There Does Not Have to Be any Art at All. (I'll let that sink in for a minute...)

Some things chill me to the bone.

I was having breakfast with a friend two years ago. He has a graduate degree in composition from Rutgers and made his money for many years as part of one of the most popular cover bands in Jersey. He stated that he believed that the free market should decide whether or not contemporary style classical Music survives or not. My jaw nearly dropped into my coffee. He said that the government has no intrinsic right to support the arts as it has since the WPA program. This coming from a man who spent years of his life composing contemporary classical Music and realized that he would most likely never hear his works performed by anyone other than maybe a rehearsal via an ensemble or a computer program.

The long time art critic Dave Hickey said in an interview that, in a nutshell, there is really no need for high art to exist for society to survive. From a Darwinian standpoint, we don't need all that to reproduce and sustain ourselves and our families. Think about it. Reallllllllly think about it.

Outside of the late Robert Hughes, Hickey is the only art critic I trust. He has no problem giving bad reviews and not liking things, which is rare in the art world. Too much money is at stake to anger anyone or call out the emperor's new clothes. That being said, he also liked stuff I cannot figure out, but his scope of art history is way bigger than most, so he has a different groove than most, especially me.

He agrees, like anyone else with a spine who was not bought out or drank the Kool Aid, that there is something seriously wrong with the art world. He has figured out its trick of making art a commodity first and an act of creative honesty and integrity second. Wall Street types and others with cash buy paintings of an unknown artist because they believe it will go up in price, not because they like it. The artist gets screwed in the short run if they succeed because all the stuff they sold before to pay the rent will go for twenty or more times what it was sold for.

But think about it, how many of you have any interest in buying a piece of art for yourself? Even one from the mall store that is a Ebola nauseating rehash of something of real beauty... how many? The visual arts are out of the reach of most, simply because of cost. Yet most everyone has SOMETHING hanging on the walls. There is that line between decoration and "art". And maybe that is it?

People are buying stuff as decoration that a generation or two ago was " contemporary art". It is surreal to go into one of those discount clothing/home furnishing places and see what people are buying, what is being expected to sell to people without any angst or thought. The public has caught up with the artistic thought of Andy Warhol, Christopher Wool, Mark Rothko, and others. While that may seem nice, where does that leave the contemporary artist?

In a word: screwed.

What has happened to art is similar, but not the same, as what happened to Music, though it happened earlier due to the financial forces precluding and being greater than the technological ones. Let us begin at the beginning, shall we? (All Music majors and art majors are not allowed to vote, sorry.) Right now, without a search engine, name me three living classical composers. Now, name me three living visual artists. Now, name me the popular Music styling of today. Take your time. I'll wait here in the desert of digital dust....

Okay. I am willing to bet that you could not name three living classical composers. You may have gotten Philip Glass due to his movie work and eternal presence on NPR, but who else? And how about those visual artists? Maybe Jeff Koons because of his recent deal with Macy's or maybe Julian Schnabel because of the movies he has made or maybe Matthew Barney because he had a thing with Bjork. (No fear, she wrote about it on her album "Vulnicura" released this year.) Now, onto that pop Music question. What is the main musical STYLING of today? Not, WHO is the top selling artist! What is the STYLE of Music that is the majority of the youth culture, say, like Nirvana and Pearl jam were in 1990?

There are several problems here. 

The first is that there really is no center to anything in Music due to the digital information age. This is because anything you want, including the past, is available for free online. There was a time that, within the scum of payola, new Music was distributed to the masses via a linear distribution system: the television or radio. If you listened to the radio, new things came on that you were introduced to and maybe you liked them. Dare I say, the same thing was true via the bribery cesspool that was MTV. You SAW new Music and maybe you liked it. But now, our desires can be fed with immaculate accuracy via the web. We make the decisions about what we may think we like. I say this knowing full well about Pandora, Spotify, Google, and Youtube giving you things THEY think you may like, but these are based on the linear calculations of what you already like. The real gem of discovery is found when someone else with a different well of possibility shows you things they think you may like. Personally, my late friend Jack Bennett changed my life by doing that. He let me borrow a stack of albums, one of which changed the course of my life as a composer.

Second, there is a HUGE disconnect between the "art word" and everyday life. It has grown wider and wider since the Scull art auction of the early 1970's. Outside of the childless Herbert and Dorthy Vogel who, on a normal income, collected contemporary art, who the hell goes to a gallery or to see new artists with the intent to buy? You cannot name contemporary artists because the 1% has consumed a-l-l contemporary art by being the only buyers of it as an investment. I have seen these deals go down and it is a disgusting process for both parties.

Third, there is no more "classical Music." The contemporary atonal composers have been the ultimate hipsters of Musical taste since about 1930, barricading themselves within the walls of the academic community and writing clever Music for beings who are too clever by half and hold concerts that look like an MC Escher self portrait: composers and clever people looking at composers and clever people who look up from their Music and see composers and clever people looking back. The harmonies and counterpoint of the "classical Music" people want to hear has moved to video games, the greatest money making entertainment of this new generation. Period. Did you know there was an atonal opera written for the book/movie "Brokeback Mountain"? I didn't think so. Why? Because even the critics who came out to see this hipster nightmare could not palate it. Want proof? In the debut in Spain, the work of Wagner was used as a warm up. WAGNER AS A PREPARATORY PIECE!

There is a deep disconnect between the arts and everyday people. The golden age of Rock Music has passed. The last movement of art, the minimalist movement, is gone. The minimalist movement in classical Music is past. With the past so easily accessible and desires so easily unchallenged, we have reached the point where it barely matters if the present were to vanish. People could listen to Music, read literature, and look at visual art from the past and never even know it was missing. Some people would catch it, to be sure, but the sea of creative objects is so vast that if it were to stop today, it would take a very very long time for us to examine what already exists that has yet to be seen, heard, or read,

A very very very very very very very long time.

The reality is obvious: there really DOES NOT have to be any "Art" at all from this day forward.

But we're still making it. I just hope people take it for what it is really worth.

It Never Was the Way it Was: Mythology and Rock Music

Collect a bunch of myths together and you come up with a mythology. When this mythology is either embraced or rebelled against by artists with a shared vision, you get a shift in thought, practice, and added historical prescience to the mythology. When a mythology is used as marketing tool and all its symbols created in bulk and given a retail price 50 to 70 % above dealer cost... it is dead in the water.

I am re-reading Bob Dylan's book as well as Patty Smith's amazing "Just Kids" and cannot help but feel that I got shortchanged, having been born just a bit shy and off of the mark. But then again, that is what myths do, don't they?

In its basic form, the myth of rock and roll is no different than any myth of fame in the performing arts. I'm not sure how far back in time this reaches but I would assume if you could get a job painting portraits or making music for a king or someone else in power then it was better than working in the fields until you died like everyone else in your family did. If you were good enough and fate was kind, you could get the hell out of your lousy life of simply trying to live and not die of some sort of infection before antibiotics were invented.

The first tale of fortune that comes to mind is Giotto who was discovered by the painter Cimabue. The child Giotto was a shepherd and, according to the legend, drew such life like pictures of the sheep on rocks, that the passing artist discovered him and took him off to study with the masters of the time. Poof! One minute you are in the fields watching livestock and the next you are in the big city drawing for the rest of your life.

Actors have similar stories. One out of the thousands is Winona Ryder who was simply eating a bowl of gazpacho at a local place when a casting director saw her and scooped her up into the acting world. Poof! One minute you are eating cold soup, the next you are calling Ethan Hawk to bail you out of a shoplifting phase.... or something like that.

Since comedians are, most of the time, the best tellers of the truth, the rock and roll myth is best shown in "Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story". While the movie is a parody, somewhere along the line, everything in the damn film IS what we believe in as rock and roll.

