Every Little Step

I've been wanting to watch the documentary “Every Little Step” ever since it came out in 2008. It captures the year-long process of casting for the revival of “A Chorus Line” that returned to Broadway in 2006, thirty-one years after its original debut in 1975. While I'm no musical theater aficionado, I've always loved “A Chorus Line” and am lucky enough to have seen it a couple of times. What hooks me into this musical is the realism behind the stories of the aspiring dancers who put their entire lives on display as they audition for the chorus line of a musical. These dancers are not vying for the lead roles- they are all (except for one person) looking for their first break via a spot in the chorus. While watching “Every Little Step”, one is struck by the fact that the auditions for this revival are a real-life mirror of the struggles faced by the different characters of “A Chorus Line”. The film cuts back and forth between the casting for the revival to the creation of the original production. In an interesting twist that bridges the past and the present, Baayork Lee, the original “Connie” when the musical debuted in 1975, was the choreographer for the revival version of the show. As a member of the casting team, she's watching young women audition for a role that was based on her true-life experiences.

The story for “A Chorus Line” was created from taped conversations that director/choreographer Michael Bennet held with real-life dancers. “Every Little Step” is interspersed with clips from these tapes that served as the genesis for the characters of the musical. The dancers being recorded were not afraid to be honest about themselves and this realism was transferred to the story. Recent interviews with Marvin Hamlisch (the show's music composer) and original cast members recount the challenges faced in staging the original production. The dancers auditioning for the revival version do not make themselves vulnerable to the same extent that their characters do but watching the year-long process makes clear the amount of blood, sweat, and tears that goes into this vocation.

It's inspirational to watch this group of young people work so hard to fulfill their life-long dreams of appearing on Broadway. One of the things that separates them from the rest (besides their immense talent) is the fact that they are willing to make huge sacrifices and undertake exhausting work. Someone recently told me that most people quit a second too soon. That line reverberates with me as I think about the dancers in this film. When the final cast is selected and celebrated in their triumph, it's impossible not to feel elated as you watch.

Viva La Vinyl With The Vinyl District GPS Record Store App

As the music world gets deeper into technology and further away from the old school, The Vinyl District has brought things back around with its free GPS-based Record Store Locator App for iPhone or Android. As the site claims, it's the only GPS-based record store locator app in the US. It's as simple as pressing the All Stores button in the app and waiting for a list of stores to appear along with addresses and mapped locations.

I've been testing it a little bit and I have to say that so far, it's working rather well. The app was able to find the two record stores on my block as well as all of the shops located nearby around the LES, East Village, and West Village. I'm pretty sure there's nothing missing in the listings for my hood. I've walked around a little bit and whenever I've given the app a spin, it comes up with a reasonable list of results. I'm eager to try this out when I travel and see where it takes me.

I wonder how this app was put together- did someone manually enter every record store into a database? I'd love to know. As I understand it, they'll be adding the UK at some point in time. Eventually, it would be incredible if you could use this app anywhere you happen to be to help you go a'hunting for vinyl. One addition I'd like to see is the ability to enter a zip code, city name, or neighborhood (i.e. Silver Lake) and bring up results. I realize that's not exactly GPS but I think it would be a great enhancement.

As much as I love how technology has changed the way we create and consume music (as written about here and here), I'm really struck by the idea of using current technology to help sustain old school record shopping. As all of these stores are locally owned, this app is a wonderful way to help out our independent record store owners as they try to stay alive in today's music market.

Check it all out here!

Xmas Tree Crew

For the past few weeks, there was a black, beat-up Nissan van parked in the empty spot in the photo above. A handwritten sign in red ink read “Xmas Tree Van”. Around the corner, in front of the Rite Aid was a Christmas tree stand with trees of various sizes for sale along with a tiny office (maybe 4 feet by 4 feet at most) made of wood planks and thick plastic walls. The van had California license plates so I assume that the owners of the van were in town for a few weeks to sell some trees and make enough money for the next adventure.

There seemed to be about 3 guys and 1 or two women working the stand. All of them appeared to be in their mid to late 20s. The one guy that I saw regularly had a pierced septum and wore the same brown Carhartt one-piece coveralls and knit every time I encountered him. I'd say “good morning” to him whenever I passed him during my daily morning dog walk. One time, I gave him a copy of Wired magazine that I was done reading as I figured he might appreciate having an interesting diversion from the van and the stand. While I don't know how these tree sellers passed their time, I walked past the van one morning around 6:30AM to see it rocking from side to side. As the van was a'rockin, I didn't bother knocking as I assumed that even Christmas tree sellers need some loving like the rest of us.

I'm really not sure what the stories were behind the Christmas tree crew but as I passed them one day, one of the guys was talking about moving to Minneapolis for a while as one of the options he rattled off. I found myself fascinated by these folks and really wish I had found out more about them. For one thing, how did they get all of the trees out of the woods and into New York City? I never saw a truck pull up with a bunch of trees. Also, did they have families waiting for them? Were they college students working over their break? Were they all from Portland?

As I've written about previously, I envy those who don't feel tied down to people, places, or things. While the gutterpunks in Tompkins Square Park can be annoying at times, I'm drawn to the way they can carry their entire lives on their backs and live out in the world. Sure, as I type this in a nice and relatively warm apartment, I wouldn't want to be sleeping on the streets right now. Still, there's a part of me that wants to abandon everything – a job I don't really like, financial responsibility- and just float on out of here and experience life.


