Back from Tour

Well, I returned from my tour yesterday. (Edit: when I started writing this, it was yesterday; now it's last week.) It was quite an experience. It has seemed for a long time like things have been building up to this, and now that I'm back I hope I can find an equilibrium again. I was proud of myself in January and February for averaging about a post a week here---I fell off that wagon in March, but I hope to get back on it again.

The tour was a really interesting experience. I'm not sure how much it was a typical band van tour experience, but it was fun and very educational.

Some weeks ago I signed on to play bass for Bill Tucker and Friends, specifically on a tour that Bill had set up of the south. Some of the gigs we were working towards fell through, but in the end we played three shows in five days. Along the way I learned a lot about a segment of society I haven't had much contact with.

My bandmates are all in their mid-twenties, about 15 years younger than me. I don't really know many people of that age group, and as I've been sliding into middle age I've seen myself settling down into a fairly regular, comfortable existence that doesn't involve interacting that much with the rest of the world, so spending six days in close contact with four twentysomethings, traveling through their community of friends and associates, was bound to be educational.

There was something of a paradigm shift that took place among American youth in the late 80s or early 90s, by which point I was already beyond the point where I would have been susceptible to it, so I didn't really appreciate it. But younger people who grew up in the 90s and 00s have been more seriously affected by it. I think it comes from a sense that We (the country, or humanity in general) is doing bad things, of which young people do not approve and with which they do not want to be associated, but at the same time feel powerless to affect. Reduced to simplest terms, whereas when I was growing up there was generally a sense of optimism, societally, nowadays I think there is more of a feeling of pessimism, if not despair. I think this underlies the "angst" that has defined a lot of youth popular culture since the late 80s or early 90s. People of course react differently to this, but some (including some of my bandmates and their friends I met on the tour) respond by to an extent anyway withdrawing from society and living in a strange and interesting countercultural world, under the radar of society at large. One of the most interesting aspects of this is an anti-consumer mentality: "DIY" is apparently a movement, i.e., people making things themselves instead of buying them, and/or repairing broken things instead of replacing them with new purchases. Another manifestation is a practice of buying as much as possible used instead of new.

Having lived a pretty much middle-of-the-road existence myself thus far, it was interesting and thought-provoking to live in that world for a week.

But anyway, here are some pictures from the tour. First, the band:

Bill Tucker, guitar and vocals; moi, bass; Chris Castellan, drums; and John Salt, tuba.

Here's John and Chris with the Sparrowses, a husband/wife rootsy/bluegrassy duo with whom we shared the stage in Bloomington, Indiana. They also put us up for the night after that show.

We had some time before the show in Bloomington so we held an impromptu parade.

Our arty band photo. Astute blog readers may recognize the Beer Nuts t-shirt. This was at a gas station somewhere in Mississippi or Louisiana, I think.

On stage at Sluggo's in Pensacola.

On stage (well, patio) at (well, behind) the Ole Mug in Foley, Alabama.

Just a quick note

The month has been rolling on and I've been pretty busy, so I haven't been posting at the rate I would prefer. But I'm still here and I still intend to keep this blog up---just no new big news or profound thoughts to share. I did finish my essay about Norwegian black metal, but for some reason known only to Blogger, it posted it as of the date I STARTED it, not the date I FINISHED it, so it's further down on the page---it's like it was from early February. So, scroll down to that and take a look at it! I spent a lot of time putting in all the fun links to interesting things.


I've had a chance to play a bit more with Bill Tucker and Friends, the band with which I'm going on tour in April. I'm really enjoying playing with them, and I think once we get comfortable with each other it will be a very good band. The Xylenes have been hit with a spate of illnesses so we had to reschedule our intended spring show---a month ago, we were hoping to play next week, but then we missed a couple weeks of rehearsal, and rather than do a shorter or less polished show (a relative thing with the Xylenes, but still), we decided to push the date off for a bit. We are now planning on playing a special Mothers' Day show, probably actually the day after Mothers' Day. We're going to try to get our mothers involved---Kelly's mom is going to get up and sing a duet with her, and Kris' mom is going to play the chime tree with us. We're going to learn favorite songs of my mom's and Amber's mom's to play for them, since they will be there; I'm going to see if my mom will play tambourine, too. Mort's mom and Dori's mom are far out of state and won't be able to join us live in person, but hopefully we can do something for them too. We'll offer flowers to anyone else's mom who comes to the show. As Amber says, our moms are absolutely our biggest fans---it will be fun and nice to make them a part of the show.


