and way too many more to mention individually…
Penultimately, I’m thankful for my brothers in Chandler and The Bings, Patrick Soler, Alon Bernstein, and Jason Smith. You guys are awesome and I can’t wait until we’re able to get out there and start making people sing and dance again.
Lastly, I am thankful for you, for reading my words. I hope you stay safe and healthy this holiday and through next year.
Happy Thanksgiving!
TMS
Museday Mumblings (Vol. 26): Timing and Motivation
I’ve been in a ton of bands over the years, and none of them have been perfect. My current band is about as close as I’ve gotten.
There are varying measures of success when it comes to a band experience. Musical, performance, monetary, vibe, energy, following, critical appreciation, fame. Most people I know that play music are hobbyists with day jobs. I think many are people who “lived the dream” at least for a while, and then it became more important to be comfortable or to be there for the people who needed them than to continue chasing whatever musical dream they had.
I was never one of the people who could be comfortable “chasing the dream”. This is my fundamental obstacle to ever feeling like a “real artist”. I really did try to write good music and songs for a while, but it just got easier to be dad and play covers. That didn’t mean that I didn’t have expectations for the bands I played in.
Ignoring my occasional appearances at local bars in college, the first sort of “pro” band I played in was in Jacksonville in 1998 or so. A guy I knew from my day job at Convergys (yes, call center Hell…but it was steady and I needed steady at the time) had a band with a guy he knew that played guitar, and an assortment of other musicians, including a good keyboardist who was a doctor or something (I’m not sure I remember at this point), a tenor saxophonist, and some other assorted people. The idea with that band was to be a true party band, playing dance and funk songs, along with some poppy classic rock selections.
I had been playing bass sort of on the side of my guitar playing since about 1991-1992, really in earnest from about 1996 on, when I acquired my own bass (I call him “Juan Solo” because he is a black-and-white Mexican-made Fender Jazz Bass that sort of looks like Han Solo’s shirt/vest combo). I didn’t even own a proper bass amp. I used my Peavey PA system as my bass amp to be loud enough. It sounded pretty bad. I didn’t understand how to properly use the technology, and I really didn’t have the extra cash to spend on an amp at that point. The one gig I did play with that band, I borrowed my brother’s Fender M-80 combo, which was fine. But I was a mess as a member of that band. I didn’t really understand how to learn songs on the bass all that well, I couldn’t really read charts (though some were provided to me), and I was still sort of a hack bassist (though I definitely thought I was much better than I actually was – thanks, Dunning-Kruger effect). I did have a solid knowledge of what would work and what wouldn’t, though – I’ve always had good instincts about that. The whole process was kind of terrible, even though ultimately the people were quite nice. They were just very certain they knew things and I could clearly see, even at my intermediate beginner level at that point, that they didn’t have a clue what they didn’t understand about making a band work. At the time, I couldn’t bear to suffer fools or foolishness when it came to music, so I was vocal and probably made things less fun for a lot of people. I quit the band shortly after the first gig I played. I think at the time I just wanted to learn how to be a good, grooving bassist, and I figured the band would be a good way to learn. But I wasn’t ready, they were the wrong people, the material was kind of all over the place and wrong, and the opportunity just didn’t really present itself. So I left. The timing was wrong. Our motivations didn’t match.
Cut to the following year.
A co-worker of mine says he and his buddy want to start a band and they need a bassist and drummer. I didn’t know a drummer, but I was definitely into the concept of playing some bass. So they found a drummer through the Folio Weekly classifieds, we met at a bar, and we all got along so well that before even playing a note we decided we were a band. Thankfully, playing together we had immediate chemistry, so all was well. We picked songs and worked on repertoire from April through July, and all was going well until the singer (my friend from work) had to quit. His day job had gotten too busy and he wasn’t going to be available for gigs. So we found another singer, and thankfully once he knocked off some rust we were ready to go. We named the band, and started to play some shows. It was musically very fun because the drummer and were a machine – I learned so much playing with him. Plus we were playing a lot of songs that people liked that also happened to be songs I really wanted to play. I got to sing a few songs, and sing harmonies on a lot of other ones. We were truly all on the same page and moving it forward. And it was FUN. We’d have our ups and downs, and the singer would eventually leave because of some personal stuff and we’d get a new one who’s still one of my best friends. But it could have been better if everyone had been on the same page at the same time. That was always an issue with that band. Sadly it would end without my consent, though, and though that group definitely had its issues, we’d all do a reunion in 2015 and have a great time together one last time (as Trumpitis has apparently infected the brain and heart of one of the members and he doesn’t want to associate with me anymore because he doesn’t like my sassy liberal opinions).
About a month before that band was “taken” from me, I had auditioned for another band when their main vocalist/guitarist left, and it came down to me and one other guy, and though musically my rehearsal was awesome, great chemistry, they were worried about my involvement in that other band and how much time I’d have, and didn’t really believe in me image-wise compared to the other guy, so they went with him. Five months later half the band decided to leave. I’m not saying the two are related, but I think if they’d been satisfied musically and fed off my live performance energy, it might have been a different situation. The weirdest part, to me, was that when the guys were quitting (bass player and lead guitarist – the ones I auditioned with), I filled in on bass for them for a couple of shows before joining the band as a guitarist after that. So January wasn’t the time, but May was. Timing.
I have to be honest, it wasn’t the way I wanted things to be. The departing guitarist and bassist were two of my favorite local musicians. Sadly it was always a little tough finding ways to get along and properly communicate with the guy they picked in January as we shared guitar and vocal duties, and I know I made the experience suck a little for my dear friend (the drummer and bandleader), and I’ve apologized to him for it. Eventually that guy bailed on us and we had to find a replacement, and right as we figured out the new lineup, I moved to Austin. Timing. (Boo.)
