Take a right turn at the old Isaly's off of Boulevard of the Allies

When Ben Gibbard of the band Deathcab for Cutie sings “And if you feel just like a tourist in the city you were born / Then, it's time to go”, it drives home that I have now lived in Pittsburgh, PA almost the equivalent amount of time that I grew up in my hometown of Westfield, NJ. 

I am not ready to give up my Garden State-issued Bruce Springsteen fan-card or give directions to places in Pittsburgh by way of landmarks that are no longer there, but New Jersey has now become familiar and alien at the same time.  The Exit 135 sign means so many different things to me - coming home as a teenager after seeing live music at The Stone Pony (Asbury Park, NJ); being close to getting a relatively decent night sleep as I traveled along the East Coast with touring bands; and of course making mix-tapes with DJ Feldi - "I'm Rob Base and I came to get down".

However, most of these memories are more than 20 years old.  I still talk with and see my Jersey friends, and we all still share music and live show experiences via email, but I just don't know if the entire crew will be able to recapture the magic.  There will always be the bands and artists that proudly proclaim New Jersey as their home: Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band, Kool & The Gang, The Gaslight Anthem, The Smithereens and Skid Row, but sometimes I feel so far away.  I could choose to walk around with my head down, singing to myself,  “Remember yesterday, walking hand in hand / Love letters in the sand, I remember you / Through the sleepless nights through every endless day / I'd want to hear you say, I remember you”, but I now think about my adopted home city and how I relate to music here.

Good news/bad news is that my musical tastes have matured and diversified over those two decades since traveling "west".  I am ankle-deep with a modest collection of vinyl - thank you Pete K. and friends from Independent Brewing Co.  I also see concerts as a business transaction- thank you 12 years and 10 months at Ticketmaster.  However, to tip the scales, my 30s brought me a new appreciation of what is probably my favorite style of music - brass bands.   And I now also take some pride in the Pittsburgh bands and artists that preceded me.  I therefore feel I need to educate my boys since they lay claim to the southwestern part of the Keystone State as their birthplace.

We have already had many conversations about Mac Miller (we walk past ‘Blue Slide Park every day on our way to school), The Clarks, Art Blakey, Rusted Root and Joe Grushecky & The Houserockers.  And thankfully there is a link back to the Garden State.  Grushecky and Springsteen have co-written several songs together and shared the stage in many Pittsburgh locations.  So as I continue to bridge my past with my present, I will always think fondly of my many nights in Hoboken and the evenings to come at places like the Roxian in McKees Rocks.

Thanks for reading.

Buckle of the Bible Belt

There is something brewing in Nashville and I am not just talking about what is in the vats of Yazoo Brewing Company.  There are countless songs that reference the city, but the one that jumps out at me as I type this is the TragicallyHip’s “It Can’t Be Nashville Every Night”: "He said, 'Fuck this' and 'Fuck that' / And this guy's the diplomat / Stares into the blur of the tuner lights / It can't be Nashville every night".  But Nashville does seem to be on everyone's radar.

While my adopted city of Pittsburgh keeps landing on "Best Of" lists, "Music City U.S.A" is also experiencing a number of accolades.  Often labeled one of the 10 best cities in America for live music, too me it is the home of Ryman Auditorium (listed on Rolling Stone's 10 Best Live Music Venues in America) as well as The Basement East or Station Inn, and the hits just keep on coming.  Whether it be from current Nashville resident Taylor Swift (along with Brendan Urie) singing "ME!" or the songs that originated from native Nashvillian legends Gregg Allman and Duane Allman or the other Grammy Award winning family act: Kings of Leon - no can argue that the city is a hub for music action. 

