A brief trip to Musician's Hell

Sunday. Time was I'd wake up after noon, roll down to King's Road Café or some other amazing L.A. breakfast joint, have my people bring me a bowl of coffee and some carbs, and read Rolling Stone. Maybe I'd go program a synth or play guitar later. Relax and enjoy the day. But that was a long time ago.

Today, I have to get microphone stands for our rehearsal room. No more fancy catered rehearsals with roadies to get all the rented gear set up. Our current set of mic stands has seen better days. I'm one of the only Pants that has both a valid credit card and is allowed into most music retail establishments.

I drive down to Guitar Center. This is akin to Orpheus descending into Hades. No musician I know enjoys going to Guitar Center. During the best of times, it has an ambiance that makes Best Buy feel like Tiffany's. And there's a vibe worse than a used-car dealership: You know you're getting ripped off, you're just not sure how. Then there's the "help". As in no help.

I've posted other videos before, but this one succinctly captures the essence of what I'm trying to convey as few others could:


Now imagine spending 30-60 minutes there.

I end up parking several blocks away. San Francisco. Love it. As I stroll uphill, I pass several tour buses. Apparently some artist must be playing a nearby venue.

As I walk, I pass by a long line of pasty, black-clad teens. OK. Must be some sort of doom/goth/metal/industrial outfit. The kind with long hair, distortion, and Cookie Monster vocals. Piercings and dyed hair. Fat dudes standing next to waifish girls with incredible racks. Bulky dudes with "Security" windbreakers stand on the corners and help the guys with the laminated passes find the side entrance.

I sigh. The good old days. I remember being the kids waiting in line. And I remember being the guys on the bus, too.

Into Guitar Center I go. I figure I'll go check out the state of the art in synthesizers. They're kept in the back room. Where apparently a single light bulb is working. Recession, I guess. In this black pit, there are no fewer than 3 keyboards with chattering, cheap-sounding drum loops spinning out of sync. I turn them off.

There isn't much to see. There are a few really nice boards set up, and a plethora of cheap synths that feel like toys but are priced under $500. Naturally, they're all missing knobs and still have the packing plastic stuck on top of their buttons. It's just depressing. I bust out some Erik Satie on the Nord Stage Piano.

Time to go, I have to get to the gym, and this place smells like old socks and flop sweat.

The mic stands are up in the front, by the guitar pedals. Guitar Center carries 3 different mic stands, priced at $39, $49, and $59 each. The difference? Well, it's hard to tell, because they're all in boxes. Ask the help? They don't know. But I do.

Pro tip: Cheap mic stands aren't worth it. Pay the extra $10 or $20 and get something that will last. The cheap mic stands will strip their screws and leave you with a floppy boom that no amount of Viagra or duct tape will fix. And don't over-tighten them.

I load up with 3 mic stands and flop them on the counter. Which is when the longhair behind the counter asks if he can help me. "Yeah, you can ring these up for me." We move to the other register on the other side of the store. Why? I don't know.

I am subjected to the "receipt check" and allowed to leave the store. Now I have to carry these mic stands back to the car. I pass the kids standing in line for the metal show, pass the tour buses all in a row. My arms are tired.

I miss the days when I didn't have to deal with this stuff. When I had people. Walking by the kids and the buses, I just feel old. Another weekend musician dropping cash on the boring stuff: Mic stands. Guitar strings. Cables. A strap.

It's like that sometimes. The road isn't easy, but it's the one I'm on.

The Pants Reboot, and a Dream

Reboot
Last night the nearly-complete 2010 model of Sid Luscious and The Pants rehearsed for the first time.

Getting a band back together and playing for the first time is always a little nerve-racking. It's like meeting an old lover.

Will they be so fat they're nearly unrecognizable?
Will they be shockingly ageless?
Hotter than ever?

Appropriately, The Pants are like putting on your favorite pair of old jeans.

Dante's got a new drum kit. Pony's got hair again (and I think it's his, this time). Foxx Trott is holding down the low end. Naturally, there's a new keyboard player. We sounded surprisingly good, and by the time our big festival gig comes up, we'll be in fighting trim.

The Dream
I slept well last night. I had a dream.

