Fantastic rehearsal last night. All that crap from the last few days---it's as if it never happened. I should have known better than to get stressed out about it. Jason said that his comments the other day were themselves the result of stress, what with such a big show for us coming up this Saturday (at Hooters) and so little time to actually prepare for it. But last night I think we all came to the conclusion that we're ready for it. Red (our keyboard player) was out of town last night, so the practice session was just guitar/vocals, bass and drums. Not the ideal situation, but by the same token this gave us a good opportunity to play and hear the songs "stripped down" a bit, and it turns out that was exactly what we needed.
We ran through several songs that we'll be playing Saturday night but we spent the most time working up a couple of new tunes. Jason's got a new song that we plan to segue into my last new song with, and I have to say I really love the way it's sounding. A mid-tempo brit-pop influenced number with a beautiful, cathartic chorus and some nice, expressive vocal stylings. I don't know that we'll be quite confident enough with it to play it on Saturday night, but it won't be long before we can add it to the repertoire. Very likely we'll do it on the 10/9/04 Hi-Lo show (a show I'm quite eager to play since we're billed with the mighty Fellowship Students...can't wait to hear them again).
As for this coming Saturday night...turns out we'll be playing two shows that night. The first at Hooters and then we'll leave there and go directly to VZD to headline there.
I can't tell you how much I am looking forward to playing at VZD. Ever since I was a young punk just learning to play the bass I remember thinking that VZD was very possibly the best place for live music in Oklahoma. Clubs have come and gone, but VZD has always been there with local and regional live music EVERY NIGHT. I've only had the opportunity to have played there on one occassion, back in 1993 with a group called Tall Tales. My experience with Tall Tales ended on a very negative note and so even though I did have a lot of fun playing with them, everything about my tenure with them is clouded with some bad feelings, even the VZD gig. So I'm very happy to finally take that stage with musicians who respect me as much as I respect them, who are all my best friends, and with songs that I feel are much more representative of the kind of person I am than what I was doing with the Tales.
The Hooters show is going to be a BLAST as well...They don't usually have live bands at Hooters, but this is a special event set up to promote a disk golf tournament (disk golf=frisbee golf, for those of you who, like me, don't know any better). It's going to be an outdoor affair visible to any and all who happen to be driving down the Northwest Expressway at the time.
Jason gets to go to some of the bigger radio stations with a couple of Hooters girls escorting him for the purpose of plugging the event and the band. Lucky dog.
The nice people at Hooters are spotting the band free vittles and barley pops, and that's the kind of thing you just don't see much of anymore. So hey, hey, let's hear it for HOOTERS!

Come out and see us! Here's how to get there:

To anyone from the Mad Laugh camp who read my last post...
Please allow me to say that I have nothing but the utmost respect for the musical ability of each and every member of the Mad Laugh. I have NO personal problems with any of them, as far as I know, at the present moment. If my last post came off like I had issues with anyone in the band, I'm sorry, I don't. It was written while I was still cooling down from being a little miffed because Jason had adamantly insisted that I play a song EXACTLY like Baldi used to. I'm sorry if my feelings about this don't make sense or if anyone thinks I'm making too big a deal about it. I surely didn't intend to make a big deal out of it at all, but I needed to vent and so I chose my blog as the place to do it. Most of the time I'm sure I'm writing into a vacuum when I post these entries, but my site meter traffic report showed that someone had accessed this blog from the Mad Laugh's guest book (where I'd just left a goofy bon mot about Tits McGillicutty), and so I was concerned that this person might have got a wrong impression of how I feel about the band, and I wanted to correct that.
Like I said, I have nothing but respect for the talent rounded up in the band, and even more importantly, I'd like to consider myself a friend of everyone involved. What I wrote yesterday was much more about MY reaction to the circumstance and not really about what any of them might have done "wrong". The entry was made out of a deep frustration, not so much with anyone in the group, but with my own inability to play this particular song the way they wanted me to the first go-round. I mean, it's like this...I was playing something that I thought sounded really good, something that I thought enhanced the song, and then I'm basically told, "NO, that's not what we want, we want it to sound exactly like it did when Baldi played it". So yeah, I was a little discouraged by that. It made me wonder about how they felt concerning all the other songs that I've applied my own style to.
I dunno. I'm probably blowing this whole thing out of proportion. I guess I'll know more after this afternoon's rehearsal.
At any rate, I apologize if anyone was offended or angered by my comments. Twas certainly not my intent. I hope it's something we can easily move past, and that we can continue to encourage each other to make the most of the situation we find ourselves in.
Meanwhile, the MAD LAUGH RULES, and we're gonna rock the house at Hooters this Saturday night. Hopefully I can get my digital camera working so I can post some photos of the show...

