Project Velvet Gypsies: Done

After five or so weeks or rehearsal, comes the true and only measure of a musical ensemble: public performance. The rehearsal is a laboratory, a safe haven, even a place where time can be wasted, but all musical endeavors ONLY come to life before an audience.

The Velvets have their foot in the door of Festivall, Charleston's annual art-music fest. We performed today at 11am and 4pm. That was a crucial goal. I want our name out there.

Overall, I felt very satisfied with what we accomplished. I wanted to do the Velvet name justice. That, I felt, we accomplished. And most importantly for me, nerves never got the better of me. I felt pretty relaxed and present to the moment, never getting that panicked feeling.

(This I attribute to the morning sitting. Thank you, Robert Fripp.)

Sometimes you can have all these voices in your head and worry about what the audience is thinking. It's a bit like wiggling under a microscope I suppose. This mental "spiral" can take any public performer away from their craft, crushed under the weight of their own doubts.

I wasn't worried a minute. The music is what it is, the players only as good as they are, all things being equal between audience and players. The worst mistake is to try to be something that you are not: the audience instantly senses that something is not right. And if it's not right, then it never cooks.

One interesting comment: "I can't even hear that fast." We had a few barn burners. My personal goal was to have music that challenged me. I didn't want slow-slow-slow for the sake of safety of performance. To hell with that.

The audience was with us, I felt, even when goofing on poor old Elvis.

He was a Velvet Elvis today.

Call Him "Keiser"

Keiser:
1. Noun. Kaiser - the title of the Holy Roman Emperors or the emperors of Austria or of Germany until 1918.

2. The nickname of a hard-ass music professor.

The King

Harald Weisner wasn't universally known as "the keiser" or king, but when a fellow student told me of that sobriquet, I soon learned that it fit.

Weisner taught Music Theory and Ear Training 3 (We called it Ear Straining). He was a typically thorough and organized, but he also underestimated and, by his attitude, indicated that he thought very little of our intelligence or abilities. He moved through basic harmonic concepts in the Theory class (By comparison, the kids at UC moved at light speed, getting to concepts far beyond what covered.) telling us repeatedly, in so many words, that these ideas were far over our heads.

In Ear Training, he was more blatant, telling me flat out that "some people will never get this no matter how long they practice." Weisner believed that most of us were stupid and that only a select few could understand what he was teaching.

Now, there are several ways to view this. Weisner is a very bright man and perhaps he should have kept certain thoughts private, but I believe his greatest mistake was to not encourage his students, regardless of their abilities. It was his egotism that got in the way, plus I believe that he had arrived at a very poisonous stage in teaching: he believed in his own failure. I think that "Harry" thought of himself as being a very great composer (a common delusion among profs and a spirit killing one at that) and that the world hadn't recognized his greatness. He cited a colleague who had garnered awards and performances who knew "that I was a much better composer." Inside, he had poisoned himself with these ideas. In fact, of all the teachers, it was Weisner who most embodied this rhetoric of failure and passed it on to his students.

He actually said, as I can recall it some thirty years later, "Just a thought for some of you who aspire to be composers, I have many works, just sitting gathering dust in a drawer. " Well, boohoo, dude. I have learned that you make your own opportunities and that if composition is your true calling, you keep trying to get performances of your music no matter the players or ensemble.

When I was senior, I began to see old Harry slip. One time, he came in with the most bloodshot eyes ever. He looked even more skull-like than usual. "For everyone else, I'll say I was up all night with a sick puppy, but with you guys I'll tell you I was playing cards and drinking scotch." He crossed the line. We were like his friends. It was both fun, cool and creepy. I no think of this when I try to get real chummy with my students.

Then there was the incident while walking down the hallway in the music department when he began to make "whooo" sounds and extended his arms like he was an airplane. Someone asked him about it and he said, "Why? You guys do it." Suddenly student and teacher are equal?

The crowning moment was when we invited him to a keggar at our trailer. I called him and his voice was one of both surprise and delight. His entrance was hilarious as his car went just a little into the ditch. Smooth one there, Bergermeister. A couple of students had to help push him out. I didn't help. I was paying for the keg.

He drank with the best of us. I think all of us were a little afraid, in awe, but secretly thinking this was both cool and laughable. He hit on this one girl so hard-even licking her ear. We were all well into our cups when he stated flatly that older men were better lovers because they had more experience. True to a point, dude. The problem is that young girls don't like creepy old guys because we are old, regardless of experience.

The evening ended with us all hanging about in the living room listening to some Kansas that a friend of mine put on. When asked his learned opinion, his reply was simple: "It's modal." Never a big fan of rock or popular music.

Years later, I was planning on a trip to Wheeling and decided to roll the dice. I was heavy into composing at the time, so I called the good Doctor to see if he would take a look at my music and give me his thoughts. "I won't say I like it just because you are traveling this far" he stated with all the bluntness for which he was noted. I knew he wouldn't any and didn't expect anything less.

My impression that I have taken away from the meeting is that, somehow I surpassed what he had expected me to accomplish. He stated, "I'm surprised that you're still doing this."

As opposed to selling shoes? Did you think music was a goddam hobby for me?