On Christmas morning, the van was gone. I guess that after midnight on Christmas eve, there's no point in hanging out on the corner selling trees. The crew is probably still on the road if they're making their way back to California. Perhaps they have a different adventure in store. I regret not talking to them a little bit more as I want to fill in all the missing pieces about them. If things work out, I may get my chance next winter. For now, I wish them well on their travels and hope that they were able to enjoy some of the holiday while they were helping others do the same.

Blurb.com: Publish Your Own Damn Book

Recently, I shared some thoughts on how technology has made it easier for people to release music into the ether by drastically lowering the barriers to entry. A recent article in the New York Times about Amazon best-selling author Amanda Hocking made me start thinking about books and how writers have been given the power to release their own works in a similar fashion as music artists. The Times article talks strictly about e-publishing but what about releasing your own honest-to-goodness physical book? Blurb.com has enabled people to put together hardcover or softcover books of whatever they want (I suspect the Terms of Use ban certain types of works). I recently went through the process of creating a hardcover photo book to commemorate the summer my partner and I spent in the country. I'd been snapping pictures all summer and wanted to present her with a nice little gift for our upcoming anniversary.

I had previously tried using a competing site's product but found the process so hard to use that I gave up on a free trial to give Blurb a shot. There are a number of templates to use and it's as simple as uploading pictures and putting them in your template. You can create front and back covers as well as flaps and spines. In less than two hours' time spread out over a few days, I completed a photo book. Most of the book is iPhone pictures (the application will automatically tell you if the resolution is not acceptable for printing but most of my pictures were acceptable). There are a lot of options for paper stock and other enhancements so you can customize quite a bit. After finishing my book and placing my order, my package arrived in less than one week. My creation would not look out of place in a bookstore. I was amazed and psyched that I was able to make a one-of-a-kind gift. I can't wait to see the reaction when this gift is unveiled.

For me, technology is supposed to make it easier for people to do things that once took a great deal of time, effort, and money to do before whether it's in the form of a Gutenberg press, an airplane, or a telephone. If I wanted to create a book like this ten years ago, I'm not sure that any small printing shop would have the ability to print a copy of a book like this. Blurb.com is a game-changer and my mind is still blown two weeks later. With the new means of production and distribution available to us, it's becoming increasingly difficult to find good excuses to squash our creative urges and hide them from the world.

Be Here Now

I've been putting myself under immense pressure these days to change my life. I suppose this is all part of my current internal conflict around approaching middle age without the cash and prizes I thought would be here. I can say in all honesty that my life is rather fucking grand. I don't really have much to gripe about other than the fact that I am stuck in a (decently paying) career that I don't want any part of because, beyond the fact that twice a month I receive an email from my bank indicating that my employer has deposited funds for me, there is nothing fulfilling about what I do. My employer insists that I do a good job, so it's not like I'm floundering in the workplace. The fact is that I do such a good job that there are no more challenges for me. All of the heavy lifting of my new job was done within the first 90 days and now, it's just a steady coast.

I used to see this every day from my desk at work:

Now I look at this:

I've come to realize that the sea of computer monitors I see before me all day long resembles a graveyard with plastic tombstones. I dread each day I'm there because it feels like my life is slowly being sucked out of my soul along with any aspirations I once had that my life would be glamorous. Some recent reminders of who and where I was a long time ago (mentioned here and here) have added fuel to the flames of my mid-life crisis. I'm doing some internal work to try and come to peace with all of this. One of the most important things I've ever read was this:

If you want to change your life, change what you do and your life will change as a result.

(I've tried to locate the author of this but have yet to succeed).

As I've mentioned in other posts, this blog was about doing something different. It was about finding things that interest me for their own sake and not the promise of gold bricks or magazine covers. Although I haven't paid as much attention to this blog as I would like, I can say that each post has been gratifying despite the fact that the readership can be measured in single digits. I figure that if I do this simply because I like doing it, I'm moving ever-so-slowy in the direction of self-fulfillment. As Paulo Coelho writes in “The Alchemist”, when you're moving towards your chosen path, the universe conspires in your favor by throwing a few bones your way that inch you closer to the promised land.

And that's the funny thing about where I'm at these days. There have been circumstances in recent memory where I had the chance to do different things in regards to career change. Each of those did not work out. What ended up working out was more jobs in a career that I've said for years that I was done with. Is this what the universe really wants for me or is it that I'm too damn complacent to do anything else?

That's where the picture at the top comes in. It's from “Be Here Now” by Ram Dass. I stumbled upon it in a story about the literary influences on the late Steve Jobs. The picture stopped me in my tracks. After viewing it, I realized that a cruise ship can't do a quick 180 in the middle of the ocean. I hate the idea that time takes time because I feel like I need answers Right Fucking Now. I have been trying to find the place where I am being patient yet am doing as much as I can to avoid complacency in my life. I'm clueless as to where my efforts and energies have to cease and where the universe needs to take over. I suppose it's safe to say that the knots in my back, my current state of constant fatigue, and the minor physical injury I've been nursing for two weeks are all indicative of the fact that I've been trying way too hard.

I'm sifting through piles of unfulfilled dreams, expectations that were never realistic, and abandoned opportunities that deserve reconsideration. I'm doing my best to take it all one step at a time. Shedding old skin, inch by inch.

