tag:jjvicars.com,2005:/blogs/blog?p=2Blog2023-10-16T02:55:23-12:00J.J. Vicarsfalsetag:jjvicars.com,2005:Post/60643132019-06-06T12:00:00-12:002022-05-22T06:31:01-12:00Jill Jones - Musical Muscle<p>In February of 2009 while living in Tokyo I was dabbling in journalism and had become acquainted with Jill Jones, best known for her work with Prince, specifically on the <em>1999</em> album and for her bit part in "Purple Rain". Via our social media communications and eventual phone calls I came to learn that her role was far greater than that, that it strongly resembled the studio guitarist who played on just about everything <a data-imported="1" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Tedesco" target="_blank">Tommy Tedesco</a>; everybody has heard them but nobody knows who they are. Looking for something musically interesting to write about I had landed on a treasure trove. Here was a story that needed telling and I was in the best position to tell it. I learned far more than I expected as we dug into the nitty-gritty of the inner workings of those iconic albums.</p>
<p>The interview was picked up by a short lived magazine and eventually life pulled me away from journalism. For years I thought about posting it on my blog. Since Prince's death there's been a lot of revisionist history with different people playing up their importance and downplaying others'. Today, on what would have been his 61st birthday, TIDAL is streaming the new and posthumous THE ORIGINALS, a collection of songs that he gave to other artists. Among the songs included are the original "Manic Monday" with Jill's vocals (I first came across it on a bootleg shortly before conducting the interview, recognized her voice, and sent it to her hence the reference in the interview) and "Baby You're A Trip" from her Paisley Park album. In the decade that has passed since this interview was conducted Jill has been a good friend and sounding board. I hate revisionist history and musicians not getting their due. In response to much of the horse puckey out there here is the original interview as it was published a decade ago, long before his death and the warring factions in its wake. My own writing has been slightly edited for brevity and to catch up on recent events, Jill's words are verbatim. And yes, I still have the audio.</p>
<p>###</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Jill Jones first emerged into the public eye as backing vocalist with Prince & the Revolution singing on "1999" and appearing in the video as well as in "Automatic" and on the album as The Lady Cab Driver. On the tour she sang behind the curtain with Vanity 6 then reprised her album performances. She appeared in "Purple Rain" as the waitress putting her on the big screen but most of her contributions were in the studio as the go-to for female vocals. Her solo album on Paisley Park Records did well in Europe but wasn't promoted in the States. Following her performance in "Graffiti Bridge" she drifted away from the Prince camp and wouldn't see him again until he reconnected with friends and bandmates from his early years in the months before his passing. During those years she worked sporadically with several name artists before dropping out of sight to concentrate on raising her daughter, now also a musician. With the rise of the Internet and social media she slowly reemerged into the public eye releasing solo albums that stretched from acoustic Rock to ethereal introspection to Dance and had a hit on the Dance charts with "Living For The Weekend". In January of 2017 she released the single "I Miss You", a heartfelt song for her late friend and mentor. In the video she recreated her Paisley Park days with props and memorabilia from her Paisley Park album. As former Prince associates have come together to celebrate his life and work she has become more active musically sitting in with Andre Cymone and doing shows of her own.<br><br>Jill Jones was born an only child in Lebanon, Ohio. Her mother was a model and a singer. Says Jones, "I used to sing along to a lot of her stuff. She was a standards singer, she liked Blues and Jazz oriented stuff. She <em>loved</em> Nancy Wilson. Miles Davis was always something you'd always hear in the house. Dinah Washington was <em>huge</em> in my house, Sara Vaughan. Nina Simone was a big one. And because part of my life I grew up with my grandmother I had exposure to people like Charles Brown and Muddy Waters. My grandmother loved Dave Brubeck. Billie Holiday was one of her favorites. B.B. King, if you have a black grandma she's <em>definitely</em> into B.B. King! There was a singer from Dayton called Little Miss Cornshucks (Mildred Cummings). I remember on her album cover she was sitting on a suitcase with a straw hat on (The Loneliest Gal In Town). It was really different then, especially being African-American. Everybody really supported each other a lot, supported talent. We'd go to the clubs and check people out."<br><br>Barely into her teens, her mom had a relationship with Fuller Gordy (Barry's brother) and Jill moved to California where she got bit by the music bug. "Everyone was at Motown. That's really what started it because I got to see how it all worked, how sessions would take place. My very first recollection of being in a major studio was with the singer Tata Vega. She's a big Gospel singer now but Tata was doing R&B stuff in the 70's and her engineer was Humberto Gatica, who is now an award-winning engineer working with people like Celine Dion. Those are my first recollections, when I moved to L.A. and was around all those people."<br><br> "My mom started managing Teena Marie and Teena moved into our house. She was always writing songs. I was on the other side of the house but she invited me to start writing with her. So I began to see how that worked. She really inspired me. Then she started asking me to sing backing vocals for her because being 13 or so, your voice is kind of open to be shaped a little tonally and being a background singer is kind of easy because you start to shape your voice around the tone of the lead singer. I'm good at doing that with a lot of other singers. I can somehow always shape my voice to support them. So I started to really understand my range because Teena has such a <em>huge</em> broad range. I may not have all the intonation or that melisma, we weren't big church-goers, but I somehow got the vibe and once being her background singer I started working professionally, leaving school to go sing on gigs. It was great."<br><br>"I had finished high school and was on my way to college when I ran into Prince. I had already been on a tour and we had met. I called and said I needed a job because school just wasn't my thing." With her hair dyed blonde she was soon a staple on MTV standing next to keyboardist Lisa Coleman singing one of the three-part vocals of "1999". The two women standing together behind the keyboard gave a provocative girl/girl image and the camera panned up and down the blonde bombshell in lingerie, heels and captain's hat. On the LP she put in a steamy performance as The Lady Cab Driver on the song of the same name. What seems passe by today's standards pushing the envelope at the time- two years later Tipper Gore, wife of Al Gore, would start PMRC and introduce the Explicit Lyric label in retaliation to hearing her daughter blasting one of Prince's raunchier songs, "Darling Nikki".<br><br>What set the Revolution and Jill apart from the competition was the undeniable talent beneath it all. These were schooled musicians and a tight act, tight enough to give their own heroes like James Brown some competition. When <em>1999</em> hit the road Jill pulled double duty singing with both Vanity 6 and the Revolution. Unfortunately she was kept behind a curtain during Vanity 6's set and for all but two songs during the Revolution's set. Her voice was a needed instrument but the blonde bombshell from the video was kept in the background until she came out for the encore on "1999" to mimic her performance in the video. Prince had deemed her "plain Jane" and audiences to this day have never understood why.<br><br>"At the beginning of my relationship with the Prince entourage, it was to give a little bit more credibility to the sound that was being pitched to the labels but yet it would completely go against the marketing side that he wanted to project which would be the really young girls who were really really cute but perhaps lacked a little in the vocal department. Once I became on-salary as opposed to work-for-hire then everything really opened up. It's kind of like having a 9 to 5 except it's 24/7 and someone would call you to come to the studio. I would sing on so many different things and a lot of that stuff got mish-mashed. I don't know who kept a score of who was doing what. You give this song to The Bangles, they decide to do it, are they going to keep the backing vocals? A lot of stuff has been news to me. What's great about all this social networking is engineers come back and tell you. Prince locked stuff up in his vault and you could hardly get a cassette. That was something I wasn't really paying attention to even though my mother came from a publishing background. In hindsight I should have been more on top of that because sometimes I listen to songs and go 'that's me!' I would definitely advise people to stay on top of their game, it's not even a joke. It's kinda like 'if you only knew then what you know now'."<br><br>On singing with Lisa Coleman, "The greatest thing about Lisa's voice is there's a real purity that I love. It's not gonna have a ton of vibrato or be over the top. It's consistent and reinforces. I think it's because she's a keyboard player. Her pitch is always on point. But who knows what he blended in. Like on "1999" he blended our voices together." She is a featured, though uncredited, vocalist on The Bangles' hit "Manic Monday". In many ways her time with the Revolution was typical of that of a studio musician such as guitarist Tommy Tedesco- everybody's familiar with the sound but nobody knows the name or the face. During her time with the Revolution she studied kickboxing, horseback riding, sculpture, and gymnastics. "That was during my grooming phase and Prince's Louis B. Mayer phase, having the stars in the stable and grooming them, making them the best of the best. He had a real interest in getting everybody in a stable and controlling them. He was a great combination of Louis B. Mayer and Huggy Bear."<br><br><br>In PURPLE RAIN she played the waitress at the now-legendary First Avenue in Minneapolis exuding a charisma that led many to wonder why <em>she</em> wasn't cast as the female lead. Originally the album was to be a double LP featuring songs from all the artists appearing in the movie. Jill sang a melancholy piano ballad named "Wednesday". When the album was whittled down to a single LP of only Prince & the Revolution hers was one of the songs that ended up on the cutting room floor. Either 100 or 1000 test pressings of the double LP were pressed but "Wednesday" would not be heard again until after Prince's death when his legendary vault was opened.<br><br>Her solo debut on Prince's newly established Paisley Park label was a big hit in Europe but went unheard of in the States because of major label politics; they outright refused to promote it.<br><br>"Prince had some successes on his label and the politics of having the label started to encroach upon what he could do with it. He had to deal with certain things from the corporate sector. Unfortunately when you become that successful in <em>any</em> business it's always amazing to watch the people who start to surround the person who actually had the dream, who brings the dream forward and makes it a reality. It's infuriating to watch how people thwart it and create the monster. They helped to create it and facilitate it. Most record labels have let artists have their labels almost in a condescending way. They ultimately lock those artists into ridiculous business-like formations and then squash anything they put out. That's what corporations do across the board. They don't get it. He fought <em>very</em> hard, he was not even on my project. Very rarely. He was not micro-managing like he did the other ones, as far as being there 24/7. I did it with David Rivkin. He had full faith and trust in what we were creating. I think they were trying to teach him a lesson, like he was getting too big for his britches. And if it hadn't been for the English Warner Brothers, who <em>got it</em>, I wouldn't have had anything. It was the guys in England who brought me over and promoted the record. The American Warners did <em>nothing</em> because they would not let him have any more successes."<br><br>With or without label support the album is none the less one of the finest works ever to come out of the Prince camp- funky grooves, catchy hooks, memorable songs, and top-notch musicianship (including one of the Revolution's tightest jams ever on "All Day All Night"). It's the signature Paisley Park sound performing as a vehicle for Jones' vocal. Finally turned loose in the spotlight she shines gloriously. Producer David Rivkin -brother of Revolution drummer Bobby Z- recalls, "We recorded at Electric Lady Studios in NY. Prince and I had recorded some of the tracks in Minneapolis, but for the New York segment I got to pick my favorite guys including Steve Stevens (guitar), Steve Gadd (drums), Tony Levin (bass), Hugh McCracken (guitar) and Randy Brecker (horns). We spent some time sending cassette mixes back and forth to Minneapolis for final approval but I eventually came up with the method of using two separate phones and two separate lines to play stereo mixes long distance, kinda like a long distance iPod. Saved a lot of time. Jill was a perfectionist in getting her vocals just right. I loved working on that record. When we added the strings with Claire Fisher it became a motion picture, bigger than life."<br><br>Jill adds, "After we had mixed it he asked if I wanted Claire Fischer to do the strings because he knew I loved Claire's work. It was a little all over the place. We even had Pop tunes on it, but I'm not a Pop girl. Those songs were like bad blood-transfusions, they didn't work, so we took them off. They were really cute and they were really 'nice' and if I wanted to have a hit record I probably made a mistake in taking those songs off- you have to give the label what they want- but we took a chance. We wanted them to work a little and get up off their asses and <em>market</em>! And the only place that did was Warners UK."<br><br>Although Warners refused to promote it those who did hear the album recognized it's artistic merits. "I met Miles Davis through Prince. I met him briefly and he was really kind to me. It was pretty amazing. Miles <em>loved</em> my album and he made Prince very happy when he told him that. And that should go on the record!"<br><br>Things shifted towards the end of the decade as one chapter in her life closed and another began. There was a second Paisley Park album planned that was demoed but never materialized. The standout songs from this era are "You Do Me I'll Do You" with Ryuichi Sakamoto and "C'iest Si Bon" for an Yves St. Lauren commercial. She recalls, "Trevor Horn did that. Jean Baptiste Mondino hooked it up. He had the visual sense and Trevor had the audio. Naomi Cambell did the commercial and I sang. Once again, behind the curtains!"<br><br>But the end of an era had already begun. She explains, "Around '89 I had a fire in my house. My two dogs Koo Koo and Gertie died. I lost most everything I owned. The learning experience was sometimes you have to do things when you don't want to. My girlfriend came over that night and said 'let's go out' and I didn't want to go out, I wanted to stay home. She goes 'no let's go to this party' so I left. I had this custom made furniture that wasn't flame retardant and it had toxic materials. It was an electrical fire. The firemen said toxic materials killed everything in my house in 6 or 7 minutes just because of the fumes alone."<br><br>The fire was the precursor to a long road ahead that would see her disappear from the limelight. She had a major falling out with Prince that ended her tenure at Paisley Park and left her without a record deal. Then shortly after giving birth to a baby girl her mother, to whom she had been very close and had helped nurture her career, died after a long battle with cancer. Soon her marriage fell apart. At one point she was hospitalized with a blood clot by her heart. From then on things would never be the same again.<br><br>"My life has been backwards. I had a life where I was working non-stop from the time I was 13 until I was in my 30's after I had my child. Getting divorced, my mother passing away, losing my record deal in England... the worst part of it was I had to survive and I had to figure it out <em>fast</em>. Everybody's gotta survive and you do what you have to."<br><br>It was an about face that woke her up in a big way. "I think it's a big laugh. I had a problem with it at some point. I remember my life had changed so dramatically. I was managing a restaurant here in New York, it was a month after my mom died and I was getting a divorce, and my friend Alec Kashishian brings in Madonna and she knew what I had done (musically). I remember the conversation- you're an artist and these are the things that happen. They just <em>do</em>. Sometimes it's just for art's sake. So shit happens and you go on. I was feeling 'oh my god I'm so embarrassed' then I thought 'Jill toughen up, this is just how it ended, this is how it is and you'll be fine'. And I think I've written better songs because I had to go through some of those experiences."<br><br>By the end of the 90's she began to slowly emerge back into the public eye. She sang with Jazz guitarist Ronny Jordan on a cover of Carly Simon's "Why" from his album A BRIGHTER DAY. "It's all right. I think I could have done a better job for him. I didn't get in the pocket. I would have rather done something original with him." She also sang backup with Sinead O'Conner then with Chic on their '96 Japan tour on what turned out to be bassist Bernard Edwards' final performance, he died later that night in his hotel room. His last performance was released in '99 as LIVE AT BUDOKAN CD/DVD. But it was with the release of TWO with Chris Bruce in 2001 that she emerged as a fully realized artist in her own right.<br><br>"I met Chris through my friend in L.A. who was running a bar. Chris was playing and he told me 'you should meet this kid from Chicago' so I flew him out, we became really good friends, I liked his music, and he's been like my little brother forever. He ended up working on Wendy & Lisa's records, then Seal. After my mother passed on and I lost my deal in the UK we decided to write TWO. I went to his house in Chicago, chilled out for a bit, and we wrote it in a couple weeks."<br><br>TWO is a musical landscape of ethereal sounds and haunting melodies underscored by deep introspection. It's the musical diary of an artist coming to terms with "the private Armageddons a lifetime sees." It doesn't coddle or entice. Opening with a haunting minor chord followed by a dissonant riff, it provokes the listener throughout the first few songs. The album's peak comes midway on "Gorgeous Wonder". Jones' performance embodies the experience of motherhood in a way that transcends gender and touches the core of human experience. It's uplifting and lamenting at the same time, sobering and intoxicating, exhilarating and soothing. The remainder of the album closes with a calmer yet equally provocative tone.<br><br>"It was a very moving experience for me. I'm very proud of that record. It's a little thought provoking about things in my life and just coming to terms with who I really am and just trying to figure out what I had to be grateful for because you get a little broken as you go along. You know, rocky roads... you get a couple shards sticking out."<br><br>TWO was also a turning point for her writing process. As she explains, "It took me years to be comfortable with initiating songs because I didn't feel comfortable enough with my playing abilities to express what I want. But I started to figure out I don't care if you can only play three chords or four chords, you're actually being more honest when you sit in front of anybody who can take that and really shape it and help you to see it. A lot of people cut themselves short creatively with that stuff- 'oh I'm not as good as he is', 'Prince plays better than me, how can I sit in front of him'. With Chris I pulled out the guitar, played chords and my melodies and said 'now I need to figure out the bridge, this needs to go somewhere' and it moved like that. There was something I <em>had</em> to get out- I have to take this step and nobody else can take it for me. This was a very different way of songwriting for me. Which is why those 'blood-transfusion' songs don't work for me. I don't feel them. I have to connect. I lost my frilliness for little Pop tunes a long time ago."</p>
<p>"There are songs that will be with you forever. Sometimes they're like your best friend, songs that make you laugh, make you cry. That to me is really important. I listen to all the songs that I like and I think 'this must be who I am'. Because not everybody is going to pick up a Morrisey record, not everybody's going to listen to Ryuichi Sakamoto, but the things that you identify with and you relate to these are things that resonate in your soul whether it be emptiness or loftiness or happiness or whatever. You find it."<br><br>Her next release was WASTED in 2004 as the vocal/guitar duo The Grand Royals with Ian Ginsberg. "It was a very different style of writing, going into a grittier feel. During that time it was the next step for me to just be out with a band and without the accoutrements of 'you've got a tour manager'. It was important to make that step and along the way those experiences created the songs of WASTED. There was some sort of reality check that came. The Grand Royals sessions are based upon 'this is fuckin' for real, this isn't a joke'."<br><br> "I was getting a little bit more involved politically, paying attention. That was the reality of the world had been spinning and I didn't realize where it spun to. So that's what that record was about, the core necessities of life- you need love, you need food, you need air, water... and you need some money! And I think I had turned into a bit of a little hustler about certain things, and had some boundaries, and had a little bit of a spine at that point. I wasn't like a spoiled brat asking for something, I was just a regular citizen. How do I get along here?"<br><br>Ian adds, "There's a lot of depth underneath that beautiful exterior. Lyrically, she's got some great images and phrasing, and as a singer, she has this wonderful gift of being able to shape-shift a little. Sometimes her voice can be so emotive, and sometimes it can be very matter-of-fact and removed. Each song needs something a little different, and Jill can do it all. That's one of the reasons WASTED is really stripped down and bare. We used to go to our friend's place and lay stuff down really simple so we could listen back. At a certain point, Jill and I were on a roll and had a bunch of tunes we were working on. We went to Willy's (the friend) one day, and just played them. Completely live. We added some vocal doubles and harmonies, but the basic songs were all one-takes. They weren't even finished, but somehow, they were. So a good portion of what's on WASTED was done in that one day."<br><br>WASTED also saw Jones turning her attention to larger matters. "Lily White" is a song that was interesting to me because it's about Condoleeza Rice. There's a line where I sing 'under the Big House television lights/your brown skin looks so lily white'. I started to become very pissed off at the last administration (Dubya & Cheney). People have no idea what they're actually doing to people. They've taken many liberties in all this. It's been a nightmare but hopefully that'll change. Let's see."<br><br>During the early days of social media her MySpace player featuredt recent songs. "Helpless Man," "was with Ian, a project we did with Sony/Columbia and had "So Glad To Meet You" (unreleased) originally." "Live In Me" is an outtake from WASTED. "Chris and I wrote a song called "Sweet Liberty" back in the 80's and each time it's evolved into something else." "Fuck You 'Til You're Groovy" is a breathy, spacious piece that further enhances the sex symbol of "G-spot". "I'm going to do the releases through CD Baby because I really like them a lot; they're efficient, it's very simple and they're very clear."<br><br>Like many independent musicians in the 21st Century she's embraced the benefits of home recording. "I'm writing new material and seeing wherever it's going to lead me. I'm doing a lot of it alone. Towards the middle I'll probably start bringing in other people. When it's just you and a machine that's a different thing, especially when you don't know how they work which can be good on a certain level because you don't know what it can do and sometimes it's doing stuff it shouldn't do but you like the way it sounds. I love making music but I want to evolve it into something a little more to help solidify certain things in the industry. Maybe setting up a company to execute certain kinds of media and that way I can deal with artists who are having their moment."<br><br>Reflecting back on her beginnings with Motown she states firmly, "The Gordy family did instill inside of me one thing which is the entrepreneurial stuff; you should try, you should just try to create. And Prince was like that too. But I had to get in there to see how these people are working it and it's very interesting what consumers allow to happen to themselves."<br><br>"Everything doesn't have to be perfect pitch for me, I just have to kind of believe it and get the whole gist of it. I love the new stuff that's coming out, I love the freedom that's coming from it because I think we've not had it for a long time in the music business. The trickle down of the publishing/songwriting people they hook you up with, you go and write a song... that stuff is just cold. Some people need those songs but it can just be so boring. People make money on it, I'm not condemning it, but it can be so 'American Idol'."<br><br>Some things are a blessing in disguise. While she may have missed out on being the star that many felt she should have been, she's retained her integrity. "The spotlight is a very strange thing. I don't think I do too well with that, even with the little bits that I've had. Some love the warmth of the light. I like it but I don't want to sunbathe in it. Usually I'm the type that likes to bring other people in it with me. My feeling is we'll all get in the spotlight together, because everybody plays such a big part in what the moment is."<br><br>Her time with the Prince camp put her on the map but it doesn't bother her. "I take the rumors as they come. I do recall years ago when I had an interview for my first album in Germany, there was a point where I said I could be in the Swiss Alps living on land hoeing and toiling and in the midst of hard physical labor someone will come across the hill with a microphone and say 'what was it like working with Prince?' I could be throwing down seeds and a buzzard would fly in, take the seeds, and on his way out say 'Hey! What was it like working with Prince?' But in all seriousness there are not many people who can change the world or the perspective of the way people look at the world. It would be great if we could all do it but most people don't usually have the balls, the courage or bravado, because we doubt ourselves so much. There are very few people who have done that and he is definitely one of them so on that note I give him complete respect. I'm honored to have had the privilege of our paths cross. And everybody who crosses mine I feel we're all interconnected anyway."<br><br> <br>Since the rise of the Internet her Paisley Park album became available to public ears despite being out of print for over a decade and finally got its due. As a former 'Prince girl' she's regarded as one of the best, an equal who stood on her own much like Wendy & Lisa. It's not surprising they continue to make enduring music long after the glory days of the Revolution have faded. Strip away the hairspray and ruffles and what you have left are dedicated musicians who raised the bar. On the subject of a Revolution reunion there are many who specifically want to hear Jill Jones with Wendy & Lisa. "I think it would be a great project. Just the three of us would be nice. We would be quite the trio." Wendy & Lisa unequivocally state, "Jill Jones kicks ass!!!"<br><br>Into the 21st Century she has been an inspiration to many up-and-coming musicians and rumors circulate of collaborations with her most vocal supporters. One in particular insists on bringing her to Austin, TX for a Blues/Jazz/Roots oriented album visiting the early influences that came from her mother and grandmother. It's a logical step after C'EST SI BON, the Ronny Jordan track, and WASTED. Framing her voice in a sparse setting -piano, arch top guitar, upright bass, small drum kit- giving it space to capture every nuance and expression of this most dynamic singer.<br><br>Musician and faux-celebrity Jeremy Gloff, long one of her most ardent supporters, sums it up eloquently while reflecting on one of the high points of his own career; "The first time I viewed Jill Jones was standing behind a keyboard with Lisa Coleman in Prince's 1999 video. Little did I imagine that 26 years later I'd see her standing next to me on stage singing along with me. During those 26 years she established herself as a restless uncatagorizable artist -- releasing music under the radar that was full of emotion, quirkiness, spirit and sincerity. Jill Jones is one of the few daring artists who can truly immerse herself in a full-on House track, a haunting Indie Rock masterpiece, or an angry folk song, and nearly everything in between. Jill is the best of the best."<br><br>Throughout the highs and lows she has maintained a strong connection to her roots, something that has kept her grounded through it all. "Being from Ohio was the best thing for me. That set the tone and I always harken back to my Ohio days. Cuss you out one day and come in the next like nothing happened. 'Hey, how you doing? Wanna go down to the Piggly Wiggly?' That is so Ohio. People don't get it here in New York. If you piss them off they don't know how you can make up. Yeah, you make up! It's no big deal. I have no problem getting cussed out or cussing somebody out and then being like 'what do you want for dinner?' I'm born Year of the Tiger. I read something in Chinese astrology that I would be content just laying around, talking to people, playing a couple bongos. I'm very boho. I have a thing about 'what's the rush?' but then I get impassioned about things."<br><br>During the 80's when she was closest to the limelight Jill Jones stood out from the pack despite the limited exposure. Without ever being prominently featured she showed a promise and potential that was widely acknowledged. After a long road she has at last fulfilled that promise. And so begins the next chapter for this diversely talented singer and songwriter...<br><br>Sources:<br>Interview conducted with Jill Jones 2/22/09<br>Further comments by Jeremy Gloff, David Rivkin, and Wendy & Lisa<br>http://come.to/jilljones The original comprehensive Jill Jones web site.<br>www.jeremygloff.com/jilljonesessay.html Jeremy Gloff's essay on Jill Jones and her music<br>www.jilljonesonline.com A work in progress</p>J.J. Vicarstag:jjvicars.com,2005:Post/60643122018-09-15T12:00:00-12:002020-01-06T06:23:09-12:00Big Jay McNeely
<p>During the late 60's in Los Angeles my father played with one of his childhood heroes, legendary saxophonist <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Jay_McNeely" target="_blank" data-imported="1">Big Jay McNeely</a>, "king of the honkers". I knew his name and some of the larger than life stories surrounding him before I had heard any of his records. In late 2012 as I was preparing to return to the U.S. my father, also a Tokyo resident, informed me that <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Jay_McNeely" target="_blank" data-imported="1">Big Jay</a> was doing a Japan tour and that we were going to go see him. We got backstage <em>before</em> the show and after a brief reintroduction they were reminiscing even as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Jay_McNeely" target="_blank" data-imported="1">Big Jay</a> was changing clothes to get ready for the show. With him was his granddaughter Brittney and he good naturedly commented that she just <em>had</em> to go to Japan with him so of course he had to oblige her.<br><br></p>
<p>Soon it was showtime and the 84 year old legend had to get to work. We left the dressing room and found our way to a nice position near the front of the stage. The place was packed. Japanese swing band <a href="http://bloodsax.main.jp/" target="_blank" data-imported="1">Bloodest Saxophone</a> was his backing band for the tour and they kicked off the show by themselves. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Jay_McNeely" target="_blank" data-imported="1">Big Jay</a>'s sax came honking out of nowhere and before anyone could figure out was going on he came out from the back of the hall making his way through the crowd while wailing away. The room went nuts. He made his way to his seat at the front of the stage and addressed the audience with his trademark "Children! Father's going to preach to you!" He held the audience in the palm of his end throughout the entire show and wore the band out. By the end of it they could barely keep up. During the closing number he left the stage and made his way through the crowd, taking his time, and out the door. </p>
<p></p>
<p>Following the tour he and the band played a small club to a select crowd. You had to be in the loop or know somebody who was to even know about it much less where it was. We had a table to the right of the stage and halfway through the show, while another horn was soloing, he motioned me to come over. I assumed something was wrong and rushed right over as inconspicuously as you can run onto the middle of a stage in a small club during a performance and with more than a hint of concern in my voice asked <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Jay_McNeely" target="_blank" data-imported="1">Big Jay</a> what he needed. He asked, "What Blues number do you want to sing?" and my mouth fell open. Scrambling to maintain my composure I said, "How about <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freddie_King" target="_blank" data-imported="1">Freddie King</a>'s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mo3ll90kggo" target="_blank" data-imported="1"><em>See See Baby</em></a>? Bb with a quick IV." He said OK and that he would call me up. The band played a couple more and then he introduced me and called me to the stage. He handed me the wireless mic that he clipped to his horn, which he also used for vocals. I gave the band the key and so forth and counted it off and away we went!</p>
<p>I'm not used to singing without a guitar strapped around me and felt a little awkward being simply a vocalist, especially when I handed the mic back for his solo, but I was invited up by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Jay_McNeely" target="_blank" data-imported="1">Big Jay McNeely</a> to sing a number with him and in a situation like that you set aside whatever hangups you might have and pinch yourself to make sure you're not dreaming. The song was over, I thanked him and handed back the mic, and returned to my seat completely flabbergasted.</p>
<p>After the show we hung out with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Jay_McNeely" target="_blank" data-imported="1">Big Jay</a> and Brittney until it was time for everybody to vacate the premises. Not only was it a gas to hang with Big Jay but Brittney was a sweet kid, a teenager then, into everything Japan and was having the time of her life. Sometimes when Big Jay and my father would get going reminiscing us kids would be hanging and chit chatting by ourselves. She's in her twenties now and is quite the entrepreneur with a social conscience to boot. </p>
<p>While working on <a href="https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/jjvicars6" target="_blank" data-imported="1"><strong><em>Irreverent Dissident</em></strong></a> during the first half of 2017 I decided that <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vAIzOzXrYQ" target="_blank" data-imported="1"><em>Stinky Twinky</em></a> absolutely needed a sax solo as well as a horn section for the head. Since it was my tip of the hat to all the great Jump Blues guitarists including <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pee_Wee_Crayton" target="_blank" data-imported="1">Pee Wee Crayton</a>, whose instrumental <span style="text-decoration:underline"><em>Twinky</em></span> was the initial inspiration for the song and where the title originated, I thought it would be really cool to have Big Jay solo on it. We had recorded it once already but due to a stiff drummer who couldn't swing we had to recut it. The first recording had trombone, tenor sax, and trumpet for the horn section and although they did a decent job it just wasn't quite the sound I was looking for. We worked out all the details with Big Jay's recording engineer Richard Ihara who recorded the parts at Big Jay's house. Big Jay did a first take and played the head along with the guitar. He then did a second take this time also playing the head with the guitar but playing a harmony to the first part. Richard sent me a rough mix with both horns going at once including the two solos at the same time. They offered to redo anything that I'd like, flying in tracks can be tricky because you don't have the leader/producer in the studio with the musicians, but I declined. The two saxes wailing away over top of each other perfectly summed up the spirit of the honkers and what they were all about. This was significant to me since Big Jay was the last living original. Plus I had the horn section! It may be a cliche but the old adage applies; if it ain't broke don't fix it! We pasted the two sax tracks in and mixing it was easy as pie. Just balance the volume right, pan them a little to spread out the sound, and that was it. I don't remember if we EQ's them or added any reverb. If we did it was minimal. </p>
<p>After it was done and I sent him the final mix I called Big Jay and thanked him profusely. What I got was far beyond what I'd asked for or expected and it added a whole new dimension not only to the song but to the entire album itself. He told me how much he really dug the tune and I couldn't believe he dug it that much. I thought it was kind of simplistic, it's Jump Blues but it has a sort of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link_Wray" target="_blank" data-imported="1">Link Wray</a> simplicity that I thought might be frowned upon. Over and over again he kept saying, "That's what those Rockabilly kids in Europe want to hear!" He was big in Europe and knew I had my sights set on the European market. He played the head because he dug the song so much and reiterated the point about the European Rockabilly kids. This was but one example of his kindness and generosity as a human being and also his way of passing it on.</p>
<p>While we were on the phone he asked me who the guitar player was on that and was surprised when I told him it was me. I even had to repeat it! Somehow all this time he thought I was a vocalist. I told him that I was primarily a guitarist, that I sang because I fronted my own group but regarded it as secondary, and that I also doubled on bass which I played as well as guitar on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vAIzOzXrYQ" target="_blank" data-imported="1"><em>Stinky Twinky</em></a>. He was impressed. I told him how the tune was my tip of the hat to Jump Blues in general, starting with the guitarists but eventually to the whole genre, which is why it needed a honkin' sax solo on it, and named off all the guys I liked from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-Bone_Walker" target="_blank" data-imported="1">T-Bone Walker</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pee_Wee_Crayton" target="_blank" data-imported="1">Pee Wee Crayton</a> to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Jordan" target="_blank" data-imported="1">Louis Jordan</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wynonie_Harris" target="_blank" data-imported="1">Wynonie Harris</a>. He thought it was really cool that I was steeped in the originators of the style and asked how I got into it. All I could say was that it was really good music and that I was fortunate to be exposed to it early on .<br></p>
<p>One thing he wasn't so sure about though was the title. He asked me, "Do you think that's a good name for the song?" with some doubt in his voice. I told him how the title came about starting with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pee_Wee_Crayton" target="_blank" data-imported="1">Pee Wee Crayton</a>'s <span style="text-decoration:underline"><em>Twinky</em> </span>and that the "Stinky" part was my ex-wife's cat I nicknamed Stinky who lived to the ripe old age of 22 years old and was in perfect health until her last four months. She was a mean critter who would scratch the hell out of you if you put your hand out to pet her or anything else but after I helped her up to the sink for some water (she'd only drink out of the sink and not a bowl,) she was my buddy. When I was hammering out the song at the kitchen table one afternoon I was thinking I couldn't call it "Twinky" and then she popped out wanting some attention and it hit me; <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vAIzOzXrYQ" target="_blank" data-imported="1">Stinky Twinky</a>! He got a chuckle out of that. When I said that it's one of my most popular compositions and how I always introduce it on the bandstand as "a song for the ladies." He cracked up and after all that explanation agreed that it was a good title.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vAIzOzXrYQ" target="_blank" data-imported="1"><em>Stinky Twinky</em></a> was one of the songs that we performed at the Blues Challenge about that time which we won and therefore took us down to Memphis for the IBC earlier this year. <a href="http://blindraccoon.com/" target="_blank" data-imported="1">Blind Racoon</a> was doing an artist showcase and had a drawing for various prizes. The big one, at least for me, was a full on marketing campaign. I stuffed the ballot box with all my tickets and my father's, won the drawing I wanted, and Betsie Brown worked <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Irreverent-Dissident-Explicit-J-J-Vicars/dp/B076Q43ZSK" target="_blank" data-imported="1"><strong><em>Irreverent Dissident</em></strong></a> which did quite well on the charts for being a second debut of sorts. Then <a href="http://www.carolynbluessingergaines.com/" target="_blank" data-imported="1">Carolyn Gaines</a>, daughter of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Gaines" target="_blank" data-imported="1">Roy Gaines</a>, put out an album that featured Big Jay as a guest and <a href="http://blindraccoon.com/" target="_blank" data-imported="1">Blind Racoon</a> was working that one at the same time. What a coincidence that Betsie would be working two album with Big Jay as a featured guest!</p>
<p>The afternoon of this writing we're driving back to Ohio from a gig in western New York just above Pennsylvania when I receive a group message from Richard Ihara that Big Jay passed away at 6:15 in the morning. It's sad but at the same time I'm thinking of what a great run he had, 91 years old and playing right up til the end. I'm telling Keith, my partner in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTWFzgT6fP89nUQ5HxKAqug" target="_blank" data-imported="1">The Muleface Brothers</a> who's driving, the stories recounted in this blog and a strange irony occurs to me, that of all my tunes Big Jay played on the Jump Blues number that just happened to be named "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vAIzOzXrYQ" target="_blank" data-imported="1"><em>Stinky Twinky</em></a>" after Stinky who lived to be 22 years old, 15-18 being high average for a cat, and was her usual healthy mean self right up until the last few months. The similarity between the song's namesake and its saxophonist is ironic, if slightly bizarre. As I'm musing this bizarre irony I recall something interesting that happened. In Japan they believe that if a pet is attached to a place or a family that three years after their death they come back. One day the mother-in-law, Tattoo of the bumbling pygmies, was walking the dog who found a litter of kittens that had been dumped in the park near our house. All died but one. She brought that lone survivor home and we nursed her back to health. Same breed, same color, and same mean disposition. It was three years almost to the day. All of this flashes through my mind as I'm recounting these stories and for a moment I feel a sense of omnipresence about the whole thing. I've seen enough things in my life that can't be explained by conventional thought to know that there's more to the world than just the tiny sliver of it that we perceive. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Jay_McNeely" target="_blank" data-imported="1">Big Jay MacNeely</a> has transcended and I'll see him again. For now I have a gift that he gave me to be shared.</p>
J.J. Vicarstag:jjvicars.com,2005:Post/60643112014-09-06T12:00:00-12:002020-01-06T06:23:09-12:00Step Back - Johnny Winter Brings It To A Fitting Close
