Geezer Rock

Marlowe, Goethe, Campbell & Ciani

Drew skipped rehearsal last night to attend a family function, so Philip sat in on bass. He really seemed to enjoy himself. Philip, the fearless KDOG sound man, is trained on keyboards. But he can wheedle a little music out of almost any instrument. He showed a real flair for locking up tight with Kenton's kick drum as we ran down "Bug Eye Willie," "Mother In Law Blues," "All Grown Up," "She's Tuff" and "Hootchie Coochie Man." We even tried out some new material: "Twenty Yards Behind," "Casting My Spell" and Bo Diddley's arrangement of "I Can Tell." If Drew can't make the gig, we've got our backup guy. "I'll play from behind the soundboard!" Philip said.

"I love the band," Nick said as we went to pick up pizzas on our break. (Plenty of anchovies on the side. When I woke up this morning, my armpit sweat smelled like cat food.) I love the band, too. God knows we've nearly killed each other more than once. The tensions and rivalries make the Sunni-Shiite schism look like a summer camp sing-a-long. And yet, somehow, we've started working as a unit, instead of like four guys with conflicting agendas.

"When's our next gig?" Drew asked me the other night when I saw him at the McClatchy High School Winter Concert. (My son, Brett, played cornet in the jazz band and Drew's daughter, Abby, played upright bass in the concert band. Nothing is cooler than a girl who plays the big doghouse.) "I'm actually looking forward to it." 

When he found out that band wasn't booked until April, Drew arranged for us to play at Marilyn's on Saturday, Jan. 17. Drew's other two bands are the openers. That's good. I think we can get a lot more people. He's going to feel like a whipped mule by the end of the night: he's looking at 5 hours of playing and singing.

Bug Eye Willie: Bastard or Voodoo Child?

Kenton and Nick told me they'd worked on a new ending for "Bug Eye Willie" last night. They're right: it is only half a song. It's like a movie that ends in the middle:

Sad little song

An American tragedy

Tell you the story of Bug Eye Willie

Boy's so dumb most folks call him silly

Daddy was a rabbit

He liked running the ridges

His momma like sunning what she kept in her britches

One day his momma was cooking a brew

Rabbit said let me lick that while I'm lovin' you

Momma said don't touch that it's gettin hot

Rabbit said let me be the judge of that

Rabbit started slippin' and slidin' in the messy love goo

Bug Eye Willie said hey man I'm in here somewhere too

One day Mark came for the twins plus one

Bug Eye Willie figured himself likewise a son

He went callin' out to daddy Mark

Mark said no your Daddy was an aardvark

I agree with Kenton. The song can't end with Willie can't end with the bastard being rejected by the father. In Kenton's new version, Willie kicks his dad's ass. I thought this had Oedipal overtones and that Willie should then impregnate his mother. Kenton wasn't thinking on those terms. He wanted to turn it into a Clint Eastwood movie. Nick wasn't sure about this. "I always thought it was like 'Faust' - a tragedy," Nick said. "It started out as Marlowe's 'Dr. Faustus' and now it's Geothe's  version."

In Marlowe's play, Faust is goes to hell and his torn apart by demons. Geothe's rigs the plot to Dr. Faustus gets into heaven. "Suddenly, he's the hero."

"That's it," I said. "Willie needs to make the hero's journey, like Luke Skywalker in Star Wars. Or like Jimi Hendrix in real life. In New York, Hendrix is nobody. People laugh at him. Then he goes to England and blows everybody's mind and comes back as the biggest badass guitar player and showman on the Earth. That's the plot of 'Hear My Train a'Comin'"

Dig 
Gonna leave this town, yeah 
Gonna leave this town 
Gonna make a whole lotta money 
Gonna be big, yeah 
Gonna be big, yeah 
I'm gonna buy this town 
I'm gonna buy this town 
An' put it all in my shoe 
Might even give a piece to you 
That's what I'm gonna do, 
what I'm gonna do, 
what I'm gonna do

So that's it. Willie either kills his dad right then and pleasures himself with his mother. Or he does a Luke Skywalker by leaving as a twerp and coming back as a Jedi, kills Daddy Darth Vadar and then...well, I guess it's the same plot.

