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Bars, Bikes, and Babes (Oh, and some music, too)

Loaded Questions — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 12:23:01 GMT

There are moments in a musician’s life when s/he plays far beyond anything that musician has ever played before. I don’t know if every musician experiences this, but I can think of at least one occasion when it happened to me. There are moments in the life of a band when, seemingly out of nowhere, the band’s chemistry just gels. In the band’s case, it isn’t just an isolated instance. It is a matter of small, miraculous explosions of musicianship colliding and bouncing around: here, an impromptu drum fill coincides with something that the bassist decides to try on the spur of the moment; there, a harmony that had never been sung before just happens, and it happens to sound great.

In 1985, I was playing bass in a country band that was only a few short months away from breaking up. We were playing the Stevensville Inn in Maryland (one of many honky-tonk bars located along Route 1 between DC and Baltimore). What you need to understand is that if you are a bassist, country music is rather limiting. Over 50% of the material involves playing alternating root notes and fifths – think “Good-Hearted Woman” by Waylon Jennings. There’s nothing wrong with this, but it certainly offers few opportunities to show off. I know in these blog posts I come across as shy and unassuming, but in those days, I liked to show off. Within the limits of the music we played, that meant doing some fills in between chord changes – nothing particularly challenging, just a walk-up here, a funky pop-n-slap there for emphasis. On this particular night, I was unconsciously trying new things. It was as if someone or something was tapping me on the shoulder and saying, “Put your fingers here.” Without thinking about it, I played some things well outside of my comfort zone. For the most part, I normally kept my fingers outlining an invisible box on my strings, playing what is technically known as a minor pentatonic scale (a very useful scale in popular music). On this occasion, my playing was virtually “outside the box.” I did not plan ahead. When the moment was right, I just added things that it never occurred to me to add before.

At the end of the night, my band-mates congratulated me on my inspired playing. I couldn’t have said where the ideas came from, but there they were. I was 20 years old, underage for any bar in Maryland, but already a veteran of the country bar scene between Northern Virginia and Maryland’s Eastern Shore.

I would have to ask the other guys in Hired Guns about their impressions, but I would say that our gig last Saturday (April 7^th, 2012) was like that. There were moments of musical looseness that should have been frosted mini-disasters, but turned out better than usual. At one point, Rick turned his guitar over to Scott from Low Life (a Kid Rock tribute group), who took us through “Purple Rain.” Yes, we all know of the song, but I don’t know that any of us ever actually played the song. We certainly didn’t practice it. Scott led, we followed, and it sounded sort of professional. Given that our set list tends to shy away from funk-flavored, bisexual, neo-soul coated in purple spangles, I think it went quite well.

The one point of the night I could really have done without was the drunk who got on the microphone and tried to rally the crowd into making us play more country music. It’s not that we mind playing country. We know quite a few country songs. However, this was the end of the night. We were playing a birthday party. We needed to wrap things up, and we had to end on a high note. We play music and can entertain in a meaningful way, so you can imagine how it harshes my buzz to have to play bouncer instead of just playing our show. This fellow felt that since he’d purchased some drinks for Rick, he had some kind of contract with the band to do as he wished. For all I knew, he bought the drinks for Rick (and not for anyone else in the group) because he thought Rick was really cute in them tight-fittin’ jeans. Ah, let’s not dwell upon this. It’s still upsetting.

Moving along: We have a gig at 460 Roadhouse this Saturday. It is a publicity event for Fastlane Biker Magazine. There will be music, bikes, babes, pictures, more music, libations, food, more bikes, more babes, etc… Get there in the late afternoon and enjoy the ambience. I think the music begins around 7:00 pm. Who knows, maybe your picture will appear in the magazine when they publish the pics from the event. You can get a copy of the magazine and show all your friends and coworkers that you, yes you, have a real life away from your day job. I know that’s what I’ll do!

Where on Earth have you been?

Loaded Questions — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 12:24:17 GMT

Ah, there you are. I know, I know – it’s been a while since we last met here on this weblog, and that’s no way for a band to build a following. It should go without saying that I have been busy; that we’ve all been busy. Busy people are interesting people, after all. The fact is, though, I’m just feeling old. I like naps. I want to take a nap right now, and it’s only 7:39 a.m. For you, good friends, I will struggle through. So grab your favorite beverage, settle back in your comfy chair, and I will ramble on in my signature Attention Deficit Disorder manner about what we’ve been up to and some of the things that are just on my mind lately.

THERE’S NO “I” IN “TEAM,” or so says the brightly colored poster I see when I walk in the front door at work in the morning. Maybe so, I think cynically, but there’s also no plan for succeeding here. There’s no logic in the organization. Then I think: Oh, but there is perfectly visible “U” in “FUCK-UP FAIRIE.” It is at that moment that I think I know who is running this company. Incidentally, like a lot of companies, this one has a net-nanny in place to make sure we don’t visit “mature content” websites, which I find laughable. They allow us to access Facebook, so long as we do so only during our breaks (which are too short to make it worthwhile). Facebook, as many of you know, is a swirling vortex of content, some of which is what the powers-that-be would consider “mature.” I have serious doubts about a company that doesn’t want its people exposed to maturity. If they said they were blocking pornographic or other potentially disturbing websites, most of us would agree that this makes sense. Somehow, the folk in charge have equated maturity with inappropriate sex. We must think about this. Perhaps we should revisit this topic in depth later!
When last we met here on our “Loaded Questions” blog, Hired Guns was a quartet consisting of Rick Colt on guitars and vocals (and on rare occasion, mandolin), Mike Grose on guitars and vocals, Ryan Boone on drums, and Chris Brown on bass and vocals. We’ve expanded. You see, in late February, I had taken on a commitment to handle some of the tech issues (including running sound for several science-fiction oriented musical acts) at Mysticon 2012, here in Roanoke, VA. The Horse Shoe booked the band to play the Saturday night that I was to run sound for a band called Bella Morte. I saw the booking the night it was agreed to, but didn’t have the convention dates in mind, so I had no objection. A couple of days later, I realized the problem. I called Rick, made a couple of suggestions how we could handle it (no, we couldn’t book a different date, another band was bumped from the schedule to make room for us). Rick had a replacement in mind: George Fender. I always thought of George as a guitarist, and he is a very good guitarist, but it turns out he’s a very fine bass player. [I also found it odd that a guy named Fender prefers instruments made by Gibson, Taylor, and Rickenbacker, but hey, what can you do?] **** Additionally, we brought Gary Alldredge into the band. Gary is our third guitarist, who used to be the guitar tech for his cousin Hughie’s band. Maybe you heard of them, the Guitar Army known as The Outlaws? Gary joined us with the idea that we could go with him to Nashville and record a great demo. Through the surviving members of the Outlaws, he actually has good contacts there. Unfortunately, he called in all the favors he could to set this up, and had to go to Nashville over St. Patrick’s Day weekend. If it could’ve been scheduled for later in the summer, Gary would have had our full participation and financial blessing. Gary posted on Facebook from Nashville last weekend, and we hope he was able to accomplish what he needed to do with his original music.
After temping at a place for several months, they actually hired me. Yay! Chris got a job! Unfortunately, that meant I started over at the beginning and had no way to take any time off for Gary’s big project, and won’t have any paid time off until late in May. Some days being a capitalist tool is a real bitch, you know what I mean?
We have some gigs coming up that you should know about. On the 31^st, we play at Watusys, located on the corner of Williamson and Plantation Roads. We’d wanted to play there for quite some time. The bar’s silent partner, Clinton, decided not to be so darn quiet anymore. He means to make the bar a great place for all kinds of music to reach all sorts of people. Roanokers will recognize Clinton’s other business in the area: the plumbing company called “Turdbusters.” Like the name or not, there’s no way you will ever forget the name. For myself, I’m just as pleased as can be to be playing for the valley’s Poo-Poo Guru (also painted on his equipment trailer – again, a sight the average consumer is unlikely to forget!). **** We are also playing the Breaktime Bar, located in the Days Inn just off of I-81 at exit 146. This is not to be confused with Breaktime Billiards, the now defunct billiard parlor. It’s a pleasure to play a venue where people can drink themselves silly and then get a room for the remainder of the night to sleep it off.

So those are some of the recent events affecting the lives and loves of the SW Virginia band known simply as Hired Guns. You can follow us on Facebook (lots of new pictures there), ReverbNation, and right here at our own little corner of the Interwebz. We hope to see you soon!

As Luck Would Have It

Loaded Questions — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 18:17:51 GMT

Well, the holidays are upon us, and that’s a real kick in the head! I help keep internet companies in business, regardless of how reliable they may be, because I get claustrophobic at the mall this time of year. Okay, I’ll level with you: it’s really not that bad, I just play at being a bitter and twisted old man this time of year in hopes that four ghosts will show up and take me on a mind-blowing, quasi-psychedelic trip through my lifetime that includes…

The Future

That, my friends, would be kind of cool.

As for what’s been happening band-wise, I refer you to our most recent gig at The Horseshoe in Roanoke. In spite of its mild surroundings (Jackson Park, a convenience store, a Boys & Girls club), the Horseshoe is a pretty big bar. It has a real stage, a real dance floor, walls decorated in neon, and a darts tournament was going on while we played. We were in no danger of getting hit by the darts, which was new for me.

Rick wanted to get there at 5:00, which meant I didn’t have time to go home, unless I walked in my front door, turned around, and drove straight back to the bar. I thought that was a foolish use of time, so I played in a somewhat disheveled state. However, I could’ve used a change of clothes. I was wearing jeans slightly too large for me, that had a tendency to slip, as well as sneakers with rounded soles. The rounded soles are by design – they keep one’s body slightly off-balance, so the body is constantly making minor adjustments in order to stand. The downside of this was that if I bent down to pick up, say, a speaker cord, I was putting myself really off-balance, while my pants were sliding down. Mindful of my recent post on the dreadful ass-sassins that work where I work, I wasn’t about to moon anybody, even by accident. Nope, no wannabe astronomer is gonna have to point at me and cry, "There's a moon out tonight, and I can see Uranus!" Nope, no sir.