<p>Because Johnny Winter died just as <em><strong>Step Back</strong></em> was being released there has been much hype surrounding it. I wanted to give an objective review so I first listened to it <em>without</em> reading the liner notes, allowing the music to succeed or fail entirely on its own terms. Afterward I went back and listened to again, this time reading the liner notes. Since then I've listened to it a few times while doing other things, occasionally grabbing a quick glance at the liner notes. Although there is a deluge of Internet comments proclaiming things like "his best album EVER!!!", often without the correct use of capital letters and punctuation, I promise to spare my readers any such sycophantic drivel. This album is for the serious fan.<br><br><em>"Unchain My Heart"</em> kicks off the album. The Blues Brothers horns are cool and the backing vocals are an interesting change of pace for a JW album but the secret weapon is Mike Dimeo's Hammond B3 organ. Adds the perfect touch. Paul Nelson does all the guitar work, rhythm and fills, except for Johnny's solo in the middle. Although Nelson deserves much credit for getting Winter back on track his guitar sound is generic and Johnny's guitar less distinct than usual.<br><br>Elmore James' <em>"Can't Hold Out"</em> is the first gem. Winter and Ben Harper sound like they're having a good ol' time and the rhythm section grooves the way a shuffle should. Magic Sam's <em>"Don't Want No Woman"</em> with Eric Clapton moves along at nice pace. Winter and Clapton take turns on the fills and you have to pay attention to figure out who's playing what. The Howlin' Wolf chestnut <em>"Killing Floor"</em> doesn't feature any big name guests but is a credible rendition. This far into the album there's nothing spectacular, just fun music which is good enough. For me the significance of it being his last album is that it's fun music. What better way to end than having fun right back where you started? The wheel doesn't necessarily need to be reinvented.<br><br>Johnny reclaims <em>"Who Do You Love"</em> from George Thorogood and brings it back to Bo Diddley's neighborhood. And it's one of the coolest songs on the album. Once again there are no big name guests, however it's the not-so-famous guests who add depth to the album. In this case backing vocalist Meredith Dimenna. Gatemouth Brown's <em>"Okie Dokie Stomp"</em> is a highlight. This instrumental Jump Blues bounces with life. Johnny plays some of his best licks and kicks Brian Setzer up the arse. Setzer rises to the occasion and even gets the last word in. The Blues Brothers horns make another appearance and especially shine on this one. <br><br><em>"Where Can You Be"</em> begins the descent into what can only be called "white boy Blues" territory. Winter and Billy Gibbons get off some good licks, and it's cool to hear them together, but the guitars are somewhat generic and the groove is very much the Rock version of a shuffle. I can understand the commercial appeal of songs such as this but my preferences run towards the swinging and the shuffling. If you prefer straight Blues over the more Rock-oriented material then this take on B.B. King's <em>"Sweet Sixteen"</em> is a desecration. Joe Bonamassa, the current darling of the BluesRock guitarslinger idiom whom I find to be a depressingly flaccid player, straight up overplays. When Johnny Winter plays a million notes it sounds like a torrential outpouring that he can't hold back; the damn has burst and it's raining Blues. Bonamassa sounds like he's getting paid by the note and his bills are overdue. It's unmusical wanking; he's showing off because he got to play on a Johnny Winter album and now I like him even less than I already did. Low point of the album, this one also reveals a chink in the armor. The album was tracked; record the backing tracks first then add in other parts, guests' parts were recorded elsewhere and 'flown in'. Nowhere on the album is this evident as much as the stop-time ending here. It feels rushed and choppy. For comparison listen to B.B. doing it.<br><br>After the previous track Johnny's solo performance on Son House's "Death Letter" redeems the album. Yes, you can hear that his chops have diminished. Doesn't matter. This is Johnny Winter at the end of a long career. Then naked guitar/vocal recording is intimate and personal. At 70 he's earned Blind Melon Chitlin' status, rough around the edges adds to the charm. Winter often said he preferred Blues over Jazz because it was less technical and more immediate, more about feel. That's exactly what this performance is. We get hear the unadulterated musician by himself without any props and it's perfect, warts and all. Hands down one of my personal favorites on the album and I wish there would have been more like it. <br><br>Little Walter's <em>"My Babe"</em> with Jason Ricci on harp is another fun Blues number characteristic of the album. People forget in this post-politically-correct age of electronica that Blues is drinkin' an' dancin' music. The beauty of the album is that Winter takes it right back there where it belongs. These songs are the reason guys like him and myself picked up a guitar in the first place. Little Richard's <em>"Long Tall Sally"</em> is a delightful surprise. With Leslie West as the big-name guest I was dreading a pentatonic wank-fest but thankfully that's not the case. Johnny plays the first solo, Leslie the second, and both are well phrased and concise. And the song moves like a 50's rocker should. If your woman doesn't shake her ass when you put this on get rid of her! <br><br>When I heard that Lightnin' Hopkins' <em>"Mojo Hand"</em> was going to be on this album I was eager with anticipation. Lightnin' was an important influence on me and a lot of my guitar heroes, including but not limited to Johnny Winter. We <em>all</em> came outta Lightnin' Hopkins! And it was one of the first songs I learned when I started on guitar. However, this rendition disappointed me. Once again we're back in "white boy Blues" territory. It's fine at a bike rally or when drinking with people you have to pry away from Classic Rock radio (in the second case it's definitely an improvement) but for those of us who are not only Johnny Winter fans but also listen to the same guys he listened to it's a bit flat. I would have preferred he record it on acoustic same as the Son House number.<br><br>Fats Domino's <em>"Blue Monday"</em> with Dr. John on piano closes out both the album and Johnny Winter's life and career perfectly. Once again he takes the music out of the museum and back where it belongs. One of the most fun songs on the album. Blues and early Rock 'n' Roll aren't much different. It's good time music and after more than half a century of playing professionally including over 40 years in the big time Johnny Winter ends by coming full circle. Whenever I listen this one that same indescribable feeling that caught me and many of my heroes before me when we were kids is fresh and present.<br><br>The album stands up just fine on its own and the gimmicks merely detract. Besides big-name guitar guests who add little if anything somebody, presumably in the marketing department, came up with the bright idea to include a pick with the CD, five different colors with a limited-to-5000 in pearl. Complete and utter nonsense. Winter played with a thumbpick and these are flatpicks with his autograph reproduced on one side. But that's no reason to opt for buying the download instead. The 6-panel CD wallet is well designed and has a center piece under the middle panel that pushed the disc in when you close it and brings it part way out when you open it.<br><br>The unsung heroes of this album are bassist Scott Spray, drummer Tommy Curiale and keyboardist Mike DiMeo. The rhythm section is solid throughout and the keys add a nice touch. The other guitarists are really only there for star power. With the exception of a Brian Setzer none of them stand out. Paul Nelson played most of the guitars, including many of the fills you would expect Johnny to be playing, and the standard formula is Johnny-1st solo/(insert guest name here)-second solo. The best songs are the straight Blues and the early Rock 'n' Roll numbers. The not-so-great ones are the very-commercial Rock stuff. All in all it's a good, listenable album as well as a fitting close to his life and career. If you're a Johnny Winter fan you'll be glad you bought it.</p>
J.J. Vicarstag:jjvicars.com,2005:Post/60643102014-07-21T12:00:00-12:002020-10-16T05:43:18-12:00Johnny Winter 1944 - 2014
<p>Johnny Winter has been one of my biggest guitar heroes from the time I first picked up the instrument right through to the present. The term "Blues-Rock" is too frequently applied to any Rock guitarist who aspires to play Blues but to be a true Blues-Rocker like Winter, SRV or Rory Gallagher requires being a dyed-in-the-wool Blues player first and, because you're a long haired white guy, blowing the roof off a Rock audience who may or may not be hip to Blues. Few can pull it off. For me he was the blueprint.<br><br>Somewhere around the age of 15 I bought my first Winter album, <em><strong>Serious Business</strong></em>, the second of his three Alligator albums. <em>"Master Mechanic"</em> and <em>"Ain't Your Business"</em> were among the first songs I learned. This was arguably one of the best periods for Winter; Stevie Ray Vaughan had kicked off another Blues revival a few years earlier and Bruce Iglauer's Alligator Records was reviving the careers of many older Blues artists while introducing new ones. Alligator Records was also instrumental in revitalizing the careers of a few Blues-Rockers, getting them back to their roots rather than trying be commercially appealing. Lonnie Mack and Johnny Winter both did some of their best work on Alligator.<br><br>August of that year I attended my first concert, Johnny Winter at Stage One in Houston. Unable to contain my excitement I bounced off the walls for a week beforehand. Ezra Charles and The Works opened the show with a hot set of piano driven Rock 'n' Roll ala' Jerry Lee Lewis and then Johnny took forever to hit the stage. In the meantime the club ran out of beer. And then there was little 15 year old me, attending the concert with my mom since I was underage, surrounded by all these 8 foot bikers with hair down to their waist, covered in tattoos and out of beer. "Intimidated" doesn't begin to describe it.<br><br>That went out the window when he finally did hit the stage. He came out decorated with tattoos that looked like watercolors on his albino skin and wailed. His touring band was Jon Paris on bass & harmonica and Tom Compton on drums, who had previously played with that other blazing-at-the-speed-of-light BluesRock guitarist Alvin Lee. Since I'd worked my way to the front of the stage before they started I wound up in front of Paris instead of Johnny but hey, I was there! When he switched to the Firebird for slide it was a whole other world for me. Near the end of the show, probably on <em>"Johnny B. Goode"</em>, he came over to Paris' side of the stage, stood behind him and they did 'the arm swap' playing each others' instruments. For a teenage budding guitarist the show was an initiation.<br><br>Afterward we waited four hours for him to come out and he signed my copy of Serious Business. Not in person, though. They took everyone's stuff onto the bus and then handed it back out the windows. Jon Paris had signed it in person. Although Alligator Records used a house band for most of their recordings rather than the artist's road band Paris had played harmonica on four songs. A year later while hanging out with Albert Collins & The Icebreakers Johnny B. Gayden, the house bassist for Alligator, signed my copy of Serious Business as well. Of all my autographed records that remains a favorite in the collection.<br><br>It had been so loud my ears were ringing for the next three days but that was like an 'afterglow' to me. Like most of my generation Stevie Ray Vaughan was the one who inspired me to pick up guitar and get into Blues but Winter was the one who solidified it for me. I would never see SRV now but I had seen Winter and nothing compares to being there in person. He had provided the template.<br><br>Around '89 or '90 while living in Tokyo during my late teens he was booked for his first Japanese tour. Guitar and Blues fans were ecstatic. The tour was later cancelled and to this day I regret returning my ticket for a refund. That would be a cool piece of memorabilia to have.<br><br>The next time I saw him was in Cleveland, possibly at The Agora though I don't remember for certain, ten years after the first time. By now his health had deteriorated and it was painful to watch. Switching to his Firebird for slide he struggled for several minutes to pull his hair out from under the strap, something that all longhaired guitarists do in a second. He played a lot of clams and overall sounded uninspired to say the least. For the next few months I kept looking for him in the obituaries. Live in NYC '97 came out and it was as bad as the recent show. Most of my other musical heroes had died off and the few others that were still around were also sliding downhill. This was a good time to pursue other musical interests.<br><br>A couple years later while living in Cincinnati he played some place in northern Kentucky. Cincinnati residents frequently head over the state line, the city sits right on the Ohio River, but this was deeper into Kentucky than I'd ever been as a river/state-line crossing Cincinnati resident. He was doing a double bill with his brother Edgar and although the last show was sad there was no resisting a double bill with Edgar. Doesn't happen often, maybe every ten years or so. Edgar came out and played his ass off. Johnny came out and was about the same as last time. Edgar joined him for the encore on <em>"Goin' Down"</em>. He was still in bad shape but I'd seen them together.<br><br>The following year I took my wife to see him in Cincinnati. She asked if he was going to play <em>"Medicine Man"</em> from <em><strong>Let Me In</strong></em>, an album we listened to a lot. I told her, "We're not really going to hear him. We're going just to see him in person, to be in the same room with him." Before the first song was over she leaned over and said, "I see what you mean." But he did play <em>"Fast Life Rider"</em> from <em><strong>Second Winter</strong></em> and that was pretty cool.<br><br>Although his deteriorating health had took its toll on his playing his records were still in regular rotation at the Vicars home. <em><strong>The Progressive Blues Experiment</strong></em>, <em><strong>Second Winter,</strong> <strong>Johnny Winter And Live</strong></em>, <em><strong>Still Alive & Well</strong></em>, all three Alligator albums, <em><strong>Let Me In</strong></em> and <em><strong>Hey, Where's Your Brother?</strong></em>. When designing the Modbird guitar, which was supposed to be compact enough for stowing overhead on planes while still being a full size guitar, Johnny Winter's Lazer was one of several main reference points. <br><br>On March 11th, 2011, near the end of my decade-long exile to Japan, a 9.0 earthquake hit off the coast of Sendai causing a massive tsunami which in turn caused the nuclear plant in Fukushima to fail. While gaijin were leaving in droves many artists wouldn't tour Japan for quite some time afterward. But one month after the earthquake/tsunami/meltdown/foreign-press disaster Johnny Winter played his first Japanese tour. As a resident of Japan at that time, a musician, and a long time fan, I have the utmost respect for him and his band for doing that tour. The bitch part is I didn't know about it until that summer. Somehow despite the huge crowds and expensive tickets a lot of shows seem to have almost no advertising. It's yet another strange facet of living in Japan. He returned again the following year and again I didn't find out until after the fact. Although he was now sitting down to play I'd heard that he was in better shape thanks to his new manager getting him clean. But I would have gone just for the fact that he played there when few others would.<br><br>June 2014, Friday the 13th. Johnny Winter is playing at the Beachland Ballroom in Cleveland. I'm now living in northeast Ohio having returned to the States the previous year. Not too many of the greats are still living. My guitarist father and I go to the show. At the back of the building to the right of the stage is a separate bar area. We go in there to get drinks and while waiting for a bartender the crowd burst into spontaneous applause. I look around slightly confused and see that Johnny's walking through the bar area to get to the stage, Firebird strapped on. He's just a few feet away from me, hunched over and walking slow. He looks at the small crowd in the bar as if he's surprised by the applause. Wow, that was cool!<br><br>The set list is a sort of 'greatest hits'. Despite his professed reluctance to play Rock 'n' Roll anymore he does <em>"Johnny B. Goode"</em> and <em>"Jumpin' Jack Flash"</em>. Ray Charles' <em>"Blackjack"</em> and plenty of Blues tunes fill the set. The sound guy should be smacked upside the head; the mix is awful, Johnny's guitar is too low, the second guitar is overtop, too much kick drum. I'm certain this is not what they're hearing in their monitors. He's still hitting a few clams but not near as many as he did way back in '97. Still good to be seeing him, though. He may never completely recover his health but he's recovered enough to enjoy his status as one of the elder statesmen. His slide playing his still in fine form. He switches to the Firebird for Elmore James' <em>"Dust My Broom"</em> and then closes the show with his infamous rendition of Bob Dylan's <em>"Highway 61 Revisited"</em> which he recorded on <em><strong>Second Winter</strong></em> and remains a pinnacle of slide guitar.<br><br>Exiting the back door, the same one the band used, there's a line outside the bus. They're letting people on one and two at a time. I run back to the car to grab my CD and before long we're ushered on. Walking into the room where he's sitting behind a small table is surreal. The same effect when I first met Albert Collins back in '88. Having met plenty of well known musicians, including some I wasn't particularly interested in but happened to cross paths with, I'm usually not star struck but meeting Johnny Winter I'm speechless. Mark it on the calendar. He's one of my lifelong guitar heroes and I thought this would never happen. Meekly I ask him if he'll sign my CD for me, please. It's the Alligator Deluxe Edition, a compilation of all three albums plus a couple previously unreleased tracks. There's the regular insert which I've taken out for him to sign and there's a small booklet that's still inside the case. He signs the insert, sees the other one inside the case and asks if I want him to sign that as well. I say "yeah, please" and he signs the case! His thick Texas accent reminds me of the older people I knew growing up there and despite all the stories I'd heard over the years I find him surprisingly normal. There's a strange but comfortable familiarity about him that's I can't quite put into words.<br><br>There's also a line outside and I don't want to stand there hogging time but I really want to make a little bit of conversation while I have the opportunity. Struggling to find a topic suddenly I look down at his forearm and say, "Oh, that's the Tony Cohen tattoo from Sydney." His eyes light up in surprise. "Yeah! How did you know that?" I tell him how Cohen did my first tattoo and had sent me a photo from when he did his, the pterodactyl on his right forearm. I show him mine, the gypsy w/ Firebird on my right bicep. Being legally blind he grabs my arm and leans in close. Asks what I was doing in Sydney. "Getting a tattoo." He laughs, "That's a long way to go for a tattoo!" I forget to mention seeing The Tail Gators there, although it was right after Keith Ferguson had left. Ferguson was from Houston and went way back with Winter having played with him in the 60's. Rumor has it when Johnny got interested Keith took him to get his first tattoo. We shake hands once more and I leave pinching myself... I just met Johnny Winter!<br><br>Little over a month later I wake up, make coffee, grab my phone and check Facebook to see if there's anything interesting or amusing. That's where I hear the news. For me this is the most significant 'celebrity death' since the early 90's when Stevie Ray Vaughan died followed by Albert King and Albert Collins. Once more there's a sense of how few are left. Just the night before I'd been watching "The Life of Riley", a documentary on B.B. King. There's a short interview with Johnny and they both talk about how they first met. It takes all day to set in and the following day, as I write this, it's still surreal. Editing this after the weekend it's only just now starting to sink in.<br><br>He seemed like he had a few more years left in him but then again he was pretty frail. At the time of this writing the cause of death hasn't been announced but it's my personal opinion that after a long, fulfilling life and career his frail body simply gave out. When it does finally sink in I'm happy for him in a way, and thankful to his manager/guitarist Paul Nelson. Nelson got him cleaned up and took good care of him and his business affairs. Instead of burning out as a parody of himself, which looked possible at the turn of the millennium, he spent his last years as a music icon and elder statesman. It's my personal belief that he died at the height of the last apex of his life and career. And like all true musicians, especially Blues guys, he just kept going until he completely gave out.<br><br>They say hindsight is 20/20. Maybe it is and maybe we just color things the way we want to. It could be debated endlessly. But in retrospect I'm thinking of how fortunate I am to have met him before he passed, to share a little conversation about tattoos by Tony Cohen, to have a couple photos and memories with him. My wife said it best, "When Alvin Lee died it was like 'oh well' but with Johnny Winter it's like losing my own grandfather." <br><br>The CD he signed is playing and I'm holding the case in my hands looking at the autograph. Although I have quite a few autographed albums his are up there with Albert Collins and Fenton Robinson, the real treasures in the collection. More than just autographs they remain physical connections to musicians whose life and work inspired me and continue to inspire long after they've shuffled off the mortal coil. Maybe that's why they never really seem gone to me, they live on in their music. <br><br>Thanks, Johnny.</p>
<p></p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/391288/066bcb3338c04d5c7fd1fd08a8cfb8b1204f722f/original/dscn0092.jpg/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6NTE1MngzODY0Il0%3D.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="3864" width="5152" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/391288/b4c81e9dc86a6334e84aef2d339d2a3d48e14c37/original/dscn0093.jpg/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6NTE1MngzODY0Il0%3D.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="3864" width="5152" /></p>
<p></p>
J.J. Vicarstag:jjvicars.com,2005:Post/60643092013-01-24T14:40:44-12:002020-01-06T06:23:08-12:00My How Times Have Changed
<p> My how times have changed. Sitting in a neighborhood coffee shop that I've frequented for the last nine years drove the point home. When job hunting nine years ago I would wake up around 7:00 A.M. on Monday morning, have coffee and breakfast, then walk fifteen minutes to the train station near my house. Inside the station was a kiosk that sold The Japan Times, one of two local English language newspapers. If the kiosk at Nishi-Chofu station didn't have it the kiosk at Chofu station, one stop away, would. I would take the train one stop regardless of where I picked up the newspaper.<br><br> Coming out of the north exit of Chofu station, walking past the two-story black building with the decorative circular cutout up top that housed the police box, it was a few minutes to the major intersection. One right turn and and another couple minutes away there was Doutor on the right. Doutor is a chain of coffee shops found anywhere and everywhere but Chofu being the funky little village that it was at the time this particular Doutor might as well have been a privately owned establishment because it was very much a local joint. Retirees and the general elderly population often spent their mornings there. One of the most colorful characters was a mentally retarded man who appeared to be in his early to mid 30's. He was completely harmless but he loved to talk and would talk the ear off the staff and any customers he managed to ensnare. Being a <em>gaijin</em> I would respond in English whenever he tried to talk to me and that was my polite way of avoiding any conversation. This happened a few times since we both sat at the counter looking out onto the street. One of my favorite past times in a metropolitan area is to sit in a coffee shop and watch people passing by. And back then the smoking section was much larger, before the self-important yuppie Liberals somehow strong-armed businesses into making their smoking sections a tiny little closet huddled in the back.<br><br> With my newspaper, cappuccino, pastry and cigarillos I would go through the want ads looking for suitable employment, i.e. something that paid well and left enough evenings open to play gigs. One must have one's priorities. After circling all the ads that looked promising I would hang around for a while enjoying the vibrancy of this quaint little village from within the warm and cozy shelter of the coffee shop. This ritual always took place during the winter months. Sometimes I would have breakfast instead of a pastry. Forget high ambitions, it's the simple pleasures that make life enjoyable. The Japanese got coffee and the culture of coffee shops from the Europeans. Something I share with all American ex-pats is a profound disappointment in coffee when back home and an absolute elation over the sacred beverage when abroad.<br><br> By the time I returned home in the afternoon I would call all the phone numbers then grab my exaggerated resume (which carefully hid the fact that I was a musician first and foremost and daytime employment was nothing more than a necessary evil) and walk five or ten minutes up the road to the convenience store to fax it off to my various prospects. Since my neighborhood was located in an out of the way area the walk was like a stroll through the park rather than the dodging of self-absorbed pedestrians that normally entails walking through Tokyo (and got ten times worse when cell phones and later smart phones came along). By 3:00 in the afternoon I'd had a pleasant morning and done all the work that I needed to do for today. Nothing more to do other than wait for the replies to come in. Occasionally I'd stroll around the neighborhood and back home would break out my guitar to do some practicing. Sometimes I would take the rest of the day off. Rarely is job hunting so idyllic.<br><br> This is not a story with a happy ending. As the Internet became more and more central to people's lives my job hunting, which had to be done almost every year due to the nature of the work, lost it's idyllic rituals. First, resumes were e-mailed rather than faxed. No longer was I walking up to the convenience store. Sometimes I would go anyhow just for the sunshine and fresh air, and to stretch my legs. Eventually a couple websites similar to Craigslist popped up and nobody was advertising in the newspapers anymore. My ritual was lost forever. Now I would scan said websites every few days and apply by e-mail. I tried taking my laptop out with me but it eventually proved to be an exercise in futility. Times had changed.<br><br> Sitting in that same Doutor an hour before writing this brought back memories of those early days in this village I've called home for the last 9 1/2 years. How I miss those small rituals. It's harder to get out of bed in the morning now. Without a schedule or a deadline I end up wasting more time than ever before. The convenience of doing everything from home is an inconvenience. Most of all I miss the need to go <em>out</em> to do things; humans are social creatures by nature and our decreased interaction with each other has led to decreased mental and emotional health. Most of all it's made life boring because it's made people boring. We can never go back but if we consider what we've lost and why then maybe we can go in the right direction as life moves ever forward and onward.</p>
J.J. Vicarstag:jjvicars.com,2005:Post/60643082012-12-29T20:01:24-12:002020-01-06T06:23:08-12:002012 In Review
<p>All the New Agers kept going on about this being the Year of the Dragon in the Chinese zodiac. I don't believe in astrology but I needed some good news and both Western and Chinese zodiacs were saying it would be a good year after several years of shit so I decided to believe it this year. Worked out pretty good.<br><br>In February work resumed on the <a href="http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/jjvicars5" target="_blank" data-imported="1"><em><strong>Long Way From Home</strong></em></a> album after a three year hiatus. Booked three shows at <a href="http://crawfish.jp/" target="_blank" data-imported="1">Crawfish</a>, one a month through April, and hauled my recording board down to get my engineering feet wet. Two songs from the February show made it onto the album, "Movie Queen" and the disc-only bonus track "Hucklebuck". Some more gigging and rehearsing and over the summer five more songs were cut with Hisa Nakase on bass and Masaki Shibata on drums. Manuel Trillo, whom I played with in <a href="http://dannykatz.com/fr_home.cfm" target="_blank" data-imported="1">Danny Katz</a>'s group, played drums on "Sleep Walk". "Cutie Pie" was recut with Daniel Karras (<a href="http://sorchaandthesinners.com/home.cfm" target="_blank" data-imported="1">Sorcha & the Sinners</a>) overdubbing to scratch tracks and "Ain't Waitin' Anymore" was recut with Yoichiro Tsuneno on bass and Glenn Rios on drums. Danny Katz swung by to lay down some piano on a couple songs but due to technical problems the tracks couldn't be used. Bummer because he played some nice stuff. He'll be on the next album though, gotta get the <a href="http://dannykatz.com/fr_home.cfm" data-imported="1">Katzter</a> in there somewhere. Lensie Nishizawa also dropped by to add some backing vocals to "Talk To Your Daughter" and eat some Phad Thai. Jin Nagami mastered it, <a href="http://www.hughashtonbooks.info/" target="_blank" data-imported="1">Hugh Ashton</a> did the front cover and in November we had a 'soft release', download only. <a href="http://www.hughashtonbooks.info/" target="_blank" data-imported="1">Hugh</a> is finishing up a very cool jacket design for the February 'hard release' where we press CDs. Five drummers, four years, three bassists and many headaches later one of the most difficult albums I ever made is done and the results are up to my demanding standards. <br><br>In May I had the privilege of headlining the second <a href="http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNDA2NDgzNzQ0.html" target="_blank" data-imported="1">Beijing Blues Festival</a>. Having played Beijing's sole Blues club <a href="http://www.cdbluescafe.cn/" target="_blank" data-imported="1">CD Blues</a> the previous September I was jazzed to be back in that outstanding city. It's a glorious mess and what makes it trying also makes it exciting. In between club dates around the festival a local film crew invited me to participate in a video series of <a href="http://www.niurenku.com/?p=4106" target="_blank" data-imported="1">foreign musicians playing traditional Chinese instruments</a>. Probably the first time anybody played John Lee Hooker riffs on a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pipa" target="_blank" data-imported="1">pipa</a>! The song was improvised on the spot.<br><br>Notable gigs as the year went on were playing bass with <a href="http://dannykatz.com/fr_home.cfm" target="_blank" data-imported="1">Danny Katz</a>, affectionately known as The Angry Lesbian Rain God (you can predict the weather by checking his gig schedule), and the post-headliner slot (never done one of those before) for <a href="http://sorchaandthesinners.com/home.cfm" target="_blank" data-imported="1">Sorcha & the Sinners</a>' CD release party. That snazzy lil' disc includes "Black Lace Blues" featuring yours truly on guitar.<br><br><a href="http://taratinsley.com/node/241" target="_blank" data-imported="1">Tara Tinsley</a> did her third Japan tour in October and yours truly was guitarist and musical director. Very talented kid who writes memorable songs and has a helluva voice. Lots of live recordings and video from those shows and we paired together well, a complementing of opposites. She also starred in the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/jjvicars" target="_blank" data-imported="1">Maybe I'll Know You</a> video with her friend Ryan Toth, another mean picker with some nice fingerstyle moves. Oliver Richter filmed and edited the video which also features my dad's '49 Merc. Hauled the board out once again and Tara added vocals to a song of mine called <em>"Wings of the Horizon"</em> which appears on an upcoming album called <em><strong>Idle Pleasures</strong></em>. We also recorded five songs of hers that yours truly is producing and are 70% complete as of this writing. It'll be something different for both of us. We had a lot of fun hanging out, especially the coffee, and I had a lot of fun stepping out of the spotlight and being the musical director as well as guitarist. Her upbeat enthusiasm was infectious and after a some ups and downs these last few years I found my spark again. Thanks, kid, I owe ya one.<br><br>November was also a helluva month. <a href="http://www.bigjaymcneely.com/" target="_blank" data-imported="1">Big Jay McNeely</a> toured over here and my dad, who played with him back in the early 70's, just had to go see him and take me with him. At 85 <a href="http://www.bigjaymcneely.com/" target="_blank" data-imported="1">Big Jay</a> is still "blowing his brains out" and although he sits down for most of the show he still walks the crowd for his entrance and his exit. <a href="http://www.bigjaymcneely.com/" target="_blank" data-imported="1">Big Jay</a> and his backing band played a post-tour private party and when <a href="http://www.bigjaymcneely.com/" target="_blank" data-imported="1">Big Jay</a> called me up to sing a number with him I was humbled, which doesn't happen often. It's a rare treat to be invited up on stage by living history. Thank you, <a href="http://www.bigjaymcneely.com/" target="_blank" data-imported="1">Big Jay</a>!!!<br><br>As the year wound down somebody finally interviewed me for a change! <a href="http://www.chrisgrundy.com/" target="_blank" data-imported="1">Chris Grundy</a>, Australian guitarist living in Tokyo for many years, has a podcast called <a href="http://swankysounds.blogspot.jp/" target="_blank" data-imported="1">The Swanky Sounds of Japan</a> where he interviews local foreign musicians. I thought he would just ask about the new album but he came up with some really good questions from getting started in music to Albert Collins, <a href="http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/prematureevacuatio" target="_blank" data-imported="1"><strong><em>Meltdown</em></strong></a>, <a href="http://taratinsley.com/node/241" target="_blank" data-imported="1">Tara Tinsley</a> and <a href="http://www.bigjaymcneely.com/" target="_blank" data-imported="1">Big Jay McNeely</a> as well as <a href="http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/jjvicars5" target="_blank" data-imported="1">the new album</a>. And we killed off that fresh bottle of Jack Daniel's. You can hear my ice cubes clinking in the background. An e-mail interview with a <a href="http://blues.gr/profiles/blogs/an-interview-with-j-j-vicars-one-of-the-hottest-rock-n-roll" target="_blank" data-imported="1">Blues blog in Greece</a> covered some interesting topics. There were some interruptions while I was typing my answers which caused me to lose my train of thought resulting in a few typos and a grumpy mood at various points but all in all it came out well.<br><br>And 2012 concludes with a double Vicars bill at everyone's favorite watering hole <a href="http://www.thepinkcow.com/" target="_blank" data-imported="1">The Pink Cow</a>. Yup, Jerry & J.J. Vicars together for the first time. I played bass in <a href="http://www.hipswingers.com/" target="_blank" data-imported="1">his band</a> for several years and he's sat in on my gigs the last few years but this is the first time we've done a double bill together. Yoichiro Tsuneno, who played bass on "Ain't Waitin' Anymore" and "Sleep Walk", and regular Cow drummer Joe Ashizawa are accompanying us. A fine way to close out 2012 and ring in 2013!</p>
J.J. Vicarstag:jjvicars.com,2005:Post/60643072011-12-30T18:25:44-12:002020-01-06T06:23:08-12:002011 in Review
<p>2011 was hardly a space odyssey. More of a slow comeback after a couple years of what both the Western and Chinese zodiacs described as "everything you touch shall turn to shit." While it wasn't without its trials all in all it was pretty good. Even the rough spots had their advantages in the larger picture of things.<br><br>In January I met up with my 'adopted' sister I hadn't seen in over 20 years and then had a really cool retro themed photo shoot in Narita with Oliver Richter and Bryan Harmon. But the real clincher was the March 11th earthquake and tsunami. What was a serious tragedy for many was a boon for yours truly. When the news outlets royally fucked up the story, often just making shit up to fill air time, us Americans living in Japan found ourselves in the position of being self-appointed reporters via Facebook and Twitter. Despite generally being the odd man out, I've never fit in this city despite all the time spent here, there was an unprecedented comraderie between all of us that lasted most of the year. The sudden exodus of "flyjin" weeded out a lot flakes. Having spent most of my time trying to leave (something that would make a lot of the "foreign community" of suits, squares, yuppies and bankers here quite happy) I suddenly found myself wanting to stay. Several offers to leave were extended by friends and family and I happily declined. As one Texan living here put it, "We don't run."<br><br>With all the various charity projects in the works to raise money for survivors in the Tohoku region I wound up with an interesting project of my own. What started out as a joke about writing a Link Wray styled instrumental called <em>Meltdown</em> turned into a Surf instrumental of that name. Bull Durham drove to Houston to record keyboards with his buddy Nitro Blues and Glenn Rios got to work at his studio. While they flew in their tracks Mark 'pookie bear' Schwarz swung by with the Rocket Revenger, Mike Buttrick recorded his infamous 4:00 A.M. gong, and the track was complete. One small glitch, though. Hugh Ashton had recorded a steel guitar part that needed heavy editing. Due to the gear I was using the edits came out choppy. Subsequent attempts to redo his part fell short of the original. Not wanting to leave him out I was stuck until Nitro sent Bull's keys. In addition to the cheesey organ we both had in mind and his smoking solo he had also recorded a synth drone that I wasn't sure what to do with. Joking that it sounded like a Dance remix we stripped off the drums and organ, except for the solo, added a Dance beat from the drum machine, and slapped on the synth and steel. We now had two singles! Released under the name, and separate CD Baby account, "Premature Evacuation" (coined by Robbie Newman) we can claim, to the best of my knowledge, to be the only 'band' to do a Dance remix of a Surf instrumental. Both are available at <a href="http://www.cdbaby.com/Artist/PrematureEvacuation" data-imported="1">http://www.cdbaby.com/Artist/PrematureEvacuation</a><br><br>The trio of Mark Schwarz, Masaki Shibata and myself got together for a benefit gig at the Pink Cow in Shibuya which lead to further benefit performances there and quite a bit of live video, including some with Steve Gardner from Mississippi. Later in the year it also led to three music videos. Having grown up part of the MTV generation I had been wanting to make my own videos for years and had already scripted several including one for Jill Jones when she had a hit on the Dance charts with <em>Living For The Weekend</em> a couple years ago. Amateur film maker Chris Young was looking for music for his upcoming movie Ripped when we struck a deal, I'd score his movie in exchange for him shooting and editing my videos. Using staff from da Cow as stars and extras we shot three videos and JJTV was born. My 'adopted' niece Miya Kobayashi starred in <em>Too Good To Be True</em> from the album "Longhaired Leftovers" with Martin Leroux and since Jeremy Gloff played piano on the song we found a cute way to edit him in. Next up was <em>Black Heart</em>, a song written by Ron Brewer whose band I played bass with in Indianapolis back in the mid 90's and whose unreleased album "Insane Prose" I played on. <a href="http://ats.jjvicars.com/music-group-163.html" data-imported="1">http://www.jjvicars.com/music-group-163.html</a> <em>Black Heart</em> was supposed to go on the second album but the band broke up before we got that far, something which still bugs me to this day as it was the last real shot at Rock 'n' Roll stardom back when record deals and radio were important. Being nuts about the song I eventually recorded it myself to be released as a disc-only bonus track on the re-released "Heartland" album. Mallory Blalock and her hair co-starred with me in the video and she more or less directed our scenes together. The last video, still being edited, was <em>So Beautiful</em>, a song I had written over 15 years ago and wasn't sure what to do with. Dug the song but it was so different from my usual stuff I didn't know where it fit. Miya, Martin and Valeria the Italian bellydancer, and Akane Yoko all starred in the video along with a few other girls who were present when I had a camera. However, technical complications meant we didn't have enough footage so Chris used his own short story <strong>Venus Looking Glass</strong> and actor friend Wade Philpott and his wife Mai to create a whole new video far beyond anything I expected. Once again limitations proved to be a blessing in disguise.<br><br>A trip to the beach for reasons attributed to either dumped radioactive water from Fukushima or severe unltra-violet from the sun left me with first degree burns on my legs. Laid up for a week unable to walk turned out to be kinda nice in the end. Since I had to eat in bed I avoided the usual slurpfest that passes for dinner around here. Other Americans who have lived in Japan will understand what I'm talking about. <br><br>As summer wound down the music rolled on. Hugh Ashton's dobro was so much fun to play with on acoustic gigs we made it official and in true Dudeist fashion named our new duo The Urban Achievers. Much more fun than solo gigs! Back at Crawfish in Akasaka after more than a year I had Hisa Nakase on bass again who blended in perfectly and really helped Masaki lay in the pocket. My dad sat in and the whole father/son dual guitar thing was a big crowd pleaser. Later on Sorcha Chisolm invited me to play guitar on <em>Black Lace Blues</em>, a song from her upcoming third album. The amp I was running through gave us constant headaches and dragged out the session but the four of us soldiered on with her rhythm section of Arda Karaduman (bass) and Daniel Karras keeping a solid pocket every take. In the end though I had to go back and do another pass because the amp wasn't running hot enough and left with a note that they should edit the two takes together. I'm hoping they invite me back for the mixing.<br><br>Beijing was one of the highlights of the year, a working vacation that included two nights at the CD Blues club and a trip to the Forbidden Palace. Staying with my dad at his and his wife's place in the Central Business District I saw some far out architecture beyond Blade Runner. After my two gigs with club owner Big John on bass and Rockabilly drummer "Donny" on drums I sat in with a Jazz group at a hotel lounge on the 65th floor. Pickin' away while looking out at the city from high above gave me vertigo. The Forbidden Palace was outta sight. Soaking up all that history from the Ming dynasty reminded me of why so many great philosophers came from that part of the world. In Tiannamen Square I found a souvenir shop with all sorts of Mao stuff. Pretending to be browsing I got a photo with a large portrait of Mao while wearing by Dudeism jersey and repeatedly proclaiming "the Chinaman is not the issue". On my last day I couldn't finish my Peking duck so I smuggled it back in my luggage. Customs asked if I had any weapons or narcotics but they didn't ask if I was packing a duck. <br><br>Brian Setzer played Nakano Sun Plaza in early October on his Rockabilly Riot tour with Slim Jim Phantom. Having only seen the big band and not the Stray Cats I was revved up for this. The show was rockin' despite Setzer playing on automatic pilot. Seeing Slim Jim live for the first time after all these years was a treat. After the show I went out back with the rest of the autographs hounds and waited patiently. Tired of being ignored, the only round-eye in the crowd patiently holding his album above the crowd, I hollered, "Hey, Brian! Don't forget a fellow American!" His road manager thought it was funny but Setzer suddenly looked up with a guilty face like he'd been busted (he was) and quickly moved away like he was scared of me. No idea what his problem was. Fuck you, Setzer, you snotty little midget. Probably doesn't want other Americans knowing how pampered he is over here. Fucker rode off in a VIP car reserved for diplomats and the like. Earlier that day the missus and I had been pouring over an old Japanese music magazine from when Skynyrd (the original uncompromised first draft) played Nakano Sun Plaza in '77. Seems that they were so taken with the idea of a Japanese Southern Rock band, Idlewild South who opened for them, that they sat on the floor in the aisles during their set. Lots of other stories in there about how down-to-earth and hospitable they were, particularly Allen Collins, my main guitar hero from that group. Having grown tired of a lot of costume party bullshit and wanting to return to a more comfortable musical and aesthetic style I took the whole thing as an omen. My buddy the Reverend Len Fassler had said I was a BluesRocker, not a Rockabilly guy. I tossed out my pomade and echo pedal. The Rev knows his shit.<br><br>The year closed out with a few more gigs at da Cow and one at Crawfish where I don't even remember being on stage. Since there's no paying gigs in Tokyo anymore I can't treat it like work so I treated it as a party; get loaded and jam. Resuming work on the <em>Ripped</em> score for Chris Young I brought in my brother-by-another-mother Nikki Hills and drummer/percussionist/engineer Glenn Rios. Still a work in progress giving us a few surprises to kick off 2012 with.<br><br>A Surf instrumental charity single, a Dance remix of same, tons of live video, playing in Beijing, my old man sitting in on my gig in Tokyo and Beijing and the audience digging the whole two-generation thing, three videos, a movie score, guest spot on another's album... oh wait, two guest spots! Yours truly also made a cameo on Jeremy Gloff's groovy new album <a href="http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/jeremygloff1" data-imported="1">THIS</a>. Not bad for a slow year. Not bad at all.</p>
J.J. Vicarstag:jjvicars.com,2005:Post/60643062011-12-30T08:54:36-12:002020-01-06T06:23:08-12:00Frankie Camaro
<p> My family is from Cuba. My dad is a doctor and my mom is a pharmacist but she's also a piano teacher. I am the youngest. They left during the revolution. I was born in Virginia. It's part of the mainland across Chesapeake Bay. It’s the very tip of the peninsula. They call it Del Marva. It's Maryland, Delaware and a little tip of Virginia. That’s actually part of the Jamestown settlement area so pretty interesting place where I was born. And then we moved to St. Thomas (Virgin Islands) and Miami for a few years and then Fort Line, Colorado where Kit Carson was from and we lived on the Santa Fe Trail and had rodeos and that’s when I started wearing cowboy boots and stuff like that. Then we moved to Kenton, Ohio. Over in the corner, the northwest quadrant, close to Lima, Ohio and then moved to Marion, Indiana. My dad worked for the Veterans Hospitals. So the first few years we just like kinda moved around a lot so I guess I got to see a lot of different places and different people and everything.<br><br>A cool thing about Marion where I grew up here in Indiana, James Dean was born in Marion and he grew up in Fairmont which is about 10 miles from where I lived. One of my best friends in high school, his dad was best friends with James Dean. He showed me all kinds of pictures of James Dean and everything. I had some really rare James Dean pictures.<br><br>I went to high school in Marion and I went to Indiana University and studied recording engineering and acoustics. So basically I got into music like everybody. My oldest brother really turned everybody on, he was a big Elvis fan and we had a lot of like Chubby Checker and a lot of Elvis, and I still remember, we were living in Florida when we all watched the Beatles. I was pretty young but I still remember it and I remember going into the bathroom and George, my brother, we all combed our hair, we had a Beatle haircut and stuff like that. But that’s when I was about 3 or 4 around then my mom was giving piano lessons to my older sister and then I started taking piano lessons and so I started pretty young. And I think that always kinda helps.</p>