This all proves two things:

• Star Wars is a dirty movie.

• Nobody who's ever been to college should be allowed to have anything to do with a rock and roll band.

Bono Sells Furniture

This is an outtake from a jingle session Tommy and I did for a furniture store back in the days when people were still buying durable goods like furniture. Oh, what a time that was! I had a houseful of servants and each of my servants was assisted by a staff of trained monkeys.

Anyway, Jack Gallagher called while we were working and we immediately requested his best Bono impersonation, which seemed to fit - especially delivered over a Radio Shack speaker phone. Download Bono Sells Furniture

Iron Horse Plaza, Dec. 13 2008

We played our third shopping mall gig of the year on Saturday. The last two were at The Fountains in Roseville this summer. We played near the dancing fountain and light show. The fountain drew a bigger crowd than we did both times, although we did better the second time. Drew seemed awe-stricken by the experience. "I can't believe I'm playing at a fucking shopping mall," he kept saying over and over as we set up, stunned by how far he's come in such a short time.

Yesterday's gig was a promotion at Iron Horse Plaza in Danville. The usual stuff: raffles, gourmet food samples, free blood pressure checks.

The center's layout didn't leave much room for the band. The result was one of the most surreal gigs we've yet played. We set up under a tent in, yes, the shopping cart return area of the grocery store. We literally played under the sign that said "Return Carts Here." The band faced, not the parking lot, but the two lane main entrance to the plaza. Cars drove back in forth inches in front of us all day. Drew near passed out from belting out tunes while bathed in exhaust fumes from the cars and from the gas-powered generator running our rig. We had a video guy with us shooting some promotional footage for our website. He described the visuals as "extremely surreal." Grumpy shoppers with cart loads of groceries had to get back to their cars by squeezing between the bellowing PA columns and subwoofers and the the main traffic artery. I could have reached out and lifted loaves of bread and cartons of eggs right out of their bags, they were so close. People winced and tried to plug their ears.

Some players might let a gig like this destroy their morale. They might even give up! It is hard to believe how far short of rock glamor we fall by playing in a bush league band like KDOG. But, like Tommy always says: "What - and quit show business?"

Other highlights of another incredibly day in rock and roll:

• The band, plus Philip, gathered at my house to load up at the non-rockin' hour of 8 a.m.
• We didn't forget anything. But I did have to buy duct tape at the grocery store.
• Drew lost his book of lyric cheat sheets. This forced him to wing it. He didn't get all the words right. But singing without a music stand looks more rock and roll. Reading lyrics off the stand makes you look like you're delivering a talk to the Rotary Club.
• The mall's owner - and a client of Kenton's - was a genial fellow named Don. Don's company owns 50 malls and shopping centers. He is not a man who sleeps well of late.  
• We experienced a short rain delay. About half the gear, including the sound board and power array, got covered with raindrops, despite the tent. "This is how I want to go," I said. "Fried like bacon in the shopping cart return area of a grocery store."
• I made an extra 50 bucks as emcee for a stupid pet tricks contest. Two of the judges were members of The Oakland Raiderettes, who I kept referring to as "The Raisinettes." (Amusing quip I kept to myself due to rampant family ambiance: "I LOVE to eat Raisinettes!") The grand prize was a year's worth of dog food. "There is a catch," I told the winner. "No matter how tough things get in this economy, this food is only for your dog, got it?"
• Unloading the gear later, Philip complimented the band for self-control of our sound and showmanship. "I didn't feel the need to set at the board constantly making adjustments," he said. You were all self-regulating." He noted that the lack of fooling around between songs "really helped" the presentation. "You're making it look much easier."
• Risking my life by stepping into the traffic lanes, I stepped out in front of the so-called stage to check the sound and balance.  It sounded good! On stage, I can never really tell what's going on. It's like the fog of war: you don't know what's going on when you're in the middle of it.
• It was my turn to screw up "Bad Little Doggie." I missed one of the transitional riffs in the middle. Nobody noticed. They were in their cars. 
• After unloading a 6:30 p.m., Philip and I hustled to St. John's. We're in a little choir that's singing at the "Candles and Carols" concert on Sunday. The Long-Suffering Mrs. Chance was there too. We rehearsed our two big numbers for a small group of people who wandered in for the church's Second Saturday open house. We then sang Christmas carols by request for an hour. I tried to sight-read the bass harmony parts. I sounded sort of like a foghorn with a dead goose stuck in it. Ah, music!
• The KFOG radio promotion guy said he liked the band and wanted us to play some KFOG events in San Francisco this summer, since our playlist lines up with KFOG play list. We'll see if this actually happens. It's hard to imagine that a San Francisco radio station would have to import a band from Sacramento to nail a classic rock vibe. Maybe it's KDOG every day low pricing policy. The poetic synergy between "KDOG" and "KFOG" may help. What better name for the radio station house band. We'd be just like "The Shindogs" - the great house band on the 60s TV show Shindig, led by the legendary guitarist James Burton. 
• A live recording a KDOG did supply the music track for the radio spots promoting the Iron Horse event throughout the Bay Area on KFOG. I guess that's sort of a wow. 
• People did seem to like the band, even though they couldn't get near the stage without getting flattened by the luxury sedans streaming in and out of the parking lot all day. Of course, nobody danced. Even with the free wine samples, nobody danced. People just can't seem to achieve the condition of "boogie fever" in a shopping cart return area. 
• Nick continues to attract nutty older chicks. During one break, I found him at the win table with a 60ish lady who threw a fit when she was refused a cup of wine because she didn't have a wrist band. She started ranting about "living in police state" where you can't even get a glass of wine without following all kinds of fascistic wristband rules. Nick made Drew give this suburban Fidel Castro his wrist band. The people at the wine table poured her a plastic cup of wine, which she poured on the ground because she forgot that her doctor told her not to drink wine. 

  ©2008 Edward Dean Chance. All Rights Reserved. (Is this mumbo jumbo even necessary?) Check out the offical KDOG website.

Jonathan Richman: Back In Sac

I met my future brother-in-law, Tommy Dunbar, at a family Thanksgiving. We spent the day raving about our favorite records. I asked Tommy if he knew Jonathan Richman, since both Jonathan and The Rubinoos had recorded for Berserkeley. Tommy told me that he'd played on two of my favorite Jonathan tracks - "New Teller" and "Gov't Center." I had been listening to those songs since I was in high school. When I got to college, my friends thought I was nut. Jonathan did not fit into the typical radio formats they'd been fed. "This guy can't even sing!" they complained. I was impressed beyond belief and immediately felt a new surge of hope for my family life.

"If your sister doesn't marry this man, I'm going to kill myself," I told The Long-Suffering Mrs. Chance on the drive home.

Jonathan and Tommy are still pals. We always go to Jonathan's shows in Sacramento. I have never seen a performer with such a desire to entertain. Jonathan has said of himself, "I have a lot of nerve and I'm not afraid of being laughed at." He's certainly proved it by, for example, crawling around the stage on all fours to portray the title character in "I'm A Little Dinosaur."

A typical Jonathan show combines singing, dancing, percussion instrument freak-outs, acoustic guitar power strumming, dancing and comedy monologues, all wrapped around Jonathan's "anything-can-be-a-song" compositions. They're all based Jonathan's feelings about ordinary life experiences: riding the bus, going to an art museum, driving at night and listening to rock and roll radio, dancing at a lesbian bar for the first time, running after the ice cream truck. His entire body of work, even the songs about suffering, are unified by a single message: "I'm Happy To Be Here Damn You Bet."

