ghosts of home stereo systems past

I’m ashamed to admit this, but I don’t currently own a proper CD player, turntable or cassette player.  I never thought it would come to this.  I basically commandeered my family’s hi-fi stereo system when I was 6 years old so that I could listen to my small collection of Beatles, Yardbirds, Jeff Beck, ELP and Alan Parsons albums.  I was probably eight years old when my brother-in-law gave me his old portable turntable with detachable speakers (perfect for a late 1960’s dorm room).  He’d moved on from Rock and Roll, whereas I was hooked--in a bad way.  My favorite activity was listening to Beatles albums LOUD with the bass cranked, treble all the way down.  I’m not sure why this was so intoxicating for me.  I guess I just really love bass.  When I got a drumset at age 13, I practiced along with records.  What other way is there to learn?  When I went to College at 18 I took a boombox and a milk crate full of tapes.  My Sophomore year I took my parents old turntable and plugged into my roomie’s receiver.  We listened to music non stop: Echo and the Bunnymen, U2, the Cult, Guns and Roses, the Smiths, Midnight Oil, Pink Floyd, Santana, Naked Raygun, Joy Division, New Order, The Clash, REM, Guadalcanal Diary, Love and Rockets, the Cromags, Murphy’s Law, Camper Van Beethoven, The Jam, Bob Mould, The Replacements, Trip Shakespeare, (room mate was a Minnesotan) Grateful Dead,  Bob Dylan, and of course the Beatles.  Albums gave way to tapes and they gave way to CDs (my first CD purchase was Cream Live at the Royal Albert Hall) and CDs started the slow digital unfurling which lead to Mp3s and that leads me to where I am today:  Sitting at a computer (along with everyone else in America).  AND I have my Honda.  And those are the places where I listen.  The Honda sounds better and is a more pleasant way to listen to music except you have to drive.  Sometime I just go out to my parked car and listen.  No one bugs me.  

I’m making an album now--the 3rd full length for my band.  I spend a lot of time listening to ruff mixes etc.. so much so that by the time the album is finished, I rarely listen to it again.  But that’s my job:  I make ‘em, you listen to ‘em (hopefully).  I made a video from the inside of my car, driving north on 101 crossing the Golden Gate Bridge, looking out through the cracked windshield on a foggy Friday afternoon on my way to a drum gig with Shana Morrison.  Take a ride in my Honda (that sounds creepy) and meditate on the ghosts of home stereo systems past.

What is Life Guitar Part...

A few months ago I found a used copy of George Harrison’s 1970 masterpiece album “All Things Must Pass”.  Where do we begin discussing that album?  I have been deeply under it’s magic spell since.  I’m working on a new album with the band and I’ve been doing some research: learning songs from the masters, doing lots of listening to all manner of different stuff and searching my soul too wondering if we can pull it off again, also wondering how in hell we’re gonna pay for it.  I sat down with ATMP a few nights ago and learned all the chord progressions.  What a lesson! It’s pure genius that I plan on covertly stealing asap.   Didn’t Picasso say something about good artists copy, great ones steal.  Pablo, I will do my very best to steal, you can judge the merits of my musical larceny when the dust settles on the new Felsen album.  

