Things I learned From Shows in Los Angeles

Letter from the composer: [sends me chords to play on piano]

Me: Thanks, I'll check them out. 

Happy New Year. Kind of bummed out with a work situation at the moment. But the music is keeping me going. The last couple nights I've been going to shows at the bar and figuring out how the sound technician gets all the sounds. I figured it out. 

There are monitors, subwoofers inside the bar on the top of corners on the ceiling. 

The owner only wants the sound tech to only use the brand new [digital equipment]. But he doesn't want to because he likes a more traditional system. 

The owners says the traditional system is too loud. So he can't use it every night. So he's been loading different equipment [a more fancier analog system] all by himself for different nights in a large SUV style van. Not good because the guy is 64 years old. 

The answer to this dilemma is that he must use a smaller sound system for each and every night. But he doesn't want to because he wants to do what he wants, and is reluctant to do anything the owner says because they've been working together for a long time and they have some sort of dispute about it. 

However, the sound technician showed me the older more basic [analog log system that's very small] and I saw that everything that it had was acceptable and could work within the small confines of a small local Encino bar. 

So, you find that the sound systems used to record music are not important at all to the sound of the recording. 

Rather, it is the direction of sound that is placed or pointed at the audience that determines the sound more than anything else. 

In conclusion, theoretically speaking, you could record a classical music album on an iphone 12. 

Keep in mind, this guy used to run sound for Black Flag.

Happy New Year! 

How Progressive Rock Saved Me During Coronavirus

Buenos dias, 

I've recently started listening to a ton of progressive rock. It's saved me during this quarantine. If you haven't already read my post about how the Beatles saved me during quarantine, check it out here.

For those of you who don't know, progressive rock was a more technical, magical, and showy form of rock and roll that appeared after the Beatles, after Cream, after the Hendrix, arguably the three most important rock bands in my eyes. It reached its zenith in the middle or end of the 70s, and was most popular and more well done in England in the richer country areas. So these guys came from wealth unlike those four raggedy Andy dolls from Liverpool. They had college degrees, education, any perhaps money.

Now that you know the background of progressive rock let's talk about the actual style. The style is well, kind of all over the place. Every progressive band sounds different. The biggest prog bands were King Crimson, Yes, Genesis, and Emerson, Lake, and Palmer, and Pink Floyd [they had their prog moments like the Meddle album and Atom Heart Mother, even the first album]. They all sound totally different and you could never confuse them. 

The style incorporates changing time signatures. The time signature is the beat or rhythm of the music. Most basic blues and rock is in 4/4 time, meaning you count each beat: 1, 2, 3, 4, however, in progressive rock the time signature could change to literally anything: something simple would be a changing time signature of 3/4 to 2/4, meaning you would count the beat like 1, 2, 3-1, 2, and so on. 

The music that goes over these widely varied beats is loud guitars, keyboards, synthesizers like the Mellotron, drums, bass, vocals, and sometimes even a saxophone in King Crimson's case. Sometimes the guitar parts are super soft, other times they're like deafening death metal before death metal even existed. King Crimson goes super hard with their drumming and guitar playing. Yes goes super soft with their beautiful singing. Emerson, Lake, and Palmer makes the keyboard as heavy as a guitar. Genesis is like the perfect arranger's band where the band plays their parts and are well rehearsed. Some bands are like a jazz band and they don't even have to speak to each other about what they did in the band. Others are more tight like an orchestra.

Progressive rock died at the end of the 70s when the youth in England got fed up with pompous grandiose rock stars. So they created their own genre based on three chords and angst. It became punk rock. The most famous band from England being the Sex Pistols with their one and only album, Never Mind The Bullocks, Here's The Sex Pistols. 

Progressive rock has saved me during coronavirus. I've been so bored. Going through all these old bands has recharged my spirit. I go through lots of phases in music. I've been in nearly every music phase since 7th grade, that's how I know so much about music. Almost everything I know from music I learned from YouTube. It's all free! 

There's just something so exciting about revisiting all these bands. It really puts things in perspective. I've heard all these songs ten years ago and ten years after all the music, all of it, sounds so much more refreshing, exciting, and invigorating. I can see why all these bands pushed me so hard to practice guitar as a kid. 

I've had really good memories of listening to progressive music. Some of my prog CD's got damaged because they've had so much greenery spread over them in my youth. If you want to smoke out to some exciting music, this is the style for you. 

I don't think any of the musicians in the genre realized how powerful they were as musicians and just how influential they would be on the world of music. And to think none of this would have even been a twinkle in the eye if it weren't for the Beatles. The Beatles were progressive because they did things like a concept album like Sergeant Pepper. Every progressive guitarist I like: Steve Howe, Robert Fripp, Steven Hackett, Michael Rutherford, Chris Squire, Roger Waters, and David Gilmour all brought something different to the table and inspire me to this day to rock out hard. 

