WHAT'S THAT @#$&*@! NOISE COMING FROM THE GARAGE?! Our Humble Author Drops An Album

Awhile back, Rolling Stone posted an article about the Garage Band app, installed as standard on all iPhones, as a compositional and recording tool in current popular music.  I haven’t posted any writing in quite awhile—my blog output has slowed from a torrent to a trickle to nothing-- but I’ve been busy musically, busy indeed, and some of my business has, indeed, been with the Garage Band app.  As many or most of youse know, I play in a couple of bands, but you may not know that I also have been dabbling with Garage Band in some fun ways over the last couple of years.  And so: the RS article prompted me to gather up some of my GB concoctions and offer them up as a package—an album, if I may be so bold.  What's That @#$&*@! Noise Coming From The Garage? is a collection of songs I have recorded using Garage Band (with one exception) since the summer of 2017.  Most of these have been done in one sitting or session, and most contain fluffled lyrics, muffed chords, random extraneous noises, and rhythmic, melodic, and harmonic indiscretions aplenty, but also, hopefully, some bits that are kinda nice, alright.  Just click the link above to find a file with the album (divided into "sides" if you wanna think of it as a piece of vinyl and / or consume smaller helpings...).

All but the first song (Believer’s Blues) are covers.  Most of you know that my own repertoire is mostly covers (my bands play a larger percentage of originals) and most of you have probably heard my spiel about covers, but in case not here it is: Kurt Vonnegut once said that he wouldn’t mind being placed in the “Science Fiction” drawer if so many people didn’t mistake that drawer for a urinal, and I feel the same way about playing in “cover bands.”  Someone (was it you?) once said to me that a good cover of a song either does the song differently or does it better than the original version.  While that isn’t really the whole conversation about covers, it’s a good way to start.  To the “different or better” question, I would also add some other ideas to consider as one contemplates cover versions of songs: first, how a given song stands up to cover-age is a test of the song itself— if people can have engaging musical conversations with the song, bend it their own way, make it say something new, cast it in a different light, then it’s probably a good song in and of itself, whoever is playing it.   Cover versions are also a kind of crucible or benchmark test for musicians—a successful or unsuccessful cover version can say a lot of different things about a performer.  Finally, I’d say that musicians’ decisions about what songs they cover and how they cover them constitutes a legitimate musical artistic vehicle and art form—whether or not those musicians write songs of their own—  giving “cover bands” and “cover guys” like me every bit as much musical legitimacy as people playing “original” material.  I have played in “cover bands” for many years.  Yeah, I’ve written or co-written a few songs which aren’t half bad, but I ain’t no Bob Dylan and have no delusions about this fact.  However, I sure as hell know a great song when I hear one, and take pride in my ability (and in my bands’ abilities) to have a musical conversation with a great song—to recast it using different tempos, harmonic structures, instrumentations, and stylistic approaches, and also to respect its primary melodic, harmonic, and lyrical ideas.  I also bet almost any other musician or band you’d wanna hear could lay out dozens of covers which would render you, dear listener, speechless and which would also lend you powerful insight into that musician’s musical heritage and passions and would probably also inspire you to check out some things you’ve never listened to.  And so: as a musician who spends much of my own musical time as a player / performer covering songs of other people, I hereby offer this album as a defense, indeed a celebration, of the role of cover songs in this world which, post-Beatles / Bob Dylan, places a distinctly higher value on musicians who write their own songs than those who cover other people’s songs

Most of the tracks employ a GB drummer generated rhythm track and some multitraclk recording of guitars, voices, and bass.  A few (Heart Shaped Box, Louisiana 1927, and Atlantic City from Side 1, and Midnight Special and Good Riddance on Side 2) are just me and a guitar, like at a bar.  On all tracks except #10 (the collection’s second reading of Randy Newman’s Lousiana 1927) all instruments (guitars and basses) and voices are me except the GB generated drummer.  On #10, the main guitar, drum, and keyboard parts are done by my good friend Johnse Holt, while I sing and noodle a bit on the acoustic guitar at the end.  Every time I do anything with Johnse I get better as a musician and I am honored, privileged, and deeply humbled by and grateful for the opportunities I have had to work with him in his magical basement space.

Many thanks to Johnse, and to my wife Liz, my daughter Alex, and my son Arron for enduring the much noise and time involved with my music making, to my parents and grandfather for The Gift, to current and past bandmates Patrick, Jen, Stephen, Michael, Jimmy, Clem, Jamie, Holly, Carol, and Mike and Irene for all the wonderful playing which truly makes my life worth living, and to Mark for all of his personal and artistic support and counsel.  No words are adequate to describe my indebtedness and gratefulness to these people.

Below the second set of pics (of my wife's gorgeous Martin which I am allowed to play) are some brief notes on the individual tracks.

Many thanks for listening and reading.

Peace, Love, and Rock and Roll.

mk

SIDE 1

1. Believer’s  Blues (Mark Maxwell- Mike Kruse)

The only original here kicks it off.  My friend Mark and I wrote this now nearly 20 years ago- yikes.  Other than that, methinks it speaks for itself.

2. I Wouldn’t Wanna Be Like You (Alan Parsons)

A 70’s classic rock-pop tune from Mr. Parsons, who worked with George Martin on Beatles records then produced Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon.  If you remember this song, you’re about my age.

