Observe and Retort

We're on to victory some day

2012-01-16T13:14:00.002-05:00

It seems so small a thing in the grander scheme of what this day means, but my most profound memory of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day happens to be from the very first one. In truth some states (including Ohio) had celebrated for several years already, but it was signed into federal law in 1983 by Ronald Reagan who cited fears of losing federal dollars paying for "another day off" but was overwhelmed by enormous congressional support for the bill. The first nationally recognized King holiday was then set as January 20, 1986.

I was in the second semester of my freshman year at Capital University, still at that time a Music Performance major and playing in a couple of the Conservatory ensembles including the "Fusion Orchestra." [Actually the ensemble was called the "Fussion Arkestra," named in the 1970s when I'm guessing the faculty was probably a bit more… bohemian. But then, as now, I refused to use that drug-addled spelling outside of compunctious brackets.] The Fusion Orchestra had been through two different faculty directors in the first semester of that school year and in the second semester was taken over by Stan Smith, the Conservatory's guitar professor, then and now. I could write whole blog entries on what a talented and amazing player, writer, arranger and instructor Stan has always been, but suffice to say the lessons he tried to impart to me then are still bearing fruit in my playing to this day.

In our first two weeks under his direction we were asked to play at a convocation at the affiliated Trinity Lutheran Seminary, directly across College Avenue from Capital's campus. Stan suggested we play a few things we'd been working on from the rocky semester before and also brought in an arrangement of "We Shall Overcome."

"We Shall Overcome" is a hymn written around 1900-1901 by the Reverend Charles Albert Tindley and gained a broader audience as it began to be used in the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s, sung by notables like Mahalia Jackson, Joan Baez and Pete Seeger, and of course quoted by Dr. King himself in both 1965 and in one of his final sermons (if not his very final sermon, although I understand this is debated) prior to his assassination.

Despite 1986 being the first year of federally recognized and mandated holiday, Capital saw no need to give students the day off from Capital since they are a private school, so I recall attending classes as normal that day. Which, to be fair, meant that I slept through my 8:00 a.m. Music Theory class but I did go to the rest before grabbing my gear and heading over to Trinity's chapel.

Most of the convocation itself was laid back and informal with various Seminary faculty and students presenting brief sermon-like orations to illustrate how Dr. King's message was applicable to a far greater segment of the world's population than simply the oppressed minorities during the 1960s. There were discussions on Dr. King's combining of biblical and secular references and an overarching emphasis on the equality of everyone. [Which, in retrospect, is probably why I was so proud of the E.L.C.A.'s recent decision to "allow" openly gay pastors in the church, and why I remain so disgusted with those who subsequently broke off to "maintain traditional values," which I can only assume means to ignore the entirety of the New Testament.]

When the Fusion Orchestra began playing Stan's inarguably breathtaking arrangement of "We Shall Overcome," I think even he was a little shocked at the energy that began building when the entire chapel started singing the words of the hymn. Within one pass through the song's form it became something larger than itself. Despite having made the choice to pursue an education in music because of my deep and abiding love for its power over me, this was the first time I found myself so immersed in the feedback loop between performers and listeners that the drowning became bliss itself. I remember Stan directing us to repeat the form over and over again, asking individual members to take solos here and there while the attendees continued to sing at the top of their lungs, making so joyful a noise as to make real every piece of the message that Dr. King wanted us all to take away from his use of that hymn. The truth of that message really could set us free.

I wonder now how much of that moment not only drove me to change my major just enough to add in as much learning outside the Conservatory in arts and sciences as I continued to have in music; how much it kept the fire alive inside me to constantly pursue music's truth and that performer/listener feedback loop; how much it propelled me into my now very non-musical career of fighting for the rights of every child brought before me in the justice system. It may seem inappropriate to discuss my own story on Dr. King's day, but then again, every holiday of recognition should be a day of introspection to see how much we live up to the beliefs and aspirations of the one being recognized.

And where we don't live up, we strive to overcome our limitations.

The Final Show

2011-11-07T17:32:00.000-05:00

So here I sit, no longer a musician.

And realize, of course, how unlikely that is.

The show on Friday night was almost indescribable. Unlike any other gig we’ve done it flew by in the flashing images of a DVR on super fast-forward. So many people came out that I often got overwhelmed just looking out at the crowd; there were hundreds of people crammed into a bar meant to hold eighty at best. From the foot of the stage there was a solid mass of human bodies straight back to the the doorway a hundred feet away. The thickest mass on the dance floor danced all night, but maybe a better description is that they throbbed, pressed together like pieces in a horizontal Tetris game, finding just the right fit against one another to move to the music without injuring anyone around them.

This was also really the first time there was a joining of our following; fans of the band who only ever saw us at Grandview Café, or Park Street Tavern, or Claddagh on St. Patrick’s day, or at certain weddings were all there together with our closest friends who have seen us everywhere. I felt nothing short of honored to see so many familiar faces taking in the music one last time.

I was also so very moved at seeing my closest friends there, including Jim, who had come up from Florida just for the show. Those in attendance knew just what a profound event this was for me and I am deeply in their debt for their support.

The band was on fire. Each song was played as though at its height of proficiency right before any boredom developed in its constant repetition. I think the irony is that the gig was so good that (not surprisingly) I want us to keep playing now, yet I know that the grace and bliss of that night existed because it was our swan song. The synchronicity of our performance with the crowd’s perception and retransmission of the energy back to us through their movement and cheers could only be a product of Sharp Circle Band’s farewell performance.

I can only agree with what Scott said last week after our Halloween show; it’s probably a damn good thing we never had Tim Perdue, Kevin O'Neill and Fred Gablick together before then because that sound alone is almost enough to never want to end things and ruin the whole plan of going out on a high note. Additionally having Sarah Stout and Damon Mollenkopf sing a few tunes with us (with that particular horn section behind us) was just icing on the sweetest, fattest, funkiest cake ever made.

