DownTown Diary
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DownTown Diary
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Welcome to the continuing saga of the...
The Year 2011 In Review... 2011 was easily one of the biggest and most important years in
my career. As this year comes to a close, it seems like a good time As 2009 was coming to a close, I was looking ahead to the opening 1st quarter of 2010 to finish the project. I knew from the basic tracks that I had recorded with Steve Holley and Paul Page, that this was going to be my best effort to date. A year later, at the end of 2010, I had just done a big video shoot for Alternate Root TV and was preparing for my trip to MIDEM at the start of 2011. I was busy sending out emails for business meetings and wondering what was ahead of me. A few days after New Years, came an email response for a meeting with an A&R rep for a German record label, AGR Television Records. So 2011 opened with a good deal of promise. I headed off to Cannes for MIDEM with high hopes...little did I know how this trip would determine what the rest of 2011 would hold for me... The Spring of 2011 saw the signing of a Licensing Deal
I readied a new CD booklet with lyrics
and updated artwork for the AGR release. Then in the Fall, I did my 1st photo shoot for the PR & Marketing campaign
that AGR had lined up for the November release date. Finally, the week before
Thanksgiving, As 2011 comes to an end, The full story behind what happened in 2010 & 2011 appears below in the epic 9-part "The Signing"...
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The Signing (Part 1)...Fate... Is there anything in the life of a musician or artist as
important as getting signed to a Record Label? Many struggle for years and
years and never get that lucky break. For others, they get signed the very 1st
time they go out in public...there's never any rhyme or reason to it...or is
there? Sometimes there seems to be that element called Fate that plays a
hand, as For me, after years of trying and finally accepting the reality of the situation, I gave up on The DREAM. The rules of the game had changed significantly as did the times. A new Age had dawned and it wasn't especially appealing. The new Reality was not something I would have imagined in my younger days...and yet, ironically, it might have actually suited me better...but such is the way of the world and better to not dwell on the "what might have beens"...and so I didn't. I went my own way...the DIY way and took control of my destiny... When I look at the story of DownTown Mystic getting signed to a deal in Europe, I can't help but see the Hand of Fate playing its part in it, like something guiding me along...and the closer I got, the more things fell into place. You can see by the entries in this diary that follow, that the the decision to record a new album that would become "Standing Still", was based on something in my family background...and certainly anything that deals with family deals with Fate.
The decision to make my 1st Americana album would also be something that
Fate seemed to play a role in. Now mind you, I'm saying these things in
From beginning to end,
"Standing Still" was the best
thing I ever recorded...right from the basic tracks I knew this was going to be
something special...and this is while I was getting over a bout of In my mind I had decided, going into the studio, that this was going to be the record I had always wanted to make and everything seemed to follow from that. The sessions would be taxing on me physically because of the pneumonia, but they went down smoothly, with me ultimately singing and playing the most guitar that I ever had on one project. The final result was even better than I had hoped it would be. Everything seemed to flow
naturally. Everyone involved did a great job and added their personal touches
that enhanced the final product in a way that couldn't have been planned in
advance. It was a great deal of work that ultimately resulted in a great deal of
satisfaction. How did Fate play a part in all this, finally
leading to THE DEAL? I'll lay the process out in the following entries and you
can judge for yourself...
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The Signing (Part 2)...The Release... The release of the
"Standing Still" cd would put me
back out at AAA Radio for the
1st time since 2008. But I was also looking to promote the cd to the
Combined with the
efforts of my radio promoter, Peter Hay at
TwinVision,
"Standing Still" would be my
most successful release at Radio to date! Part of my choosing Peter to be my
radio promoter this time around was because I knew I had an Americana release
and Peter also promoted to One of the unexpected benefits from working with Peter Hay was doing a mailing to the Euro/Americana shows in Europe. It would turn out to be a twist of Fate that would turn me in a direction I would never have thought of, if not for recording and releasing "Standing Still". Within a
week of the mailing to Europe, Peter would send me an
email from a DJ of one of the shows in France named Mike
Penard, who thanked him for the cd and said that
it "made his day and reminds him of John Fogerty"...WOW!! You wait
your whole life to hear that kind of high praise because you generally don't get
it...and to finally hear something like that was...well a bit surreal
to be sure! After reading that, I decided to search for email addresses to
personally reach out to the Hosts
The response was amazing and
within a few weeks DownTown Mystic had made the
Euro/Americana Top 25
Chart! This was a really BIG DEAL!! It was so out of left field and even more
surreal, that I would be recognized for my work, in of all places--EUROPE! But it FELT GREAT!! The cd
would also receive some great reviews
in Europe and make me start thinking that I needed to get over there and start
touring. 4 years earlier I started this project with nothing more than to get
myself back into music and see where it would take me...now with my most
successful release finally putting me on the map somewhere, the way was
beginning to show itself.
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The Signing (Part 3)...Americana in Nashville... The thought of getting over to Europe to tour became my #1
goal. The success on the Euro/Americana shows was something I couldn't ignore
and I needed to find a way to get over there. In late August 2010 I saw that the
Americana Music Festival would take place in a few weeks down in Nashville.
I had never been to Nashville but
I became a member of
the Tommy had been the
drummer I started the DownTown Mystic
project with, cutting 6 tracks with him during a session I had booked for
The Discontent. He was solid on the beat
and it always felt natural playing with him. I had a great time in Nashville. Everything just seemed to click for me. The very 1st panel at the Americana Conference that I went to mentioned MIDEM, the largest Music Conference in the world that takes place in Cannes, France every January, around my birthday. The last time I was there was in 1996 and suddenly I knew this was the place I needed to go back to if I wanted to make my #1 goal in Europe a reality... It gave me an idea to talk to Tommy about. When I left the Ryman and met up with Tommy, we went to get something to eat. Over the meal I told him about my idea and asked him if it was something he would be interested in helping me with...Tommy said he was in and another piece was in place to get me to play in Europe. Just to show how cool a time I had in Nashville, the last panel I went to, I won $1000 worth of promotion on AirPlayDirect! The other idea I had been to about 8 places and come up empty. But there had been one last place on the other side of the street I hadn't been to, so it was my last stop. Again, I needed something and it would appear right on cue. I walked over to the last place, opened the door and as I walked in, I could see a hat on the rack to my left...BINGO! There it was...a hat with a horseshoe & cross on it...and exactly the size I was looking for...the Cosmos had led me to what I was looking for. It might seem like a silly thing, looking for a certain kind of hat, but it got in my head and with time on my hands before I had to leave for the airport I had nothing better to do...and that hat would soon come in handy as you'll see... Afterwards, I even had a chance to visit the famous Men's Room, downstairs in the
historic
Hermitage Hotel. Chris Keaton told me to check it out if I got the
chance since it was famous for being used in movies and videos...and now with my new hat
on, I had to stop in before I left Nashville.
