tag:thedeeprootsband.com,2005:/blogs/first-entry?p=2First Entry2022-03-12T17:05:01-05:00The Deep Rootsfalsetag:thedeeprootsband.com,2005:Post/69207512022-03-12T17:05:01-05:002023-10-16T10:58:10-04:00Remembering Bluegrass Great Mac Martin<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/482771/fe234e7472aea92fc46a3b1230bd86201c1f2f2a/original/macmartin2.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" />This article originally appeared in Our Sunday Visitor sometime in 2006. I can't find it on the internet so I'm reposting it here. </p>
<p>Aside from seeing Sonny Rollins, seeing Mac Martin and the Dixie Travelers was the most powerful music performance I've ever experienced. </p>
<p>The first time I saw him was at the St. Joseph House of Hospitality Bluegrass Festival at Synod Hall in the spring of 2004. He closed with Bill Monroe's "Remember the Cross." Mel Gibson's <em>Passion of the Christ</em> had come out a few months earlier, and you knew Mac had seen it. I remember gripping the seat in front of me, trying to brace from the intensity of it.</p>
<p>I also saw him playing at some sort of community event in Mt. Lebanon. He was playing solo, I think, or waiting for the rest of the band, but he was in front of a bank on Liberty Ave. Occasionally he had to step aside to let someone use the mac machine. I wanted to scream, "DO YOU KNOW WHO THIS IS!"</p>
<p>Then again, how cool is it to be in the Bluegrass Hall of Fame AND go unnoticed. </p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Mac Martin: Pure Faith, Pure Bluegrass</strong> </p>
<p>by Mark Sullivan </p>
<p>Bluegrass legend and pioneer Mac Martin is the exception to the rule that you have to sacrifice having a family life in order to have a successful music career. While other members of bluegrass's founding generation were criss-crossing the country making a name for themselves, Martin had a day job in Pittsburgh where he was helping to raise his five children. </p>
<p>Martin gigged regularly around Pittsburgh with his band the Dixie Travelers and became a top flight ensemble. International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame journalist Bill Vernon once said, "Among the great bluegrass bands whose accomplishments have gone largely unnoticed, no group stands taller than Mac Martin & the Dixie Travelers." In 2001, the International Bluegrass Hall of Fame recognized Martin as one of the founders of bluegrass. </p>
<p>At the age of 82, Martin is still releasing albums, and playing gigs. His recordings are treasured by his fans around the world because, in the words of Bill Vernon, "they play nothing but authentic, genuine bluegrass music." He's increased his touring radius from the 100 mile area around Pittsburgh to include California. His albums are available from iTunes (even though he doesn't own a computer). And no matter where he goes, he still makes it to mass everyday, which he's been doing for as long as he can remember. </p>
<p>"I'm not a fanatic about going to mass everyday. It's just something I really like to do," Martin said recently from his home in Pittsburgh where he's lived for over 50 years. </p>
<p>Martin's day begins at 5:15 a.m. so he can pray the liturgy of the hours. One gets the impression he spends the rest of the day criss-crossing the city--a meeting with his weekly prayer group, volunteering at a soup kitchen, going to mass, picking up groceries, and spending time in front of the blessed sacrament. </p>
<p>Martin likes to experience the variety of spiritualities the city has to offer from Passionist to charismatic--which comes as a surprise coming from a bluegrass purist. </p>
<p>"It's not a contradiction," Martin explains, "my music and my life are very narrow. I just love the Eucharist. The sacramental life of the Church is my focus." </p>
<p>Martin, whose birth name is William Colleran, credits his Irish immigrant parents with putting the fear of God into him and making sure he knew right from wrong. He goes to confession once a month at the Passionist monastery in Pittsburgh. </p>
<p>Listening to Martin describe how he struggles to overcome his pride and ego through regular confession, it's easy see where his music gets the purity that his fans love. </p>
<p>"What's unique about Mac among the founding generation of bluegrass musicians is that almost everything he's recorded in the past 50 years is still in print. He's still selling records. Not many people can say that," said Bob Artis, author of the first book length history of bluegrass published in 1975. Artis was also a Dixie Travelers in the late '60s and early '70s. </p>
<p>Martin says the secret to his success is that he never let music come between him and his family. "I think that's how we kept the music so pure. We always had other jobs. We didn't have to commercialize our music." </p>
<p>His family agrees. "I think my pop brought the discipline of his professional life as an accountant to his music. He is very good at organizing his time and energy," said his son Dan who manages the Dixie Travelers web-site. </p>
<p>"The common denominator with the faith and bluegrass is that there are so many great people involved. I'm surrounded by great people," Martin said.</p>The Deep Rootstag:thedeeprootsband.com,2005:Post/67366122021-09-05T13:57:35-04:002023-12-10T12:04:47-05:00On the Hypnotic Sound of The Vulgar Boatmen<p> <img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/482771/ce598317f75f04c474bc8bb1a43703dcb8f0aa2d/original/cartoon.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><em>An image borrowed from The Vulgar Boatmen Facebook Page. Not sure of the origin. It fits the theme of the post.</em></p>
<p>A word that I often hear people use to describe the Boatmen’s sound is “hypnotic.” I’ve also heard “trance” and “drone.” As for the last two, I’d have to say with all due respect, “What?” I listen to The Beatles, and I’m hip to Richard Rogers. I like melodies. My favorite band shall not be described as “trance” or “drone.” The Philip Glass and Terry Riley albums I’ve heard were checked out of the library and quickly checked back in. </p>
<p>“Hypnotic” I can understand. I hear it this way. Every element in the arrangement of a Vulgar Boatmen song is at the service of the tune like the elements in a painting. Every guitar part, drum hit, harmony note is in itself carefully rehearsed and recorded. By itself, it sounds good. Also, all of the elements are arranged in proper proportion to each other. The end result is that there are no distractions to take your attention away from the tune. There is nothing to pull you away from the beauty of the song. There are no “look at me” instrumental solos or high drama drum fills. Even the drama in the lyrics occurs “off stage.” As a wise man once said, there is something happening, but you don’t know what it is. You don’t have an old woman getting mauled by a bull in the third verse that starts you wondering about your own mortality. </p>
<p>I think that is why some people can hear the Boatmen and say “whatever” while others are totally taken. To get it, you need to be primed to hear the craftsmanship behind it. </p>
<p>I’m either burying my lead or showing my lack of training/experience as the moderator of Vulgar Boatmen Awareness Month, but I think that craftsmanship is the whole point. There is a myth that some people are “geniuses” and great music just flows out of them. Whatever poor behaviors they exhibit are further evidence of their “specialness.” Special talents need to be developed and practiced. </p>
<p>Writing a great song and recording it is a lot of work. Writing enough great songs for an album where they all work together yet remain distinctive is even more work. It is humble work. Practicing your parts over and over. Trying a song in different keys, using a capo, testing different tempos all takes time. And when you have recorded ten different takes sometimes something happens. You see the song going off in a new direction. You realize the song is almost writing itself finding its own form. A craftsman recognizes this. It is the realm in which they operate. </p>
<p>I don’t know why craft never comes up when talking about music. The guy that works on my car has been doing it for 30 years. He is beyond a car nerd. I would never take my car to anyone else. If I took my car to another place and the guys said, “I need about four beers in me before I can work on a transmission,” I’m out of there. </p>
<p>When I started writing, I didn’t think I’d being going on about the value of work, and here it is Labor Day. Sometimes the song writes itself.</p>The Deep Rootstag:thedeeprootsband.com,2005:Post/67309932021-08-31T19:00:33-04:002022-09-09T09:16:45-04:00Year No. 2: September is Vulgar Boatmen Awareness Month<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/482771/e181329668534f8fad37fdb0e8aaa9409798658e/original/dale-robert.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" />Vulgar Boatmen Awareness Month began as Vulgar Boatmen appreciation day, September 23rd, with an e-mail to some old bandmates as a funny excuse to stay in touch. With my “modernization” last year, my wife set-up a Facebook page for me, I thought, “What would happen if I posted about The Vulgar Boatmen everyday leading up to The 23rd of September?” </p>
<p>I got to connect with a lot of people, in an online way. I got to tell Dale Lawrence, Robert Ray, and Kathy Kolata, “Hey, I love your band. Thank you,” which sounds silly and awkward, but I’m glad I said it, and they got to hear it and were appreciative. </p>
<p>Last year I said the point of Vulgar Boatmen Awareness Month was, “to highlight the fact that our language has difficulty communicating that a band can be qualitatively better than 99% of the other bands and deserve greater attention.” Gag. Sometimes I wish someone would take me keyboard away from me. </p>
<p>The bottom line is that if you are going to try to post for 23 straight days you better have a lot to say. I can talk about The Vulgar Boatmen, a lot, and it isn’t like The Beatles where there are libraries of books about them already. So VB Awareness Months is now a thing, and I have to actually thing about it. </p>
<p>Like Dante, “Midway along the journey of our life/I woke to find myself in a dark wood,/for I had wandered off from the straight path.” Then I ran into Virgil, actually Tim Hinley who was posting about The Vulgar Boatmen on Facebook. Reading his daily posts on <a contents="DaggerZine" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://daggerzine.tumblr.com/">DaggerZine</a> for the last nine months, he has been my guide through the Divine Comedy of popular music. </p>
<p>Vulgar Boatmen Awareness month is about people who reference Dante but haven’t read the Divine Comedy all the way through, even though they have started it several times and intend to read it at some point, maybe during a pandemic. </p>
<p>Actually, it is about artists who make the guitar pop of The Beatles their form or canvass and try to push it forward in the same way that James Joyce pushed fiction and Ingmar Bergman pushed film. Rock and roll as an artistic vocation as opposed to only being a means to getting paid or rhymes with “paid.” </p>
<p>Which brings me to the biggest change since the last VB Awareness Month: I discovered The Go-Betweens. </p>
<p>Every time I listen to them, James says, “It is so funny that it took you 50 years to find your ideal band. The Go-Betweens have everything that you love about music.” Kids have a way of getting right to the point. I say, “Wait a minute. The Band and The Vulgar Boatmen are still my two all-time favorite groups.” And, “Don’t let Dale Lawrence hear you say that,” as if I was committing music adultery. </p>
<p>I cannot lie. I love The Go-Betweens. </p>
<p>I also love that other people who love The Go-Betweens, love The Go-Betweens the way I love The Vulgar Boatmen, not that loving either band is mutually exclusive. I also love that loving that band makes you part of a family. </p>
<p>Second of all, reading Robert Forster’s book, <a contents="Grant and I" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.amazon.com/Grant-I-Inside-Outside-Go-Betweens-ebook/dp/B073Q3NLGS/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=grant+and+I&qid=1630336478&s=books&sr=1-1"><em>Grant and I</em></a>, answered my question, "Does anybody else think about rock and roll bands the way I do?" Just by listening to a band you can assume certain things about the way they think, but to see it spelled out in well-written prose made me feel all validated inside. (Robert Forster and Grant McLennan were the two singer songwriters in The Go-Betweens. Sometimes I get ahead of myself.)</p>
<p>If I was a scholar, I could ask if Robert Ray and Dale Lawrence listened to the early Go-Betweens records. But I don’t think that showing cause and effect is necessary. If you are into literature, film, and rock and roll, eventually those things are going to come together and you start asking, “What if?” </p>
<p>I rest my case. If there are people in Australia, Indiana, Florida, and me thinking the same way, it is a movement, no matter how microscopic. And if the models are Joyce and Bergman, I shouldn’t expect blockbuster level attention. </p>
<p>Welcome to Vulgar Boatmen Awareness Month.</p>The Deep Rootstag:thedeeprootsband.com,2005:Post/67024022021-07-30T12:50:01-04:002022-07-23T15:18:58-04:00Why I’m Singing Cheeseburger In Paradise Today<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/482771/d3ad5b2944a90e2f072a71afce308e2ce58b9dcb/original/synchro-crop.png/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.png" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><em>Synchro fills a certain niche that you never knew there was a need for.</em></p>
<p>For years, Celeste and the kids would hear the songs and catch glimpses of synchro practice as they walked over to the tennis courts each morning. We’ve heard the stories about the Forest Hills Synchronized Swim Team and watched them put up decorations as we left the pool early, but our kids have never been interested. It was a big event that we were never part of. </p>
<p>Synchronized swimming was in general a mystery to me. File it under one of those sports that is in the Olympics but that normal people never play, like bobsledding. </p>
<p>With no tennis this year, we asked our daughter early on if she wanted to try synchro and received a definitive “no.” But one night as we were leaving the pool, some of her friends were coming down the steps for the start of synchro practice, and she was not behind me anymore. She was standing at the railing watching. </p>
<p>“Do you want to try synchro?” </p>
<p>“No.” </p>
<p>“Do you want me to get more information?” </p>
<p>“Maybe.” </p>
<p>The next time we were at the pool the assistant coach talked to Lucy and told her all about the synchro show and getting dressed up and that there was no pressure to do any flips or underwater moves she wasn’t comfortable with. So Lucy decided to go to one practice to check it out. </p>
<p>Fast forward a few weeks and Lucy has her stuffed animals doing synchro routines. </p>
<p>One of our friends observed quite accurately, “synchro fills a certain niche.” A niche that you don’t think needs to be filled until you see it being done so well. Then you wonder how you ever lived without it. </p>
<p>One of the routines was to “Hungry Eyes” by Eric Carmen from <em>The Dirty Dancing</em> soundtrack. I remember my sister and her friends dressing up and putting together dance routines to that album when I was growing up. Back then, if someone would have suggested doing those routines in the pool, where you could do some serious flips and ballet moves, and put on a show for the whole community where you got to wear a costume and make-up…total nirvana. </p>
<p>This year they were apologizing that it was scaled down because of Covid. I can’t imagine what a full-scale production would be like. </p>
<p>I think the most remarkable thing about the program is perfection of the tone. The program is highly-organized, the swimmers are expected to listen, and they take on some ambitious routines, but it isn’t “next stop Olympic Trails!” It is the perfect balance of serious and fun. </p>
<p>Afterwards I was talking with our mayor, Frank Porco, whose son performed a heart-stopping, and unexpected, flip off one of the lifeguard chairs as part of the surprise lifeguard routine, and he said that the synchro show is one of the things that sets Forest Hills apart from other communities. Having now seen it, I couldn’t agree more. </p>
<p>You also can’t underestimate the value of the parents having time to talk while waiting for the kids to finish practice. We both got to spend time with friends we hadn’t talked to in well over a year. And one of Lucy’s friends invited her over to have her make-up and hair done. Those little chances to connect are what make the community. </p>
<p>And the music was good. A good mixture of classic tunes like “Lollipop” by the Chordettes and “Tutti Frutti” by Little Richard, “old songs” (as the kids would say) like “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” by Deep Blue Something. The 90s were sooooo long ago. And songs I had to look up. The very Van Morrisonesque “Mango Tree” by the Zac Brown Band. Who knew? And “Starfish and Coffee” by Prince off of <em>Sign O’ the Times</em> from 1987. I’ve never been a fan of his 1980s production sound, but “Starfish and Coffee” is stripped down and soulful. Sorry to digress, but this is primarily a music blog after all. But I was totally shocked that there was a song that cool on <em>Sign O’ the Times</em>. I’ll have to check that out. </p>
<p>So back to Jimmy. I’ve never been a fan, with all due respect Parrot Heads, but the theme for this year’s show was food, and “Cheeseburger in Paradise” was the grand finale, and it was impressive. It is amazing what you can do with kids ranging in ages from 5 to 17 when everyone works together. I’ll never hear “Cheeseburger in Paradise” the same way again. </p>
<p><em>Administrative note: out of respect for people’s cyber-privacy, I haven’t mentioned the names of our friends or the coaches or posted pictures. It gets weird asking people for permission, and some people are ok with it and some aren’t, and you never know when something will go viral. You know who you are and how much we appreciate you. Frank is an exception because he is a publically-elected official and deserves credit when it is due. He understands the value of the pool to our community and what makes Forest Hills a great place to live. It is much appreciated.</em></p>The Deep Rootstag:thedeeprootsband.com,2005:Post/66438272021-05-29T21:08:45-04:002023-12-10T12:08:29-05:00One Year of Blogging (Not as Boring as it Sounds)<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/482771/1ac9c28707e773cef211d6e8a1aa7da81d9cfa08/original/firstbirthday.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p><em>It just goes to show you never can tell. </em></p>
<p>It has been one year since my first blog post on The Deep Roots web-site. If I was using my project management skills, I would have set goals for myself with metrics so that I could report back and say if I was successful or not. But I didn’t plan. I just started blogging to see what would happen. In my first month of blogging (June 2020), our web-site had 285 visitors. In the last 30-days, we have had 1985 visitors. Green and trending up. </p>
<p> We released our first album, <em>Never Coming Back</em>, in October and that has gotten over 2000 streams across several platforms. </p>
<p>Several people have told me that me that I’ve really found my voice writing these 800-word essays trying to figure out life and music. I’d agree. I’ve really enjoyed writing. </p>
<p>Last night we played our first gig in almost two years. We did our sound check and everyone told us we sounded great…warming up with a few shuffles and “Ain’t No Sunshine When She’s Gone.” Then we lit into a set of originals. On drums, James was like a wild animal just released from a cage. Ferocious. I can’t think of another word. I’m not sure that is what people wanted to hear on a cold rainy Friday night. I don’t have much control over what comes out of The Deep Roots. I need to get some hearing protection. </p>
<p>I do find it ironic that the two things that I’m good at, writing these essays and playing guitar in loud rock and roll bands have zero commercial value. The market expects cultural insight and rock and roll for free. I suppose anyone can do it. All you need is internet access and an electric guitar. Low entry cost…is what they call it I think. </p>
<p>The biggest surprise for me is how many readers I have in Europe, especially Scotland, and Australia. It is very liberating to know that tastes in music vary around the world and that there are other places where tastes line up better with my own. It makes it less irritating that I have never received even a reply back from any of the local media outlets here in Pittsburgh, and I’ve reached out a lot. </p>
<p>As Mick Jagger would say, “What can a poor boy do, except to play in a rock and roll band.” I’m not a street fighting man though. Actually, I’ve gone to daily mass for the past 28 years and what came to me was, “The very stone which the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.” That is Jesus’s coda at the end of the parable of the wicked tenants. It is Jesus’s literary way of saying to the Pharisees, “that’s right I’m talking about YOU. YOU are the tenants of the vineyard who kill off everyone I send.” </p>
<p>I’ve never thought much about it because we all know the rest of the story. Jesus is the stone. But why would the builders rejecting a stone be a big deal. They wouldn’t be hitting it with their shovels and spitting on it. You wouldn’t use a stone because it was the wrong size or color. </p>
<p>So I had to look it up. Jesus is quoting Psalm 118. Legend has it that in the building of the first temple, all of the stones were cut exactly the same size, except for one which was sent first. When it arrived, the builders didn’t know what to do with it because it was the wrong size. So they tossed it. When it came time to finish the temple, they were missing one stone. Ah. Touché Pharisees. </p>
<p>So the builders rejected what was unique. Interesting. And all of my favorite bands are unique, none of them fit in with their times, and none of them have made much money. A lot of them are working day jobs outside of music. So what should I do? Should I find out what is happening now and try to “hack” my way in? </p>
<p>No. No. Here is to another year of weirdness my friends. </p>
<p>Happy Birthday Mom.</p>The Deep Rootstag:thedeeprootsband.com,2005:Post/66424542021-05-28T09:37:13-04:002023-12-10T11:59:22-05:00Kevin Robertson – The Future of Rock and Roll <p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/482771/df88b0c839515b71aed1dfe687a6dbf2a456d695/original/album-sundowns-end.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><em>If I was the editor of a major music magazine, I’d put Kevin Robertson on the cover with the headline, “The Future of Rock and Roll.”</em></p>
<p>His debut solo album, <a contents="Sundown’s End" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://kevinrobertson.bandcamp.com/album/sundowns-end">Sundown’s End</a>, is out today (May 28, 2021). </p>
<p>I’d do an in-depth interview with Kevin, ask him about his influences, what he’s been listening to, and his perspectives on music in general. I’d also interview Keith Klingensmith, Nick Bertling, Brandon McGovern, and, why not, Norman Blake for some Scottish perspective – if I could get ahold of him. </p>
<p>But I’m not the editor of a major music magazine. In fact, the era of major music magazines has gone the way of the 8-track. And, if you are friends with Kevin on Facebook, you already know his influences, what he has been listening to that day, and his perspectives on music, home repairs, and football. </p>
<p>There is still more to say though. I read about The Vapour Trails release, Underneath Tomorrow, in Dagger Zine. What caught my eye was that this was a father and son band – a pretty rare thing, and being in such a band myself, I gave it a listen out of curiosity. What struck me was that each song was better than the next. I kept expecting something to go wrong, but it never did. There was a mastery of all aspects of the song, driving rhythms, catchy melodies, strong vocal harmonies, good lyrics, memorable guitar leads, and interesting bridges and structures. When I heard the Brit Pop influence on Golden Sunshine, it was obvious that Kevin and Scott Robertson had complete control of the guitar pop handbook, and I had to find out who they were. </p>
<p>Kevin is a small business owner and his teenage son, Scott, was rapidly improving on guitar but having trouble finding other people to play with. So after 17 or so years of not playing gigs, Kevin formed the Vapour Trails from a group of old friends and bandmates. (This is pretty much my story as well.) </p>
<p>So how did they get so good? That is almost an impossible question to answer. Obviously there is a lot of talent and practice involved. I’ll provide my two cents anyway. </p>
<p>For much of history, a son would be taught a profession by his father. With formal schooling, that doesn’t happen as much. What can get lost in formal education is the two-way education between parent and child. The process starts with the father as a teacher and the son as a student, but over time as the son’s skills grow they become peers, if not equals. This has serious implications for the father that drive him to work harder and better because someone is watching him, and someone needs to be taught not just how to achieve a desired result, but the process to get there. </p>
<p>There is also the fatherly instincts to protect and to please your child, which lead you to think outside of yourself. When you succeed, there is a tremendous satisfaction. And as the son gains more competence there is the inevitable, “Sorry Dad, I’m not digging that.” Feedback that a father would most likely not get from a co-worker, but valuable information that needs to be addressed. This blunt feedback doesn’t harm the relationship, it improves both people. If I were to guess, I think that is why Kevin and Scott Robertson are ahead of the pack in the current micro-music scene. </p>
<p>Why is this the future of rock and roll? I find it liberating. You can do whatever you want. The set of circumstances that you are given can be turned around to your advantage. Rock and roll is supposed to be liberating, but it has become increasingly limited, claustrophobic, and selfish. I think that David Lowery captures it perfectly on his latest album with the line “I’m so full of shit/I’m in this for what I can get/in a Bochum disco blue light/a cheap thrill/a good high.” There it is, a summary of the rock and roll caricature. The self-loathing, the selfishness, no wonder so much music leaves you feeling bummed out. </p>
<p>How does that make Kevin Robertson the future of rock and roll? At least for me, knowing that he is doing his thing over in Aberdeen, Scotland – playing music (and cursing home improvement projects) inspires me to keep doing my thing over here in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. That isn’t as minor of a thing as it appears. If there are two of us, there are probably more. </p>
<p>In 1995, Thomas Cahill published a book called, How The Irish Saved Civilization: The Untold Story of Ireland's Heroic Role from the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe. To be fair, it was monasticism in general that saved Western Culture through the Dark Ages, but the “Irish” in the title, no doubt, brought in casual readers and kept it on the best seller list for two years. Regardless, the monks didn’t have a game plane of what documents to copy and preserve from antiquity, they saved what was good, what they enjoyed, what was helpful, and what proved to be fruitful over time. What wasn’t good, didn’t get saved. </p>
<p>Why not be the monk preserving the ancient flame of rock and roll for future generations?</p>The Deep Rootstag:thedeeprootsband.com,2005:Post/66410772021-05-26T21:21:16-04:002022-05-14T19:10:16-04:00Set List for the Concert for the Pool<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/482771/f09bf3f8e68ac840e1b9da60aa1318cb92067ec9/original/setlist.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><em>Picture of random setlist from the internet. Our setlist is as follows. Order and contents subject to change.</em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Baby what you want me to do (Jimmy Reed)</p>
<p>The Wanderer (Dion)</p>
<p>Folsom Prison (Johnny Cash)</p>
