A Year of Open Mics

I got out there and performed a lot of songs this year. Open mics, one of which I host, group concerts, benefits, and just for fun with fellow songwriters and friends.

Which was something of a departure for me. It's not that I didn't perform; I did, just not very often.

This year, however, I thought I should do more and with the pleasant prodding from Joy Taeko, I ended up going out every week at least once or twice, which, over a year's time is a lot for a shut-in like me.

The result, is that I, as you would assume, got better at performing: more comfortable, more emotive, which is very important, and a better player. All of which works to one's benefit.

The other thing, and I mentioned this before, is how much talent and variety is out there, and what a joy and pleasure it is to be a part of it. If streaming and the popular media is the only place you hear new music (or the same old stuff), then you're missing out on many wonderful experiences. Sure, open mics aren't going to have the same caliber of performance as professionals, but that's beside the point. The joy is in being a physical part of it, of being close and personal because the songs are always personal and a means for people to explore and explain how they see life and how it affects them.

And don't downplay the part community plays in all of this. We need each other and thrive off one another, music especially.

Here's to another fun year.

©2019 David William Pearce

Official End of the Year Summation or Something Like That...

All in all, it wasn't a bad year!

For someone who does very little advertising, and I'll get to that in a minute, as the above attests, people are listening, which is what all artists want, right? While it's not mind blowing, it's not too bad considering I'm an old guy putting out original music without the benefit of a label or a big PR machine or the youthful pout that is part and parcel-still to this day-of the popular music scene.

I got over that. Plus it's not a good look for someone my age.

The above doesn't include the many plays on other platforms such as Apple Music and Shazam and any downloads from CD Baby, of which there have been a few. I've also sold a few CDs, so that revenue stream hasn't completely dried up. And I've made a few bucks performing. More, I should say, from everything else, but that true of everyone in music, including the big stars. Sad, but that's life these days.

Recording-wise, it been a productive year as well. I've released 2 albums, Desperate Mothers, in January, and Winter, in July.                                                                   

Desperate Mothers, from 1984, was another of the legacy albums I made in the 89's, but 3 of the songs had to be redone because the originals weren't as good as the rest of the songs on the album. It's therefore an album of old and new.

Winter, which was actually written just after Desperate Mothers in late '83, but never properly recorded-there were only demos of the songs-turned into something like a passion work in that the more I got into it, the more I felt I had to complete it, which put all the new music I was working on on the back burner. I'm working on those songs now.

The surprising thing when you go back and revisit songs and find they need a better recorded version is how little little the arrangements needed to be changed, which is code for I liked them they way they were. Winter was in some ways an actualization of the music I had heard in my head whenever I would listen to the demos, which wasn't very often mainly because they weren't what I wanted them to be. Being able, finally, to record them the way I wanted was an almost transcendent experience.

As to the advertising, I am, at this point in my life, fairly sanguine about whether there's any value in trying to get people to listen to what I've recorded. I am too old to fully take advantage of these new platforms, though I am grateful that I now have a reasonably inexpensive way to disseminate my music. People in their formative years, musically speaking, aren't going to be interested in old guy tunes, and the people who would be are older and therefore have already formed their music preferences.

I'm ok with that. After all, I still write, record, and perform. And that, essentially, is all I need.

©2019 David William Pearce

Billie Eilish Doesn't Love Van Halen?

I am depressed. And I'm apparently not the only one. Billie Eilish isn't hip to Van Halen, Huey Lewis and the News, and God know how many bands I know well. And just who is this Billie Eilish anyway?

Well...

She and her brother, as they are technically an act like the Carpenters (Remember them?), are the hip new thing at this very moment. And as any intrepid sort, I went to Spotify and checked them out. And? It's good stuff. Of course, her music isn't meant for an old dude like me, but I still recognize good music when I hear it.

So what the diff?