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The Signing (Part 4)...The Alternate Route... When I returned from Nashville I signed up for
MIDEM and booked my plane ticket. The
last time I was there in 1996, there were no cell phones or Internet. Everything
was done by fax or overseas phone calls. I had made deals in Europe & Japan but
the bands and the contacts weren't there anymore, so I'd be starting from
scratch. But in 2010 there was
I
began to check out over 1500 companies and send out emails to the ones that I
thought would be interested in Americana Music...publishers, labels, etc. I was
hoping to find Booking Agents for touring but it was slim pickings. As it turns
out, most of the companies that go to MIDEM are Publishers Because I was now a member of the
Americana Assn., I got to
vote in the elections for their Board of Directors. Not very exciting but
interesting. I had never participated in something like this before so I
approached it with an open mind. Basically, the Americana Assn. sends out emails
with prospective What?? The Alternate Root? Being new to everything at Americana, I had never heard of this publication and it was #1? I had to check this out... So I went to the Alternate Root website
Immediately I knew what I needed to do (besides responding in the positive to the email)...the most obvious plan would be to get the musicians who had played on "Standing Still", so my 1st call was to drummer Steve Holley. I asked him if he would be interested in doing the videos and what his schedule was like. Steve said he was in and gave me his schedule for December. I knew that once Steve was committed I could plan a schedule around him. This was early November and I knew my best shot was to try and get this done in early December. Next would be bassist Paul
Page The only guy in the band who hadn't played on the cd was
another great guitar player, Justin "JJ Jordan,
and he would I decided right away that the sooner I booked a date, the better my chances of making it happen. The best date looked like December 1st, so that was the one I needed to lock everyone in on... And getting these guys together for that 1 day would
be like trying to herd cats!
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The Signing (Part 5)...Alternate Root TV... I called Bill Hurley, the producer of
Alternate Root TV and who would do the video shoot. I asked him if we
could set the shoot up for Dec.1st and he told me he would check with the studio
and get back to me. When he sent me the email with the green light for Dec. 1st,
I flew into action with the band. I was going to make this happen on the 1 On Dec. 1, 2010 we all drove up to
Horizon Studios in
West Haven, CT in a MONSOON (naturally) for the
Alt Root TV
video shoot. While the cameras were being set up, I had the chance to meet
Christine Olhman, the Beehive Queen, who just happened to be visiting
her brother Vic Steffens,
the sound engineer...coincidence (another form of fate)? Christine
had been
a backup singer on
Saturday Night Live and it occurred to me, that while the band had
played the songs, I did all the vocals on the cd and could use some help with
the harmonies. I asked Vic if Christine would be up for doing a song and he said
to just ask I don't think I've ever worked so hard...while the 5 songs take up less than 20 minutes on the CD, we shot for over 2 hours to get the 5 full performances that appear on the DVD...and that's mainly because the band was so great, otherwise it might have taken 10 hours! Truth be told, we had no time for any rehearsals before the video shoot, so we would run through the songs a few times before having the cameras roll to catch our performance. It was a good deal of work compressed into a short time period of stress...made even more stressful when the monitors in the studio went out after the 1st song! Now it was all about relying on years of playing clubs without being able to hear the monitors and somehow singing in key...Fate might be playing its part, but that didn't mean it would be easy!! By the time we were finished with the last take of
"Modern Ways", I was soaking wet with sweat (even
more than being drenched
by the rain) but more than satisfied with our performance.
A few weeks later before Christmas, Bill sent me the 1st
couple of videos he had finished editing...it was very exciting and the videos
were very cool! Just after New Year's, Bill sent me the completed
DVD. With the
finished videos now in my possession, I was able to send links to them with my
emails to the companies at MIDEM. A few days into the New Year, I got a
response to one of my emails for a meeting at MIDEM from a Record Label in
Germany...
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The Signing (Part 6)...MIDEM 2011 (Part 1)... Every year in January, the Music Industry gathers in the south
of France in Cannes for MIDEM, the
largest International Music Business Conference in the world. A few months later
they hold the world famous Cannes
Film Festival there. I had last been to Cannes in 1996, my 2nd MIDEM in
a row. The best part of that MIDEM was winning the
The worst part of that This year I left for Cannes on an Air France jet out of JFK in
NYC and took a direct flight to Nice, France.
It was a beautiful sunny day, which was so much nicer than in 1996, when it seemed to pour rain everyday. The temperature was in the low 50s, which was like Spring to me since there had been a few inches of snow during the day before I left for the airport, and this particular January would be a record setter for snow. I went over to the Palais and picked up
my bag and credentials. I was looking forward to the 1st day of MIDEM, which was
Sunday, since I already had 6 meetings lined up...one of which
The Martinez is a big hotel on the end of
La Croisette, the main street in Cannes, that the Palais and major hotels are all
on. Back in 1996, The Martinez
was THE place to hang out at night. It could take an hour to get from the packed
lobby to the bar...but I strolled into the bar and even had a seat at the bar waiting for me. I took it all in. The bar area was full but by no means packed, with plenty of room, particularly around the bar. I sat down on a big chair and ordered my drink...toasting myself on my birthday and just thinking about my trip, being in Cannes and at MIDEM...I'll drink to THAT!! Enjoying myself, I decided on having another drink before I called it a night. I had only been in the bar for about 30 minutes when I asked for the check. I went for my wallet which was zipped in an inner pocket in my jacket, which I had put on the back of my chair. I looked in the pocket...the zipper was open! I know I had zipped it shut when I put my wallet in there...inside was my wallet...phew...what a relief! Inside the wallet were all my credit cards...but NO CASH!! I had been ROBBED!! Are you kiddding me??!! I'm sitting in an upscale hotel bar in Cannes and I've been RIPPED OFF!! And of all days, it's my BIRTHDAY...UNBELIEVABLE!!! This was not a good omen...