<p>California Stars (Wilco)</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Neon Lights (Original)</p>
<p>Newspaper Man (Original)</p>
<p>Another Lie (Original)</p>
<p>That's Another Story (Original)</p>
<p>Soft Soft Sand (Original)</p>
<p>Over our Heads (Original)</p>
<p>Seesaws (Original)</p>
<p>Dreaming Hard (Original)</p>
<p>Kick Drum Heart (Avett Brothers) </p>
<p>Wagon Wheel (Old Crowe Medicine Show)</p>
<p>Free Fallin (Tom Petty)</p>
<p>Fisherman's Blues (The Waterboys) </p>
<p>Blue on Black (Kenny Wayne Shepard)</p>
<p>You Wreck me (Tom Petty) </p>
<p>Sunshine of your love (Cream)</p>
<p>Lonely Boy (The Black Keys) </p>
<p>When Love Comes to Town (U2) </p>
<p>All along the Watchtower (Bob Dylan via Hendrix) </p>
<p>The Ocean (Led Zeppelin)</p>
<p>Ragtop Eldorado (Original) </p>
<p>Steady as she goes (Raconteurs)</p>
<p>Outlaw Blues (Dylan)</p>
<p>Ain't going nowhere (Dylan via The Byrds)</p>
<p>House Arrest (Original)</p>
<p>The Weight (The Band)</p>The Deep Rootstag:thedeeprootsband.com,2005:Post/66314592021-05-15T20:36:15-04:002022-04-23T13:35:32-04:00The Beauty of Forest Hills – Good Enough for VRBO <p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/482771/fa79685cbf60027182960337ef86c2f777e042bd/original/forest-hills.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><em>I felt like I could be on vacation someplace far away. Is this neighborhood on VRBO?</em></p>
<p>Walking around Forest Hills the past two weekends as part of Scouting for Food gave me a whole new perspective. I went down a few streets that I'd never been down before, and for the streets I had been down before, I had extra time to take in the surroundings: Berlin Road, Edgewood Road, Overdale Road, Woodside Road. How about the diversity of architecture and landscaping? </p>
<p>Several times I had to stop and marvel – I can’t believe there is a house like this in Forest Hills. This could be California. I tried to imagine who lives there and what they must be like. Two doctors, both retired.</p>
<p>Even the houses where you needed a machete to bushwhack to the front door. Where a car had been sitting in the driveway since 2006, with two flat tires and 15 years of dirt on the hood. I couldn't help thinking, "what happened here?" Maybe an elderly person fell and never returned home. Maybe spies lived there and they were caught unexpectedly – loaded into the backseat of a grey Ford Taurus at midnight. </p>
<p>In the morning sunlight, the neighborhood, and my imagination, came to life. </p>
<p>Mostly I felt like I could be on vacation someplace far away. Is this neighborhood on VRBO? I checked. I didn't see any houses in Forest Hills. And why would someone rent a house a mile from where they live? </p>
<p>I suppose the coolest thing about going away on vacation is that you get away. A change in venue is always refreshing, even if it is the difference between Alphabet Avenues and Woodside Road. </p>
<p>Then I started thinking that Forest Hills could be a vacation destination. The pool, of course, several parks, the dog park, Roman Bistro, Drew's, Hanadi's. Maybe not a weeklong vacation, but maybe a long weekend. </p>
<p>As a pizza snob, I’d love to add iconic pizza shop to the list. I have high hopes for the new place opening in the plaza on Greensburg Pike. Maybe they’ll have soft serve as well! But my last trip to a local iconic pizza shop, over 15 years ago, left me and my extended family with food poisoning. A follow-up call to that establishment went badly, as did my call to the health department. </p>
<p>Everyone knows what I’m talking about, and if half the people love the pizza and half the people refuse to set foot inside, it is still a win for the community. It is something to discuss. Another small detail that makes the community interesting. Things like Pinewood derbies, synchronized swimming, the chili cook-off, community day, the dog swim, the farmers market, and even...an over-educated indie rock band. </p>
<p>Historically, Forest Hills has got talent. The Allegheny Drifters, a top flight bluegrass band, and Jimmy Sapienza and Five Guys Named Moe, a top flight jazz band were here. Unfortunately, the Allegheny Drifters have disbanded and Jimmy passed away in February. </p>
<p>So I'll reveal my big secret - the concert for the pool is about more than the pool. Obviously, when ranking the borough's cultural assets, the pool is huge, but I’m hoping that this concert is just the first of many community gatherings to come. </p>
<p>The details again: </p>
<p>Friday, May 28th at the Forest Hills/Westinghouse Lodge off of Greensburg Pike. </p>
<p>Music by The Deep Roots starting at 6:30. Food trucks will be there earlier. The cost is $5 per person. There will also be a 50/50 and other donations will be received. There are events on Facebook also. </p>
<p>The Deep Roots will play all of the original songs on their debut album, <em>Never Coming Back</em>, and a few new songs that have not been recorded, in addition to a bunch of covers. Roughly a 50/50 mix of originals and covers. You can listen to <em>Never Coming Back</em> <a contents="here" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://thedeeprootspittsburgh.bandcamp.com/album/never-coming-back">here</a>, on our web-site, or on your favorite streaming site.</p>The Deep Rootstag:thedeeprootsband.com,2005:Post/66223822021-05-05T15:21:11-04:002023-12-10T12:07:56-05:00Remembering Grant McLennan <p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/482771/00f377d8b39bfa6f68c63cf1c64b18087f36606a/original/grant-2.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><em>Grant McLennan: February 12, 1958 – May 6, 2006</em></p>
<p>I’m highly susceptible to the phrase “The Greatest Band You’ve Never Heard Of.” What? A great band that I have never heard of. Who are they? </p>
<p>Starting with my teenage infatuation with The Band, I have a history of falling for critically acclaimed bands with poor sales. The Vulgar Boatmen are at the top of my list. It plays to my vanity of wanting to be “in the know,” always. </p>
<p>Since January, I’ve come across three of “The Greatest Bands You’ve Never Heard of,” Teenage Fanclub, The Chills, and The Go-Betweens. I’ll have to write more about the first two at some point, but I have it bad for The Go-Betweens. I can’t stop listening. I can’t recall ever having so many songs from one band stuck in my head at one time. </p>
<p>I also find it interesting that if I had heard <em>16 Lovers Lane</em> when it was released, I would have thought it was stupid, pretentious, and over-produced. I was seventeen. Maybe it took 50 years for my brain to be ready for the genius of The Go-Betweens. </p>
<p>I had an epiphany a few days ago: rock bands are closer to a movie than a classical orchestra. Melodies, lyrics, and rhythm are important, essential, but only part of the experience. A rock band is more like an art installation. You have the sound, the look, the biography, how the band acts, what they say. There is even a bit of reality T.V. in there. I think it is the combination of all of those things that make a band really interesting. I think that is why rock bands tend to be formed by visual artists and not by music or even English majors. Music majors play jazz or fusion. The visual artists see the whole play out on the stage and beyond. I think that is why I’m so taken with The Go-Betweens. </p>
<p>I read Robert Forster’s book, <em>Grant and I Inside and Outside The Go-Betweens</em> in three days. They were both film buffs. They even wrote a film script together, but they definitely saw The Go-Betweens as something larger than a rock band. When you work the big picture, even songs that aren’t that good or horrible recording techniques add drama to the story and suggest what might have been rather than just being not that good. </p>
<p>Details are important. I also read Forster’s recollection of McLennan “A True Hipster.” What grabbed me was that he ends the piece asking how many rock stars read <em>The New York Review of Books</em>. McLennan was a subscriber and so was I at the time around 2006. I had discovered <em>The New York Review of Books</em> in the waiting room of a doctor’s office. It wasn’t a magazine, it was tabloid size, printed on heavy newspaper, and the writing was the best. I couldn’t wait for it to come in the mail and sit out on the front porch with a cup of copy. It was filled with articles about authors and books that I’d never heard of. While reading, I felt smart and cultured - the literary person I always wanted to be. And here was Grant on the other side of the world probably feeling the same thing. We had that in common! </p>
<p>Oceans Apart was the first album I got into, and Grant’s songs “Finding You” and “Boundary Rider” were just perfect. Songs that on my best day I wish I could write. Finally, I had found a musical role model. I was crushed to learn that he had passed away 15 years ago, May 6, 2006. I was surprised by how much I’ve been grieving his loss. </p>
<p>Then I got curious about his death. The Wikipedia explanation seemed a little sanitized. He had been having health issues. I wish I hadn’t dug any further. I wish hadn’t read Steve Kilbey’s account of Grant. </p>
<p>But why did Forster include that detail about <em>The New York Review of Books</em>? Maybe he knows his fans. </p>
<p>But after finishing Grant and I, I have a new perspective. I realized that everything I know about Grant, I know from his songs and Robert Forster’s description of him. Forster writes about his friend with honesty and charity, bringing him to life for those who never got to meet him. He pulls this off with such naturalness, you don’t even realize what is happening. You get the portrait of a human being, flawed, but still beautiful – like all of us. It raises your mind to higher things. </p>
<p>I was raised Catholic and taught that death is not the end. Life doesn’t end, it just changes. This is sometimes hard to fathom, but I find it comforting to think that Grant still exists, and that I can pray that his soul has found peace, and he may even appreciate that gesture and say, “Thanks mate.”</p>The Deep Rootstag:thedeeprootsband.com,2005:Post/66165862021-04-28T21:12:51-04:002023-12-10T12:04:47-05:00More Than a Pool - The Forest Hills Pool (2022 Edition)<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/482771/0f610b3d1fafd39601fa7732e96502057e139e9a/original/pool.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><em>2022 Update: I'm reposting this from last year because it got so many views. Also, the big news this year is that the Forest Hills Tennis Team is back also. </em></p>
<p>A friend of mine compares The Forest Hills Pool to a time machine. I can’t think of a better comparison. The pool opened in the summer of 1968, and as far as I can tell, it hasn’t changed much in over 50 years. It is an oasis on a hill surrounded by trees. A truck downshifting on Ardmore Blvd. is the only occasional reminder that you are still in town. </p>
<p>There are more than a few families where the parents went to the pool as kids and now they bring their own children. The pool seems like one of those things in life that you can count on always being there. </p>
<p>As my kids get older, my biggest fear is that they’ll outgrow the pool. We won’t have our summer ritual of deciding if we go for a swim before or after dinner every day. Will it just be us or will we see our friends there? </p>
<p>It is just sooo relaxing. It is my safe and happy place. I find myself looking at the calendar and thinking, only three more months until the pool opens, only two more months until the pool opens. It is like the first day of summer vacation when you are a kid. It really is a time machine. </p>
<p>The pool is always good even on those hot crowded Sunday afternoons where I’m reminded of the first time I took James to the pool, and I didn’t know one other person. There are those late June nights with plenty of sun, and we share the pool with one or two other families we know, and then there are the late August nights when my teeth are chattering because it gets so cold. The kids don’t seem to mind the cold, though. </p>
<p>Last summer with Covid, going to the pool was a risk, I’m not sure how much of one, but it was a risk. It was also a risk not to go. What would I be teaching the kids about fear? Fear has a way of perpetuating itself. If you don’t jump in the pool the first day, it is harder the second. Pretty soon fear of jumping in the pool becomes its own monster. I know that from personal experience as a kid, and I’ve had to help my kids work through their fears of the water also. I love watching the kids who held onto me with a death grip in the shallow end become confident swimmers in the deep end - laughing with their friends. As their father, probably the best thing I can teach them is how to deal with their fears. </p>
<p>I remember when my son was nine or ten and about ready to swim across the deep end of the pool by himself for the first time. He was really nervous, but one of his friends, who was about a year older and a strong swimmer, offered to jump in and swim right next to him the whole way. I can still see the two of them slowly crossing the pool, with Gus offering encouragement at every stroke. There was quite the celebration at the end. I told Gus’s mom how impressed I was with his character and how her and her husband must be great parents. </p>
<p>During Covid, I overheard two lifeguards talking about how the pool was their whole life that summer. All they did was go home and go to work because they did not want to be the one who brought Covid into the pool. I thought that was pretty impressive for teenagers. Nobody had to tell them what the pool means to Forest Hills. They had been going there their whole lives. </p>
<p>Our band, The Deep Roots, will be playing a benefit concert for the pool and summer recreation activities on Friday, May 6th at the Forest Hills/Westinghouse Lodge on Greensburg Pike starting at 6:00. There will be a 50/50 raffle and direct contributions will also be welcomed. There will be food trucks as well. It will be a great way to kick off pool season.</p>The Deep Rootstag:thedeeprootsband.com,2005:Post/66143622021-04-28T15:45:51-04:002022-05-31T06:40:56-04:00Grant McLennan Tribute by Mark Davies<p><em>I'm a new convert to the Go-Betweens. I noticed that May 6th is the 15th anniversary of the passing of Grant McLennan, so I posted on the Go-Betweens fan page on Facebook if anyone was interested in writing a tribute to Grant. Mark Davies provided me the following tribute. In very few words, Mark gets to the heart of what music can do. You may not be a fan of the Go-Betweens or have even heard of them, but I think everyone can relate to having "go to music." The albums and songs that we go back to over and over again, especially when times are tough. </em></p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/482771/7df0f0122c617a250d9448cd113000858ae963dd/original/go-betweens.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>I first heard the Go-Betweens while walking around King’s Cross, one of Sydney’s shabbiest areas. I was 18, a long way from home and desperately homesick. Two songs had been put on tape for me by a waiter at the restaurant where I was washing dishes. The music may have been melancholic at times but there was comfort there too, and I turned to it. And whenever I’ve struggled in the 35 years since, I’ve often turned again to the Go-Betweens to help me through. Never more so than now as I face the challenge of treatment for cancer. </p>
<p>It’s at times like these, when apparently quite smooth journeys through life are suddenly and cruelly jolted, that we need to be able to turn to places where we know we can be certain of comfort and fellowship. Family and friends sit at the heart of everything: without them the journey would feel impossible, and possibly pointless. But other things we’ve picked up along the way can also be incredibly powerful. And so I often thank my lucky stars for the way music has been such a reliable and inspirational companion on the highways and byways of my life. </p>
<p>The Go-Betweens have been one of the most reliable of those companions since that stroll through the Sydney sunshine with Spring Rain soothing my soul. When Grant McLennan died 15 years ago, I cried as though I’d lost a friend. Every time I hear his voice I look to the skies and mourn his passing. </p>
<p>Why, I sometimes wonder, do some of us become so devoted to people we may never meet, whose work inspires and moves us but of whom we truly know very little? Others, after all, seem more able to appreciate the music they enjoy without idolising their favourites to the same degree. </p>
<p>I don’t know why that is, but I do know that the Go-Betweens form one of the most important pillars of my life. I know that with every twist and turn their music will sooth, make me smile, make me think, distract me and send a surge of joy coursing through my body in a way few other things can manage. Perhaps they play a role in replacing something which is missing in my life. You’d have to ask my therapist. </p>
<p>But my view is that it’s because there’s a kind of edge to what you hear. It never swerves into the wearily predictable and keeps you on your toes. It clunks sometimes, and I mean that well. There’s a frailty and uncertainty there which hints at vulnerability, and goodness knows I can relate to that. Sometimes chaotic, sometimes polished. And the striped sunlight sound can also be so profoundly moving and beautiful it takes me beyond music and into spiritual experience. </p>
<p>Of course it’s not just in times of trouble that I turn to them. They are a near constant in good times and bad. Right here. </p>
<p>Five years ago, on the 10th anniversary of Grant‘s death, Robert Forster wrote a message on Facebook which I now keep on my phone. It was, he wrote, a sad but necessary anniversary to mark. He went on: “I think of him often; he is not someone who has faded - remaining close to me as he always will be, in memory and music....we were a force together.” </p>
<p>He concluded by sending “warm greetings to all who read this and have Grant firmly in their lives too”. </p>
<p>I’m very much one of those. He and they are firmly in my life. I have navigated adulthood with them always somewhere nearby, not least as a place to go to when it all seems to be going wrong, and that bond is greater than ever now as I try to manage and survive the cancer which has changed my life. </p>
<p>They are close to me, and they always will be.</p>
<p>You can hear more from Mark on <a contents="Twitter" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://Twitter@markdavies67">Twitter</a> and on his <a contents="Medium Page" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://medium.com/@mark.davies67">Medium Page</a>.</p>The Deep Rootstag:thedeeprootsband.com,2005:Post/65880172021-04-05T09:47:28-04:002023-12-10T11:38:55-05:00From the Profit He's Made on Your Dreams<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/482771/dcaa4e750493c3819429d735a8e907c8d87c8f2e/original/suit.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><em>“And the man in the suit has just bought a new car from the profit he's made on your dreams” </em>Low Spark of High Heeled Boys </p>
<p>I received this e-mail today and I couldn’t help but make some comments in light of my last post on The Great Restoration. </p>
<p>First some disclaimers, I’m on their e-mail list because I’ve attended some of their webinars in the past and used their free online resources. I found them very educational and part of me wants to tune into this one as well. I’ve modified the e-mail below only to remove names. My comments follow the e-mail. </p>
<p>XXXXXXX</p>
<p>Hello, </p>
<p>In a few days (this Wednesday), my friend XXXXX is hosting an in-depth “fanbase growth workshop” for artists who are ready to uplevel their music career, and thrive during these challenging times. </p>
<p>He’s revealing some of our best techniques that are usually reserved for his $5000+ clients at XXXXX Musician. This is the first time he’s given away this information for free. </p>
<p>If you’ve known XXXX for a while, you may have heard about the XXXXXX Academy before - it’s XXXXX Musician’s flagship mentoring program, and it’s something I recommend to artists when they’re ready to step up their game. </p>
<p>On Wednesday, we’re peeling back the curtain in a LIVE training to dive into 3 main topics: </p>
<ol> <li>Artistic Identity: Hone in your music brand to give you clarity about who you are as an artist, so you can attract the best-fit audience who will love your music. </li> <li>Thriving Fanbase: Set up your marketing so we can build your loyal fanbase based on your artistic identity and your strengths. </li> <li>Revenue Multiplier: Create an automatic monetization system to fund your artist lifestyle so you don’t sacrifice your talent or lose touch with your musical identity. </li>
</ol>
<p>XXXXXXX</p>
<p>Where do I even begin? First of all there is an assumption that there is an audience out there willing to spend money on the music and merchandise of an artist that they have not even heard of today. </p>
<p>The second assumption is that there are things that you, the artist, can do that can influence the behavior of this audience waiting with credit card in hand. </p>
<p>As for the audience, you want to reach the Bandcamp audience because nobody is buying CDs and the other streaming services don’t pay. According to the Bandcamp web-site, “Fans have paid artists $704 million using Bandcamp, and $21 million in the last 30 days alone.” That is as of today, March 29, 2021. Bandcamp claims to be “an indispensable tool for hundreds of thousands of artists.” I love Bandcamp. Let's do a little math. Let's be conservative on the number of artists. If you divide 200,000 artists by $704 million, you get on average $3520 per artist. Not enough to quit your day job. </p>
<p>I think that the audience/market for new music is much, much smaller than advertised. </p>
<p>As for there being things in <em>your</em> control that <em>you</em> can do to grow your audience, sure, but your level of influence is going to be in the 10s, not 100s or 1000s. And yes, there are new artists that are successful, but when you pull the thread on their biography you will always find a lucky break with a well-connected celebrity. </p>
<p>In summary, the course will teach you to, “Attract the best-fit audience who will love your music…[and] fund your artist lifestyle.” In short, we will teach you how to control people so that they love you and give you money. Or am I reading that wrong? Should I say “influence” instead of “control”? And how is this any different than selling your soul to the devil or at least trying to buy power? </p>
<p>Also, let me know an artist worth listening to that has a written artist identity statement. I can't find what John, Paul, George, and Ringo wrote down.</p>
<p>But what do I know. I’m just a loser. I never made it. I never will make it. </p>
<p>Take it from Jeff Tweedy in <em>How to Write One Song</em> (page 9): </p>
<p>So You Want to Be a Star? </p>
<p>It’s soul-crushing, at any job, to aspire to BE something versus being driven by what you want to DO. Do you want to be a “star”? Don’t bother. You’re going to lose. Even if you make it, you’ll lose. Because you’re never going to be exactly what you’re picturing. But what do you want to do? You want to play music in front of people? You can do that. You want to see if you can get better at playing in front of a larger group of people? You might be able to do that. I can even see someone deciding that they’re going to create an outrageous persona and experiment with new musical forms. And that might end up making them a rock star, but I doubt the title is anywhere near as satisfying as the creation part.</p>The Deep Rootstag:thedeeprootsband.com,2005:Post/65945672021-04-05T09:45:30-04:002023-12-10T12:35:22-05:00Happy Easter<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/482771/9777abcf84b0242400da529a65f3a47ee7146b7b/original/easter-parade.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><em>Leisure is not the cessation of work, but work of another kind, work restored to its human meaning, as a celebration and a festival. -Roger Scruton</em></p>
<p>We watched Easter Parade last night, as has been our tradition on Easter. In my younger days, it was cool to say that I didn’t like musicals, but hearing Judy Garland singing Irving Berlin songs, you’d have to be a fool to say that isn’t high quality. </p>
<p>Easter Parade is a good reminder that entertainment can be bright, beautiful, and happy. It is gorgeous to look at, and Judy Garland is something else. </p>
<p>So I Googled her. My heart sank. She died of a drug overdose at the age of 47. She was married five times and was pretty much broke at the time of her death. How is that possible? </p>
<p>The Wikipedia article said, “Her self-image was influenced by constant criticism from film executives who believed that she was physically unattractive and who manipulated her onscreen physical appearance.” I’d seriously like to punch those film executives in the face. </p>
<p>This ties in with my two previous posts on The Great Restoration and the sharks out there looking to make a buck on artist’s dreams. </p>
<p>I confess that I did watch some of the webinar on how to make $5K per month with your band. Who wouldn’t? So here are a few questions: </p>
<ul> <li>Are you tired of working at your soul-sucking day job? </li> <li>Do you find yourself putting more and more effort into your career but seem to get nothing in return? </li> <li>Do you want to make a living doing what you can only do now as a hobby? </li> <li>Are you the type of person who is edified by a total stranger coming up to you and saying, “Thank you for saving my life?” </li>
</ul>
<p>Don’t worry, I’m not going to try to sell you anything. But, if you answered “yes” to any of these questions, you’ll have the opportunity to fill out an application to see if you can be selected for my special program in which I select only the brightest and most talented people and give them my special secret that I will only reveal here because you are all friends…this is a crock of sh…. Yes it is. A total crock. </p>
<p>I shouldn’t have been surprised to learn that those little robotic chat windows that pop up when you go to some web-sites, “Hi, may I help you?” can be used to promote your band. You can actually buy something on social media that sends those robo messages to highly selected people and engages them in little conversations in the hope that they will buy or click on something. </p>
<p>I mean, I’ve known for a very long time that bands can spend a lot of money to puff themselves up to look bigger that they are, so this is nothing new. But why does it still disgust me when it changes form? And why do I feel so bad for Judy Garland? </p>
<p>It just seems like things have gotten out of order. I’ve mentioned that I’ve been reading and rereading <em>Leisure the Basis of Culture</em> by Josef Pieper (Because I’m music obsessed, I find “leisure” and “music” to be fairly synonymous.) I found this quote from Roger Scruton’s introduction interesting:</p>
<p>“Leisure is not the cessation of work, but work of another kind, work restored to its human meaning, as a celebration and a festival. </p>
<p>This is what religion teaches us, and the teaching is as important for the unbeliever as for the person of faith. We win through to leisure. "At the end of all our striving" we rejoice in our being and offer thanks. It is then, eating a meal among those we love, dancing together at a wedding, sitting side by side with people silenced by music, that we recognize our peculiar sovereign position in the world.” </p>
<p>It is possible for anything, even music, to become a soul sucking day job where you feel underappreciated. But it is also possible through the art and music of people like Judy Garland, Fred Astaire, and Irving Berlin, you can get a taste of the beauty that is “at the end of all our striving.” It inspires us to go make our own art.</p>The Deep Rootstag:thedeeprootsband.com,2005:Post/65876112021-03-28T21:06:23-04:002022-05-15T05:25:54-04:00The Great Restoration <p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/482771/5ec76953c5adb58c2ef229ec9e9b7352adde2b85/original/old-paint.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><em>Think small. Ubiquity is overrated. - </em>David Lowery</p>
