6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon.

When I first moved to Pittsburgh in 2002, different people used to tell me that if it took more than two degrees to make a connection in the Steel City, I was spending time with the wrong people.  This could not have proved to be more true as my social and work circles are constantly overlapping. 

When I worked exclusively in the music industry, I liked to book some of the bands I managed on the same concert bill.  Some of my favorite memories involve Brother Chameleon and Boogiehawg – bands that were different stylistically but complemented each other performing on the same stage.  It was so fun to witness the interplay between members of each group while performing and the good times that were had post-show in their Georgetown loft.  I also enjoyed connecting musicians from different bands.  It still makes me smile when I hear Jay C.’s (of Brother Chameleon) organ sound on Apartment 3’s album “Bruised & Patient”. 

This December I am celebrating 13 years at Ticketmaster and I do not believe the job would have ever come to fruition if it were not for the networking done by my wife.  I used to book bands and performers at the Walnut Grill in Pittsburgh’s Shadyside neighborhood between April 2004 – December 2005.  During this time a regular of the Monday Night concert series was a gentleman named Pat, who at the time was the General Manager of Ticketmaster.  After he and Ranisa struck up a conversation, the next step involved me having an interview and the rest as “they say” is history.  If you are not part of the Pittsburgh crowd that only goes out to celebrate a birthday or New Year’s Eve, connections like this are happening constantly. 

And recently while working in the box office at Heinz Field, I assisted in deciphering Le’Veon Bell’s handwriting to determine that the tickets he was leaving for E.Dan was actually Eric "E. Dan" Dan from the recording studio ID Labs best known for extensive work with Pittsburgh hip-hop artists Wiz Khalifa and Mac Miller.  When I was asked by my colleagues in the box office how I knew who E.Dan was, it did not take long to sort thru the Rolodex in my head of Pittsburgh local music. Although my days of working with the Major League Entertainment hip hop artist Tribeca are in the past, I do my best to stay in tune with the different music circles in my adopted home city.  And as I learned, you never know when you are going to have to connect the dots.

Thanks for reading.

FORMULA ONE.

Based on my strong interest in music and trying to predict what songs my sons might like, I have been wondering: Is there a blueprint to what they may want to put on repeat?  I do not know the answer to that question right now, but as my older son studies science, I am starting to develop a hypothesis.

I recently read “The Song Machine: Inside the Hit Factory” by John Seabrook.  Mr. Seabrook explains how pop songs have become addictive because of the "hooks," and the brain's interest in melody, rhythm, and repetition.  With two young boys interested in music and pop songs, I have started to find myself drinking the Kool-Aid! 

Seabrook highlights that there are now (and have been) specialized teams and writers composing songs in “labs” that introduce readers to unlikely musical heavy-hitters like Max Martin.  Please Google him and his success or just trust me that he has 22 Billboard Hot 100 number-one hits or that he is the songwriter with the third most number one singles on the chart, behind only Paul McCartney (32) and John Lennon (26)!   I now know that my boys know the lyrics to Martin’s songs, but I also now know (and not surprisingly) reading the book has changed the way I listen to music.

On recent work trips to the wild and wonderful Mountain State, I have become overexposed to a lot of country music.  In addition to being onsite at a Chris Stapleton show at the Charleston Civic Center and hearing his barroom baritone belt out his hit “Tennessee Whiskey” I have logged a number of hours in the car.  Instead of playing the hits of my youth for my recent travel, I have been learning the names of the moment on country radio – like Dustin Lynch and Dylan Scott.  During this time on the road, I have determined that there is a recipe to a lot of the country music songs on the Billboard “Hot Country Songs” list.   In fact, I am amazed at the shared experiences of driving on I-65 with an attractive girl in the passenger seat, listening to a genre of music (typically hip-hop and definitively not country) in route to drinking a cold beverage of choice at a roadside bar that make up a number of the songs on country radio.

I am also starting to see this songwriting formula duplicated in my life, particularly when I overhear my boys singing in the shower. Most songs they are singing can usually be found on one of Pittsburgh's top 40 radio stations. But my favorite moments, are when I hear them casually tossing in a lyric that has to do with their day.  Although they have yet to sink their teeth into the stories being told in a Johnny Cash song, I believe it is their own experiences that will one day contribute to more profound lyrical content.  Maybe one of these moments will turn into a power ballad penned by what will become a formidable songwriting partnership?

