gig #1: the hub.

ladies and gentlemen, i'd like to introduce you to the immortal string trio.


about two weeks ago, i played at the hub with these two guys. from left to right, it's me, eli, bruce. it was a ton of fun too. i was really nervous leading up to it, mainly cause the only other time i've ever played on stage was at church like three times, and these guys have been performing forever. the other reason i was nervous was that i was a little out of my element. the gig was originally gonna be at the hydrant, a small little bar that my roommate kevin works at, which i've spent a substantial amount of time at. i thought it was gonna be a really small crowd, nothing too big of a deal or anything, but then plans changed with the venue owners and we ended up playing the hub on a wednesday night. the hub is a quite bigger bar than the hydrant and i had an extra week to think about it so i got myself pretty worked up.

the day came and i got to the bar around nine, set up my guitar with eli and then just chilled out while people started trickling in. one cool thing though, eli took me down to the "green room" of the hub, i guess every venue's gotta have a place where the performers can chill out before/after the show away from the whole crowd. unfortunately the hub's green room is just the basement with a coffee table and like two crappy leather chairs and an old couch. all purchased from a thrift store most likely. so i went down with eli and bruce and another dude whose name i can't remember now and just hung out while they had a few cigg-butts. we talked through the set list a little bit but basically just decided to wing it. and we went up and played a few songs. i think our first set was about five or six songs, nothing too much. i think it was mainly to get my nerves out.

it worked too. basically the way the three of us play together is either eli or bruce takes lead vocals, the other sings harmony, eli plays the basic rhythm guitar part, bruce will dink around a little with that and i get to pretty much do whatever i want. which means adding what i can during verse chorus parts and then they usually give me a solo in songs that call for one. that was what i guess i was most nervous about; i can play chords on a stage in front of people all day and it wouldn't bother me, especially if there are two other people playing those same chords on stage with me. but soloing is a different story. when a solo happens, i'm trying express myself and the feeling of the song through strictly musical notes, and the spotlight is on me. yeesh. so the first couple songs featured a solo from me or just me playing along and it felt good to get the nerves out. especially once i realized that it was essentially like playing in my living room.

this is where i gotta give it up to my friends. all of my friends know i play guitar, and most know that i play a lot and that i'm better than the average shirtless college dude. so everybody was really supportive once they heard i was playing my first actual gig because playing with other people has always been something i've sort of wanted to do but never enough to actually pursue it aggressively. also, i've never really met anybody that has suited my musical sensibilities all that well either. i certainly hope that doesn't come off as i've never met anybody as good as me because that's not it at all, i'm not great and i've met people so much better than myself at guitar. what i mean is i haven't met anybody that's really matched what i enjoy listening to or playing to very well. eli and bruce fit that better than anybody i've ever really met.

so my friends knew i was excited and nervous about this, and they came out in droves to support me which felt great. and made me feel very much at home, literally, because with almost everybody who came, at one point or another in the last year, there have been one or two nights at least where i've played guitar in the jam shack (our garage) with all these folks around drinking. once i realized that the only difference between me playing at the hub for these people and me playing in my garage for these people was that i was standing two feet above them, i found my groove pretty quickly.

so i want to thank everybody that came out. there were new friends and old friends and super old friends, and it really meant a lot that everybody took so much out of their wednesday night to come and see us play. thanks.

so back to the actual thing. i played for about five or six songs, they let me take a break, eli and bruce duo-ed a few tunes, which is always fun to listen to them sing together, and then each of them did a solo set. so i had about an hour to hang out in the crowd and talk to friends and have a couple beers. it was great too, eli and bruce are both really great performers. they've got killer voices and they both have their own great style on guitar. and the songs they do are awesome. eli covers billy preston...enough said.