<p>My dad had a big collection of Cuban music and I still have it. Really big like from the east end. He had a lot of musician friends. We used to play like at dinner parties. I would play percussion or piano, I'd play bongos, my dad would sing and my mom would play piano when they would have friends over and stuff. And then I had a drum set and a toy guitar and I was really into The Beatles and The Stones and The Monkeys. Really we grew up listening to Detroit radio a lot that was the main radio station, CKLW. So I grew up listening to a lot of Garage, Electric Prunes and all that kind of stuff, and also a lot of Soul music. But I was definitely very much, even in grade school, Beatles and Stones were my favorite bands. We also got a thing really early on even before they were real big for James Brown and B.B. King and so I guess that even as a young kid I had a thing for Rhythm and Blues and Soul music as well as Rock 'n' Roll. When I was about 13 I was into sports for a little bit from the time when I was 9 to about 12 and I worked very hard to become a kicker. For some reason when I was in about the 6th grade I would go practice kicking field goals and stuff cause nobody at that age like nobody had a kicker in the other teams. They never tried to kick extra points or anything but I got really good at it and the first game they made me the kicker. I broke my leg and broke it real bad so I missed about half of my seventh grade because I had a really big cast that covered my whole leg and I couldn’t even walk or anything with the cast for a few months. So I think kinda that point in my life is where I changed and I definitely refocused on music 'cause I started really wanting to be a musician and I would play my electric guitar and drums along with The Monkeys, The Beatles. We watched all those shows then, we were into like Hullabaloo and stuff like that. I kinda followed my older brothers and sisters and whenever my brother left for college I still listened to all his records. My favorite when I was super young, when I was like 5 years old, I used to play Joey Dee and the Starlighters. He had this little 45 of <em>PEPPERMINT TWIST</em> and I used to just play it over and over and my brother left his stereo. I remember my sister having parties and stuff during the British Invasion music, so I kinda soaked in a lot of that stuff even at a young age. <br><br>At that point none of my friends were really into music 'cause I’m talking like 2nd and 3rd grade but for me I have just always been into music so it has always been part of our family, part of our lives and then when I started buying records I was more in middle school I still liked Hendrix and Cream. The way I started playing guitar I got a drum set 'cause my plan was to be a drummer and I was pretty good. I got a Slingerland kit with the Zildjian cymbal and everything and it was pretty nice and then I had all these song ideas floating around in my head and I got a record that taught you how to play Blues and it had a record and tablature and it had Freddie King and people like that, B.B. King. My first song was <em>HIDEAWAY</em> by Freddie King. I learned how to play that and I had another book on Blues scales and stuff like that. When I was about 15 or 16 I started recording. I had two cassette recorders and I would lay down a drum track on one recorder and I would play along with that on the other recorder and I did my own little overdubs, so by the time I was 15 I wanted to be a recording engineer. Just for my own music not like thinking, "Oh I want to be a producer for everybody else." That would have been nice but mainly it was to learn how to do well in the studio. I wanted to go to the University of Miami in Florida but it was really expensive and then I went to IU and while I was there they had a brand new audio program which was through the school of music which I didn’t know 'cause it wasn’t in any of their books 'cause I was talking to councilors. I was getting ready to transfer my freshman year. I didn’t want to start off as an Art major. I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do and then I found the audio program and that’s what I ended up getting my degree in. So in college I worked for the college radio station WQAX. That’s the first band we had, a bunch of guys from the radio station. We used to play at street dances and parties and things like that. I was still planning on being a drummer. After a few shows people thought I was a pretty good guitar player. This was about when the punk thing was going on really big in the late 70's and early 80's. So when I quit school instead of going for a regular career by that time I really had the bug to play music. While I was at WQAX I would play The Clash and things like that or Jimi Hendrix. I always had a thing for, like I said even though it was the late 70's I still liked playing my favorite stuff from the 60's like MC5, Jimi Hendrix, Cream things like that. But then I’d also play The Clash, Ramones. And then one night I found this record called The Fabulous Thunderbirds and I thought it was the coolest thing. I got really hooked on the Fabulous Thunderbirds.<br><br>Back then it was still all cover bands. If you wanted to make money all the clubs had cover bands. They didn’t expect you to have bands playing original music. That’s when I was starting to get into Dick Dale and Link Wray a lot so I started playing a lot of that kind of stuff. We would play at Punk shows but our angle was like we would play Surf music like real fast or Link Wray and that was out angle. The other guys were really hard core punkers but I just really was never good at that. I wanted to do like a Rock 'n' Roll Revival, that’s what I was interested in because of the excitement. In the late 70’s and early 80’s when I saw the Leroi Brothers it seemed like there was a few bands along that line. There was a surf band, John and the Night Riders. So there we were in Indiana and we’re trying to do this but we had this club called Second Story that had a lot of touring bands and this guy came through a couple of times called Dino Lee and the Whirlybirds and they played Rockabilly. I was kinda into Rockabilly too during that time, but the second time he came through one of my pals went with him and he said, “Oh yea, Dino told my friend that he was moving to Austin, Texas and that he needed a road manager." So my friend decides to go to Austin, this is like '83, and I remembered the Leroi Brothers and had little hints of what was going on in Austin and nothing was going on around here and he needed a ride so I was like, "Well, I’ll give you a ride. I’m not doing anything." I turned down a couple of jobs like I said out of college, this was when unemployment was really bad. It wasn’t like when I graduated I had a lot of jobs. The only job I remember in audio was you can go to Six Flags and run sound you know for minimum wage. That’s not really what I wanted. I didn’t really want to learn how to record music I didn’t like. It wasn’t like I didn’t want to work in audio, I wanted to work in music I liked. But so anyway Dino needed a road manager and I told my friend I would take him to Austin and hang out for a week and while he’s talking to Dino on the phone Dino says “Hey do you know any guitar players?” and he goes, "Yeah, the dude Frankie that you played with at Second Story that’s taking me down, he plays guitar." So the next thing I know we’re gonna play a show. So we had this incredible road trip, we go to Austin, we meet Dino, and I learned the songs in like two or three days and then we played at the Continental Club and just blew everybody away. I mean we had Jimmy Carl Black, Frank Zappa’s drummer, we had like an all star band. It was packed, people just loved it, we did a bunch of encores.<br><br>It was just an eye opener going from such a not-much-going-on-here and then Austin was just starting to take off right at that time. So I came back and I had some crappy minimum wage job and Dino kept calling me saying, "Hey, move down here. Stay at my house until you get money rolling in, we’ll do shows and stuff." I had my band Moto X and I was kinda torn, I was like I don’t want to leave my friends but man that’s such a great opportunity and I was late for work for about the third time and I just went back to bed. I go, "Well, I guess I’m moving to Austin." I moved to Austin and we just took off. Dino would put out like 2000 fliers, my friend would walk up and down the drag in Austin where the university is wearing a sandwich sign "Come to the Contental Club!" He got to be friends with Margaret Moser who was one of the big writers at the Chronicle and within six months we were sold out anywhere we played, it was just amazing. And then the rest of my band moved down. That was about ’84 or so. And one time we were playing, we opened up for, oh I got to play for Screaming Jay Hawkins with the Fleshtones and Peter Zaremba, the guy from the Fleshtones. MTV was coming down, my band almost got on MTV, the picked 10 bands and we were the eleventh and they did a story on the growing scene of music in Austin.<br><br>I don’t know in order what happened but one time I was at a party, you know, go see the Leroi Brothers all the time, introduce myself, sat in a couple of times, got to be friends with them. I got to know everybody real quick and one time they needed a guitar player and I sat in and could’t believe it! Playing with Mike Buck and those guys after I’d seen them for, since the Thunderbirds and stuff. I knew most of the material already and then one time I was at a party and they said they needed a guitar player, they said they’re going to Europe and they were leaving tomorrow. I think it was in between when Don and Evan. I didn’t know what to do. I had my own band and I was playing with Dino Lee and the Leroi Brothers asked me to go to Europe. I wanted to go but I thought my band would quit on me for leaving. So I was torn. It was hard to balance. If I would have known today I probably would have done it because during that whole month nothing really happened. We rehearsed a couple of times. It was like 'whooptie doo'. I wouldn’t have missed much. I didn’t want to quit my band but it was like I shouldn’t have turned that down. It was just a sudden thing and I didn’t know whether I could do it. I didn’t want to piss my friends off so... <br><br>Going back to the Screaming Jay Hawkins gig, that’s when I really started to get to know Mike and he was one of my favorite guys to talk to 'cause he liked the same kind of stuff, we liked the Chesterfield Kings and these 60’s kinda garage bands. I asked him about anything and he would, like he had such a great record collection I started going over to his house so we studied up for the Screaming Jay Show. And we were like, "OK, what song do you think he’s gonna do?" Obviously he was going to do <em>I PUT A SPELL ON YOU</em>. So me and Mike spent a day or two just like anticipating what songs Screaming Jay was going to do. That was a really weird gig. The only rehearsal we had, we had to meet at the Liberty Lounge at 4:00 in the afternoon and then Screaming Jay and me and Mike, and I forget right now who was on bass, but Screaming Jay was kinda of a nutty case to tell you the truth. All he gave me was a scribbled piece of paper with the names of the songs and by the name of the songs it had G, E whatever key it was in. That was it. And he was going over these songs and I remember he started getting down on Mike about the songs. He kept going “No man, on the down beat!” And then Mike would start again and he would stop, “No, no! On the down beat! You know what a down beat is?” And oh my God, me and Mike just started looking at each other going “What the hell is going on?” There was some song that had a blues scale but it was like I-III-V instead of I-III-IV-V or something like that. And I kept hitting the IV in there and he started getting down on me. “No man leave it out, it’s all in the charts, man. It’s all in the charts." And there were no charts. We were just looking at each other like, "Oh My God this is crazy." That was a fun gig playing with him. But during the show, it was like in the middle of August like I was totally drenched in sweat, hot up on stage, and we were doing <em>I PUT A SPELL ON YOU</em> and he lit off one of those flash powder things like a foot from my face and just totally blinded me for five minutes. Seriously, like I couldn’t see anything. So for the rest of <em>I PUT A SPELL ON YOU</em> I was totally blinded and I don’t know how I made it through the song. I thought I was going to pass out or something, had to walk off stage or whatever. But I remember people really loved it and people said that we were one of his better backing bands he had. Some people had seen him with other people, 'cause me and Mike had to work on it. We really did. We studied what songs he was gonna do and everything like that. <br><br>During that time Dino fired me twice and he hired me and rehired me three times. But I guess it should be told when I first moved down there Dino had the best musicians in town and then it just turned into this theatrical thing. Like I wanted to wear cool suits and stuff and he would have us wear trash bags and stupid crap on our heads. So he would look cool and the rest of us would look like a bunch of idiots and little by little everybody quit and he fired my road manager that worked his butt off for him and that was it. I don’t think he really did much after that. We were friends and stuff but it was definitely not the direction I wanted to go. I just was into the music. I think putting on a good show and theatrics is great but the bottom line with me is I really love good music and try to write the best songs I can, so that’s my angle. It’s not always like the most flamboyant thing or anything like that. I’m serious about my songwriting and playing and stuff. That’s me and that’s what I’m trying to do.<br><br>A little after that, with Dino, we played Liberty Lunch again, the same place where I played with Screaming Jay, and it was just wall to wall people. I mean that place could hold like a thousand people. I think that was our peak. This guy came up to me afterwards, he was like the friend kinda manager of the Leroi Brothers, and he goes, "Hey, would you be interested in doing this album we're working on?" 'Cause I would start the show with this big surf number, I think it was <em>KAMAKAZI</em> or something like that. I had this big Silvertone hollowbody guitar and I would start the show and then Dino would come out after that and then everyone would go crazy. He’s like 6’5” and he’d spend an hour teasing his hair up so that it was straight up in the air and people would go nuts. When he teased up his hair he looked like he was 8 feet tall. He was kinda like a cross between Rockabilly and James Brown. So I talked to Gary after the show. It just sounded like a little project; we're gonna get together, he's gonna pick some different guys. He goes, "That’s exactly what I want. I want twangy, Surf and like instrumental Spaghetti Western," and I was going, "Man, I’m all about that." That’s exactly what I love. Not just surf. I love like <em>The Good, The Bad & The Ugly</em>. I had that soundtrack since I was a kid and I always, Duane Eddy, I had a thing for twangy, that sound and so that’s how I got involved with <em>Trash, Twang & Thunder</em>. We had a meeting at, I forget the name of the record store, it was just a couple of blocks from the Continental Club. We had a meeting and Evan Johns was there and I had just gotten to know Evan. Evan was the brand new guy with the Leroi Brothers and I remember Don, he used to be with the Leroi Brothers but then he started the Tailgators. I didn’t know Jimmy but I knew the other guy. Gary asked, "OK, lets see what you got," and we went around the room and when he got to me I had tons of songs ready to go, like I had SHANGHAI COBRA. He goes, "OK, what else you got?" I did <em>THE BREAKERS</em>, <em>GUITAR ARMY</em> a little bit. That one wasn’t all the way done. And then I had CHAINSAW, which was just partially done. But <em>THE BREAKERS</em> and <em>SHANGHAI COBRA</em> I had been playing for like two years already with my own band.<br><br>Don played on almost all my songs. He did a really good job on The Breakers. He kinda did the second melody line. You can hear me going "bow dow da duh duh" and then he would go "wow wow wa wuh wuh". So he really like put a lot of time and effort and thought into it, you know. I had this song <em>GUITAR ARMY</em> and it was just basically a Blues jam. It had a cool beat. It wouldn’t have been nominated without those guys. I mean if I would have just done it by myself it wouldn’t have been Grammy nominated. We were nominated for Rock Instrumental Performance. I think that 'performance' is key in there 'cause we did this thing in like one or two takes on every song. Vince McGerry was the producer and he was awesome. He was good at trying to get that older kinda vibe, like from the 60's; we all played in the same room, we didn’t do a lot of takes, we didn’t have a million microphones, we just went in there one day. We didn't even know it was gonna do anything. We were just like, "Oh, this is kind of like a cool little side thing." I was working at this Texas Commerce Bank, it was temp agency, and all of a sudden a girl comes up to me and goes, "Hey, you know you’re nominated for a Grammy?" And I was like, "What?!?" I looked on the cover of the Austin American Statesmen and there we were. It had a picture of Stevie Ray Vaughan and it had a picture of us and we were going head to head with Stevie Ray Vaughan and people kinda joked, "What did you do? Why did your song get nominated?" "I don’t know!" But like I said I have to owe it to those guys too. I think I did my job well but without them it wouldn’t have been... the whole album wouldn’t have been what it was. We were all nominated for a Grammy. It wasn’t just my song or anything.<br><br>The Grammies was fun. Stevie Ray Vaughan sat right behind us. He walked in and it was like 3:00 in the afternoon and oh man, we were up all night the night before. I didn’t realize that we had to leave at like noon. 'Cause I’m thinking aren’t the Grammys like at 8:00 at night? But it’s filmed like at 3:00 or 4:00 in the afternoon out there. So basically we were sitting there and they were telling who the winners were, at least the categories. Stevie Ray Vaughan sits right behind with his entourage and he goes, "Who won? Who won?" and we go, "Jeff Beck won," and he just got up and left. He was there for about two minutes. But Mike Buck and those guys were going, "Hey, Stevie, how’s it going?" That was the only time I really ever met him. I saw him play like at... sometimes I would go to Antone’s. I would VIP to any club in Austin. I’d go to Antone's, I saw Johnny Winter. I mean this was like they would just go up on stage, they’d be in the audience. Like all of a sudden one night Johnny Winter got up there. It was like on a Wednesday night somebody was playing and Stevie Ray wanted to get up and play. Like wow, man! That was kinda a cool time definitely.<br><br>I remember exactly what I wore. This girl lent me this black velvet, like weird jacket and I had this wild rodeo shirt, and this sparkly bolo tie and I had my hair slicked back. Another weird thing about the Grammies, we were the first like, we left the Grammies show and we went to the after party. I get in there and I remember there was a room where I saw Sting and I was gonna walk in there and this guy comes up to me and goes, "Hey you can’t go in there, that’s a private party." I'm like, "Yeah it’s a private party, this is the Grammy party. I’m invited!" Everywhere I would go I would see this guy eyeing me. He was like a security guy. He was like the head of security but he just wore a suit, he just kinda blended in. But he eyeballed me and he had a thing about, maybe it was because of the way I was dressed or something, or the way I looked, but he ruined the Grammy party for me, whoever that guy is. Like, "What do you mean it’s a private party?" I kept showing him my invitation to the Grammy party. "I’m nominated for a Grammy. Here's my invitation." "Sorry, you can’t go in there." Yeah, it was weird. I remember everybody, like Evan had his picture taken with B.B. King. That was fun. But the after party was kinda, it wasn’t any free food. The night before it was like all free food. It was all cash bar only the night of the Grammies party and we knew we lost so it was kinda like "ehh". It was OK. But it was fun. <br><br>And another weird thing was Michael Jackson, this was like when Michael Jackson was the king and he just like owned the whole corner of the theater. I don't know what it was but this was like years after <em>Thriller</em> and I just remember him and Phil Collins kinda dominated the whole Grammies. Collins won like four Grammies that night and he was the host, and Jefferson Starship played and that’s all I remember was Phil Collins, Michael Jackson and Jefferson Starship. It was so weird too, because like I could see off to the side of the stage Phil Collins, like he was the host but then he would walk off to the side. It seemed that he knew which all the ones he was going to win and everything. "Phil Collins gets his fifth Grammy of the night" or something. The best one was where Michael Jackson had brought like his monkey or something. It was all this commotion around Michael the whole time. That's all I remember. He had like the whole front isle seat of the theatre. <br><br>Ruth from Jungle Records, she’s been posting some pictures. But I was terrible as a self promoter. I never had a camera. I’m not a good promoter of myself. I wish I had somebody like an agent and a promoter and all that. I don’t think I even hardly carried around a camera back then. It just didn’t dawn on me that anybody was interested in it or I would have maybe taken some more pictures myself. <br><br>There was kinda a mini backlash 'cause I remember people complaining none of us was from Texas, none of the guitar players were from Texas, 'cause originally the album was just supposed to be called <em>Trash, Twang & Thunder</em> but they thought, "Well, if you put the Texas name on it you’ll sell more records in Europe," that's what I remember somebody saying, or something along that lines maybe. It was kinda like really big in Norway and Finland. I guess they really love that kind of stuff.</p>
<p>There was a TV show like 'something' Diner. It was for a Canadian public television or something. We shot it in Austin. I forget what was the name of it. But it was done for some Canadian television program as far as I remember. It used to be shot in Austin and then it was popular in Canada or something like that. because I don’t remember it being around the United States like Austin City Limits or anything. We did have a reunion like 2 or 3 years after that but it was kinda sloppy. You know, it’s not like we’re a real band. We’re four different guitar players, we had like one rehearsal and we didn’t even play like half my songs. We played like <em>Guitar Army</em>, I think, and <em>Shanghai Cobra</em> but we didn’t do <em>The Breakers</em>, we didn't do <em>Chain Saw</em>, and I had to borrow a bunch of equipment. So the reunion was just like so-so. It wasn’t anybody’s fault. It's hard to pull it off and sound as good. One rehearsal didn’t quite... it didn’t sound as good as the record, let's just put it that way. But when we did that TV show that was pretty killer.</p>
<p>So basically things were going pretty good in Austin. I got a record deal for my band, but the guy left. We recorded an album, it was the same label as Don Leady of the Tailgators. We were going to be on Wrestler, the guy really loved my band. We were going to be like one of his top bands and everything. We recorded an album. I didn’t know him that well. He had a record store right there on the drag. Geoff Cordner. Toward the end of when I was there, right after we did the Big Guitars, we did that and my own album, and Geoff moved to L.A. and he wouldn’t answer my phone calls and I kept going, "Where’s the record and the contract we were supposed to sign?" From early on I had kept going "Where’s the contract?" He kept saying, "Oh yeah, we’ll get to that, we’ll get to that." So he moves to L.A., he takes the master tape, doesn’t answer my phone calls and everything just kinda fell apart.<br><br>I went to the Grammies, but the truth was I was just totally broke and this guy from Wrestler was giving us the run around. This girl totaled my car. I was living on Riverside, Travis Heights, real close to I-35 on Riverside Drive. We had this huge party. We had Johnny Thunders, Dave Alvin from the Blasters and Jorma from Jefferson Airplane. Like everybody that was at the Continental Club, everybody from Austin that was a musician was at our party. Like tons of kegs of beer, but the truth was like people were congratulating me about the Grammies but I didn’t have any money. At that point it was too far to like walk anywhere. I was like in a bad situation. I was really depressed about the way the Moto X album turned out. My plan was to come back to Indiana and save up enough money and come back. But when I got back to Indiana, it was like I couldn’t make any money. All I could get was like $5-6 an hour.<br><br>A couple of years went by and then that was it. People were kind of shocked like "What happened to Frankie? He left in the middle of the night." Nobody really heard my side of the story. "Oh man, he left his band and did this and that." I was just in a really bad situation. I mean, it wasn’t like I wanted to leave and I didn’t want to leave anybody high and dry, it was just I had no family down there. The other thing was that I went down there with five vintage guitars. Three of them were stolen and I lost two of them in pawn shops. So it was like everything just imploded on me. It was right after the Grammies so it was kind of a weird time. People were like "Hey man, congratulations!” and I was like, "How am I going to hang on until I get some money rolling in?" and I just didn’t quite make it. Came back to Indiana.<br><br>It’s just always been hard. Like I tried to get back into South By Southwest a few of years later and didn’t get in. It’s hard getting back in. I always wanted to get back into Austin. I would go down and visit and stuff. You know after three or four years go by and people don’t remember. Like the club owners didn’t, it was just really hard getting back in there. The main problem too was it’s just like coming back here it’s really hard to find people that are committed and really want to go out and tour for that. It’s not like I have a lot pro of musicians, in Austin you can always find a killer drummer. "Oh, I need a killer drummer," or great guitar player or whatever. There were tons of people like that. But once I got back to Indiana, it’s just always been super hard. I had a band called the Truckadelics and we started playing around. We played in Dayton, Cincinnati, Louisville, all that kinda stuff. But every time I get something going it just can’t quite get going.<br><br>I did have a little success in Bloomington, Indiana in the mid 90's. I put out Drag Strip on Shredder Records, and it was mainly like a Surf project, kinda hot rod. To tell you the truth there was kind of like a wave of a lot of Surf bands in the 90's like a little resurgence but I was already kinda at the end of that resurgence, so it’s kinda like, well I kinda did it in the 80's but here I am in the 90's trying to do it. But Drag Strip, we were trying to be kinda like Garage, not just Surf, but the guy from Shredder didn’t like my vocals. He goes, "I’ll put the record out if it's all instrumental." So he kinda changed the vibe of what I really wanted to do but I wanted to put a record out so I did it. It’s actually a pretty good record, but it was really our demo tape. He didn’t want to spend a lot of money on it. But then my drummer moved to San Francisco and so I pretty much had to disband that and that’s when I started to trying to learn Internet programming. I was just sitting there like, "OK, I gotta really do something with my career," so I taught myself how to be a computer programmer basically. <br><br>I made this website called visualguitars.com and I started selling it but man that takes so much time. You know being in a band, my girlfriend, having a day job, it's like I can’t really put as much time into it as I want. If you go to download.com and look up "visualguitars" you can download like the free version of it. So in the late 90's until about in the early 2000's all I was doing was programming and that’s what I’m doing right now. I'm working for an insurance company doing programming. It’s mainly like I said so I can finally fund the projects I want to do. I’ve always had a money problem. It’s not like I didn’t want to put things out, it’s trying to keep the personnel happy and there were just not a lot of good paying jobs around here. So a little bit of success and then start over again a little bit, and start over again. I feel like I’ve been playing since I was 3 years old and I’m still doing it. I still really like it. I’m lucky to be able to do it, I guess. <br><br>It’s not like I ever gave up or anything. It’s like I just always try to get another project that’s gonna go and my main thing is I never stop writing music and I really love roots music but I always liked, it’s not like I just want to do old music. I toy around, when I was in college with synthesizers. It’s not like Techno but more like Brian Eno, weird stuff like that. I guess I always wanted like futuristic or in the past. It seems to me that that’s part of my problem people don’t have enough of a focused sound or image. People go “Oh, he’s the Rockabilly guy. Oh, he’s a Surf guy. What is he?” What I have always been trying to do is incorporate all the things I like in to my sound and I’m getting there. I think I’m still writing good songs. So that’s about it. <br><br>By the time the Internet started coming around, for some reason I made the mistake of thinking I’m not really trying to worry about trying to get record deals anymore, I’m just gonna really work the Internet. And I don’t know, for better or worse, that’s really not enough. You still have to put out CDs and things like that. But a lot of it is just, I’m making pretty good money right now. I just started a new job but it’s been like feast or famine. It’s usually I just never have enough money to put out a lot of music myself or hire the best musicians or things like that. I have a pretty good band right now and I’m gonna cut a new record with these guys and I’m super excited. I love playing and I feel like my chops are really good. And I just talked to Bruce from Jungle Records and we are going to try to do a Big Guitars reunion and I am really excited about that.</p>
<p>I’ve been going through all my old cassettes. I’ve got old reel to reels and stuff like that and bad tapes and I remember that one of my best friends, Eloid Ruiz, Eloid got to be good friends with Dino. Him and Dino really hit it off and he used to be Dino’s MC. This is right after I moved back, like the late 80's. Anyway, Eloid wanted to help me out and so he helped to fund. I wanted to do like a follow up to Big Guitars and just pay for it ourselves. So in '89 I went down there. Just on the fly I called up Mike Buck, Keith Ferguson came, Evan Johns came over for a couple songs, and we recorded, I think it was at Austin Opry House Studios. I think it’s called Music Lanes. It was like real close to the Continental Club, it was called the Opry House. They had a studio in there. We did like 8 songs. This other guy, Mike Vernon, from 3 Balls of Fire, he did a couple of songs. So I have almost a whole album. That was the last time I saw Keith Ferguson. He was nice enough to come. It was really hard to do roots music, if everybody remembers back then. It seemed like it kind of exploded after we were doing it. When we were doing roots music, who was gonna to put it out? We were doing it but it was either Jungle Records, that guy who put out the Leroi Brothers, there was just a handful of people. And I remember, it seemed like in the 90's there was a big revival of Surf bands, and Rockabilly and stuff like that. I think that the whole independent records movement was more mature, there was more record labels. <br><br>I want to start putting on shows with like four or five bands, like a revival kind of thing where we share a lot of the back end equipment. You know, everybody does like six to eight songs. I love that. That’s the thing, it's like I really would love to start playing little theaters like that, getting three or four bands that wanna do stuff like that. I kinda like that more than clubs sometimes. I love theaters. I was really into acoustics, like I said I studied that. Just the shape of the Fountain Square Theater, just a really cool vibe. Yeah, I definitely would love to do that. I could be happy playing in three or four different bands. 'Cause I can play drums or guitar or bass. Sometimes it's fun not to even be like the main guy. All I got to do is play the drums. I don’t have to worry about anything else. <br><br>There was this lady, they had a killer record store in Marion. Man they had everything like and they were like real music fans. So after I moved back from Texas and I was really depressed, kind of like a nervous breakdown after the Moto X thing and all that stuff happened. She had moved her record store to Fairmont so I went over there, I walked in there, I started talking to her and she remembered me from me going to her record store in high school and she opens up her drawer and she has a press clipping of me being nominated for a Grammy. In her drawer! I was like, “Are you kidding me?” That was like right across the street from the James Dean Musem. So I had a real connection to that 50's kind of vibe. I wanted to revive that kind of energy. I wanted to see people dancing. I was totally into, growing up, into 50's movies, especially like science fiction, black and white movies. We always had the all-night theaters on Friday night and they'd show like monster movies. So I grew up with all that and there was the Ghost of Drag Strip Hollow, there was this old movie called The Ghost of Drag Strip Hollow. It was before it was Surf music. It was like '61. They didn’t call it Surf but they totally sounded like Surf music. It’s kinda like a funny horror movie and no one had ever heard of it except for Mike Buck. I mentioned it to him and he had the record! I was like “You got to be kidding! You got the record, the Ghost of Drag Strip Hollow?" I thought I was the only person who had ever seen that movie. Sometimes it’s a small world. You find little weird connections with things.</p>
<p>Another cool thing about Marion, I just found this out, there was a band called The Jiants. They’re in the Rockabilly Hall of Fame. And oh my God, they had this killer song. It’s just amazing. They did this song called <em>TORNADO</em> and these guys were from Marion where James Dean was born. It’s killer. The guy has a Les Paul and he has this killer tremolo pedal, that’s like the hook of the song. He starts off strumming in time with the tremolo. Awesome. But I didn’t even know when I lived there that we have a Rockabilly Hall of Famer right from Marion, The Jiants. Man, I love that song. I want to cover it.<br> <br> That’s where David Loehr started the Rockabilly Rebel Weekend. I went to the one in Fairmont and it was wild. It was like 10 years after we were doing it in the early 80's. It's like I got lost in the shuffle. By the time that stuff took off people didn’t know who I was. It wasn’t like I could just walk in and go, "Hey, I wanna play!" I love Rockabilly There’s a guy here doing it right now, Art Adams. He’s in the Rockabilly Hall of Fame. He’s in his 70s. He’s just went to England and played. He lives here in Indy and is playing around a lot.</p>
<p>I’m hoping to put out a really good album that captures the sound I want to get. I always loved tremolo, too. Just talking briefly about out equipment, I really got into old... like my first amp was like a little Fender Tweed and I always loved tube equipment, even when it wasn’t popular, like in the late 70's early 80's everybody was starting to use transistor amps. That’s when I would buy every amp I could get. Every Fender amp I could get I would buy them at pawn shops and second hand stores. Man I had like a 1950's blond Bandmaster that was really cool, Super Reverb, Vibralux. Man, I love that kind of reverb. I've always been into really good reverb and tremolo and stuff like that. I think it's a slightly different vibe, cause like I said back in the eary 80's there wasn’t a lot of people doing that kind of stuff. I think that if I did it now it's not like, "Oh look, this guy’s really unique," or anything. I like the ambiance in music. I love the sound of tube amps and I love the sound of a room. I’ve never really been happy with my own demos, like when I go to a studio. It took me awhile to figure out. The modern recording techniques and stuff, it doesn’t sound like the 50's. What is it that they were doing in the 50's and the 60's that sounded so cool? You would think that our equipment would be better and our techniques would be better but people are starting to go back to that. Like John Mellencamp recorded at Sun Studio just using one or two mics with everybody in the room onto a tape machine <em>(No Better Than This, 2010)</em>. Yeah, that’s the way to do it, I mean sometimes the modern recording techniques they may be good for Heavy Metal for certain kinds of music but for Rock 'n' Roll, man, you got to have the sound of the room, you don’t need a million microphones, and you want good tube amps and good equipment and it’s that ambience too. I love good lead players. It’s not like I’m trying to be Stevie Ray Vaughan or something. I spend a lot of time trying to develop my techniques and stuff. I built Visual Guitar because I finally wanted to learn scales. Like people would tell me, "Oh do you know a mixed Lydian scale?" and I had no idea what a Mixolydian scale is. Now I understand it and that’s why I built Visual Guitar, it was so I could figure out what the different kinds of scales really were. My only scale is always like the blues scale, like Pentatonic. I didn’t even know how to do like major Pentatonic, I would just the minor Pentatonic. Now I understand that stuff. I’m pretty intuitive with music. I just did it by ear, "Oh, this is the way I want it to sound." I just let my fingers just kinda fly. I wasn’t really concerned with like playing exactly this scale or that scale and I don’t ever want to be like that. I don’t want to be the kinda guy, "Oh, now I’m doing this scale and that." But I did want to learn just open up my vocabulary a little bit. So I think that’s what I kinda did for the last 10 years or so. Like I did a lot of Internet stuff but I've realized that you've still got to put out records to get reviewed, to get people excited. Especially if you do like rootsy music. A lot of people just don’t want, it’s a little cheap if you just do it over the Internet. A lot of people say don’t send me MP3s, send me a CD or something. They’re not interested in reviewing your digital albulm online. I think that’s changing a little bit because it’s so big now. I wanna put out some vinyl. Another thing that's kinda popular here now is that people are putting out cassettes. I guess cassettes are kinda making a comeback because of the price. There’s a lot of people that still like analog verses digital and it’s cheap, fairly cheap, to make a bunch of cassettes.<br><br>There’s a label here called Joyful Noise. They do more modern kind of Indie Rock and stuff and they’ve been putting out cassettes like crazy. You can either order the download, or cassette, or vinyl, or CD. That's what my goal would be, to put it out in any kind of format. I definitely still love vinyl but I’m looking into maybe cassettes. It’s not like everybody has a cassette player but I bought one. I bought a real nice used Pioneer cassette deck for about 6 bucks. It works great. 'Cause I’ve got just hundreds of old cassettes from practices and stuff. That’s what I’ve been doing is going through my old tapes, been doctoring them, making them sound better; EQing them, remastering them. As I was going through the stuff I found that thing I did in Texas in '89, so I'm gonna try to put that out, gotta get a hold of Mike Buck. I told him I was going to call him, he finally got back with me a couple weeks ago. And I’m excited about going back to you know, a Big Guitars reunion. Working on a new record with my band here.<br><br>The main reason that I’m here is for family and things like that. My girlfriend and I are planning on get married and I probably wouldn’t have met her if I wouldn't have stuck around so that's probably the best reason I stuck around I guess. I don’t know, that’s about it. Still trying to do, like I said, I'm trying to incorporate a lot of things and make it like a funky sound. It's not like I want to go from one, "OK, I'm gonna do a Surf song and then I'm gonna do a Blues song." It’s like I’m trying to incorporate Surf, a little bit of Blues, a little bit of Beatles kind of Pop, and incorporate it into kinda my own sound. That’s my goal anyway.<br><br>I love Austin. I thought Austin was probably the best place for me that I’d ever found. I love the town and I love the people. I think I was pretty well accepted into the Austin scene there. It wasn’t like you could just waltz in there and everybody was gonna love you. You kinda pay your dues and I think I did. I mean I played with Poison 13 when they needed a guitar player, I played with the Leroi Brothers, I played with Dino, I got to play with Joe King Carasco, he wanted me to join at one point. But over the years, like I said, things changed so much, so many people moved there and it changed a little bit and it’s super expensive to live there now. And the other thing is like my parents were getting pretty old, it just felt like obligation to be around to help take care of them.<br><br>That’s another thing, after it was over I felt like I fell off the edge of the world. Like "Where did Frankie go?" I never got much feedback from it. But it’s good to hear that people liked it.<br><br>Yeah, I love all those guys. I mean Don was always a real nice guy and I think the best thing he ever told me was we were talking about how you approach lead guitar and stuff and he said that if you can sing it you can play it. And it's true. So sometimes I try to, instead of just playing random notes, "Am I really playing a melody or am I playing random notes?" Like I was talking about scales. I really like to build a unique melody and I think Don was good at that too. We always wanted to build something that was full and unique. Yeah man, I love playing with those guys totally excited about getting together with them again trying to put out that '89 thing and my new album.<br><br>And one of my favorite things was hanging out with Keith Ferguson. We got to be good friends and he would invite me over to his house. He had this thing he called “Sunday Meeting” and we would go over to his house on Sunday and we would just listen to records, drink a few beers and we' BBQ some chicken with Alex Napier, this other bass player friend of mine. I felt really honored cause he didn’t really talk to everybody. I’d see people go up to Keith and start talking to him and he would just look straight ahead. If he didn’t want to talk to you he didn’t want to talk to you. But it really was an eye opener going over to his house, the record collection he had. I couldn’t believe some of the blues records he had I'd never heard of. And I always thought that was kinda like the Punk of the 50’s. I got to meet some of the cats that were like really from the 50’s but it wasn’t like the 50’s that everybody reads about. It was like, "OK, this is really what happened in the 50's." This one guy, I can’t remember his name, but he told me about him and his friends would go to like Rhythm and Blues clubs like in Houston and stuff like that and it was just like they would go to basically all-black clubs, that was their thing in the late 50's. He always told me he was going to take me to show me how to get to Mexico through these back roads and things like that. <br><br>Yeah, it was such a good time, you know. I wish I could have stuck around longer for it and really held my career at that point but it didn’t work out quite like that, like I wanted right then but yeah it felt like a lot of people just moved there right about the same time. Like we all had this plan like reenergize Rock 'n' Roll and bring back, you know, some of the good things about the past. It’s like I’ve always been drawn to music from the past. It’s not like I follow current music and stuff. There's so much good music to learn from. From the past, too. Yeah, there was Rockabilly, there was a little Surf, there was a little Garage. Everything I liked. It was like, "Man, this is awesome." Blues. I would just go from one club to the other, like sometimes three clubs a night. I’d go down to the Continental and catch a couple bands and I’d go up to Antone’s and pretty much felt like I knew everybody and everybody just welcomed me. Still trying to do it. Hopefully we’ll hook up with those guys again.</p>
J.J. Vicarstag:jjvicars.com,2005:Post/60643052011-09-16T09:00:54-12:002020-09-19T05:53:24-12:00Denny Freeman (part 2)