Everybody Loves Our Town- A Love Letter To Seattle

Over the last few months there's been a great deal of reminiscing on the Seattle music scene of the early 90s with celebrations of the 20^th anniversaries of Nirvana's “Nevermind” and Pearl Jam (written about here) taking center stage. I was lucky enough to have been living in Seattle at that time having arrived just as the tsunami was building. This was before the point when the clothes I bought at thrift stores (or took from the “free” bin) were appearing on runway models and selling for laughably large sums of money. Back then, I was occasionally writing articles and reviews for Seattle's bi-weekly music paper The Rocket. I've been thinking about those years a lot lately with a range of emotions, much of them driven by being a guy in his early 40s trying to figure out how I got from long hair, flannel and Doc Martens to middle age. At times, I've been unsure if the mantle on which I place that era is simply due to the fact that Seattle is merely where I happened to be in my 20s. Other times, I see those years as the last run of good alternative music, just prior to the collapse of the record industry and the changes that have been wrought as a result. With “Everybody Loves Our Town”, Mark Yarm captures the full arc of the Seattle music scene. Through an immense oral history spread out over 544 pages, Yarm paints a comprehensive view of what I've been bragging about for 20 years to those who missed out on the party. If someone played even a small role, whether as a musician, promoter, manager, receptionist, etc., Yarm has that person covered.

One major theme I was happy to see in “Everybody Loves Our Town” is that the scene was much larger than the Big 4 bands that everyone rolls off their tongues when they hear the word “Seattle”. (Just so you know, not everyone in the city was drooling over Pearl Jam or Nirvana back then.) Yarm starts things off in the mid-80s with The U-Men and seemingly covers everyone in that town who ever put out a record. In the years that Seattle was changing from backwater town to Major City of Cool, there was a lot of unity and mutual support among musicians whose paths crossed as bandmates and drinking buddies. As Yarm unravels the family tree of Seattle music, it seems almost incestuous how these musicians' lives and careers were intertwined. For those who think that the scene was full of big-time wannabe posers, many of the musicians in the book were big punk rock fans and met each other at shows. It's also wonderful to see a lot of print devoted to bands like Mudhoney and The Melvins who got swept up in the undercurrents of Seattle hype but never got the due that I think they deserved (especially The Melvins who, in my opinion, were the foundation of much of Seattle's music). As I went through these pages, so many memories jumped out at me: seeing Soundgarden off-shoot band Hater opening at the OK Hotel for Dead Moon; buying the latest issue of Peter Bagge's “Hate” comic at Fallout Records on Capitol Hill; Tad Doyle egging on the crowd from the stage of The Crocodile Cafe. Ever since I started reading this book, I cannot prevent Mudhoney's “In 'N' Out Of Grace” from rattling around my noggin.

Yarm also unflinchingly covers the darker times of that era starting with the death of Andrew Love, whose band “Mother Love Bone” dissolved immediately thereafter and became reborn when members Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament formed Mookie Blaylock which was later re-christened as Pearl Jam. There are detailed accounts of the tragic losses that occurred: Mia Zapata; Kurt Cobain; Layne Stayley. Pearl Jam's performance at Denmark's Roskilde Festival in 2000, where nine people were accidentally killed, is also discussed in detail. Some of the stories are more of a sad fizzle, like the account of how Soundgarden faded away amidst disillusionment among the band members. Yarm's interview subjects pull no punches when they talk about their anger, sorrow, and disappointments. This is especially clear in the discussions about Courtney Love and her perceived influence on Kurt Cobain's life. (If you're a Courtney hater, there's lots here for your consumption.)

“Everybody Loves Our Town” is an essential addition to the bookshelf of anyone who has fond memories of the Seattle 90s or who wants to understand just what the hell was going on out there.

From The Sky Down

I just finished watching “From The Sky Down”, the new U2 documentary that revisits the making of “Achtung Baby” on (I cannot believe it) the 20^th anniversary of the record's release. As the film recounts, U2 were in a rather precarious place at the end of the Joshua Tree era having ridden the rocket-ride of success into becoming the biggest band in the world. It was a difficult transition for four guys from Dublin whose foundation was their rejection of big-time rock music and the overblown trappings that come with it. By the time they released their film “Rattle And Hum” which recounted their experiences in America and their self-education in American music, there was a groundswell of anti-U2 sentiment among critics and the public. Let's face it: U2 became the thing they rallied against and were a very easy and wide target. It was time to turn the wheel and shift direction from the serious, self-important parody they were in danger of becoming. At the conclusion of their last show of the 80s, Bono tells his hometown that the band will be taking a break to “re-dream the dream”.

The re-evaluation of the band takes them to Berlin, fittingly, at the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall. They were in a foreign city in the midst of immense change in an attempt to unshackle themselves from the albatross of being “the band of the 80s”. U2 began to amass a new set of influences ranging from Kraftwerk to the dance scene in Manchester and brought them into the creative process. At one point in the film, Bono says that they had to be willing to tear everything apart in order to build it back up again. The early stages of the recording process bear a great deal of frustration and little in the way of songs. However, the exact moment that everything turns around is during a jam for a song “Sick Puppy” (later to become “Mysterious Ways”). A bridge that sounds completely out of place in the song yields an “a-ha” moment when the chord progressions are slowed down into what became “One”. The triumph of that breakthrough turns the whole process around to give birth to “Achtung Baby”, a daring shift in direction for the band.

Along with the shift in musical direction, the process finds the band perfectly willing to drop the serious act that permeated every single photo taken of them during the late 80s. This was manifested in two ways. First, there was the adoption by Bono of The Fly, a persona that was a amalgamation of Elvis and Jim Morrison by way of steroids. Second was the concept for the Zoo TV Tour that supported the record. The concept for Zoo TV was an over-the-top pop culture broadcast with sights and slogans broadcast over multiple TV screens, ostensibly from the same America that formed the basis for “Rattle And Hum”.

