Hi Ho Silver Lining

A friend of mine is no fan of my idol worship. I can't change who I am. A musician changes my perspective on music or just generally blows me away, I'm bowing down. I always have.

April 2009 was easily the worst month of my life. My partner of over six years changed the locks on the doors (sounds like a song, right?) and that was it.

April 16th in particular was difficult. I received an e-mail from her that was nothing short of excruciating. I'll spare you the details. It was same day that Jeff Beck would play the Park West. Quite the intimate venue compared to all the other places I had seen him. Tim and I met Linda there.

We sat close enough to see everything nicely. It was great. Jeff played unbelievable guitar, the band was good and the volume was just right. Not too loud. He even played "Over The Rainbow" as an encore.

After the show, we went outside and just talked to some people in front of the Park West. Terry from The Guitar Works was there. We talked to him a little and for some reason, Tim and Linda got into a discussion with a few geeky super fan types. Linda totally missed Seeing Tal, the bass player board the tour bus. Although we weren't trying to meet anybody, we were right near the bus. Cynthia Plaster Caster walked by with a tall normal looking guy who seemed to be very tired of her talking to fans about ..........plaster casting. He just stared into space while she answered all the usual questions. Then, they walked away.

All of a sudden, things just felt weird. Something was going on. The front door of the Park West had opened and a really fat bouncer came out walking real close to a medium sized bouncer. As they walked our way, I figured out what was happening. These guys were creating a human shield for JEFF BECK! He was in between these guys. They were walking him out to the bus. Here I am 47 years old, and I felt like a teen-aged girl at a Beatles concert. I was able to get past fat boy and stood right in front of Jeff. This was literally a childhood dream. To meet the one of the main people who had inspired me to play guitar.

I said, "Jeff, I've been listening since I was 13. Thanks for all those years of inspiration. I love ya, baby!" He looked right at me and gave me a huge smile, we shook hands and he got on the bus. I thought his hands were really soft for a guy who spends more time working on hot rods than playing guitar.

Tim and Linda had missed the whole exchange. We then went to get some food at a restaurant across the street. We talked about the show the whole time.

So, in a way, one of the worst days of my life was also one of the best days of my life. I have always thought that it was too bad that she would never know this story. She would have liked it.

My Foolish Heart

Sister Joan is one of the sweetest people I've ever met. She is a retired nun. One Sunday a month, she hosts a spiritual get together in her apartment. Most attendees are older women. They talk about all kinds of things and they pray.

I happened to be there helping her install something on her computer while one of her meetings was in session. Her computer was in the kitchen, on the other side of the apartment from where the meetings took place.

When the ladies took a break and came into the kitchen for some refreshments, I was introduced to everyone as a musician and computer expert. Like I said, sister Joan is very sweet.

One of the ladies named Gladys told me that her husband had been a full time musician throughout the midwest for many years. She casually mentioned that Bill Evans had been a friend of theirs. In the early 60's, Evans had asked her husband if while he was playing in the Chicago area, he could use their piano to practice.

Gladys said that one time Bill was practicing in the living room and she needed to run some errands. She asked him if he wouldn't mind keeping an eye on her three young children. When she returned home none of the kids greeted her at the door. She went to the living room and found them sitting close together on the floor, mesmerized by the sound of Bill Evans.

The picture of that in my head is priceless.

Keep it quiet? (music of the mind)

I listened to a piano player being interviewed on NPR a few years back. He was not well known. He said that while he was in the early stages of learning his instrument that his teacher had really pushed him to memorize as many standards as possible. He had learned hundreds of tunes. Years later, when he began to explore composition, he found every idea he came up with was usually one of those memorized songs.

Jimmy Webb recounted two separate occasions where he was with well known composers and invited them to his house. They were very reluctant to go. He wondered why. The truth was that they had both been afraid that Webb would being playing music while they were there. Composers actively working on projects don't want any outside musical influence.

