Cheevyjames’ Musical Roundhouse

…well, unless someone else passes away. Then, well, who knows.

So here we are, end of the year. Tomorrow is the last day of 2006. You probably know this. It’s different for me, my new year always starts on my birthday. Literally of course, but I also mean in the basic way I treat myself and life in general. My birthday’s the day where I re-assess who I am, what I accomplished (or didn’t) and where I’m going. Resolutions are always made on the birthday. Actually, resolutions should be made whenver you feel like making them. No need to wait until January 1 to start improving your life.

Today’s been a good day. My friend Christine is singing away on my stereo (thank you Mr. Postman!), my Longhorns won their bowl game tonight, I spent some good time in music stores today and I played a sweet ass acoustic bass. I currently have my guitar in for a set up at High Strung Music in Durham and I went in today to check on the progress (since it’s been 2 weeks) and it’s next up on the list. While I was waiting I played on a very nice Alvarez acoustic bass. Holy crap. SUCH a beautiful instrument. Even with old strings it sounded beautiful. When I was playing it I kind of regretting not buying it. I had the money after Monday, but that would have spent everything I had and I really needed clothes and the other stuff I’ll be getting (mostly musical equipment). Still, it’s wonderful & I really want it. I’ve wanted an acoustic bass for many, many years and this one is the best I’ve played on. I’ll see what I can do about getting it this year. And if you read this and decide to buy it before I do, beware my wrath!

I also spent some time playing a classical guitar and a Flying V ukelele. Seriously! I love that store. They have such a nice staff and they’re not the least bit like the people who work at big chain music stores. OK, well, most of them. The guy at Guitar World whom I bought my amp from was really cool. Besides him, yeah.

Besides all the various band-related stuff I’m going to do (wasn’t I recording an album or something???) I’m going to take a Spanish class this semester. I think it’ll be fun. My only worry is that I’ll confuse myself and start speaking French. I did that in Spain a few months back. Well, not really speaking it, but my brain automatically switched to “French Mode” while I was there. I find it strange that I never use the language and when I’m in the country next to it…bam, I start thinking in French.

I did a lot of travelling this year. More than ever, I think. Let’s see if I can recall everything I did this year. Drove out here to NC, flew back to get Julie and then drove out again with the rest of the stuff. We went to DC over Memorial Day. Took a quick 2 day trip for a wedding in Wales. Spent a week+ in Madrid for Julie’s 30th birthday. That doesn’t include the in-state stuff. And then we have my first trip of 2007 - heading back to Dallas for a weekend (MLK) with Friends and Family in 2 weeks. That’ll be great to get back and see everyone. Let’s see, then there’s my Mom’s wedding (Dallas) in May and dammit I hope I can make it out to California 2 weeks after that for my sister Kim’s wedding. It’s only a money issue. One that isn’t yet set in stone, and probably won’t happen (but I’m still hoping) is the possible SXSW show in March. They have until Feb 7th to make final decisions. I really want to play SXSW with Protean Mean this year. It’s out of my hands though.

I think 2007 is going to be a good year. 2006 was a good year. I significantly improved ME this year. I wrote some good music this year. I strengthened some very important relationships this year. My Horns won a National Championship to start the year off. I attended a wedding in a castle in Wales.

Yeah, good year.

Current Location: the music room

Current Music: 100 Days - Little Black Room - 3 listens in a row!

Found out just a little bit ago that James Brown died today. Horrible, horrible news. I know that he lived a full life and everything, but it still is incredibly painful when your heroes die. He was 73. I know he wasn’t perfect and he had a lot of faults, but I’ll always remember him as a musical giant. He’s THE GODFATHER.

For me it all comes back to Sex Machine. That song was one of those special moments that inspired me and really altered the way I think about music, how I write, how I play bass, how music is supposed to be done. Sex Machine really changed me as a musician and it came along at a time when I didn’t even know I needed it. That’s the greatness of that song, whether you’re expecting it or needing or not…bam! There it is.

It was strange, because I just happened to be changing bass strings when I heard the news. I really just can’t belive that JAMES FREAKIN’ BROWN isn’t alive anymore. It’s so, so hard when your heroes die. I know that I’ll have to deal with this many more times in the future, since it is a part of life after all and they are just as human as I am. It sucks knowing that (unless I go earlier than I’d like) I’ll have to deal with the deaths of people like Paul McCartney, Mike Keneally, Robert Fripp, Jimmy Page, Tony Levin, Adrian Smith and Steve Harris (to name a few). I don’t have a choice in the matter. When it’s their time, then it’s their time. I just have to enjoy the music while *I’m* still here and work the hardest I can.

You want inspiration for hard work and dedication? James Brown. Right there, that’s it.

