After multiple weeks of keeping the guitars safe and sound in their carry bags within the office closet, we’ve finally created enough room where I can put out the two electrics again! My Gretsch (which is in dire need of cleaning and retuning, seems like) is now parked right next to my desk where I can pick it up and noodle around on it whenever I feel the need. My Fender P-Bass is nearby in front of one of the other bookcases.
I don’t remember if I’d mentioned it here before, but I’m thinking of getting rid of my two acoustics as they acquired more dust than play during the Spare Oom years. I enjoyed playing them, I just never found enough time for it. I’m thinking of selling them to Tall Toad up in Petaluma (where I bought my Gretsch), though whether for cash or store credit is up in the air. I doubt I’ll buy another guitar, but I could probably use the credit for recording hardware or something like that. We shall see.
Still, it’s great to see them out in the open again, and I’m looking forward to playing them again. After I give them a good cleaning, of course.
My friends circle on Discord has come up with something nifty as an alternative to the dreaded New Year’s Resolution that never seems to stick. Instead of declaring I will quit a bad habit or I will learn a new craft or I will lose weight or what have you, the idea is to come up with something you already like (or love!) to do but don’t always give yourself a chance to do it for one reason or another. Do it once a week for fifty-two weeks simply for enjoyment!
I got to thinking about it and I thought: I have four guitars collecting dust because I don’t pick them up all that often. I’d even bought new strings for the two six-strings (one acoustic, one electric) about six months ago but never got around to putting them on! So I figured, why not? Once a week I’ll pick up the guitar and either learn a new song, or write a new one! I do enjoy doing both, I’ve just not given myself the time over the last few years.
Sure, I’ve mentioned how annoyed I am with myself guitar-wise because when I do pick them up I end up playing the same handful of songs, and that gets boring really quickly. My dad used to do that on his piano and he enjoyed it, but I also really enjoy the creativity of learning or writing a new song and I haven’t done that in a LONG time. I want to do more than just play the same songs, I want new sounds to surface, just like when I write my novels!
So for the first two weekends, I allowed myself a related option: let’s start by putting on those new sets of strings. The acoustic was relatively easy, but restringing the Gretsch electric (see above, and pardon the dirtiness of the frets) was a bit of a chore, given that they’re held on there via the Bigsby bridge (aka the built-in vibrato bar) and a lot of tension, but it got done and it sounds great!
And just to make sure it was in tune, I taught myself the basic chord progression to REM’s “Radio Free Europe”, inspired by having just finished reading Peter Ames Carlin’s biography The Name of This Band Is REM. Learning that Peter Buck is self-taught and figured out his style by playing along with records — exactly how I did it — gave me the inspiration to keep going with this.
The aim here is not to be professional, or even release anything on Bandcamp or whatever (although I won’t rule it out if it sounds halfway decent), but just to revisit what I loved best about playing with The Flying Bohemians and jeb!: the pure enjoyment of musical creativity. Anything more than that will be a bonus.
I moved into the Brighton Ave apartment in September 1994 and I immediately felt less stressed out, although I knew that wasn’t going to last all that long. I was still making minimum wage at Brigham’s (a whopping four dollars and change per hour then) which barely helped with rent, groceries, and paying off my credit card when I needed to use it. And I did need to use it, more than I’d hoped, to afford eating. Something had to change.
I stayed with Brigham’s for a bit longer, but soon I’d try my hand at temp jobs instead. I knew they were out there, I just had to make an effort to sign up for them. Some lasted a few days (filing, envelope-stuffing) and some lasted a couple of weeks, but at the time what I really needed was a stable long-term position. This is when I had two of the worst jobs ever, and they were both telemarketing. I would not wish that upon my worst enemy, as it’s a terrible job with no soul and a lot of high stress. I hated them and didn’t last more than a few weeks before I quit one and was let go of the other. But that was a few months out…for now I stayed at Brigham’s for a little longer.
