a place of my own

Every musician dreams of "making their own album." Hell, I'm no different.

Now that I'm older and very realistic about what I can accomplish, I finally feel ready to commit to a serious recording. Not a seriou$ recording, but something that won't make me cringe when I put it on for friends.

I have mountains of live recordings and home demos, probably 99% of which I would severe fault with and would not release publicly.

You see, even though I have been playing for about 41 years, began making "tape pieces" even before that, and began composing during my college years, I have had a most debilitating attitude towards my playing and my work. Funny, isn't it? It's kind of cruelly ironic. It reminds me of Sting's song:

I must love what I destroy

And destroy the thing I love.

Ultimately, we must climb out of the cocoon
of solitary writing and let the music comes to
life with the help of other musicians.

While I have no issues playing live, my own music or other, it is the dreaded recording that haunts me. No matter how the gig felt, the recording reveals the truth. That solo goes off course, that vocal needs pitch help and wouldn't be nice if everyone agreed on the form of the piece?

The question becomes: why do people like me, who dream, think, breath, study strenuously, focus upon, have oodles of discipline-thought-approaches, tend to hide our work? What is the malfunction?

Two demons sit and whisper:

You can do better.

It just isn't good enough.

I have ended this invisible battle with myself and have taken a bit more kinder and gentler approach with the blades of criticism. It's about damn time.

The source of my inspiration is a bit too personal to discuss, but let's just say that I wasn't aware why until way after the fact. One of those "points of seeing," I suppose. The penny dropped and I saw where all this was coming from.

The piece that began this project was an old sketch called "Night in St. Cloud," a Edvard Munch painting inspired piece that I started years ago. Unlike then, I have the unflinching determination to finish any piece now. I am not constantly distracted by new and exciting array of fresh ideas, but am now willing to take an idea, lower my head and plow forward until something is completed.

I still like the Munch painting, but don't feel such a strong emotional connection to it. What matters is that the piece works on every level, especially structural, thematic and rhythmic levels. And if we are lucky, maybe we can be exciting as well.

Here's the floor plan:

Night in St. Cloud - guitar duet

Note: there is some material from the sketches that even suggests another piece could be written just around those ideas. Odd how that works.

distant bells - voice and electronics. The very Enoesque piece was inspired by the Bloom app. So far, the only vocal piece.

no one is watching - guitar duet or ensemble. Not quite sure about this one. It might benefit by making the A section a little simpler. Sometimes the ego and the mind conspire to make everything complicated.

dance of the sun king - just finished the form and melody of this one. An ensemble run-through last Staurday was really positive. It sounded even better than I thought. The group seemed to like it as well.

forgiveness - this might have to be a guitar duet or just me overdubbing. The mood is very delicate and one false move or attempt to add too much will kill it. I hear classical and steel string guitars on this. A viola or a cello might be the magic later.

Possible add-ons:

Aguinaldo Jibaro - this is a Puerto Rican Christmas song that I arranged (and had help arranging) for the ensemble. It gets the King Crimson treatment, but retains the Latin flavor. A friend of mine said it sounded South American. I'll go with that.

don't need a jacket - This is very new and hasn't been field tested yet. You have to run these pieces a few times live to even know what the piece really needs. It's an ensemble piece.

call me tonight - I wrote this instrumental some thirty years ago. A friend of mine reminded me of it with a comment on FaceBook. It was a jolt to the memory cells. Wrote this about the end of love affair. It's swirling guitar heaven and most likely an ensemble piece.

I am very partial to woodcuts, particularly medieval ones.
The artwork will be simple.

That's 8 tracks, just shy of the requisite 10 track album I see popular today.

None of this is going to make me rich, famous or younger, but I hope I can feel a sense of accomplishment when it's over.

I may not even produce a physical copy, but rather leave it all to PayPal and the "internets." I have heard about people spending lots of money and having a thousand copies of their CD sitting around in boxes.

 No, thanks.




 

A History of Love, Part 7

The year and a half at Staunton Military School has been written about extensively in this blog and needless to say, it was major dude world and another sore reminder that women were from another planet. One that had its own language, code and ways that were a complete mystery to me.