Yeah, I know, I’m being all down on Christmas. This just hits me like a huge slab of funk. Knocks me down.

Get up, get on up…

Current Location: home

Current Music: the rain

Unless I’m so moved this will be my last entry for this year. Who knows though…I just might say something next week. Last night Julie and I opened our Xmas gifts to each other. Well, all but one. Stupid UPS was supposed to deliver her last present yesterday, but conveniently forgot to stop by. Makes me mad, because it was SUPPOSED to be out for delivery yesterday, and I also wanted to give Julie all of her presents at once. We did refrain from opening all of the other presents to us and I think we’re actually going to try to wait until Christmas day. Imagine that! Julie got me some cool stuff. She got me some really nice UT beer mugs and a very cool picture of the tower lit up after we won the National Championship earlier this year. It a cool shot with the LBJ fountain in the foreground. Of course she got a really nice frame to go along with it too. Only problem with the picture is that when the Coop mailed it, they didn’t pack it very well so it was very damaged when it arrived. They should have mailed it like they mail diplomas, but nooooooooo it was just in a regular flimsy box and thus my present was damaged. I’m sure they’ll replace it no problem, but it still annoys me. Other than that small blip, a great Christmas from Julie.

Yesterday I started “officially” practicing on the piano. I worked up *most* of Surrounded By Trees. I had difficulty with the little tag bit on the chorus. I’ll figure that out today. I was happy that I was able to figure nearly the whole song out and by only using my brain to think of the notes. I didn’t have my guitar with me so it really was down to my brain and ears. And it sounded pretty good. Some of the chords, esp. that part on the walk-down before the chorus, sounded quite cool. Hopefully Jenn will like it when I play it for her on Weds.

The piano was tuned on Monday and that was part of my birthday present money. 2nd part was getting my guitar worked on - what’s called a Set Up. Hopefully that’ll be done by next week. After that, who knows. Maybe I’ll buy an octave pedal or something. I’ve wanted one of those for a long time.

Since my guitar was out of commission for practice Wednesday, I decided that Jenn and I should do something different. So I went over to her place and we watched a Dream Theater video I just recieved from Netflix. It’s their Live at the Budokan DVD from 2004. So we three settled in to watch it while eating the bread that Eric’s mom had bought them. Good stuff, along with the French wine they supplied. So, the video…it was decent. It’s fun watching DT stuff with them since we tend to make fun of them at the same time as enjoying the music and marveling at the technique of those guys. Who do we make fun of? Mostly it was directed at singer James LaBrie and keyboardist/uberwanker Jordan Rudess. What to say about them? What we found so funny about LaBrie is that he probably sang for half of the show, the rest of the time he was backstage. This was a 3 hour show, and he was literally gone for periods of 15-20 minutes at a time. I mean, the other guys were playing (wanking?) so it’s not like nothing was going on. They are primarily an instrumental band so it shouldn’t be surprising. We had a good time imagining all of the things LaBrie was doing backstage for those 20 minute stretches: getting a pedicure, having his hair re-done, reading whole books…and other things I won’t go into detail about here in this journal. It’s a family thing, ya know!

I really, really don’t like Jordan Rudess as a member of that band. He adds NOTHING to the music and the just wanks constantly. He actually got a solo (no one else did) and it was HORRIBLE. He has no concept of subtlety or nuance or anything. It’s just solid wanking. Not that the other guys don’t do their fair share, because they surely do, but his was astronomical. We imagined that his notation said “Solo: Wank in G”. You know, there were several times during the DVD that I got really tired of watching them all play a million miles a minute with what seemed so little substance. There are times to play fast and do really cool things on the guitar, but if you’re doing it constantly for 10 minutes it looks like you’re just giving a clinic or something. It got old. I’d rather hear COMPOSITIONS and melody or even the guys improvising other than just, “OK, you shred for 5 minutes, then I’ll shred for 7 minutes, then you shred again for another 6 minutes”. I wasn’t too thrilled with the overall setlist, even though it featured a lot songs I wouldn’t have thought they’d play. Other than the required Pull Me Under, it was a show full of songs I didn’t expect to hear. The best song of the shows was clearly Hallowed Years. They did such an amazing version of that song (the only real slow and non-heavy song of the night), it was considerably better than the studio version (which I love). Overall, it was a decent show (audio and video were great), but I think 3 hours of them doing all of that gets tiring. Watching it demonstrated that while having complex material is good, you don’t need to have it ALL the time. Vary things up, have different moods.

