---
My posts have grown long,
Tour nears the beginning's end,
A haiku for you.
---
My posts have grown long,
Tour nears the beginning's end,
A haiku for you.
---
Thursday, October 30
Monday, October 27
Nashville Collaborations
Nashville is a microcosm. The city is surprisingly similar to New York and L.A., though much smaller in population. In Nashville, artists "break" and are glorified as if they were nationally known celebrities, despite the fact that their presence is nary felt worldwide, as an artist "breaking" out of L.A. or NYC would surely enjoy. In New York there are enough people, both music industry people and music fans who support the industry, to provide a scene where the interests of fans dictate the industry. Artists become popular because lots of people want to see their shows and buy their records.
In Nashville, a large portion of the population are music industry people themselves. They must serve the dual purpose of music industry person and music fan alike. This creates a huge cyclical process involving songwriters, publishers, performers, record labels, management companies, marketing agencies, distributors and unfortunately, you and me as music listeners, who are subject to the whim of much higher forces before our taste in music is accounted for. In Nashville, this process has created a town totally interdependent on itself where the process cannot be escaped.
For example, the morning after our show in Nashville I was patronizing my favorite corporate coffee shop with a green logo (don't say the S word, hipsters might attack). I'm standing in line and out of nowhere comes a guy, obviously more caffeinated than I at this point, who is annoyingly interested in why I'm wearing sweatpants and a headband, looking tired at 10am on a Thursday morning. Telling him about the show the night before was my first and last mistake. My new acquaintance launches into a rehearsed spiel about his various "involvements" with the music industry here in town. This is curious, as upon receiving his business card I silently notice the Heating/Plumbing Specialist title below Joe the Plumber's name. By this time I had coffee in hand but, before I could reach the door, Joe was already introducing me to another "music industry" friend of his. At least this second dude recognized Frogs Gone Fishin' (always a nice surprise), and wasn't trying to immediately pedal his imaginary musical wares on me.
This story illustrates an interaction that goes down thousands of times a day in Nashville, between thousands of people who have something to do with music which most likely has nothing to do with actually playing music itself. This may not be the case for long. A simple comparison might illustrate why.
If I, Trevor Jones, wanted to write a song and make it available for public consumption, I would:
1. Sit in my room with acoustic guitar, write something I think people will connect with.
2. Record the song for free with band (they realize shared profit potential and record for free), on free software that came with my computer. Little gadget to make the mics sound good cost $100.
3. Mix and place the song on Myspace, ReverbNation, iTunes, or any of the thousands of online music distributors. Leave the consumption part up to popular opinion and keep all the profit and recognition for a mammoth one-time recording cost of a hundred clams.
If Travis Jones, the aspiring Nashville-star in the making, wants to write a song and make it available for public consumption the traditional Nashville way, he would:
1. Select a song written by a songwriter, through a publisher. In doing so, he has already given away any profit potential for the song (a 50/50 split, songwriter/publisher).
2. Get an advance from the record label (Travis is now in debt) for a good studio (no respectable country album is recorded at home!), and a band (who he must pay because, just like him, the band only profits one time from the recording session). Most likely it's a completely different band than the one which he will pay to play the songs live on the road.
3. The record label will then spend even more money (also recoupable from Travis) to target-market and distribute the album in physical record stores, along with commercials and physical ads. Consumption is left up to known market factors (14 year olds who the suits know will buy records and almost certainly disregard the same artist by the time they are in college). While Travis will receive recognition for his efforts, he will be left in debt to a controlling record label.
If I seem biased against Nashville, it is really a bias against the outdated way many talented, but misguided musicians continue to willfully participate in their own demise. If any aspiring musicians are reading this, please: BOOK YOUR OWN SHOWS, WRITE YOUR OWN MUSIC, OWN YOUR OWN COPYRIGHTS!
But, if these concepts seem so axiomatic to me, why does Nashville continue to be a bastion of the old-world way? The answer lies in the above comparison. It takes me several hundred dollars and five people to make and distribute a song. It takes Travis in Nashville many thousands of dollars and dozens of people with interests other than his own to make same said, sad song.
It is the hubris of these same thousands of dollars and masses of people employed by the music industry which has kept Nashville antiquated. In fact, the downfall of this whole scenario is sitting in your lap or on your desk right now.
When CD's came out, the industry made millions just because people had to replace their cassettes, just as they had to replace 8-tracks and vinyl before that. Now that it is hard to imagine anything more convenient than an Mp3, the record industry is struggling to find a way to make money on such an intangible medium.
I suppose writing this post has made me feel better about Nashville. I'll admit there is a wealth of creativity and talent here, even if it is segmented and calcified within this evil industry process we've been talking about.
Frogs Gone Fishin' was lucky enough to have our friends DJ Bowls and the Green Horns horn section at our Nashville show. These collaborations help take our live show to the next level.
While this emerging, "new-world" music industry does have lots of benefits for independent artists like Frogs Gone Fishin', it has downsides and uncertainties, as well. More about that next time....
In Nashville, a large portion of the population are music industry people themselves. They must serve the dual purpose of music industry person and music fan alike. This creates a huge cyclical process involving songwriters, publishers, performers, record labels, management companies, marketing agencies, distributors and unfortunately, you and me as music listeners, who are subject to the whim of much higher forces before our taste in music is accounted for. In Nashville, this process has created a town totally interdependent on itself where the process cannot be escaped.
For example, the morning after our show in Nashville I was patronizing my favorite corporate coffee shop with a green logo (don't say the S word, hipsters might attack). I'm standing in line and out of nowhere comes a guy, obviously more caffeinated than I at this point, who is annoyingly interested in why I'm wearing sweatpants and a headband, looking tired at 10am on a Thursday morning. Telling him about the show the night before was my first and last mistake. My new acquaintance launches into a rehearsed spiel about his various "involvements" with the music industry here in town. This is curious, as upon receiving his business card I silently notice the Heating/Plumbing Specialist title below Joe the Plumber's name. By this time I had coffee in hand but, before I could reach the door, Joe was already introducing me to another "music industry" friend of his. At least this second dude recognized Frogs Gone Fishin' (always a nice surprise), and wasn't trying to immediately pedal his imaginary musical wares on me.
