Its barely creeping its way now, finally ... a little light is starting to show itself to me. I'm talking about the digital recording world in case you're wondering. Way back in like 1984/85 or so? I was tooling along there with my Fostex X-18 4 track cassette recorder and my Alesis SR16 digital drum machine. I was doing what I call "sketch padding" some songs. And then the digital recording world reared its ugly head and stepped into the picture. It was "the new thing" and it was aggressively taking over the entire recording world. Being the rebel in nature that I tend to be I said "fuck you digital recording" and slowly let it all go to the wayside. "You got me" ... "Fuck it, it probably wasn't going to be a good idea anyway" "sour grapes" yadda yadda ....
Well, I just like music damnit, and fuck it, if ya can't beat 'em join 'em right? I asked around from people I know for advice. People who I look up to and people who do that shit for a living. There's a concept ... just ask someone who KNOWS right? So I get to talking one night to a buddy who's a drummer for a fairly well known band in Texas (at least). I try to go see them when they get close and play a gig somewhere. They're just damn good ole regular guys trying to make it in the music business. Not doing too bad either I might add.
But anyway, after talking to this drummer who kinda has his own home studio and is into recording, Pro Tools, etc, I talked to another friend. A record producer/recording engineer/genius/musician/you friggin name it! ........... I decided I should get a macbook pro first and foremost, and then some kind of interface. My drummer friend had insisted on Focusrite because it has the "Neve" pre's in it. I know, this is "shop talk" lol. Rupert Neve is like a recording guru in the world of recording. He's regarded as the God of mixing boards by some of the best in the business. Dave Grohl of Nirvana and Foo Fighters fame features Neve in Grohl's documentary; Sound City. That's a kick ass documentary by the way! I highly recommend watching it 3 or 4 times at least. Its really THAT good. No shit.
So here's where I am right now. I probably SHOULD get Pro Tools.
But do I really NEED it? Its like a $700.00 question right now.
I have the macbook pro ... and I have an interface. A Focusrite 2i4 to be exact.
The macbook pro comes with a program called "Garageband" ... its a regular factory installed program included with the laptop. Now, from all the video watching and reading I've been doing on this whole thing I have found out I never really needed a macbook pro in the first place. There are a lot of PC based programs out there. I didn't even really need an interface either if I wanted to get downright technical about it. NEED being the key word here. I could have used a 1/4" to 1/8" mono cord and hooked right into the headphone jack. If I was doing it "bare bones poor mans ways" it would be the way to go. Just be careful not to fuck up your jack inputs by putting stress on them. Like everything, use a little common sense right? Getting the macbook was a wise choice I believe. At least in the long run. Garageband looks to have a ton of potential for what I was looking to do though, which is continue to "sketchpad" songs. I have finally figured out how to make my interface communicate with Garageband. But that also means I can most likely figure it out on most any DAW ... that's "shop talk" for digital audio workstation.
I guess the real question here is, how far does a person want to go with it? Before turning it over to the pros?
I have no real desire to be a recording engineer guru type of person. Although I have the utmost respect for the craft. I just have some songs that might be good. "Might" being the keyword here.
Still thinking about it all ......... I'll let you know what I do.
Peace to all ..
Saturday, December 6, 2014
Tuesday, November 25, 2014
So You Want To Be A Rock Star?
Just a quick blurb of some randomly occurring thoughts. When I first started playing guitar I totally admit I wanted to be a rock star. I was all in man! I locked myself away for 8 hours or more every day learning to play along with records. Pretty much the same old story I hear from the big rock stars I've heard interviews and read interviews about. Then one day all that changed and regular life stepped into the picture. I quit devoting all of my free time to it. I never fully quit though, I just didn't play much for several years and really didn't know anyone around here (where I ended up) that played music. Much less Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Judas Priest, etc etc ... This IS Arkansas after all.
I eventually found a few people here and there and pretty soon had 3 pieces of a band. So we jammed like that for a while. Two guitars and a drummer. We finally found a guy to come play bass with us once but that was about where we were stuck. It was a one time deal. Eventually more regular life (wives and kids) came along and we hung it up. By that time I didn't even want to be a rock star anyway. I think that had a lot to do with looking at it from a different perspective. But anyway, this time I hung it up so to speak for 25 or so years. "It" ... being anything to do that involved music in my life at a serious level. Like making a living at it. Or even just being in a good cover band as a hobby for that matter. I have sat in on some gigs with bands over the years and even played in a short lived bar band when I was like 19 or so. The Corn Band lol. Maybe I'll do a post on that sometime.
Fast forward to a couple of years ago and damn if I didn't do it again. This time I got serious about it. My buddy that I had last jammed with got to coming around visiting me after my motorcycle wreck and we got to talking about the old days and playing guitar. Neither of us had ever quit playing. Next thing you know we're jamming together again. I figured maybe I could do it for physical therapy since I didn't get any of that after my accident. Fast forward a couple of years and now were playing live in front of people. BUT its a lot of work and its always a work in progress if you're doing it right.
If you really want to be a rock star, more power to you! But you better be prepared to work your ass off at it and devote yourself to it like a marriage or something.