We were joined on stage by new keyboardist Kenny Abate (welcome Kenny!), who also plays guitar. We didn’t have much opportunity to practice with him, but he bravely jumped in and contributed what he could where he could, and we were pretty happy with the result.

There was a decent crowd of people who hung out most of the night, making requests, dancing, and having a good time. It’s fun to play for an audience like that, and I have to hand it to those people – it was a very cold Saturday night, but they came out to party anyway! Janet showed up and i was particularly happy to see her. Toward the end of the night, we abandoned the regular set list and starting playing a bunch of garage band stuff. I mean “Smoke on the Water,” “Taking Care of Business,” and other staples of ‘70s rock radio, which I haven’t played on a regular basis since living in Baltimore back in 1983. It was like being in my first band again, except with musicians who can really play and have decent equipment. I don’t know why, but that stuff went over well, even with all the unpolished & unpracticed edges.

A friend shot some video footage with her cell phone (the images aren’t sharply defined, but you can tell it’s us), and I might post it here. In the video, we play “Main Street,” before we got really loud (and it’s still pretty loud). Listen for Rick’s voice cracking, me cracking-up, and watch for Rick giving me the finger because the expression on my face was cracking him up, too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3olW909XsU&feature=player_embedded#!

How Can You Leave This Behind?

Loaded Questions — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 21:53:37 GMT

Normally we talk about music in this space, or at least some of the interesting trivia in and around the music scene. Today – and perhaps just for today – I am leaving that behind. All of us in Hired Guns have our day jobs, and although those jobs generally don’t even bother to include polite applause, they are occasionally colorful. Today’s color is pink – extremely, damn-near-painfully, bright pink.

I work for a company that has quite a few large land mammals working for it. Please understand, I write that as a man who has weighed almost twice what the insurance tables say a man my height should way at the most. There are some guys my age who suck in their stomachs at the beach when some young sweetie walks by. I don’t bother. It wouldn’t fool a blind woman, let alone some 21-year old hardbody in perfect health. So when I say there are some large people in this office, I’m not kidding around. I’ve seen a couple of them arrive in cars made by Hyundai, and my respect for Hyundai went up significantly, if those little cars can haul that kind of weight.

Like a lot of offices, we have “food days.” Usually, this means that if one works on a team of eight people, each of those eight people will bring enough food to feed the entire team. That is to say, eight people end up with enough food for about sixty-four people. This company that I work for is in the medical field, so you’d think they’d be pushing for us to eat less and exercise more, but noooooooo – that’s unthinkable!

Today at lunch, as I was finishing up my meal, a young woman sat down at the next table, facing away from me. Her pants slipped, and I nudged my pal Brenda and murmured, “Somebody’s got a crack problem!”

Brenda looked, shook her head (as if to clear her mind), and looked again. She thought I should bring the (presumably unintentional) mooning to the young lady’s attention. I refused. I just don’t know how to bring that up without causing even more embarrassment. On the other hand, I could not look away. I considered going into to the kitchen and getting some ice cubes and just chucking them at her butt crack, but again, how does one do this politely? Damned if I know! I was mesmerized, but not really in a good way. You see, I was starting to wonder why this was happening to me yet again.

Flashback to two Friday’s ago. I was working a little late, and after 5:00, I headed to the men’s room for strategic whizzing purposes, when a very large woman stood up at a cubicle in front of me (about halfway between my desk and the men’s room). She stood up, but her pants did not, and as I mentioned, this gal was quite… big. There to my wond’ring eyes did appear two of the biggest, pinkest, shiniest butt cheeks I’ve ever seen (actually about 90% bared to the world). To top this, she was wearing a thong, because when you buy your underwear at Victoria’s-It-Ain’t-Too-Big-a-Damn-Secret, that’s what you wear. I felt blinded. After a few seconds, she did pull her jeans up, but she didn’t even bother to look around to see if this had been noticed. I was grateful for the lack of eye contact, because up until the great tugging up of the pants, this had been like looking into the mouth of Hell. This is why I was so dumbstruck in the breakroom today – two incidences of this may be a coincidence, but it also may be part of a larger pattern.

Now, I am a fan of the bootie. I like a shapely derriere. Sometimes I even like a big ol’ caboose. This was just pushing things too far.

The Soft Reboot

Loaded Questions — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 21:18:35 GMT

The first thing you need to know is that there is a very good reason why we have had less than a handful of gigs for the first eleven months of 2011: we didn’t actively seek bookings this year. This wasn’t a mere act of capriciousness on our part, nor were we in a John-Lennon-screw-you-I’m-raising-my-young-son-while-Yoko-pays-the-bills phase. We worked very hard to rebuild the group this year, which the intent of playing out as soon as we were consistently good. For much of the year, we had added two very talented musicians who never quite gelled with the group. They wanted to play other material, and Rick and I were up for it, but only after we had the basic set covered. For months we were almost ready. There were moments of pure joy in some practices, and if we could have played at the same level at the next practice, we would have booked gigs immediately. After several months of this, I called T.J. and Eric and let them know we were letting them go. They are my friends, and if we had bad news for them, I thought it was best they heard it from me. The sad thing was, if we just could have managed to play at a good solid level (say, the equivalent of getting a “B” average on your report card), there were numerous opportunities for gigs. Honestly, people were recognizing Rick from years ago and inquiring if the band was still around and was it available? Hopefully, it didn’t sound to these prospective employers like we were avoiding them. We don’t treat people like that, and besides, we’re ready to play now.

Last year, I wrote a post about the band’s origins, and mentioned that Rick co-founded the band with a guitarist named Mike Grose. Today, I’m very pleased to say that Mike is back in the band. He hadn’t played out in a couple of years, but once he picked up a guitar again, all the rust just naturally started to fall away. His playing is solid and tasteful. Welcome back, Mike!

Our good friend Wayne Chittum came out of retirement to play drums for us for a little over a
month. We played a gig at Smokie’s with him that went reasonably well (honest, people asked us to autograph pictures of the band!). Wayne was not able to commit long-term – he has family commitments that he is not willing to put aside, even though he was having a pretty good time playing in front of an audience again. He helped us get moving in the right direction, though. His help was invaluable. Really, if you see him out, you should buy him a drink…

Which brings us to the new guy, Ryan Boone: Ryan has played drums for years, most
recently for a quiet and sedate country band. Ryan had to tunnel out of a gig for terminally square seniors (people so old, they still think of Charlie Pride as “that nice young negro singer”) with a spoon and escape to freedom – the freedom to make a little noise. Seriously, I’ve been listening to Ryan and I can’t believe anybody would find him especially loud.

Ryan’s story reminded me of my first Bass teacher, Mr. Brooks. Mr. Brooks played a lot of gigs in DC, everything from strip clubs to the D.A.R. One time when playing a D.A.R. gig, the ladies kept asking the band to turn down. They turned down their amps each time, and could not believe that these women had anything to complain about. Still, they were pros and this was a good-paying gig, so they turned their amps completely off. The drummer used brushes, and I have no idea what the horn section did. Basically, this electric jazz band pantomimed the rest of the gig. And the kicker? The ladies came back and complimented the band on playing at the “right” volume!

Okay, I think that brings us back up to date. Watch the website for new gigs as they are announced. I promise you, we won’t turn the amps all the way off.

[For those wondering, a “soft reboot” is when a series starts over, but with no dramatic changes. For instance, after oodles of James Bond movies with Sean Connery, they made one with George Lazenby. Lazenby was so wooden in the role, he made Sean Connery look like a contortionist, so he was replaced with Roger Moore. Now, the guy playing the role changed, but the story was basically the same: same character, same organization, same background, etc. Now with Daniel Craig in the role, the movies can’t be about a guy who got his espionage experience in World War II, so that part of Bond’s backstory is completely gone – that is, this character grew up with different experiences altogether. This is a major change. So the point is, the band is somewhat changed in personnel, but still playing the same kinds of music – no radical change.]

The Hottest Look

Loaded Questions — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 13:25:56 GMT

A couple of nights ago, I set out to make both tacos and a big @$$ pot of chili (big? Si! I purchased 5 lbs of ground chuck to divide between these two dishes). My wife Cynthia was napping after work, so I didn't consult with her. Since the most intense activity involved with the chili was boiling dry beans and browning the beef, there was no urgent need for her input. Besides, the chili was going to cook overnight in the crock pot. I threw the beef and beans in the crock pot with diced tomato, chopped onion, and a number of spices. Later, when my wife woke up hungry, she suggested that I should put one (1) of the hot peppers I'd purchased in the chili, making sure to remove all the seeds, which are über-hot, and chopping the rest of the pepper. She added that I should make a point of not rubbing or touching my eyes with the hand that touches the pepper for, oh, 2-3 days. I protested that I could not go 2-3 days without touching my eye, and asked if she couldn't handle the pepper-chopping preperations. I don't remember her exact answer, except that it was some form of, "No, that's not going to happen."

I continued on with other things, but after an hour or so I could smell the Mexican-ish treat cooking, and could tell it needed something. My wife had gone back to bed, poor thing, so I pulled out a bag of hot peppers (don't know their name, but they aren't jalepenos or habeneros, and I'm really not sure where on the scale of spicy they lie) and proceded to open one (1) up and carefully remove the seeds. As I was doing this, I had the strongest sensation of an eyelash irritating the outer margin of my left eye, and absent-mindedly began to rub there to get the lash out. This was my left hand that I used, the same one I used to hold the pepper down while chopping it up. My left eye, normally as polite an organ as you could wish to have, indicated in the sharpest possible terms that I am a moron. Two mornings later, my left eye is bloodshot and kind of puffy. I look like half of me has been on a bender and showed up hungover at work this morning. The right half appears to be passable, at least for call center work. To add insult to injury, when I tasted the chili last night after cooking it for about 18 hours, I decided what it really needed was cumin. Now it tastes really good, in an "oh-my-God-my-alimentary-canal-is-on-fire" sort of way.