During this period, I also hand-picked a band with my favorite local guys – the drummer who also had the band stolen away from him, and the bassist who had just left the last band I talked about. We found a very talented keyboardist and decided to hit a jam night. It was so much fun, we decided to try and turn it into a band. Instead of having a singular purpose or a set sound, we decided to try and be a “kitchen sink” sort of thing, and play as many different kinds of songs as we could find – stuff no other bands were really playing, but were familiar and popular. We picked individual wishlists of songs, and then tried to be democratic about it, and when it didn’t seem to be going the way of the bassist’s selections, he decided he wasn’t all that into it anymore and left. It broke my heart. I didn’t handle it very well, because I thought his ideas were rightfully being downplayed, as those choices didn’t really fit our abilities and were very medium-to-low energy and not friendly to bar crowds (our goal). We puttered along, got a new (and inferior) bassist, and we all kind of stopped giving a shit, so it just died. The motivation was gone.
When I moved to Austin the following year, I struggled to find people to play with because I simply didn’t know how to go about meeting other musicians in a way that would make them want to play with me. There weren’t really jam nights like the ones that are all over the place in Austin now. So I took to the internet! And in about a month, I found a band that seemed interesting, so I met the guitarist, saw a show, saw how terrible their bassist was they were trying to replace, and had one rehearsal with the band, and apparently made a bad impression – the rest of the band were NOT on board, though the guitarist and I clicked (and are still great friends). So I met some other people who were also interested in replacing their bassist, played with them a few times, but decided that the drive to practice was too far (about an hour each way without traffic) and the karma of getting someone kicked out of the band was too much for me. I did meet one of my favorite people in this band, so that was nice. I stayed friendly with them, though, and would support them at shows.
I finally found a band to join, and it just didn’t really work for me. The vibe was weird at first, because the drummer they had kind of sucked, which frustrated the guitarist to the point of rage at times, and the musical repertoire just wasn’t really up my alley, though it was a refreshing change, at least for a little while, and especially once they lured their drummer back with my presence. And of course, he comes back, and I ended up quitting (we’re still buds to this day, actually…more on him later). My motivation was gone.
I felt really bad to bail, but I really just wasn’t loving the situation in any way – we played in smoky, sort of trashy bars, with low pay that kept it from really being worth the time invested – so when the first (and far inferior, musically) Austin band came back to me to fill in for some shows, and we had more rehearsals and the two who didn’t like me finally “got it”, I was on to the next thing. In June it wasn’t right, but in September, it was good. Timing.
When the drummer quit that band, I had my buddy from the other band (the one who had come back because I was in the band) fill in for the new band. It went pretty well, we had a great hang after, but ultimately we found a different person to play with us more suited to our modern rock-pop-punk sort of style. As that style evolved over the years, we had many drummer changes, and it eventually became a trio, and finally my buddy came in and killed it. We finally were playing together and the band was doing well. At least for a while. Then the crowds sort of thinned, the motivation started to fade, and ultimately, we let the band go. But those guys are still my best friends here in town. I love them and miss them and will give them manly hugs next time I see them when it’s safe.
I have so many more timing and motivation stories, but I think I’ve made my point.
Bands are tough.
Sometimes the timing is right, sometimes not. Sometimes the motivation is there, sometimes it isn’t. Sometimes you luck out and everyone’s available and on the same page and you have a unified mission. That’s been the story for my current band for pretty much the entire time leading up to the pandemic. And thankfully, it seems like we’re all getting back on the same page again, but without an idea of when gigs are coming, it’s hard to maintain momentum and hard to keep that motivation. We did our awesome cover, we’ve done a few little livestream things (and a livestream concert that was less than awesome), and we’ve done a lot of talking without doing a lot of actual things for the past few months. I don’t believe anyone wants it to slip away, but that’s always a danger when you don’t keep at it, so we did a rehearsal the other night, and basically wrote our version of a new song to add, and brought back a classic and one we’d only really done in practice. We’re on our way, once again.
If only we can get this country to stay home if they can (or at the very least physically distance with masks) and stop going around infecting each other and putting people in the hospital, we can get back to adoring crowds singing their lungs out with us at our favorite venues.
But sadly, now is not the time…
(see what I did there?)
Black lives matter. Trump lost. Wear a mask. Wash your hands. Physically distance. Respect facts. Respect expertise. Realize you don’t actually know shit. Be humble, avoid hubris. And love people, for fuck’s sake, instead of always looking for things to hate.
Also: Call your mom and dad and family and friends and do video chats and tell them you love them. They need you, and you need them more than you know.
That’s enough for now. Thank you for your time, and peace be the journey!
I’d like to say it was on purpose, like I felt like there was some more important stuff happening last Tuesday, but the reality is, I simply forgot. I have a civic mind and I was really focused on the election and just wasn’t thinking of things that I wanted to do. Thankfully it’s looking like sanity barely beat fear, so maybe we’ll get a better world. It’d be nice if the 70 million people who thought he was still a better idea would come live in reality where the facts reside and see him for the turdbag conman bigot that he is, but it’s hard to deprogram people from cults. Lost a few friends on Facebook because of an incendiary post, basically saying that they should feel shame about it and supporting him was a “stain on their soul”. Hey, I’m dramatic sometimes. I really didn’t mean it to hurt people’s feelings, though. I just honestly think that you should feel deep shame about a vote for that person, because it shows one of three big flaws about you: 1. You don’t do your due diligence. 2. You are hateful/bigoted or dogmatic in some way. 3. You care more about your party than your country so you only believe what your preferred ideologues say instead of dispassionately accepting the facts. Just my position. Doesn’t detract from my love for anyone who has those flaws, except for the hateful/bigoted part – they can fuck right off forever, as far as I’m concerned – this world doesn’t need them anymore unless they change their hearts.
