One year ago today: November 4, 2019, leaf day?
Five years ago today: November 4, 2015, a generic post.
Nine years ago today: November 4, 2011, lack of rules.
Random years ago today: November 4, 2010, on willful ignorance.
The do doggies had a fantastic morning. I say that only because I respond well to the personalities the Reb sees in them. Quite remarkable, actually. But what I saw was a perfect fall day with perfect dog weather. We wound up touring an abandoned farm near Jackson Downs. Any dog-lovers will be pleased to know he was his old self for while, romping, a real spring in his walk. The Reb says he could be pushing 90 people years but he was playing tag with Sammy, who kind of remained a puppy.
These photos show a tiny building on Mt. Juliet Parkway, Tennessee. We’ve driven past it thinking it was a shop, but turns out to be a small museum. I parked and walked the dogs around soe artifacts including old soda vending machines, a phone booth, gas pump and so on. A lady came along and asked if it was open, I dunno. She tried the doorknob and it opened into the classiest little museum I’ve ever seen. These are some random photos from the area in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee.
It’s easy to miss but I recommend if you have twenty minutes, it’s worth it to turn around and go see this gem. There’s parking in back, two benches to sit on, and it is like walking into a 1960s American gas station with some groceries such as they had back then. There’s even the brown paper wrapping dispenser I remember from old general stores such as still existed when I was growing up. A lot of the displays, they are behind a plexiglass barrier, look in operating condition.
Pickle tanks.
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The Reb’s landlord finally made it over to put in some guitar time. You do not, repeat, do not read anything into his personality as I go over the audition. I’m one crusty old bass player who sees things for what I think they are, regardless of what else can be said of any given musician. My questions and needs for stage musicians are simple and complete as to what I need and want. Don’t argue with me about that unless I see some credentials.
Type B1 means he feel what he can already play is so fantastic, he will convert you to hsi song list. I twist your arm insisting these are observations, not criticisms. As long as he does the homework, this situation will fly. Now, I’ll describe the audition and some conclusions. The tunes we both knew showed fantastic potential, but once again it was the few tunes I had specified over the phone that he was expecting to play. The Reb had company just leaving as we started up and they were, I dare say, floored by what they heard. So far, this is normal. Fifty years makes a difference.
Shortly thereafter, we went through a number of basic tunes that are more like musical exercises. He doesn’t know the circle of fifths, usually a warning of future hurdles. It was a familiar situation, he played music I had never heard of which no doubt alarmed him, but he ould not follow the simplest 3-chord specials on my list, which alarmed me. He plays a lot of specialized guitar music with chord changes hard to follow uness you have at least heard the tunes before. Most of it was ballads I’d never heard, which is predictable.
Just a bit more critique and I’ll get to the conclusions. He’s good on the guitar and must know a ton of bassists, but when it comes to presentation, he knows he’s met his match. This makes for an easy time-to-stage effort if he does the homework. Experience tells me he will soon start pushing tedious guitar ballads onto the scene. He’s shown signs of guitar-think, like referring to tunes by the album or artist instead of the title. And toward the end, he outright said he wants to play what he likes and to hell with the audience. The polar opposite of my philosophy.
So what now? The biggest conclusion is that I expected all this and he does not know he is playing into my hands. Like him, I too will do anything to get on stage and play what I want—this parallelism is not rare. I also intend to put on the best show I can and play music I think is best and we’ve seen the outcomes are not equal. Playing guitar ballads on stage with me is absolutely all you want it to be. And more.
I have an ace in the hole. When the Reb heard our initial music meshing, she came over and did some vocals from our good old days. The new guy, let’s call him Don, got a foretaste of what stage compatibility is all about. Those who lack those thousands of hours I regularly quote have some strange notions about presentation until they see it for real. In fact, I detected that he may never have seen anything like it or suspected the extent to which it can excel. Nor is it that phony “happy family” act, no sir.
Toward the end, as we tried unfamiliar material, he reverted to guitar ballads, he still has no suspicion that a guitar player may not automaticaly be the favorite [on stage]. That’s a tightrope I’m good at walking. We’ve tentatively agreed to supply twenty tunes each, with the codicil we will sing our own material. He’s got a good voice, I don’t, or should I say I have what the Reb calls a “character” voice. Don managed a few harmonies, I failed at a few but not by that much.
Don is, through it all, a realist. He can say all he wants about doing it for the music, but he realizes to do anything after fifty years, he has to deal with people who have a whole spread of motives. i’m in it for the money plus many things just as important to me as the music. One super-plus is he has no objections to me playing the lead breaks and riffs on the bass, he rapidly picked up on how they enhance what an be done. I did not bring it up because I may need it for a selling point, but you could see he was reacting to “voicings”. He forgot there were only two musicians, he heard what I have learned to project to the crowd.
Where do we stand? Around the same as the election results, nobody knows for much depends on new factors that arise in the short run. He’s an excellent strummer and now knows he cannot outplay me, but he did try to flatpick a few breaks which landed flat. These are obstacles for all new bands have some pretty high expectations. He correctly expects I know more about rhythm guitar that I let on, probably from the number of instances to night I demonstrated things that could be done on bass. I stay again, he was not offended that I could take over some lead parts.
The momentum is there, I asked him to shoot me the tunes he wants to do. As usual, he didn’t have a ready list. You see, guitar players usually hesitate. They want to sound you out first but tonight may not have been his best outcome from trusting that tactic. I predict he will push his complicated guitar classics despite having just had a demo of simple tunes presented right. Has he not seen this before?
You know how deeply I get into music, how it exists to entertain and I know this isn’t how she usually goes. If this guy plays predictable guitar music, he’ll get everything he wished for. The question is, to him and most guitar players, are you careful what you wish for?