I guess I've been with the Mad Laugh for almost a month now. Not quite, but almost. And up till now my enthusiasm about being a part of the band has been adrenaline-fueled and constant. My excitement over playing with these guys has been the impetus for the time, energy, effort and money that I've invested in the band. My respect for the songs themselves has made it easy to learn their material, and I've been under the impression that I was free to "make them my own", insomuch as mixing my playing style into the overall sound of the band.
So I was somewhat taken aback at rehearsal yesterday when our vocalist suggested I was "playing too many notes" in one of the songs. Apparently the groove I was feeling in the song and laying down was too "bouncy" for his tastes (and the drummer took his position as well, despite the fact that I generally take my cues from the drum line and thought I was locking in pretty solid with him).
Okay...I can take constructive criticism, and it's not as if I had a hand in writing the song. If the groove I was laying down doesn't appeal to the person who wrote the song, then who am I to suggest that perhaps the song NEEDED a more interesting groove? I mean, I have always made a point to check myself for "overplaying", which I admit is a serious problem for most bassists. And I don't think I was overplaying in this instance, the guy just didn't like the feel of the song the way I was walking the bass lines in the final section.
And hey, that's okay. 100% agree that it's his right to have the song played stylistically as close to the way he hears it in his head as possible. So the whole "too many notes" comment would probably have been processed and acted upon without any hard feelings (after all, Mozart's critics had the same problem with his music...ha ha...).
But he couldn't leave it at that.
Next thing I know he's telling me that he insists that I play the song EXACTLY like the bass player I'm replacing played it.
That's where he pissed me off.
First of all, let it be known that the reason their original bass player quit the band was because he could not get along with the vocalist, so it's somewhat ironic that our singer is instructing me to mimic him. Part of me thinks, "well if you were so fond of his specific bass playing technique perhaps you should have gone that extra mile to nurture the relationship you had with him so he might have remained in the band".
But that's not the issue. That's not what bothers me. The thing that irks me is that I thought it was understood when I joined this group that my playing style would add a new dimension to the material. I, for one, was looking forward to seeing just how people would react to the new dynamic, and from all I'd heard from those who have commented, it seemed as if they liked it.
Now I'm being instructed to play songs exactly the way the previous bass player played them, and I gotta admit that it rubs me very wrong. This particular song is not one that they have given me a recording of, and it's not as if I have had any kind of opportunity to really listen to what the previous bass player was doing with it... Maybe that's what irks me so much, not so much that he expects me to co-opt another player's style but that he demands that I play exactly like the last guy even though I don't really have the template for what he did with it in my head. I was just doing with the song what my own sensibilities and taste would have done with it had it been brand new to me.
Yeah, that may be the main reason it gets under my skin like it does, but I gotta say, I find it insulting to be told to play like someone else. I'd rather be told that my style isn't right for the band and be asked to leave than to be expected to conform to another musician's form. That's just insulting, as far as I'm concerned.
So we'll just have to see where this all leads.

Just wanted to plug and provode a link for The Door magazine's website. The rag proudly proclaims itself as "The World's Pretty Much Only Religious Satire Magazine". Very very funny stuff, and you might be surprised that the editorial staff is comprised of devout Christians.
Anyone who thinks Christians don't have a sense of humour should check this out...although I don't doubt that many Christians out there would probably find much of The Door to be too irreverent for their tastes.
This month's issue of the print edition has a fascinating article about Bob Dylan's spiritual journey.

Happy Birthday shout-outs to Meat Loaf and Soul Train MC Don Cornelius.