However, sports in the city appear to be on the rise and I really like when my interests in music and sports collide.  The city's professional hockey team, the Predators competed in the 2017 NHL Stanley Cup and the 2019 NFL Draft was recently held on the streets of Nashville.  And on the collegiate level - Vanderbilt University sports are ascending to new heights.  New basketball coach Jerry Stackhouse has brought in NBA legacies:  Scotty Pippen, Jr. and Kenyon Martin, Jr., while their perennial contender baseball program recently landed next generation, Major League Baseball prospect Jack Leiter and already has the son of an NFL player, Kumar Rocker on their roster.  I know that when most people think of the SEC, they are thinking of top tier collegiate athletics, but I have also learned that SEC is a directive to perform a specific passage of a musical composition in a dry, cold manner – essentially the way a musician might perform a song after sitting for hours on a bus.

A solid 10 hour drive south and west from Pittsburgh, Nashville is on my short list of places to visit.  I know that I do not typically praise country music in this blog or reference Music Row, but as my musical tastes continue to evolve I certainly realize that the city and the artists hold a special place in the live music spectrum.  Jason Aldeansings in “Crazy Town”:  “Roll into town step off the bus / Shake off the where you came from dust / Grab your guitar walk down the street / Sign says Nashville Tennessee”.

  

Thanks for reading.

Take my hand, we're gonna go where we can shine

Crystal is the traditional gift for a 15th wedding anniversary. It is supposed to represent the clear and sparkling love between partners. The modern gift is glass or a watch, which is thought by many to be a symbol of the time you've had—and the hope that that there are many more good times to come. But these gifts do not work in my relationship. We break too many glasses for those to make a good gift and my wife has good timing. Meanwhile I received a watch from her in 1997, and as a result, I am on-time (most of the time). The bottom line, is that I need to think of something else to commemorate our special date.

As my 15th wedding anniversary approaches, I find myself thinking about the strength of people working together, which in music, are duets. We have heard them on records for a long time, and maybe even performed one or two on karaoke night. According to Study.com the earliest vocal duets, as we think of them today, began with opera in the early 1600s, music fans then moved on to “Captain” Daryl Dragon and Toni Tennille singing: "I will be there to share forever / Love will keep us together" and they now live on today in the form of a duet that features two of my favorite musicians: Bruce Hornsby and Justin Vernon (aka Bon Iver) singing the song “Cast-Off”.

So now that I have crystal and duets on my mind a unique duet that I recently learned about is that of Crystal Gayle & Tom Waits. In 1982, Gayle collaborated with Waits on the soundtrack for Francis Ford Coppola's film "One from the Heart". However, to me there is nothing particularly sentimental about the year 1982 or this film. This led me to more brainstorming and asking myself what duets were we listening to in 2004 - the year that we were married. Well at a recent BBQ hosted by my friends John & Toni D., I was educated that Crystal Gayle is the younger sister of country superstar Loretta Lynn.

Produced and released in 2004 is the Loretta Lynn and Jack White album "Van Lear Rose", which I am now listening to on vinyl as I type this. Although my wife and I do not connect to any of the songs from this album, it reminds me that just like a good tandem bicycle frame is more than just two solo frames stuck together, so is a musical duet.

The past 15 years have produced so many good times in my life as well as other notable duets and although it would be fun to say that our jam in 2004 was "My Boo" by Usher and Alicia Keys, I am more interested in a different style of duets when a couple is building each other up for success.

I believe the gold standard for this type of duet is husband and wife Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi. I could go on and on about their level of collaboration, but what really drives it home is the way that they look at each other when either Tedeschi is singing or Trucks is playing the guitar. For me it is all summed up on their rendition of Harry Nilsson’s “Everybody’s Talkin’”: “I won't let you leave my love behind / No, I won't let you leave / I won't let you leave my love behind.”

Thanks for reading.

Yeah boyeee!

Rappers have their hype men, athletes have their playlists.

As my friends and I prepare for our respective running races, I think of the different jams that we are all listening to that get us motivated to run a long distance.