an hour goes by and eli invites bruce and i back up for another set. this is where it got fun for me. i had the jitters out and we just jammed and it was so great. set list (in no particular order):

soul scream (a bruce day original)
anywhere i go (slightly stoopid)
rivers of babylon (not sure)
wagon wheel (old crow medicine show)
2 drink minimum (chris cornell, written by john mayer)
omar bay (state radio)
arms of a woman (amos lee)
man in the hall (state radio)
always lift him up and never knock him down (old crow medicine show)
gulf coast highway (nanci griffith)
falling slowly (glen hansard)
what i got (sublime)
street corner preacher (amos lee)

that is the first list we made of songs we might potentially play. i think we did most of them, there were like maybe one or two we didn't do all together, and i know we did one or two of them twice. but you can kind of get the feeling of the music we played. folksy, acousticy, no distortion or anything like that. just music that is easy to play and fun to play well. here is the end of my solo in arms of a woman. this is nothing fantastic, and watching it again i notice how freakin' much i have to practice to get actually good or worth listening to. rather than fresh melody lines, my solos are normally just a glut of notes that fit in the chords being played cause i usually can't come up with new melody lines themselves. and from just a technical point of view, i mess up pretty obviously here and there. but again, this is my first time playing on stage ever so i was happy with how it went. and sorry about the video quality; the video function on blogger is nothing to write home about.



my favorite part of that is kevin yelling at the end, "i live with him! he's my roommate!" that's not his normal voice. devotees will remember kevin as the upside-down smile guy. anyway.

so that was it. i got to hang out with some friends and play guitar for like four hours. and on top of that, i got two free beers out of it, and on top of THAT, i got paid. like i was a legitimate working musician. this put me through the roof cause honestly, the thought of getting paid hadn't crossed my mind through these few weeks like once. i was just excited i was getting to tag along with two seasoned performers to play on a stage in front of people i liked. i felt like the kid brother who had just gotten lucky and got to hang out with the older kids. i hadn't thought once that i was gonna get compensated in any way. if anything, i was surprised i didn't have to pay the bar owner to let me up on stage with a guitar, but when the owner of the hub gave me money for the gig, forget about it. what a treat. a great way to end my night.

so right now, there has been a little talk between the three of us about playing another show soon. the next one will be at the hydrant on the 2nd (tomorrow), and it's actually just me and eli playing this one, bruce had a prior engagement. but i'm really excited because now that i have one gig under my belt, the next one will be a lot easier to be psyched for, and eli and i will have a fun time experimenting with what we can do on our own. he plays some great songs when he does solo shows and i'm excited to see what i can do with them. plus the hydrant is a super small and fun bar so i am already looking forward to it. we're going on about 10 pm. hope to see you out there.

-jon

reptile.

eric clapton is sort of a tough case for me. he is widely acknowledged as one of the best guitar players ever to grace the stage, even prompting graffiti artists in the 70s to write the infamous phrase "clapton is god" various places around england. the problem for me is that his music and his playing is so deeply rooted in the blues. now this is absolutely not a bad thing, but instead of adding the sensibility of blues into his pop music (or vice versa) in a subtle way, he often plays lots of just straight up 12 bar blues music, like straight from the 20s. it's pretty intense bluesy music. and as much as that music is great, i usually don't just sit down and listen to an album full of it. that's why i've never really digested anything he did with cream, anything with the yardbirds, any of the derek and the dominoes, any of his first few solo albums. the only ones i've ever really gotten into are obviously unplugged (basically the album that taught me how to play real guitar) and pilgrim.

i had heard this album reptile once or twice, but really the only songs i had remembered and liked were the title track and the album closer. i first heard the album in kansas city, so sometime around 2003. fast forward to 2009, my roommates and i set up my new record player in our living room and we put on the first record i'd ever owned, stevie wonder's hotter than july. we are sitting there talking and listening to it and all of a sudden the fourth track comes on, i ain't gonna stand for it. it sounds crazy familiar but i can't exactly place where i've heard it before. it jangles around in my noggin for a day or so before i realized clapton covered it on reptile so i dust those files off on my ipod and have been listening to it consistently for about two weeks. it is a really great album. it consists of three covers and lots of originals. here's a bit more on it.

1. "Reptile" (Eric Clapton) – 3:26

title track. just a simple instrumental, but there are so many great chord patterns in this one. there are two really incredible parts to this song, the gorgeous lead guitar part and everything else. let's break the everything else down first. there is a really groovy acoustic picking the chords in the background, and whoever is playing this rhythm guitar has got some serious funk in his bones. and the chord progression is so quiet but foundational. such good rhythm playing. on top of that, you've got a really quiet fender rhodes electric piano adding gorgeous chords and riffs in the background, spicing up the tune just enough. the bass is almost impossible to make out but essential, and the drum part is so sexy. the drummer is really rocking the brush stroke perfectly. i also hear the occasional wind chimes that close out a verse, such ambience. in the end though, two words really sum up the drum part: egg shaker. 'nuff said.