Before I knew it, the moment I’d been dreading had arrived: Jason’s bass playing the intro to “With A Little Help From My Friends.” Looking out I saw that most of the faces were now stained with tears. In the last decade, friends of the band used our performances to get through the hard times of their lives as they came of age in their growing-up and grown-up worlds; we in turn relied on all of these friends to help get us to the high level of success we enjoyed for so many years. And then my eyes were wet too, trying to imagine just what in the ever-loving hell we were thinking when we decided to call it quits.

A day later I tried hard to put it all into perspective and remembered the reasons that it was time to stop:
- Aside from the final show, the week before at Grandview Cafe, and probably the Smokey Robinson show, there hadn’t been many uplifting, rewarding club gigs for probably over a year.
- The weddings we played during the last year or so found us playing to younger and younger couples who were less and less in touch with our style of music.
- I need to have some free weekends for awhile to dedicate all the time I can to my family while my boys are in their wide-eyed and delighted youth.

It was time to end. And what an end it was.

For those of you who have asked repeatedly, this question at least is answered: Friday, November 4, 2011, was not the last time I’ll play live music. It was just the last time for now.

I have a lot more parks and hiking trails to hit with my sons. And I have to hit the woodshed. And I have to hit a ****ing gym.

Then we'll see what other trouble that guitar of mine can get me into. In the meantime, if someone books a Sharp Circle Reunion show next fall, I’ll be there, baby. Ya heard?

James

2011-10-21T09:35:00.002-04:00

This cerulean blue I have seen only once
Clear Hawaiian sky reflected in a pool
But that a trick of the painted azure/aqua walls beneath the water
Your eyes, then, some new miracle of genetics

Your older brother's eyes, the exact hazel of his mother
Followed my every move; copied my every action
Holding me daily as the revered icon I might never live up to
But yours never met my gaze
Always askance; always beyond my shoulder;
The ceiling; the floor;
The toy plate you learned to spin on the coffee table
Endlessly drawn into some deeper truth
In its oscillating, ever-quickening perigee of plastic on wood

Your brother relished every minute of human contact,
Never happy to be released from our embrace
Until sleep finally arrested him
You preferred to simply be placed in the crib
Our hugs and kisses a barely tolerable annoyance in your routine
Of constant smiles at a world seen through corners of the eye

She knew before I did, these signs glaring
But words failed her and she waited for doctors to announce
This unwanted paradigm, some new mystery of genetics

A day later, diagnosis in hand, tears wiped away
Your smile never abated and you were, after all, our little bear
Autism is just a word; its logotype a dark cerulean puzzle piece
James is a universe,
A blur of elan, frolic, giggles

Intervention; acceptance; therapy; love
Each day another lesson for you to engage
Another lesson for us to beckon but never pull
Each day another miracle of fulfillment

Now those eyes find mine and I melt like a spent candle
Burned in cerulean flame
Now those hugs come and I finally understand why you always smiled
Your love unhindered by any genetic definition

Frost in autumn

2011-10-02T18:44:00.000-04:00

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
And doubting I could not travel both,
I did
Keeping one foot on each for twenty-six years...

By this point, most of you know that Sharp Circle Band is hanging it up as of November 4th. That was precipitated at least in part by my decision to take some time off from the crazy world of gigging. I've gotten too old to take myself seriously as the 44-year-old funk/rock guitarist in a band of 30-year-olds playing mostly in bars that cater to 21-year-olds, and frankly people... I'm tired. With three amazing but busy sons, seven, five and three years old, and a full-time legal career, my recovery from a weekend of gigging has begun stretching past Sundays into Mondays and even Tuesdays. Not good.

Moreover, while just a year ago I was writing entries for this blog about relishing every wedding we played, the simple fact is that brides and grooms most often continue to be in their early 20s and we keep on aging (damn it all) and keep on playing music from the 70s and 80s. The gulf of being in touch with our patrons and clients is growing wider and wider.

Just this past summer, another band I gig with--an 80s cover band--was paid a lot of money to play three hours of music but was stopped after less than 45 minutes because the young attendees only wanted to hear Gaga, Ke$ha and Usher from an iPod. Part of that was certainly the fault of the bride and groom for hiring an 80s cover band and then not telling any of their friends and family they did so, but I can tell you I can't think of a more miserable experience involving playing music than I had that day.

I think the highlight of my career was getting to open for Smokey Robinson this past July 4th, and even then a combination of Smokey's control issues and a fatuous, self-important emcee cut our performance from 90 minutes to just over 30. Nonetheless it was a musical high I won't forget, if unfortunately overshadowing every gig that followed.

As I write these words, I have four shows left on the books. Quite frankly I'd rather have metal skewers driven into my skull than to play this coming Friday at the Northwest side's beach-volleyball asylum of suck, but after that we have a fun private party in Cleveland, a sure-to-amuse Halloween weekend gig, and our final going-away performance at Park Street Tavern on November 4th, for which our original bassist is flying back from California to help us us bring the Sharp Circle slam one final time. That will be a wonderful if emotional night, because frankly I'm not sure when I'll pick up a guitar in public again.

It's been a great ride. I've been honored and blessed to be able to play with bands like Soul Kitch'n, UberGroove, JusTus, Chess King, 456, Paradise Island, New Basics Brass Band and of course the phenomenally talented members of Sharp Circle. I've been able to release three albums of my own songs over the years, jam with other musicians around the globe, and do tons of studio dates with amazing songwriters and players.

But at the risk of destroying all of my accumulated prosaic credibility by quoting Little River Band, it's time for a cool change. I can't promise you I'm going to deal particularly well with it at first, but I'm curious as hell to see what comes next. One way or another I'm pretty sure it will involve writing. Just your luck; that'll probably mean more blogging.

Yeah, Frost, I hear you laughing.

Of thee

2011-07-19T19:30:00.000-04:00

Watching you roll past the car windows, my country, it's of you I sing. I sing of the road that carries us south to see our friend, carved through farms and fields, hills and mountains, over streams, rivers and lakes.

I sing of your billboards, the windows you show us into your community--what you want us to know and believe about your values. The sweet land of liberty you hope we will see in you.

I sing of the rolling hills of southern Ohio, where people sit on porches watching their own coal carted far north to humming metropolitan areas while their lights glow from the power of steaming nuclear plant on the bank of the river.

