One year ago today: March 10, 2017, ooh, some swear words, I see.
Five years ago today: March 10, 2013, I lost the bet.
Nine years ago today: March 10, 2009, now that was a band.
Random years ago today: March 10, 2012, the old duo.
I zonked out early last evening, a luxury of early retirement. The option to not go out, ah, that’s the ticket—but if I do go out, let it be for music. Let somebody else waste time and money on a Friday. Just you wait until my band is up and running. I put in a couple of planning hours on that, this is a task that cannot entirely be done in advance. There is a balance, as in an amount, of the unpredictable, especially in new bands, that you must remain flexible over. My solution has traditionally been to work with what I’ve got. Lady Nik has always had excellent timing, provided you don’t let her play anything too slow. That timing is due to get exploited. She had never played muted shuffles before, or not on the acoustic anyway. Now, they are permanently on the menu.
So I got to pondering if there aren’t some songs we could include to keep variety ahead of the game. Variety in a duo is probably more important than we all probably think. I ran smack into a wall. Country music with muted parts? Maybe no such thing. (Until now.) For non-musical types, this is where the guitar player deadens all the strings with the left hand and makes that shucka-shuka sound with the pick. Well, no way is this going to stop progress. What I did was go over ever tunes we have with drum breaks and see about substituting the mutes in there. This seems to be a reasonable approach, I dunno, give me a day or two. It’s quarter to eight in the morning and I’m going downtown for coffee.
Some of you are not using MP3Gain. Time after time, I get downloaded music that has the gain set wrong. It is either too loud or too quiet, and this is the little program that fixes that for you. You simple place all your music into the list and click the track analysis icon. In a bit, it will come back with all the differing gain ratios of your music. Then click the track gain icon and your music all plays back at the same volume. It’s for MP3s only, but that’s what you should be listening to anyway. Countless tests have shown the human ear can only hear one sound at a time.
Getting a touch of the lazies, I stayed in to watch the old Bond movie, “Octopussy”. Yep, them English sure have a different concept of what good-looking women are. Or maybe their studios have a smaller budget. When I go to the movies, I want to see total babes. If they have trouble deciding which is which, I’m always available for a reasonable fee. Favorite scene? The mini-jet. I know I’ve read about that somewhere, but can’t find the airplane in my international directory.
Where did I read about this jet? Was it Popular Mechanics, back when that used to be a magazine about popular mechanics? Anyway, make no mistake about it, private airplanes are like boats, an expensive hobby made more expensive by the system designed to soak anybody with that much money. If I find this jet, I’ll review it again. Maybe next week.
Moments later, it is the Bede BD-5 Acrostar. Smallest jet on record, and with the most fatal crashes. Ah, the wonders of the Internet.
View from the Acropolis.
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This afternoon I finished my first set of long run cabling with the 12/2 wiring. It certainly has different handling characteristics. And it is a chore to stuff the leads back into the boxes. It was a good thing I opted for the biggest (22-24 in³. type). I could not find any reference in my array of books if special boxes were needed or if the leads could be cut shorter. But it is done now and damned if I’m crawling under there again. I see that I’ll need 150 feet of that expensive wire just to install the dedicated A/C receptacles.
And my four-way switch calls for 3-wire cable. Did I mention that looks like it is $3 per foot and I’ll need at least 30 feet of that. Ah well, not a concern if I want a comfy retirement. This is still my little cabin and it’s mine all mine. While I’m at the electric, I’m installing some extra exterior waterproof receptacles. Just thinking ahead.
Getting back to you with my restaurant band research, there are a limited number of places in the Lakeland area and toward Auburndale I picked, but scouted the whole area by car. I prefer the easiest to drive to and check out. The ones who advertise in the local media get first look. Because we know they have a budget for entertainment. The question is, do they have difficulty getting the right shows? Immediately you notice they are not really restaurants, but pubs with food service. I arbitrarily picked Sunday, the 11th, to check the offerings though I instinctively avoid any places with church affiliations. Also, I’d rather pay the extra $2 at the door than order on-line and give up all that personal information. (I know the music business, folks.) I looked at the following:
Will’s Pub, Orlando. $14 at the door, band is “Bothering Dennis”.
Skipper’s Smokehouse, Tampa. $10 day of, band is “Dukes of Juke”.
Grove Roots, Winter Haven. Free, band is “John Frinzi”.
Keel & Curley Winery, Thonotosassa. Free, “Shane Meade”.
And here’s something that says bring your own food. Lakeland house concert, they don’t give the address until you made a reservation with a suggested $15-$20 donation. Says tea and coffee served, no alcohol allowed. I may go there just to see who you’d meet at such a place.
Back to the potential venues. Would my little band play supper hours and wineries? It depends entirely on the atmosphere the joint is going for and, of course, the pay. I don’t myself patronize places with cover charges, yet if I find out they have one, the band price soars. Mine is not a concert group nor should anyone expect things to be tight and perfect. The music is a novelty, a guitar that strums a drum beat and a bass player who can play anything from Beethoven to the Beatles.
The music is selected to be danceable and singalong. You will not hear any faithful covers, every note is arranged for duo presentation—but the crowd will be amazed with what we get away with inside that context, I really know this business. Lady Nik is already picking up on my habit of pretending I don’t have a clue what’s next and of totally ignoring the other musician.
[Author’s note: this apparent “ignoring” of the other musician on stage is no random happening. It is very, I say very carefully rehearsed for maximum audience appeal. The guitar and bass are mostly playing different patterns; it is the intermingling of the two that creates the arranged sound. We have everything to gain by tactfully stressing the different patterns as they merge. Jazz people call this “fusion”. There’s even one tricky guitar part that I sing with my eyes closed to enhance this effect. This is why I emphasized learning the song structure from day one.
The last time I did this was with my old, old band, “Not Half Bad”. I even had the vocalist, Annie, learn the structure so well that she could signal the band to stop and start on command. This proved wildly successful in songs of the day, such as “Fire”, and “Driving My Life Away”. I have not forgotten.]
ADDENDUM
One of my peeves has been the consistent manner in which American colleges and universities understate the actual cost of attending. For some time I’ve considered returning to college after I’m 66 for an advanced degree, which I don’t really intend to ever use. Chalk that up to one of the few privileges left in this country that you’d have to be a rich kid anywhere else in the world. I notice right away when I receive solicitations that I know are fake. These institutions have an entire department busy calculating how to mislead you. One direct scam is to deduct the dollar figure of grant money, gift aid, and government subsidies that the student might or potential could qualify for. And that, friends, is bullshit.
There is even a mill in operation to reject student applications if that department feels it can enhance its importance by the number of parents it can get in to conduct personal appeals. I know how expensive all this gets because I had to pay it myself in my day, not one penny of help from home. Yeah, I might seem a little crusty, but then, I know what it is like to be the only person left in the dorm over holidays while the entire rest of the students chartered an airplane to Hawaii for the week. The night watchman made it a point to ask me every day what I was doing there just to embarrass me for being poor.
That was a tough year. The cafeteria closed for fourteen days. I had secreted some food out in preparation, but most of it froze on my window sill. Yes, I remember that year very well. I was seventeen years old. I often hear tales of kids who “made it on their own” at that age. Not in the 1970s they didn’t. By then the entire system was geared toward the third and fourth generation families who could provide massive support to their offspring. I know some did make it independently, but I’ve never met such a person. It’s enough to make you bitter.
Last Laugh
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