As the film demonstrates so well, U2 were willing to take a huge gamble with “Achtung Baby”. While looking back at the Berlin recording sessions for the album, Bono explains that the best way to get through writer's block is to write songs that are honest about where you are at that particular point in your life. U2 were at a difficult crossroads in 1989 and managed to march forward even as they questioned the process.

PJ20

I just got home a little while ago from seeing “PJ20”, the outstanding Cameron Crowe documentary on Pearl Jam. The film does a great job of telling the Pearl Jam story starting with the early days of Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament in the ill-fated band Mother Love Bone which collapsed after the death by overdose of singer Andrew Wood. Stone and Jeff decide to forge on and the story continues when they find a surfer guy named Eddie Vedder to sing for them and shortly thereafter, things take off like a rocket ride as Pearl Jam attains meteoric success. There were also a few bumps over the course of the last two decades but at the end of the film you appreciate the members of Pearl Jam as strong survivors who withstood a number of things that have ended countless other bands.

The film starts out with grainy video of the old days and as soon as the band attains success you can see the quality of the footage improve as if on cue. Over the course of “PJ20” you also see the progression of the musicians as their frenetic on-stage energy tempers with age. That's not to say that the energy of their performances is lessened because the passion is still evident. The 2006 live clip of “Release” from their debut Ten is absolutely spellbinding as is the campfire singalong of “Better Man” from Madison Square Garden in 2010. Their take on the Mother Love Bone tune “Crown Of Thorns” gave me the same goose-bump feelings I had when I first heard the original 20 years ago. As they got older they seem to have channeled their energy into the music. No one feels the need to jump around too much these days and Eddie no longer needs to climb scaffolding to prove a point (though he's been known recently to do a bit of scaling). Their endurance over the last 20 years has said enough for them.

The journey wasn't always graceful. For one thing, it's a little awkward to hear them reject the concept of the Grammys but still feel compelled to show up to the ceremony. It's never easy to listen to hugely successful bands as they denigrate the trappings of fame and a life that most people will only dream of living. They were more or less forced into an awful no-win position by their participation in the Justice Department inquiry into Ticketmaster. When they were willing to take a stand, the rest of their peers in the industry stood back and let them take the heat. When you watch the rapid transformation of Eddie Vedder from bra-wearing jokester to the more stoic guy we know today, you see the change as a by-product of the immense pressure that Pearl Jam faced when they were put under the microscope of public scrutiny. All of the people who criticized their rejection of mainstream success overlooked the very important point that they didn't ask for the Time magazine covers or the media blitzkrieg that ensued in the wake of their success. The only thing that Pearl Jam has wanted was to be a band making the best music possible.

It was delightful to take a stroll through all of that history. What I liked about the early part of the film was the portrayal of the pre-explosion Seattle scene as a place where musicians genuinely liked each other and supported each other. Until now, I had no idea about how Chris Cornell served as a mentor to Eddie Vedder during the Mookie Blaylock days. For me, it was a heartwarming look back at a band that I was totally enamored with when I was living in Seattle back in the 90s. (I once almost hit Eddie with my car because he wasn't paying attention as he was crossing the street.) While I'm not playing their more recent albums in constant rotation these days, I'll never tire of the first three Pearl Jam albums. “Vs.” in particular will always stay with me as it was given to me while I was in bed recovering from a very serious case of food poisoning. I will never forget standing on my futon bed and being seemingly healed by the music. I was uplifted from the opening strains of “Go” and the feeling did not subside for the remainder of the album.

“PJ20” is the story of a group of guys who stayed the course no matter what was thrown their way. When the pitfalls of mega-success began creeping in, the band chose to retreat and stay true to themselves. In an era of “American Idol” and short-attention-span success cycles, watching this film makes you appreciate what it means to be in for the long haul and especially all of the crap that comes with the territory. Cameron Crowe truly captures the dynamics of the bonds that these guys have shared.

Cometbus

I've been checking out the new Cometbus anthology “Add Toner- A Cometbus Collection” that Last Gasp just put out. For the uninitiated, Aaron Cometbus has been putting out his zine Cometbus since the early 80s. The fact that someone is willing to publish a zine comp in 2011 is a nice little reminder that the small press underground has not been completely obliterated by the blogsphere and e-world. Every issue of Cometbus has been handwritten and assembled in true DIY bare-bones fashion (though I'm not sure if they're still xeroxed). The zine has covered Aaron's travels around the country (and more recently, around the world, as documented in his recent memoir of touring Asia with his old friends in Green Day). Over the years, he's documented his life as well as the lives of punk rockers and other under-the-radar types who dwell outside the bankers' hours existence that for many defines the epitome of American existence. In this compilation, Aaron covers the years 1998-2002 when he was living in Asheville NC, St. Louis, as well as his hometown of Berkeley. He documents the romance, travel, and (of course) music that shaped his life in those years. The section on Berkeley, “Lansky", ties all of this together as it covers a decent chunk of Berkeley history and sites as well as Aaron's own history growing up as a punk in Berkeley. The stories are chock full of the eccentric characters that weaved their way into his life. Rounding out “Add Toner” is “Back To The Land”, a collection of interviews with those who have chosen to abandon city life for simpler living and “8 Out Of 10 Days”, a collection of previously unpublished stories. Having been a fan of Cometbus for over 15 years, one undercurrent that has always resonated with me is Aaron's journey of growing older while embracing the punk DIY ethic that's guided him all these years. I've always pictured Aaron as a monastic punk who survives on just the bare essentials. He always seems to travel light and because of this, he's not forced to make decisions that are based on the necessity to accumulate goods or preserve an expensive lifestyle.