So why do we need myths? BECAUSE THEY SELL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There is a general rule that is passed among those who work with creative types: the most talented people tend to be the nicest while the second tier will make your life hell. I think that most famous people who are talented ask themselves at one point, "Why the hell did I make it when (fill in name here) did not? And they are 100 times more talented than me!" To the truly gifted and hard working, this grows into a humility and gratitude, a grace blooms and a desire to just do better work, to be as good as those around them. To the UNTALENTED, that questioning is a cancer that eats away at them because they know they suck and have to do what they can to just stay where they are even though they cannot perform to the level they are expected. The wizard keeps pulling the curtain out of reach.

Failure is needed in this arena. I say this without any desire to have another human being suffer at the hands of idiots. But I mean that failure, which by definition requires attempting something, has a purpose. You learn to do what you do. The best of the best try to do better after each failure, the worst just blame everyone but themselves. Van Gogh never sold a work of art, though he would have given his other ear to do so. Still, with each painting he tried to be better and better at what he did. Every band, comedian, actor, and performer worth their salt goes through that phase of bad gigs. The Canadian comedy troup "The Kids in the Hall" played every week for a year at a place called The Rivoli, many times to three or so people. But they say that this was where they had a place to try and fail and hone their craft.

And that is the other inverted thorn of success. You awake one morning to being praised as a star for what you do but you did the same thing for years and nobody cared. You are the same person but the world shifted. That can lead to a serious mind screw that ends in either the seclusion of a recluse or an ego the size of Alaska.  If the world can shift so quickly in one way, what is the true reality of the situation? Am I the greatest artist in the world or someone who should still be selling jeans?

The myth of rock made many people for decades believe that if they just worked hard enough, they would be rock stars. Exchange the words "work" and "rock stars" to "love" and "loved back" and you have the paradigm of the Romance Industrial Complex. I believe this to be the the proof that the majority of Musicians are romantic idealists in one way or the other.

There has, however, in recent years, been a change in the myths of rock and roll, though the sum total may be the same if not greater. The rock and roll dream was this: a band is born, they rehearse and they are ignored in the beginning but then, locally, gain the attraction by the locals and then strangers. They are then noticed by some manager and/or some record company executive, rescued from the rest of the less talented struggling artists and taken into the guarded kingdom of the Music Business. From there they work hard and, after some failures and struggles, achieve the glory their talent so rightly deserves, making the lives of millions better by providing the soundtrack for their first crush, kiss, dance, etc. Their God given gift at last given its right place within the souls of the world and within the books of history.

As every episode of "Behind the Music" shows, the downfall is always awaiting the hero. But the machinations of the music business are a thousand times worse than what is shown. The "Behind the Music" tales always have something of a happy ending that perpetuate the myth. Why? THE PERSON WHO LOST EVERYTHING AND WHO WAS IN REHAB 10 TIMES IS ON YOUR TELEVISION AND YOU ARE WATCHING IT! They are still living the myth, but as the population of the religion age, the arc of the myths grow along with them. Instead of, "You can be a rock star," it now goes "You can be a rock star and screw up and lose everything and STILL be a rock star." Old age has made the rebel artists calmer and sober, more focused, have loving families, but, and this is a but BUT, they can still ROCK!

These days, the music industry cannot re-create the myths that were going strong up until, say, around 2000. Because of the digital age and their horrible mishandling of Napster's file sharing (see the book "Appetite for Self-Destruction" for the best detail of this), something new was needed to keep the religion going and before us it bloomed into a bouquet of mystical roses.

Since there is no money in signing an act to make money off of stealing their now non-existent record sales, the record companies created "360 Deals" where the record company gets a part of everything the artist does: sales, merch, licensing, live shows, you name it. If it makes money, they get a cut. So, while bands do exist and get signed, the idea of "making it" has shifted to youtube and all the singer shows on television. For the business it is  100% winning and for the artist it is a huge loss and a reverse of the trends that brought us great Music.

"The Voice," "American Idol," and all the other shows work off the same idea as reality television: get people who will work for nothing to do stuff while we make gobs of cash off of it. Television shows such as sitcoms and dramas cost money to make and hence the risk involved for the investment of the company. With the shows where the totally unknown singers go to reveal their hidden gifts to the world as well as the  people who let a camera crew follow them around to create a "reality" we can escape to, we are heading into dangerous territory with the value of what we call entertainment.

But, like the saying goes, the Truth rises. Shows like "The Wire" and "Breaking Bad" have redefined quality. However, the majority of quality shows are on cable or a service where you have to pay. But people ARE paying, so there is some hope.

Back in 1976, the BBC put on a series based on the Robert Graves novels, "I, Claudius" and "Claudius the god: and his wife Messalina". They were about the life of the Roman Emperor Claudius who was dismissed as an idiot due to birth defects but who came to be a very successful emperor after the assassination of his nephew Caligula. The series was an amazing work of art that still holds up to this day.

In the opening scenes of the amazing mini series, Aristarchus of Athens, after doing a performance for emperor Augustus, says to the servant who announces him,

"What a voice. Perhaps we should change places? Only the Romans can afford ushers with a voice like that. Did you have it trained?" 

The announcer, Thallus, states,"I was an actor, sir." 

Aristarchus: Oh, that explains it. Resting, are you? 

Thallus: No, Sir, I've given it up. Everyone's an actor in Rome, there just isn't enough work to go around. 

Aristarchus: And what there is goes to friends and relatives. It's the same everywhere. 

Thallus: The theater isn't what it was.

 Aristarchus: No, I'll tell you something else. It never was the way it was.

Yes, my friends, it never was the way it was.

Fractal, food, and 1976: The Ferris Wheel of Progress

Hi. I hope everyone is having a good start to the New Year. This is the point in time where one can't help but look both backwards and forwards, the momentum of the past cycle of seasons spilling one out on the pure white muslin of the possibilities ahead.

Right now I am typing this while watching the Ramones documentary "The End of the Century" which concluded filming just before Dee Dee Ramone died of a heroin overdose. One need not think too hard to draw a line between their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and him being found dead and alone in a hotel room just two months later. What's the possible line connecting it?

When watching the documentary, you realize that the Ramones seemed to solidify the religious myths of artistic life. They were all, by their own account, people that did not fit in and used their need to do something creative as a way out of their misery. Nobody was born wealthy, nobody got any breaks, and they started from just about nothing and, without compromising a single note, rose to change the world's view of Music. But just like any prophet, they were rejected by their own, never getting huge in America because (according to the documentary) the Sex Pistols made the face of Punk shocking, gross, and scary, then the media picked it up and the world feared punk rock. The record companies, who were at the moment  pushing "Sheena is a Punk Rocker" full tilt, bailed out of fear. The radio stations did the same. But, they were huge in every place else in the world.

Three of the four original Ramones died of cancer, as did their famed graphic artist, honorary 5th member and friend Arturo Vega. Dee Dee, as said before, died the tragic rock and roll mythical death, the exact opposite of a packed arena screaming for you, all alone in a hotel room.

I realize I tend to go off on a jag about how Music is in a bad state these days, but I need to be more specific. Music, beautiful and stunning Music, will ALWAYS be around. Why? It always has been around. The difference is that society seems to be walking into the sea of too many options where you always drown alone. The amount of independent Music released onto the public has grown to the point of a never ending monsoon. Everyone and everyone is either making Music or singing along to backing tracks OR desires to do so, the ratings of all the vocalist (NOT BAND) prime time TV shows the measures of the trend.

Looking back is a dangerous thing. In Henry Rollins' book, "Get in the Van" he talks about how on his first tour with Black Flag people were giving him hell and abuse in England about how it was better in 1976. This is 1981-1982, a time when many people would say things were amazing in the punk rock scene. The previous age is always better via the genetic mutation of romanticism.