Jonathan believe in experiencing every aspect of life fully, including sadness. Every critic acknowledges Jonathan's child-like approach. Some people prefer to call it infantile, but it's refreshing to hear at least one artist utterly free of the typical "I'm so angry and cynical" singer-songwriter pose.

My daughter, Sara, grew up listening to Jonathan in the car, but was not a fan. "Dad, he's just so cheesy," she complained at age 11. After we forced her to attend Jonathan's show at the Great American Music Hall last year (Tommy and the Rubinoos opened) she softened her attitude. "I get it a lot more now," she said.

At Thursday's show, Jonathan's songs tackled subjects including:

• Cell phones and how the screw up eating breakfast or hanging out at the beach

• The Dutch Painter Jan Vermeer

• Using air conditioning, Prozac and gated communities to avoid really living and feeling

• The difference between lesbian bars and boring heterosexual bars

• Women who don't need make up and high heels to be mysterious and sexy

Jonathan is one of my favorite guitar players. His unique lead/rhythm style gets so much music out of a simple tool: a nylon-stringed flamenco guitar that's not even plugged in. When he wants it louder, he moves up to the microphone. For quieter he steps back, just like the performers at the Grand Ole Opry used to do. Jonathan's guitar antics are similar to my other favorite guitarist, Wilko Johnson, co-founder of the great 70s British R&B outfit Dr. Feelgood. Even though Johnson is loud and electric, thrashing is famous red-and-black telecaster, the similarities seemed obvious on Thursday.

• Jonathan and Wilko both disdain the pick, raking the string flamenco-style with their fingernails.

• Both play lead and rhythm at the same time to fill out the minimalist sound. Wilko's now fronts a guitar bass and drums band. Jonathan is accompanied on drums by Tommy Larkins.

• Both offer a unique stage presence. Wilko stage presence featured an ugly pudding basin haircut, cheap black suits, bulging eyeballs, jerky robotic movements and a habit of carrying his guitar like a machine gun.

• Jonathan and Wilko are big influences on punk. Critics have graced both with the title, "Godfather of Punk."

• Both of these mad geniuses are still playing clubs for small, but devoted crowds. Wilko rarely leaves England, but he's quite active. He's bald now, but the black suits, bulging eyeballs and frantic energy is still intact. You can check them both out on YouTube.

Jonathan sent Tommy his latest single last month - an actual 45! It's called "You Can Have A Cell Phone That's Okay But Not Me." The record echoes the stomping blues chant of "Pablo Picasso." The audience on Thursday night loved it. "Cell Phone" is joining Jonathan's long list of most-requested tunes.

I've never met Jonathan. I won't even ask to be introduced. Jonathan doesn't like to talk before or after the shows to save his voice. I don't think he cares much for the meet-and-greet aspect of performing. Jonathan came up to Tommy before the show. He was standing within 3 feet of me! I held my ground. What was I going to do? Barge in with some lame fanboy line like "I'm really a big fan and uh...it's...uh great to meet you?" I'll pass. You should never meet your heroes. What if he told me to get lost or had bad breath? You have to be careful with Jonathan. A person could end up in one of his songs.

©2008 by Edward Dean Chance. All Rights Reserved. My lawyer will pinch you head off!

Sweet Artist Deal

Tommy and Jon Rubin have an artist deal with Fender that entitles them to buy gear at cost - about half of what they'd pay at guitar center. They ordered a couple of custom made Stratocasters. Cool enough. I was not jealous. I have a cool guitar already. I'm addicted to amps. My dream is to own one guitar and all of my favorite amps. (All Fender tweeds. Originals or boutique reissues. Nothing over 30 watts.)

