Surprise, Surprise, Surprise

Performing for people as long as I have, I've seen a lot of things happen from awesome shows to on-stage fist fights amongst cast members.  When I think I've seen it all, something happens to remind me that I "ain't seen nuttin' yet!".

The thing lately that has captured my imagination is how professionalism is a lost skill amongst people who need to take it the most seriously.  One should take pride as to what work they and how they're perceived especially when involving the arts.  I'm amazed as to what small things people take for granted that totally affect their professionalism. I'm even further amazed as to how much people need to be told directly how to be professional!  It's something that isn't taught and only acquired apparently.  I've had to tell people things like:

• Show up on time (or even early) to rehearsals and shows.  This by far is the biggest problem I've run into regardless of endeavor.  Why do people find it acceptable to disrespect other people's time?  Time apparently had no personal cost to many of us.  If you had to pay let's say $25 for every minute you were late, I bet you'd be on time.
  
  
• Come prepared to work. I can't tell you how many rehearsals and shows I've been to where people don't know their lines, don't know what form we're using, can't remember lyrics, or absolutely are brain-dead and don't engage.  Again, this goes back wasting people's time.  Why do it?
  
  
• Don't sleep with other people in the group until after the production is over.  I've recently told this to a group I'm in and some people were shocked I would even think of this.  The idea is equivalent to pooping where you eat.  Sleeping with people introduces a whole other gamut of potential issues as a production goes on.  Unless you are mature enough to handle a sexual relationship (which most of us are not), the consequences of a falling out can be a detriment to the production.  People get weird, the rest of the cast/band gets uncomfortable, and ultimately it shows on-stage.  As Grandmaster Flash says, "DON'T DO IT!"

I learned these things primarily from being in band programs in middle and high school.  They taught us the importance of these things even though at the time we just thought they were being hard on us.  I am incredibly grateful to have learned this early in my life so that I am in the upper echelon of my peers when it comes to being deemed professional.I'm not perfect but compared to many of my peers, I'm a superstar!

Living In the Limelight

By all intents and purposes, I consider myself to be a performer - not just an actor, a musician, or a comedian.  Yes, the latter list of titles describe a facet of what I have to offer the entertainment world but don't sum up everything I can and want to do.  This distinction came up in a passionate discussion I had a couple of nights ago.

In a very polite way I was asked to be mindful of how I should be acting on stage.  The compliant  was that my natural actions on stage distract from the vibe, the attitude, or the mood of a show.  From what I've learned in many shows is that sometimes I do get a bit overzealous and do things to focus attention onto me.  However, most of the time, I'm very mindful about who has focus and where it needs to lie.  So, this hit a little nerve and got things a bit heated.  I responded, "No offense to anyone in this room  but I'm the only one here who performs on a stage on a regular basis and is very comfortable on stage."  I said it with such impunity and vigor that there was no room for argument there. 

What really unnerved me was this prefabricated notion of what "the mood" of the show "should be" - as if there's a manual describing one-to-one relationships between actions on-stage and reactions off-stage.  What I've learned is that no crowd is ever the same night to night.  What works in one show won't work in another and vice-versa.  With my current run of "Ctrl+Alt+Deport", I've been amazed as to how disparate the crowds are each night we perform.  We think "Oh, the crowd is gonna LOVE this line!" and the line doesn't receive a reaction while something we totally didn't anticipate kills.  The only constant one can count on is how they conduct themselves when that spotlight is turned on. If you get into the habit of trying to dictate what they're going to react to, you'll be disappointed almost all of the time.

For these reasons, I refuse to subscribe to some inorganic notion of just how things should be when my craft as a performer is concerned.  The task at hand now is to have everyone involved on-stage to figure out their personas and working all of our individual expressions into a cohesive unit at every show.

Acoustic Rawk Roulette

I played a showcase last night at the Elbo Room.  It was the most fun show I've done in a long time!

Working up to the show as a bit of a chore however.  I took my acoustic into 3rd Coast Guitars to get it setup and be primed for the show.  I open the case and the guy looks at it as if it has leprosy :)).  He then tells me, "Well, don't get me wrong, I want your money but did you notice that your bridge and neck are cracked?"  I had noticed there was something going on with the bridge but didn't think much of it, but I didn't know about the neck.  He quoted me a price for the repairs and I told him to not bother as the cost of repair totally superseded the cost of the guitar.  So, my $100 investment 12 years finally crapped out on me.  So, I bought another guitar instead:

So I worked up a batch of 15 songs and headed out to the bar later that evening.  I set up the looper, guitar, mics, and my Ustream channel for the show (playback of the show can be found here).  The staff at the place hooked up a laptop to the big screen TV in the center of the backwall and threw on the display of Chatroulette.com.   I'd never heard about this site until then and watched as random people webcams (tons of guys masturbating freely on it) would come up and the staff would act a fool in front of the camera.  I asked them to keep up the video while I played to keep things interesting.  I played a set heavy with originals, a few covers mixed in, and even a couple of songs improvised on the spot based on what I was seeing in the room.  I took the intro to "Jesse's Jam" and made a little hip-hop song out of it.  It was awesome!

I can't wait for the next one.  I love being able to play my own songs in my own way.

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeee! Fit?! No.

I got a Wii Fit for the Wifey's birthday this month and have been working out on the thing rather regularly.  At first I thought it would be a walk in the park: boot it up, do some relatively easy exercises, then walk away feeling good about "working out" without breaking a sweat.   So much for that idea :).

It's a lot harder than I gave it credit for.  I've been fumbling through the different exercises trying to find a perfect balance of workout and challenge all the while trying to keep my pride intact.  Many of the exercises kick my butt; anything requiring core strength zaps the life out of me.  But it's a lot of fun.