There was one guitar part that really intrigued me and I wanted to try and learn.  It’s the lead line that you hear right at the top of “What is Life”.  I’m not much of a guitarist--I’m more of a guitar owner/songwriter and singer only by default. This guitar part didn’t sound particularly hard to play, I could figure out most of it.  The problem was that once producer’s Phil Spector’s reverb-drenched Wall of Sound kicks in the part kinda gets hard to hear in the verse sections.  I did what us modern musicians do:  troll about the internet looking for tab (couldn’t find any), but I did come across a great youtube clip where the part is isolated and it really made me start thinking about how brilliant the guy was.  You can hear swagger in there and maybe some kind of an R&B/funk influence too.  You can also hear the confidence and intelligence in this part.  Confidence? Just to put it in perspective, in the two years or so leading up to the recording of ATMP, George recorded the first Beatle solo effort (the soundtrack to the movie Wonderwall, much of which was recorded in Bombay with Indian musicians), recorded all 4 sides of the White Album and the Hey Jude single, recorded more music for Yellow Submarine, co-wrote tunes with and produced sessions for Bob Dylan and the Band, acted as Apple Records A&R man signing both James Taylor and Badfinger (produced some of their stuff too), recorded both the Let It Be and Abbey Road albums, produced a Billy Preston album, co-wrote the hit Cream tune “Badge”, toured as a sideman with Delaney and Bonnie and co-wrote with and produced Ringo’s solo music.  Big couple of years for George--more than most of us musicians will ever achieve in several lifetimes.  Dude had skills for days!  Oh yeah, he studied sitar with the Maestro, Ravi Shankar.  How could I forget that?  And that’s just the 2 years leading up to the making of ATMP!  Dont’ forget his 10,000 hours in the clubs of Hamburg as a teen, the 12 string electric guitar, the Revolver album...

The fact that he was under Lennon & McCartney’s thumb, playing second fiddle for many years is pretty much common knowledge for all of Beatlefreaks.  He had a lot to prove with ATMP.  Phil Spector said that he was beyond a perfectionist.  I think you can hear it in this part.  The part pretty much is the bass line to the song too.  What came first?  Probably George’s part.  So perfect was it, that bassist Carl Radle jumped on it.  The ex-Beatles knew a thing or two about bass lines being in the Mac’s band.  Session bassist extraordinaire Tony Levin said that John Lennon was the artist who completely knew exactly what they wanted from the bass.  I’m sure George was probably the same.  George’s guitar line sits in that sweet spot of really dialed-in while at the same time being nice and loose.  Pure rock and roll gold.  

Felsen Recording Update 2

Felsen New Album Project Mid Term Progress Report.  OK, maybe it’s more like the end of the first trimester as I don’t think we’re at the halfway point just yet, but we’re making good progress.  To get you up to speed, we currently have 7 songs in various stages of production and we’re aiming for 10-12 songs total.

I know, who’s buying CD’s anymore you may be thinking???   It seems very trendy now-a-days to put out an EP or just put out singles/youtube videos/ringtones, but us dinosaurs are making an LP’s worth of new Felsen music.  An album should be like a novel in that every song is a chapter in the book; the songs fit together to tell a bigger story. That doesn’t mean it’s gonna be a corny rock opera (dōmo arigatō Mr. Robotto).  Think:  OK Computer, Sea Change, Pet Sounds, Grace or the White Album where the songs have a vibe and a feeling tying them together.  As great as any individual song on any of those masterpiece albums was, the real magic is listening to the albums as a whole.   Things may be looking grim for the good ship music biz, but I’m willing to go down with the ship--that’s how much I love you. For better or for worse, making albums is my artform.

We worked really hard last week.  On Saturday we did an all day session at Cris’s house in San Lorenzo where we recorded basics for 3 news songs.  It seemed like we’re getting better at our process and things went surprisingly well.  We put in a few rehearsals in the 2 weeks leading up to the session to workshop the songs.  Rehearsal=results, go figure. Who knew? Two of the songs we rehearsed enough we debuted them at a little local SF gig Friday night.  Never playing it safe, we played 5 songs from the upcoming album in our 45 min set.  It was risky, but it was a rush to pull that off and not fall flat on our faces.  The audience was pretty much entirely people who’d never heard us before--all the tunes were new to them and they seemed to enjoy it.  One person came up to me and asked which CD has “Gimme Shelter for the Devil”.   She’ll have to wait for it to come out.  I sold her a different CD instead. I'm good at sales.

