One year ago today: May 3, 2024, it's actually 1 channel.
Five years ago today: May 3, 2020, lack of standards.
Nine years ago today: May 3, 2016, not limited to . . .
Random years ago today: May 3, 2004, $1.89 a gallon.
Taking some serious time to relearn the old Van Morisson tune, “Brown-Eyed Girl”. I’ve played that before and faked it, so why the extra effort. I can explain. This new guitar player frees up my playing, he knows to play what sounds right even if it isn’t strictly in the original. This allows me to play closer to the studio bass like. In this case, it means me undoing decades of playing it wrong. I “smoothed out” a syncopated bass line to fit shallow guitar, and how I’m trying to revert. And it’s not so easy because the original is not a bass line, it is a guitar player trying to play a bass. That mean’s he keeps changing it slightly each pass, which makes sense to guitar players. There, how’s that for pure musical logic?
I took the morning off for study, waiting for confirmation of a final jam at the Prez’s place, as he is ready to move. This gave me time to go over the song list yet again and we have 26 tunes pretty much ready. Sad news, I checked in at the Kava bar to discover our contact and been fired. Cancel the Monday open mics. I’ll maybe sound the place out later if I get up that way. I had bought a magazine saying it would show me how to build a BWM generator out of discrete parts, but when I read the article, it was all integrated circuits. Disappointed, I set the magazine down and fell asleep till noon. But I sure woke up refreshed. The cucumber aroma is coming from the renovation across the way. It’s powerful stuff, but the concern it that it is surely intended to mask something even worse. Fetterman, the hick politican who shows up in sweats, has become unpredictably mindless and today wandered into traffice. There was talk of him seriously leading the Democrat party no that long ago. Instead, Fetterman is becoming unhinged while the party is chewing itself to death.
The Yeti battery is acting funny, but I have not isolated the problem to the unit itself. When charged in the van, it takes forever. I have to haul it in the house to use the wall charger and lithium or not, these are not weightless. It is supposed to have a complete safety mechanism that prevents it from drawing on a low vehicle battery. But it must be a one-way switch, because if I leave it plugged into the cigarette lighter overnight, the Yeti is flat dead in the morning. The Yeti is not at all the great battery backup source it claims to be. Not if it can go dead being left alone.
What the? Another Blackhawk copter down in another city up there? Kosmos 482, a failed Soviet probe from 1981, will crash back to Earth in one week. Chances are, it will hit the ocean traveling only 150 mph. But carry an umbrella just in case. The WWII archives finally being released seem to contain very little that was not already known. I once wanted to study then from 2005 onwards, but not one in a thousand is worth the read. But today, I saw a report stating that a German bomber shot down in Scotland had nearly 20,000 bullet holes. Now that is Teutonic workmanship.
Sumo wrestling trophy.
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We arrived for a final jam with the Prez and got some of it on video. A great session because the new guy gets instantly exposed to the techniques that make the sound without steep learning curve.. No preconceived notions, just playing what sounds fine. It sure takes the pressure off me. The Prez is great but at heart he is not a guitarist. He’s moving to the deep woods of Pennsylvania so he’l be playing mandolin on stage in no time. We played for three hours before anyone noticed it was getting dark, and only then because it began raining.
I repeat, these are very progressive sessions, moving along rapidly by band standards. I keep the focus on what needs work and this sets our time apart. Roberto has noticed the poor quality of other bands in this county. And by now, he knows we are the only acoustic bass duo. Few solo guitarists, no matter how good, can match our presentation and none can match our song list. Because 23 of our 26 songs are two-part arrangements, some of which I personally chose for this feature. Does it work? Ask Bradford. Nobody has seen him in months.
The jam session went surprisingly well because other than lacking an audience, these are precious “live” experience that I estimate works better than five or six practices. That’s judging by the material covered only, we also gain because it’s clear how things are supposed to sound. That’s a factor nearly impossible to duplicate any other way. I have no qualms about anybody using sheets or notes on stage, and in this case, an iPad. I’m distracted during these rather structured meetings because I keep the group focused on the elements that need work. It’s just one of the hallmarks of my method.
My first bands over fifty years ago, we had to play every song all the way through to practice only one part. I still regularly meet bands that have never learned to avoid that waste of time. Today, the tunes that stood out were “La Bamba” which needed a solid intro. “Sister Golden Hair” with the bass playing that lead intro, very slick sound that nobody expects. Buffet’s Come Monday” which needs extra punch because it lacks a bass line. And we aced “Secret Agent Man”.
One super-positive is the acceptance that strumming is more important than lead picking. This has been a hurdle in the past with guitarists who are protective. But this new guy gloms on to the system fast, that while I am playing lead notes, they are notes that could not be played while strumming. He’s given the riffs a fair listening and has mentioned he’s surprised how well it works. And the way that if something fitting can be played, it is never left out.
Other than that, we covered a lot of presentation technique, mostly from stage experience. This he follows intensely, it makes sense as a vocalist he would not have known about what to change when strumming behind a solo, or the best ways to emphasize what you want the audience to hear. Nor is it a surprise he’s left off intros, most guitarists do this when it is weak on guitar alone. Myself, I encourage intros as many stress the need for a good bassman.
I don’t know downtown Lakeland well, because it has a terrible parking situation. They are in a long-term refurbishment of downtown, making things even worse. The plan seems to be to turn the old downtown core into a shopping and night life district. It’s a lot better than the ghost town it was five years ago. Funny thing though, the changing fortunes of the neighborhood makes for oddities like some once-fancy and overbuild government office building now a candle shop or a tattoo parlor. That corner pub Trent and I visited in 2016 is now one of dozens, I may take a walking tour some afternoon soon. They’ve spend a lot of money.
ADDENDUM
Hoping it is nothing, I have a repeat incident to report. I fell down again for no reason. The last time was several years ago. This isn’t a good sign. I have no balance issues other than what’s known to be typical at my age. I’ll reach for a hand hold whenever I stand on one leg, but no hint of dizziness. This time I went to sit on a lawn chair and simply collapsed. No damage, I got up and went on my way. It’s that there was no reason that worries me. There was a third time, but that was way back when I had serious daily heart troubles. The way it happened today is a sign of something.
If you want another sign, it is the growing problem with homelessness. I view it rather harshly because I know exactly what these people had to leave out to get there. As a group they have defining characteristics and one of them is ingrained neglect (and sometimes outright refusal) to do what it needed to improve their lot. Am I right? Well, consider that over half the homeless live in California and almost all of them live in near the center of big cities. You may consider that a coincidence, where I consider it a consequence.
But let’s take a closer look. Where has the problem become the worst? Easy, wherever there is enough welfare to make homelessness a lifestyle choice. You can build shelters and they won’t go to them. Shelters have rules and regulations. There is talk of building them tiny homes but I could only support that if those homes were widespread and miles away from any city center. Otherwise they become instant ghettos and you’ll get them demanding “rights”, especially access to a society that doesn’t want them around. We have enough of a problem already with other classes of society whose worst fear is not poverty or hunger, but segregation. I shouldn’t have to spell that one out.
You also see an affinity for “excuse diseases” within this group, that is, conditions that supply them with excuses for being homeless, or violent, or criminal. The stupid become autistic, the violent usually opt for bipolar, and the chronically lazy hugely prefer attention-deficit. I’m not saying all this is wrong, but I would say it’s truly stupid to think nobody has noticed the pattern. The last thing this country needs is another sub-class bleeding off the system. Working people who live in cities also have a right to clean and safe streets. Homeless people should not have enough cash to hang out a Starbucks all day.