My brother had his girlfriends, "Kim" and his "Maggie." But what I saw about how men and women fought (especially them) did very little to further any understanding. Again, mystery.

But sometimes the universe is tapping us on the shoulder and we aren't paying attention.

Then there was Karen.

This delightful creature came to my attention in my senior high school year. With Karen, was the ever-present, blond blossoming Afro-ed Frank. Karen and Frank, Frank and Karen. They were glued to each other.

Frank was a "head," meaning he used recreational drugs, but I think his natural state was closer to a redneck than a hippie. Seeing them together, as in many couples, I couldn't figure out what the hell she saw in Frank. He was abrasive at times. I tolerated him because that meant Karen could get into the conversation as well. Men will smile and act buddy-buddy to the boyfriend to get even the smallest of openings to the objects of their desires.

And so Karen and I began a conversation that ended in a classic:

St. Karen: patron saint of the rebound guy.

The Rebound Guy

One of the great graces of getting older is that I see the patterns universal. The Rebound Guy (or girl) is a universal. Everybody knows the pitfalls being this hapless character, right? Not until it bites your ass do you really know it.

Somewhere between the end of high school and freshman year, the Frank-Karen union dissolved. I cannot recall how Karen and I began to go out on a few dates, but fortune sometimes smiles.
She was graceful, beautiful and sweet as Tupelo honey. A few drinks at a bar, a hiking trip and endless conversations on the phone, but it was a weekend invitation to WVU that sealed the deal.

"Going to get you some, huh?" was the query from my Wesleyan friend, Tim. Men are not subtle. I mumbled something about "Just goin' up to see her." This was the truth. I had that little confidence in myself.

I arrived too early at the girl's dorm and her squirrelly roommate had to entertain me while Karen was still in class. Considering the condition I was in, she looked like a cartoon moving in and out of the room while constantly talking nonsense to me. I felt like the only still thing in the universe and she was constantly walking by me and saying, "Karen's going to be here soon, ok?" I didn't babysitting, but sometimes when you have an innocent sort of face, people interpret it as need assistance. Go figure.
Finally, the graceful Miss K arrived and all was bliss.

Instead of concentrating soley on her, I thought of contacting some friends. In my endless ignorance, I called up two buddies-one from SMA and one from my hometown, the latter of which agreed to meet us out on the plaza to drink some beers. Why did I delay? Again, I didn't think the lovely Miss Karen was going to endow me with her graces. I wasn't thinking in those terms.

Finally, after some bliss in her dorm room, she told me that her sister had an apartment and that it was vacant for the weekend and that we should go.

This could be it.

And so it was. At one moment, it dawned on me that I was going to break free of the virgin stigmata and pass into manhood. Elation. But none of that mattered because of Karen. She was a Godsend, pure and simple.

Must there be pain?
Yes, there must.

Beautiful Karen, sweet Karen. Our time continued that fall until around Christmas time when I made a deadly mistake: I wanted to give her a gift. I even went shopping by myself and got her a scarf and hat.

The phone call was the last: "But I told you I didn't want that!" I remember that feeling, sitting at the top of the stairs with the phone cord stretched as far as it would go (no wireless then), feeling like a two-ton weight had just been placed on my heart. She didn't want a "boyfriend," she wanted the all-purpose rebound guy. The guy that helps her through a breakup.

(Sidebar: Men are often vilified with the stigma of duplicity and philandering. Sure enough, we deserve it, but a woman isn't duplicitous as much as much as she is prone to changing her mind without warning. A woman doesn't cheat, she falls in love with another. Truth be told: we are all guilty, all liars, all hypocrites. That's human nature, like it or not.)

The rules are simple: Yes, you may enjoy all the pleasures and privileges of a boyfriend with none of the security or long-term commitment. No spring vacations together, walking hand-in-hand across a desolate beach. No intimate smiles, passionate kisses, or showing off one's girl to the guys. A steady girl meant mean some showing off or cockiness: "Hey fellas. How you doin'? I'm out of Club Dude, eh? Take care now." The rebound guy gets none of this.

That was a tough one to deal with, kids. With great love and elation comes great grief and deflation. This young man was learning all about love for sure.

