Look at these shoes. I’ve only had them three weeks and the heels are worn right through...it’s not a very fine day and I’m sick and tired of this office.
Rules for Playing, Live:
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1.Relax, enjoy yourself
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2.The Ghost of Kurt Cobain is watching, so don’t fuck up!
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3.Wine, water or spirits, not beer
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4.Relax, enjoy yourself
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5.You wrote the damned songs, so who better to interpret them than you? C’mon.
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6.If you have to go pee in the middle of a song, don’t be afraid to interrupt the song and go. Remember, the audience is on your side.
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7.Relax, enjoy yourself.
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8.Noone but the quiet guy in the back corner of the bar is going to notice or take you to task for that chord you blew in the second verse
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9.Learn to live with your own voice. But don’t fall in love with it. Remember what happened to Narcissus?
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10.Keep arguments and fisticuffs with audience members to a minimum. Remember, they’re on your side.
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11.Be present, or at least pretend to be if that terrifies you.
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12.Relax, enjoy yourself.
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13.To the drunk guy constantly requesting Piano Man: kindly remind him that you’re not playing a piano.
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14.Use the ASS-D rule: Always SSlow Down.
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15.Meditate before a gig, or take a hot bath with lotus flowers, like Prince does.
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16.Relax, enjoy yourself.
2
2
2
No song shall be completed in less than 2 weeks. The number of weeks required to finish a song, regardless of continuous concentration and/or imbibing substances to enhance inspiration, shall be at least 2. Two is the number of weeks during which ye may importune that a song is completed and yet not feel quite right in thine head during which time many ideas shall be brought forth, rejected and reconsidered and discarded until one fine day when everything falls into place quite apart from thou having anything to do with it, thou shalt consider the calendar portion over which you have obsessed and find it to be no less than 2 weeks.
I have it on good authority that many of the biggest hits in pop music were written on a cocktail napkin in the back of a limousine in 15 mins or less
Mozart wrote the Jupiter Symphony in the can. In the can!
Where the hell does this leave us?
On Not Sounding Like My Influences:
Last night I went out to see Martin Sexton. I’ve never heard him before, and had hardly heard of him before, but he came highly recommended by a friend of a friend (of a friend). All of this, plus the fact that he’s my age, is a solo singer/songwriter, and is relatively successful pointed to the fact that I should be looking to musicians like him for inspiration. And he was! Inspiring, that is. He’s hugely talented, the “real deal” as one audience member said to me during the show, and incredibly entertaining. Jill and I bought his double CD, and I recommend anyone who likes good music to go forthwith and check him out. So why is it that, this morning, the morning after having my socks knocked off by a kick-ass musician, the tune that’s going through my head is this? A song that sounds like it’s just about to fall apart sung by a guy who can’t really carry a tune. You see, as much as someone with an awesome voice and tender touch on the guitar strings might tug at my heart, it’s the ramshackle, the precarious, the perverse and the ornery that really hit me in the entrails. And yet. And yet I know that, limited vocal range notwithstanding, I sound nothing like the musical mavericks I’ve spent my life listening to and purport to cite as influences. Why is this? It’s something that has been keeping me awake 15 min longer than usual each night and has occasionally interrupted the digestion of my morning oatmeal. Ultimately, I have no answer to my own question (goddamn you lack of objectivity), but I do have a few clues that may lead to greater understanding.
Maybe what I’m trying to listen for in music isn’t a classic expression of talent, or even a direct line to the emotions (although those can be spine-tingling, too, hello Nirvana) but the intellectual idea behind the song. The quality in a song that makes one able to sing it again and again, night after night, sometimes even through the mouth of a different singer, and have it still stand up. Slavish devotion to the song is what I’ve got. And so this leaves me with more “inspirations” than “influences”. These musicians inspire me to do the best with what I have, my voice, my music, but, mostly, the ongoing negotiations with my psyche, to create a song that I can sing again and again (in my case, about once every 1.5 months unless the guy at Daniel O’Connell’s sees fit to give me more gigs) in front of an audience, with my eyes open no matter how I happen to be feeling at that particular time or what I had for dinner. This song has to have the structure, the spine to carry itself on its own merits and hope that, through the sheer force of its will, others will see truth and fall into line or at least temporary agreement to disagree. Call it a lack of confidence, but I have trouble walking onto a stage, tripping on the patch cord and electrocuting myself on the mic if I don’t think the song I’m about to sing has all of these qualities. The end result of this hammering and burnishing, though, isn’t a song that’s going to sound like one of my inspirations. No. It’ll probably sound like me.
Another thread that I have teased out of this line of questioning has to do with my earliest inspirations being the ABBA and Patsy Gallant hits that I heard on CFRB 1010 when I was growing up in the 70’s. But that’s not another rant....
I Bow Out
Every few minutes, I wake up and realize that this world has gone on a completely different musical path from me. The other week I was leaving our local public pool--where I swim lengths while trying to forget about the innate boredom in swimming lengths and also frequently smiling to myself underwater when I think of a friend’s quote: “Y’know, swimming’s great because the worse you are the better a workout it is.”--and I noticed in passing a poster for a band playing at Centrepoint Theatre right here in Ottawa. Now, Centrepoint is NOT a small venue in town, having recently hosted such inimitable acts as The Amazing Kreskin (he WILL live forever) and a live note-for-note recreation of The Dark Side of the Moon (please please tell me who goes to see those things?). So naturally, when I see that a band is playing at Centrepoint my curiosity is piqued. Who has so earned a performance at a theatre which can hold more than 1000 people all of whom are likely paying a decent ticket price and rapt attention because they can’t get a drink in there and, god knows, they aren’t going to get up out of their seats to dance! Who? Well, as it turns out, it’s Buddy Wasisname and The Other Fellers. But of course, I thought to myself, ever since Buddy reunited with the Other Fellers, restoring the Wasisname moniker as a reminder of his indie cred, who WOULDN’T want to go see them, and then there’s the fact that Buddy has been having a late period creative surge, writing some of the best, rawest songs of his....
I canna du it. I bow out.
What is a Song
A spontaneous outburst of feeling A well-rehearsed once-spontaneous outburst of feeling re-rehearsed about 1,000 times 99 cents on iTunes Outside of value Of no value Abstract Free for download A lovingly sculpted aural confection Poop on a stick...with lyrics! An itch you need to scratch A 2.5 week case of writer’s block Very satisfying, once it’s finished Never finished Ultimately traceable back to some concept of “love” Unremitting ego, pure and simple A single Meaningful only in the context of an album Something that happens before the next song An approximation of a much better song existing in your head Invented in your sleep Stomach trouble Inextricably linked to the performance Independent of the performance For singing in the shower Karoake masturbation Improvisation with yourself Music before lyrics A resource An earworm An earbud An earache An earlier version of yourself fossilized Three and half minutes of your life you’ll never get back There for the taking Thanks for listening If you don’t like it fuck you An offering A kiss off An excuse to perform Lazy poetry Impressionistic Specific Sadistic Tension between the two sides of your brain And now the ultimate definition of a song: hotel california I knew we’d get there eventually the end