I was in a house. It had recently been renovated. New bathrooms, with beautiful, soft white towels with teal stripes. New carpet that felt like beach sand beneath my feet. New paint on the walls. A few pieces of elegant, minimal furniture in the rooms - coming or going? Either someone had recently moved out or was about to move in, or both.

Oddly enough, balled-up newspapers and magazines were stuffed in all the air vents.

I heard voices as I wandered through. Out the windows I could see trees gently waving in a Spring breeze.

I found people in the living room, waiting for me. Some dead friends and relatives, drinking wine and chatting. My parents, together, and happy - before my near-success and the money and everything else drove them apart.

I was suffused with a tremendous and rare sense of peace and well-being. And as the alarm sounded reveille and the dream began to fade, I finally realized where I was:

Home. Home.

So many people have come and gone
Their faces fade as the years go by
Yet I still recall as I wander on
As clear as the sun in the summer sky...

The Monroes: A Story of The Music Biz

It's no secret the music biz has always been a "a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs." With a negative side, too.

Case Study: The Monroes.
These guys got together. Typical So-Cal dudes who loved playing music. They found a guy with an amazing voice. Name of Jesus Ortiz. Some folks will tell you he renamed himself "Tony Monroe" because all the guys in the band were adopting "Monroe" names as an anagrammatic play on "The Ramones". But part of it is A&R guys wouldn't sign a rock band with a guy with a Hispanic name fronting it.

They write some songs. They play out. They start to generate interest. They sign with a label based in Japan: Alfa Records. They go into the studio and record a fantastic EP, which features a song called "What Do All The People Know?"

"What Do All The People Know?" is a masterpiece of pop songwriting. The melody is strong, the harmonies are pretty. It's catchy. It's everything you want in a song, and it sounds exactly like the 80s.

So this track starts getting tons of local airplay. The kind where you can feel the wave building and you know it's going to break and fling you to the next level in your career. I've felt that wave tug at my heels more than a few times in my life, but never with the force The Monroes must have felt. Probably because I have yet to write a song as good as "What Do All The People Know?"

"You know I told you once tonight that you could always speak your mind
You work so hard to say what's right
I watch you do it all the time"

That's how the song starts, those ambiguous and surprising words sung in a tone melancholy, pleading, and accusing...over a rather peppy synth intro. The song builds from there, piling hook upon hook.

Could you be the girl I really love?
All the people tell me so
But what do all the people know?

That's the chorus, and I love that twist, that question. So surprising. It's full of wonder, but spiced with suspicion. We've all been there, in a new love's first early rush. Your friends all say "you are perfect for each other". They're all trying to push you together. But what do they know? Especially since they only see a small bit of the relationship. And then when you think you understand the narrator and the song, the bridge hits:

Do you think I'm blind to what you do?
Do you think I really care for you?
Or is it just another game
That you and I pretend to play
Do you think we both should let it show?
Do you think we both should let it go?
Or is it just another game
That you and I pretend to play

Just brilliant. I feel it captures that wary circling and feinting of two loves so well. Plus the song has handclaps.

So they're starting to plan tours - they've opened for the big acts of the day: Toto, Rick Springfield, and Greg Kihn. They're starting to think about a video. They're on the Mike Douglas Show (the Oprah of its day).

And then the bottom falls out of their world: Their Japanese label withdraws from the US market. While they're on tour. Their record is at #56 on the top 100. But now they have no money, no tour...they don't even have records to sell.

After a depressing year of regrouping, they manage to get signed to Columbia, but their spirits are sort of broken. Columbia won't release any of their music, and the band can't get out of the deal. They're stuck. They can't write any songs, their audience has vanished. The wave recedes, and the band slowly disintegrates.

They break up and go their separate ways, and the world never gets to see what else they would have done. MTV would have probably crushed these guys anyhow. By the time they were ready to blow up, video was king. These guys were amazing musicians, but they certainly weren't going to compete with Duran Duran, or even A Flock of Seagulls in the image department.

Here they are. The video is from their appearance on the Mike Douglas Show, but it's been edited to fit the recording of the song.



Monroes, I salute you. You guys were amazing. You deserved better!