Two-gig Weekends and Battling the Wall

The Lost Artists studio, 2630 W Fletcher, Chicago.  Some interesting art coming out of this place.

A week and a half ago I had another two-gig weekend - playing at Fretknot Friday at the Independence Tap, and also with the Twangdogs at the Lost Artists Studio (shown above - you can find more at www.artcolony.info). 

The Friday gig was fun - another round with the Bad Boys Ensemble where we played Steve Winwood and Al Green songs.  It was the debut of sorts of the new sound system at the Independence Tap, a setup monitored in part with an iPad.  Kip, fellow Bad Boy musician and person running the sound, almost had the perfect setup, but when you get some 8-10 musicians on stage, something is bound to feed back.  Kip would break ranks in mid-song to tweak the sound and get us back to a good sound level.  We cut the set a bit short, but we did get to play a medley of "Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys" and "Walking in the Wind" that went well.  "Walking" is a challenge for me - the rhythm is steady, but it's the steady eighth-note on the hi-hat that wears my right thumb out.  I end up switching to the Lenny White open-style of playing, where the left hand is playing hi-hat and the right-hand is on the snare, just to give the right hand a rest.  I never feel comfortable doing that for long, though, so I'll switch back after about 8 bars.

The Saturday gig with the Twangdogs went quite well and we were well received by the audience.  Some people perused the hallways that had the resident artists' work hanging from the walls while we were playing.  We were in a fairly good-sized space, but still we were three tiers deep - Janna, Rich, and Merrie were up front, Jack, Quincy, and Jenny were in the middle row, and I got the last row.  And no matter how we set up, we end up filling about every square inch of space we can.  You could put us in the middle of the Bonneville Salt Flats and we'd still be stepping over each other.  But we read each other well during the songs, our between-song times were kept to a minimum, and I think it gave us all a really good feel going into this Saturday's gig at the Independence Tap.

As pleased as I was about Saturday, and content with Friday's gig, I still had something gnawing at me.  I bought a couple of CDs a month ago, one of which was "And If" by the Anat Fort Trio.  I saw a review of the CD in Downbeat and it piqued my curiosity (as will pretty much anything on ECM Records).  Anat plays piano, Gary Wang is the bassist, and Roland Schneider is the drummer, and in a piano trio you'll find lots of space between the musicians.  The arrangements on "And If" steer the music to even wider spaces, there's great interplay between the musicians, and in listening to it something clicked.  It had been months - years - since I heard a good piano trio, and this CD hit the spot. 

The Anat Fort Trio - for those...contemplative moments.  (It's ECM - what else would you expect?)

Then I thought about the gigs I play.  The Twangdogs, and the various ensembles, aren't the biggest groups I've played with - I think it was the "Fab Forty" Old Town School Beatles Ensemble at a Beatles Convention in Louisville around 2005 and 2006, so that record is pretty safe - but I find myself often playing with at least five or six other musicians, often in a space where I have to do a tai chi routine just to get behind the drum kit.  I certainly won't declare "Hey!  We have too many musicians here!  You, and  you, and...you - get outta here!"  But I mentioned this to John Mead and he is in agreement that guitar playing in an ensemble is as much about when to play as when not to play.  That goes for drums as well - I have no issue being in a band where a couple of songs are drummer-less. 

So the question: how does a drummer who appreciates dynamics in music coexist with 6 to 10 other musicians who want to get heard?  The answer, I think, is to accept things for what they are, and just stay steady.  The last thing I want to do is lead the whole bunch off a cliff.  Now, to find that pianist and bassist to delve into an introspective version of Bill Evans' "Re: Person I Knew"...

From barbecue to Chicago's best wine in 48 hours

Why is it that if you are involved in two bands, those bands will somehow manage to book practices and gigs for the same time?  That's what happened to me this past weekend.  It left me with a "good" tired feeling, but tired all the same.

Friday night I had a final practice at the Old Town School with Little Queens, a Heart tribute band with Andrea Bunch, Aerin Tedesco, John Mead, Debbie Kaszinsky, and Greg Nergaard.  We were fortunate enough to get a gig at the City Winery, a place on West Randolph that makes their own wine and has an eye-catching menu as well.  The practice in itself wouldn't have been so bad, but the Twangdogs, the country-Americana outfit that I'm in, had a gig two hours later. 