Let's see what my Wii Fit age is at the end of next week!

REVIEW:Smashing Pumpkin's Teargarden by Kaleidyscope (First Three Tracks)

A lot has changed in the music industry in the last 20 years.  We've seen a lot of death: major record labels, hair metal, nu-metal, grunge, guitar solos, electronica, compact discs, ubiquitous platinum selling artists, touring, general artist promotion, high-end recording studios, and radio.  We've also seen some exciting changes: digital singles, portable digital players, independent record labels and artists, satellite radio, social networking, home studios that rival established commercial studios, streaming online shows,and ubiquitous sources of music such as YouTube, TV, movies, and video games.  So with such changes in the environment artists live in, it's interesting to see how some artists who lived in the "old" system are adapting to the new one.  Artists such as NIN, Carly Simon, and Wheatus seem to be able to cross-over quite well.  Billy Corgan's Smashing Pumpkins are striving to bridge the gap as well. A 44-song, multi-year collection of songs entitled Teargarden by Kaleidyscope(TGBKS) is the current release from the Pumpkins.  As each single is being release roughly every 6 weeks from each other, fans have to wait patiently for the next chapter in the Pumpkins' musical journey - both artistically and just as importantly financially. Each song is being released in a high-quality, non-DRM mp3 for free from their website http://www.smashingpumpkins.com.  At some point, fans will have the opportunity to buy a box set of all of the songs with artwork, lyrics, and a bunch of other unspecified goodies for a given price.  The questions I have for this endeavor are: The "old" way of making a record could take multiple years, but the end result seemed to encapsulate the feelings/emotions/thoughts of an artist for the public to digest in one gulp with each subsequent record being another helping .  With the approach The Pumpkins are taking, an open-ended stream of thoughts and feelings can inserted into the collection.  Will the initial vision of the collection be lost due to outside influences?   Is the music going to be strong enough to support a 44 track vision?  With that many tracks, it's easy to get album filler in the batch over the years.    With each song being released independently, what true impetus will the public have to formally buy the same tracks again?  With the release of 2007's Zeitgeist, The Pumpkins got accused of price gouging by their fans by releasing multiple versions of the record with different artwork, tracks, and bonus material (granted, online file sharing easily took care of a fan wanting all of the song).   With those questions in mind, I decided to hold off any kind of formal review of any of the tracks until I got a small collection of them in my hands and have lived with them a bit.  This way I could maybe get an initial feeling as to where the record is heading artistically and be able to back up my thoughts with some music (as I'm always on the defense for the band for the last 18 years). Song For A Son This is the first song released from TGBKS.  It's also the first song featuring drummer Mike Byrne who's replaced (my personal favorite drummer) Jimmy Chamberlin after an amicable split with Corgan post touring for Zeitgeist. It also features production and engineering from long-time Pumpkin cohort Kerry Brown.  This somber song ties in a lot of "non-traditional" Pumpkins instrumentation such as organ, piano, and synthesizers.  These additional sounds give a "nu-psychedelia" vibe harking back to bands such as The Beatles, The Yardbirds, Strawberry Alarm Clock, and The Doors.  Byrne's drums are recorded in such a fashion that they give a "vintage" sound to the recording.  The guitar solos are absolutely Pumpkins with screaming bends and harmonized progresions. Corgan's voice is as whiny as ever but still listenable to my ears.  Lyrically, the song deals with the trials and tribulations of a being someone's son; particularly, how sons relate to their fathers (Corgan has well-documented father issues many of which he's worked out and continues to work on). In a traditional sense, this wouldn't be my first pick as the first song to release to introduce this new record.  I actually do like the song but it's by no means a "single".  Granted, Corgan claims to not be interested in releasing a traditional record with traditional promotion; hence, that should bear no relevance as to how the song should be perceived.  Yet, I think it's an inescapable reality that non-musically related idiosyncrasies influence the reception of the artistry.  With the line-up changes, the controversial stage banter and attitude taken by Corgan while on tour, and the Ghost of Pumpkins Past beckoning the group to play "the hits" only, the new music has a lot to compete with if the goal is to gain popularity and acceptance.  This song could've been released third or fourth in the series after releasing songs that would establish a bridge between fan expectation and their current musical direction. Widow Wake My Mind "Oh. Oh oh. Oh. Oh oh." This song is much more in the traditional Pumpkins vein with a hint of nu-psychedelia.  I love the interplay between 6/4 and 4/4 time signatures.  Lyrically I don't really get the song so it may require more spins for me to come up with a meaning for it.  Mike Byrne is much busier on this song with flurries of drum rolls between verses and choruses; yet, he hasn't given me the indication that he's "the future" of the group as Billy has been quoted.  I am sure he can play his arse off but he's got mighty big shoes to fill.  Hopefully future songs will feature more interplay between the guitars and the drums like most Pumpkins songs.  Again, I like the song.  This one would be more appropriate to release as the first song for the public. A Stitch In Time Now, this song seems to be the most "Pumpkin"-esque song yet.  I feel the 1960's coming through the speakers in this one.  The acoustic guitars set the tempo and beat and the leads are played by an organ with sitars playing counter-melodies.  The mix is also much better balanced between the instrumentation and Billy's voice.  It reminds me of something I would hear off of Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness (MCIS).  So far, I like this song the best. It looks like Billy's put his mind to something huge.  I hope he actually sees it through.  It would be a triumph artistically and socially in that nobody's ever done it before.  I look forward to more tracks and more Pumpkins!