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Museday Mumblings (Vol. 16): Living Colour’s “Time’s Up” is 30

Museday Mumblings (Vol. 16): Living Colour’s “Time’s Up” is 30

Living Colour’s album “Time’s Up” is one of my favorite albums of all time. It’s the album that fully convinced me it was okay to play whatever the hell you wanted (likely creating “The Musical Schizo”). And it taught a little privileged white kid in Bakersfield, California (me) countless lessons about the experience of being black in America. It came out August 28, 1990. It is a classic, and features diverse and wonderful songwriting, virtuoso playing, and timeless production. Sadly most of the themes it covers have barely been dealt with in 30 years, but it set me on my path to be anti-racist and opened my eyes to a wider world both in thought and spirit and in musical groove and harmony, and I’m a better person and a better musician because of it. Thanks, fellas, and happy anniversary! (more below)

Corey Glover – vocals
Vernon Reid – guitar
Will Calhoun – drums
Muzz Skillings – bass
Ed Stasium – producer
Paul Hamingson – engineer

Notes on each track:

  1. Time’s Up – full-on NYC hardcore, Living Colour-style. Like Bad Brains went to jazz school. RIPPING bass playing on this one.
  2. History Lesson – more of an ambient piece with samples, but definitely included a lot of little bits of history I never knew.
  3. Pride – Will Calhoun with THE POCKET on this one. He wrote it, and it’s a direct message to white America in how they relate to black people and about how history is whitewashed to make things look less terrible for the white conquerors of “primitive” societies.
  4. Love Rears Its Ugly Head – One of the best “love” songs ever. Featuring one of the coolest guitar riffs ever and the biggest dynamic shift from clean and funky verses to “big rock” anthemic choruses. Also one of the jazziest guitar solos I’ve ever heard in a pop song.
  5. New Jack Theme – Crack ravaged urban communities in the late 80s. This tells that story. In the context of a manic rock song with some really great riffs and clever production.
  6. Someone Like You – Direct lessons of the urban black struggle in this country. Doesn’t pull any punches against anyone who hasn’t helped change things. And the second verse always made me profoundly sad. Moreso now since we’re still dealing with the same bullshit and people STILL refuse to accept the reality of structural racism against black people in this country. Black Lives Matter.
  7. Elvis Is Dead – seems like a silly concept on its face, but directly addresses the sad reality of the whitewashing of music – about how black music was only palatable to certain white people when it was delivered by a white face. And how even though black people are the reason for so much of Elvis’ great music (and he personally always acknowledged his influences, mind you – so this wasn’t really Elvis’ fault), the white racists who loved him still refuse to accept that reality or black faces in general. Featuring a great cameo from Little Richard and an amazing sax solo from Maceo Parker.
  8. Type – First single, probably the song you might know from the record (along with Love Rears Its Ugly Head). Slamming guitar riff with really cool harmonics (I like to think that Billy Corgan got the idea for the harmonics in the “Zero” riff because of this song…but who knows), and that perfect Living Colour blend of funk and hard rock, with an atmospheric, melodic, almost poppy-sounding chorus. “We are the children of concrete and steel…this is the place where the truth is concealed…this is the time when the lie is revealed…everything is possible, but nothing is real.”
  9. Information Overload – Could have easily been written in the age of the internet, but instead was amazingly prescient. With one of the most discordant, ridiculous, noisy intros on a “normal” rock song EVER. (Oh, that Vernon…always painting abstract art with sound…)
  10. Under Cover Of Darkness – Jazzy and sexy and nothing like anything else on this record. Amazing groove, amazing guitar solo, and a really great guest feature from Queen Latifah.
  11. Ology – a crazy bit of bass exploration from Muzz Skillings. Incredible use of different bass tones (including overdrive) and techniques to support the groove and the melody. A nice and inspiring (to bassists) little piece of music.
  12. Fight The Fight – Another song that sadly tells the same story that hasn’t really changed much since 1990, touching on the structural privilege of being white, and of being from means. It’s a lot easier to buy a ticket to the party of the “American Dream” when someone can front you some of the cash. Money begets money in our society, and those of us who started with none of it will most likely struggle to even get by.
  13. Tag Team Partners – A little quickie beat box/vocal improv groove featuring Doug E. Fresh.
  14. Solace of You – A beautiful, African-inspired song that is inspiring and hopeful and, to me, reminds you to dig deep into your essence when the outside world is pulling you away from who you know you are. Featuring one of my favorite guitar chord riffs EVER. And the first time I ever heard someone slide a natural harmonic. (Bass nerds will think that’s pretty cool – it’s a great little trick that only works really well on a fretless bass.)
  15. This Is The Life – Super atmospheric intro kicks into a heavy verse with another killer Vernon riff, segueing into a melodic chorus. Corey adapts his vocal to fit the vibe of the different parts of the song perfectly. Admonishes you to appreciate the life you have and work to make it the best it can be instead of living in a fantasy or being upset about what your life is not.