One of the catchier new tunes is "Lorazepam". Do you know what Lorazepam is? It’s a prescription sleeping med for insomnia and anxiety.  I had some medical problems a while back and it was prescribed to me.  It makes you sleep like a baby floating on a puffy cloud high above an enchanted forest of magical pixie dreams. Ahhh...it would be real easy to get hooked, real easy. I always thought the name of the med sounded like a girl’s name, a girl you get hooked on in a bad way.  We debuted it at the gig.  People dug it.  America, you’ll have to wait a few more months to hear that one.  FYI:  Lorazepam was Michael Jackson’s drug of choice.  Careful kids, don’t try this at home.

Well, it's time to go write a few more tunes. I have some song titles that I like. I think I'll start with that and work from the top down. That's how Metallica does it. And I wouldn't argue with those dudes.

video highlights here

Ladies & Gentlemen meet the Wearies...

I’m looking forward to Friday night’s show at Neck of the Woods and hearing/seeing The Wearies.  These guys are doing their own thing and not following the latest trend--I like that.  They play a very listenable blend of straight up power pop.  The tunes are upbeat and have a positive vibe.  I’ve been listening to their music online today and I like what I hear.  If you're a fan of Joe Jackson, Elvis Costello, Weezer and the Smithereens, you'll be right at home! I had the chance to pow wow with Erik Mullin about the Wearies and the show this Friday.  

Congrats on the release of your new EP.  This is your first release in a little while. What are your plans now for the Wearies?  Thanks, for now we are focusing on live shows in and around the Bay Area. It's been a little while since we played so we are really looking forward connecting with a live audience.

What are you planning for the show at Neck of the Woods?  First off, we have some EP's ready. We also might have a surprise or two in our set.

What do you like about making music in the Bay Area?  You got to love the diversity of the Bay Area music Scene. There are so many cool and different types of bands as well as Venues, you really can get exposed to many fans and cross over genres.

What don’t you like about making music in the Bay Area?  as for dislike, well...our drummer got his car broken into parked outside our rehearsal space... that sucked!

What advice would you give to an aspiring musician.  The best advice to any aspiring musician I can give is "get out and play, music is meant to be played live, something to be shared."

What are you listening to these days?  Some new music I'm listening to is Nervous Wreckords, Transfer, Foxy Shazam, but usually just hit shuffle and I'm good maybe a little T-Rex, Queen, Kings of Leon

INFO ON THE SHOW FRIDAY APRIL 5 AT NECK OF THE WOODS:

recording and gig update.

Monday night at home after a very long and intense previous week.  I had a lot on my plate with Felsen stuff as well as all manner of other musical related things I do to try and make a living:  teaching a slew of private drum lessons, doing a bunch of rehearsals with other bands as well as playing drums with Roger Rocha’s (guitarist from 4 Non Blondes fame) fantastic band, the Goldenhearts at the Rickshaw Stop in SF and drumming with Paul Manousos & the Legendary East Bay Wrecking Crew at my fav Alameda restaurant Spiesekammer (where I was thrilled to meet and perform for one of my idols from my teenage years---Klaus Flouride from the Dead Kennedy’s.)  At Friday’s big gig at the Brick & Mortar in SF I pulled double duty playing drums with Brad Brooks as well as performing with Felsen.  That show was like planning a wedding.  It was totally crazy the amount of PR we (all 4 bands on the bill) had to do to pack that venue.  In the end though, it was really worth it as it was one of the largest shows we’ve done in SF.  I was totally exhausted from the experience.  The night before the show I got home from a gig around midnight and I found an email from the booker saying only a handful of presale tix had been sold and they were not happy.  I stayed up until about 3 in the morning emailing and messaging people about the gig.  (Did you get one from me?  Check the time that sucker rolled into your inbox).  That freaked me out and needless to say I didn’t get much sleep.  Saturday morning I got up early, taught 7 drum lessons and then headed to day 2 of Felsen’s new album recording project.  so....I’m kinda tired.  