I have gone through periods of constant listening. I felt like that was a good thing. I have listened to music while I was sleeping. Sometimes the same song all night. Lately, I am listening mostly to sirens outside my window. That and silence. It has left my mind open to new ideas. I hope those are original.

Berimbau

In 1983, my cousin Steve and I took a trip to southern California. I had been there once before. He had never been. I was interested in working out at World and Gold's Gym. He just wanted to have a fun trip. Both of us had grown up in Royal Oak, Michigan. A suburb of Detroit. The thing that attracted me to the Los Angeles area was diversity. Where we came from, there was a real lack of culture. We had never eaten at a real Mexican restaurant. Chi-Chi's was it as far as we were concerned. Hearing anyone speak Arabic was always cause for alarm and an openly gay guy usually got a chuckle from most people. Southern California was a very open and interesting place.

On our third day there, we had been out walking around in Santa Monica. As we walked back to our room, we passed a little guy with an Afro. He was carrying an attache case and something that looked like a bow. Something you would use to shoot an arrow with. Not a fancy bow. Like a kid would make. Steve and I didn't really discuss this guy, but we had both noticed him.

About an hour later, while we were in the room talking, Steve said, "did you see that guy with the bow?, I think it's some kind of weird instrument." I had thought the same thing. He had been holding a wood stick that looked like a chopstick. Steve went on, "yeah, it looks like he hits the string with that chopstick and that's how it works". We laughed. Honestly, we just thought he was some odd character.

The next day, I was out taking a few photos by myself and I saw this guy again.

He was waiting for a bus in front of the motel where we were staying. He had his bow. I now noticed that it also had a round bowl attached to one side of it. I really wanted to know more so I walked right up to him and asked him about this "instrument" he carried.

He told me it was called a berimbau and it was from Brazil. I asked him if he would demonstrate it for me. He held it upright with the metal string facing out. He started hitting the string with the chopstick which sounded really cool. He held a small round stone in his other hand and placed it at varying locations along the string. Basically, it was a movable fret. It changed the pitch of the note.

Then, he swished the chopstick on the outside of the bowl. That too was a great sound. The bowl's main function was to act like a resonator for the string's vibration. The opening of the bowl faced his stomach. He could keep it open and let it ring loud and clear or hold it close to his stomach and deaden it.

We talked for a while. He was from Brazil. I noticed amongst a bunch of stickers on his attache case, that one of them read "Royal Oak Music Theatre".

That was really interesting. I asked him if he had been there and he said that he had been a special guest on tour with someone. Who? Pat Metheny!

He said, "my name is Nana Vasconcelos". I asked him if he had played on Pat's song, Are You Going With Me? Of course, he had. I loved that song.

As I got more into Brazilian music, I realized that Nana was nothing short of a legend. He had worked with Milton Nascimento, Egberto Gismonti and Gato Barberi just to name a few. Our "odd character" had turned out to be quite special. See what I mean when I say lack of culture?

A very non-Irish St. Patrick's Day.

After making a couple of attempts at finding a job, I felt like I deserved some of the sun that was shining onto my front porch. I got a guitar and sat down to practice. I had only been playing for a few minutes when a man and woman walking by looked up to see where the music was coming from. The man was very interested and asked what kind of guitar I was playing. We talked as his friend waited. He said he had a guitar but it needed a new high E string. I told him that I would put one on for him. He asked how much I would charge and I told him he could have the whole set for $5. I only ended up changing the one string and still gave me $5.

His guitar was from a little electronics store in the neighborhood. It was a 3/4 size sunburst model. I tuned it the best I could. The intonation was really bad. It was impossible to get it totally in tune. But he was happy. He said, "I love chords". So I played a series of chords on his guitar. His reaction to each chord was not unlike someone watching a fireworks display. I played a B minor7 and he went "oooh", A minor9 "ahhh", C major9 "hey". Finally an E minor11 and he said "aw, you're killin' me".