This story illustrates an interaction that goes down thousands of times a day in Nashville, between thousands of people who have something to do with music which most likely has nothing to do with actually playing music itself. This may not be the case for long. A simple comparison might illustrate why.
If I, Trevor Jones, wanted to write a song and make it available for public consumption, I would:
1. Sit in my room with acoustic guitar, write something I think people will connect with.
2. Record the song for free with band (they realize shared profit potential and record for free), on free software that came with my computer. Little gadget to make the mics sound good cost $100.
3. Mix and place the song on Myspace, ReverbNation, iTunes, or any of the thousands of online music distributors. Leave the consumption part up to popular opinion and keep all the profit and recognition for a mammoth one-time recording cost of a hundred clams.
If Travis Jones, the aspiring Nashville-star in the making, wants to write a song and make it available for public consumption the traditional Nashville way, he would:
1. Select a song written by a songwriter, through a publisher. In doing so, he has already given away any profit potential for the song (a 50/50 split, songwriter/publisher).
2. Get an advance from the record label (Travis is now in debt) for a good studio (no respectable country album is recorded at home!), and a band (who he must pay because, just like him, the band only profits one time from the recording session). Most likely it's a completely different band than the one which he will pay to play the songs live on the road.
3. The record label will then spend even more money (also recoupable from Travis) to target-market and distribute the album in physical record stores, along with commercials and physical ads. Consumption is left up to known market factors (14 year olds who the suits know will buy records and almost certainly disregard the same artist by the time they are in college). While Travis will receive recognition for his efforts, he will be left in debt to a controlling record label.
If I seem biased against Nashville, it is really a bias against the outdated way many talented, but misguided musicians continue to willfully participate in their own demise. If any aspiring musicians are reading this, please: BOOK YOUR OWN SHOWS, WRITE YOUR OWN MUSIC, OWN YOUR OWN COPYRIGHTS!
But, if these concepts seem so axiomatic to me, why does Nashville continue to be a bastion of the old-world way? The answer lies in the above comparison. It takes me several hundred dollars and five people to make and distribute a song. It takes Travis in Nashville many thousands of dollars and dozens of people with interests other than his own to make same said, sad song.
It is the hubris of these same thousands of dollars and masses of people employed by the music industry which has kept Nashville antiquated. In fact, the downfall of this whole scenario is sitting in your lap or on your desk right now.
When CD's came out, the industry made millions just because people had to replace their cassettes, just as they had to replace 8-tracks and vinyl before that. Now that it is hard to imagine anything more convenient than an Mp3, the record industry is struggling to find a way to make money on such an intangible medium.
I suppose writing this post has made me feel better about Nashville. I'll admit there is a wealth of creativity and talent here, even if it is segmented and calcified within this evil industry process we've been talking about.
Frogs Gone Fishin' was lucky enough to have our friends DJ Bowls and the Green Horns horn section at our Nashville show. These collaborations help take our live show to the next level.
While this emerging, "new-world" music industry does have lots of benefits for independent artists like Frogs Gone Fishin', it has downsides and uncertainties, as well. More about that next time....
Friday, October 17
Music For A Change (Obama-Groove)
The musical community has spoken and Barack Obama is the clear choice for today's pop musician. I did a quick survey of some music sites and blogs, just to see where some the world's most popular musicians stand on the upcoming election.
The results:
On the GOP side of the aisle: John Mellencamp, Boston, Van Halen, Foo Fighters and Bon Jovi have all requested that their songs be removed from the opening music of several prominent Republican campaigns, including John McCain's and Sarah Palin's.
For the Democrats: Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel, Jay-Z, The Dead, The Allman Bros. and James Taylor have all played concerts supporting Democratic nominee Barack Obama.
It seems clear Barack and the Dems have your average, world-famous artist in an electoral lock-box. I think this makes sense for several reasons if you look at the above bands. Even the most famous of musicians don't make close to what many prominent Republican party constituents earn, salary-wise (think Big Oil). Jay-Z is an exception and certainly makes more than the $250,000+ Barack Obama has set for his business-tax threshhold. But he is still holding concerts for the candidate. This points to the fact that many artists are inherently social Democrats, even if they should be fiscal Republicans. If your art involves writing about the human condition (yes, Jay-Z writes about the human condition) you'd be more likely to affiliate yourself with a party aligned with helping the middle-class or poor, not with the economic trickle-down politics of the right.
But the political tides of this election season have trickled down far deeper than the current-day artists we've been talking about. A friend recently hipped me to a genius song written by Meter's drummer Zigaboo Modeliste, called Obama Groove. Please listen to this song for your musical health and political informedness.
Whoever you decide to vote for in three weeks, remember, 9 out of 10 musicians support Barack Obama. The tenth musician is Ted Nugent. And if you like Ted Nugent, please don't shoot any of your firearms at me.
The results:
On the GOP side of the aisle: John Mellencamp, Boston, Van Halen, Foo Fighters and Bon Jovi have all requested that their songs be removed from the opening music of several prominent Republican campaigns, including John McCain's and Sarah Palin's.
For the Democrats: Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel, Jay-Z, The Dead, The Allman Bros. and James Taylor have all played concerts supporting Democratic nominee Barack Obama.
It seems clear Barack and the Dems have your average, world-famous artist in an electoral lock-box. I think this makes sense for several reasons if you look at the above bands. Even the most famous of musicians don't make close to what many prominent Republican party constituents earn, salary-wise (think Big Oil). Jay-Z is an exception and certainly makes more than the $250,000+ Barack Obama has set for his business-tax threshhold. But he is still holding concerts for the candidate. This points to the fact that many artists are inherently social Democrats, even if they should be fiscal Republicans. If your art involves writing about the human condition (yes, Jay-Z writes about the human condition) you'd be more likely to affiliate yourself with a party aligned with helping the middle-class or poor, not with the economic trickle-down politics of the right.