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The Signing (Part 7)...MIDEM 2011 (Part 2)... I had come to MIDEM
for 1 reason and 1 reason only...to meet with the A&R rep from the German Record
Label, AGR Television Records.
The rep's name was
Juergen Kramar and I was supposed to meet him the next day. Like I knew that having my pocket picked the night before on my birthday was not a good omen...and now, not having the meeting with Juergen, was proof of it! I tried calling Juergen's cell phone but I kept getting a message that the number wasn't correct. This was not happening!! Now I was was really looking at everything in a different light... Back at the Palais, my meetings went as scheduled. One of the
most important would be with
Scott Cohen,
The meeting
with Scott went great. He
Maybe the hex was being broken... That night at dinner a new person came to eat with the group
of associates I was with. She was from
Sweden and I didn't really get a chance to talk to her at dinner, but on the way back to the
hotel, we started to chat. She said something about meeting a friend at AGR and I
stopped her..."that's funny, I said, "I was supposed to meet a guy from there
earlier today". "Juergen
Kramar?", she asked, "He's a good friend of mine". What are the odds??
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The Signing (Part 8)...MIDEM 2011 (Part 3)... On the day before I was to leave MIDEM, I finally had my meeting with
Juergen Kramar. I had no idea who he was. That is to say, I knew he
was an A&R guy, but I didn't know anything else about him. Juergen was very
apologetic about the foul up of the 1st meeting, but as soon as I saw him , I
realized I had seen him in the lobby of the Majestic that day. He was With that, we sat down and talked for about 10 minutes. I told him that I thought the 1st song on my cd was a "hit" and Juergen asked me if it was Southern Rock like Skynard, and I replied that it was more like Poco or what they called Country Rock back in the 60s & 70s. When I said Poco, Juergen smiled and said that he had worked Poco for Clive Davis at Columbia in 1968! Clive Davis? Poco?? 1968??? Who was this guy???? After I left the meeting with Juergen, I
The reason being, was that it had been forecast that this one
particular day had been set as a "once in a lifetime"
The date of that special day was not the day (Jan.23) that I was supposed to meet with Juergen (which didn't happen) but was actually Today (Jan.25)...and it turned out to be the day that I did meet with Juergen...or should I say, the day I was supposed to meet Juergen!!! Wild, isn't it?? I got robbed on my birthday, then my main meeting never happened...but somehow through some coincidence, on the day that had been forecast 2 months prior as a "once in a lifetime occurence", I had the meeting that my whole trip to MIDEM was to hinge on...do you believe in Fate now?? I do...
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The Signing (Part 9)...Success... As someone once said "what a long strange trip it's been"...it's also been said that "Luck is the meeting of opportunity and skill"... Despite my belief that Fate was playing an
important part in my saga, I knew that Fate alone was not going to
make things happen unless I continued in my efforts to make them happen. I had
been back from MIDEM for a few weeks and nothing seemed to be happening. I sent
out emails to everyone I had met with to follow up on those meetings It's a curious thing...I started
DownTown Mystic as a project for me to get
back to being creative and then to see where it would take me. 30 years ago I
had a band and gave 100% of my heart and soul to get the elusive RECORD DEAL.
There would be Production Deals and Publishing Deals but never a Recording
Deal...the Holy Grail of all musicians playing in a band. Yet here I
was, 30 years later going around From the moment I had gotten the email from Juergen Kramar, a few days after the start of the New Year to set up a meeting at MIDEM, that meeting became the most important thing to me. It really was the only thing of interest for me at MIDEM. Everything seemed to have been leading up to it. So now that I had the meeting...now what? With a few weeks having gone by and no word from Juergen, I decided to phone him. We spoke and he remembered me. He said he had listened to my cd a couple of times and liked it. He told me he had sent it to the company in Hamburg but had no word for me yet. It turns out that Juergen didn't actually work for AGR. He was an independent A&R consultant for Universal Music, and as such, was basically an A&R scout for all the labels affiliated with Universal. But Juergen was no mere scout. We spoke for close to an hour and it quickly dawned on me that I was speaking to an "A&R Legend". This man had done and seen some amazing things in the Music Industry. As an Independent A&R Consultant he could pick and choose the projects he wanted to get signed, and when he recommended that a project should be signed, it usually was! Juergen went on to
tell me how Country Music was dead in Germany. There was no major Country Radio
station and the big acts from Nashville were not really well known because none I had gone to MIDEM with a group of associates who I had paid
to represent me there. Their job was to get meetings and find deals for me at
MIDEM. That didn't happen. One of the associates who was responsible for
bringing me into the group did not attend MIDEM, but he was going to help me
with the follow up of my contacts there. It turned out that he knew
Andreas Graban, having done deals
with him at SONY. I told him that I needed an intro to Andreas. He refused to do
this, essentially causing a breach of my contract with him and his
associates. (Remember when I had been ripped off on my birthday and I took it as
not a good omen?) This actually got more involved than I care to go into here,
but suffice to say, I took matters into my own hands and separated my business
interests. A few more weeks went by and I called Juergen again. He said
that he still didn't have any news for me. I told him that I had found Andreas
on MySpace and had contacted him and that he would look for my cd. Juergen
thought this was good and that I should call Andreas directly. He gave me his
number and I as soon as I got off the phone with Juergen, I called Andreas. He
picked right up and proceeded to make jokes about New Jersey (to say Andreas is
a "character" would be a bit of an understatement and not do the man justice). We
talked for about an hour. He told me he would listen to my cd over the weekend
and A couple of days later I sent Andreas an email to ask him when would be a good time to call on Monday (this was Friday) since there's a 6 hour time difference. He sent me an email back saying I should call him on Tuesday since he was talking to a promoter in the morning that day and "might have better news for me". I knew at that moment that I had the deal! I knew that when I called Andreas on Tuesday, he would offer me a deal! And he did!! As I said earlier, I was now older and wiser. 30 years ago I would have taken the words in the email from Andreas as bad news. But 30 years later I took them to be great news. Why? It wasn't even the weekend and he was talking to a promoter on Tuesday? That meant he had already listened to my cd and liked it. Otherwise, why talk to a promoter about it? As he said, "he might have better news for me", which meant he had good news to begin with and might have better news after talking to the promoter. Either way it was going to be good news! To quote Jerry Garcia & The Grateful Dead--"what a long
strange trip it's been".