As we mature, we realize that the superficial things in life, such as a person's looks, are just not that important. Yet I have found new meaning in the term "hot looks," and feel it deeply whenever I try to focus my eye on anything at the moment.

Live Energy

Loaded Questions — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 17:46:00 GMT

The band has not played a show in over five months. During that time, we didn’t even bother trying to book a gig. Over the past year, we’ve shifted personnel a couple of times – interesting experiments that were great moves on paper, but disappointing in execution. Rick is the only member of the band who has been with it since the very beginning. With the current line up, I’m the one who has been with the band the second longest (I joined on January 13, 2010, which is way back in the mists of time, right?). It kind of reminds me of the last time I went to see the Temptations and the Four Tops in concert (at Wolf Trap in northern Virginia) in the early ‘90s. All four original Tops were present, but only four Temptations were there after Melvin Franklin’s health deteriorated to the point where he had to be flown back to Los Angeles[1]. Looking at the stage, I realized that the only original member was Otis Williams. The guy who had been with the group the second longest was Ron Tyson, who joined just before the Motown 25 TV special. Perhaps some day I’ll post a bit about what makes an aging band more than a tribute to its history, using my friend Keith Stanley’s theories about how to stage a legitimate version of the Beach Boys without Brian Wilson, who surely has no interest in playing behind Mike Love. Today we are talking about southwestern Virginia’s very own Hired Guns (MK 50, or whatever line-up we are in 2011 compared to the original band I wrote about here). We’re approaching the mid-point of 2011, so let’s talk about our new guys, and the benefits of playing live.

First, I’d like to introduce the new players in the band. Up first is our new drummer Eric Woodard. Eric has been playing in bands since at least his college days. He favors playing in a classic, single-bass drum style. He favors long-form jam bands, such as the Grateful Dead, Phish, and Widespread Panic, but has the kind of focused stability to stay “right in the pocket” regardless of what he’s playing at the time. He left a promising career in the mortgage industry when he saw the trend towards sub-prime mortgages, and knew in a way that the Captains of the Credit Industry somehow could not grasp that this was unsustainable. No pyramid scheme ever is. So he bailed and now teaches at the junior high level. He has a great vocabulary, which he only misuses occasionally.

Next, I’d like you to meet T.J. Crook, a descendent of General George Crook, and a fine guitarist. T.J. is originally from North Carolina, went to college in Maine, met (but did not enjoy) Abbie Hoffman (who hit on T.J.’s girlfriend at the time), and toured with a band called Pipedream. T.J. enjoyed playing in a relatively flamboyant style, although he has recently studied some more tasteful jazz guitarists’ efforts. He says this made him a better listener. I have no complaints about how he plays. He also sings and writes music. We have already incorporated one of his originals into one of our sets. He holds a Masters Degree in Counseling. What does that mean? Well, if you are having some mental difficulties, see T.J., not me or Rick. T.J. might be able to suggest some therapy that’ll help you. You’ll just freak me out (Rick might just thump you).

I’ve previously played with Eric and T.J. in some bands that never quite got off the ground (or out of the basement, or out of the loft overlooking Roanoke’s City Market). This has nothing to do with the relative quality of these bands. These groups could entertain in a meaningful sense, but we never gave much thought about how to showcase our talents in and around the ‘Noke. Hey, when little kids take, say for instance, piano lessons, the piano teacher assigns scales, finger exercises, and songs to practice before the next lesson. Piano teachers never assign exercises in looking up musical venues in the Yellow Pages and obtaining the contact information for the people who do the bookings. That’d be a useful exercise, now that I think about it.

Which brings me to the topic of playing live in front of an audience: I’ve said before, and most working musicians would probably agree, that playing live tightens a band better than any amount of practice. I’m not saying that playing live should take the place of practicing. It can’t do that, but it can add a sense of energy that turns a song from a rendition to an actual performance. That energy pushes musicians forward, and makes them take risks. The risks don’t always pay off, but when they do, it is a magnificent transformation from the basement to the stage. It’s alchemy, it’s magic, and it really happens. Take an example that you might hear on any classic rock station across the country: Judas Priest’s version of Joan Baez’s ballad, “Diamonds and Rust.[2]” The original Baez recording is a haunting song about a love that has faded. Judas Priest covered the song, cut some of the lyrics, and made a tight, three-and-a-half minute hard rock song out of it. However, if you listen to the live version from Judas Priest’s classic album “Unleashed in the East,” the song becomes a heavy metal masterpiece. The song has a drive that you can feel to the core of your body, and Rob Halford hits notes that he never dreamt of in the studio.

Eric and T.J. feel that we need more practice before playing out live. We do need more practice, but we also need to push ourselves. Which is where you come in – we’ll be announcing some gigs soon. If you can make it, come out and hear what the new line-up has to offer. The energy you give us you will get back tenfold. ~~Then you can tell T.J. all about your dreams about your second grade teacher offering you a banana~~.

[1] Some of the best hospitals in the world are near Wolf Trap. The only reason to fly him back to L.A. was that he was going home to see his family before the end.

[2] I can’t tell you how much it pleases me that my two favorite Judas Priest songs are their covers of songs by Joan Baez and Fleetwood Mac. It’s like learning that Sha-Na-Na played at Woodstock.

Pranks A Lot!

Loaded Questions — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 17:23:27 GMT

Pranks

You would think that being able to play music would be a decent way to blow off a little steam. It almost doesn’t matter what instrument a musician plays; given the time and space to jam a bit, all musicians, regardless of their level of development, can groove – at least, a little bit. However, musicians like their little jokes, even if they are cruel; even if they are stupid. Here are just a few that come to mind:

Back when I first got to high school, one of the classes I signed up for was Stage Band (or Jazz Band, if you like). I got a call from the teacher while I was still over at my junior high who explained that normally, one had to audition to get into the Jazz Band. However, after I mentioned that I played guitar and piano in addition to bass, he let me into the class. He was happy with his guitarist and bass player, but felt a little iffy about the young lady playing piano in the band. She had no experience in improvisation, and the kind of songs she had practiced all her young life were a far cry from the oeuvre of Thelonius Monk or Bill Evans. He proposed that I should be, essentially, the understudy for the rhythm section.

We played four concerts a year at the school, and a number of others at area junior highs and elementary schools to basically let younger musicians know that this program was available. I don’t know if the school system required anything other than the four concerts, but it was a smart idea to let developing musicians know that there was at least one alternative to the more traditional concert band. I don’t recall the high school’s jazz ensemble visiting my junior high. If they had, I might have prepared a little better… In each of the four main concerts, I was given one song to play. So, for instance, one concert had me playing guitar on Chicago’s “Another Rainy Day in New York City,” another had me playing bass on the theme from the TV show “Taxi,” still another had me playing piano on Isaac Hayes’ classic “Soul Man.” I even played bongos on Spiro Gyra’s “Morning Dance.”

At one evening concert, the drummer told me that our guitarist was having, “… a bad trip,” and I would have to play all the guitar parts. I wasn’t sure how to react to that. I don’t recall if I asked if the guitarist was okay. You may not believe this, but some kids in high school are socially awkward! No, it’s true! Anyhow, Sib (the drummer) was delighted with this. The guitarist (let’s call him Geoff, because even 30+ years later, I don’t want to say anything incriminating about him – like the fact that he had a virtually endless supply of weed, thanks to his sister in the U.S. Coast Guard…) was just fine. While he was supposedly having a bad trip, curled up in a corner and seeing non-existent bugs crawl all over his flesh, he was really just fine. Not drug-free, mind you – he was very likely in a dark corner of the parking lot doing bong hits, but he was in relatively good health.

Sib told the story to the guitarist and bassist later that when he told me that Geoff was babbling stuff out of Revelations while biting his own toenails, my eyes bugged out in terror. Sib thought this was hilarious. My primary worry was that I react in a socially acceptable manner. A secondary worry was playing guitar on songs that I hadn’t practiced, although we were working from sheet music, so I didn’t need to remember anything. Nevertheless, the supposition that I would practically pee my pants at the thought of playing a few jazz chords made Sibby a happy, happy drummer. I’m glad I could help!

Since my first story was about the high school stage band, I’ll stick with that a little bit longer. Two years later, I was a senior. Our band teacher Mr. Hopkins decided, largely because he was still unimpressed with my abilities as a bassist, to have a second rhythm section. This turned out to be practical in that he could send one drummer, bassist, pianist, and guitarist into one of the practice rooms to work with a soloist, while the other rhythm section worked with the rest of the band. It was a pretty good idea. It also meant that the guys in the rhythm section would get bored as Hell waiting for the horn players to get their parts together. We tended to start playing things that had absolutely nothing to do with what Mr. Hopkins wanted to work on. He’d be trying to get the trombones in tune with each other, and the guitarist would go into “Starship Trooper” by Yes, and I’d follow him.

So one day, after working for a while with a trumpet player who had a fairly difficult solo (nothing improvised – each note was written out for him), Mr. Hopkins wanted to hear the solo with the whole song, played by the whole band. Right before the BIG trumpet solo, my buddy David Kelley (piano) turned to me and the guitarist and said, “Go up a half step.” As soon as the trumpet player took a deep breath and mentally prepared himself for his first big, entirely impressive note, we in the rhythm section changed key. All of a sudden, the well-honed trumpet solo sounded like garbage. I can’t describe the look on the horn player’s face verbally, but take my word for it, it was hysterically funny. I still laugh about that.