Personally, I couldn't do it if I wanted to because of physical limitations. In fact, if you see me playing there's a 99.999% chance I'm on the pain pills pretty hard and heavy. Thankfully they don't make me stagger all around the stage. When you NEED them they don't get you all buzzed like all those "hydro heads" out there take them for. There's a lot of work involved in just having a decent cover band, not to mention the money you have to invest into it. Don't do it FOR the money though. You'll find yourself usually making minimum wage if you're lucky.
I eventually found a few people here and there and pretty soon had 3 pieces of a band. So we jammed like that for a while. Two guitars and a drummer. We finally found a guy to come play bass with us once but that was about where we were stuck. It was a one time deal. Eventually more regular life (wives and kids) came along and we hung it up. By that time I didn't even want to be a rock star anyway. I think that had a lot to do with looking at it from a different perspective. But anyway, this time I hung it up so to speak for 25 or so years. "It" ... being anything to do that involved music in my life at a serious level. Like making a living at it. Or even just being in a good cover band as a hobby for that matter. I have sat in on some gigs with bands over the years and even played in a short lived bar band when I was like 19 or so. The Corn Band lol. Maybe I'll do a post on that sometime.
Fast forward to a couple of years ago and damn if I didn't do it again. This time I got serious about it. My buddy that I had last jammed with got to coming around visiting me after my motorcycle wreck and we got to talking about the old days and playing guitar. Neither of us had ever quit playing. Next thing you know we're jamming together again. I figured maybe I could do it for physical therapy since I didn't get any of that after my accident. Fast forward a couple of years and now were playing live in front of people. BUT its a lot of work and its always a work in progress if you're doing it right.
If you really want to be a rock star, more power to you! But you better be prepared to work your ass off at it and devote yourself to it like a marriage or something.
Personally, I couldn't do it if I wanted to because of physical limitations. In fact, if you see me playing there's a 99.999% chance I'm on the pain pills pretty hard and heavy. Thankfully they don't make me stagger all around the stage. When you NEED them they don't get you all buzzed like all those "hydro heads" out there take them for. There's a lot of work involved in just having a decent cover band, not to mention the money you have to invest into it. Don't do it FOR the money though. You'll find yourself usually making minimum wage if you're lucky.
Saturday, November 15, 2014
Breaking In a new bass player
Hey folks, hope all is well with everyone. We had a nice practice session last night with our newest bass player. Hopefully this one will work out because its getting a little old now. Our last bass player was good and also very good at singing harmony. Its back to the dreaded machine for our singer now I guess because I'm not singing with thing lol. I'm just too old school for those things. This new guy (hate to call him that, but) is pretty cool and he's a helluva good bass player. He doesn't sing, but his sister damn sure does! I'm thinking she was on Nashville Star once but it may have been American Idol. Either way, she's a great singer and wants to come practice with us. Hopefully that will happen next time around. We ran through a pretty decent chunk of our songs, about enough for 2 long sets at least. Its going to take him some getting used to us and us to him, but we should be in good shape pretty soon. He's gig-able now but we'd like to polish things a bit first. We're in no big hurry.
Since my last post here I have went off the deep end just a little. I've decided that since I already knew a little bit about recording (4 track cassette and a drum machine lol) I should get back into that. At least enough to produce a demo for the band. I figured I could buy everything to do it for about the same price as having a good studio do it for us. Only this time around I'm having to step into the very thing that made me hang it up (recording) in the first place. Digital recording. I don't even like the sound of that word, much less typing it, but there it is. I got myself a MacBook Pro and a Focusrite 2i4 digital interface so far. Even with the free mixing software that comes with the interface has me totally lost lol. So far I have learned to hook it up (the interface) and get the software to acknowledge the interface. But that's about where I get stuck. So, its back to the tutorials for me on that. I'll keep you posted ......
Since my last post here I have went off the deep end just a little. I've decided that since I already knew a little bit about recording (4 track cassette and a drum machine lol) I should get back into that. At least enough to produce a demo for the band. I figured I could buy everything to do it for about the same price as having a good studio do it for us. Only this time around I'm having to step into the very thing that made me hang it up (recording) in the first place. Digital recording. I don't even like the sound of that word, much less typing it, but there it is. I got myself a MacBook Pro and a Focusrite 2i4 digital interface so far. Even with the free mixing software that comes with the interface has me totally lost lol. So far I have learned to hook it up (the interface) and get the software to acknowledge the interface. But that's about where I get stuck. So, its back to the tutorials for me on that. I'll keep you posted ......
Sunday, October 26, 2014
Gone But Never Forgotten
Hey folks, its been a while but here I am again. Life has really taken a sharp turn for me lately, but not all of it has been bad. Despite losing my favorite uncle in the whole world things have been okay. I've been depressed over it but it was expected for a while. He had cancer and it was pretty aggressive, although I forget the type (there's so many). Day by day its getting easier, but I'll always miss him till my last day here. My band played another gig last night and it was one of our better performances if not the best yet. Despite not having a bass player I thought we sounded pretty good, and that was no fluke. We worked on it. We did it the old fashioned way, just paying attention to details and making sure everything is hooked up correctly when its time to start flipping power switches. Then we did our sound check. First up came the drums. One by one (microphones) we fine tuned them on the mixer, and then it was our singer's turn. After that we dialed in the guitars and tried out a song and made a couple of fine adjustments and walla!! We were ready to rock n roll. We shut it all down and went home to get ready for later that night. It was a Halloween party and I'd say everything went pretty well as far as the gig & party goes. We were all on top of our game at the same time and everything just clicked along like a well oiled machine. And our singer won best costume for his Joe Dirt look.