You know how sometimes you know something in the front of your mind, but it may not have actually sunk all the way in? Over the last couple months I've probably bought too many guitars, and I'm feeling a little over-extended. I'm having to sell a couple others, which is okay because I don't play them much and I'd rather have the new ones, but the sense of urgency is unpleasant. But in each case, it was a rare and special opportunity to get something that I might not come across again, and each individual transaction could be justified on that basis . . . but, what I've now learned in a more visceral way is that there is always some once-in-a-lifetime deal out there, and one can go broke simply taking advantages of great deals that will never come again, either unheard-of prices or rarely-for-sale items. So, I am now publicly swearing off buying more guitars. If you hear that I've bought another guitar in the next six months at least, feel free to remind me that I promised not to do so, and deride me for my lack of willpower. But I don't intend to buy any more, no matter how unique the opportunity that comes along.


At least, I have acquired some really neat instruments lately . . . I posted about the Rickenbacker 330 I got in January, and mentioned the Rickenbacker 660/12 I got a few weeks ago. Well, I also acquired another neat Rickenbacker, a 340 with vintage-style pickups and a tremolo, in the limited-edition Color of the Year for 2002, Burgundyglo! It was one of those "once in a lifetime" deals---this may well be a unique guitar. Now I have a little family of Rickenbackers.


But, since I'm actively playing bass in a band again, I've been focusing on basses too. I got an SX Precision-style bass a while back, just to have as a backup. Also, I had a Jazz Bass that I got from my sister, on the understanding that if she ever needed a bass, I would give it back, or provide her with another bass at least as good, so since I decided I didn't care for the Jazz Bass, I sold it, and needed to get another bass to give Maria if she decides some day that she wants to take up bass again. After many years, she's started studying guitar again, so maybe that is not as hypothetical as it once appeared. Anyway, I had to do some work on it and I used it as the basis of some photo essays about fret leveling and nut making, which I posted on a guitar forum.


But then other amazing bass deals started coming out of the woodwork. Gibson came out with a new bass last year as part of its "Guitar of the Week" program: the Les Paul Money Bass, a limited-edition double-cutaway Les Paul bass which was pretty cool. In recent weeks, dealers have been blowing out the remaining unsold ones at way way less than the regular price, and way under what (I think) they're worth, so I snapped one up. Here it is next to my Gibson Ripper, one of my favorite basses that I've had for a number of years.


But then I came across a very rare bird for sale: an Acoustic Black Widow. I've mentioned before I think my interest in Acoustic amplifiers. Well, they also sold a guitar and bass for a while in the 70s. Some of the later models were actually made for them by Mosrite, but seem to have escaped (for the moment) the skyrocketing prices that proper Mosrites have shown in recent years (i.e., since I sold the one I had for cheap, goddamnit). Besides being one of the ultimate Acoustic collectibles, it's also a pretty cool bass in its own right. It has not arrived yet.


If you're thinking, "Damn, Chuck, that's a lot of guitars to buy," what can I say: when you're right you're right, and you're right. If I had to do it over again, I probably would have passed on a couple, although I can't say I'm sorry to have any of them! It's just made things a little tight, and I've sold a number of my old instruments and have a couple more on the block. (If you're interested in a Yamaha SBG 2000, or a Gibson Reverse Flying V, drop me a line!)









And then another friend has offered me a good deal on a Rickenbacker 4001 bass . . . but I may be able to do a partial trade on that one and he's okay with me paying him later . . .

But THAT'S IT! Gear Acquisition Syndrome: it's ugly. But, at least every time I have that realization, "You know, I've bought too many guitars," it causes me to reevaluate what I'm looking for. And I'm getting better gear, and gear that may actually go up in value, or at least hold its value.

Rock on!

Going on Tour

Well, THIS has been an eventful week.