I'll leave you with some lyrics from my favorite Yes song at the moment. The song is called Seen All Good People. 

Take a straight and stronger course
To the corner of your life
Make the white queen run so fast
She hasn't got time to make you a wife

 

Don't surround yourself with yourself
Move on back two squares
Send an instant karma to me
Initial it with loving care (Don't surround yourself with yourself)

Punk show last night

Last night I went to a pretty sick show at the Sugar Mill Saloon. The show was sponsored by Demon Candy Promotions. I was around for three bands. All great. 

The first band was Kittenhead. They're a female-led group consisting of a white chick frontwoman singer, a black chick guitarist, an Asian chick bassist, and a white dude on drums. Talk about diversity! I actually haven't seen a band like that live before. The guitarist and bassist kept switching off instruments. They were proficient at guitar and bass, both of them. However, the Asian chick was the better guitarist. But the black chick was funkier. 

They reminded me of the 90s bands fronted by women like The Cars. But they had a more punk rock edge. The three girls sang vocals and sometimes they switched off between lead vocals. The black chick even had songs where she rapped. And she was good. And funky with her guitar playing. They weren't terrific or remarkable in any particular way. Rather, they were the perfect rock band. Perfect in the sense that you know that these musicians aren't remarkable on their own. However, when they come together as a band they are greater than the sum of their parts. Wowie zowie! 

The second band was called Rosemary Reyes. Loudest band I've ever heard in my life. The guitarist even told me outside the bar that he couldn't hear himself. "Did it sound good?" Sure did, buddy. Okay, first of all, this band is one of a kind and I will never see another band quite like it. For starters, the band is fronted by a 72-year-old woman! 

The guitarist was quite good. He was playing an old 1950s guitar, possibly a Silvertone from the looks of it. He had a Vox half stack setup. He had a great fuzzed-out guitar tone emanating throughout the place. Honestly, his guitar playing was carrying the whole band from start to finish. The old lady singing was doing a punk rock snarl throughout every song. I couldn't understand a word. It was all gibberish. So much for punk rock. BUT...the fact that she's fronting a punk band at that age is freaking inspiring. She's a true inspiration. Even though I wasn't a fan of her vocals she looked cool and even sounded cool. 

I was very impressed with the guitar player. He was playing punk rock so his guitar playing was limited to just hardcore rhythms, power chords, and open chords. He did do one solo but it was like maybe ten seconds long. But he made it sound so good. His guitar was an old 1950s model. It's quite fascinating how those old guitars from the 50s actually look futuristic like they could've been made in 2020. Those were the days. They were so loud. I've never seen a band play there that sounded so loud. It was quite good. The young drummer killed it with a lot of hardcore fills. The bassist was very good as well. Talk about fuzz tone.

The last band was Swords of Fatima. The group consists of a girl singing and playing guitar with just a drummer. Because it's just a duo it sounds more rock and roll, more visceral, more raw, more punk rock, maybe even more blues. I didn't stay for the whole set but the drummer was on point. And her guitar playing was great, especially her rhythms. 

It was late and I called it a night. A good show indeed. You can listen to these bands on YouTube but those videos aren't as good as the real, live, thing. Women in rock and roll are pretty damn cool. 

The Proletariat Christmas

The last two weeks have been pretty rough at the retail gig. The holidays have come and gone, save for New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. It's been rough. That's a phrase I've been saying a lot at work. I'm just a little stressed. That's another likely quote. How do you fight back against this stress, this holiday frenzy, eating away at the core of modern American society? 

Well, the thing is, you just have to rise above like the Black Flag song. Inevitably every little thing in our lives affects us at least somewhat on somewhat of a scale. One of the best pieces of advice my manager at work gave to me was, "no matter what happens, just go with it." At first, this sounded to me like a plea of defeat. But then you put it to practice and see how useful it really is. 

There are two kinds of customers in retail work: assholes and friendly people. There is no in-between. You might think you're a tough guy and that nothing anybody says to you can ever affect you but in reality, every interaction we have affects us in some way, however small, or large.   

Think of all the people you've met in retail work [if you work in retail] that you've ever had contact with.  Most of it is overwhelmingly positive, at least for me. I'm pretty much something of a celebrity at my job, just for the sheer fact that I'm a unique personality [I talk a lot to people about books, music, guitar] that people never forget me and want to talk to me more the next time they come in. I think that it just shocks people that I'm a big black dude that shreds the guitar like Hendrix and reads Heidegger. They will never meet a black man quite like myself ever in their entire lives. In that sense, I'm something of a novelty. The other side of it is the depressive, melancholy that comes with the retail experience. 