I sing of the twisting, turning, snaking, rising and falling turnpike of West Virginia, which crosses Paint Creek no less than five times and reveals glimpses of towns set into the hollows, never knowing more than a few hours of direct sunlight each day.

I sing of emerging through the tunnel into Virginia and beginning the slow climb up through verdant horse country to the dizzying heights that afford a breathtaking vista of half of the state before quickly turning to the long descent that deposits us into North Carolina.

I sing of the boats and skiers on Lake Norman that teasingly suggest the Floridian waters we'll soon be enjoying and happily remind us how close we are to Charlotte, and then South Carolina, which through three decent runs on 77, 26 and 75 will get us to the "short side" of Georgia.

Georgia, I sing of the dozens of bridges that lift us over your maze of waterways and wetlands, hot sun now blazing on our arms and legs even through the polarized glass of the car.

I sing of Florida, as I have my whole life; each breath of summer air heating my lungs to a fiery, zestful glow. The ocean, the parent body of water from which this body made mostly of water sprang and aches to return yearly, monthly, daily.

I sing of true friends, one driving the vehicle which brings us, one awaiting our arrival; each conversation, each laugh another song to sing again and again.

And I sing of those waiting for my return: those I love nestled in our home, songs we've sung together; melodies and lyrics yet to be written.

This sun, this heat, this salt air. This life, this song.

Strands

2011-05-29T18:47:00.000-04:00

I had a dream in which I was at a seminar of some sort, similar to one I just attended in Dearborn Michigan a few weeks back. There were hundreds of attendees, and presenters spoke to us from an elevated dais while twinned images were projected onto large screens on either side of the dais. My friends from work were seated around me.

And you -- and you -- and you -- and you were there. But you couldn’t have been, could you?

The speaker was explaining to us that using a new type of spectrographic imaging shot with recently designed cameras, one could see that as people walk they leave traces of themselves behind. An image of people walking on a crowded New York City sidewalk appeared on the screen, oddly translucent, and a glowing white line could be seen emanating from the top of each person’s head and extending back from the direction they’d walked into the frame.

“In zis way,” he said in thick, Israeli accent, “Ve can see zat a person leaves a trace of zemselves everywhere zey have been.” He went on to explain that this ethereal discharge was a small portion of a person’s daily thoughts and dreams—in a secular sense, a trace of their soul.

“I postulate,” he continued, “Zat in ze future we may be able to develop a mechanism to capture zese thoughts and know just vat a suspect vas thinking at ze time zey were in ze place. Certainly you all know zat if you visit a place you have not been for a long time, memories will instantly resurface which you had at ze time but have long zince forgotten. Zat is because currently you alone have ze ability to recapture your own strands, but technology vill change zat!”

A funny dream, and pretty scary if you're a defense attorney. But I digress.

I think somehow my brain had combined the lectures given by the brilliant Werner Spitz about homicide investigation with the recent news buzz about Apple and Android phones tracking people’s movements. It is always amusing to me the way our brains will slice, dice, puree and blend things we see and hear into new and bizarre stories, and I remain fascinated at how the you that exists in the dream can believe this contrived scenario without reservation.

Then you wake up. But unlike Dorothy, you feel no need to try to convince Auntie Em that the dream was real. Reality’s teeth, once set back into your flesh, allow little room for speculation.

This time though I have to admit I liked the idea. I pictured an aerial view of a map showing all the places we have lived as warm, glowing blotches of light, with thin strands traveling off in all directions showing the trips we’ve taken. All the places in the world that I’ve visited have given my soul something to bring back with me; have I in turn left something of myself behind at each location? And therefore, are there much deeper concentrations of my former self at places where I lived for long periods of time?

So, having a day off, a full tank of gas, a full aluminum bottle of iced green tea, and an iPhone full of old and new music, I set out to snag the strands of my past self left floating in and around my former homes in the greater Columbus area. I set off for the first place I lived in town—good old Schaaf Hall at 2199 E. Main Street, better known as Capital University. Mike Stern’s “Upside Downside” and then Michael Brecker’s “Sea Glass” set the mood as I drove: two songs I listened to incessantly while living at Capital.

Although much of the campus area has changed significantly since my time there in the ‘80s, Schaaf Hall dormitory looked exactly the same—as futuristic to those who built it as it is dated now—a C-shaped, brick behemoth that could easily have doubled as a set piece for any of the later Planet Of The Apes films.

They say that smell is the strongest sense, meaning that an aroma can trigger memories you thought you’d lost decades earlier, but I must admit in just seeing Schaaf’s steel side doors made to withstand any blast the Red Menace might send our way (duck & cover, kids!), I had a flood of memories that I had most definitely lost track of easily twenty years earlier.

The memories just kept flooding back as I continued on with my tour, playing songs on the iPhone that were from whatever particular era that I lived in each subsequent place. On and on I drove, listened and looked: Village Creek Drive (Nine Inch Nails), Broadmoor Avenue (Vinyl), Parklane Avenue (Stevie Ray Vaughn), Faymeadow Avenue (Dave Matthews Band), Broad Meadows Boulevard (Soul Coughing). At each site, a thick freshet of remembrance cascading through my head.

Just as the dream-doppelganger of Dr. Spitz suggested, the thoughts, hopes and beliefs that were in my head had seemed to have seeped out around those places and were still there, waiting for me to come by again and let them back in for a romp in my psyche. I’ll leave the question of whether or not those strands of my soul can metaphysically interact with those who lived in those houses later to better philosophers and Syfy screenplay writers, but I can’t deny I’m looking at my house now and wondering what strands have been left here by others to waft across my subconscious.

Did I discover any lost truths about myself? No, not really.

Did I uncover some valuable midlife advice to share with all of you? Not so much.

Do I plan to reference Wizard of Oz for a third time as the denouement of this blog entry? Yeah, probably.

Dorothy figured out there was no place like home. I learned today that home is inside you no matter where you are. Revisiting old landmarks can indeed make memories resurface to remind you who you were then, but far more importantly, how far you’ve come since then.

That Hoo Doo that you do

2011-03-07T22:46:00.006-05:00

This past weekend merits a blog entry because it ties into almost every other entry I made in the last year or so, and it is one of those "I would be remiss" situations where I just have to throw some props to a few folks.