3.  Guilty (Randy Newman)

Took me years to be able to sing this song without breaking down at the lyric “You know I just can’t stand myself.”  Lotta sadness here—my kinda song.  Phew.

4. Heart Shaped Box (Kurt Cobain / Nirvana)

This and the next 2 are just me and the guitar like at a bar.  Still hurts to think about Kurt.

5. Louisiana 1927 (Randy Newman)

Also just me and a guitar like at a bar.  This is one of 2 quite different settings of this song I've put on this album. In both cases, the vocal is inspired by Sonny Landreth's reading of this Newman classic on the tribute album Sail Away: The Songs of Randy Newman.  See side 2 track 5 for another setting laid out by the esteemed Johnse Holt.

6. Atlantic City (Bruce Springsteen)

Been playing this one for a long time.  Murder ballad.  The Boss.  Voice and guitar, like at the bar.  Kinda like it meself.

7. Jumping Jack (Mick Jagger- Keith Richards)

Garage Banding back up here with drums, bass, and multi-tracked guitars.  My ragged GB rip at Jagger-Richards.

SIDE 2
1. Toxic (Britney Spears)

Never thought you’d hear me covering B. Spears, huh?  Well some friends (thanks Holy and Lester!) stuck this song of hers at the end of another CD they burned for me as kind of a joke, I think, but mebbe not...???  In any case, I found its desperation utterly arresting.  Lotsa folks have covered this song in lotsa different ways.  Here’s my way.

2. Midnight Special (Huddie Leadbetter)

This is a pretty straightforward reading of the Leadbelly classic, just me and the guitar, like at the bar.  Love to sing this song.  Also check out Stacey Earle and Mark Stuart's version if you wanna have your heart ripped out.

3. Nobody Knows You When You’re Down And Out (Otis Redding)

Many people know this song from Clapton’s rendition on Unplugged, and my reading here is certainly based on that version.  I’ve always said that Clapton is an over-rated guitarist but and under-rated singer and his unplugged cover kinda shows that, methinks, if you’re interested in checking it out.  The song is originally written and sung by the great, late but immortal Otis Redding. 

4. Stand By Me (Ben E. King)

My friend and Tuesday night bandmate Michael Rowe set this R and B standard to a different groove and swapped an A minor chord into the middle of the change instead of a C and now we have something kinda cool and a bit different. This is me doing it by meself, but I’m grateful to Michael for the arrangement and for bringing me onboard to the gig I’d been prepping for my whole life.

5. Louisiana 1927 with Johnse Holt (Randy Newman)

This version has a vocal similar to the Sonny Landreth-inspired take on track #04, but Johnse’s setting, built around a baritone guitar hooked up to accordion and other sounds over a simple drum beat, is much richer and more elegant than my guitar hacking on side 1 track 4.

6. All Along The Watchtower (Bob Dylan)

Almost everyone has covered this, so why should I be an exception?  My reading hails from, among other places, the late great Michael Hedges’s (saw him do it live in college—way cool) and U2's covers of the Dylan classic.

7. Good Riddance (Billie Joe Armstrong / Green Day)

A pretty straightforward offering, not far from Billie Joe’s original—just me and a guitar "like at the bar!"  I play it at the bar sometimes on Tuesday nights.  I don’t always finish with this song, but it is a closer: if I play it, I’m done.  Thanks for listening.  G’night...

Morphine’s Mark Sandman: A Belated Elegy

Morphine’s Mark Sandman (1952-1998) became a rock star at the age of 40.  He was at least 10 years older when he achieved artistic peak and commercial success than anyone else in history before or since.  In this respect and in many others, the man was truly unique.  The band that finally broke for him— Morphine—  was a power trio comprised of a drummer, a baritone sax player (who sometimes doubled to tenor, putting both horns in his mouth at once), and Sandman himself on a self-designed, self-built 2-string slide bass and singing in a low, smoky tenor.  They called it “Low Rock,” and although connected to many musical tributaries and contemporaries, they sounded like no one before or since—funky and earthy and modern and dark and funny and literate and grimy and smooth al at once.  These were badass motherfuckers possessed of a sound unlike any before, led by a frontman who arrived at his late success with an advanced artistic vision, sensibility, and wisdom forged through a long life of hard experience.  Morphine was a remarkable band, and Sandman’s story (yes, that’s his real name) is incredible and worthy of contemplation. 

As usual, I am late to the Morphine game.  Mark Sandman has been dead almost 20 years, and I just got introduced to the band a couple of months ago at a poker game.  The moaning sax and funky bass riff (“how the hell is he getting that weird slidey sound?”) opening the Cure for Pain album grabbed me immediately and I’ve been hooked ever since, listening endlessly for a good 60 days and counting now.