<p>(When did you first meet?) It's hard to remember, back probably in the... I guess Mike was still actually living in Fort Worth probably when I first met him. I think he came down a little after we did, but he was playing with some people that we got to know from Fort Worth and they would come down to play and we were all just kinda in the same family. They were kinda doing something similar in Fort Worth. Back then there were so few people trying to do the kind of things that we were doing that you just tended to get to know each other. Probably in the mid 70's when Mike was coming down to Austin with some fellas he was playing with, the Juke Jumpers or whoever it was he was playing with in Fort Worth. Keith grew up in Houston, he was about my age. He had left Houston and had lived in San Francisco, and Los Angeles too I think, and then returned to Austin by about 1972 or something, not long after I was there but I think before The Cobras. Keith knew people that I knew so when Keith hit town I met him pretty soon. He didn't look like anybody I had hung out with, he had streaks dyed in his hair -there was a shag haircut Rock 'n' Roll element in Austin too, we had friends that were just Rock 'n' Roll guys like that- but Keith, he looked like a Rock star. He came down with his lizard boots and his scarf and his shag haircut, his jewelry and all that kind of stuff just looking like a Rock star! I knew a few people like that but I thought Keith was pretty exotic. I mean he seemed nice and he knew all the people I knew so he was accepted into our little cult right off the bat. Before too long we got to know each other. I liked him right off, I just thought he might be a little bit too exotic for me and he might think I was a little... I don't know, out of a whatever. But we discovered that we were just about the same age, and that he grew up in Houston and I grew up in Dallas, and even though he looked like a Rock star at heart he knew all about Blues, all the stuff that I liked, and he was a pretty lowdown street-wise guy. I think once he and I discovered about each other that we both loved Excello Records and that kind of stuff, like Lightnin' Slim and Lazy Lester, sometimes if you meet somebody and then you find out that they're into something you're into that most people aren't then you have kind of a special connection there. I don't know if that's what it was, but I kind of always thought that once Keith and I discovered about each other that we both kinda liked Excello Records... we were just a tiny bit older than people and we just kinda had some things in common. It might have something as simple as discovering that each of us really liked Lightnin' Slim or Lazy Lester or Slim Harpo. There was something, we had a connection there pretty early on and so he and I got to be friends pretty quick, pretty soon after he got to town.<br><br> Then Don Leady came in later, I had never really played with Don hardly, except maybe a couple of times. That was a slightly different circle of people and I haven't actually see Don in... I don't know if I've seen him in 20 years! Of course I haven't really lived in Austin for 20 years. I went to L.A. for a while and I've been back in Dallas for about six (years). I never see Don but I think he's around. I see Mike all the time. I don't live there but I've never stopped going there. I still go there but I just never see him. And Bruce just called me, I don't really see Bruce either, I saw him recently and then he called me a couple of days ago wanting to know if I could play at a benefit for Evan. I haven't seen Evan either. I haven't seen Evan or Don Leady for 20 years, which is hard to believe. I do see Mike. I see Steve Doerr sometimes. <br><br> By about 1990 everything in Austin that we had been doing started winding down. Jimmie quit the Thunderbirds, and of course Stevie died in '90. In late '89 my mother was sick and my world kind of got turned upside down and I didn't really intend to move back to Dallas, if my mother hadn't been sick I wouldn't have done it, but I moved to Dallas for a couple of years around 1990 just to help out with my mother. She died and I stuck around a minute to make sure my dad would be okay. So Stevie had died, Jimmie had left the T-birds, and a lot of the people that we used to back up at Antone's had started to die and it just seemed like around 1990 all the stuff that we had done really slowed down. At the same time I moved to Dallas Angela moved to California and at the same time Mel Brown, B3 and guitar player that was a big part of the Antone's thing, he moved to Canada. So three of us right out of the middle of the Antone's thing left town at the same time for different reasons, went in different directions. So around 1990 that whole thing wasn't completely over but it just seemed like it had come to a temporary end or something.<br><br> I stayed in Dallas for a year or so after my mother died, just kinda looking after people, but then I had to do something. When I first got to Dallas I was doing a little bit of stuff with Big Doyle and Little Doyle and a couple other people but then that ran down, that was over. By about '92 there wasn't anything going on in Austin or Dallas so I said, "Well, I gotta do something so I'll go to L.A." I didn't have anything line up out there but I knew some people. There wasn't anything going on for me in Texas. All the stuff that I had done it just kinda wasn't happening so I went to Los Angeles and I was there about 12 1/2 years. I'm glad I went out there but then after a while things just changed. I did some good in L.A. and I'm glad I went there but after about 12 1/2 years a lot of things had changed and things weren't looking so great and I didn't really see 'em turning around any time soon for me and so I came back to Texas. I would have gone to Austin but now I have to look after my dad so now I'm in Dallas. And now there's more stuff happening for me in Austin than when I left. I go down to Austin as much as I can and play but I've gotta be headquartered in Dallas to look after my dad right now. I play in Dallas but not very much. A year after I got back here in early '05 I got the gig with Bob Dylan and I did that for nearly five years. So the 90's was basically being in Los Angeles and then the Dylan gig.<br><br> I think we must have done (Taj Mahal & the Phantom Blues Band) for about six or seven years. I was playing with him in '96 or '97 and then he quit using that band in maybe '02. When I was in Los Angeles I also went out with Jimmie for a year and a half when he first went out on his own as Jimmie Vaughan. Two or three years after I moved to Los Angeles, '95 or something like that, that's when Jimmie came out with that STRANGE PLEASURE album and put a band together to go on tour, so I did that for a year and a half. Mainly I played piano with him. I went from that to Taj. After Taj a couple of years later I went with Bob Dylan. In the last year I haven't really been touring with anybody, I've just been looking after my dad and driving down to Austin playing. That's really all I can do for the moment. <br><br>Right when I moved to Los Angeles what ended up being that band was recording with Taj. This producer named John Porter, I don't know how it happened because I wasn't involved, but Taj had been living in Hawaii and my friend Joe Sublett that I played with in The Cobras, sax player, he had moved to L.A. three or four years before I did and he got hooked up with some folks out there and this producer produced like three Taj Mahal albums and he didn't use exactly the same people on all of them but there was kind of one main posse of people that he used and after they recorded one or two albums they decided to use that main body of people. Just put together a band and take it out on the road. Sort of the essence of the people that he had used on these albums. And then after they had recorded three of those albums the guitar player, Johnny Lee Schell, got an offer to go out with John Fogerty when John Fogerty put out that album, Blue Moon Swamp, the first album he had put out in a long time. They needed a guitar player and so I joined the band to fill in for Johnny Lee. In other words The Phantom Blues Band had already existed for a year and a half before I joined. After I joined the band the only album that Taj made was a live album. It actually got a Grammy. It was called Shoutin' In Key. I think Larry Fulter, the bass player, said we ought to record our own album. I think there's two of them out and I think I had less involvement with the second one. Johnny Lee was part of this posse even after he started playing with Fogerty. We recorded at Johnny Lee's studio and Johnny Lee was still actually more heavily involved with the guys in that band than I was. And so Johnny Lee was on that Phantom Blues Band album that we recorded, both of them. I played on both of them but he was more involved with all that than I was. We didn't play in the band at the same time but we both recorded on the Phantom Blues Band albums. And the Phantom Blues actually played some gigs on its own. I played them for a while until I got the Dylan gig. Actually in the past year or so ('09-'10) I think Taj has used the Phantom Blues Band kinda for sporadic gigs or short tours, going out with Bonnie Raitt or something. But he hadn't used that band as one of his bands for six or seven or eight years. <br><br><br>*I got Mike Flannigan, a guy that's younger than me. He's actually a guy that I met when I moved up here to Dallas the first time after living in Austin. When I moved back here to Dallas for a couple of years around 1990 I met him but he was a guitar player at the time. I met a handful of young guys that were playing Blues. They all ended up moving down to Austin, these young guys. Mike just put his guitar in the closet and decided he wanted to be a Hammond player. People get confused because the organ players in the Phantom Blues Band, is Mike Finnegan (note: who also played with Tommy Bolin in the 70's). He's also a B3 player. This is Mike Flannigan. He would play around town a little bit and then the Continental Club opened up a place upstairs called The Gallery and Steve who owns the Continental said, "Just put your B3 up there, leave it there, and play there every weekend." So he's playing there every weekend and I'm one of different guitar players that he uses. He uses Frosty on drums most of the time and he kinda rotates guitar players 'cause people are in and out of town. It's a real fun gig because it's a small place but a real cool place, kinda retro without being phony retro. It's just kinda automatically naturally kinda retro beause Steve just kinda had a B3 vibe. That was kinda the purpose of even acquiring that space and turning it into this bar called The Gallery. I play it when I can. It's just really fun to do a B3 trio type thing. I also play with Bill Carter. It's frightening to think how long we've been doing that. Bill Carter is a songwriter that wrote some songs for Stevie, he wrote WILLIE THE WIMP and CROSSFIRE and a few other songs, and he wrote WHY GET UP for the T-birds. He's written a bunch of songs for different people. Over the years he would put different bands together just kinda for the heck of it and one of the collections of people that he uses is like Chris Layton on drums, one of the combinations on guitar is Charlie Sexton and me. And Bill plays guitar too. It's mostly Bill's songs which is just kinda Rock 'n' Roll in A, clever three-chord songs. They're fun songs. They're good, catchy, Rootsy songs. There's different guitar players that we use. Sometimes if Charlie can't do it we use his brother Will. A guy named David Holton. We've been doing that for a long time. It's just something that we would do every once in a while. But lately in the past year or two we started to play more regularly. We might have gone two or three or four or five years in between gigs in the past but now we're starting to play a little bit more often. I think two out of the last three times I went to Austin I played with Bill and the next two gigs I have in Austin are with Bill. There's hardly any Blues at Antone's at all but Derek O'Brian still plays there on Tuesdays and if I'm in town sometimes I'll play with Derek. <br><br>I don't even really consider myself a Blues guy. Most of the stuff I've done has been Bluesy stuff but I really kinda think of myself more as just a guitar player. I like to play Blues with my friends and Derek is still there at Antone's playing on Tuesday nights. Every once in a while there will be some occasion where I'll play at Antone's but I'm not playing with any one particular band. I do the B3 thing, and I do the Bill Carter thing, and the occasional gig at Antone's. That's the main things I do. And every once in a while something else will come up. If I was living there... I'm trying to... I gotta take care of my dad for now but whenever I'm done with that I'll want to live in Austin again and pursue a bunch of musical ideas. But for right now all I have time to do... if somebody calls me I'll go down there and play if I can get away. Everything is kinda on hold right now. I'm lucky I get to do those kinds of gigs. I actually got a band here in Dallas. I don't really play that much in Dallas, not that much going on, but I've got a singing drummer here and a bass player. We play sometimes, just not very often. There's not many places to play up here. Mainly I'm concentrating on my music in Austin. I can't leave my dad for very long so I can't tour, so I'm headquartered in Dallas and I run down to Austin to play. I hoping at some point to be a lot more active in Austin and other places but for right now I have to slow down. <br><br>Neither one of us are deep Jazz guys. It's kind of anything goes. It's instrumental stuff, sort of Soul Jazzy Funk. Or Funk, Jazz and Soul. It's Bluesy Jazz, or Jazzy Blues, or Funky Blues, or Bluesy Funk. Whatever you want to call it! It's more Jazzy but it's also kinda funky. It's nice to look and see these chicks dancing and stuff. It's the kind of Jazz you can dance to. Mike's inspired by the classic B3 players. He's not trying to be Jimmy Smith but there's a lot of other organ players that are less well known and we do some Jimmy Smith type stuff. If you're into organ music you realize with a lot of those guys almost anything goes. We might do a Burt Bacharach song, or some ballad. We mainly go to the Jazz well for most of our material but Jazz covers a pretty wide area. There's a lot of different kinds of what you would call Jazz. But it's basically just Bluesy, funky Jazz. Pretty typical organ trio. If Jimmy Smith brings anything to mind it's something like that. It's Jazz but it's not academic. Jazz you can dance to. It's kind of a cool place, young people go to it and I don't know if they've heard anything like this before. It's an intimate setting, it's a pretty small place. People talk and everything but if you're in there you hear the music. Most people haven't heard much Jazz anyway. It's the kind of Jazz where even of you think you don't like Jazz, of you hadn't heard much Jazz and you're not very familiar with it, this is the kind of Jazz that you might find that you like. I like to listen to John Coltrane myself. I don't like all Jazz, there's some stuff that I don't like, but I like some pretty deep stuff that people, non-musicians or something, might have trouble processing or even enjoying. But a lot of Jazz is just pretty soulful, funky stuff. That's the kind of stuff we play. The kind of Jazz for people who maybe don't like Jazz, because it's not far out or academic. We look up and there's all these chicks dancing to what we're doing. <br><br>It's fun because I like to try to play Jazz but I'm not really a Jazz player. We do more Jazzy stuff in this outfit than anybody else I play with so that's one of the few chances I get to try to play some Jazz. I sit on a stool, maybe play a 175 or something, and try to play some stuff that I don't usually get to play. I really enjoy it a lot. We plan on recording all the time, we just never do it. Somebody almost insisted they come record us live, and they did one time, but I don't think these people quite understood how to record a B3 so we need to do it again. If I was living nearby I might try to make sure that it happened. It's really a shame that we haven't gone into the studio or recorded more live gigs but that's just the case a lot of times. There hasn't been nearly as much recording of it as there should have been. We've got plans to do it but right now my participation is limited because of my situation with my dad. He's real old and I can leave him but it's kind of where I can leave him for shorter and shorter periods of time. I hope that we can resume the recording of that trio and some other stuff too. Actually, we've got plans to record some live Bill Carter stuff too, 'cause that's also different but it's really good stuff. That's another side project so we really don't think about recording it and kinda take it for granted, but just recently Bill called up the other day and started talking about making plans to record that. We'll just have to do that at a gig because which will be fine. That'll be a good way to record that band. <br><br>I'm really frustrated in every area of recording, If I ever get some more time in my own life, whether it's my own stuff or the organ trio or whatever, recording is actually a priority. It's just something that I'm having to postpone which is really bothersome to me, not being able to get around to doing it, but I can't do too much about it right now. It's difficult to even get started because I'm not living in Austin and I can't be there enough. I've got my hands full and it's hard to plan ahead right now and it's getting harder. But it's also maybe nearing the end of my... who knows, sometimes I think my dad's gonna live forever, but while he's here it seems to be demanding more and more of my time. It's frustrating because I'm having to postpone a lot of my activities. I mean I can still run down to Austin and play a little bit but not nearly as much as I like. There's a lot of things that are frustrating but that's just life. <br><br>(While hairspray and synthesizers dominated the 80's, Blues/Rockabilly bubbled underground, occasionally poking its head into the mainstream. Austin was the unofficial capitol.) It's kind of the second time something like that happened because when most people think in general of the 70's you think of Disco and all kinds of cars in the last half of the 70's. Cars started getting ugly and stupid. It was like the more the 70's image was upon us the more we were entrenched in trying to play Blues even though it was going against everything that was happening. But the funny thing was if you think about Blues you might think about polyester pants and shirts and Disco and all that, all those 70's iconic images, but the thing was that the world that I was living in in the 70's we were in the gritty nightclubs trying to play Blues. Underneath all those images of the 70's the Thunderbirds and Stevie, The Cobras and Lou Ann and all of us, Antone's was being born and Roomful of Blues was doing it, and there was some really great cool stuff that was happening and being born and being formed in the 70's that had nothing to do with any of the more well known images. And in the 80's, when MTV started happening and all of that 80's stuff that I certainly couldn't relate to... to my surprise I actually found myself being a fan of some of the 80's stuff. I liked The Cars, and I can't handle Sting on his own but I liked The Police. I liked Blondie. There were some bands in the 80's that were totally separate from the world I lived in and the music that I liked but I actually found myself, to my surprise, liking a lot of the New Wave bands. Probably fewer than more but I liked some of that. <br><br>The 80's you think of MTV, I don't like 80's music when you think of "80's music". If you grew up on it then that's what you like but I didn't grow up on it and I don't like it. But in the 80's that's when the Antone's house band was really happening and that was some really cool stuff going on at Antone's because we had a really good house band and in the 80's there was still a lot of, I've noticed in this conversation I've used the word "iconic" more than I've ever used it in my life, but it's true in the 80's there were still a lot of Blues stars that were capable of traveling around and we would back them up. We saw these Blues guys that I never thought I would see and this was in the backdrop of MTV and all that stuff. It had nothing to do with any of that, of course. But it was also in the 80's that The Thunderbirds had some commercial success and it was in the 80's that Stevie had success. And all of that was not typical of what you think of as "the 80's". And also in the 80's that's when Austin music, Austin bands were getting solidified as a force to be reckoned with. Because in he 80's at some point if you were from Austin you could go work in Europe. I don't know if Doug Sahm opened that up, not that Doug was from Austin but he can be identified with San Francisco, San Antonio or Austin. He could be identified equally with any of those places. Doug was going to Europe and Scandinavia in the 80's again and he was taking some Austin fellas in his band, and when he was going to those gigs that's when he was living in Austin. Then The Thunderbirds started going over there and maybe somebody else and so everybody's going "What's this Austin stuff?" and obviously there was a lot of Austin bands. I went over there twice with Angela and everywhere we went people had on Antone's t-shirts, and in the 80's Antone's and Austin had become part of the musical pilgrimage of for people in Australia or Europe or Japan. People who would come to America for their musical pilgrimages, maybe they wanted to go to Memphis or Chicago or wherever, by the 80's Austin had become part of that landscape. It was not unusual at all for like some big night at Antone's to discover that... I remember one at Antone's I was talking to somebody at the bar and they were either from Norway or Sweden, then a few minutes later I was talking to some more people and said, "Oh I guess those were your friends. I was talking to some other people earlier from Oslo," or wherever they were from. They said, "No, we're not with them." We got to be friends with people from all over the world who would come to Austin, and if they came to Austin one of the main places they would come would be to Antone's. <br><br>And so in the 80's while all the MTV stuff and all those other bands that got to be so popular and that would typify the 80's, that sound and all that stuff -I don't like it myself, that wasn't my thing- underneath all of that stuff that was getting the majority of the attention that's when Antone's was at (its peak). Actually the first couple of years of Antone's was pretty heavy, but in the 80's that's when we had our house band and we were backing up everybody and that certainly had nothing to do with MTV. It was anti- that. Not that it was against it, it was just totally removed from it, but that's when Antone's was at its strongest was in the 80's which had nothing to do with your typical imagery of the 80's. It's when the T-birds and Stevie had success, and when Austin bands started going to Europe, and they went to Austin bands just based on the fact that they were Austin bands. It's like you have all these images of the 70's but that's when all of us, we were still under the radar, but all those people I just mentioned that was happening in the 70's. Antone's opened up in '75, the Thunderbirds were formed in '75, all of that Austin Blues stuff was being formed and grown and nurtured in the 70's as opposed to the images most people have of the 70's. That's interesting that you're taking that take because there was definitely stuff going on in the 80's, I don't know where else it was going on, but in Austin the second half of the 70's and throughout most of the 80's that's when there was a lot of really cool stuff happening in Austin and a lot of it kinda had not much to do with the more familiar images of the 80's. That's just my take, I didn't have anything to do with typical 80's music but the 80's was when all that stuff that we had ben working on for so long had started to finally get some respect. You've got your perspective of when you came of age, how you saw things. <br><br>The interesting thing now is when I was younger Rock 'n' Roll was teenage stuff and then later on in the 60's the people that were into all of the 60's stuff -whether it was Hendrix or Cream or Crosby, Stills & Nash or whatever in that late 60's/early 70's stuff- it was still a small group of people, at least age-wise. The group of people that were into Rock 'n' Roll, it was still a youth-oriented thing. But as time goes by it's just funny that now, I mean the Stones are in their sixties and the age span of people that are into Rock 'n' Roll, I mean people that are in their forties or fifties are not into the same thing that people in their twenties are into, but there's certain musical laps or certain musical venues you go to and instead of it just being teenagers like it was when I started- it was only teenagers, and then in the late 60's and early 70's it was mainly people in their twenties, maybe late teens and in their twenties, but then as time has gone on some of us just won't go away. Now you might go to a venue and there could people in their twenties, thirties, forties and fifties at the same joint. And if people of different ages all go to the same show then there's some kind of unity there if they're all going to see the same thing. There's certain famous bands that young people like and older people still like. So they have something in common there, but for the most part people in their fifties they don't even like what people in their forties like. And they don't like what people in their thirties like. Some of us that are older we just kinda won't go away. The subculture splintered into about a hundred different subcultures. There's not really much unity out there. I don't really have much in common with somebody in their thirties. I've got friends that are young, I've got friends in their twenties and thirties. Just about everybody I know is younger than me but most of my friends are friends of mine because of some sort of connection to music. And there are young people who like what I like. Most of them don't but I've got some that do. I know a lot of people of all ages but really for the most part it's a fractured, splintered up world out there and there's not that much unity. For somebody like me I feel really isolated. I've got a lot of friends myself but the kind of stuff we're into we're so much in the minority that we don't even register hardly on anything. A lot of people are feeling isolated I guess, just because there's so many different sub-groups and fractures and subcultures that people are isolated. I probably spend too much time trying to figure it all out. It's a complicate world, I know that. <br><br>When I look at those books (Antone's photo albums published by Susan Antone)... I think the first one was better -I don't think I even have the second one or I hadn't seen it in a long time- but every once in a while when I come across those books and I look through 'em it just blows my mind because of how much stuff. I mean it wasn't like that every night but it almost seems like it was. When I look through those books it's like incredible the kind of stuff that just went on there. One reason it was so cool is because not just Clifford but the bartenders and the waitresses, we were all kinda family. And all them pretty little girls that worked there, if they weren't Blues fans when they got there they were by the time they started working there a while. It was just a cool environment because all of us were into the thing. Everybody was into the music, and everybody treated those guys the way they deserved to be treated. The whole outfit was a big business mess, it was a crazy situation, but everybody that worked there was into the ideal of the whole thing. That makes a lot of difference. So when those guys played there they got nothing but love and respect. Because you know what it's like to play at a club, it can be a real cooperative environment or the manager or owner may not k ow who you are, or care, you're just an annoyance to him, all that kind of stuff. But when you play at a place where the owner or the manager is into it and he has some respect for the music itself that's the kind of place you want to play. Those guys probably had it pretty rough throughout their lives but when they came to Austin, when they came to Antone's, they were treated like royalty and they deserved to be treated like that and they were treated like that form the club owner down to the waitresses. And by all of us that backed them up. We didn't fawn over them too much, we just wanted them to be relaxed and have a nice time and feel welcome. We just tried to treat them the way they ought to be treated and we had a good band, they were usually satisfied with that. On the whole I'm sure most of those guys had good memories of that place. And when they would look through those books they would see their friends. It's not like that anymore. There's still a place called Antone's but they might as well have changed the name about 15 years ago. Nothing lasts forever but that was some heavy stuff.<br><br>(The Austin scene played a vital role in keeping it a living art form and not just a museum piece. Up-and-coming accomplished musicians honed their craft backing up the originators before going out on their own and influencing generations of younger players, some of whom are currently playing with the now-veteran Austin guys.) I guess we did. I don't know that we saw it like that at the time because we just thought that we were the kids and they're the real deal and everything. Nobody enjoyed it more than we did. I guess we were providing a service. At the time we didn't see it like that, we just thought we were the luckiest people in the world getting to do that. Which we were. So I guess we did provide something but nobody benefitted from it or had more enjoyment from it than us. And if it actually did some good then that's even better. <br><br>All of this stuff, it's really the way I remember it. It's my perspective and I'm not trying to say that it's the ultimate one, or the only one, or the accurate one. I guess mine's as good as anybody else's.</p>
J.J. Vicarstag:jjvicars.com,2005:Post/60643042011-05-23T13:57:34-12:002022-04-06T05:20:49-12:00Denny Freeman (part 1)
<p><span style="text-decoration:underline"><strong>Starting Out</strong></span></p>
<p> When I was a young child there wasn't really any Rock 'n' Roll so the music that I heard was just music from the honky-tonks and white Pop music, whatever was popular, Country. The popular music of my parent's generation an it didn't really have that much of an impact on me. I guess I liked music but I don't have any real memories of it but then when I was becoming an adolescent that's when Rock 'n' Roll was born; Chuck Berry, Fats Domino and Little Richard , Elvis and Buddy Holly, and all that stuff. It's really incredible when you think about there was nothing and then there was all of those guys. Within a year or two all of those guys, and of course a lot more, and Rock 'n' Roll really had its beginnings before it hit white radio but when it was actually becoming Rock 'n' Roll from Rhythm & Blues and everything else it's just incredible to think about how much burst on the scene at one time. The an adolescent just kinda being ready for that stuff, it had a terrific impact on me. With the exception of Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly & The Crickets a lot of that early Rock 'n' Roll was really was more kind of piano and saxophone that it was guitar and I wasn't really playing anything at the time. I had taken some piano lessons as a kid but didn't really take it very seriously.</p>
<p> So the first Rock 'n' Roll I heard guitar wasn't that much of a part of it and I didn't really think about it that much but when I was about 13 or 14 I was at a teen dance and they had a band. I don't how old the guys were, they were probably 18 or 19, but to a 13 year old they looked pretty old. I used to go to this teen dance on Friday night in the shopping center in Dallas. The teen dance was called "Teen Timers" and they would spin 45's one Friday and the next week they would have a local band. One of the first times I went to it and actually heard a real Rock 'n' Roll or teenage band it was just a trio with guitar, piano and drums. The guitar player didn't sing but he looked like Elvis, real handsome guy with Elvis hair. He was playing a Stratocaster. Of course I didn't know what that was at the time but I remember sitting there with my friend and we were listening to the music just hearing it up close and personal. They were just playing like Jimmy Reed, R&B kinda stuff, Fats Domino, whatever. This was early on. But we were listening to it just hearing it like that, live, and it was kinda the first time I ever really tuned into the guitar. Me and my friend we looked at each other and said, 'We gotta learn how to do that!' So we started taking lessons. So I was about maybe 13 or something like that when I first heard a little trio at a teen dance playing. I don't know what they were playing but it was just the same kind of stuff we were listening to which was that early Rock 'n' Roll.</p>
<p> It was just basically R&B anyway, really, just about. Then Rock 'n' Roll started having having its more unique elements to it. But as a youth Blues was mixed right in there just about from the beginning with my Rock 'n' Roll. I knew the difference but living in Dallas at the time we were exposed to Blues so Little Richard and Fats Domino and all of those kind of 50's icons, all of those Rock 'n' Roll icons, were a part of my education but also soon after discovering all of that was Lightnin' Hopkins, John Lee Hooker, and Jimmy Reed, Muddy Waters and Little Walter, Bo Diddley, Chess Records and Excello Records and VeeJay Records. So I was really lucky to where I got hip to all of that stuff right off the bat.</p>
<p> As a matter of fact is was just kind of understood that when I was in -we called it Junior High School then which was 7th, 8th and 9th grade- and when I was in Junior High here in Dallas Jimmy Reed just kind of ruled. It was like... I remember being in the 6th grade and a friend of mine said -he was older than me and already going to Gaston- he said, "So you know who Jimmy Reed is?" And I said, "Well, no, I don't think so." I was like in the 6th grade or something and he said, "You better find out!" Meaning when I get to Gaston I need to be checked out about Jimmy Reed, so that was just a part of my youth. And then the Rockabilly was there too and you could tell the difference between Rockabilly and just regular Rock 'n' Roll and Rhythm & Blues and Blues, but it was just all mixed up and I was influenced and messed up by all of it.<br><br><span style="text-decoration:underline"><strong> </strong></span></p>
<p><span style="text-decoration:underline"><strong>Piano</strong></span></p>
<p> I took piano lessons when I was 8 years old before I ever heard any Rock 'n' Roll and I don't even know why I took it. Some woman came into my class in the 3rd grade and said, "Does anybody want to take piano lessons?" And I have no idea why I said, "Yeah, I'll do that." I had really no interest or knowledge in music or anything. I don't even know why I raised my hand but I took for about a year and a half but we didn't have a piano so I didn't really get very far with it. But then when I started really playing I started on guitar. The we got a piano later on for my sister and I started trying to transfer what I was learning on guitar to the piano so I started banging around on the piano but really guitar was the first thing I took seriously.<br><br> I don't really even feel like I'm a piano player, really. I like to amuse myself with it and I can make people think that I can play the piano but the reason that I -I mean there's some things that I can do OK- but my point is I know what all my weaknesses are on the piano. I've got a few things figured out and there's some stuff I can do pretty good but I have to work too hard at playing piano. I feel like I'm a guitar player that can bang around on the piano a little bit. I've never really had that much access to a piano but anytime I've had access to a piano I love to play it. I can barely walk by one without -I'm sure it's annoying to some people- but if I see a piano it just draws me to it. And so whenever I'd get a chance I would play a piano. I don't really have one now. I finally got a Wurlitzer electric piano, which is a different thing but I love a Wurlitzer electric piano, so I've actually had a piano for a while even though it's not a real piano. But I really like trying to play the piano. Whenever I sit down to play piano what I seem to like to play just to amuse myself -I'm not really a Jazz guitar player or a piano player- but when I sit down at piano I like to try to play ballads and standards and stuff like that. I can bang around on E and G and A, some three chord stuff, I can do that. A working knowledge of the piano to some extent, I guess you can say.<br><br><span style="text-decoration:underline"><strong> </strong></span></p>
<p><span style="text-decoration:underline"><strong>First Band</strong></span></p>
<p> About a year after I started playing I... I guess I started playing (professionally) about the time I started the 9th Grade and then there were some guys in my neighborhood that I knew that wanted to start a band, and so I guess right before the 10th Grade it would have put me about like 15 years old or something. In he 10th Grade in High School I was playing in a band with some people and I was the youngest guy in the band. So my first band I had I was 15.<br><br></p>
<p><span style="text-decoration:underline"><strong>Moving to Austin</strong></span></p>
<p> I moved down there (Austin) in May of 1970 and Jimmie and Doyle (Bramhall) moved down there like a month later, then Paul Ray moved down there a month later and then Stevie, it took Stevie about another year to get down there. I happened to move down there first but just by about 30 days. I didn't even know Doyle at the time. I'd actually played a couple of gigs with Jimmie but I didn't really know Jimmie very well. I was about 7 years older than Jimmie. I knew who he was and I'd actually played a couple of gigs with him but I didn't know him very well. I moved to Austin with this bass player named Jamie Basset who used to play with Jimmie before we all moved down there. Jimmie and Doyle kind of moved down there together and when they got to town they came over to where Jamie and I were living and they said, "Well, let's play." And so a week after Doyle and Jimmie had moved to town Doyle and Jimmie and the bass player Jamie Basset and I started playing in a band called Storm and Little Doyle -we call him "Little" but I guess the world knows him as "Doyle II" or whatever- he was like about 2 years old when they moved down there and I didn't know Doyle until he moved to Austin. So I've actually know Little since he was about 2 years old.<br><br> At the time, this was in 1970... you know, it's funny to think back. I was talking about how in '55 and '56, even '57, still only 3 years, it's incredible how much stuff happened that was significant for all musical time in that short period of time, and then things kind of fizzled out in the early 60's. Some of the Rock 'n' Roll started getting watered down a little bit and then in the second half of the -it got off kinda to a slow start but it started with The Beatles and The Stones and then Bob Dylan- but by the second half of the 60's, maybe the whole thing started with RUBBER SOUL, I don't know, the psychedelic stuff started happening and guys started growing their hair long and people started becoming aware of Vietnam and getting alarmed about that. I guess it's kind of hard for people to understand or even care about if you weren't there but like I'm old enough to where I grew up in the LEAVE IT TO BEAVER days. For people who are so young they don't know what that is it's like you've seen footage of the old Black & White TV shows with the families where everything seems so innocent. That's actually the America I grew up in as a child and then as an adolescent Rock 'n' Roll burst onto the scene and just kinda shook everything up and everybody thought that was just a teen thing that would go away. It was a teen thing but it didn't go away. But then the 60's -I was barely old enough to pick up on the 50's stuff- but when the 60's exploded it might be hard for young people to understand how radical it was for guys to wear long hair and smoke pot and stuff like that but that was all radical stuff in the late 60's and if you had long hair it was just like walking around with a sign going, "Yeah I smoke pot," and it was, "I'm probably against the Vietnam war and yeah I take drugs too." And the country was very divided and polarized over those issues and some places were a little bit more dangerous to live if you had long hair and Dallas was one of them.</p>
<p> I had never been to Austin even though it's only 200 miles away, I had never been to Austin until 1969 and I went down there with some friends and I knew some people nobody had really ever heard of Austin really before that. I mean it was the capital of Texas but culturally I don't think nobody really thought much about it. But in those days in the late 60's early 70's, it's a very small -well it's not that small, a couple hundred thousand- but it had a really small town feel; it had the capitol, the University of Texas, and it was not an industrial town. It was just a pretty little town, quaint houses and trees, almost kind of like a sleepy college town. I mean a bunch of smart people but it was a really laid back town. But back in those days the college towns were the kind of haven for longhaired people and all that kinda stuff. It was a smaller town and it seemed like a friendlier town and there were just more... it just seemed like if you had long hair -I mean me and my friends were never like <em>Hippie</em> hippies but we were musicians and had some things in common with people of that generation- and Austin was just a safer environment for people that wanted to live like that. There was kind of strength in numbers or something, it wasn't... seems like hard, industrial -well Dallas isn't so industrial, compared to Austin I guess it is- Dallas was more conservative at the time and the longhaired people in Austin you just felt their presence because it was just smaller and there was a lot of them. There was just so many beautiful hippie girls.</p>
<p> The first time I went down there, the first day I was there, I said, "I need to be here!" And so it took me about a year after I discovered Austin to get down there, but this was about the time that -I mean it was a totally different time- people were hitchhiking all over the country and just checking everything out. San Francisco obviously was famous for its cultural stuff at that period and there were a few other places like Ann Arbor, MI, probably Cambridge and of course New York, and there were a few towns that were kind of iconic for the culture at that time and Austin was becoming one of a few towns across the country that people that were drawn to all of these happenings started to discover. And so a lot of people gravitated to Austin, especially from Dallas and Houston, and Lubbock and Waco and Texas places, but there were people that were just traveling all over the country at the time and word of mouth got out about Austin and so people started checking out Austin and if they didn't live there permanently a lot of people came there. Austin was just one of those places in those times seemed to be a very happening, friendly, creative place to live so it happened to attract a lot of musicians.</p>
<p> At the time Austin wasn't really in my opinion any more of a music town than hardly anyplace else. There was music there before we got there bit there was music a lot of places. There was music in Waco, there was music in Lubbock, there was music in Houston and Dallas, there was music kind of all over the place and Austin wasn't really thought of as a music town. They had a few cool venues there and some cool stuff going on but it wasn't really nationally recognized, or even recognized across the state that much, but musicians being like they are and the times being what they were it attracted a lot of musicians and so in the 70's Austin became one of the more important music towns. We went there not because it was a music town, just because it was a cool town. It's like when you think of all these other American iconic music cities like Chicago or Nashville or Memphis, or whatever you want to think of, most of those iconic music cities were iconic music cities most of the 20th Century but Austin -I think you can safely say that Austin's a music town- but it wasn't really put on the musical map until the later 70's or the early 80's so it was kind of unique like that.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><span style="text-decoration:underline"><strong>Early bands in Austin</strong></span></p>
<p> In the 70's and into the 80's, I'm not really sure when it started changing but like in the "older days" back to the 70' s and before it's different from today because back then people didn't really play in that many different bands at one time. I'm not saying that nobody did but for the most part bands were formed however they were formed and people just were in one band pretty much, they were just committed to one band you rose or fell with however the band did, but people weren't playing in a bunch of different bands. So in the 70's I didn't play with that many different bands. I only played with Jimmie about six months in that band and then the next band I played with was called Southern Feeling, I did that for about a year and a half with W.C. Clark and Angela Strehli, and then in '74 Paul Ray and me and some fellas started Paul Ray & the Cobras, and then I played in Paul Ray & the Cobras from about '74 to about '82. That was the band that Stevie joined in '75 I think, played with us a couple years. I might have done some gigs with some other bands but basically in the 70's I was only in about three different bands; first of all The Storm, then Southern Feeling and then Paul Ray & the Cobras.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><span style="text-decoration:underline"><strong>Gigs and Bands</strong></span></p>
<p> I had gone out and done some brief road work but it wasn't really until '79 maybe when the Cobras -it took us all through the 70's to... we were trying to, me and most of my friends, and there wasn't really that many of us, Austin is kind of thought of as a Blues town but there was really only a handful of us that were trying to play Blues and so we just played locally most of the time. I mean we'd play around the state every once in a while but we were just trying to get somebody to come to hear us and it took a while to get that going. But in 1979 Stevie had left The Cobras and Paul Ray had left The Cobras; we kept going and got a different singer, and went on the road. So I guess I started going on the road in '79 with The Cobras. It's not like I stayed on the road but that's when I started going on the road, when you go out for a month or so.</p>
<p> Your memories kinda get kind of funny and I don't know how you filter out or filter in different things but it just seems to me like we played about four or five nights a week, kinda all the time. I don't know if we did and there were probably some weeks when we didn't, especially in the early days because when we all... when we first got to Austin Jimmie kinda already had a name around the state to some extent and I thought that when we moved to Austin and started over with that thing down there I thought we were gonna be rulin' Austin pretty quick but for some reason it just didn't happen. And we played a lot of gigs where our bar tab exceeded what we divided up at the end of the night. But things were a lot cheaper, we had roommates and lived together and all that stuff, so you could get by on almost nothing which is a good thing because we made almost nothing. But it seems like all those bands that we played in we were just trying to play.</p>
<p> It's a lot different now than it was then because -seems funny to say "in those days" but it was a long time ago- there were places to play and even though there was a lot of bands in Austin when we got there, and as the 70's progressed other musicians moved there so there was more bands and more musicians. There were still a lot of venues but more important than that, something that's different from today, is that local people were interested in hearing local music and that hasn't seemed to have been the case for a long time. There's just so many other distractions, and there's a lot of other factors that would take too long to go into -I mean I'm still trying to sort it all out myself- but it was a different time and the age span of people that were interested and everything, this age span was much smaller. Like today there's certainly nice clubs or whatever that cater to a certain demographic but there's also other venues and certain music acts that play that there might be three decades of... you know, the fans might span... back in the 70's most people that were going out at night were just in their 20's and if you were in your 30's or much into your 30's you weren't still going out at night, so it was a younger crowd and everybody had more in common but now a lot of us just kinda never grew up and we never stopped playing in clubs and we never stopped going out to clubs so the age span of people out on the streets at night, it's funny, there's people in their late 50's and people in their 20's. That hadn't always been the case.</p>