Back when Hired Guns held practices in public at W.R. Brews, our drummer at the time mouthed the words, “Do you know ‘Brick House?’” I did, and we started playing it while Rick was talking to the crowd. Rick didn’t mind that we hijacked the set at that point. We’ve been playing the song ever since.

Pranks sometimes backfire. When I played in a country band back in the 80s, I’d sometimes get bored and start playing the bassline from “Billy Jean.” Obviously we didn’t include a whole lot of Michael Jackson in the material we covered, so I thought this was cute. Unfortunately, I needed a long learning curve to figure out that this was going wrong. Our drummer Jay almost always jumped in and played along when I started playing the bass part. Being that our audience was not hardcore country, some people would get excited by the idea that we were starting to play a monster pop hit. It is a bad idea to disappoint your audience. I just did not realize that our audience (so fond of Merle Haggard and Hank Williams, Jr.) would go ga-ga over the future King of Pop.

Similarly, I later developed some stage patter for the few songs that I sang in other bands. In one band, I sang “Margaritaville.” At first I just would announce in a faux Jose Jimenez voice, “Here eez a song we used to seeng een my willage.” Later, I decided to dump the fake Mexican voice and just screw with people’s expectations. I’d announce the song as an oldie from Black Sabbath. People usually laughed at this. It worked well, so I tried it again in the band I was in after that at a yuppie watering hole in Crofton, Md. Again, the one-liner got a few laughs, but as I turned to my microphone to start singing, one yuppie sitting at a nearby table locked eyes with me and mouthed some words. I don’t read lips, but I am certain he wasn’t wishing me a happy birthday. I looked over again during the second verse, and this yuppie, in his polo shirt and plaid, baggy shorts, was still glaring at me and saying something vaguely menacing. You’d have thought I’d just wiped a booger on his Docksiders…

The professionals get into practical jokes, too. Phoebe (“Poetry Man”) Snow once told a story about how on a lengthy tour of the United States, the lead guitarist really started to get on everyone’s nerves. It wasn’t that he was doing anything wrong. They were putting on a show, and at one point in every show, the lead guitarist would go up to the edge of the stage and flirt with all the girls while playing a solo. He enjoyed it, the girls seemed to react well to it, but the band just thought he was a vain and arrogant goober. On the last night of the tour, someone in the band or crew (Snow didn’t name names) took a file and sawed through the strings on the guitar that this fellow used during his big solo. He walked to the edge of the stage, crouched down to make eye contact with all the nubile chicas, began bending the strings as he launched into his big solo, and immediately the strings broke and smacked him in the face. You know that thin-gauge bits of steel hit you in the face at 50 miles an hour must hurt. Even better than that, though, was the look on the guitarist’s face as he became the first man in history to encounter his own guitar strings as a concerted team of cock-blockers.

When Billy Joel recorded his album “The Nylon Curtain,” his band made a point of playing head games with him. This particular album is pretty adventurous, especially if you only think of Billy Joel as the guy who sang “Uptown Girl” and “Just the Way You Are.” Nevertheless, while Joel was in the studio, the guys in the band went into the control room. One of them “accidentally” sat down on the talkback button on the mixing board, so Joel could hear the guys talking. The topic of conversation was how the guys in the band should go about gently breaking it to the superstar pianist that his creative juices had dried up, that he was too old to entertain in any meaningful way, except maybe playing to Lawrence Welk’s audience. Joel forgave the guys for making fun of his age, and in fact, sometimes tells the story during interviews. I can’t say he loved the joke, but he appreciated his band’s cunning.

During Fleetwood Mac’s mid-seventies to mid-eighties heyday, they really got on each others’ nerves. In 1975, Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks were a happy couple, and John and Christine McVie were happily married. The two couples broke up in the wake of their phenomenal success, but their profitable business kept them touring together long after most people would stop hanging out with their exes. In Mick Fleetwood’s autobiography, he wrote of one evening on tour when they were all getting a little fed-up with Stevie Nicks’ “poor little witch girl” routine. Lindsey was especially tired of her quasi-mystical sex symbol status. Stevie had lots of admirers, and on this particular evening, former Eagles drummer (and successful solo artist) Don Henley sent a beautiful bouquet of flowers to Stevie in her dressing room. He included a nice card and meant to take Stevie out to a late dinner or early breakfast after the Fleetwood Mac concert. I don’t know what Henley’s card said, but Lindsey and Mick Fleetwood thought it was a little too sentimental and decided to volunteer their services as editors. They switched the card for another one that went directly towards Nicks’ sex symbol status. Lindsey wrote:

“Dear Stevie,

How about it?

- Don”

Naturally, this blunt (but not obscene) reference to their date after the concert had Stevie a little messed up. She read the card and was sputtering about how she really misread Don Henley… she thought he was a gentleman… how could he… et cetera… Stevie, for all the coke she used to snort back in those days, is and always was a smart woman, so she realized what happened when she noticed Mick Fleetwood and Lindsey Buckingham falling on the floor and laughing their asses off. Think about it: zinging a band mate is good fun, but getting back at your ex-girlfriend is priceless. Well played, Mr. Buckingham…

The lesson to take away from this, if you are a musician playing in a band, is that nobody is immune from practical jokes, and the longer you are on the road, the more likely it is that your number will come up. Check your strings before you show off for the ladies, and just remember that nobody ever just happens to leave a tin of chocolate chip cookies on the tour bus for the band mooch to scarf (yes, those are Ex-Lax cookies). If you do fall victim to practical joke, don’t dwell on it too long. Just sharpen your game and come right back at your band buddies. They have it coming - you know it, I know it, everybody knows it. Just remember to be funny, unless your tormentors are complete tools. If that’s the case, you can do like Joan Jett did when the Runaways were opening for some macho rockers who completely insulted her and drummer Sandy West. Joan took it upon herself to go into the headlining act’s dressing room and pee on their guitars, which is in keeping with rock’n’roll’s rebellious spirit.

Remember when Courtesy was Cool?

Loaded Questions — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 09:52:00 GMT

Yeah, me neither.

[The following is a blog post I wrote over a month ago, but didn't get around to posting because I wanted to include a file of the song mentioned near the end of the post, but could not find it. The content of the post is all true.]

“They smile at your face

All the time they wanna take your place –

The Backstabbers –

Backstabbers!”

- “Backstabbers” by the O’Jays.

What is it, exactly, about some musicians who start out humble and grateful for a chance to show off their talent, and end up self-important prima donnas? I’m not talking about internationally famous people. I’m talking about people one meets locally, and how their egos get bent out of shape until they’d throw their own grandmothers down an elevator shaft for a chance at the spotlight.

I recently got a voicemail from a guitarist in an area band who said that I’d “over-stepped” my “…bounds on Facebook.” It’s true that I commented on his band’s recent history on the popular social network, and basically I would agree with him that the internal workings of his band are none of my business except:

1) This is the same guy who wouldn’t let Hired Guns play a few songs during one of his gigs, stating that “they” don’t let them do that anymore! We still have no idea who “they” are, but the bar owner had wanted us to play a little bit to the crowd that night so they’d want to come back on the night he booked us. It’s called drumming up business.

2) This is the same guy who cut into a conversation I was having with the same bar owner in an attempt to make Hired Guns look like we were bad for business. Business was bad that night all around, but we played well. We did our job. If I wanted any $h!t out of him, I’d have squeezed his head…

3) Our Hired Guns profile on www.reverbnation.com states that we are fans of this fellow’s band. At one point, they returned the favor – then they suddenly “un-fanned” us. I suspect that was this man’s doing. Does that sound kind of petty? It does to me.

4) Before their last keyboardist left their band, he attempted to recruit me to take her place. Don’t get me wrong – I was flattered, truly. I did not realize at the time that he was going behind her back. I returned one of his messages saying that we were also looking for a keyboardist, and if they weren’t using her, could we have their old one? Perhaps he thought I was being flippant, but I wasn’t. I wanted his help, but he never returned my message. Perhaps he didn’t want me to mention that I was asked to join in her position.

Now, there is nothing new about flame wars erupting on Facebook. It’s almost reassuring that people think their opinions are way more important than everyone else’s, and are willing to put this belief in writing on a network shared by millions of people. I’m guilty of this too, as you can see just by reading this! However, this little man with the above history hurt the feelings of my friends, and that’s just not cool with me. I pointed out that I’ve been fired from bands before, and that some have done so in such a way that there were no hard feelings. Some have done so in such a way that there were nothing except hard feelings. A choice can be made. In this particular case, I chose to speak up on behalf of my friends. I know how it feels to have someone lose sight of a band’s goals due to some fake ego-stroking, to our mutual sorrow.

A couple years’ back, I checked the Library of Congress’ website to see if my copyrights were on record. They were. One song in particular caught my eye, a collaboration with a singer I was in a band with called Hot Pursuit (she thought of it as her band exclusively). After a quick search of the web, I found a reference to the band on CD Baby. Sadly, it was only a brief mention in the bio of someone else – a “producer” we worked with to record a demo that he all but guaranteed would get us signed by a major label. (When you read the word “producer,” think “con artist.”) For a giggle, let’s just read an excerpt from the bio from said producer’s CD Baby page (now recording under the name “ebanie”):

Then was asked to Produce an Atlantic Records signed Rock Group ‘LAURIE BODEN & HOT PURSUIT’. The band was based in Fairfax VA, and ebanie brought them to New York to record, employing the late great rock guitarist ‘GORDON GAINES. They recorded 5 tracks at SUNSET Studios New York, then overdubs with Gordon at BOB BLANK’S Studio in Conn.