As for Sandman, although his story is remarkable and, as noted, truly unique, some details of his biography remain elusive, despite the proliferation of internet resources and a 2012 documentary (Cure for Pain—The Mark Sandman Story, apparently not in legit American release).  Although as noted, he arrived at his late success with an advanced artistic vision, sensibility, and wisdom forged through a long life of hard and varied experience, he himself was reluctant to discuss his age or biography, directing conversations in interviews to the bands work, period. There are some odd holes in the documentary that don’t square or address info circulating elsewhere, and my research is certainly incomplete, but here’s the story, as best as I can gather it:

Mark Sandman grew up the oldest of 4 siblings (a sister and two brothers) in an upper middle-class Jewish home in suburban Boston.  From an early age, he displayed an artistic streak and strongly independent temperament.  Upon graduating high school (circa 1970), his plan was to live at his folks house and hang out with arty folks around town, playing music, painting, writing, etc.  His folks said, basically, “We’ll send you to college, we’ll send you to trade school, you can get a job to pay some rent here, but just hanging out and making arty stuff ain’t enough,” and so Mark Sandman split.  He spent the next 10 years or so knocking around the world: from canning factories in Alaska to fishing boats operating out of the Bay area to driving cabs here, there, and everywhere, he worked and rambled.  He wrote stuff down, messed with various kinds of art along the way.  Some internet sources indicate that at some point he was stabbed while working as a cab driver, although the documentary makes no mention of this incident.  Sometime in the mid 1980s, (would’ve been in his early 30s), however, Sandman wound up seriously ill in South America and had to come home for medical care and recovery.  Shortly after his arrival home, his youngest brother died of complications from cerebral palsy, and roughly 18 months later his other brother died in a freak fall.  At that point Sandman decided to stay with his family and go to college (art school in the Boston area), after which he spent several years trying to get a successful band together around town.  One band—Treat Her Right—came close to making it, getting briefly signed but then quickly dropped by a major label.   Sandman can be clearly heard developing his low rock musical vocabulary on the bands lone album, though, and this kind of work shows up on a few other odds and ends recordings by bands he was involved with at the time.

After many years and many bands, Morphine, formed in 1989 broke circa 1992-1993 as part of the indie-rock movement led by Nirvana.  Mark Sandman was forty— 15 to 20 years older than EVERYONE in the indie-rock movement. While connected in various sonic and literary ways to contemporaries like Soul Coughing, Cake, Los Lobos, and Pavement, Sandman’s unique bass sound, beatnik-descended lyrics, and dark, brooding delivery, and Dana Collley’s dark, soulful, deep sax sounds carve out a low end sonic space that no one else has ever really occupied before or since.  Over the course of about a half dozen more years and about a half dozen albums, Morphine toured the world and playing venues holding thousands, even tens of thousands of people.  Sandman died of an apparent heart attack on stage at a festival in Italy.  The cause of death was never medically confirmed because Sandman was buried in the Jewsih tradition, which views autopsies as a desecration of the body.  Sandman was a heavy smoker. A quick survey of other biographical sources turns up, despite the band’s name, no reports of heavy drinking or hard drug use on the part of Sandman, and family and friends in the doc state that he did not use drugs.  The documentary does include a single interview with another musician who lived briefly with Sandman and says that he smoked weed heavily.  And so we don’t know for sure, medically, what happened.  Colley describes looking over to stage right as “Super Sex” kicked off early in the set, seeing Sandman’s legs buckle, and then that was it.  By the time the sax player made it over to Sandman’s side of the stage to help, he was gone, the sound of his bass hitting the floor still reverberating through the PA.

Sandman’s life story, like the music which he created, is truly unique and powerful.  He was, as noted, reticent on the subject of his own biography.  One can understand his discomfiture and appreciate his point.  He was a middle-aged man playing a young man’s game with a different generation—enough to make a fella feel old, despite any bravado— and it didn’t fuckin’ matter anyway ‘cuz the music’s the point, not the ages of the people who are making it.  None of it matters if the band isn’t great, which it was, and it doesn’t matter to the music, anyway.  However, consider: during his ride with Morphine, rockstars his age had been out of fame, fashion, and cool for a decade and a half or were already touring as nostalgia acts rather than important musical forces covering new musical ground (Rod Stewart or the Allmans come quickly to mind, among dozens of others).  And so, hopefully, Sandman also had some time to laugh his ass off to himself at the washed up old rock and roll farts his age entering geezerhood irrelevance while he was working at the cutting edge of rock and roll.  I also think Sandman’s reluctance to discuss the remarkable road that led him to success with Morphine was unfortunate.  Denying the importance of the many years of relentless kinds of work and persistence and widely and wildly varied experiences undersells the value of the wisdom and creative energy drawn from those experiences.  Certainly, Morphine’s music is great, period. Certainly, also, Sandman’s biography is of much less interest if the band wasn’t so great.  The band IS great, however, and I believe that the power of their music is enhanced, and certainly not diminished, by the power of its creators biography, which was unlike anyone else’s in his line of work, and resulted in a unique and powerful musical vision.  

And so, talking, or writing, it through, I guess I feel like the maybe the lesson of Mark Sandman is not merely that you’re never too old to achieve greatness, but that, indeed, in music as with so many other things, a long struggle enriches creative output and success (as well as one’s appreciation of that success) when it finally arrives.

With much gratitude, Mark Sandman RIP.

Almost Famous And A Box of Tissues, Please

I have been weeping more or less continuously for the last 3 and a half hours.  It is 2:30 a.m. on a work night.  I have been watching Almost Famous. It’s taken me three and a half hours to get through this two hour and 5 minute film, gasping and sniffling and replaying scenes, hunching wracked with sobs over the computer desk where I sit watching.