But the political tides of this election season have trickled down far deeper than the current-day artists we've been talking about. A friend recently hipped me to a genius song written by Meter's drummer Zigaboo Modeliste, called Obama Groove. Please listen to this song for your musical health and political informedness.
Whoever you decide to vote for in three weeks, remember, 9 out of 10 musicians support Barack Obama. The tenth musician is Ted Nugent. And if you like Ted Nugent, please don't shoot any of your firearms at me.
Wednesday, October 15
Phans Rejoice
Phish is getting back together. No group performing today has the emotional potency and musical impact that Phish had throughout the 90's and into the new millennium. If you are unfamiliar, a quick history:
Phish is a four-piece (guitar, bass, drums and keys) formed in the mid-80's while the founding members were still in college. Their musical style can only be called eclectic because they do not fit into any one definable genre (except the "jam-band*" label many have stamped on the music). Phish played hundreds of songs influenced by rock, bluegrass, funk, reggae, folk, classical, and jazz. Their oftentimes extended improvisations led to the jam-band label and popular recognition as inheritors of the Grateful Dead legacy. Going from small clubs to theaters to some of the biggest musical festivals ever held, Phish carved out a unique niche market for themselves in a time of MTV and 90's pop-rock radio prevalence. In 2004, Phish broke up and are now reuniting in 2009.
In 2001, I was an angst-driven Rage Against The Machine fan and had yet to discover the life-changing, musical world of Phish. Now, RATM is a fantastic group but it was only so long before my comfortable existence in life would clash with the violent socialist ideals of such a politically weighty group. Phish's music encompassed much more than any political opinion for me. In fact, the music was apolitical and seemed to encompass life itself. With over 620 original compositions, Phish music is literally a microcosmic world in and of itself. Trey Anastasio's guitar playing had (and still has) an enormous influence on me, as did the band's composition and live strategy. Without Phish, there is no way I'd be sitting in this Minneapolis coffee shop, enjoying a day off from tour with my band, analyzing last night's show on headphones.
Given the fact that Phish is an integral part of my musical life, you will be surprised to hear that their reunion is bittersweet for me. This is for a number of reasons. First, a large part of our band's fledgling fan base are Phishheads and will depart for Phish tour at the drop of a hat. What's more, I want to go to, too! On the For/Sure Productions side of things, Phish tour prevents us from bidding on one of our planned acts for Mountainside Mardi Gras: Porter, Batiste, Stoltz with Page McConnell (of Phish), on keys. It is both satisfying and scary to realize how intertwined my existence is with the super-group.
Ultimately, Phish's reunion will force me and the rest of the band to step away from the shadow of some of our favorite musicians and find a unique musical voice. I certainly don't want people shouting "Trey" at me for the rest of my life every time I pick up a guitar. True, there are worse guitar players to be compared to, but I'd like to think that my musical vision is more comprehensive than that...
But, it doesn't mean I won't see you in the parking lot when Phish comes to Colorado....
*A note about the "jam-band" label and associated contexts. I wrote recently about a review we received in a Denver paper. In it, FGF was labelled as "hippie music", as if that was a definable genre of music. Simon and Garfunkel, Jimi Hendrix and The Beatles would all be considered "hippie music" by some people, despite how different these bands were. This prompted at least one insightful letter to the editor by an apparently attractive female reader named Whitters, and my decreased respect for Westword as a publication in general. Their reviewers should remember that the word "music" is half of the useless title "music critic".
Phish is a four-piece (guitar, bass, drums and keys) formed in the mid-80's while the founding members were still in college. Their musical style can only be called eclectic because they do not fit into any one definable genre (except the "jam-band*" label many have stamped on the music). Phish played hundreds of songs influenced by rock, bluegrass, funk, reggae, folk, classical, and jazz. Their oftentimes extended improvisations led to the jam-band label and popular recognition as inheritors of the Grateful Dead legacy. Going from small clubs to theaters to some of the biggest musical festivals ever held, Phish carved out a unique niche market for themselves in a time of MTV and 90's pop-rock radio prevalence. In 2004, Phish broke up and are now reuniting in 2009.
In 2001, I was an angst-driven Rage Against The Machine fan and had yet to discover the life-changing, musical world of Phish. Now, RATM is a fantastic group but it was only so long before my comfortable existence in life would clash with the violent socialist ideals of such a politically weighty group. Phish's music encompassed much more than any political opinion for me. In fact, the music was apolitical and seemed to encompass life itself. With over 620 original compositions, Phish music is literally a microcosmic world in and of itself. Trey Anastasio's guitar playing had (and still has) an enormous influence on me, as did the band's composition and live strategy. Without Phish, there is no way I'd be sitting in this Minneapolis coffee shop, enjoying a day off from tour with my band, analyzing last night's show on headphones.
Given the fact that Phish is an integral part of my musical life, you will be surprised to hear that their reunion is bittersweet for me. This is for a number of reasons. First, a large part of our band's fledgling fan base are Phishheads and will depart for Phish tour at the drop of a hat. What's more, I want to go to, too! On the For/Sure Productions side of things, Phish tour prevents us from bidding on one of our planned acts for Mountainside Mardi Gras: Porter, Batiste, Stoltz with Page McConnell (of Phish), on keys. It is both satisfying and scary to realize how intertwined my existence is with the super-group.
Ultimately, Phish's reunion will force me and the rest of the band to step away from the shadow of some of our favorite musicians and find a unique musical voice. I certainly don't want people shouting "Trey" at me for the rest of my life every time I pick up a guitar. True, there are worse guitar players to be compared to, but I'd like to think that my musical vision is more comprehensive than that...
But, it doesn't mean I won't see you in the parking lot when Phish comes to Colorado....