I never met Gordon Gaines, but heard his work. It was quite good, but he was called in after “ebanie” erased our lead guitarist’s equally impressive work. Sadly, Mr. Gaines was brought in to run up the tab. The reason L.A. Boden had every right to think of Hot Pursuit as her band is that she and her husband sold their house to come up with the money to pay for the recording session. The band - as was - never recovered from that trip to Manhattan. Also, please note how the artist formerly known as “that lying son of a bitch” says we were signed to Atlantic. That was never the case. We were just a band rehearsing in the basement of the Boden’s house when L.A. and her husband met this South American producer. He was smooth. He originally calculated a price of $4,000.00 for the demo. I understand from later conversations that he took my former lead singer for over three times that much. How did he do this? Every time he said it would cost more money, he held out her dreams just inches out of her reach (inches needed to measure stacks of dollar bills). It was cruel, but that wasn’t the worst of it. He used her dreams and her understandable upset over the money to break the band apart. She was a willing accomplice, up to a point, since she didn’t wonder until it was too late why he never spoke to all four of us together after we went to New York.

L.A. was led to believe that the guitarist, drummer, and I wasted thousands of dollars of her money in the studio – he made her believe that we’d walked in late, hung-over, and unserious. [No wonder she seemed so sullen on the drive home!] We were sober. We arrived at the studio at the time agreed upon, and long before anyone else, including our lead singer and our illustrious producer. That was the reality, but by the time we had our recording session, L.A. was wrapped around the man’s little finger. As for how unserious we were… well, it was our music too. We had a vested interest in it sounding as good as possible. Part of the problem was that L.A. stayed in a different hotel than the rest of us. She flat-out said at the time that she was not going to stay anywhere near us. She made it sound like a joke, but it stung me. Maybe this was a compromise with her husband. He may have had some reservations about his vivacious wife going off to another city with three men. It isn’t the sort of situation most of us have to deal with, after all. Still, if she’d been out with us the night before, she’d know we didn’t get wasted. If she’d been with us in the same hotel – not the same room, just the same damn building – she could’ve seen us in the lobby as we hailed a taxi to head over to Sunset Studios on Manhattan’s west side. She also could’ve laughed at the mix-up when our original cabby dropped us off on Manhattan’s east side at roughly the same street number. There was no recording studio there, only a gay porn theater. We hailed another cab, possibly faster than any non-New Yorker ever had before and got dropped, finally, at the correct address. We arrived before 7:30 a.m. The building was locked. We stood on the sidewalk, surrounded by thousands of dollars worth of guitars. For security reasons, we couldn’t wander off, obviously. We just waited and waited and waited until after 8:00 when someone who worked for the studio finally showed up and unlocked the place. This may not have been the studio’s fault. We had no direct contact with the people there. Our producer said to be there at 7:30. What a putz. Either he didn’t know what he was doing to us, which is just bad prep work, or he knew and was just that arrogant. I think he knew what he was doing.

By arriving separately from the rest of us, L.A. really didn’t know when we arrived or what condition we were in. It apparently did not occur to her that we were there long before she made it to the studio. Again, our producer did his best to keep us in one place and her in another. She later swore to me that he told her we were late and hung-over and when she saw us walk into the big sound room, she honestly thought we looked like the proverbial morning after. I know we weren’t pretty, but we were awake, showered, dressed, and *ahem* had been waiting for everyone else to show up.

The producer sprung another little surprise on us that I’m still bitter about: he hired his own studio engineer, a fellow named Johnny Most (not the late announcer for the Celtics, but a walking hair-do with attitude who made my life Hell for that one recording session). L.A. later revealed to me that Johnny told her that he always picked on one guy in the band, and it never occurred to her to tell him to knock it off. I was the one he picked to play games with that day. When the three of us were playing, my bass would fade from the mix in my headphones. Whether this was intentional or not, it was unacceptable. I offered to record the bass parts from inside the control room, where I could hear the monitors. Johnny asked me in a syrupy voice, “Don’t you want to be in the room with your band mates?” Well, no, not if I can’t hear what I’m doing, Jackass. Yes, it was always nice to see them, but I did travel 250 miles to record, and I wanted to get on with it. I also wanted to toss Johnny out the window. We were on the 7^th floor. After taking his abuse, I finally lost it and started screaming at him. Oddly enough, our guitarist was most successful at bringing me back to Reality Land. Jay wasn’t known for his maturity, but he wasn’t going to have some hair-do with a fakey-fake porn star name get in his bass player’s face, for which I was thankful.

Technical problems plagued the studio that day. I was set to play the rhythm guitar on the rock ballad L.A. and I wrote together. It required some of the laid-back finger picking that I like to play. I was to lay it down with a click track. Neither Johnny nor “ebanie”* could get the click track to just “click.” It played four distinct tones:

^Beep-_doot-doot-bip!

In other words, the very device that was supposed to keep my finger-picking in time actually clashed with the notes I was playing. I could not consciously play in time to the track, the drive to play around those annoying, plastic notes was so strong. Jay played the part instead, although with a slightly different finger-picking pattern. The subsequent guitarists who came in to re-record the tracks that did not need re-recording (to jack up the bill) played what Jay played, not what I wrote. In the grand scheme of things, this is not important. I just like my rolling pick pattern better. I felt so defeated by having to give up playing the guitar part that I tried to redeem myself by playing the power chords in the middle of the song on Jay’s guitar. This was a horrible move on my part. For reasons I don’t quite understand, the engineer decided that “the sound” required Jay’s guitar to go through three triple-stacks of Marshall Amps. I tried to play a throaty E chord where the music goes from quiet to powerful and felt like Michael J. Fox in the opening scene from “Back to the Future.” I didn’t fly across the room and leave the speakers a pile of smoking slag, but my hair flew forward like it was trying to leave the building with or without me. That’ll teach me to show up on time and not hung-over!

After returning to the greater DC area, the band got together one more time, more or less. L.A. would call us when she was ready. She never called. The four of us were never in the same room again.

I stumbled across her phone number a couple of years later, and left a message. She returned my call when I was out, and my mom answered. I was surprised to find out later that my sweet-tempered mother was in full she-grizzly mode when speaking to L.A. She said, “I think you owe my son an apology,” and either said or implied emphatically that she felt that L.A. used me. It was easy to get that impression. L.A. had a notebook in which she wrote down names and numbers of musicians she met. On the cover of the notebook she wrote, “Spare Parts.” I just thought she was playing at being a prima donna in those days, in all honesty. She was often honest and unguarded with me, and told me about her life growing up in Pittsburgh, her abusive ex-husband (a drummer!), and trying to fool her parents into thinking that she was a good Catholic girl when she was a rebellious rocker at heart. When L.A. and I finally got a chance to talk, we both were able to put together the pieces of what happened and how we were manipulated. I found out that she had a new version of the band, and they needed a bassist. She told me how their drummer would listen to the song she and I wrote, then wind it back and play it again. I would’ve been happy to join the new version of the band, and made tentative plans to attend a practice after returning from a trip to upstate New York. Unfortunately, I averaged about 4 hours of sleep per night over the course of 9 days, and when I returned home, I was too tired to drive around the Beltway to Northern Virginia. I slept when I should’ve phoned. When I spoke to her next, it sounded like the band was breaking up yet again. Apparently the other members felt it was L.A.’s responsibility to recruit a bassist, and when I didn’t show up, they thought she lied and went off on her. Given that environment, I don’t know that I would have helped things much. Hell, I don’t think Stanley Clarke’s presence could save a band determined to fall apart at the seams…

I did get one interesting little thing out of that relationship. L.A. used to work for the Library of Congress, and so made certain to copyright the band’s songs. Given the scarcity of money, three of us are listed as composers on songs that only two of us wrote. I got credit for songs I had nothing to do with. Another gentleman named Sully is listed as co-writer of “World of Rock’n’Roll Dreams,” the power ballad that I wrote with L.A. After copyrighting the material, somehow Paramount’s publishing division, Famous Music, courted us to publish our modest little power ballad, and paid us the princely sum of $200.00 for the rights to it for two years. They said they were marketing the song to a number of artists, all of whom were quite famous, and all of whom were women. This last part really tweaked L.A. She had Bon Jovi in mind when she wrote the lyrics, and was mad that some suit in an office thought it would make our socks roll up and down to learn that they were pitching the song to Linda Rondstadt, Heart, Pat Benatar, and Stevie Nicks. The song did not easily fit any of their styles. I was surprised anyone liked it very much at all. It was a modest effort.

*Microsoft Word keeps changing the producer’s stage name to “beanie.” I don’t know why I’m bothering to fight it, especially since the idea of a propeller sticking up out of ebanie’s Jeri Curl is so gosh-darn appealing…

The 2010 Year in Review Post

Loaded Questions — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 20:13:00 GMT

What kind of year was 2010? Dramatic! There were highs, lows, laughter, tears (the tears were from laughing so hard, but dammit, they were real tears) – all the ingredients for a great blog post, which this disorganized ramble may congeal into yet! Even if this post drones on like Ben Stein in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” it’ll be easier to get through than going back and reading all of the 2010 blog posts to get caught up. Let’s take this a month at a time:

January: After not being in a working band since the early 1990s, I get a message on bandmix.com from a stranger named Rick Colt. I check out his profile, and it turns out to be a guy I met a couple of times down at the Coffee Pot. Rick is a fellow refugee from Maryland. We knew a lot of the same bands, listened to the same radio stations, and both had good memories of playing down at Baltimore’s Inner Harbor (after it got cleaned up, because before then it would’ve been like playing to a 2-ton block of limburger cheese getting dropped from 500 feet up into an open, overflowing sewer). Hired Guns needed a bass player, and I needed a band. It was just like that old commercial where a guy carrying a semi-unwrapped bar of chocolate bumped into a guy carrying an open jar of peanut butter, except with naked bass riffs and guitar-driven rock’n’roll. I jammed with Rick and Randy in a frosty cold basement on January 13th, and naively asked if they knew how to play “Gimme Three Steps,” which I hadn’t played since, oh, 1984 or so. As the evening wound its way merrily along, it turned out that we sounded pretty tight, once one made certain allowances for the buildup of about 10 months of rust on my bass playing chops.

