Music takes precedent. Music is my most complicated thing these days, so pay only as much attention as you want. All will fall into place with time. Here is the band at the Dania place y’day. The location is open air and as you see there is plenty of clutter obstructing the view of the stage. The bass player’s face is clipped, but there was no angle to get the whole band in one shot. Arnel and I had a major phone conference this morning.
Arnel reports they have single acoustic guitarists in during the week. I’m not the only one who feels my show has outgrown Jimbo’s, and I would personally love, of course, to play at a known local hot spot right on the beach. (HWB is a restaurant, not quite the same thing.)Arnel states I have taken my show to the next level and feels I now outclass certain local performers. (Names were mentioned.) This is a huge vote of confidence, however the acoustic players at the Dania turned out to be all the same tired locals. He notices when a band plays the same material every gig. There is nothing wrong with this approach and some of the best musicians I know do it. But Arnel and I are taking dead aim on clubs that hire them. We have no choice.
And if we find ourselves playing adjacent locales on the Atlantic beach any day soon, this will be a musical coup d'état if it ever flies. We are the ones coming from out of nowhere. But don't hold your breath, you know my philosophy on what happens to guitar players once they can solo. Whether they peak or not, they fall into a long steady decline of trying to make it on their own. Until one day they wake up 50 years old, missing the boat, and realizing they should have teamed up with that bassist.
Ut-tut. I know what you are thinking. Wrong, it is perfectly acceptable to have a bass player twice as old as the guitarist. And only those bassists who can vary their material and learn new tunes will ever last that long. Besides, older bassists are more audience-friendly.
[Author’s note: I have enough for three completely different shows and am working on a fourth. To avoid confusion, that means I could play the same club for three consecutive nights without repeating a single piece of music. This is precisely the material I am converting to my new Live Karaoke format. During this process, I have already converted music I cannot yet play. Don’t underestimate all this. I haven’t swept the yard or gone shopping in three weeks.]
As predicted, Boston’s has hauled way back on their entertainment. No bands on Thursday or Sunday, at least not regularly. (They only paid $100, if you must know.) I’d rather play for free on the beach, but I can’t really say why. The only place I’ve bombed in this town was Boston’s. I shouldn’t word it so harshly. I had a great time until all the women left, if you recall, when I found myself in front of six failed middle-aged guitarists who picked my show apart. When they wouldn’t come around, if you also recall, I packed up. Still, I consider that a bomb.
I’ve met a Karaoke dude who has 6,000 CDG tunes. CDGs are another of those weird formats out there, one which I rejected because like regular CDs, you can only fit a dozen on each disk. However, I can convert those to my format and this could be another breakthrough. Arnel painstakingly replaces his backing tracks with higher grade patches. These CDGs may and probably will already have all that work done. (It later turned out most of it was unusable Broadway music.)
Moving on to the duo with Jim. Arnel is enthusiastic with the great natural sound Jim and I produce. Thus, pending Jim’s speed at new material, there will be a push to throw an act together for the Dania Beach club, hereinafter “DBG”. I’ll make a scheduled commitment to get in there with Jim in a few weeks, or myself in a month. Either way, Arnel confirms I can deliver the wow and it is time to move up. The flaw here is than Jim hates to rehearse. What did I just say about soloists?
Here is a question for the times. I have no atlas. Do I buy a standard book, which becomes outdated immediately, or is there a digital alternative? I was re-reading a chapter on the South Pole and could not find one map in this place which showed any detail. So, now I’m wondering. Is there an on-line map that updates itself instantly? Or only the Pentagon has it? You know, a map that you can still zoom in but is a real atlas and not those schematic satellite pictures overlaid with advertising. I may opt for the book. Did you hear about the guy who bought a second-hand atlas? Neither did I.
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