I don’t know if this is the greatest rock and roll movie ever made.  Probably it is not.  Come to think of it, that’s a fun bucket list to contemplate – Rock and Roll Movies You Gotta See Before You Die: Gimme Shelter, The Filth and the Fury, Woodstock, The Other F Word, I Ain’t In This For My Health, The Wall, The Last Waltz, Sid and Nancy, Austin to Boston, Let It Be, Kurt and Courtney..,.hell, even Rattle and Hum, and a gazillion others (reply or comment with suggestions, PLEASE!).  Sorryass sap that I am, I am prone to weep at frequent moments during any of these flicks.

But this one, this gift to all of us from Cameron Crowe — well this tale, in this telling, operates on another order of spiritual, psychic, deep-center-of-marrow magnitude altogether…

It’d been several years since I screened the flick – maybe 5 or 6.  I have no idea how many times I’ve seen the film, not because I’ve watched it all that many times, but because even if I’d only seen it once, every sound, sight, and scene — an relentless tear-blurred swirl moving from music to family to friends to sex to rock and roll to writing to love— every fucking thing in the film, is tapped so cuttingly into such fundamental parts of my own brain and heart that they are not so much carved into my psyche as seem to spring from it.  I’ve always been a hot mess for this flick.  But this time around-- at age 51--  even moreso.  And now, finally, here at 2:30 a.m. a weeping mess as William walks through the airport defeated—his story falsely denied by the band, humiliated, exhausted, alone— I understand, specifically and in a single word, why this movie squashes me so:

longing.

This is not first and foremost a movie about rock and roll or being famous or not being famous or writing or love.  This is a movie about longing, which uses all of other those things to explore, express and convey that feeling, viscerally, overwhelmingly.  We all long for something, and methinks this movie hits me so hard because I long for more than I realize or care to admit.  In the end, at 51, I’m longing for many of the same damn things as the people in this movie, even though they’re all terrifying number of years (numbers of decades!) younger than me.  At 2:30 in the morning, I feel like I have been watching these people run around naked—totally exposed— for hours while they have been run through a grueling, heartbreaking ordeal trying to sate their various longings—for art, for acceptance, for companionship, for meaningful relationships with people in their lives.  Because music— rock and roll music—  is so central to the film and also so deeply rooted in my spirit and because it is also the thread that binds all of these people together and pulls the story along, I feel like I have been run naked through the same ordeal.  No wonder this one crushes me.

I gotta go to bed.

SHAKE: Rock and Roll’s Secret Sauce

The thing that makes your ass shake, your arm thump, your leg pulse, your head bob and weave to a great rock and roll song isn’t just the heavy hammering 1-2-3-4 of kick and snare drums, it’s not the grindy guitar riff (though that might be the thing you can’t get out of your fuckin’ head days later), and it’s not even that funky ass bass line, though that helps-- as long as our secret ingredient is in the mix. The real secret sauce, the specific kind of sound that presses the Primal Button in the base of the skull is some kind of 8^th, 16^th, or 32^nd note swishy rattly thing made by a maraca, shaker, high hat, brushed snare, tambourine, etc.  The sound hearkens through what Jung referred to as the collective unconscious to memories evoking tribal dances, trances, and rituals.   Given rock and roll’s roots in African-descended, African-American musical traditions, the pervasive presence of “shaking”-type sounds certainly isn’t surprising—their lineage traces back to Africa, cradle of Lucy’s homo sapiens, Mother to us all, originally.  But because those big, heavy 1-2-3-4s, grindy guitar riffs, and funky ass bass lines are usually more prominent in overall band presentations than the swishing and shaking sounds buried farther back in the mix, taking a moment to notice and consider said swishing and shaking is worthwhile.

And so: a brief, off-the-cuff, probably full of shit at some points, and certainly woefully, pathetically, inexcusably incomplete sampling / survey of important early chefs in the history of the Secret Sauce in Rock and Roll:

BO DIDDLEY: other early rock and rollers—from Elvis to Chick Berry— had plenty of hard, bawdy punch, and the Bo Diddley beat featured those same pelvis pounding thrusts upfront in the mix, but behind them were those maracas, fast and even, like heavy breathin’.  Oh man.  Enough said.

CHARLIE WATTS: Keef Richards’ll be the first one to tell ya’ that we all owe more to this man’s wrists than we could ever repay.  Swirling swinging jazz sensibilities in with those elemental primal thumps, Mr. Watts (Keef can call him Charlie, but I think Mr. Watts is more respectful from you n me) manages to do all of that while somehow also simultaneously coaxing shake out of a high hat which your whole body or some part of it is ultimately powerless to deny.  Vastly underappreciated Steve Gorman of the Black Crowes, inspired by Watts. works in similarly rich, thick ways.

JIM KELTNER: dunno exactly where he appeared first, but the rock and roll rhythmic vision this man lays down on Mad Dogs and Englishmen with Joe Cocker was a template which set the bar high for rock and roll rhythms which made you not simply wanna fuck, but spend an evening singing and drinking and dancing and talking and making out with the one ya love before doing so. Hell, beyond that, Mr. Keltner (same deal here) also established the drummer as a legit contributor to musical conversations, rather than as simply a timekeeper or bump-and-grinder.  Keltner often shocked other session players by asking to see lyrics for songs on which he was playing.  A studio rat for decades, Keltner’s work appears on hundreds, probably thousands, of records.  Tom Petty thinks he’s on Damn the Torpedoes because, even though Keltner’s name isn’t on the credits anywhere, Petty recalls him running over repeatedly from a studio down the hall while TP and Co. were recording to say and demonstrate how “you just need to add some shakers to this tune!”  As with the Stones’ Watts to the Crowes’ Gorman, Keltner’s influence turned Petty’s drummer Stan Lynch into a guy with some formidable shake of his own.