<p> So back then there was actually I guess in some ways a smaller audience just because the age span of people that were interested in what was happening, it was a smaller age span. The difference was that back then people didn't have computers and their home entertainment centers weren't like they are (now), there was just different things going on in the country, in the world and in people's lives and going out to hear live music, even if it was local, it was important to people. I'm sure I stayed sometimes but when I think about it back in the 70's it just seems like if I wasn't playing I was going to hear Jimmie or Stevie or some of my friends or just going out every night and hanging out in the daytime. Maybe it wasn't like that but that's the way it seems. So there was a lot of venues, I mean it's not like everybody was making a lot of money but people just went out a lot if you were in the demographic. Not everybody that was of that age was going out at night, there was some -the way we would characterize them- there were 'straight' people and then there were... whatever you want to call them, the other people. And straight people, meaning people that didn't have long hair to over simplify, like maybe smoke pot and have long hair, maybe they had... it's not like everybody of that age group had long hair and smoked pot, and that's not the only way to define them, but to over simplify there was only kind of one main subculture back then in the late 60's and 70's. There was really just kinda two, maybe one subculture. It had it's little factions I suppose but unlike today there's like a hundred subcultures. It's like there's hardly any unity out there. There's so many different factions, so many different subcultures. It was just different, everything wasn't quite so splintered back then.<br><br></p>
<p><span style="text-decoration:underline"><strong>Making a Living</strong></span></p>
<p> Every once in a while somebody would come up with some side project for fun or something but it seems like we all worked a lot. When I'm thinking back I'm thinking, "How much money did we make?" The sad and funny thing about it is like in a lot of ways everybody in the country is making more money doing what they used to do except for musicians. I mean good, professional, even world-class musicians, a lot of them are making $50 a night right now. And of course back in the 70's $50 a man a night might have been pretty good pay but musician's pay hasn't really kept up with the cost of living so musicians are just about as broke as they ever were. But back then when we were younger we were more willing to have roommates and Austin actually in those days everybody was always broke just about. About the only people you ever knew that ever had any dough were the dealers and the difference back then is like the dope dealers, they weren't like criminals, they were just more like outlaws. The were outlaws but it's not like they were criminals, they weren't violent. Eventually things got out of control and got rough, especially after cocaine came into the picture. But a lot people just didn't have much money but it didn't take very much money. Rent in Austin was really cheap and if you had a roommate or two you were still broke but you could still come up with a Super Reverb and a Stratocaster, and you could drive a '66 Cheverolet, and you could pay the rent and go eat Mexican food and go out and hear music. Compared to now life was fun and easy even though we were broke. The thing is the younger you are the easier it is to be broke. If everybody else is broke it doesn't seem to be as hard. The older you get you don't want to be older and not have any money. That's not good. That's not one teeny bit fun. Or pleasant. But when you're young, and so many of us were just so grateful to be able to try to play music... you just have to play and if you have to sacrifice to play for some reason we do it.</p>
<p> But back then everybody still, as broke as we were, we could still live somewhere and in Austin I almost never knew anybody that lived in an apartment. Everybody lived in a house. Not by themselves usually but you could afford to live in a house. Sometimes I had two roommates, sometimes I had one. Sometimes I had two roommates but one of them never had any money so it was like having only one roommate. But if you had two or three people you could pay the rent. You could rent a house for $150 or something, $160. Gradually the rent got higher but everybody was broke, that's true, but everybody had a car and everybody had a Strat or a Tele or whatever you wanted and everybody had a gig-worthy amp. $300 for a Super Reverb was a lot of money back then but if you had to have it you could come up with $300 for a Super Reverb and you could get a Strat for $300. And you could get a '66 Cheverolet for about $500. That was more money than it is today, today somebody would like to find a '64 Strat for $300 but that's not gonna happen. It's sad because if you want to play today you can get an amp and you can get a guitar and you can get a car but if you don't have much money to spend the kind of stuff that you're gonna get today compared to what a poor person could get then... there was a time when all those vintage Strats were just used guitars. They didn't cost what it would take to send a kid through college.<br><br> </p>
<p><span style="text-decoration:underline"><strong>Cosmic Cowboys, Disco and Punk Strikes Back<br></strong></span></p>
<p> If you were playing Blues in Austin we were just used to adversity anyway because like we moved to Austin and we're trying to play Blues, really there weren't very many of us, but we were trying to play it and it was hard and we were just starting to get a little bit of attraction and then Willie starts coming to town. That's cool and everything but all of a sudden Austin turns into this "Cosmic Cowboy" haven and all these hippies start turning into cowboys and stuff so now everybody's into Country music. We used to call it "The Progressive Country Scare" that came to Austin because we were just starting to get some traction and then Willie comes and changes everything. But we were stubborn and just wanted to play Blues so we kept doing it. The disco thing I don't know if it hurt us or not because we were already hurt. Back then if you wanted to play Blues it was already an uphill struggle but I do remember back then you would get gigs in some unlikely places because there just were no Blues clubs, even white-owned Blues clubs. By then a lot of the black Blues joints didn't exist anymore and if they did you probably couldn't play at them. All the clubs we played at were just nightclubs where all kinds of bands played. Very few Blues clubs. Sometimes we would just come up with gigs and try anything and I remember several gigs where we would play and then we would take a break and they would start playing Disco on our break and that's when the people would rush to the dance floor. And of course the sound system made all those dance tracks sound really powerful and strong and then we'd get up there with our little Blues instruments and probably sound like a car radio compared to that stuff. So Disco hurt us more in certain venues.</p>
<p> Disco hurt a lot of things but it also caused a reaction to it and I'm not really sure how Blues fit into all that since Blues was already difficult in the first place. I was a little bit too old to be into the Punk thing but even if I didn't understand it exactly, and I never could relate to Punk myself, on one level I understood it. I couldn't relate to it because musically it was not interesting to me, it seemed like it was more an attitude than about good players and stuff. But part of that was just a reaction to how watered down music had gotten. So Disco probably contributed to Punk maybe. And how Rock had gotten so corporate. I think Punk was a reaction to corporate Rock and Punk was probably a reaction to the mindless Disco stuff. Had I been a little younger I probably would have gotten caught up in Punk but I wasn't that angry. And I already knew how to play my instrument. Punk had a certain intensity and attitude that's a part of Rock 'n' Roll so I could understand it, but after hearing the stuff I heard and everything and knowing what I knew I just didn't have the Punk mindset. It's not like I hated it or anything, I just was a little bit too old for it. I wasn't angry about stuff. I kinda understood it on some level but it would have been fake if I had tried to be some kind of Punk. But I think maybe Disco had something to do with causing Punk to exist. Not totally, but it seems to me Punk music, the whole Punk thing, was the reaction to corporate and mindless things in society. I guess the Punks they needed to feel something or just wanted to call bullshit on something they thought was fake and I can understand that.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><span style="text-decoration:underline"><strong>After The Cobras, into the 80's<br></strong></span></p>
<p> They continued on a couple years after I quit. I left in '82 and they continued on 'til '84. The reason I left, it's a long story I won't go into, we had an album that we thought was coming out and it never came out and that was a big disappointment and so I just got kind of disillusioned with The Cobras and Lou Ann Barton had put out her first album. I didn't play on it but she asked me and The Cobras' sax player, and Doyle actually, and some other people to be in her band since she had an album coming out. She thought that surely she's gonna go out on tour. Glenn Frey and Jerry Wexler produced that album and Jimmie played on it and she was getting some ink in Rolling Stone and this and that so she just assumed, and we all assumed, that she'd be going on tour since she had this label, this album out with that kind of cred to it. And so Joe and I, the sax player, we quit The Cobras, and Doyle, everybody quit what they were doing and we formed this touring band for Lou Ann and we started rehearsing and then after everybody had quit the band and started rehearsing Lou Ann found out that she wasn't getting any tour support so what we had quit our bands to do was not gonna happen. But since we already had a band we tried playing for a little while to see what happened but nothing happened so we quit doing that. And so then I started playing with Angela Strehli and then, I can't remember exactly when but it was sometime around that time, but Antone's opened up in '75 and when it first opened up that's the same time the Thunderbirds were formed, just coincidentally about the same time Antone's opened up and the Thunderbirds just kinda ended up by default being the Antone's house band. The Cobras played there too a lot but the Thunderbirds kinda ended up being the house band if they needed a band. And then the Thunderbirds played there kinda almost every night that they didn't play someplace else. And then Antone's lost that location and they went to another one and then lost that location and then they went over on Guadalupe. By the time they got over to Guadalupe -I guess this was the early 80's, I can't remember exactly- the Thunderbirds were always on the road by this time and so they needed another house band. And so in the early 80's when I was playing with Angela, I don't remember exactly when, we formed the Antone's house band. And so I was playing with Angela, she was a part of Antone's too, and so from then until the end of the 80's, from the early 80's through the 80's I was playing with Angela and doing the Antone's house band.<br><br> We went out on tour, went to Europe a couple times. We went on the road with Angela in the 80's. We actually did go on the road and to Europe. Antone's was our home base and it was great because there were still a lot of Blues guys that were alive and we would back 'em up. It was a remarkable time to be around Antone's to be able to hear and play with all the people that we played with. But Angela put out an album and I put out a couple albums, Angela went on tour. Not all the time but we went to Canada and the West Coast and the East Coast and Europe. So we did do some touring. And then Antone's, we took some Antone's road shows out and went here and there. So I did do some touring in the 80's with Angela and the Antone's fellas.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><span style="text-decoration:underline"><strong>TRASH, TWANG & THUNDER</strong></span></p>
<p> I can't remember who called me, it might have been Mike Buck, but I think that they... I knew most of those people but it was a slightly different circle of people and somebody, I'm not even sure who came up with the concept of that album and I think that they were already making some plans on it and then kinda at the last minute somebody decided to include me in the project. I knew everybody except I didn't know Frankie Camaro. I hadn't seen him. I didn't know him before that and I haven't seen him since. I don't know where he came from or where he is but I knew Don and I knew Evan and of course Keith and Mike. So that all came about quick but I don't really know who's bright idea that was to start with. But I'm glad they included me. It was fun to make the album. Actually got a Grammy nomination. We were up against I think Stevie and Jeff Beck and I can't remember who won but we actually went out to L.A. and rented tuxes and went to the Grammies and everything. (Mike Buck didn't mention tuxes, a picture of him in a tux would be interesting.) I'm sure that he had one. I can't really remember who all went. I think Evan went, and Don, I don't think Keith went. Maybe Mike might not have even gone actually. But whoever went I'm we sure we got tuxes because you were just supposed to. Everything has gotten less formal these days but whoever went surely would have worn a tux. I know I did. It was fun to go out there and pretend like you were a big shot for a few minutes. I mean we weren't but it was fun to pretend. We got to be there, we were there without having to break in.</p>
<p> I only had two (contributions) really. We rehearsed one day at The Continental Club, I think we only rehearsed once or twice or something, they were trying to explain to me what the concept of the album was, just kind of a crazy, demented Rock 'n' Roll instrumental album. I can't remember exactly how they described it but that's what it ended up being. So I was thinking, "Do I have anything?" and I thought, well, I could probably come up with something if it's just supposed to be dumb Rock 'n' Roll. I don't mean that to be derogatory either, it's hard to come up with something cool. I thought, well OK, I got this one thing, the first song I ever made up when I was about 14, some minor chord thing. When I first started playing and learned just enough to make up a couple of songs, a couple of minor key songs, I came up with a couple. I said, well, so it sounds like something I wrote when I was 14 might fit into this project. And so I played them a couple of things that I made up, the first songs I ever made up when I was about 14 or 15 or something, and I guess they all agreed on one of them, they said "yeah that'll work" and that happened to be the song called THE LOST INCAS and then I came up with this thing that ended up being, I think the producer Bruce Sheehan or somebody named it, NEAR EAST BEAST. Probably based on some crazy line that Evan played on it or something but I had just kinda came up with a beat and a chord progression, some kind of general skeleton for a song and I don't think that it actually ended up being exactly what was in my mind but it didn't really matter that much. So my only two songs were the one I wrote when I was like 14 or so called THE LOST INCAS and the other one was BEAR EAST BEAST which I just kind of threw together for that session that just kinda took its own shape, so I didn't really contribute that much.</p>
<p> Actually, I'll tell you what my main contribution I think was. When we were rehearsing these songs, most of them, I mean some of them were just real dumb -not dumb in a bad way, I like dumb- and some of them were just totally three-chord twelve-bar things, just real loud over-the-top, but then some of them had actual chord changes to them, like we did THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY and some other I can't even remember, but we did some songs that weren't just straight out three-chord changes and I think my main contribution to the album was when we were recording it. I loved Keith and everybody loved his bass playing but Keith didn't really like to do a lot of homework and he didn't really like to spend a lot of time learning songs. He didn't even really like to play the kind of songs that you had to spend much time learning. So as we were recording the album -Keith was a good friend of mine, I really miss him, I really liked him a whole lot- but I knew that when we were recording the album I had to be real delicate about it but I could see that it might be a problem for Keith because Keith just didn't have the... Keith just wasn't gonna sit at home and practice these things and work on them and memorize the changes and everything.</p>
<p> And so as we were recording the album I kinda discretely said to him, "Hey, you know I could kinda stand next to you as we're playing the songs and call out the changes to you if you want me to." Keith said, (in a raspy voice) "Yeah, yeah, that'd be good." I didn't want to embarrass him or anything so I was kinda discrete about it but as we were playing the songs I would -I'm pretty good at that and so I knew how to... so we'd be playing and I'd say, "G, A, D" and he would for the most part follow my little directions there and so we were able to get through the songs but after the album came out some people wanted to play a couple of gigs and I was goin', "Oh no. No, no, no. This will not work. This will not be good." Because I knew that at a gig in front of people I couldn't really stand there with Keith and yell out the changes to him. And so he was just gonna be on his own at the gig.</p>
<p> And so we tried to play a gig -well, actually when it came time for the gig people just kinda learned their own songs, didn't bother with anybody else's, so when we played a gig my memory of it is it was just a total disaster 'cause we just couldn't remember the songs. I mean, you know, sometimes you go in and record, a lot of times people record songs and then they never ever play them again in their whole life. I mean I've done that, I've recorded songs that I've never ever played again. And I mean a lot of people have done that, they never played them at a gig after they recorded them in the studio. And that was of course the case with this stuff. Even though a lot of the songs weren't difficult, it was really difficult to remember them and Keith didn't know 'em in the first place! So it was pretty tough. But I got him through the recording sessions but I couldn't do that (at a gig). So I think my biggest contribution was allowing Keith to get through the songs in the recording sessions. <br><br></p>
<p><span style="text-decoration:underline"><strong> Memory </strong></span><span style="text-decoration:underline"><strong>Disclaimer<br></strong></span></p>
<p><span style="text-decoration:underline"><strong> </strong></span> I mean that's the way I remember it and that's my version but you know what, the thing is it's like when I talk about Austin in the early days, when I talk about this album, and when I talk about the things that I've been talking about -I'm sure that you know this but I just want you to know that I know it too- that this is all from my perspective. It's the way I remember it and it's from my perspective. If you could get Jimmie to talk about this stuff, I don't know, he might go, "Somebody's wrong." Or anybody you talk to about this stuff people would just remember stuff wrong, not wrong but differently or focus on it different. I'm just telling you my memories of that TRASH, TWANG & THUNDER stuff and my memories of all those bands, Austin in those days, it's all from perspective which is as valid as anybody else's but it probably wouldn't be the same as anybody else. So I just want you to know that I realize that.</p>
J.J. Vicarstag:jjvicars.com,2005:Post/60643032011-03-12T18:37:48-12:002021-12-24T07:00:16-12:00March 11th, 2011 Japan Earthquake - One Firsthand Account
<p>This is my personal account of the 9.0 earthquake that occurred in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Sendai, Japan as I experienced it and the resulting events. If you or someone you know is in Japan as this is happening please share your story in the Comments section.</p>
<p>On my way to pay an overdue bill by bank transfer I was bopping down the street with the iPod in my ears. It was a crisp, sunny day so rather than take a 10 minute bus ride, or walk 10 minutes to the train station to go one stop, I opted for a nice 30 minute walk over to the bank. Some exercise and fresh air would do me good. As I was rounding the last corner before arriving at the bank I suddenly felt dizzy. What was I drinking last night? Was it kicking back in? I should be so lucky! No, seems more like having the iPod in my ear was throwing off my balance, exacerbated by this odd strut of mine that goes into overdrive when I'm listening to something really rockin'. Nope, not that either! People around me were slowing down and stopping, then starting to look up. I looked up to see what they were looking at. Power lines swaying hard. Buildings swaying. Another earthquake. Oh well, bank closes in 10 minutes and this bill is already overdue. If I don't pay it now I have to wait 'til after the weekend and that might be after the grace period.<br><br>As I cover the last little stretch people are pouring out of buildings and standing in the middle of the street. An overdone sense of panic. Inside the bank the manager is telling people to remain calm and leave slowly, all that. The machine I need is separate from the regular ATMs. Luckily there's no line and I do my bank transfer while the bank is swaying. I don't read Katakana so well so I grab a guy in hard hat standing nearby, he looks like he works there, and have him read one of the menu buttons to make sure I'm depositing it to the right account. Mission accomplished I set out for my 'office', the Doutor coffee shop on the north side of Chofu station, with my book and some bidis, chuckling at the mild panic, where I'll hang out until it's time for my 5:00 appointment at Chofu station.<br><br>Readers who haven't spent any quality time in Japan won't understand my nonchalance about the whole thing so a little background is in order. Most of the people doing the overreacting are either old people or young girls. Old people in Japan are not like old people in the States. Having lived through WWII they're oblivious to anything outside their own little universe. They learned to carry on despite the world a long time ago. Old ladies are notorious for gasping at every little thing and young chicks ain't much different. You learn to not take it too seriously. More importantly, Japan is constantly experiencing earthquakes. Often there's small ones you don't even notice. It's an everyday part of life living here and if you're going to freak out about it you're setting yourself up for some serious misery. On top of that, the high frequency of earthquakes has amped up Japanese architecture to be the most resilient in the world to them. This one as I experienced it in my neighborhood was actually pretty mild compared to others I've been in. The ones that go straight up and down really hard are the scary ones. <br><br>A couple aftershocks hit while I'm drinking/smoking/reading and it's getting really annoying having to read the same paragraph 4 or 5 times. The two old bats sitting across from me at the half-circle table suddenly start talking to me, "Wow! That's scary!" Don't think they had even noticed me a minute before. Ten to 5:00 and I'm at the station where the trains have been stopped since the quake. Can't raise anybody on my cell phone, probably the airwaves are jammed since everyone else is on there's either talking or texting. Obviously my appointment is off so I head home where I have a landline and my laptop and can communicate with people. And that's when it gets interesting.<br><br>Trains are stopped but buses are running and I'm home in 15 minutes. Landline isn't working though. I get on the computer and that's when I find out what really happened. An 8.8 earthquake off the coast of Sendai in northeastern Japan. Later that number would be revised to 8.9 and eventually 9.0 as of this writing on Sunday. Tsunami on the way and people are in a panic. This is serious.<br><br>Before I have all the information Jeremy Gloff and J.J. Barrera have already written to see if I'm OK. More messages trickle in throughout the evening but one in particular stands out, and it was one of the early ones. Kenny Palyola, my antagonist from the infamously cancelled 2010 Southwest Tour, has left a comment on my Blog looking to see if my family and I are OK. Despite having not communicated with him directly since then, or approving pervious comments on my Blogs, I approved this one. Some may raise their eyebrows but I give him the benefit of the doubt. I believe he's sincere. It wouldn't be the first time people have set aside their differences in the face of monumental disaster and tragedy. http://ats.jjvicars.com/blog.html/twentyten_in_review/<br><br>While updating everybody back home and sharing information for people with friends and family up north it soon becomes apparent that CNN is spinning the whole thing way out of proportion. They portray it as a nationwide catastrophe when in fact the serious damage is in Sendai, Miyagi and Fukushima. Suzi is flipping through news channels as I'm updating Facebook and Twitter and the reports from Japanese news crews on the scene are vastly different from CNN. They're also devoid of the background music and other dramatic effects, though why they're wearing hardhats inside the Tokyo studio is beyond me. My first foray into self-imposed Internet coverage is to let everyone know that very little has happened in Tokyo, and about zilch in my neighborhood. Tokyo is a megatropolis of 30 million people connected by the most intricate train system in the world. When the trains shut down for the evening lots of people were stranded. Some slept at the office, some camped out in the stations. Others walked 3 hours to get home. Bicycle shops sold out in a heartbeat. But there was little to no damage in Tokyo and what damage did occur was to old rickety houses that looked like they could have fallen down without any help. One big difference between Japan and the U.S. is that they don't tear down old homes and buildings here while people are living in them. In one of the most crowded, congested cities in the world it's typical to see a rickety old shack from two or three emperors ago right next to a sleek modern building. Other Americans in Japan will know exactly what I mean. There was damage in Odaiba but I never liked those land-fill areas anyhow.<br><br>Water and power were out for a while in Machida and phones were down but all was back to normal in the morning. In my neighborhood of Chofu it's business as usual. Mail deliveries, bumbling pygmies, etc... Tattoo is trying to figure out her first cell phone and her combination of laziness and stubbornness have the old man waving his hands in the air, "Fuck it! I give up! Smash the goddam thing for all I care". The Klumps carry on. Checked in with all my Chiba people over Friday and Saturday and everybody is OK. Mike Buttrick still has his house on the cliff face, despite our jokes to the contrary. Oliver Richter, who lives in Narita and shot my promo photos and video, saw a few rice fields washed away while driving back from Iwate. Barge Inn manager Bryan Harmon was in Hawaii as that tsunami was coming and headed for high ground with a well armed friend. He said he was more worried about the 9mm and the 40 cal than anything else. Farther south in Kanagawa they got shook up real good but everybody's OK.<br><br>Suzi has some family up in Fukushima on a plot of land that goes back generations. The roof got knocked off, the walls cracked and the stone wall around the house (typical of old Japanese houses) is smashed all over the street but no one is hurt. Bitch part is they're staring at the night sky in the snow. The next day they head up to an onsen that survived the quake. Now they have a hot bath!<br><br>Throughout it all Facebook and Twitter have been lifeblood. First the downed phones domestically then the "nuclear terror" spin internationally. Eventually people in Japan started to notice that international coverage, especially in the States, is way overblown and mentioned that Americans living in Japan are using the Internet to keep it accurate. At http://www.facebook.com/jjvicars and http://www.twitter.com/jjvicars I've been posting all sorts of updates and links since 5:30 Friday. I'd like to go into more detail here but I'm starting to wear down. Please visit me on FB and Twitter and pass around the information. It's very important people know the truth of the matter and don't panic. Also, I've been saying for years that the U.S. media grossly misrepresents the situation. By comparing the firsthand information coming from Japan against the secondhand spin of CNN and other North American news outlets people can see for themselves. As of this writing on Sunday evening the latest scare is from the nuclear plant in Fukushima. Again CNN and other American media have blown it into another doomsday scenario. Yes, it's a serious situation but what they consistently fail to mention is the preparedness and efficiency of the Japanese. There was a great line in AbFab, "Japanese efficiency, sweetie. The land where they haven't got time to let the trees grow tall. Throughout it all the rescue and cleanup teams have been on top of their game. There's no crying "why did this happen to us?!?", the people right away do what's necessary to get everything running smooth again. <br><br>Whatever deity or invisible avenger you believe in save your prayers for the survivors in Sendai, Miyagi and Fukushima. They're the ones who need it. The rest of were inconvenienced and that doesn't compare.<br><br>If you or someone you know is in Japan during these events please share your stories on this Blog. I want it to be a firsthand document of what really happened.</p>
J.J. Vicarstag:jjvicars.com,2005:Post/60643022010-12-30T11:47:03-12:002020-01-06T06:23:07-12:00Twenty-Ten in Review
<p>Twenty-ten was an interesting year full of hidden gems. I refrained from using "twenty-ten" all year and thought I'd use it here just to say I used it once. For me it really started in March; first trip back to Alliance/Canton, OH in ten years, driving down to Houston and seeing that side of the family for the first time in almost twenty years, stopping in College Station along the way to see Glenn Davis and visiting Navasota, driving through Lightnin' Hopkins hometown of Centerville, driving out to Vegas and spending a few days hanging out with The Reverend Len Fassler who grew into the character he was born to be, driving back to Houston and a couple stops in Austin to spend time with J.J. Barrera and see Glenn Rios. While in Austin the first interview for the upcoming book was with Ronnie James, bassist for Little Charlie & the Nightcats, The Fabulous Thunderbirds and now Jimmie Vaughan. Joe Slezak was kind enough to give me a ride to the airport on my way back to Tokyo which gave us time to hang out. There were a few bumps in the road along the way but in the end it all worked itself out for the better and that turned out to be the 'theme' for the year.<br><br>Over the summer there were three videos appearances and in the first a featured acting role at the beginning. Two of the videos are at https://www.youtube.com/user/jjvicars#p/c/9A70EDAA507D2768 The third I haven't been able to rip from the DVD yet and since my part is pretty small I ain't losing sleep over it. Summer also saw a handful of gigs out on the Chiba penisula with Dallas native Roger Sherrin where I got to play with his expensive toys including his Gretsch 6120, stayed at Robbie Newman's "Bed & Do-it-yourself" http://www.wavehuntersjapan.com and hung out with my old buddies Mike Buttrick and Markus Leach. And in August somebody finally interviewed me for a change! http://according2g.com/2010/08/g-interviews-singermusician-j-j-vicars/<br><br>Two old and dear friends surfaced from the past in the strangest of ways. While in the States I found a CD of Michael James Klunk, singer/songwriter/acoustic guitarist for The Hillbilly Resistance, the Rockabilly trio we did in Phoenix, AZ with Motor City Mike on doghouse bass. The demos on the disc were vocal/guitar only but the song structure was completely intact so I fleshed out the six songs we never recorded during the original sessions and posted them at http://ats.jjvicars.com/music-group-2.html They'll be touched up later with better guitar tones and reposted at the same link(s) but for now the arrangements are more or less complete and the recordings are listenable. And a few of them have found their way into the set list. <br><br>But in October I got the biggest shock of all when Nikki Hills called me out of the blue and was in Tokyo. Those who knew us "back in the day" can recount legendary tales of musical mayhem and Rock 'n' Roll debauchery and I hope they don't recount too much. We only had one full day to hang out but in that one day Nikki came over to lay down a couple solos on the upcoming single DANGER BY DEATH before we headed out for a quickly-organized jam at the Warrior Celt with Mark Schwarz on bass. Matt Williams was on hand and kind enough to shoot some video for us https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnrSq9TXrd0 What was extra weird-but-cool was a few months earlier I had been given an Ibanez RG550 that had been taking up space in some old lady's closet for some 20-odd years. When Nikki opened up his case and pulled out the same make, model and color guitar "surreal" didn't even begin to describe it. After 18 years of no contact whatsoever and us both looking for each other he shows up out of the blue with the exact same Ibanez, a left-handed of course. Ibanez suits Nikki's shred style but doesn't really work for my Blues & Rock 'n' Roll style but I just had to play it that night at the jam. BTW, the whole jam was recorded and is being edited into separate tracks. On a note of trivia the HI-TECH HILLBILLY album was written back when Nikki and I were terrorizing Tokyo and many of the songs were written for him to play the solos and lead line. Two of the songs, BLEACH BLOND BIMBO and CROSS THE LINE, were his riffs that I added lyrics and melody too. I've been wanting re-record them on a live Rock album and now I'm gonna do it with Nikki playing his own parts. We're also working together on some new material, some for my album and some for his.<br><br>Still in a dilemma over the Ibanez, though; the original plan was to sell/trade it for other parts. Since an Ibanez is completely outside my style I don't need one and it's just taking up space. Selling it to finance other gear would be putting it to the best use. But after our "dual-guitar reunion" I hate to part with it. Ah well, it'll work itself out like everything else.</p>
<p>Also in October were trips to Fukushima and Hiroshima by Bullet Train. All three were a first for me. Fukushima is a gorgeously quaint area with some very friendly people. From Hiroshima we were off by ferry to the small island of Itojima. On the way back I stopped to see the Atomic Dome and took lots of pictures.<br><br>Twenty-ten was also marked by a pair of "religious experiences". The first was becoming an ordained Dudeist priest. Dudeism, a religion based on the Coen Brothers' movie THE BIG LEBOWSKI. It's fun to be able to use the title "Reverend" and practice laziness (with touches of Taoism and Buddhism) as a religion. It also reminded me how much I love White Russians, though I had to back off on them for the sake of my girlish figure. The other "religious" experience also started out a bit of a gag but turned out to be much deeper than anticipated. Everyone is familiar with the catchphrase "What would Jesus do?" that adorns so many Right-wing bumper stickers ("They don't want to know so they can do it, they just want to know so they can tell everyone else to do it." --George Carlin) but Jessica Pallington West did it one better with her book "What Would Keith Richards Do?" http://www.amazon.com/What-Would-Keith-Richards-Affirmations/dp/1596916141/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1293771451&sr=1-3 Seemingly a poke at self-help books it turns out to be a pretty damn good one! The main idea is to know yourself, including your "evil twin" which she terms "the inner and outer Mick", an idea sorely lacking in today's world of digital gadgets that are supposedly meant to communicate and connect but ultimately distract us from dealing with our demons, especially our inner ones. Joseph Campbell said our myths were outdated and no longer relevant so we need new ones, so why not The Dude and Keef Riffhard? I'll take them over any current political or religious leaders!<br><br>The upcoming book started to come together nicely. Tentatively titled "Trash, Twang & Thunder: Austin's Roots-Rock Revival" it chronicles the Blues & Roots revival of the 80's, my formative years, through the eyes of the people who did it. Stevie Ray Vaughan has been written about to the point where nearly every day of his life is documented (see Craig Hopkins book "Day After Day, Night After Night" http://www.stevieray.com) but he was simply one part of a much larger scene that put Austin on the musical map. Jimmie Vaughan and the T-birds set the template before drummer Mike Buck split to form The Leroi Brothers with Steve Doerr and guitar whiz (and my personal guitar guru) Don Leady. T-birds bassist Keith Ferguson played on their debut for Jungle Records CHECK THIS ACTION and Jungle reunited the infamous Buck/Ferguson rhythm section with Leady, Evan Johns (also a Leroi Brother a time or two), Denny Freeman (a badass guitarist in his own right and something of a mentor to the Vaughans) and "surf musician from Indiana" Frankie Camaro for the Grammy-nominated guitar orgy TRASH, TWANG & THUNDER which the book takes its title from. Ferguson would later join Leady in The Tail Gators and when he left that group he was succeeded by J.J. Barrera. For all that has been written about Stevie Ray his place in the larger picture of the Austin Blues & Roots, or Roots Rock, scene and his contemporaries has been criminally overlooked. And that's not to discount Stevie or his contributions to popular music. On the contrary, I discovered a lot of the old Blues greats through him as did so many of my generation. But I also discovered his contemporaries through him because wherever he was interviewed he frequently mentioned them and his heroes. So I decided to do something about it and write my own damn book!<br><br>As mentioned earlier I interviewed Ronnie James while in Austin http://www.jjvicars.com/blog.html/ronnie_james__living_the_dream/ and then Mike Buck http://www.jjvicars.com/blog.html/mike_buck__texas_drum_legend/ Thanks to Facebook I was able to get in touch with Jungle Records founder Bruce Sheehan whom I also interviewed and has been very generous in sharing his Jungle archives for my research http://www.jjvicars.com/blog.html/bruce_sheeehan__jungle_records/ Along the way, and possibly before getting in touch with Bruce, Frankie Camaro got wind of the project and contacted me. Not only is he from Indiana but he was living in Indianapolis the same time I was (he still lives there) and was at the same Cramps concert at Bogart's in Cincinnati that I was at! All this time he was MIA and we were in the same city on several occasions (including March when I stopped through on my way from OH to TX). Denny Freeman, whom I've been acquainted with for a few years, also gave me an excellent interview that is turning out to be one of the cornerstones of the book as I type it up. After his is typed and posted Frankie's is next. Got my fingers crossed for a late 2011 release.<br><br>A few well known people passed away in 2010 but one that hit home was former Skynyrd Honkette JoJo Billinglsey. I had gotten in touch with her a few years back on MySpace and we were going to do an interview when she disappeared from the online world. The article was planned to be one of the few articles on Skynyrd that avoided the plane crash, drunken brawls and all the other cliches and focused on their influences (other than the British Invasion) and work ethic (one of the tightest bands that ever was). Turns out she had major surgery for cancer and was making a shaky recovery. She passed away on June 24th but not before I was able to send her recordings of the original Skynyrd in Osaka, Japan and share a magazine article from that tour as well as some candid photos I stumbled across in the most bizarre of meant-to-be circumstances. See http://www.jjvicars.com/blog.html/skynyrd_in_japan/ for the article translated back into English and links to the photos. Tammy VanZant, Ronnie's eldest daughter, found the photos and magazine article and contacted me and I made sure she had copies of all the Skynyrd bootlegs with her dad. Tammy is also a smokin' vocalist in her own right and was kind enough to send me an autographed copy of her debut EP FREEBIRD CHILD http://www.freebirdchild.com Word is she's working on a full-length follow-up.<br><br>Jack Herer also passed away on April 15th. Here's book "The Emperor Wears No Clothes" is considered the definitive book on the true story behind cannabis criminalization. Using the Freedom of Information Act he spent years researching why such a diversely useful plant (paper, plastic, clothing, food, fuel and medicine for starters) would be the center of America's failed Drug War. His book proves with documented evidence what I had guessed by following the money trail- Big Oil paid off the politicians (in '36) to enact a "marijuana scare" claiming it cause blacks and Mexicans to rape white women so industrial hemp would be eliminated from the marketplace (to make way for the newly patented Rayon). Who lobbies the hardest for cannabis prohibition? Big Oil and Big Pharma. The "war on cannabis" is a center-piece of the political and corporate corruption that continues to rape the people and the planet. Jack Herer deserves a fucking medal of honor, to say the least, for his lifetime work of exposing these criminals in office. The text can be read at http://www.jackherer.com but I suggest you buy a copy, the book has lots of good illustrations and you'll be voting with your dollars. And you Americans reading this keep in mind our Constitution is written on hemp paper!<br><br>Back on the music front LONGHAIRED LEFTOVERS was finally re-released just after Christmas. There had been a dispute over a couple collaborations so those songs were dropped and two others, SEVEN DAYS A WEEK (co-written with Jeremy Gloff) and RAIN KEEPS FALLING took their place. Again what appeared to be a headache worked out for the best, the new release has a much more Blues/Roots sound (which is hard to do on a digital home studio with preamps and drum machine) and it gave Mark Schwarz a bass and backing vocal slot. Listen to samples and buy CDs and downloads at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/jjvicars4<br><br>As they say in baseball, "You win some and you lose some, and some get rained out, but you suit up for the all." A few bumps in the road along the way but that's life. And that's also where the interesting stories come from! Big thanks to everybody who was a part of it and best wishes for health and prosperity in 2011! See ya on down the road...</p>
J.J. Vicarstag:jjvicars.com,2005:Post/60643012010-12-09T11:43:33-12:002013-12-29T05:31:28-12:00Bruce Sheeehan & Jungle Records