How can one prove this? Well, I cannot think of any band I know that has the amazing rock and roll band feel, that epic thing of when you see a band and go, "Ooooooooh. What. Is. THAT?" I do not mean this as a slam to my beloved friends who do amazing Music, but I mean that the scene, at least here in New Jersey, is god forsakenly bad. The myth has drowned the present because the economics do not allow bands to do what used to be done. Plain and simple. Bars and promoters and lodges are afraid of getting sued and the cost in an insurance plan for one night is expensive and a pain to get. While there are places to play, there are not the number of places to play like there were. It seems to have bifurcated into absolutely pay nothing/nobody comes gigs and pay to play huge clubs.

Okay, before I go on any further, I think I should step side and make a few comments as to what makes a group of people doing a performance within a certain space truly "rock and roll". I am basing the following on personal experience and energy. (Note: I must note that one of the most intense rock and roll moments that changed my life, was seeing the indigo girls and Michal Stipe at the Beacon Theater in NYC in 1989. I had seen KISS,, Iron Maiden, Yngwie Malmsteen, Judas Priest, Def Leppard, Aerosmith, Ted Nugent, Metallica, Ozzy, and Queensryche before said revelation, so,.... think about it.) It was raw and as intense as hell. When Amy Ray sang her version of Dire Straight's "Romeo and Juliet" and screamed out the last half of the the last verse, the whole damn place stood still. It set the bar line for everything else that would come after it (except for Michael Hedges who threw the bar away, but that's another story.)

So where is that amazing rock and roll attitude, that rawness? I remember vividly seeing a comedy group at UCB in NYC years ago that literally blew me away. Just inspired me at the power of creativity. But more recently, I went with Chris to a small Argentinean restaurant in Pittsburgh. And there I saw it: the spirit of rock and roll in full, beautiful raw force.

The name of the place was Gaucho Parilla  and it was located on the far end of the Strip District only two blocks down from the uber-alt rock club that is within a former Catholic church, the Altar Bar. The proximity of the two does not seem to be like an accident.

The restaurant was not run down, it was not dirty, it was not dangerous. They had put in the time to make it look very nice on a small budget. The menu was on a well displayed and thought out collection of huge chalk boards, most likely done that way so they could change the menu on the fly. But when I stood in front of the counter is when it all hit like a baseball bat in the chest.

The crew at the restaurant were a band. They were blasting 90's grunge Music. They put all their money into the food. The guy at the counter was very friendly and skinny, helping everyone who came in decide what they may like by explaining the Argentinean dishes and spices. When he wasn't waiting on customers, he was stamping piles of new brown bags with a huge rubber stamp that had their name and logo. The cooks in back acted like hard asses with huge arms full of tattoos. They were the lead singers, the ones who held all the control and they knew it and wore it proudly. They rarely engaged in eye contact with the customers, though thew were friendly about picture taking. The chefs who were not doing meals were running around making salads and sides, packing bags, setting plates. It was run like a band in perfect form: nobody taking advantage of anyone else and all for the same goal. It was never about any one person, but about the collective result: to produce the most amazing Argentina inspired food you have ever tasted, and that was all they cared about. And, allow me to tell you, they delivered in spades. As we walked out and back to our car, I could see one of the main chefs, the most heavily tattooed and muscular, smiling and laughing with someone while having a cigarette with someone outside, like  a lead singer between sets at a club. I needed no more proof that this was where rock and roll had gone.

The pipe line that made rock Music great, allowed it to thrive to have a Golden age was that it could be rebellious, done on the cheap, and, if you were clever, fast, and lucky enough, you could make a living at it. You could do it on your terms and find your audience after rehearsing in your garage for a while. You played a bunch of lousy places over time, learned from people better than you, and then you put out a demo, got a following, and maybe got a record deal. Basically, by the 90's, we all figured out the dance moves. Now, the dance is owned and controlled by corporate. Music is not rebellious, but a commercial force that is embraced and marketed as such. The legend of rock and roll, while never truly pure in spirit, is now an accepted part of the culture and the rebellion is merchandised.

But that all began to slowly fall apart with the raising of the drinking age, then even faster with the rise of dance Music and DJ's that were cheaper (and finally just as artistically accepted) than bands, the rising cost of insurance and operating costs for bars and clubs, and the simple shift in technology to make electronic Music more easily produced and better sounding alternative than it ever was. ( I will not go near the societal rise of rap and hip-hop culture as it is too big a topic for me to touch here.) Rock Music based on real instruments that took many years to perfect and excel in execution, the style of Music based on human performance that could never be duplicated exactly twice, was not leaving the building, but as asked to take its things from its former corner office and go to a basement cubicle with all the other less money making forms of the creative arts. But before moving down to the florescent lit dungeon, it left a bunch of upstarts watching and admiring it's attitude and swagger in its prime. Enter Anthony Bourdain...

Okay, fine, Anthony Bourdain is NOT the world's first renegade chef and he is NOT the first chef to like rock Musc. But, he DID come out with a memoir called "Kitchen Confidential" that hit all the right buttons at the right time. Why did the book resonate so much with the wild crowd? Well, by his own repeated admission, Bourdain lived a rock and roll life style, complete with heroin addiction, alcoholism, debauchery,and lots of cocaine while being a chef in one way or the other. "Kitchen Confidential" tells the true stories behind the food industry which was pretty much unexplored through the prism of someone who had rock Music shape their life. He is a bad boy. He parties. He scores drugs at dangerous places. He has tons of money over and over then blows it on drugs. But Fate is kind to him and he keeps on getting gigs that eventually lead him to writing a piece for a New York magazine that gets him the book deal that really sets his career off into the stratosphere.

He says in his second book how amazed he is that all over the world young chefs with inked bodies give him the Ronnie James Dio finger sign (ya' know, the devil horns?) , hug him like a high priest, and smile. Bourdain is the father of the rock and roll chef, the people who want to to be bad ass rebels and do life on their own terms. The parallels between the legend of rock Music and this new movement are staggering. Like rock, it seems to be mostly male and the testosterone level in the kitchens is (and according to Bourdain, always has been) through the roof. It requires team work with central leader and egos that tend to go out of control. The pay sucks, the hours are long, and you need to apprentice yourself to death before you even get to make the pre-ordained menu, much less make your own creations.

But what hot me the hardest was the fact that this was a creative art and these people were willing to do whatever it took to become amazing at their craft. One could not make "Theory based" cuisine. You had to taste it and if you hated it, it was done. But just like Music, there were rebels who were doing odd things that were amazing, blending different styles and flavors to make these bizarre sounding but mind altering beautiful works. This was an art form that could only live in the performance, making it, literally, real. You cannot Protools correct a steak from well done to Medium rare. As he put it, you either know what the hell you are doing or you do not. There is no middle ground.

The youth are not stupid. They do not see new bands making money nor being appreciated. So, the souls that would have an small inclination to feed their creative and rebellious side through rock now spin towards the kitchen. While once you could entice your prospective love with a song, now you can do it with an entrée. There are countless cooking shows that feature many contestants and hosts that look like alternative rock stars. You can do this stuff at home with minimal money. Your friends can come over and enjoy your creation. You can even go to school for it. You can get a low paying job starting at the bottom in it. You can rise to become a superstar on your own terms. You can have all the sex and drugs and fame and celebrity via doing what you love. Or, you can open a small food truck and live the pirate chef life, doing exactly what you want and making about as much as an average house cat while listening to every single one of your favorite songs while you make your favorite dishes all day long and serving them to like minding folks you have found both through word of mouth and social media.

About 20 years ago, chefs, low level chefs who did not have their own TV shows, had no cache. You were a line cook somewhere, you had a gig and that was your lot. Maybe within the industry you could rise to internal fame, but all you were to the outside world was a cook. Someone who made stuff people ate. You, the chef, knew all the hard work it took to get there, the secrets behind the curtain, and you rose the damn ranks to stand tall in your field. Sometimes you sold out by working at a Howard Johnson's or a country club because you needed to pay the bills, you cashed in your creative hopes for a paycheck. Or maybe you worked your way up and, through twists of fate and fortune, you did make it to the point of self sustaining income via your own creative direction. You still worked like hell and were paid way less than those who sold out, but you did it. Or maybe, you just bailed. Got a job as a programmer or at an insurance company and you forever sit at your desk romanticizing the days when you were "completely free"and "not working for the man", forgetting all the while that you cursed God's holy name when you were on your seventh 12 hour shift making fries because the other prep chef did not make it in again and how your feet hurt and your back hurt and how you screamed that you wanted to get the hell out because this was not what you wanted to be doing with your life.