I loaded up the drums and dropped them off at the Horseshoe Tavern on Lincoln Avenue, then drove to the Old Town School.  I sat down and started playing during "Love Alive" and immediately spilled my Starbucks grande mocha.  Okay, not a great start to the practice.  Rather annoyed, I cleaned up as best as I could.  (I also left a big brown mocha stain on the rug underneath the drums - to the Old Town administration, please take it out of my membership fee.)  We did the run-through of the songs, and I would have liked to play some more, but it was time to hop in the car and head down to the Horseshoe.  John Mead was nice enough to head back to Starbucks and buy another mocha for me.

Thankfully it was a short drive from the Old Town School to the Horseshoe - only half a mile.  I was feeling a bit rushed at that time, and having King Crimson's "Sailor's Tale" on the car stereo didn't help my sense of calm any.  ("Sailor's Tale" is not a song to listen to if you're in need of calm or finding your "happy place" - it's a darkly intense instrumental that pulls me in every time I hear it.)

So, the Horseshoe (http://www.myspace.com/horseshoechicago).  I had reservations about that bar from an experience I had some seven years ago.  I was in a band with some others, and after a year of practicing we got a gig at the Horseshoe.  We ran a practice at my church before leaving, then we all packed up and got to the Horseshoe.  I set up my drums and sat while the others set up their guitars and amps, then I sat as the others tuned and futzed with their effects pedals, then sat as the bassist went on a frantic thirty-minute search for a songbook (which was under a coat the entire time).  We finally started playing, and after five songs the sound man came up and said "Ya gotta stop playing.  We got a phone call from the cops saying the neighbors are complaining."  To this day I believe the sound man really said "We don't want you to play anymore."  Tails between our legs, we tore down and slunk back home.  That was my first gig as a drummer.  But that was seven years ago, and apparently the Horseshoe learned something by putting up sound panels in the front window which made the venue sound surprisingly good for an all-wood barbecue joint.

I got to the Horseshoe to find it surprising empty - there were the other Twangdogs and about six others.  "Where's the other band?"

Fellow Twangdog Rich Gordon answered "Oh, they never showed up."  I found that humorous, having just read an open letter from a bar owner in the Tampa area who had some advice about band professionalism and who said that the band's true purpose was to sell drinks.  (That might be a topic for another day.)  I think the first tip for any band would be: come hell or high water, show up.  Or, if you can't, the reason for not showing up better involve a hospital and/or a police report.

So, it turned out I had considerable time to set up the drums.  I sighed - it looked like things were going to work out after all.  (It's a matter of trust - trust that all will be well in the end.)  We all set up, and did another remarkable Twangdogian job of filling up an entire stage with instruments.  I think you could put us on stage at Symphony Center and we'd still fill the entire stage.  We played our sets, and Andrea Bunch was nice enough to come down and listen after appearing at Fretknot Friday with a student of hers.  There were a few good moments in our sets, but overall I felt as though we still needed a bit of work to sort out the rough spots.  Towards the end of the second set, we started "Best of My Love", the Eagles ballad, and I totally blanked on what the tempo should have been.  Not that I cranked it up to Warp Factor 5, but I was a bit brain-dead at that point.  Ditto our closer, the Decemberists' "Down by the Water."  Fortunately I guessed right on the tempo and the others carried that song quite well.

Sunday's gig at the City Winery was a different story.  We had a slightly larger stage, and one fewer band member, so we had some space to work with.  Instruments set up and sound check run, we went back to the Green Room where one of the staff took food and drink orders.  I wasn't used to that kind of treatment.  "So this is how real music stars are treated," I thought. 

(For a schedule, check out http://www.citywinery.com/chicago/tickets.html.  I'm sure the wine is good, but the food is incredible.)

So I put in my order - mini-sliders and a pork belly coupled with french toast - a strange combo on paper, but not so odd on the taste buds.  I ate my meal with Judy in the audience. 

I went back to the Green Room to join the others.  Debbie and Andrea changed into their stage outfits, John put on his striped 70s pants, and at 7 we took the stage.  Taking the stage with us was a guy we dubbed "Wine Man".  The show was a "wine pairing" - the audience would get a taste of wine for a three song set, then a taste of a different wine for the next three songs, and so on.  So, four glasses of wine for 12 songs. 

I fought off nerves for a good part of the evening.  The City Winery is a venue that is a big step up for folks like me - an attentive audience, no TVs so I can follow the ball game or try to follow the detective story on USA Network while playing.  This was a concert.  Fortunately, the audience couldn't have been more receptive and encouraging.  After a couple of songs, and in spite of a mistake here and there (the perfect gig, I think, is like chasing the horizon), it was a great show.  Aerin was bogged down with laryngitis, so Andrea had to sing all the songs, and she handled it extremely well.  It's like having two Ann Wilsons in the band - Aerin is an outstanding singer in her own right and all the members have a good sense of the arrangements of the songs. 

