Vermin

I thought it would be nice to end the year with a harsh rant on Facebook entitled "How Did We Become This Bored"

but I hit a wall

and then looked to some of my favorite nasty & vile rants for inspiration...

Which led me to rediscover this, which was actually emailed to me three years ago TODAY. Weird!

*****

Thu Dec 20, 2007 1:50 AM subject vermin

somebody named renee & joe just used your open cc list to tell me and everyone else on that list that we should come down to their fucking gig at the beverly depot tomorrow night. they too used an open cc list. just the beginning of a beautiful relationship with a funnel of clueless musicians who will misuse this potentially helpful technology to thoroughly annoy the working musicians on your original list as it endlessly replicates and eats through healthy tissue to become a huge tumor singing james taylor songs to a million deafmute junkies nodding out over their diet sprites waiting for god to issue the two for one pass. thanks pal. i'll ponder some way to express my gratitude.

fred buck

Filters

Time is money.

More like,

Time is Finite.

You don't get it back.

Time is messing with me a bit in this new venture. Before, there were designated Work times and designated Play times. Now, it's more of a constant hustle, and every moment is for sale, if the price is right.

I'm o.k. with that. But it doesn't jive with most people. I know you are available and interested in hanging out on Friday night. I am available and interested in hanging out on a Thursday morning at 10a.m. Where does that leave us?

People don't expect lawyers or bakers to work for free. People expect musicians to work for free.

How do I filter these people out without simultaneously inheriting the cold, arrogant air of the Professional Musician?

I'm sure your song is great. I absolutely cannot afford to rehearse three times and spend two days recording it. Rowley Light Department will not accept your song as currency to pay my electric bill.

It sucks that volunteering my time is the equivalent of picking my own pocket. It's nothing against you, or your stupid song. I promise. It doesn't feel good to say No.

Decade of Dominance

I'm not sure if the last decade ended in 2009. But the radio was talking about 2011 today and that made me think about this last decade.

and how awesome the sports have been in Boston.

the Red Sox, Celtics and Patriots have spoiled me rotten.

It seems like a lot, so I'll split it in the three segments and save the best for the last (the 2004 ALCS)

Part 1: New England Patriots

I was 12 years old in 1997 when the Patriots lost to Brett Favre's Packers in the Super Bowl. There was backyard football and Madden before that, but the Super Bowl, with the party and the commercials and the hype, was where it really started for me. I'm Ben Coates and you're Ty Law and broken arms in games of tackle football in middle school. The Patriots weren't very good. It seems like the tides turned once they ditched the Pat Patriot logo for the Elvis, but it was actually in 2000, when they got Bill Belichick.

In 2001 Bledsoe finally went down for good and Golden Boy Tom Brady emerged from the darkest depths of the NFL Draft's bottom rounds. Honestly, he is the exact Celebrity Quarterback I would hate if he played for anyone else. The truth is that he is an above average quarterback and his run has been unreal.

2001 the Pats stun the Rams. 2003 the Super Bowl was Peyton Manning's four interception game, because the Panthers didn't stand a chance against the Pats or Colts. 2004 was Donovan McNabb puking away another Patriot's Super Bowl. 2007 was the Helmet Catch. 18-1. Pretty brutal end to an amazing run. Even the 2008 Cassel season was Fun and a shame that 11 wins wasn't enough for a playoff birth.

The Pats got handily eliminated, at home, by the Ravens last year but have come back strong this year, poised atop the AFC through twelve weeks. It will be fascinating to watch and will warm my soul in this cold New England winter.

Considering the Salary Cap, the Belichick/Brady run, even though it is still in progress, is one of legend, that will compete with the legends of sport, throughout the annals of history.

Bumper Sticker

My political views don't fit on a bumper sticker. They're not that simple.

I don't speak much about politics because I don't know much about politics. I do know why I don't know about it.

Because I wasn't born into it.

and that's what it's really about.

Class.

It's not about race. It's not about left or right. It's about class.

I wasn't born into the class of silver spoons and luxury vehicles driving a paved path to power, fame and fortune.

I am however EXTREMELY GRATEFUL that my parents worked their tails off, so that I was born into the lower middle class and was let out to the world as a member of the upper middle class. That was due to the efforts of my wonderful parents.

I have found through 25 years that the people with the loudest voices are generally those who know the least.

If you're political views are simple enough that they can be summed up by Left or Right, or by a bumper sticker, good for you.

The Rest of the Story (Part 2)

Jack received a letter in the mail shortly after his songs were official.