But enough political garbage. Let’s talk music.
Like how 2020 is shaping up to being worse than 2016 in terms of losing iconic musicians. It already took three of my all-time favorite “beacons of musical light” in Neil Peart, Adam Schlesinger, and Edward Van Halen. And another personal favorite Emitt Rhodes. But adding to the list some truly great artists: Little Richard, Kenny Rogers, Charlie Daniels, Jerry Jeff Walker, Justin Townes Earle, Joe Diffie, Helen Reddy, Mac Davis, Bill Withers, Toots Hibbert, Ronald Bell (Kool & The Gang), Spencer Davis, Tony Lewis (The Outfield), influential guitarist Peter Green, bassist Pete Way, drummers Frankie Banali and Lee Kerslake, and so many more. And producers, too – Keith Olsen, Rupert Hine, Martin Birch…I mean, on top of all this loss, it was a BRUTAL year for music in general. Releases pushed back, tours cancelled, production companies and crew all losing their entire livelihoods. It’s been financially terrible, even for me, and I’m one of the lucky ones who doesn’t subsist on it.
We’ve all found our own ways to scratch the creative itches this year, and I find it kind of sad that my band has only managed one release, though I’m still proud of it. Check it out if you haven’t. I’ve only managed to write one song, which is an improvement over past years, but it only exists because I lost someone important to me. And it’s only okay, to me. Better than nothing.
I think I’ve talked before about how much fun I’ve been having just jamming out on guitar and bass, trying to noodle on old stuff and keep up my chops while we’re not playing. But I’ve even kind of grown tired of that. I meant to do that tonight and instead I spent a few hours playing old recordings of my previous bands and looking at old pictures with my daughter. Which was lovely, but not really productive. AND…
Tonight has been a total abandonment of my commitment to being a little more respectful of my body. I mean, I’d set a bedtime for myself of no later than 10pm, and it’s now 12:53am as I type this. Big fail. But I’m not going to beat myself up or anything. I’m just going to do better tomorrow.
I hope we all have a lovely week, and I hope everyone stays healthy and safe. Coronavirus is NOT done with us, and we need to be more vigilant again. Cases, hospitalizations, and deaths are all on the rise, and our current leadership is doing NOTHING to help us. They’re too busy lying to the American people about the results of an election they lost, and stoking their scared, real-information-starved followers’ fear, which could lead to actual violence and discord. All because they can’t be statesmen and don’t honestly care about people at all. They just need them as tools for their political success. But we’re not going down that road. This isn’t the place or the time.
Take care, wear your mask, wash your hands, be good to people, show love even to the angry 70 million people who voted for the orange conman, and do your best to acknowledge your privilege, whatever it may be. Black lives matter.
Peace be the journey!
TMS
Museday Mumblings (Vol. 24): “Firing on all cylinders”
It’s one of the most challenging aspects of music to master if you aren’t blessed with naturally good meter, and working with groups/teams, it’s also one of the most challenging aspects of keeping everyone on the same page and moving at the same rate.
Right now, we’re having a bit of a timing issue with one of my teams. The majority of us are motivated to keep moving forward, and one of us just isn’t. Our tempos aren’t matching. Our engine has a cylinder with a misfire, and it’s really affecting the efficiency and power of our vehicle. It’s not a malice thing – this teammate still seems to love at least the idea of what we’ve been doing. They’ve just kind of checked out. Part of it is a change in their lifestyle and part of it is not being able to do the main thing our team does, which is the unifying and motivating factor for basically all of us.
This isn’t exclusive to this team member. I’ve been in the same position in the not-too-distant past. I just couldn’t muster the energy or motivation to complete needed tasks and it held everyone back. Part of my problem is that the tasks I needed to complete were similar to tasks required by my day job, and I think at the time the last thing I wanted to do after spending all day at the computer was to spend MORE time there working on things that basically were a purposeful distraction from our usual endeavors, since those were not available to us due to the pandemic.
Now, motivating someone and getting their butt in gear is a tricky proposition, especially since just about everything we’re doing right now doesn’t necessarily support our main activity, so it all seems kind of pointless. But there are team members who want to create endlessly, and those of us who want to support but don’t always have the energy and motivation, and others who are down for whatever but not leading the charge on anything.
I wouldn’t call our situation a crisis, because once we’re doing our thing together again, all will return to what it was, but for right now, it’s really difficult.
I have a friend whose heart isn’t in what he’s doing right now musically, but like me he doesn’t want to disappoint anyone. He’s worried about their needs, but sort of torturing himself as a result because he’s just not having fun. Music isn’t really supposed to feel like work. I’ve found that even in the most “corporate” environments, I can find ways to make it very enjoyable to make music for people – even if we’re just the wallpaper. Music can be like solving problems – finding that perfect spot to put the chord stab or bass accent that propels the groove of that song you’ve played a thousand times. Living in those little moments can act as that spark plug to keep your cylinder firing. Finding ways to have everyone enjoy those little moments when the crowd is giving you nothing is the way to be an amazing band, because once you are getting that positive feedback, you’re just even better. You find those little magical moments, and get people singing and dancing, and then your whole outfit will be firing on all cylinders – a motor that propels everyone through their night. Powerful and fun, and a hell of a ride. I watched some footage from this friend’s current endeavors, and there’s something missing. That fire, the magic that happens when everyone is on the same page, driving toward the same goal, was missing. They were not bad, just missing that magic. Almost too measured, too self-aware at times, and a little too up their own butts (not my friend, mind you…the band as a whole).