Thanks for reading.

PASS THE DUTCHIE.

I continue to learn that so many experiences from my youth have shaped my interests and who I am today.

I often think of my parent’s record player and stereo speakers.  For the longest time I thought the speakers were end tables. It makes me smile to think that thanks to Craigslist, these same speakers found a new home and now reside somewhere in Swissvale.  Hopefully another young child is lucky enough to hear influential sounds through those speakers.  For me, my memories include listing to The Carpenters (“We’ve Only Just Begun”); Bye Bye Birdie ("A Normal, American Boy"); The Beatles (“I’m Looking Through You”) in my living room through those big, magic boxes.  

Now when I play music in my house, I feel that I am not so subtlety trying to influence the soundtrack of my boys’ youth.  Will they retain the songs that I have been playing for them?  Will they eventually come to appreciate one of the bands that I like?  Or will the cycle continue when they play Ed Sheeran and Imagine Dragons for their family?

In addition to the recorded music of my childhood, I often think of what got me interested in the business side of live music.  I like to thank band members from The Empty’s and many late night conversations in Foggy Bottom during my college years, but  another prominent childhood memory of mine is watching a KISS documentary from the late 1970s (“A Day In The Life Of KISS”).  It was not necessarily the music that stood out to me but watching the intricate set-up and breakdown of a KISS concert will be forever imprinted in my mind.

Currently, when attending concerts with my boys, I constantly find myself either pointing (or wanting to point) out behind-the-scenes details about the band’s stage configuration or instrumentation.  I often think of where the band just arrived from and how quickly they need to pack their van to head off to their next show.  Now the parent in me wonders if they have a place to stay and if they have a back-up plan in case they no longer decide to live the life of a touring musician.

An age-old bar stool conversation is “What was your first concert?”.   The answers can sprout embarrassing tales or prideful memories.  I know that I have taken my boys to see their first concerts, but I wonder if they will claim them as their own or choose their own adventures.

Thanks for reading.

ROAD TRIP.

Road trips are a quintessential part of Americana and for most people, a long drive means getting the earbuds in place and  a playlist queued up.

It has been a long time since I attended 10 or more concerts in one summer as a fan.  I still go to shows,  but these days, I tend to stay local, not travelling much more than 5 miles.  But I know for a fact that other concert goers are traveling.  It is no longer just Deadheads and Phish fans going to see shows outside of their home markets.  The ethos of traveling from show to show is alive and well with multiple genres of music.   My friend Tommy once journeyed 885 miles from Minnesota to Pennsylvania for a Ryan Adams show.  And a bartender I met at has traveled to 8 different states and seen 20 different shows featuring Brian Fallon and/or The Gaslight Anthem.

Even with my travel at a minimum, my friend Matt who is producing a podcast called, "So There I Was" has me thinking about some of my road warrior stories from the past.  In the summer of 1995, my coast-to-coast concert experience was seeing the Beastie Boys at George Mason University in Fairfax, VA (with The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion and The Roots) on Friday, May 19 and then 2 weeks later on Friday, June 2, watching them live at the Velodrome in Los Angeles, CA.  Of course, prepping for road trips back then involved choosing the playlist and for me, in 1995, this meant using my walkman to play my mix-tapes.  My friends and family probably joke that I would still be doing the same thing today, but that is a separate blog entry!  

Despite my infrequent travel to shows, I still love a good road trip and enjoy putting thought into the music listened to during the drive.  My most recent travel involved a trip to Canada, and surprisingly I did not put together music for the ride.  But the music gods were smiling on me, and I was lucky to get the following string of songs to start me off: George Ezra “Budapest” -> Alt-J “In Cold Blood” -> Allman Brothers Band “Ramblin’ Man” -> Mighty Mighty Bosstones “Impression that I Get” -> Weezer “Feels like Summer” -> Son Volt “Back Against The Wall” -> The Wood Brothers “Ophelia” -> My Morning Jacket “Off the Record (live)” -> Aretha Franklin with Ray Charles “Spirit in the Dark (reprise)”.  And that was just the first 30 minutes. 