<p>For as long as we’ve lived in Forest Hills, during the summer and fall there has been a farmers market in the Presbyterian Church parking lot on Ardmore Blvd. on Friday afternoons. It was always a good place to get some fresh corn on the cob, but in recent years it has grown into <em>the</em> place to be. In other words, it is hard to find a place to park, the lines are long, sometimes they are already out of what you went there to get (like corn on the cob), and you end up spending more money and time than you intended. Except for spending more money, it is everything that the grocery store is <em>not</em>, which makes it great. Everything is just better from the farmers market, the smoked salmon, the fresh salsa, the neighbor you haven’t seen in six months, and talking with the vendors selling stuff out of the back of their car or truck. </p>
<p>In a sense, the farmer’s market is a restoration of the ancient marketplace. It fulfils our basic need to gather. It restores everything cool that has been taken away by the efficiency and convenience of the grocery store. </p>
<p>But I’m not here to talk about food. Music. It is always about music. </p>
<p>The farmer’s market is a good analogy to describe the new music that I’ve been interested in over the last few months: </p>
<ul> <li>
<a contents="Vapour Trails: Underneath Tomorrow" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://futuremanrecords.bandcamp.com/album/underneath-tomorrow">Vapour Trails: Underneath Tomorrow</a> </li> <li>
<a contents="The Purcells: Landscape Listens" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://thepurcells.bandcamp.com/">The Purcells: Landscape Listens</a> </li> <li>
<a contents="Boys With Perpetual Nervousness: Songs from Another Life" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://bobointegral.com/album/songs-from-another-life">Boys With Perpetual Nervousness: Songs from Another Life</a> (Side project of Andrew Taylor of Dropkick, worth checking out if you like Teenage Fanclub and The Jayhawks as I do, and will appear on Kevin Robertson's solo album due out this spring.) </li>
</ul>
<p>These are just three recent examples of great new music being made, and I’d like to give it a name:</p>
<p><strong>The Great Restoration</strong></p>
<p>These are the bands that are the musical equivalent of the person who bakes 25 pies each week to sell at the farmers market. The pies are great, but when they are gone, they are gone. Baking the pies is not their only income – it is a way to do something they are good at, enjoy, and make some extra money on the side. And if one week, there are only 10 pies, then there are only 10 pies. No phone calls from corporate. </p>
<p>Last night I read <em>Leisure the Basis of Culture</em> by Josef Pieper again. One of the points that he makes is that leisure properly understood is time set aside from work to be open and receptive to appreciate art, nature and/or the divine. It isn’t chilling with a beer by the pool, and it isn’t resting so you can go work more. It is like the temple set aside for worship. </p>
<p>Leisure is the opposite of the athletic shoe commercial that says, “You get out of it what you put into it,” and shows people sweating. Pieper would call that the “total work” mentality. When applied to music, it gets reduced to an exchange of money for goods and services, which chokes the life out of it. (Not saying musicians shouldn't get paid!)</p>
<p>One of my favorite albums to come out this year is <a contents="Leaving Key Member Clause" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://davidlowery.bandcamp.com/"><em>Leaving Key Member Clause</em></a> by David Lowery of Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker fame. All the songs are autobiographical from the late 80s and early 90s. I think he captures the total work mentality applied to music perfectly, “I’m so full of shit/I’m in this for what I can get/in a Bochum disco blue light/a cheap thrill/a good high.” And the related power trip, “If I make it out the other side/I will be a cult leader/you will be my number one acolyte.” Pretty dark.</p>
<p>Lowery made only 1000 CDs of <em>Leaving Key Member Clause</em>, and said, “Think small. Ubiquity is overrated.” He should know. Cracker was huge. A bet he likes farmer’s markets. </p>
<p>I’ve had a very difficult time getting it through my thick skull that doing music on the side, for leisure, is O.K. I don’t have to figure out a way to monetize. But after reading <em>Leisure the Basis of Culture</em> and listening to Lowery, I think it is more than O.K. I think it is the way to go. And I also think it is why so many other bands who are going small are putting out such great music. If music isn’t your primary source of income, and you have access to a DAW (digital audio workstation) and the internet, the only limit is how long your significant other’s patience will let the home improvement projects slide. </p>
<p>In a sense, it is a restoration to how music has been made as long as humans have been making music, with the exception of the last 75 years when recording and mass entertainment has become the norm. With technology and scale comes specialization. There are writers, arrangers, musicians, engineers, producers, publicists, and managers oh my… In The Great Restoration, you have to learn those things yourself and you improve your craft. The DAW doesn’t lie. If what you recorded doesn’t sound good to you, it won’t sound good to anyone else. There is no stunt man to come in and save the day. </p>
<p>Also, what gets released is only your best. There are no “radio singles” that sound nothing like the rest of the album that the executives think will trick the casual listener into buying your record.</p>
<p>Just a thought. More to come on this topic.</p>The Deep Rootstag:thedeeprootsband.com,2005:Post/65727342021-03-13T10:21:05-05:002022-07-25T13:20:36-04:00The Jazz Guitar of Harry Leahey<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/482771/5982070a73cd01ad93e5ede356dd951c0f081ac4/original/scan-210360005-3.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" />Review by Walt Bibinger </p>
<p>"1985: Some Good Stuff " Harry Leahey & Ron Naspo</p>
<p>This newly released CD from Bottom Line Music captures a 1985 "Musical Mansions" concert in Montclair, NJ. Bassist Ron Naspo recorded the performance and after coming across the tapes some 3+ decades later, produced it for release. It features 11 tracks of individual virtuosity and musical dialogue between two seasoned musicians who happened to be close friends. The result is a most engaging and welcome listen, being that we lost guitarist Harry Leahey to cancer just 5 and 1/2 years later. The following is a track-by-track review of the music. </p>
<p>"<a contents="Back Home in Indiana/Donna Lee" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://youtu.be/9QcNndqfVBI"><strong>Back Home in Indiana/Donna Lee</strong></a>:" (Click the title to hear this track.) Leading off is the old standard "Indiana" in a medley with Charlie Parker's line over the same changes, "Donna Lee." Leahey sets the brisk tempo with a chordal, 8 bar intro, and after stating the opening melody of "Indiana" the duo is heard playing the challenging melody of "Donna Lee" in unison, with Naspo amazingly playing the line "arco," (with the bow!!!). Leahey follows that soloing first, taking 2 choruses playing brilliant single note lines. Swinging, melodic, developing motifs effortlessly, while building to more harmonically sophisticated lines that still sound "easy"… in his hands. His 3rd chorus features block chords, octaves, and single note lines interwoven to great effect. Naspo begins his solo with lines that cover the full range of the instrument and spotlight his knack for melodic invention at fast tempos. After 2 choruses, he picks up the bow again, and plays more great swinging ideas with spot on intonation. The duo then can be heard improvising simultaneously, (which it has been this writer's experience playing with other musicians on stage and with Leahey at many a lesson, what we often call a "fugue," though it is not really that in a true classical sense. After a number of rounds of improv, musicians may look at each other and say "Let's Fugue" or just raise an eyebrow and ask…"Fugue?"). They continue in that vein for a second chorus, where their dialogue becomes even more conversational, like an improvised counterpoint or 2-part invention. They close out the 6:09 track with the head to Donna Lee, Naspo still not having put down his trusty bow! An amazing performance to open the concert and the CD! </p>
<p>"<strong>Hot House</strong>" Continuing with another BeBop classic written by Tadd Dameron over the form of an old standard, "What Is This Thing Called Love," the duo reverses the format from the opening track by playing Hot House and then playing “What is This Thing”…..again in unison for the first chorus then, Harry states the Cole Porter melody before beginning his solo with some blistering single note lines. He continues with some great octave and chord soloing, proving all aspects of Harmony, Rhythm, and guitar-istic techniques were at his beck and call, always to be used in respect of the song and with great musicality. He winds down his solo and immediately switches to chords/walking bass lines to provide accompaniment to the bass improvisations. Ron plays 2 choruses arco, once again displaying great intonation, and lines full of harmonic sophistication and melodic invention.@4:55, the duo begins "trading 4's," with Harry kicking things off by quoting "Perdido" with a chord melody! As the duo proceeds, the "4's" once again become more of an improvised "fugue," and after some cool, duel ascending chromaticism ,Naspo goes back to "pizzicato," (plucked), playing in anticipation of playing the head out in unison. </p>
<p>"<strong>Jitterbug Waltz</strong>" Fats Waller's swinging waltz starts off with a solo, rubato intro from Leahey. Following the melody as the guitarist begins his solo, bassist Naspo approaches the accompaniment in conversational mode, both musicians listening, reacting, and playing off each other's ideas. The bassist plays a swinging walking bass line after that. By his 3rd chorus Leahey is superimposing 7#9 and blues concepts over the chords. In his 4th chorus he introduces a descending, double stop riff, leading to the bass solos. Naspo takes a few captivating choruses, and we hear Leahey reintroduce the descending double step motif now re-invented as accompaniment to the bass improv. The melody is then played in unison for the first half of the form, and Naspo deftly harmonizes it for the 2nd half. The duo then tags D to G dominant chords for a spirited, bluesy finale. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/482771/ead2344b912b4086f3379abd735dcc541f9b8bf7/original/scan-201670000.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>"<strong>So In Love</strong>" Cole Porter's standard features a rubato guitar intro leading to a statement of the melody at an "up" tempo, the bass pedaling the bridge to great effect. Leahey soars through a number of single note choruses, each brilliant and building in intensity, switching to some chordal improv before switching back to single notes to finish. Naspo makes the most of his choruses with strong, imaginative lines and a big tone. The out head reprises the pedaling in the bridge, followed by great chord playing from the bassist during the final statement of the melody. A "turnaround" ending provides another platform for some dazzling improv from Leahey as Naspo's strong walking drives the tune to conclusion with a fun, deceptive cadence ending. </p>
<p>"<strong>Nuages</strong>" Guitarist Django Reinhardt's "Nuages" is a familiar favorite of Leahey's. It was a featured solo on the Phil Woods Quintet direct-to-disc "Song for Sisyphus," released in 1978 and heard in many of Harry's club and concert appearances throughout his career. This captivating ballad performance starts with a solo tour through the form. Bassist Naspo enters for the second chorus, as Leahey begins his improv. After an expertly executed 3 and 1/2 octave, Johnny Smith-like line, Leahey curls his right hand fingers and allows the pick to fall gently into their grasp, seamlessly… now crafting gorgeous lines using his thumb to pluck the strings. The resulting tone is both thick and expressive, drawing the listener in. After about 6 bars, he once again has his pick at the ready for a repeated staccato lick and more impressive single line work. His conception and realization of harmonically complex ideas and flawless execution of them "in the moment" illustrates that Harry Leahey is certainly among those who have achieved the highest level of jazz improvisatory and musical skill. The solo closes with impressive chordal and rhythmic exploration. The improv winds down after the 1st half of the form, Leahey re-introducing the 2nd half of the melody using his thumb. We once again hear the guitarist switch back to his pick, as the duo draw the form to its conclusion. The ending features single note flourishes, chord melody improvisations using "hybrid" picking, (where both the pick and fingers are utilized), and a descending/ascending "diminished/whole tone"- harmonized chord scale over cycle chord changes, both instruments pedaling a low G . Naspo's bass is the receptive and responsive canvas which enables Leahey to paint his masterpiece. </p>
<p>"<strong>Armando's Rhumba</strong>" Chick Corea's composition is a delightful change of pace after the serene beauty of "Nuages"….up tempo and joyously playful…The duo plays the melody in unison, Leahey moving up one octave for the 2nd rendering while adding double-stop harmonized 6th and chordal ornamentation while Naspo uses his bow. The guitarist continues that approach through his choruses, mixing single notes, harmonized double and triple stops, octaves, and chords. Naspo, after playing pizzicato during the guitar solos, picks up the bow for his improvisations. His solo dances and dives melodically over the Latin feel propelled by Leahey's rhythmic accompaniment. The duo takes out the melody in unison and provide some interesting variations on the theme to close out another outstanding performance. </p>
<p>“<strong>What's Your Story, Morning Glory</strong>" Pianist Mary Lou Williams' blues begins with bass setting the groove as Leahey plays some subtle harmonics. As Leahey states the melody you can hear the guitarist's unique sound and approach to blues playing… never cliched, always inventive, yet steeped in the tradition. Leahey masterfully builds his solo, incorporating some incredibly fast single note runs with his loaded canon of ideas and techniques. His use of block chords once again being particularly impressive. Bassist Naspo is heard bowing a series of "trilled" notes to open his improvisations, leading down to the depths of his instrument's range. He plays bluesy melodies featuring swoops and slides, remaining mostly in the lower range, showing his love and knowledge of the Blues. As Leahey re-introduces the melody, Naspo plays an arco line employing "tremolo" technique, a rapid back and forth movement of the bow. As he continues that through the form, Leahey can be heard using that same technique in response. An understated and emotional approach to the final melody closes out with a tagged blues ending featuring contrary motion between the line and chordal accompaniment being played by Leahey simultaneously… Oh,Yeah! </p>
<p>"<strong>You Stepped Out of A Dream</strong>" As this standard begins, Naspo plays a bass figure through the form as Leahey gently comps. Another round through the 32-bar form has the guitar alternately echoing the bass motif and improvising. The melody is introduced for the 3rd chorus with beautifully voiced chords. The guitarist improvises 2 choruses using single-note lines, building to his 3rd chorus. It begins with a series of "double-stop" phrases eventually incorporating chords and octaves, leading to a "stop" chorus, where Naspo plays a series of staccato "hits" before dropping out completely… Leahey soars solo for a stunning chorus, then is once again joined by the bassist for one more mainly chordal trip through the form. Ending with a patiently ascending chordal motif, Leahey passes the baton to Naspo. He begins his first chorus with impressively fleet, well executed lines that lead to his own "stop" chorus. The bassist's unaccompanied exploration of the form clearly displays his command of harmony, melody, and technique . The duo both improvise during the final blowing chorus before going back to the head, now modulated up a whole step to the Key of D. They end with a rhythmic tag of the tonic Dmaj7 chord moving, alternatively, up a half-step/down a whole step to enthusiastic response from the engaged and attentive audience. </p>
<p>"<strong>Send in the Clowns</strong>" No stranger to this Stephen Sondheim composition, Leahey opens with a brief, yet rich and full intro to set up Naspo's bowed melody. Ron's tone and intonation are pure and expressive. The guitarist had recorded this as one of two featured solo performances on his 1980 trio release "Still Waters," (OmniSound N-1031 ). Ron Naspo writes in the liner notes that he studied guitar with Leahey at this time. His comfortable and sensitive rendering of the melody retains some of that arrangements feel… the guitarist comping knowingly. The duo set up a vamp at the conclusion of the melody, not unlike on the solo recording, and similar to the vamp end on "Jitterbug Waltz",(track3). Leahey builds it to a Gospel feel as Naspo bows improvised melodies gloriously. The next statement of the melody is Leahey solo, playing familiar approaches and always finding something new. We hear Naspo enter employing his bow, tremelo low tones and overtones, leading to his arco melody in unison with Leahey's solo chord melody arrangement. The final statement of the melody is breathtaking… bowed bass that exhibits gorgeous tone, range, and emotion with impeccable intonation. Leahey's 4 fingers operate as a string trio/quartet , playing beautiful accompanying lines…..The duo respond and work as one, other times working as independent, complimentary voices, and often sounding like more than 2, grant it,… virtuoso, musicians. </p>
<p>"<strong>CC Rider</strong>" Blues lines and chords by Leahey open up this folk blues first recorded by Gertrude "Ma" Rainey and issued in 1924. It has been much recorded by artists in many genres since, and the duo put their own unique stamp on this classic. The extended solo guitar intro eventually establishes the groove and tempo as Naspo joins in. He plays his bass lines percussively, slapping and popping the strings as Leahey explores the melody and improvises. After a number of exhilarating choruses, the guitarist sets up Naspo's improv with some rhythm breaks allowing the bassist plenty of room for bluesy, funky, and catchy lines. The duo trade a series of 8 bar phrases over the form leading to one more chorus where Leahey plays some major and minor 2nd double-stops. The melody is heard once more as the ending features a familiar, but far from cliched, blues ending. </p>
<p>"<strong>Jumpin' at The Woodside</strong>" A swinging uptempo version of Count Basie's Big Band classic closes out the disc. After Leahey's statement of the melody featuring chordal stabs echoing the big band arrangement, the guitarist takes a few choruses of stunning single-note lines with Naspo's walking bass firmly driving things forward. The bassist drops out leaving Leahey solo for a jaw dropping chorus, then rejoins for one more as the guitarist builds to a chordal climax, making way for the bassist's solo turn. Naspo plays inventive lines making full use of his formidable technique and musicality leading into some trading of 4's,the 2 echoing and leading each other on to joyous heights. After blowing simultaneously over the form, Leahey introduces a big band, shout-like group of notes and chords as Naspo, taking the bridge solo, reaches the heights of his instruments range. The duo then modulate up a whole step from the Key of B-flat to C. A final swinging romp through the form brings the concert,and CD ,to a rousing finish! BRAVO! </p>
<p>For those interested in obtaining a copy of this music, I must inform you that some slight tape hiss is audible, but it does not detract from the musical experience. If one listens to the music closely it all but disappears as the ears adjust to the musical sound of the instruments. For info on purchasing a copy of this disc, contact: RonNaspo@verizon.net</p>The Deep Rootstag:thedeeprootsband.com,2005:Post/65639832021-03-03T14:47:07-05:002022-04-23T13:30:32-04:00The Purcells: Landscape Listens<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/482771/4b50abbd482fca4293d4efddf0272eef3f332194/original/purcells-paint.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><em>The Purcells - Watercolor by Bill Goodwyn (It makes it look like a story in The New Yorker)</em></p>
<p>On Friday, February 19, 2021, The Purcells, released their latest EP, <a contents="Landscape Listens" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://thepurcells.bandcamp.com/album/landscape-listens"><em>Landscape Listens</em></a>. A few days later, I stumbled across it on Bandcamp under a "You may also like" heading. I usually scoff at those suggestions. But I liked the name and the cover so I gave it a listen and then another listen. </p>
<p>Then I clicked their Facebook link, saw that they listed The Feelies as an influence, and I had already heard some Uncle Tupelo, so I sent them a message to the effect, really like the EP, if you had listed Uncle Tupelo and The Vulgar Boatmen as influences I would say that we are brothers. </p>
<p>There was zero doubt in my mind that they were fans of The Boatmen. I just know these things. Guitarist Al Hennagir replied back a few minutes later, "We opened for The Boatmen!" So I interviewed the whole band. </p>
<p>This is how music works these days. We may have lost some of the mystery that surrounded a band before the internet, but it has been replaced with connection. When that connection reinforces the idea that making great original music, having a day job, and a family are not mutually exclusive activities but blend together pretty well, I don’t think much is lost. I see it more as a restoration of how music has been made as long as humans have been making music - The Beatles, Nirvana, and some others are the exceptions. </p>
<p>Listening to <em>Landscape Listens</em>, I’m reminded of T.S. Eliot in, <em>Tradition and the Individual Talent</em>, “the past should be altered by the present as much as the present is directed by the past.” I can hear the influence of the late 80s and early 90s, but it sounds better through The Purcells. I’ve been going back and listening to some of those albums that had gotten stale and now they seem to come to life again. It reminds me of why it is so much fun to discover a new band. It gives you a whole new way of listening to things.</p>
<p>I'll also add that in listening to The Purcells' back catalog, I’ve yet to hit the skip button. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/482771/5b2b2448fca64ad8582048f69cc5970fc92e04e4/original/purc-cover.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /> </p>
<p><em>Al Hennagir (vocals, guitars, percussion, glockenspiel) </em></p>
<p><strong>How do you fit music into family life and working full-time? What criteria, if any, do you use to keep things in balance? </strong></p>
<p>I’ve been fortunate that my family recognizes how essential making music is to me. They get that it’s an important outlet and that I’m in a better place if I spend time writing, recording, or practicing with the band. They’ve also come to understand that anything creative takes a lot longer than you think it’s going to take, so I never feel like I’m “on the clock.” I’ve definitely been in bands where people make it clear they have plans and only have a limited amount of time—that always bums me out. As far as band practice goes, it seems to make a huge difference if you have periods where you play once a week, but that’s not always realistic as we get older. I try to spend time writing or recording if my band mates can’t make it to practice for whatever reason. </p>
<p><strong>Has your formal education helped? </strong></p>
<p>I graduated with a BA in English from the University of Iowa. Although I was never in the Writers Workshop, I had friends that were and I was always surrounded by creative people whether it be writers, other musicians or visual artists. Because of that, I’ve always kind of felt that if you weren’t creating something, you weren’t really doing anything worthwhile—I know that sounds harsh. Reading fiction and poetry definitely gives me inspiration for music. It’s usually not a deliberate thing. It’s more like I’ll be playing some riff or cord progression on my guitar, and I’ll start mumbling some kind of vocal melody. Sometimes a line from a poem I haven’t thought about in years will make its way into a song. I guess another thing I took away from having short stories and poems workshopped in undergraduate classes is that you need to keep revising—they’re never done. My bandmates take that pretty seriously too and we’re always trying different ways to approach both new and old songs. </p>
<p><strong>What role did your family play in pursuing your art? </strong></p>
<p>My mom and stepdad were always super supportive of me playing music. They were music lovers and they thought it was great that someone in the family was actually learning an instrument. My mom has a pretty good ear for music—I still talk to her about old and new music. They made sure I had a decent acoustic guitar to start with and eventually got me a used electric from a family friend. It was a ¾ sized Gibson Melody Maker with a Fender Champ amp. The first distortion I had was from the blown speaker in that Fender Champ. My folks were also okay with my high school band, Bob White and the Quails, practicing in the basement--at least until another band member’s parents got talked into hosting. </p>
<p><strong>How often do you play out and where? </strong></p>
<p>We try to play out at least once a season so we don’t wear out our welcome with our friends. Before Covid hit, we were playing a bit more often with bands that we’re friends with like Embassies and I Lost Control. We were lucky to open for our heroes, the Vulgar Boatmen, at Schubas Tavern and we’ve played with other bands there as well. We’ve also played at Montrose Saloon, a dive bar turned into a great artist venue by a local musician. Cary’s Lounge is another great dive bar with a little stage in the window—we love that place! Something about it being a long bar without too much sound proofing makes it sound like our basement practice space. The owners are very accommodating and supportive too. We’ve played several Mayfest and Oktoberfest gigs put on by Begyle and Dovetail Breweries here in Chicago. In the last couple years, we feel like we’ve been fortunate to be part of a small group of bands, artists, and radio station folks that are very supportive. Since last spring we’ve been practicing in our back driveway (socially distanced) off the alley. At first, we worried that neighbors might complain, but instead they brought lawn chairs and six packs to hang out and listen to us play. They all have said they were thankful to hear any live music during this crazy time and several are always asking when we were going to play next. That was one of a few bright spots during the last year. </p>
<p><strong>How are you able to record? </strong></p>
<p>We typically record the basic drum and bass tracks in the practice space in my basement. I use Logic Pro with a Focusrite Scarlet 2i2 to do guitar and vocal overdubs and for the last record I upgraded the mic preamp to a Golden Age Pre-73. I have a couple condenser mics and a few SM57s. I try to mic up real amps if I can, but if it’s late at night I sometimes end up plugging straight into the interface and using the plugin amps on Logic. Sometimes I’ll record those later if I remember how to play the parts! We paid engineers to mix and master all three of our releases. Mike Hagler of Kingsize Sound Labs mixed and mastered our most recent EP, “Landscape Listens.” It’s always great to hear the mixes of someone who really knows what they’re doing. Before everything shut down last spring we had just recorded the basic tracks for a handful of songs, so I had plenty to work with for a couple of months. That was a great distraction at the time—I wish we had gotten more songs done. In the end we decided to put out an EP instead of waiting to get more tracks recorded. </p>
<p><strong>Any final thoughts? </strong></p>
<p>Thanks for taking the time to listen to our music on BandCamp! That’s one great thing about the internet right now. It is cool that there is a scene out there comprised of folks with day jobs really putting the time in to put out good music and play shows. </p>