My reading of this collection is particularly interesting timing for me as I am now closer to 50 than 30. I've been thinking a lot lately about where I am in life. Hey, I have it real good these days so I am hardly suffering. But each day, I put on my middle-class uniform and shined shoes before hustling to a really big gleaming office building where I put in 9-10 hours a day doing work that is virtually meaningless to me beyond the fact that every 2 weeks there is money in my bank account that was deposited there by those who own my soul. When I was in my 20s I had a notion that I'd get older but somehow maintain my youthful spirit but somehow life got in the way. I've sworn repeatedly that I would never again take an office job but when The Man came around jingling the dough and bennies, I was roped like a steer. I've admired the way that Aaron has been able to keep true to himself all these years. His simple living reminds me of the old saying “that which you possess also possesses you.”

Somewhere along the way, I made a decision (or perhaps an indecision) due to a perceived need for more stability in my life. Perhaps complacency has led me to a point where I am yearning to do something more fulfilling with my life besides helping some wealthy people become even more wealthy. When I see my company's executives beg their investors for more money, I know that the master plan is to ensure that the fat cats get fatter and not to necessarily build something that will sustain all of us. If the grown-ups at my job pull off their scheme they will walk away very wealthy and re-convene down the road to start up the engine once again in an entirely new setting. Frankly, there's no reward for me if/when this happens. In fact, it could very well mean the end of my job.

So what separates someone like me from someone like Aaron Cometbus? Is it plain old fear? Is it attachment to what I think I need to have in my life to be content? Do I lack humility? I really don't know and I guess I'm processing my mid-life crisis in front of the handful of people that will actually read this. One of the motivations in starting this blog was to provide myself with an outlet where I can express my true self as a reminder that some ember of that still exists. The destination at the end of this is a mystery to me but I'll never know if I don't take steps in the direction that is calling me. You've just finished reading a small milepost on the quest to figure out where to set the sails.

Buy "Add Toner" by clicking here.

There's Calm In Your Eye

Originally posted on 8/30/11


Hurricane Irene came and went with little effect to those of us in the EV of NYC. We're far luckier than the people in New Jersey and other places up the East Coast. The worst of it for us was two days of cabin fever. When Monday came, the subway system was still coming back online so many folks were unable to get to work. With the sun out, the cooped-up masses hit the street. Thanks to modern technology I could do most of my work via smartphone when I wasn't glomming wireless internet from the diner on the corner.

As there wasn't much happening on the work front I decided to hit the promenade by the East River on my skateboard. At one point I decided to sit on a bench and stare at Williamsburg directly across from me. Sitting there, I realized that I just don't have the time to do the things I really want to do. On Sunday as the wind was rattling the trees outside, we finally organized the front closet and rewarded ourselves by addressing the “Homicide: Life On The Streets” logjam in our DVR. We haven't spent a ton of time together recently so it was great to lie down and not worry about getting up for work or the next task to schlep to. The two of us (and the dog) could be together and present without the sense of an impeding stop time. After getting re-acquainted with “Degrassi: The Next Generation” via the web, I grabbed my beat-to-hell acoustic guitar, plugged in the USB mic that I've not been able to use, and recorded some music for the first time in months. Most gratifying.

While I was enjoying myself on that bench in the park, it dawned on me that the storm rid me of lots of outside distractions and allowed me to focus on things that were fulfilling to me: reducing clutter; hanging with the girl and dog; making music. Since there was nothing happening on the work front, I was able to let go of work tension because there was nothing I was going to be able to change with no one around. Sitting in front of the monitor right now as I compose my thoughts after a day at the office, I feel how tired I am. It took a little bit of pushing to get myself to put this together whereas the other day I spontaneously picked up the guitar and, after learning how to play Nirvana's “Heart Shaped Box” via YouTube, put down a track.

My life has gotten pretty busy these days and most of that time is spent on pursuits that are not meaningful to me other than the means to a paycheck. Lately, I've felt like my life is slipping away from me as I put on my worker-guy uniform and march in line like the rest of the masses. It's a prison of sorts and the choices consist of either sucking it up and accepting that this is my life or rejecting it altogether. Sitting in the middle where I know I'm unhappy without the resolution to rest firmly on either side of the fence probably feels worse than living in either extreme. It is becoming increasingly difficult to find those pockets of time to devote to the pursuit of my passions. I read a blog post recently where the author said that if you're not able to devote 5 hours a day to something you want to do, it's not that important to you. I wonder how that author is able to find his 5 hours. If I do a quick inventory, I work 9 or so hours a day, take about 90 minutes to get to and from work, try to sleep 8 hours a day and spend 30 minutes getting ready in the morning. My math tells me that I have 5 hours left. With that 5 hours, I would like to cram in exercise (30 minutes at least) and eating (total of 1 hour or so). If I want to spend an hour a day with my partner, that leaves me with 2 ½ hours to myself. Take 30 minutes for reading a book and 15 minutes to get ready for bed there's now 1:45 left. Not to sound like a cop-out but that's not a lot of time. The name of the game that I've been trying to win is called Balance. It simply does not exist in my life. I'm not saying I have it hard or that I have good excuses. I'm just saying what I'm saying.