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Rocking With The Beatles: Remembering John... 2 guitars, bass & drums...the classic Rock'n'Roll band's line-up...you can alter it by adding a lead vocalist or taking away one guitar, but essentially this is the mold from which everything was created from the 60's on...
I can still remember seeing The Beatles play on the Ed Sullivan Show and looking at each one as the camera panned in...my attraction to John was immediate. He just stood in place but the vibe he gave out was instant coolness...I couldn't take my eyes off of him...he was just--great! About 3 months before I went in to record "Standing Still", the newly re-mastered Beatles cds came out. I bought my faves and rediscovered my all time favorite band all over again. I literally did not listen to anything else but re-mastered Beatles cds for like 4 or 5 months straight because it was like hearing them for the 1st time...which was such a great thing to discover after all these years. And probably my favorite Lennon said he wrote
the song after talking to
Peter Fonda,
while on an acid trip in LA. Fonda kept telling Lennon, “I know what it’s like
to be dead”, which became the tag line A few years earlier, I had been working with The Discontent when their Lead guitarist, Ozzie Caccavelli, said he had a great arrangement for “She Said, She Said”. He played it for me and I was knocked out. Where The Beatles version is trippy and laid back, The Discontent play it with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer...the drumming of Adam "The Atom" Brown is more like The Who's Keith Moon on steroids than Ringo's...
I knew I had to record Ozzie's
version of
Since I'd been listening to
The Beatles with a renewed spirit, I
decided I would
take my shot with the track, cutting new And John Lennon is nothing, if not a great Rock'n'Roll songwriter... It's hard to believe that 2011 marks the 31st anniversary of his death...and it's somewhat eerie to hear the line “I know what it’s like to be dead”...but at the same time, somewhat befitting to the great man's memory, being subversive once again in these PC times we now live in... For some reason, I think he would be smiling about
that himself...
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Standing Still (Part 1)...Inspiration... It had been 2 years since the recording of
"Read The Signs" when I started to feel the
'itch" and wanted to write some new songs. I'm not entirely sure why I felt this
way but I started to listen to some old demo tapes that I'd recorded a few years
back. I was working with The Discontent
on writing new material for what would be our last recording session back in
2004.
I was working on the song that would become
"Believe in Nothing" and I'd just turn on the tape recorder to record
the ideas I had on the guitar and To my surprise, at the start of the tape, I heard myself
humming a melody and playing a completely arranged song...WOW I had totally
forgotten about it! Now here was a new song that was all finished except for the
lyrics...I was off to a great start! I continued to listen and heard the music
for "Believe in Nothing" and then some
bits and pieces of a few ideas. There was something about playing those 3 chords that held my
attention over the next few weeks. I began to develop a verse with the 3 chords
being the chorus. The verse was interesting because it began to remind me of
something...what was it? When I phrased the chords a certain way, something
familiar would flood into my mind...I heard this before...BINGO! I had been
working on a song probably 15 years earlier and the verse was what So I had my verse and chorus for the new song finished...now what would I write about? The 3 chords on the chorus had a certain quality of melancholy to them and I identified with that melancholy...why? It seems to have been there ever since my father died when I was 21. I can't remember having it as part of my nature before he died. I remember a psychic once telling me I had this deep loss in my past and when I mentioned it was probably due to my father's death, the psychic said no it wasn't but something else. I got angry with the psychic about that...and also because he couldn't tell what it was either...not cool! But thinking about my father brought up something that made me
wonder if I was born with, as the psychic seemed to imply, a deep melancholy
that had been passed on in my genes. The only grandparent I had known in my life
was my mother's mother, and she passed on when I was 10. My father's parents had
both died in 1933 in the middle of the
Great Depression when my father was 14.
My father's parents...of course! Theirs was an incredibly tragic story that was
rarely ever talked about in my family, and now with my father and 2 of his
sisters gone, that story would be forgotten. I now knew what I was going to
write about in this new song.
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Standing Still (Part 2)...Standing Still... I called my Aunt Helen one day to get the true facts of the
story. My Aunt was my father's youngest and sole surviving sister. She's 80 now
but was only 5 when her parents died. The oldest was Wanda at 16, then my father
at 14, then Cassie at 10 and then my Aunt Helen. 4 kids who lost both of their
parents within a week of each other in the middle The story goes that my grandfather Peter was in a sanitarium dying of tuberculosis and his condition had grown very serious. He had been in and out of hospitals for about a year, so this wasn't unexpected. My grandmother Mary was on her way one night with a Catholic priest to give him the Last Rites. My grandmother was in the rumble seat of a car with the driver and priest up front. It was a rainy night and a truck skidded into their car from behind, breaking some of my grandmother's ribs...one pierced her heart and she lay dying in the hospital, never seeing my grandfather again. My aunt remembers going to see her in the hospital before she died...about a week before my grandfather passed. It's not known if he ever knew that his wife had died. Luckily for my father and his 3 sisters, my grandmother's sister owned an apartment building and let the kids stay in one of the apartments...which they did, staying together, never being split up by the State. Remember, this is 1933...4 kids, ages 16 and under, are suddenly on their own in the Great Depression. As tragic as the loss of their parents is, their survival is a remarkable story. I can remember sitting around the table with my cousins
listening to our parents stories about growing up. The really odd thing As I began to put pen to paper, the 1st lines came to me..."a sad story still haunts me, heartbreak from the past"...and then I realized there was no way I could tell the story of Peter & Mary and the remarkable survival of their children. The song's verse structure made it too difficult, if not impossible, to tell a story like this. Plus, I could not relate to the story by itself. I had to inject myself in the song and the only way I could relate to the story was through my father. He was 14 when his parents died and I was 21 when he died..."and then one day it came my way, the die had been cast"...I could talk about how I felt when he died and relate that to him...how did he feel when he lost his parents? I felt certain he had passed his deepest emotions on to me at
birth and his loss was part of me. I'm sure this is what that psychic had sensed
in me. And I knew I had the angle to write from that I needed for the
song..."and I felt the world was falling down and my heart was standing
still"..."Standing Still"...something
about those words summed it all up for me and I knew it was the title of the
song.