THE ALLMAN BROTHERS: first off, the ABB rhythm section features no one named Allman.  Rather, Jaimoe and Butch Trucks have served the ABB as the first and best double drum combination in rock and roll history.  Both of these guys are not merely drummers on kits but percussion virtuosos, and the layers of shake they provide drive and explode the rest of the band’s intricate jammery.  Kreutzman and Hart of the Grateful Dead work in similar ways, but the ABB’s Trucks and Jaimoe combo has been a breathtaking miracle to behold for the band’s entire career (spanning over 40 years) and, with all due respect to the Dead guys, are the Best. Period.

Once you’re on the lookout for it, you notice it everywhere.  Zeppelin’s Bonham’s foot-pedaled high-hat shake was actually more important to the band than his legendary thunder.  Brady Blades shake, with a bit of help from the echoey atmospherics of Daniel Lanois guitar, morphed longtime country star Emmylou Harris and her band into real rock and rollers with World Beat influences.  Meg White didn’t have no shake which is why the White Stripes sometimes never quite took off like you felt they might (and I still think this is why Jack ultimately closed that show down), but Jack White—well, whoa: that dude shakes like a motherfucker on the drums with The Dead Weather.  “Poets” by the Tragically Hip is driven from the opening by the shake...

You also miss it when it’s not there: dry drumming can suck life from a great band or record.  Petty’s Wildflowers is a pretty fucking good record, but would be great if Stan Lynch were back with Tom, ‘cuz new guy  Steve Ferrone ain’t got no shake.  Uncle Tupelo lost steam fast when the very shaky Mike Heidorn was replaced by the very clean, very dry Ken Coomer.  UFO might've been a great band but gawd their drummer was shakeless and dry as a bone (well, actually, thinking about it, no they couldn't have been a great band anyway, but the drummer- Andy Parker- was particularly lame).

It’s a funny little thing, but it’s primacy is undeniable. Humming or tapping a toe to a tune is nice, but if your head is bobbing, your fist is pounding, your leg is twitching, your butt is swaying, well then that’s something more powerful and it’s all in the Shake—the Secret Sauce of Rock and Roll.

That’s brief and crude and incomplete and I’ll think of a dozen more examples of great shakers and shakeless fops in the next few days, but I’d rather hear examples from you all.  Where and wo do you hear and dig with that primal shake?

The Local Opener: The Difference Between Professionals And Amateurs, And The Sublime Joys Of This Sweet Spot On The Bill

We learned 2 lessons the hard way one evening about 12 years ago at the Red Line Tap:  playing as an opening band there, we’d drawn a pretty respectable crowd of friends and relations, and so were asked to headline next time.  A newly formed bluegrass outfit—Tangleweed— was slated to open for us.  We had a nice little acoustic band going—The Hacksaw Three we were called—and did a fine job playing a wide range of covers with a handful originals tossed in for good measure.  We mixed up guitars, piano, bass, and even occasionally mandolin or snare drum and covered everything from the Rolling Stones and Tom Waits to Schoolhouse Rock and Monty Python. We were, by no means, however, professionals— neither the band nor anyone in it supported themselves or made a dime really, apart from a few free drinks at the bar, from making music.  No one had blazing chops, we rehearsed once a week for a couple of hours at most, and no one was a great singer: we were (and still are) advanced amateurs.  Tangleweed were pros, however: highly skilled and schooled virtuosic musicians who were good enough to and DID support themselves by playing in a variety of settings around town, and what they were coming together to play in this setting was bare white knuckle, lightspeed bluegrass.  They not only were virtuoso players, but sang in harmony, tossed a few killer ballads into their set to make you weep, wrote terrific songs, and, if that weren't bad enough, they were also kind, funny, humble, gracious, and appreciative.  They played an intense, high-energy, tight, flawless, jam packed 50 minute set that left people slackjawed with awe and / or screaming for more.  Then we came on with our moderate tempo covers and satisfactory but definitely amateur level chops, plain old voices, and sometimes rattly arrangements and, well… let’s just say we learned in a deep way:

1.    that a chasm of difference yawns between professionals and us (and other advanced amateurs) even on our best night, and

2.    that, in simplest terms, you never, ever wanna have a band that’s better than you open for you.

Still, sometimes my head gets swelled because I’m fortunate to have many opportunities to play these days and I get to thinking I’m better than I am.  I have a weekly gig playing bass with a jam band at a bar, am in an acoustic band who rehearses weekly and gigs every so often, and I live in a house filled with instruments and have many other chances to jam with friends and interact musically often with my very musical family— most of whom are, in fact, professional musicians.  After a week or two that’s gone particularly well musically in these various settings, I can start to lose perspective of where I stand on the spectrum (at advanced amateur, and no farther along-- period), and start to think that I'm pretty hot shit.  Then something happens which sets me straight-- the lessons of the Tangleweed debacle have taken deep enough root in my musical psyche to pay some benefits.  First: no matter how swelled my head gets, my bandmates and I are always very careful to make sure no one whose chops will blow ours away plays before us on a gig.  This usually means we try to play first on a multi-band bill, which is also good because our crowd (older now, like us) are not generally late-nighters.  This has also put us in the role of the Local Opener several times recently, and this, I have come to realize, is a role with a sublime and powerful beauty.

