Who’s My +1

Music therapy researchers Daisy Fancourt and Aaron Williamon from Imperial College London published a study in April 2016 suggesting that watching live music could help reduce people's levels of stress hormones.  Then, another study done in March 2017 by Australian researchers Melissa K. Weinberg and  Dawn Joseph found that “people who actively engaged with music through dancing and attending events like concerts and musicals reported a higher level of subjective well-being.” 

When I first started promoting concerts in Washington DC during the mid-1990s, my mentor was a woman named Mary.   If I learned anything from Mary during that time, I learned that it is OK to go to concerts by yourself.  To this day, I continue to go see shows on my own.   And while I still believe in Mary's mantra, I have determined that attending a concert can be a more intimate experience that should be shared.  Hearing and seeing the songs that have become the soundtrack of my life in person is not something I take for granted.  As I scroll through my list of contacts in my phone, I cherish the memories and moments of the shows that I have seen with each of those people.

For example, there were the 3 shows in 3 nights in December 1996 with Jamie S.  We drove around the Mid-Atlantic without a care in the world and making sure we savored every moment of our time seeing Maceo Parker perform at The Bayou (RIP); Rusted Root at Constitution Hall and Phish at the Spectrum.  Or the times that now make me laugh – Mills and I thinking that we were going to be arrested before having a chance to see House of Pain at Bender Arena and the time that my son Cobi and I went to see The Commonheart at the Feastival and we remember the sight of the Mandobass just as much the show.  Another moment in time is when my brother-in-law and I saw Allen Stone at Stage AE and I decided to start writing this blog.  There are also the sentimental shows that include Donald Byrd at the Kennedy Center with my father, or the Avett Brothers with my wife at Club Café.  Thankfully, I could go on and on.

I am off to the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival for the first time later this month and I cannot wait to report back on the research that I am able to conduct while on site in Louisiana.   

Thanks for reading!

BACK TO THE FUTURE

Did any members of the Grateful Dead look into their crystal balls and predict that in 50 years after they formed, John Mayer would be receiving positive reviews from Deadheads for holding down Jerry Garcia’s role in the band?  Can members of Phish’s fandom hear Conan O'Brien and Andy Richter sing "in the year two thousand-thirty-three" and then proceed to explain that Ed Sheeran is stepping in for the retired Trey Anastasio?  Most of the time when people think about music in the future it is not band line-ups that cross their minds, but technology.

Recently there have been a  series of NPR reports that explore what it is like to raise children immersed in digital media and technology.  Gone are the road-trip games of ‘Geography’ and the ‘20 Questions’.  Welcome the days in which a vast majority of kids are playing on their devices as they travel across the interstate.   Should I feel lucky that  my younger son is belting out his favorite Gavin DeGraw song while listening to his “playlist” and my older son watches movie after movie on his personal movie player as we journey in our family roadster?   I am not complaining that these are their preferred activities instead of mindless video games, but I am wondering if I will always be trying to guess when will they get to a point with modern technology where there is no turning back.

In 1996, the band Jamiroquai were already singing of the perils of modern technology and Jay Kay nailed it when he wrote and sang, “And now that things are changing for the worse / See, it’s a crazy world we're living in / And I just can't see that half of us immersed in sin / Is all we have to give these / Futures made of virtual insanity now / Always seem to, be governed by this love we have / For useless, twisting, our new technology / Oh, now there is no sound for we all live underground / And I'm thinking what a mess we're in / Hard to know where to begin”.

By no means are my sons the biggest culprits, but sometimes I wish they would stop and look around more often.  St. Vincent sings in her 2014 song, ‘Digital Witness’: “Digital witnesses, what's the point of even sleeping? / If I can't show it, if you can't see me / What's the point of doing anything? / This is no time for confessing”.    No need for any of the folks addicted to technology to apologize, but at an extended family dinner when I look around at the table, I would never have expected to see so many people glued to their screens.

I know that it has been a particularly cold winter in the Mid-Atlantic, but maybe it is time to put the devices down and go outside.

Thanks for reading.

We Must Protect This House

An arpeggio is a type of broken chord. In sports, when something goes awry, the term broken play is used.  If taken literally, it seems like there is a whole lot to mend in the world of sports and music.  But in both of those meanings, nothing actually needs to be fixed.  Unlike in real life when there are times in which you have to pick yourself up, dust yourself off and get back in the game or on stage. 