*A note about the "jam-band" label and associated contexts. I wrote recently about a review we received in a Denver paper. In it, FGF was labelled as "hippie music", as if that was a definable genre of music. Simon and Garfunkel, Jimi Hendrix and The Beatles would all be considered "hippie music" by some people, despite how different these bands were. This prompted at least one insightful letter to the editor by an apparently attractive female reader named Whitters, and my decreased respect for Westword as a publication in general. Their reviewers should remember that the word "music" is half of the useless title "music critic".
Monday, October 13
Buddha Mind
Just since yesterday, after writing my last post, I've received many comments and mostly questions about how we stay sane on the road. These are really good questions and I wanted to address everyone's thoughts.
If you have been following my blog at all, you probably think I am somewhat jaded by my education in psychology. While it is true that I haven't so much as mentioned a word about spirituality or religion in 44 posts or so, please don't think I rely solely on psychology or science to "keep myself sane". In fact, stringent atheists bug the hell out of me. How can you live in this infinitely wondrous world and not acknowledge a force we cannot perceive? Music has shown me that this force exists and while I also have my parents to thank for being a spiritual person, I no longer follow the Episcopalian path they had probably intended for me.
Rather, I follow a worldview and outlook that more closely resembles Buddhism than any other organized sect. At a young age I read the Tao Te Ching. While the book is part of Taoist (not Buddhist) doctrine, it pointed my spiritual interest firmly East where it has stayed until this day.
It should be noted that Buddhism is not a religion, only a set of ideas and philosophies. Although I have no way to participate in the Sangha (the Buddhist community), and find it difficult to meditate on tour, I can still label myself a Buddhist by following several key principles which have been laid out to me by my experience with teachers and my readings. Most importantly, I try and maintain a calm, meditative state while carrying out a frenetic daily life. When asked while walking down the road whether he was God, Spirit or Man, the Buddha himself simply replied "I am awake".
It is that type of simplicity and pragmatism which makes Buddhism an attractive way to carry out my existence. Below I will list some key tenets of Buddhism that help "keep me sane on the road", and try to leave the psychology out of it.
-Compassion should be the fundamental, outward characteristic of the Buddha-mind. Buddha himself was not a god or prophet, he was simply a man who understood the condition of human suffering and came up with a comprehensive way of dealing with it inter-personally. Compassion does not mean dropping what you are doing and moving to Africa to help solve world hunger. Buddhism recognizes most people cannot and will not uproot their own lives, which involve suffering, to help others who suffer. However it makes the pragmatic suggestion to be aware of this suffering, while doing all you can to radiate peace to others.
-The Middle Way. As I said, Buddhism is very practical. It is true that the Buddha spent many week and months meditating, near starvation in the wilderness. After he came to his conclusions about human suffering however, he advocated against this type of harsh asceticism. This is known as the Middle Way or Middle Path. Starvation or excess don't help anyone, but taking what you need in life helps place your existence in the flow of natural order in the world. I find this point particularly potent in this time of American obesity, greed (leading to the current economic downfall), and as I try to maintain some semblance of a healthy lifestyle on the road.
-Radiate Mental Peace. Most times, we cannot directly change another person's attitude or outlook. Only the greatest teachers in the world can do this. For the rest of us, we can only radiate an air of inner peace, calm confidence which hopefully can help others find their way. This is part of silent compassion.
-Pratitya Samutpada. Also known as the Wheel of Becoming, this part of the Dharma (teaching) is the metaphsycial account of how us human animals perceive the world and thus, why we suffer. Laid out in a wheel shape with 10-12 points, depending on who you ask, the process describes how we are born into free will, develop ego and ignorance from this free will, develop attachments to the physical world because of our senses, suffer for these attachments, and later die and are reborn back into the circular process. I don't know about the whole rebirth thing yet, but this is a surprisingly accurate account of human perception when taking psychology into account. I know I said I'd leave psyc out of this, but the idea that the world is not objectively perceived, but is totally subject to our senses, which in turn leads to behaviors (attachements), is spot-on with current thinking in sensory psychology. A blue flower is only a blue flower because your mind interprets it as such (start the philosophical comments now...)
-Avoid Attachments. If there is one thing Buddhist are not down with, it's attachment to our physical world. This is where the word Karma is greatly misunderstood in the West. Karma is typically thought of as negative energy. For Buddhists, Karma is a positive or negative force which comes about through attaching oneself to the physical world. For example, you might think you are being compassionate to another by giving him or her a gift. If the person truly needed the gift, they will feel little responsibilty to pay you back. However, if you have now created a situation where a less fortunate person feels the need to return the favor, you have increased your attachment to this world and your Karma has actually been increased.
-Zen/Meditation. Recently someone close to me attacked my Buddhist ideals and asked me "if I even knew one Buddhist text...!?". After citing the Pratitya Samutpada above, I realized that this harsh inquisition reflects something basic people in the West think about knowledge: that it has to come from a book. Those of us brought up in Western academia have an addiction to the knowledge that those who lived before us have obtained. This is natural, as it is of course easier to believe Einstein than discover E=MC2 yourself... But this dependence on outside texts also leads to a lack of inter-personal knowledge, knowledge that only oneself can discover. This is when meditation and Zen come into play. Zen Buddhism is a sect of Japanese Mahayana Buddhism, and focuses on meditation and self-knowledge over the study of the Dharma. One who can meditate and discover truths from within will be infinitely happy and can free themselves from the burdening attachments of our modern world.
-Four Noble Truths/Eightfold Path. Simply the Buddhist account of human suffering (Four Truths) and how one should live to avoid attachments and sufferings (Eightfold Path). Without listing these, any Buddhist scholar would have immediatly retorted this post and put me in my place.
Please remember this represents my conception of Buddhism and mine alone. Ardent scholars will certainly take offense to such a limited description, where the Japanese Zen school would applaud me for internalizing the philosophy and making it my own.
These are tenets of Buddhism I strive to carry out. I fail constantly. I do know, however, that if I can remain compassionate, meditative, avoid attachments and follow the Middle Path, I will not only lead a happy tour life, but a happy life in general while plodding through his physical world of ours.