Partly it's the idea that the young, steeped in the weight of rock-pop that has now lasted nearly 70's years, should somehow be conversant with all of its periods and ages. Those of us who grew up in the heyday of rock have been spoiled by its resilience and the deference given the music from our period of rock-pop, so we assume everyone knows it or has been living in a cave.

So... yeah!

To which I say: to the whiners from my day, given that Van Halen first came to prominence in 1978, more than 40 years ago, how many of you can name the top bands from 40 years before that? We're talking the late 30's and early 40's. But of course you're all hip to Glenn Miller, Bing Crosby, and the like. But probably not, because only grandpa listened to that stuff and we were, if  anything, deeply dismissive of the past.

We were it, baby!

Yet we are now grandpa even if we still hear Van Halen played all over the place. or at least where we listen to stuff. If nothing else, we should revel in the fact that "our" music continues to live on and inspire, even if the exact sources aren't universally known.

It might be dead, as the song laments, but long-lived.

©2019 David William Pearce

Totally Bummed...

I am depressed. Turns out I was not voted guitarist of the decade. Gloom and despair shall haunt me for the rest of my days! When, oh, when, will my talents be understood and appreciated?

Woe is me.

Too much?

Like anyone who plays an instrument, there are those who leave me in awe. From Charlie Christian, through Django Reinhardt, to Hendrix, Van Halen, Satriani, and Eric Johnson to name just a few. Listening and watching them, I've been influenced and discouraged all at the same time. My talents, it turns out, only go so far and sadly not to their level.

And probably never will.

But I still work at being able to play what I need to be able to play in the service of the songs that I write. And that is what is most important. If you play, either to perform or record or both and you don't want someone else to play the parts, then you have to rise as far as you need to.

I started as a strummer because it was the easiest way to play and because at the time it did the trick. But as I heard the songs in my head, I knew I'd have to learn other styles, most importantly, fingerpicking and lead, neither of which I was any good at. After a while I got better at them and became confident enough to do those parts myself.

Occasionally, people will compliment me on my playing, which is nice and which I'm reticent to accept because I don't consider myself to be particularly good, but that comes from comparisons with famous guitarists, which are not fair because there are only so many truly gifted guitarists out there. There are plenty of local guitarists who can play me under the table let alone Clapton, or Beck, or Tommy Emmanuel.

But in the service of the songs I write, my playing is pretty good and I think that's what they're complimenting. Which is nice and that's what I appreciate.

©2019 David William Pearce

All the Answers in the World are on My iPod

I've been listening to music my entire life, which now spans 60 years, a fact I will admit annoys me. I can't stop it or reverse time-that presents its own perverse problems-but the icy hand of death is certainly closer than it was, say, 40 years ago.

But this isn't about that. Because I've been tethered to music for all of my eternity, to be without it would be the same as being without oxygen. Fortunately, I'm not alone in this regard.

It is, though, about the magic that music grants me in the mundane tasks of existence that burden me on a daily basis. As it is Fall and as I have a fairly large treed lot, leaves and the detritus of the season are there for me to endure. Raking is its own heaven or hell depending how you look at it, but aside from the manual labor, raking, given that I will be spending close to 24 hours combined over the Fall cleaning up, will give me long periods of uninterrupted time to listen to music.

This year I decided to go back to that decade that is so much like the one we're in, with some minor exceptions, the 70's. It's not exhaustive, only 378 songs, but representative of all the stuff I listened to during that time be it from radio, records, or live from the performer's mouth or instrument. I won't bore you with who's on the list: we all have our own, assuming you have an interest in the first place, but I consider it fairly representative of the decade.

Along with it giving something to preoccupy me; yardwork, after all, isn't particular exciting on its own, the music does so many wonderful things: First, it grooves, whether rock, jazz, country, instrumental, fast, slow, sweet, or sad. And yes, even disco! Second, as is common with all things memorial, it evokes the past, certainly for me as I happened to be alive at the time. Third, being music of the recorded kind, I keep my ear tuned for what is being played, on what, and how it is produced.