I had a situation similar to his a few years back, but I wasn’t as invested personally with my bandmates, so it was much easier for me to quit. But it still was hard because I never want to let people down. In my situation, I was the only one who seemed to want to drive anything forward. The main guy was basically completely burned out. The one guy was going through the motions, doing the bare minimum. The third guy couldn’t even be bothered to remember how the songs went. And there I was, in the “new guy” musical arsehole role, trying to motivate people who were too selfish, too lazy, or too stupid to reach any sort of level above utter mediocrity. The more it dragged on, the less I wanted to do the work, until finally I was just done. It wasn’t worth it monetarily, spiritually, emotionally, or musically. Time to leave. And I did. And it was a very smart move. But it did lead to the end of that band. Which was probably a good thing, since they were long past done. I mean, when you join a band and immediately know their material better than they do? And it’s because they can’t find the motivation to recall it or work it up again? Junk that engine. It’s toast.
I realize my comparisons of teams and bands to actual engines is kind of silly, but people do like the saying “firing on all cylinders”, so I was having a bit of fun. The point is, getting a situation where you’re all comparably motivated, and wanting to move forward together at the same speed is rare and wonderful. And everyone who gets to experience it needs to savor it while it’s happening, because timing does have a way of screwing things up. It can make a band sound weak and uninspired, and it can make a groove fall apart, leaving you sitting at a dive bar watching four old crusty men attempting to be funky on Mustang Sally, playing it too fast and sounding whiter than the sheets they probably wear in secret, laying down a disjointed groove that only the drunkest townie will dance to.
I’m looking forward to giving my team’s engine a tune-up so we’re back firing on all cylinders again soon.
Peace be the journey. Black lives matter! Stay home, stay safe, wash your hands, wear your fucking mask, and physically distance. People are dying because people are getting lazy. We’re not done with this shit, and it’s not done with us, even if that loser some refer to as a President wants to act like it’s over.
This one is about my experiences seeing Van Halen live.
Three was NOT a charm.
Some say I never actually saw Van Halen, because all the shows I saw were with Sammy Hagar. I kind of agree, actually. Van Halen was sort of long in the tooth by the time I was old enough to attend a concert, and they were deep into Sammy territory, so the edge and “show” were sort of gone. But I loved 67% of the shows I saw.
The first time I saw VH was May 1, 1992 at the San Diego Sports Arena. Literally two days into the LAPD/Rodney King riots. I was living in San Diego and my mom drove down with my brothers from Bakersfield. My poor mother – she drove around LA to the east just for safety. They got a hotel and we hung out and acted like idiots, so excited about the show.
So we go to the arena and it was just a mass of people. Sold out show. I think it was the first time we all four brothers ever went and did something like this together (if I recall correctly, Mom just stayed at the hotel – I may be misremembering). We lined up to get in, then we found our seats, which were way up in the back, but with a good, central view, even though we were kind of far away. Baby Animals was the opening act (fronted by Nuno Bettencourt of Extreme’s now-ex-wife Suze) They were unremarkable and to be honest, just not my thing. Not the type of band you’d expect to open for Van Halen. Plus they sounded like shit. Not sure if that was just the headliner crapping on the opener with a bad mix or their sound engineer’s fault in some way. It was kind of a crappy-sounding arena. Most are, actually. Outdoor shows ALWAYS sound better. My brothers and I had a great time, though, despite everything and the climate of Southern California at the time.
I think about seven or eight days later I got drunk for the first time in my life in Tijuana. Seems appropriate.
The second time I saw Van Halen was during the Right Here Right Now tour in July 11, 1993 at Jones Beach Theater in New York. My Aunt Eileen made it happen. We drove up to New York and stayed with our family there. It was SO MUCH FUN. Got a T-shirt. Ate food. It was kind of hot but the sea breeze kept us cool. Vince Neil’s solo band opened the show, and they were better than you would expect. Steve Stevens was his guitarist – and he RULED. Van Halen was ON, too. It was an amazing show. They played “Unchained”, which I don’t think I’d ever heard Sammy do. We all had a truly great time, and I was inspired. This was peak EVH love for me – I had seen my hero, and he had been amazing.
The third and final time I saw Van Halen was during the shitty 2004 reunion tour on my birthday – September 16, 2004 at the Jacksonville Veterans Memorial Arena. I say that to put this in context. Eddie was buried under his addiction on this tour. He was FUCKED UP during this show – probably drunk and completely gacked out on coke. He and Sam were NOT getting along, and you could feel that with their interactions. This was the tour where they made Michael Anthony take a major pay cut just to participate. I already was a little annoyed at Van Halen, but I thought going to see them on my birthday might be a cool experience.
I was wrong.
First, we got into the show kind of late and missed the opening act, local Jax favorites Shinedown. I personally didn’t care all that much, to be honest. They were a butt rock band and I just wasn’t into that stuff. I think we caught the last two songs. They did sound great live. I’ll give them that. Brent Smith is a truly great singer.
Then the “mighty” VH hits the stage. The quotes reveal the irony. Sam came out strutting and he sounded great but looked stupid in a really bright yellow shirt. Alex looked like he was in physical pain behind the drums pretty much the whole show, but was managing. Mikey sounded great as usual – giving his standard excellent performance. Ed was a MESS. Playing songs wrong, missing changes, clams (wrong notes) everywhere. He looked homeless. He had his hair pulled up in a top ponytail and he had on overalls with no shirt. His tone was terrible. He didn’t seem to be meshing with anyone, including his brother, which is insane. Then we get most of the way through the show and hit the guitar solo. And it was EMBARRASSING. His guitar was out of tune the whole solo. He ham-handed his way through all his signature stuff like a drunk at Guitar Center, and let the guitar feed back like he was trying to punish us rather than do something cool. The set list was good, most of the crowd liked it (they did two encores) but the show was very upsetting for me.
