"Only Apart", Still One of My Faves

Out of all my songs, "Only Apart" is still one of my favorites to listen to and perform. I wrote it more than 4 years ago (it feels like longer than that) and it was actually one of the last songs that we worked on as a group in my band Now Transmission. We never quite finished the full band version before we parted ways. As a band it had some cool things going for it but I'll always have a fondness for it in the raw acoustic form. I recorded the video below about 3 years ago but it still pretty much holds the same basic form today.

I've always been really proud of this song and I even framed and hung the page of hand written lyrics on my wall here in my creative room. It really adds to the creative feel. Sometimes I just take it down and look at it. Is that weird? Rock on!

Never Going "Away"

As much as I'm trying to work on new tunes (quite unsuccessfully I might add), I can't help but turn back the clock and get hooked on some of my old tunes. I guess I get a little sucked in by the feeling of accomplishment that I felt back then when I was satisfied with what I was doing at the time. Every once in a while I just sit here and listen to nothing but my "FryeTunes" playlist.

It feels a little weird in some ways. I'm not sure why. But overall it's just nice to sit back and think about what I've created. On a good day it motivates me to work harder thinking, "If I could do that then, why not something even better now?"

You know one of the best things about music? Once it's there, it's never gone. You can't uncreate something. You can change it, you can try to forget about it, you can even delete the files off your computer. But it will always be there in the back of your head somewhere just waiting to come out again.

Personally, whether I like some of my songs or not, I like to keep them around to show where I've been, feel good about where I am now and strive to kick so much more musical ass in the future.

The song below is an old one that tends to get stuck in my head. Not in a bad, Katy Perry kinda way either. Getting a band together and revamping this one would be a treat. If only I could get the hang of playing it and singing it at the same time. As old as it is in my book (we're talking almost 6 years now), I've never played it live and I still can't quite get the vocals and the rhythm to match up without tweaking myself out. The fingers do what they want sometimes.

The Gig

As excited (and nervous) and I was about it, I totally forgot to write about the gig in Topeka! (See "Finally Gigging It Up".)

It had been at least 4 years since I stepped on a stage to perform in front of people. Probably about 6 years by myself as I usually had a band behind me. But overall, once the rustiness wore off, as well as being able to look out and see my friends in front of me with the mixture of bar goers, I think it went pretty well.

The start was the worst. I got there super early and ended up being set up and ready to go 20 minutes before my scheduled to start time. I got all tuned up and let the anxiousness burrow into me. When I finally sat down, I checked my tuning on my shiny new tuner and I just started to play the first song in my 40 minute set list.

It felt wrong from the get go and I didn't start singing like I was supposed to but I kept playing. When I picked up the vocal the next time around the riff, it felt very weird. It was then that I realized I was in the wrong tuning. I play in E flat and Dropped D flat. I was supposed to be in D yet I was in E. I had no choice but to stop and do one of the most embarrassing things you can do on stage. Admit that you messed up, re-tune, and start over. 

One thing that's nice being a musician and writing your own tunes is that most people can't tell when you mess something up. You're the musician, you can play your own song, or even a cover for that matter, however you want. Back in the band days I would just keep going, forget about the mistake and it would usually just go unnoticed by the crowd. But in this situation, it was close to impossible to cover and I had to take the hit.

Setting aside the minor embarrassment, I started up again and the rest of the set went how I had practiced for the previous month. Aside from ending about 20 minutes early from my scheduled time, I was pretty satisfied with my performance. As always, it was just getting up there that was the mountain to climb, getting down was the smooth ride. I look forward to doing the whole thing again sooner than later, minus the tuning mishap of course, and maybe with someone else to jam with me. Hopefully I'll have a nice shiny new guitar to go with my nice shiny new tuner by then so I don't have to borrow.

Rock on!

Geting Ready For the Show With the Foo

It's getting pretty close to gig time (which I mentioned in"Finally Gigging It Up") so I've been playing quite a bit. I'm starting to get nervous as hell thinking about it. Never-the-less, I'm pretty confident and definitely excited, but it would be really nice for the day to come already.

Below is a vid of one of the covers that I'm going to be playing this Sunday. (Bad lighting and all.) It's one of my favorites to play.

4 days and counting!