Now don't get me wrong. I want anyone who happens on this blog to go see Sharp Circle Band as frequently as you can. I'm honored that I get to be on the same stage with Scott, Aaron, Cory, Jason, Kevin, Tim and Rachel and it's an amazing feeling to sink our collective teeth into a pounding groove and ride it out while the crowd dances in front of us. I love seeing the audience having as much fun as I am as we play our sets.

But this entry is going to be about another local band, and in particular two musicians I've never played with but who have both enomously impacted my life and musical career.

In my last blog entry I referenced these two musicians who amazed my fellow Conservatory students and I with their incredible talent 24 years ago. Then this past weekend I was at a wedding and got to be amazed all over again by the same two guys.

The Hoo Doo Soul Band has been around since 1995. When it comes to covers of groove-oriented music--R&B, Funk and Soul--they are literally the top shelf. This is a band that draws musicians to its weekly, Sunday night gigs at Rumba Cafe; people like me in other regularly gigging bands come to watch the big dogs lay it down. If you love and play this style of music, any Hoo Doo gig is a master-class in how it's done. Getting to sub for Hoo Doo is any local musician's dream--even if laced with a small amount of terror that you might not be up to the task.

If you love horn bands with serious chops, Hoo Doo is for you; Chris Young, Kris Keith, Kevin O'Neill and Phil Clark are all monstrous, sick players. If you love silky, soulful, blues-drenched vocals, Hoo Doo is for you; Bobby Stewart, Kevin Oliver and Phil Clark and occasionally Kris cover a huge range of territory. If you want to hear the tightest rhythm section on earth, Hoo Doo is definitely for you; Tony McClung, Jeff Ciampa, Kevin Oliver, John Boerstler, Dave DeWitt and Mark Henderson are a giant, throbbing machine. And in fact, given that they do play every single Sunday at Rumba and many more private parties and weddings, you stand a better than average change of hearing at least one sub for the people I just mentioned, and I guarantee you'll still be blown away.

Speaking as a player in a very similar-genre band that does bar gigs, weddings and private parties, Hoo Doo is the band we all want to have. There are always times during a gig where we hit some really ultra-funky groove and I kind of wish we didn't have to move onto the next portion for awhile, and that's one of the hallmarks of a Hoo Doo show. An hour of a Sharp Circle show will go by and you'll hear twelve to fifteen songs. In an hour of Hoo Doo you might hear more like eight far longer versions of familiar covers (and some not-so-familiar), after which you feel like you've run a marathon and won the lottery all at the same time. It's inspiring. All of my fellow SCB players leave from seeing Hoo Doo wanting to add at least half of the set we just heard into our own set lists. Honestly, it's damn hard not to try to copy them in total, but in the end I always come away feeling glad that Sharp Circle band does what it does, differently enough from Hoo Doo, but also refreshed in my desire to practice my guitar and be the best musician I can be.

And here's the thing: Kevin Oliver and Jeff Ciampa have been doing that for me my entire adult life.

In the summer of 1987 I was attending The Recording Workshop ("TRW") in Chillicothe, Ohio as part of my music degree at Capital University. Several evenings a week we would be assigned as recording engineers for various regional bands who got to enjoy a free demo in return for letting students do the work. One hot July night, TRW teacher Marty Vian brought down the other members of his new band, Zero One, to record a demo of one of Marty's original songs called "Body Speak." I already knew drummer Peter Retzlaff from Capital, but bassist Ciampa and guitarist Oliver were new to me. I remember Jeff was upset because Marty's song called for thump/pop style bass and Jeff had meant to bring his fretted bass to the date, but had accidentally grabbed his mostly-identical fretless bass instead. My TRW team members were some of my best friends from Capital, including bassists Martin Pipho and Mark Taylor, and they both felt his pain, being fairly sure the tune wouldn't work with a fretless bass.

It worked just fine. In fact, it was a little bit life-changing.

Jeff's sound is, in a word, huge. He certainly borrows elements of Jaco's style, but thankfully eschewed that "inverse smile" on a graphic-EQ that makes a bass's tone all midrange, instead preferring a more even EQ curve with the occasional addition of an octave-pedal that almost shakes fillings loose. What makes Jeff's signature sound though is his feel. Now having moved from the Pedulla basses I first heard him use to the far more ubiquitous Fender Jazz Bass, and having been through several different amp rigs over the years, he always sounds like him when you hear him. The musical term is "pocket," and Jeff is a giant, walking pocket, effortlessly gliding between root tones and harmony lines that seem like they always should have been in the song you're hearing, even though you know they're not.

If Jeff is pocket embodied, Kevin Oliver is funk on a stick. A veteran of George Clinton's P-Funk All-Stars, Kevin was steeped in groove. His style is as instantly discernible as Jeff's is, a simultaneous blending of guitar playing and drumming. His time is unwavering--not even the notoriously time-trickster drummer Dave Weckl could trip him up at a local drum clinic some years back.

The minute I heard Kevin play, it fundamentally altered how I thought about the guitar. My style today is unquestionably and unabashedly a product of every guitarist I loved as a kid, then reined into a central focal point via the lessons I learned from watching Kevin. So too are my sense of harmony and my ideas about songwriting profoundly affected by Jeff Ciampa.

Right after that TRW session in July of '87, we became Zero One devotees, flocking to every show they did in town. Their sets were a blend of Jeff's originals, a couple of Marty's originals, Beatles covers and funk covers. Their 1991 release, "Darwin's Finch vs. The Flying Saucers" was amazing--Jeff & Kevin's funk-slam, tight harmonies, big 80's drum sounds, and thoughtful and often soul-searching lyrics.

Jeff's obvious Beatles influence became even more clear in his writing for his next project with Kevin (and also Hoo Doo drummer Tony McClung), Vinyl. Vinyl was certainly a stripped-down band compared to Zero One, but twice as muscular. Their first eponymous CD and the follow up a few years later (My Imagined Life With Alfred Moore) when the band had been renamed "OmniPop" are brilliant forays into songwriting that is steeped in every style of music I love but is clearly presented as pop. There's also something very rewarding about hearing Jeff's lyrics on some of the songs on My Secret Life... answer questions posed a decade earlier on Darwin's Finch... . The clear lesson is that maturing doesn't stop existential questioning, but that doesn't mean it doesn't provide us with answers we've always wanted.

