Meta and Meta

Dissipation

It's pretty common that I'll be playing a gig and someone will approach me and say how hearing me play makes them wish they had time to practice. But, you know, work and all that.

Funny thing is, I'm a guitarist, and I don't have time to practice -- I'm way too busy just trying to find a gig.* (And when I do find one, well, let's just say the actual playing I wind up doing typically ain't exactly pushing me to my limits.)

If you want to have the leisure time and other resources required to work seriously on playing your instrument, my advice is: Take up investment banking. You'll probably have more time to practice than most actual professional musicians. Plus, you'll be able to afford better gear. And most importantly, you won't ever have to play commodity music.

*Okay -- and blogging as work avoidance. (You see right through me.)

Ramblin', Man

I've been slamming at CRS with interviews, shows, photo shoots and other miscellany. Also, we've just embarked on a two-week radio tour. As if that weren't enough, I left my laptop in my Nashville hotel room this morning. (This comes to you via host computer.)

These events have obviously conspired to keep this a No-Post Zone in recent days; and so it will remain for the next two weeks or so...

Bit Players

Among my many preoccupations (read: distractions from more active blogging) these days has been composing and recording short Celtic pieces for fiddle and guitar as source for a show on FX.

I compose these pieces blind (i.e., without seeing script or dailies or anything), so it is particularly odd seeing the finished product--some actor onscreen air-fiddling in the outdoors to stuff I recorded only afterward in my bedroom home studio.

No wonder these things always look so unconvincing.

The Ladies' Man

Years ago I had a club date at the Commerce Casino lounge. It was a classy joint (like all casino lounges), and the crowd was predictably intoxicated, both by the booze and by our tender renditions of delightful numbers like "Baby Got Back." (I practiced guitar twelve hours a day for this?)

One gentleman, though, was conspicuously vocal in his appreciation of the band, and in particular of the female lead singer, Tina. As I bantered with him between songs, I detected a densely Texan drawl, heavily modulated by drunkenness. Needless to say, he made an amusing foil through the end of the set.

Afterward, I was outside the lounge taking a break with Tina and the bass player Jay (both of whom were black) when our friendly Texan (who was not) approached. Immediately, he began putting the moves on Tina.

"Man!" he exhaled, licking his lips, shaking his head incredulously, looking Tina up and down. "You are so hot."

His martini-in-hand drifted off up to the right, terminating in a lilt centered at toast-level, as he continued shaking his head and looking her up and down. "I mean, damn, you are hot."

Then he looked away , squinting thoughtfully, then looked back at Tina. Then, raising his eyebrows with all his might--not wanting to be misunderstood--he continued: "Now, I don't hate ni**ers..."

And They Was Right

We're in the studio recording what is surely destined to be our first megasmash country hit. I know this because I haven't slept in three days. I also know this because I've thought the same thing on previous occasions, and it turns out that on each occasion I couldn't have been more wrong. Which, I figure, pretty much makes it certain I've got to be right this time.

Anyway, when you're in the studio after serial sleepless days as we have been, the hijinx begins. In the instant case, the hijinx involved the other vocalist and I multitracking a scat-sung double of a descending guitar line. The result ("doo-bee-ooh-doo-bee-doo-bee-doo-bee-Doooooo") is sublimely ridiculous, right out of the Golden Throats' songbook of musically unnatural acts. Thus, as George W. Bush might have said, Mission Accomplished.

A few hours later our manager came by to listen in. We played him the track, doing our best to keep a straight face. (Regular Meta readers will have seen something like this picture before.) Then we turned to him for comment.

He said, "Whoever thought up that idea should be hung."

I stopped the track, then replied: "And we are."

Thoughts:
1. Must...get...sleep.
2. God bless the gambler's fallacy--for what else stands guard at the threshold of a musician's hope?
3. Sometimes the soul of wit is just plain lying.

Studio Log

NASVHILLE, TN--In the studio tracking some demos for the album--which reminds me of a story from our first studio experience in Nashville, just a couple of years ago...