What do I mean by a “Local Opener?”  Simply: we are a local band who opens for a band or musician from out of town who is touring.  Our role is to set the musical table for the evening (usually openers work in similar musical styles or genres as the touring musicians) and to add some additional local folks to the audience who might stick around and enjoy the national performer…

I walk in to the bar about 6:15 on Thursday evening this week schlepping my guitar cases and Aldi bag full of cords, stands, and other crap, excited though a bit flustered to have an extra weeknight gig.  We’re the opener, starting at 8. The national headlining band— The Appleseed Collective, 4 guys— is onstage holding their instruments, already set up: an acoustic guitar, a mandolin, and stand bass, and a washboard with cymbals and a few other percussive odds and ends.  We introduce ourselves, shake hands, and the Appleseed guys ask if they can have the stage for another 20 or 30 minutes to rehearse some stuff.  No problem for us, we reply— we’ll just get a drink, start to unpack and tune up and set up out front, and then just carry our stuff—tuned and set up— on to the stage when they’re finished.  Some banter and noodling between the Appleseed guys onstage, then… layers of rich tenor harmonies, intertwining fiddle, vocal, and guitar lines, shaking grooves from that washboard and standup bass all come rolling off the stage in waves… and then… whoa… I’m weeping.  They’d spent the afternoon working out the harmonies as they drove, and now were adding the instrumental parts to the chorus of a new song, and.. well holy crap the voice of God was pouring out of these 4 guys out on the road making music together and it was a joyful and breathtaking sound to hear.  These fellows were not amateurs.  They spent dozens of hours every week honing their craft, had devoted and given over their lives to the pursuit of beauty, had chops and vision and battle-hardened stage savvy, and executed with skill and precision and clarity that clearly demarcated the difference between the pros and the amateurs.  I grinned, happy and honored to be in the role of the Local Opener, and thus privileged to be able to witness the Real Deal at work firsthand.   “And so basically you just drive around every day, and then do that at night?” I asked from the floor as they put their stuff away.  A smile, a chuckle, “Um yeah, basically.”  Wiping my eyes, I drop to one knee, bow my head, and doff my hat.

On The Passing Of Rock Stars

Neither David Bowie nor Glenn Frey / the Eagles nor Lemmy Kilmister have made a great or important record in years.  Some good ones, perhaps, but no one in their right mind would argue that any of these musicians were anywhere near their creative prime when they departed.  I never knew any of these people personally, never met them.  So why was I weeping over the news of Frey's passing on Monday evening when I picked up daughter from her dance class?  Why are so many of us so genuinely and deeply saddened when a rock star dies?  Listening back through the Bowie and Eagles catalogs (both of them vast-- on the Bowie side make sure to get past Ziggy Stardust to get to Scary Monsters, and on the Eagles side make sure to get past Hotel California to the Long Run and Deperado), I've concluded that 2 things drive the very real sense of mourning that music people feel at moments like these.

First, we feel, in simplest terms, like we've lost a friend.  Dictionary.com defines a friends as:

-a person attached to another by feelings of affection or personal regard

-a person who gives assistance

-a person who is on good terms with another; a person who is not hostile

-a member of the same nation, party, etc.

-(initial capital letter) a member of the Religious Society of Friends; a Quaker.

-a person associated with another as a contact on a social-media website

I might also add something along the lines of "a person who enjoys spending time and shares interests in common with another person."  In any case, all of this sounds precisely like my relationship with musicians and their work-- right down to my sense that music functions as a religion for some folks, and to the fact that many people connect and "follow" musicians via social media.   Over my 4 dozen plus years here on this earth, I have spent thousands of hours, in every life situation imaginable, with these people.  Music is playing at almost all times in my home, car, classroom, bar, restaurant, grocery store, street, sidewalk-- absolutely everywhere.  And when it's not being played out loud, it's ALWAYS playing in my head.  Though never there in corporeal terms, of course, Mr. Bowie, Mr. Frey, Mr. Kilmister and all of these artists have, in a very authentic way, been through everything with me: when I was being bullied (indeed my love of Elton John in Middle School made me a target), when I finally found some actual friends in high school (indeed, our connection over music often defined our friendship, was the foundation upon which it was built), when I went to class, when my kids were born, when I fucked up, when I was happy, when I was sad, when I was confused, when I was pissed off, when I had been dumped, when I was horny, when I ws broke... Music has been an active participant in every significant moment of my life, and most of the insignificant ones, too.  It has provided me solace, counsel, therapy, strength, empathy, reassurance, celebration, confidence, ecstasy...  And so, from very early on, I not only felt that the recordings-- the music itself-- functioned as my friend, but by unconscious extension, that the people creating the music were also my friends-- that they knew and understood me, my feelings, my situations-- and that I could always rely on them to get me through good times and bad.  And, unlike the friends who I did know personally, these folks never, ever let me down.  When things are shitty, I can put on "Sweet Virginia" and Keith and Mick always come through, every time.  Well I know that many rock stars-- including every one named so far in this little post-- have been and / or are insufferable assholes, or at the very least mighty difficult to live with in literal terms, to the people in their own lives.  As a mere consumer of their work, however, they have been the most reliable friends I've ever had.  And so, when they pass-- especially in bunches as seems to be the case right now-- I think many of us feel, quite authentically, like we have lost close friends.

