OM weblog

It's been a month since I wrote up here. Please pardon the pause. And the alliteration.

The studio now looks like a rummage sale. Well, albeit of really cool rummage. Tomorrow we'll set the gear back up again and come up with a plan. Refine the setlist? Book more shows? Finish our recordings? Get Jeff into the existing recordings? Get philosophical? Plan a clever and inclusive marketing model? Play Aerosmith tunes for hours? (Irene loves it when we do that.) Watch Hedwig? So many choices... And nice to have options.

The show was nice. A beautifully sunny day, not too hot, just right. The crowd was about half Intel, United Way and other charitable orgs while the other half was Portlanders just hangin' in 'The Living Room.'

OM opened with Tears In The Rain and closed with I Wanna Be Sedated, complete with banjo and full vocal choir. In between, Jay nailed Satrianni's Flying In A Blue Dream, Athena sang Only Perfections with us, the Intel Foundation gave away hundreds of thousands of dollars, much free Ben & Jerry’s ice cream was eaten (not, however, by the band!), a very diverse mix of people smiled, Mike Frost ran a smooth front-of-house mix that received many compliments, I pathetically tried to whistle David’s part on Don’t Get It, Another Pair of Hands made its live debut, and my mom and dad showed up. Oh yeah, four generations were there, three of them on stage.

Thanks to all who helped: Aubrey Clark, Jill Eiland, Gordon Lawrence, P.J. Wazkiewicz, David Sloan, Jim Ourada, Georg Mueller, Shannon and Vanessa Nelson, Eleeza Andrus, Athena Frost, Will Hobbs, Gwen Goforth, Liesl Andrico, Julie Thomas, Jeff Boerio, Stephen Eliah, Randy Dodds & John O’Shea. Also to everybody else not listed.

Personally, I had a great time. I failed to find anybody that didn’t… although I’m sure if one were to look hard enough…

So yeah, now time to find direction. What if you had a pretty good band and could do whatever you wanted to with it?

Regarding our first gig together at Pioneer Square, Irene summed it up best: “Aren’t we supposed to do a bunch of crappy bar gigs for a couple of years, first?” Jeff, our new drummer, hinted that he was “in” after that first show. Did we just set the bar too high? Now do we go play the crappy bar gigs?

I’d really like to contribute something to this strange planet. I’m not sure that having some relatively okay recordings and songs counts much for giving something back to the world. I wonder what does.

I’m a medically trained First Responder. Does that count? Is that somehow better than being a musician? Does that redeem my hedonistic artsy ways?

Dang, I love this music thing. It’s in my chest. In my gut. For better or for worse.

I need to create a blog category for “Ongoing Identity Crisis”

Tears in the Rain originated when, one day during rehearsal, Bob Pletka (back in the Teasing Zen days) announced he had a new song idea. "Tears in the rain!" he proclaimed, and then began to explain where it came from - about watching the end of the fight scene in Blade Runner, and Rutger Hauer's improvised soliloquy... What Bob didn't know is that the moment he said "Tears in the rain" Irene and I immediately grinned at each other, and all of the visuals played out in our minds, and all of the neurons fired.. Irene already had lyrics going through her head.

So Irene enthusiastically requested pad and pen and sat down on the stairs leading up out of the basement studio and began writing while Bob ran me through some chords in A-minor. If I recall correctly (and I seldom do) Irene penned the rest of that song right then and there. "I saw your face reflected in the mirrors of your shades... and then you looked away." Irene was not only pulling from Blade Runner, but was (I believe) going back to William Gibson's original Neuromancer book and referring to the original Molly character. Molly was the first. I believe before Blade Runner. Before Terminator. Before BSG. 'Cyberspace' originated in Neuromancer. And look, you're there right now.

Bob had no idea how much Irene loved the genre, the story and the characters. Blade Runner was, in fact, an icon for ‘Best Movies’ for Irene and I.

So TZ worked up the song with Carla singing her own melody of Bob‘s original idea and Irene‘s lyrics, with some of my guitar riffs, and used it as our show opener for a couple of years or more. We put together some very cool call and response backup vocals for Bob and myself.

