Just thought I’d drop a line and give an update. We’ve been working hard on finishing up the first full-length and are getting close to completion. It’s been a bit of a weird process, with me 1) going up to Brooklyn and recording rough demos 2) going back to philly and showing bandmates the demos and saying “here are the basic parts….now do something cooler with it 3) getting them to come up with cool parts and recording them in a philly studio 4) taking the recordings back up to brooklyn to put together and mess around with.
All in all, i’m having fun with it, since i’m loving the songs and Brooklyn is one of my favorite places to be. (Should I just move, already?!).
Anyways, I uploaded our version of The Smiths song “There Is A Light That Never Goes Out” to our reverb nation site as a “fan exclusive download.” I’ve never done it before, but you should be able to get a free version of it there. (Let me know if it works. I’m curious) You should definitely pick it up. Its a pretty unique version, i think. (If you have trouble there, go to http://newwest.bandcamp.com/)
Shows – 1) we’re playing the North Star Bar in Philly (2639 Poplar) on May 17th at 9pm. Come out it you live nearby. I love seeing familiar faces while playing.
2) We’re also playing the Philly Songwriters contest at the Blockley in West Philly. Should be fun as well. Big panel of judges and whatnot.
Ive always been a sceptical of the debate between natural talent and hard work. I was flipping through Jay-Z’s new book “Decoded” the other day. It’s mostly his reflections about growing up and navigating the music industry, interspersed with verses from his lyrics explanations.
One thing I’ve always known about him, but was detailed more clearly in this read, was the level of dedication and hard work he put into his craft.
It’s widely known that he spent a good portion of his teens and 20′s hustling in new york and Trenton. One thing that caught me were the details of his accounts working the streets while composing rhymes in his head.
How early on, he’d come up with a rhyme, but since his memory hadn’t been developed to what it is today, he’d need to excuse himself to a corner store to buy something so he could write it down on a scrap paper bag. But because it was so inconvenient to have to do this every time, he taught himself to simply memorize the lyrics.
This reminded me of a recent conversation i had with a music mentor of mine who’s known me over the course of my progression. While it was meant as a compliment, my older friend confessed that when I first started singing he thought that there might be problems with my hearing……not even that I might just have been a mediocre singer, but that there might actually have been something WRONG with me.
I laughed it off, but I was shocked. This is someone who definitely knew what he was talking about and was trying to point out how far I’d come. I’ve had people say that I sound very natural when I sing, but I’m not sure I believe there’s anything natural about it.
We have a few shows coming up in the near future that I would love it if you came out for:
-This Wednesday the 20th at the Trocadero in Philly (10th and Arch) at 8pm
-This Saturday the 23rd at the Willow Grove Moose Lodge 1101 Woodlawn Ave (Woodlawn & Davisville Rds) at 7pm *Sold Out*
-Tuesday May 17th at North Star Bar 2639 Poplar Ave, Philadelphia
I was standing around talking after playing a show the other week, when the conversation shifted toward the topic of luck and opportunity. I shared my story with the friend (who had just gotten done reading my blog earlier that day) and he was like, “yoooo….you gotta make that a blog entry. That’s too funny.” So, while this had not been what I originally intended to write about, I figured, hey why not?
What he was referring to was a time a couple years ago, when a co-worker of mine informed me of a show opportunity she had heard about. There was an event her friend was organizing where they needed musicians, so she said she thought of me. a number of a woman running the event. It sounded fun and pretty run-of-the-mill, so I agreed and gave the organizer a call.
The woman running the event owned a dog store in a fairly well-to-do neighborhood about a half-hour from where I was living at the time. So, she gave me the time and location of where to show up and said she needed me to fill an hour-long slot. Fine.
It was one of the first days of Spring that year, and I arrived at the site to find a beautiful afternoon and a throng of people surrounding a central area in the middle of town. Walking up, I’m thinking to myself, “alright, this isn’t going to be half-bad, considering there’s a good number of people.” (it was a built-in-audience ie – a perfect situation for any musician trying to build an audience).