Wear your mask, wash your hands, don’t support fascists, Black Lives Matter, and be GOOD to each other.

Thanks so much for checking it out, and peace be the journey!

TMS

Museday Mumblings (Vol. 6): Luke and The Dude

Museday Mumblings (Vol. 6): Luke and The Dude

I have just finished reading “The Gospel According to Luke”, Steve Lukather’s autobiography. I won’t be disappointed if you don’t know who Steve Lukather is, but I will tell you that you’ve listened to pop music made between 1975 and 1995, you’ve heard him play.

Lukather’s been a bit of a hero of mine for a long time. I deeply admire the fact that he’s a true virtuoso – blessed with that immediate “music just makes sense to me” instinct, but with the drive to always seek and learn. I like to think that if I was blessed with the same drive and ambition I might have ascended to greater heights as a musician, because for me it was just kind of easy from the start, things just sort of made sense. Sadly I’ve never worked as hard as I should have. Now I steal time to try and improve my playing, but life with my wife and kids is honestly more interesting to me than perfecting my hand synchronization or memorizing/internalizing the fretboard or learning to sight-read music.

But back to Luke (that’s what people call him, generally). His notable works as one of the most prolific session guitarists in the history of recorded music swing from movie soundtracks to Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” to Michael McDonald’s “I Keep Forgettin'” to Spinal Tap’s “Break Like The Wind”. He was one of THE GUYS of the Yacht Rock era and had his fingers on every bit of pop music in the 80s, from hard rock to R&B. He was one of Quincy Jones’ go-to guys, appearing on most of what Q produced through the 80s and early 90s. His ability to come up with exactly the right part for something is virtually unparallelled. His improvisations on solos, a weird-but-always-melodic mix of his biggest influences from the Beatles to British Blues to Funk to Bebop, still “raise the fur” for me to this day. He just kills it. All the time. And he’s a goddamn character, too.

His book is so specifically written in his voice, if you’ve ever heard him talk you will hear him narrate the stories to you in your head. With his “Valley dude meets jazz cat” speech mannerisms and liberal use of profanity, it honestly feels like you’re hanging out with him while he’s telling you stories.

So why did I title this Luke and The Dude? Well, Lukather tells some stories about his interactions with various people in the music industry, and particularly about how his “friend” David Foster (look him up – you’ve heard his stuff, too) responded to Luke and his gang in their band Toto cleaned up at the Grammys in 1983 behind their legendary album Toto IV – they won album and record of the year (for the song Rosanna – my son’s favorite tune and one I’ve yet to tire of after almost 40 years), but the one that really pissed off Foster was Producer of The Year, because he was up for Chicago 16, and Toto beat him. He reacted by kind of shutting Luke out. They were friends, they’d do sessions, hang out, eat meals, everything, and one little award that Luke won that Foster wanted tanked it all. Because David Foster’s a little bitch. I find that true from other stories I’ve read, because he’s one of those producers who makes everything sound the way he wants, not the way the artist necessarily wants it. That is not a philosophy or method of production that I particularly appreciate, even if sometimes it’s amazing (I’m looking at you, Jeff Lynne and Mutt Lange).

Now, on the flip side, another nominee for that Producer of The Year award was the legend Quincy Jones, who was up for tons of awards for his album “The Dude”. When the Toto boys won Producer of The Year, he wasn’t crappy to them at all. He was excited for them and congratulated them.

Heading into reading this book I was pretty sure I was going to enjoy myself. After the last two music books I’d read (“Ted Templeman: A Platinum Producer’s Life In Music” and “Van Halen Rising”), I was kind of starved to read something with the artist’s voice. Those other two books were great, but to be honest, since they were very facts-oriented and they were biographies written by someone else (Greg Renoff – who did a great job telling the stories but has a specific, very facts-oriented documentary/historian-style voice as a writer), they were a little less personal than I’d hoped. Luke’s book was the opposite. It was as I remember Nile Rodgers wonderful book or John Taylor’s. Or even Butch Walker’s book – the writing truly sounded like them. You can’t not read those books and come away from them knowing those guys as people a little more.