The Brick and Mortar gig though was really special for us.  Big hometown show.  Plenty of the Felsen faithful were in attendance and lots of new faces too.  It was also a hoot to perform for a bunch of our musician friends too.  SF is a pretty tight knit musical community.  Of the four bands on the bill that night, I am currently a member of 2 and am an alum of a 3rd.  Lots of the people who performed that night I’ve been in bands with over the years.  Lots of history.  It was kind of a family reunion.  Some have seen Felsen before and it was great to introduce Felsen to those who haven’t.  The venue was killer and that always helps too. We dug into the music and gave it a little extra.  The bunny showed up and that always takes the show from 4th to 5th gear i.m.h.o. Nights like that reminded us all why we moved to the Bay Area.

We’ve been performing a batch of new songs that we’re road testing, prepping for a new Felsen album and we devoted this past weekend to recording ‘basics’ (getting the drums down and then we build tunes up around those drum trax).  We’re recording at our bass player Cristian Hernandez’s house.  Bless him for allowing this holy mess of chaos to take over his fine home:  drums, amps, cables, microphones, gongs, pizza boxes, beer cans, capos, a glockenspiel, and a vibraphone, guitars and banjos now litter his casa.  I gotta say though, that this is a special process and we’re all really feeling it.  Maybe it’s just the simple fact that we’re recording in Cris’s home that has put us all at ease.  It’s much funner and more relaxed than the big studios that we’ve worked in before.  I love that too, but when you’re paying hundreds of dollars a day to record, on some level it can start to erode your creativity when you’re on a tight budget.  I played cris’s daughter’s pink childrens drumset today for an intro on a song.  I probably wouldn’t have wasted time doing that at a big recording studio where everyone was watching the clock.   This week we do more rehearsals to begin the process of prepping more new songs to record.  The following two weeks we’ll do more overdubs on what we’ve all ready recorded trying to finish that batch of tunes up and then in April we’ll do more basics on the next batch of tunes.  We hope to have all the recording done in May.  Art’s getting married in May so, that’s kind of a deadline to get it all done before he leaves.  Maybe we’ll be mixing while he’s honeymooning.  

Is anybody reading this thing?  how ‘bout subscribing to my blog.  

seahorse

We had a really great show this past Friday night at the Seahorse in Sausalito.  The show was put together by Don Zimmer & his record label, Floating Records. Don also played in the opening band Slow Cooked Surprise.  The Seahorse is an upscale restaurant/nightclub on the water in Sausalito.  It’s a big, beautiful venue, much nicer than some of the establishments that we normally play. 

In an effort to make the show special (i.e. try and bring out people), Don asked us to perform our album Breaking Up With Loneliness in its entirety. This is something that we’ve never done before and I gotta be honest, I was kinda nervous about it.  Putting together a set list and putting together a running order of an album are two entirely different things.  We perform mainly in bars.  People want to have fun and forget about their troubles.  They wanna drink beer and maybe dance.  Our set lists usually try to balance those needs with our desire to sneak something artistic into their cerebral cortex.  “Keep It Stupid” usually is our mantra; too many sleepy, sad, introspective tunes does not a happy bar owner like.  Whereas, if you wanna get freaky on your album, go for it!  We compromised: Set one was a bunch of upbeat, fun tunes and some cover songs and set two was The B.U.W.L album.  Would people fall asleep when we played the album?  Would they leave out of sheer boredom?  

1st SET:  I’ve performed at the Seahorse a few times before playing drums with a different band and it isn’t a real late night joint.  People eat dinner and maybe stay for a little while before they gotta get home:  The babysitter is waiting! It is what it is (fav Felsen expression).  The people who were gonna split, split. It didn’t matter how good/bad we were.  Some eardrums were not use to live rock and roll.  It’s never a great feeling seeing someone plugging their ears midway into your 2nd song (twirling hippie woman, you know who you are).  We turned down (a bit).  At times, I could hear the pick scraping across the strings of my guitar, my ELECTRIC GUITAR! Even then it was still too loud for some.  I had to deliver the bad news to our beast-like rock drumming mountainous manbeast of a rock drummer that despite his frustrations at work, he needed to play a bit quieter.  For God’s sake, chardonnay was being served! He took it well.  We toned it down.  We made it through the set.  Managed to play a few new tunes, had people dancing.  People applauded.  CDs were purchased (thank you).  