For my family’s next vacation, my 7 year old son is already planning his own road trip playlist.  Maybe he will be my +1 if I ever make it to the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival.

Thanks for reading.

Count the headlights on the highway.

WillieNelson sings, “On the road again / Goin' places that I've never been / Seein' things that I may never see again / And I can't wait to get on the road again”.  I have both heard and hummed this song so many times and realize that it couldn't hold more true now.  In my work experience, being on tour was both rewarding and challenging, but when I first started in entertainment, it was all about the music.  In fact, 30 years ago if you had told me that I would be flown out to Chicago and paid to be onsite at a U2 show at Soldier Field, then shuttled back to Pittsburgh to then be paid to be at a second U2 show at Heinz Field, and also asked to work a third show at Papa John’s Stadium in Louisville, I would have said “Where do I sign?”.  But with my boys’ sports seasons occupying almost every weeknight and weekend, and trying to find downtime to spend with my wife, all I have wanted to do is hang out in Pittsburgh.  Wow, have my priorities changed.

Please understand that I enjoy traveling and the opportunity to visit old friends and see sites is right up my alley, but I believe my days of being on a routed tour are behind me.  For those who do not know, routing is a music industry term used to describe a specific itinerary and/or number of cities visited by an artist/band over a period of time.  Although traveling for my work can be exciting, it can also be grueling and I have seen it first-hand contribute to the end of many bands.  In the different roles that I have filled in the music industry, I am constantly comparing and contrasting my past experiences in all of the different cities to the cities that I am working in 2017.  At the same time, as I was booking tours and concerts in over 30 states/provinces in North America between 2000-2005, I never realized that I was forging my own musical map.

Dave Grohl once said that, “I think there is something in a city that influences the way people play music in that city.”  As someone working behind the scenes with bands and artists, I believe there are things about different cities that also impact how you listen to music.  Grabbing gravy fries post-show at Nectar’s in Burlington, VT, club-hopping on Frenchman Street in New Orleans, LA come to mind.  Or are you taking an Uber to the show with a Nigerian driver named Yahya who is playing Afro JuJu?  Maybe you are riding the subway and sharing a seat with a kid in a Mohawk and wearing a t-shirt of The Menzingers?  What about grabbing a pre-show drink in a pub where the bartender is playing Rush’s “Permanent Waves” album just a bit too loud.  There are so many unique, local-isms when visiting a new city and checking out music.

In 2017, the next time that I am asked to work a show in a different market, maybe I will make it a family affair.  And I hope that the next time that I invite them to go see a show, they will all have their shoes on and be half-way out the door before I can explain to them who we are going to see and where.

Thanks for reading!

A champ like Tyson, a Captain like Kirk, no. Employee of the Month, cause yo, I do work.

I cannot unlisten to the sounds of Travis Scott’s “Goosebumps”, but I can at least explain to you why MC Ren has been asking for years for other artists to stop “Putting wack records in the make / By using R&B f*%#ing singers in the god damn breaks.”  I have read  Shea Serrano’s “The Rap Year Book: The Most Important Rap Song From Every Year Since 1979, Discussed, Debated, and Deconstructed” cover to cover and I am happy to say that not only did I know the tracks but had educated opinions on each one.  And at the peak of when I was booking new and upcoming bands, I can proudly say that I booked Major League Entertainment recording artist Tribeca at both the Middle East and S.O.B’s.  I want my boys to look back on this blog and understand that I know something about music – maybe not how to play, but how to listen and discuss hip-hop and be a connoisseur.

I am always trying to teach my boys something new:  how to run a pick & roll in basketball; the proper way to answer a knock on our front door and my love of hip-hop music from the era of approximately the fall of 1989 until the summer of 1998.  Even though I live in Pittsburgh and my boys know the names of Wiz Khalifa and Mac Miller, I am trying to explain to them that before those performers there was the 1991 release of the “The Low End Theory”.  Then there was the April 1992 release of “Check Your Head” or later that same year in November 1992 when “Bizarre Ride II the Pharcyde” was released.  It continued with  Guru's Jazzmatazz, Vol. 1 in 1993, “It Was Written” in 1996 and “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill” in 1998.