When circumstances forced me to sit still this weekend, I found myself with energy and focus. Obviously, I still have to work for a living but when circumstances forced me to sit still I found that I had energy and focus. It was as if for a fleeting moment, Hurricane Irene came in and briefly swept away much of the junk in my life that separates me from my freer self. One other thing that dawned on me was that the world did not come to an end yesterday because I was not in the office working. All of the work was there waiting for me and my life did not suffer greatly due to the lost day of productivity. It goes to show you that perhaps some of those work urgencies really aren't as important as they seem in the moment.

Perhaps that's the lesson for me.

Image courtesy of cnn.com

They Walk Among Us

I just finished reading “The Psychopath Test”, the incredible new book by Jon Ronson. What starts off as the investigation of a hoax evolves into an exploration of psychopaths and the psychiatric industry. Ronson meets with leading psychologists as well as institutionalized patients in his quest to gain a clearer understanding of the psychopath personality disorder.

Much of the book centers around the Hare Checklist that was developed by Dr Robert Hare to help evaluate potential psychopaths by rating people on 20 components including:

• superficial charm
• lack of remorse or guilt
• callousness
• lack of empathy
• shallow nature
• failure to aceept responsibility for one's actions
• grandiosity

Early on, Ronson points out that while psychopaths represent barely 1% of the population, they seem to be prevalent in positions of power to a much greater degree. They're not all muttering to themselves in the streets or chasing people around with butcher knives. Some, like the former Haitian death-squad leader Ronson meets in Queens, certainly fit some preconceived notions of how a psychopath might behave. Others, like legendary headcount killer CEO “Chainsaw” Al Dunlop, become more vivid as Ronson uses Hare's Checklist to illuminate their behavior in this context. The point is that not only do these people walk among us, they are leading our industries and exist in the upper echelons of our society. The scary thing is that there is no cure as the root causes seem to be with the brain's own wiring.

While reading this book, I started thinking about the people who packaged sub-prime mortgages and subsequently bet against them. Their calculating ways led us into an economic crisis that ruined lives and made its architects obscenely wealthy. Did they sit around in their steel towers considering for a second the people who were going to suffer greatly if their bets paid off? I don’t believe they gave it a single thought. My belief is that these people do not possess the ability to think beyond spreadsheets and numbers to drill down to the level required to feel empathy. What they saw on paper looked like a sure thing and that was the end of the discussion.  If I were to come up with a plan to make a lot of money, I don’t think I would be able to move forward if I thought there was a chance that a lot of people would be seriously harmed in the process. If you look at the Hare Checklist, you might cite the bullets above as proof that these people possess traits of a psychopath. Who really knows?

As Ronson points out, there is a danger in putting people into neatly organized categories and making sweeping conclusions about them. He brings up childhood bipolar disorder as an example of how so many children have been medicated and labeled without thorough oversight. As I read “The Psychopath Test”, I started to wonder about myself. (Thankfully, Ronson takes the time to point out that if you become nervous as you read his book, you're not a psychopath). I don't think that most people are all one thing or another. The majority of us live on the in-betweens but I have to admit that there are people in my life that I'm seriously re-considering now that I've read this book.

Photo courtesy of http://neuroanthropology.net.

DIY In The Internet Music Age

As of last week I have two albums for sale on the iTunes Store and Amazon MP3 with more retailers to follow soon. Ten years ago, it would've been laughable to think that I could make a record on the cheap for purchase at the same place where you could buy a U2 album. These days, the world is changing so quickly. If you've recorded music that you want to sell, it takes less than one hour to upload it to Tunecore. Within 72 hours, you're live and worldwide. Unbelievable. No agent, no manager, no record deal.

One of the records that's available is the "Sylvester Shalom" EP by D-KEZ, an electronic-ish collaboration that started late one night in the cramped living room of my attic apartment. Many years ago, my partner in crime was at my place as we were going to San Francisco the next morning. He started showing me an early version of GarageBand on his PowerBook G4. We grabbed a few instruments, plugged them into his laptop and had "Pleather Bland" done within a couple of hours. The rest of the EP was done over the course of the next few years in his home office. We used a much better Mac for the remaining songs but it was all done through GarageBand. Every single song was done by the two of us on the fly. Each time, we walked in with absolutely no notion of what to do. Within a few hours' time, the lyrics, beats, and riffs for each song were done, tweaked, and completed.

"From Billsburg To Beyond" by The Chavos is a punk/alternative band that started in the same attic apartment. I recorded a bunch of demos on a Fostex digital 4-track using guitars, bass, a toy electronic drum kit, and a few pots and pans. My hope of using those demos to find others to play with was dashed quickly as I hooked up with people on Craigslist who didn't follow through. A Craigslist ad that said "You Don't Need A Band!" led me to a recording studio in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn that was smaller than your average NYC studio apartment. I'll never forget walking in and peering around in search of the rest of the setup! While there was more equipment to use (as well as Logic), the concept was similar- make music quickly and simply. The last track I worked on (below) was recorded in a friend's bedroom studio with a Mac and other studio equipment. For the Chavos songs, I played almost everything except drums with a few contributions from my producers who also helped shape my rough ideas into cohesive songs.

The barriers to entry for creating music have been lowered to allow so many more people to express themselves more creatively. It is vastly easier to put music into the ether than ever before. However, the piece of the puzzle that remains elusive is how to get your music in front of people. One thing that a label does well is to get marketing muscle for its artists. To be honest, I'm not sure how to expose others to these songs. I'm aware of tastemaker blogs, trusted sites, and social media. (As an aside, most of the trickle of traffic to this blog has been through experimenting with Twitter.). All of the tools are in place to empower musicians to create, release, and publicize and as a result, there is a lot to choose from out there. While the means have been facilitated, it still comes down to rolling up the sleeves and slogging it out to rise above the fray. Technology hasn't yet replaced that age-old concept.