A large chunk of that melancholia would be bad interactions with customers. Customers who are overwhelmingly rude, customers who want to take advantage [return things with no receipt, demand cheaper prices, yell if it doesn't go their way, etc], upper management that tries to tell you how to do your job even though you've been working there longer than them, and the rest is just low-level grunt work that gets old fast.

There's also a sort of late-night depressive side of retail. When you work 430pm-1am 5 days a week for seven years straight you start to find that you're thinking more about the darker side of life at the later hours of the shift. Ironically it's at these hours that I feel the most awake, the most alive, in a sense. When I come to realizations. 

But wait. Here's the good news. This is happening to other people too. Not just you. The modern American workers need to rise up in solidarity. The middle-class, upper-middle-class, and rich people with their nice cars, their mocha frappuccinos, their office jobs, and their gym memberships know nothing of the true struggle of the proletariat.  If it were up to them they would stay rich and you would stay poor, indefinitely. And if you don't recognize this truth, then you aren't one of us. 

This is why it is so important to have a worker's movement in America. The modern American worker is losing so much right now. The rich are so happy with their fancy video games, their pornography, binge-watching their favorite Netflix TV shows. They know nothing about what it's like to be a true proletariat. 

The next worker's revolution is coming sometime. There will be no video games, pornography, or Netflix in it. 

The revolution will not be televised. Say goodbye to the bio-mass. 

Early December Muzak

I listened to some good music today and I'd like to share my thoughts. 

I ordered two albums from the library and both of them came in today, wonderful. The first listen was John Zorn's Naked City band album also entitled Naked City, released in 1990 on Nonesuch Records.

<sup>The music on Naked City is all over the place but it has its moments. The opening track for instance is quite alluring because it reminds me of some sort of Batman theme, that might've even been the song. Another stand out moment was the James Bond theme, that was memorable and signifies a certain point towards the end of the album. There's tons of free jazz moments, grindcore death metal thrashing, punk rock screaming and shouting, lounge jazz, rock and roll, and more. It does all of these styles in an eclectic way. I can see why this is one of John Zorn's best albums. Its all over the place but it still sounds nice in a "I can put this on for anybody sort of way." However, its not for everybody. Grindcore purists will scoff at this sort of thing and jazz fans won't exactly find the punk parts to speak for them. For someone like myself in the middle I can simply say, "This is ok." I see its relevance in today's musical climate and I think that would be saying a lot of the album and John Zorn's work in general. After all, I have been listening to a lot of his music-enough to make critical assessment of his career.

The other album is also associated with John Zorn. It's a Pat Metheny album called Tap: Book of Angels Volume 20. It's an album where Metheny plays compositions written by John Zorn from his Masada Book 2. It was released on Tzadik Records and Nonesuch Records in 2013. This album I would also say was just okay. However, it had its moments. There was a great moment where Pat plays a melody with the guitar synthesizer and he gets this really cool trumpet/flugel horn sound. *Edit: He actually played real flugelhorn!* That knocked me out. Most of the sonic atmosphere Metheny gets using guitar effects don't really go anywhere interesting but his acoustic guitar playing Zorn's melodies really give the music a Medieval feel. There's a lot of creativity coming out of Pat's arrangements of Zorn's music but at the end of the day there's a sense that John Zorn and Pat Metheny don't really mix. Most of the album combats this idea until you hear the acoustic bits and see the beauty in the melody lines. 

Pat plays so many instruments on this album! Here's a list of personnel.</sup> 

Personnel

• Pat Metheny – acoustic guitar, electric guitar, bandoneon, sitar guitar, baritone guitar, orchestra bells, orchestrionic marimba, keyboards, piano, bass guitar, tiples, percussion, electronics, flugelhorn
• Antonio Sánchez – drums
• Willow Metheny – vocals

<sup>Finally we have the last piece of music and probably the most interesting of the bunch. I listened to Stockhausen's Kontakte (Contracts), an electronic piece of music mixing electronics with instrumental music. What can I say about this piece? I don't know enough about it to be too technical with my analysis but here we go.

The other day at dinner I mentioned to my dad's composer friend that I admired Stockhausen and his music. I asked him what he thought of Stockhausen's work and he said "it lacks soul". What I can tell you about this piece is that it has plenty of soul. There's life and beauty to this music. There's melody from the piano and the electronics, and silence is used in an almost rhythmic sensibility. So far this is my favorite Stockhausen I've heard, the first and only other one being Gesang der Jünglinge. 

The point of this post? Yes, sometimes its easy to get distracted by popular musings. But don't forget about the true masters of the avant-garde like Stockhausen (pictured above).</sup>