Rick and Randy mentioned that they also had a keyboardist, but he’d broken his foot, and they didn’t want him to try to walk in a cast through all the snow on the ground. I met keyboardist David Woodie the following week in his much smaller, yet warmer, basement. We took some promotional photographs, worked on some tunes, and began to talk seriously about playing out live. We understood then that waiting around until “ready” was the downfall of many coulda-shoulda-woulda bands. Some chemistry only develops when bands play in front of real people.

During this time, I also purchased a web domain and began setting us up with our own website. Nearly a year later, I still don’t know doo-dah about HTML or CSS, so our official site is rather bland, but I also set us up with our ReverbNation page, which doesn’t look too shabby. With Rick and Randy’s kind assistance, I was able to edit some video footage into passable music videos, which are on YouTube right this very moment. (You can see the videos and hear a few songs at www.reverbnation.com/hiredguns if you are so inclined.) It’s just coincidence, but right after setting up our presence on the world-wide web, we started getting paying gigs. I know this is a coincidence because Rick got our first paying booking when his cell phone rang while at work and a bar owner he hadn’t spoken to in ages called him out of the blue looking to get some live music into his establishment. Why yes, we play live music for money. Thanks for asking!

February: Hired Guns had been around for 20 years, but David and I were the new guys, and we had something to prove. I’ve been playing bass since the Disco era, but that doesn’t mean much if I’m not playing anywhere. On occasion, I’d mention in conversation that I play bass, and hated that I didn’t have a satisfying answer to the question, “Oh? Where do you play?” For years I could say that I played with the church choir, but that wasn’t a particularly enticing prospect to people I spoke to. They’d get the same look on their faces that I get when a couple of happy young Mormons knock on my door – like I was trying to get them to join a cult based on the siren-like lure of my funky bass lines (Episcopal hymnal basslines being notoriously funky, don’t ya know). (Yes, I told you all of that just as a prelude to telling you about the new, improved Hired Guns playing out live for the first time.)

We went back to the Coffee Pot for their Thursday night open mic. Not much had changed, although we did stick out from most of the crowd. Most of the cool cats ‘n kittens who played there that night were solo acoustic artists. They sang folk and country songs about such chipper subjects as former lovers breaking their hearts, mining disasters, and getting even with former lovers who broke their hearts. We went on in the wee hours of the morning after most people had left, or at least adjourned to the bar. Nevertheless, we were on a real stage, and had real people listening to us – people who owed us no loyalty based on friendship or family connections, and getting a favorable response from them was very gratifying. And the chemical reaction began noticeably for me. I realized I was playing one of the songs wrong while playing it and adjusted accordingly. Yes, yes, that’s supposed to happen in practice, but this time it happened right on stage. I didn’t realize before, but even playing with the new lineup of Hired Guns at an open mic was a crucial step for grizzled old music veteran Rick. He called me around 2:10 a.m. just to say, “We have a real band again!” I rather thought that was the point, but you’d have had to hear the genuine gratitude in his voice to understand how meaningful this was to the man. We started practicing at a bar on a weekly basis in hopes of picking up a paying gig there. The paying job did not materialize, and eventually we went back to practicing in the basement, but during those practices, we honed our live show skills. These skills included quickly setting up and tearing down the p.a. and working the crowd with stage patter, putting together a killer set on the fly, and working the crowd with our stage patter. Unfortunately, we also needed a space where we could really practice learning more songs, and we just didn’t feel like we could stop in the middle of a song and work out the real nuts-and-bolts issues of a given piece of music. We tried a couple of times, but it just felt like we were letting the bar patrons down, so we basically played a decent, but unsurprising, live show.

The first of our paying shows was in the corner of a bar, where try though we might to be out of the way, it seemed I was always in the path of somebody’s pool cue. We returned to that same bar, but moved the pool table out of the way. After that night, we left the pool table alone. It turns out that it’s a bitch to level one of those things, so we just found a different corner and pretended to be teensy. That first paying gig was a little rough – not because we were unprepared, but because some of the clientele had boundary issues. With no actual physical stage, some folks feel like they can walk right up to us during a song and start a conversation, or move a microphone stand, or drunkenly fall on us. It was all I could do to keep from saying, “Hey! I don’t go down to where you work and knock the burgers off the grill!”

March: Overall, March was a pretty great month for us. It spoiled me. I thought we were on a rising path that would have us playing for big bucks over the summer. Using the web for marketing, I booked a gig at T.J. Fatboys, which was a first for all of us. Much is made of how simple and down-to-earth people are here in the South, but down here we’ve embraced this tool for all it’s worth (which is to say, more than just for writing cranky blog posts and viewing porn). Given that country fans – a distinctive and definite subset of Southerners – were the last people on the planet to give up on 8-track tape technology, that’s saying something. You could’ve knocked me over with a feather when we actually got a gig that we didn’t solicit via the internet. We were booked into big bar in West Virginia called Tomahawks. I saw it on our ReverbNation calendar one morning and called Rick to ask if he’d booked the gig. He had not. None of us had. Rick called the manager to check it out, and he was reasonably certain he wanted us. We weren’t sure why, but the manager promised us if two bands called “Hired Guns” showed up, he’d just have a battle of the bands and pay both acts, which was pretty classy of him. After driving four hours to get to the gig, sure enough, there was another band there. The manager straightened things out, and the other band (Stompin’ Ground, formerly – wait for it – Hired Gunz) opted to leave. They seemed like decent guys, and we would’ve been happy to have split the marquee with them, but it was an awkward situation and you certainly can understand why they’d be reluctant to share the stage with a band they did not know. It must have felt like we were sprung on them out of nowhere.

Later, back home in Virginia, we played Fatboys, which had a new owner and was in the process of remodeling. Rick, Randy, and I went down a week early to check the place out, under the impression that the bar owner wanted a sample of what we could do live and in-person. The Walkin’ Sidewayz Band (what is it with all these bands with z’s in their names?) was playing that night, and Rick and Randy knew them from previous bands. They’re all veterans of the SW Virginia music scene, and their paths have crossed many times over the years. They had a good crowd. We hung out for awhile, and wondered when we could sit in. Earlier in the day, we’d brought some flyers down to the bar, and the Walkin’ Sidewayz sound man and their rhythm guitarist were there setting up for the night. They were in on our conversation with Fatboys manager Kevin, so although we were not explicitly told that we could sit in, it came as a rude shock that night when Rick asked Junior Fralin if we could play a few songs and Junior answered, “They don’t let us do that anymore.” Rick left with his then-girlfriend and Randy and I were left wondering why we burned a Friday night this way. After I left, the bassist for the band asked Randy to sit in. It seems he didn’t get the same memo that Junior got saying that “they” no longer allow such things, whoever “they” were. I understand that Randy kicked ass on drums, as people around these parts have become accustomed. When we returned, we played well, although due to a miscommunication, we started late. The people we met that night ranged from middle-aged couples out looking for a pleasant evening, to members of the Pagans, who were out looking for a nice, wholesome snack of milk and cookies. Back when I lived in Maryland, most of the bars wanted the bands to start at 8:00 and play as late as the bars could con them into playing. Most of the bars I’ve been to around here advertise a 9:00 starting time, and some don’t really get rolling until 10:00, which is inexcusable in my opinion, but hey, I don’t make the rules. However, Fatboys has the bands start at 6:00 and play until Midnight, providing they can sell enough beer before 11:00. Apparently the Commonwealth of Virginia has ghettoized their liquor laws to the point where some establishments can serve alcohol until 2:00 in the morning, but insist that others cut off the tap at 11:00 p.m., as if those patrons need to get home in time to watch Letterman. Still, we must have done something right, because Kevin booked us again.

We rounded out March by playing back at the pool bar, which I will not name in this blog, due to their owner’s inability to read a calendar, keep straight books, and the fact that he thought this was somehow due to a no-show on our part. I will repeat here what I said about it at the time: I’ve never missed a show. Ever. I’ve played gigs when I had no voice left and should have been in bed medicated out of this plane of reality. The other guys can all tell you similar stories of how they have played gigs against all sorts of odds. In short: Hired Guns has never failed to fulfill its obligations. When we played that bar on the 20^th of March – the night the owner insists we did not show – we played to a packed house, including members of the Pagans that we’d met at Fatboys. Sadly, I could not persuade the members of that motorcycle club to start a letter writing campaign to explain to the bar owner that he’d been mistaken. That would’ve been cool, wouldn’t it? I found out about the bar owner’s critical mistake the following month.

April: We were slated to play three dates at the small bar that we’d played on the 20^th of March, and I went by to drop off some posters I made to promote those dates. I started making these posters on an old card maker program after seeing the bar promote us with our name and the date we’d be there written in magic marker on a piece of notebook paper. I thought I could make something a little better able to catch peoples’ eyes. When I went by the bar the day before the first date we were scheduled to appear, I found they had flyers up for another band for our night. The owner had cancelled us without telling us. He said that was due to our not confirming the dates, and how he’d decided we had to do so after we “didn’t show on the 20^th.” My jaw hit the floor. What you must understand is when we last played the bar (March 20^th, I don’t know if I mentioned the date…), he’d told Rick and me that any time I wanted, I could drop by the bar, check their calendar, and if they had a Friday or Saturday night open and we wanted it, it was ours. I had the privilege, if I wanted it, of just writing our name in on his calendar! That was wonderful, so when I found he’d turned on us in this irrational manner, I was pretty freaked out. I called Rick. You can read about it here . I hate for our band to burn any bridges, but we weren’t the guys holding the torch… Consequently, a month that had previously had four decent-paying gigs was reduced to just one gig: our return to Fatboys. I’m happy to report that we started on time, and Kevin enjoyed us well enough to book us three more times. When I booked those gigs with him, I brought along contracts, explaining with a sincere apology that we could not risk being treated again like the way we were treated by the fellow who cancelled us without so much as a phone call.