And some answers I've always wanted were provided at Jason & Michelle's fantastic wedding reception thanks to Jeff, Kevin and all of the Hoo Doo Soul Band: one's life in music is a constant evolutionary process and, in truest Zen fashion, the journey is everything. Great musicians and great music will continue to inspire me until the day I die, and every time I'm reminded of that is one hell of a happy day.

Mark Andrew

2010-11-04T23:09:00.002-04:00

I the traveler; you the native son.

When I came to Columbus in 1985 to start my college career I was technically only a couple hundred miles from my Western Pennsylvania home, but to me there was a vast gulf between those verdant, rolling hills and the comparatively defoliated flatland of Central Ohio. You helped this place feel real to me by showing me the things you loved about it, a tamer Ferris Bueller to my less introverted Cameron; this city every bit a Chicago to my rural eyes. Although my waistline curses you now, the BW3s and Skyline Chili you introduced me to remain my favorite foods. (And can it be true that Tuesdays were .10 cent wing nights back then?)

We shared a love of many styles of music, but yours was always the broader view. You got me to hear the rock & roll in Shostakovitch and the jazz in Joe Jackson, and every time I said, "Oh, that stuff doesn't do anything for me," your hand was reaching for the needle of your record player as you unsleeved something else I'd heard but never actually listened to before. Together we discovered the space between notes in Basie's "L'il Darlin'" and the divine in Coltrane's "Alabama." And the sheer genius in every note Paul Simon's Graceland album, even as we tried to rethink our entire record collections in terms of those new Compact Disc things.

Those were the days of lasers in the jungle; lasers in the jungle somewhere. Staccato signals of constant information; a loose affiliation with millionaires and billionaires and baby...

We couldn't stop laughing when Professor C. told us that the tritone was the devil's interval, then played one on the piano and peered nervously over the soundboard in anticipation. But when I found myself crying over some damaged girl cutting her own swath of destruction, you peered at me through those round glasses and let me know the script didn't call for my extra drama. Of course that was easy for you to say, seeing as how you were sitting next to the same girl you're with right now, these 23 years later, but the lesson was no less needed.

Drama was far overshadowed by the music though. We and the others on Schaaf 1st-South ate, slept, lived and breathed music. We toured the country playing for others and were taught by pros and legends. We strung about a mile of quarter-inch Ampex tape between two open-reel machines to create the Musique Concrète magnum opus, "Five Is Right Out" for our final project in Doc Rock's class. We spent a summer in a slice of Appalachia known as Massieville that also happened to have a state of the art recording school embedded on the banks of Trego Creek, which yes, was rightly pronounced "crick," howling with laughter as Martin (aka Motown) did the bee dance on our front lawn and resigning ourselves tacitly that we'd never be as good as Ciampa and Oliver as we laid down Zero One tracks at 2:30 in the morning in Studio E.

But we practiced like hell anyway.

You amazed me with your vulnerability when you told me how seeing a shooting star at just the moment you needed it pulled you back from the brink of despair. Then a year later you had the bravery to rightly call me a hypocrite when I wrote a column in the paper bemoaning drunken vandals at the college, then a week later went around defacing every Bush/Quayle sign I saw.

A year after that we were graduates. I went to your home for a holiday party and during the grand tour, I saw that beautiful Pedulla bass propped up against the Trace Elliot amp in a darkened corner of the basement, a fine coat of dust covering the entire rig. It was then that I felt the gulf of Ohio flatland had somehow worked itself between us, an unexpected divergence in a road I thought we were on.

And sorry I could not travel both.

Today, 20 years later, I listened to Graceland on my way to work and thought of you in that hospital bed, wondering if I visited you if I'd be able to say any of this and if you'd be well enough yet to hear me anyway. It seemed like a good time to pause and write it down. Whatever good resides within me is the result of my contact, however lengthy or brief, with truly remarkable human beings who have shaped me. I would be remiss in not publicly recognizing your place in that. I hope you get well soon.

Okay to move on

2010-09-28T18:55:00.001-04:00

I got to experience my first full-body scan at the airport this morning. It was apparently recently installed because the TSA people had set up a makeshift barrier rope diverting people from the standard metal detector over to the enormous device, bringing to mind both a metal and plastic Stonehenge tryptic and also a movie set-piece that was supposed to be exactly what it was, as if I'd stepped into a film from 1995 that accidentally guessed exactly what a 2010 full-body scanner would look like.

I won't lie; it was a little exciting. A TSA officer directed me to stand on the colored-in shoe prints on the rubber mat between the two glaucous-blue walls and place my hands on my head, forming a diamond shape by touching the tips of my forefingers and thumbs together, with my open palms facing forward. After a few seconds a second officer directed me out of the open-top cave onto another mat with drawn-on shoe prints. Twenty seconds later she said only, "You're okay to move on.". I wondered briefly if she meant from screening, or more generally in my life.

Despite recent TSA statements that the device doesn't reveal the private parts of a traveler being scanned, the machine's display screen and its operator were noticeably absent from public view, unlike the attached monitors of the Xray devices we're all used to. One wonders why this is, but it only enhances the mystery I suppose, adding a sense of omniscience to the observers guarding our airports. Or perhaps the comparison could be made to that most pathetic of detection devices, the polygraph. Maybe in fact the walls of the giant cattle-chute of truth are filled with nothing but air, acting only as a mental deterrent for would-be terrorists and smugglers.

Either way it was fun. I couldn't help but sputter out an über-nerdy, "That was cool," as I was told to move on. The TSA officer grinned almost imperceptibly and said, sotto voce, "Okay then."

Soon I found myself on an MD-88 bound for Atlanta, mercifully placed in an aisle seat albeit thirty rows back. Heavy rain surrounding the greater Fulton County area afforded us a tremendously bumpy flight during our approach as we dropped through the rapidly changing pressure pockets in the rain clouds, sometimes free-falling twenty or thirty feet at a time while the wings were buffeted back and forth in a constantly changing yaw.