In my house, my boys do not discuss being famous musicians all too often.  Instead, their dreams tend to involve playing on fields and courts.  And with the tenacity that they compete in physical activities, injuries are almost guaranteed to happen.  No matter how much I try to protect them, at the end of the day there is only so much I can control.  After a roller coaster period of my younger son experiencing pain in his wrist, the pain subsiding and then re-appearing I found myself getting antsy as we waited for the diagnosis from the doctor. 

And since I always have a soundtrack playing as my life unfolds, it was particularly appropriate as I was driving around Pittsburgh waiting to hear if my son’s arm was broken that the radio gods were smirking at me.  First there was Sublime’s song “Santeria” with “I feel the break, feel the break, feel the break and I got to live it out, oh yeah”.  Then there was “Broken Bones and Pocket Change” by the St. Paul & The Broken Bones being played.  I did not need a slow jam at that moment in time!  It seemed that wherever I turned there was a reference to things breaking. 

It became extremely hard to concentrate as images popped in and out of my head.  There was Pete Townsend breaking his Rickenbacker guitar on stage in the mid-1960s.  The over-worked and under-paid 2006 tour manager for the Avett Brothers fixing all of the band member’s broken strings.  Or while on tour with a band, witnessing smoke coming from the Mixing Console.

But with the official word of a “buckle fracture”, I thought of how it could certainly have been worse.   Delaying guitar lessons for another month and sitting out a few basketball games does not compare to hardships being experienced on a daily basis by other less fortunate people.  Easy for me to say, but I would not trade in the few weeks of discomfort in an itchy cast for most other things in the world that are broken.  As David Byrne sings in his 2014 song “Broken Things”,  “See how easy things can break / If it’s crooked / make it straight” or as my IT friends often ask, did you turn it off, and then back on?

Thanks for reading!

Who’s On First?

Chuck D raps in  the Public Enemy song “Give It Up”, “I'm aight if you aight (I'm aight) / I be better – if I get some of that bass”! 

In the 1930s, Paul Tutmarc from Seattle, WA, who was manufacturing lap steel guitars, developed the first electric string bass – a fretted instrument designed to be played horizontally.  Although the bass guitar is similar in appearance to an electric guitar, it typically has a longer neck, and most commonly four strings. Since the 1960s, the bass guitar has largely replaced the upright bass in popular music and can also be heard often as a solo instrument in jazz, funk, progressive rock and heavy metal.

Despite its musical and rhythmic appeal, the bass just does not have the same flair as other instruments.  It does not have an international event like the 22nd Air Guitar World Championships that was most recently in Finland.  And whereas pots, pans, garbage cans and other everyday items can be immediately turned into drums, the bass stands more on its own.  It is the instrument that I believe is most similar to a baseball runner being stranded on a base at the end of an inning.

I recently went back and listened to some Led Zeppelin songs (“The Lemon Song” and “Ramble On”) and was blown away by the work of John Paul Jones.  I know that Mr. Jones is not always at the top of lists when barstool conversations start to dive into rhythm sections, but in the spirit of the top 5 list that Rob Gordon discusses in the film “High Fidelity”, I wanted to get the dialogue started.  So just as my boys are constantly putting together all-star teams in which 2017 Rawlings Gold Glove Award winners like Mookie Betts, Paul Goldschmidt and Jason Heyward are marveled at for their defensive work, I am filling a figurative baseball infield with all-star bass players. 

I know that if I asked my older brother the line-up would include Geddy Lee, or Flea, but if I talked to a couple of my college friends, they might lean towards Charles Mingus and Victor Wooten.  My list is tied to my musical influences and when I first started actually hearing the instrument in recordings.  For a long time, I only heard the vocals, guitar and drums, but then Berry Oakley’s playing on the Allman Brothers’ “Mountain Jam”, Muzz Skillings’ bass lines on the album “Vivid” and The Roots’ Leonard "Hub" Hubbard’s funk made me realize that hip-hop could be played with a live band.

When a bass player “locks in” with the band’s drummer to provide a groove of a song, that sound can be as rhythmic as a 5-4-3 double play.  And according to music legend Quincy Jones, “Without the bass, there'd be no rock n' roll or no Motown. The electric guitar had been waiting 'round since 1939 for a nice partner to come along. It became an electric rhythm section, and that changed everything.”

Thanks for reading.

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.