I played my uncle Bob's old Gibson ES-330 for the first time ever at a gig. That old guitar and me go a long way back. I think I'd have to do a full blog post on that history to do it justice. My uncle Bob passed away a few weeks ago from cancer and I was pretty close to him my whole life. Even while he was in the Navy we wrote letters back and forth (we didn't have email back in those days) and when he got out and moved to Arkansas, with me in Illinois, we still wrote letters and talked on the phone occasionally until I finally moved to Arkansas myself after a stint in the Army. We were co-workers on two different occasions and one of those lasted several years. So we were pretty tight as you can probably tell. After the funeral my cousin Bobbi presented me with that guitar to hold on to for a while once again. Words cannot express how that felt to me. Of course I assured her it would receive the same good care I used with it back in my younger days and told her I was going to put that guitar back on the stage in his honor. Uncle Bob played in bands a lot in his younger days but this guitar had not been touched for a long time.
I invited my cousin, Bobbi and uncle Bob's wife, aunt Vada to the party to see uncle Bob's guitar back in action. When I picked up that guitar and strapped it on for Jamie Johnson's, In Color, there were a few hearts that skipped a beat or two (including mine). It made my cousin cry, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't the bad kind of crying. She said it was the perfect song to honor uncle Bob with, and I agree. It was actually suggested by my buddy, Steve, our lead guitar player. As soon as he said it I knew that was THE song. After a couple more songs I'd had about all I could handle for the time being. I didn't want to start bawling on the stage lol. Uncle Bob was right there with me all night in spirit. Something (strange?) happened at the gig before this one. It was on the same day uncle Bob passed away. I didn't find out until after we were finished playing and saw my missed calls and text messages. While we were playing, and while my uncle was passing away, my amplifier volume turned up a little. I'll just say it kinda blows my mind thinking about it and leave it at that...... Until we meet on the other side and get together for some pickin'. Rest In Peace Uncle Bob ... I love you forever man.
I played my uncle Bob's old Gibson ES-330 for the first time ever at a gig. That old guitar and me go a long way back. I think I'd have to do a full blog post on that history to do it justice. My uncle Bob passed away a few weeks ago from cancer and I was pretty close to him my whole life. Even while he was in the Navy we wrote letters back and forth (we didn't have email back in those days) and when he got out and moved to Arkansas, with me in Illinois, we still wrote letters and talked on the phone occasionally until I finally moved to Arkansas myself after a stint in the Army. We were co-workers on two different occasions and one of those lasted several years. So we were pretty tight as you can probably tell. After the funeral my cousin Bobbi presented me with that guitar to hold on to for a while once again. Words cannot express how that felt to me. Of course I assured her it would receive the same good care I used with it back in my younger days and told her I was going to put that guitar back on the stage in his honor. Uncle Bob played in bands a lot in his younger days but this guitar had not been touched for a long time.
I invited my cousin, Bobbi and uncle Bob's wife, aunt Vada to the party to see uncle Bob's guitar back in action. When I picked up that guitar and strapped it on for Jamie Johnson's, In Color, there were a few hearts that skipped a beat or two (including mine). It made my cousin cry, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't the bad kind of crying. She said it was the perfect song to honor uncle Bob with, and I agree. It was actually suggested by my buddy, Steve, our lead guitar player. As soon as he said it I knew that was THE song. After a couple more songs I'd had about all I could handle for the time being. I didn't want to start bawling on the stage lol. Uncle Bob was right there with me all night in spirit. Something (strange?) happened at the gig before this one. It was on the same day uncle Bob passed away. I didn't find out until after we were finished playing and saw my missed calls and text messages. While we were playing, and while my uncle was passing away, my amplifier volume turned up a little. I'll just say it kinda blows my mind thinking about it and leave it at that...... Until we meet on the other side and get together for some pickin'. Rest In Peace Uncle Bob ... I love you forever man.
Saturday, August 2, 2014
Is "Big Music" Dead?
Looking at my stats, nobody's reading this anyway so I'll think of it as my little journal of random musings about music stuff. I really don't give a hoot one way or the other I just feel the need to write it down sometimes. To get it "out of my system" so to speak. Maybe its the lack of tags? I did notice one particular post of mine that had several hits and it had "tags" so maybe that's the way to get readership? I'll try it on this post and see what happens. Maybe some hyperlinks too. I'm kinda curious about it now. I'm just writing and thinking it up as I go along. Sometimes a subject gets to me and I start thinking about it deeply. I just watched a video and it mentioned the decline of the music industry. I have been hearing that for a long time now. Several years now in fact.