May: We returned for a paying gig at the Coffee Pot, played Smokey’s (the first place to book Hired Guns waaaaaaaaay back in the day), Fatboys, a private party, and played Festival in the Park in downtown Roanoke. Remember all that stuff I wrote about playing while sick? The weather during the private party was kind of iffy, and eventually the clouds opened up and a rain of quasi-Biblical proportions fell on us. Rick the wireless wonder decided to go play and sing out in the deluge. At the time, he was feeling no pain. The afternoon we were playing at Festival in the Park, he looked like Death on a Triscuit ™. He tried every trick he knew to cajole his voice into returning, but it would only tease him by showing signs of returning for fleeting moments before flipping him off and scampering away. His color improved by the time we took the stage. We improvised a set that wasn’t too bad. Overall, it looked like we were heading into a great summer.

June: We had only the one gig at Fatboys, to a very small group of people. I found this odd. The bar is on a major highway with absolutely no competition nearby. It was over 90 degrees in the shade at the point of the year, and yet people driving by never thought how perfect it would be to stop in for a cool one. I revived a Facebook cause that I started a couple years back called “Support Live Music in Roanoke,” and it was gaining members exponentially, so I posted my philosophy there about how perfect this area could be for live music – a win-win-win situation for businesses, artists, and fans that really would not take much effort. I mean, it wasn’t like we had a bunch of gigs to keep me from writing about how much fun live music is, so I had plenty of time to spend on this sideline.

Bars weren’t booking because business was slow, and even inside the band there was a sense that something was missing. Rick stopped talking about returning to the studio, and candidly – just between you and me (don’t tell anyone!) – we were all acting a little PMS for a bunch of middle-aged rockers. David booked a gig for July, and Rick protested that he was not informed. He had plans for that weekend. Randy had actually gone so far as to join another band that had work. I was getting a dent in my forehead from all the times I smacked it in disbelief. I have no explanation for why we were such a formidable group in March, but were just dying in June. Summer should be a time to get out and party. Dammit, all those Beach Boys songs lied to me…

Rick and Randy jammed with their former bassist Nick Latsaras, and Rick decided then to make some changes. He called me a day later and asked me to be the band’s new keyboardist, and after saying that I had some reservations that I wanted to discuss, I accepted the new lineup as being for the good of the band. Over the next couple of days, we hammered out some details, we allayed my concerns, and I understood that David had been let go. David certainly had plenty to occupy him at the time, and time spent on the band was time he needed to spend elsewhere. Having said that, I’m embarrassed to say that I ended up “officially” firing David by putting a post on our blog about the changes we had made to the band’s makeup. Apparently Rick and David had been playing phone tag. David and I spoke about a week later, and I stuttered an apology for myself and on behalf of the band. We burned a bridge unnecessarily, and I still regret it. David, if you’re reading this, let me tell you: I know how it feels to be fired “for the good of the band.” One of several false starts I’ve had with bands since moving to Virginia involved me getting kicked to the curb by some of the nicest guys you’d ever want to meet. I understood, but it still stung like Hell. For that matter, I was fired in 2009 from another band that I’d just recorded a demo with, and that firing came within two weeks after my father’s death. I was replaced by somebody who played bass in a competent, uninspiring fashion, and that band fell apart. It didn’t work out with us, but you’re a decent fellow with good equipment and good taste. You will find your niche, I promise.

July: We unveil the new lineup at a benefit show for Officer Adam Childress . Things were looking up. Surely good Karma was coming our way, although paying jobs were slow on the ground. Nick had plenty of ideas, but I have to confess, I found them annoying. They weren’t bad ideas, it’s just that if he’d ever bothered to read this blog, as I asked him to, he’d see that some of those ideas had already been put forth in public, and he could join in the conversation a little more intelligently.

August: At long last, we record the demo we’d been planning for months. We were not interested in creating a studio masterpiece. We wanted a fair representation of what we could do live. There would be minimal overdubs. If club managers heard the CD, we could say without exaggeration or fear of contradiction that this was how we sound. If we’d recorded layer after layer of overdubs, we might have created some absolutely stunning recordings, but that’ll have to wait for another time. The demo was raw, but not ugly. It had energy. We’d set a realistic goal, and then exceeded it. We managed to record three more songs in a single evening than I thought possible. It also marked my debut as keyboardist, using the studio’s grand piano and Hammond organ. I know a good craftsman doesn’t blame his tools for his failures, but you and I also know that nothing beats having great tools at hand. I sort of knew what I was doing that night, but to the extent that I sound confident on that recording, a great deal of the credit goes to quality of the instruments I played. With the initial recording and mixing out of the way, I’d kind of like to return to the studio some day and tweak a few things. I still wouldn’t bother with endless layers of overdubs and effects, though.

September: We practiced, but booked no new gigs. Rick and Nick’s wife did some marketing of the band, and again, I was annoyed, which was petty of me. She made a number of suggestions about how to word a contract, but had no clue that I already have contracts printed up that allow for everything she has suggested, but none of my band brethren mentioned to her that we had these available until after I brought it up myself. Having said that, they spoke to all the right people, gave out copies of the demo CD, but all we noticed was an alarming renaissance of the Karaoke fad. Places that once booked a lot of bands didn’t seem to bother with that mess anymore. Nick said he had a good contact at the Awful Arthur’s in Salem and immediately proceeded to not call the guy.

October: We played the Amvets in Roanoke for a charity show. Again, it was a fine cause, and surely – surely – we must have been building up a reserve of good Karma. I bought raffle tickets for items I had no interest in just to make sure the charity got a few extra bucks. Rick, on the other hand, won the raffle for a tattoo of his choice. He was, until recently, one of the very few bikers who actually went around paint-less. Naturally, his tattoo says, “Hired Guns.”

Shortly after the Amvets gig, Nick told me that I’d be the bassist for the band again soon. I was puzzled by this. He had a list of complaints against the band in general, and Rick in particular. He also told me that he could get us a great gig at the Awful Arthur’s in Salem, but when I asked why he didn’t do so, he told me it wasn’t his job. Shortly after that, Nick fired himself from the band. He’s special . I realize that putting this out there seems inconsistent with my sober, practical, and generally decent attitude against burning bridges in the world of music. It is. Some bridges I don’t mind burning. If everybody in the band took on the “not my job” mentality, we’d never even practice, let alone get any bookings. ‘Nuff said.

November: With Nick gone, we consider just playing as a three-piece group. I like playing in the “power trio” configuration, à la Cream or the Jimmy Hendrix Experience. The only downside is that we can’t play songs like “Free Bird” like the record, to use one example. The upside is fewer mouths to feed, and the drummer and bassist have absolute license to play as dominantly as possible, filling the gap normally filled by a rhythm guitarist or keyboardist. Considering our set list, the down side mattered a great deal to us, so we added Rick’s old friend and collaborator Ronnie Smart (a.k.a.: Junebug, Man of Mystery and Odd Sense of Humor). Immediately, we get a paying gig. It’s at a small bar, the kind of place that Nick did not want to play, but it’s the kind of place the rest of us started playing at in our misguided youths. We played the Bridge Street Grille, which is down the street from the bait shop known for years affectionately as The Crappie Hole. A good crowd turned out for us, and we were happy to be out of the basement again. Perhaps we were a little too happy. We brought all of our p.a. speakers to that gig, which was ever-so-slightly ridiculous in a bar that size.

December: As winter set in, there was a definite sense in the atmosphere that things would pick up. Practice continued as normal, and we returned to Bridge Street Grille (this time with a more appropriately-sized version of our p.a.). We considered playing for ourselves on New Year’s Eve at a small private party. It would have been a good time, rest assured, but we got a call to play at Cousins Bar. We rang in the New Year and bid goodbye to 2010 with a great crowd of people in Salem, VA.

I wasn’t in on the conversation when the New Year’s gig was booked, but I’m pretty sure nobody mentioned anything about a D.J. playing between our sets. We usually just hook an iPod up to the p.a. to play music between sets. This fill-in music starts when we want it, ends when we want it, and we have total control over it, so there’s no fear of any redundancy between our set list and those we put on in between sets. The D.J. used the house speakers, one of which is blown, none of which have much high end. Rick offered the use of our P.A. to the D.J., but he declined. When I was in my teens, I listened to music through a set of headphones, and my mom always warned me that I would go deaf, and I would mock her concern by asking, “What,” forcing her to repeat herself as if she were talking to a deaf guy. Well… New Year’s Eve 2010 nearly delivered the deafness I have long been promised. The D.J.’s stuff was loud, and all bass and mid-range - absolutely no highs. It’s not that he did not know his job. He did. If we had people up and dancing, he’d keep them up and dancing. The man can entertain. It was very competent work on that level. As the evening moved on, though, some people left, and they complained of the loudness. We don’t play quietly, by any means, but we were… I dunno, astounded(?) by the shear volume. I sat in an office next to the stage while on break. I watched in wonder as the walls were visibly vibrating. Even in a closed room, there was no getting away from the loudness. Overall, it was a good gig, but in the future, we’ll handle the music between sets, unless under very, very special (and limited) circumstances.

That was our year. How was yours?

Junebug Revealed

Loaded Questions — Fri, 24 Dec 2010 17:51:00 GMT

Up until now, Junebug has remained a figure of mystery. Although he played music for years and years, and released a CD back in the Reagan era, there were no pictures of him – at least, none he would share. But now, at last, he can be revealed to an adoring public. Let me do this properly – gotta rough up my voice - *ahem* - this preview rated “R” for “ridiculous.”

[Voiceover] In a world… where tall men are revered to an absurd extant, and short men are picked last for basketball…

ONE MAN stands alone (preferably on a milk crate or step stool)…

Villainous Henchman: Stand up! Show yourself!

