1) Next week is going to be drier than normal.

2) There’s a cold front coming in this weekend.

Here’s why I find that interesting:

1) It never rains here this time of year. How can it be drier than “Never rains”?

2) The “Cold front” means that it’s going to be only 93–97 degrees during the day. How is that a cold front? Couldn’t he at least call it a “Not blazing hot front”. And it’s still going to be blazing hot.

I often don’t understand Texas.

It all started in April, when my friend Jes approached me at a Austin Jazz Band rehearsal.

“Hey, my Orchestra needs a guitar player for our Spring concert. Are you interested?”

“Hell yes!”

His Orchestra, the Austin Civic Orchestra, were performing a piece by Leonard Bernstein entitled “Slava!” that had a part written for electric guitar. They needed a guitar player who can read tricky charts, and I fit the bill. I was pretty stoked. I got the chart, and was going to get one rehearsal to practice my part. It was typical Bernstein, meaning it was in about five keys and all goofy time signatures. My sections weren’t too bad. It mostly stayed in 7/8. It did modulate about 7 times, but it was almost always the same melody. I went to the rehearsal, and got to run it twice before the conductor (fellow Ithaca College alum Dr. Lois Ferrari) deemed it good. I was a little unsure, as there was this one part that kept having notes that didn’t fit.

I spent the next few days running the song along with a recording whenever I had a little time. Eventually I found the few notes that didn’t quite fit, and assumed they were mistakes in the music. So I just drew in a few sharps, and let it go. But then there were a few measures that didn’t quite line up. I kept feeling like I was missing a measure somewhere. So I went up to my local coffee shop with the music, my laptop, and a cup of coffee for some serious listening. And that’s when I figured out the problem.

I was missing a measure of rest.

I slapped myself in the forehead and said out loud “D’OH”. Luckily, there was no one sitting near me.

The problem was that that section of the piece was a little bit like a round. There was the main melody in one set of instruments, and then a second set echoed it exactly one measure later. Because the whole orchestra was playing it was hard to pick out the guitar on the recording so I hadn’t noticed. The moment I played along again it worked perfectly. After that, I was fine.

So fast forward to the concert, and I’m all decked out in my tux. The part was a solid clean guitar sound, so I decided to play my Les Paul. A good part of the reason was because I really wanted the following photo:

When else am I going to have a photo of myself in a Tux with the Les Paul? Never.

Anyway, I was pretty nervous. I’ve never done anything like this before, and we didn’t really have much time for a soundcheck at the venue, which was a large church in South Austin. Also, the piece was at the very end of the concert, so I had a good hour and change to sit around, get my tux wrinkled, and be nervous. After what seemed like forever, I finally got to get on stage. Here’s the video of the piece. You can see me in the back standing next to the piano. For what it’s worth, the guitar enters at 1:33. The part that had tripped me up with it’s sneaky rest was at 2:02. I’m doubling the brass.

I know it’s hard to hear, but I played my part perfectly. The whole experience was really fun, and really nerve-racking. But playing with a orchestra is something I never thought I’d get to do, and I was really happy to check it off the musicians bucket list. And of course such a conquest derserves celebratory pancakes at Kerbey lane afterwards!

P.S. if you listened to the piece and liked it, it has a interesting history. Read more here.

Anyway, so I say to the film teacher as he was walking by “Hey Mike, have you ever seen “Biloxi Blues?”

He gives me a funny look and says “Have I seen it? Yes, I was in it!”

I totally didn’t believe him, which I should of, because I knew he’s done a lot of acting, but somehow I thought he was pulling my leg. I actually pulled a similar stunt in college, and had some of my floormates believing I was in “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”. So I looked it up on IMDb, and not only was he in it, he was one of the most critical characters! He played Hennessey!

So how random is this? Just think about this for a minute:

1) We’d be walking by each other at that very moment.
2) He’d say something that would make me think of a movie that came out 22 years ago.
3) I’d say something about that movie to him.
4) He was not only in the movie, but one of the stars.

These are the random moments that make life so much more interesting.

As I stared at it, and it stared back at me, I really was speechless. The Minotaur started slowly approaching me, which started to freak me out. What the hell was going on?