As a band we acquitted ourselves rather well.  "Even It Up" started off the set, and the first song is always the hardest, though if you get that first song down, it's a big boost for your psyche for the rest of the night.  "Mistral Wind," an extremely tricky song, went off without a hitch.  "White Lightning and Wine" started off at a given tempo and I tried, given Aerin's cues, to slow it down a bit.  (If you think trying to slow down a song as inconspicuously as possible is an easy task, think again.)  The last set had two of my favorites: "Crazy on You" and "Barracuda."  We finished with Led Zeppelin's "Rock and Roll," and we may have stumbled a bit, but the song is enough of a full-throttle rocker that a flub here or there may almost be required to do justice.  But that last set tested my mettle as a drummer - I played about as hard as I could, so much that my solo at the end of "Rock and Roll" sounded to me (as I remember it) to be a bit clumsy, though I did have some fun with one of the roto-toms.

Two gigs in three nights - two paying gigs, though I'd be able to blow through that money on a decent night out with Judy - and a good sense of tired on Monday.  Just give me a few days, and I'll be ready to go.  I think.  Maybe give me a week.

Reaping the rewards, or "We're playing *what* Traffic song?"

It's been a bit of a busy week, and I'm not being too careful with my elbow - no ice-downs, no medications, just a stubborn, old codger, "tough it out, sonny" approach.  And at church today, a mad strum-fest on "Come to the Water" didn't help matters any.  (I'm all for giving credit where credit is due, but "Come to the Water" lists 12 people in the songwriting credits, or two people for each chord used in the song.  The lyrics aren't exactly Dylanesque, either.  Twelve people?  Have fun cashing your songwriting royalty checks, guys.)

I finally made a Twangdogs rehearsal on Monday and was a bit surprised to learn that we're planning on recording a demo in about a month.  I've never really been in a recording studio before - one time I went to a weekend seminar at a studio that really did voice-over work, and I've visited Jim Tullio's studio in Evanston (http://www.otbrecords.com/studio.html), but I've never really done any recording work.  I know little of the recording process, other than it can be brutally painstaking, so I plan on bringing a book or two for a four-hour session.  We're looking at a few new songs to add to our repertoire, including one where I use only my feet - bass - hi-hat - bass - hi-hat - and that suits me fine.  A seven-member band can go from zero to wall-of-sound in two seconds flat, and since I'm a little partial to having a little space in music, I'm content to play as little as possible, or not at all if the situation arises.

Two weeks ago I was approached by John Mead to help out on some of his classes.  I'm already sitting in with the Disco ensemble, but I was also asked to help out on the Bad Boys of Rock ensemble.  Last session was tartan-era Rod Stewart, this session is Al Green and Steve Winwood, two people I wouldn't really associate with the term "Bad Boys."  Al Green may have been before that pot of boiling grits dumped down his back steered him towards Gospel, and if leaving school and having a hit at age 16 makes you a Bad Boy, then I guess Winwood falls in that category.

The class is an interesting juxtaposition in styles.  With the Al Green songs there is a very steady 4/4 pattern (courtesy of Al Jackson Jr., known as "The Human Timekeeper" for his work with Booker T. and the M.G.s, among others).  I enjoy playing the songs because 1) it's Al Green ('nuf said), and 2) it's a good exercise in staying in the pocket.  Songs like "Let's Stay Together" or "Take Me to the River" tend to propel themselves, and I think it's my job to help the other musicians on the beat.  No reason to get fancy on these tunes.

One Steve Winwood tune we worked on was "Time Is Running Out" from his first solo album.  That album got fairly slagged in the media, and I'm not sure why.  I think it may have been a bit of a misfortune to release an album in 1977 that wasn't punk or disco.  The album may have been a victim more of the zeitgeist than anything else.  But again, this is another "stay in the pocket" songs that allows the other musicians to stretch a little, but I keep the anchor so it all sounds tight.

The other song?  "The Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys."  As Ian Hunter says in "All the Young Dudes," "I've been waiting to do this for years."  "Low Spark" is, to me, the definitive jazz-rock fusion song.  It has the structure of rock and the syncopated rhythm and improvisational expanse of jazz.  In playing that song I found myself thinking differently than on other songs - putting myself a bar or two ahead, planning a fill here or a steady beat there.  "Am I too loud on the ride?  Am I using the same fill too often?"  It can be a bit distracting since I love the song itself, and I may be best off just listening to the others and letting the music direct me.

Still, it's a song that I like so much that I hope we don't overdo it.  But if we do, it's like o.d.'ing on pepperoni pizza or barbecue - it's a lovely way to go!