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Standing Still (Part 3)...Believe... While "Standing Still"
became the title of the song, it would also soon become the title for the new album. I had always had a country "feel" in
At Christmas I always put up a photo of a Santa with the heading "Believe" on the home page of this website. It's actually a Christmas card that I scanned and even have a book with that title by the author, Mary Englebreit. She's the illustrator of the card and you can see her initials "ME" under Santa's sack. I see that word every year at Christmas time and there it was staring me in the face...so I thought, "what a great title for a song". With "Believe", I was looking to write something very personal in a way I had never really done before. With the finger picking style of the guitar, the stripped down feeling brought out of me, straight forward honest lyrics. The image of "what the heart sees" fit perfectly with the emotion suggested by the chords on the guitar. The end result was a very simple song that was more powerful than I had imagined. The country style of the guitar on
"Believe" also reminded me of my "roots", so to speak, and pointed the
way for the rest of the songs that were to follow for the album. I had backed
off this style on "Rock'n'Roll 4 The
Soul" and "Read The Signs" so as
to blend in better with songs that Bruce Engler
had written. But this was shaping up to be a solo project as Bruce was busy with
other things in his life, like getting married, and it was fated that I would be
going it alone this time around.
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Standing Still (Part 4)...The Studio (Part 1)... Once I had written the songs "Standing Still"
& "Believe", the thought of recording a new album
began to cross my mind. I already had 2 The style is called "Americana" today, but was better known as "Country Rock" back in the 70's, when bands like Poco and the Eagles were around. I've had this style since my formative years as a songwriter. "Americana" encompasses all genres of rock'n'roll, including roots-rock, country rock, alt country, etc. I was probably ahead of my time back in the 80's, when I said that Nashville, would one day be the last bastion for American Rock'n'Roll. It certainly wasn't back then, but 20 years later it has become exactly that. When I had enough songs for an album, I
went in the studio to cut some demos to give the band an idea of what the songs
sounded like. This forced me to
make some final decisions on the songs, in particular,
"Believe". Just a few hours before I went to The demos came out really good Engineer
Ben Elliott had gotten an
amazing sound on the basics and it was easily his best work in all the time
we've worked together. When Ben & I listened back, we just smiled at each
other because we knew this was going to be something special.
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Standing Still (Part 5)...The Studio (Part 2)... While I would play most of the guitar parts on
"Standing Still", I asked a
great guitar player named
Lance Doss to
come in for a night and help me to flesh out a few of the songs. Lance can play
anything with strings on it and he came to the session armed with his Strat,
Mandolin, Baritone Guitar, Lap Steel One of the tracks left off "Read The Signs" was a song called "Rise & Fall" and it was almost left off "Standing Still" because I had already recorded the basic tracks for "Rise & Fall #2", which was a slightly more uptempo version...but since I had now decided on also using "Rise & Fall", I had to figure out how to make the tracks musically different from each other...and it would be Lance who helped come up with a solution to my dilemma... Lance pulled out his Danelectro Baritone Guitar and said to let him try some things. I had nothing to lose since I had nothing to begin with, so I was more than willing to hear what Lance would come up with. Lance plugged into my 1975 Fender Twin and began to play to the track, getting that low twang out of the Danelectro...how cool! The part Lance played was...in a word...PERFECT! Lance's new part was simple but spot on, and it made me do a
quick U-turn in my thinking...sparking an idea of how to re-approach and finish
the track...I LOVE it when that happens! As Lance packed up his toys I
The last time I had seen Bruce, he was getting married. I
called him a couple of months later to invite him down to the
studio and he said
he would try to make it. Actually, it was Bruce who had turned me onto Lance, so
it seemed fitting that he would come down the next night and play on a track,
off of Lance's
I told Bruce that I wanted him to play slide guitar on "Rise & Fall #2", which was the idea I had from listening to what Lance played, and he played some very cool slide. To give Bruce a guide vocal, I quickly went into the vocal booth and put down a quick 1 take lead vocal...it would end up being the vocal I used for the CD. After laying down his slide part, I asked Bruce if he would
try playing a solo on another track that I knew was right up his alley.
I played him the chord changes and Bruce said he loved the way they sounded and
was eager to have a go at it...but I had something in the back of my mind that I
was hoping to pull off. We played Bruce the track for
"Standing Still" and I would
give him little hints to the direction I wanted him to take on the solo.
Finally I said "think Dave Gilmour" and after his 5th or 6th take, I had what I
wanted. I also told him he had to play the last line of the solo exactly every
time...which is not something Bruce I hadn't told Bruce that I had already played my own solo on the track, which I liked. But I knew he would come up with a great part and if it was better than mine, so be it...but in the back of my mind, I was hoping that somehow the 2 parts would coincide and create a cool duet between me and him...which is why I wanted him to play the last line exactly as I had done, so that our guitars would unite on the end. Before Bruce left the studio, I had him
do a harmony vocal on "Believe", which sounded
great! It wasn't until after Bruce left that Ben put the solos together on a
rough mix for me...the idea of a duet just might work...but it needed some work.
In the final mix, I edited my solo to fit around Bruce's so that it sounded like
we were answering each other and that's how our duet came to be on
"Standing Still". I still had a
good deal of work in front of me with guitars & vocals, but Lance & Bruce cut my
guitar work in half.
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Old School...
Music has always been the most important thing in my life. Ever since I was a
kid, I've listened to music like people need air to survive.