At this point, the Minotaur stood up and removed his head, which revealed it to be a her. It turns out it was one of my guitar students, and she was helping out a coach who was having a theme birthday party in the woods. After several minutes of intense negotiations, my safe passage was allowed, and I was even allowed to return to the path twice more. I saw several other odd things in the wood, but none threatened my safety. The three witches were even polite enough to ask if they were supposed to fight me.

I think the most interesting thing about his show is how you can watch a episode about a place you’ve never been and never even thought about going, where the food looks a little scary, and by the end of the show you want to jump on a plane! I just watched a show on the Brittany region of France. Now, I’ve never felt super excited by the idea of going to France. I wouldn’t turn it down, but it’s not on my top five list of places to go. And Brittany is a area that’s heavy on the Seafood, which isn’t really my thing either. And I swear, by the end, I was ready to try Sardines in a jar marinated in olive oil! Of course, I’d probably barf all over the floor, but still, I would’ve given it a fighting chance.

I do find the shows are occasionally hit or miss. The famous Romanian fiasco is somewhat legendary at this point. And the one show on somewhere I’ve actually been (Puerto Rico) didn’t quite capture it for me. In that episode, he got caught up in stuff that was a little silly for a food show (A horrid segment about a Chupacabra, and something about the Paso Fino Horses. Boring!) The part that’s really bugging me is that there’s a segment on the show’s website about his Puerto Rico show that was really great. You can watch it here, and this feels like Puerto Rico to me.

For some reason I’ve been getting more and more into Food and Wine recently. I’ve always really liked food (I am my Dad’s son after all) but now I’m starting to even learn about Wine. I’m very much a Gourmand more than a gourmet, but I’m trying. For those of you who are iPhone people, check out an app called Cor.kz. Trust me. Anyway, recently there’s been this explosion in Austin of all these crazy food trailers. The first one I noticed was called Hey! Cupcake, and I’ve been fortunate enough to play some shows there. Yes, because it’s Austin some food trailers have live music. There’s also one called Flip Happy Crepes that’s gotten a lot of notice and was featured on Bobby Flay’s show on the Food Network. Anyway, since Hey Cupcake hit it big (they now have four trailers and a storefront) there’s about a billion food trailers all over South Austin. The parking lot where Hey Cupcake on Congress lives now has something like 5 trailers in it, and there’s a whole empty lot on South First street full of them. I went to a new one the other night called Gourdoughs. It’s nothing but huge, absurdly topped donuts. I swear I ate a Donut that, if launched from space, could wipe out humanity just like the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs. It was that huge. And now the national media is picking up on this trend, and Bourdain announced that he’s coming back in June to do a whole show on Austin’s food carts!

Upon reflecting on this post, I’m wondering if I’m really just a frustrated food blogger.

http://lovemonkeystudios.com/blog/?p=78

And then, just yesterday (March 9th, 2010) The New York times publishes their article on Breakfast tacos, as if they just discovered them! Not only that, they mentioned TacoDeli, which not only did I mention in my review, but I’ve actually been going to since it opened in 1999. I’ll admit that it was purely luck, because the original TacoDeli is located at the base of the apartment complex I lived in when I first moved to Austin. But still.

The Times mentioned one I really should of written up. Donut Taco Palace II does have excellent Tacos, and the funny part is that my first teaching job in Austin was next door to Donut Taco Palace 1. I used to get tacos there all the time! I had stopped working there when I wrote my original review, so it slipped my mind. Also, I wrote up Juan in a Million, specifically their Don Juan taco. Juan in a Million was recently featured on my favorite new eating show, Man Vs. Food. I mentioned how huge the Don Juan taco was, and the guy on Man Vs. Food tried to set the record for eating these tacos. The current record is eight, and Man vs. Food guy ate four and one half. And this is a dude who can finish a 72-once steak. I couldn’t believe he could eat two, much less four. And who ate eight? Did Bigfoot stop in for a taco? Nuts.

I can hear one huge difference right off the bat. On this album most of the lead vocals are double tracked by whomever is singing the song. This became standard practice for most of the Beatle albums until Revolver when, after complaints from John Lennon about how tedious it was to double track all the vocals, came up with a brilliant invention. Which I’ll talk about when I review Revolver. I’m going to stick to the format from the first review, and just list what jumped out at me about certain songs.