First, some background: one of the Internet communities in which I participate is the Unofficial Acoustic Control Corporation Forum, a forum about musical equipment made by Acoustic Control Corporation. Acoustic made guitar amplifiers, bass amplifiers, PA equipment and speaker cabinets (among other things) from the late 60s to the early 80s. At the time it was some of the best gear you could get, but for reasons I do not understand they fell out of fashion and for many years the brand was moribund, although within the last year it has been revived, and for the first time in a long time you can buy new Acoustic amps. But of significance to this story is that the amps they made in their heyday were really quite good amps, and often they can now be found for quite low prices---so the savvy consumer (e.g., me) can find good bargains. Over the last year or so I've managed to track down several Acoustic amps. A group of like-minded folk hang out on the Acoustic forum and exchange information, technical tips, and leads on gear for sale.

One of the other regulars on the board, Jesse, who runs the Acoustic MySpace page, also lives in Chicago. We met in person when we made a deal to trade a couple amps, and then I tried to help him with a problem he was having with a bass he owned. Last week I got an e-mail from him, saying that he and some friends were going to a guitar show on Sunday, and would I like to go with them? It worked out time-wise, so I went. The guitar show itself was not successful---I was looking for a Rickenbacker 12-string and they had none; hardly any Ricks of any description. If I had been looking for a Gretsch, I would have been in good shape; they were all over the place. And a not-very-surprising assortment of old Gibsons and Fenders. (Slight digression---so, not having found the guitar of my dreams at the show, I ordered a Rickenbacker 660/12 in Midnight Blue from a dealer in Wisconsin. It arrived today, but I have been warned not to open the case for 24 hours, to give it time to adjust to the temperature, having spent a couple days in unheated trucks and warehouses in the Midwestern winter. I am impatient!)

Also on the jaunt to the guitar show was Jesse's friend Bill and Bill's friend Kevin. Bill is a musician and had with him his latest CD, and we listened to it in the car on the way to the show. I liked it. In the course of the conversation, Bill mentioned that he was looking for a bass player for an upcoming tour. Such statements conjure visions of months spent crisscrossing the country, but it came out enventually that the tour in question was only about a week in duration---basically a trip from Chicago to New Orleans and back, stopping along the way to play shows. Six out-of-town dates were planned, with shows in Chicago before and after to bookend the event.

Now, I have been in many bands and played hundreds of shows at all kinds of venues, but one part of band life I never experienced was the indie van tour. As I've grown older and gotten more settled, I had just assumed that I never would---I wasn't going to quit my job to go try to be a rock star.

But I could certainly see taking a few days off from work to live the dream. So after a conversation with Jesse in which he assured me that Bill was a good guy and stable, I offered my services. Bill seemed receptive and after the show we came back and jammed a bit, and it seemed to go well. I was invited to meet and audition for the rest of his band, which happened yesterday. That went well too---I like the music, I like the band, and they seemed to like me. And most importantly, Kris had no objections to me taking off for a week in a van with a bunch of musicians, believe it or not.

So, it looks like it's on! Come April, I will be going on tour as bassist for Bill Tucker and Friends, playing dates in Bloomington, IN, New Orleans, Pensacola, somewhere in Alabama, and Chattanooga, with the shows before and after in Chicago. Jesse and I are going to outfit the band with a full Acoustic backline, which will be news in certain circles.

I am really looking forward to this. At 41, I assumed my chance to do this was behind me, and I am really tickled that I will get to do it after all. It should be a hoot, and provide lots of fun stories and pictures, and you can read all about it here. As the plans are confirmed I will post specific info here.

In other news: before I started this blog, I had a blog of sorts on my MySpace page. I didn't update it as regularly as I do this one---I'm not sure why, but for some reason I'm more likely to post here. Anyway, if you just can't get enough of my musings, you can find more of them there.

A Great Band

From time to time I feel shame because I don't go see more bands. There are few things I love more than a good live music performance, but the transaction costs of finding the good bands can get kind of high---bars don't seem to exercise much quality control, and before I invest the time (and usually lost sleep) in going to see one I like to have at least a decent expectation that they have some merit.