In a weird way, this "keeper of the flame" is an image I've had of myself for
some time. I used to always pull a certain card from a deck of the Tarot and now
I understand why. The card is "The Hermit" and it's the 9th card in the Major
Arcana deck. It shows a solitary old man with a
The Hermit represents the Magician, the 1st card, at an advanced age beyond the affairs of the world. His lantern lights the darkness for those who seek his knowledge. Of course, I try to be the Magician in this time, with the power to create magic. For me, my ability to create magic comes through music. The true definition of "magic" is "concentration of the will". It's the
ability to create something from nothing. The Magician uses the powers of his
will (will power) to bring forth his desired idea into reality. We all have this
power. It's just learning to focus this ability that's the trick (no pun
intended...ok maybe it is intended). That's probably why they say that "one
person can make a difference" (one of these days I'm going to find out who
"they" are). I happen to be a number "1" by birth, said to be the hardest of all numbers
because it's the rock upon which all the others stand. This brings me to the
study of Numerology, called the "occult study of numbers". The word "occult"
literally means "hidden" and
Pythagoras, who is known as "the father of
Numerology" (he's also known as "the father of Mathematics"), would have his
students Actually, Numerology is the "science of vibrations", and numbers represent these vibrations. We are all familiar with "vibes" and Numerology is a way to study and understand these "vibes". Of course modern science does not recognize Numerology or Astrology, the two oldest sciences known to Mankind. But if Pythagoras is recognized as "the father of Mathematics", why wouldn't Numerology be accepted? Maybe it's because Pythagoras valued "numbers" over "numerals". That is to say that Pythagoras believed that "numbers" measured "qualities", while "numerals" (those things we add, subtract, divide & multiply) measured "quantities". It was around the time of my 27th birthday that I came in contact with
Numerology. My wife gave me a book as a present. Unfortunately, it had no
information about the subject that was of any use to me (it seems you had to
There are only 9 numbers in the universe? But of course! Everything can be added up and broken down to one final number. For instance, add up 24+65+83+34=206; 2+0+6=8...simple, right? Now how does this relate to you? Well, every letter in the alphabet has a number: A-I is 1-9; J-R is 1-9 & S-Z is 1-8. So every letter of your name at birth adds up to a number, and your date of birth adds up to a number. These numbers tell uncanny things about yourself and more importantly, help you to understand who you really are. They represent the "vibes" that make you who you are. How do I know Numerology works? I've done enough charts for people to prove
to them as well as myself that it does. The more I did them, the more I would just "believe".
It became very matter of fact to me. Once you
"believe", things become much clearer Which brings me back to where I started this...with music. In particular, my music and my project. I needed to get back to being creative and expressing a part of myself that I had been denying. Everybody talks about music, but it's become just a by-product of the industry. Nobody really listens anymore. "It's all about the music"...But the reality is something completely different than the perception the industry portrays and it's lead to the very problems the business now faces. So it's fair to say that it made me sick because of dealing with this false reality for too long. I needed to get back to making it "all about the music". So I did. I'm "old school". It begins and ends with the songs for me. And I had some
good songs that needed to be finished in the way I knew they should be done, and
let criticism be damned!
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Birth Of A Notion… I was hanging out in London in June of 1994. It was the day after the authorities said OJ Simpson’s wife, Nicole, had been murdered and OJ was the chief suspect…really bizarre news, when I heard it…what the?? Anyway, I was in London hanging with Bert, my bud from Holland...Bert was the
drummer and main songwriter for a fairly big European Metal band on EMI in the
late 70's/early 80's I think (I can't remember their name--sorry Bert) and then
in a
very successful indie promotion company...and we were
invited out to dinner by 2 other characters – Dutch & NuNu, 2 Brits from Music
Bank, which is in the Dutch was house-sitting for the owner of The Original Hard Rock Café in London, who was in the States to be with his wife Maureen (Ringo Starr’s Ex), but I digress... So Dutch was getting us into The Hard Rock for dinner, on the night
when the famed establishment was celebrating it’s anniversary by making all
prices the same as twenty years ago…or something to that effect…the lines
were out the door and around the block and we just walked in behind Dutch, as
the throng of We went downstairs to the bar to wait for a table to clear upstairs and ordered drinks…Dutch was a big young guy and always seemed more like an American to me, while NuNu was some old tough Brit with a strong accent – 2 wonderful characters to pass some time with…great stories they would tell… Now, this is my 1st time in the London Hard Rock and I’m digging
the place…there’s a huge Harley sitting up behind the bar and I’m leaning
against
"You know", I said, "Giants used to walk these streets 25-30
years ago", as my cohorts looked on in a daze, I continued..."you could
probably drive over 95% of the acts today and not know who you hit…think about
The Beatles, The Stones, The
Who, The Kinks, Cream,
Hendrix, etc. all hanging in
the same clubs at the same time! Giants walked these streets!" Everyone
nodded in agreement and we continued to chow down…at these prices we weren’t
going to go hungry…
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Meeting Of A Mind… It was in London that I met a wild man from LA
named Tom Fletcher. He was in London doing sound on tour with Toto guitarist
Steve Lukather. Fletcher, known to everyone as "Fletch", had worked with
everyone from Ozzy Osbourne to Scorpions and had more musical knowledge in his
pinky than most people get in a lifetime. We talked about When I got back from Europe, I went out to LA for a friend's wedding in Malibu and since I had a few days to sightsee, I decided to take a drive up the Pacific Coast Highway to San Luis Obispo and visit my bud Fletch, who was working with a reunited YES...
I met up with Fletch in the make-shift control room upstairs, It was such a great way to spend a day, hearing these
accomplished musicians at work...
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An Idea Whose Time Has Come…
Visiting
the London Hard Rock and then
meeting up with Fletch, gave me the
inspiration for
I
began to examine how
I thought it would be really interesting to record with some new
blood like The
Discontent,
a truly Modern Rock Band. I had worked with pros like Garry
Tallent & Max
Weinberg, from Bruce I learned from playing with Garry & Max how easy it can be when all you have to worry about is your own part...I still try to think of how Garry would play a bass line when I'm working on some of my songs...that's how cool it was to work with somebody like him...
So
I was in the process of getting ready to make records and realized a great
I spent one night rehearsing
with them and then headed into the studio
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The Dream… After recording the six tracks with The Discontent, I thought it might be cool to hook up with some other artists. It was at this point that the DownTown Mystic project began to take shape. I began to put some of the finished tracks on Industry Compilation cds that went to Radio stations around the country.