I distinctly remember my cousin Jason and I running into Mister Cee near the train platform in New York City’s Penn Station.  I was so excited to see a DJ that I had seen on “Showtime at the Apollo” in person.  However, maybe it was my Charles Oakley jersey, or the style of my high top Converse sneakers that I was choosing to wear at the time, but with a stack of vinyl records in hand, he vehemently denied being the person that I knew who he was.  And although Mister Cee did not view me as someone who was striving to be an authority on hip-hop, I now believe in my ears and what I am able to pass along to my boys.

I do not make beats like my cousin Daniel and the mix-tapes that Jason I made as DJ Feldi and Kool Mark Dee are only alive for those who still have a tape-deck, but I still know what you should be listening to:  Jonwayne’s “Rap Album Two” and Oddisee's "The Iceberg".

Thanks for reading.

R.E.M.

Music can be relaxing. Sometimes, even helping to put you to sleep. My wife once jokingly referred to Norah Jones’ music on our stereo as “Snorah Jones”.  Now anytime that I put on a station in the Pittsburgh market that is known to play that genre of music, my two boys instantly feign sleep.

When my kids were younger, I used to play them the Rockabye Baby! series of CDs and the lullaby renditions of Pearl Jam songs – mostly played on the xylophone worked its magic.  For me, although I do not like to sleep, I am a good sleeper.  I am typically rested with 6 hours per night, but sometimes it is not as simple as turning off the light and crashing after a full day.

In the summer of 2013, I listened to City & Colour’s “The Hurry and the Harm” on repeat, mostly when I was trying to wind down at the end of the day.  Recently when I was in Charleston, WV, there were maintenance workers drilling into concrete on I-79 that ran near my hotel room well into the middle of the night.  And at 2:00 AM, listening to music on headphones was the only thing that I could do to dull out the loud noise outside my window and put myself to sleep. .  That night, I chose the classic U2 song, “One” with Mary J. Blige on vocals.  In high school, when sleep didn't come easy, I chose different Pink Floyd songs off of albums like "Obscured by Clouds", "The Final Cut" or "A Momentary Lapse of Reason".   It is important to note that I do not find this music boring, rather comforting and calming.

According to a WebMD.com article by Bob Barnett, "Reputable studies find that music with a rhythm of about 60 beats a minute helps people fall asleep. . ." "As you are falling asleep, your heart rate begins to slow, and starts to move toward that 60-beats-per-minute range.” In other words, slow music “tunes” your heartbeat toward the sleep zone.  But whether or not you utilize music to sleep, play it in the background at a party or during a work-out, I continue to be amazed at how music can be heard throughout everyday life.  

These days, I have friends who use the ‘Sleep Sounds’ app or are knocked out on their couch by the voices of Sam Waterston, Morgan Freeman, Garrison Keillor or George Plimpton to name a few in Ken Burns’ “The Civil War”, but for me it will always be music.   I am currently trying to compile my top 5 music to fall asleep to albums, but in the meantime, since my boys and my wife sleep terribly most nights – maybe they need a new copy of “Come Away with Me”.

Thanks for reading.

Do what you love, love what you do.

According to The Guild of Music Supervisors, a music supervisor is “a qualified professional who oversees all music related aspects of film, television, advertising, video games and other existing or emerging visual media platforms. . .”.  I received my first taste of this job in the summer of 1995 when I assisted the music supervisor of the MTV show ‘Road Rules’.  

While that seems like a lifetime ago, I have been watching the show “The Royals” on E! and once again thinking about what goes on behind the scenes, since I am not drawn as much to the characters or storyline, but the impeccable soundtrack that accompanies each scene.  I have heard a lot of new music thanks to this show:  Saint Raymond’s “Oh Brother”,  Novo Amor’s “Anchor” and James Arthur “Say You Won’t Let Go” just to name a few.  These songs remind me of a career path that I did not pursue.  Instead of following in the footsteps of Christa Miller, Liza Richardson or Lindsay Wolfington, I got involved with the live side of entertainment.   I have been stating a lot these days that I would never have been able to sit at my desk chair at Ticketmaster for the past 11 years if I had not gone on tour with five other smelly, music loving guys all chasing a dream.

