The Circle of Gigs, Sunday February 20, 2011

There’s just something about a gig. Maybe it’s like a wedding and we’re all serial brides. It starts with the engagement…..”will you come play???”. Yes, of course, we’d love too! And we’ve got a split mind…one side says “It’s about time!” and the other side “Awww, someone likes us enough to ask”.

We fuss over the set list months in advance, maybe this, trying that, oh those two go together, maybe this one should be first, open a capella?, and we should make a statement by closing with this. What will we wear and how should we stand? And we practice and practice and practice and consult with a pro, experienced in these kinds of things, to perfect the arrangement, the sound, the image.

We arrive at the event hours ahead. One last run through before our procession, making everything just so. Perhaps it’s the nerves, maybe excitement, but a welcome flask appears to calm our minds and quell the nerves. One last touch up. Is everything in tune? It’s time to go down the aisle.

The ceremony’s a blur. Full of faces and sounds, knowing looks, coordinated movements. It’s over, we’re down the aisle and out the door greeted by some kisses, some hugs, slaps on the back, and handshakes. You were so good, beautiful.

And finally, we go honeymoon with our memories, over a burger and beer, and talk about what went right and what went wrong and plan for the next engagement.

A Liberal Vampire in North Carolina, Sunday January 16, 2011

I’m sitting here in the comfort of my home, dog sleeping at my side (like many dogs he wants to spoon against my side or legs…it amazes me how a 30 lb dog can push me or my wife off the bed), some clocks ticking, the occasional whirr of the refrigerator, a few passing cars, quiet, warm, and peaceful. I’m still on east coast North Carolina time where I was last week, stuck in snow and ice, and when I should have written this column instead of at the last minute on Sunday morning. One reason for my early morning, though, is the second coming of my cold…the infamous creeping crud, courtesy of my 2 year old niece who came and sat in my lap to generously show me her new Barbie doll, complete with mucus. But the head-cold does give me the excuse to self medicate with therapeutic doses of bourbon, chocolate, and hot tea. Damn doesn’t that just smack of  “sensitive guy”…it should be coffee and bourbon but my mother is a Brit who, according to my father, makes the worst coffee in the world and we grew up not appreciating the bean, so tea it is. At least I drink my whiskey neat. That should take some of the polish off the “sensitive guy” finish.

North Carolina was a mandatory trip…..mom’s 80^th birthday party. Longevity seems to run on both sides of my family so unfortunately ya’ll might be saddled with me for a pretty long run. I didn’t travel with my dobro and was sorry I left it behind. Getting stuck in the snow and ice for an extra 3 days in a “cabin” without my axe drove me a little crazy. And on the flight from California there were at least 3 guys carrying assorted guitars and mandolins, which I took as an omen I should have traveled with mine. I’m gonna have to break down and find a good travel case. It’s just that I have only one dobro right now and would be hard pressed to replace it if I became yet another airline musical instrument horror story. However, I do have this perverse curiosity to see if homeland security considers my carryon steel and fingerpicks as dangerous weapons and wants to do a cavity search of my dobro.

I have to confess to being a news addict. I look through a few news aggregators online a couple of times every day, listen to the public radio news morning and evening, and occasionally hit the BBC…..and the bulk of it seems real doom and gloom. There have been some horrific events the first two weeks of this New Year, in the US and abroad. When I see a run of really bad news like this, I sometimes wonder if this is a kind of pre-apocalyptic dress rehearsal or is it just life. Logically, analytically, my understanding of history tells me it is just life…..we’re probably not in surprisingly violent times and possibly, in spite of all the cruel, evil, and just plain craziness, we have less bad stuff to deal with than only a couple of generations ago. But that’s not any solace to those suffering and doesn’t really keep me from being worried.

Every time I visit North Carolina I feel it's a little like going to Grass Valley for the Father’s Day Festival where I get the best part of visiting with my family, in a community that values its citizens. I walked into town, through the snow, from my brother’s house…not a long walk, about 30 minutes, and had three different people stop and ask if I needed a ride. In this part of the world folks wave at each other when their cars pass on the road. A little unreal considering my experience with city life.

Every time I go up to Grass Valley, it’s like going back to North Carolina and I feel like I’m visiting a community that has those same values. It’s a nice vacation away from the real world to catch a glimpse of a world I think most of us would like to see.