Not that long before I moved, however, I made a quick trip home to visit family and friends, and unexpectedly ran into my friend Natan, the former guitarist for the Flying Bohemians, and we spent an afternoon or two talking about stuff. It was interesting in that we’d rarely done that in the past without Chris being there. He’d changed considerably since I last saw him a few years previous and was getting his act together. In a few years he’d move to Salem and help usher in a new wave of tattooing in Massachusetts, which had been banned in the state for thirty-eight years, by being one of the leaders to end that ban. He now runs a well-known tattoo parlor there.
As for writing? I just kept on plugging away with whatever I could. I’d be working longhand for a while longer, so when I couldn’t work on True Faith on D’s computer I did a lot of background work and focused mostly on Two Thousand. I also did a lot more practicing on my guitar to get better at it. By the end of the month I’d recorded a solo demo tape that sounded a hell of a lot more experimental than my previous music. It was partly inspired by my meetup with Natan, who’d suggested I not let myself build so many creative barriers.
Sugar, File Under: Easy Listening, released 5 September 1994. The last Sugar entry from Bob Mould, this one’s lighter and perkier than the previous album but it’s good fun.
Blues Traveler, Four, released 13 September 1994. I’d known about this band for a few years — WFNX and WBCN often put their stuff into rotation — but this was the album that exploded for them and brought them into the big time. You’ll still hear “Runaround” and “Hook” on the radio to this day.
Various Artists, If I Were a Carpenter, released 13 September 1994. A tribute album…to the Carpenters? Sure, why not? A very Gen-X thing, come to think of it, but it does show just how great Richard Carpenter was as a songwriter, especially when so many alternative bands got a hold of them. This, interestingly enough, is also where Dishwalla first appeared on a major label!
They Might Be Giants, John Henry, released 13 September 1994. The two Johns acquire a full band and their sound expands from tight and quirky to chunky and…still quirky. “Snail Shell” got a lot of play on WFNX.
Shudder to Think, Pony Express Record, released 13 September 1994. I’d hear “X-French Tee Shirt” on WFNX a lot and I was always ‘who the hell is this and why do I always forget their name?’ It took me years to remember the song and finally track it down!
360s, Strawberry Stone, released 13 September 1994. A local band from Salem releases their last album of chunky alternative rock with a slight surfy sound. They were a band I always liked but never got around to seeing live.
Sinéad O’Connor, Universal Mother, released 13 September 1994. She’d always had an interesting and unexpected music career, and this was considered a really great return to form, even though it didn’t quite get the accolades it should have. “Fire on Babylon” was such a great song that I’d hear quite a bit.
Grant Lee Buffalo, Mighty Joe Moon, released 20 September 1994. I adored “Mockingbirds” so much. It’s one of my favorite songs of that year, and every time I visited Davis Square in Somerville (it’s where the Somerville Theater and the Rosebud Diner are) this song would come to mind. The whole album is a lovely listen, and much livelier than their previous record Fuzzy.
Liz Phair, Whip-Smart, released 20 September 1994. I still hear “Supernova” on the radio to this day. I tend to like this record better than Exile in Guyville as it feels more cohesive and less rambling.
Love and Rockets, Hot Trip to Heaven, released 26 September 1994. After a five-year hiatus, one of my favorite bands were back…and doing electronic ambient music? It took me quite a long time to get used to it, to be honest. I was much more a fan of their first four records.
Massive Attack, Protection, released 26 September 1994. A great second album from this band, featuring the beautiful but haunting title track. It would take me a whilte to get around to picking this one up, but I did like what I’d heard when they played it on WFNX.
Veruca Salt, American Thighs, released 27 September 1994. “Seether” was such a great summery track that was punky without being too grunge. The band sounded like they were having a hell of a lot of fun playing and writing, and that would help them remain a staying power for a good few years more.
REM, Monster, released 27 September 1994. I’d gone from a huge to a passive fan of this band over the past couple of years; they had some great songs but they hadn’t quite maintained my attention after Out of Time. I wanted to like this record, and I know a lot of critics love it, but it felt too disjointed and ‘hey I finally bought a distortion pedal let’s use it on every song’ for my tastes. Still, there are some great deep tracks that I enjoyed.
Soul Coughing, Ruby Vroom, released 27 September 1994. I remember both WFNX and WBCN leaning heavily on this band for its unconventional sound: spoken word poetry and jazz leanings under heavy grooves and treated samples. “Screenwriter’s Blues” remains one of my favorite songs of theirs.