Tonight a gig in Madison, WI, and on to Minneapolis, Milwaukee, and Green Bay during the course of the week.
If you have been following my blog at all, you probably think I am somewhat jaded by my education in psychology. While it is true that I haven't so much as mentioned a word about spirituality or religion in 44 posts or so, please don't think I rely solely on psychology or science to "keep myself sane". In fact, stringent atheists bug the hell out of me. How can you live in this infinitely wondrous world and not acknowledge a force we cannot perceive? Music has shown me that this force exists and while I also have my parents to thank for being a spiritual person, I no longer follow the Episcopalian path they had probably intended for me.
Rather, I follow a worldview and outlook that more closely resembles Buddhism than any other organized sect. At a young age I read the Tao Te Ching. While the book is part of Taoist (not Buddhist) doctrine, it pointed my spiritual interest firmly East where it has stayed until this day.
It should be noted that Buddhism is not a religion, only a set of ideas and philosophies. Although I have no way to participate in the Sangha (the Buddhist community), and find it difficult to meditate on tour, I can still label myself a Buddhist by following several key principles which have been laid out to me by my experience with teachers and my readings. Most importantly, I try and maintain a calm, meditative state while carrying out a frenetic daily life. When asked while walking down the road whether he was God, Spirit or Man, the Buddha himself simply replied "I am awake".
It is that type of simplicity and pragmatism which makes Buddhism an attractive way to carry out my existence. Below I will list some key tenets of Buddhism that help "keep me sane on the road", and try to leave the psychology out of it.
-Compassion should be the fundamental, outward characteristic of the Buddha-mind. Buddha himself was not a god or prophet, he was simply a man who understood the condition of human suffering and came up with a comprehensive way of dealing with it inter-personally. Compassion does not mean dropping what you are doing and moving to Africa to help solve world hunger. Buddhism recognizes most people cannot and will not uproot their own lives, which involve suffering, to help others who suffer. However it makes the pragmatic suggestion to be aware of this suffering, while doing all you can to radiate peace to others.
-The Middle Way. As I said, Buddhism is very practical. It is true that the Buddha spent many week and months meditating, near starvation in the wilderness. After he came to his conclusions about human suffering however, he advocated against this type of harsh asceticism. This is known as the Middle Way or Middle Path. Starvation or excess don't help anyone, but taking what you need in life helps place your existence in the flow of natural order in the world. I find this point particularly potent in this time of American obesity, greed (leading to the current economic downfall), and as I try to maintain some semblance of a healthy lifestyle on the road.
-Radiate Mental Peace. Most times, we cannot directly change another person's attitude or outlook. Only the greatest teachers in the world can do this. For the rest of us, we can only radiate an air of inner peace, calm confidence which hopefully can help others find their way. This is part of silent compassion.
-Pratitya Samutpada. Also known as the Wheel of Becoming, this part of the Dharma (teaching) is the metaphsycial account of how us human animals perceive the world and thus, why we suffer. Laid out in a wheel shape with 10-12 points, depending on who you ask, the process describes how we are born into free will, develop ego and ignorance from this free will, develop attachments to the physical world because of our senses, suffer for these attachments, and later die and are reborn back into the circular process. I don't know about the whole rebirth thing yet, but this is a surprisingly accurate account of human perception when taking psychology into account. I know I said I'd leave psyc out of this, but the idea that the world is not objectively perceived, but is totally subject to our senses, which in turn leads to behaviors (attachements), is spot-on with current thinking in sensory psychology. A blue flower is only a blue flower because your mind interprets it as such (start the philosophical comments now...)
-Avoid Attachments. If there is one thing Buddhist are not down with, it's attachment to our physical world. This is where the word Karma is greatly misunderstood in the West. Karma is typically thought of as negative energy. For Buddhists, Karma is a positive or negative force which comes about through attaching oneself to the physical world. For example, you might think you are being compassionate to another by giving him or her a gift. If the person truly needed the gift, they will feel little responsibilty to pay you back. However, if you have now created a situation where a less fortunate person feels the need to return the favor, you have increased your attachment to this world and your Karma has actually been increased.
-Zen/Meditation. Recently someone close to me attacked my Buddhist ideals and asked me "if I even knew one Buddhist text...!?". After citing the Pratitya Samutpada above, I realized that this harsh inquisition reflects something basic people in the West think about knowledge: that it has to come from a book. Those of us brought up in Western academia have an addiction to the knowledge that those who lived before us have obtained. This is natural, as it is of course easier to believe Einstein than discover E=MC2 yourself... But this dependence on outside texts also leads to a lack of inter-personal knowledge, knowledge that only oneself can discover. This is when meditation and Zen come into play. Zen Buddhism is a sect of Japanese Mahayana Buddhism, and focuses on meditation and self-knowledge over the study of the Dharma. One who can meditate and discover truths from within will be infinitely happy and can free themselves from the burdening attachments of our modern world.
-Four Noble Truths/Eightfold Path. Simply the Buddhist account of human suffering (Four Truths) and how one should live to avoid attachments and sufferings (Eightfold Path). Without listing these, any Buddhist scholar would have immediatly retorted this post and put me in my place.
Please remember this represents my conception of Buddhism and mine alone. Ardent scholars will certainly take offense to such a limited description, where the Japanese Zen school would applaud me for internalizing the philosophy and making it my own.
These are tenets of Buddhism I strive to carry out. I fail constantly. I do know, however, that if I can remain compassionate, meditative, avoid attachments and follow the Middle Path, I will not only lead a happy tour life, but a happy life in general while plodding through his physical world of ours.
Tonight a gig in Madison, WI, and on to Minneapolis, Milwaukee, and Green Bay during the course of the week.
Sunday, October 12
A Month Long Dream
Right before we went on stage last night in Dubuque, IA, we realized Frogs Gone Fishin' have been on tour for exactly one month. The scarily awesome part is that we have another three weeks to go before we can return to that winter motherland, Colorado.