Finally Gigging It Up

Thank you Reverbnation, because I now have a gig. A buddy of mine and I are going to be rockin' Joletta's in North Topeka on October 10th (10/10/10) for the Veteran's Aid Benefit.

It's been a while since I've played out. Not for lack of want, but mostly for the lack of motivation and put crudely, lack of balls. I used to enjoy playing out acoustic style by myself in college. There was never a shortage of open mics and music competitions to take part in. Before I was in a band, and even after I joined, that was my thang. Yeah, it was super nerve racking. It was hard getting up there in front of the varying size crowds that I used to play, but once I was up there it was like being in another world and all that mattered was playing and singing.

It would be nice to get back in the swing of the way it was back in those days. It's weird saying it like that, like it was a long time ago, but 5 years is a long time in the grand scheme of  things. So many things have changed since then; my job, new friends, living in a place 1500 miles away from home. But one thing has most definitely stayed the same; my passion to play music. It will be good to share again. I just hope I'm up for the challenge.

And it will be good to have someone beside me to jam just to take the edge off.

Rock on!

I Love Music: Example #1

It amazes me what people can do with music sometimes. Videos like this make me feel worthless on the music front but at the same time makes me want to play so much more.

Thanks creative-music.org for showing this video.

I love music. Enjoy.

It's A Wonderful Guitar Case

There was a point in time when my guitar case was a sticker virgin. A young, innocent hunk of plastic and metal unaware of the sins of the world with one important job, to protect Siggy (my acoustic guitar). I wanted to keep it nice and clean, scratch free as possible and as in good condition as the guitar inside it. I guess I didn't see the point of all that graffiti on my pristine case and in some ways I didn't want to be a follower, because isn't that what every rock star wannabe does; cover their guitar case with needless and random stickers? (Some even plaster their guitars with junk stickers, no way!)

I take pride in my belongings the same as I do in the work I do and the songs that I create, and since my guitar case was one of my most public belongings, especially in college, I felt it represented me.

I even freaked out quite a bit when I had to hand over my precious to the airline attendant before a flight to Florida from Maine. Sure, most of my concern was for Siggy who laid inside helpless to those airline employees' dirty and somewhat untrustworthy hands, but I still didn't want to see a single ding on that case when it came around in the baggage claim after the flight.

But, sometime in the past couple of years a switch flipped. It was during one of my many moves when I came across a pile of stickers that I had collected over the years, a couple from shows I attended, a couple from the Now Transmission days, and a few from who knows where. As I sorted through the junk and tried to weed out the things I wanted to trash, I decided these stickers needed to serve their purpose and make their true home upon the blank canvas that was my acoustic guitar case.

The case is still pretty bare as you can see from the picture above. The other side doesn't have any stickers at all but it's something that I'll have to remedy as I collect more of those random stickers that will have no home otherwise.

Instead of seeing it as ruining my once perfect guitar case, I see it as a collection of memories, much like a traveler will do to commemorate their trips around the world, just like George Bailey never got the chance to do. ("I'm shakin' the dust of this crummy little town off my feet and I'm gonna see the world. Italy, Greece, the Parthenon, the Colosseum...")

So my guitar case is my "traveling case" and if in 10 years that case is still as sparsely covered as it is now, I haven't done my share of "traveling". I haven't hit enough shows, I haven't listened to enough tunage and I haven't done enough musical living.

It turned out alright for George and Clarence ended up getting his wings but as much as I would like a Hollywood happy ending, how I get there is the most important part. (If you don't get my movie reference here I feel very sorry for you.)

By the way, if you ever see me carrying my electric guitar case around stay away from me. That thing is mint, I'm not getting any dings on that baby. As I'm sure you know, the saying doesn't go like this: "Every time a case dings an angel gets its wings."

Fingerpickin' Good

More like fingerpickin' ok if you're talking about me. When it comes to playing guitar, fingerpicking is one those skills that I never really mastered. Not only does it take quite a bit of practice to coordinate all that finger movement on both hands while usually singing at the same time, it requires long finger nails to really do it justice, and I'm not a fan. Honestly, dudes with long nails kind of gross me out. (Sorry Esteban, you're incredible but those finger nails are creepy.) Not only that, they are constantly in the way of any other task in the other 14 hours of the day that I'm not playing my guitar. (Ladies, I don't know how you do it.) It's especially weird looking because the nails on your fretting hand always have to be kept as short as possible.