Dave Matthews Band, Under the Table and Dreaming, released 27 September 1994. This band had been around for a few years, but this was the one that broke them, released on a major label and given huge promotion with teh one-two punch of the “What Would You Say” and “Ants Marching” singles. I was an immediate fan and would pick up every release from here on in.
*
Next up: Barely making it but being damn stubborn about it
I’ll be honest, I haven’t been playing much guitar or bass these last couple of months partly because I’ve been busy taking care of two extremely precocious young cats and focusing on other creative avenues. But…and I really hate to admit this…I just haven’t been inspired to play lately, which is bothersome.
I’d say over the last year or so, when I do pick up one of my guitars, I end up playing the same four or five songs or riffs over and over again, and that’s boring. I’m out of practice with writing new songs.
So I’ve decided that one of the projects I’d like to start this year is to go through the… *counts the mp3s* …roughly sixty demo riffs I’ve recorded on my phone over the last five years and make something out of them. They range anywhere from thirty seconds to a few minutes in length. I’ve mentioned before that I’d like to find a cheap multi-track software (and one that doesn’t take up much memory as I don’t have all that much space on my PC, unless I put it on my laptop instead) and lay these down just to see what I can do with them. I’ll start small, just going with instrumentals for now until I feel the need to add lyrics. I’ve even assigned myself Saturdays as Music Day on my whiteboard schedule.
The aim here isn’t actually to release or even make any money off them (though if they’re good enough quality I might put them up on Bandcamp for funsies), but to see if I can revive that inspiration. Otherwise these instruments of mine are just gathering dust. And I’d rather not keep doing that, thank you.
Now that I temporarily find myself with all the time in the world until further notice, I’m bound and determined to make the most of it. As much as I’d love to futz around with my mp3 collection and watch cat videos all day long, I know I’ve been given this time to do what needs doing.
In other words: remember all those times I’ve said “I’d love to do (x) if I only had time?” Well, NOW is that time. Let’s get crackin’.
One thing that’s been on my mind as of late is the fact that I have been woefully stuck at “amateur who knows some neat chords and solos but still plays the same damn songs over and over” level of guitar playing. I’ve been stuck at that level for years. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with that if I want to stay at that level, but I want to be better. I want to get to the point where, if I felt like dropping some tunes on Bandcamp for sale, I could do so and be proud of the results. Sort of like how I’ve worked on my novels over the years.
I’ve heard all the stories about guitarists like George Harrison who would practice on their guitar until their fingers literally bled. Bryan Adams sings about it in the first verse of “Summer of ’69”. I’ve read so many music bios and memoirs about building up those fingertip calluses and strengthening those fingers and working on dexterity.
I think, now that I have the time, I really should start doing exactly that. I no longer want to just noodle around for ten minutes playing the same chords. I want to explore this avenue. I want to see and hear where it goes. I want to find my own true style and not just imitate my influences. I have the equipment for it, so there’s nothing to stop me right now.
The downside to owning guitars, especially in places where the weather has notable temperature and humidity changes, is that they can go quite out of tune very quickly. Every six months or so I need to retune them. And I’ve been playing them for long enough that I can tell when they’re just a bit off. It’s not fun when you’re strumming a few chords and that one string is painfully flat.
One of the other downsides is having to restring them now and again. I’ll be honest, I don’t restring nearly as often as I should. I haven’t restrung my acoustic bass probably since I bought the thing, so the strings had lost their sheen as well as their resonance quite some time ago. I spent Sunday putting new ones on it, and let me tell you, it’s one hell of an awkward process. I’m used to restringing my electrics, which are easy to do. Acoustics are a bit tougher, because you’re not only working around a bigger body while you’re winding the string around the tuning peg mechanism, but you’re feeding the other end through a hole in the bridge and holding it there with a plastic peg that you hope won’t come flying out into your eye.
Anyway…once the new strings are on and secured, there’s the few weeks where the guitar sounds all too trebley and twangy. Or worse, when you’re in the middle of playing and the string slips just a little bit from its tuning peg or its bridge, and you jump back in case that G ends up flying loose and lacerating you.
