Geezer Rock

Scenes From A Comeback

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On Friday night, KDOG played its first gig since Nick's open heart surgery in February - a parking lot party at Kenton's office building. Kenton "K-Dog Lee, who does nothing halfway, spent $1,000 renting an 8 by 12 foot stage, plus professional theatrical lighting. It looked like a real rock show, always an important entertainment dimension. Even if the music isn't so hot, you can at least loom over the hapless audience like Zuess and Co. hurling lightning bolts from Olympus.
Kenton called me at 8 a.m. on Friday morning, as he always does on gig day. Before a show, Kenton is as antsy as a virgin facing the marital bed.
"Well, I took one for the team," he announced gravely. "I got a cortisone show in my elbow."
Kenton's elbow is sore. Playing golf and drumming makes it worse.
"The doctor said nothing's broken in there," Kenton confided. "He just said, 'As old as you are and as much as you use your body, you have to expect this kind of thing.' That's the last thing I needed to hear. I'm old!"
The music was actually pretty good, despite new songs and a new member, the mighty Dru Niebold on bass and White Man Rock Vocals.
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Dru sang well, but he was a shaky on the bass parts. He claimed not to know how to play "The Wind Cries Mary," but we forced him to do it anyway. The person who actually screwed the song up was, yes, me! The guitar solo sort of wandered off the foot path and into the berry bushes. I don't think anyone noticed or cared. A lot of guys are reluctant to command the stage for fear of rejection, but I'm always amazed at how forgiving audiences are. It's actually hard to incite hostile reactions.
The band sounded good. Not tight, but good. The balanced sound is accounted for by two factors:
1) We were playing outside. With no walls or hard sufaces to contend with, the band sounds much quieter and a lot less harsh.
2) I spent $240 out of my own pocket to hire Phillip Howard, a professional sound guy. Phil has been doing sound at my church, St. John's Lutheran, conveniently located at 1701 J Street in Midtown Sacramento. This made a tremendous difference. I realzed that we can probably never do a show without Phil and expect to generate a pleasing aural experience. About five times during the evening, Phil came up to me with a technical issue or question. Every single time, I thought to my self, "I have no idea what he's talking about." I covered my ingnorance with true guy-like bravado. "Sure, sounds good," I'd say. "I've often wondered if that was the problem." Live rock sound is like baking bread. It seems simple, but for some reason, all my loaves look like burned-up dinosaur turds.
The stage rental and sound guy brought our expenses for playing this gig to $1,240. This is the opposite of professional. I feel like one of those vanity authors who has to pay to publish his own turgid, lifeless prose.
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Nick sounded and looked great. He's lost weight. He claims to feel like he's 30 again. Nick even felt strong enough to lump amps and gear. I keep asking him if he's been "cleared for sexual activity." He avoids the question as nimbly as a Bush administration spokesman. I try to tell him that this information is critical to the plotline of "Rattlesnake Shake." Our version of this bluesy mediation on self-abuse features Nick by name. I feel that, as a professional matter, Nick should confirm that he does indeed "do the shake," so as not to mislead the audience. At Nick's last gig before his semi-emergency triple bypass, Nick had been approached by a trio of middled-aged lady fans who were offering him an evening of entertainment after the gig. I belive the plan was to "entertain" his brains out. Clearly, this would have killed him. Nick's coronary arteries were full of goo. But, since Nick is the only band member who generates female fan interest, it's important that we issue a press release the minute his is cleared for mojo duty.
As you may know, I am not in a rock band to reclaim my lost youth. My youth isn't even lost. It's right where I left it, back in the early 1980s somewhere. When I was young, I was an idiot. I'm not going back. For me, the band is about living here and now.
Friends familiar with the Geezer Rock project sent me a link to a June 17 New York Times story titled "The Boys in the Band are in AARP." This story follows the hackneyed storyline that Dad bands consist of Boomers who think they're still twenty - or wish they were. I expect this kind of freeze-dried reporting from People, not the Times. Here's a quote:
"Part of recapturing lost innocence means laboring under an illusion or two. Mr. Lamond recommends that practice rooms be free of mirrors. 'You don't want to be playing your guitar, feeling like you're 20 all over again, then look in the mirror and see some paunchy, balding guy," Mr. Lamond said.