Nas raps, "Everybody's lookin for somethin...Street dreams are made of these" and Hall & Oates sang, “What I've got's full stock of thoughts and dreams that scatter / You pull them all together / And how, I can't explain / But You make my dreams come true.”  My career path is a question mark for me at 41, but my boys' futures have not yet reached a fork in the road.  Since they have fortunately not lost the dream to be pro athletes, I look at them in amazement when they absorb all of the employment possibilities that surround them.  We have even started to discuss their potential first jobs – Aviv as a chef planning dairy, egg & nut free menu items at Mad Mex and Cobi as an instructor at The Climbing Wall.

Thankfully there is no rush and we can focus on getting past this week’s spelling test and math homework dealing with fractions first.  However, in the meantime, I will continue to daydream, listen to new music and think about its placement in the movies playing in my mind.  Cut to early morning Brookline, MA - the scene is my friend Danny racing on foot alongside the Green Line as it passes thru Coolidge Corner and Jon Bellion’s “Maybe IDK” is playing in the background.

Thanks for reading!

Practice Makes Perfect.

It is rare to be instantly good at something.  I have been reminded of this when I've watched my boys struggle to learn to tie their shoes, ice skate, or try to play an instrument.  In fact, I am constantly encouraging my sons that if there is anything in life that they would like to do, they need to practice, practice, practice.  “When you're not practicing, someone somewhere is . . ..”  I have heard this quote credited to everyone from Larry Bird to Bill Bradley to Ed Macauley and the bottom line is that I believe it is true.  

My older son was frustrated during his 2015-2016 basketball season because he could not make a lay-up consistently. So, he decided to spend hours repeatedly working on this same shot.  When basketball started this past winter, he was proud that his hard work paid off because he was able to consistently make his lay-ups (from both side of the hoop).   Meanwhile a 180 degree turn from that experience was his short-lived career as an axe-wielding, lead guitarist.  Although I had visions of grandeur that he would become the next Derek Trucks or John Mayer, he practiced minimally between lessons and eventually it caught up with him.  I remember his instructor “Guitar” Mike pulling me aside after one of his final lessons and stating that the one thing he could do to get better was practice and I will give you less than 10 seconds to guess how that ended.

The ability to repeat something over and over takes self-regulation.  Bruce Springsteen was recently interviewed by comedian and broadcaster Marc Maron (host of the popular WTFpodcast), and according to Timothy Bracy of Men’s Journal account of the interview, “perhaps the most important takeaway is that Springsteen, through rigorous discipline. . .has experienced fame and success . . .”.    Reading an interview with his E Street Band drummer, Max Weinberg stated that Springsteen's "modus operandi in the studio" is "to literally play things 30 or 40 times" before committing it to a recording.  

As I get older, I am finding that varying degrees of discipline are important, particularly when it comes from the crossroads of inspiration, pride and determination.  I also need to remind myself that it is never too late to learn something new.  The future is one of the only things we can change.  At the moment for me it is to be able to run multiple sections of The MotherFricker and still be able to walk up the hill to The Independent later in the day.  I just ran 8 miles and feel that I am almost there.  I will just need to get out for a number of runs before April 1. 

Thanks for reading!

Carpool Karaoke.

No matter where we are these days if Top 40 music is playing, my boys seem to know a majority of the lyrics to the songs.  The list of artists seems endless, Alessia Cara; Charlie Pugh; Gavin (DeGraw for those not in the know) and I never thought I would become familiar with all of their names, let alone their songs.  But some of my favorite moments these days are traveling in a car and looking in the rear-view mirror and seeing and hearing the boys singing along.  Most recently, this remind me of the scene from “Almost Famous” in which the band was singing Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer”, but of course minus the groupies.