Now, to be a chef holds some cache. But all real chefs know it is still punishing work, a true labor of love because, to do it right, it takes a great deal of time and skill. The sense of pride they feel in their work is deserved as they are skilled artisans and master craftsmen. All of the men and women that pull it off should be paid and respected for their hard work. That seems a no brainer. Unless their is a huge technological leap, food will always be needed and have to be paid for. The devaluation of recorded Music is unlikely to have an exact parallel in the world of cuisine which shall hopefully forever be in analogue. And maybe the popular food scene is maxing out? Still, it seems to me that the food revolution is well under way for the United States. So when are the golden years? Now? Before? When was it "real" for being a chef?

Punk did not start in 1976. An ethos of collective rebellion by a small section of society has always been around. The largest and most well known template for punk Music was started by the Ramones who had their own influences and never called themselves punks. They just hated what was going on and made something they believed in. After touring England for the first time they set off thousands of teens to form bands whose success would eclipse their own many times over. For some, the golden time for punk was 1976, for others, it was seeing the Ramones play at CBGB for ten people after watching the band Television play. For others it was watching the Velvet Underground do the Andy Warhol multi-media experience "The Exploding Plastic Inevitable" back in the late 60's. And on and on. The best of times, it seems, is always a moving target within the same circle of time.

At rehearsal on Sunday with the Fractal Ensemble, I was blown away about what we were doing. Spoken word and Music in a way that I have never heard before. But all of us were having a great time, not a bad word or weak link in the chain. We all believed in this thing we were doing that had roots in what we knew, but was different than everything else without being off putting. All of us have worked very hard on our craft for many years and, if I may say so, earned our stripes. We never made a dime. We did it because we loved it even when we hated it at our worst shows. On February 6, we will be sharing the stage with the two time world slam poet champion of the world, Buddy Wakefield as part of our album release show that is also a benefit against human trafficking. We are truly looking forward to it.

Listening to the final mixes of the album, I could only think of the painter Mark Rothko statement after he had become famous and wealthy for his abstract canvasses. He had reached the brass ring of success, and this was what he said:

When I was a younger man, art was a lonely thing. No galleries, no collectors, no critics, no money. Yet, it was a golden age, for we all had nothing to lose and a vision to gain. Today it is not quite the same. It is a time of tons of verbiage, activity, consumption. Which condition is better for the world at large I shall not venture to discuss. But I do know, that many of those who are driven to this life are desperately searching for those pockets of silence where we can root and grow. We must all hope we find them.

All I can say is that I am very grateful to be within a golden age of creativity with people I deeply care about and trust.

The golden age is now.

The Kids are Alright.... or at least they were warned.

The following is a speech I just gave to the National Music Honor Society Induction Ceremony. I apologize for going a little over time. While I went off script, this is basically what I said. My deepest thanks to Ms. Majorie LoPresti for giving me the honor to do this.

 Speech for December 21, 2014

East Brunswick High School National Music Honor Society Induction Speech 

 NOTES TO SELF:

 Make sure your fly is zipped.

 Don’t wear that snakeskin jacket.

 DO NOT USE THE STEWIE VOICE!

 STAY ON SCRIPT!!!!!!

 Do not ask questions like...

 Who here has a favorite teacher?

 Who here remembers their first crush and the song that you forever tied to them?

 Anyone married? Did you have a wedding song? Do you remember what it is?

 Does everyone here have a favorite song or album?

Hi there. Hello. Yes, um, I,.... uh, yeah, hi. For those of you that do not know me, I am Michael Kovacs and (wait for screams of applause, etc then continue) thank you, and I am, no please stop screaming. Please stop. Thank you, I am flattered, but... what, oh, wait? Someone IS hurt? Please, can someone call an ambulance or is there a hematologic oncologist in the house? There is? Okay, great.

 Well, to continue! (Feel better, okay?)

 Thank you to Mz. Lopresti and all of you who asked me to be here tonight. This is a deep and humbling experience and all I can say is that I am deeply honored, though I really feel  like a third string basketball player getting a lifetime achievement award.

 I have thought about this speech a great deal, every day since being asked, and the only way I could figure out what to say is via lists so please bear with me.

 List  #1 John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Paul Simon,  Albert Camus, Salvador Dali, Michael Jackson, Randy Rhoads, Eddie Van Halen,  Steve Vai, Brian Eno, Eric Satie, Michael Hedges, Bela Bartok, Igor Stravinsky, Sharon Spitalney, John Cage, Joseph Cornell, Amy Ray, Bob Mould, Mark Eitzel, Robert Moran, Thom Jones, Marie Howe, Buddy Wakefield

 Okay, this first list of people are the ones who changed my life, the ones who inspired me. Now that may seem overly simplistic, so let me take a moment to explain the gravity of what these people gave to my life. This list contains the names of the people whose work literally changed the direction of my life because they created works of such beauty, passion, and honesty that I could not look away. Some of these people on this list I am friends with. Others I have met. The majority, however, are as distant to my life as the planet Neptune.

 I am going to go out on a limb here and say that you, like me, had no choice in all of this, in the decision to follow Music as your passion. This is not the “National Young Welders Honor Society”  This is MUSIC and something or someone came along in your life that had your soul resonate like nothing else. If there are any young welders in the room tonight, please see me after this for some after school home improvements I think you can help me with.

 Say it loud and say it damn proud:Music changed my life.

 It did mine. It was the only thing I was good at when I was your age. Back then I was an overweight and way intense and idealistic high school student and I was pulled to guitar by curiosity and default and, I must be honest here, I was not the best in my class. But I did practice all the time because I was amazed by the seemingly insane magic that occurred when someone would play a song I loved.

 All of us here have one thing in common: Music chose us, not the other way around. Please, for the love of your own greatness, never forget that. Something inside you awoke when you heard some piece of Music. Never ever ever negate that. Why? Because THAT is your gift, what makes you unique and amazing. Not because of the gift you have but the fact that you rose to the challenge that the voice inside you could not silence.

 My heroes may not be your heroes. That does not matter. All that matters is that you had the courage , yes, COURAGE, to chose that over wasting your life in things that did not make you happy.... but more on that later.

  List #2) Arthur Braga, John Benthal, Br. Robert Ziobro, Br. Matthew Scanlon, Cary DeNigris,  Glenn Alexander,Noel DaCosta, Ari Voukdys, and Jim Oestereich

 This, my friends, is a list of the teachers who changed my life, and they are not all Music teachers. No. Some were French teachers, some religion teachers, some comedy improv teachers ... whatever. But all of them were great teachers. ALL OF THEM! But I must say one thing here before anything else..

 If you choose a life in Music, there is a very very very very very very very good chance you will be asked to teach the instrument you play for the simple reason that you play it. My deep deep fall on my knees prayer to you is this: Please DO NOT TEACH!

 I will let that sink in for a minute .....(lights on stage hookah)

 You, all of you, this amazing pool of talent, please hear me out. I need all of you to know that teaching is a skill you learn just like your instrument or welding or nursing or real estate sales. You very well may be blessed with the gft to teach but please, out of basic human respect for what is within the souls of your students, please take it seriously. I never ever ever wanted to teach for one reason": I was not 1% of any of the people in the above list. But someone by the name of Matthew Kloskowski said he heard I was good and wanted me as a teacher. I charged him next to nothing for three years and he became the youngest jazz guitar student on the roster of the famed guitarist Pat Lehey. I had no idea. I just taught in the shadows of my teachers. And all of you, EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU, owe it to the teacher or teachers who changed your life to be, at the very least, as good as them.