I didn’t buy any merch. I walked away so disappointed. And kind of bored. And Van Halen had never really bored me, other than the 1998 album they made with Gary Cherone (Van Halen III) . I was sad about the shell they’d become. And annoyed that the show tickets cost as much as the first two combined. I was kind of done.
A few years later they announced the reunion with David Lee Roth, and when they announced that Eddie’s son Wolfgang Van Halen would be replacing Mike on the tour, there was no way I would go. He turned out to be a quick study and is a good musician, so he wasn’t a bad choice, but I just couldn’t support it. I do look forward to hearing Wolf’s music once it comes out (release was delayed by the pandemic). But what they did here was the last straw. All evidence points to Michael Anthony being a good human and the sweetest person, and the Van Halen brothers screwed him over every chance they had. Mike found out about the tour through the media. No one called him. No one bothered. The nice guy finished last because the insecure egomaniac bullies needed to have their way.
So I never did go see them again. I tried to get free tickets for the 2015 tour through my radio contacts, simply because I wanted to see them one more time because I figured this would be it (and sadly, I was right). It didn’t happen. And I’m pretty okay with it. the 1992 and 1993 shows were fantastic. Those are the memories of Van Halen live that I will hold forever.
A little side story – in 1984 when I was living in Fremont, California, my best friend Joel’s big brother went to the Van Halen concert at the Cow Palace and I happened to be sleeping over that night, so I was awake when he came home – it was the first time I’d seen anyone partied out. He was so happy, though. I remember he had this awesome headband that I still think about to this day (the middle one).
Take care, all! Thanks for coming on this little journey.
Rest in peace, Ed. Rest in peace, Van Halen. Thanks for all the great music.
Wash your hands. Physically distance. Call your friends. Vote for sanity and respect. Black lives matter.
One of my greatest inspirations as a musician, a very large reason why I even play, died of cancer on October 6th.
Edward Lodewijk Van Halen – better known to the world as “Eddie Van Halen” or “EVH” – the world-renowned guitarist and founder of the hard rock band Van Halen, my favorite band from about ages 10-25 (stuff happened around then that knocked them down a peg, I’ll get into that later).
Eddie was a master at his instrument, both as a soloist and improviser and as a writer and rhythm player. He popularized so many crazy techniques on guitar that we all consider sort of “normal” now, but few were really doing them in 1978 when Van Halen’s first record came out. He was an ardent tinkerer, assembing an instrument that served his purposes when he realized nothing commercially available would work for what he wanted to accomplish. He had wonderful stage presence, jumping around and smiling, all while playing amazingly difficult guitar parts and making it look easy. He also sang wonderful backing vocals, blending with his bandmates and providing a radio-friendly sound making their vocal hooks sparkle.
Most of this is stuff everyone seems to be covering as they pay tribute to Edward. And it’s all relevant to why Ed was so important to me as a young musician. I’ll boil it down to the lessons I learned from studying him closely, and then go into how it shaped the musician I became. SO MUCH of my philosophy about music is rooted in things I read in interviews with him that I think paying tribute to the lessons I’ve learned is an excellent way to explain why he’s so important.
Lesson #1: If it sounds good, it is good. What I got from this is that we’re all different. We all love what we love. We should not be ashamed if we like some music or a tone or whatever because if we love it, that’s all that matters. If you like it, that’s absolutely all that matters. If it inspires you, that’s the best thing ever.
Lesson #2: Smile! Eddie always played with an impish smile. It was never an arrogant smile. It was borderline cocky, but it always was inviting and told you how much fun he was having playing music. I let the music take over when I play, and often that makes me smile. Not just when things are going right…but when crazy shit happens or I swing and miss on something…I smile. There was a time when I didn’t – I used to get mad and scowl, and it looked terrible. Once it was brought to my attention, I vowed to pull a Van Halen and always chill out and grin. It’s been the best thing ever. People love it when I smile while performing, and often mention how much they love seeing me grin when I’m playing – how much more fun and inviting everything seems because it makes them happy.
Lesson #3: Try everything… There’s a phrase Ed always said about soloing, “falling down the stairs and landing on your feet”. It was always in the context of jamming/improvising. Trying things, taking it way out or just trying something new, and then sticking the landing. That has been a mantra for me ever since. I always look for creative ways to be an ensemble player, to enhance the arrangement without distracting from what’s important, and then as a soloist, I will really go for it but then bring it back for a solid finish/transition to the meat of whatever we’re playing. It’s exciting and fun, and you’re always challenging yourself, and thus setting yourself up for constant improvement.