NASHVILLE, TN--So we hit the studio in the a.m. for basic tracks on a new tune. Because we've done a fair amount of preproduction rehearsal we can usually get a lot of nuts and bolts stuff out of the way before the producers show up.

We actually finish up the basic tracks on the first song in short order, at which point we decide to record a mock version to play for our invigilators when they came in. The key of course was to do something ridiculous but plausible.

The idiom is highly rock-inflected country, the song is something of a ballad. So naturally we have the keyboardist start out with some tinkly rainfall type parts on the intro. Meanwhile, the acoustic guitar player embarks on some aimless triadic movement, with the drummer tagging along with a bit of random cymbal lashing. Come the verse, the drummer begins comping with an almost-absurd tom-tom figure, somewhat reminiscent of Cream's Sunshine of Your Love.

So far, so good.

When we get to the prechorus the keyboardist starts bashing out big, lounge-ready add-9 chords in the style of the pulsing thrusts of Le Sacre du Printemps (sans sforzandi, of course--think Manilow meets Stravinsky). Naturally, I respond on my Telecaster with some hackneyed-as-can-be stock blues licks.

The drummer leads us in to the Chorus with a fill straight out of Marilyn Manson, and I transition into an off-beat figure playing 6-note sus 2 power chords. I don't know what the hell the other guys are doing, but the result is pretty much a tune sounding right out of Spinal Tap.

So now right about now you're saying to yourself, "I thought he said plausible," and, well, you're right--we may have lost sight of that criterion. At all events, it worked. We assembled in the control booth and took care of other housekeeping until the first producer showed up, at which point we played the mock track for him for about a minute, and then asked the engineer stop it right after the first chorus (we hadn't recorded much more than that). I then asked the drummer if he didn't think the fill coming out of the chorus might not be a bit more "active" (as if that nit was the most conspicuous problem with the track). The drummer acted as if he was going to go back in and punch the fill and we all just cracked up.

At which point the producer became noticeably more . . .relaxed.

. . .

I'm pretty sure the only reason the ruse worked is because the producer was trying to avoid looking at us during playback as much as we were trying to avoid looking at him. (None of us could hold it together the whole time, and I myself was weeping with suppressed laughter.) I assume much the same reasoning explains why it worked on the other two producers as well. Whatever the case, we have their reactions on video. Maybe some day I'll be able to share them.

Incidentally, all those minutes of studio time are recoupable. As the studio recording imperative goes, waste absolutely no time, or else waste all of it.

It's All About Me

This just in: Celebrities are more narcissistic than average. (LAT subscription required.) I know, seems kind of obvious.

Still, one interesting tidbit in the article is that musicians were found to be the least narcissistic group.

I actually would have predicted this, since we musician types spend an inordinate amount of time alone in a room engaging in strange, interminable, highly repetitive rituals involving scales and metronomes.

Naturally, this humble activity makes us extraordinary people, and thus vastly superior to other celebrities.

(Via Arts & Letters Daily.)

Metro and Metro

Some time back I did a festival with Trace Adkins. Now, Trace is the quintessence of your country man. Very big, tall, muscular, macho, überpatriotic. (If you don't "support our troops," he will kick your ass.) He's even been shot--by his wife, no less.

Trace's dirty little secret, though, is his hair--which is very long and very luxurious. I mean, it's downright gorgeous.

The irony of course being that despite all his macho posturing, he almost certainly spends more time just conditioning his hair than most women spend on their entire beauty regime.

Everyday in every way...

The Producers

My band recently did a showcase in Nashville for prospective producers for our next record. No, I didn't know you showcased for producers either.

Anyway, it went well. A particularly encouraging sign was when one A-list producer who'd attended helped us load our gear into the trailer after the show. (Not something we're used to seeing.) We told him that if this whole record producer thing didn't work out, we could always use him as a roadie. We told him we don't pay much, but we can promise him an uncomfortable ride across the country.

Turns out, he's going to stick with the producing.

Utter Philography

[Treoblogging] A brief exchange after a recent show with a somewhat older female fan:

Fan: I want you to sign my tits!
I: (Excogitative pause.) It will be done.