My second full gig with The Mad Laugh was last Friday, 9/24/04, at a place called Club Babylon at 32nd & Classen in Oklahoma City. We had a great time and sounded very good. Pushed the envelope a little bit by branching off into a couple of extended jams, but everyone seemed to enjoy them.
Club Babylon is in a building that was once an Episcopalian church, and in the early 80's the same location was called The Bowery. A lot of up-and-coming "underground"/"alternative" bands of that time played shows at the Bowery. I'll never forget calling them one night back in 1984 to confirm a rumour I'd heard that REM was playing there the next week. Back then I was a HUGE REM fan, so it broke my heart when the guy on the other end of the line told me that the REM show was LAST WEEK. That was the first time REM came through Oklahoma, in support of their sophomore album Reckoning. I have no doubt it was a classic show, and afterwards I resolved to make The Bowery my club of choice, but it closed down before I could patronize them.
So basically I was on the same stage last Friday night that Berry, Buck, Mills and Stipe performed on 20 years before. I thought that was pretty cool.
We were the headlining band, supported by a quartet whose name I never really caught (someone told me they were called Helen Celtic) and Ghosts of the Monkshood.
This first band was, in my opinion, quite a disappointment (though I have to say that many in the audience seemed to enjoy their sound). They were doing this cacophonious hybrid of fusion jazz and PiL. They had no vocalist, and the lead instrument was a trombone. Very intriguing concept, I admit, but the problem was that none of these guys seemed talented enough on his instrument to pull something like this off. Their noodlings never really gelled, and when they kicked out a cover of Herbie Hancock's "Chameleon" they lost me. It had already dawned on me that these guys were into fusion, but their other songs benefitted from being their own (ie unrecognizable to anyone but themselves and people who have heard them), so when they busted out "Chameleon" they showed just how inept they were. Sloppy and rushed, with little regard to the original version's structure, the trombone player tended to bust out the various melodies haphazardly, at his own discretion to bookend a series of amateurish improv solos. Oh well...I doubt any of the people who were grooving to it had ever heard Hancock's original. Maybe they'll improve, and I have to give them credit for getting out in front of people and uncompromisingly doing your own thing, even though it's like nothing anyone has ever heard before.
Ghosts of the Monkshood are doing their own thing, as well, but the difference is that the Ghosts' thing is just SO much more interesting and enjoyable. THeir performance had a few rough spots compared to the last time I saw them at the Green Door, but for the most part they were jaw-droppingly awesome. These guys looked like "the next big thing" during a couple of the songs. A seriously hard act to follow...They've got one song that reminds me a lot of Jeff Buckley in the vocalist's histrionic upper-register caterwauling. Other songs that put me in mind of Pink Floyd and that Feelies feel is still intact, what with the side man pounding on his snare & cymbal kit. By the way, if you've kept up with this blog for a while you might remember me venting my anger at this very same sideman, who I felt had been rude and condescending when I offered him a compliment at the Green Door show. Friday night I had another opportunity to speak with him in the dressing room, and he was considerably more social. He turned out to be a pretty cool guy, though I still think he's a little strange. Nothing wrong with that...in fact, his demeanour is one of the Ghosts' strong points, along with the strong vocal harmonies, the intriguing arrangements and the guitarist/vocalists unique fashion sense (I wish my digital camera wasn't on the fritz, as I'd love to have snapped a picture of these guys and you'd see what a dresser he was)...
Don't really have much to say about our performance, other than I think we warranted our head-lining status. It was great fun and we were called back for an encore. Lots of compliments. Many people said the band sounded tight, and that's very encouraging in light of how few times I have been able to rehearse with them.
We did the song I wrote last week, and it seemed to go over pretty well. I'm not so sure I should be the one singing it, though, but Jason hasn't learned the lyrics yet, so I guess I'll have to do it until he does.
Next show is this coming Saturday, 10/9/04, at Hooters, NW Expressway in OKC. I think we're playing with 20 Seconds To Vegas that night, so it should be a DOOZY!!!