I always subscribe to the fact that everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion (as well as musical taste).  That cliché could not be more true in the city of New Orleans, where Josh L. trained for the Rock n’ Roll Half-Marathon while listening to “a financial advisor podcast or articles from the New Yorker”.  Meanwhile 6,800 miles away, my brother-in-law continues to prepare for the Jerusalem Half-Marathon with songs like Run the Jewels with DJ Shadow’s “Nobody Speak” – in which there are lyrics like “I'm unmentionably fresh, I'm a mensch, get correct.”   And for those of you wondering, the jams pumping out of my headphones as I run the trails of Frick Park are typically Rage Against the Machine, but most of all I am just trying to brainstorm new blog ideas.

Running is not the only sport I associate with music. I recently attended a college basketball game at my alma mater.  Stepping into the Foggy Bottom gym, I was reminded of the fact that when I was in school the team used to listen to MC Breed featuring 2Pac’s “Gotta Get Mine” before heading out onto the Smith Center floor.  These days, I couldn’t tell if it was Post Malone or Meek Mill, but whoever it was, I was pleasantly surprised that it got the student section on its feet.

I try to channel this same powerful musical energy for my sons, before their basketball games. I make every effort to play an upbeat song for my sons before they take the court for one of their games. Hands down, this season’s highlight was their response to G. Love & Special Sauce’s 1998 song “I-76”. 

And in my adopted home city of Pittsburgh, there is a song played at Heinz Field that defines whipping the crowd into frenzy.  Who would have thought when Tommy Shaw was writing “Renegade” in 1978 for Styx’s album ‘Pieces of Eight'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CeRoi43azds that it would eventually be used to “rock” an NFL stadium ().

I would like to think that we have come a long way since Gary Glitter’s 1971 “Rock and Roll, Part 2” (aka “The Hey Song”) was the anthem at all arenas and stadiums, but it really boils down to the DJ knowing his audience or the hype man, knowing the right exclamations and interjections to increase an audience's excitement.

Thanks for reading!

School Dance.

In my best Bruce Springsteen impersonation, “I hid in the clouded wrath of the crowd, but when they said, "Sit down, " I stood up / Ooh...growin' up”.   

As some of my friends start to have children, it has started to sink in that I am now a parent of older children.  While it may be unsolicited, I still find myself offering advice about 1 cent less in value than what Lucy Van Pelt was providing from her “Psychiatric Help” booth in the Peanuts comic strip.  “Years are short, but the days are long” is what I say.  One friend responded by booing me and threatening to punch me in the face, while the other has convinced me that I just said some “sage shit”.

Meanwhile, I am just a dad, doing the best I can. I am maturing by spending more time with my family, diversifying my interests, and improving my second language skills.  The only thing that I have not done recently is go see live music (55 days to be exact). But I think that sacrifice is worth it since it means I get to continue to guide my boys through their trials and tribulations.

The other night I was sitting in the parking lot of my son’s school waiting to pick him up from his first Middle School Dance.  Serendipitously, Kenny Loggins’ “Footloose” starts to play on the radio and I initially think of Ren McCormack’s small Midwestern town struggle.  Thankfully my boys do not face the same sort of uphill battle as Ren and my conversation with my son post-dance is asking him what the superlatives were for the evening. 

Or there was a different night listening to the Pharcyde’s “Ya Mama” jokes with my boys and all of us laughing out loud.  I realize how offensive the lyrics are “Your mom is so fat (How fat is she?) / Your mama is so big and fat that she can get busy / With twenty-two burritos, but times are rough / I seen her in the back of Taco Bell with handcuffs”, and you have to believe me that with each tear we wiped away from our faces, I was reminding them that these jokes are not appropriate. 

Next thing I am going to realize is that my sons are reading this blog from their mobile phones while taking a driver-less Uber from Squirrel Hill to downtown as they make their way to a Andy Grammer show at the Benedum.

Thanks for reading & happy holidays.

But you're just a line in a song.

My brain works in strange ways.  There are times in my life in which I have song lyrics swirling around in my head.  In most instances they are a way for me to connect a song with what is going on in my world.  Legendary songwriter and performer Dolly Parton stated that, “Songwriting is my way of channeling my feelings and my thoughts. Not just mine, but the things I see, the people I care about. My head would explode if I didn't get some of that stuff out.”    