D-KEZ “Old Lame Sigh” (unreleased track)

Old Lame Sigh by strayriffs

The Chavos “Turn The Tides”

Turn The Tides by strayriffs


(Click the Down arrow on each track to download.)

Buy D-KEZ "Sylvester Shalom" EP on iTunes or Amazon MP3

Buy The Chavos "From Billsburg To Beyond" on iTunes or Amazon MP3 

Spotify

I suppose there's really no need for a formal review of Spotify as there is a ton of information out there that I don't need to regurgitate. Ever since I was able to use the Europe-only version I've been clamoring for the day that I could register for a full-blown US version. When Spotify finally arrived on our shores I ditched my invite to the free version for the full-on paid Premium plan. Is Spotify worth all of the hype? I can say “Sure...more or less.”

Spotify addresses rather effectively the #1 problem I have had ever since I've had the desire to carry music around with me- you can't carry on your device everything that you have at home. This has been a problem from the days of the boombox all the way up to the iPhone 4. I remember when the first portable MP3 players came out and I was blown away that I could now carry 256 MB of music around with me! Storage capacity has exploded exponentially since those days but not to the point where my problem could ever be solved effectively. Enter Spotify. I've been blown away by the magnitude of music that's available on here. I've been able to stump it a few times (more on that later) but with a super-easy interface, I can scratch almost every musical itch in seconds with file quality that beats the pants off using YouTube as a radio. Spotify is like having the coolest jukebox in the universe at your beck and call no matter what device you're using.

The other thing I love about Spotifty is the social media capability. Some of my Facebook friends have incredible tastes in all kinds of music. Spotify allows me to hook into their playlists and see what they've curated and with the click of a button, those songs are now part of my collection. Also, if I want to turn someone on to a band, all I need to do is drag and drop a song to them so they can check it out. Sure beats burning and uploading MP3s. One thing that really excites me about Spotify is the potential to create a playlist of music I've recorded and uploaded via Tunecore, share it with my Spotify friends, and then see who might discover it via their playlists. It's a bit of a stretch but the capacity for viral growth definitely exists.

As for the “more or less” part. Frankly, I did not expect Spotify to address my dream list of a music service, at least not upon US launch. Here are the things that stick out for me. Most are minor and some are not within the control of Spotify:

I'd like to be able to stream from my Mac to my stereo

Other than paying $25 for something like AirFoil, there's no easy way to stream Spotify to remote speakers as I can do with iTunes and AirTunes. I'm sure this is more about Apple keeping their technology as closed as possible but I hope Spotify solves this one.

Once you stop paying, you lose your songs

You could spend a great deal of time developing your Spotify presence but once you decide to bow out, your music is lost forever. This has always been the issue with streaming subscription services.

I can't search by label

I asked Spotify about this on Twitter and will be happy to update this when I hear back from them. While most people could care less who's selling them Jay-Z or Justin Bieber, a lot of hardcore music fans keep track of record labels in the same way that sports fans track stats of their favorite teams. I would love to be able to see everything that Spotify carries by Matador, Yep Roc, Merge, etc. It's a great way to be turned onto music that I might like but don't know about yet based on the vibe of a particular label.

Not all of my favorite music is available on Spotify

I was able to find one song by Dead Moon, one of my favorite bands. In all fairness, the Itunes Store and Amazon MP3 don't carry much Dead Moon either. Not that I'm some high-falutin' music snob but I listen to a lot of music that is “left of the dial”. I'll still have to buy vinyl and download free (legal) MP3s that artists put out there.

I'd love to be able to search for playlists

Other streaming services like Mixcloud and 8Tracks allow you to search for playlists by genre and other keywords. Granted, these services are designed for that purpose. It would be so cool for me to be able to search for playlists from strangers who make their lists publicly available.

It's not discovery-based

This one hit me while I was flipping through vinyl in a neighborhood record store to escape the NYC heat. Spotify, like iTunes, seems to be designed for those who know what they want. You enter the name of an artist or song, and you're presented with your results (if your selection is available). If there was a way to be presented with suggestions based on what I've already selected and/or starred, you would always have something new to explore. While I was at the record store flipping through the racks, I was struck by how digital music has, by design, rid itself of the curation and discovery that has traditionally taken place in the neighborhood record store. Some services like eMusic have done a great job of sifting through an immense catalog to present you with bands you've never heard of but who might be the favorite band you haven't heard of yet. With Spotify, you're brought to the front door and left to your own devices. It can be overwhelming. Over time, what happens once you've found everything you can think of? Netflix does this very well and hopefully Spotify will follow suit.

[UPDATE: I've since found the Related Artists area of the interface.  D'oh!  Also, I've been checking out Spotibot.  While not an official Spotify site, it's still a very cool way to discover music.]

**

With all of that said, I'm very stoked that Spotify has arrived and would recommend it to anyone who is even a casual music fan. It will be very interesting to see how Spotify develops and where it will take the music industry. It's an exciting time for technology and for the biz. The game has officially changed.