We talked for a while. His name was Duane. He lived three doors down. He invited me over to drink some beer on the balcony of his third floor apartment. On the way there he asked how much I would charge to give him lessons. I told him $15 for a half hour. He said that he needed a tuner and "one of them things that keeps time, a methadone". He had forgotten his keys and began ringing the doorbell a bunch of times. A woman yelled from the balcony "who's ringing that bell like that?"
Duane said, "I'm sorry sugga wugga, I forgot my keys". She buzzed us in.
This woman turned out to be his wife. He introduced us and she had this look like, who is this guy you're bringing into our apartment? He said, "Dan's my guitar teacher we're going to play out on the balcony". His wife said, "I hope you don't drive all the neighbors inside". Duane said, "are you kiddin', we're gonna bring 'em out!"

Once we settled in on the balcony with a couple of cans of Icehouse, Duane played me a few things he knew and gave me an idea of what he'd like to learn. He looked at his watch and said, "ok, the lessons start NOW". It was 6 pm. He gave me a $20 bill and I gave him his $5 back. I wrote out some nice chord progressions and showed him how to play the voicings. He was really excited. At 6:30, the sun was going down and we were done. He brought out a calender and marked down his next lesson. March 24th. He gave me a fresh Icehouse for the road.

Sometimes, you just gotta listen.

Several years ago, I was very excited about route 66. The newly de-certified route 66. De-certified because interstates made it redundant. It was in vogue to travel the old road. It wasn't like you could just get on in Chicago and drive for four days and be in L.A. anymore. De-certified means little or no maintenance and plenty of dead ends. You had to really want to drive this road. There were a lot of detours and you got lost often.

The route 66 society of Illinois planned a road trip on the stretch that ran from Chicago to St. Louis. It lasted a weekend. Saturday night there was a block party for the participants of the road trip. It took place in downtown Springfield, Illinois. I met an older couple that had been dancing in the street. The woman told me that her and her husband had been in a Western Swing band in the 50's and that they had played many roadhouses along the old route 66. I asked her what Gallup, New Mexico was like. I had never been there and that name Gallup just sounded cool to me. I figured great things happened there. Nat King Cole made it sound important. I'll never forget her response. She said "Gallup is all drunk Indians".
I couldn't believe it. All I could think was that these were some serious rednecks who didn't know anything. Me with all of my culture would surely find all kinds of wonderful things in Gallup.

A few years later I drove the old road through New Mexico. When I got to Gallup, the main drag was very lit up. I found a motel and pulled into the driveway. There were some people off in the shadows near one of the rooms. I didn't pay too much attention to them. I parked. As I sat in the car for a minute, I looked in the rear view mirror only to see that these people were two Indians lifting a third very drunk Indian off of the sidewalk.

Tonight, I decided to go out and sit in at a bar I had heard about but never been to.
Let's just call this bar Snuckles to protect the innocent (and me). A review on the internet said, "white trash, convict and crack-ho heaven!" I thought no way could it really be that bad. First off, a little white trash never hurt anyone. Convicts? How would a person even know? Horizontal black stripes on a white outfit? One of those ball and chain deals hooked onto their ankles? And lastly, I think some people just love using a cliche like crack-ho. It sounds real hip. How many actual crack-hos do we ever really see?

I walked in with my amp and guitar and sat down near a window. The house band members were all fooling with a Casio keyboard. It sounded awful. A guy began playing The Entertainer. You know, maybe a keyboard player would play a few bars of that and there would be a chuckle or two and the joke would be over. This guy played the whole tune with fervor. And one of the worst keyboard sounds imaginable. It was like a slow death. This band could have been called White Trash. Then I overheard two guys talking (yelling) to each other about a mutual friend that was doing five years in the big house. They seemed to be delighted. One of these guys had one of those truck driver kidney belts on and a special harness that held a CD player right in the middle of his lumbar region. When it was shift change time, the new bar maid walked in with her poorly died dark red hair. As she walked past, she smiled a semi-toothless smile at me. She looked like I would imagine a "crack-ho" to look like.

I left before the house band started to play.