Being the psychology nerd that I am, I'm constantly analyzing how the passage of time on tour is perceived. Thinking about how my band-mates experience their time on the road helps me stay tolerant and calm whenever anyone has their inevitable but minor, I've-been-away-from-any-normalcy-for-months freak out session. On the other hand, it's hard to say how thinking about my own perceptions alter my perceptions. Sound redundant? It's called meta-cognition in the textbooks, thinking about your thinking. I would hope that it allows me to put a realistic grasp on my mental/physical health, the group dynamic and how well I keep up with friends and family. For example, not calling a close friend for a week might seem totally OK to me while on tour. But, for that person, an entire week of living in the same place with no challenges about how to get around this super-sized country of ours, a week could be an insultingly long time not to hear from someone.
This alteration in the perception of time is by no means unique to traveling musicians. I have no doubt that anyone who travels and/or works hours outside of the generally accepted 9-5 work day experiences this same dream-like transgression from day-to-day. You know those nights when you can't decide when you are dreaming and when you weren't and everything seems blended and vaguely foggy? Welcome to tour life.
This phenomena is made worse by sleeping in the car. Our journey north from New Orleans has seen stops in Tennessee, Illinois, Iowa and now to the roof of the Midwest in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Waking up groggily, driving through the cool deciduous forests of Tennessee, you might as well wake up on an alien planet compared to the dank, humid heat of the Louisiana swamps when you fell asleep. If you manage to stay awake, you are rewarded with a more permanent sense of place. Irregardless, one develops a solid mental conception of how our vast country is laid out geographically, and confidence about the ability to conquer such an area (with your music, of course).
And so we go... go on to MN, WI, back to TN and IL, KY, NC and then back across the vastness in one fell swoop to what should be an exciting homecoming. We have multiple live-radio broadcasts to do and what will hopefully be our biggest show yet in Colorado at The Fox Theater in Boulder. For/Sure Productions is going swimmingly as we have decided on Austin Shaw, the talented designer of the Tell Me True album cover, for our artwork. Nothing has made me feel better about Mountainside Mardi Gras recently than hearing Austin talk about his ideas and skill in design because with that kind of stuff, I am roughly a mental midget.
Down the road in January, we are planning on recording a follow-up to Tell Me True: an album we decided will focus on the art of rock and roll music.
Being the psychology nerd that I am, I'm constantly analyzing how the passage of time on tour is perceived. Thinking about how my band-mates experience their time on the road helps me stay tolerant and calm whenever anyone has their inevitable but minor, I've-been-away-from-any-normalcy-for-months freak out session. On the other hand, it's hard to say how thinking about my own perceptions alter my perceptions. Sound redundant? It's called meta-cognition in the textbooks, thinking about your thinking. I would hope that it allows me to put a realistic grasp on my mental/physical health, the group dynamic and how well I keep up with friends and family. For example, not calling a close friend for a week might seem totally OK to me while on tour. But, for that person, an entire week of living in the same place with no challenges about how to get around this super-sized country of ours, a week could be an insultingly long time not to hear from someone.
This alteration in the perception of time is by no means unique to traveling musicians. I have no doubt that anyone who travels and/or works hours outside of the generally accepted 9-5 work day experiences this same dream-like transgression from day-to-day. You know those nights when you can't decide when you are dreaming and when you weren't and everything seems blended and vaguely foggy? Welcome to tour life.
This phenomena is made worse by sleeping in the car. Our journey north from New Orleans has seen stops in Tennessee, Illinois, Iowa and now to the roof of the Midwest in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Waking up groggily, driving through the cool deciduous forests of Tennessee, you might as well wake up on an alien planet compared to the dank, humid heat of the Louisiana swamps when you fell asleep. If you manage to stay awake, you are rewarded with a more permanent sense of place. Irregardless, one develops a solid mental conception of how our vast country is laid out geographically, and confidence about the ability to conquer such an area (with your music, of course).
And so we go... go on to MN, WI, back to TN and IL, KY, NC and then back across the vastness in one fell swoop to what should be an exciting homecoming. We have multiple live-radio broadcasts to do and what will hopefully be our biggest show yet in Colorado at The Fox Theater in Boulder. For/Sure Productions is going swimmingly as we have decided on Austin Shaw, the talented designer of the Tell Me True album cover, for our artwork. Nothing has made me feel better about Mountainside Mardi Gras recently than hearing Austin talk about his ideas and skill in design because with that kind of stuff, I am roughly a mental midget.
Down the road in January, we are planning on recording a follow-up to Tell Me True: an album we decided will focus on the art of rock and roll music.
Sunday, October 5
A Week of New Orleans Love
New Orleans is all-consuming. I have no apologies about my lack of posts this past week (it has taken me until today, Wednesday to finish this post) and can only hope to mentally wade through the events of the past days to relate what life is like for me when I come to the tropical mecca of music and mojo.
Sunday Oct. 28 - The Tourmobile rolls into New Orleans at 5:30am, three hours after leaving a brief but fun gig in Lake Charles, LA. Provided at least two of us aren't tired, driving overnight is oftentimes more efficient than during the day because there is much less traffic. Combined with our excitement about heading to NOLA, nothing stood in our way of screaming across the dark bayou-night, cutting through the salty thick air of the gulf shore fog. Five months is a long time to be away from New Orleans and I felt overwhelmed as we first glimpsed the dull-yellow beacon lights dotting the massive Crescent City Connection through the haze (a bridge spanning the wide Mississippi, connecting NOLA with the West Bank, where William Burroughs spent his later years). We crash immediately upon arrival at my old apartment, where kindred souls still reside, and spend the rest of Sunday resting and catching up with our most anticipated acquaintances. At night we see the first of much music we would absorb over the course of the week. The famed Maple Leaf club became somewhat of our musical second-home in NOLA, and I caught up with my always entertaining friend and funky mentor Russell Batiste (Funky Meters, Vida Blue). Russell had just come back from a run on the East Coast with George Porter Jr. (who I’ve also had the incredibly fortunate chance to play with) and Page McConnell of Phish who is reuniting with his band next year. Phish is my favorite band, and in a later post I’ll discuss why their reunion is very bittersweet for us...