But is the music industry really in decline or has the game just changed? I think the game has changed tremendously for the stereotypical industry "fat cats" of years gone by. People have started buying music by the song now. Back in the day an artist made an album and sold a collection of their songs at once. Some of those songs weren't too great either as I remember. It seemed like there was a formula and they would put a certain amount of "singles" on it and the rest was "filler" material. Seems to me that now there's more incentive there for an artist to try for making an album where all the songs were singles.
I have noticed a decline in the amount of CD's on the shelf at Wal-Mart over the years too. Maybe its just the one I'm going to? Possible but thinking back 15 or 20 years I can remember when there were lots more CD's for sale on shelves and a lot of stores. I think there might be a record store at the mall 50 miles away from me. Target still sells some CD's also but I can't think of many places to buy them around here. I have to consider though that I DO live in a very small town. The nearest "big town" for me is 50 miles away, and its not that big. A lot of people have went the Amazon way now too. Buying things online has become a pretty big industry over the past 20 years or so.
The music industry has definitely changed a lot over the decades. Now it seems its almost anyone's game with enough drive, talent, and ambition behind them. Computers and software are a big part of that change too. With a Mac and Pro Tools and some other home studio equipment people can make recording that sound as good as anything you buy off the shelf. Some people are very proficient with all those tools at their disposal and there's a growing Indie market out there with several choices when it comes to outlets for selling your own tunes. Anyone can sell their music on itunes now as I understand (although I personally don't use itunes). One outlet I have used is cdbaby and they bill themselves as "the best independent music store on the web" and I have no doubt they are.
Another factor in this games is that now with youtube, anyone can learn to play guitar or other instruments. I know people who give lessons over Skype now too. There's a ton of guitar lesson videos on youtube for free. People also do covers as a sort of lesson. The downside to it is that there's a lot of crap on there lol. I have been through no telling how many bad videos looking for good ones. After a while you do find a lot of good teachers on youtube. To help some of you out if you're interested in checking out some of the better players and lesson givers out there I'll share some of my favorites with you. There's privettricker, who plays covers and though not technically "lessons" in the traditional sense, he's very good. More for advanced players like myself who just want to get the progression down quicker etc.. There's another great player on youtube who goes by the name tonedr and he is bad ass! He does tutorials on a lot of good songs and is in a few bands also. One of the bands he plays in features Lauren Mink who was a contestant on American Idol a couple of years back. He also plays in a project band called The Lexington Lab Band. Here's a video of just one of their many covers. This one is The Lexington Lab Band covering Aerosmith's Dream On. Check out all of their covers if you have a chance. They have different singers and musicians that sit in with them and they are all top notch. One of the more well known teachers out there is a guy named Marty Schwartz. He has a LOT of lessons on his channel(s). Marty is the type of teacher that walks you through the lesson step by step. Another guy like that is Justin Sandercoe, and in my opinion one of THE best guitar teachers out there. Like Marty, he goes through songs step by step and he's very thorough about it. AND he has that British accent that a lot of people seem to enjoy. Everything is free with Justin. He also has a website where you can get tabs etc,. He has two youtube channels also. The above link is one and his other one is called JustinGuitar Songs. His website is here http://justinguitar.com/
So is big music dead? Maybe ...... but there's a lot of good music still out there. And plenty to chose from too. It looks to me like bands that want to be successful these days just have to get out there and play every gig they can get their hands on. If you have a record/CD for sale, being out there playing in live venues is a good place to sell them. Back in the day a signed artist made an album and went on tour to promote it. Hopefully they would have a hit single or two and rake in a lot of cash and get to sit on their ass for a while and enjoy life. I think those days are kinda faded now and artists have to keep at it a lot harder than they did in the old days. A lot of bands operate on shoestring budgets and tour like hell for a year or so until they can save up enough to kick back for a month. And then its right back on the road again if you want to make any money. In a sense its always been like that but what's changed is the money and album sales. A whole lot of people these days buy ONE song at a time on itunes and that has surely put a huge dent in the Album/CD sales department.
Anywho .... that's about all I have to say for now on this subject.
Peace out good people ...
But is the music industry really in decline or has the game just changed? I think the game has changed tremendously for the stereotypical industry "fat cats" of years gone by. People have started buying music by the song now. Back in the day an artist made an album and sold a collection of their songs at once. Some of those songs weren't too great either as I remember. It seemed like there was a formula and they would put a certain amount of "singles" on it and the rest was "filler" material. Seems to me that now there's more incentive there for an artist to try for making an album where all the songs were singles.
I have noticed a decline in the amount of CD's on the shelf at Wal-Mart over the years too. Maybe its just the one I'm going to? Possible but thinking back 15 or 20 years I can remember when there were lots more CD's for sale on shelves and a lot of stores. I think there might be a record store at the mall 50 miles away from me. Target still sells some CD's also but I can't think of many places to buy them around here. I have to consider though that I DO live in a very small town. The nearest "big town" for me is 50 miles away, and its not that big. A lot of people have went the Amazon way now too. Buying things online has become a pretty big industry over the past 20 years or so.
The music industry has definitely changed a lot over the decades. Now it seems its almost anyone's game with enough drive, talent, and ambition behind them. Computers and software are a big part of that change too. With a Mac and Pro Tools and some other home studio equipment people can make recording that sound as good as anything you buy off the shelf. Some people are very proficient with all those tools at their disposal and there's a growing Indie market out there with several choices when it comes to outlets for selling your own tunes. Anyone can sell their music on itunes now as I understand (although I personally don't use itunes). One outlet I have used is cdbaby and they bill themselves as "the best independent music store on the web" and I have no doubt they are.