The second reason people feel the loss of these musicians so acutely, I think, relates weirdly to a bumper sticker I saw awhile back that set me thinking.  The bumper sticker reads "Be the person your dog thinks you are."  I'm not a dog person (at all), but the line to me simply suggests that people should try to live up to their own ideals.  I have sometimes translated it as "Be the kind of person you wanted to be when you were young."  Rock and Roll, as an ethos, has always valued a youthful spirit.  The art form is driven forward, most often, by performers between the ages of 18 and 30.  While a growing number of artists have continued to make strong contributions at later ages, proving that rock and roll is not just kids stuff, the truth of the matter is that these records rarely change the face of the genre or our culture in the same way as records by more youthful musicians.  This is largely because people in that age range are old enough to see what's wrong with the world and have clear ideas about how it should look which they can articulate through their art, and young enough not to have been deterred by the harsh financial, cultural, medical, political, familial, and other realities of life that can grind away idealism as one gets older.  Indeed, records by more mature rock and rollers often point to the difficulty of staying true to youthful ideals as one ages.  Whatever creative decline afflicts most rock and rollers as they age, the recordings they've made and the songs they've written don't change and thus serve as reminders to us of the people we'd hoped to be.  The term "Classic Rock" points to this reality-- it's only a classic if many people have enjoyed it for a long time.  These records and the people who made them remind us of what we want, in our hearts, the world to look like, and so when they pass, we feel that a bit of our soul, our dream, our vision for the future has also died.  In an almost literal sense, we've lost some hope.

And so, like so many of us, I've been spinning a lot of Bowie and Eagles records (Lemmy's Motorhead records, too, but not as much 'cuz those are harder for my family members to take, even if I am in mourning).  For my regular Tuesday night gig at the bar, I threw together covers of Bowie's "Moonage Daydream" (yes, from Ziggy-- the Scary Monsters songs are too fuckin hard for me to play solo acoustic) and the Frey-Jackson Browne penned Eagles classic "Take It Easy."  Glorious singalongs ensued, more Bowie and Frey tunes were called, and tears flowed like at a good, sad but also celebratory funeral.  The trite but wonderful immortal miracle of our age is that while David and Glenn have departed, their records and the songs they wrote have not and will not.  Ever.

When is a Musician, or Anyone Else, a Hero? Steve Earle and How and When to Separate the Achievement from the Achiever

The adulation and worship of famous people has always been problematic.  Examples of athletes, artists, politicians, and others who excelled at their craft but were dreadful humans long predate the so-called “modern” era (emperors, kings, popes are easy targets, but there are more—can you name a few?  Please share!).  That being said, however, the phenomenon does seem to be exaggerated more by the mass media and marketing machine that drives so much of our culture, especially because that machine is so often directed at young people—from the 8 year old 3^rd graders in my class up through high school and college kids working through various phases of idealism before arriving at varying degrees and flavors of jaded wisdom about the people in the world at adulthood.  And the phenomenon doesn’t really end then, either: now at 50 (*%*W@#*!!!), I still struggle with how to interpret achievements in relation to their achievers when an achievement— most often musical, occasionally literary, cinematic, political, baseball related, or otherwise— really strikes a chord in me.  Does the fact that someone has made a great record make them a hero?  If I conclude that someone is a jerk, how should that impact how I respond to their work and how I respond to their presence in our culture?  What of use can I take from any knowledge I have of how they came to excel at their craft? Are any of these people really heroes?  And what is a hero anyway?

Let me begin to answer these questions with a statement: Steve Earle is a hero.

In support of this statement, I offer my own crude and informally gathered (from sources—interviews, film / video, record sleeves, magazine articles, etc etc etc etc— too myriad to recall and enumerate over the last 18 years or so) summary and interpretation of his biography (and my sincerest apologies to my hero for any factual errors or other offenses I commit in the process of offering this up): 

Steve Earle grew up in Texas absorbing as much of the Great American Musical River as he could while cultivating a fiercely independent personality streak which resulted various kinds of turbulence and (mis)adventures growing up.  He made his way to Nashville as soon as he could, to enter the songwriting clique in which his idol Townes Van Zandt was a Player.  By the age of 19 he was rubbing elbows and writing songs there in Music City with Van Zandt and some of the other heaviest country songwriting hitters of the day—Guy Clark, Rodney Crowell, et.al.  A few of his songs were recorded by other artists (most notably Carl Perkins), and eventually he wound up with a recording contract of his own, with 1986’s Guitar Town the first in a string of records (including Exit 0, Copperhead Road, and The Hard Way) which set off a meteoric rise to country-rock fame and fortune.  The records are impressive in many ways—brilliant, vivid narrative songwriting tales featuring identifiable characters in a wide variety of familiar and moving dire straits, performed on a gritty guitar-bass-drums-piano palette devoid of the cheesy electronic sounds that poisoned almost all records of the era, executed by a tight, dynamic, fiery band (The Dukes), and supported by relentless, impassioned touring.  Earle’s own story, however, was classically, predictably tragic: suddenly rich and famous, he became a dope fiend fuckup.  His addiction to hard drugs led him to not only chemical-abuse excess but a life of street crime to support his habits, and all of this while he had a young son growing up, often in his house.  His life came crashing down around him with a drug and weapons bust that came a hairsbreadth from a much more serious charge and tragedy: as he narrates the event, while in the process of being arrested, a loaded pistol was dislodged from his belt, falling to the ground, discharging, and narrowly missing officers in on the arrest.  Despite his achievements—a string of phenomenal and successful records—this guy was not a hero.