One
such compilation was the VirtuallyAlternative
cd that Jonathan L put out Suddenly, I was getting calls from radio stations wanting to know about DownTown Mystic. Soon there would be some national airplay from this, including some on the Specialty Shows. For those of you who are not familiar with Specialty Shows…they play the new music that gets released to Radio, most of which never gets heard on most stations...they act as the Music Taste Makers, exposing new music to their listening audience... I always felt that the hipper cats would discover the music first and this would turn out to be the case...some of the calls he received were from some very cool people who picked up on things in the music that could only come from someone who knew what they were talking about...when I thought about their comments, they were right on the money! That's such great feedback and it really helps to validate what you were trying to accomplish...ok, enough of this lovefest...
Then
**************************************************************************
Soul Brother: The Celestial Mechanic… One of the strangest and most beneficial connections in my weird life is having the
same Two Aquarians, one into Astrology, the other into Numerology. Strange that we would both be interested in the 2 oldest sciences known to mankind, but at the same time it makes perfect sense. We formed an immediate bond like 2 long lost brothers discovering each other on the same path.
Monte is a gentle giant who is also known as "The Celestial Mechanic" because of his ability to help those in need of some spiritual guidance, to find it and get a "tune-up" on their spiritual disposition. He created a divination card system based on Astrology called Karma Cards and sold it to Penguin Press, which printed it in 9 languages around the world.
They have
combined their talents to create a cottage industry, based on their spiritual
lifestyle. Their products are used daily by The Enchanted Tarot was made into an award winning CD-Rom. Monte then created The Instant Tarot Reader, which allowed the reader to be able to instantly find the meaning of their Tarot reading themselves. That's because Monte figured out all the combinations that could possibly appear in a Tarot reading and gave the meaning of every one! They have added other divination games & books like The Alchemist and The Psychic Circle, among others to their ever expanding catalog, which can now be viewed on their new website--The Enchanted World.com.
Having Monte & Amy as friends is one of
the many blessings I count in my life. They are that rare couple, whose love and
commitment to each other, make them such a great example of having the courage
to follow your dreams and make them a reality.
**************************************************************************
Soul Brothers: TP & The Boss… It's hard to believe that Tom Petty has been around 30 years!
What While Tom Petty was considered
the upstart punk from LA, Bruce
Springsteen had just been crowned the TP,like Bruce, has a place all to himself based in this
"tradition" and is now an Elder Not that The Boss has been a slouch...He had the more mainstream
success earlier, so he was never called a "punk". But Bruce got into
his 60's phase in the late 70's and early 80's with "The River".
**************************************************************************
The Guitar Gods… I have
always found myself to be heavily influenced by the LA "Sound" and can
There was a point
in time when the Guitar God came
Hilton Valentine was the
Guitar Player's Guitar Player for an instant before And now...Time To Rock!
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The Guitar Gods: Stephen Stills... One of the most underrated and overlooked guitarists in Rock
History is Stephen Stills.
Nicknamed "Captain Many Hands", Stills guitar playing is a unique style of rhythmic finger pickin', blues and Latin American influences. I became a major fan after hearing his classic Springfield tracks, "Rock'n'Roll Woman" & "Bluebird". Probably more than any other guitar player, Stills is responsible for first bringing acoustic guitar into Rock as a lead instrument. Just check out his acoustic solo on "Bluebird". It still remains one of the best on record. And it wasn't just his great guitar playing with fellow
Springfield cohort, Neil Young, but also
his great voice. The sound of
his voice has a unique and distinct sound like no one else. Years ahead of the
curve, his style combined hard It's Young who always gets the artistic kudos, but for me, nobody from that band could hold a candle to Stills. Outside of The Beatles, nobody was pushing the Rock & Pop envelope like him. He made great sounding records that still stand up today. The 1st CSN album was where the potential he showed with
Buffalo Springfield
One of the things I've always loved about Stills was the fact that he played Gretsch guitars. Outside of George Harrison, I can't think of another player so identified with the brand. He knew what great sound was about and he knew how
unique those guitars sounded. He took Rock into another direction with those
guitars. His songs For a 10 year period from 1966-1976, Stills made some of the best records ever released. His work with Buffalo Springfield alone put him in the Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame. But to then go on and do the Super Session with Mike Bloomfield & Al Kooper as a warm up act for Crosby Stills & Nash would be enough greatness for 3 or 4 lifetimes. But Stills was only halfway through this magical period of his career.
For me, Stills is one of the great influences in my musical
life, on my guitar playing & songwriting. His style and technique is so
ingrained in me that I had forgotten how much. One day I got a call from a radio
vet named Doc, who had called to talk about
DownTown Mystic. When I got off the phone, I began to think how much I used to
listen to Stills' tracks on those records, soaking up the sound. I had never
heard anything like it and to this day, I still haven't.
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The Master of Space & Time: Leon Russell... One of the great Rock'n'Rollers of all time is the man sitting
at the piano in the top hat from Tulsa, Oklahoma--Leon
Russell. There was a time in the 70's when he was THE
It's somewhat fitting that Leon got his start playing with Jerry Lee Lewis, since he was responsible for the piano's strong comeback in Rock in the early 70's, the same way The Killer was influential for it's sound in the 50's. Leon left Tulsa for Hollywood in the late 50's and wound up being part of the famed "Wrecking Crew", the crack group of LA session musicians that played on the hits of Phil Spector and virtually everything else in the 60's. Leon was right there in the thick of it, playing with everyone from The Beach Boys & Jan & Dean to The Byrds & Frank Sinatra. I grew up hearing him play, without knowing it, on some of the biggest hits of that era.
It wouldn't be until the dawn of the 70's that Leon would
come into my view by playing with
Joe Cocker. The
1st time I saw Leon, he was opening a show with
Procol Harum &
Ten Years After
at The Spectrum in Philly. A week or two later I saw him headlining at the
legendary
Fillmore East in NYC. His opening act was another piano man, starting to make
some noise from England, named
Elton John. I had
great seats over the stage and it was probably the best show I ever saw! Elton
had the "buzz" First you had Elton, with just a 3 piece of piano, bass & drums. All I had heard of Elton was his soft pop hit "Your Song", so when I saw he was just a trio, I didn't expect much. I wasn't ready for him and what he was about to do. But Elton blew me away and brought down the house...it was amazing! It was obvious he was going to become a superstar. Elton had it all. The real question was how would Leon follow that??