I'm not sure whatever happened to her. I wish her well. Call me a romantic, but I see these experiences not in a bitter light as I did back then, but rather as beautiful, burning and necessary life lessons. In retrospect, she gave me much more than she ever took.

The Big Wrap-up

Almost everything is pale by comparison to your first love, but passions fade. I never thought that they would, but people come and go in our lives. Some say it all part of a grand purpose. I can't say that I find that to be true. I just know that it is and that's that.

"I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong."


More to come.

A History of Love, Part 6

"I should have been a vampire squid
scuttling across floors of silent seas..."

After the Helen fiasco, life continued on. Young people do not do well with embarrassment and it is quickly forgotten.

I had my friends- all guys who were into music, getting back to nature via hiking-camping, some of them even played guitar. Friends are an anchor, a fortress that tells the world, "See? We're all into this. If that makes us  weird, then weird we shall be."
But one major problem: it's dude city and that fact was a burning reminder of a perceived failure for some in the group, me included. Virgins are losers.
There is no doubt we placed way too much importance on having a girlfriend, being in love and lust, but this was paramount. We were just dumb kids and small matters were vastly important.

The Follies of the Ego

A date with Jackie followed. Not bad, until the questions came: "Why did you pick me?" I had no answers or rather I had no smooth lines to convince her to bestow her graces upon me. When the temperature rose, she asked me point-blank: "Is you were to get a girl pregnant, would you take care of her?"

I was shocked. My interests were selfish. Your welfare? Huh? Besides, the boiler room was in charge at that point. Pregnant? Baby? Take care of...what? The mood was killed and there were no more dates after that.
It is at this point that I might say the obvious, (which is what I'm good at doing,dammit!) If time travel were an option, I might go back and do some serious talking to that young man and state: "You've got plenty of chances for a girlie. What's wrong with her? Or her? You're the one who's holding out for something you cannot have: the ones you really want are beyond your reach." Human nature in action time and again.

St. Catherine, patron saint of the disappointed.

Which leads us to the enigma known as Catherine.

Catherine was the total enigma. She was out of my league. I knew it and so did she. Yet, she let me flirt with her and we even went out on some smoking dates, but always the same message: you may be good for my ego, but I've already got a boyfriend. You are always going to be an option, not a priority.

We were not so different in a socio-economically, it just came down to looks. Her "looks" bracket was much higher than mine.

She was my enigma for most of high school. I sat next to her in typing class and squeezed by with little or no knowledge of typing. She melted me, confused me, burned my circuits and perplexed every rational thought or battle plan I had about how to win her heart. She was in control the entire time: she knew it. I was too stupid to really know it and lacked the experience to do anything about it anyway. I was her monkey, St. Catherine of the cross.

She certainly wasn't dating anyone at the high school. I always imagined that she had some college guy as a boy friend.

Oddly and cruelly, she went to the same college as me. It was both delight and a downer the day we ran into each other and exchanged a vigorous hug. One part of me got that sinking feeling: Can't I escape this torture even at college? I mean, fucking hell!  College with her there was no different: no bounce, no play.

One of my music major colleagues dated her and one day, he rubbed it in my face. I had told him about our past, shabby as it was. Can't say why Mr. Bearded Granola, normally a reasonable guy, drew such a sharp dagger for me, but I write this off as the insanity of jealousy that men display when a threat is perceived. Piss and daggers, piss and daggers.

I believe there was one date we had during this time. She must have been between fabulous bo-friends because Mr. Second Rate got the call. The date was wonderful, but like all the others, but there was no dating me. Some musician said, "You do shitty things until you stop doing shitty things." That pretty much summarizes that experience.

She got married and moved and I went to Baltimore to study music.

The problem though with living in a small town is that even when lots of time passes, houses where people live do not. They can jump out as unexpected reminders- a sudden jolt to the memory. Perhaps because I hate to lose, I will circle by her mom's house around Christmas time to see if I can catch a glimpse of what surely must be a very grey Catherine. How many kids does she have? Does she look like shit? This is not love, but perhaps gloating. To convince myself that I won? I don't know. Maybe I'm just a jerk who masquerades as a nice guy.
Next: Hey dummy, this girl is talking to you.