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It Was My Birthday, and I Shall Rock If I Want To

Know what I did for fun on my birthday?

I toured a recording studio. A) I've never been to a "real" one, and 2) Blue Funk is talking about making a demo or an album, so I wanted to get the studio owner's perspective on what it takes, as well as what kind of gear he had. This guy has worked with Tony Vega, Mighty Orq, and Texas Johnny Brown among others, so he definitely has some cred!

After the tour, Lori and I went to lunch, and we talked further about what it would take and what the band should do before we go into a studio. Then we visited a friend who is also a musician, and talked more about music and our bands.

For years, I always avoided work on my birthday. Whether it was taking a day off from my job, or just avoiding it when I worked for myself as a web developer, my birthday was a day to not work, and not talk about it. This is the first time in years I've done "work" on my birthday, because my work is music and I love it and I live for it.

Sat, 2009 01 31 at 2:54 AM | Permalink for this entry

Mentoring, Mixers, and Me

What's two weeks between friends?

I should start out by apologizing to all whom I promised this blog post two weeks ago. I've had trouble with writing it, and also have been busy with other things (mostly in a good way, as you'll see). So, I'm sorry.

Back on January 13th, I met with Matthew Wettergreen at Caroline Collective to be the first person to participate in the new Music Mentoring Program, sponsored by Dan Workman/SugarHill Studios and W. Ross Wells/Zenfilm. Thanks guys! That's initially all this blog post was supposed to be about.

I must admit, the session wasn't exactly what I was hoping for. I guess I was looking for… magic. If you've been reading this blog, you'll know that my goal is to be a songwriter and musician. One of the things I'm currently trying to determine is how to do that and live the lifestyle to which I have become accustomed. Lori works a "square job," and ideally, those are the primary hours I'd work too. I was hoping there were some angles or ideas I was missing in order to get my songs out there that I had not thought of.

The session brought me back down to earth, perhaps rather hard. The reality is that there are some things I'm just going to have to do to get myself and my music out there. After spending the first half of the session giving Matthew some background on myself and what my goals are, that is what we discussed, what I need to do to get to the next stage.

He talked about me working in parallel with the band to promote myself and my songwriting. He thinks I should get the band to play out once a month, sell merchandise, and thus make some money to make a record. The record would give me another tool to present my material, and performing it live would give us the chance to tighten up the material and see what works.

He also felt that I should finish the song I started for Beth Black and just present it to her. I forgot to tell him that I also have another song I'm cowriting with my sister and need to finish that as well. Those are things on my to do list that I haven't gotten to, and as he pointed out, I need to get at least those people to know my songs and give me feedback, etc.

Lastly, he said I should get out to some other blues shows and meet the people there, present myself as a keyboard player and songwriter so they know of me and my songs.

I knew right away at a certain level that he was right about this, though some of these things were things I was either avoiding or not bothering to do for whatever reason.

So How Am I Doing?

Pretty good, akshly.

The Sunday after I did the mentoring session, we went to the Snake Charmers' CD release party at Bohemeo's. I met a bunch of people and networked with them. I also played at the jam at the end and got compliments on that from some of the same people. In fact, one guy, BIll Nelson, said he really likes our stuff. I talked to him more yesterday, and he expressed interest in doing gigs with us, with one of us opening for the other. He's also interested in producing us. He said he "gets ideas" listening to our music. Stylistically, we have a lot in common. I was impressed with him before I knew he knew who I was.

The Tuesday after that (one week after the mentoring session), we went to the Houston Music Makers Mixer. I met a ton of people there and talked about what I do. In fact, I met so many, it was kind of overwhelming. I ended up creating a document just to keep track of all these people. One guy was interested in me playing with his band and we are talking about that. Another owns a studio where several local blues acts such as Mighty Orq, Tony Vega, and Alan Haynes have recorded. He also has a band and we talked a little about me playing with them, as well as touring his studio which I hope to do soon. When the woman from Houston Live Music To-Go found out ours was a blues band, she said, "please sign up because we're always looking for blues bands." I'm leaving out a bunch of other people that we met but hope to keep in touch with.

Not long after the mentoring session, we were asked to play the Twestival on February 12 with several other bands. So Blue Funk is getting ready for that show. We are also in discussions with a couple of venues to play in March and later. The band is discussing the possibility of going into the studio to record sooner rather than later. Since there is "square job" money for most of us, we could each invest our share into the sessions in order to get that done, and then try to recoup that later. It seems to me that the investment into recordings will give us better material to present to venues and a vehicle for my songs (as well as Jeff's if he has aspirations beyond just us performing them). Lori pointed out to me last night we ought to do a band partnership agreement with all of this.