So last year I e-mailed a bunch of my music-savvy friends asking for recommendations of bands to go see, and my friend Dan (not the friend Dan who came to the Big Brew, another friend Dan---I have multiple friends Dan), recommended a good one. Dan works as a recording engineer and a live sound man at local venues, so (a) he sees a LOT of bands, and (b) it takes a lot to impress him. But he mentioned that he was actually going to see this band on his night off, which was about the strongest recommendation for a band I can imagine.

Dan

The band in question was Union Pulse, who are from Milwaukee. I joined Dan and some friends at a show at Elbo Room, and I was very impressed. They are a thrashy pop-rock band, but they do it remarkably well: they have a very high-energy stage show, their songs are hooky and memorable, and James Redding is an ohmygod guitarist. It's so refreshing to go watch somebody play who is so in tune with the guitar, who throws off neat little licks and riffs so effortlessly. They have some tunes up on their MySpace page, but the studio recordings, while good, really don't do justice to these guys. Their forte is their live show.

So anyway, they came back through town on Saturday, thanks to Dan's intercession---his band had a gig and the club told them they could book another band on the bill, so he called up Union Pulse, and they came down. It was another great show. I tend to get kind of jaded about the music scene but seeing a show like that reminds me that yes, there is still great music out there to be found.

If you know of a good local band, or at least someone who plays in Chicago regularly, post a comment and let me (and all three other people who actually read this) know about it!

And, check Union Pulse's schedule of upcoming shows---they've been playing in other parts of the country, so maybe they'll be somewhere near you. If you have a chance, go see them---you won't be disappointed.

(Ironically, I didn't get to see Dan's band play on Saturday because they were on last and I had to catch the last train home. But next time, I'm there!)

Union Pulse in action, apparently around Christmas.

The Big Brew

Well, it's been a bit longer than I intended since my last entry, but I started working on an essay of sorts that is taking longer than I thought, and it's been a busy week or so, too. But eventually that will see the light of day.

In the mean time, yesterday I had some friends over to make a batch of beer.

I got interested in beer (for its own sake, as more than just a social lubricant) in my later college years---Coslow's pub in Champaign had a fairly wide selection of beers, especially for the time (mid-late 80s), and I discovered the joys of McEwan's Scotch Ale, a thick, dark, sweet beer unlike anything I had ever had. When I was in law school, I decided to take a stab at making some beer of my own. There was a shop in Ann Arbor that sold kits, so I whipped up a few batches. They were okay. I made some more while I was living with my parents studying for the bar, but when I moved up to Chicago to start working I was really cramped for space, so my brewing equipment stayed in Springfield.

Many years later, after I got married, we went down to Springfield and brought up all the rest of my stuff that was still at my folks', and my beermaking paraphernalia made the trip up. Then, a couple years ago, some friends mentioned making some beer, and we pulled it out again, supplemented with some of another friend's gear, and made some more beer. I believe that first batch was an English Brown Ale. It turned out well, and more beer followed. Another friend, coincidentally, was starting a homebrewing club around that time, which I joined, and for about a year we brewed fairly regularly.

As part of my newly invigorated brewing hobby, I joined the American Homebrewer's Association. They have a promotional program: "Teach a Friend to Homebrew Day," which is the first Saturday in November, when they encourage members to invite non-brewing friends to a brewing session, in hopes of getting them interested and involved. So for the past two years I've hosted a small brewing party. In 2006 we had a good time but none of the attendees caught the bug, but in 2007, several of the people who came subsequently got their own kits and started brewing beer! One of my co-workers, Katherine, had brought her husband Jim to the TaFtHB Day party, they had a good time, and for Christmas she got him a kit. And, Kelly from the Xylenes picked up a kit for herself too.

To encourage them, I thought it would be fun to get them together and make a big batch of beer. The brewing club had a big conical fermenter (the Fermenator) that was going more or less unused, so I borrowed that, everybody came over, and we brewed up 10 gallons of Kolsch, a golden ale style native to Koln/Cologne (depending on whether you speak German or French). Brewing is actually about a one-and-a-half man job, but it's a lot more fun with a few friends around. And more excitingly, everybody brought examples of their homebrewing endeavors, and their beers were good! My friend Dan besides helping out at the recent TaFtHB Day brew, was part of the first brewing session here in Chicago from a few years ago---he hadn't brewed before, but he took to it like a duck to water---he brought four beers, a mead, and a gruit he made. All were well received, although the gruit (a beer made with various herbs rather than hops) was of more historical interest. Hops are relatively recent additions to the conventional recipe for beer, having only come to prominence in the last few centuries. It was interesting to see what beer may have been like before they became standard. Dan's gruit was made with wormwood, gale, and rosemary. Jim had a pithy comment: "I wouldn't buy a six-pack of it, but I'd buy something like it." It was an experiment, and may be subject to further refining.