I am paunchy. I'm not balding. But my hair looks like a dirty snow drift. My ears are getting bigger - and hairier. I read that a man's ears and scrotum never stop growing as he ages. Prostate cancer I can take. But God spare me from a scrotum the size of a gym bag. You see these old guys at the health club, stooped over, with scrotums swinging halfway to their knees.
My stage look embraces these harsh truths, but without revealing any hint of scrotal size. Instead of trying to look younger, I am devoted to trying to look as old and unhip as possible.
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I thought the black socks and dress shoes were a nice touch. I don't really know if anybody gets the joke except for me.
One of the keys to pulling off this look is to make sure your shirt and pants are just a little big too tight. It really adds pounds and years for that "extra paunchy" look.
Despite the cortizone shot, Kenton's elbow continue to throb with pain and developed lumpy, discolored swellings. He actually skipped his big drum solo, an even that may signal the coming of the Rapture. Afterwards, he iced it down in a beer tub, like a starting pitcher coming off a tough outing.
A final note: my dad, visiting from Texas, attended the show. I think he enjoyed it. He didn't seem taken aback by my appearing on stage looking exactly like HIS father used to. "I thought it sounded good," was his only pointed comment, aside from "boy, you guys sure have a lot of equipment."
©2007 Edward Dean Chance. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Five Years?

Dru Niebold, our new bass player, plays in another band called Ruby Scooter. They're on hiatus. He told me at lunch today that they'v played together for five years. The first three years were rehearsals. No gigs. Three years. The band leader is a perfectionist, Dru told me. "Everything had to be perfect from the order of the songs and they way they flowed into each other to the way we looked." I saw them rehearse once. I was blown away by their mastery of 60s and 70s psychedelia, new wave and British Invasion styles. I especially liked their medleys, which cleverly mashed together songs like "Hot Child In the City" and "Sweet Jane." Everything was nearly perfect or at least very good: the guitar tones, the parts, the vocals. The sound was incredibly rich for a three-piece. I just groaned when I heard all this. My band could barely negotiate three chord songs. Three years of practice.
Kenton isn't a perfectionist. His attitude is learn five songs and play a 5 hour show. Who cares? Just make it fun. Most people are hardly discerning listeners. Nick does a sort of talking version of "The Wind Cries Mary." He's nowhere close to the actual melody. People love it. It sounds like Lou Reed or maybe Sid Vicious doing "My Way." I suppose we might offend the occasional Hendrix purist, but that kind of person isn't at the shows we usually play.
Practice last night was depressing. Untogether. A wall of noise. Phil, our soundguy was there. I'm can't tell if he's helping or not now. All I can hear are drums. I'm standing next to my amp. Dru said he couldn't hear the guitar at all. Phil says it sounds good out front. I hope he's right. When I sat in with the Dick Bright Orchestra, I had good sound on the stage, standing right next to the drums. This is a typical KDOG situation. We have a big gig coming up on Friday night. The bass player barely knows the tunes. The rest of us keep clamming on tunes we've been playing for the past 18 months. And yet, we keep going. The goal is to stand up and play and make it look like a party no matter how terrible things get. Never, ever act like anything is wrong, even if your amp is on fire, the drummer is nodding out after huffing too much paint thinner between sets and you've managed to forget all the words.
Forgetting words: this happens all the time. Fortunately, we do a lot of originals and a bunch of obscure covers, so nobody knows the difference. I just make up some new ones on the spot or repeat an earlier verse. Nick got confused last night on Mother In Law Blues and sangs bits of three different songs. I had no idea. If you can't remember the words, sing something dirty - that's my rule. Audiences at bars love anything racy. Most of them aren't listening anyway.
Item: both Dru and Kenton said The Police show in Oakland last week was horrible. They pointed the finger at Andy Summers. He's a Geezer Rock hero, since he's still touring the world at 64. They said his time was bad, there was no chemistry on stage and that at one point, he went down on one knee for some guitar gymnastics and could barely get back up. Just like in Spinal Tap! Kenton, in his typical hyperbolic fashion, told me, "You could've played that show! I'm not kidding! He was horrible!" It was probably just an off night. I have made the "help me I can't get up" routine part of my own stage routine, although hardly anybody present at the Hilltop noticed this most excellent pop culture moment. One person even thought I really had hurt myself, since I was wearing my "old guy" outfit. I guess it's a compliment. I must have done a good acting job.