It was an ideal show opener. I even put together a 20-minute musical pre-show intro that ‘led’ the club we were playing into the show with a deliberate, dramatic transition straight into Tears. It was a fairly effective way of taking a room… if not perhaps a bit pretentious. (Hey, this is SHOW business, people!)

Later we made a recording of the song that ended up in the stack of ‘never to be released’ items. I’m surprised to notice as of this writing that I haven’t yet uploaded Tears to the TZ part of our website. I may have to do that later. It’s a good recording, although I recall that Bob confessed that he was never fully satisfied with the final recording. Adding a last-minute synth part and then a cybernetic flanger to the tail end of some of Carla’s lead vocal tracks were some of my attempts to get Bob’s buy-in.

I love the song for the potential cyber-edge (which I hoped to have captured in this new One Moment recording) and for Irene’s strong and graphic lyrics. Although, frankly, I don’t sing it nearly as well as Carla, who wrote the original melody.

The song is truly a collaboration. And if you ever get a chance to see the remastered version of this film on the big screen, do: breathtaking. It holds up beautifully over a quarter-century later.

I’ll follow up with a more technical blog entry about the recording and mixing of this song later. There may be another attempt at the mix, first.

With slightly less than three weeks 'til the Pioneer Square gig, I find myself running the doubt thing. You know - the one you can set your watch by.

We've rehearsed with Jeff, our new drummer, once now. In the industry, that's generally seen as too little. He's out of town for over a week, helping family move out of state. He's not responding to email, and I don't have a cell number for him. I hope he and his family are safe.

I have no doubt of his abilities and rather trust that the whole thing will come together, in one form or another. If I doubt anybody, it's myself.

We have precisely six rehearsals left between now and the show. That's about fourteen hours to perfect a ninety minute set. Nineteen songs. That's .73684210526315 hours per song. Each song is between 2.5 and 4.5 minutes long. Probably 3.5 minutes on average. (At this time, it's fairly obvious that I'm a geek, doncha think?)

I feel guilty for not blogging, so going full stream-of-consciousness here, but the truth is I’m stressed. According to the numbers, a few of y’all are actually reading this stuff. Can’t tell how much of it is pointers from MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Friends, or just my Mom. But the site, including the blog, is getting a few hits. Not a lot, but a few. It peaked in March, but is doing okay in April. I mean, it’s all word-of mouth at present. I’d love to quadruple the exposure in May/June. Should probably ask bandmates to go out and help actively promote it in their little areas of cyberspace.

So yeah, stress.

Stressed by this gig.

Stressed by trying to put together the whole Another Pair of Hands Choir thing, pulling all of those singers together and working the stage plot out with the Pioneer Square Production Mgr guy. A really cool guy, BTW, named Mahlin.

Stressed from have weeks of not doing kung fu (a tremendous stress release)

Stressed by my day job, hashing through all of the deliverables, plus bringing on a mess of new Emergency Responders.

Stressed that I’m not currently making progress on the recordings. I want to get something new up here soon... hopefully this weekend. Meant to last weekend.

Stressed that I can't ride my motorcycle until a bunch of service is performed.

Stressed with the legal/monetary issues that the IRS has bestowed upon us. (Musicians: Keep your bookkeeping impeccable, the IRS is targeting musicians, knowing we have a tendency to be a bit loose with our bookkeeping and those guys LOVE that shit. Don’t ask me how we know. To the tune of five figures.)

Two days ago, my acupuncturist told me that I was (not quite in so many words) frying myself. Something about my yin lung and yin kidney meridians. Gave me some herbal thingies. Take ten a day, ‘til they’re all gone. Okay.

I’m getting similar feedback from friends at work. Apparently the good chill from my sabbatical last summer has officially worn off. I need to remember to breathe. Deeply. Consciously. Probably need to get back out into the woods very soon.

Some good news is that Irene and I will be seeing Flight of the Conchords live in Portland the night before out Pioneer Square/Intel gig.

Had a great lunch with David Sloan today. Very validating and very moving. He’s a great friend. I hope he reads this.

Guess that’s enough therapy for one blog posting. [Inside the mind of a flaky musician]I’ll try to get a little more technical or musical or whatever next time. ‘Til then…

Last night, Jeff came over, set up his kit, sat down and played with us.