Deep Purple Made In Japan review

Deep Purple Made In Japan


Now listen here, mister...hand me that there bottle. I can think a whole lot clearer with a slug o' Jack Daniels in me. Did you know the seal is cracked on this particular bottle of Old No. 7??? I sincerely hope you have not added water, or anything else for that matter, to this sour mash whiskey. If I come to learn that you did, well then, mister, you and I are going to have to settle our differences in a less civilized manner than what you're used to...

*Swig*

*Gulp*

*Belch*

Ahhhh, that's better.


Now what I was wanting you to know is this: Richie Blackmore may well be the most criminally over-looked guitarist in all of rock history. He can hold his own with the best of 'em, from Clapton to Page, Trower to Beck, you name it, Richie can hang...

I once read (in some hoo-doo voodoo new age magazine) that Blackmore was into astral projection and would "spirit travel" out into the audience while somehow his body was able to churn out those wicked leads. Now I don't claim to know much about that, but if he can come up with such inventive solos while his spirit is up in the 22nd row sharing a joint with a buxom redhead in a PornStar tank-top, just imagine what kind of classic riffs he could manage with spirit still encased in it's lanky shell!

Now I hope this don't scare you none, but ever since I heard Deep Purple vocalist Ian Gillan sing the lead role in Jesus Christ Superstar I always think I'm hearing the voice of God whenever I hear him. And peoples, let me assure you that this is NOT a good thing when he's busting out "Strange Kind of Woman" or some other similarly raunchy number.

Something about this Japanese audience put a shot of inspiration in pert near every member of Deep Purple on the evening when Made in Japan was recorded. Gillan is brimming over with cockiness. Glover's feeling it deep down. Blackmore's projected himself into the concession stand where he is enjoying a coney with relish and some sushi. Lord, his Hammond B-3 recently fine-tuned, is mentally imagining himself as the Vatican's organist, awaiting a rare audience with the Pope himself. The pope wants to congratulate Lord on all the "really bitchin' keyboard work on the last few Deep Purple records"...at least that's the LSD fueled vision that spurs him on to create such hardcore chunks of "organic bliss". Ian Paice is wired to the gills with rhythms and can hardly wait for his 10+ minute solo in "The Mule" (ahhh, how easy it is to become nostalgic for all those monumental extended drum solos of the late 60's-early 70's...from Iron Butterfly's "In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida" to Bonzo's "Moby Dick" and all the others as well).
Whatever it was, we have reason to thank the polite Japanese crowd who assembled together on that night for the Deep Purple concert...they have greatly inspired the band.

Thank you, O denizens of Japan.

Why, my friend, do you gaze upon my countenance with such an unabashed look of incredulity in your eyes? Dare you question my authority to relate these things to you? Are you really trying to tell me that the only Purple you've ever heard is "Smoke On The Water"? Well, mister, you ain't heard nothing yet. That version of "Smoke" you hear on the radio? That's from the Machine Head album. The Made In Japan version completely blows it out of the water. You haven't been rocked out to the fullest extent of your capability to be rocked until you've jammed to "Child In Time", "Lazy", "Space Truckin'" and "Highway Star"...I mean, you play "Highway Star" in your car stereo while cruising 120 MPH down the interstate, bobbing your head up 'n' down like a frisky teenager, and you won't even notice when your vehicle slides underneath an 18-wheel tractor trailer. You could very well find yourself in much the same situation as the narrator of Bloodrock's "D.O.A.". But hey, nobody gonna take your car! Nobody gonna steal your girl! Right? SCREECH***SMASH***BOOM***"I love it I need it..."***SCRUNCH***(the cracking of bones)***AAAARGH!!!***"Yeah she turns me on, all night, all right, I'm a highway st----"***BRAIN DEATH***.

But seriously, they don't make 'em like this anymore...Made In Japan was recorded in a country known for it's stellar taste in rock 'n' roll (witness Cheap Trick's enormous success in Budakkon). Made In Japan is a relic from a time when premium ass-kicking rock and roll flowed like sweet honey from the rock. Premium stuff, I tell you, just like this hooch o' yours I'm swillin'. There's hardly a moment during the entire show that didn't make every one of those Japanese headbangers want to raise their fists into the air and scream, "Deep Purple, you bastards RULE!!!".