So out of several to-dos from the session, it seems like a few got completed by falling into my lap. I'll take that. 😉 Am I bit overwhelmed by all that's going on? Absolutely. Am I excited by the possibilities? Definitely. Do I realize that I sound like Donald Rumsfield two years after he left office? Sure I do. I've realized in all this that I just have to take each thing as it comes. It is easy to be overwhelmed and not know what to do next. But, I just have to do whatever thing and keep moving.

There are a lot of other things I want to get done that I'm struggling to squeeze in, like improve my technique, learn more styles of music, learn how to use tools like Logic so I can make demos and write songs and create sheet music that I can present to people, but I suppose I'll just have to make time for those things. As the French say, such is life. But the French say a lot of things.

Tue, 2009 01 27 at 12:48 PM | Permalink for this entry

Come see us February 12 and support charity: water

Come see us play on February 12 and support charity: water

We hope your 2009 has started off well. Blue Funk is building momentum, and we hope you are a part of it. We are in the process of booking gigs for the spring (March and onwards) and we will keep y'all informed about that. Included should be some very cool places that all of you can come see and enjoy us playing.

Meanwhile, we are playing at the Houston incarnation of Twestival along with several other bands at 5:30 PM, Thursday, February 12, at Caroline Collective in Midtown. It is for fun and a good cause, so please come out and support the cause charity: water as well as us, your favorite band!

You can find more details about the event as well as the location here

We hope to see you there!

Tue, 2009 01 27 at 3:05 AM | Permalink for this entry

To Gig or Not To Gig

I "lost" the gig that I wasn't really worried about. It seems the singer for that gig brought a keyboard player from her church. I can't say I'm not disappointed, as I was looking forward to the challenge. However, at the time I found this out yesterday, I still had not received any of the songs, and that was getting annoying with the show and rehearsals coming up. But now, I know why.

They have asked me to do a gig with them on February 21. The set list includes quite a few songs that we did in the December 20 show, so that will make that one much easier to prepare for. I'm still finalizing details with them about it, so it's not 100% I'm going to do it.

I've been fighting a cold since last Tuesday. Yesterday I felt much better but today I have yet another new symptom or two. This doesn't have anything to do with music except that the run down feeling along with being pissed that it's still here is affecting my ability to work on music stuff.

We had a Blue Funk jam on Saturday. Jeff was sick, but John came, so we still had a guitar player. He's interested in playing with us at future jams as well as out, so we will see what happens. It will be interesting finding musical space when the three J's (Jeff, John, and Joe) are all playing. We will all have to make an effort to listen to each other and not step on each other's toes. For instance, I've become used to filling a certain musical space when playing with Jeff. John tends to fill some of those spaces himself. That's cool, but we may have to make a conscious effort to not both do it at the same time. The three of us will also have to keep an eye out for who is soloing or arrange that ahead of time.

Mon, 2009 01 12 at 10:14 AM | Permalink for this entry

Soul Singing

It's been a while since the last update. I'm sorry about that. The holiday break was a little nutty, and I did very little practicing nor much productive stuff to talk about.

Obviously I felt the gig with Collective Hallucination was overall, a success. Like I said in a previous post, when I'm feeling confident or good about something, I tend to talk about it less and let what I do speak for itself. That was definitely the case with that show.

The week after the CH gig, we had our first Blue Funk jam in a long time. It was definitely the first with all five members in quite a while. It's funny, a couple of members felt like it was really rough at the time, but when they listened to the recordings, they thought it wasn't so bad after all. I always record every jam, and this is one of the reasons why. Sometimes, your perspective while you are inside of it is different from it would be from the outside. One important thing to learn is that just because a performance doesn't feel right to you doesn't mean it came across badly to the audience. Why there is such a disparity, I can't say. Perhaps we get caught up in our own foibles and lose perspective on everything we are doing right. Or it could be that we are often better at this than we think we are.

Anyway, I thought the jam went well. I felt I was even more adventurous in my playing, which is something I was hoping for after the CH gig. Jeff was playing some stellar solos, doing things I had never heard (or maybe simply noticed? If so, sorry, Jeff!) him do before. We are having another jam tomorrow, and we will have a special guest. However, Jeff may not be able to make it because he and Connie are sick, and unless both of them get better, it's unlikely he will be able to make it. I'm bummed about that, and I know he is too. Such is life. I'm really hoping to get Blue Funk on track again so we can start playing out. Nothing major, just start with some blues jams and such, and see if we can work our way into some opening slots or smaller clubs.