Why do we remember song lyrics so easily?  According to Adam Sinicki of HealthGuidance.org, "Clearly our brains are somehow wired to be especially good at remembering music lyrics. . .most of us have the lyrics to hundreds if not thousands of songs stored in our brains. . .”  I can certainly remember Ms. Johnson's 2nd grade class and a few of us monopolizing the cassette player so that we could listen to "Combat Rock" over and over again as we desperately tried to memorize the lyrics to "Rock the Casbah".  At the time, my fascination with song probably had to do with the repetitive chorus: "Sharif don't like it / Rock the Casbah, rock the Casbah / Sharif don't like it / Rock the Casbah, Rock the Casbah".  I did not know that a Sharif was a Muslim religious leader and that a Casbah is an African Market, but I did know at 7 years old that I wanted to rock.

I believe one of the reasons that I recall lyrics is due to associating the lyrics with something going in my life.   These days I spend some of my downtime running in Frick Park (with multiple guys named Matt) and so many of our discussions can set off lyrics that are in my head.  We could be talking about anything from parenting to visiting with old friends and almost immediately the following songs enter my head: Ben Folds Five’s ‘Philosophy’:  “Go ahead you laugh all you want / I got my philosophy”) or the Mighty Mighty Bosstones’ ‘Toxic Toast’:  “Queensbury Number Eight / Hell Hotel punk rock estate. / Way way back in the day. / One hundred years it seems that way.”  And now there is Ed Sheeran’s ‘Castle on the Hill’: “We found weekend jobs, when we got paid / We'd buy cheap spirits and drink them straight”.

I do not believe that I would ever volunteer to sing these songs in public (when I have sang karaoke, it was shotgun style), but it does not change the fact that song lyrics play a large role in my everyday thoughts.  And it is somewhat comforting to now see the same thing start happening with my boys.

Thanks for reading.

Tradition.

At the beginning of the calendar year, it is not uncommon for music writers to share their predictions for who they think will become breakout stars in the year to come.  I have done this with my blog in the past, but this year I am not going to walk down that path. Instead, as I prepare to usher in 2017, I have been thinking a lot about a tradition that is becoming more and more prominent in my life.  So while some  families are still humming “Auld Lang Syne”, I am thinking of  Nas’ 2006 album “Hip Hop Is Dead” when he raps, “When they crown you - and you rise up to your position / Carry On Tradition / When they knight you - then you go to fight, go to war, don't petition / Carry On Tradition (x2) / Carry on (x2) / Carry On Tradition (x2) / when you rep what we rep / Then Carry On Tradition”.

There are all types of traditions tied to music.  One tradition that I have adopted is oral tradition, a type of musical communication wherein knowledge and culture are passed on orally from one generation to another.  The initial image in my head is of Appalachian music, front porches and fire pits.  In my home, music is a focus as the boys sit at the counter-top in our kitchen and we listen to A Tribe Called Quest’s “Can I Kick It?” or when we are playing a family game in our living room with my wife’s Pandora station playing in the background and we end up talking about the difference between the Counting Crows versus the Black Crowes.

Music traditions can also be classified into some combination of ethnic, racial, religious or geographic boundaries.  Although my paternal family hails from Belarus, we sadly did not inherit an ability for neumatic chants known as znamenny.  However, one thing we are proud of is that our house has become a meeting spot for family and friends, where music inevitably becomes the center of conversation.  We value the fact that we do not live in a traditional household.  We have 4 generations living at our house, my boys, my wife and I, my wife’s parents, and her maternal grandfather.  Although I am still waiting for the first jam session with Zaidy on guitar, my boys get to hear their maternal grandfather wax poetic on Bobby Darin and my friends' heated discussions about the jam bands of our college years.  With the wide range of ages passing thru Pittsburgh, we get an awesome cross-section of people, stories and music.

Through the tradition of music, I hope that my boys can look back at their childhood and remember a house that was often full of people, tales and music.  Maybe not exactly along the lines of Hank Williams, Jr.’s 1979 song, “Family Tradition”, but close:  “So don't ask me, Hank why do you drink? Hank, why do roll smoke? / Why must you live out the songs that you wrote? / Stop and think it over, try and put yourself in my unique position. / If I get stoned and sing all night long, it's a family tradition.”

Thank you for reading.