Now the kicker to all this was, at my mother’s birthday party, one of my brothers introduced me as our token liberal, the family Democrat. I still don’t understand why they started wearing cloves of garlic around their necks and throwing Holy water at me. At least I don’t have that problem at Grass Valley.

Searching for the Mysterious Goodsound, Sunday December 19, 2010

Do any of you ever wonder how some of these bluegrass groups get to where they sound so good? That might be a stupid question of course….especially considering who the folks are reading this. But I have to admit that sometimes it completely escapes me how good-sounding groups put it all together. This goes beyond the obvious answer of practice, practice, and more practice; where I’m going is arrangements, dynamics and all that other stuff that gives each group their own unique sound. I’m learning there’s so much more to putting a song together for performance than just figuring out what key works, what tempo, who does fills, who does breaks, where they go, and the harmonies….oh my word, the harmonies are some of the slipperiest things to get ahold of. Granted, I’m still a rookie at all this and only dabble in the singing end of things for the moment.

So how do they do it? At my first Father’s Day Festival, a few years ago, Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver gave a workshop on how they do it…well it wasn’t so much a workshop as a question and answer session. If you’ve ever heard Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver in the flesh, and had your retinas burned by all the sequin flash, you’d probably be curious to hear what they had to say and hopefully will get the opportunity again this summer at the Father’s Day Festival. Basically they practice their vocals in the morning, take a break, and then get together a few hours later and do it all over again, and again, and again…….. Coming from Doyle and the other group members it sounded a lot more impressive than my few words, and the story is their practice ethic is intense, and I would guess verges on obsessive. But, I don’t recall them discussing how they come up with the song arrangements, much less their intricate vocals.

So how do all these groups do it? One of the things I’m learning is how to handle dynamics….or at least appreciate dynamics better. If it isn’t complicated enough, we’re supposed to play quiet sometimes and sometimes loud, and sometimes when I think I’m playing quiet, it’s really louder than I realize, and sometimes if I don’t get right on top of the mic you can’t hear me above everyone else. Seems like a lot to handle on top of trying to wrestle a good sound out of my dobro.

It turns out the damnamics are bit more difficult than I figured. Now when I listen to bluegrass I try to hear the individual roles the instruments are filling. You are probably muttering to yourself….”isn’t this all obvious, it’s bluegrass 101?” Well I thought it was obvious but now that I’m playing in a band I’m not so sure and really surprised at how…not easy it has been controlling the dynamics. So imagine you’re in a 5 piece group…bass, multipurpose guitar, mandolin, dobro, and fiddle…..ok let’s throw in a banjo in the mix as well. So in most songs, live or recorded, I can always hear the bass. Depending on the group I might or might not be able to really hear the rhythm guitar. True to its reputation, the banjo is usually towards the front of the sound and often seems to be providing some drive to the music, and the mandolin is the chop machine….Those four instruments are typically at the front of the sound and often present throughout entire songs. So now of course I have totally annoyed the fiddle and dobro players; the poor guys are often relegated to kicks, endings, fills and breaks…..and chopping when the mando isn’t. But the thing is the fiddle and dobro are always there…..but when they aren’t kicking, filling, or breaking, sometimes I barely hear them. Listen to Alison Krauss and Union Station or some of Tony Rice’s stuff…….a lot of times I really have to struggle to hear Jerry Douglas on dobro or whoever is playing fiddle.

It turns out one of the hardest things I’m having with dynamics in my bands is giving up sonic space…..even when I think I am, sometimes I’m not. That only came to light, or maybe came to sound, by listening to recordings of our practices and going “ewwwwwww did I really do that, I thought I was playing too soft to be heard!” I have a real love-hate issue with those handy digital recorders..they help me to improve my sound, but it sure hurts to listen sometimes.

So I still don’t know how all those groups do it. My bands are getting there, it seems oh so slowly, with a few exciting moments where it all comes together. Those moments feel so good and it’s a wonderful surprise to hear a recording where I think “damn that sounded good, was that really us?” Now the big question I have is how did Bill Monroe and all the pioneers of bluegrass do it……….maybe somebody sent a Zoom digital recorder back in time.