Another factor in this games is that now with youtube, anyone can learn to play guitar or other instruments. I know people who give lessons over Skype now too. There's a ton of guitar lesson videos on youtube for free. People also do covers as a sort of lesson. The downside to it is that there's a lot of crap on there lol. I have been through no telling how many bad videos looking for good ones. After a while you do find a lot of good teachers on youtube. To help some of you out if you're interested in checking out some of the better players and lesson givers out there I'll share some of my favorites with you. There's privettricker, who plays covers and though not technically "lessons" in the traditional sense, he's very good. More for advanced players like myself who just want to get the progression down quicker etc.. There's another great player on youtube who goes by the name tonedr and he is bad ass! He does tutorials on a lot of good songs and is in a few bands also. One of the bands he plays in features Lauren Mink who was a contestant on American Idol a couple of years back. He also plays in a project band called The Lexington Lab Band. Here's a video of just one of their many covers. This one is The Lexington Lab Band covering Aerosmith's Dream On. Check out all of their covers if you have a chance. They have different singers and musicians that sit in with them and they are all top notch. One of the more well known teachers out there is a guy named Marty Schwartz. He has a LOT of lessons on his channel(s). Marty is the type of teacher that walks you through the lesson step by step. Another guy like that is Justin Sandercoe, and in my opinion one of THE best guitar teachers out there. Like Marty, he goes through songs step by step and he's very thorough about it. AND he has that British accent that a lot of people seem to enjoy. Everything is free with Justin. He also has a website where you can get tabs etc,. He has two youtube channels also. The above link is one and his other one is called JustinGuitar Songs. His website is here http://justinguitar.com/
So is big music dead? Maybe ...... but there's a lot of good music still out there. And plenty to chose from too. It looks to me like bands that want to be successful these days just have to get out there and play every gig they can get their hands on. If you have a record/CD for sale, being out there playing in live venues is a good place to sell them. Back in the day a signed artist made an album and went on tour to promote it. Hopefully they would have a hit single or two and rake in a lot of cash and get to sit on their ass for a while and enjoy life. I think those days are kinda faded now and artists have to keep at it a lot harder than they did in the old days. A lot of bands operate on shoestring budgets and tour like hell for a year or so until they can save up enough to kick back for a month. And then its right back on the road again if you want to make any money. In a sense its always been like that but what's changed is the money and album sales. A whole lot of people these days buy ONE song at a time on itunes and that has surely put a huge dent in the Album/CD sales department.
Anywho .... that's about all I have to say for now on this subject.
Peace out good people ...
Sunday, July 27, 2014
Another "Good Deed" gig in the books
We played another benefit gig tonight in a tiny little Arkansas town called New Hope. A benefit gig is what I call a freebie gig. Because we don't get paid a nickel for doing them. In fact it costs us money to do them. Gas isn't cheap these days and when you're pulling an enclosed trailer full of music equipment behind you the gas mileage goes to hell no matter what kind of vehicle you're using to pull it. I don't mind doing things to help people out. Tonight we helped raise money for a guy with cancer that has medical bills stacking up on him. But with my current financial situation I feel like we should be putting on a benefit show for me and my family. People around here always seem to pull together and raise money to help some people out with medical bills etc. Its one of the things I like best about living in the south where there still seems to be a little humanity left in the world. But not everyone gets a benefit in hard times. Its usually a "somebody" that gets the benefits and rarely a real poor person who probably needs it the most. It is what it is I guess.
One thing for sure I have learned about having a band is that there is no lack of people that will hit you up to do a free concert. Its always for a worthy cause, but still. When you are as poor as I am right now its hard to pull something like that off. A free benefit performance is NOT free to the band. It costs us money to do it. As in gasoline to get bet to the gig and back. Not to mention every bit of the amount of hard work that goes into setting up and breaking down the equipment.I figured it put one night out of curiosity and divied what we made on a paying gig and it was pretty much minimum wage at best.
As usual I'm broke and way behind in bills still. Somehow my internet is still working and I still haven't tackled that bill. Right now we're struggling to keep electricity on and the house payment made.That's a never ending thing for me these last 5 years since my motorcycle accident. Since its looking more and more like social security is going to give me the shaft I'm left not knowing what the hell I'm going to do. My situation is so bad that I am literally nearing homelessness. I've got a 600 dollar electric bill sitting on the table with the rest of the bills and the house payment is late again this month. And on top of that the note on the house is up for renewal. Basically I feel like I'm pretty screwed at this point. We got so far behind last year that the banker was nice enough to let us slide and refinance. We had gotten 6 months behind on payments when he did that. But when he did that for us he also told us we were now on a one year renewable note and not one payment could be late. So far 3 have been late since that refinance. I know he's trying his best to help up out but there's only so much a banker can do since they have some pretty strict rules they have to follow. Especially since the post 9/11 economy. The "Patriot" Act included lots of new rules for banking institutions also. We use a private family owned bank who until 9/11 pretty much played by their own rules. They were THE bank to deal with around here locally. But now they have been clamped down upon by the mighty powers that be big banks and things have changed drastically.