  Allow me  to let you all know now, we, as full time Musicians, are not respected by the masses unless we are, at the very least,wealthy and, to some extent famous. My grandfather carried with him the card of a master craftsman in shoe making. Give him a sheet of leather and he could, via his tools and skill, make YOU A PERFECT SET OF BOOTS OR SHOES. Perfect. Why? He was a master craftsman. That is all you and I can ever, and I mean EVER, hope to be, a craftsman or craftswoman, of Music. This, I hate to tell you here and now, is a trade, a skill, an artform like anything else. Painting is an ART.  Writing is an ART. Medicine, my fine feathered fellows, is an ART! If you want to call yourself a professional Musician or a composer, you must work as hard as a surgeon does to be called as such.

 What we do SEEMS easy, the same way putting in a new furnace or taking out an appendix or administering chemo SEEMS easy. I no way am I denigrating the skills of a doctor. But, and hear me out, my biggest nightmare is a world full of "artists" and "Musicians". I need, we all neeeeeeed, others who are NOT what we do.

 This thing we call "Life"?? What is it about? There are countless books and people paying six figures for seminars and retreats to see "who they are". Well, you know who you are because you are in this room tonight. You... You are a lover of Music.... a parent.... a teacher. This is WHO YOU ARE. Hands up, is anyone here a hobo who happened to stumble from a railway car for shelter and free food? Anyone? Okay, to all of you students, I ask of you the following: always remember to keep the place that Music holds within you sacred. Okay, now the tag line...

 I have beloved friends who are oncologists and pediatricians, and they LOVE Music. LOVE LOVE LOVE Music. Music is a part of their lives the same way air and the internet are. Their being SINGS with Music, either hearing it or, in their cases, performing is on guitar and flute respectfully. Music is in their souls and nothing can replace it. Nothing. However, they loved the art of Medicine more and excelled at it, healing countless people and winning many awards for their passion and service.

 If all of you follow a career in Music, all the better. But, and hear me out on this, it would seem to me standing here that Music is A PART OF YOUR LIFE.Please, never negate that. EVER. I stand here, a man who made Music the center of his creative life, but I have written a book, done comedy, and art. I cannot negate ANY of those parts of me because they are who I am. You, all of you, Music is a part of you. If you think this is a joke, ask yourself if you would rather be taking photos of spiders in the jungles in Brazil rather than playing your instrument or writing Music.

 Maybe, just maybe, you will want to do the spider/Amazon forest thing. Fine. If so, all I ask is that you do it with as much or more passion as you do Music. All you will ever have in this life, once you touch it, is the Truth of the Passion that makes you feel alive.

List #3) Lois Nettelton, Mary Ann Wilson, Mark Empire, Robyn Bauman, Pete Haider, Katharina Woodworth, Josie Coyoc, Peter Vajtay, Steve Hajdu Nemeth, Jilleyn Gordon, Christine Zadravec, Greg Gualtieri, Catherine Onder Caplan, Rebecca Tarlazzi, Lisa Kowalew, Ilana Kein, Elizabeth Kalfayan, and Christine Kossol.

 My friends, this is an edited list, and perhaps the most important list. I am truly humbled to be able to call all of these beloved to me, the last of which being my amazing wife.

 One day this past year, I awoke in a lucid moment and looked at those people who are beloved to me, those who have, for reasons I may never know, love me and call me their friend. I was stunned. Wait, no, I was actually floored at what I saw. These people in my life are way way way way more talented than me. I stand in their shadow. One date this past year, I looked around and truly saw the collage that were my true friends and loved ones. I have said and shall forever say that everyone of these people i way more talented than me. And they are. But, I am the most stubborn out of them all. the tortoise on Red Bull and Ritalin and espresso who kept walking towards a finish line they had completed long ago.

 You, and by which I mean all of us, are truly a reflection of our friends. Likes do attract and people can poison the well. In my life, I have been truly blessed to have beautiful and annoyingly talented people that I can call friends. They love me so much they will call me out on bad work and praise me for good. Such a blessing is a true blessing. I have people in my corner who are both stupidly gifted and honest that I am not allowed to let anything out unless they go, "Yeah.... that works."

 All but one of the people on that list are in some way famous for their work. I my view, they all should be showered with cash and professional recognition for how talented they are. Why Mary Ann Wilson, truly the greatest musical genius I have ever known is not able to buy her own island, is a cosmic mystery to me. All of the above people have written Music or produced some art that is miles beyond the majority of the garbage buffet that seems to always be the majority of what is out there. Still they persist, still they create. Still, they inspire me.

 If any of you are to become famous, always remember where you came from. Always. As alluded to before, you never chose this path. Also note, if the Bible. the Torah, just about all holy texts, the writings of the Marcus Aurelius, St Augustine, Shakespeare, Albert Camus, Steven Tyler, People Magazine, and Spongebob Squarepants have in common is that fame and fortune do not make one intrinsically happy. Over and over again, with annoying predictability, every Behind The Music Screams that message. And reality TV is  really the final stop on this self delusion. Who do you have more respect for: any Kardashian or your favorite band or maybe even the person you admire as a great local musical hero?

 Please have integrity, please I thank God every day for the honor of being taught by the late Noel Dacosta and the very funny Jim Oestereich. These two men demanded of me one thing and one thing only: do not compromise one single note. EVER. You are ALWAYS to serve the Music, not yourself. If you try to be clever or cute or flashy because you think it will make people like you, stop and do something else. All of you are better than that. And to this day I cannot do anything creative without having to answer to what they taught me.

 For the record, this is  not to say that everything you do is this torture and that you should agonize over every note or word. No. I would much rather listen to AC/DC or the Ramones than to cranky classical hipster Music that sounds like broken toys being hit with by mouse traps by a vision impaired clown with turrets.

 And, let me say it here. You may become famous and wealthy and loved by the masses. But if you are creative person, the greatest feeling you will get is the act of creating, that indescribable feeling that you know when it arrives in your soul. You band will break up, your manager will betray you, your fans may turn on you, no one will come to your shows after you have traveled 2896.7 miles to play a “big” festival. But if this is what you were called to do, the purest joy will come when you you are either playing with your band or simply writing alone in a room. That is all you will ever have, the joy of creating. And I don’t mean this tragically stupid “wow, life is so perfect like, when you create” it i like the best ad I am one with the cosmos”  No. It just feels good without the help of any herbs, liquids, or chemicals.

 Speaking of which, this super depressed, super tortured artist thing... let’s stop that here and now. You are not allowed to be a jerk because of what you have chosen to do. Period. Also, there is nothing romantic about depression, drugs or alcohol abuse. Nothing. I have lost friends, dear and beloved friends, to all of these. To watch someone you love and who has more talent in their small toe than you do on your best day after a full night’s sleep, suffer through these and then lose is... beyond language. Take care of yourself. Get help if you need it.

 There is a legendary jazz singer by the name of Tony Bennett who was going through a bad time when his career failed. He was doing drugs and booze and the whole bit. One day he went out to lunch and the former manager of the comedian Lenny Bruce was there. The gentleman said that the thing that killed Lenny was not the drugs, but the fact that he sinned against his gifts, the drugs killed what he had within him. That despair threw him over the edge. Being the good Catholic by Mr Bennett is, he took that to heart immediately and got his life together. Always protect your gifts, what you were given that brings you true happiness.

 Last List:
You, me,..... us.

 We are in this together. All of us.

 You are going to have days so bad you are going to want to tear off your head off your shoulders and throw it like a bowling ball into oncoming traffic. You are going to be filled with doubts, severe doubts. You will, after a bad gig or lesson, want to rend your garments and curse God’s holy name. Know that you are not alone in this. Support each other. Respect each other.

 This road is not easy but nothing that has any value is easy. Fate may be amazingly kind to you, but you will have to work and face disappointment. My aunt was the actress Lois Nettleton. She won two emmys and was nominated for tonys for her Broadway work. I grew up seeing her on TV and in the movies. But even she, after all these, awards and work, STILL got turned down for auditions and it always hurt.