Lesson #4: Find new ways to do things. When I first had access to a guitar, I had only played a little clarinet and keyboards. So naturally (and perhaps subconsciously), when I was farting around with the new-to-me instrument, I tried to play the guitar with both hands on the neck. So when I realized it was kind of Van Halen’s “thing”, he immediately became my favorite guitarist. The only person I honestly remembered seeing playing guitar like that was jazz guitarist Stanley Jordan in some movie (looked it up: it was “Blind Date”), and his method was completely different – very multi-fingered and chordal. But after the Van Halen obsession began, I basically sought out every unorthodox way to make a guitar make a sound. I learned pinch/artificial harmonics. I learned natural harmonics. I learned how to tap harmonics. I learned what frets would produce what interval from the original note. I’d do crazy stuff like pull the high E string off the neck and see which notes I could make on the side of the neck (not a Van Halen thing, I just found it fun). Just anything to challenge the “normal” ways of playing guitar. Here’s a little video where I talk about some of this silliness…
Lesson #5: Serve yourself and never pander to your audience Pretty ironic that a guy who ended up being a pretty seasoned cover band guy who does nothing BUT pander to audiences would say this was a major lesson he learned, but it’s true. When it comes to my own music, I want to be happy with it. I honestly have never done music to gain others’ approval, even in the context of cover bands. I always want to LOVE what I’m doing, and I’ve gotten better at saying “no” as I’ve grown older. I’m sincerely proud of what we do in Chandler and The Bings, because I put my personality into everything. And when creating my own music, I’ve only sought to make the sounds in my head into pieces of music or songs. And it’s cool if other people like the stuff I write, but in the end it doesn’t matter. I made it. I like it. Or at least I’m satisfied that I tried. Ed was ALWAYS on this program. He wanted to play what HE wanted to play, no matter how much fans bitched, or the climate didn’t seem right for whatever music it was. He was going to create what he wanted to create, and that was a lesson that really hit home to me. If you try and satisfy others, you’ll never be happy, but if you work to create things that are meaningful to you and you dig? You win no matter what. Other people liking it is just frosting.
Lesson #6: Don’t be a prick This is where we get into the darker and sadder side of my love-hate relationship with my childhood/teen/young adult guitar idol. Starting in the mid-90s, a lot of stories came out of him being a dick to Sammy, then a dick to Dave, then talking shit about Michael Anthony. It was becoming more and more apparent that he was just a bitter and angry person. It’s likely his substance abuse problems caused a lot of this behavior, but it still ruined him for me. His treatment of Michael Anthony was the worst, though. Mikey never did anything but support Eddie, play excellent bass, and was a major part of the vocal brilliance of Van Halen. So not only did Eddie go back on the deal they had as a band to split everything four ways and make him sign away his rights to the publishing in 2000 or so, he made him take a major pay cut to participate in the 2003-2004 reunion tour with Sammy. Mike did it for the fans and his friend Sam. A “lost” interview from 1981 or 1982 came out at some point in the early 2000s and Ed spends a large amount of the article shitting on Mike, so this wasn’t something new. He basically didn’t bother to tell Mike about the 2007 reunion with David Lee Roth – just got Wolf to play bass and went with it. I vowed to never give them another dime after all that mistreatment of Mikey. I read Sammy’s autobiography which was very illuminating about a lot of the behind-the-scenes stuff that went down “On The Inside”. That basically made me write him off as a bitter prick. But it was 2015 or so, when Eddie did an interview where he claimed Michael Anthony had to be shown how to play all the parts – that somehow he was a fundamentally basic and untalented musician – that was it for me. Fuck Eddie Van Halen. Fuck his EVH gear, fuck his legacy, FUCK THAT GUY. I was done.
Every now and then I’d try to enjoy Van Halen the way I once did, but it was basically impossible. I’d always think about how much of a prick Eddie was, and I learned by his shitty example that I never wanted to be like him as a man. Because, to me, he wasn’t one. I’m sure he was better to a lot of people in his life, and I know this changed while he was fighting his cancer and I’ve heard he mended a lot of bridges, including the one with Sammy. But I think it was most people forgiving him, not him reaching out to apologize. And since I don’t know him or how he really was, I take all the nice stories of his kindness and generosity and mix them with all the bad shit and then put that in the context of what he meant to me and that’s why I’m spending all this time writing about him. EVH could be a prick. But he could also be a sweetheart. I’ve definitely been a prick from time to time, but I’ve never fucked over a bandmate the way he did. Weirdly, though, his death made it possible for me to enjoy his music again the way I did when I was little, because the imprint he left was so good it outweighed a lot of the bad things I was hung up on for so many years. If the people involved could forgive him and mourn him, there was no sense in me continuing to be mad. I really hate when people are offended on behalf of people, and I’m not going to be one of those people.
I’m just going to enjoy his music, and think about how he and the boys made me happy when I was a kid. I’m going to focus on how much he and the band inspired me to become a better musician. And I’m going to fucking smile while I play, jump around, and when I improvise, I’m going to always try to fall down the stairs and land on my feet. Because that’s what Eddie would do.
Rest in peace, King Edward, and thank you for everything (the good and the bad). I love you.
TMS
Museday Mumblings (Vol. 21): A bit about my other great love…
Now, y’all know me as your faithful Musical Schizo, but if you zoomed back to when I was 15 years old, and things went slightly different, I might have ended up the Comedy Schizo. I’m sure in the multiverse there’s an alternate 2020 where I am a professional (or at least semi-professional) comedian or comedic actor.
I am a comedy NUT.
And the seeds of that were planted by my parents and their families. Funny always was HUGE in our house. I remember watching the variety shows of the 1970s. Trying to convince my dad to let me stay up to watch funny people on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, or if I was REALLY lucky, to stay up on Saturday Night to catch my favorite show, Saturday Night Live. I can remember sitting on the stairs out of sight (if you are familiar with a split-level layout, with the stairs going up and coming down, you can see how that’s possible), listening to what they were watching, trying to be invisible, and almost always getting busted when I or one of my little brothers laughed at something.
So my earliest memories of laughing at things are Carol Burnett, Johnny Carson, SNL, Looney Tunes cartoons, Tom & Jerry, The Honeymooners, and various re-run sitcoms. This plus the fact that my family was always looking for the next funny thing really made me value what being funny brought to my tribe. Every chance I could I’d find funny things, because I loved laughing and I loved making people laugh. I’d try funny voices and mimic people. One of my earliest obsessions was a (very corny) Rich Little special from HBO in the mid-80s – Night of 42 Stars. I learned how to do the voices of all 42 stars. And I loved it. But there was a lot that really appealed to me in comedy, and I think a lot of it relates to a major thing I love in music. Surprises.