Monday- We walk around Uptown sweating, putting up posters and promoting the shows scheduled for later in the week. Our efforts serve a dual purpose for me, as I try to reacquaint my senses with the fragrant tropical paradise that is the average Uptown avenue. Blue, purple, pink, white, red, yellow and any combination of bright colors line the streets and neutral grounds of New Orleans in the form of flowers, jungle greenery, and other plants which are not readily identified by us non-botanists. Parrots, lizards, FROGS (!) and alien insect populate these lush areas. Most impressive of all the life overtaking New Orleans are the trees: magical, old, knowledgeable trees who disregard human affairs and even our ultimately futile attempt to populate a city several feet below sea-level. Despite my utter distraction by this environment, so different from the arid Arizona/Texas moonscapes we've been traveling previously, we get good promo work done and word begins to spread about the shows on Thursday and Saturday. Again we see live music at The Leaf for the night, this time the NOLA funk staple Papa Grows Funk. For/Sure Productions is hiring PGF to play Mountainside Mardi Gras next August (an update on FSP in my next post) and as always, the band was more than happy to meet the rest of the Frogs and have a drink until the wee hours with us.
Tuesday: Jack, our record label manager, put Tell Me True on-sale in The Mushroom, a locally run record shop (very hip) in our ongoing effort to take care of all the little things that really make bands successful in the long run. Tuesday was spent booking gigs and firming up our November-January stay in Colorado. We have some very exciting shows coming up for Winter, including Nov. 4th at the sublime Fox Theater in Boulder, several live-radio broadcasts, and a new album to start work on.
Wednesday: Resting for the next day’s show in New Orleans involves mimosas and barefoot frisbee in Audubon Park, named such for the colorful birds of all hues who flit about every tree in the vast park.
Thursday: An early gig on Tulane’s campus,12pm early to be precise: earlier than Frogs have played since jamming a tail-gate on Vanderbilt’s campus four years ago. Playing at Tulane is an interesting animal. Those students who choose to go to school in New Orleans solely to party will largely ignore music and walk coldly by an on-campus concert on their way to the frat house for some warm keg-beer. Those who come for the potentially rich cultural experience (which ironically includes drinking anyway), will not only watch but appreciate a gem of musicality happening on campus... Thursday night, the band went to The Maple Leaf (shocking!) and saw members of Galactic sitting in with Ivan Neville, Russell Batiste and George Porter Jr.
Friday: Woke up to a beautiful sunny day, not unlike those listed above and below and promptly decided to try and play a pick-up gig. While at happy hour, sitting outside that classy Tulane campus bar “The Boot”, I mentioned to a gentleman who was hauling large quantities of liquor that we’d be happy to play at whatever function he was obviously stocking up for. “Of course”, he replied, and we proceeded to jam the Sig Ep fraternity parent get-together for exactly the price of as many beers as we could drink. Our payment properly adjusted our collective mindset for what we were to experience next. Sauntering over to campus after packing it up, we decided to meander toward the Funky Meters concert taking place. While walking near the gates behind the stage, Ivan Neville questioned as to why I was on the wrong side of the fence and quickly got 3 backstage passes thrown our way. As star-struck as I probably should have been talking to Art Neville backstage, my calling as musician and vocation as promoter forces me to be as reserved as I can around such funk-gods as this. Mark (drums, FGF) and Portwood (guitar/vox) each made their rounds, chatting with the Neville, Porter, or Batiste of their choice as I consulted Ivan on some things we are doing right and wrong with regard to Mountainside Mardi Gras. Insightful Wisdom from the Masters. The band crashes early: no more to be done on such an evening, and work to do tomorrow.
Saturday: Coffee on the trip down to WWOZ (90.7 FM) for an interview about the night’s show. WWOZ is the flagship radio station of New Orleans music and culture. Commercial free, community-funded and accessible to every demographic imaginable, WWOZ is like no other conventional radio station in the country. To obtain a promotional spot we had to take the dire steps of a) driving to the French Quarter broadcast station (next to the bustling french market) and b) calling upstairs to the on-duty DJ, who was more than happy to let us on air to talk about Frogs Gone Fishin' opening for Rebirth Brass Band at the Howlin’ Wolf, all despite the fact that it was a Latin-music format on-air at the time. During our down time between the radio spot and sound check, we put down a hip-hop track with members of my former group, The Keep Movin' Project. The track has a very heavy groove and you can listen to it here, under "Keep it Movin". We recorded the tune in under four hours with producer and beat-maker Felix Miles and rapper Ben Brubaker. The show at the Howlin' Wolf that night was an hour of pure energy and a great crowd (as usual, before Rebirth Brass Band plays). The benefit concert was for a great cause (the Peace Corps.) and a fantastic way to wrap up our stay in the Big Easy.
Sunday we said our goodbyes to the proud city that I love so much. Our time there convinced the band that living in New Orleans from Mardi Gras to JazzFest next year (March-April) should be our plan of action. I cannot wait to go back.
Last night we played a short set for a crowd of rowdy debate watchers and politicos at the official Tennessee Democratic Party's after-party. It felt great to openly endorse Obama on stage and play songs like "We the People", songs I've written over the past 8 years of political corruption and an unhappy population waiting for change. I really think that change is coming and places like New Orleans will be better for it.