 Your talent may or may not be rewarded by the recognition of the masses. This is all the more reason to do honest, good, uncompromising, and passionate work. And use your gifts for good. Make things that are beautiful. I do not mean videos of kittens riding a skateboard dressed like Johnny Depp. Your expression can be angry, happy, funny, whatever. AC/DC, Rage Against the Machine, Erik Satie, whatever, they all make beautiful things that are radically different.

 If you put yourself out there, you risk being hurt deeply. But know this, while failure is a deep wound, regret is a growing stone. Try to be your best self always. You are in this room tonight as a result of your decisions and the decisions of those close to you. Never ever forget that you did not make it by yourself and make sure you are grateful to everyone who helped you. Thank your parents, your teachers, all those who believe in you when you do not believe in yourself.

 I hope you learned something from what I said and I hope it inspires you to dig deep into the road that lays before you, one that will be unlike the majority of anyone you meet.

 While I loath quoting myself, I want to read part of a work I wrote that my ensemble performed at the New York City Poetry Fest. It was inspired by the leaving of a young woman who went here named Lizz Bailey. She is intense and amazing and was leaving for a new life in California. So I wrote something for her. Here’s the last part

 Everyday you will wake
planning hoping, wishing, but
most of all dreaming that any possible there
is better than the singular here.

 But in the end you will follow the truth
to thousands of stories you were
born to experience and to tell.
And you will see that it was worth it
all of it

 all of it

 but you cannot do that here
you must go,
now,

go.

 Thank you all so much from the bottom of my heart for this. May God bless you. Be good to each other.

It's Just Time After All, Right? (The farther you are from fine...)

Consumerism is the new religion and, unless you are Keith Richards, there is a reset button that happens every 24 hours. But you can get stuff for free, so that leaves the ticking clock. And time never waits, so, that is pretty much the last currency: time. The time you have to consume things.

There was a story about how the album is dying due the simple fact that nobody is buying it. If  less and  less people are buying albums that means that less and less people are willing to listen to it for free. So what the hell is going on with that? 

The album, or LP, came out after WW2 due to advances in, you guessed it, technology. Recording technology is simply that, technology which always changes. When the medium of recorded sound emerged, the most popular and viable format was the 78 RPM disc that held only a few minutes. The LP had the boost of being the medium of choice during the baby boomer generation as well as the generation after, the consumer based generations that had the time and money to indulge in Music that way. But the sale of physical recorded Music and the Music business that bloomed from it started around the sale of single songs. Things have basically gone full circle.

But there seems to be something deeper going on than simply a culture being used to a particular format of Music presentation. Why do artists not make Wagnerian sized epic five hour works? No need for CD's! Just download it to your iPod. Why not make songs that are 30 minutes long! Who cares about the single!?!? You can get it for FREE! And you can make all these songs for free (or damn close to it) via computer based recording systems! If the LP, the format that replaced the single, is dead, why have we regressed? 

In the days where Music had to be paid for, there was a personal investment in the Music. You had to spend money you made (money = time doing something you hated) in order to buy something you would spend more time listening to. Example: 3 hours of mowing lawns = 1 Metallica album that you play for 100 hours. Not a bad exchange rate. And there was that feeling that you cared enough with the Music, identified with something in the Music, that placed something personal in the exchange. I am not sure if the tribal sensibilities that divided middle school and high school are as severe as they were back in the day (hating One Direction not withstanding) and I am not a proponent of anyone being harassed simply by the Music they listen to, But it seemed that Music DEFINED who we were because it defined how we dressed and gave a common ground that we were all invested in. 

As far as I can tell, the grunge era was the last big cosmic explosion of an entire cultural shift that combined Music, dress, and an unspoken youth zeitgeist that exploded like a nuclear reaction when "Smells Like teen Spirit" and "Alive" were played on MTV (that unifying channel that helped destroy culture as we know it, but I digress...) It seemed that within a year, a tide of change was sweeping over the entire country and was being embraced by this majority of people that were simply waiting to be heard. They bought albums and they went to shows. This religious zeal had its inevitable tragedy when Kurt Cobain killed himself. (For the record, I was in the middle of Seattle walking around the University district when the news came out and, traffic kept moving. Cars did not screech to a halt, youths did not flee from their classes. When I overheard someone say Cobain died, I went to a news stand and picked up a copy of the only paper that had the headline as it was a late morning edition. Ya' know what the guy in his early 20's said to me, "Hey. Get 'em while you can. Probably gonna be worth some money." And .... scene.)

After that era, the digital age began to, for better or worse, fracture the lens that gave us the focal points. Marilyn Manson had a decent run as did Dave Matthews. But outside of pop stars placing more time on show, fashion, and dancing than on Musical strength, there has been nothing like it. Small pockets of interest show up and I am sure Ozzfest will continue to have tens of thousands of people pay $50 for parking for the next 30 years. Loud dance Music gatherings will forever happen because people will always gather to do drugs and drink and have sex with people they will never remember. 

Live Music will not die because it is a moment of gathering, a pocket of religious revival for those who, instead of kneeling down and meditating, choose to go into a slam pit and get out all their pent up frustrations and, let's face it, have fun while keeping ER staff amused. There is nothing like live Music, be it classical or metal or jazz or whatever. It is, at its best, a truly spiritual experience (on all points along the spectrum). And live Music is where Music has, by definition, always existed, so perhaps it speaks to something primordial. All religions have had it. All cultures have had it. The poet Marie Howe stated that she believes that mothers have almost always sung something resembling a lullaby to their babies. Singing, which is live Music, is simply part of who we are.

But recorded Music? 

We are in the digital age where once someone can access an internet connection, time becomes the scarcest commodity simply because we can spend all of our waking hours on the internet. ALL of them. Between videos, news, Music, games, etc., the immediate and infinite supply has dwarfed demand simply by the math. The amount of hours you could spend on the internet enjoying yourself, losing yourself, being somewhere you are not, being someone you are not, is greater than your ability to consume it. Time is the only currency.

Who the hell has time and patience to listen to an entire album where you may not like everything you hear? 

There are better things to do..... right? 

Harder Than Your Band Gig,( even worse than you think)....

I have just booked a studio to start recording some tracks for my solo acoustic album and the response I have seen via facebook has made me think. I am very flattered that so many people like my solo acoustic work and look forward to getting to hear some long overdue material. Yet, there is the other side of the coin that nobody really knows about that made me not record the album in the first place.

If one is not a classical musician, the odds of people a solo performer is very rare, and my solo performer I mean just one instrument, no vocals, and no backing tracks. (Bobby McFerrin, you are exempt.) If you have never done it, never gotten up there and performed by yourself without vocals, then you do not understand what it is like. And please stop saying that singing and playing is the same thing. It isn't and I know this because I do both.

For over a decade I played solo acoustic guitar in coffee shops, bars, nursing homes, colleges, more bars, more coffee shops, streets, schools, theaters, outdoor festivals, backyard parties, weddings, restaurants,and many other places that can be described as varying between proper and surreal. When possible, I followed the general floor plan of Michael Hedges, blending solo acoustic material and songs with vocals, mostly cover songs in the beginning.

I thought that, over time, I would get used to how naked it felt when doing solo guitar Music. I thought that maybe I would get used to the feeling of performing and it would not feel so weird. But that was not the case. Time after time, I would play a very quiet or intimate song like "Rachel the Innocent" or "Before You Leave" and, in the middle of it, espresso machines would howl or beer bottles/coffee cups would smash on the floor, or people, drunk and or sober, would be talking loudly during the whole thing, or the place would be empty. This was not the case every time, but it was the majority. And I realize that solo acoustic guitar cuts very close to the idea of a classical Music concert in context of the Music being the focal point of everything.

And perhaps that is the problem....