What I find as I get closer, shook my optimism: the woman I had spoken to on the phone was dressed in a full-body dog-suit, holding a microphone calling out names like “Lucky,” and “Oreo.” This packed event was a dog show and I was the main entertainment. Wow. Ok. I had to gather myself and force myself to not turn around and flee the scene.
My internal monologue quickly shifted tone as I debated if this was an all-time low, or if I just arrived at the wrong event. Nope. I was in the right spot. The woman greeted me warmly and pointed to where I could plug in and begin my set.
I plugged in my guitar and jumped into my songs. As I serenaded the crowd of families and dog-show participants, my mind was cursing the situation, but outwardly I was following through with my committment, participating in body, but probably not in mind or spirit.
The interesting part is what came afterward when as I stepped off stage and was approached by another woman who had been watching from the audience. “I really enjoyed your performance,” she said. ”We do community events like this pretty frequently during the summer, but they are a little bit more private than this one.” Now, I wouldn’t say the area we were standing in looked blue collar, but I certainly wasn’t expecting the type of numbers she began throwing at me in return for my future performances. She basically floated a blank check toward me and didn’t bat an eye when I pulled numbers from the sky.
Initially, I wasn’t even planning on telling this story, cus I have enough self-depricating stories to fill two blogs, and wasn’t trying to pitch myself as a musician who works the dog-show circuit. However, my friend’s reaction the other night when I told this story made me realize that things like this have shaped my understanding of opportunities coming from unexpected places. Where other people turn their noses to ideas or situations that could cause possible embarrassment, some of my exleriences have caused me to follow through with thicker skin.
Hope this story finds everyone in a good place for the holiday season.
I see some new songs reaching completion on the not-so-distant horizon. Hope to be sending them your way shortly.
Talk soon!
Next show: Origivation Acoustic Series – Tuesday, december 14th at Beneluxx (33 South 3rd Street, Philadelphia, PA 19106-2814) at 7pm
Newwestsound.com
I’m sitting in a chain restaurant, at the moment, as the song “Piano Man,” comes on over the radio. I’ve never been a fan of Billie Joel, by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s reminding me of a funny/awkward moment I had a little while ago when I went out to play an open mic.
On this particular night I had decided to go to a local bar that had a good reputation for live music. I walked in the door and was immediately greeted warmly by a man who claimed to run the open mic. He pointed to the stage and began asking me what sort of set-up I needed to perform later. Then, he asked if I would like the house band accompanying me this evening. Not really knowing anything, but figuring that the house band had to be at least pretty damn good, I agreed. No matter, he went on selling (bragging) about the prowess of his musicians, stating that the guitarist had been part of Billy Joel’s backing band during the Piano Man tour in the 80’s. I was impressed. It doesn’t really take much. Again, I agreed, though I’m not sure it would have mattered what I said, based on his insistence and enthusiasm.
I figured, if anything, maybe playing with the band would give me new ideas for my songs that I had not thought of. I was one of the first performers, so I hit the stage with a short warm-up and jumped into the songs head on.
Now, many musicians are the types who have been schooled in music theory and can enter any situation with the proper lingo – “it’s a shuffle beat in A, 16 bars and watch me for the changes!!!” blah blah blah. I would love to be able to do this sort of thing, but was raised in more of an underground, punk-influenced music scene that valued passion over musical dexterity (not that this is always the right policy, since theres some pretty dull music that comes out of this thinking, as well, its just how I was raised. Ha!)
Knowing that I’d have to engage in this sort of music-speak, I had intentionally chosen to play the most straight-forward songs in my repetoire. I gave my rudimentary explanations, and we proceeded to fake (improvise) our way through the first two songs. They sounded fine enough. There were small confusions, but nothing we couldn’t hide from the audience.
For my third song, though, I was pretty set on ending my set with an unconventional song of mine. This song was unique in that it is in a strange tuning that I’d made up, accidentally, while writing it, and contains chords that I didn’t know the names of. The guitarist turns to me, seeing I’m about to start and says “so you want to play this one on your own , or you want us to join?” The other two songs had gone fine, but I was a little wary about letting people play along to this one, since I had very little direction to provide them. I turned to him and said, as politely as I could, “I don’t really know the chord names in this one, but feel free to play along if you think you’re getting it.” Maybe I should have known, but this was definitely the wrong thing to say to someone who’s played in front of packed stadium audiences. He turns to the other backing musicians and proceeds to mock me in front of everyone. “You hear this?!…He says we can back him up if we can figure it OUT! Ha!”