<p>Bruce Sheehan grew up in Youngstown, OH aka "Murder city". By the mid-80's he had moved to Austin, TX and started up Jungle Records. "Youngstown and the northeast in general, it was the late 70's and it was very depressed, everything was closing. I was looking for fame and fortune! A friend of mine and I went on a little tour of Texas and I decided to come back to Austin. It was the music, I was into music up there just as a listener. I played organ and trumpet and stuff like that in high school but I was never in a band per se other than screwing around as kids."<br><br>He soon found himself in the middle of a burgeoning Roots Rock revival that brought Rock 'n' Roll out of the arena and back down to Earth. "I had a record store here in Austin called Treasured Tracs and Mike Buck was working for me. The Leroi Brothers would practice in the back. Mike had a key 'cause he worked there. I had a .45 automatic in one of the file cabinets and I'd usually lock that but one time I didn't and Mike knew it was there. He pulls it out and him and Joe Doerr were dicking around with it. They took out the clip but they didn't clear the chamber and one of them pulled the trigger. This thing went through some shelves in the back, through some books, through the front wall, ricocheted off the wall in the front and embedded itself into a record rack. Nobody got killed or anything but Jeezus Christ! Ya know? I still give Joe a hard time about that." <br><br>"The Leroi Brothers had a record in the can that Jim Yanaway had done. They convinced me to put it out, Jim didn't even know we did it. That was kinda weird, caused kind of an odd relationship between Jim and I for a while. I was assured by them that this was all fine. It's funny now, it wasn't so funny at the time. Jim and I are friends now so we're cool. Jim had money problems so basically I financed the rest of the project. We issued the record on Amazing for the first pressing and I ended up buying the rights from him and putting it out on Jungle for the second pressing."<br><br>"When we first did that Gary Rice was the one who convinced me I should put out the Leroi Brothers record, he was like their manager at the time. He's the one that got the Big Guitars project going. We had a guy who put somebody in, and I ended up giving him about a $3,000 advance. It was pretty successful, one of the songs got nominated for a Grammy and it had gotten good press. But then for Volume II they wanted an outrageous amount of money for it and I passed on it. Somehow they came to an agreement with Jim and I never knew the details of that."<br><br>Jungle Records kept a small roster centered around getting the word out on Sheehan's favorite local acts any way possible. "The Commando's was just a 45, I put out a cassette with The Highway Men, I did Evan Johns' Christmas record. The Killer Bees was probably the most successful financially, we actually got into Sound Warehouse and even Wal-Mart. It was nice because those people would buy routinely. Kept us going."<br><br>TRASH, TWANG & THUNDER became the label's defining album. Billed as Big Guitars From Texas, it paired the legendary rhythm section of Mike Buck, described in the TRASH, TWANG & THUNDER liner notes as "one of the steadiest drummers in Texas", and iconic bassist Keith Ferguson with four blazing guitarists headquartered in Austin. Don Leady was a founding member of the Leroi Brothers along with Steve Doerr and Mike Buck and had first played with Ferguson on CHECK THIS ACTION. Big Guitars reunited him with Buck and Ferguson around the same time he was putting together the Tail Gators with Ferguson and drummer Gary 'Mudcat' Smith. Denny Freeman was a staple at Antone's, having backed many of the old Blues guys there, and of Austin Blues in general. Evan Johns was an over-the-top wild man who had also served a stint with the Leroi Brothers. Frankie Camaro (real name Paul Jova) was described in the liner notes as a "surf musician from Indiana" which turned out to be pretty accurate. Each guitarist contributed at least two songs as well as parts and arrangements for the others' songs. The album roared out of speakers from the first song and demonstrated that not only was the title accurate, it might very well be an understatement. Anybody who has heard TT&T is forever haunted by the sound of Mike Buck taking a chainsaw solo on the song CHAINSAW, without a doubt one of the album's highlights. "I don't remember who came up with the idea for that," Sheehan recalls. "But Mike Buck came up with Jungle Records. I went, 'Come on, we gotta come up with a name. What do we do?' and he sort of went 'jungle' and I thought, 'Hey, that sounds good!'" <br><br>And Buck's talents extended beyond the chainsaw as well. "When I had the record store Mike used to do a lot of my ads for me. He created a lot of artwork for me and stuff like that. Little things, little goofy ads and stuff. I had a guy name Dale Wilkins who did a lot of the artwork for Jungle in general, for the albums and stuff, he came up with the logo. But Mike used to do a lot of my ads, like in the Austin Chronicle, for the record store."<br><br>Keeping track of the various pressings was a challenge for some record buyers. For example, the UK release on Demon records had a slightly different cover, blue background with a different photo from the same shoot. "Other than the logos the Amazing and Jungle releases were the same. What was different was some of the labels on the vinyl itself. I changed that each time I did a pressing."<br><br>"In those days we used to go to New Music Seminar and stuff like that. Demon was licensing things from Austin and the United States in general. We used to go to those conventions in New York and you never knew who you'd meet. That's how the Big Guitars later ended up on Ryko as a CD release. We combined both the Big Guitars on disc; I put out the first one and Jim Yanaway put out the second one and for the CD release we combined them."<br><br>Catalog numbers also confused a few record buyers. The first Jungle release "was the Leroi Brothers CHECK THIS ACTION, no matter what the numbers say. I didn't have a '1001' or anything. Everybody thinks there's something else. I don't know why we did that. Make it look official? You never start your checkbook at '1', right? The next one I guess was Big Guitars, 1007. And the third was Evan Johns & the H-Bombs... I think. See, the Wild Seeds and Evan almost came out at the same time, they both came out in '86. Yeah, The Wild Seeds is 1009 and Evan is 1008 so Evan's came out first. And then Mamou was 1010."<br><br>TRASH, TWANG & THUNDER received national attention and placed the Big Guitars alongside some very high-profile guitarists of the day. "GUITAR ARMY from Big Guitars was nominated for a Grammy and we went out to the Awards show in L.A. Trying to think if we stayed at the Tropicana. I know Angela Strehli went with Denny. Nobody else took dates or anything I don't think, but everybody went. I tagged along because I didn't get an official ticket. I had to get one from the band. I think I took one of Don's tickets. Each guy got two tickets but only the performers actually got the tickets. Kenny Rogers was the MC. I'm no fan of his but it was OK. We were one of those that were in the beginning where it wasn't broadcast until later. You know where they break away to those little ones when they have time on the television, "This is who won this one." So we weren't live broadcast. Stevie was nominated for the same category, Best Rock Instrumental. Remember the cartoon that was in the (Austin-American) Statesman? We got that kind of press. Because Stevie and we were in the same category it made for a good story. I think Jeff Beck won."<br><br>Although the idea of four guitar-slingers backed by Buck & Ferguson made for a rockin' LP it didn't translate to stage. A handful of gigs and one taped performance are all that happened with the lineup after the LP. "There was only a couple gigs, we did one at Antone's. I think there was only three gigs. Dixie's Bar & Bus Stop, something Butch Hancock was involved in. It was over on the East side in a little studio and they used to do tapings there. It was mainly for public access type things. They did tons of bands and Big Guitars did do a show there. So there is some footage."<br><br>Hot on the heels of TT&T's success a follow-up album was released the following year on Amazing Records. Mike Buck was once again on drums and topped his chainsaw solo with a vocal debut. Sarah Brown, also a staple at Antone's, was on bass. Ray Benson (Asleep at the Wheel), Rick 'Casper' Rawls (another Leroi Brother, now a 20+ year alumni), Jesse 'Hercules' Taylor (Joe Ely) and Gerry 'Phareaux' Felton (Omar & the Howlers) were the next four guitarists. The follow-up LP was billed as More Big Guitars THAT'S COOL, THAT'S TRASH. But despite an excellent lineup lightning failed to strike twice. As Sheehan recalls, "No, I wasn't involved in the second Big Guitars album. There was a little animosity because we were pissed about the way it came down. Little money grabbing kinda thing. And it was not nearly as successful (as the first Big Guitars album). I don't know how many he sold. The CD did OK but not great".<br><br>The label ran from '83 to '90 or so before succumbing to the usual problems that plagued a label that size. "It wasn't one of those things that ended, it just faded off. I ran out of money. Couldn't collect money from any distributors, very typical of the day. One of those people go out of business... I remember one time a house distributor went out of business and Rounder bought up the inventory. We got 10 cents on the dollar. You do that a couple times it drains you. So it just sort of faded away. Rounder still licenses the first Lerois album from me. Over the years most of that stuff has been licensed overseas, though most of that's all expired now, so there was little things going on throughout the years."<br><br>With the advent of the Internet, networking sites and 21st Century DIY indie musicians many of the people involved in Jungle Records have reconnected and there is some talk of reviving the label " Facebook has been unbelievable, I've reconnected with so many people over the last couple of years. And it feels good because I feel like I'm back with some of the music people. You see them out and stuff but this gives you a little more insight into what they're doing. You get to see where they're playing, what's going on, at your fingertips as opposed to just hearing it. Mike and Eve Monsees got married. They played at the Ponderosa stomp in New Orleans and got married down there. Not sure if it was planned or not."<br><br>Mike Buck in a tuxedo?!? "Mike was dressed up but he wasn't quite in a tux."<br><br>"I still go out and listen a lot, I do the record show. That's about all. I'd love to do something again. I gotta find a little niche, I don't what that is yet, though. Maybe something live music-wise. I don't own the rights to Big Guitars. The guy who does I don't think is ever gonna do anything with it. The Killer Bees might still do well. When you think about it today the Leroi Brothers still play at least semi-regularly and they still sound great. Granted there's a guitar slot that keeps opening up. Basically Mike and Steve have been there the whole time. And Joe really, now, he still sings with them all the time."<br><br>" We just had a Jungle reunion party at my house (Oct 2nd, 2010) where Highway Men played, what's left of the Wild Seeds (Michael Hall), and the Leroi Brothers. We had a blast. And I got up and sang, had my singing debut!." <br><br>While the 21st Century DIY indie has been a boon for many up-and-coming musicians it may well prove to also be a boon for small labels such as Jungle Records, home to some of the rawest and greasiest Rock 'n' Roll that emerged as an antidote to the slick, over-produced music of the era.</p>
<p> </p>
J.J. Vicarstag:jjvicars.com,2005:Post/60643002010-09-24T12:17:29-12:002020-01-06T06:23:07-12:00Mike Buck - Texas Drum Legend
<p>Mike Buck is a cornerstone of Texas roots music. He played with damn near every Blues and Rockabilly legend during his early years and at the beginning of the 21st Century has backed many of the younger musicians. He's the living thread that keeps it a viable musical form. Like most of his generation Blues, Rock 'n' Roll and Country were all around as a kid. The similarities were readily apparent and there was very little separation of styles.<br><br>"I started playing back in the early 60's. My dad bought me a drum set when I was probably about 12 or 13. That was when the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and all that were hitting, a lot of teenage combos were being formed and kids getting their guitars and drum sets for Christmas. It was pretty wide spread suburban phenomenon, probably all over the world but especially all over the U.S. Started listening to band like the Rolling Stones, who were my favorite, the Yardbirds and some of the more Blues influenced bands which got me interested in the originals. I'd already heard people like Jimmy Reed and Fats Domino, that type of thing. I didn't really think of it as Blues, it was just the kind of music that was on the radio, just part of the general landscape. Started investigating bands like Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf, who remain a couple of my favorites to this day along with Jimmy Reed and all that. Through most of the 70's I was mostly interested in Blues and Rhythm & Blues. I also liked Rock 'n' Roll, Rockabilly, Country music, pretty much any kind of good honest music I liked. Been lucky enough to have a chance to play Country and Cajun and even a little bit of Jazz, although I don't feel my chops are up for that I do like it and was glad to be able to at least try it, get some sense of that. I think all these elements rub off on my playing. My favorite drummer that I like are Charlie Watts and all the Chicago guys like Freddie Below, Francis Clay, Earl Philips; the Memphis guys, DJ Fontana and Al Jackson. I could go on and on. There's not many drummers I don't like, put it that way."<br><br>"I was doing the garage bands and playing the YMCA dances and stuff like that. Through that I gradually started getting gigs that paid. I played at The Cellar Club in Fort Worth which was kind of a notorious spot. A lot of musicians got their start there. When I was very young I played an early set then, they were open all night and had bands alternating. There's this guy Johnny Carol who was the music director there. I didn't know it at the time but he was a Rockabilly singer back in the 50's, made records. Later I reconnected with him, started playing with him and even got to record with him. Started playing at little Blues joints in Forth Worth like Mabel's Eat Shop with Robert Ealy & the Five Careless Lovers along with Sumter Bruton and Freddie Cisneros. Played a lot of little ghetto clubs; Bluebird Niteclub, Mary's Silver Dollar, Helen's Sugar Hill, bunch of different places like that. Got exposed to a lot of local black Blues musicians and learned a lot from them. I was playing with bands like that; Robert Ealy and different variations along with Sumter, Freddie, kind of a little core of musicians, Lou Ann Barton and Jack Newhouse, both of whom went on to move to Austin and play with Stevie Ray Vaughan. I started going to Austin some and checking out the music. Met Keith Ferguson, Jimmie Vaughan and Lewis Cowdrey. They had a band called The Storm that I was very taken with, they were a great Blues band. They played every Monday at this place called The One Knite. Struck up a friendship, then I got a call a little while later from Jimmie that they needed a drummer for his band the Thunderbirds, wanted to know if I was interested. So I moved to Austin, played with them for about three years and after that I started playing with the Leroi Brothers whom I'm still playing with to this day. And of course there's been numerous side projects along the way."<br><br>Much has been written about the early Fabulous Thunderbirds; how they were the house band at Antone's backing up Muddy Waters and other Chicago Bluesmen who came down to Austin; Muddy raving about them being his best band since Chess Records in the 50's; blowing away other bands on festival bills; Blues bands across the country changing their sonic and sartorial style after seeing the T-birds, etc. While Kim Wilson and Jimmie Vaughan deserve the credit they get the legendary rhythm section of Keith Ferguson and Mike Buck are equally responsible. In their hands lowdown, dirty and greasy became high art.<br><br>"It was exciting time (with the T-birds). The band was still pretty underground, I guess you could say. We had a following but weren't making any money, weren't attracting big crowds. We'd play some at Antone's, back up some of the acts that Clifford Antone would bring to town such as Walter Horton, Eddie Taylor, Jimmy Rogers, Hubert Sumlin, people like that. And we were also playing a Blue Monday at a place called the Rome Inn that had all kinds of music. We started developing a following at the Rome Inn, and more and more people would come and word got around. At one point Billy Gibbons from ZZ Top was coming there every Monday and he would even charter a bus from Houston and bring a bunch of people to party. He ended writing a couple songs about that little scene, including LOWDOWN IN THE STREET. That just kinda developed ad started getting a reputation from there."<br><br>"Started traveling a little bit with different degrees of success. We did well in Dallas, did poorly just about every where else. But then we made the acquaintance of Roomful of Blues and started going to Providence and Boston and developed a following there. That was the first place outside of Texas that we had any degree of success. Made a record and went to Europe. Toured Europe and things just started picking up from there."<br><br>The first T-birds album, GIRLS GO WILD, set the template. Their second, WHAT'S THE WORD, continued in the same vein but also marked a significant breaking off point. Midway through recording Buck was replaced by Fran Christina and the band never sounded the same.<br><br>"Basically, without getting too much into detail, a lot of alcohol and drugs were involved. Everybody was getting a bit out of hand. I'm sure playing suffered. It boils down to they basically wanted to hire another drummer, Fran Christina, so they did. Of course I was disappointed, I didn't want to leave the band but I realized that's just kind of how things work, people come and go. So I was thrown into another band, the Leroi Brothers. Kinda started out actually as a band called The Headhunters with a fella named Keith Dunn, a black harmonica player from Boston who I met up there and had moved to Texas. Went through various personnel and ended up with Don Leady and Steve Doerr who were living in Fort Worth, they had just recently moved from St. Louis, and that kind of evolved into the Leroi Brothers. Started doing pretty well with that band, getting a bit of a following. Playing more of a Rock 'n' Roll type thing."<br><br>The Leroi Brothers have come to personify the Austin Roots Rock revival with their B-movie gumbo of Blues, Rockabilly, Country, Cajun and Texas twang. The first Leroi Brothers LP, CHECK THIS ACTION, roars out of the speakers like a hillbilly hot rod with the pedal to the metal. It's the third LP with the Buck/Ferguson rhythm section and the first with Buck, Ferguson and guitarist Don Leady. The second LP to feature all three was the appropriately named, all instrumental, Grammy nominated TRASH TWANG & THUNDER. Under the moniker Big Guitars From Texas it also features guitarists Denny Freeman, Evan Johns and Frankie Camaro.<br><br>"We did a 4 song EP in one day, MOON TWIST, came out on Amazing Records. We did CHECK THIS ACTION on the off hours. TRASH TWANG & THUNDER was the brainchild of Gary Rice, who was helping the Leroi Brothers at that time. He wasn't an official manager but he kind of assumed managerial duties, helped book us and was sort of a cheerleader for the band. Set up this big parade down South Congress for our record release party for CHECK THIS ACTION. We had these low rider clubs in it and some Shriners showed up, it was a pretty 'South Austin' type event. Pretty cool. We played on the back of a flatbed truck made out of an old Cadillac hearse."<br><br>"It was Gary's idea to get a bunch of his favorite guitar players together just to see what it sounded like. That turned out pretty successful, we actually got a Grammy nomination for it and went out to L.A. for the ceremonies. That year Stevie (Ray Vaughan) was nominated in that category too, Best Rock Instrumental. As I recall we lost out to Jeff Beck. Just going out there and being around all that was pretty thrilling."<br><br>The song CHAINSAW features Buck's legendary chainsaw solo. "The chainsaw kinda went with the song. Maybe Gary came up with the title. The song just kinda screamed for that. Went with our crazy image. What else are you gonna do with a song called CHAINSAW but put a chainsaw on it?"<br><br>The first two T-birds albums, the first Leroi Bros LP and TT&T feature some impressive guitarists but what really drives them is the infamous rhythm section of Keith Ferguson and Mike Buck. Musicians and music aficionados alike speak of this combination in reverent tones. And while there were many good bassists and drummers around (especially Gary 'Mudcat' Smith of The Tail Gators) the Buck/Ferguson pairing set the bar and put Austin on the musical map as a Blues & Roots town. It was an instinctive pairing and the pocket they laid down together flowed as naturally as a river. Perhaps this is why when asked to reflect on playing with the iconic bassist Mike Buck is at a loss for words.<br><br>"I don't really know, we just had a chemistry. We think along the same lines. It just seemed to gel, especially with the Thunderbirds. We've done some other recordings too. We'd be hired for Blues session by other guys thinking to capture some of that, for lack of a better word, 'magic'. Whatever we had. It didn't always work. It was a combination of Keith and I plus the other payers. Jimmie Vaughan himself is a very rhythmic player, very easy to play with. Keith and I just kinda had a chemistry. Every project we did together it varied. Some were more successful that others. But as far as playing onstage I can't think of anyone I'd rather play with."<br><br>Keith Ferguson died nearly 15 years before this interview with Mike Buck was conducted. Like Stevie Ray Vaughan, his death left a hole never to be filled while simultaneously propelling him to mythical status. <br><br>As the years rolled by The Leroi Brothers slowed down a bit and pursued other interests on the side. Chief among them is Eve and The Exiles, the band he formed with guitarist/vocalist Eve Monsees. "Eve have known each other for a while. She used to play on 6th Street with some bands and I'd go sit in with them. Started becoming close then she became my girlfriend. We worked together here at Antone's, we actually bought the store and Clifford's estate last year. We have a lot of similar musical taste so just it seemed natural that we'd have a band together. A fun band, playing a wide variety of Blues and 60's type Rock 'n' Roll. We're playing the Rauma Blues Festival in Finland this summer. We've actually been to Finland the last two years and have a little bit of a following there. I'm not sure why Finland but someone contacted us from there and we started going there. It's been very nice for everyone concerned. The audience are great. It's nice to play before appreciative audiences. Places as jaded as Austin that doesn't always happen."<br><br>How did a city as small as Austin become a music capital? And why did it focus on Blues and Roots music? What made it almost other-worldy, as if the stereo-typical Classic Rock radio and other fads didn't exist within the city limits?<br><br>"I may be too close to the scene to view it objectively. Austin has always kinda been the oasis of Texas so more creative people end up coming here. Big art community. As far as thriving, in some ways yes it is. There's plenty of bands playing that. There's just not much money to be made, so many bands willing to play for little or nothing. The Blues thing has kinda died out, although it's showed signs of some younger people reviving it. The thing with the Thunderbirds and Stevie was kind of a double edged sword. At the time it was very different and no one was really playing like that. Then there were so many imitators it kind of became a cliche and a lot of people started to look down on that music to some extent. There are a lot of sincere people playing it but also a lot of posers too. I have mixed feelings. I'm very proud of everything we've done."<br><br>But the Austin of the 70's and 80's has become a dim memory at the beginning of the 21st Century. Like Stevie Ray Vaughan and Keith Ferguson themselves the city has become an historical icon, but no longer the same living entity it once was. Like any city that gets 'discovered' musicians flood in and the not-so-great ones start undercutting the others, playing for less money and often for free, driving down wages for working musicians all around. And the music itself which once differentiated the town has been watered down by scores of imitators who lack a real knowledge of its history.<br><br>"There's a backlash. I think so. Plus a lot of people moving into Austin from other parts of the country are not necessarily into the music. It's changed a lot, it's become very expensive to live here. A lot of the cool buildings are being torn down and condos put up. It's hard to hang onto Austin's past. Kinda become yuppified, for lack of a better word. Doug Sahm always used to rail against that. It's even more so now that he's gone. Now they're using Blues for beer commercials and stuff. It's become somewhat cliched and people are getting away from the real spirit of it to some extent. It's not one way or the other all the way but there is a lot of watering down involved."<br><br>South By Southwest generates lots of attention for the music industry and keeps Austin's title as "live music capital of the world" cemented. But when the musicians aren't getting paid the title is a farce.<br><br>"For our record store business SXSW has been a great economic boon. I have mixed feelings about that too. Again, the bands don't make any money and you gotta jump through a lot of hoops to try and get on one of the shows. It's hard to get around town, traffic is bad, so I guess it's a mixed blessing as well. Definitely helps the economy here, I will say that."<br><br>'Keep the Blues alive' is a popular cliche in Blues circles. Actually keeping the music going means continually building on its history. The early records have to stay in people's ears. Newer players and their albums have to be featured alongside the older showing and ever evolving history that current players and audiences are in the midst of. Regulate it to a museum or a clique and all the life goes out of it. Mike Buck does more than most to keep it alive. Having played behind so many of the greats, helping put his own generation on the map and backing many up-and-comers he's taken over Antone's Records. Half of his week is spent running the store that's practically a library. Rare and hard-to-find classics sit alongside obscure jewels and the latest releases by current groups. The living history is alive and well within those store walls.<br><br>"I started working here [Antone's Records] part-time back in the 80's whenever I had some downtime from the road. I'm a big record nerd, have a huge record collection. I was always here anyways so it was natural I'd start working here. As I started traveling less I started working here more, taking over some of the duties, ordering product for the store and this and that. Clifford never was involved with the day-to-day business here, the employees pretty much kept it going, did all the managerial and legal stuff. So after he passed it was natural for the employees to take over. Clifford's sister and the estate offered to sell it to us, me and Eve and Forest Coppock, the third partner who was a long time manager here. He actually helped Clifford get it started back in the day, then left for a while and came back. Clifford's taxes were a mess and I think his estate didn't want the IRS to seize the business so they sold it to us. That had something to do with it as well. I feel very fortunate to take on and keep the tradition going here. Business is up and down, always has been. Seems like the place has always been on a shoestring but we keep it going somehow. This is kinda what I do, either play music or be around music. I still enjoy playing but I don't really want to tour all the time anymore. That's lost it's allure for me, getting in a van and driving to Omaha or something. So I'm glad to have this to fall back on."<br><br>Being a musician has often been described as a 'feast or famine' existence. Trends come and go. In recent years musicians have been hit the hardest since the Disco era. DJs, karaoke and theme restaurants have become the norm. Wannabe Rock-stars continue to play for cheap or free. The U.S. economy has seriously curtailed people's spending with entertainment getting cut first. And the general dumbing-down of America by big business interests and the politicians and media they control has left the general public completely oblivious to the what it is musicians do. In fact, the word 'musician' has almost completely disappeared from the popular lexicon, replaced by such meaningless phrases as 'Rock star' and 'in a band'. American culture has been marginalized, sanitized and desecrated. Even a living legend is not immune.<br><br>"It's hard to really encourage someone to get into such a business like this, it can be really cutthroat. But I'd say if you truly love it just keep at it. Play what you like and try to find like minded people that you enjoy working with and don't give up. And if it's really what you want to do I would say take a hard look at the realities, 'cause it's very hard to make it in this business."</p>
J.J. Vicarstag:jjvicars.com,2005:Post/60642992010-08-03T12:00:00-12:002023-10-16T02:55:23-12:00Skynyrd in Japan<p>Lynyrd Skynyrd toured Japan in 1977 playing 5 nights, Jan 14th -18th & 21st at Nakano Sun Plaza in Tokyo and Osaka Koseinenkinkaikan Hall. It was the only time the original band played there. Opening for them was Japan's top Southern Rock band, Idlewild South. Music Life was the major Rock magazine in Japan at the time, their equivalent of England's Melody Maker. When looking for someone to interview Skynyrd for a feature article they decided to let Idlewild South have free reign. Who better to interview Skynyrd for Music Life? It proved to be a good choice; rather than answering cookie-cutter questions from a journalist Ronnie Van Zant, Allen Collins and Artimus Pyle sat down for some friendly conversation with musicians who had embraced the Southern Rock style during it's heyday and were eager meet their heroes. The result was a very candid, informal article that did the band justice.<br><br>From the March '77 issue of Music Life (Ted Nugent cover)<br><br>"Are you sure this is the first time we've had a Southern Rock band in this country? Skynyrd has a powerful live sound; have you seen this amazing triple guitar? One of the biggest bands from the South, becoming one of the biggest bands around. The people interviewing them are Japanese Southern Rockers Idlewild South. Both of them have roots in the South so they really got along good."<br><br>"Any type of band that makes it big scuffles along the way."<br><br>"They're satisfied having Tom Dowd for a producer."<br><br>The guys from Idlewild South were waiting in the room and seemed a little nervous. Ronnie and Artimus showed up a little late. Idelwild South were still tense but after Ronnie said 'hi' and 'sorry to keep you guys waiting' they relaxed. Seeing them as down home folks, Idlewild South introduced themselves showing their albums and t-shirts. Since they both have similar musical interests they didn't have any communication problems. Allen Collins hasn't shown up yet but they're going to start anyway.<br><br>Matsura: We really like Southern sound and like the Allman Brothers. That's why we call our band Idlewild South, from the ABB album. What do you think of the South?<br><br>Ronnie: We're from the South and proud of it.<br><br>Ikemoto: Where in the South are you from?<br><br>Ronnie: Jacksonville, Florida. 70 miles from Georgia.<br><br>Matsura: We have an instrumental called “Jax”.<br><br>Ronnie: Really? I'd like to hear that.<br><br>Namba: Did you guys hear anything about Japan before you came here?<br><br>Ronnie: I heard Japanese people are very polite and it's a good place to play. Been looking forward to coming here.<br><br>Ikemoto: You guys play many concerts. How do you practice? We don't have a studio so we rent one. Do you have you own studio?<br><br>Ronnie: We tour a lot, about 200 days a year. We take two weeks off after we come off the road and rehearse in our studio in Jax. We practice every time we get a chance! (laughs)<br><br>Matsura: We love pick-up trucks so we tour in a truck. What do you guys tour in?<br><br>Ronnie: We got our own plane this year. We can carry the band, equipment and road crew. We crossed the U.S. many times by bus but I'd rather fly.<br><br>Matsura: I guess you guys have a lot of gear and a large band so it's hard to travel. We don't even have roadies so we have to set up ourselves.<br><br>Ronnie: We all did that in the beginning. That's how we started.<br><br>Namba: What's the story on Tom Dowd producing your new album?<br><br>Ronnie: We listened to different records looking for a new producer and when we heard LAYLA I really wanted him to do our album and called our manager. We're really happy with the result. Tom's first hit was “Coming Out Of The Cave”. You know that one don't you? He also produced “Charlie Brown”. He's been producing since '48.<br><br>Ikemoto: 1948? I wasn't even born yet! (laughs) Artimus, what kind of drum kit do you use?<br><br>Artimus: Right now I use a custom Slingerland. I don't use anything else. The drummer from The Doobie Brothers introduced them to me and they make a wonderful 26" double bass.<br><br>Namba: Why do you use Peavy amps?<br><br>Artimus: We have an endorsement with Peavy. They made us some with a Mace top, four JBLs and cabs like a Marshall. JBLs last longer.<br><br>(Allen Collins shows up wearing a red hat with blue feather)<br><br>Matsura: I want to ask you something, Allen. Do you use a Firebird all the time? I've seen pictures of you playing a Strat too.<br><br>Allen: I play a Strat on a few songs. Now I'm using a '58 Explorer. Here, this is my Explorer. (takes out guitar and shows him)<br><br>Matsura: How many guitars do you have?<br><br>Allen: I have three Strats, two Firebirds, the Explorer, a new Gibson L-6 and an L-8. The L-8 has a good Country sound. Also a J-160 E like The Beatles had.<br><br>Artimus: Don't forget your Les Paul!<br><br>Allen: That's not mine, that's Gary's! (laughs)<br><br>Matsura: Does Gary have a Les Paul?<br><br>Allen: He has a '59 and a '67.<br><br>Matsura: There's a '67 Gibson?<br><br>Allen: There's a lot of them.<br><br>Matsura: I have a Les Paul which has two single-coil pickups.<br><br>Allen: Oh yeah, I know what those are. Those are the same pickups I have in my Firebird.<br><br>Matsura: I'd like to switch to humbuckers.<br><br>Allen: You get too much high end if you switch to humbuckers. It works for old guitars but if your Les Paul has single-coil pickups stick with that. You can put a humbucker in the front but if you put humbuckers in both positions you're gonna regret it.<br><br>Matsura: Hai! (everybody laughs) How do you think about the Strat compared to Gibson?<br><br>Allen: Completely different! Strat only has half the power a Gibson pickup has. The highs are mushy. Jimi Hendrix had a cool sound using the out-of-phase position between the front and middle pickups.<br><br>Matsura: Allen, do you have old guitar?<br><br>Allen: Yes, I do. '65 body, '51 neck and '63 pickups.<br><br>Matsura: How come you don't have new Fender or Gibson? Don't like them?<br><br>Allen: They don't take enough time making new ones, not that I don't like them but they don't sound the same as old guitars. I had a '67 style Gibson but it was stolen in San Francisco. That was my favorite guitar.<br><br>Ronnie: (facing Matsura) Don't let your guitar get ripped off! (everybody laughs)<br><br>Matsura: I'll be very careful. If you buy a '58 or '59 Les Paul in Japan it costs about $6,000.<br><br>Allen: It costs that much?!! It's cheaper to go to the States and buy one. But guitars are always expensive any place.<br><br>Matsura: When I think about the history of Lynyrd Skynyrd I think of Free. I listened to them a lot when I was 15.<br><br>Ronnie: Free weren't that big back then but we started listening to them because of Paul Kossoff.<br><br>Matsura: I used to listen to TONS OF SOBS and covered “Walk In My Shadow” a lot.<br><br>Allen: I did that too.<br><br>Matsura: I love Duane Allman's slide guitar. Do you play slide, Allen?<br><br>Allen: I like to play slide but Steve does it really good so I shouldn't do it. (laughs)<br><br>Matsuro: You have triple guitars, it has to fit together just right.<br><br>Allen: Yes, we do. But the three of us have different phrasing so it blends really well.<br><br>Matsura: We have double drums and twin guitar and Lynyrd Skynyrd inspire us a lot. Really looking forward to seeing you guys tomorrow.<br><br>Allen: So we get to listen to Japanese Southern Rock tomorrow. I'm looking forward to it.<br><br>Matsuro: Thank you for coming today.<br><br><br>###<br><br><br>Japan set list:<br><br>Workin' For MCA<br>I Ain't The One<br>Saturday Night Special<br>Whiskey Rock-a-Roller<br>That Smell<br>Travellin' Man<br>Ain't No Good Life<br>Gimme Three Steps<br>Call Me The Breeze<br>T For Texas<br>Sweet Home Alabama<br>Crossroads (not on Osaka show)<br>Freebird<br><br>*See candid photos of Skynyrd during a press conference in Tokyo ‘77, the scanned magazine article, and J.J.’s photos with Skynyrd at </p><p><a class="no-pjax" href="https://jjvicars.com/skynyrd-in-japan">https://jjvicars.com/skynyrd-in-japan</a> </p><p>These photos were loaned to J.J. from a friend's private collection. They were to remain private so in order for JoJo and later Ronnie's eldest daughter Tammy VanZant to see them they were put on an unlisted Photobucket page. They soon leaked out all over the internet and have been used in several fan videos and magazine articles. If you would like to use them please give credit.<br><br> </p><p>###</p><p><br><br>Journalist Nishie Takehiro saw Skynyrd at Nakano Sun Plaza on January 15th, 2nd night. In March 2006 issue of Beatleg, another Japanese music magazine, he reminisced;<br><br>“Most of the audience was American. Local opening bands were usually ignored but Idlewild South was well received. The lights went down, the ”Magnificent Seven" theme played, and all 7 guys came onstage. The band didn't look as funky as expected, they looked sharp. Especially Allen Collins in his red outfit with matching red hat with feather. After the opening medley of “Workin' For MCA" and “I Ain't The One” then ”Saturday Night Special" the Honkettes came out for “Whiskey Rock-a-roller”. Nobody recognized “That Smell” or “Ain't No Good Life”, two new songs that later appeared on STREET SURVIVORS. Ronnie left the stage during “Ain't No Good Life” and new member Steve Gaines took over the mic, to the audience's surprise. Van Zant came back and the 7 piece rocked “Gimme Three Steps”. Allen, Gary & Steve triple-guitar attack was center stage just like in pictures. “Call Me The Breeze” and “T For Texas” were just like the ONE MORE FROM THE ROAD album. The Honkettes came back out for “Sweet Home Alabama”. My friend got carried away screaming, "Die Neil Young!" Barely an hour since the show started everybody left the stage after “Alabama”. Between 12th and 13th row at Sun Plaza was a walkway, I looked back and JoJo Billingsley had come out to watch “Free Bird”. She was hanging out with the crowd and I was surprised when she shook my hand. The guys came back out and played “Crossroads”, which the audience was not expecting. Afterward the hollers for “Free Bird” got louder and louder. Ronnie thanked the audience for coming to the show then announced “Free Bird” and the audience rushed the stage. Being there in person was indescribable. There are no words for it. All I can say was I was very fortunate to see the show.<br><br>Among the people they met here they made an impression as being down-to-earth. Skynyrd was watching Idlewild South's rehearsal and when one of the IS guys spilled juice on himself one of Skynyrd jumped up and wiped him off without a second thought."<br><br>When he read about the plane crash in the Asahi News (Japanese newspaper) it was disturbing; there was no pretentious "star" trip, they were ordinary people in the best sense of the word. To see a group like them who were so real and humble and had worked their way up to the top from nothing was inspiring to those who crossed paths with them. To hear of the tragedy a mere 9 months after seeing them was like losing a friend or relative, it hit home in a way that celebrity deaths usually don't.<br><br>Jo Jo Billingsley, the most standout of the Honkettes, recalled, "Those were the days. Too much sake!!! 'Saki to me' I used to say and it did. That promoter over there was wonderful, Mr. Udo."<br><br>Nakano Sun Plaza is still open today. This author saw the Allman Brothers there in January '91. It's visible from the platform of Nakano station on the Chuo line, west side of Tokyo. A recording of Skynyrd's January 21st show is available by torrent. An audience recording of the Osaka show is also widely circulated.<br><br>The reformed Skynyrd played Japan in November 1991. Again they played three nights in Tokyo but at Shinjuku Hall instead. This author was at the second and third shows. They opened with “Smokestack Lightning” (not the Howlin' Wolf song) from their new album. They're on Atlantic now, not MCA. One or two more songs from the new album but mostly the old hits. Ed King attempted to introduce “The Ballad Of Curtis Lowe” by reading a translation of "this song is for anyone who ever named their dog Curtis Lowe" but it proved to be rather long and difficult. This is as close to to the original band as any of young'uns will get, they still have four original members. And it's much more high-energy than the Tribute Tour album. “Free Bird” is something else.<br><br>Heading out after the show I recognize some of the crew from the Tribute Tour video and ask if there's any chance of getting backstage. Big Lou repeats the same thing over and over looking kind of worn down, "One person, one pass." I ask, "What if you're from the South?" He chuckles and say, "Well, that helps." I don't want to bug the guy so I drop the subject and make a little friendly conversation before moving on. He recognizes and appreciates the consideration. As my girlfriend and I leave he tells us the hotel they're staying at and says to drop by the lobby in an hour, the whole band will be passing through and we can meet them there. Being a 19 year old American kid nothing compares to meeting Skynyrd! We drop by and they all pass through. Gary Rossington walks up, pulls his hair out of his face, and in the slowest drawl ever to come out of a human being introduces himself. Somehow we get invited to a party upstairs and we're hanging out with Steve Lockhart, former guitarist for the Artimus Pyle band and now drum tech. He's been wandering the streets of Tokyo and could use a guide so we take him out to Roppongi, the infamous red-light district. He hooks us up with tickets and passes for the next night.<br><br>The third show was just as good. The band is in top form. You can tell they're happy to be back out there as Skynyrd again. Backstage is a blast. Skynyrd are still as downhome as ever, still just a bunch of good ol' boys who like to party. Johnny Van Zant stops to check out my tattoo and then hollers at Leon Wilkeson, "Hey! Check out this guy's tattoo!" Leon has two girls sitting with him and will check it out later. Billy Powell is running around introducing himself to everybody and shaking their hand. Gary Rossington doesn't talk much but his wife, vocalist Dale Krantz Rossington, is a whirlwind of energy. Randall Hall (guitar) and Custer (drums) are kicking back enjoying it all. On the way in we ran into Ed King who grumpily asked how we got backstage. "We got passes," I told him to which he replied "Oh... that helps."<br><br>Later we're hanging out with Steve Lockhart again and I grab my Jan. '88 issue of Guitar player magazine to get it autographed. I run into guitar tech Mike Sparks who signs the first page of the article (he's halfway in the picture). A couple ladies come up to us, they heard something about some Rock band staying there and think I'm one of the band. I wish! Nope, this guy is the guitar tech, I'm just another fan. We go into the bar and I see Ed King sitting there listening to the house band. When they go on break I approach him for an autograph, carefully since I know what a sweetheart he can be. He asks if I have a pen then pulls out his own marker. I talk a little shop with him and mention my dad is a Jazz guitarist. He loosens up a bit but never invites me to sit down despite the extra seat at the table.<br><br>Back up at Lockhart's room Leon and Randall have dropped by. As Leon signs my magazine a look of shock crawls across his face, "You got Ed King's autograph? That's a hard one to get. You're a lucky man." We show off our tats, he describes his as "oldy and moldy" (from the 70's, redone a few years later). Steve, Randall and I are passing my black Firebird around and talking about Allen Collins. "All he could do was light cigarettes and answer the phone," Randall says of his final years. Steve had a song he wanted Allen to play on, knowing it would be the last time he's ever be inside a recording studio, but Allen went back into the hospital before it could happen. Finally Randall takes off and my girlfriend falls asleep on the bed. Steve and I are the last ones standing. It's 5:00 A.M. and they have to leave at 7:00. he says the hell with it, let's hang out a little more and he'll get to packing later and sleep during the ride.<br><br>That was my time with Skynyrd. In the States they're an icon like Chevy or the flag or football. They're a reflection of a significant portion of America and they do it without trying, it's just them. Although I'm not a fan of the current band even they, in they're own way, continue to be that reflection. To spend that time hanging out with them was one of the coolest things that could happen to a 19 year old budding guitarist.<br><br>*The autographed magazine was later stolen from a storage unit in Indianapolis, IN. If anybody knows of a magazine matching the description contact <a class="no-pjax" href="mailto:jj@jjvicars.com">jj@jjvicars.com</a></p>J.J. Vicarstag:jjvicars.com,2005:Post/60642982010-07-08T10:18:30-12:002020-09-26T04:31:31-12:00Ronnie James - Living The Dream