But once everything settles and you get used to it all, everything is just fine.
One of the things I’m looking forward to on the Blogging the Beatles 2 series is listening to George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass album, because it’s one of his best. It’s at least four or five years’ worth of tracks that were nixed for Beatle work. Indeed, after awhile he just decided not to offer and kept them for himself.
One of my favorite tracks from the album is “Beware of Darkness” which is a perfect example of George’s best songwriting. It’s got a hauntingly beautiful melody, but it also showcases his penchant for using slightly off-kilter chord progressions. They made sense and blended quite nicely, but they weren’t the chords you were expecting. It often felt like he was trying to bypass the tried-and-true pop motifs of the day, and yet write a song that still contained a musical flow that was pleasant to the ears. [I often think of Blur’s “Coffee & TV” as a similar example of unexpected-yet-logical chord progressions. There were a lot of alternative songs in the 90s that took this strange route, much to my delight.]
And as before, I plan on trying to play along on my guitar while I’m relistening an relearning these songs. Suffice it to say, I still feel like I’m extremely out of practice. It’s not a good sign that a few of my guitars sometimes have a fine layer of dust on them. And if George is going to tempt me with his B-A-G7-G#m-C#m (there’s a lot of wacky barre chords in there, folks), then there’s a hell of a lot more I need to learn. Especially if I want to try it with my acoustics.
This is going to be an interesting exercise, to say the least.
On a final note, here’s an excellent cover of the same track by Concrete Blonde, from their debut self-titled album. It’s a bluesier, heavier version, but it retains the dark hints of tension found in the original, and it’s one of my favorite covers.
I was thinking the other day, why is it that I get all wistful and nostalgic come September? Well, the obvious answer is that it’s the start of the new school year. The excitement of all the college radio stations coming back on the air with new and returning deejays and great tunage. The remembrance of another year hanging out with friends on a daily basis. The Best Laid Plan of trying to do better this semester. And of course, the start of the fourth quarter when all the really good albums by the best bands start coming out.
That’s not to say it’s all about my days in the late 80s. Growing up in central Massachusetts (in “Radio Free Athol”, where stations came in depending on where in town you were and how strong your antenna was), the fourth quarter is when the Day Job started getting busier. At the record store, that meant a larger volume of stock I had to process. At Yankee, that meant earlier hours and a busier day. Some things never change. But regardless, that was when the days got a little shorter and a little cooler. The slow pace of summer replaced by the fast pace of autumn.
Love and Rockets often pops into mind at this time of year as well. For one reason, their first four albums were all released around this time (Seventh Dream of Teenage Heaven, 11 Oct 1985 in the UK and reissued in the US Nov 1988; Express, 15 September 1986; Earth Sun Moon, 9 September 1987; Love and Rockets, 4 September 1989), and I bought them all soon after release. For another, I really grokked onto the acoustic/psychedelic sounds of those first albums at the time. I’d taught myself the basics of guitar playing (both on bass and my sister’s acoustic), and Daniel Ash’s dreamy 12-string work was exactly what I was trying for. It would take some time for me to get to that level, but those songs definitely left an impression on me.
I mean, take “Saudade”. It’s often considered one of their best songs. It’s nearly thirty years old, but it still stands out as an absolute classic. An aptly titled song at that. A hint of melancholy and nostalgia in the melody, but also a consistently driving energy that keeps building until it can no longer contain itself. It’s a lovely, gorgeous song, and also one of the reasons I finally bought myself a twelve-string a few years back.
It’s that time of year again, so of course I’ll be getting all wistful and nostalgic once more, listening to older tracks, playing a few tunes on the guitar, and perhaps even tuning into the local college stations again. It’s been years since I’ve set foot in a classroom; I can bump into my buddies online whenever I want.
But there’s still something about September that still sticks with me. For the past few years I’ve been hearing a lot of young, new bands playing the same kind of music I grokked to back in the 80s. A resurgence of shoegaze and reverb-drenched mood music. Young bands reinterpreting the sounds their parents and older siblings listened to, and making it their own.
The end of something old and the start of something new, I suppose.
Walk In Silence 