I know that if worse comes to worse he will give us a chance to sell the house before foreclosing. Since I currently live with my ex-wife and she got the house in the divorce my hands a tied as to anything I have a say over. And the fact that I have no income to speak of just makes me that much worse off. What I'm looking at and seeing as a good possibility right now is that if she ends up losing this little dump we call home, she can get herself a place with rental assistance since her health is shit and she can't work a regular job and we have a son who lives at home she can get herself a place for practically nothing. But if she did I wouldn't be allowed to live there according to rules. And a single disabled guy who for some reason can't get disability to acknowledge what their own doctors say about me I'm screwed. Reading through the ALJ's decision letter on my disability hearing looks like I'm reading a decision that has nothing to do with my case. Even the first paragraph of that letter told me something reeked bad. The Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) stated that "even though the client was aware of his rights to representation he chose to represent himself". That statement alone should nullify his decision in my case. I DID have an attorney and he was present at my hearing and did a lot of talking on my behalf including cross examining social securities own expert/doctor witnesses just to clarify what we heard when they made their statements regarding my medical and mental conditions. Both expert witness doctors basically testified in my favor for disability. They agreed with the same doctors that social security sent me to that basically said "this man is disabled in my opinion". The "judge" based his entire decision on a question I answered on the initial application that basically said I felt I was capable of feeding a dog and letting it in and out of the house. Its insane ... that's all I can say about it.
So going back to the freebie gig we did tonight. I think at one time there might have been 12 to 15 people who actually pulled a lawn chair down close to where we were playing and listened to us. As usual (it seems) our bass player let us down AGAIN and couldn't show up for the gig. He didn't even let any of us know until Friday night when he didn't show for practice AGAIN and the gig was Saturday. Its actually Sunday as I'm writing this at 2am still a little steamed over the whole thing. We couldn't find a stand in bass player even though we did try. He doesn't know a lot of our songs though either so it might have turned out not so great anyway. We have jammed with the guy twice now though and he's good. There's no doubt in my mind that he could easily step in and take our current bass players place. And once he got the songs down and pretty well memorized he would literally play circles around our current bass player. Don't get me wrong though, our current bass player is pretty damn good in general. And he's a walking jukebox to boot. And the best part about him is that he really harmonizes excellent with our lead singer. He sings some of our songs himself and does pretty good but tends to slow down or something when he plays and sings at the same time so he's best at singing backing vocals.
One little problem about the guy .... he's a bad alcoholic. I mean BAD bad. I know where he's at too because I used to be the same way until my motorcycle accident crippled me for life. I didn't drink anything for about a year after my accident. And then one night it was Halloween and there was a big party going on and long story short I got drunk. First time since my motorcycle wreck. That was a huge mistake! I rolled my truck that night 3 times. It broke my collar bone (seat belt) and bruised me up and cut me up pretty good but it didn't break any of the screws or rods in my back luckily. Got another DWI out of that one too. My second in a little over a year. That's when I finally said "fuck drinking" and I have never been drunk again since. I will drink up to 3 beers at a gig and once or twice had 4 but that's it for me. Sometimes I just drink ice water or Dr Pepper with ice in it. Lately that's all I've been drinking on stage since the beers are 3 dollars a piece for a draft beer at this pizza place we've been playing lately. So far they haven't charged us for ice water or Cokes but they sure will charge you for a beer lol. For years I've always thought bands got to drink beer for free as part of the gig. Maybe that's for bands that use contracts and have riders on them but its not for us regular Joe bands I guess. Anyway, our bass player has gotten drunk at a lot of our gigs and he can't slowly drink or anything. He gets two at a time (not kidding) and guzzles them down in no time. A few gigs ago at the pizza place his wife ordered 2 pizzas at about 20 bucks a piece and drinks for her and two kids (she doesn't drink alcohol btw) and at the end of the night when the waitress brought the bill, shit hit the fan!! We knew he was in deep shit for some reason but we didn't figure it out until days or maybe a week later. As soon as we were done playing she told him to get his ass in the car NOW and "lets go". We had to pack his bass and equipment up for him and take it home. We found out later that the bill for that night was well over 150 dollars. So I got to thinking, 40 bucks maybe on pizza and just say 2 bucks times 3 for drinks. I think refills are free. There's 46 dollars on pizza and drinks for her and the kids. The rest of the bill was out bass players beer tab. If I remember correctly the bill was $153.and change. That's 107 dollars in beer. That's more than the gig even pays! The beers there cost 3 dollars a piece so that's like 35 beers he drank that night. He tripped and fell on the stage during a break and totally destroyed the music stand we were using. My music stand, and he never even offered to replace it or say "sorry" either.