It is a horrible, really horrible feeling, to get up there and perform solo to noise and or apathy. I have spoken to other solo acoustic guitar players and they have said the same thing. Maybe, just maybe, it is easier to be ignored if you are getting paid, say like classical musicians do. All the while you are performing with noise and apathy all around you, you have the solace of going, "Well, at least I am getting paid." The corner is turned and you are now doing no more than a job. Artistic expression is out the window.

And I think all Musicians want to be heard. Keith Jarrett has been known to stop concerts if someone coughs. Charles Mingus, the jazz bassist, was known for getting violently angry when people would talk while he was playing.

But I did many years of solo acoustic work for little or no money and it became absolutely unbearable to play delicate songs for apathetic people. My more driving songs would work, but that was because I would play so hard and loud that I could not hear the world around me. And I know there are people who may say, "Who cares! Just play! Screw them!" Well, Captain Artistic Courage, I DID do that for many years and it wears you down. It is that simple.

When you play in a band, you are a team, a tribe, a gang, and you can just plow through your set and not give a damn. The songs just plow ahead. If you are in an acting company and the audience sucks, you just go though the play. If you are in an improve group, you just feel like hell and do the show.

But perhaps the closest thing to compare it to is stand-up comedy, which I did for a very short time. You need the people engaged. You need to connect and sometimes that is impossible. The late great Robin Williams said that there were some nights, even after he was famous, where he would just kick it on auto pilot and plow through the material because he could not connect with the crowd. But it is just about impossible to do stand up to an empty room.

But when you do stand up, you are using language. You start speaking and maybe someone will listen or connect with your stories. Music is not that simple because the universality of its language can make it harder to ignore.

And, when you are in a band, or even a duo, you have someone to turn to after the show and share the pain with, to get perspective on matters and laugh about it. When you do solo shows, it is just you, tearing down the PA, packing up the cables and guitars, putting it into your car and driving either home or to a really gross hotel. Trust me when I say, that emotional space is not the greatest place to be.

But maybe there are people out there who ARE perfectly fine with being ignored, laughed at, and/or think highly of playing to open rooms. Maybe there are people who are just giddy with excitement over simply being able to play ANYWHERE and ANY TIME for ANY REASON. Okay. Fine. But I am not one of them. When I do my solo acoustic work, I put myself out there, raw and open because that is the only way I know how. Once I stop doing it that way, I am stopping forever.

The years of solo acoustic guitar peaked in the late 80's/early 90's when the guitar itself was peaking. There were plenty of places that catered to such stuff and people had time and money to spend on it. It would seem that the arc of the new age label Windham Hill is a good gauge of the scene. At its peak, they had almost 5 dozen instrumental artists on their label that were not classical musicians. After being sold in 1992, the list dwindled to a handful. Wile one could say it was the "new age" tag that killed the label, I would ask that one look at how many non-classical instrumental albums are sold by any other style.

So why the hell am I doing the new album? Why am I going to spend hours and hours of my life and needed money that could be spent on many other things around the house? Do an album that I will most likely never recoup my money on at a craft I dedicated most of my life to?  It is because I still love it and cannot abandon it to neglect and silence. But it is strange to do a project and know with almost absolute certainty that you would rather have someone hit you in the foot with a ball peen hammer than perform the Music live.

In the end, the Music is greater than me. I am just the delivery system. I am deeply grateful that people like what I do, the intimate solo guitar (and cello) pieces that I create. I really do love the Music, but as I step into these waters again, I must admit, I am feeling more than a little nauseous at the memory of the seas ahead.

Music....Deep in the Heart of Nowhere

The night of a recent art exhibit of mine, I agreed to make another acoustic album my Music creative priority. I took my acoustic guitars in to the shop and they are getting ready to record. So now that I committed, I have a few things to say about the state of solo acoustic guitar.....

When I do a project, I have to start tuning my ears and brain to what I need to focus on for the time being. For example, when I was recording the album "The Growing Stone" I listened to the album "Blood and Chocolate" by Elvis Costello and the Attractions non-stop. Even though I came nowhere close, it was what I was trying to make my album sound like. So now I am listening to solo acoustic guitar Music. To be more precise, I am listening to Michael Hedges and the early recordings of Adrian Legg. 

People have asked why I have not released a solo acoustic guitar album in such a long time. Here is the absolute truth: I could no longer perform solo acoustic material for noisy and apathetic places. Period. For years i played solo acoustic material for empty cafe's and noisy bars (and visa versa) until it wore me down to the point where I simply could no longer do it. So why would I bother to spend months of my life and money I do not have to work on a project that I would never perform live? Band projects had some momentum behind them so I went to where the action was.

While driving around today and listening to "Live on the Double Planet" by Michael Hedges, I remembered that there was a time in guitar playing that was radically different from today where the guitar. and guitar based Music, is not part of the cultural landscape. Guitar exists, guitar is present, but there are no new guitar heroes and young people would rather DJ than be in a band. Country Music has taken the guitar and preserved it the same way that people who liked to dress up and dance in the disco era went to Michael Jackson after disco became a creative blight. 

Speaking only for the 1980's, I can say that guitar playing was not so much creative as it was a competitive athletic sport. It was Eddie Van Halen and Randy Rhoads who started the ball rolling in the early part of the decade and then everyone took the concepts and ran them into the ground like a gopher on meth. Back then, you had to play faster and faster and faster and faster. The guitar solo on Michael Jackson's song "Beat It" was common cultural sound. THAT was the bench mark for guitar in POP Music. Go look at today's top 100 (do they still have that?) and tell me how the guitar sounds....

Heavy metal guitar playing in the 80's became a speed fest and you simply had to practice your scales till your fingers fell off. Hour after hour learning the modes and arpeggios and sweep picking. I even remember listening to Tony Macalpine's album "Edge of Insanity" while working on my guitar in my parents' basement. cursing the fact that I could not play that fast. 

But the cracks began to show in the speed scene. The Music of the later 80's was getting less glam and more unwashed with the arrival of Guns and Roses "Appetite for Destruction". The blues scale was rising and eclipsing the Phrygian Major scale was losing ground. The amount of notes per second was decreasing.Still, the way approaching Music via the guitar was left to right and up and down. If you knew your theory and fret board, you could see the patterns in everything. The Punk and alternative people had the passion and honesty that was lacking from pop metal, but their guitar playing was lacking in depth and technique. This is not a slam against them. Their Music was a rebellion against the technically perfect Music of the age and the focus was on sound, attitude, and lyrics. Seeing some of these bands changed my life... for the better.

But where could one find a guitar player who wrote great songs and was still pushing the limits of the instrument? Ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce to you Michael Hedges.

Somewhere around my sophomore year of college, I started writing solo acoustic guitar songs. Why? I have no idea. I had been playing Randy Rhoad's song "Dee" for some time and "Dust in the Wind"was one of the fist big songs I conquered, but nobody have ever explained to me what the hell to do, how to make them work or whatever. For reasons I will never understand, I just started making these things up.

A few years prior, I had seen an article in the magazine "Guitar Player" about some guy who played acoustic guitar and, in the pictures in the magazine, dressed like a Woodstock hippie guru outtake. When I saw that he was on the Windham Hill label, my stomach turned. That was THE label for New Age "music" and I simply refused to go near it. Boring, bland, and brain blanching sounds were all I knew from them and I wanted nothing to do with the lot of them. But the article had strange twists in it about two hand tapping and classical composition. Still, I just tossed it off as trite and read the article on Vivian Campbell from Dio. (Look it up....)

My friend Mark heard my lame recording of this work and said he had just seen a guitarist at Ryder University that reminded him of the stuff and that I shoud check him out. When the name Michael Hedges arose, I got a little sick because I did not want to do anything remotely like New Age yet, here I was, being compared to it.