2nd SET:  A noticeable thinning of the crowd occurred on the set break.  This happens with set breaks.  The people who stayed though really were the die hard music fans at this point.  We had two fans drive up from Paso Robles (3hr 54 min drive) for the show and a few other hardcore Felsen faithful were there.  I joked with the audience about playing the album, letting them know I had some trepidation about doing so, worrying that it might put people to sleep.  Man was I wrong.  I underestimated these folks.  They were with us fully and gave 100 percent.  The rock tunes were easy, those always work, but the quiet stuff???? that’s where this audience really impressed me.  We played Secret Life of Guns, an older couple slow danced.  (Did they know the tune is about the insanity of guns and the epidemic of mass shootings in the US?).  People listened.  We played the title tune, Breaking Up With Loneliness which is about as deep and introspective of a tune as we’ve got.  The bridge says “I dreamed about dying again last night”.  Our hardcore fans were singing along every word.  I went down into the audience and gathered all the people around me and we sang the refrain of that together “I’m breaking up with loneliness”.  That’s powerful to hear a room full of people singing that.  It’s like old time religion and these were the newly converted. It was spiritual.  Did you feel it?  We played a few more easy rockers.  We played Honolulu which again is a pretty deep themed tune.  I’m a cancer survivor.  I had 5 major surgeries due to that shit.  Honolulu is about that awful time waiting for the surgery to begin and you’d rather be anywhere else.  Maybe someplace tropical.  “In my dreams I’d rather be, with a wave crashing over me”.  We finished off with Take Me Back which Felsen has never performed.  We were too lazy and too busy preparing new material to record while touring to work up a proper full band version of the tune, so we stripped it down with acoustic guitar, Dylan on Banjo, Cristian on backing vocals and Art on shaker. All 4 of us went down into the audience.  People huddled around us.  We busked.  It was musical intimacy: all hands on deck with the audience singing along at the end.  It was quiet. Too bad the twirling hippie woman split.  The good people called for an encore and we gave them a debut of a new song Better Thoughts.  I had a front row audience member hold up the sheet of lyrics for me to read--that’s how new the song was.  Lyrics were finished Friday morning.  It was loud, real loud at times, but good, real good.  

Flingers!

In the small time world of business transactions that is Felsen, we have recently learned a valuable lesson.  Get it in writing!  I know, I know...I should have already learned this lesson long ago.  I’ve been burned a number of times.  It’s kinda embarrassing to me that after so many years in the biz that I/we still, from time to time, get bitten in the ass.  But I’ve been burned even when I had it in writing: they, the scumbags who reneged on their contract, knew that it was more of a pain in the ass for me and would ultimately cost me more in legal expenses to pursue than the original amount owed to me. End story: they win, I lose. Small claims court=large pain in ass.  What do you do?  Write a negative Yelp review and teach those unscrupulous motherscrappers a lesson?  (not my style--plus I’m too lazy).  So... I’m gonna vent here on my blog. Maybe write a song about it (probably not). And definitely send at least one more sternly worded email.