"What do you want to do?" "I don't know." "Jeff, why don't you pick something?" "Okay. How about Dancing Days. I should know that one." "Cool, count us off." [Sticks: Click-click-click-click]... A nice, Zeppelinesque grind immediately ensued. It rocked.

It also quickly degenerated into entropy as we guitar players realized we had forgotten the arrangement. A couple of takes later we got through it satisfactorily, with the general impression that we now sounded like a rock band.

Dang, I've missed that. Really.

Jeff shows a nice pocket, with some nimble finesse. This is going to be fun.

Even though we have a lot of work to do and a fairly stiff rehearsal schedule, I think we all came away with a very good feeling about how we will be sounding in a few weeks. Although I don't want to count chickens, a part of me has a good gut feeling... while trying to remain relatively nonchalant. (As compared to feeling chalant?)

Another thing, Jeff is a really nice guy, with a scary-sharp sense of humor. He is able to imply irony with the subtlest of gestures. Keep an eye on that one, doggone it.

So, once again I'm in a band full of nice people. So once again I'm the ass-hole of the band. Nice.

The new studio layout is working well: spacious, we can all hear each other, and can relatively quickly go back and forth between record mode and rehearse mode.

I need to keep making progress on the recordings and keep the website moving forward. The recording needs to not shut down. I am committed to getting two more song uploads up by end of the weekend!

How about percussion on All You Need Is Love? Yeah. That would be nice. Maybe vocals for Tears In The Rain? Yeah. Definitely.

We have a brand new drummer - Jeff Beck! I’m stoked, because Jeff is a great guy whom I have known for almost two decades, and we’ve been missing the punch and drive associated with drums ever since we went into three-piece mode, a couple of years ago. Please join us in welcoming Mr. Beck to One Moment. I’m personally very excited to see where this new element takes us in the near future.

Speaking of which, we’ve been offered an opportunity to play an outdoor gig, in Portland’s Living Room: Pioneer Courthouse Square. Please come see us May 15th, over the lunch hour at the Square.

Intel’s Corporate Affairs group worked very hard throughout 2008 to drum up over ONE-MILLION-PEOPLE-HOURS of volunteer community service. Further, Intel matched those hours with cash out-of-pocket, giving it to the charitable organizations for which Intel employees were volunteering. This specific event is a opportunity for Intel to publicly give some of that money (around a million bucks) to the local community.

One Moment has been asked to provide the musical backdrop for the event, including a version of Another Pair of Hands, the song that originally got us involved with Intel’s volunteer program. It will be interesting to see if we can put together The Vocal Choir in order to do justice to the recording. Let me know if you want to come sing with the OM Choir! Also, I want to see if John O'Shea will join us with his banjo.

It is my hope to immediately take funds generated from this gig straight into drum mics, to get Jeff integrated into the Never Ends project. (It’s amusing to me that Jay and Irene apparently only this week got the irony of a recording project called ‘Never Ends’. And so it seems.) Since this event is about volunteering, I tend to want to undercharge Intel, not take advantage of the depths of their pockets. Dilemma.

Aubrey Clark has been spearheading these Intel volunteer campaigns, and is to be accredited both within Intel for community outreach, and as a credit to the community. She is truly doing heroic works.

OM will now go into hunker down mode to pull together 90 minutes worth of material. We’ve not even played a live show in over 1 ½ years, since our Cancer Society gig, in August 0f 2007. We have a great deal of work to cover in the next five weeks, including getting my rusty vocal pipes back online.

Irene and I have agreed that any/all opportunities to support ‘The Cause’ with local gigs is the direction we want to go. ‘The Cause’ might be represented as community service, sustainability, charitable organizations and other benevolent political causes.

Frankly, I’m tired of being a musician that simply entertains. I want to help make a difference in any way that I can. So we may start targeting such gigs in the greater Portland area. I do hope that Jay and Jeff will share in this philosophy, and that this will support their own musical needs. (We’re at risk of both of them grokking this Community Service concept up here on this blog! Ah well, I trust we‘ll work it all out.)

More later… -=sf=-