<p><em>Bill Goodwyn (vocals, bass, keyboards) </em></p>
<p><strong>How do you fit music into family life and working full-time? What criteria, if any, do you use to keep things in balance? </strong></p>
<p>Family comes first, but my bandmates are extended family, so they get a lot of consideration. We all have reasonable expectations about what we can handle, in regards to making time for music. </p>
<p><strong>Has your formal education helped? </strong></p>
<p>I got my BA in Graphic Design from UIC and my MLIS from Dominican University, and the discipline I learned in those two programs helps in all aspects of my life, but in music particularly, because songwriting and performing are often about design and organization. I want songs to work out in a sensible way. </p>
<p><strong>What role did your family play in pursuing your art? </strong></p>
<p>My family is very musical, and my parents encouraged my participation in music from the very beginning. </p>
<p><strong>How often do you play out and where? </strong></p>
<p>Maybe four or five times a year, in cool dive bar/music venues in Chicago. </p>
<p><strong>How are you able to record? </strong></p>
<p>We record basic tracks together (in non-Covid times) and often refine those tracks at home. </p>
<p><em>Any final thoughts? </em></p>
<p>Music calms me down and excites me at the same time. </p>
<p> </p>
<p><em>Don Yanek (drums, percussion) </em></p>
<p><strong>How do you fit music into family life and working full-time? What criteria, if any, do you use to keep things in balance? </strong></p>
<p>Great question. It helps if you are friends or at least enjoy hanging out with your bandmates. We’ve all known each other for a long time and have similar interests and intersecting musical tastes. Rehearsing and playing shows is just as much about hanging out together and laughing as much as it is about playing music. Also, I’ve been playing in bands since high school – so it’s just part of who I am. It would be weird for me not to be in a band. My family just accepts/expects it. </p>
<p>The pandemic has made it tough to get together. I listen to a lot of records, but I still get to a point that I really need to play the drums; play with the band. </p>
<p><strong>Has your formal education helped? </strong></p>
<p>I studied math and computer science. Songwriting, arranging and playing are all really algorithmic at their essence. For me, the bigger influence or help has been collecting and listening to records. I’m a bit of a fanatic. Bill and I were college roommates and played together in two previous bands...see answer to question #1. </p>
<p><strong>What role did your family play in pursuing your art? </strong></p>
<p>Growing up, there was always music playing in my house. My parents encouraged us to participate in the school band. I started playing drums in 4th grade and got my first drum set in 8th grade. I started my first band, the Classifieds, in high school with 3 friends (see answer to question #1). We rehearsed in the basement every week – my parents never ever complained about the noise. </p>
<p>Now, my wife and kids just think of it as normal, typical behavior – Dad’s going to band practice. </p>
<p><strong>How often do you play out and where? </strong></p>
<p>We try to play at least once a quarter. I prefer the smaller bars or clubs. They’re more fun. </p>
<p><strong>How are you able to record? </strong></p>
<p>Speaking of the drums, we’ve gotten pretty good at using just 2 - 3 mics for the whole kit, usually just the bass drum, snare and an overhead. </p>
<p><strong>Any final thoughts? </strong></p>
<p>Don’t get Al started talking about guitar pedals. </p>The Deep Rootstag:thedeeprootsband.com,2005:Post/65606302021-02-27T17:26:43-05:002022-06-01T03:01:26-04:00A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man in Lockdown<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/482771/c3479ecb022e28846537bf1b7b5d0d8d5d4370f9/original/avery.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>A few weeks ago, a high school friend posted a Bandcamp link to a release by a young artist from Clinton, New Jersey named Avery Stoker called <a contents="Endersine/Sundance" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://averystoker.bandcamp.com/album/endersine-sundance">Endersine/Sundance</a>. I grew up only a few miles from Clinton, and some of my other friends praised the release in the comments section, so I took a listen. </p>
<p>I didn’t get the opening track, “Endersine,” at first. The heavily altered vocals and instrumentation had me thinking techno. But the second track, “You Kill Me,” is a two-guitar, bass, and drums rocker, and Stoker plays all the instruments himself. It was a complete 180, and without the vocal effects it became clear that he can sing with the best of them. How did he generate that intensity without a band? Now I was totally interested. </p>
<p>The rest of Endersine/Sundance bounces around stylistically and even the songs structures themselves are not predictable. And after a few more listens, “Endersine,” makes sense in the context of the rest of the album. Think of Robbie Robertson leading off Music from Big Pink with “Tears of Rage.” </p>
<p>It sounded like a solid debut album. Then there was another surprise. Stoker is in two other bands, <a contents="Denver Pike" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://denverpike.bandcamp.com/">Denver Pike</a> and <a contents="Androcles" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://androcles1.bandcamp.com/">Androcles</a>, and they both have several releases available on Bandcamp. </p>
<p>Stoker is such an interesting and talented guy, I think it is best just to turn it over to him so you can hear him in his own words and music. But one quick tangent. Pretty much all of the artists that I’ve interviewed so far have been middle-aged, so I curious how his outlook would be different. I gave him the same questions I’ve given all of the other musicians I’ve interviewed. </p>
<p><strong>Just to ground things, what are some of your influences? Or who would you prefer a compliment from than a packed stadium? </strong></p>
<p>I would say folk projects like Bon Iver and Broken Social Scene. Justin Vernon from Bon Iver writes in a way that’s really more about flow than following a structure in terms of timing, which I’ve always had trouble with, but wanted to try out for once. I definitely also had M83 and that whole post rock, soundscape-y sort of thing in mind. </p>
<p>When it comes to 70’s elements, my dad and his bands had a sizable effect, not just on this particular record but in general. Also, I had never really messed around with linking different songs together before, save one instance from my band Androcles’s debut album, but the way psychedelic acts like Pink Floyd and even krautrock like Faust seemed to just think more so in one continuous body of music than going track by track, it was something that I always wanted to replicate, but never really had the confidence to try it out. </p>
<p>I had Ween very heavily in mind when I was doing “Writings On The Wall” with John Nemeth’s son. Just the way they never take themselves too seriously. They’re not afraid to just have fun with the music they’re making. </p>
<p>I feel like I’ve always worked in these short, intense, stressful bursts where everything had to be rigorous and perfect, but I took that song as an opportunity to just calm down and have fun with it. </p>
<p><strong>How do you fit music into family life and working full-time? What criteria, if any, do you use to keep things in balance? </strong></p>
<p>Music has always been a part of my family life, so that has never too hard. The slight downside to this is that, by proxy, someone is always making some kind of noise in the house, so oftentimes I find myself recording out in the garage, which gets a little rough during the off-season. Balancing it with working full time is a little more difficult. It definitely feels like more of a compromise, which my ADHD instant-satisfaction-craving monkey brain doesn’t take too kindly to, but at the end of the day, both kinds of work are a necessity. I need to make money and have some semblance of structure in my life, and I need to be able to express myself and let loose. It’s not that I have an aversion to real work; I’ve always found myself able to focus on the things that are at least somewhat interesting to me, but I never saw the point in busy work just for the sake of working. I’m much more comfortable taking time for myself to work on my own stuff than going out and working for something that I feel like I don’t get a lot back from. Maybe that’ll change when I settle into a career, but for now it’s still tough. </p>
<p><strong>Has your formal education helped? (Where did you go to school and what did you study?) </strong></p>
<p>On paper I went to Millersville University out in Lancaster, PA, and studied Music Business Technology, but the regrettable reality is more like, “I lived on Millersville’s campus for 9 months and was an MBT major, but didn’t really go to class and just goofed off and wasted a ton of money.” The classes I did go to were interesting and informative (with the exception of World Oceans, which I thought was going to be about exploration and geography, but turned out to be a class on ocean floor geology), and they certainly helped me grow as a musician. I never paid attention to the way I breathed before I took voice lessons, never had a regular band rehearsal until they assigned us a project to put together a set. I still don’t know how to read piano sheet music, but that professor did try her damndest. The most valuable thing by far that I got from Millersville were the friends and connections I made. Growing up in Clinton, there’s not much of a scene for young musicians outside of coffee shops and bars, but being in Lancaster, I expected to be in Amish country and was suddenly surrounded by cool art and exciting venues and so many people in so many bands I could barely keep track. I’m considering going back to school for linguistics or to teach French, but I’m still working that plan out. </p>
<p><strong>What role did your family play in pursuing your art? </strong></p>
<p>My family was always very encouraging and open to the idea of my pursuing music. My dad was the one who showed me it was possible in the first place. I think all of us played an instrument at some point or another except for my brother, so I’ve always been around it, but never felt empowered to really act on it myself until around the time I was graduating high school and having a pretty rough go of it. My mom (who I remember teaching me “Heart and Soul” on the piano when I was a kid) encouraged me to try therapy, and there I figured out that I needed to more fully take advantage of art as a form of release and as a coping mechanism. My parents have gone so far as to throw a yearly festival in our backyard and let me play it (though it’s been a couple years since we’ve had it), and helped me cobble together a release party for the first Androcles EP on very little notice. They’re awesome. My siblings just get mad at me when I sing in the car. They’re alright too. </p>
<p><strong>How often do you play out and where? </strong></p>
<p>In non-plague times, I can mainly be seen in Lancaster and Philly one to two times a month at places like Chameleon Club, Connie’s Ric Rac, The Pharmacy, and the more than occasional basement venue (always a fun time), but COVID has presented the excruciating situation of having to just privately stew in all of my ideas for the various live shows I’d like to be putting on. I’ve been looking to expand my playing field to Asbury Park and NYC, and down to DC, and I’ve been daydreaming up a northeastern tour for a couple years, but for now I’m all cooped up. </p>
<p><strong>How are you able to record? </strong></p>
<p>I split my production between Logic Pro X on my laptop (for when I want a more complex, involved mix) and GarageBand Mobile on my phone (for when I’m just messing around and making beats or something). Recording on Logic is easy, I just plug in my interface, guitar(s), mic(s), and a MIDI controller, and I’m good to go. GB has a really fun selection of synth patches and drum machines, but it gets a little bit complicated when you want to record external instruments. Luckily, my grandmother got me a tiny little DI that hooks up to my phone, so I use that for guitar, and I just record vocals into a standard headphone mic, which has surprisingly good quality. I recorded the whole album on Logic Pro, with the exception of “LEAVING HOME,” which I started on my phone and then finished off on Logic to more precisely track percussion and upright bass. </p>
<p><strong>Any final thoughts? </strong></p>
<p>I think that this record is the most honest art I’ve ever made. It might also be the weirdest. But, you know, everything is paradoxical like that. Everything simultaneously seems to be and not to be, and that’s a lot of what Endersine/Sundance is about. I wasn’t even going to release it until a rough breakup forced me to put effort into getting along by myself, but now I can’t fathom the idea of not having put it out, and I’m so grateful that so many of my friends were willing to lend their hands and voices and help me feel a little less alone. Right now I’ve got a lot of things on a lot of backburners. Planning the post-pandemic live show for E/S, remastering the first three Androcles records, working on an EP with Denver Pike, maybe even some Soundcloud rap, I don’t know, I’m getting a little stir crazy. </p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Coda – Author’s Note</strong> </p>
<p><em>This was originally part of my introduction but got cut because I thought it was too much about me, but I think it still deserves mentioning. It’s my blog…I can do whatever I want. </em></p>
<p>The biggest eye-opener for me was how devastating Covid has been on young artists. Being young carries a heavy load of uncertainty to begin with. A pandemic multiplies that uncertainty exponentially. As I get older, I find myself more thinking about “when I was young.” It is easy to forget my own struggles with crippling anxiety in my 20s, going to counseling, taking anti-depressants, and staying in bed all day when a promising relationship had gone bad. </p>
<p>However, when my Strat was plugged into my amp, either at practice or a gig, the anxiety could never get to me. It isn’t like music makes me “feel better” like doing deep breathing exercises or yoga or that it gets the “bad stuff” out of my system. It is something more than that, it is mysterious, and you sound like a crazy person to talk about it. And when you can’t do it, it is a major deal. </p>
<p>All I can say is that if you are musician, playing music is what you are meant to be doing and you are not going to be yourself unless you are making music. How you got to be a musician in the first place is also a mystery and an unconscious choice of sorts. So the next question is how much of your time is spent being a musician? And that is the million dollar question we have to answer continually. </p>
<p>I’m not smart enough to think of that stuff, so here is the quote from Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics I’m paraphrasing, “…the function of man is to live a certain kind of life, and this activity implies a rational principle, and the function of a good man is the good and noble performance of these, and if any action is well performed it is performed in accord with the appropriate excellence: if this is the case, then happiness turns out to be an activity of the soul in accordance with virtue.”</p>The Deep Rootstag:thedeeprootsband.com,2005:Post/65517582021-02-16T19:00:00-05:002022-05-19T06:30:11-04:00Spotify: Remember You Are Dust, and to Dust You Shall Return <p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/482771/655b04aad0398cd8f1640adbf5d82f8e515d9bd7/original/spotifyt.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>I thought this lent I’d work on the symptoms of my music-related obsessive–compulsive personality disorder (MR-OCPD). I planned to give up asking myself: </p>
<ul> <li>Am I succeeding? </li> <li>Will I ever be more successful or is this as good as it gets? </li> <li>What am I missing? </li> <li>Should I spend more money on marketing, or recording, or not even bother? </li>
</ul>
<p>My plan was to be happy-go-lucky by Easter, but I got an e-mail this morning with the subject, “Tackling the Spotify algorithm,” and I was off the wagon before I even had a cup of coffee. </p>
<p>Disclaimer: The author of the e-mail is legit. I’ve sat in on their webinars and learned a lot. They do PR for artists and are not pushy about upselling you to their services. What I’m about to say is not intended to be critical of them. In fact, they are part of the solution by exposing the truth. </p>
<p>So here is what I learned from their blog posts before I had to stop and talk myself out of rolling around in the snow in my backyard. </p>
<p>Spotify is owned by the major record labels! Noooooo! The major labels create those much-desired playlists, which can break new bands, are skewed toward the major label artists leaving the indie artists on the outside. Shock. Pound my fists on the table. </p>
<p>To get the playlist creators to notice your band, you need to “bring your fans.” Have them follow you on Spotify. (Deep breathing exercises.) </p>
<p>The best way to get attention is to create great music. (I’ll be right back after I roll around in the snow in 10 degrees.) </p>
<p>Let’s review. The major labels own Spotify and pay fractions of a penny to the artist when a song gets played, pocketing the ad money, and as a new artist, they want <em>you</em> to bring more customers to <em>them</em>. My reaction is to say, a bad word, Spotify and go with Bandcamp exclusively. At least their mission is about partnering with their artists. </p>
<p>To get back to my original thought about giving stuff up for Lent. We give stuff up not to show off our heroic self-restraint, which the older we get, the more we are aware that we aren’t very good at it, but to be free from stuff we don’t want in the first place, like 10 pounds or watching YouTube, or looking to see how many listens we have on Spotify. Whether you are a religious person or not, being free to focus on what you want is always a goal. Nobody is saying, “I wish I could be more enslaved to what I don’t want.” </p>
<p>The root of the issue is the chain that links “good” music to the number of plays. I don’t think that good music is “all in the ears of the beholder.” I think there is room for objectivity, personal taste (or lack thereof), and popularity. An artist needs an audience, so you can’t completely remove listeners, and how many, from the equation.</p>
<p>However, there are inconvenient truths working against the number of available listeners. </p>
<ol> <li>The major labels still own the means of production. If you want to make decent money, you’re going to have to be in with them. People that aren’t fussy about music are happy to get their product from the majors. </li> <li>Home recording software has become so good, sophisticated, and inexpensive, that anyone with a laptop can record music and post it on line. By extension, there are small record labels who support these artists and also reissue music that may have been missed the first time around. A LOT of music is being released.</li>
</ol>
<p>So you have the majors doing their best to maintain their market share from the influx of rapidly multiplying independents who are competing for a fairly stagnant number of music connoisseurs. That scenario is only bleak if you thought that 100,000 listens on Spotify would bring you happiness. Otherwise, it is the truth that sets you free to make the music you want, because time is short, "Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”</p>The Deep Rootstag:thedeeprootsband.com,2005:Post/65504322021-02-15T19:00:00-05:002023-12-10T13:34:31-05:00Review in Dagger Zine<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/482771/38126079c616b7359e412d559afc4e91ab3330f6/original/cover-never-coming-back.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>The following <a contents="review" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://daggerzine.tumblr.com/post/642562639134965760/the-deep-roots-never-coming-back-self-released?fbclid=IwAR1Dm1gzut479nHKTcchV8ukRBOm0p2-Q8ZCWyX2OQzYuZdDyl9ZkCpRndc" target="_blank">review</a> of Never Coming Back appeared in Dagger Zine on February 8, 2021.</p>
<p>Its always nice when you find out that an occasional contributor to this site, in this case guitarist Mark Sullivan, is also a musician and has a band of his own. This quartet hails from Pittsburgh (Go Bucs!) and are proud of it took (sometimes I see their band name written as The Deep Roots of Pittsburgh, PA). They’ve got an interesting take on the rock pop genre, oh sure you’ll hear an influence of the biggies (Beatles, Stones, etc.) but I hear some 90’s indie rock and even some alt country stuff as well. All four of the folks write and sing to as in addition to Sullivan you’ve got Ryan Kerr on guitar/vocals, Andrew Oreski on bass/vocals and James Sullivan on drums/vocals. The gentle pop stylings of ‘Dreaming Hard’ is among my favorites here as is the dreamy "Soft Soft Sand” (which reminded me of a mix between 50’s woo wop and an early Flying Nun records cut) and the bouncy “Over Our Heads” (with a great shout chorus). The band sees these songs a mix of both loss (with all that COVID has brought) and a sense of optimism as well and in the past year that totally makes sense. Lets hope the optimism keeps up and they write more songs!</p>The Deep Rootstag:thedeeprootsband.com,2005:Post/65483182021-02-13T19:00:00-05:002022-07-20T07:56:20-04:00On Writing Songs<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/482771/85876c8c145b57676c5fc175dd150c61a6e2f0c1/original/songwriter.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>This is the way writing songs goes for me. I wake up in the morning and there is a song in my head. I can hear it like it is on the radio. Chords, lyrics, melody, structure, and even the key are all there but distant and vague. I can’t just write it down in one shot. I don’t even know how to describe it. I can only use the analogy of a jigsaw puzzle. What I hear is the picture on the cover of the box. What I have to work with is 1000 pieces of fragments that I write down on pieces of paper and stuff into my pockets or send to myself in five-word e-mails.</p>
<p>Songwriting for me is the process of gathering all of those fragments together and piecing them together until they become the song that I hear in my head. There is no creativity involved. The majority of my time is spent in the process of trial and error. It is exciting because I have a goal in mind and each time I try something I may get a step closer, which brings its own drama and mini rewards. The process can take hours, days, weeks, months, or years depending on the song. </p>
<p>When I’m “finished,” there is always great excitement to play it for the rest of the band. Good news I can’t wait to share. But, it is also makes me anxious, embarrassed, and shameful. What if the song isn’t any good? What if the other guys don’t like it? Am I wasting their time? </p>
<p>Since the other guys in the band have always been 100% supportive, patient, and helpful with my songs, those anxieties aren’t based in reality. If fact, I’ve come to see my “songs” as pizza crust waiting for the rest of the band to provide the sauce and toppings. Their contributions are what brings the songs to life. </p>
<p>As for the anxiety, shame, etc.., the best that I can figure is that those emotions are a protective mechanism, a reminder that a song is something sacred, something special. It isn’t an e-mail or a grocery list. It is a piece of art deserving respect. If anything, I’m just a messenger transporting the song from one place to the next. Ignoring a song that came to me would be like a sin of omission. Religious terminology is necessary because those are the only terms that we have to describe areas out of the reach of our understanding. It is a mystery. </p>
<p>So check this out. Friday morning, I wake up with a song in my head. I started taking notes and sending myself e-mails. It was a busy day, and I didn’t have time to sit down until 10:00 p.m. to work on it. I set myself up at the kitchen table – laptop, notebook, pen, pencil, rhyming dictionary, notes that had been stuffed in my pocket, and my guitar, of course. Then James comes in for his evening snack. </p>
<p>James: Writing a song? </p>
<p>Me: Yes, it has been in my head all day. </p>
<p>James: You know, you should really write a song like [mentions the name of a band.] </p>
<p>Me: Like this? </p>
<p>I then proceeded to play a riff, verse, chorus, bridge, outro beginning to end. </p>
<p>James: Is that a real song or did you just make it up? </p>
<p>I ignored his question and started writing the lyrics. Twenty minutes later I had “Lonely Driver.” </p>
<p>Fragments of the song I started to work on are still floating in my inbox waiting for another block of time. What will become of “Lonely Driver” is mostly out of my control. Hopefully I can show it to the band on Wednesday, and we can record it at some point. Maybe it will be a big hit in Australia. Maybe it will be the second to last cut on our next album. Maybe it will just be another page in my notebook. </p>
<p>I will say that not having all the answers keeps things interesting.</p>The Deep Rootstag:thedeeprootsband.com,2005:Post/65446592021-02-09T19:00:00-05:002022-05-04T12:50:40-04:00Is "Big" the Enemy?<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/482771/01fff51ced213848e2e13f145eff772f7d626e19/original/big.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><em>What if I've been chasing the wrong goal?</em></p>
<p>Recently I had this great idea, I’d join the Neil Young and Crazy Horse fan page on Facebook and post one of our Neil Young-influenced songs. The group has 25,000 subscribers! I couldn’t wait to see how many hits our Bandcamp page would get. Then my post got blocked. I was hurt. My clever plan didn’t work, and my desire to be “big” remained that much more elusive. </p>
<p>“Big” means having a lot of fans, which means you make a lot of money, which means don’t have to have another job, which means you can focus on music, which really means, to quote “Taking Care of Business,” that “you can work at nothing all day.” </p>
<p>Working really long hours and dealing with massive expectations and extensive travel is completely obscured by the dream of being big. </p>
<p>Big is definitely possible. There are bands out there that are big, but is “big” like a fast food hamburger? Is it something that I don’t really want but the marketers get in my head and I think that I want it, until I have it, and then I regret it 15 minutes later? </p>
<p>I don’t think the marketers are doing Jedi mind-tricks. They know that greasy and salty food pleases the taste buds. Every day I get sponsored ads on Facebook telling me that I can dramatically increase my audience using the power of Facebook - if I attend this one-day webinar for $500. (I just need to develop a niche like Celtic Fantasy Metal.) </p>
<p>The marketers are more aware of my taste for vanity, adoration, and power than I am. At the center of this scam is the proposition that the larger the ratio of artist to audience the better. For example, if you are an original band playing for only ten people, you are a loser (unless you live in Pittsburgh, then you are killing it. …I’ll delete that later. No more dark sarcasm in the classroom.) </p>
<p>If you are playing a 60,000 seat stadium, you are a massive success. But let’s take a closer look. </p>
<p>Playing in a small bar for ten people has the obvious disadvantage that only a few people can witness your sheer brilliance and most of them are friends and family. The band will most likely sing off key at times, miss chord changes, and forget lyrics. But, the band will be sincere in trying to give their best performance to those in attendance, and you have proof they are not lip synching. For their part, those in attendance are coming to be entertained, but also to show support. There is generosity and gratitude flowing in both directions, which makes it fun, which is why you do it for no money. </p>
<p>Playing at a stadium has a different dynamic. Ticket prices and expectations are higher. The performer gives their best, the better because if they don’t the next time around they’ll be in a smaller venue and that will be humiliating. The audience pays money and cheers, but they expect to be entertained to the point that they forget about life outside the stadium for a few hours. The audience participates in achieving that goal by buying at least three $12 beers. Note that there is a lot of money changing hands. Good for the economy. People buying merch, security guards getting paid, and parking lot vendors to mention just a few. </p>