Once firmly on the ground I was utterly shocked to discover that my departure gate for the second leg of my trip to Jacksonville was directly across the concourse hallway from my arrival gate. Every time I've flown into Atlanta for a connecting flight I've had to run the length of the concourse at which I arrived, take a tram to another concourse, run the full length again (or if blessed with extra two minutes, ride the people mover) to arrive, panting, just in time for the last call of boarding for my flight out. This time I had 47 minutes in which to walk twenty feet. Gleeful at my incredible luck I smiled - smirked, really - and thus sealed my fate.

We boarded an essentially identical MD-88 and I found myself again in an aisle seat, this time in row 36 and directly across from the aft food galley. I said "essentially identical" because it was indistinguishable from the last plane except for a bizarre smell lazily wafting out from the little vent nozzles: an odd mixture of a Jiffy Lube, July 4th sparklers, and old bread.

And the captain was a very different breed of cat from the Harry Morgan, just the facts ma'am, sort of guy the last skipper had been.

"Uh, ladies and gents, from the flight deck this is Captain Jimmy, and we're just pleased as punch you've joined us today. Uh, look-it, they're tellin' us this here flight is supposed to be 48 minutes in clear skies, but I'm gonna take this ole girl up to about five and one half miles and run her at around 500 miles an hour and see if I can't get us there a lot faster. I'm telling you what; we're gonna just jump on I-75, take her down to I-10 and hang a left, then run her on over to I-95 and on up to Jax airport, just like we were drivin' it. Only fast as all get-out. We just gotta do some paperwork here for a minute then I'll get y'all there in plenty a time for that football game."

My seat mate and I exchanged smiles and the flight attendant standing in the galley shook her head and said, "Jeez. No more caffeine for him."

Then we sat. And sat. The odd smell started to make my head swim a little and I tried to think of the friend I'd soon be seeing and the warm Atlantic beach I'd soon be visiting. My seat mate fiddled with his Blackberry.

And we sat. After about 35 minutes a man in a flight officer's uniform wandered out of the cockpit and sauntered to the back of the plane, paused next to me and looked at the flight attendant. He nodded his head at her and said, "Uh-huh." She frowned.

Five more minutes passed and soon two jump-suited men with reflective vests that read "FAA" in big, gold letters came aboard. They walked halfway back the aisle and opened an overhead compartment filled with equipment instead of carry-on luggage. They stared at it, fiddled with some controls, and frowned at each other before walking up to the cockpit.

Captain Jimmy returned to the p.a. system.

"Uh, folks, you probably noticed we got kinda a funny smell goin' on in the plane and some fellas here are gonna check it out and see if they're gonna let us take this ole girl up or not. Give us a second to figure that one out."

We gave them a second, and in fact another twenty minutes.

"Uh folks, that'd be a negative on gettin' up in the air in this bird and they're tellin' us it'll be about three or four hours to get this plane sorted out. But I did talk to the tower about maybe getting us another bird instead because, man, I want to see that football game."

I have to say what followed was genuinely impressive. Not only did they get us another plane, it happened within an hour and departed from the gate I'd originally come in from, that same twenty feet across the concourse. I guess when you're a major airline with a colossal hub at Hartsfield-Jackson airport, you can swap out MD-88 airplanes like a fresh pair of socks. Once we all re-planed and made the requisite number of Deja vu jokes, I learned from the flight attendant that the smell had been from a burning "engine pack" that probably would have resulted in our deaths had it happened in the air. I considered engaging in a good rage-vomit to help sort out my emotions, until she mentioned that all would be just fine on our "Groundhog Flight," so called because of the repeat of all the same passengers in the same seats on a different plane, referencing the movie Groundhog Day. When I learned it was common enough to have its own in-jokey name, I decided to just chill out and enjoy the blisteringly fast trip as Captain Jimmy throttled that ole girl up to the speed of sound.

I have no doubt he made it to that football game, but I couldn't help but wonder what might show up on that hidden monitor if I was able to take another full-body scan at my destination: something missing, or something that wasn't there before. As long as I'm still okay to move on, it's all good.

Wedding bells

2010-07-19T17:58:00.000-04:00

When you play in a cover band, the late spring starts that most excellent time of year: wedding season. In actuality it brings about something else too: the end of major televised sports for a few months. Nothing against sports of course, but OSU football games, NCAA basketball tournaments and NBA playoffs (at least until the exodus of good king Lebron) all tend to majorly mess with Central Ohio gig nights. It seems like in the last five years every bar has become a "sports bar." The impact on live music aside, is it that nobody actually wants to talk to each other anymore?

I digress.

Wedding season is great for musicians of course because we make more money, but for many of us the psychological rewards are equally if not more important. I think it might even be true that weddings saved my musical soul.

Sharp Circle has already played several weddings this year and they've all been a blast. People come to a wedding specifically to immerse themselves in the joy of the day, and thankfully the rituals of the ceremony and the reception are still tightly connected with music.

There's also something amusing about the seeming contradiction of getting to dress up in formal attire and play some nasty Rock and greasy Funk, but ultimately that joy I spoke of, emanating outward from the bride & groom to their family and friends, covers the packed dance floor like a blanket. Fun becomes a palpable thing in the air of the reception hall and that other-worldly link between musicians and dancers feels like it was never more concrete. People allow their souls to get filled up with the music.

Last week though I got to taste a little variety because a couple had hired Chess King to play their wedding. Chess King is an 80s-music cover band, formed about three years ago by "Parker Paul" Wilkinson, Keith Hanlon, Damon Mollenkopf and I, also featuring Jason Monro from Sharp Circle on bass. The only problem was that Chess King was essentially defunct, having performed last in 2008. I was initially concerned about the time outlay involved in committing another 40 or so songs to memory, but the minute we got together for our first rehearsal I knew it was just what the doctor ordered.