I got a text message from Ant, the leader of CH, on Monday that said, "don't forget rehearsals resume tomorrow! See u at 7!" I replied, "did you mean me too?" and he replied, "yes." Turns out, the gig he told me about last week that may need keyboards does. But, I could not make rehearsals Tuesday nor tomorrow, and the gig is on January 17th. I will only able to play with them at one rehearsal, next Tuesday, unless he squeezes in any more before the show. But here is the funny part. I'm not worried about it. It could be because I've been sick all week and my head is not all here, but I don't think that is it. The show is nine songs, but I'm just not concerned at this point. I told Lori this, and she said, "I swear, you are so manic depressive!" 😊

Fri, 2009 01 09 at 2:29 PM | Permalink for this entry

Firsts

Saturday night was my first

• paid gig
• gig playing with another band
• full-length gig
• gig in front of a full, large audience
• gig where the audience came to see me/the band I was in

As a friend’s wife said to me, “wow - multiple cherries popped at once!”

Tue, 2008 12 23 at 4:13 AM | Permalink for this entry

Quit Yer (my) Whining

We killed.

Sun, 2008 12 21 at 2:57 AM | Permalink for this entry

Finally, the Big Gig is Tonight

I really don't have much to say about it. Earlier this week, I felt fine and had all but a couple of parts under hand. I've now gotten those parts about as good as they are going to get, but Thursday night my nerves started getting to me and haven't really let up since. It sucks because physically I don't feel well, and I can't seem to get it under control. It's similar to how I felt physically when I took on this gig.

Before the first public gig with Blue Funk back in March, I was WIRED, a bundle of nervous energy and could hardly calm down. It was annoying, but I could deal with it. For this, it's worse because I almost feel ill. Yet, I know I have the material mostly down so I don't expect any real problems. It's all pretty stupid, and I remember being able to deal with it before when doing presentations. I don't know what has changed in me since then.

Maybe the issue is that since it's not my band, not my gig, and a place I've never been, it's all out of my control. Things could happen and I have to answer to someone else and not completely respond on my own. Or, maybe it has something to do with the fact that I "peaked" a few days ago. I finally got to where I was getting into the songs and about a week or so ago, came up with stuff to do for most of the songs. Since then, that has faded, and those same parts have lost my interest to a degree, but I have been practicing them every day. So, I don't have the excitement and creativity that I had at that point to keep me going now.

Of course, I'm thinking about it too much as I always do. I guess you can come tonight and see if I blow it. 😉

Sat, 2008 12 20 at 5:23 AM | Permalink for this entry

Cram This!

I never really crammed for exams in college. No all-nighters, none of that bullspit. I prepared for exams by working on the material and making some effort to keep up as the class went along. It wasn't a perfect system, however. One thing I found was that I had to make sure that I at least reviewed material I felt I had done well with earlier, because otherwise I would not have it down like I should for the actual test.

I was reminded of this Saturday at rehearsal. I had not even briefly had a chance to go over most of the material we covered that day in the few days before rehearsal. At first, it felt quite awkward. There were some songs where I could not recall at all what I had decided to play on them, nor even be sure how they went. All it would have taken for me is a run through of all the songs at home some time before rehearsal to refresh my memory as to my parts and the arrangements so I'd know what I was doing. That being said, I did alright once the parts came back to me. I just need to make sure I go through all the songs before the actual show this Saturday…

Mon, 2008 12 15 at 2:06 AM | Permalink for this entry

Almost There

There hasn't been much to say, because things are going well. I've found myself a little nervous about the actual gig when I think about it, so I try not to think about it. The rehearsals have gone well, and I'm actually enjoying playing most of the songs. I guess now that I'm over most of the anxiety and fear and know most of the songs, I have been able to get into them more and enjoy the experience. Part of that is coming up with or figuring out parts to play, giving me a bit of a creative outlet. This ain't so bad after all! There are a couple of spots I do need to polish, and one song that I should have learned and did not.

That brings me to one thing I'm trying to figure out. It seems that I always screw up something. I'm not saying that like "I'm a screw up and I always fail," I just mean that I'll often "go the wrong way" in a song at some point. For instance, if the chord pattern is A, D, E, I'll probably go A, E, D at some point in the song. In a band context, I can quickly and easily fix this and switch to the correct chord without people noticing (hopefully). But, what I'm wondering is, what about when I'm out there, playing a solo piano part with no other instruments to hide behind? If I hit that E when I should be playing the D and it's just me and the singer, what should I do?

It was this situation in part that led me to back away from doing this one song. I know that even if I learned it, I was at a big risk to make this kind of mistake at some point in the song. I felt that the song deserved better.

Sun, 2008 12 14 at 7:44 AM | Permalink for this entry

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