This was just a fine day. Move on unless you want to hear me bitch for a while. The computer I brought from the shop doesn’t have a front-mounted headphone jack. It is far too late into the process to swap it out now. What’s more, all my copying software has to be reconfigured. I had to watch today’s episode of “The Sopranos” on a real TV. Say, wasn’t the country supposed to switch over to Hi-Def TV by now? Or has that been postponed, again? Or did I just give away the fact I’m not that much into TV because the programming is still “Low-Def”.Not only that, the new computer does not have a front mounted headphone jack. I had it wired in place before popping open the cover to make this pleasant discovery. I think that means today I’ll do a little beefing. Right now I’ve no patience for things going wrong. Computer, car, band, Karaoke. Hey, I’m a little engaged over here.
We are underway with the new music. I admit to having some of Jim’s music on file here, meaning it has been rejected at least once. I often bypass a tune because it is “guitar music”. Listen to Garth Brooks “Thunder Rolls”. Droll, undanceable, plodding bad jazz with a contrived single-note bass part, an out-dated theme, and guaranteed to put the audience into a coma. Balding, middle-aged failed guitarists just love such crap. (Even if we wanted to be impressed, it is probably not by somebody like that.) Brooks did some fine stuff, but most of it is what I call “CD filler”. It took four minutes to learn the bass line; it will take forever to remember it. Wake me up when it’s over.
The theme for today was force-learning as much of Jim’s list as possible. Some of it is so obscure I can’t find copies on Limewire. (Yes, I use Limewire 5, and it is not dangerous if you know what you are doing. Most people don’t.) It is questionable if we will ever use this music and each tune represents a large commitment of effort. Most of it is “studio” music instead of “live” music, and most guitarists don’t know the difference. I’m reminded of Al Klit, a studio-trained musician and his buddy. They used to practice in my living room
These guys would put intense hours into getting a lick down perfect. I could come back in an hour and they’d be still be hunting for the exact sound. They got into all kinds of impractical shenanigans, such as changing to “open D” tuning and switching guitars between songs. I get impatient with people who even tune up on stage. Get a guitar that stays in tune, dammit! Yet Al and gang had that pining look of hope they’d one day perform. That was twenty years ago.
Myself, I’ll spend a half hour learning some bass line then go out and play it that evening. I place doubt on the theory of even playing technically complicated material in front of most crowds. The Hippie and I had this discussion many times and in the end, he could only defend against the facts by resorting to circular logic. What? You want to hear it again? Okay.
He would [repeatedly] state that certain bands, not certain songs, drove a crowd wild and therefore we should learn songs by that band. See, it is becoming circular already. Big picture, the band; small picture, the song, as we flip-flop along. Of course, when the thinking person hears all this, the only factual part is whether or not a guitarist can produce this supposed, so-called, alleged, theoretical, Land of Oz, hypothetical crowd that gets driven wild. In six years, the Hippie was unable to produce any throngs of frenzied Grateful Dead fans.
His conclusion: He couldn’t show me the crowd because I didn’t learn the music because we never got the gigs because the club wouldn’t hire us because we didn’t play the music because I didn’t know the material because he wouldn’t show me the crowd. Got it? And I personally assure you none of this was his fault, either.
[Um, any time you’d like, you guitarists can come on down this very weekend and watch me drive a crowd wild. I do it every time I play. Not every once in a blue moon. My show may not appeal to music purists, but very apparently, neither the hell does yours. The only “cult” I subscribe to is Johnny Cash, but I never play any tune just because he did. And the only people who don’t think my show is working are local experts.]