A long time ago I played a random drumming gig at a kinda neat venue in Ben Lomond, CA called Henflings.  I made a mental note about the place and tucked it away.  Years later when I put Felsen together and I’d blown through all the invitations to open for my friends bands and it was time to book our own gigs, I reached out to this place and sent an email booking inquiry.  The owner/booker got back to me and said “no dice”.  They book hard rock, blues and cover bands.  Felsen’s music wasn’t a good fit. No hard feelings.  Again I tucked it away.  I knew we rocked hard on stage, but the first album was anything but hard rocking:  sad, dark, introspective and quiet--yes, Molly Hatchet--no. Oh well.  A year and a half later we came out with “Breaking up With Loneliness”.  Definitely plenty of upbeat rockers on that one.  Just for shits and giggles I sent it to him again.  This time he got back to me and offered us a Thurs night.  That’s a long drive down there on a thurs night.  It took a bit of arm twisting, but my band agreed and we went and did the gig and had a reasonably good time.  Not really our long-term desired demographic there in the hills of Santa Cruz, but it’s a gig, we made some money and we sold some CDs.  A few weeks later, they called and offered us a 2nd gig this time on a Saturday night. Wow, were moving up in the world!  

Again we schlepped it down there (144 mile round trip journey).  The gig was OK. Crowd response was average. Some people loved it while some people wanted Molly Hatchet, Skynard and Floyd.  Some people wanted to smoke their locally grown weed with us while others probably wanted to burn us at the stake.  Allow me to explain. I am aware that I push people’s buttons. I get up in people’s faces when we’re playing.  I go out into the audience.  I physically corral people, herding them onto the dance floor when necessary--or break down the “Third Wall”  as they say in the theater world.  Prometheus brings fire to the people! ( I saw harmonica virtuoso Sugar Blue do this same shtick long ago at Rosa’s west side club in Chicago--I took notes.)  I write songs about hot button topics like “Secret Life of Guns”--inspired by mental giant Sara Pallin’s campaign slogan--Don’t Retreat, Reload.  Or a song about the killing of Oscar Grant (Ghost of the American Experience).  I got a big mouth.  I berate the audience about turning off their cell phones.  I strongly encourage people to buy our CDs (especially at venues where there’s no cover charge).  It’s not always comfortable, but it is entertaining.  It’s gotta be done and it’s gotta be better than TV.  Maybe I stepped over the line.  I’ll admit to that. I’m sure I have done so and will probably do so again.  Oh well.  

After that 2nd gig, we all felt like we were done with Henflings.  Again, not our long-term desired demographic.  Just another gig.  We kinda forgot about the place. And then I got an email 8 months later from the new booker who had actually been tending bar both times we previously performed at ‘Flingers.  Well go figure, she loved it.   She’s a fan and she wants us back AND she’s offering us a cash guarantee. Ok, now THAT we can do.  We found a date that worked.  I made a poster, sent them copies, I even sent down a stack of FREE PROMO CDs to hand out to patrons to help get the locals amped up about our gig.  Things were looking up for Felsen! Then about a week before the gig I got an email  cancelling our gig.  Apparently the boss didn’t share her good feelings towards Felsen.  I felt bad for the booker.  She’s a fan.  I’m sure she felt crappy about it.  I emailed her and said thanks for sticking your neck out for Felsen...but yeah we’re gonna need that money regardless.  The boss probably looked at the schedule on his calendar a week before the show and remembered us as the band with the loudmouth singer with left leaning political agenda and said “no dice” to his booking agent.  My bandmates (including myself) turned down other paying gigs that we could have done with other bands on that night to go do a gig with Felsen.  Worse yet was that we had a tour coming up the week after the Henflings gig and we needed that money for essentials like gas, motels, pizza, moonshine and Voodoo Donuts.  Still no word from the good people at ‘Flingers.  No money.  I included my address  where they could send a check.  Go figure, it hasn’t arrived just yet.  Regarding the tour: we managed to slide through that one not in debt. We got lucky on CD sales.  But had Henflings payed us, we could have payed ourselves a little something for the tour. Maybe our wives/fiances would have looked at us a little different had we come home from tour not empty handed--again.  Being a single mom for 4 days while your hubby is out on the road not making any money certainly does suck.  So dear Henflings, I’m waiting on that check.  Until then I will refrain from writing trash on Yelp.  Infact, when that check arrives I promise to write you a Yelp sonnett pledging my eternal love and patronage.  Maybe I’ll even write you a song (ok probably not).