<p>What bothers me is the idea of a very large crowd being entertained by one artist. One star and the rest are consumers. If you want to be that star, then of course, it must be OK. You deserve to be able to exert your influence over that audience. You’ve earned that because of your incredible skill and talent, and it has always been your dream. The audience is there to swipe their credit cards. </p>
<p>A friend of mine attended a huge Bruce Springsteen concert back in the 1980s. He told me afterward that he could totally see how Hitler came to power. The power of one person to stir up a crowd is frightening. </p>
<p>So I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that the enemy is “big” itself. And, the fact that I can’t think of a single good or service that can only be produced and supplied locally is also a scary thought. “Big” also has its benefits in some areas, so I can’t completely throw it under the bus. I’ll let other people smarter than me argue that. </p>
<p>Getting back to music, I would like to propose a radical idea. What if…what if all concerts were local affairs. No national acts playing stadiums. Could we live without a stadium concert for an entire year? (I’ve never been to a stadium concert in my life, I really don’t care.) </p>
<p>The other disadvantage of big is that only a few people can be big. Everyone else has to accept their role as a credit card swiper. That is why I can’t post a song by The Deep Roots on a Neil Young Facebook page. Can’t step on Neil’s turf. </p>
<p>So if “big” is not the goal, what is? Craftsmanship. There will never be too much fantastic music, just like no town can have too many fantastic pizza joints. Good craftsmanship inspires more good craftsmanship. It can also be described as “changing the culture.” See Tom Brady in Tampa Bay. </p>
<p>I’ll have to explore some of these ideas in more depth later.</p>The Deep Rootstag:thedeeprootsband.com,2005:Post/65349292021-01-30T11:43:10-05:002022-04-23T13:30:14-04:00Reflections of an Entry-Level Guitar at 30 <p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/482771/1c9803c41528dc21eedb0421afc1ac8409cff42a/original/0130210943-burst01.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><em>Note: This post was written by the guitar pictured above. I, Mark Sullivan, had nothing to do with the content or characters described below and take no legal responsibility.</em></p>
<p>Mark is not a nostalgia kind of guy, so I’ve been bugging him to let me say some things. I have a lot of time to sit around and reflect. </p>
<p>Thirty years ago Mark Sullivan bought me at the House of Guitars in Califon, NJ. I was a birthday present to himself. He was with his friend Troy because he didn't know how to play yet and needed someone else to tell him if I was any good. Troy had purchased one of my cousins six months earlier and let Mark borrow his old guitar for the summer, and he caught the bug. </p>
<p>Mark also signed up to take lessons with Walt Bibinger, the House of Guitars teacher in residence that day. I used to love hearing Walt talk to new students. He'd tell them that he was preparing them to play the guitar for the next 50 years, and he was teaching them to play what THEY wanted to hear. Guitars love that. </p>
<p>The important thing for me is to be there for Mark. I learned that from Woody and Buzz Lightyear when Mark used to take me with him to babysit his cousins. </p>
<p>I was there when Mark and Drew got together for the first time and played some Velvet Underground songs, that is what you did in 1991 if you were starting a cool band. Drew said, “If we are serious about this, we need to go buy electric instruments…right now.” Off they went. </p>
<p>I was there when Mark wrote his first song, "Lone Coal Miner." </p>
<p>I was there when Mark wrote "Macy's Parade," maybe his best song with The Blackwells. He was finishing it up, and Dave came running up there stairs and grabbed me, "Hey, Sull, check this out," and he played "B-Movie," a great tune. Then Mark played him "Macy's Parade." I can still hear the two of them laughing. At the time, those were the best songs those guys had written. Watching people reach their potential is what guitars live for. </p>
<p>There were dark times too. I sat in the basement for two years without being played while Mark was learning French so he could move to Paris. Never could figure that one out. But that ended happily when Mark started taking lessons from D.C. Fitzgerald. What a character! If Mark wasn't so uptight about his blog I could tell you some funny stories. </p>
<p>I’ve never forgotten that I’m an entry-level guitar, but some things still hurt. Mark had his first lesson with Ernie Hawkins, and Ernie said, "You can play, you just need a real guitar now. You need to get a Gibson J-200." Mark had gotten pretty good at that point and needed a professional instrument. He plays the J-200 pretty much every day and hasn’t looked at another acoustic guitar since. I got a scare when Mark put together all of his guitars to trade in for the J-200. I was in the pile, out of the pile. In the end, there were too many guitars to carry. The 12-string Rickenbacker got traded in, but I was left behind. I still hear him whining about the Rick, but I tell him, “Guitars are meant to be played. You never, ever, played the Rick." It was eye candy. </p>
<p>The purchase of the J-200 was a major change for me. Once it came to the house, I got left at Celeste’s apartment. It was unsettling at first, but Mark came by and played me every day. Then I started to enjoy being dusted regularly, the lack of clutter around me, the delicious smells coming from the kitchen, and especially all of the laughing and giggling. Mark was playing the Rev. Gary Davis song, "Oh Glory How Happy I Am" all the time. I felt like I had my spot, and my presence signified that something much bigger was going on. I’ll never be “The Strat” in Mark’s life but I’m important. </p>
<p>Everyone needs to be reminded how at one point going from a G chord to a D seemed like an impossibility, but with steady effort day after day it becomes second nature, and you really value the acts of kindness and encouragement you get in that day to day struggle. </p>
<p>So besides being the director of nostalgia around here, I’m Mark’s travel guitar. Two summers ago helped him write "500 Miles to Philly" while we were in Delaware. If you ask me, it may be his best song, but he still hasn't really played it for anyone. I still have work to do. You'd think by the age of 50 humans would get some confidence. All an old guitar can do is try to stay in tune.</p>The Deep Rootstag:thedeeprootsband.com,2005:Post/65301152021-01-25T14:07:54-05:002022-04-23T13:30:08-04:00The Unknown Legacy of a Musician - Frank Zanks <p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/482771/72d682fd425ddba287a263969e28799b3346e039/original/midnight.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><em>Above: The Midnight Quartet: Frank Zanks on guitar on the far right. </em></p>
<p>I’m reposting the following reflection written by my old friend John Oleniacz about <a contents="Frank Zanks" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://martinfh.com/tribute/details/3297/Francis-Zanks/obituary.html">Frank Zanks</a>. All of us are from the small town of Hampton, NJ. It captures all that is beautiful about music – to have a music vocation. You have the obligation to play your instrument well, entertain others, and pass that along to the next generation. That is what Frank did, and that subject has been on my mind a lot recently. </p>
<p>John’s piece means a lot to me for a number of reasons. What he describes below, he also told me play-by-play on the bus on the way to school. I hung on every word – music junky that I am. Also, I went to the same church as Frank, I must have seen him hundreds of times, but I don’t remember ever meeting him. A quirk of small town life. Then there is the multi-generational aspect of music and how the Midnight Quarter fostered that with John. Father and son sharing a stage. I remember how much it meant to John. None of the other kids could say that. </p>
<p><span class="font_large"><strong>Reflection of Frank Zanks by John Oleniacz </strong></span></p>
<p>Most people know I play a number of instruments, but the accordion was where I started at age 9. Both of my parents played accordion in bands years ago. Sadly, I never got to see my mom with a group - I’ve only heard stories. But my dad played in wedding bands throughout my childhood, and so began my desire to play in my own group someday. </p>
<p>Some of you are aware that Frank Zanks passed away recently. Frank was the leader & guitarist for the Midnight Quartet, in which my dad covered the keyboard and bass roles by way of the accordion. I got to thinking this week of the experience I gained during my mid-teens by tagging along on their gigs. I started out by sitting to the side and listening to them. While I was familiar with a handful of “standards” from music lessons, or listening to or playing along with my mom (who always fascinated me when she played a counter line to my melody - a skill I still can’t master to this day), or from listening to old “home” recordings she gave to me, I was introduced to quite a few more from the sidelines at dad’s gigs. Eventually, I assembled my own “fake book” from the myriad of sheet music Frank had - a book I still play from today. </p>
<p>When I learned enough tunes, I started to play solo during their breaks, which eventually earned me a few solo gigs of my own. It was the first band I ever sat in with. It’s where I learned to lay back and play rhythm rather than melody behind a vocal or a sax or guitar solo. It’s where I fell in love with the sound of a sax in a band. It’s likely how I met Walt Bibinger who sometimes sat in for Frank when he couldn’t make a gig. (I later studied guitar with Walt, who among other things broadened my knowledge of jazz standards, some of which weaved their way into my fake book.) </p>
<p>At 16, I had most of their repertoire down and could cover weddings and banquets with the group when my dad couldn’t make a gig. I eventually developed a repertoire of rock tunes which allowed me to team up with Bam Bridge and Tom TC Carpenter to form our first band. When the drummer was looking to sell his old kit, my dad bought it for me, and I taught myself how to play. Within a few months I was sitting in on drums with the group and found myself behind the kit in the pit orchestra for the spring musical in high school, which eventually and somewhat obliquely introduced me to Tom Nelson. The list of influences, connections, experiences and memories goes on. I’m grateful that the group made me feel welcome, and were tolerant whenever I hit a few clunkers or played a little too loud. So here’s a few tunes that you normally would have heard in their first set - “As Long As He Needs Me” and “Who Can I Turn To”. Many thanks to John, Charlie, Dad and Frank, may he Rest In Peace.</p>The Deep Rootstag:thedeeprootsband.com,2005:Post/65175422021-01-10T12:27:15-05:002022-04-23T13:30:02-04:00The Last Waltz - Like the First Time<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/482771/1cd8d62e5a2bc3e351f0698fc9ffd9679f83830e/original/lastwaltz.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>Once in a while something happens that may not have happened if things were normal, like Ryan renting a theater for a band and close friends only viewing of <em>The Last Waltz</em>. </p>
<p>My favorite movie. The most influential piece of art on my whole life. I finally go to see it on the big screen, and it was way better than I imagined. And I have seen it at least 50 times.</p>
<p>However, I started off in know-it-all mode. Saying the lines ahead of the movie. “Good evening.” “Happy Thanksgiving.” Then I was just mesmerized. The next thing I knew they were singing “I Shall Be Released,” and I was thinking, “No. Stop. This is over too quickly.” I could have sat and watched it again. There were so many details to see. You could even look up Neil Young’s nose if you dared. What was the fiddle doing on the piano. Clapton played through the same Music Man amp that I have!</p>
<p>Maybe it was the sound system or the mix, but Levon Helm stole the show for me. I turned to James, “Levon is a fill machine.” I’ve been listening to The Band for over 35 years. How did I not notice that Levon Helm is the greatest drummer ever? </p>
<p>On the way home James and I were talking and I was explaining my reservations about Robbie Robertson and he said, “but Dad, clearly Robbie is the smartest, most talented, and charismatic guy of the whole group.” </p>
<p>One of the things I enjoy about being a dad is losing arguments to my highly opinionated (and highly observant) children. They don’t mind challenging me. </p>
<p>It is easy to try to be too smart. Being raised with MTV, I have a certain skepticism about everything on screen because it can be manipulated, but Martin Scorsese isn’t manipulating Robbie into the star of <em>The Last Waltz</em>. This is someone who won over Ronnie Hawkins at the age of 15, Bob Dylan at 21, Scorsese at 33, and Joshua Tree era U2 at 43. The members of The Band were the cream of the crop, but Robbie was the star of stars. I’m a little ticked at Levon for the damage he has done to Robbie’s reputation. We all have our flaws. Could Levon be guilty of a little bit of envy? </p>
<p>I’ve mentioned that I threw Robbie’s autobiography in the garbage. The only book I’ve ever thrown in the garbage. Call me a Puritan, but I thought there was too much gratuitous sex…but mostly drugs. I don’t know why Robbie had to document every person he ever smoked a joint with. Actually, I do know why. That is probably what the publisher wanted, and it was a way to absolve himself from responsibility of the The Band’s break-up. Everyone was on drugs at the time. Wow. Who knew? That story isn’t new. Noah got himself in trouble when he had too many glasses of wine after the flood. </p>
<p>But you’re Robbie Robertson! One of the most gifted minds in the history of rock and roll. Leave the drug tales to the mediocre looking to make a buck. I want to know what YOU are thinking. But that's me.</p>
<p>One of my favorite quotes I first heard from the late basketball coach and broadcaster Al McGuire. He used to say, “Good players make themselves better. Great players make the players around them better.” Who has made the players around them better than Robbie. The film doesn’t lie.</p>
<p> </p>The Deep Rootstag:thedeeprootsband.com,2005:Post/65108682020-12-31T11:36:53-05:002022-04-23T13:37:06-04:00Year End List <p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/482771/88a4796e9169c3c00c46522fb5cde201e7aec93d/original/top10.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>I’ve always loved reading people’s year end lists of favorite music. I’d spend most of January trying to catch up on what I had missed in the previous year. A few years ago, <em>Warm</em> by Jeff Tweedy appeared on numerous year end favorite lists. I love Jeff Tweedy, but after I took a listen, I came to the conclusion that I was on my own. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, I’ve always wanted to make my own year-end top 10 list. But asking me to pick my favorites releases from 2020 is like asking me to list my favorite light beers. I’m fussier about music than beer. If you asked me what I liked that came out in 2020, I would say, “I liked what my friends put out, but I'd like another question please.” So here's this instead.</p>
<ol> <li>The Deep Roots releasing our first album, <em>Never Coming Back</em>, was a highlight of the year that is difficult to top. I loved everything about it. I’m really proud of what we accomplished, and it left me loving music even more and excited to work on new material. Would I be happier if the number of people who listened to it was closer to 50,000 rather than 50? Even though that is out of my control, it is something I think about. Which leads to number 2. </li> <li>The Deep Roots first electric practice after the lockdown. We had gotten together in the back yard a few times when the restrictions started to get lifted and played acoustic. However, our first session at full volume was memorable. From the first note the monster was out of the cage. There was a lot of pent up stuff that had to get out. When we finished, my wife said that she was shocked that the neighbors didn’t call the cops because we were so obnoxiously loud. I’d like to think that even if our neighbors didn’t like how we sounded, it was at least the sound of normalcy returning and that was alright. Would I trade that night for 50,000 listeners? Never. </li> <li>Social media. I’ve long resisted Facebook, social media, cell phones, web-sites, etc… I’m cool. I’m about the music, man. I’m above all that. Except during a lockdown when you can’t play gigs or even practice. So I read <em>Social Media Promotion For Musicians - Third Edition: The Manual For Marketing Yourself, Your Band, And Your Music Online</em> by Bobby Owsinski. He said I had to develop a web-site, and I had to get on Facebook. No. Not Facebook. Then a funny thing happened, I kind of liked it. I’ve been able to connect with other artists, especially in Pittsburgh. Jacob Stempky of The Mixus Brothers, Chet Vincent, Nicole Leckenby, and Natalie Sebula-Belin, and other artists across the state such as TC Carpenter and Clyde Rosencrance of Sleeplore. Then there was Vulgar Boatmen awareness month, where I got to connect with some of my idols. Would I trade 50,000 listeners for the 50 which includes the artists I’ve listed above and the chance to get to know them and their work? I’m not making that trade either. </li> <li>Whoops. This was a year-end list. I should at least list one album, other than The Deep Roots. I’m going to back 60 years and say the first self-titled <em>Joan Baez</em> album. Yesterday, Prog. Today, folk. He’s lost his mind, but if you listen to her version of “John Riley,” you make think otherwise.</li> <li>Though 10. Whatever. Happy New Year.</li>
</ol>The Deep Rootstag:thedeeprootsband.com,2005:Post/65080692020-12-26T10:49:07-05:002022-04-23T13:37:15-04:00Paleo for Rock Stars<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/482771/75fe989ab14a357bfb2ecd6809239f8bb5abd765/original/caveman.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>Come January, I’m going Paleo. Given the choice between continuing to take a bunch of pills every day for the rest of my life or suspending my skepticism for a month to eat only what my caveman forefathers ate, I’ll stand in solidarity with the Flintstones outside Whole Foods to get my almond flour and organic vegetables. </p>
<p>Sarcasm aside, the idea that what we eat has evolved faster than our bodies ability to digest it, thus causing many of our health problems, is an intriguing idea. I’ll let you know in February how it all works out. I may even become one of those health nuts. In the meantime, if you see me starving hysterical naked, dragging myself through the streets at dawn looking for an angry Twix, you’ll know what’s up. </p>
<p>But does this Paleo idea hold true for music also? Has the evolution of the music business done more harm than good since the caveman days? Let’s look at Caveman Elvis (CE). His primary gig is hunting and gathering (and standing in line at Whole Foods) to support his family and tribe. When the weather is good, he’ll play some tunes around the campfire for everyone’s entertainment. On days when the tribe is flush with free range woolly mammoth steaks and organic carrots, he’ll spend the chill days in camp practicing and teaching the children, and anyone else who is interested, how to play “Snake Skin Shoes.” </p>
<p>I’m assuming that during this downtime is when other advancements, such as improved weapon technology, were made...leisure being the basis of culture. I’d like to argue that every technological innovation regarding music since that time has actually diminished the importance of CE in his tribe. </p>
<p>Take written communication, in an oral culture, CE had to have a good memory to play “Snake Skin Shoes” and other hits. He learned them from an elder in the tribe, and he is obligated to teach the repertoire to the next generation. CE is valuable for what is in his mind and his ability to teach what he knows to others. However, once “Snake Skin Shoes” is written on the wall of a cave, a student can learn it in the privacy of his cave, and CE’s value as a teacher is diminished. Also, since songs were written down, they could be more complicated because you don’t have to remember everything. This also diminished the importance of CE's mind. This was the origin of Prog. (Just sort of kidding. There will be another post my complicated relationship with Progressive Music later.) </p>
<p>At some point, one of CE’s frustrated students found that he could make an extra stone or two by writing CE’s tunes in other caves so that students didn’t have to go to CE for lessons at all. Enter the middle man who eventually hit full stride in sheet music publishing in the mid-1800s. </p>
<p>I don’t want to get tedious about this, but all the advances from recording technology, to commercial radio, to amplification, to records, to Mtv, to streaming has diminished the importance of the individual musician, allowed middle men to come in and take a cut, and lifted very few to “rock star” status. </p>
<p>The problem with “rock star” status is that it presents a measure of success what is about as attainable as winning the lottery. The rest of the musicians are considered “non-essential,” as we've seen by Covid-19 restrictions that have wiped live music off the map without even the slightest, “Hey, wait a minute.” </p>
<p>But I’m not defeated. The end of the year is a time for optimism. Hopefully, when I start eating better, I’ll have more energy, practice more, play more gigs, not to become a rock star, but because that is my role in the tribe…like back in the days of old – before Covid.</p>The Deep Rootstag:thedeeprootsband.com,2005:Post/65034302020-12-19T10:06:23-05:002022-05-25T02:28:03-04:00Everything I Learned about Education I Learned from Rock and Roll<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/482771/a69d19f4e0972f6ff59bdc326a8968b8acac4e4a/original/schoolofrock.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>Working part-time from home the last nine months has enabled me to observe more closely my kid’s education. We’ve been homeschooling for more than 10 years, so the pandemic didn’t really change the way we do business. </p>
<p>What I’ve noticed is the difference in retention between pushed information (something someone else thinks you should know) and pulled information (something you want to know so you look it up). You can’t really do a study on this, but in my estimation the amount of retention for pushed information is almost zilch and pulled information is pretty much all. </p>
<p>I know this is true for myself. I remember zero from my freshman earth science class, but I remember reading in the library before that class that “Like a Rolling Stone” was recorded during a snowstorm and Mike Bloomfield showed up for the session with just his guitar, no case, and had to wipe the snow off before he played those famous leads. </p>
<p>The way my wife has set up our homeschooling program builds on this. In the summer she has a meeting with each kid and they talk about what they want to learn in school the next year. It isn’t a free for all. The kids have a menu that they can choose from, but they have a say. </p>
<p>When the books show up in August, they can’t wait to get started for the subjects they are most interested in – history and literature. Both kids love history, and I’m shocked at how much they know. My daughter already makes connections between current events and historical events. </p>
<p>My son has a great memory for lists, every Led Zeppelin song and album in order (warms my heart) and every professional sports stadium, when it was built and why (go figure). He also knows all the presidents in order, when they were elected, and what party. He already has the timeline of United States history etched in his brain and he can cruise around from time period to time period. I asked him how he is able to memorize all of that information. He says he doesn't know. He just reads it and remembers.</p>
<p>And it isn’t just history, my daughter loves animals so about a month ago we worked out our schedule so we could go to the Pittsburgh Zoo twice in one week. The first time we went through was like a normal visit. The second time I got a master’s level class. After our last visit, she had researched all the animals that she liked and had absorbed and enormous amount of information. Enough information to talk non-stop for over two hours. I barely said anything besides, “Wow, that’s interesting.” </p>
<p>So that’s the second component, you need to have an audience, someone who cares to hear about what you know. That is why grandchildren are so talkative with their grandparents. Grandparents are really interested in listening to them. </p>
<p>You also have to allow time for things to grow. Every day I ask the kids how their school work went. “Fine.” What did you learn? “I don’t know.” But on the way to the grocery store I may get a 10-mintue download on the history of Egypt, or a quick bowl of cereal before bed turns into a 45-minute discussion on the Civil War. </p>
<p>Easy for me to say, my wife does all the heavy lifting getting them to do math and spelling and all of the other stuff that isn't as much fun. But the fact that they are engaged with at least some of their school work in the way I am with studying rock and roll is at least worth noting. </p>
<p> </p>The Deep Rootstag:thedeeprootsband.com,2005:Post/64991092020-12-16T15:02:18-05:002022-04-23T13:46:02-04:00You Can’t Say That: There Is a Class System in the Music Business <p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/482771/f7c68633f52992094e5d6a2585eaaf42fecbbaf3/original/shhh.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>As I get older and crankier, I’ve gotten fussy about how music is covered in the media. There are few writers whose opinions I trust and fewer publications that I can turn to for “what’s good.” But more frustrating is that there appears to be unwritten rules about what you can and can’t say. The biggest is that there is a class system and that media coverage must preserve it. (Borrowing class levels from baseball) </p>
<p><strong>Hall of Fame</strong>. Artists that have had their peak, are still remembered, and still find new listeners thanks to the quality of their work and that their historic significance. Some have achieved financial independence but continue to put out new music because it is what they do and others live on through reissues. This is what every artist strives for: 1) to be remembered 2) to be financially independent because of it. The downside is that as more artists enter the “hall of fame” level the more space they occupy in the listening economy. For example, I’ve been listening to a new compilation of Christy Moore’s early work. It has lead me to listen to The Dubliners and The Clancy Brothers. All old stuff. Are there any new artists working in this tradition that I would like? I don’t know. Where would I even being to find them? </p>
<p><strong>Major League</strong>. Current artists that play 10,000 + seat venues and sell a lot of merch. To reach this level, you need musical talent and the organizational skills to run a mid-size corporation. You'll need to interface with firms who cover travel, publicity, etc... These artists probably average 50 shows over a 2-year period, and a lot of time is spent on administration. This is strictly business. There is a lot of money invested upfront and a lot of people have to buy tickets and merch to make this profitable – so make sure you play the hits! The majority of press coverage goes to artists in this class. In fact, it doesn't even seem possible for an act to play a 10,000 + venue in town and not get a lot of press coverage. I thought the press was independent of the publicity firms. </p>