©2007 Edward Dean Chance. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Not Exactly Keith Richards

About three months ago, I stopped at my favorite wine shop and bought two magnificent bottles of Tavel - the French Rose. Tavel is a deep garnet red. It's stronger than the limpid pink wines produced in California. Each sip is like a mouthful of summer berries. I had several mouthfuls of summer berries. By dinner time, I was raving drunk and slurring my words. This on an ordinary Wednesday. I had an hour long conversation with my grandmother. I can't remember what we discussed. I was quite emotional at dinner, recounting this conversation. The Long Suffering Mrs. Chance cut me off. "I think we'll talk about this when you haven't had quite so much wine." The next morning at breakfast, I announced that I was quitting.
I'd been playing with a lit stick of dynamite for too long. My mother, a raging alcoholic, died at 49 of liver failure. She collapsed on her kitchen floor in South Padre Island, Texas. They found her 12 hours later. She'd been ill for several days. Bowls of vomit were all over her apartment. The toilets and sinks were full of vomit. She was holding a glass pitcher of instant tea when she sank the the floor. The glass shattered and cut her hands. She died in a puddle of blood and tea. She was emaciated and looked like she was 70. The Mexican maids wouldn't go in the apartment. A week later, after the funeral, my mom's sister and I cleaned up.
Mom hated AA. She fought off the positive effects of her many stints in rehab. I have to say that she kept her sick sense of humor through it all. One of her rehab facilities in Dallas was right next to a Miller Beer distributorship. Outside on her many cigarette breaks, mom used to lead the other drunks in cheering the loaded trucks as they drove off to make their deliveries. I can't imagine what the staff must have thought. One of moms rehab pals - I think his name was Buddy - drank a bottle of Aqua Velva on his last night of freedom before detoxing. It was the only alcohol he could find. I think his wife had poured the rest down the sink. He told me his farts had never smelled so good - clean, bracing and masculine.
Mom died in 1988. I am 49 now. I am deciding to live. No interventions or AA meetings or disasters. I had never been arrested for drunk driving or plowed my car into a house, as mom had done. No one did an intervention. It's only hard at moments, like when I first arrive at a party. At those moments, it's very, very had. Then the moment passes.
I started sleeping soundly. Alcohol is depressant, but it disrupts sleep. The buzz wears off and you wake up. I would be awake for two or three hours a night. By the first weekend after I quit, I was sleeping like I did as a child. It felt good. Removing all those carbohydrates from my diet over night, left me ravenous. I actually put on weight. It was like going on a diet - and failing.
I started drinking non-alcoholic beer when I felt like a beer. I looked at the label of one - less than 0.5% alcohol. That meant it had some alcohol. I tried what every alcoholic must have tried: I chugged three O'Doul's very quickly and waited to see if any buzz presented itself. I learned that you cannot get drunk on this stuff. The most you can achieve is a condition I call "mystic bloat," in which you are so full of carbs and gas that you do experience a kind of dopey sedation, like after a big Thanksgiving dinner.
My skin cleared up. I had been subjected to a kind of chronic scaling, with dried skin peeling off like postage stamps. That went away. I wonder if yeast had someting to do with it.
What could be more rock and roll than quitting drinking? Think of the greats who have gone before me: Ron Wood, Slash, Greg Allman, Jimmie and Stevie Ray Vaughan, the members of Aerosmith, Alice Cooper, Eric Clapton, Malcom Young, Frank Beard - there are too many to list. Sobriety is a must for today's Geezer rocker, like knowing the main riff to "Takin' Care of Business" or "You Shook Me All Night Long."
I am once again amazed at how much self-control it takes to lose control in music. The French novelist Balzac counseled thusly: be regular and orderly in your life so that you might be insane in your work. I foget the exact quote. A week from tonight, I will play my first KDOG gig stone cold sober. Maybe my first gig ever sober. As a teenager playing in rock bands, I kept a bottle of soda pop wine such as Boone's Farm Strawberry Hill on my amp. Before the stage band concert my senior year of high school, I drank a quart of malt liquor. Now, even a couple of drinks throw off my find muscle coordination, making it hard to play fast passages cleanly.