Of course, both performers were just starting their solo
careers, on their respective paths to superstardom. The following year, George
Harrison tapped Leon to help him organize the band for George's historic
Concert For Bangladesh, which featured Leon's show stopping medley of
"Jumping Jack Flash/Youngblood". The following year, Leon took advantage of his
star status by releasing his
Asylum Choir II album, which he had recorded
Leon's trademark silver grey beard & long hair are now all white,
but he still tours, doing what he does best. It's unbelievable that his name is
not enshrined in the RnR Hall of Fame, with the career that he's had. Starting
as an in demand session player with the famed
Wrecking Crew, playing on the
hits of the early 60's to writing, arranging & performing with Joe Cocker's
Mad
Dogs & Englishmen, to being the "toast of rock's elite" to his own
superstardom. As far as I'm concerned, Leon Russell will always be the "Master
of Space & Time".
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The Wild & Wicked: Brian Jones... February 28th is the birthday of Brian Jones. He would be 63 years old today...what a geezer! If you're reading this, then you've undoubtedly read my 4 part tale of Brian's haunting...and I must say it was definitely HIM! The main thing about the experience I had with Brian's
spirit was that I found it odd to be Like Brian's dabbling with the Dark Arts and the
fascination that he and a group of his cohorts had with Aleister
Crowley...who took 666 - "the number of the beast" as his own.
It became somewhat fashionable to be "decadent" back in "Swinging
London" in the 60's. "Sex, drugs & rock'n'roll" was their
mantra. I was curious to know how this number is tied to "the
Devil"? So many myths and superstitions abound. I found out that the American Indians did not believe in
"the Devil". He was created by the "white man". Wicca does
not hold any belief in it either...witch is kind of strange
when you think about it...(witch-which, get it?)
I remember the story of Lucifer, God's favorite Angel, who
fell from Grace because of his jealousy of Man. The Fall Of The Angels has God
casting them to Earth. John Milton's So one day a knock comes on my door and who should be standing there but 2 Jehovah's Witnesses! That's right...I figure they HAVE to know where to find the "Fall Of The Angels" in the Bible, right? Before they could get a word out of their mouths, I pounced on them. I go into my whole spiel..."why is 666 the sign of the devil? Where does it say that in the Bible? But what about the "Fall Of The Angels"? Where is that story in the Bible? I can't find it anywhere!"...they looked kind of nervous but got out their bibles and mentioned a passage here...Nope!...a passage there...Nope! I must have seemed possessed to them...more likely
psychotic...I continued by
saying I know the story, but where did Interestingly enough...I found out that there were various books by lesser prophets that at one time or another were part of the Bible, but dropped for various reasons. Believe it or not...The Book of Enoch tells the tale of the Fallen Angels, going so far as to say that the reason they got kicked out of Heaven was because they were sent to watch over the humans, and ended up having sex with them! Now THAT just might be the reason old Enoch got the heave-ho! But I digress... The story of Brian Jones
was compelling, and it was
amazing to me to find out just how many people still remember and care about him
and his memory, via fan clubs, particularly That could all change later this year when a new movie gets premiered at Cannes called
"Stoned"
(originally titled "The
Wild & Wycked World Of Brian Jones"). It was interesting to learn that the film's director,
Stephen Woolley, has been involved with the
**************************************************************************
The Man In The High Castle: Philip K. Dick... One of the great minds of the 20th (and some say the 21st) Century is a science fiction writer named Philip K. Dick. It's interesting that his 1st book, "Solar Lottery", was published in 1955...the same year as the birth of Rock'n'Roll. He certainly had the spirit of a rocker and is generally credited with creating the genre of "CyberPunk". Clearly ahead of his time, Dick would continue to turn out nearly 50 books (as many as 7 in a year!) and assorted short stories up to his untimely death in 1982 at the age of 53...just months before the groundbreaking sci-fi flick "Blade Runner" was released, based on his 1968 novel, "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?". Since his death, more films have been made including, "Total Recall", "The Minority Report" and "Paycheck". Ever since Hollywood discovered Dick's genius, a more critical eye has been cast upon the author and his work, finally resulting in the acclaim his talent & genius never received while he lived...except, of course, by those of us who were turned onto him and became faithful readers and believers. I know he's had a great deal of influence on my thinking. I first heard of Philip K. Dick from an
article titled, "The
Most Brilliant Sci-Fi Mind on Any Planet" by Paul Williams in
Rolling Stone. I
Probably the
biggest theme in Dick's books is what is reality? He had
an uncanny way of building a world with one reality, and then turning
it on it's head, blowing your mind in the process. After reading a few of his books, you
became more aware of just how fragile things could be. Certainly, my experience
with Brian Jones had made me
Despite
winning the Hugo Award for Best Science Fiction Novel in 1963 for "The Man
In The High Castle", as a sci-fi
writer, Dick would not be taken seriously by mainstream critics. He gained a
cult following that included people like John
Lennon, who wanted to option
Dick's novel "The Three Stigmata of Palmer
Eldritch" for a movie. Many feel it to
be THE story of what the LSD experience is like, which made the legend of PK Dick
grow even more, since he wrote it years before actually taking the drug! He
wrote for 20 years on methamphetamines and was afraid to stop taking the drugs
because he didn't think he would be able to write without them. The irony was
that once his did stop the drugs, he found that his natural state of writing was
to go for days and even weeks without sleep. Eventually, this would take it's
toll. As he grew older, his body had a harder time recovering from the abuse he
put it through when writing and a series of strokes put an They say that "great minds think
alike" and though I certainly wouldn't put mine in the same category as his,
I
do find myself reflected in his thinking. When I thought I might be crazy, I
found that there was someone who already knew and more importantly, understood,
the illusion of reality. What we believe to be reality in this world isn't
necessarily the True Reality for everyone. For me, Philip K. Dick
is a visionary and one
of the most important writers and thinkers of the Modern Age. With every passing
year, his status will continue to grow.
************************************************************************** ©2001-12 Sha-La Music, Inc.
|
Fletch was putting together a mobile studio for them to
record some new material...their first such efforts together since the
80's...they were rehearsing in an old bank building
right off the main drag and it was kind of a startle to walk into the main stage
area after the long ride up
![[ Philip K. Dick, 1928 - 1982 ]](images/pkd.gif)