now the lead guitar part. what a hawt solo. overbearing this is not. this is where clapton's playing really comes into focus and has the potential to slap you in the face if you are paying attention. he's got such beautifully bluesy little licks that sit perfectly in this completely un-bluesy tune. and it's just a catchy solo. if nothing else, it's fun to listen to because it sounds like it's fun to play. on the concert dvd one more car, one more rider, clapton's band opens with this track and it just looks like a fun tune. and if i had to play my electric guitar with only one tone for the rest of my life, this would be one of the few i would be choosing between. such a muffled, warm sound.

2. "Got You on My Mind" (Howard Biggs/Joe Thomas) – 4:30

this is one of the more traditional blues numbers on the album. tunes like this really showcase how much the blues are imprinted in clapton's dna. he's got the guitar riffs of the great bluesmen down perfectly and adds his own touch. this is also one of the songs that nails clapton's voice so well. his voice sits perfectly over a 12 bar blues progression and you can really feel the blues in his voice. it's clear when it needs to be and growls just enough to be awesome.

3. "Travelin' Light" (J. J. Cale) – 4:17

written by usual clapton collaborator j.j. cale, this one has a bit of a rockin' feel to it. clapton's guitar sounds great as ever, but i'm not crazy about this song. it just doesn't really speak to me all that much, and the solo is a little too whiny for me to really want to learn it or anything.

4. "Believe in Life" (Clapton) – 5:05

a slower track, this has a very pilgrim-ish feel to it. sounds like change the world's distant cousin or something. nice little acoustic chords behind the lead guitar. it's a great tune, but clocking in at just over five minutes, i hardly ever listen to the whole thing unless i'm listening to the whole album straight through no skips, which only happens occasionally. this isn't one i skip to ever. which doesn't mean i don't like it, but there's just not enough that captures me to hang in there for a full five minutes.

5. "Come Back Baby" (Ray Charles) – 3:55

the first cover on the album. this sounds very much like the ray charles original, just a lot more full and better quality of recording. this tune features the real gravel in clapton's voice to belt out tunes written by ray, and he really tears into his guitar solo, something not found in ray's version. great tune.

6. "Broken Down" (Simon Climie/Dennis Morgan) – 5:25

this is a really great bluesy track. it's along the same lines as old love, not thematically but musically for sure. by that i guess i mean just a really killer tune, something that sounds almost harsh, and would sound perfect with a full band or played acoustic. the album features a full band version, but this tune would fit well with just an acoustic guitar and a lead playing over it. really catchy progression, even if it is a simple two chords. leads to lots of soloing possibilities, which clapton takes advantage of. this tune features a fantastic huge mix of instruments that all add a lot to the song. super fun to play with.

7. "Find Myself" (Clapton) – 5:15

this has a very ray charles feel to it but it's a clapton original. the rhythm plunks along a cute little chord progression. worth 4 minutes, but not 5 and a quarter.

8. "I Ain't Gonna Stand for It" (Stevie Wonder) – 4:49

here's the track that reignited my whole love affair with this album. hearing the stevie wonder original made me want to hear this again and it was all over after that. this song is just too much fun. my vote goes to clapton's rendition rather than stevie's. stevie's smacks just too much of country, while clapton's pulls off this really full sound that just blows out your ears. this is one of those songs that makes me wish i could sing and play at the same time. i don't know how clapton does it but to sing the chorus with any sort of conviction while riffing like he does is incredible. it's like his guitar and his voice are trading licks.

9. "I Want a Little Girl" (Murray Mencher/Billy Moll) – 2:58

quickly becoming another of my favorites on the album. this has the plunkiness of an old ray charles tune with a splash of clapton soul. anybody that sings about the girl of his dreams being able to cook chicken...that's good lyricism right there. no other way around it. great piano on this one too, with gorgeous guitar over it.

10. "Second Nature" (Clapton/Climie/Morgan) – 4:48

haven't given this one tons of listens. but i enjoy it. not much else to say other than it's pretty generic.

11. "Don't Let Me Be Lonely Tonight" (James Taylor) – 4:47

he turns a sexy james taylor song into an even sexier eric clapton song. i always thought this was a great song but hearing it with some rippin' guitar over this hawt chord structure really takes the song where it needs to be. sexy music deserves sexy guitar and clapton provides it.