<p><strong>AAA</strong> Pre-covid these artists played 200 shows per year. Minimal crew, lots of travel. Difficult for most people to sustain, but these artists have their eyes on the next level, which seems attainable and the sacrifice will be worth it when you reach the majors. This class can include artists on their way up and their way down. This is probably the most ancient of the classes. Kings would have a group of musicians that traveled with them for entertainment. I think the myth here is that this class is more transitory than it really is, especially since the media coverage sustains the Hall of Fame and Major League classes. Artists will bankrupt themselves financially and emotionally trying to make it to the next level, but the opportunities to make that jump are few and random. If a person feels the vocation to be a full-time musician, by all means, they should follow that vocation, but do so with the understanding that it is very difficult. The other restriction is that there are only so many places to play. The music economy can only support so many bands playing 200 shows per year. As this level gets crowded, there is less audience for AA. </p>
<p><strong>AA</strong> This is a mix between playing full-time music and subsidizing that with either other employment or some other stream of income – for example you partner/parent covering your expenses. You have artists working side jobs to support their music on one hand and others who have “good situations.” I find this class most interesting for bands who have moved up in the class system and those who remain in it. How did they do it? I think it reveals a lot about their character, and at least for me, changes the way I hear their music. These artists are also have to compete for stage time with the AAA bands and the single A bands who will play for free. </p>
<p><strong>A</strong> These artists are employed full-time outside of the music. Modern technology has made it more accessible than ever for artists in this class to record and make their music available. However, getting people outside of their immediate circle of family and friends to hear their music has probably never been more difficult. The contribution of these artists is easily overlooked. Since, it is sustainable, you could play at this level for 50 years and continue to learn and innovate. There is no “make or break” point. Also, these artists are accessible and sustain local communities. Many give lessons or play at community events. They demonstrate that making music is possible and feed all of the levels above.</p>The Deep Rootstag:thedeeprootsband.com,2005:Post/64956002020-12-09T17:24:53-05:002022-05-29T06:00:41-04:00ANIMAL ATTITUDE<p style="text-align: center;"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/482771/5743a18ab5e4cfa0aba50ddb9957211a0bb3c641/original/sly.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_large">Sly, an enormous yellow lab, started out </span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_large">as a golden ball of fur with papers </span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_large">naming him Sylvester Buttercream. </span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"> </p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_large">Sly is the name we call him, although </span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_large">there is nothing Sly about his intentions </span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_large">as he bounces across the room </span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_large">in search of wet, sloppy kisses. </span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_large">Grace is not his style as he spills </span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_large">more water than he drinks. </span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"> </p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_large">Sly, an affectionate Labrador retriever, is </span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_large">my rival for Jim’s attention. </span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_large">Side by side they watch TV shows and </span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_large">violent videos together. </span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_large">Side by side and safe from my intrusion </span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_large">and subsequent allergic reaction. </span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"> </p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_large">Sly, a constant presence in our lives, </span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_large">brings out the differences in our nature. </span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_large">As we leave an art exhibit in Maine, </span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_large">I talk of island scenes and splashes of color </span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_large">while he zeros in on a yellow lab </span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_large">we encounter in the museum parking lot. </span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"> </p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_large">Susan Sullivan </span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_large">In memory of Sly (1987-1999)</span></p>The Deep Rootstag:thedeeprootsband.com,2005:Post/64913012020-12-07T15:19:49-05:002022-05-14T19:55:35-04:00Greatest Song of the 90s - Back on the Flat<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/482771/c236fd8b6f5e9d2649237e45ba96e60b691884bf/original/blackwells-band-photo.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>“Back on the Flat” is my pick for the greatest song to come out of the 1990s. </p>
<p>And I’ve heard “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” “Alive,” and “All Around the World” etc… </p>
<p>That I would make such a statement is a tip off that my drug of choice is sports talk radio. Nothing numbs the mind from the existential crush of daily life like a heated discussion of who is the greatest quarterback of all time. </p>
<p>If someone made a documentary about The Blackwells, “Back on the Flat” would play over the opening credits of some early footage of us playing and then cut to shots of us now, 25 years later, smiling, shaking hands, and the tears would be flowing, at least for me. </p>
<p>“A long time ago, in another place. A long time ago, I was far away.”</p>
<p>I'm not going to say, "this song is about." I can't say what was going through Andrew Plonsky's 23-year old mind. (I haven't asked in 25 years, and I don't think the answer has changed.) From the text, we can confidently say that "memory" is a theme. </p>
<p>First off, Drew gets the <strong>Robert Ray Excellence in Lyric Writing Award</strong> for this one. (He is the first, and so far the only recipient.) I’ve never heard another song that captures the vibe of The Vulgar Boatmen lyrically. A feature film unfolds around a few snippets of lyrics that you have to construct in your imagination. Who is “they” who were so much younger then? Who is long since dead? How long has the speaker been away? What about the girl? “I remember that you were pretty.” Does the “were” mean that she’s no longer pretty? Endless fascination. </p>
<p>As I’ve gotten older I’ve learned that a very important, but often overlooked, aspect of great writing is who the writer is writing for. I read that Melville wrote <em>Moby Dick</em> (after my second reference to it I'm actually going to have to read the freakin' book) for Nathanial Hawthorne. John Lennon and Paul McCartney were writing songs for each other... </p>
<p>Drew wrote a masterpiece for sure, but he also had an environment in which a masterpiece would be recognized. Steve was older than us and had played in a lot of bands, so when he instantly recognized the quality of the songs we were working on, it was encouraging. All three of us were trying to write songs at a high level. There was a lot of collaboration but also a lot of trying to find our own voice. </p>
<p>One other thing, to form The Blackwells Marc and Drew left their lives in Washington, D.C. and Chicago to move to Pittsburgh, in a house on a hill, with the crazy dream of college buddies trying to make a go of it as a rock and roll band. In "Back on the Flat," it seems Drew had a prophetic vision of what it would be like looking back on the experience.</p>
<p>What really surprised me though was going back and listening to "Belfast" and "Grounded." I'm pretty sure those are Marc's lyrics. It sounds a little to me like the history of The Blackwells through the eyes of a poet. One small example, "We're all doing fine ever since moved over on the hill, but I still don't much about it and I never will." I'll leave any further literary analysis to Brian, Molly, and Emma. </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>The Deep Rootstag:thedeeprootsband.com,2005:Post/64838622020-12-06T13:10:56-05:002022-04-23T13:46:28-04:00Remember The Blackwells<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/482771/6de2e770ce79fb39ed789f24a297e13284d683ae/original/wyep.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><em>Above: Flyer from our appearance on the WYEP Lunchtime Concert Series.</em></p>
<p>Between February 1995 and June 1996 The Blackwells played 50 shows in Western, PA at some of the most historic clubs in the Pittsburgh: The Decade, Graffiti, The Bloomfield Bridge Tavern, Moondogs, and Goosky’s with some of the top artists in the city: D.O.S.E, Carol Lee Espy, Barefoot Serpents, and Lucy Van Sickle. We had gotten air play on WYEP. It is a solid resume for a local band. </p>
<p>We wanted to be as big as Son Volt, Wilco, The Jayhawks, and Whiskeytown, though. In Pittsburgh, we wanted to play for the enthusiastic audiences that packed Nick’s Fat City. None of those things seemed attainable. Schlepping gear at 2:00 a.m. every weekend, playing for less than 10 people, and making no money was exhausting. Steve had a young family and Marc and Drew had serious girlfriends that lived out of state. There comes a point when you have to put everything in perspective. </p>
<p>For 25 years, I've followed the careers of the bands mentioned above. Initially, there has been a lot of, "What did I do wrong? Why couldn't we be like that?" But it has also been rare that I've listened to one of their releases more than once. Jeff Tweedy works his tail off - releasing albums, writing books, 200 shows a year with Wilco, producing other artists, etc... But what I thought "big" was in 1996 doesn't look as big in retrospect. life hasn't been easy for any of those guys. Being a local guy with a day job has its advantages.</p>
<p>Still, I always had a chip on my shoulder that we were shut out of the profitable clubs in Pittsburgh. There are certain rooms that drew crowds and you had to “know” people to play there. None of us grew up in Pittsburgh so we didn’t have the connections. </p>
<p>In reality, people go to clubs on the South Side to hang out with friends and drink. The Nick’s Fat City bands knew how to keep people dancing and buying drinks. They knew how to work the crowd. They sustained the festive atmosphere, and they were pros at it. It was good business, and they deserved the attention, even if I found them cheesy or bland. I'm mellowing in my old age.</p>
<p>I, on the other hand, have never played a single note of a single song that I didn’t want to play. I’ve never given much thought to who I’m playing for and what they might want to hear. I’m rock and roll professor Mark Sullivan who has come down from the mountain to play good music for you. Every time I plug in my Strat I expect the band to be great. I expect my playing to be great. If I hit a bad note, that is good too because it shows this ain’t no karaoke. Nothing else has ever crossed my mind. And yeah, that sounds egotistical to me also. I’ve earned every last drop of my obscurity, but <em>Moby Dick</em> was an obscure novel during Herman Melville’s lifetime. It actually took about 75 years for people to recognize Melville’s genius. </p>
<p>I only have 50 more to go.</p>The Deep Rootstag:thedeeprootsband.com,2005:Post/64838612020-12-01T21:22:01-05:002022-04-23T13:46:31-04:0025th Anniversary of Blue Margins by The Blackwells - Side Two<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/482771/a4140c77fc65dcb41d792a943ee0921cc0d395fe/original/tape.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p><em>Above: The cassette only release of Blue Margins. We had a CD made to send to WYEP. It cost $30 to burn a CD in 1995.</em></p>
<p>One of my friends from the graduate school program I was in at Carnegie Mellon brought her friend, Ray Chick, to one of our gigs. Chick taught a recording class at Carnegie Mellon over the summer for high school kids and said he was always looking for bands that were willing to help out. I offered our services on the spot, took his phone number, and called him every week to remind him and ask when he was having the class. He didn’t return many of my calls, and I got pretty anxious that this was going to fall through. </p>
<p>Chick was clear that he thought we would be able to record at least one song. He was planning to teach the class how to record multi-track, but I was hell-bent on recording six songs – enough to release an EP and try to get some attention for our band. </p>
<p>When Chick finally called me to set up the recording session, I was a little surprised. Could this really be happening? </p>
<p>In July, we had two nights in the studio, which was actually a classroom in the fine arts building at Carnegie Mellon, starting at 6:00 p.m. We had one night to lay down tracks and another night to mix. For me at the time, laying down the basic tracks for six songs in one night seemed possible. Durty Nelly had done something similar a few years before. At that point, we had only been playing out for five months. So we practiced our best six songs and had them ready to cut in one take.</p>
<p>At that time, I also did something else for the first time. I called mom my and asked to borrow some money to buy a new guitar. It was a decent amount of money. She agreed, and I went to Pittsburgh Guitars and bought a Rickenbacker 12-string, just like Roger McGuinn. I don't remember thinking about it or doing research or asking anyone's opinion. I just needed that guitar in the studio. I play it on "Belfast," "Back on the Flat," and "Grounded." I tried to play it just like my Strat, and it sounds like I'm struggling at times, but it also gave us a distinctive sound.</p>
<p>Anyway, the most we played any song was three times. Several were first takes. It was high stress. We had to load in, set up, sound check, and play each song perfectly. I don’t think I could do it now. We didn’t get out of there until after midnight. </p>
<p>I remember Marc overdubbed a few vocals, and the harmonica on “Back on the Flat.” I don’t recall overdubbing a single guitar note. What I thought was youthful humility and artistic purity, I didn’t believer in overdubs, effects, or guitar pedals, was actually arrogance and laziness. For a long time when I listened to <em>Blue Margins</em> I thought I sounded like an amateur. My tone was thin, and it was obvious that I was winging it on the solos. </p>
<p>Now when I think back on recording <em>Blue Margins</em> I think of how gracious Ray Chick was to allow us to plow through those songs, even though it probably made it not as much of a learning experience for his students. It was a selfish move on my part. </p>
<p>But like the lyrics to "Belfast," “I don’t worry that much who’s living on the other side of the wall.” When I listen to <em>Blue Margins</em> now, I’m really impressed. It doesn’t sound dated at all. The Blackwells had a jazzy feel that I never recognized when we were playing together. There is a lot of interaction between the four of us. I don’t hear what my parts lack. I just hear it as part of the whole that it is. That is the sound of The Blackwells – Marc Nelson, Andrew Plonsky, Steve Everett, and me playing together. Like a finger prints, no two bands are the same. </p>
<p>And it got played on the radio! </p>
<p>Of course my opinion is subjective, and highly biased. I was in the band.</p>The Deep Rootstag:thedeeprootsband.com,2005:Post/64838602020-11-27T17:56:18-05:002022-04-26T12:16:41-04:0025th Anniversary of Blue Margins by The Blackwells - Side One<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/482771/7dfeb22568b271360bb3d3e0ebc199798d84b727/original/flyer.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><em>Above: Vintage Steve Everett-designed flyer. Before the internet age, this was how you promoted gigs. The line in The Deep Roots song, "Over Our Heads," references these flyers. "Hanging flyers, we'll make it big, but no one came to our list gig." (The gig was at the short-lived Riviera Lounge in Duquesne, PA.)</em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>In 1995, there was great hope in the band world. Nirvana had ushered in a new era. Cool bands had gotten signed and were getting played on commercial radio stations. For example, “Drown” by Son Volt got played on WDVE, at least once. Even the Butthole Surfers got signed and written-up in Rolling Stone. </p>
<p>And that’s not all. Nirvana had lifted the whole Seattle scene. Other Seattle bands got signed based on their zip code. It also made sense that some other city would soon catch fire and become the “next Seattle.” It was bound to happen. That is the way music had worked, and Pittsburgh looked like it was in the running. Rusted Root had broken into the mainstream with a new distinct sound. Bill Deasy and The Gathering Field looked like they were poised to make the big jump as well. </p>
<p>And! The guitarist for The Gathering Field, Dave Brown, was a good friend of our sound man, Paul Fry. Brown had recorded the three albums released by Fry’s band, Stinging Rain. Some local music critics thought that Stinging Rain would be the next U2. </p>
<p>The potential was there.</p>
<p>But there were two problems. First recording an album that sounded professional was expensive. Really expensive. The record companies were wise enough at that point that they would let upcoming bands foot the bill for their recording and then sign them if the album sold well. No risk on their part. And you had to have thousands of CDs made.</p>
<p>The second problem was that not many people came to see us play. It was that way for all of the local original bands. It was the room that drew the people. Around that time, D.O.S.E was an up and coming band. They had recently won the Graffiti Rock Challenge and released an album. We saw them at Nick’s Fat City one night and the place was jammed. A month later, we played a gig with them at Moondogs and there were only ten people there. </p>
<p>If you spent $10,000 recording an album, you’d have to sell at least 1000 copies to recoup your money. Getting 1000 people to buy an album by an unknown band was a tall order. You could buy some advertising, but that would be on top of the $10,000 you already spent.</p>
<p>I remember reading that drugs were the “dirty little secret” of rock and roll. I disagree, the dirty little secret is musicians in massive, massive debt. </p>
<p>So you have to find a way to record on the cheap, and we did....</p>The Deep Rootstag:thedeeprootsband.com,2005:Post/64423162020-11-26T21:56:09-05:002023-02-20T13:37:45-05:00Interview with James Sullivan on the 40th Anniversary of the Passing of John Bonham <p><strong>Do you remember how you first got interested in John Bonham and Led Zeppelin? </strong></p>
<p>My drum teacher [Chris Belin] gave me a lesson sheet that had some beats to practice. He had penciled in at the top “The Ocean, Led Zeppelin” because that is where he had pulled it from. I was curious about it so I asked you about it when we were in the car one day. You completely lost your mind. You were so excited I was asking you about Led Zeppelin. </p>
<p><strong>How old were you? </strong></p>
<p>I was ten. After that, the band learned “The Ocean” and we started to play it as an instrumental. There are a lot of complicated drum parts in there and Chris and I worked on it for a while. </p>
<p><strong>Is that when you started to get into Led Zeppelin? </strong></p>
<p>No. I think I was 12 when I really got into them. </p>
<p><strong>Have you listened to every album? </strong></p>
<p>I can name every song on every album. </p>
<p><strong>“Good Times, Bad Times,”</strong> …. [He goes on to name every Zeppelin song in order album by album in the time it takes to toast a bagel and put cream cheese on it. It is like he is reciting the alphabet.] </p>
<p>Sorry. I can’t remember the last song on In Through the Out Door. I only listened to Coda once. That isn’t really an album anyway. Presence is a masterpiece. That is their progiest album. </p>
<p><strong>What draws you to John Bonham?</strong> </p>
<p>The power. Everything. He can do anything he wants with the drums. When I listen to him, I never think, I could have done more with this or that. His parts are so well thought-out and developed. Also, he was essential to the band’s sound. After he died they couldn’t go on without him. Keith Moon died but The Who just replaced him. The Rolling Stones don’t seem to have an issue with replacing people. </p>
<p><strong>What was your reaction when you learned the circumstances around his death? </strong></p>
<p>Sad. Really sad. It is sad that nobody helped him. Obviously he had a serious addiction. I read that he hated being in Led Zeppelin and he hated touring and being away from his family. I don’t know anything about his character or what he was like. It seems like what has been written about him focuses on his negative qualities. In the end, it is just really sad.</p>The Deep Rootstag:thedeeprootsband.com,2005:Post/64838592020-11-26T21:47:23-05:002022-05-11T12:46:01-04:0025th Anniversary of Blue Margins by The Blackwells - Intro<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/482771/c236fd8b6f5e9d2649237e45ba96e60b691884bf/original/blackwells-band-photo.jpg/!!/undefined/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsImxhcmdlIl1d.jpg" class="size_xl justify_center border_" /><em>The Blackwells: from left to right: Mark Sullivan, Steve Everett, Marc Nelson, and Andrew Plonsky.</em></p>
<p>I’m a child of the box-set era. The CD-reissue era, with bonus tracks, photo, essays, and linear notes. Rhino Compilations were made for people like me. </p>
<p>December 8, 2020 is the 25th anniversary of the release of the Blue Margins EP, by The Blackwells. Their only official release, and to date, the only music that I’ve worked on that has gotten airplay. In the spring of 1996, WYEP played songs from Blue Margins pretty regularly. On multiple occasions I was in my car and one of our songs came on the radio. And on multiple occasions I answered the phone only to hear the receiver being held up to a speaker with one of our songs playing in the background and then someone yelling, “You’re on the freakin’ radio!” </p>
<p>Those memories never get old. </p>
<p>I’ve always dreamed that at some point in my life I would have enough musical material to warrant a box set. That would be better than making the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and I would write a really cool essay to go with it – filled with me years of accumulated, whit, savvy, and extensive musical knowledge. The only problem is that the box set has gone the way of the magazine, the CD, and the landline, and my whit, savvy, and extensive musical knowledge never existed. </p>
<p>These days, a band’s legacy is posted on Soundcloud or Reverb Nation and that is that. But what becomes of my dream? My lifetime spent reading linear notes when I should have been reading A Tale of Two Cities? Will I never get to fulfil my dream?</p>The Deep Rootstag:thedeeprootsband.com,2005:Post/64834962020-11-22T18:58:51-05:002022-05-24T16:50:46-04:00Sleeplore: New Project from Clyde Rosencrance<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/482771/a4b41791454863061cdd40acd8bc3eef8d2a5363/original/clyde.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>“One of the biggest changes that I’ve seen in the recording industry in the last 10 to 15 years has been the loss of specialization,” said Clyde Rosencrance, Producer and Engineer at Republic Audio Studio in Clarks Summit PA. </p>
<p>“There used to be people that specialized in engineering, or producing, or mastering, or even just recording drums. But now, everyone has to do a little bit of everything. I do some recording, mixing, editing, mastering, studio work…whatever the project calls for. For me it is a good thing because I’m always learning new techniques, and I’m always needing to find new ways to be creative.” </p>
<p>All of this learning is coming to fruition in Rosencrance’s latest project called Sleeplore, which focuses on his own original material. </p>
<p>“When you play all the instruments yourself you get so close to it that it’s hard to tell what it sounds like.” </p>
<p>When asked, he says Sleeplore’s enveloping sound is influenced by artists like Sparklehorse, Sigur Ros, The National, Radiohead, Coldplay, Pink Floyd and The Stills. </p>
<p>It is an ambitious project. As described on his website, “Sleeplore offers listeners a sonic template from which they can contemplate their own unique stories.” The description sells “Let Go” a little short, though. It is a beautiful song. It is the kind of song that changes the atmosphere of the room or the surrounding landscape. It transports you back to where you are but with new energy. </p>
<p>“I’ve decided to just release singles because that’s closer to the way that a lot of people listen to music now and that’s what seems to drive the social media algorithms. It also allows me to change it up from song to song. For my next single I’m having one of my friends play bass on it. I could have played bass myself, but having someone else play on the track adds a whole new dimension to it.” </p>
<p>So how does he do it? It turns out that the lack of specialization also applies to a career in music as a whole. </p>
<p>“I learned recording out of necessity. I was playing in bands and writing songs, but I needed a way to remember what I’d written. I started with the old four-track recorder and cassette tapes and went on from there.” </p>
<p>The current state of the music industry seems to suit him as well. </p>
<p>“We live in a gig economy. The line between what it means to be a professional musician and being an amateur gets very blurry. You could be on the road for three months full-time and then have an office job for six months. It all depends on the project.” </p>
<p>“I’ve been fortunate to have a full-time job for the last 15 years that I like, and I’m able to do some music on the side. It enables me to be able to focus on projects that I like, and it also allows me to be creative. Don’t get me wrong, it can get very busy at times. But if I was trying to do music full-time, I’d also have to work on projects that I wouldn’t find as interesting.”</p>The Deep Rootstag:thedeeprootsband.com,2005:Post/64716492020-11-06T15:21:16-05:002022-07-26T19:04:43-04:00Turn Off the News and Turn on Local Music (How Local Bands Will Save Democracy) <p><em>So tired, tired of waiting, tired of waiting for you." – Ray Davies </em></p>
<p><em>"The waiting is the hardest part." – Tom Petty </em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Just let me know the outcome so that I can go deal. Is that too much to ask? </p>
<p>These times are a reminder of how much we hate uncertainty. We are hard-wired to know things, and we have such an aversion to uncertainty that sometimes we would even accept a known outcome, even if it isn't to our liking, just to make the uncertainty stop. It is our self-preservation instinct kicking in. </p>
<p>At the core, we are uncertain about ourselves. To put it more poetically, we are mysteries to ourselves. And if we are mysteries to ourselves, who are other people? Who knows what they’ll do? They may cough on me, and I’ll get sick and die. </p>
<p>But in that uncertainty lies our uniqueness and freedom. We are all individuals – no two alike. If I could totally understand myself, or understand you, I would be able to predict how I would act or how you would act. I can’t though because we can't be reduced to an assembly of known attributes from a pick list that if arranged in a certain way will produce a certain result. </p>
<p>What does this have to do with local bands? Local bands are the leaders in uncertainty. Just ask them. But deep down there is a drive to make great music and for that music to be great there has to be mystery. There has to be uncertainty. To make music that is predictable is to fail. The minute a listener hits the stop button and says, “I know where this is going,” the party is over. </p>