<p>Ronnie James is living the dream that all musicians who grew up listening to the Roots Rock revival of Austin during the 80's dream of. While living in California he began his road career with Little Charlie & the Nightcats before playing with the Fabulous Thunderbirds which led to his current gig as Jimmie Vaughan's bassist. Along the way he's shared the stage and studio with a Who's Who of Blues legends, most notably the time he spent with the late Bill Willis in Vaughan's band. Now a mainstay in Austin, he sat down in early April 2010 to share his story...<br><br>"As far as playing the first thing was guitar, like most kids. I liked sports and tried to be good at it but was terrible. Then got a guitar and realized I couldn't play ERUPTION. That and Van Halen's version of ICE CREAM MAN, those two solos, I thought if I could just figure those two out I'd have it made. I don't know if anybody's every figured it out properly."<br><br>His introduction to Blues and Roots music was standard for his generation, one high-profile musician opening the proverbial twin doors to the worlds of vintage Blues and the Austin Roots Rock revival. "For one of my birthdays my dad got me a subscription to Guitar Player and it was the October '84 issue, my birthday's October, and October '84 was Stevie Ray Vaughan's first cover issue. I remember my brother just kinda happened to say, 'I heard about him, he's supposed to be pretty good.' So after that I asked my dad for tickets or something. That was the beginning of the end. I saw Stevie and every time after that I'd see the T-birds open for Stevie. Read interviews with them and then it got into this thing; I didn't know what Blues was so it took some kind of home schooling like we all did; read an article, buy a record, take a test and move on. That's kinda how I did it. That was in high school so I was probably right around a sophomore when I got into Stevie and the Thunderbirds and anybody else that came out of Austin like Omar, Anson... if it came out of Texas I'd just buy it. I don't know what my fascination was but those teenage years you just have it made up in your mind, like Alice In Wonderland kinda stuff, Austin seemed like this fairy tale land... and now I live here!"<br><br>"I had a little band in high school. All we did was talent shows, our school's talent show, and one regional talent show. The name of the band was Homemade Sausage. And the only reason we named it Homemade Sausage was because one of the guys stole the banner at the State Fair of a homemade sausage stand, so we were the only band that had a huge banner! We had to name our band that because that's what the banner said. And then I moved to California after high school and just started noodling with the bass and realized that was my true calling. I never gave any other instruments a shot, I just kept trying to be a guitar player, refused to give up and was really not that good. I play guitar better now that I'm a bass player than when I was actually trying to be a guitar player. I just kinda found my thing, what I do. Started getting with these little bands and started going out to the Blues clubs, like JJ's, at the time they had San Jose and JJ's Mountain View, and just kept playing."<br><br>After finding his niche and settling he quickly honed his craft the tried and true way. "Little Charlie & the Nightcats was one of the first big road gigs. I was actually in Mark Hummel & the Blues Survivors and Mark Hummel is friends with Rick Estrin. When I joined his band in '92 two weeks later I was backing up Luther Tucker, Snooky Pryor, Jimmie Rogers, Billy Boy Arnold, all these real bona fide Blues legends, and I knew one or two things, maybe none, and realized the depth of these guys. So that was school in itself and that Mark Hummel gig got me the Little Charlie gig. And that was simply because Little Charlie wanted an upright player and I had just taken up upright when I joined Mark Hummel's band. I knew I wasn't the best qualified but I had the upright so I was in. Then I just had to figure out how to play it to their level. That's why I say those years were really my hard, hard musical education 'cause you had Estrin, who was a hardcore Blues guy, and Charlie too. But then Charlie was also a hardcore Jazz and Bebop guy. It was kinda cool. It was overwhelming, really. Sink or swim and what I learned with them trying to figure that stuff out, sometimes live, I'm no longer intimidated. Someone throws me a curve onstage, making a mistake is the least of my worries. I don't care if there's people in the audience, I think, 'My ear's developed, I'll figure it out. I'll get it.' I'm not worried about 'my God, they saw that!' <br><br>He steadily ascended through a series of gigs building a resume that would be the envy of any Blues/Roots bassist. "I was with Little Charlie for about 8 years. I joined in '93 and went to the end of 2000. Then I ended up joining the Thunderbirds February 2001. I was only out of work for about a month. It's dumb luck on my part. I was with the Thunderbirds 7 years, right up into the time we did JIMMY REED HIGHWAY with Omar (Dykes) and Jimmie (Vaughan). As soon as I left the T-birds Jimmie just kinda took a liking to me and went straight from that JIMMY REED HIGHWAY record into Jimmie's band. <br><br>While good fortune smiled on him he stayed laid back and took it all in stride. "I don't even question it or try to explain it, it's just one of those blessings that I never take for granted. I'm blessed beyond words. What can I say? It's overwhelming. I remember looking at Jimmie and Stevie and even the Nightcats when I was in high school. I set the bar pretty to a pretty attainable goal; when I was in high school I wrote a paper 'if I could just pay rent in Somecity, U.S.A. and play music that's all I really want to do.' So I can only imagine if I set the bar higher what I might have accomplished, 'cause I never thought in a million years I'd end up playing with Jimmie Vaughan, or Rick Estrin, or Little Charlie or all those Blues guys, the <em><span style="text-decoration:underline">real</span></em> guys. I try not dwell on that too much because I'll have a panic attack." <br><br>"When I first joined Hummel, after a month of playing with him we did the San Francisco Blues Festival in September '92 and here I am with Jimmie Rogers and Billy Boy Arnold, and then on that same 2-week trip they had Luther Tucker and Snooky Pryor. That was just huge. I left Little Charlie for almost a year about '96, and during that time I did Dave Meyers from The Aces. I did his only solo record because of my buddy Rusty Zinn. Kim Wilson was producing it and blowing harp on it and that's also kind of how I got into the Thunderbirds later on, working with him on that project. That was great and also intimidating; here's one of the greatest Chicago Blues bassists but he was playing guitar instead and I'm playing bass for him. That was nerve wracking, making sure he was happy and getting his approval was huge. And since being in Austin I've played with Pinetop Perkins his past two birthdays, his 95th and 96th. I hope I'm playing his 97th thus year. Billy Smith when he comes through town, backing him up. Lester Davenport, who used to blow harp behind Bo Diddley. A lot of guys I missed because I was too young. I would have loved to have seen Eddie Taylor, 'cause I didn't even know who that guy was, playing with Jimmy Reed, until that record that Clifford out out and then I dug back. That Antone's record that Eddie did, that's a great record. Him and Luther Tucker on that record is phenomenal."<br><br>Blues is a style of music that regards apprenticeship highly. There's a great advantage in learning firsthand from the ones who came before you, especially the ones who wrote the book on how it's done. "I feel lucky I got to play with some of the real guys and get their approval because you really learn so much more than you think you're going to. It's not just about the notes, it's about everything. It's something you can't just pick up a book and read about. Some of it's osmosis, you absorb it through them. I'm watching them, listening to them, listening to their stories and then you do a gig. It's everything you should learn." <br><br>Among the many older musicians he played with he was privileged to spend time on the road with one of the most significant, if unsung, sidemen in American music. A keyboardist and bassist who was a staple at the King Records studio in Cincinnati playing on now-classic albums that defined R&B at the time and continue to be a major influence on musicians to this day. "In Jimmie's band I got to play with Bill Willis his last couple years. I always think of him kinda like, as legend would have it like Snooks Eaglin, kinda like the human jukebox. You couldn't stump this guy. He knew every song. Played on half of 'em. And again just being around him listening to him tell stories about being at the King/Federal studios and staying to watch Bill Doggett, maybe Bill would show him something. He's even on some of that King early James Brown stuff, and Little Willie John, and just one of those guys that can walk around being himself. He's not a big star but has more connections and has played with bigger stars than we could ever dream of. And he can just go around to his local store. It ain't like today where there's some big star and you've got paparazzi following you. I'll bet people have been next to that guy in a grocery store and had no clue they were standing next to history, an historic musical figure of American music. That just blows my mind. Unfortunately he just passed away about a month ago (February 2010). He was a character too, he was funny. Just a good guy and a wealth of knowledge. Great to sit down and talk to somebody about people that are like superheroes, like James Brown. Back then! It's about as amazing and unrealistic as playing with him now. I just can't grasp it. So awesome." <br><br>"Someone once told me that luck was preparation meeting opportunity but I don't buy into that. I think a lot if it us actual luck of another kind because I got lots of friends that are more talented and more prepared and just and have had opportunities... it's just dumb luck. I just look at it like a blessing and try not to take it for granted. Especially now, these days. There's so much, the old me when I was partying and stuff, I don't remember a lot places or situations. They're so foggy, I don't remember big chunks of time. Now with Jimmie I wanna soak this all in and just enjoy every second of it and learn. Get all the information I can and hopefully one day be, like Bill Willis, be able to pass it on. What little I can do. Because that's what it's about, taking it in and giving it back. What good is it if you don't out it back out there? Can't take it with you!" <br><br>It's a sure bet that Ronnie James is moving into the position of mentor for younger up-and-coming players. Having played with a long list of Blues greats while spending a good number of years each with Little Charlie & the Nightcats, The Fabulous Thunderbirds and Jimmie Vaughan he's amassed a wealth of experience to pass on, much like Bill Willis before him. For someone who's goal was simply to be able to make the rent playing music that's a pretty cool accomplishment.<br><br>Trivia side note: Along the way he also got a taste of another influential city during the 80's, Minneapolis, when he worked with David Z (Rivkin), engineer on Prince's hits and brother of Revolution drummer Bobby Z. "I always thought he was that wrestler, 'step into a Slim Jim.' He always had the bandana tied and the same manicured beard. I worked with him on that one Mannish Boys record LOWDOWN FEELING. I didn't even know who he was, which is not saying much because I'm so far out of the loop in terms of modern things. I know who all the old Blues guys are, modern things fly over my head. That was fun, he engineered it and there was so many people in that studio at that time."</p>
J.J. Vicarstag:jjvicars.com,2005:Post/60642972010-07-03T14:04:31-12:002020-10-25T15:14:07-12:00RIP JoJo Billingsley
<p>JoJo Billingsley was my favorite Honkette. Watching video clips of the original Lynyrd Skynyrd she immediately stands out among the backing vocalists. She has that look in her eye of being a real character, someone who eats life. Reading about Skynyrd she came across as a tough chick who could drink the boys under the table and didn't take shit off anybody. Listening close to the backing vocals she sang closely with Ronnie Van Zant, often doubling his parts on songs such as TUESDAY'S GONE.<br><br>In 2008 Darren Howells, at the time editor for Blues Matters magazine, asked me to write an article on Skynyrd. Wanting to avoid the usual cliches (mention of the plane crash was taboo for my article) I wanted to detail how this group combined the Blues, Country and Gospel of their southern backgrounds with the current sounds of the time they grew up in (most notably the British Invasion) to create a body of work that has become as much an American icon as Chevy, football and apple pie. I had had a couple e-mail exchanges with JoJo via MySpace and she seemed very approachable. We discussed doing an interview over Skype but then each got busy with other things and it fell by the wayside. <br><br>A year later I scanned an interview with Skynyrd for a Japanese music magazine Music Life (March '77, Ted Nugent cover) and tagged her in the photos when they were uploaded to MySpace. Talks about the interview resumed. This modern-day technology was a bit baffling to her but she was eager to learn more about it. Having recently bought a new laptop with webcam she liked the idea of doing the interview over Skype as opposed to the phone, almost like talking face to face. Sadly, she became sick just as it was getting underway. A few months later I heard she'd had cancer surgery and recovery was slow. Then on the morning of this writing (July 3rd, 2010) I heard from Tammy Michelle Van Zant, Ronnie's eldest daughter whom I had also become acquainted with via MySpace, that JoJo had died on June 24th after suffering quite a bit towards the end.<br><br>While going through old e-mails and messages for this article I found that most of the e-mails from her were gone. Usually these are saved in a separate folder and I'm at a loss to explain what happened. So I'm forced to recount from memory something she told me that was intended for the article; Ronnie Van Zant was a gentleman who kept his word. JoJo was a co-writer on THAT SMELL, which Gene Odom (roadie and childhood friend of Van Zant) confirmed when someone interviewed him. The Honkettes were on salary and somehow the legal end of things prevented her from receiving her writer's credit on the album. Van Zant intended to fix that but the album was only out three days when he died. <br><br>But a few messages remain in my Inbox and include a few things that I believe she would want shared at this time. Reminiscing on playing Japan with Skynyrd, "Those were the days. Too much saki!!! 'Saki to me' I used to say and it did. That promoter over there was wonderful; Mr. Udo."<br><br>After uploading the Music Life article she wrote, "Thanks so much and I am so grateful you offered to share with me! It is bad enough they never paid me for singing on any of those projects, so it would be nice to have a few photos, etc. for my children to see. I am a part of rock and roll history regardless and they can never take that away from me!" Hunter S. Thompson's famous quote comes irresistibly to mind. It's infuriating to think of how musicians who played or sang on landmark recordings get shuffled off to the side. When Skynyrd reformed in '87 for the Tribute Tour the surviving Honkettes (Leslie Hawkins survived the crash and JoJo was the only one not on the plane) were never called. When Skynyrd was inducted into the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame a private individual flew the Honkettes out on his own tab. Without that person, who wishes to remain anonymous, they wouldn't be in the video clips from that night. <br><br>JoJo was always gracious whenever we e-mailed. A gregarious personality whose authenticity easily translated to the written word, something not easily done in e-mails. The tone of her writing was exactly the same as any video interviews I've seen. She was who she was, plain and simple, and that has always been one of the most admirable qualities of many Southern Rock musicians.<br><br>One of the accounts that sums her up best is from somebody who saw her with Skynyrd. Journalist Nishie Takehiro saw Skynyrd at Nakano Sun Plaza on January 15th, their 2nd of three nights in Tokyo. In the March 2006 issue of Beatleg, another Japanese music magazine, he reminisced, "Between the 12th and 13th row at Sun Plaza was a walkway, I looked back and JoJo Billingsley had come out to watch FREE BIRD. She was hanging out with the crowd and I was surprised when she shook my hand." Sitting right there with the rest of the audience, enjoying the show...</p>
J.J. Vicarstag:jjvicars.com,2005:Post/60642962010-04-24T08:45:23-12:002020-01-06T06:23:06-12:00Bumbling Old Bats
<p>One of the biggest cultural gaps I find being an American in Japan is old people. As much as they get on my nerves I do admire the old cockroaches. Constantly bumbling around, yakking at the top of their lungs early in the morning, completely self-absorbed... gawd, they can be annoying! On the other hand, being over 80 years old and having the energy of a teenager is something I almost never see back home. It demonstrates the cultural difference in attitudes regarding age.<br><br>For the sake of simplicity, the U.S. has two basic cultural foundations that inform the society. Christianity preaches original sin while Atheism is the Darwinian/Freudian model that life is a meaningless accident, the subconscious is a harbor for suppressed emotions, and entropy is the rule. At the core of both models human beings are viewed as inherently flawed creatures. Despite U.S. politics I would like to believe otherwise.<br><br>In a country where religion is minimal, fundamentalism is unheard of, and Zen Buddhism is the dominant spiritual philosophy, the picture is entirely different. All species including humans are viewed as an expression of the divine source, which is something beyond our words and symbols rather than an "invisible man who lives in the sky with a list of 10 things he doesn't want you to do". It's a well known fact that Orientals generally have longer life spans and retain full mental and physical capacities for much longer. <br><br>Another significant cultural difference is the food. Some of the funkiest, nastiest, smelliest stuff the old farts eat is also the healthiest. You don't see them guzzling soda and candy bars. In contrast, the younger generations are eating more Western junk food, less traditional food, and are beginning to have health problems akin to Americans the likes of which the older generations have never experienced. Meanwhile, the old timers drink like fish, chain smoke, and look like they'll outlast the brats.<br><br>When I see elderly Americans it's depressing. Many are consuming handfuls of pills daily, oxygen tanks are common, and there's often a general air of sadness about them. We're taught to respect older people- is it because of knowledge gained or do we feel sorry for their decay? Probably neither. Respecting older people in our society is really just obeying authority. If we <em>truly</em> respected them we would prize their knowledge and wisdom instead of glorifying the beauty of youth as our popular culture does.<br><br>The old fucks (refer to George Carlin on aging for the definition of 'old fuck') in my western Tokyo neighborhood are a pain in the ass. They have full mental and physical faculties and not enough to do, so they bumble around driving everybody nuts. The local hospital has a sign in the waiting area that reads, "Seniors, please don't have your picnic here." But at the same time I admire them. Most survived WWII and the 40 year rebuilding of the country that culminated in the Bubble Economy of the late 80's which burst in the 90's. At an age when their American counterparts are chained like slaves to petrochemical medication at over inflated prices these cranky old fucks do whatever they want whenever they want in perfect health. And having lived through the rise of the Imperial Army, the defeat in WWII, the rebuilding of the country and the continued corruption of politicians they don't give a shit about Social Security or retirement plans. They independently made their own retirement plans years ago and are financially sound today. It's one thing to talk about freedom, it's another to simply live it.</p>
J.J. Vicarstag:jjvicars.com,2005:Post/60642952010-04-21T11:50:19-12:002020-01-06T06:23:06-12:00Ex-pat Cafe
<p>Coffee shops over here are not like back home. They serve real coffee. The ones back home serve sugary coffee-flavored drinks with high fructose corn syrup and extra whip cream. Suburbanites in sloppy clothes indulging in a 'brand experience'.<br><br>The coffee shops here are descendants of European cafes. Cappuccino is served as it has been for over a century- shot of espresso with steamed milk. Iced coffee is just that- chilled coffee over ice. Other drinks stick to the same elegant simplicity, decorated with complementing flavors. Sugar is used as sweetener, not a base, and you can actually taste the coffee. Frozen drinks follow the same guidelines in a blender with ice. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.<br><br>The decor is often European in style, usually French or Italian. Jazz plays over the sound system; Errol Garner and Miles Davis are staples and Kenny G is thankfully absent. Unlike the 'brand' chains back home (unfortunately proliferating here as well) there is a smoking section. Good coffee goes hand in hand with a good smoke. This is where I sit, cigarillo in one hand and pen in the other. <br><br>Outside the window is a bustling metropolis. Endless restaurants, bars and shops crammed into every nook and cranny, buildings 5-10 stories high. Beyond are the skyscrapers of the business district. The streets are alive; business men in black suits and white shirts with pale pink ties, college kids in reggae threads and rectangle glasses, slender women in colorful dresses and heels with their hair and makeup done perfectly. During these rare moments my cranky homesickness is gone and I dig being an ex-pat.</p>
J.J. Vicarstag:jjvicars.com,2005:Post/60642942010-04-10T19:12:36-12:002020-01-06T06:23:06-12:00Mission Accomplished
<p>On Friday March 5th, 2010 I headed to Narita airport to board a plane for the U.S. Six years previous, while living in Las Vegas, I had left the States in a rush and hurriedly threw my stuff in storage. In the long process of moving back home this was Step 2 of the plan; sell the truck, move my stuff back to Texas and play some dates to start establishing myself back home. The dates would help offset the expenses.Unbeknownst to me at the time I was in for a month-long non-stop adventure that would see my plans challenged at every step of the way, eventually leading me to question what I was really after and why.<br><br>In the two weeks leading up to my departure date the proverbial writing on the wall was already starting to show. Most of the venues were booked 6 months in advance time was running out to fill the week's worth of dates I had planned. The idea was to play dates from TX to Vegas which would offset travel costs; once I got my stuff out of storage we would head straight back to Houston where I could take a week off before doing some more dates around town. Bassist Kenny Payola, whom I had stayed with two years earlier when I was renewing my driver's license (Step 1) offered to help with the bookings. Booking from overseas had proven to be a headache (already had two cancelled tours under my belt) so having someone "on the ground" to make the calls would help out immensely. Once the introductions were made I would take the reigns back. <br><br>Kenny was notorious for being a control freak but I've worked with them before, as well as having a bit of that reputation myself, so I paid it little mind. He was eager to be playing again, having been dormant for some time. However, his drummer Parker Townsend, whom he raved about, backed out a few weeks before. Seems there was a fight with his wife and he went to his mom's place in Georgia. Kenny insisted this sort of thing was known to happen and would straighten itself out. But on March 5th, as I was leaving for Narita, it was clear he wasn't going to be back so it was time to look for another drummer. I posted on Facebook and MySpace and received quite a few recommendations. I was confident we'd have somebody.<br><br>In the meantime I had a plane to catch. It was my understanding that Kenny had a van (he was also supplying the PA) but I had found out that he didn't. My dad had a van in northeast Ohio he wanted to get rid of so I found the closest city on my flight route, Detroit, and jumped ship there taking a Greyhound bus to Cleveland. Little did I know that simply not using 1/4 of my ticket (round trip to Houston) would cost me an extra $250. Delta airlines gave me a spiel about pricing to Detroit being different but I still say it's a bunch of horseshit- it didn't cost them anything for me to not use one part of my ticket. It's an empty seat!<br><br>On to the Detroit bus station and now I know why Michael Moore makes his movies. Gawd, that place is depressing! Not just the bus station, the entire downtown. After a crack deal or two went down it was safe to quickly use the bathroom. On the bus, down to Toledo, hour layover, and into Cleveland where my dad picked me up. Because of crossing time zones I left the house in Tokyo around 11:30 AM Friday and arrived in at the Cleveland bus station at 9:30 PM the same day. Over 24 hours in transit and I'm looking forward to a shower!<br><br>Saturday I was in Alliance, OH recovering from jet lag and generally taking it easy. Had trouble finding an Internet connection (my dad didn't have one at the house) and after a few failed attempts at Applebee's (free WiFi with the purchase of mediocre food) Border's books in Canton fit the bill. And that's when the situation blew up.<br><br>Kenny was flipping out over my "drummer needed" posts and immediately threatened to cancel everything. At first it seemed he was just pissed at one lady in particular who had been in his cyber ear but he told me he was pissed at me as well, that "social networking 101" was to always project a positive image. Him telling me about social networking is a fucking joke; this is the guy that posts bulletins for a gig the same day with "call me for directions" and gets pissed when nobody comes out to see him. <br><br>When somebody pulls a tantrum like that I normally fire them right away. In the case there were extenuating circumstances; 1.) he had put me up and let me use his car two years previous when I was in TX renewing my driver's license; 2.) his brother had just gotten out of the hospital having nearly died the week before; and 3.) I had recently cracked under pressure, going off on people, saying things I shouldn't have, so who was I to pass judgement on somebody else for doing the same? I band-aided the situation under the assumption that it would dissipate in a day or two but it continued to linger as I left for Texas after the weekend, hanging over my head during the drive down.<br><br>Despite it all the trip to Alliance, OH was fun. Many years ago I had lived briefly in that small town where my dad is from. It was good to see the town revitalizing itself in the face of current economic challenges and I met some good people including Danny "Two Harleys". Eating at my favorite joints was another plus; there's nothing like a cheese omelet at Ferraro's. On the last day there I used my laptop to shoot a video of my dad and I playing a guitar duet. The video stops early on but the audio continues. The clip was later posted to Facebook.<br><br>Leaving Alliance for Houston I stopped in Columbus that Wednesday to see my youngest niece and met her fiancee. Having him marry into the family will raise the collective IQ several notches. I drove through most of the night to Indianapolis and visited my late grandfather's house in Greenwood. It's now old and wore out, the huge corn field across the street a strip mall in front of townhomes. Although it's been 13 years since he passed away this was the first time I really felt like he was gone. I could feel my dad moving into the family position my grandfather once held just as I was moving into my dad's position. The passage of time. <br><br>Onwards through Indiana, a beautiful state to drive through, over the Ohio river and through Louisville and finally into Tennessee where at last I got a motel (i.e. a shower) and had breakfast at Loretta Lynn's restaurant. Those Southern breakfasts sure do taste good but don't help the girlish figure. By Friday, the 12th, I was in Texas and made it down to College Station where I met up with Glenn Davis. Glenn is a Texas native who spent 40 years in Japan where he was a chairman of the Foreign Correspondent's Club of Japan booking the entertainment. A true patron of the arts, he's a personal favorite of all the musicians who played FCCJ and most of us would hang out there if we didn't have a gig that night. Often when one of us was in the audience he would get us up with the band that was playing that night, making for some interesting jam sessions. In College Station, where he now teaches at two universities, he introduced me to a friend who's working on a book about the many Blues players from the Brazos River Valley area; Lightnin' Hopkins, Mance Lipscomb and Albert Collins to name just a few. We spent the day in Navasota, Mance's hometown, checking out the local Blues museum. The collection there was unreal to say the least.<br><br>That evening I arrived in Houston. Driving through my old neighborhood where I went to high school was a shock- what had once been a nice area on the outskirts of town was now a crowded slum. Businesses had had barbed wire on the fences, a cop was at each bus stop and my old apartment complex now had a chained gate at each entrance. Sad to see. I stayed with my aunt whom I hadn't seen in 17 years. My cousins were little kids at the time, now they're grown adults with kids of their own. Talk about a time warp! Family business on Saturday and on Sunday it was over to Kenny Palyola's house where the shit hit the fan.<br><br>The entire incident was documented in the Blog/Note "Southwest Tour Canceled" so it doesn't need to be repeated here but a few other details have been recalled in retelling the story. When I showed up to rehearse he hadn't learned any of my songs despite having a month or two to do so. And people who have been to my gigs, as well as the musicians who have played them, know that I always open with the same three songs and close with the same two. After establishing the set lists before boarding the plane this dipshit had the nerve to rewrite them starting with five of his own each set. It's no surprise that everything went downhill in less than an hour.<br><br>The racist hate mail continued up until a few days before I flew back to Japan and will probably resume upon publication of this Blog. And the three that I reprinted were less than half, there were several others claiming that I had canceled the tour (after flying halfway around the world?!?) and threatening to come after me on gigs. I later learned that this was standard behavior for him; one venue pointed out that several people they know had the same experience, just ignore it and go on, and that they probably won't hear from him again for at least another 6 months or year. Despite his many threats the only person he's ever actually taken a swing at was Nick Curran outside a club in Austin, who was already on the ground at the time. Real tough guy! So glad to remove this piece of shit from my life. His last e-mail was to my wife -I wouldn't reply to him- saying he hoped my plane crashed and making Chinese jokes at her (she's Japanese).<br><br>Although glad to be rid of this douchebag it was still a bummer to not be playing the dates. A trip up to Austin hanging out with J.J. Barrera (Tailgators) revived my spirits and restored my faith in humanity. While in Ohio I acquired a CD of my dad's group from the late 50's/early 60's. (Note: my dad played with a black R&B group in high school when most white kids across America thought Pat Boone wrote TUTT FRUTTI). The disc was taken from a severely scratched 45 so I dropped off the files with Glenn Rios (Alamo Suite) to be cleaned up. If anybody can do it, it's Glenn. It was also a nice visit with an excellent musician and engineer who has a knack for calming me down when I'm stressed. Glenn also plays drums and percussion on the Charles Brown song my dad and I cut this past Christmas.<br><br>On the road to Vegas to pick up my stuff. The next day I was on the other side of D/FW cruising 287 through Wichita Falls to Amarillo. Passing through all those little towns was just plain cool. From Amarillo it was onto I-45 to Flagstaff. The drive through New Mexico was beautiful at night, I don't remember the last time I saw so many stars in the sky. On through Arizona, headed up through Hoover Dam which is undergoing construction of a new bridge and on into Vegas where the transmission went out. It was Friday, the 17th. Seems I always arrived on a Friday. Took the van to the Chevy dealer the next day and called my buddy Len Fassler, The Rev, to come get me. He put me up while I was waiting on the van and thus began the "Big Lebowski" chapter of the journey.<br><br>Imagine John Goodman in THE BIG LEBOWSKI running sound for a Slayer concert and you'll have a pretty good image of The Rev. Every other word is "dude" with a delivery that would make a movie director sit up and take notice. Len's trade is live sound and he's toured with the Stones, Allmans, Skynyrd and gawd knows who else. He's a world traveller who during my stay in Vegas articulated just what turns us ex-pats off to most American girls, "They think they have a right to entitlement." The city had built up quite a bit and the Strip more congested than ever including several large new casinos, some by Steve Wynn. He also explained how and why the suburban subdivisions had<br>scattered to the farthest reaches of town despite the faltering economy; when the housing market crashed they found they could make more money by going ahead with the construction and selling for less than by cashing out on the loans. <br><br>After picking me up we headed down to a supposedly hip club where the wannabe scenesters left a bad taste in our mouths. Everybody decked out in their Vegas hipstery trying to impress each other. We bailed and headed over to a locals' casino which was much cooler. Real people. The Rev is one of those guys who can hang with anybody and everybody and wherever we went he ran into somebody he knew or struck up a new friendship. My ideal touring situation includes The Rev running sound; he's the kind of guy that makes a touring entourage more fun and less of a grind. It's hard to stay in a bad mood with him around. While in Vegas we saw AVATAR at The Cannery and I was blown away. Like REVENGE OF THE SITH the groundbreaking effects supported the story rather than distracting from it. And what a story it was! The way the corporate/military machine was depicted struck a chord with me. Their inhuman greed and arrogance has ruined the U.S. too much already and needs to be called out. David and Goliath, baby!<br><br>By Wednesday the U-haul was loaded, truck sold and I was on the road again. I gassed up in Kingman and stalled out nearly empty near Seligman 70 miles away. Hitchhiked into town, got a tow truck and looked for a gas leak. None found but it still ate into my cash pretty good. On the road again now that the van started and then she stalled out again. Hitchhiked into the next town, got another tow truck and found a really cool old mechanic that knew engines like B.B. King knows Blues. Turned out to be the distributor rotor, cap and module causing a misfire and eating up a ridiculous amount of gas. Back on the road yet again but now running low on cash (although getting much better gas mileage). By Tucumcari, NM my credit cards were only working part of the time (my round ass? LOL) and cash was almost gone. I barely made it to Amarillo where I slept in the van that night and picked up a wire transfer in the morning. Having missed dinner the night before I pigged out on a BBQ lunch in some tiny town on 287. Usually I skip dessert but the homemade ice cream sounded to good to pass up! By Tuesday the 30th I had made it back to Houston and got settled. Couldn't believe all the junk I found going through my stuff, bills and receipts from as far back as '96! Several boxes ended up in the trash. <br><br>However, the strain of canceled gigs, backstabbing hustlers and automotive breakdowns was wearing me thin. I play music to make money and/or have fun, preferably both, and there had been almost none of either for quite a while. For a long time it had been an uphill struggle in the face of indifference making me wonder if I was doing it all out of vanity. I hadn't exactly set the world on fire; did it really matter if I put out another album this year? At that point I decided to give up playing music and focus on writing. My writing seemed to garner more response than my playing. I've never understood the big deal, but if folks like it maybe it'll pay off more than music has. At least I can work by myself and not have to deal with so many flakes and assholes. Worn down, tired of the headaches and I was dreaming of a more sane, stable existence.<br><br>A conversation with Jill Jones, whom I keep threatening to adopt as my big sister, turned all that around. No stranger to the trials and tribulations of trying to make music with integrity in the face of adversity (and overblown egos) she shed light on a few things that had escaped my notice and put the picture into a new perspective. By the end I was at a loss for words (we know how rare that is, mark it on the calendar). <br><br>Khalil Gibran wrote in THE PROPHET, "Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding. It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self. Therefore, trust the physician and drink his remedy in silence and tranquility." My favorite 'ghost writer' Seth (Jane Roberts) wrote, "You create your own reality," and went into detail (decades ahead of quantum physics) how and why we create the circumstances in our life. It became clear that many goals had been based on outdated ideas of how it should be, rather than on simply "following your bliss" (Joseph Campbell). Throughout the entire trip I kept thinking I had made a huge mistake, given all that went wrong. At the same time I knew that I had to do it now. The paradox had resolved.<br><br>That Friday, April 2nd, I headed to Austin to conduct interviews with some of my favorite musicians. At first it was going to be a series of articles that I hoped to have published in a couple magazines but after interviewing bassist Ronnie James, now playing with Jimmie Vaughan, and reflecting on Jill's words the idea evolved into a book tentatively titled TRASH, TWANG & THUNDER - AUSTIN'S ROOTS ROCK REVIVAL. Much has been written about Austin music but not even the handful of Stevie Ray Vaughan biographies has explored the Roots Rock scene of which he was but one part (the one that made Rock Star status). Except for Dan Forte's writings at the time and Craig Higgins' Keith Ferguson biography (now on hold) no one has given much attention to groups like The Tailgators or The Leroi Brothers, or musicians like Don Leady or Mike Buck. Time to fix that! Interviewing Ronnie James was the spark that lit the fuse; he's my age and grew up on the same diet of Austin Roots Rock albums just as I did. And for those not in the know the title is taken from the 1985 Grammy-nominated all-instrumental album Big Guitars From Texas TRASH, TWANG & THUNDER which featured four of Austin's hottest pickers (Don Leady, Denny Freeman, Evan Johns and Frankie Camaro) backed by the legendary rhythm section of Mike Buck and Keith Ferguson. Buck and Ferguson are also the rhythm section on the first, and in my opinion best, Fabulous Thunderbirds album GIRLS GO WILD and the Leroi Brothers debut CHECK THIS ACTION, arguably one of the most rockin' records ever made.<br><br>Technical complications prevented me from doing the other interviews (they'll be conducted later by phone) but I still managed to visit a few friends, though not all, and got an idea for a second book. On the way back to Houston I stopped in to see my buddy Todd Moore, whom I played with when I lived in Austin. Rehearsals for his new group Baby Anacondas had just finished and singer MaryAnn Price was hanging out. I had brought my mom along, who grew up in Houston yet had never been to Austin before, but due to knee surgery had trouble getting in and out of the van so Todd and MaryAnn came out to the van to say 'hi' and hang out with her. Once again it was nice to hang out with real people. A gentleman and a lady in the truest sense of the words.<br><br>Back in Houston on Saturday and seeing family I hadn't seen in roughly 20 years. Didn't get a chance to hang out with Wayne Bertone, whose ANOTHER YOU I flew in guitars for, but there's always next time. And now that there's an empty bass slot for the Houston chapter of J.J. Vicars & the Desiatos... More family fun on Sunday and then Monday it was time to board the return flight. I had hoped to interview Larry Slezak, one of the baddest cats to ever blow sax, on Sunday but schedule conflicts nixed that. His son Joe Slezak is my age, we started playing about the same time, and appears on Larry's Grammy-nomintated album NO WORRIES (2009). Joe is like part of the family and I was looking forward to jamming with both of them as well as doing the interviews. I hit him up for a ride to the airport and I'm glad I did 'cause that was the only time we got to hang out. One more jam session for next time. I've got a couple songs picked out on an upcoming all-instrumental album for them to play on. That's one of the reasons I make albums, to have a record of my buddies and I playing together.<br><br>As I boarded the plane it seemed the trip was over but a little voice kept telling me "not yet". It's not over until I'm back at the house and even that's questionable. I boarded the correct flight at the correct gate for San Francisco and flew to Sat Lake City. No mention of a connecting to flight to SF until the plane was about to land. Wonderful! Had hoped to meet up with Tara Tinsley in SF to work on some music (planning on using female vocals on some upcoming recordings) but again schedule conflicts got in the way. Spent the night at the airport with three books then boarded the flight to Tokyo. Flying international is so much nicer that flying domestic, you actually get real service! Landed in Narita and went to the ATM to take some cash out for the Limousine Bus back to the house. No dice, neither ATM nor credit cards are working and after spending several hours back and forth across the airport (and listening to all the tooth-sucking) Bryan Harmon, manager of the Barge Inn, came to the rescue. Like Glenn Davis, Bryan is one of those venue managers whom musicians are fiercely loyal to. He takes care of his staff, including the band. A couple beers and some food, a room for the night, and I'm on the Limo Bus the next day. Once again my setbacks are a blessing in disguise; I'm reminded just how fortunate I am to have the friends and family (and a few people who blur the line between the two) that I do.<br><br>For much of the time I had thought the trip was a mistake. Simultaneously, I knew I had to do it. Everything that happened, especially the worst of it, was going to happen sooner or later. The storm tore everything apart and gave a fresh start. While I was in Vegas my dad had said there was no point fretting over what I thought I should have done, that I would accomplish everything I set out to do except playing the dates and could do that next time and with better and sane guys. Business was taken care of, old friendships and family ties were renewed and after a long period of anxiety that had gotten the best of me, particularly around the holiday season, I was shown how many good people I have around me. On top of that I began a book, got an idea for a second one and ate lots of Mexican and BBQ. Not a bad month. Now to pay off the bill.</p>
J.J. Vicarstag:jjvicars.com,2005:Post/60642932010-03-18T11:49:49-12:002013-12-29T05:31:28-12:00Southwest Tour Canceled
<p>The Southwest Spring Tour has been canceled. What started out with high hopes was seriously damaged by unnecessary aggravation, but that would turn out to be the least of it. There was more to it than I could know at the time. After flying half-way around the world and driving half-way across the country it all came to a head. My plans to offset the cost of moving my stuff back to Texas and establishing my name locally were seriously undermined. An oportunist was hustling me.<br> <br> The bassist on the tour had offered to help with the bookings after seeing the CA date I had. He recommended a drummer who later backed out after I bought my plane ticket. We started looking for another drummer the day I was leaving for the airport, Friday March 5th. When I posted on Facebook, expecting all my musician friends to see it and respond, he went off. 24 hours in transit from Tokyo to Detroit by plane and on to Cleveland by bus, then less than another 24 hours before I could get online and check my messages. One lady we knew, that he didn't like, was recommending someone and he e-mailed me to say "as of right now Im am seriously considering stepping back from this Bozo show!" I called him and he hung up on me after screaming about how he was going to blow his top. Normally I dump the person right then and there but knowing there were other factors in his personal life and how I had recently lost my cool under the 'pressure cooker' and went off on some folks I tried to keep it under wraps. Besides, this was the guy that put me up and let me use his car for a week when I was last in town to renew my driver's license. Still it hung over my head as I drove from Ohio to Texas.<br> <br> A week after I arrived in the States I drove into Houston, Friday the 12th. He invited me to play on a session Saturday morning and things seemed OK but when I went to his house on Sunday afternoon something didn't feel right. Though he rolled out the red carpet the usual camaraderie was missing and the air felt heavy with tension. <br> <br> The gigs he had booked either paid very little or were for the door. That was OK since I wasn't depending on it for income, just to offset the cost of gas. The deal was to take care of the drummer first. Common sense interprets that as paying him first if the take at the door is small. No details indicating otherwise were ever discussed. While rehearsing at his house the day before we hit the road he now tells me I have to pay the drummer a garaunteed minimum because he got a sub for his other gigs. A little late to breaking this news. I grab pen and paper and go over the numbers; flat fees are a 3-way split; take at the door is a 3-way split unless it's really small, in which case the rhythm section gets all of it; all overhead comes out of my pocket. I consider that a fair deal but he didn't like it. The worst was coming up fast.<br> <br> He had offered to let me store my stuff including my van at his girlfriend's property which I declined. I prefer to leave my stuff in a storage unit or with relatives. He also offered to let me store my van there but again I declined. He said take a look at the place when I got there and that was the end of it. I never agreed to it and had no intention to. He assumed that I did agree to it and as soon as the subject came up he disappeared to talk to her. After that it was really tense. The subject came up again and when I didn't give in he stewed and pulled the plug on everything. He claims that I agreed to keep all my stuff there and help them on their rent as well as keep my van there and let him use it. That's when I knew I was being hustled- keep my stuff on someone's private property, he does whatever he wants with the van and my stuff is held as ransom if there's a dispute. And who knows what else.<br> <br> I wanted out right then and there but wasn't sure how to discreetly leave, especially since they have a chained gate in front of the property. Before he totally blew his cool he said "I think you should pack your stuff and go". It was<br> hard to look mad! I was got the escape route I wanted. Later that night he messaged me saying, "I can't hate you but you screwed over me and the drummer. I hope you know what you did." Yeah, right. Then ReverbNation sent an automatic update about the upcoming gig and he assumed I was doing all the gigs he booked without him. Where he thinks I was going to get a rhythm section and PA on 1-2 days notice is anybody's guess. Maybe he thinks I'm very resourceful. Since then I've received several race/hate e-mails reprinted below (still have the originals in my Inbox should I need them). First it was don't play the same venues, then I'll never work in Houston (which is funny because he's already burned bridges with the top local guys) and finally if I do any of the other dates he's got friends coming to visit me, all reprinted below. <br> <br> Glad I found all this out before we hit the road. <br> <br> J.J.V., c/s<br> <br> ###<br> <br> Subject: hey you prick<br> From: "kenny palyola" <wideglidekenny@live.com><br> Date: Mon, March 15, 2010 3:53 pm<br> To: jj@jjvicars.com<br> <br> <br> I suggest you keep your Dan Electros booking<br> but anything else I book I may go do<br> and if your there you can bet your gonna be a bloody fucking mess<br> instead of PLAYING.<br> Juan and I are taking another guitar player and honoring<br> the Midland gigs- my club, my friends and thats that. NOW FUCK OFF~<br> I dare ya to show up in Midland asshole.<br> <br> Midland, Tucson and the 2nd chance gig are mine fuckwad so go play LA and<br> Vegas if you want. Your notes are here for me to show folks<br> what a jew prick you really are- your fate is sealed in Houston<br> as a jew prick taletless desrespectful asshole<br> <br> ____________________<br> Subject: good luck JEW JERK VICARS<br> From: "kenny palyola" <wideglidekenny@live.com><br> Date: Tue, March 16, 2010 12:02 am<br> To: jj@jjvicars.com<br> <br> Im good at promotion-<br> and damn good at "anti" promotion...<br> <br> Im gonna spend a few hours undoing what good<br> I did FOR FREE, you ungrateful prick ya- and taking it further<br> and doing the opposite of promoting your ass....<br> <br> <br> My apologies but the guy "JJ" gets into town<br> and changed all the terms for having myself<br> and top notch Houston blues drummer Juan Abair on board. These things happen...<br> I have my own band- Ill book in your area at a future time!</p>
J.J. Vicarstag:jjvicars.com,2005:Post/60642922010-01-25T19:19:39-12:002013-12-29T05:31:28-12:00Same Old Cliches
<p>British magazine Blues Matters informed me that they've passed on my Jill Jones article but intend to run the Lynyrd Skynyrd article I wrote for them. This greatly disappoints me for many reasons.