12. "Modern Girl" (Clapton) – 4:49

really cool acoustic number. it's got a gorgeous melodic structure and a weird cheek popping noise every third beat which is awesome.

13. "Superman Inside" (Doyle Bramhall/Clapton/Susannah Melvoin) – 5:07

the low point of the album for me. sounds really generic. reminds me that clapton is still capable of making music that larry the cable guy fans could potentially enjoy listening to. kind of a bummer for me.

14. "Son and Sylvia" (Clapton) – 4:43

beautiful acoustic instrumental. this and reptile were the two songs that really hooked me from the beginning with this album, like 6 years ago when i first heard it. i think i heard this right around the time i had purchased my strat, and learning this was a great exercise in terms of picking stuff up by ear and soloing too. the layering in this tune is superb; each verse just keeps adding more and more, another guitar, a harmonica, weird instruments i don't even know about. and added all up it just sounds so beautiful.

i'd recommend this album to any clapton fan, no matter how marginal. clapton spans like eighty different genres for this album so it's got something anybody can groove to. plus lots of other good stuff too. check it out.

-jon

live from new york, it's a crappy show.

there are two "golden eras" of saturday night live that are generally recognized as the highest points of the show's history. the first was early on after the show started, when the cast consisted of john belushi, dan aakroyd, jane curtain, chevy chase, bill murray, among others, along with consistent guest spots by steve martin and andy kaufman (even though he's very often connected with the early years of the show, martin was never actually a cast member). popular sketches from this time were the blues brothers, most of what steve martin was a part of, and weekend update. weekend update really took hold around this time along with a new form of presidential parody not before seen on primetime tv.

the second golden era of the show came at the tail end of the 80s and on into the 90s. the cast consisted of, for my generation, the greats. adam sandler, chris farley, david spade, dana carvey, mike myers, and had writers such as conan o'brien and robert smigel (the man behind the tv funhouse shorts, such as ambiguously gay duo, and the voice of triumph the insult comic dog). this was absolutely one of the highest of the show's highs. the sketches the writers were coming up with were so funny and they had the strongest cast to really hit them out of the park. conan left snl to write on the simpsons while smigel went and wrote for dana carvey's next project, the dana carvey show, both of which were critically acclaimed. the seasons of the simpsons with conan as a writer are generally regarded as some of the shows best seasons, and the dana carvey show was also critically acclaimed, and even though it lasted for one season, it featured the early tv work of stephen colbert and steve carrell, along with the writing talents of smigel and stand-up louis c.k. it just goes to show how important writers are for snl, and really for any comedy show. the cast of the 80s/90s decade turn was a phenomenal cast, but without a solid set of writers they wouldn't have had anything good to work with.

and that's why snl is suffering now. if you look at the cast, it's really consistent. bill hader, jason sudeikis, seth myers, fred armisen, will forte are all extremely funny men. every interview that hader, sudeikis, myers, or forte had on late night with conan o'brien was very funny, and they are all really funny in most of the movies they show up in. and kristin wiig is possibly the funniest woman on television, at least until amy poehler premieres her new nbc comedy "parks and recreation". wiig has some of the funniest characters on snl right now, including the target lady, penelope, judy grimes, and part of the duo the a-holes. she also does hilarious impressions, which in the last few months have included bjork, barbie, and my absolute favorite, kathie lee gifford on the today show. plus she's super pretty. so the cast is strong.