Sharp Circle has done a lot to keep things fresh in my six years with the band, most notably in the last year adding two horn players to the lineup, but getting to play the occasional show with completely different material is a Godsend. It made me realize just how much I was missing the occasional Jazz quartet gig or the occasional sub gig with bands like New Basics Brass Band; it demonstrates that variety really is the spice of life, and it refreshes the musical palate. Since reuniting with Chess King I've enjoyed the subsequent Sharp Circle gigs as if they were my very first.

A million thanks to Michele & Billy for having Chess King as part of their big day; we loved every second of it! Equally huge thanks to Mary Rebekah & Ben for such an amazing experience for Sharp Circle at the brand new OSU Student Union's Performance Hall two nights ago; everything about the evening was perfect.

Both of these couples are music fanatics who wanted to make music of several genres one of the most important parts of their weddings and receptions. Music lovers have a way of making everyone around them appreciate music even more. It reminds us that music isn't just one "well on the hill" to fill up our souls, but in fact many different wells. Drink deeply from as many as you can as often as you can and you'll see what I mean.

Dropping into the groove...

2010-06-14T22:53:00.000-04:00

Prior to now that was a music thing for me. I have the luxury of playing in a band with some fantastic musicians who make it easy to love. There's a deliberate monotony in playing with a really successful cover band. Because we've made a good name for ourselves we play all the time, which means we play the same cover songs all the time. If the folks you're playing with don't keep it fun and exciting by exploring everything there is to explore within the concept of groove, you'll burn out fast. Thankfully about half of the cover material we play resonates with what most people think when they hear the word 'groove.' Stevie Wonder, Sly & The Family Stone, Prince, Kool & The Gang, Earth, Wind & Fire. It's all there. Of course the real art is to make people feel that danceable thump in flat-out rock stuff from folks like Tom Petty, The Rolling Stones, Steve Miller Band and so on. Bassists and drummers like Jason Monro, Cory Cisler and Aaron Bishara make that all too easy.

In fact, having played with Sharp Circle Band for six years now (and for a couple years before that with guys like Jason, Cory, Bob DiGiacomo, Andy Robbins and Rob Heath in ÜberGroove) I've come to take the regular level of groove for granted. Those players know how to lock down their tempos (yeah, I know, it's "tempi"... it just looks weird) and leave room for all the other players. They know the subtle variations in playing "behind the beat" (nearly a "swing feel" in a way) or "up on top of the beat" to get that throbbing, Rave-like vibe in the rhythm of the song.

But see, there's this other level. Every so often--not necessarily even once each gig--we break through to some sort of nirvana-like thing. I know when it happens because I completely lose myself in the moment. Playing rhythm guitar becomes effortless, like my fingers aren't even touching the instrument at all. Most recently I can recall it happening during Fred Gablick's sax solo in our version of Mustang Sally. A few weeks ago we were at Grandview Cafe and Fred just lit it up. He built so much energy up in those first eight bars of solo that when the rest of the band came in on the IV chord it was like a serious, other-worldly, giant-black-obelisk-in-2001: A Space Odyssey, mind-blowing, tantric-sex, two-prize-in-the-Cracker-Jack-box tonegasm of infinite beauty for the whole rest of his solo chorus.

I guess obvious descriptor would be that we took the normal groove up another notch (or more), but to me it feels like dropping through the floor into this rushing river that flows underneath everyone all the time. I guess that's sort of my Taoist leanings coming through, but that's how it feels to me--the floor gives way and I drop into this rushing river of sound and feeling that propels me forward without any work needed from me.

So tonight I finally figured out why runners run. As you may know I'm a recovering fatboy (and thankfully down about 75 pounds now), and I've been doing that by better eating and more exercise, which for me has always been some simple gym work and about three two-mile walks each week. In early April I decided to try my hand at running.

I got about a tenth of a mile and contemplated suicide. Or murder. Or possibly the hostile takeover of a small corporation via a leveraged buyout of the majority of their stocks. I settled for a lot of cursing, measured through tightly apportioned gasping for air.

Hell, I've never been a runner; I never liked it in high school gym class; it was the bane of my existence in my brief time in the local police academy sixteen years ago; after that my greatest pleasure in exercising was not to run. But I have good friends who swear by it, so I thought I should give it a go again. That first time sucked, but I surprised myself by trying again the next time I walked, and getting a little bit further.

The rest of that story is that two months later I've gotten up to two miles. My goal is to run 3.11 miles (i.e. a '5K') and I have little doubt I'll get there soon. Tonight I decided to travel the whole five kilometers, running two miles then walking the last 1.1 miles. It was hot and humid tonight and I was already sweating into my first mile, but feeling good.

Then as my iPod shuffled randomly through my "Funk n Rock" playlist of about 200 songs, Van Morrison's "Into The Mystic" came on.

I've always listened to my iPod (iPhone, now) while walking just to enjoy some music, but I never really felt the merging of music and exercise as a palpable, inspirational thing until tonight. In short, I dropped into the groove; I felt that river wash me along without my legs needing to do any work.

I let Van rock my gypsy soul, and I knew I'd get farther than ever. I did too, getting about 2.6 miles of running in before easing back to finish the last half mile at a brisk walk.

Thanks runners, I get it now.

Maybe it's more Zen than Tao to say that it's all connected. I know I've dropped into the groove in other areas of my life too, even at work. But that's another 'blog. For now I'm going to rest and smile a lot.

And I want to rock your gypsy soul
Just like way back in the days of old
And magnificently we will flow into the mystic

The morass that is social networking

2010-06-01T15:41:00.000-04:00

Last week I ran away from Facebook.

To be fair, I'd been moving away from it for awhile. At first I started gradually inching away, as if carrying on a conversation with it at a crowded party and feigning a trip to the snacks laid out on the kitchen counter. I avoided eye contact; I answered questions with nondescript head shakes and barely audible mumbles; I played with my phone and pretended to check emails... But Facebook didn't take the hint. It kept yammering away with a thousand updates every second and invitations to do everything from starting a pretend farm to joining a pretend Mafia.

Frustrated, I turned on my heel and walked away. But it kept following me and blathering.

Did I know that 62 of my friends were fans of Skyline Chili?

I assumed so, if not more. I mean, it's just so damned delicious! I'd wager that more than 62 of my friends are slaves to its cinnamon and paprika charms. But I digress.