Figuring the best way to shut him up was to drown him out, I jump into the song and the band joins me to complete the very compromised version of my song, which I had expected from the start. Long story short, I knew this song couldn’t be faked, because of it’s unconventional structure, but who was I to tell a world-class backing-musician that I KNOW he won’t be able to do it? I wasn’t trying to comment on his ability, but my comments were received that way. Something about my comments revved his ego into full gear. How could he not keep up with this young, unproven musician, he must have thought.
This instance made me think about what sort of person it takes to be a musician or someone in the public eye. What kind of ego is necessary to sustain the day-in day-out existence and constant critique of an audience? It’s definitely not for the faint of heart. Everyone knows this. I remember hearing John Lennon say once that within him, there was a healthy balance of believing in his absolute genius, and also the feeling that he was a complete fraud. He went on to say how hard it was, because you get conditioned to feel only as good about yourself as the last thing you’ve done. The last show you played, the last record….etc.
This is just something that’s been on my mind recently; the necessity of having a healthy ego, specifically in this field, but more generally, to any field where odds are slim. It’s the same ego that’s necessary in being an entrepreneur. The feeling of you against the world. It’s the ability when your ideas or actions aren’t connecting with people, to say to yoursf, “they’re just not getting it,” or “if I just do this a little differently, it’ll fix the problem.”
Modesty is an attractive human trait, but for now, though, a full appreciation of that healthy side of John Lennon’s ego is what I’m paying tribute to. Often times it’s the only thing keeping the ship moving. Play on Piano Man.
Friday November 19, 2010
Willow Grove Bible Church
200 Everett Avenue, Willow Grove Pa
Here’s a video a friend and I shot back during the summer. I’ve been hesitant to post it because the volume is off, but maybe someone will be able to find enjoyment in it. Otherwise, it was a waste of an afternoon. Ha!
Greetings!……and welcome to my blog. This momentous occasion was brought about by the dramatic realization that the more I communicated, the better chance I had of actually being understood. I’m planning on using this forum as a place to release new material, share videos, tell stories and, generally spout ideas that I believe to be important. I’m hoping that this will eventually become interactive, so that there’s a bit of back and forth between myself and readers. This way I can better aim what I do toward wherever there’s an interest.
A quick, but related story — the other night I was over at a musician-friend’s house and we were taking a break from playing. He was telling me a story about how in the not-so-distant-past he had had one of the most frightening experiences in his life, where there had been a woman he had dated years ago, who had recently gotten back in touch with him and was trying to coerce him into getting back together with her. There were certain things that he felt were private about their relationship that she began threatening him with in trying to blackmail to leave his family and take her back. The potentiality of her blackmail had the power to break up his marriage, tear apart his family and ruin everything that was important to him. The story was absolutely traumatic to him in showing how capable desperation was in bringing the worst out in people. He then stopped for a second after finishing his story and said to me, “hold on….I actually wrote a song about this. Lemme play it for you.” He then proceeded to play a song whose words and spirit immediately jumped out at me. The funny thing that I realized while listening was that it was a song I might not normally have gravitated toward. But, the power of it was apparent and it helped me understand the importance of providing back-story to a piece of work or art. No doubt, artwork should be able to stand on its own without knowing its context, but the immediacy that context holds became really clear to me that moment.
This, essentially, is why I want to begin getting more of my thoughts down for you in this context. I hope to update this blog at least once a week, so make sure to check back whenever you can. I’ll be sending out notifications, but just know that this is my personal goal. Ok. That’s enough for now.
Here’s a video of a Van Morrison cover I’ve been playing for a while. I originally learned it because an ex-girlfriend said it was her favorite song. Now that she and I no longer speak, its the only tangible thing that I have from that relationship……sort of funny the things that end up sticking around, huh? Alright. Enjoy! Talk to you soon.
Friday November 19, 2010