The key to a good joke is surprise. Whether it be a clever and not-obvious way of saying something, or tricking people to expect one resolution and hit them with another, the biggest laughs come from people hearing something completely unexpected. And for me, when I listen to music, there’s nothing that brings me greater joy than some interesting melodic, harmonic, or rhythmic turn, or an accent or timbre that I didn’t expect. Part of the reason I have such a broad appreciation for music is that those surprises abound. Even if you know the fundamentals and you think things are just obvious and pat, inspiring music will take those expected turns and then throw you something cool in that context. It’s done in all genres. And I love it.
There are many factors that easily could have turned me into The Comedy Schizo, but for some reason I never developed the confidence to actually go there. I’ll delve into the psychology of that later. But first, the background.
A big piece of The Comedy Schizo puzzle was film. Or really, movies. Since these weren’t exactly “fancy” and people don’t respect great comedy they do other sorts of films. Growing up in the renaissance of comedy movies from the mid 70s through the late 80s or so, the films of that era really formed a foundation for what I find funny. Trading Places, Caddyshack, Animal House, Ghostbusters, 48 Hours, Beverly Hills Cop, Police Academy (not so much its sequels), Airplane, The Bad News Bears, Slap Shot, all the John Hughes movies, all the Mel Brooks movies, Hollywood Shuffle, I’m Gonna Git You Sucka, Coming To America…it was all huge for me. Later it was Bill & Ted and Wayne’s World, which brought three things important to me together – friendship, music, and comedy. So there was a lot, and I’m just scratching the surface, because I even loved a lot of the crap that came from the 80s movie industry (yes, stuff like Short Circuit, Mannequin, etc.). And most of it holds up for me even still.
TV was massive, too. I also was obsessed with Saturday Night Live, especially when I got to be about 12 or 13 and got to stay up late on Saturday nights regularly. Those people were my heroes. I would catch the earlier versions of the show here and there, so I was very familiar with all the casts from about 1981-1984, with Eddie Murphy, Joe Piscopo, and those people, through that weird and awesome season in 1984-1985 when Christopher Guest, Martin Short, and Billy Crystal were on the show, but I think I watched it every week starting in about 1986. That’s where I was introduced to the brilliance of all the multi-talented people on the show – people who can do amazing characters, impersonations, and sometimes even sing! And I loved watching sitcoms. But more than film or any TV stuff, there was one type of comedy that has always been my favorite.
You see, I love stand-up comedy more than anyone I’ve ever met. I grew up during the stand-up comedy boom of the 80s, which coincided with the rise of cable, so stand-up on TV was everywhere, especially on basic cable. Of course I used to love seeing stand-ups on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. I loved all the older comedians like Don Rickles, Jonathan Winters, John Byner, and the aforementioned Rich Little. Their little bits always made me amazed that a guy could just stand up there and make people laugh. I probably liked that they were the center of attention, too.
My dad had a George Carlin album, FM & AM, that was in with all the records I stole from him when his turntable broke (it was me or one of my three brothers who did it – I can’t remember). I got a really awesome Magnavox stereo with a turntable, two tape decks, and a CD player for my birthday/Christmas in 1988 or so. Anyway – about the Carlin album. I’d seen George on the Tonight Show, and thought he was funny. My parents always talked about his “a place for my stuff” bit, and some of his older things they’d mention here and there. I found this record and was hooked. I listened to it over and over. Memorized it. I can still recite “The Hair Piece” to this day. I shared it with all my friends. A few of them got it. Most didn’t. But that was okay. It was MINE. And Carlin became an obsession. Especially after the release of his 1990 special “Doin’ It Again”, and for me, his greatest special ever, 1992’s “Jammin’ In New York”. Here we had a guy who grew up in an Irish-American Roman Catholic family in New York. He would talk in all the voices of my childhood, doing characters and weaving them into hilarious stories. The more I learned about him, the more I heard his comedy, the more the world made sense to the way I already felt about it. It desperately made me want to do the same sort of thing.
And with all the stand-up I watched, more and more comedians with different viewpoints made a huge impression on me. I always felt like my brain worked a little different from most people, and the more comedians I saw “behind the scenes” talking about comedy, the more I realized that my brain was more like the dark, sensitive brains of my favorite comedians. There’s a fundamental ability to completely step back from the emotions and humanity of a situation and see that situation in the most raw and real way to find the root of our interactions and, in many ways, the fundamental bullshit of basically everything we do. Our motivations, our manipulations, our posturing. Having what I call “comedy brain” is a tough way to see the world, but it is a wonderful level of “seeing the Matrix” if you care about living honestly. And the best comedians value that authenticity and honesty and it comes through their comedy. I felt that way. Strip away the bullshit. So finding stand-up really made me feel like I wasn’t such a weirdo for thinking about things the way I do.
So what happened? How did I not end up becoming “The Comedy Schizo” or whatever? Well, I’m probably not that funny, actually. I never felt like I was as funny as other people in my family. But even without that, I’m too much of a chicken to actually let go of the posturing and manipulation that is inherent in people like me who desperately need people to like them. I don’t really have a desire to offend people. I always want people to leave an interaction with me happier than when they arrived. I want those personal five-star reviews! Comedy doesn’t really work with that sort of mindset.
A lot of comedians end up doing stand-up because they desperately want attention – and perhaps adulation. But more often they just NEED to say what they’re going to say, and it has to be in front of strangers. If the audience loves it, great, bonus! But that’s not the point, really, for a lot of them. I don’t think my desire to be the center of attention ever trumped my desire to hide. I’m a weird person in that I feel like I’m inherently an introvert, in that being social and being around other people drains me, but I’m actually very good at pretending to be an extrovert. I attribute that to being the new kid so many times that I learned those coping strategies and techniques to gain people’s favor.