But this is nothing new really. He's been known to get torn down at a lot of our gigs. I think our third gig was the time he puked on the stage next to his mic stand. And if you say anything to him he gets mad and wants to fight somebody. His wife gives the rest of us these go to hell looks all the time like she despises us or something. Its almost like she blames us for his drinking, whether anyone else is drinking or not. The rest of us can take it or leave it, nobody else is much of a drinker and we know better than to get too tipsy. I know one thing, its quite a sight to see a person playing bass and blacking out drunk at the same time. He starts just playing a different song or something and you look over at him and his head is down and his eyes are closed like he's passing out. A few times in practice sessions I thought he was about to fall on his face any minute. That's when its time to shut it down for the night. It gets downright embarrassing at times though at gigs. I think its a matter of time before his wife makes him quit playing with us. Its a shame too but he just won't cut the drinking out or even down. When he drinks one its like a trigger that makes him want to chain drink until he passes out I guess.
Well I'm signing off for now. Don't know what the coming days have in store for me. They're due to shut our electricity off on the 30th. So much for the free internet connection lol. May as well try to laugh about it, beats crying and I'm getting tired of that shit anyway.
Peace, Love and Music ............ Hopeless Musician in Arkansas :/
One thing for sure I have learned about having a band is that there is no lack of people that will hit you up to do a free concert. Its always for a worthy cause, but still. When you are as poor as I am right now its hard to pull something like that off. A free benefit performance is NOT free to the band. It costs us money to do it. As in gasoline to get bet to the gig and back. Not to mention every bit of the amount of hard work that goes into setting up and breaking down the equipment.I figured it put one night out of curiosity and divied what we made on a paying gig and it was pretty much minimum wage at best.
As usual I'm broke and way behind in bills still. Somehow my internet is still working and I still haven't tackled that bill. Right now we're struggling to keep electricity on and the house payment made.That's a never ending thing for me these last 5 years since my motorcycle accident. Since its looking more and more like social security is going to give me the shaft I'm left not knowing what the hell I'm going to do. My situation is so bad that I am literally nearing homelessness. I've got a 600 dollar electric bill sitting on the table with the rest of the bills and the house payment is late again this month. And on top of that the note on the house is up for renewal. Basically I feel like I'm pretty screwed at this point. We got so far behind last year that the banker was nice enough to let us slide and refinance. We had gotten 6 months behind on payments when he did that. But when he did that for us he also told us we were now on a one year renewable note and not one payment could be late. So far 3 have been late since that refinance. I know he's trying his best to help up out but there's only so much a banker can do since they have some pretty strict rules they have to follow. Especially since the post 9/11 economy. The "Patriot" Act included lots of new rules for banking institutions also. We use a private family owned bank who until 9/11 pretty much played by their own rules. They were THE bank to deal with around here locally. But now they have been clamped down upon by the mighty powers that be big banks and things have changed drastically.
I know that if worse comes to worse he will give us a chance to sell the house before foreclosing. Since I currently live with my ex-wife and she got the house in the divorce my hands a tied as to anything I have a say over. And the fact that I have no income to speak of just makes me that much worse off. What I'm looking at and seeing as a good possibility right now is that if she ends up losing this little dump we call home, she can get herself a place with rental assistance since her health is shit and she can't work a regular job and we have a son who lives at home she can get herself a place for practically nothing. But if she did I wouldn't be allowed to live there according to rules. And a single disabled guy who for some reason can't get disability to acknowledge what their own doctors say about me I'm screwed. Reading through the ALJ's decision letter on my disability hearing looks like I'm reading a decision that has nothing to do with my case. Even the first paragraph of that letter told me something reeked bad. The Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) stated that "even though the client was aware of his rights to representation he chose to represent himself". That statement alone should nullify his decision in my case. I DID have an attorney and he was present at my hearing and did a lot of talking on my behalf including cross examining social securities own expert/doctor witnesses just to clarify what we heard when they made their statements regarding my medical and mental conditions. Both expert witness doctors basically testified in my favor for disability. They agreed with the same doctors that social security sent me to that basically said "this man is disabled in my opinion". The "judge" based his entire decision on a question I answered on the initial application that basically said I felt I was capable of feeding a dog and letting it in and out of the house. Its insane ... that's all I can say about it.
So going back to the freebie gig we did tonight. I think at one time there might have been 12 to 15 people who actually pulled a lawn chair down close to where we were playing and listened to us. As usual (it seems) our bass player let us down AGAIN and couldn't show up for the gig. He didn't even let any of us know until Friday night when he didn't show for practice AGAIN and the gig was Saturday. Its actually Sunday as I'm writing this at 2am still a little steamed over the whole thing. We couldn't find a stand in bass player even though we did try. He doesn't know a lot of our songs though either so it might have turned out not so great anyway. We have jammed with the guy twice now though and he's good. There's no doubt in my mind that he could easily step in and take our current bass players place. And once he got the songs down and pretty well memorized he would literally play circles around our current bass player. Don't get me wrong though, our current bass player is pretty damn good in general. And he's a walking jukebox to boot. And the best part about him is that he really harmonizes excellent with our lead singer. He sings some of our songs himself and does pretty good but tends to slow down or something when he plays and sings at the same time so he's best at singing backing vocals.