Kelly had made a "Pilsener" (although fermented with ale yeast) that turned out light and tasty, and Jim and Katherine brought a red ale. While poking around in the basement I found a 12-pack of beer still left from the first TaFtHB Day brew, back in 2006. We cracked a couple of them open, and that beer---an American red ale--- had aged very nicely! Certain light styles may suffer from age, but most beers will continue to get better for a long time before they start getting worse. Unfortunately, most homebrewers don't have the patience to keep their beer around for months and months! But I had forgotten this stuff was there, so I've still got 10 bottles of what is now excellent beer! This year's TaFtHB Day brew was a Belgian dubbel of sorts, turned out great from a flavor perspective, but it did not carbonate as expected. We added carb tabs to about a case of those bottles, and we'll see if that works to give them some fizz.

The Fermenator was free because the beer club had gone moribund about a year ago, but interestingly, when I inquired about using it, the rest of the club members were asked if they minded, and many of them responded with comments along the lines of, "Hey, we should get back together and make some more beer!" So it looks like, after this batch is done, the club may be re-vitalized.

In the mean time, as Charlie Papazian, the godfather of American homebrewing, says: "Relax, don't worry, have a homebrew!"

Cursed Realms of the Winterdemons

We've gotten a lot of snow here lately, more this winter than I can recall for a long time. Winter and snow naturally bring to mind Immortal.


What, you mean you're not familiar with Immortal, one of the bands that (arguably) defines the genre of Norwegian black metal? Actually, don't feel bad. I didn't know who they were until they were prominently featured a few years ago in ruthlessreviews.com' "Top Ten Most Ridiculous Black Metal Pics of All Time" and the follow-up "(The Other) Top Ten Most Ridiculous Black Metal Pics of All Time," (NSFW) which made the rounds of the internet in e-mails with messages like, "You've got to check this out!"

I must admit, I was fascinated, on a purely sociological level. What prompts grown men to do things like this?


So I sought out some black metal. Conveniently, there's a web site called Black Metal Radio at which you can listen to a number of the bands featured in the ruthlessreviews.com pictures. Now, I like to think I'm fairly open-minded, and in fact I went through a period as a youth when I was into heavy metal (that was before it fractured into all the sub-genres---Wikipedia lists 30 different ones as I write this; maybe more tomorrow). But I listened to some of this stuff with jaw on floor . . . you know how some people say that rap is not really "music"? Some black metal provokes the same kind of reaction: a lot of it just feels like an assault of noise, with no melody to speak of and all the groove of a jackhammer. Truly, some of this stuff is beyond parody. Not all of it, I hasten to add; some of it was interesting.

The Top Ten Most Ridiculous Black Metal Pics came out a few years ago but I was recently reminded of them by a thread on TalkBass.com about bands with "Cookie Monster" vocals, which contained a link to a YouTube compilation of the Ten Most Ridiculous Black Metal Videos of All Time, which in some ways is even more---I can't think of the word, but you know that uncomfortable feeling you get when you see somebody doing something really embarrassing? Even more like that. And Immortal placed in that top ten as well (three times), but what was really funny was where somebody took their video to "Call of the Wintermoon" and put some...different...music to it. (See the result.)

What Immortal demonstrates, by taking the idea to its ultimate conclusion, is that metal, beyond just being a form of music, is a philosophy or lifestyle. I don't know about every metal band, but I read an interview with Abbath and Demonaz from Immortal and that is real life for them---even before they were a band they used to put on makeup and go stalk the snowy Norse woods, living this kind of...well, it's tough to put into words but whatever it is, it's cold, dark, harsh, powerful and arcane, some sort of primal elemental force to which they feel connected. Lots of black metal bands adopt the trappings of Satanism but I get the feeling that they (well, most of them) are not really serious about it. Immortal strike me as more pre-Christian than anti-Christian in their orientation. Although I am not really a big fan of their music, I have some respect for Immortal for being true to themselves.