So I’m thankful that Luke decided to put it out there, because I’ve connected with him even more deeply than I did just as a fan of his playing.

I sincerely hope I get to meet him someday so we can swap stories about our boys on the spectrum. Maybe I can get him to show me that crazy descending bop-inspired run he does at the end of Rosanna.

If you dig Toto at all, or are interested in some good stories and a fun hang with a goddamn legend, check out The Gospel According To Luke. It’s fun.

Speaking of fun hangs, I had one last night via Google with Patrick from Chandler and The Bings. We talked about all sorts of stuff, and we talked about how thankful we were that the four of us have each other. It’s such a healthy dynamic. It is such a bummer that we aren’t playing shows, but – luxury problem – we REALLY shouldn’t play shows because our shows are usually fairly packed. We’re not putting anyone we love that comes to see us in that position, masks or not.

Instead, we’ve cooked up an excellent take on a Boy Band classic, and we should be releasing it very soon. We’re almost done with the mix, and then once it’s mastered and we clear the rights to release it (which shouldn’t be that bad – shout out to DistroKid for making that part super easy for artists), it will be available for purchase on iTunes and Amazon and stuff like that, and it will be available to stream on Spotify, iHeartRadio, etc. It’s heavy but still has the sassiness of the original, and features tight rhythm section work and some pretty cool parts. Pat and I share lead vocals and we all sing harmonies. It’s gonna be great.

Wear a mask. Physically distance. Black Lives Matter.

And peace be the journey.

TMS

Thoughts on “Artistry”

Thoughts on “Artistry”

(note – Just some thoughts. I wrote this piece back in March, but am finally publishing it now. Not sure why I never hit publish.)

As someone who has spent the majority of his musical life as background music for people getting drunk, it’s hard for me to relate to what it must be like to actually create music as art. Sure, I’ve written my fair share of songs, and I have pretty strong opinions on what I like and don’t like about things I and others have created, but I’ve never seen myself as an artist, or my work as artistry.

I wonder sometimes if that’s just me avoiding actually putting myself out there for judgment or if it’s putting art on a pedestal, or a mix of both. I definitely am proud of some of the stuff I’ve created, and I’m definitely proud of some of the ways I’ve put my stamp on other people’s work through my experience in cover bands of various types.

I’m inherently not a precious person when it comes to creating musical things, which is to my detriment, I think. I do believe I’d have something to offer as an artist. I just carry this inbuilt suspicion and animosity toward the very act of being precious, with the notable exception that I’m all in if it’s an artist I love – they can be as precious as they feel they need to be and I’m still eating it up. But I wonder if it really does come down to fear that nothing I could ever do would measure up to the things that I like.

Stepping away from music for a bit – when I was first creating audio productions, long before I worked in radio production, I was very particular about things being “just so”. I really crafted the things I created with a lot of care. When I started making commercials, I would do the same, and take tons of time just trying to get them perfect. Once I worked in radio production full time, I learned that I simply did not have enough time to spend hours on one 30-second commercial. I really had to speed it up to get things done. Then I became a production director all by myself, and had no time to be precious about it – I just had to get things done.

One might think I’d be able to carry over that “get it done” attitude to music, but the lack of hard deadlines in music has kept me from really feeling like I’ve ever accomplished anything. People flog the “art is never finished, only abandoned” cliche, but it is a real trap if you think you can keep working on something forever. That’s what I’ve been doing with a lot of my own music. Nothing feels good enough for me, and almost every time I’ve shared something, it’s mostly met with indifference, which reinforces the idea that I’m simply not doing anything interesting. Which is largely true, if I’m being brutally honest with myself. I have my retread pop punk-style songs, and my retread power pop songs and my retread sort of singer-songwritery songs. Nothing is all that “me”.

I grapple with the whole “me” thing as a writer. It reminds me of a time in high school. I was doing my normal thing of talking in every voice but my own (doing accents and characters and basically being a teenage Dana Carvey wannabe) and my best friend Brandon had grown tired of my antics, grabbed me, and said, “What do YOU sound like?” It’s funny how much that resonated. It went far beyond just doing a surfer dude voice followed by a fey German accent. It sticks in my head to this day, but it’s morphed into something even bigger. Perhaps even something menacing for me as a creator. What do I sound like? Honestly, I’ve been avoiding that for years, mostly because every time I create something, I really hate what I sound like when I’m not basically doing a style impression of some other artist I admire. Who am I kidding? I hate that, too, because it’s not original!