He spent 60 days in jail, then completed an inpatient drug rehab program, followed by one of the most remarkable creative and personal rebirths in history.  Immediately following his discharge, he entered the studio to record an acoustic record—mostly of songs salvaged from his early days in Nashville—which is, in my humble opinion, the finest acoustic rock and roll record ever, bar none (Train A Comin’).  This was followed by a set of records which included 3 straight-up rock and roll albums with a reconstituted Dukes (I Feel Alright, El Corazon— I’m happy with this one and nothing else on a desert island— and Transcendental Blues).  I first saw Steve Earle live on the El Corazon tour, and the show was the most moving performance I have ever seen: a man desperately grateful for the second chance he had been given and determined to make the most of it.  He closed his 3^rd encore—at the end of nearly 3 straight hours—with a cover of my favorite song in the whole world: the Stones’ “Sweet Virginia” (his intro: “Thank you Chicago—I love any town where I can sell records and get good Mexican food, and this is the last song tonight because the tacos are on the bus.  I got me a habit of collecting British hillbilly songs, and this is one of ‘em.  Hope you like. G’night”).  He led the tune on mandolin, an instrument which I had just taken up meself.  I thought my head was going to explode— I leaned over and said to my wife and my closest friend who were with me: “Lord take me now.  Everything else will be downhill from here.”  Also woven into this creative nuclear burst was an album of bluegrass originals done with the legendary Del McCoury Band (The Mountain), followed by a searing post-9/11 political record (Jerusalem).  The songs on Jerusalem — most famously "John Walker's Blues," but really the whole damn album— implore a post-9/11 America convulsed with jingoism and xenophobia to move beyond its loathing and fear and face hard truths about itself.  For this he was castigated by persons of all stripes in American life, including no less a figure than the elder George Bush, to which he said, essentially, "Say what you want.  I have the strength of my convictions and I'm on a mission to try to make people think differently."   He has been politically outspoken and effective since his release from prison / rehab on other fronts, as well: as a fierce opponent of the death penalty he has not only written songs about the issue, but worked closely with political leaders on several fronts to achieve substantive change.  Now clean for about 20 years, he is raising a son with autism, and is active in advocating for people and families facing challenges related to autism. He has written novels and plays, appeared in televisions and films, taught classes in songwriting (here at Chicago’s Old Town School of Folk Music!), and subsequent albums (The Revolution Starts Now, Washington Square Serenade, et.al.) have been critical and commercial successes.  He works relentlessly at his craft, has fallen as far as one can fall without dying as a result of personal mistakes, learned from his grave failure, turned himself around, and now leads a life not only of high creative achievement, but of conviction and dedication to improving the lives of others and the world in general.

In this biography, we see not only achievements to be enjoyed and celebrated (some of the greatest rock and roll albums ever, creative success in many artistic media), but also heroism: a willingness to work ferociously hard not only to achieve, but also to improve as a person and to improve the world as well.

A great album is a great album, period: John Lennon’s Imagine, Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, Michael Jackson’s Thriller, etc etc etc.  Achievement is achievement: Tiger Woods mile-long list of golf championships, John F. Kennedy’s management of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Picasso’s Guernica.  These achievements are worthy of adulation.  And the people who did these things did so because they were singularly devoted to, driven by, and disciplined in their work.  This kind of dedication is also worthy of celebration: nothing great is achieved without this kind of hard work, an instructive lesson to everyone. But, like so many people who achieve fame and fortune, these people were and are also famously difficult, unkind, disrespectful, or even abusive to the people around them—unrecovered addicts, adulterers, and tyrants whose personal foibles hurt many of the people around them terribly.  Most of us are flawed in similar ways (myself included for sure!), and so my position is NOT that these people should be reviled or castigated for their flaws, but merely viewed as human, rather than heroic.  When I see kids saying that their idols are famous athletes or musicians, and that they want to be like them when they grow up, I try to remind kids (and myself) that I don’t really know these famous people or know enough about them to know if I want to be like them, that we should all enjoy their work, but reserve judgment about them as people unless we really know more about their lives.

Rare is the person who can achieve greatness and also conduct themselves personally in a way which is exemplary and worthy of celebration.  Steve Earle’s biography helps me understand the difference and separate a person’s work from their life.  I enjoy Dark Side of the Moon no less because I have concluded that Roger Waters isn’t a hero, but I particularly appreciate the likes of the Steve Earle’s of the world when they come ‘round.