here's where the show runs off the rails for me. andy samberg and his comedy group the lonely island, which is him, akiva schaffer, and jorma taccone. samberg is a regular cast member on snl, and all three of them are writers for the show, and in the last season or two the show has taken a very clear turn towards the type of humor that these three are famous for. they started by making crappy low-budget tv episodes and directing music videos for themselves and now they're doing that on snl. they do almost all of the digital shorts as far as i know, and the whole show is infested with their brand of "zany", off the wall humor. i quote zany because it's the type of humor that crappy people would call "random." my friend owen and i were talking about this the other day, that for awhile, in the last few years, the words "random" and "awkward" have become SO overused because they are now associated with humor. jr. highers started saying things like "the office is such a funny show because it's just so awkward!" no. the american version is not awkward. it's funny because of the relationships on the show and socially inappropriate behavior. the british version was absolutely awkward, and so few people in america would like it nearly as much as the american version. we can't stand subtle, and the american version is nowhere near as subtle as the british. another word that caught on fire was "random". "oh gosh how random is that that demetri martin labels all of his props!" that's the kind of "zany", or "random" humor that can be attributed to the lonely island. one perfect example of this from their pre-snl days is the "we like sportz" video. it's just schaffer and taccone in a song about how they like sports. and man is it stupid. in no way do i find it at all funny. they are good at making crappy music on like 16-track recorders and writing stupid words that rhyme. the zaniness i was talking about is the stuff like spelling words "sports" and "nuts" with z's, or "sux" instead of sucks. they play these stupid characters who look uncomfortable on camera, yeah that's how they're supposed to look but it's just not funny. i don't get why all of america thinks these guys are great.

this has only gone from bad to worse. samberg got on the map with "lazy sunday", probably the only video i've ever seen of his or the lonely island that i thought was funny at all. you can still see some of their "random" humor getting in here though, like "double true" being spelled in all different colors. how is that funny? since lazy sunday it's only gone from bad to worse. some of the worst i've seen are the digital shorts like "people getting punched", "andy popping into frame." please people. none of this is funny or original. it's brainless. it's insulting to watch because they have no respect for their audience. people getting punched is a long video of samberg running around and punching people before they bite into food with some crappy lonely island-produced song playing over it. then samberg does a stupid dance after he punches somebody. how is that humorous? andy popping into frame is almost worse, again a long video of NOTHING but empty shots of scenery around new york with samberg popping his face into the frame and smiling. not funny. pointless. comedy comes from jokes, from wit or irony or sarcasm. this is none of those things. this is an asanine waste of film.

one of the things that i dislike about samberg especially is the obvious fact that he and his comedy buddy writers seem to think that he has a funny looking face. he doesn't. the faces that he makes are NEVER funny. he just looks like one of those douchebag juniors in college who think they should be in standup because they can make their bar buddies laugh. his faces are not funny, which adds to my hatred for the andy popping into frame sketch.

ok so how about the recent, hugely popular sketches lonely island have done like "jizz in my pants" or "i'm on a boat". for some reason these are insanely popular on youtube and the like. now i will concede, i somewhat see the humor in lampooning these ridiculous genres of music. but at the same time, the lonely island guys seem to be doing it less with a sense of "this is actually ridiculous" and more with a wink/nudge "how funny are we that we are doing this, right?" it feels arrogant to me. my biggest beef with the jizz in my pants video is that so much of the comedy in this sketch is supposed to come from the faces the samberg and taccone make but again, samberg does NOT have a funny face and taccone's is nothing to write home about. also, justin timberlake WHY are you in this video? no point other than for face time. obnoxious. and the i'm on a boat video is funny, "because they actually got t-pain to do it right?!!" no. that simultaneously makes your video kind of smart but more stupid because first of all, to lampoon something as ridiculous as that kind of rap music only works if you can have someone like t-pain help you out, so it's kind of smart, but it defeats the purpose because it shows they are actually fans of t-pain and his music. so it's moot. no point to it. and t-pain sucks. and the song sucks. and just the idea isn't funny to me. i feel like so many people think it's great because "nobody has thought to do something like this yet and make fun of these self-indulgent rappers like this yet!!" but if you spend any amount of time actually analyzing the current state of rap music and realize that THIS is the kind of music that is popular with our culture, the genre is unintentionally self-parodying in its nature. to watch any music video by the yin yang twins or lil wayne (if kanye's not careful he's gonna find himself on this list too) or any of these ridiculous rappers or listen/read an interview by them or just listen to their music, it is SO ridiculous that it doesn't NEED to be parodied. it blows me away that somebody can't listen to their music and not see how incredibly absurd it is. the satire of the lonely island towards this genre is completely unnecessary and that's why it's not funny to me.

so that's why watching snl isn't fun to me right now. maybe in a few years the show will cycle through their writers but i just wish all the great talent in the cast wasn't wasted on guys like samberg, taccone, and schaffer. they are the worst.

-jon

p.s. i thought about putting up some of the lonely island videos i mentioned, but i didn't want them polluting my blog. i didn't even post any links. if you want to see them, youtube has most of the pre-snl lonely island stuff and hulu has most of the current snl lonely island stuff.