Sunday Oct. 28 - The Tourmobile rolls into New Orleans at 5:30am, three hours after leaving a brief but fun gig in Lake Charles, LA. Provided at least two of us aren't tired, driving overnight is oftentimes more efficient than during the day because there is much less traffic. Combined with our excitement about heading to NOLA, nothing stood in our way of screaming across the dark bayou-night, cutting through the salty thick air of the gulf shore fog. Five months is a long time to be away from New Orleans and I felt overwhelmed as we first glimpsed the dull-yellow beacon lights dotting the massive Crescent City Connection through the haze (a bridge spanning the wide Mississippi, connecting NOLA with the West Bank, where William Burroughs spent his later years). We crash immediately upon arrival at my old apartment, where kindred souls still reside, and spend the rest of Sunday resting and catching up with our most anticipated acquaintances. At night we see the first of much music we would absorb over the course of the week. The famed Maple Leaf club became somewhat of our musical second-home in NOLA, and I caught up with my always entertaining friend and funky mentor Russell Batiste (Funky Meters, Vida Blue). Russell had just come back from a run on the East Coast with George Porter Jr. (who I’ve also had the incredibly fortunate chance to play with) and Page McConnell of Phish who is reuniting with his band next year. Phish is my favorite band, and in a later post I’ll discuss why their reunion is very bittersweet for us...
Monday- We walk around Uptown sweating, putting up posters and promoting the shows scheduled for later in the week. Our efforts serve a dual purpose for me, as I try to reacquaint my senses with the fragrant tropical paradise that is the average Uptown avenue. Blue, purple, pink, white, red, yellow and any combination of bright colors line the streets and neutral grounds of New Orleans in the form of flowers, jungle greenery, and other plants which are not readily identified by us non-botanists. Parrots, lizards, FROGS (!) and alien insect populate these lush areas. Most impressive of all the life overtaking New Orleans are the trees: magical, old, knowledgeable trees who disregard human affairs and even our ultimately futile attempt to populate a city several feet below sea-level. Despite my utter distraction by this environment, so different from the arid Arizona/Texas moonscapes we've been traveling previously, we get good promo work done and word begins to spread about the shows on Thursday and Saturday. Again we see live music at The Leaf for the night, this time the NOLA funk staple Papa Grows Funk. For/Sure Productions is hiring PGF to play Mountainside Mardi Gras next August (an update on FSP in my next post) and as always, the band was more than happy to meet the rest of the Frogs and have a drink until the wee hours with us.
Tuesday: Jack, our record label manager, put Tell Me True on-sale in The Mushroom, a locally run record shop (very hip) in our ongoing effort to take care of all the little things that really make bands successful in the long run. Tuesday was spent booking gigs and firming up our November-January stay in Colorado. We have some very exciting shows coming up for Winter, including Nov. 4th at the sublime Fox Theater in Boulder, several live-radio broadcasts, and a new album to start work on.
Wednesday: Resting for the next day’s show in New Orleans involves mimosas and barefoot frisbee in Audubon Park, named such for the colorful birds of all hues who flit about every tree in the vast park.
Thursday: An early gig on Tulane’s campus,12pm early to be precise: earlier than Frogs have played since jamming a tail-gate on Vanderbilt’s campus four years ago. Playing at Tulane is an interesting animal. Those students who choose to go to school in New Orleans solely to party will largely ignore music and walk coldly by an on-campus concert on their way to the frat house for some warm keg-beer. Those who come for the potentially rich cultural experience (which ironically includes drinking anyway), will not only watch but appreciate a gem of musicality happening on campus... Thursday night, the band went to The Maple Leaf (shocking!) and saw members of Galactic sitting in with Ivan Neville, Russell Batiste and George Porter Jr.
Friday: Woke up to a beautiful sunny day, not unlike those listed above and below and promptly decided to try and play a pick-up gig. While at happy hour, sitting outside that classy Tulane campus bar “The Boot”, I mentioned to a gentleman who was hauling large quantities of liquor that we’d be happy to play at whatever function he was obviously stocking up for. “Of course”, he replied, and we proceeded to jam the Sig Ep fraternity parent get-together for exactly the price of as many beers as we could drink. Our payment properly adjusted our collective mindset for what we were to experience next. Sauntering over to campus after packing it up, we decided to meander toward the Funky Meters concert taking place. While walking near the gates behind the stage, Ivan Neville questioned as to why I was on the wrong side of the fence and quickly got 3 backstage passes thrown our way. As star-struck as I probably should have been talking to Art Neville backstage, my calling as musician and vocation as promoter forces me to be as reserved as I can around such funk-gods as this. Mark (drums, FGF) and Portwood (guitar/vox) each made their rounds, chatting with the Neville, Porter, or Batiste of their choice as I consulted Ivan on some things we are doing right and wrong with regard to Mountainside Mardi Gras. Insightful Wisdom from the Masters. The band crashes early: no more to be done on such an evening, and work to do tomorrow.
Saturday: Coffee on the trip down to WWOZ (90.7 FM) for an interview about the night’s show. WWOZ is the flagship radio station of New Orleans music and culture. Commercial free, community-funded and accessible to every demographic imaginable, WWOZ is like no other conventional radio station in the country. To obtain a promotional spot we had to take the dire steps of a) driving to the French Quarter broadcast station (next to the bustling french market) and b) calling upstairs to the on-duty DJ, who was more than happy to let us on air to talk about Frogs Gone Fishin' opening for Rebirth Brass Band at the Howlin’ Wolf, all despite the fact that it was a Latin-music format on-air at the time. During our down time between the radio spot and sound check, we put down a hip-hop track with members of my former group, The Keep Movin' Project. The track has a very heavy groove and you can listen to it here, under "Keep it Movin". We recorded the tune in under four hours with producer and beat-maker Felix Miles and rapper Ben Brubaker. The show at the Howlin' Wolf that night was an hour of pure energy and a great crowd (as usual, before Rebirth Brass Band plays). The benefit concert was for a great cause (the Peace Corps.) and a fantastic way to wrap up our stay in the Big Easy.
Sunday we said our goodbyes to the proud city that I love so much. Our time there convinced the band that living in New Orleans from Mardi Gras to JazzFest next year (March-April) should be our plan of action. I cannot wait to go back.
Last night we played a short set for a crowd of rowdy debate watchers and politicos at the official Tennessee Democratic Party's after-party. It felt great to openly endorse Obama on stage and play songs like "We the People", songs I've written over the past 8 years of political corruption and an unhappy population waiting for change. I really think that change is coming and places like New Orleans will be better for it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)