I've always had people suggest fingerpicks as the alternative to letting my finger nails get all Crypt Keeper, but the concept always annoyed me. I never really gave them a shot I suppose, but I have enough of a problem hanging on to a normal pick for more than a week, let alone 3 pointy plectrums (you normally only use 3 at a time, one on the thumb, index finger and middle finger) that I can't exactly keep in my pocket for that impromtu jam session.

But, you know, I've never complained about the annoyance of fingerpicking, and I'm not here, I'm simply very open to my flaws as a musician. I actually started thinking about this while working on another song in my list of tunes to get done asap. This tune is actually a cover. (We won't talk about how terrible I am at learning other people's songs. Let's stick with what I'm good at after this post. Sound good? Good.)

This cover song has a lot to do with living up to my promises like I wrote in my post "New Tune, In Spite of Stanley Steamer" which introduced my song "Only Apart". I promised you, my readers, and myself, that I would spend this year putting more of focus on my music. So far, I think I've done a decent job at that with two songs about a month into 2009.

The story of this cover song goes back much further than my promise about 2009. I promised a good college friend, a new friend at the time, that I would learn a tune for her from one of her favorite artists. Easy enough a task you would think. But this my first year in college and I had been playing guitar for less than a year. All the songs I was looking to learn involved quite a bit of fingerpicking and we know that I've never been that great at learning other people's tunes. (Lots of excuses, I know.) So years passed, 8 of them in fact, college is over, my friend is living half way across the country, and my promise is still left hanging there, unfulfilled.

I'm sure she's not exactly thinking about it everyday, or ever at all, but it still bugs me now and then. Partially because I made a promise, and partially because it bothers me that I just never could take the time to learn a simple song. She was always so supportive of me and my music back when I was just starting out and I needed that support the most, I at least wanted to have the chance to return some of that favor. So I've picked a song and I've spent the last week picking my fingers to the bone to finally get this right so I can surprise my friend with a song that's been 8 years in the learning. (That is unless she is reading this and realizes it's her I'm talking about.)

So that's my songwriting task for this week. Unfortunately, I'm not going to be posting it up for all to hear because I'm keeping my music player to originals only. Honestly, I really don't want to mess with copyright issues. I don't mean to tease but I have a fingerpicking song of my own creation that I'm working on for the near future that I will definitely be sharing.

So until next time, thanks for reading. Keep pickin'.....I mean rockin'!

UPDATE - I just remembered something in regards to fingerpicking. Check out Now Transmission's song "One To Blame" at their MySpace by clicking here. I wrote the majority of the music originally, but the fingerpicking part in the intro and first verse is my one musical performance contribution to the EP. I guess that's a little proof that I'm not totally useless when it comes to the skill.

These Old Strings

I remember a day when my guitar was the love of my life. I would always wash my hands before playing, I would change the strings consistently, I would even sit and rub "her" with a soft cloth to a glittering shine while my friends all stared and told me I was crazy. I wouldn't even dare to put stickers on the case because I wanted to keep everything in prime condition.

But as the years passed the routine became less and less important. The dust started to build, fingerprints became more prevalent, and the strings were almost always dirty and dull sounding with every pick stroke. The case was even covered with a myriad of stickers, tasteful, yet there none the less.

Though, I pick her up most every day, she rarely gets the treatment she deserves. I can't even remember the last time I changed the strings. It has to have been at least 6 months and 1,500 miles in the past. So sad. But despite the dings and the old strings, she still plays on. Maybe not as bright as she did at my high school graduation party when I first set eyes on her, but she puts up with my fumbling fingers anyway.

The more I write, the more I'm thinking of my old '77 Sigma acoustic as a person. And the more I feel like I need to wash my hands, grab a new set of strings, and that soft yellow cloth and treat her like she should be treated.

Being around the holidays, this little story has to do with a lot more than an old guitar. It has to do with taking so many other things for granted. A cheesy moral of the story, I guess so. But true. It's so easy to take things for granted when you have them. But when you don't, you realize too late how important they were.

So go change your metaphorical guitar strings. And Happy Holidays to everyone.