1) All I’ve Got To Do — This isn’t a song that has ever stuck in my head, and I was surprised to learn it was actually a Lennon — McCartney original song. It’s so Motown I assumed it was a cover. Paul McCartney is playing Bass chords, which some music reviewer noted was the first time this had been done in a rock recording.

2) All My Loving — Not ever a single, which surprised me. It got lots of radio airplay, so it was eventually put onto a EP release. It was a single in Canada, and enough copies were imported to push the song onto the charts at #45. The recording isn’t as clear as I would like.

3) Don’t Bother Me — There’s all kinds of extra percussion stuff going on that I never heard before, including some kind of african drum. The end of the song gets a little messy as well, which I had never caught before.

4) Little Child — Dumb lyrics, but there’s actually a pretty heavy groove going on.

5) Till there was you — This is the best sounding song so far. Really nice and clear. And how cool is George Harrison’s pseudo jazz guitar solo? And it’s such a pretty song.

6) Roll Over Beethoven — Killer.

7) Hold Me Tight — This song kind of sucks.

You Really Got a Hold On Me — This sounds really, really good. Lennon sounds great, and it’s great song. Go Smokey.

9) I Wanna Be Your Man — Trivia. This song was actually written for the Rolling Stones. Here’s a quote:

Hearing that the band was in need of material for a single, Lennon and McCartney went to their session at De Lane Lea Studio and finished off the song – whose verse they had already been working on – in the corner of the room while the impressed Rolling Stones watched. Lennon later commented, “That shows how much importance we put on it. We weren’t going to give them anything great, right?”

I don’t know if any of you have heard the Stones version, but I don’t think it’s anywhere as good as the Beatles version. It’s a lot slower, and “Funkier”, I guess. I just don’t really like it.

10) Money (That’s What I Want) — Pure killer. Like early punk rock. Lennon is killing it, and McCartney’s high backround vocal is so cool. And I LOVE a guitar solo where nothing happens except the rhythm part.

Overall, for some reason I didn’t enjoy listening to With The Beatles as much as Please Please Me. I’m not really sure why, but I think that the album isn’t as good. It doesn’t have quite the same energy, and the songwriting hasn’t quite matured yet. That’s going to happen on Hard Day’s Night, which is the next album. Also, some of the covers are a bit lackluster. There’s still some good moments, but I don’t think it’s as consistent. I’m really looking forward to Hard Day’s Night!

One caveat: I’m not tagging any of my students here, so don’t be insulted guys. You keep my career interesting for very different reasons!

The first Beatle album was recorded in quite a hurry. They had released their second single, Please Please Me, and it had become a instant #1 smash hit. The music industry wasn’t really built on long term success back then, so it was always about getting as much out of an artist while they’re hot. Therefore the record company said “We need a full album. Right now!” If memory serves (from all the Beatle books I’ve read) they took the first full day they had free from their live shows and booked all day in Abbey Road. What followed, in the words of Beatles scholar Mark Lewisohn are “the most productive 585 minutes in music history.” They recorded 11 songs, playing live in the studio. One song “Hold me tight” was recorded, but not used until the next album. The entire album was recorded live, with no overdubs, and it really showcases how great a live band they really were.

And now for the actual review. The first thing is WOW do these sound good. The Bass is so much louder than it is on the original albums. It’s almost overwhelming on a song like “I saw her standing there”. But it’s really cool to actually hear it. Paul McCartney is probably one of the top two or three bass players in music history, and even on this first album, while playing and singing, the lines are really cool. And outside of the Bass, the clarity is just stunning. Everything else is just as clear as day. It’s really like listening to the album for the first time. I didn’t listen to this album over and over like some of the others, so I’ll really be curious to see how I feel about the other ones. But this is a really good start. The songs that really stick out to me for various reasons are the following:

1) I Saw Her Standing There — As usual, just rocked. And hearing the bass so much louder was cool. It’s all so much clearer that I even could hear some slight weirdness in the bass part during the end of the solo. But awesome.