The next impression was that I had baffled him. He muttered and meandered and couldn't think of anything real to say about the score. Now please realize that I was DEEP into complex music at that time. I was using all sorts of complex procedures to create the music (cell composition) and I genuinely believe he was a little blown away by what he saw. If it was simple and stupid, he would have flatly stated so. He didn't know what to say:there's the clincher baby.

Mein professor liked the ladies back in the day. Evidently this hasn't changed.

What's In a Name?

How does a name get changed?

I said, "The Velvet Gypsies," but magically it has become the VBs.

Oh well.

The Velvet Gypsies is a subsidiary of the Velvet Brothers which is a subsidiary of Velvet Corporation which has one nonnegotiable and hardfast rule: rum.

The Wreck of the Patrick J. Fitzgerald

What do you do after you graduate with a degree in Music Education and yet you loathe the very idea of teaching in public schools?

You flounder like a damn fish.

But first, some necessary background. It wasn't all gigs for the tortured souls who, like idiots, dreamed of a career in music. Oh no we had to endure. So, before the Year of Floundering, I recount some choice moments before I left West Lib. Oh yeah.

Fitzy

Mr. Fitzgerald taught Elementary Music-a class which all music majors feared and rightfully so.

Why?

"Fitzy" was a flamboyant homosexual who often made you feel very uncomfortable by his looks and comments. This is the late 70's kids and all that political correct-sexual harassment was far in the future. He could be in flame mode and you never quite knew what Mr. Sparkles was going to say, but you knew it was going to be laden, like a lead sandwich, with innuendo.

He could also be exceptionally funny and charismatic. He was an extraordinary teacher who lit up any room he walked into. He could make even uncomfortable sports majors laugh during Music Appreciation.

He was also acutely aware that every music major, regardless of their inclinations towards or against, had to take and pass his class. I watched a girl, a good student, weep after her presentation which she delivered in a desperate trying-too-hard-to-please frenzy. It was obvious she put everything into it, working countless hours. Fitzy used his power and crushed with his criticism.

My project came together as the result of several things: creativity, a hot girlfriend named Jean (gorgeous, but not so faithful) and a bottle of whisky I received from her as a birthday present. I had no idea what the hell I wanted to present as my final project. I certainly didn't want to do what everyone else had done: these over-the-top-but-by-the-book projects that smelled of ass kissing.

I wrote a short tune about April, my month of birth, and it being "rainy, rainy, rainy." Jean came over to help me finish it. And after it was done we drank some of the Canadian booze and ended up in the sack.

Seeing all the previous train wrecks and those students who had passed with flying colors, I cannot say I walked into Fitzy's class with iron-clad confidence, but since I had such a marvelous evening prior, that probably calmed the old nerves quite a bit.

What pulled me through was the catchiness of my melody. In fact, I can still sing you that little ditty some thirty years later.

Later, when I was just treading water getting ready to graduate, I was in Fitzy's Functional Piano class-a class which really helped me years later when I was in the music ministry biz at St. Anthony's. It was at 8 AM, Friday. Needless to say, Thursday night was party night, so more than a few times I rolled into there a la Keith Richards: disheveled and still a little drunk. It wasn't wise to cut Fitzy's classes because you were going to see him in the damn music department hallway and he would give you that look. Besides, he was a lot of fun in that class.

One valuable lesson that old Sparkles taught me was that it was possible to have a good time, but still be responsible. Regarding an MENC gathering, he told me, "I go wild" and his face said everything. It was a full flame on to be sure. "But I get my work done too." Ain't that the truth.

The mighty Fitzgerald passed on a few years ago.

When is a Velvet?

Q: When is a Velvet?

A: When it is chaotic, spontaneous, electic and a helluva lot of fun.

I have been trying to get a V gig at Festivall for a while. I did play a solo one last year. The solo gig is a strange affair to be sure, but the aim is to slowly bring the bring the full Velvet experience to the Festivall audience.

It's a start, but we are scheduled to play June 27 at 11am and 4pm. It is only a quartet, so not really the VBs, but it's going to be a good, solid representation. (There was a snafu with one member and I had to quickly find a substitute.)

Rehearsals have been exhilerating. While the material we are playing may date back to the golden days of Velvet glory (some 17 or more years ago), the presentation of it is renewed, rejuvenated, reworked and downright fun to play. Often we will stop, breaking out laughing, the group coming to a collective halt. I think that it is something that is real. We have been bandmates for many a year and we know each other's playing. There's nothing left to prove here.

The thing that has liberated me is the option for experimentation. Often in groups I feel limited, but accept that limitation as part of blending in for the greater good. Here, I feel free.

Lambada is a tune that serves as a great illustration. The song is played straight forward until we get to a middle section that has become a vehicle for an eruption of a Middle Eastern rhythmic drive that nearly derails from the energy. We all look around the room, waiting for an idea to spring forth and then to pounce on it, imitate it or sometimes make fun of it. Many musicians (and bands for that matter) would absolutely freeze or drop out at this sudden stylistic change, but with sly grins, we keep pushing each other to see what comes out.

Egotism breaks everything down, Robert Fripp has stated and I think that so far, no one has stepped forward to claim being the leader; although any one of us could easily step into those shoes. I booked the gig, but I see no point in being a dictator and I really enjoy the collaborative effort. Each member brings something unique to the table.

That's how it is right now kids. More to come.