<p>We learn that lesson listening to hours and hours of music. It is the mystery that calls us to listen over and over again. "Are those songs autobiographical? What pedal did he use? How did Paul write "Here, There and Everywhere?'" Once a band’s mystery has been solved, it is off to the next. </p>
<p>The beauty is in the surprise. The unexpected glimpse into the soul of another person through a speaker. A glimpse that reveals a little, but also reveals that there is more to be known. How is that even possible with a few chords and a minor pentatonic scale? </p>
<p>Anyone that tells you that he has it all figured out is in a band that sucks. He may make a ton of money, but his band still sucks. </p>
<p>Every band is a local band. You can't be unique unless you have an address, sweat through your shirt, and choose what kind of beer to drink at practice. And every band has flaws. (When was the last time you listened to side two of <em>Yellow Submarine</em>?) When there is freedom, there are choices. And where there are choices there are mistakes, faults, and failures, but we still get to make those choices in a democracy. </p>
<p>It is in the local bands, and in our local bands of people that surround us, that we encounter the uncertainty, the faults, and the flaws that accompany our freedom - even if it is painful sometimes. The other option is to trade in our uniqueness and freedom for the certainty and predictability of commercial radio and corporate rock bands.</p>
<p>As for me, I'm going to keep rocking, and I'm going to double down and support the other local bands who are rocking for freedom, rocking for individuality, rocking for democracy.</p>The Deep Rootstag:thedeeprootsband.com,2005:Post/64434362020-09-26T09:41:48-04:002022-05-07T05:32:30-04:00Can Your Band Play "Stairway" and Still Be Cool? <p>I know cool bands don’t cover “Stairway to Heaven.” In fact, I’ve never heard any band cover “Stairway” anywhere period, but that is the only song that James has ever insisted that the band learn. It is difficult to deny your teenage son the opportunity to play “Stairway,” especially when he volunteers to sing it. So, I don’t think playing it made me less cool, it is just that people who think I’m cool became more select. You can decide for yourself if you think this was cool at all. </p>
<p>Here is what happened. We had a gig at a local parish festival. We were given a time slot between 7:30 and 8:00 between two ethnic dance groups. We were to set up, play, and be cleared out in less than 30 minutes. Not gonna happen. </p>
<p>So I made a counter proposal. We move the start of the festival to 6:30, and we go on first. We’ll be cleared out by 7:30. The dance group that was going on first didn’t like this idea. It is always better to set up at your leisure and not have to wait for anyone. The other performers were like, “Who does he think he is changing the schedule?” </p>
<p>So we’re playing our set and around 7:00 the ethnic dance group, in full costume, starts to surround the stage. At about 7:10, their leader goes over to the sound guy and starts making a slashing sign across her throat and then motioning with her thumb over her shoulder. I don’t know how to read lips, and I don’t understand sign language, but I think she meant, “Get them off now. Pull the power if you have to.” </p>
<p>At the end of the song I make eye contact with the sound guy and put up one finger and nod my head. He nods that he understands we are going to do one more. Their leader doesn’t like this one bit. She wants us off now and starts doing the slash/thumb gestures double time. </p>
<p>The sound guys looks back to me hoping that given her reaction we will call it a day. But we had learned “Stairway.” I’d been practicing it for a month. James wanted to play this. And, his buddy Matt, also 13, was going to play the “Stairway” solo on saxophone. </p>
<p>So I looked right at her and played the opening arpeggio to “Stairway” and she completely flipped out. She knew what was happening. She started banging her fists on the side of the stage. I didn’t see her after that. </p>
<p>Later that summer, I ran into the sound guy at another function. He said that was the funniest thing he had seen all summer and the best cover of “Stairway” he’d heard in a really long time.</p>The Deep Rootstag:thedeeprootsband.com,2005:Post/64397672020-09-22T19:34:24-04:002022-07-19T04:35:33-04:00To Be a Cult Band <p>At the start of Vulgar Boatmen Awareness Month I wrote, “The point of Vulgar Boatmen awareness month is to highlight the fact that our language has difficulty communicating that a band can be qualitatively better than 99% of the other bands and deserve greater attention. To use more philosophical language, to highlight the fact that a rock and roll band can create something that can only be called beautiful - a work of art - not an article of commerce.” </p>
<p>Hmmm. Sounds like someone was reading too much T.S. Eliot </p>
<p>I missed the obvious answer: The Vulgar Boatmen are a “cult band” – small passionate fan base. </p>
<p>It took me awhile to get there. At first I was thinking that The Boatmen were representative of underappreciated artists, and we should have an underappreciated artist day. After you thank the veterans, emergency responders, essential health care works, and teachers, please thank your local indie rock band for…? I love rock and roll, but I didn’t see that going anywhere. </p>
<p>Then I remembered interviewing author Matthew Bunson who had written a book called <em>The Encyclopedia of The Saints</em>. I asked him the obvious question, “How do people become saints, like really though, step by step?” He gave me an answer that stuck. Step 1, paraphrasing, most people are forgotten after they die, but some people because they were martyrs or because they lived interesting/holy lives are remembered long after they are gone. People continue to think about them, talk about them, write about them, create art inspired by them, and they even have parties at their grave sites (no kidding. Checkout Augustine’s <em>Confessions 6, 2, 2</em>). Sometimes from this small base of fans it snowballs becomes the cult of a saint. The Church will either officially recognize the cult of that saint by formal canonization or it will just remain a local pious tradition. </p>
<p>Cult has several variations of meaning and some of them have negative connotations, but I still think it is the right word. What the definitions don’t capture is where the passion comes from, and I think that is the key. The passion has to come from the fans, almost spontaneously, but definitely organically. You can’t set out to become a cult band, just like you can’t hire a marketing team to make you a saint after you die. A band has to make music that is interesting enough that people continue to care, listen, and talk about it. All a band can do is make the best music that they can, who knows what people will think. Being commercially successful is different. You can make a business plan and elbow your way into a competitive music market. You put yourself where the money is changing hands. I think your success is based largely on your skill at being a good small business owner and not necessarily your musical talent, and there is nothing wrong with that. </p>
<p>I can also see why band members would be weirded out by members of their band’s “cult.” The cult is a separate from the band, and people join the cult because they want to. It isn’t something they have to do or because it was marketed that way. But once you are a member of the cult, you are a participant in the life of the cult. You can’t be in the band, but you belong to the cult around it with other crazy people like yourself. And when you are in the cult, you are not merely an observer drinking an overpriced beer at the show. </p>
<p>So being a fan of The Vulgar Boatmen is a way of life! Not really. Huge overstep. But it does feel good to let your passion out of the bag once in a while. Embarrass yourself. Tell a total stranger you think they are great. Now that I know how to use Facebook, I probably won’t wait until next September.</p>The Deep Rootstag:thedeeprootsband.com,2005:Post/64396622020-09-21T17:58:23-04:002022-04-23T13:55:16-04:00How I Bought My First Vulgar Boatmen Record<p>Having an "official" favorite band used to be important. When I went to high school back in the 1980s, it was common to dress in accordance with your favorite band or style of music - Dead Head, Metal Head, Goth, Punk, Rap (this was there era of Run DMC and the Beastie Boys). I liked The Band. My goal was to fade into the background and hope that the night mare would be over soon. My freshman year in college I was introduced to The Vulgar Boatmen. The combination of the subversive name with the perfect, unpretentious rock songs was irresistible. They were my new favorite band. I HAD to buy <em>You and Your Sister</em>, but I couldn’t find it. </p>
<p>I couldn’t pass a record store without stopping in and asking, “Do you carry <em>You and Your Sister</em> by The Vulgar Boatmen? If not, could you order it?” </p>
<p>“The what?” </p>
<p>“The Vulgar Boatmen. The album was reviewed in <em>Rolling Stone</em>.” </p>
<p>“All the metal is in that big section in the middle.” </p>
<p>“They are nothing like metal.” </p>
<p>“We don’t carry that hard core crap here either.” </p>
<p>I was being insulted on account of my favorite band. I was fighting to preserve their good name! I was all in! I visited the record store in the mall near where I lived in western New Jersey every chance I got…for a year. </p>
<p>One day I noticed an address on the back of <em>The Silos</em> (with the bird on the cover). So I wrote a letter, “To whom it may concern: I’d like to buy a copy of <em>You and Your Sister</em> by The Vulgar Boatmen and <em>About Her Steps</em> and <em>Cuba</em> by The Silos. Can you help me?” About a week letter I received a letter, “Dear Mark, Thank you for your interest. I have a few boxes of these in my kitchen. I can send you <em>You and Your Sister</em> and <em>About Her Steps</em> on cassette and <em>Cuba</em> on CD. Please send me a check for $20, and I’ll send them to you. Signed – Walter Salas-Humara.” </p>
<p>This was long before fan engagement on social media. I was thrilled, but I didn’t have a checking account. I had to give my dad $20 and ask him to write a check. This was the era of Guns n Roses. He thought I was sending a check to Slash, and I was out of my mind. I’d always been sensible though, and I managed to convince him that these guys were different. </p>
<p>I still have those cassettes and <em>Cuba</em> still gets played regularly. I remember showing my dad when they arrived, “Look these are my people.” My dad said, “I give you credit, you have faith in humanity.”</p>The Deep Rootstag:thedeeprootsband.com,2005:Post/64264652020-09-06T13:48:14-04:002022-04-23T13:51:09-04:00The Vulgar Boatmen - A Personal History: Part I <p>My friend Marc’s freshman dorm room was a half a flight of stairs from the front door. If he was around, his door would be open and there would be music playing. You couldn’t come or go from our dorm without hearing what he was listening to. </p>
<p>During the first week of school, he was playing Robbie Robertson’s first solo album, so I stopped in, introduced myself, and we became friends for life. The other musically obsessed guys in the dorm did the same. We congregated in Marc’s room to listen to music because it was it was centrally located, and he had the best stereo system - a Denon receiver with Polk speakers. You could really hear if the snare was recorded properly. </p>
<p>It was there that I heard for the first time, The Blake Babies, The Connells, Dump Truck, The Pixies, The Waterboys, John Hiatt, pre-Money for Nothing Dire Straits, Husker Du, Johnny Clegg, Camper Van Beethoven, and Toad the Wet Sprocket. To name a few, and that was just the first semester. </p>
<p>I loved The Band and used the guest list at The Last Waltz as my music education syllabus. When my family went to the mall, they’d let me hang out in the book store where I’d look through the books and take notes. This was before the internet. Luckily in the late 1980s, albums were starting to be reissued on CD, so I was album to buy the albums that I was reading about. </p>
<p>The rest of our music obsessed group, Drew, Joe, and Tim, had a similar self-directed musical educations. We would listen and talk for hours about what was good and what didn’t make the grade. At the end of the first semester, we knew what was good. </p>
<p>Early in our second semester in 1990, the first New Route sampler came out. The first song was “I’m Over You” by The Silos. The second was “Nothing Compares to U” by Sinead O’Connor. We flipped out over both. O’Connor broke quickly and we were soon hearing her played over the intercom in the cafeteria…a very, very, bad sign. The Silos from the first snare hit of “I’m Over You” fulfilled all that we were longing for. And then Drew borrowed a copy of Cuba from the college’s radio station and it was even better! There was an early thaw in the Scranton winter and all was good. </p>
<p>Marc must have returned from spring break with a copy of the album “You and Your Sister.” I remember he gathered us together with some urgency to hear this new band – another band that Walter Salas-Humara was involved with. I was either late to the session or “Mary Jane” didn’t grab me, but when I heard the song “You and Your Sister,” that was it. I had to get a guitar, learn to play it, and form a band. It was not an option. I had listened to music my whole life to prepare me for that moment. </p>
<p>I remember the term we used to describe the sound was “basic.” Not a crowning vocabulary moment for a bunch of liberal arts students. I think what we recognized in our hours and hours and hours of listening is that The Boatmen had stripped away all the non-essentials, the posturing, the over production, the politics, everything that stood between the listener and the song. It was simply beautiful. Thirty years later, it still sounds beautiful.</p>The Deep Rootstag:thedeeprootsband.com,2005:Post/64260192020-09-05T16:31:29-04:002022-04-23T13:51:15-04:00VB Awaremess Month: What Does it Mean for a Band to Make It? <p>One of the things going through my mind with The Vulgar Boatmen is how do you define the quality of a band and how that relates to its perceived success? Did they make it? </p>
<p>There has always been a thick line in my mind between “Making It” and “Not Making it.” On the one side you have failure, not good enough, should have stuck with playing covers, and “I’ve deluded myself thinking I could be a successful musician.” On the other side, “you’re signed,” “welcome to the club,” “you don’t have to work a day job,” “your talent and hard work has been independently evaluated and it has been determined that you have what it takes. Congratulations.” While the taxman may say that your occupation is “entertainer,” you are a rock star, a cultural icon, the voice of a generation, you are the person that the losers of the world look up to from their lonely, pathetic meaningless lives! </p>
<p>If you’ve never fallen into that trap, let me know. I need a life coach. </p>
<p>I know it is all wrong. But no matter how much light I try to shine on it, I still have trouble shaking it. When I look up a new band on YouTube, the first thing I look at is the number of views. If it is 5,000,000, I’m jealous and think there must be something shady going on. If it is 5,000, I wonder if they have day jobs. If it is 50, I say, “How cool am I? I can still pick out awesome music that the rest of the ignorant population ignores.” Then I ask myself how many listens would it take for me to feel validated about our band, The Deep Roots? Given my vanity, after one billion listens I’d still be depressed that we weren’t bigger in India. </p>
<p>We have all heard the “down” side of making it. The debt to the record company, but also the isolation and all that goes with it. If you are doing music full-time, there is the risk that you won’t develop skills or aspects of your personality that would have been developed if you had to live a “normal” life with a job. You can easily ended up deformed looking like a character from Spinal Tap. </p>
<p>However, recently I interviewed <a contents="Jacob Stempky of The Mixus Brothers" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://thedeeprootsband.com/home/blog/interview-with-jacob-stempky-aka-jebbh-mixus">Jacob Stempky of The Mixus Brothers</a>, and he views things in terms of “inspiration.” I had never really figured that into the equation. I looked up the definition of the verb inspire: “fill (someone) with the urge or ability to do or feel something, especially to do something creative.” </p>
<p>Why not reframe the question of success from “did I make it” to “did I inspire?” Inspiration operates outside of the cash economy. You can’t pay someone $20 to inspire you. It has its own invisible economy. As Jacob describes it, you inspire someone and they inspire you back. It has its own life cycle. You don’t lose out when you inspire. You end up receiving more than you gave. </p>
<p>I think the opposite of being inspired is “too busy doing what you have to do or resting up to do what you have to do instead of spending some time on what you were meant to do.” </p>
<p>My take away from this is to ask myself, “Am I inspiring the people around me, my friends family, neighbors, and co-workers? Am I filling them with the urge or ability to create? Maybe I’ll rid my mind of the rock star bs once and for all or at least stop worrying about success. </p>
<p>You may have guessed that no band has inspired me more than The Vulgar Boatmen.</p>The Deep Rootstag:thedeeprootsband.com,2005:Post/64212772020-08-31T20:53:14-04:002022-05-18T12:00:44-04:00September is Vulgar Boatmen Awareness Month <p>Last year I declared September 23rd to be National Vulgar Boatmen Appreciation Day. (Casual Readers: The Vulgar Boatmen have a song titled “23rd of September.”) </p>
<p>The point of Vulgar Boatmen awareness month is to highlight the fact that our language has difficulty communicating that a band can be qualitatively better than 99% of the other bands and deserve greater attention. To use more philosophical language, to highlight the fact that a rock and roll band can create something that can only be called beautiful - a work of art - not an article of commerce.</p>
<p>There are categories – jam bands, punk bands, indie pop, prog, post rock, and on it goes. These categories attempt to herd listeners into familiar pens. However, the categorization is horizontal and does not evaluate for quality of the music. The leap to The Vulgar Boatmen is vertical but not immediately obvious. It requires effort (or cultivation) on the part of the listener. Appreciation of The Vulgar Boatmen is not mere sensory stimulation like putting your hand over a hot stove. It is sensing but also reflecting, evaluating, and comparing to other music that has been listened to deliberately and evaluated. Through highly-tuned and developed senses the beauty of The Vulgar Boatmen can be recognized. Not everyone gets The Boatmen, but those that do I have found to have a certain cultivation in common.</p>
<p>The beauty of their music comes from quality of the music itself, not how many records they sold, what bands they can be categorized with, how compelling their biography. The power of the music is demonstrated by the fact that 25 years after the release of their last album that people still care. That a fan, Fred Uhter, made a <a contents="documentary" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://www.newfilmmakersonline.com/title.aspx?levelID=10780&assetID=2648">documentary</a> about the band, funding it himself. </p>
<p>But isn’t music just a matter of personal taste? I’ll answer that using the Budweiser versus Guinness example. If you have only ever drank Budweiser, you may think that is good. Once you try Guinness, you discover that what is called a beer can be something quite different and that difference is not only the style, stout versus lager, but in the quality. Knowing about Guinness opens a new horizon. You may like Guinness better or worse, but you awareness of the difference will increase or decrease your fondness for Bud. You leave the glass a person changed forever.</p>
<p>Not everyone has to agree with me that The Vulgar Boatmen are one of the all-time great bands, but to have listened to them will have added to the richness of your life – like having a Guinness.</p>
<p>I plan to post Vulgar Boatmen related items until the 23rd of September to increase awareness. I invite others to join me.</p>The Deep Rootstag:thedeeprootsband.com,2005:Post/64206872020-08-30T22:15:35-04:002022-04-23T13:51:21-04:00Remembering D. C. Fitzgerald<p>Today, August 31st, would have been my friend and guitar teacher D.C. Fitzgerald’s 75th birthday. Our Lord took him home on November 13th, 2006. </p>
<p>In my opinion, he is one of the all-time greats in American Music. A singer, songwriter, guitarist, and performer of the highest order. Richard Thompson and Rev. Gary Davis are the only other musicians that come to mind when it comes to excelling in all four areas. Not a lot of his material that I know best is available on line. His cover of "<a contents="Sweet Little Sixteen" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwz-Ri89mqQ&list=PL1L2BmKln8E657V52zgcImhqEHb_tpQ3z&index=11">Sweet Little Sixteen</a>" and "<a contents="Oak Tree" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42brl6UrTjk&list=PL1L2BmKln8E657V52zgcImhqEHb_tpQ3z&index=3">Oak Tree</a>" will give you the idea.</p>
<p>The fact that he isn’t more well-known or didn’t sell more records is a mystery. He knew that God wasn’t judging him on record sales anyway. </p>
<p>He was also a teacher of the highest He could break everything down for you and watch patiently as you slowly absorbed it until the magic moment when “the penny drops,” and you get it. </p>
<p>I met D.C. Fitzgerald for the first time early in August 1999. I walked into his living room, which was crowded with people fawning over his baby granddaughter, Che. “Isn’t she the cutest thing that you’ve ever seen? All of a sudden there is another person in the room,” he said with total excitement as we headed into the kitchen for our lesson. </p>
<p>The excitement in the Fitzgerald household was good for me. I was at a low point. A relationship that I thought was very promising had ended suddenly, and I had that conversation with myself that if I was going to be a bachelor for the rest of my life, what was I going to do with it. It seemed that my days of playing in bands were over, but I always wanted to learn to play acoustic blues, kind of like Robert Johnson. So I called up Calliope, the local folk music society, and asked if they could put me in touch with a good blues teacher. The response was, “Delta Blues or ragtime blues?” </p>
<p>“Uh, what is ragtime blues?” </p>
<p>“Like what Ernie Hawkins plays” </p>
<p>“Who is Ernie Hawkins?” </p>
<p>“What! You’ve never heard of Ernie Hawkins! He’s the best ragtime blues player in the world and he lives right here in Pittsburgh. But he isn’t taking new students right now. I’ll give you the number of D.C. Fitzgerald.” </p>
<p>Fitz told me later that earlier that day he had called Calliope and asked if they could hook him up with some students. He had had major surgery and was now recovered enough to start teaching again. </p>
<p>At that first lesson, I remember that Fitz asked me to introduce himself and then he started to preach. Zig-zagging from St. Paul to Mick Jagger and back. Then he played some of his “dead thumb” blues and some ragtime and said, “I don’t know much, but I can teach you what I know. Are you interested in any of this?” I don’t think I said it this clearly, but my reply was, “I want to learn everything that you know.” I took lessons from him for almost four years – three or four lessons a month. A lesson was always at least two hours. The guitars wouldn’t come out of the cases until the second hour, if at all. We talked music, of course, religion, we were both Catholic, politics, we challenged each other, and life in general. </p>
<p>Over those four years, I think he let me borrow almost all of his CDs at least once. I loaned him most of mine as well. There was also a regular exchange of books. I’d like to say that I got a four-year degree from Fitzgerald Academy. A degree that I’m still trying to put into practice. Not to sound weird, but he’s still teaching me. Out of nowhere I’ll hear, “My man, my man, check this out!” I’ll hear his giggle and thank him for looking out for me. </p>
<p>In honor of his birthday, I recorded, in my kitchen, two of the first songs he taught me, “<a contents="Victory Rag" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hgucq2uv3Y4">Victory Rag</a>” and “<a contents="Windy and Warm" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2a3R8syqps">Windy and Warm</a>.” I also recorded a <a contents="medley of children’s" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPlqsQVhdKg">medley of children’s</a> songs that I arranged myself in the tradition of Fitz. (Fitz would have had a lot more running bass, but I did manage to get a few cool chords in there.)</p>The Deep Rootstag:thedeeprootsband.com,2005:Post/64201402020-08-29T10:31:58-04:002022-04-23T13:51:25-04:00Interview with Jacob Stempky (aka Jebbh Mixus)<p>I first read about The Mixus Brothers in the Pittsburgh City Paper several years ago. The article interested me enough to check out their music. Their laid-back “we’re just a couple of dads making music on the side” description of themselves didn’t match the music that they were making and the way they presented themselves. There was something highly artistic going. This spring, out of nowhere, my cousin’s husband asked me if I’d ever heard of The Mixus Brothers. His childhood friend, Jacob Stempky, was Jebbh Mixus. He put us in touch. Stempky graciously answered my questions, and I think the conversation will keep going. </p>
<p>The Mixus Brothers recently released their new EP, <a contents="The Lonesome Gods, Chapter 2" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://themixusbrothers.bandcamp.com/">The Lonesome Gods, Chapter 2</a>. </p>
<p>This Q&A is my second installment in what I’d like to be my “How do they do it? Series. </p>
<p><strong>How do you fit music into family life and working full-time? </strong></p>
<p>I have been making music since I was 19, so I don’t think I could live without that outlet. It is like going to the gym for my brain. It is almost like a therapy. </p>
<p>Being creative is part of our family life. I love inspiring my kids, and they inspire me back. We love to sing and draw together. One of my favorite sayings is “I will never run out of things to be inspired by,” and I try to live each day with that in mind, and my family is the catalyst for many of our song ideas. </p>
<p><strong>How has your formal education helped? (Where did you go to school and what did you study?) </strong></p>
<p>I have always been a creative type of person. I graduated from The University of Michigan (Ann Arbor) with a degree in Drawing, Painting & Printmaking. My education has helped me maintain a creative life. I also studied creative writing and writing lyrics is a lot like writing poetry. I started playing in bands when I was in college. One of my best friends bought a guitar and I bought a bass and we started playing and singing together. We called ourselves Dirty Hairy. I loved it. After college I moved to Chicago and lived there for 10 years and was always in a band. My friends from U of M have supported me wherever I have lived especially with music and 2D art. </p>
<p><strong>Does your professional work overlap at all with your music? </strong></p>
<p>I work at Carnegie Mellon University as a Research Administrator and have always been rather right and left brain balanced. I will write lyrics at all hours, if I am inspired, and find writing the best suppressor of stagnation. I can’t say my work overlaps, but I have found that many friends who are creative for a living sometimes have a hard time being creative sometimes. I don’t have that problem. I make music with Red Mixus on the weekends, usually Friday nights, and it’s a fantastic outlet after a long week of work. Many of my co-workers are supportive of The Mixus Brothers and have ventured out to see us play over the years and listen when we are on the radio. It is always a little better feeling when you know people are listening. </p>
<p><strong>What role did your family play in pursuing your music? </strong> </p>