It seems that anybody who is not a black American regards Prince and his former associates as "80's Pop" rather than R&B. I've been listening to Prince since Jill stood behind the keyboard with Lisa Coleman in the "1999" video and have never understood this mentality. How could somebody who mixed James Brown, Sly & the Family Stone, Miles Davis and Funkadelic not be regarded as R&B? Maybe I'm not supposed to understand.
Skynyrd is dead. They died in that plane crash. Southern Rock is now a Right-wing parody of itself. The Allen Collins influence remains in my playing but anymore I'm embarrassed to admit being into that group, despite Ronnie Van Zant's lyrical genius. Lots of macho posturing with Confederate flags. I always thought Skynyrd did themselves a disservice running the "stars & bars"; their music was overshadowed by their redneck image. It took me nearly two years to finish the article, largely because they've been done to death and I wanted to avoid the usual cliches of booze, dope, guns and the plane crash. Mainly I just lost interest. I was in touch with former Honkette JoJo Billingsley and planned to interview her but she recently had cancer surgery. Fortunately she's recovering, from what I've heard, so maybe it will happen in the near future. She's an uncredited co-writer on THAT SMELL and I intend to delve into that topic if the interview happens.
Jill gave me a very candid interview that turned into the definitive article on her life and work to date. Engineer David Rivkin gave me an excellent quote that really helped set the tone and Ian Ginsberg of The Grand Royals also gave me great quote. Lisa Coleman chimed in for a short-but-sweet quote that echoes my own sentiments and Jeremy Gloff, one her most ardent supporters for many years, contributed a nice piece in addition to his own essay he wrote on her a couple years ago.
It's their magazine and they can do what they want but I don't understand the logic behind the decision. The feature all sorts of acts that are very much not Blues but tell me her story isn't relevant to their readers. Since teenage guitar-shredders are becoming increasingly prominent in their pages a debut album of funky R&B with Claire Fischer on strings and Miles Davis as a fan apparently doesn't fit. The story of how major-label politics killed her album should be heeded by every musician, especially young up-and-comers, but apparent that's irrelevant as well. Despite the distinctly non-Blues acts they often feature TWO and WASTED aren't deemed in league with the alt-Rock acts they're so fond of.
Fortunately Jill and her manager Bill Coleman liked the article enough to use it on her MySpace, Facebook Fan page and Peace Bisquit site. Read it here: http://www.peacebisquit.com/artists/jill-jones/
And read Jeremy Gloff's essay on her here: http://www.jeremygloff.com/jilljonesessay.html
Jill has a great voice for Jazz and I've been encouraging her to do a Blues/Jazz/Roots album for as long as I've known her. I'm more resolved than ever to make that happen now.</p>
J.J. Vicarstag:jjvicars.com,2005:Post/60642912010-01-09T19:35:03-12:002021-03-21T12:15:50-12:00Ignoring Everybody
<p>Over the holiday season Derek Sivers sent out an e-mail soliciting volunteers for his latest project. Various musicians would read one of his two favorite authors, Hugh MacLeod and Seth Godin, and write about how their ideas applied to being an independent musician in this day and age. He would send a copy of their latest book and you had 3 weeks to read it and write a Blog. Out of 400 volunteers 17 were chosen. To be one of the 17 who made the cut is a great honor; Derek has done more to change the face of the music industry for the better than any other single living human being. I chose High Macleod's IGNORE EVERYBODY (And 39 Other Keys to Creativity). The book arrived and I began reading immediately. After two or three drafts of varying length and complexity here it is. These notes are meant to be musician-specific footnotes accompanying the book, from the perspective of a Blues/Roots guitarist, and are best read that way. I hope that older musicians will come to understand the potential of the Internet and younger musicians the importance of sacrifice and hard work. The tools have changed but the basics are still the same. --J.J.V. / January 10th, 2010
1.) Ignore everybody. Good ideas alter the power balance in relationships.
The real bandleader is the one with the songs and/or the one who gets the gigs. If you're one of them, keep on truckin'. Anybody that doesn't like it can leave the fold. If you're not one of them then don't try to act more important than you really are, it'll backfire eventually. If you're not that person but want to be make yourself assistant to the one who is, the education is invaluable.
2.) The idea doesn't have to be big, it just has to be yours.
Lightnin' Hopkins, John Lee Hooker, Jimmy Reed and many other Blues greats played the simplest, most basic music there is. Legions of guitarists have tried to emulate them to no avail. It was their idiosyncrasies, the way they put themselves into it. All we can really emulate is their approach and when we do it opens the door for our own voice. The most important weapon in a soloist's arsenal is phrasing. It's a large part of your identity. We're all playing the same 12 notes anyhow.
3.) Put the hours in.
Whether it's instrumental ability or career success there's no shortcuts. Woodshed and steal from everybody all the time. Rehearse the band two at a time in every possible pairing (varies according to instrumentation) then rehearse the full band again. This is also true for groups that do a lot of improvisation. Improvisation comes from listening and responding to each other. Without that it's just wanking. The band will curse your name until you hit the stage and blow the audience away, then they'll sing your praises. Read biographies on Louis Jordan, James Brown, Ray Charles, Ronnie Van Zant and Prince. All of them rehearsed their bands like a Marine drill sergeant, some with hefty fines for mistakes, and all of them changed the course of music history. It works.
4.) Good ideas have lonely childhoods.
If it's fresh and innovative that means people aren't familiar with it yet and the blind masses like what is familiar. Expect mass approval to come last. When adding a new song to the set list sandwich it in between two familiar crowd favorites. Give people time to become familiar with something before deciding whether or not it works.
5.) If you're business plan depends on suddenly being "discovered" by some big shot it'll probably fail.
"Overnight success" was invented to sell magazines, i.e. sensationalism. It's built on "...and they lived happily ever after." The first rule of showbiz is "You're only as good as your last performance." Your last performance is the last one any particular person saw. You could have 100's of "last performances" besides last night's gig. If each one was a show-stopper your reputation alone will open doors for you. Being "discovered" is not making your own destiny. Put your fate in your own hands. Nothing is guaranteed is life, especially not when dealing with a fickle public. Take nothing for granted, your reputation is the only real "job security" you have.
6.) You are responsible for your own experience.
Whatever you want to happen make it happen. A couple musicians you'd like to hear together? Invite them both to play on your demo. A club that would be great to play but doesn't have entertainment? Have a dress rehearsal there. Most of all, get over the false idea that you will have one major event in your life. Life is a series of ongoing events. Stay in the driver's seat and keep steering. No matter how long you live you'll never see/hear/do it all. There's always a new horizon. Don't wait for the phone to ring, hustle something up.
7.) Everyone is born creative; everyone is given a set of crayons in kindergarten.
See what comes out. Try it, no matter how daft an idea it is. Run three distortion pedals together all set differently. Put the Digital Delay in front of the tremolo and reverb. Call that dream lineup for a recording session. Maybe it'll work and maybe it won't and you don't know 'til you've done it. Work around your limitations. You may never be a Country picker like Jimmy Bryant or a Jazz guitarist like Kenny Burrell but adding what you can pick up from them to your vocabulary will season the gumbo that is you. The same is true for people who like working in music but aren't cut out to be musicians. They're good at a lot of things musicians aren't cut out for. They're always the best promoters to work with.
8.) Keep your day job.
A person has to make a living no matter what they aspire to. Having steady income is a must in this world. Whatever you can do to turn a buck, do it. Add as many music-based sources as you can. When they make up at least half the list you're a working musician.
9.) Companies that squelch creativity can no longer compete with companies that champion creativity.
The old world just blew up one Thursday and nothing has been the same since. Mega-corporations have the bucks to somewhat cushion themselves but they're not immune to it. The mainstream has degenerated to a new low. They have one business model, the Blockbuster. Put all your eggs in one basket. The only way it works is to appeal to the lowest-common denominator and a good chunk of people aren't interested in that. Major labels blame slow sales on downloads and file sharing but we were taping each other's records 20+ years ago when sales were booming. Independent artists are using the Internet to cultivate their own audiences and doing well for themselves. Welcome to the new world. No matter how big or small a player you are a large part of your success depends on being able to navigate in this new world.
10.) Everybody has their own personal Mount Everest they were put on this Earth to climb.
Don't compare yourself to anyone else, it's a waste of time. Your set of challenges are the ones you need. Your triumph over them is your story. The ones on your instrument define your voice. Shying away from them is denying yourself. There's a small one every night on the bandstand. Play to that audience, find what connects with them. Never mind what your heroes did, that was a different time. They responded to their audience. Now it's your turn.
11.) The more talented somebody is the less they need the props.
I knew a guitarist who went through a dozen Gibson guitars and half-a-dozen Fender and Marshall amps and couldn't find his sound. The real problem was he didn't have an identity on his instrument. I've heard great guitarists play the coolest stuff on the most gawd-awful excuse for a guitar. In many interviews with Stevie Ray Vaughan he plays an example on his #1 Strat unplugged and his signature tone is right there. Guitarists spend thousands of dollars on "vintage gear" and the old Blues guys played whatever worked. In the guitarist's Holy Grail quest for tone it should always be remembered that tone is in the fingers. Beware of musicians whoa are hung up on "big gear", they're usually trying to compensate for something.
12.) Don't try to stand out from the crowd; avoid crowds altogether.
Around Blues/Roots musicians you're just another Blues musician. Around other types of musicians you're THE Blues/Roots cat, an authority on the subject. Around non-musicians you're the expert on anything musical, they ask you first. Go off in your own direction and you'll be the top in your field.
13.) If you accept the pain it can't hurt you.
Being a musician means living a life very different from most. It's not for everybody. You'll miss out on a lot of things that everyday people do. How important are those things to you? If you can't live by those terms you'll likely miss out on a lot of things musicians get to do. How important are those things to you? Whichever way you go you're gonna miss out on something. Make your decision and get on with it.
14.) Never compare your inside with someone else's outside.
Each individual has their own path to walk down. It sometimes seems like another person got a better deal but appearances can be deceiving. Find your voice, hone your craft, find your niche. That's what you're here to do.
15.) Dying young is overrated..
It's also passe. You need a new gimmick. Nobody cares how traumatized you were. The inebriated greats weren't great because they were inebriated. They were born great and dedicated their lives to honing their craft. They were inebriated for other reasons; it's fun, grueling schedules necessitated some "pick me up" and/or "wind me down", or they found the world to be just a little too much and needed something to take the edge off. Party your ass off, it's fun. "Clean living" is for boring, uptight squares. Then get back to honing your craft.
16.) The most important thing a creative person can learn professionally is where to draw the red line that separates what you're willing to do from what you're not.
When you're getting paid for it it's a job, so don't cry about your "art". If you have to sleep in your own bed don't plan on going on the road. If you expect things to be done your way expect to bear the burden of being the boss, where everything falls on your shoulders one way or another. Whatever you consider out of the question isolates the areas for you to cultivate.
17.) The world is changing.
It's amazing how many older musicians resist the Internet. They don't want to know. They say they're "not into the computer thing" or don't want to spend the time bothering with it. They're out of touch with the times. This technology is here to stay. It will evolve, it will be expanded upon, but it's staying. It's also amazing how ineffectively some musicians use it; MySpace profiles set to private, "check out my band and tell me what you think" cliches... I think you need a new line! The funniest one was a gig listing with "call me for directions". Information for all gigs (date, time, location, price, maps, directions, links) should be available 24/7. The easiest way is to include the venue's web address, they should be doing the same. Live video speaks for itself. Free downloads of low-fi live recordings along with albums for sale at CDBaby. A mailing list used once a month for regulars and once a week for reminders. You can use a lot of the same text, people just need reminders anyhow. This is the easiest, most effective way of keeping your name out there and letting the world know who you are and what you do. Take advantage of it.
18.) Merit can be bought. Passion can't.
Some musicians have to play or their life has nor meaning or purpose. You can't touch them, they're coming from a whole different place. All the greats fit that description. If you do you'll know it. Be yourself and do what you do, you'll find your niche.
19.) Avoid the watercooler gang.
The biggest disadvantage to having a day job is the people at your dead-end job who are obsessed with it. Restaurants are the worst. Don't go out with them after work. If they want to see you outside of work they can catch a gig. Never meet those people on their turf, always make them meet you on yours. They live in a different world.And when dealing with local musicians avoid any and all cliques. Cultivate your own circle of musicians, club owners, promoters, DJs, etc... Share the wealth with people you trust who are on the same page with you.
20.) Sing in your own voice.
Chester Burnette tried to yodel like Jimmie Rodgers and became Howlin' Wolf. Hillbillies in the 50's started playing R&B songs and Rockabilly was part of the birth of Rock 'n' Roll. Country musicians in the 30's didn't sound like the popular big bands of the day when they played Jazz on their fiddles and steel guitars, they sounded like Western Swing. Link Wray described himself as "a slow learner" and wrote the soundtrack to juvenile delinquency in one D-E chord change. Johnny Ramone could play nothing more than fast downstrokes and no other aspiring Punk Rocker has ever been able to play then as fast and hard, often cheating with up-and-down strokes. Django Reinhardt lost two fingers in a fire and went on to influence every Jazz (and quite a few Blues) guitarist since. Somewhere between the things you aspire to and the limitations you have to work with is you. You only recognize it hindsight so don't bother, just keep on honing your craft. What seems rote to you is often your signature to the audience.
21.) The choice of media is irrelevant.
A gig is a gig. Play the gig and leave it at that. Play that room to that crowd that night. I got a call once to do a solo gig at an art gallery in a trendy, upscale neighborhood for an Amnesty International exhibition on violence against women in the 3rd World. Not exactly the kind of venue you normally hear Lightnin' Hopkins kind of stuff but I went in and did the best I could to entertain the people that were there because that's my job. When it was over and time to collect my money there was a cherry on top. Use your skills to entertain the people in the room. Let everybody else analyze it.
22.) Selling out is harder than it looks.
The Hair Metal guys were Rock Gods who got all the chicks. I didn't think too much of them and they didn't think too much of me until suddenly it was hip for a Rock guitarist to have some Blues credentials. Then they were all my friend. A few years later they were a bad joke, an embarrassment as the next trend came along then became a cliche. Throughout that 10 years I was still doing my usual Lightnin' Hopkins, Chuck Berry and Freddie King stuff. Another decade or so passes and I'm still doing the same thing, just a little bit better 'cause I've got a few miles under my belt now now. I don't know what will come next so I stick with what I'm good at and work that niche. Instead of trying to stay ahead of the curve, go for the core. I don't know how to do anything else anyhow but now I have all these cool tools to make videos, put out albums, book gigs all over the world and aim directly for people who are hard core into this kind of music. I can live with that.
23.) Nobody cares. Do it yourself.
Jill Jones is an excellent singer who has worked with an impressive list of people but most journalists can't seem to get past Prince gossip. There was no background info on any of her albums, how they came about and so on. An interesting body of work not limited to any specific genre. Nobody was asking the questions I was wondering so I set up an interview and asked her myself. Told her and her manager they could use whatever they wanted of mine. Typed up the long version, sent it off and hoped I didn't embarrass myself. Hope this doesn't suck, I'm not a journalist. They used the entire thing for her Biography online. Guess it was OK. Now the whole world knows Miles Davis loved her debut and how corporate politics killed one of the best albums of that scene. Now we know where TWO came from and WASTED and what's cooking today. It's a feather in both our caps. I was irritated that no one was asking certain questions so I asked them myself. That's usually where you're best ideas come from, not what you think would be cool but what you think should be done that no one is doing. Jump on those no matter how crazy they seem, that's where the gold is eventually discovered.
P.S. -The article came out in spring of '09. That summer Jill Jones had her first solo Billboard hit with LIVING FOR THE WEEKEND. Pretty cool for somebody who sang on quite a few hit songs. Congratulations, Jill.
24.) Worrying about "commercial" vs. "artistic" is a complete waste of time.
It's also navel-gazing bullshit. Young Jazz players are shocked to learn Coltrane started playing R&B and walking the bar. They shouldn't. All the greats who defined the vocabulary of their instrument started out "in the trenches". That's where you learn how to work an audience. Real art connects with people on a primal level. If you can't do it on a simple entertainment level you can't do it on a deeper level. If your work has any artistic value it will show through on its own. And if it doesn't, you can't wring blood from a stone anyhow.
25.) Don't worry about finding inspiration. It comes eventually.
There's a misnomer that everything has to be a huge emotional outburst. No it doesn't. The cats that played like that did so naturally, they didn't force it. Work on your phrasing and vibrato. The same misnomer hovers around songwriting. Musical catharsis is a cliche, work on melody.
26.) Find your own schtick.
Recreating what somebody else did 50 years ago doesn't keep a tradition alive. The people that did groundbreaking work did something fresh and new that excited people. It's good to study them and add some of their ideas to your vocabulary but leave it at that. This is a new era and we have our own frontiers to explore, our own challenges to face, just as they did theirs. Continue to hone your craft and your signature will develop.
27.) Write from the heart.
If you don't say what you mean then you don't mean what you say. Not everybody is going to like it and agree with it. Get over the backlash from the idiots. If you mean it, stand your ground. Play "from the heart". There's always somebody who can do something better than you, but not many who can do it the same way as you. When you have your signature you're not in competition with anyone but yourself. It's your musical point of view.
28.) The best way to get approval is not to need it.
Winning over an audience with bar band hits is easy but then you're just another bar band. If that's not a regular part of your act, avoid it at all costs. When the crowd is indifferent don't let it throw you off, just play for yourself. Tear into it and burn. They'll notice.
29.) Power is never given. Power is taken.
Walk in like you own the place. It's showbiz so give 'em a show walking in the door. Exude cool confidence and back it up with a 120% performance. Make every other group scared to follow you, or at least have to work a lot harder after you. It's called "the trenches" 'cause it's war.
30.) Whatever choice you make, the Devil gets his due eventually.
Everything has its advantages and disadvantages. Every path has some pot holes and bumps. Whatever course you decide will have its trials. The adventure evokes your character. Throw yourself into it and don't look back.
31.) The hardest part of being creative is getting used to it.
Some people have something inside of them that needs to come out or they literally go crazy. Life will lose all meaning and purpose if they don't. To whatever degree a person has this trait all they can do is accept it and live with it. It never goes away, it's part of who you are. Be thankful for it, if you didn't have it you wouldn't be cut out for this.
32.) Remain frugal.
What does the gig pay? What's your overhead? If the math doesn't add up the gig isn't there. Can you afford a hotel or do you have to drive back? Is everybody making decent bread? Good players are always in demand so be sure you have something to offer them. If you're a solo artist or bandleader you should be taking a leader's fee. That covers your time, promo materials and phone bill. If anybody in the band doesn't like it offer to let them shoulder some of the work. If they still complain get rid of them. Being a working musician is running a small business and you're the sole proprietor.
33.) Allow your work to age with you.
There's nothing like youth, full of piss and vinegar with no fear whatsoever. There's also nothing like having some experience under your belt and the confidence that comes with it. As you move through the different phases of life your playing should reflect that. Some songs and some riffs & licks will stay with you down through the years but you shouldn't be playing the same as you did 20 years ago, you should be constantly reaching for the next horizon.
34.) Being poor sucks.
It seems to be trendy to talk about "suffering for your art". Hone your craft, you'll go through all the suffering crap you need anyhow. Focus your skills on making a living. Learn how to negotiate a better deal for yourself.
35.) Beware of turning hobbies into jobs.
For some people the business of music takes all the fun out of it. For others it just goes with the territory. Knowing which one applies to you is one of the most important decisions you'll ever make.
36.) Savor obscurity while it lasts.
This only applies if your break into the mainstream. For the rest of us it has a counterpart, staying fresh by constantly reaching for new horizons. Learn those other styles you like, study harmony and arranging, learn another instrument. I was fortunate to grow up around local musicians who were constantly pushing themselves while at the same time having mainstream artists on the radio who were constantly reinventing themselves. Even today my "guitar guru" Don Leady and my guitarist dad are constantly pushing themselves to new heights when everybody else their age has retired. The mythical Fountain of Youth, like Heaven and Hell, is not a place but a state of mind.
37.) Start blogging.
This is the 21st Century, the Internet is a part of life. If you don't have a good web presence you're shooting yourself in the foot. It's the one thing you more or less have complete control over, can keep going no matter what other ups and downs you have and reaches a large number of people who are interested in what you're doing. The following are essential to a musician having a strong web presence;
*A good website. Uf you're not into web design go with Hostbaby, they have all the stuff you need; schedule, bio, streaming or download MP3s, photos, guestbook and mailing list. Send a mailer out once a month and every time something important is coming up.
*MySpace Music page. The Music Player should reflect your overall body of work including some live recordings and the Calendar should be up to date. The background layout should be a good photo of you or your logo that doesn't interfere with reading the text. You should have some video and plenty of photos. Post bulletins with the same frequency as your mailing list.
*A ReverbNation account linked to the "My Band" tab on your Facebook page and a Facebook Fan page that you actually use. It's amazing how many people set up a fan page that just sits there.
*YouTube account with at least half-a-dozen live videos that are also on your MySpace and Facebook. Nothing sells your act like some good live video. I've gotten numerous gigs from bookers whom I met on a networking site and checked out my videos while we were messaging.
*Twitter used to be completely useless, follow a bunch of people so they'll follow you but nobody is actually reading each other's posts, but now that you can link it with your MySpace, Facebook and YouTube one post on any can send an update to all. A very easy way of keeping your name in front of people's eyes and minds.
38.) Meaning scales, people don't.
No matter what you do for a living you're going to spend the majority of your life at work. Do something meaningful, something that gives your life purpose beyond a paycheck. Life is in the details so start there. We're all going to die one day. Your time on this Earth is the most precious commodity you have. Spend it well, there's no refunds.
39.) When your dreams become reality they are no longer your dreams.
Hone your craft, hustle up the gigs and take care of the day-to-day details. Along the way Life happens and your adventure evokes your character. You become the hero of your own journey (see Joseph Campbell for details). One day you wake up and realize this isn't a dream any more, you're doing it! It's rewarding to realize just how far you've come. You've paid your dues and earned your stripes. It's also a bit scary; what do you do next? Forget about it and tend to the day-to-day details of reaching he next horizon. Back to the woodshed. In Zen it's called "beginner's mind".
40.) None of this is rocket science.
Up the mountain and back down again. Coming full circle. By the time you've had you've finished with something like this it becomes apparent that it was just plain old common sense all along.</p>
J.J. Vicarstag:jjvicars.com,2005:Post/60642902009-12-31T18:38:45-12:002013-12-29T05:31:28-12:002009 In Review
<p>2009 was a rough year for a lot of folks, and I'm no exception, but as I sit here writing this on December 31st the good stands out and bad becomes "necessary self-correcting measures".
The album I was working on, LONG WAY FROM HOME, was shelved halfway through recording. It sucked and I stewed over it for quite a while, but now that it appears the album will be finished elsewhere with a different rhythm section it looks like I'll have two halves that together will make both an accurate musical diary and an overall top-notch album. The guys on the first half couldn't do what the guys on the second half will do and the guys on the second half couldn't do what the first did. Regardless of any personal differences I stand 120% behind what we recorded.
In February I interviewed vocalist Jill Jones. That article became my first nationally published piece, appearing in Florida-based magazine GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS and may appear again in UK mag BLUES MATTERS. BLUES MATTERS deserves a serious tip of the hat for publishing many of my letters to the editor and getting me back into writing. I don't know what it is that people like so much about my writing but as long as they like it I'll keep doing it. The article avoided the usual Prince gossip that journalists have bugged her with and focused on her actual work as a vocalist, covering all of her albums. Engineer David Rivkin and Grand Royals bandmate Ian Ginsberg both contributed lengthy in-depth quotes. Jill and her manager liked it so much it now appears on much of her promo material. Thanks, Jill! I've been discussing musical collaboration with her and it looks promising.
A few months later I played the only Jerry & J.J. Vicars gig to date. The more both of us get back to our Blues roots the more similarities I hear in our playing. Not surprising, some of the songs he taught me when I first picked up guitar I'm still doing; COMIN' HOME, MEMPHIS, HONKY TONK, CHICKEN SHACK. Don't be surprised if I play all those on my last gig before shuffling off the mortal coil. When we lived in Cincinnati I played bass with his group, Jerry & the Hipswingers. We shot two videos but the one on my YouTube channel from Cincy is my favorite. Once he played on my gig, a private party, nothing special. This time we did a duo gig at Ben's Cafe with Mark Schwarz on bass and Jimmy Mack on drums. Mark recorded it and MP3s are on my website for download. There's also footage from a film crew who were making a documentary about Americans living in Tokyo but I don't know what happened with that. We repeated the show last week by recording his arrangement of Charles Brown's MERRY CHRISTMAS BABY, again with Mark on bass and available on the website.
This year's CD release was LONGHAIRED LEFTOVERS, a collection of leftover songs from Jindaiji Monkey studio. These were done for fun and when an album's worth of material was accumulated it was decided to eventually release it. Since LONG WAY FROM HOME was shelved indefinitely and I needed an '09 release it got bumped up. I made my keyboard debut, Suzi V plays organ on one track and Jeremy Gloff piano on another. I covered his "1987" as a disc-only bonus track. Mark Schwarz designed the jacket adding all the background items to a photo he took that includes the Modbird in her early stages.
The best came towards the end. A new venue opened up in Akasaka named Crawfish. Excellent room, fantastic gear (Fender tube amps!) and Carl and Jake are some of the best venue owners I've met. Chiharu Kawai was present for the first show there and filmed four songs which are now on my YouTube channel; WANG DANG DOODLE, STINKY TWINKY and DOWNHOME. Back at the Barge Inn, one of my all-time my favorite venues (in Narita near the airport), manager Bryan Harmon spent quality time with me, Mark and drummer Masaki Shibata fixing up the sound and lights. Our friend Oliver Richter brought out his camera and filmed all three sets, performed in front of a very enthusiastic crowd. Four songs in three videos have been posted to YouTube; TAKE ME ON DOWN TO MEMPHIS/ROCK MY WORLD, J.J.'s BOOGIE and BOOGIE ON DOWN all from the 1st set. Video from the 2nd and 3rd sets is being edited right now. The full unedited audio is available for download on the website, minus the first set.
The Barge Inn gig was the debut of the Modbird, the custom guitar Mark Schwarz built for me. Mark has been building guitars for years, his Rocket Revenger bass is well known around town. This is the first one he built to order and she's a beauty. The body draws its design from the Gibson Moderne and Firebird, though much smaller, and has a Strat bridge. The P-90 from my Les Paul Jr. I had when I was a kid sits in the back position with Fender Fat Strat in front. The pickguard is similar to a Les Paul Jr. A Fender neck does the job for now, until a custom neck is ready. The Modbird is now my main guitar and playing her is not only the most fun I've had on any axe in years she's also a feather in both our caps, the luthier and the player.
But the most lasting impression came from the least likely of sources, the TV. There was a short interview/documentary with an old woman who owns a barber shop under the train tracks near one of the busiest station in Tokyo. Didn't catch the station but it looked like the Shinkansen (bullet train) stops there. She lives in a two-story building ; the barber shop is on the first floor, her residence on the second. Many of her customers have been coming to her for 40 years. Sometimes they fall asleep in the chair. She lets them sleep. She charges customers according to what they can afford and if they're broke doesn't charge them at all. She lives modestly and always has enough. When the interviewer asked for her thoughts on the global economic meltdown she said, "People have been working for the country, money went to the bureaucrats. When they work for PEOPLE money will return to the people and it will get back to normal." Many folks I know back in the U.S. decided not to buy Christmas presents, or only select few, or to make a present to give. To me, that makes it one of the greatest Christmases ever; the crass commercialism normally surrounding the holidaze was dealt a sever blow, the vacuum filled with genuine concern for one another. At least that's how it looks to me. Some say it was a bad year but I disagree; it was a difficult year but that doesn't make it a bad year. People lost a lot of selfishness and remembered what's important.</p>
J.J. Vicars