One little problem about the guy .... he's a bad alcoholic. I mean BAD bad. I know where he's at too because I used to be the same way until my motorcycle accident crippled me for life. I didn't drink anything for about a year after my accident. And then one night it was Halloween and there was a big party going on and long story short I got drunk. First time since my motorcycle wreck. That was a huge mistake! I rolled my truck that night 3 times. It broke my collar bone (seat belt) and bruised me up and cut me up pretty good but it didn't break any of the screws or rods in my back luckily. Got another DWI out of that one too. My second in a little over a year. That's when I finally said "fuck drinking" and I have never been drunk again since. I will drink up to 3 beers at a gig and once or twice had 4 but that's it for me. Sometimes I just drink ice water or Dr Pepper with ice in it. Lately that's all I've been drinking on stage since the beers are 3 dollars a piece for a draft beer at this pizza place we've been playing lately. So far they haven't charged us for ice water or Cokes but they sure will charge you for a beer lol. For years I've always thought bands got to drink beer for free as part of the gig. Maybe that's for bands that use contracts and have riders on them but its not for us regular Joe bands I guess. Anyway, our bass player has gotten drunk at a lot of our gigs and he can't slowly drink or anything. He gets two at a time (not kidding) and guzzles them down in no time. A few gigs ago at the pizza place his wife ordered 2 pizzas at about 20 bucks a piece and drinks for her and two kids (she doesn't drink alcohol btw) and at the end of the night when the waitress brought the bill, shit hit the fan!! We knew he was in deep shit for some reason but we didn't figure it out until days or maybe a week later. As soon as we were done playing she told him to get his ass in the car NOW and "lets go". We had to pack his bass and equipment up for him and take it home. We found out later that the bill for that night was well over 150 dollars. So I got to thinking, 40 bucks maybe on pizza and just say 2 bucks times 3 for drinks. I think refills are free. There's 46 dollars on pizza and drinks for her and the kids. The rest of the bill was out bass players beer tab. If I remember correctly the bill was $153.and change. That's 107 dollars in beer. That's more than the gig even pays! The beers there cost 3 dollars a piece so that's like 35 beers he drank that night. He tripped and fell on the stage during a break and totally destroyed the music stand we were using. My music stand, and he never even offered to replace it or say "sorry" either.
But this is nothing new really. He's been known to get torn down at a lot of our gigs. I think our third gig was the time he puked on the stage next to his mic stand. And if you say anything to him he gets mad and wants to fight somebody. His wife gives the rest of us these go to hell looks all the time like she despises us or something. Its almost like she blames us for his drinking, whether anyone else is drinking or not. The rest of us can take it or leave it, nobody else is much of a drinker and we know better than to get too tipsy. I know one thing, its quite a sight to see a person playing bass and blacking out drunk at the same time. He starts just playing a different song or something and you look over at him and his head is down and his eyes are closed like he's passing out. A few times in practice sessions I thought he was about to fall on his face any minute. That's when its time to shut it down for the night. It gets downright embarrassing at times though at gigs. I think its a matter of time before his wife makes him quit playing with us. Its a shame too but he just won't cut the drinking out or even down. When he drinks one its like a trigger that makes him want to chain drink until he passes out I guess.
Well I'm signing off for now. Don't know what the coming days have in store for me. They're due to shut our electricity off on the 30th. So much for the free internet connection lol. May as well try to laugh about it, beats crying and I'm getting tired of that shit anyway.
Peace, Love and Music ............ Hopeless Musician in Arkansas :/
Tuesday, July 22, 2014
The Answers Yes
That's the title of a new song our band is learning. If we get this one down tight its gonna kick some ass! Lately, the few gigs we've been doing have been leaning more to the country side of things. Are we are eventually going to have to wear that dreaded label thing. When we first started this band our goals were to play equal amounts of everything from Rock to Red Dirt to Country. One of our favorites that the crowds seem to really like is Hell To Pay by JB and The Moonshine Band. They're based out of Tyler Texas and they are BAD ASS. They do it all kinda like we set out to do. They can go soft or hard ass full out Texas rock and roll like they do with the newly released single, Yes. Just a one word title but its full of words. Finely crafted words too I might add. JB Patterson has a unique ability about his songwriting. I'm still not sure what he's doing in songwriters terms or if he's even thing IN songwriters terms. All I know is, these guys kick ass and I'm proud to know them personally. Personal enough to have been a guest on their tour bus the last time they were in the area. I played on stage with them but I think that story is already on this blog. They are all just super nice guys, everyone of them. And they seem (to me) just kinda like "regular Joe's" that happen to play kick ass music for a living. Last time I talked to them JB said something about the possibility of opening for them in the future if the cards were right. We talked about the kind of songs my band plays and they sounded cool about it so who knows what the future might bring?
Anyway, its getting late and my sleeping pill is kicking in pretty hard now. I'm still amazed and thankful to have internet however I am getting it. I still haven't figured that one out but we going to send back the Dish network receivers and they can stick it. I very seldom ever watch television anyway. Its mostly a brainwashing machine but I won't go into that now lol.
Peace,Love, and Music
Anyway, its getting late and my sleeping pill is kicking in pretty hard now. I'm still amazed and thankful to have internet however I am getting it. I still haven't figured that one out but we going to send back the Dish network receivers and they can stick it. I very seldom ever watch television anyway. Its mostly a brainwashing machine but I won't go into that now lol.
Peace,Love, and Music
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