But if you understand that metal is emblematic of a philosophy or world view beyond its significance as music, it explains a couple things:

First, metalheads' fanatical devotion to their music: If you like jazz and somebody tells you that jazz sucks, that may be irritating, but in most cases, it doesn't go much beyond that. But if a metalhead is told that metal sucks, it is not just a difference of opinion or comment on his musical taste, it is an assault on the very pillars of his being. If you read the comments on the Most Ridiculous Black Metal Pics page you will see what I mean. The level of virulence displayed by the advocates and detractors of various bands and genres is surprising, but less so when you realize that those exchanges are equivalent to the sorts of donnybrooks you can find when people get talking about religion or politics. It is the same dynamic. To avoid unseemly conflict, perhaps metal should be added to the list of things not discussed in polite society. (I don't think most of polite society would mind.)

And, the splintering of metal into dozens of sub-genres that only the true fanatics can tell apart: Given my premise above, a metalhead encountering with metal music he doesn't like is faced with a quandry, a paradox: by definition metal = good, and yet, Band X really sucks... Does Not Compute. The way metal true believers have found to resolve this dilemma is thus: Band X which sucks does not play REAL metal, or proper metal, i.e., metal of the listener's favorite genre. For instance, there is (apparently; I don't understand such things myself) room to debate whether Cradle of Filth is a black metal band or a death metal band. I think the answer depends on (a) whether you consider yourself a black metal fan or a death metal fan, and (b) whether you like Cradle of Filth. If you're a black metal fan and hate CoF, then they must be a death metal band.

For the most part, the appeal of a lot of this music eludes me, but I find it fascinating. And even if you're sure you hate it, the black metal pictures and videos should at least be interesting. By the way, the title of this post ("Cursed Realms of the Winterdemons") is a song from Immortal's album Battles in the North.

Obscure Music Search: So much for being able to find anything on the Web

My wife, Kris, is Latvian. Actually, she was born in the U.S. but her parents came over from Latvia after WWII, and they all speak Latvian, have close relatives living in Latvia, and are still culturally connected to Latvia and the Latvian community here.

She has several tapes of Latvian pop music---artifacts of a commercial venture some relative was involved in back in the 90s some time. Music is a big part of Latvian culture and for a relatively small country they produce a lot of it. One day, out of curiosity, I put some of them on while puttering around the house. For the most part, they were pleasant enough pop songs; they were largely vocally driven and I don't know much Latvian myself (to the disappointment of my in-laws) so I didn't get the full effect. And, many of the songs were recorded with what sounded like the rhythm settings from an electronic organ for backing---not the sort of arrangements I usually get excited about.

But there was one song that really leapt off the tape: it was a bouncy little number called "Meksika" ("Mexico") by a band called Lauku Musikanti (the Country Musicians). They were a real, full band, with a full complement of instruments, including a very jaunty and engaging accordion. This became one of my favorite songs. Whenever I played it it made me happy.

Well, on Monday, attempting to share it with the rest of the band, I was devastated when my cheap tape deck ate the tape containing my only copy! So, I set out to find another copy.

One would think that after so many years of the sprawling Internet it would be fairly simple to find information on a band that had released multiple albums in a vibrant music culture and technologically savvy place like Latvia, but that was not the case. With Kris translating, we dug around various Latvian web sites, including Lauku Musikanti's page on what appears to be the Latvian version of MySpace Music. Their biography there informed us that they had formed in 1987 and that "Meksika" had been on their first album, which must have been out by 1993 since that was the date on the tape Kris had. But they only had detailed information about their most recent albums. A search for the older album was unsuccessful. We did find a current picture of them:

Unlike MySpace, to join the Latvian site you must be invited, so we couldn't sign up and send them a message through that site. Kris is going to see if someone she knows in Latvia can help us find a copy of their first album. If all else fails, one or more of her younger cousins seem to always be going over there to visit people or on youth tours, so maybe one of them can find it for me.