2) Boys — Ringo is the only drummer I’ve heard who can play cool fills while singing. And he sounds really good on this track.

3) Please Please Me — Always a great track.

4) Do You Want To Know A Secret? — the depth of all the vocals and the reverb is great on this track. In fact, all the tracks have this huge Phil Spector reverb thing going on, and this one sounds really cool to me. The “Do-dah-do” backgrounds are “in the cave!” And I never caught this before. There’s some kind of click during the bridge, which to me sounds like someone hitting two drumsticks together. But the snare is still there, so it’s not Ringo. And I know the album was recorded live, so who is it? Mysterious indeed.

5) Twist and Shout — for those of you who don’t know the original story, here’s the short version. They needed one more track at the end of the night, and after much debate, this is what they decided on. John Lennon’s voice was pretty much dead, so he said “I’ve got one take in me, and I’m going to kill my voice.” And they pulled it off in one take, and if you really listen, Lennon is just screaming it. He did such a good job that he missed the next two live shows, and said his voice wasn’t the same for a long time afterwards. It’s pretty fierce, and at the end of the track you can hear some kind of vocal sound, which sounds like Lennon saying “God.” There were several one take recordings in Beatle history, usually of some of their cover songs from the cavern days, and this is one of them. I’ll point them out as I go. It’s also one of the few times in Rock history that a cover version of a song exceeds the original. I’ll let someone else speculate on the others.

So overall, I’m pretty stoked. Just this first album was good enough that I can’t wait for the others. My main problem is that my favorite Beatle album is Abbey Road, which is the last one, so it’s going to take me forever to get there.

And as another test, that’s the awesome Spanish tortilla my wife made yesterday.

And I need to stop using the word awesome.

But I’m also, as a rule, behind the times. I’m not that guy who always hears the coolest bands six months before they’re famous. I’m not the guy hitting up SXSW showcases to catch all of next year’s new artist grammy nominees. Whenever I find a band I think might become the next big thing, they become the next never a thing (I really thought Spymob was going to make it!) If anything, I’m the guy who’s thirty years behind the times. And thusly I will embark on possibly the nerdiest thing I have ever done:

I’m going to listen to and review all of the new Beatle albums for this blog.

I’m going to listen on headphones.

I’m going to listen off the CDs, not Mp3s, which have nowhere near the same sound quality.

I’m going to not do anything else but listen.

I’m not going to have any distractions, if possible.

I might even turn off the lights. For Sgt. Peppers, I’ll have to.

The motivation for this is that I got the brand new Beatles Box set for Christmas, and I didn’t want to just copy them onto my iPod and listen in the car or something stupid like that. This is some of the greatest music of all time, and I really want to give it it’s due. I have no idea how long this is going to take me, but I’m going to shoot for one a week. So, that’ll take me 13 weeks. I might try to go a little faster if I can, but knowing me it’s going to take me twice as long. I’m going to do Please Please Me tonight, and I’ll post it tomorrow or Friday, assuming I finish.

As a extra bonus, I’m going to re-design the blog, and I’ll be posting the first of the Beatle reviews with the new design. Enjoy!

So maybe this is a little dramatic, but it’s on my mind right now, and here’s why:

In November of 2005, my friend Jenny and I did a CD release show for her new album, and we did it at a great little coffee shop/music venue called the Lost Cat near downtown Kyle, Texas. We had played there a few times, and it was a really cool little place, plus they had a great outdoor patio. We were playing with a full band, and it was a perfect spot. The show went well and we had a nice little crowd. Unfortunately, the owners had decided to close down the place, and we were the last ever act to perform there, as they closed the next day.

The space stood vacant until sometime this summer. A coffee shop called the Lucky Spot, which previously had been located in Jenny’s housing division of Plum Creek, decided to move into the old venue and start up again. We had played at the old Lucky Spot a few times, and Jenny knew the owners, so before long she ended up hosting a open mic on Tuesday nights. I hadn’t had a chance to make it out until last week. I drove down to Kyle, and Jenny and I played, along with a few other acts, including one of my students making his solo debut. We had a really nice night, and it was cool to be back in that space. Then yesterday, Jenny went by to get a cup of coffee on her way to work, and guess what? Closed for business! She spoke to the owner, and they had actually closed Wednesday, or the day after we played. Same space, same thing. And I can’t really imagine what happened! Jenny and I have played dozens of coffee shops, and haven’t killed any others yet! I’ve been completely baffled by this all day, until I came up with something:

Sam.