Made In Japan was made, not only for Japan, but especially for you, the discriminate rocker. For you, my friend, with your inborn ability to kick ass. So get over your Xenophobia, go crack open a bottle of Sapporo and throw on a bowl of Ramen noodles, sit back and imagine yourself smack dab in the middle of that ornate Oriental concert hall in 1972, cloud-thick with pot smoke on this long past evening, and prepare to be scanned by the floating spirit of Richie Blackmore as he astral projects himself through the crowd, searching for a line of cocaine and a sip o' brew.

An album like this could never have been Made In Poland or Made In Greece or even Made In China. So stop feeling guilty about Hiroshima and LISTEN to the thang...

I hope you got that deep down in your soul, because I need to be mozeying on down the dusty trail. What's that you say? Take the bottle with me when I go? Don't mind if I do. Mighty considerate of you.

...from my team blog, RSdotcom Champions Music Club.


Happy Birthday, Boss!
SPRINGSTEEN TURNS 55 TODAY!
Celebrate...

A good friend of mine asked, via the handy and useful TagBoard to your right, about my team blog...specifically wanting to know just what a "team blog" was and how mine could be found. Glad you asked.
A team blog is just like a regular blog only instead of one person doing all the writing/posting, you have a few friends who contribute. Mine is made up of music-savvy friends who I have met via the internet over the last few years. They have all proven themselves to me to be excellent writers with taste in music. So I'm hoping it will be a suitable outlet for the venting of opinions regarding music.
It can always be accessed by using the link in the sidebar to your right. It's at www.rsdotcomchampionsmusicclub.blogspot.com.
I think you'll like it, let me know!

Sitting here, listening to Tangerine Dream's Live Encore through the headphones and the thought crossed my mind...I wonder how many of today's top-selling DVDs have I seen? So here's the list of today's Top 10 DVD releases according to Yahoo...
1. Star Wars Trilogy
2. The Passion of The Christ
3. The Girl Next Door
4. Gia
5. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
6. Crossroads
7. Duel
8. The Lord of the Rings: The Motion Picture Trilogy
9. City of God
10. Kill Bill Vol. 2

Okay, of the ten, I have seen six...so that's over half. Not bad.
I've seen the Star Wars Trilogy, The Passion of the Christ, The Return of the King (as I've seen all three of the LOTR movies, so you can check that LOTR Trilogy thing off my list), Crossroads, and Kill Bill Vol. 2. Of the others, the only one that really looks interesting to me is City of God, having been recommended to me by
RSdotcom Champions Music Club contributor, Thorngrub.

Last but not least...ya gotta love Handel!!!

While watching my newly acquired Special Edition DVD version of Once Upon A Time In The West last night I realized something. How many movies chronicle the last days and even last moments of the characters' lives? Is this observation the result of a morbid thought-process? Maybe so, but it's true. I mean, how many movies incorporate a character dying into the storyline? Probably a majority of them. So what we see in these films is a record of the last deeds and last words of these characters. In a film like Once Upon a Time In The West you witness the last days/hours/moments of a multitude of people.
For instance, in the McBain daughter's final moment she was enraptured by the sight of a covey of birds roused into the air while she is doing a chore. McBane himself is drawing water from a well when he sees his daughter fall to a bullet in the chest, and his last moment is spent rushing to his dying daughter, blown away like a moving target by the marksmanship of Frank and/or his men. Within the span of 5 minutes the entire McBane family is massacred, their final moments recorded for posterity.
Frank will join the ranks of those whose demise is captured on film before it's all over with, and so will numerous other characters. Almost too many to mention (can you imagine tallying up the body count in Kill Bill?)...
What does this mean?
Oh, nothing, probably. Like I said, prolly just another dimension of my macabre thoughts.
If you haven't seen Once Upon a Time In the West, I encourage you to rent it or buy it soon. It is indeed one of the greatest movies ever made, Sergio Leone's masterpiece, and worth the price of admission for Ennio Morricone's lush and powerful score, which is pervasive throughout the film, almost turning into an oater-opera with no singing...(is that allowed?).

Post deleted by author.
Nothing offensive, mind you, but a link was outdated, and you know how much I hate those little white boxes with the red "X" in the middle..