Sound Man

KDOG first gig since Nick's heart surgery is Friday, June 22. It's a private party hosted by Kenton "K-Dog" Lee and the guy who owns the office building where Kenton leases space. This is always an effective gig strategy: hold your own party. Then nobody can complain about the band!
In the movie business, they call this "four-walling." William Castle, the great exploitation film director, was a master of four-walling. He'd rent a theater or hall in a city, then mercilessly promote his upcoming shocker. These shows almost always sold out. Castle bypassed the studio system and kept the profits. His autobiography, Step Right Up, I'm Gonna Scare The Pants Off America, is required reading for anyone wishing to learn the American arts of ballyhoo and self-promotion.
I think there's a lot to be said for holding your own party and starring yourself as the entertainment. I call it the "Lutheran Punch and Pie Strategy." People will put up with almost anything if they think there will be free punch and pie. Or free beer. If you can't get anybody to hire you, throw your own party. Rent the hall, sell the tickets and, if need be, bus in the fans yourself. If you're really desperate to establish yourself as an entertainment force, though, you're going to have to throw a free party and pay for the beer and nachos yourself.
If you're broke or just too cheap, at least be willing to play for free. Never pass up an oppotunity to provide the entertainment. When you get an invitation to a Fourth of July block party, don't just bring a bowl of potato salad or a few bags of stale hotdog buns: bring your band. It's easy. All it requires is a willingness to boldly walk up to people and say, "Hey - I know exactly what you need to get your party started: ME!" Most people will welcome the prospect of a free band. Sure, the host will start to get nervous when you show up three hours early with a truckload of amps, drums and sound gear. "Say, you guys aren't going to be, uh, real loud or anything, are you?" Assure them that the sound levels will be comfortable and that you play plenty of popular covers. When you start blasting your audience with original songs at pain-inducing volume, it'll be too late to do anything. Guzzle as much free alcohol as you can between sets, too. Maybe the police will show up. Perfect!
I hired a professional sound man to consult with us on your PA set up and do sound for our next two gigs. The guy's name is Phillip Howard. He's been doing the sound at St. John's Lutheran Church, where Kenton and I play in the contemporary worship band. I thought Phillip had done a great job in a tough situation. He seemed to know his stuff.
On Monday night, he Phillip showed up right on time at the Mojo Dojo Rehearsal Space and Hair Care Products Storage Facility. Phillip is a real musician who composes and produces music for multi-media. His company is called The Right Music. I winced at the thought of blasting him with the "KDOG Sound." Phillip diplomatically avoided commentary on the musical content as we ran though a few numbers.
His conclusion confirmed what I'd suspected. Things have gotten two complicated. We have a PA with two 2,000 power amps, 10 speakers, four vocal mikes, four instrument mikes and Dru's bass head running a line out directly into the PA. "It's too complicated to be left unattended," Phillip told me, meaning that it's no longer a system that can be set up and ignored. Somebody's got to ride the knobs on every song to get optimum performance form the equipment.
Phil made one adjustment that really cleaned up the sound: he took everything but the vocals out of the main monitor mix. The snare drum, the bass drum, Nick's harmonical amp, the guitar amp and the bass are all putting out sound on stage and also running into the PA to pump more sound to the audience. Having all that also pumping through the monitors was really muddying up the sound. "Your instruments are all very loud and the vocal mikes are picking that up already." I think Phillip did leave some bass pumping through Kenton's monitors, which are on a separate loop. He spent the rest of the rehearsal twiddling at the mixing board as we played, adjusting EQ and volume.
Afterwards, he pointed out that one of the main difficulties in our sound originates with our playing and singing. "You're quiet one minute - the next minute you're loud," Philip said, gently explaining that we're not really incontrol musically.
"That's just dynamics," Kentonn said.
"No," said Phillip, "you're WAY beyond dynamics."
I'm always amazed how how much rocking out wildly actually depends on discipline and control. Phillips comment bring up that eternal truth: your sound doesn't come out of a piece of equipment - it comes out of you.
After the others had left, Phillip told me he'd noticed the same thing in my bass playing at church. "One minute you're loud, the next minute I can barely hear you in the mix," he said. That's a musicianship problem. A touch problem. Something else to work on.
©2007 Edward Dean Chance. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.