Mostly regularly making/ writing tracks daily, a live bassist, live solo acoustic-ish thing, a lot of DJ-ing, some occasional Live Electronica, and micro-blo...
We went out to see a friend’s band last night, and I think it’s official, barring road gigs that must be seen—and you really do have to watch out with some of these older bands. Tracks, original member count, the ability to sing, stuff like that. It’s always a bit of a crapshoot, really. But--the point is that I don’t like being in the crowd. Yes, it’s good to see people, but a lot of these people…
One way to look at the whole DJing thing is whether you want to look at people’s fronts or backs. Personally, as a bassist, I wanna see the backs of people. I wanna be making things happen without being looked at directly. This is my issue with playing solo shows. And I think this is a binary thing for a lot of people. You are either lead guitar, lead singer material, or you are bassist material.…
One thing I’ve come to realize as I navigate this world of event people is, if you’re a musician or DJ and have your act together—like, you’ve got a thing, you’re presentable, your equipment is good and all that—you need to realize that it is a seller’s market. There are not enough good, smart, talented people to fill the jobs that need to be done. Only problem being: people don’t know how to…
In my younger days, when I just had one sister, who was three and a half years older than me, she did all the talking. And when I say all the talking, I mean all of it. My mom sometimes jokes that she never heard a peep out of me until I was eight years old. This, combined with a huge inclination toward music, made me a very internal person. Still, to this day, I can--at times-- be so quiet and so…
In an earlier post, I talked about all the ’90s music I was digging up as I was learning it for a solo show this month. Which, by the way, had a complaint. Someone complained about a song. No information, no song, no other things were said, but I’ve never had a registered complaint. I’ve gotten a lot of bad looks and stink eyes and shrugs and over-the-shoulder kind of business, but never an actual…
Today we call them Luddites and gatekeepers. But back then they were just a bunch of d*cks. For me, I listened to music in the '70s and '80s, and then became a teenager and found my own music (the Police). It was fine, but generally, all the classic rock people would never not let you know that their music was actually and exclusively real music. Whatever you were doing at the time, and listening…
When I was in sixth grade, I can distinctly remember a guy named Todd, who I still see from time to time these days, telling me I should play bass. I was interested in it anyway, because of my love of The Police and Sting. This would have been the mid-'80s. And that was it for me. Bass was my instrument. But I never really fought hard enough to get one. I tried to play upright in orchestra, and my…
Welcome to the (continuing) Sunday Ramble© series I was looking back at some music files that I’ve been working on, and it looks like--basically, I haven’t opened Ableton Live all summer. I think I really peaked when I did the South by Southwest show in March, an electronic set. I feel like I did a great job. But it wasn’t, like, 100%-good what I can do. And I think what’s really come up is I’m…
If you play guitar or have ever shopped for one somewhat thoroughly, you know that there’s a huge market for cosmetically aged guitars. That is, you can go to the guitar store and buy one that looks like it’s from the ‘60s. That looks like somebody’s played it, smoked on it, and defecated on it every day of their life. And it’s showing the battle scars. The idea is that you get the look and feel…
Back in the mid-90s in Austin, there was less than nothing to do. So we’d all go to school or work and then come home, watch The Simpsons , and then play guitars and talk about guitars. Mexican Fenders were a new thing. And the Japanese Fenders were coming back into the market too. And I remember actively making fun of a guy for having a Japanese Stratocaster. It seems ridiculous now, but this is…