NOTE: edited to say that the movie hot rod sucks too. i turned it off at the scene where samberg is about to street luge down the hill and he starts saying all that "wwwwHy am i talking wwwwHich wwway?" cool samberg. watched family guy in the last three years?

before the music dies.

hulu.com is one of the greatest sites i've been introduced to in awhile. while they don't have all the tv shows one might want, they have a heck of a lot of good ones. they have all of nbc's late night talk shows (which are clearly the best), lots of great sitcoms (all three seasons of arrested development, always the most current office and 30 rock episodes, etc.), and even full movies. there aren't loads but they are free.

i just finished watching a documentary called before the music dies. it discusses the current state of american music and the american music industry. included are interviews with lots of musicians, including ?uestlove, erykah badu, doyle bramhall ii, bonnie raitt, branford marsalis, eric clapton, dave matthews, and others, and also some industry insiders, including music critics, a&r personnel, label execs, etc. if there is something i love, it is listening to real musicians talk about music. these people are people who know what they are talking about it because they live it. this is their niche, whether they are musicians or critics or labelmen. some really interesting thoughts about where our music is currently and where it's come from and hopefully where it is going.

it's about an hour and a half, so if you've got the time, please watch it. just go here. it's a fascinating documentary about the unraveling of the music industry and its intense commercialization in the last ten to twenty years. i can tell that something is communicating its ideas well when i actually want to turn it off so i can listen to good music. about halfway through i paused the movie and listened to a few tracks off bob dylan's the times they are a changin'. this got me excited to work harder, or at least be more intentional in my music listening, and making sure my time is put towards real pieces of art.

and come on. the opening segment of the movie is just one of the most incredible performances by anybody i've ever seen. look at how that man dances!

-jon

spring break '09 and not a single free day to do what i want.

i have all these great ideas about things to write about. i write the ideas down, then i never get to expanding on them. i'm giving you a list of my most recent thoughts so i will have more of a push to actually write them.

1. recap of my first gig.

2. track by track review of eric clapton's reptile.

3. why i think snl kind of sucks lately (i know it sounds like i'm jumping on a bandwagon that's been rollin' along for almost a decade now but i've got some legit thoughts about it, let me explain myself.)

4. conan o'brien. this one might not show up for awhile cause i might just turn this into a Top 5 Comedians type of blog. we'll see.

and then a quick little one i'm about to jot down and post. brb.

-jon

the debut of the immortal string trio.

get a load of this.

this is on the official website of a local bar called the hub. i am playing there tomorrow night with two local performers slash friends, eli and bruce. eli is in a band called the barefoot compadres and they've played together for awhile and they are awesome. lots of college-y type covers, but the good ones. no crash or banana pancakes here. stuff like oar, old crow medicine show, amos lee, etc. and bruce plays all over the place, here in cedar falls, cedar rapids, and last time we practiced he was telling me about a gig he had just done in des moines. he plays mainly solo but also duos with eli occasionally. and he sounds like chris cornell. it's incredible. actually both of them have killer voices, eli fronts barefoot compadres and sounds like a mix of everybody he sings, so when they sing together it's a great blend. awesome harmony.

so a few weeks ago eli and i are out with some friends and he asks if i want to come and jam with him and bruce the next day and the next day comes and we jam, bruce teaches us a new song that he wants to start playing and then they ask me to play with them for this gig. yikes. i feel like the little brother tagging along with a brother and his cool friend. these two guys play all the time around town and even in other towns, and when i play i'm usually sitting on my bed in front of my computer playing along with itunes, not in front of real people who are drinking real drinks and listening and watching me play. i'm mortified.

i think it'll be fun though. the two or three times the three of us have met and played our set we gel really well and sound pretty good if i can say that. we play a mix of the stuff the two of them play, folksy acoustic rock type of stuff. nothing flashbang but fun to sit and drink to and even more fun to stand and play. i'm looking forward to it. if at least just to get a real gig under my belt and not be so nervous next time. should be fun though. if you're around, come check it out. the hub, wednesday night around 9.

-jon

p.s. i had no input whatsoever into what was put onto the hub's website, especially concerning me. i actually have no idea who wrote that. just wanted to clear any doubt.