Meanwhile Dave Grohl says something similar, but is able to tie it to our shared experience of fatherhood: “When you have kids, you see life through different eyes. You feel love more deeply and are maybe a little more compassionate. It's inevitable that that would make its way into your songwriting.”   

Watching my sons either running for touchdowns in flag football games or trying to turn singles into double brings Cake’s song “The Distance” to mind: “He’s going the distance / He’s going for speed”.   Or the next song on the virtual mix-tape: Florence + The Machine’s catchy “Dog Days Are Over”: “So you better run.  Run fast for your mother, run fast for your father.”   These tracks make their way into my head without even trying.   

There are also times when my boys feel weighed down by their schoolwork and I do not have to dig too deep to come up with a classic from The Beatles. Paul McCartney’s vocals on “Getting Better” are still relevant today: "I used to get mad at my school / The teachers who taught me weren't cool / You're holding me down / Turning me round / Filling me up with your rules."     

Dealing with the recent tragic events in my neighborhood, my mind races to Animal Years’ Mike McFadden belting out in his song ‘Meet Me’:  “I hope you never feel the way I feel tonight” and then it directly transitions to Citizen Cope’s “The Healing Hands”: “’Cause the actions of a few / Have put a world in harm’s way”. 

No one should have to feel the way my family did at the end of October living in the Pittsburgh neighborhood of Squirrel Hill, but this has become life as we know it.  Senseless tragedies, active shooter drills in my boys’ school, but also the constant search to be strong and remain positive.

Right now, it is wishful thinking in zip code 15217, but I remain optimistic when I hear Van Morrison sing: “And we'll walk down the avenue again / And we'll sing all the songs from way back when / And we'll walk down the avenue again and the healing has begun”.

Thanks for reading. 

Let Me Clear My Throat.

Throughout the early 1990s, I envisioned myself attending Syracuse University's Newhouse School to study broadcast journalism.  At the time, I was having a fantastic time co-hosting radio programs on Super 640 WCYJ in Amherst, NH with my friend Josh G. and definitively thought I had found my calling.

In addition to my affinity for radio, I loved being around music, so for me, being a DJ seemed like a natural way to be a part of the industry.  To this day, I am still drawn to the ability to both paint as well as frame a picture of a song (or string of songs) with only your voice.     

My interest in being a DJ carried over to my free time.  I grew up watching re-runs of the popular TV show "WKRP in Cincinnati" and easily became fully invested in a faux-Cincinnati radio station switching from sedate music to top-40 rock 'n' roll.  How could I not be fans of DJs like Venus Flytrap and Dr. Johnny Fever?  There was also Casey Kasem's American Top 40.  Like many people my age, I was hooked on the internationally syndicated, independent song countdown radio program.  I had a soft spot for the weekly "long distance dedication" and I can still remember the "Come On Eileen" showdown with Michael Jackson in April 1983.   Dexy's Midnight Runners' song prohibited the "King of Pop" from having back-to-back #1 hits with "Billie Jean" and "Beat It".

DJs not only introduced me to new songs, but their knowledge and the information that they dispensed to their listening audience stuck with me.  There were many, many late nights in Westfield, NJ in which I placed my handheld radio near my pillow and listened to New York City's 660 AM "the Fan" WFAN and Steve Somers "schmoozing" until Imus in the Morning.  These days, even in the age of podcasts and streaming, I wake up to WYEP's (91.3 FM in Pittsburgh) Joey Spehar's "Morning Mix" and start my day with his segment "Wake the Dead".  I really enjoy learning a slice of Grateful Dead history and listening to a song from their vast catalog of songs to get my day going.

I am not exactly sure when or where I took a different exit on my career path and ended up booking bands which then lead to the world of ticketing and now to my newest opportunity.  However, I know that there will be individuals who always play the music that continues to be the soundtrack of my life.    

Thanks for reading.