<p>I love when my family is able to come see us play at a festival or other place where the kids can dance and have a ton-o-fun. My wife Dawn has ALWAYS supported me and tried to help me maintain perspective when I might get down about music or creativity. In addition, I have four sisters who still live in Michigan. We are very well known in Southeastern Lower Michigan as a singing family. We were always involved in musical theater productions and from that I have always loved to sing and entertain. </p>
<p><strong>How often do you play out and where? </strong></p>
<p>Well before COVID, The Mixus Brothers played out about once a month and on a rare occasion twice a month. I think with both of us having kids it seems we always need to make sure there is a balance. These days we haven’t played out at all, but we have a couple of things in the works that are self-controlled. We would be open to playing on-line shows but have not been asked. Opportunities are limited and seem to go to more well-known bands </p>
<p>How are you able to record? We record our music in Red’s (Johnny Willett) basement. He has a great little studio. He has his drum kit set up there, and we keep a lot of our equipment there. We have been doing this now for almost 9 years, and we continue to evolve. We have always used Sony Vegas to record. It was mainly used for video editing but does a great job with audio as well. When I am at home, I record on my laptop and send Red the tracks through DropBox. It is amazing how the cloud sites have simplified collaboration. Ultimately, without Red Mixus, I wouldn’t be who I am, and The Mixus brothers would be nothing. He is a fantastic friend, producer, sound engineer and creator and has always had my back in all-ways and especially in a creative sense. He is amazing at collaborating and helping fine tune ideas, lyrics and songs. I have told him that no matter what happens in our lives, I always want to make music with him. </p>
<p><a contents="New release can be found here" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://themixusbrothers.bandcamp.com/">New release can be found here</a>: https://themixusbrothers.bandcamp.com/ </p>
<p><a contents="Other Mixus Brothers music can be found here" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCP762_Ls_xAssRzDZhU0sZQ">Other Mixus Brothers music can be found here</a>: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCP762_Ls_xAssRzDZhU0sZQ </p>
<p><a contents="My visual artwork can be found here" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/jacob-stempky?tab=artworkgalleries&artworkgalleryid=31315">My visual artwork can be found here</a>: https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/jacob-stempky?tab=artworkgalleries&artworkgalleryid=31315 </p>
<p><a contents="My older music can be found here" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.reverbnation.com/bandsofjacobstempky">My older music can be found here</a>: https://www.reverbnation.com/bandsofjacobstempky</p>The Deep Rootstag:thedeeprootsband.com,2005:Post/64090772020-08-13T20:17:22-04:002022-04-23T13:51:29-04:00You Ain't Goin' Nowhere (Chet Vincent and) Famous Horses<p>I’ve worn out my vinyl copy of The Basement Tapes. I never bothered to upgrade to CD. </p>
<p>I still remember the trip my family took to Tower Records in Manhattan where I bought it. I had a list of albums that I couldn’t find in the record stores in the malls of Western New Jersey. We had lunch at the Hard Rock Café and sat under the guitar that Robbie Robertson played The Weight on at The Last Waltz. </p>
<p>After graduating from college, I somehow convinced my friends to move to Pittsburgh to start a band. We lived in a yellowish/pink house on South Neville Street that had a perfect basement for band rehearsals. “<a contents="You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://soundcloud.com/lonecoalminers-444602285/you-aint-goin-nowhere">You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere</a>” was always on The Blackwell’s set list. </p>
<p>Mostly I've played The Basement Tapes on Sunday nights. It would sooth me against the dread of the upcoming week. Listening to The Basement Tapes took me to another world. My happy place. Friends getting together to play music in a completely relaxed atmosphere. </p>
<p>After my initial jealousy of not having thought of it first, I’ve really enjoyed listening to Chet Vincent and Famous Horse do their take on The Basement Tapes - <a contents="You Ain't Goin' Nowhere The Basement Tapes Recorded in Quarantine" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://open.spotify.com/album/0IivP8wRUTammG8VuQooSI?fbclid=IwAR03ufytorzDKG-_Evtzm4ESZvcH8s1w4TzaH1943ASsrL-1FIviusiyqxw">You Ain't Goin' Nowhere The Basement Tapes Recorded in Quarantine</a>. I salute their efforts. They capture the vibe. I don’t know how they pulled it off in quarantine, but they did. I’m having a much better quarantine this past week because of it.</p>The Deep Rootstag:thedeeprootsband.com,2005:Post/63979442020-07-30T21:17:29-04:002022-04-23T13:42:24-04:00Lori McKenna Makes Me Cry<p>Lori McKenna makes cry – in a good “It’s a Wonderful Life” way. The kind of cry when you realize that the love and generosity of people is greater than you thought. Love is big. You are small. Even though life hurts sometimes, you wouldn’t want it any other way. </p>
<p>I should clarify that it is her songs, not her, and only a few of her songs at that. </p>
<p>I saw her album “The Bird and the Rifle” on several 2016 year-end best of lists. One day I had to come home early on account of a migraine, and I was looking for any sort of distraction. I listened to the first song, “<a contents="Wreck You" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=082NI0Ec68s">Wreck You</a>,” and had to hit the stop button. What had just happened? It was like chugging a Flannery O’Connor story in three minutes and eighteen seconds. It wasn’t a song. It was an event. I didn’t listen again for a long time. To this day I’ve only listened to it a handful of times. I didn’t need to listen to it again. </p>
<p>Then I listened to a few more songs, all very good, before I got to “<a contents="Humble and Kind" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJUUcRxfTmo">Humble and Kind</a>,” and then I had a good cry. I had never heard that song before. I didn’t know that Tim McGraw had won song of the year with it the year before. If you are a parent or have parents, make sure you have a tissue handy. </p>
<p>Since then, I google Lori McKenna, every few months to see if she has anything new coming out. I had July 24th circled on my calendar for a few months because that was the release day for her latest album “The Balladeer.” I think it is her strongest album. The killer songs are “<a contents="Marie" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkIJQ2fABUc">Marie</a>,” “<a contents="The Dream" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-YUxIgRyTQ">The Dream</a>,” and maybe the best of all her songs, “<a contents="When You’re My Age" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bp3n8xG34-g">When You’re My Age</a>.” </p>
<p>Her previous album, “The Tree,” is really good. It starts off with “<a contents="A Mother Never Rests" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5rbB1JbQmI">A Mother Never Rests</a>,” “<a contents="The Fixer" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkSqJQcJbXg">The Fixer</a>,” and “<a contents="People Get Old" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojXvJ6M5yp4">People Get Old</a>.” I was in the car the first time I heard those songs, so I had to pull into a parking lot to pull it together. On “The Balladeer,” “Marie” and “The Dream” are the third and fourth tracks. You have a bit of a grace period before you get the heavy songs. </p>
<p>McKenna’s story also makes me cry. I am so happy for her. She is the mother of five who started writing songs in the evening after her kids went to bed. Her brothers encouraged her to start playing open mics in the mid-1990s around Boston near where she lives, which eventually lead to her recording and releasing three albums on her own. In a Cinderella turn of events in 2004, her fourth album was “discovered” by Faith Hill who decided to redo some of her own album, “Fireflies,” with some McKenna songs and even brought her to perform with her on Oprah. Fast forward almost a decade and in back to back years she won country song of the year with “Girl Crush” for Little Big Town (2015) and “Humble and Kind” for Tim McGraw (2016).</p>The Deep Rootstag:thedeeprootsband.com,2005:Post/63937242020-07-26T12:08:46-04:002022-08-10T08:42:37-04:00Dylan Goes Electric - 55 Years Ago<p>July 25th is the anniversary of <a contents="Bob Dylan going electric at the Newport Folk Festival " data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8yU8wk67gY">Bob Dylan going electric at the Newport Folk Festival </a>in 1965. I should have posted this yesterday, but I got distracted finishing my post on The Band.</p>
<p>Dylan going electric at Newport is kind of like the Big Bang for all of the music I like. But it is kind of funny that I had never seen or heard it until about a year ago. Thank you YouTube!</p>
<p>The one surprise is how amazing Mike Bloomfield is on guitar. </p>
<p>The other surprise is that after the first time through, Dylan abandons changing chords. "Maggie's Farm" is just a country blues. Seems impossible that The Butterfield Blues Band couldn't learn the song even if it was pulled together at the last minute. So I'd have to guess that they were either too stoned or they had in fact never played the song before going out there. Or both. Then Dylan went and hired the guys in The Band to be his back-up band for his first electric tour. Hmmm.</p>
<p><a contents="Dylan Goes Electric!: Newport, Seeger, Dylan, and the Night That Split the Sixties" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.amazon.com/Dylan-Goes-Electric-Newport-Sixties/dp/0062366696/ref=sr_1_5?dchild=1&keywords=elijah+wald&qid=1595779248&s=books&sr=1-5">Dylan Goes Electric!: Newport, Seeger, Dylan, and the Night That Split the Sixties</a> by Elijah Wald provides very vivid biographies of Bob Dylan and Pete Seeger and gives you a sense of what it was like to be there. I could go on and on. I love that book. I intend to read every book that Wald writes. He's that good.</p>The Deep Rootstag:thedeeprootsband.com,2005:Post/63874652020-07-25T20:57:51-04:002022-04-23T13:40:59-04:00Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and The Band<p>James and I finally got to watch "Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and The Band." I had wanted to see it in the theater, but that was then.</p>
<p>I've loved The Band since I was 14. I've read every book, listened to every box set, and reissue.</p>
<p>I won't be picky, instead I'll take smug pride in the fact that a documentary has been made that validates my good taste in music!</p>
<p>A few thoughts - the guys in The Band joined Ronnie Hawkins as teenagers because, I'm assuming they were young, willing, and inexpensive. They all came from musical families and began playing in public at the age of 12 or 13. So, yeah, they could play also.</p>
<p>Then they left home in their mid- to late teens and toured and practiced constantly for the next five to seven years. They got really good. They didn't make a lot of money, but that circuit existed. I don't think that is even possible now. I think that made it possible for them to reach the musical heights they did.</p>
<p>But what did their parents think? Would parents today let their kids drop out of school to join a touring band? Or maybe they had already dropped out. Maybe music was better than any other opportunity. But when you go back and listen to "Tears of Rage," the first song on their first album, it is the voice of parent lamenting the loss of a child who has gone off to "receive that false instruction." Dylan wrote the lyrics, and he was starting his own family at that time. Clearly the guys in The Band felt that break in their families as well.</p>
<p>The Band was always an ideal for me - a kind of rock and roll monasticism. It really hurt when I learned that there was also a fall from grace of Old Testament proportions going on in parallel. In case you missed that connection, listen to the second song, "To Kingdom Come," and listen to Robbie sing about looking out the window and seeing the golden calf pointing back at him.</p>
<p>The real tragedy is the lack of resolution. Robbie is trying. What else can he do? </p>
<p>As for me, I've been listening to The Band a lot lately with James. He is about the same age as I was when I got obsessed with The Band. There is a lot to talk about.</p>
<p>And I wish I could tell Robbie, "Hey, we ALL mess up. I know I threw your book in the trash. The only book I've ever thrown in the trash. I'm sick your self-mythologizing, but I get where you are coming from. We all try to explain our faults away. You created some beautiful music. Not many people can say that." </p>
<p> </p>The Deep Rootstag:thedeeprootsband.com,2005:Post/63866352020-07-19T14:27:30-04:002022-07-26T01:20:48-04:00How Do They Do It? <p><em>When I read interviews with other musicians and artists, I always want to ask, "How do you do it? How do you fit everything into your life - job, family, etc..." I'm going to try to ask other artists these questions, and I'm looking for volunteers, but I figured I should ask myself first.</em></p>
<p><strong>How do you fit music into family life and working full-time? </strong></p>
<p>It is a lot of things. My son is the drummer in the band, and my wife is an accomplished musician who will play with us on occasion. My daughter is starting to play the flute. If music was something that I did apart from the family, I don’t think I could do it. But since it is rolled up into what we do as a family, it tends to work. It isn’t without strain, and my wife is very understanding. Also, the other guys in the band are very flexible and accommodating for our family schedule. I'll admit that I don't practice enough and that I have about ten news songs that are "almost" finished.</p>
<p><strong>How has your formal education helped? (Where did you go to school and what did you study?) </strong></p>
<p>I have an undergraduate degree in English from the University of Scranton. I took several poetry writing classes from Jay Hill, who has an MFA from the prestigious Iowa Writers work shop, where Flannery O’Connor went. He is a published poet. I started writing songs when I was in his classes. He taught me the process. I’m still unpacking what I learned there. I also have a Master’s of Arts in Professional Writing from Carnegie Mellon. When I graduated from there, the job market was slow so I formed my own company and hired myself. (How CMU is that?) I learned how the money flows. What goods and services are needed and who has the money to pay for it. Even though my goal was to be a professional musician, like John Hiatt, I could see the music business model wasn’t good. I was better off buying lottery tickets. The local and national bands I liked that looked like they were making it were actually running up huge debts. </p>
<p><strong>Does your professional work overlap at all with your music?</strong></p>
<p>I'm an IT project manager. I tell my team that everything I learned about project management I learned playing in loud rock and roll bands. I shouldn't say this out loud, but IT and rock and roll have one thing in common - you have to plug it in and see what happens. If I ask the guys in the band for status, I would hope that they would use my head as a percussion instrument.</p>
<p><strong>What role did your family play in pursuing your music? </strong></p>
<p>My parents are both teaches and have always been really encouraging of artistic endeavors. My aunts, uncles, and cousins are also extremely supportive. On my mom’s side of the family, starting with my oldest uncle and continuing through my cousins there have been a lot of us in rock bands over the past 50 years. </p>
<p><strong>How often do you play out and where? </strong></p>
<p>Usually we play five to ten shows per year at community events – usually outside. I prefer to play where people are. I’ve played too many club gigs for a handful of people who would have been there if there was a band or not - yes, social distancing before it was cool! There are also other ways to get exercise than carrying gear. </p>
<p><strong>How are you able to record?</strong> </p>
<p>Through miracle of digital software, Presonus Studio One, and our guitarist Ryan Kerr! I almost had a nervous breakdown trying to figure out the software, but Ryan was able to do it and he taught the rest of us. We record in our basement, but everyone in the band has the capability of recording at home and share files with Dropbox. </p>
<p><strong>Any final thoughts? </strong></p>
<p>The Deep Roots went electric the other night, socially distant of course, for the first time in four months. I just kept thinking, “This is what I do.”</p>The Deep Rootstag:thedeeprootsband.com,2005:Post/63796612020-07-08T11:16:47-04:002022-07-11T15:30:59-04:00The Holiday Cafe<p>The Deep Roots are scheduled to open for the Evan Dean Band at the Pleasant Hills Community Day on Saturday, August 8th (Covid permitting). James and I will also be at Scout Camp in West Virginia the week before. That's pretty rock and roll.</p>
<p>We have been working with Nicole Leckenby who is in charge of booking the entertainment for the event. I noticed at the bottom of one of her e-mails "Co-founder, <a contents="The Holiday Cafe" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://theholidaycafeblog.blogspot.com/">The Holiday Cafe</a> an online literary magazine." Being a literature nerd, I had to check it out.</p>
<p>What I found to be really cool is that Nicole and Natalie Belin do a great job of covering local music for The Holiday Cafe. I haven't seen anything like it. It is real. Pittsburgh music through the eyes of people who actually like Pittsburgh, or as they say on their web-site, "an online literary magazine rooted in Pittsburgh and the hearts of good friends proud to call Pittsburgh home."</p>
<p>So often the vibe I get from local music coverage is that the goal is to get famous enough to get out of Pittsburgh.</p>
<p>The music-related stories I read acknowledge family ties. Mia Z collaborates with her mom who is a musician. Derek Woods is in a band with his dad and another band with his wife. Half of Evan Dean's band is related. This is Pittsburgh. Joe Grushecky's son Johnny is in the Houserockers. Bluegrass legend Mac Martin's son Bob was in the Dixie Travelers. Polka Hall of Famer Randy Koslosky has a band with his daughters and nieces and nephews. And I'm sure there are more.</p>
<p>The July issue of <a contents="The Holiday Cafe" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://theholidaycafeblog.blogspot.com/">The Holiday Cafe</a> is available. </p>The Deep Rootstag:thedeeprootsband.com,2005:Post/63666482020-06-25T21:23:28-04:002022-05-14T19:21:40-04:00Pandemic Songs - That's Another Story<p>So after listening to The Mixus Brothers "For the Sake of Humanity," I stumbled across this article about <a contents="The Tweedy Family" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-talented-tweedy-family">The Tweedy Family</a> in the New Yorker (1). Then I remembered that Scott Mervis from the Post-Gazette posting something on Facebook asking what local bands were writing concept albums (2) about the pandemic. It made me think about a song I wrote at the beginning of the lock down called, "<a contents="That's Another Story." data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://soundcloud.com/lonecoalminers-444602285/thats-another-story-4">That's Another Story.</a>" I recorded a demo with James on drums. </p>
<p>Like all new songs I thought it was cool at the time but wasn't sure if The Deep Roots would ever learn it. After another listen, I think it captures an element of the pandemic that The Mixus Brothers and Jeff Tweedy and family didn't. Therefore - a blog post of one of my demos. My contribution to pandemic inspired music. </p>
<p>Here's a secret - I post demos under The Lone Coal Miners - but that's another story.</p>
<p>The recording is a demo. I wrote the song. James and I played it through two or three times and that is it. I overdubbed some guitars and vocals. O maybe it isn't a demo. I could raise the GBV (3) flag and call this the finished product.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>End Notes (yeah baby! End notes on my blog post because I can do whatever I want!)</strong></p>
<p>Note 1 - That story is behind the paywall. It isn't that big of a deal. A bunch of the episodes are on YouTube. I really love Jeff Tweedy - it is just that I don't like many of his songs since the first Wilco album. After listening to one of these shows I think I've identified the problem. Jeff is so self-deprecating nobody is willing to say, "Look, Jeff, this is a really good start. Let's try to tie these lyrics together so that they make sense. And if we could just push the melody a little bit here, I think it would make an awesome song.</p>
<p>Note 2 - A concept album. Imagine me writing a concept album. I am either not bright enough or do not have the interest or both.</p>
<p>Note 3 - GBV or Guided by Voices - the much acclaimed band lead by Robert Pollard that I'm still trying to figure out what the fuss is all about. But if Bob Pollard can become a legend with lo-fi half finished stuff, why can't I?</p>The Deep Rootstag:thedeeprootsband.com,2005:Post/63641062020-06-23T19:16:04-04:002022-04-23T13:41:45-04:00Hats Off to the Mixus Brothers<p>The Mixus Brothers have style. They have a definitive look, a definitive sound, and distinct lyrics. As soon as you hear them, they are instantly recognizable. It can be nobody else. That may sound easy, but try it sometime. As they demonstrate on their latest single, "<a contents="For the Sake of Humanity" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.reverbnation.com/play_now/31922866?utm_campaign=a_public_songs&utm_medium=facebook&utm_source=page_object_news_item">For the Sake of Humanity</a>," the signature sound offers them limitless possibilities to explore - like (spoiler alert) a long trumpet solo - and it still sounds like them. And cool lyrics about living through the lock down.</p>
<p>Like David Bowie with Ziggy Stardust, The Mixus Brothers create a fictional universe where you can go hang out - like a good book.</p>
<p>I'm excited that the Pittsburgh music scene is fertile enough to give birth to a band this cool. Great art inspires more great art.</p>
<p> </p>The Deep Rootstag:thedeeprootsband.com,2005:Post/63505422020-06-11T21:34:42-04:002022-04-23T13:41:54-04:00The Best Band in This Town - Meeting of Important People<p>I am so happy to see <a contents="Meeting of Important People" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://www.meetingofimportantpeople.com/">Meeting of Important People</a> headlining <a contents="The Three Rivers Arts Festival" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://traf.trustarts.org/events/4197">The Three Rivers Arts Festival</a> this year. The Festival did not play out as planned, but the fact that this criminally underrated band is getting the attention they deserve is a silver lining. </p>
<p>Disclaimer: I have never met these guys. I’m not getting paid to boost this on Facebook. I am just an opinionated music snob who likes to pontificate.</p>
<p>I should also add that if I ever write a song as good as “<a contents="All Rode Off Together" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgNBD3xelvE" target="_blank">All Rode Off Together</a>” I will demand that they put a statue of me down in front of The Carnegie. </p>
<p>So this is not a “please support the local band” guilt-trip post. It isn’t like they are lacking in some way that we need to overlook. They are making high level art. If not many people hear it, it is the community that doesn’t receive it that is less for it. Check them out. You'll catch the thrill of witnessing something being done really well. Couldn't we all use that?</p>The Deep Rootstag:thedeeprootsband.com,2005:Post/63433322020-06-05T15:12:44-04:002022-05-07T05:36:28-04:00Dion's New Album - Blues With Friends<p>Dion's latest album, Blues with Friends, was released today and it has received a lot of positive press. Most stories note the impressive list of friends (Bruce Springsteen, Jeff Beck, Paul Simon, and Van Morrison), the quality of the new material, and the understated support of his friends. In most cases, you have to look at the credits to identify the special guests. Clearly this is not the case of the stars propping up the over-the-hill has been. </p>
<p>And everyone says that Dion sounds fabulous at 80. </p>
<p>But there is something bigger going on here. One of the founders of rock and roll is still making new and vibrant music at the age of 80, and it wouldn’t sound out of place if you heard it over the PA system at Home Depot. What ever happened to “Hope I die before I get old,” and “It’s better to burn out than it is to rust?” Pete Townsend and Neil Young - I'm glad you didn't!</p>
<p>Dion has blazed a new trail. The trail of LIVING (and living generously) until you are old and what that looks like. It looks pretty good. But what is his secret? How did this happen?</p>
<p>I only talked to Dion once, but this is my guess. Almost 10 years ago I interviewed him for <a contents="Catholic World Report" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2011/04/13/the-wanderer-gets-the-blues/">Catholic World Report</a>. It left me feeling like the rock star. </p>
<p>We talked like friends for over an hour. Dion makes you feel like you are the most important person in the world. It isn't a put-on. He indulged me with stories about some of my heroes - Waylon Jennings, Bruce Springsteen, Buddy Holly, and Rev. Gary Davis. (I’m interviewing a member of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and I’m asking him about Waylon Jennings? I cringe. What was I thinking? The conversation just flowed that way I guess.) </p>
<p>At one point in our discussion on Gary Davis he stopped and said, "Wow. You know your stuff. I should be interviewing you." I'll never forget it. </p>
<p>If you wonder how he got all the stars to not only play, but to play with such subtlety - it's Dion. He is a model of class and generosity. He sets the example and everyone models it right back. Imagine that. There's no reason to be insecure. Nobody is getting slighted. He cares about you.</p>
<p>So I say, Good for you Dion. Thank you for your example. Continuing to pursue your passion for music with class and grace.</p>The Deep Rootstag:thedeeprootsband.com,2005:Post/63359802020-05-30T11:50:41-04:002022-04-23T13:42:15-04:00Hello World<p>Yesterday <a contents="American Songwriter" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://americansongwriter.com/dion-premieres-new-song-with-paul-simon/">American Songwriter</a> magazine premiered a new song by Dion called, "Song for Same Cooke (Here in America)." Everyone knows Dion DiMucci. He is in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but the song was co-written with my uncle, Mike Aquilina. Mike has been a huge supporter of The Deep Roots. He has sat in the rain several times to hear us play.</p>
<p>For me, being featured in American Songwriter is the Noble Prize for songwriters. They cover the serious songwriters. Songwriters who should be studied in college classes - or teach college classes for that matter. I am so excited for Mike. I just couldn't let that go.</p>
<p>Part II</p>
<p>Today is my mom's birthday. Happy Birthday Mom! Kicking off this web-site reminded me of the first time my family saw one of my bands play. It was the spring of my junior year in college. Durty Nelly was playing outside on the back of a tractor trailer for some kind of block party. It was freezing cold. The wind was blowing in our faces. In the picture, we are all bundled up. I had only been playing guitar for a little over a year, so I remember my fingers being really, really stiff. After our set, my parents and sister came up to congratulate us and tell us how good we sounded. They said, "You sounded great. Really. We aren't lying. We would have lied. We had a meeting in the car, and we all agreed that no matter what it sounded like we would say that you sounded great and that we are proud of you. But we didn't have to lie. You were really great."</p>
<p>When I bought my first guitar my goal was to learn to play well enough that someday I would be good enough to play a song on a stage with a band at some point in my life. Here we go. I'm in a band that has web-site with original songs that are well recorded. It has been a dream for me for a long time. I'm very grateful to everyone who has encouraged me on the way.</p>The Deep Roots