Another big reason I think it never happened is that I put comedy on a pedestal. I love it TOO much. I don’t want to get up there and do it terribly because I respect the craft and the art form. I used to be convinced this was the main reason why I wouldn’t do it. But I’ve come to the realization that this was just a rationalization and a defense mechanism. I know it takes about 10 years of solid stage time to actually get good at it, so I know not to expect anything when you start. I’m just scared.
An important thing to also know about me is that I don’t really have stage fright. At all. In fact, I feel very comfortable on a stage. Especially when standing there holding an instrument. So my fear isn’t even some kind of stage fright.
I think it all comes down to this: I got good at music, and more of my friends were music people, so I did music more. If I had gotten into improv or there was an open mic night in my little college town that was heavy on the comedy, life might have turned out differently.
I’m pretty happy that music ended up being number one for me. It definitely is more lucrative than stand-up if you’re not making stand-up your primary focus.
But I will always love comedy. And someday I’ll get my butt up on a stage and tell some jokes or some stories. Or do some voices. Or all of it. Maybe I’ll even sing some funny songs and put the two together.
Probably not the “guitar comedy”, though. That’s kind of hacky.
Thanks for taking this comedy journey with me. I hope you’re all safe, happy, and healthy, and even if things are rough you find ways to laugh. It truly is the best way to deal with the darkness of human existence.
TMS
P.S. Black lives matter, wash your hands, wear your mask, physically distance, and for fuck’s sake, vote for sanity if you’re American and eligible.
Museday Mumblings (Vol. 20): To all the girls I’ve loved before…
I had different plans for today’s mumbling, but to really nail down the topic, I’m going to give myself another week to really do it right, so please tune in next week for a really special Museday Mumbling. Now onto today’s offering:
In all my relationships, I’ve maintained a fruitful relationship with a “woman” other than my wife.
No, I’m not polyamorous or anything. I just love music. Music is part of me, and will always demand my attention. Almost to the point of it being another partner I need to honor.
So, in this, I am a blessed man.
Now, let me be clear – I’ve had my share of heartbreak, but none of that surrounds some woman trying to come between me and music. A lot of musicians have to suffer a nagging partner who is less than supportive and who make the very experience of playing music a guilty chore because they demand their undivided attention. That is a fundamentally unfair approach to being with a musician, and any man or woman out there who needs that sort of singular attention needs to leave musicians alone. Seriously. It will only end in your dissatisfaction and large amounts of pain for your musician partner. WALK AWAY. You are not meant to be with an artist. You will only make their life suck. I, thankfully, have avoided this pain.
I’ve always been lucky enough to have partners who “got it”, and there have been some nice women along the way who have pushed me to continue and improve.
Starting with my college girlfriend, who was always supportive even though she didn’t seem to get the music I liked at all. She was way more 120 Minutes and I, at the time, was straddling somewhere between Headbangers Ball and Yo! MTV Raps. And because I’m a sponge, I started to love a lot of her music, and I drifted toward 120 Minutes.
So all the Gen X people will get that paragraph. For everyone else – she liked weird college alternative stuff and I liked mainstream hard rock, metal, and hip hop and I grew to appreciate her stuff.
Even still, long after we broke up, she associates me on some level with the music I loved, and that’s just sweet. So thanks go to her for letting me be me and me love what I love without ever giving me shit about it.
Also while in college, I have to give an honorable mention to a girl I didn’t have a relationship with but who encouraged me when my untrained, never-sang-in-choir ass took a voice class and sang some Mozart as my final. She was a trained singer and pretty judgmental and picky, and she made it a point to lavish me with praise for my performance. I’m pretty sure that was huge for me, but it might just have been that she was very attractive and kind of scary to me and it was nice for her to be nice to me. Either way, it was important.
Then let’s jump to my first wife. She encouraged me to sing. She showed up at every gig (until I knocked her up…best oops ever, though). Nothing but support, always. It helped build the confidence I needed to actually become a decent singer.
As for my current wife, she’s amazing. She came to all of my shows (until I knocked her up, but that was more on purpose this time). She seems sincerely impressed by my abilities both as an instrumentalist and as a singer because she loves people doing the things they love and doing them well. She is the most supportive person I know, and will always allow me the space to create or chase down some creative idea or play some weird gig three hours away where I’m gone all day.
I am thankful for every single one of them. They understood that the music was an integral part of who I am, and they loved that, too. And how lucky am I to be 3-3 in long-term relationships where it relates to being afforded the space to be a working (well, at least a part-time working) musician.
So, thanks to Sarah, Heather, and Erin for loving me as I am and putting up with “the other woman” (music). And an honorable mention to Adeline for being supportive instead of scary for once.
And this isn’t really part of this discussion, but I would be a fool to leave out two of the biggest loves of my life, my mother and my daughter. My mother was always supportive of me learning music. Ever since I was a goofy little six-year-old kid banging on a very broken piano in a garage in Massachusetts, to when I made district band in 4th grade playing clarinet, to my failed attempt at cornet in 5th grade, to her getting me a little Casio MT-100 keyboard for Christmas in 1986. Letting me pick out a guitar for my little brother for Christmas of 1988. Letting me get a nicer Casio (CT-460) for making honor roll in 10th grade. Always pushing me to perform songs for the family and sing, even though I’m not a show pony and I’m not super comfortable with it, it still is a confidence booster. And any time she could come, making it to my shows with the assorted bands I’ve played with over the years. And my daughter, for always telling me I’m awesome and being impressed when I show her something neat on the guitar or keyboard or whatever.