That’s right world, Sam Leatherwood. He’s been a student of mine for years, and has developed into a talented singer-songwriter. He happened to come down to see me play at the Lost Cat for Jenny’s CD release, and he came down to the Lucky Cup to play at the open mic. He’s the common link. So i guess the quote above is really about Sam more than me. But just to be safe, Jenny and I agreed that if a new coffee shop opens in that space, we will never, ever play there.

1) There was absolutely nothing dark or macabre about it at all. If you didn’t know, you would assume he was still alive. No “Wednesday, June 24th, 8pm” stuff. It was all timeless, dateless, and went between different clips of the same song with no mention of time. It really comes off as a documentary of getting a major concert and stage show together, which is really fascinating for a music junkie like me. I’ll confess a secret wish to someday be involved with a huge, crazy rock stage show like that. I’m sure I’d wonder around too much and get set on fire by a flashpot, James Hetfield style, but still. I’ve seen a few huge rock shows in my time (Aerosmith, Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney) and always enjoy a good on-stage explosion.

2) Much was made about his physical condition over the last ten years, so I was very curious to see how well he was performing. And I’ll say this. He looked good! You need to remember that the man was fifty years old. There’s tons of dance rehearsal footage, and he’s keeping up (easily) with guys half his age. He’s obviously going a little easy, but he’s hitting every move. And looking good doing it. His voice sounded very solid too. Maybe not quite what it was, but he repeatedly said he was holding back to save (and build up, I would think) his voice. But even at fifty percent, he was a incredible performer.

3) As a music nerd, watching the process of getting the music together, along with the dancing and stagecraft, was really interesting. Let me say Michael really knew what he was talking about. There’s a scene where he’s trying to explain a chord progression he wanted to the keyboard player (on a super cool slow simmer version of “The way you make me feel”) and I’m practically shouting at the TV “Dude, just switch chords every measure. It’s not that hard!” But in general, the band was pretty badass. There was a big segment with 24 year old guitarist Orianthi Panagaris and Jackson trading licks (guitar and vocal) that was really, really cool. I think any guitarist would be envious of being in that position!

4) Thriller looked like it was going to be ridiculously cool. And watching him do the now iconic thriller dance with the other dancers was really fun. He looked like he had a little smile on his face, kind of like “Yeah, been there on this one.”

5) The biggest thing that I noticed was how different the persona of Michael Jackson was different than what the world was led to believe. He comes across as quiet, amazingly polite, hard working, and very much a perfectionist. It seems like it almost pains him to say something critical to someone. There’s a scene where he’s complaining about having trouble adjusting to his in-ear monitors (which I would guess he’s using for the first time) and he keeps apologizing for complaining. Not many big rock stars would be that polite in that situation. He really seems pretty normal to me.

6) After he died, a lot of people were very mean about him (Like Bill Maher, who is someone I usually like a great deal) and lost in the shuffle was what an extraordinary talent the man was. Iconic singer and performer to start. One of the greatest entertainers of all time. And one thing people don’t realize is that he was also a very very good songwriter. He wrote a good amount of his own material. He had 9 number one hits that he wrote or co-wrote (including Don’t Stop ’til You Get Enough, Billy Jean, Beat It, We Are the World, The Way You Make Me Feel, and Black or White) and 21 top tens. That’s a pretty good record, don’t you think? He was inducted into the Songwriter’s hall of fame in 2002. You can read more about his songwriting accomplishments here. He also did a lot of his own Choreography.

7) I guess to sum up, there’s really no reason Michael Jackson should be at all normal. He’s been a “Can’t leave my house” celebrity since the age of ten. He had a horrible and violent father (Seriously, the man’s a monster) and had health issues his whole life. Just read a little bit about the incident with his hair catching on fire. It’s horrific. Of course he’d be a little strange. Check out how most child stars turn out. I think he did fine. It’s a shame that he didn’t really get the recognition he deserved in life.