A 'record company' wanted to release his song, "When A Country Boy Comes to the City". The basic premise was thus:

-Jack would pay to have the song recorded by a professional team of musicians in a professional studio.

-The song would be included on a compilation CD

-Jack would be entitled to a percentage of all revenue and sales from the CD

However, to be included, Jack would have to pay many fees for recording, distribution, manufacturing, and the like...

He was simply glowing. It was his lifelong dream to have one of his original songs included on a real CD.

I told him about my uneasiness and skepticism. That the "professional team of musicians" was likely to be one guy in a basement, that the "professional studio" was likely to be the basement itself, and that the CD manufacturing facility was upstairs in the living room, if not also in the same basement.

Jack would not hear it. Or he heard it and respectfully disagreed. I can't remember. All I remember is getting the CD back. It was pretty clearly thrown together in about 5 minutes, likely with some brand of CASIO keyboard. The song was pretty much intact though, which was a testament to the strength of my charts, and the only redeeming factor of the whole incident.

The revenues from the CD sales never did pour in. The CD was entitled "AMERICA" or something like that and there was literally 30 or 40 other artists and songs on there. He said it was going to be sold in major retail outlets across America and the world but I've yet to see it anywhere.

Jack continued writing and I continued transcribing until one day he let me know that his request to transfer had been approved. Jack was moving to a similar facility, except this one was in Nashville! He figured this to be the perfect location for him and his songs.

I've never yet heard from Jack. I like to think he made it Nashville and is quite happy there.

Recently I've been trying to record as many of my own original songs as possible. I reconnected with a college buddy who was working for a studio in New York. We booked the time a couple months in advance. As the date approached, the other slated musicians had to cancel for various reasons. I did not want to kill the session, so I slugged onward to the big city alone. I figured a four hour fung-wah ride would be enough to brainstorm a gameplan...

So we recorded my own version of "When A Country Boy Comes to the City" real late at night and it's not Great, but it's real Good and more importantly Genuine, which is more than the other version can say.

Jack,

I hope you are well. Playing music. Enjoying Nashville. And keeping your demons at bay.

-Joe

The Rest of the Story (Part 1)

I recently recorded an ode to Jack Brooks and his song "When A Country Boys Comes to the City".

It was a lot of fun to record. At the time, I was in Manhattan, and I very much consider myself a country boy, so the parallels were heavy.

The idea was to give the song a "Bob Dylan's Talking Blues" vibe, with an epic folk jive narrative that would serve as an introduction to the song itself.

My other idea was to bypass the parts of the recording process which to me seem very much bogged down these days. Songs are polished, tweaked, auto-tuned, and correct notes are punched in using the mysteries of science and technology. I didn't want that. I wanted to record the song as close to Real as possible, to share it with my friends and the other people of Earth, and be done with it.

The song is quick and easy, and was recorded as such. The narrative is detailed and complex, and was being spewed off the top of my head, to give it that natural, conversational feel.

Which obviously didn't work. The story is too long. It was dragging. So we cut out the fat and left just the meat and potatoes. I'm quite happy with the result.

I also realized that this could be my outlet to tell the rest of the story. the Whole story.

*****

PART 1: The Man

The story starts with Me, looking for work, and an ad in the paper, looking for Transcription. Which means that Jack had songs but didn't write music. We agreed on a rate, date and time, but before I hung up he disclaimed,

"There's one more thing... I'm a schizophrenic. I'm here at a facility and my nurses have given me approval to meet with you to work on my songs..."

I needed work and a potential client's mental handicap certainly wasn't enough to stop me.

I drove up old Route 1 and through some dirty corners of Chelsea when I found the building. There seemed to be many vagrants and crazy people out front so I knew I was in the right place.

Jack answered the door in gross, greasy jean overalls. He had long scraggly white hair and an even scragglier white beard. He looked like a bum.

He was a gentle fellow. He played me his songs and I wrote them down. I asked him how he got to be here and I'll always remember his reply,

"I started off in Ohio. I was a musician and played a big ole B3 organ. I eventually got caught up with the wrong crowd, with drugs, and crime. I got out of there by the grace of God and ended up in Boston, where I continued to get in with the wrong crowd, with drugs, and crime. I found myself before a judge. He gave me a choice between jail and this here facility and I chose this here facility."

I transcribed his songs and we sent them to the Copyright Office and he received a certificate back that his songs were official. This made Jack very happy. Shortly after he received an offer in the mail...

Part 2: When A Country Boy Comes to the City *coming soon*