Junebug: I’m standing right in front of you, punching you in the c[BLEEP]k!

Villainous Henchman: Ow, that hurt…

[Dramatic music plays]

Ronnie Smart is… Junebug ™.

Camera shy?

Piece of Cake

Loaded Questions — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 05:26:00 GMT

Hopefully this blog post will scan well. I haven’t had much sleep due to coming home late after a gig, but waking up early because my wife asked me to check out her car before she drives off to Philly after work today. You, on the other hand, aren’t here for the mundane details of my life, so bear with me. In the fullness of time you will learn all about how the debut of our new band line up went, as well as the specifics on new alternate lead singer/guitarist/caterer Junebug Mortimer de Vinci von Snickerdoodle’s[1] performance. Before we get to all that razzmatazz, I’d like to say a brief word about my birthday cake: yum. In fact, I’d like to go into more detail than that.

My friend Carla made me the most amazing cake last week. It was strawberry crunch, coated with a butter cream frosting. Tasty, yes, but it was also four feet long and resembled a bass guitar (the neck was made from Rice Krispie™ treats). The funny thing about this work of edible art is that Carla was disappointed with it. The strings, you see, weren’t edible – and it didn’t play. Given time and resources enough, she can make edible strings, put in sound chips, and many other wondrous things. Did I care? Nope. She spent over six hours on making the cake, which she could have spent doing many other things. She spent over 1/7^th of her weekend making me something very, very cool. Hey, if she’d stretched that into 1/6^th of her weekend, I’d have eaten the strings anyway![2] Take a moment to marvel at the picture and then read on about our gig at the Bridge Street Grille.

Done? Good! Let me take you way back to November 13^th, 2010: the Bridge Street Grille is not a large venue, but it’s clean, nicely stocked with a variety of spirits and beers, and sells these at very competitive prices. Naturally when playing a smaller venue, we ought to bring the stripped-down version of the P.A. System of Divine Vengeance, but Rick decided to bring the 8-speaker version, which required a quick rearrangement of the establishment’s furniture. We set up the equipment early in the afternoon, did a quick sound check, and went our separate ways for several hours. The afternoon was sunny – suitable for riding or napping. We were scheduled to play starting at 9:00, so we had an unusually luxurious amount of time to relax.

When we returned to the bar, still with a great deal of time to make adjustments to our set up, we found some of the patrons had also returned after hearing our sound check earlier in the day. That felt good. Randy was shocked – simply shocked – to find me drinking an alcoholic beverage. I usually don’t, but the prices were so decent (see note above) that I indulged my cheap self with a couple of pints last night. ~~It made me feel all grown-up n’ what-not.~~ I even joined in Rick and Randy’s traditional toast over shots of tequila. Junebug tossed his down instantly and I started to admonish him that if he did that, he wouldn’t be able to taste the blue agave goodness… but then I tasted what I’d just sipped and thought it was a good idea to shoot it down without lingering over the flavor. I didn’t feel it, unless the near overwhelming urge to take a nap on a pool table counts…

We were a tad sloppy in places – and we can’t blame that on the tequila, sadly, but the energy was good. We’ve said it before, but there’s nothing quite like playing out in front of an audience for tightening up a band’s chops. The vocals sounded good, with some pretty decent harmonies, if I’m any judge. We pulled some material out that had been sitting in mothballs most of the year, including Grand Funk’s “American Band,” and Bad Company’s “Shooting Star.” Regarding the latter, Junebug’s daughter requested the song and wouldn’t let us leave before playing it. She’s quite cute, and I asked the Junester if he was sure that she was really his, but he denies that she looks at all like the milkman, and she takes after him in temperament and vocal ability. The only other real question we had during the evening was, “Where the hell is that feedback coming from?” but we never got a complete answer to that query.

There were guests, too. A gal named Donna, who has a wonderfully powerful voice, sang some classic country and a song that I think may be one of her originals. Rick and I helped out a bit, but she didn’t need it. She got up again toward the end of the evening a belted out a moving rendition of “Your Cheatin’ Heart.” P.C. (who I met at the AmVets/VFW fundraiser, and an old friend of both Rick and Junebug O’Toole) got up and sang “Free Bird,” and I want to tell you, the man has a nice, clear voice. Seriously, he could probably sing a couple of Irish ballads and have some genuine Irish lasses slip him their hotel room keys, which he most certainly would not accept (I have to say that - his ol’ lady was with him last night). I’ll let you all in on a little secret: as above-average as our audiences tend to be in looks, brains, and overall coolness, most of them don’t sing as well as Donna or P.C., and when Joe or Jane Average wants to get up with the band and sing, we have to exercise some diplomatic restraint (as in, “Let’s hear it for Jane! That song… uh… brought tears to my eyes! Yeah, that’s the ticket!”).

I have an even better story about the gig, but good taste prevents me from relating it here. Suffice it to say, Mssr. Junus Buggus told the folks at Bridge Street Grille what to put on their marquee and he LIED about Rick’s name. So out of respect for Rick Colt, I won’t write about that particular slander here, but if you give me a written request on the back of a $20 bill, I’ll be happy to show you the cell phone picture I took of the sign…

Finally, I just want to acknowledge the rest of the crowd that showed up last night. They ranged in age from their early 20s to possibly even older than Rapmaster MC Buggy-J, although that seems unlikely, doesn’t it? Just the same, if we’d asked, there might have been a handful of people who had actual AARP membership cards on their persons, and they were grooving right along with the younger cool cats ’n’ kittens, and they all made us feel very welcome. We thank them all for spending some time with us on a chilly Saturday night in the Star City. As for the rest of you, you really should have been there (no, seriously). It was a great time.

- Faithfully submitted to you by Chris Brown, cub reporter for the Daily Planet

[1] Yes, still not his real name. Apparently he’s in the F.I.B.’s Witless Protuberance Program, but you didn’t hear that from me.

[2] No, not really. I love Carla dearly, but I’m not eating elastic string coated in glitter for anyone.

Introducing the New Guy

Loaded Questions — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 02:37:00 GMT

The newest Hired Gun is also one of Rick's oldest friends. ~~Boy is he ever old.~~ Way back when Rick was a young gun instead of a hired gun, he played in a band called Double Dose. This is way back when "Stop Take Time" was written. It was written by... well, I'd like to tell you but he has chosen to play up a general air of mystery.

On stage, the new guy sometimes goes by the name Junebug, which I believe is the name he used back when he worked for an Escort Service, or possibly a spy agency (one of ours, I hope). Anyhoo, I could type his real name here, but I think if I did, he'd end up on an episode of something like "Cops," with his face getting shoved into the wet, cold pavement. So what can I tell you about Codename: Junebug? He sings. He plays guitar. He knows a lot of songs. He's kind of short. I mean, seriously, I'm only 5'10" and I'm the tallest guy in the band. What's that about? Didn't these other guys eat their veggies growing up? Was there any parental supervision for these mooks? (No, or at least, not much.)

Junebug retired from music 18 years ago, which means he's over 21 (yeah, no $hit!). In spite of the retirement, he kept his Ovation and his Telecaster, so there must have been some thought waaay back in the recesses of his mind that he'd play live again. If this were a movie, he'd come out of retirement after 18 years and be dazzling in a Disney Studios-sort of way. Since this is real life, there's every chance that he'll forget chord changes and lyrics in the middle of a crucial performance. You know what? I'm good with that. The real judge of a musician's character is not what he manages when everything is going right, but rather what he can pull off when it looks like the performance is going to crash and burn. If nothing else, it might be worth a chuckle...

Come see us debut our new line-up on November 13th at the Bridge Street Grille (chuckles are free!). Maybe Junebug will bring some Disney magic with him. Or, you know, not...

Two artists' renderings of El Junebuggo:

Now what the...?

Loaded Questions — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 02:29:00 GMT

Nick went and fired himself.

You read that correctly. I'm sure he would say that he quit, and he did, in fact, quit. So how does one fire oneself? By behaving scandalously*. He wasn't even fired by anyone in the band. He was fired by our friend Wayne, who is a fairly easy-going fellow. Just the same, we must back Wayne's play. Nick is a wonderful musician. He has good equipment. He can sing. He'd make a fine addition to just about any band, if he worked on his interpersonal skills. He hinted to me a few weeks back that I was going to be the bassist again soon, and at the time I put forth the notion that the four of us sound really good together. I suggested that this alone is worth taking a moment to appreciate. He didn't see it as anything all that spectacular, which is a shame.

If I knew the secret to rock stardom, I would've become a star 30 years ago. I don't know the secret, and understand that stardom is not in my cards. What I do have is over 30 years experience playing music, and what I can share with you is that chemistry matters. Attitude matters as well. I've known some great musicians, and have always enjoyed how much better I sound when I'm in synch with them. There is a sort of sixth sense that some musicians have when they get together. I've witnessed this in others and have felt it myself, and the feeling was so fine it was like a combination of good chocolate, religion, and passionate love all wrapped up together. When the chemistry wasn't right, it didn't matter how good we musicians were individually. That, my friends, is more like rotting beets, shrill televangelists, and pms together - the gift that keeps on giving you a hangover...

We will have a fourth member of Hired Guns to unveil to you shortly, so keep checking back here. Let me give you a little teaser: he cowrote "Stop Take Time" with Rick many years ago. I'll tell you more about him in another post very soon.
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In other news, Rick got a tattoo that says "Hired Guns," and it looks cool. It's almost a shame that the weather is turning, because he'll have to wear long sleeves and coats soon. Nevertheless, you should check it out. It's art that stings (him, not us)!

* Yes, the word DOES sound like something out of the Victorian Era. Imagine the boys in the band dressed up in tophats, waistcoats, and watch fobs. "I say, are you ready to rock?" "I dare say we are, old chap."