Which brings me to the whole point of this spiel: Artistry. How does one define it? I struggle with it all the time, because I feel like 25 years playing in cover bands has basically robbed me of any artistry of my own. I am a pretty complete musician, because I’ve played many different genres of music and can slide into most musical situations quite comfortably, but I never feel like an artist or feel like anything I do is truly artistic. I’ve gotten close to it from time to time, especially during improvisational performances at jam nights, and coming up with parts to complement the crazy ways we redo things in Chandler and The Bings, but with the music I’ve composed, I don’t know that I’ve ever gotten there, to a place where I’d consider it art. I’ve definitely tried.

Thanks for reading!
TMS

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

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

Life’s “noise”

Life’s “noise”

I haven’t been inspired to write anything in a long time. I’ve sat down on so many occasions, trying to some up with something neat, and I think maybe I’ve written one riff/chord progression that might become a song at some point in the last six months. It drives me up the wall, because I used to be such a prolific writer. Of course, that was a LONG time ago (we’re talking over a decade), and before I had a family, so my life was quite different and I was not the same person then. I was lonely. I had a lot of time on my hands. Now I have almost no time on my hands, and the time I have, whenever I try to do something musical, just makes me sad because I can’t seem to come up with anything. I think my mind is suffering from a lot of “noise”. My day job isn’t inherently stressful, but I make it that way because I care far too much about it. I have a really weird focus when it comes to certain things, and my reactions to life seem sort of out of whack. I get really mad and frustrated at little things that are often out of my control, and am almost numb and emotionless when things more important to me or life in general go wrong that were in my power to shape. I haven’t been able to figure out why this is, or how to change this upside-down way I react to things, but at least I recognize it’s there, which is the first step to dealing with it.

This relates to music because this noise is drowning out creation and inspiration. There have been times when I have felt truly inspired in the last year – one day when I took the morning off I wrote a song. It came really fast and seemed really good. Now when I listen to it, it’s basically way too wordy to work, though I still LOVE the chord progression and feel. I just have to modify/rewrite the melody it to make it workable, and I haven’t been able to muster the energy to do it. I have a lot of older songs that basically need new words (the music is great), but I haven’t been able to find anything I really want to say that doesn’t sound forced or cliche. It’s kind of driving me nuts, because the words have always been EASIER than the music for me. Maybe it was just that I didn’t care as much about them then, and kind of let whatever come out come out, but it’s still frustrating. Sometimes they turned out really well (especially on the songs I wrote from 2004-2006), other times, well, I’m embarrassed to even sing them now. Considering how I feel about lyrics, and how much more important they’ve become to me as I’ve grown older, I think the combination of the aforementioned “noise of life” and my own paralyzing self-editing are crippling my creativity.

So what is the way out of this? I honestly don’t know. If you read this and have any good ideas, I’d appreciate them. But I will eventually find something that inspires me and allows me to create. I think I’ve mentioned before how much the setup and cleanliness of my studio frustrate me now. I definitely need to find a way to reorganize it so that it’s more functional. I also need to get rid of a lot of crap that lives in my garage and set up a comfortable place for have people over to jam, because I think I derive a bunch of inspiration from just jamming out ideas with people. Maybe I can put together a band and shape my existing songs, because that might inspire some writing as well. All I know is that playing in the cover band is fun and easy, and has been quite a salve for the pain of not being creative when we’ve had regular gigs. I just need to make the time to play more, get together with the guys a little more, even if we don’t have gigs, and maybe even explore some other fun musical projects with some friends with whom I haven’t yet really had the chance to work.

Thanks for reading this long message…although I doubt anyone would get this far, if you have, you’re a special person and I am grateful. I have an art show gig with Roman Holiday at the end of the month that should be fun, and hopefully a rehearsal or two before that, so things should be ramping up in that regard. We also should be booking our spring/summer shows soon, so knowing we’ve got stuff coming up will be a good cure to the winter doldrums.

It’s been really rainy the past few days, and it feels like we’re in Seattle. The upside of this is the cedar and mold pollen are pretty mellow right now, so my allergies aren’t screwing me up and making it so I can’t sing as well as I know I can. I do need to practice that more so I can improve my consistency and control, but when is that not the case? Singing is really fun. On that note, and as a followup to my last blog, I haven’t heard a peep from the Capital Suspects guys, so I’m not sure what’s up with that. I guess they don’t need me to fill in…which is okay. I hope they find someone great for their position, but I did have a lot of fun being “The Singer” for a night.

Happy New Year and all my best in 2012!
TMS