In some ways this is the most fun, because none of the tunes is new to me in any way, I end up listening to sounds, phrasing, placement, arrangements; fun stuff like that. It is an endless cavalcade of ideas and inspiration.

I highly recommend it if you have any aspirations to record.

Or if you have a yard full of leaves calling your name.

©2019 David William Pearce

More Popular than Jesus?

A few further thoughts on 50 Years Ago Today...

Apparently, the Beatles are still well known and income generators for their label. I'm shocked! Well, not really. Despite the fact that both John and George have died and Paul and Ringo are well into their 70s, Beatles music remains popular even among kids. This continues to strike me as odd. Shouldn't they be obsessed with their music, the music of right now?

We were.

But then, having thought about it, a few other thoughts came into my head about what exactly I was listening to when I was young. Like today's kids-they probably hate that term as much as we did-most of what I heard was on the radio. If something really got me going, I went out and bought the record. I assume today if you hear something you like while streaming, you can add it to your personal playlist. I don't know if the kids then listen obsessively to it like I did, but I assume they do because I don't think they're that much different from us.

Of course as I got older my interests expanded. I still like and listen to Jazz regularly and have a soft spot for the music from the late 40's through early 60's, and yes that includes everything from the somnambulistic languid stuff to the crazy bebop that is Jazz's version of speed metal. I also got more into Americana and Classical.

Good music is good music no matter its age.

And while streaming has its critics, as all mediums do, it does afford listeners the ability to stream whole catalogs, which was impossible back when I was young. Much as I wanted to hear the bands and musicians I read about, hearing all of them would have been very expensive and time consuming as not every record store had the albums and radio certaining didn't play entire catalogs or even albums back to back.

The bigger question is how imprinted the music is to those who stream if they're hearing lots of different bands and musicians but not hearing the songs over and over as we did in the past. It's possible the reason music from 40 or 50 years ago is so impressed into kids minds is that we, their parents, played it all the time when they were young and whether they like it or not, the do remember it.

So whether today's music is as well known as the old stuff, I guess we'll see, but I think it will be just maybe prompted differently because it was absorbed differently.

©2019 David William Pearce

Damn Little Fingers!

Totally bummed!

Occasionally, I get it in my head to learn a new tune, one that's not my own, or a part of a song that I think is just too fun. The beginning of Led Zeppelin's Achilles Last Stand is one example. It's basically going back and forth between a F#m(add) and Em9. Simple right?

Except when you can't get your fingers where they're supposed to go.

Now there are cheats which require a certain level of dexterity and speed since you're not setting your fingers in the structure of the chord and simply picking the strings in the order set out on the page. I don't have long elegant fingers and I'm no longer young and supple in my movements-that matters. It's why there are no old prodigies.

It also explains why some can effortlessly play like Stevie Ray and the rest of us can't even as we studiously try our best to master sweep strumming and picking. Just watch the videos and watch their hands and fingers as they move along the fretboard. Yes, some of it is the result of lots of practice and playing-wood-shedding if you like. But they also possess the physical talents the rest of us lack. Just like premier athletes, premier musicians have the skill and dexterity the rest of us don't. That's the way it is. Only so many people can play Rachmaninoff properly and effortlessly-at least as those of us in the audience perceive it-they too work very hard at that appearance of effortlessness.

It's also the reason why when we listen to people trying to play some of this stuff it doesn't sound quite right or like the original. All of us can play a passable version of Freebird or Stairway to Heaven, but they're not that tough unless you want to nail it and not everyone can. But again, it's not like trying to nail a Joe Satriani solo (or entire song) or the twin solos played by Joe Walsh and Don Felder on Hotel California. 

At this point you maybe asking: "What are you getting at, Dave?"

Well, you can give up-for me that means 32nd note solos that are for the most part flash and bang-or you can work through it and inevitably discover something you didn't know before, so you gain from that.

That, and a better appreciation for the talents of those who can play what you can't.

©2019 David William Pearce