And then, constrast that with what I saw last week: Everyone Stares - The Inside Story of the Police by Stewart Copeland. That was a VERY cool movie. It was nearly all Super-8 footage of the band shot by Copeland (the drummer, if you didn’t know) during their career. Kind of a crazy movie, but it was really cool. The music was especially excellent and featured many remixes (done by Stewart Copeland) of Police tunes. It really presented many of the songs in such a new and fresh way. I was seriously blown away by some of them. Thoughts from watching Everyone Stares: The Police made kick ass music, Copeland’s an amazing drummer (I already knew both of those, but the movie totally reinforced that), and Sting, however talented he is, was a big jerk back then. OK, “jerk” is putting it midly. He was an ego-filled ass. Completely. I loved the movie and I definitely suggest it if you like The Police.

So there ya go, movies. Christmas. Woooooo!

Current Mood: cheerful

Current Music: lots of Frank Zappa

The subject is in reference to FZ’s Uncle Meat, which I’m listening to right now. I felt like listening to FZ because I was just in the record store and saw the new FZ release: the Making of Freak Out. I have no need for this. I mean, I like Freak Out, but I dont LOOOOOOOOOVE it. Not that much, anyway. Now, if it’s a making of We’re Only in it for the Money, or Hot Rats or maybe even one day One Size Fits All…then I’m there. Plus the 2CD version is kind of a ripoff, since the 1st disc is only the regular Freak Out album. The 2nd disc is where all of the unreleased stuff resides. That’s the 2CD version. There’s a 4CD version that’s only available online which will have 1 CD of Freak Out with the other 3 being unreleased stuff. And it’s only $70! Wow! What a bargain!

Anyway.

I’m 31 now. The Day O’ Birth was this past Monday. Overall it was a good day. Naturally; birthdays are SUPPOSED to be good days. If you sent me a card, sent me an email, posted on my myspace site, gave me a present, gave me a hug, whatever…thank you! I always appreciate nice words on my birthday. As is customary, all day long I listened to Zappa because he died on December 4th. He died on my 18th birthday. If you read this thing much at all then you know his music is a VERY important part of my life. I listen to him a lot anyway, but it’s a nice reminder of, hell, life in general. Listening to his music on my birthday/his deathday is a further reminder of What Is Possible as a Musician. You know, it’s not a bad thing at all to immerse yourself in *excellence*. Zappa always strived for it, and frequently attained it. It defintely makes me sad to listen to him on 12/4 (and I promised myself that if Watermelon in Easter Hay or Zoot Allures came up on the iPod, then I’d skip them because I didn’t feel like breaking down and crying while at work), but it also re-lights that fuse.

The last FZ song of the day (while Julie and I waited for our friends to arrive) was the ‘74 version of Idiot Bastard Son and the first song on my birthday playlist (what I call my “Top 1000″ favorite songs) was Wet T-Shirt Nite. Hell yeah! I don’t think the Top 1000 went over too well with everyone. At least not all of it. I honestly believe that I’m the only one in the world that enjoys all of the various music I enjoy. There were several complaints about the metal stuff that popped up (”ugh! I don’t want to hear this Iron Maiden crap!”) and some of the weirder prog stuff (and FZ too). I don’t care though. I made the playlist for ME and since it was my birthday, I think I have the right. It still didn’t stop people from making requests.

We went out to eat at a local “pub” and the food and drink were enjoyable. I was disappointed that I didn’t get to play any pool, since I really wanted to. It didn’t even occur to me that it was a Monday night and the Carolina Panthers were playing on MNF. Damn, we’re not even close to Charlotte (well, sorta) so I didn’t think the place would be full with people decked out in Panthers jerseys and all that. So, the pool tables were quite full. Oh well! I had a great shot (I can’t remember what’s in it) that tasted just like chocolate cake. After the food we came back to the home and hung out for the rest of the night. All in all it was a good night, even though there were 2 things that happened in the later part of the night that really pissed me off. The people involved know (I’m pretty sure) that I was pissed off at them, but now that it’s all of 3 days later I just think, “why was I so pissed off about that?” Oh well.

As for turning 31…how does it differ from turning 30, or 29, or 28? Eh, it’s just another number. I don’t feel old and I don’t act old so it’s no concern to me. No crying from me about my age.

Other things happening this week: Ozzy turned 105 on Sunday; today is Pearl Harbor Day…another sobering reminder of the people who sacrifice themselves so that we can enjoy the freedoms we have; tomorrow is the day that both John Lennon and Dimebag Darrel were shot. Cowardly actions in the most extreme way for both of those idiots who pulled the trigger.

OK, I don’t want to get too down on that stuff. I’ll save that for tomorrow.

You know what I’m happy about? The Dallas Cowboys are GOOD again. I love it. It makes me very happy. Now if they’d only get rid of Terrell “most dropped balls of any receiver this year” Owens then all would be good in Cowboylandia. Cowboys play the Saints Sunday night. THAT’s gong to be a great game.

Go Cowboys!

Current Music: FZ - Uncle Meat