Strange, But True!

I find this style of music (psychedelic music, to put a label on it) so much more expressive than whatever else is out there, especially above the made-for-tv, keening-style of soulful, star-spangled-banner singing that’s so over-promoted on the networks. What’s more, it does not take so much talent to pull off a convincing sound in this genre. In fact, playing well to the point that some sort of technical prowess is in highlighted can be truly detrimental to getting ones point across. What’s the point? To make women moan and sway, for a sweaty crowd to press in and for all eyes to close and bodies to quake. It’s aspirational escapism, a flight into some primal, singular harmonies, beats and earnest poetry.

Here’s some old-school psychedelia, updated for today. I wish I had gone to the Austin Psych Fest last month. It’s a definite to-do next year. I also wish I could bring a band along to jangle the place up next time around!

I continue to respond to music ads that interest me, honing my pitch to avoid making such a big deal, any deal at all about of my age.  Still, it’s a bit bizarre to not receive a response.  I even sent the “young and adventurous” guy another message asking him to just flip my mail back to me, no other response requested, just to signal that this email thing is working.  Nothing doing!  So is my stuff being weeded out by spam filters, or am I really that unsuitable?

Today, however,  I received an almost immediate  reply to my response to an intriguing ad.  It suggested some sort of an accelerated rehearsal-to-tour schedule in support of an established artist who is about  my age.  I won’t say who it is but in fact, I have played on the same bill as his band in the past.  Anyway, I wrote my spiel and sent it and as the phone ringer was low, I missed the call a few minutes later.  My subsequent call-back was left as a message on his answering machine.

The way that I understand it, this would probably be a low/no-pay gig but with a tour of the mid-west, say, included.  There is a new album in the works (which this artist recorded himself) and a documentary is now being filmed.  Knowing what I know, this could be a great time, or it could be something soul-crushing or career-destroying.  I’ll know more in the coming week or two, I suppose!

Playing tonight at the Grog Shop!  They are a legendary psychedelic band from Japan.  It is most fortuitous that I am called off of a planned night shift.

I further refined a bit of song that I started working on last week– it’s still unsettled, but I came up with some extension of the theme and play through a few variations. I wanted to retain some of the original ragged/stoniness of the first pass through but you’ll notice that I get kind of busy and sloppy with it as the tune goes on. I need to do something with the drums next, some fills here and there, but I think I am a little chicken to try this now. The hypothetical band name for this song, named “Bad For You©” is The Skinless Franks© (or “The Skinless Weiners©” on a sunny day).

(People can be so desperate, so I feel compelled to make a gesture of “copywriting” all of the above.  It’s sad, really!)

So, I have answered some music classifieds over the last few weeks and no one has responded to my long, wordy self-exegesis.  With the prompting of my saintly wife, I am getting better at it.   Still it’s a little annoying that one probable reason for not responding is that I am pretty up-front about being a little older.  Am I too old for this?  Can I only play with people my own age?  Am I so obviously in mid-life crisis?

I don’t feel like it, but it is a little weird to be too old to jam, if only for jamming’s sake.  One consideration is that I might show-up someone else, so there might be some insecurity on the other end of this potential transaction.  But without them calling me back, I could be, like, “The Best Guitar Player In The World” and they wouldn’t know it.   Then again, if I was in my 20′s and some geezer hit me up to play, I would have been a little reticent about calling him back.

With that in mind, I responded to an ad  by a drummer who probably lives around the corner from me.  He furnished a link to a video of him playing, essentially a frenzied drum solo on brushes.  So I wrote, offering to jam and did not hear a reply.  Then a few days later, I saw that he reposted the ad.  Maybe he did not receive my email? Bah…

It occurred to me this morning that I could extract the audio from the video file and then put my own sounds onto his solo.  I was short on time and laid 2 one-take tracks, SF brain-jam style (more on this some other day maybe), but it needed some vocals.  So I downloaded a video found with the search term “sex tips” and found the whole stupid audio file to be unusable.  But it was in listening to it that I heard the term “young and adventurous”, which made me laugh.  I had just enough time to cut and paste that part of the file a few random times into the “song” before hitting the render button as lunch cooked.  I uploaded the file  as I showered for work.  Should I send this to him?  Mein wife thinks it’s a “little creepy”, fwiw