Was I aware that my wife liked True Blood?

Well duh, we watch it together.

Did I know that Barack Obama was encouraging all 42-year-old men to become police officers?

Admittedly, that I did not know, and I remain skeptical. But hell, the man has already floored me with policy changes he'd promised he'd never make, so I guess anything is possible.

At this point I broke into a full run, moving as fast for the door as I could. It was then that I heard Facebook say, "Hey, this is one cute video of your kid on the swing set!"

Um, what the hell? I set that video (like all my others) so that "Only Friends" could view it. How in the world did it get reset to "Everyone?" I stripped all my videos from Facebook's hands and threw them in the trash. Checking my photo albums, I found that (for the third time on some of them) many had been reset to "Friends of Friends" after I'd set them all to "Only Friends." Into the trash they went too. Now I took off in a full sprint out the door and across the backyard.

Thankfully Facebook has become a fat, lumbering beast and couldn't keep up with me. However, in a move far more crafty than I could have anticipated, it instead sent three separate women from my past on a textbook buttonhook route to intercept me. Despite my clearly happy marriage and family life displayed prominently on Facebook, these women (some in their own ostensibly happy marriages) began shouting salutations of lust and promises of ardor whose intensity would only be matched by its secrecy.

Calling an audible and breaking into a wheel route, I left the skanks face down in the turf and began hopping fences of the neighboring homes until I came to the end of the line--a deep ravine looking over a rocky stream far below. I paused long enough to hear Facebook yell, "If you deactivate your account, don't worry! It can't ever be deleted so it'll be right there waiting for you when you log back in!"

Screw it. Thelma and Louise time.

In the days since then I've been recovering, slowly. I pull out my iPhone and then wonder why I did so, momentarily forgetting that I have about 35 other apps. I miss seeing Jen's status updates even though she's sitting three feet from me in the same room. I miss looking at a roll of 157 pictures from a party in which a friend of mine was tagged in one shot and I rifle through the rest like some barely invited burglar. I honestly miss the updates of about five of my close friends from the past who I don't get to see much otherwise.

As for the rest, I discovered that after the initial coolness of reconnecting with friends from kindergarten through college that I haven't seen since the end of those eras of my life, we all gravitated back to the original state of drifted-apart. Facebook (and other social networking sites) reconnect what life has through its natural course has put asunder, and maybe there's something to be said for leaving well enough alone.

I'm also very happy not to be constantly worrying (as a person in my profession would naturally do) about the constant "updating" of their security policies that randomly make my children's photos visible to the whole world (or most of it) despite my repeated attempts to restrict them to my group of friends.

Finally, since my ego clearly mandates that I cajole people into reading things I've written, I always have this blog to pour my "status updates" into whenever I see fit. Probably the same dozen people who subscribe to this blog were the only ones reading my updates on Facebook anyway, so it all works out.

And for those of you who miss me on Facebook and wonder where I've gone, my email still works. You can "friend me" in real life any time you like. ;-)

2010; new year - new blog.

2010-01-01T20:32:00.002-05:00

Okay, let's try this again.

I had a simple goal last year for my "Gig Blog," which was to document every gig I played as sort of a time capsule thing. I also used those musings as a springboard to discuss the current state of live music in my area and in society in general. Not to strum my own guitar, but it was a fun weblog and ultimately so insightful that whole courses were taught on it at major conservatories around the world.

Unfortunately the sarcastic ego that allowed me to write that last sentence didn't serve me as well as it should have. It actually never occurred to me that anyone besides my wife and the other folks in my band would read it. But, hooray for Google searches! Somebody searched a club name, found my 'blog and somehow didn't get just how clever and witty I am. My admittedly acerbic comments after one particular gig caused that club to get really ticked at the band.

Two things were wrong with this. First, the band neither "authorized" nor previewed my 'blog posts, so punishing the band for what I wrote was misguided. Second and far more laden with irony, despite causing me to delete many months worth of 'blog entries for fear of angering anyone else, the club rather quickly implemented some of the changes I suggested in the offending entry.

Which of course means I was right. Not that being right is important to me, I'm just throwing it out there as part of the time capsule thing I mentioned earlier.*

The bottom lime is that I enjoyed writing the 'Blog and I loved getting all the comments from my friends who read it. It was fun and cathartic.

This year things will be a little different. I'm hoping to write now and again about both sides of my oddly bifurcated life: my days spent at the local Juvenile Court where I work as an attorney who represents kids on Delinquency cases, and my nights spent playing guitar with one of the most successful cover bands in the Central Ohio area.

Under the rules of ethics as an attorney, I can't divulge the names of my clients or other possible identifiers when I talk about my legal career, so I'm going to try to do the same thing with the musical entries. No clubs will be mentioned, nor the last names of the guys in the band, etc. Nor will I mention the name of the band.

That's a little annoying, because hey, any time we can get the name of the band into a search engine-friendly medium, the more free advertising we get. Moreover, many people who read this 'blog will be linking to it from my website or Facebook page, and they'll already know exactly where I was playing and who I was playing with. So it's a technicality obviously, but one I'll stick with for now as a parameter of the new 'blog.

2009 was indeed a great year for me. The band I've been playing with for over five years now had its most successful year ever. We added horns at some gigs which made the band eight or occasionally nine pieces, and I have to say that's been fantastic for me. For my own personal tastes, the only thing better than being a part of an ultra-tight rhythm section is getting to hear two of Central Ohio's most talented horn players doing their thing overtop of the groove. 2010 will be even better in that regard because the band has added the horn players to even more of the gigs that we'll play.

2010 promises to be another great year for the band and it remains my privilege and honor to play among these incredibly talented musicians and performers.

* (As of mid-2010, the club mentioned above went out of business due to gross mismanagement--and not at the local level. There was only so much the location manager could do given the ridiculous rules and spending policies the corporate level of the club imposed on him. It's a shame because it was a classy place and we were well paid there, but it was hard not to notice the place hemorrhaging money from every nook and cranny. I'm tempted to feel a grim sense of self-satisfaction, but instead I think I'll grab a coffee.)