One year ago today: November 5, 2022, JZ drives a clunker.
Five years ago today: November 5, 2018, even partially active.
Nine years ago today: November 5, 2014, a sidecar outing.
Random years ago today: November 5, 2007, a day at the shop.
The cold front from the Mississippi is moving in. You get this view of the burn barrel last week to warm you up. There are six space heaters in the house this year, and the circuits to plug them in are 20A dedicated for the air conditioners. We are snug and comfy, but anything much below 52°F in Florida is getting uncomfortable. Will this be the year we get the 400 hour frost needed to grow peaches?
Now, he does not believe a word of this, but I’ll tell you where I learned it. It arose from those long years age 26 to 40 at the phone company where I was the only male in a department of between 300 and 400 females. This tale from the trailer court is well known, how my ability to speed type became a prized commodity. But, now is the time to reveal there is much more to it. Over the years there were other males who passed through the department who did not last. What made the difference? Typing.
Typing was only the evident skill. You see, by that age, I was already expert at spelling, grammar, punctuation, composition, literature, sentence structure, research, and I possessed (by comparison) a Brobdingnagian vocabulary. This is very analogous to the way I play bass. Many have failed trying to copy what I do without first learning what you need to know. It’s amusing that the Prez so quickly noticed the music we arrange is almost impossible to copycat. It’s all pretty consistent and also explains my great dislike for clones. Imitators waste resources and dilute the mix.
Rehearsal is moved up an hour, I’ll leave here at 2:00PM. We have around 40 tunes on the list but only half deliver the wow. We have a winning sound combination but do not enthuse yet. Music is a tough and competitive business and we have no place to play yet—plus just like jazz fusion or ska, our presentation style is not for everyone. Guitar players hear nothing but a potential back-up band. I don’t rule that out, but the Prez has agreed we must always be ready to play all out material independently and that remains the focus. Any other musician to us is merely another adjunct.
Smog in Kazakhstan.
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Rehearsal is now easy and a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon for a couple hours. We are at the stage where we can turn inward and focus on problem areas. We can abandon the traditional format of playing every song start to finish to address one problem spot and the rest is played according to techniques we’ve learned. Allow me to elaborate. The Prez, for example, is getting over the “need” for a full sound, a symptom that so many guitar players do not know they even have until it is pointed out. The stage exposure has been invaluable here, he now has much more confidence that good musical arrangements solve all manner of challenges. You’ll capture an audience much better with novelty and a shared sound than volume or other methods.
For example, we now regularly decide which songs are a “plow-through”. This is where instead of “learning” the song, we apply two parts we’ve already played elsewhere and not worry about whether this exists in the original version—but you would instantly recognize it if you knew the piece. Not THAT is audience appeal. It allows us to play tunes that would otherwise not be suitable or present challenges to regular duo treatment. Example, Lambert’s “White Liar”. He uses a generic strum and I play the bass line “upside down”.
The video clip is from a stop I made to pick up glue and supplies at Wal*Mart™ on the way. I would have bought this but for the $14 price tag. A microwaveable lunch box, containing the all important phone stand. I could use it to prop open a small book, I suppose. Back to music. This session we got some weak spots from last Wednesday’s show tightened up. We added Waylon’s “Good Hearted Woman”, since he sings it. We finally re-arranged “The Breeze” to match his bluegrass style and to force others not to skip the fancy bass break. “Act Naturally” is back, I promise to learn to play that in the key of D, not the best choice. (I’ll explain why in the addendum.)
I check in at Kooter’s on the return leg, but she is getting damn chilly out there and like so many Florida spots, the place has no heating. The really nice chubby gal with the great outfits is now has that prime weekend shift. The dead spot after the pool tourney is still open but I hesitate to risk such a slot until we are more ready. The Prez is gaining rapidly but I still have to front the show and can only hope one day I will get to focus on bass-playing up on stage. She says they have a rapper who is going to give it a shot. It is not anything to me, because he likely will not last for reasons. One, this is not a rap music bar, another is he is playing for free, so give it enough time to peter out.
What’s more, that bar is on the highway to Winter Haven and my opinion is nothing will pick up there unless it is advertised. Traffic either has to know there is live music or have some reason to slow down before the driveway, which opens right onto the southbound lane of Highway 17. My solution? The county bought up the farmsteads on the west side, but the old driveways are still there. Three of them are strategic to my idea. Three A-frame plywood signs, at the one-mile, half-mile, and 400-foot marks. They would be placed immediately before the gig and taken down right after.
I would stress this is just a battle plan, not a commitment to action. I estimate the slugs at City Hall would take a month to get wind of it and another two weeks to cook up some objection. If the sign is put up and taken down only on Sundays, that would buy even more time. The club could honestly claim they had nothing to do with it and the goal would be accomplished by the time the talking was done.
ADDENDUM
Here’s one for you. The Royal Air Force has major radar stations in Scotland, the most direct approach path for a Russian attack. It transpires that the optimum speed for wind turbine blades is a harmonic of the best radar frequencies. Radars are tweaked to ignore stationary targets, so you can imagine the problems with the blades reflecting signals.
Several of the big pharma corporations are teetering. Some 98% of the American public isn’t falling for their latest round of vaccine propaganda. These companies have spent a fortune bribing and lobbying to no avail. American capitalism means there is no comfortable size that any company can exist. Instead, without continue growth, even the giants will wither. This means the corporations that survive cannot, England-style, make adequate by specializing on long-term asset management. American business becomes increasingly reliant on rapid cash flow. And anything that even slows down that inflow can result in overnight collapse.
The key of D. It’s not my favorite because it isn’t E, the natural bass key and it isn’t G, the people’s key. The snag with “Act Naturally” is that, if you give it a good listen, it requires two guitars to get the sound. With one guitar, we opt to play the rhythm, meaning if there are any fills, they happen on the bass. The best sound is when a lower 5th is available, play that. But the sound is higher, not lower. In the key of D, I have to span two octaves to get the correct-sounding walk-downs. I can do it, but I had the song arranged in E, so I’ve got that head start, but to me it’s more trouble than it’s worth—but the person singing gets to call the key.
And the explanation for today's Last Laugh picture is the guy kept getting attacked by birds when he mowed the lawn.