Then Tommy got the itch to buy the recently released 1965 Princeton Reverb Reissue, having become insanely jealous of mine. (It is the best reissue of the classic blackface designs that Fender makes - sweet, dimensional, hi-fi, with an incredible musical reverb. Not exactly the same as really good original, but close. An amazing accomplishment considering that the reissue uses a printed circuit board and other modern "improvements.") Tommy was about to go to Guitar Center (Slogan: "We have one of everything - we just don't know where it is.") to buy one for $800, when he decided to call his Fender rep to see if the artist gravy covered amps, too. "Oh sure," the guy chirped. "Those are available. I get one out to you today!" Total cost: $400. The amp arrived two days later. It's every bit as magnificent tonally as mine. I have resisted being jealous of Tommy's full-time professional guitar slinger lifestyle, since the existence of the professional musician is often a poverty-stricken, mortifying grind. But this - now I'm jealous.

© 2008. All rights reserved. Like anyone's going to steal this crap.

Birthday, Bloody Birthday

I caught my cuticle on a string during the first song Saturday night and sprayed blood all over my guitar. Kenton, ever the concerned den mother, wrapped my index in athletic tape after the first set. "You've gotta be able to thump the bass tomorrow at church," he said. "Put that finger on ice when you get home."

A party guest walked into the men's room while I was taking this picture. He seemed alarmed to find me snapping away in front of the mirror with my pants halfway down.

The gig was a private birthday party for a friend at Java Cafe, a coffee and sandwich shop at Madison and Fair Oaks. Java Cafe is big enough for 60 people to mingle and dance without being crowded by all of our gear. The huge tented ceiling kept the sound from reverberating. That helped keep the noise level down. For once, nobody complained.

The gig paid well - $1,000. Our little band is now at the stage where we don't have fans, we have customers. The customer may not always be right, but they're entitled to want what they want and we've got to give it to them. I have no pretensions of artistic purity. They wanted more Van Morrison, so we played "Brown-Eyed Girl" twice. When they requested The Rolling Stones, I consulted Drew, since he'd done Stones tunes with The Radios. We picked "Jumpin' Jack Flash." It came off great, even though we'd never played the song together. Even Nick went along with the "crowd-pleasing" format and blew mighty harp solos on "Mustang Sally," a song he hates. I believe Nick's exact sentiments about "Mustang Sally" are expressed thusly: "I fuckin' hate that song."

Tommy, my professional guitar-slinger brother-in-law, has probably played "Mustang Sally" 1,000 times. "I don't know what it is, but people love it. Even kids. When the gig isn't going well, just play 'Mustang Sally' and the audience is right back on your side."

People danced all night, favoring the songs they knew - or at least sort of knew. I was surprised by how many people jumped out of their chairs to shake it on down to "Hoochie Coochie Man." That's pretty obscure.

For once, we lit up the party, instead of enraging the audience. I'm amazed at how much work it takes to not stink. My rhythm guitar playing was good, but the solos were fumbly. I used my Bill Nash Strat plugged straight into my tweed Fender Pro Junior, an absurdly loud 15-watt amp with one 10-inch speaker. Phil won't permit me to turn up past  "4."

Kenton played with a soft touch and good control. The tempos were solid and stayed on the rails all night. Except for the dreaded "Bad Little Doggie." Kenton and I both fouled that up good. "I am so over that song," Drew grumped as we unloaded the equipment. I don't blame him. He doesn't want to tear apart his vocal cords doing it this little number if we can't keep up. I'm ready to admit that "Bad Little Doggie" is beyond my skill set. Big deal. Nobody knows it, and you can't dance to it unless you're on drugs or having a seizure.

Kenton and Nick were fighting as they left. Something about Nick's back. Kenton insisted that Nick's back was killing him. "Nothing's wrong with my back!" Nick shouted as Kenton urged him into the passenger seat. Those two guys should get married. Unfortunately, that's now illegal in California.

©2008 by Edward Dean Chance. All Rights Reserved. (But just try telling that to the Chinese.)