When he gave me a tape of the two albums "Aerial Boundaries" and "Watching my Life Go By", I was deeply surprised. The song "Aerial Boundaries" sounded really cool, a nice use of multi-tracking two guitars and a percussionist. But then there were songs like "Hot Type" that were out of left field and "The Magic Farmer" which was crushingly beautiful. The  album "Watching My Life Go By" showed that Hedges had a nice voice and some good songs. When I was old that the song "Aerial Boundaries" was done LIVE with ONE GUITAR I was floored. Literally dumbfounded. It was unlike anything I had ever conceived of as playing. There was one thing left to do.... go see the man live.

Thankfully he was playing at a club near where we lived called Club Bene in Morgan, NJ in October. My friend and fellow guitarist Joe went with me, not knowing what the hell to expect. The club was full of Grateful Dead fans and New Age types and, of course, guitar geeks. We took our seats nest to two guys who seemed to have been stoned since middle school. A comedian opened up and I felt so bad for him. I had just done my time as a stand-up comic and could feel the man's pain. It was a horrible crowd for such things but he stomped through his material and soon Hedges was on.

When the lights went down, the two men next to us pulled out two HUGE microphones and placed them on the table believing they were at a Dead show and were going to bootleg it in high quality. Joe and I looked at each other and thought the same thing, "What the hell?? There is no way this is going to last." Sure enough, in five minutes, management came over and they and there equipment were escorted out. Had they been a bit more discreet, say by maybe NOT putting the mics and their stands right on the table it may have helped.

Within seconds, my life changed. I could not take my eyes off the stage, off of this man who was doing things on the guitar that I had never even conceived of, making sounds that defied everything I had ever heard. What he was playing looked like what I played, but it sounded like a whole different creature. Everything I ever thought about the guitar was turned to dust. Nobody I had ever seen had ever played guitar like the man on that stage did. It was not a mater of learning scales and practicing picking. There was something so much greater going on, a depth of composition and Music that, for me, was light years away from the shredders I had been listening to. These were amazing songs! SONGS! Half way though the show I somehow remembered where I was and noticed my face was hurting and was wet. I had been smiling the whole time and crying. I had found an explorer who showed me a land I had no choice but to get to before I died. There was no turning back.

Every year after that, except for the times I was in Everett, WA and in school in Minneapolis, I went to see him play when he was on tour in the area. I brought friends who had their own minds blown when they saw him. I bootlegged a few shows myself and would listen to them over and over and over. It was like getting pictures from that foreign land every year.

This is not to say that every time I went I was on cloud 9. Michael Hedges got bored of doing guitar work and decided to play piano and sing on some songs, as well as play flute and djembe and do some atonal electronic Music he wrote in college... and walk around on stage in a yoga position while reciting "The Jabberwocky" in an odd voice. He would also tour with the frighteningly talented bassist Michael Manring. This deviation from the guitar his a peak when he decided to do what he called "A New Age Vaudeville" show. This included, the piano, the djembe, Michael Manring, the Jabberwocky Poem and... an Asian contemporary dancer improvising dance behind them while they performed, at times moving around the stage with a tree branch. Everyone in the place, having had to put up with more and more strangeness and less and less guitar for the past few tours hit a collective wall. When he finally did do a few guitar songs by himself without the dancer, everyone in the room felt less ripped off and a tad bit saved. The signals from the promised land of his Music were still coming in, though faintly.

After that tour, the crowds were not the same for him. This was made worse by the release of his album "Road to Return" that featured almost no solo acoustic guitar and oddly produced vocal songs that were stunning when he played them live with just a guitar, but fell horribly flat when he produced them with electronic drums and other synths. I did not give up faith, but I was deeply confused.

He finally came back to form with his last album, Oracle. I got it when I was in school in Minneapolis, walking around in circles for miles trying to find the record store. It was good but I can remember feeling that it was not what I had hoped. I wanted guitar Music that would make me want to play more! Inspire me!  Make me feel like dirt! There were some beautiful songs on it, but I remembered putting it away after a few weeks and listening more to Bob Mould, Alice in Chains, and Brian Eno.

When I got back from Minneapolis, the time came when he was back in New Jersey. I distinctly remember not wanting to go to the concert. I was tired, burnt out from stress, and frankly, did not want to pay good money and be disappointed by only hearing one or two songs I liked. I did not buy tickets. I told nobody. Finally, the day of the show, something told me to go. I was feeling like hell, but something just told me to go. So I called and bought an overpriced seat right against the stage. On my way to the show I forgot the tape recorder to bootleg it. Again, something literally dragged me back to get it.

The show was not full and most of us there seemed to be dreading another branch dance. This time he came out and played solo acoustic guitar. I remember feeling a bit creeped out by the S&M dog collar he was wearing around his neck. He was skinnier and in yoga gear, but plowed into the songs like a Panzer tank. It was amazing! It was obvious that he was hitting anther new level of playing. He had more energy than I remember him having when I first saw him. He closed the first set with the instrumental song "Ritual Dance" screaming so loud to himself that the mic on my portable ancient Walkman recorder picked it up. He was in the zone and flying high. It felt damn good.

He opened up the second set with an unreleased song called "Arrowhead" and my jaw dislocated from my face. It was a stunning work. He had taken everything he had done up to that point and moved to a new level. It involved tapping and groove, like a blend between his songs "Aerial Boundaries", "Rootwitch" and "Ritual Dance". He was hitting upon new ground and I was feeling great about it. I do not remember much more of the set, except that he did an amazing job with the rest of the set that was full of songs everyone wanted to/longed to hear.

After the show I stayed around and hoped he would meet his fans. Thankfully he did. Some guy before me, who was screaming out "Yes, Michael! YES!" after every song was in front of me. He talked to Hedges about how he liked apples that he got here last time, repeating, "Remember that! Remember last time out here! Those apples!" I could see that Hedges was, even in his adrenaline and otherwise buzz, was uncomfortable. So I walked up in my hat and tie and said hello.

"Hey," he said, "don't I know you?"

"Um, yes." I stammered, "we met about five times before. I sent you my CD last year."

He nodded and we spoke about Music and he signed his book of transcriptions. I thanked him again for being an inspiration as a composer and how it helped me. We spoke briefly about a woman he knew who saw me playing in San Francisco a year ago who knew him. He was friendly, albeit from another planet, and after a few minutes we parted ways.

Two weeks later he died in a car accident in northern California. It was a dark and rainy night and he took a turn bad and fell odd a highway cliff to his death. The workers found him two days after the fact.

Speaking for myself, when he died, it left the road in question. There would be no one out there ahead of all of us making their own mark in a new land. It was a horrible feeling. How the hell would I know what was out there if the guy who was beyond us all was gone?

I have seen and heard many many many many many many solo acoustic guitar players since then and I feel lost. It was not that Michael Hedges hit the guitar and made cool sounds and tapped and did strange things with the instrument. No. The equation everyone seems to get wrong is that he was a composer first THEN a guitarist. He wrote amazing songs that just happened to include techniques that boggled everyone's mind.

But it is time to take a step back. A few years ago, demos of his earliest work surfaced via Youtube. Honestly, there was nothing that amazing there. It was a shadow of what he would become. Thanks to Fate knocking and destiny answering, the contract he signed on a napkin when he saw Hedges perform in an empty courtyard at a place in Palo Alto, CA had a greater good.

These days I see people being praised for their solo guitar work because they are cute or nice or cut against some predisposed notion of their gender. In the end, it shall always be about only ONE thing: THE MUSIC.

After Hedges died, I did the album "firewalker" which was my best attempt at finding my way in the dark. It combined solo finger style guitar, pop songs with cello, a cappella vocals, avant solo cello with spoken word, and even some comedy. I love that record in so many ways because it was my way of trying to find my own place to exist in a land that was now without a leader.

So, as I try to get this new project in motion, all I can say is that I owe so much to Michael Hedges. I will never be him, never got to the heights he did, but I am willing to try. And, for the record, there is a blessing to not being able to copy someone. After one has hit the wall of failure in trying to duplicate a hero, all that is left is one's true self. Some people walk away. I am too stubborn for that. I just keep going.

It is really all there is...