Gigantic

There's been lots of talk on the cyberwaves in recent days about online music. The Spotify launch is certainly at the forefront of all of that. I've used it when it was Europe-only and plan to go all-in on the Premium plan when I have some time. For a long time, I've said that the drawback to smartphones and other portable devices is that you can't fit as much as you would like onto your hardware. Streaming music has come a long way in the last couple of years. I've been waiting for a long time to get my hands on Spotify so I can stop syncing music between my computer and my Mac. Now that Spotify is finally here in the US, I've realized that I have so many ways to stream music that I am hardly lacking for things to listen to and I'm not in a big rush to get hooked up. Lately, I've been all over Mixcloud and 8tracks. I love the idea of user-curated mixes of content I've never heard of that's put out there by strangers.

It looks like the doors are being blown wide open both underground and above. For the last two days I've been blown away by the new iPhone app that The Pixies just released. In addition to the expected news and photos, there's a bunch of videos and merch. The killer for me is the fact that you can stream three different concerts- Minneapolis 2004, Manchester 1988, and an acoustic set from Newport 2005. I've been smitten with the acoustic version of “Here Comes Your Man”.

I'm blown away by the power that's now in the hands of the bands. If you think about it, do The Pixies need to work with a record label ever again if they can get their music directly into your hands via your phone? A word of caution is needed here. The reason that The Pixies can do this is that a major label spent a lot of money and energy to make sure that people know who they are. That's not a knock at all-just a fact. Could an unknown band put out an iPhone app and have lots of people check out their music? Maybe, maybe not. I guess the point is that there are tools these days that weren't available 18 months ago. The landscape is shifting quickly.

I wonder what Steve Jobs thinks about all of this...

Fleet Foxes

I just finished a run of about six years in jobs related to the music business. Despite the enviable perk of having access to tons of free music available at any time, I found myself becoming increasingly disinterested in new bands. Much of what I encountered left no impression on me once the last song of an album faded out. I concluded that perhaps I'm simply at that age where music doesn't do for you what it once did. I've figured that the days of feeling swept away and living in anticipation for a band's next offering were now done. On most occasions, Band X will sound exactly like Band Y from the 70s, Band A will resemble Band B from the 80s and so on. Fleet Foxes, via their current release "Helplessness Blues", has restored my faith in the idea that a current band can have the power to transport you away from yourself while also holding up the mirror to reveal truths that you thought no one else could point out clearly.

"Montezuma", which opens "Helplessness Blues"' is a plaintive reflection on maturity and changing values with vocal harmonies that evoke Brian Wilson. The album is replete with meditations on past relationships and the search for personal identity. "Battery Kinzie", with its basic tom-tom foundation, is a hypnotic tale of a relationship quest that wasn't fulfilled as hoped. The opening lines of the title track are an admission of changing values with an honesty about being unsure of where change will lead:

I was raised up believing

I was somehow unique

Like a snowflake distinct among snowflakes, unique in each way you can see

And now after some thinking, I'd say I'd rather be

A functioning cog in some great machinery serving something beyond me

But I don't, I don't know what that will be

I'll get back to you someday soon you will see

This uncertainty becomes more vivid in the stripped-down shuffle of "Someone You'd Admire":

I walk with others in me, yearning to get out

Claw at my skin and gnash their teeth and shout

One of them wants only to be someone you'd admire

One would as soon just throw you on the fire

After all is said and after all is done

God only knows which of them I'll become

The songs on "Helplessness Blues" are not delivered from the vantage point of someone who's young and ready to take on the world. Instead, the sentiments expressed are from someone who's further along on a life journey and has traveled far enough to look back as a person who's evolved along the way. The intimacy and honesty of these songs are easily accessible to those who are walking their own paths imperfectly without all of the answers they hoped would be easily available. "Helplessness Blues", with it's combination of echo-drenched vocals and sparse yet ambient folk leanings, makes you feel like you're sitting in a cozy old church enveloped in the scent of musky incense.

When The Change Was Made Uptown And The Big Man Joined The Band

I just read online that Clarence “Big Man” Clemons passed away due to complications caused by the stroke he suffered earlier this week. Surely, there will be many things written by people who perhaps have more insight than I can offer but all I can offer is what I can offer. Having grown up in the heart of Springsteen Country in central New Jersey, my teenage years were filled with E Street Mania from the 10-night stand at the old Brendan Byrne Arena to the 6 nights at Giants Stadium. In the state of New Jersey, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band have an exalted status.

Springsteen fans are quite aware of the role that the Big Man has played in the folklore of the E Street Band. As the oft-told tale goes, a young unknown Bruce Springsteen was playing onstage in a local Jersey Shore club on a rainy night when Clemons walked in after tearing the club door off its hinges. He asked to sit in and as soon as they played together, they knew that something magical was taking place. Over the next few decades, Clarence was the onstage foil to Springsteen. He was always introduced last with respect, love, and in the spirit of true brotherhood.

The music business these days is so much about building up stars quickly and casting them aside as soon as they hit their expiration date. There's just no place today to witness the evolution and sustenance of the bonds that joined Clemons and Springsteen or, for that matter, the bonds that join Springsteen and the E Street legacy. When I look at the picture above, it seems like more than just a cool album cover. To me, this iconic image encapsulates the Springsteen story: the scrappy Jersey Shore guitar-slinger with romantic visions that were realized with the help of his trusted soulmates. Every time they walk onstage, Bruce and the E Street Band pay tribute to the vision they worked so hard to form. If you're not sure about the dedication of these guys, check out the documentaries about the making of “Born To Run” and “Darkness On The Edge Of Town” and you will see how much devotion these guys put into making Bruce's music come to life. One of the most notable stories is the sixteen hours that Clarence spent in perfecting his solo in “Jungleland”.

They don't make 'em like Clarence Clemons anymore. Fare thee well, Big Man.