Daily Dose #33 (06/29/11)

On Rhetorical Devices, Influences, and Making Art "Popular" .

Introduction:

I have promised readers of the DAILY DOSE that at some point, I'd be delving into the nuts and bolts of "How It's Done" or at least "How I Did It". Its time for me to impart not some, but ALL of the knowledge that I've picked up along the way. I value that knowledge highly, and I am very grateful to the people that have crossed my path who took the time to teach it to me, for whatever the reason.

Since I've been a professional musician for most of my time spent on planet earth, alot of that professional knowledge is applicable to that particular field.

I am enjoying a temporary retirement from that field, because recently I discovered that the core concepts and refined processes that I have learned are applicable to other fields as well.

So as far as the music stuff is concerned? It's time to give it away.

Someone decided at some point to stop being proprietary with that knowledge and pass it to me, and now I must do likewise. It's only use to me now is if it inspires someone else to use it, and use it responsibly. That's the recycling system.


This isn't my version of "The Necromonicon", peeps. There are no secrets of the dark arts here. Just a different perspective; one that can be cherry picked to suit your own personal needs and professional agendas.

This particular entry and the subsequent ones to follow may read like "How-To" manuals, but they will kill a couple of my own personal agenda birds with a single throw of the stone:

1. Pass the knowledge on, and contribute to the cosmic recycling system
2. Give gratitude, and the proper credit to the original source of that knowledge.

Hopefully, to those interested in this type of stuff, it will be a "win-win" scenario for all of us.

In Blog #31, ALAN ROWOTH/A TESTIMONY, I hinted at some of the vast wealth of real usuable knowledge that I gained from a seven year hitch as a sideman in a band called "THE WORKS", the brain-child of Ed Hamell AKA "Hamell On Trial".

For those of you unfamiliar with Hamell's oeuvre, I could give you a brief synopsis but ultimately to really get a feel for the depth and breadth of the man as an artist, google him and start doing the homework.

I'm sure that is what he would advise you to do himself.

But to me, twenty three years or so after the fact I can say with absolute certainty that Ed Hamell was the best teacher I ever had. I have had many teachers in this physical life, but I was lucky to be within in earshot of this guy for seven years, and even luckier that he took me under his wing and made me a personal "project".



There is no way I can condense what Ed taught me in a single blog, so he'll be showing up quite a bit in any subsequent blogs concerning the "craft" and the concept of committing yourself to a life in music in a meaningful way.

This blog centers on just one concept of thousands that he made sure with all due diligence to drill into my empty knucklehead over thousands of miles of road trips, mostly in the dark heading westwards home from what seemed an endless seven year stream of booze fueled, inspired rock and roll battles fought in barroom venues and the odd concert stage.

We won more of those battles than we lost, but in the end they could be quantified as Pyrrhic victories on the surface perhaps; but I walked away with a knowledge base and work ethic that has paid huge creative dividends for me, and still do.

As a veteran of "The Works" wars, one thing was certain. It was a Rock and Roll University, and Ed was the head of the curriculum. All you had to do was make sure to send the right signal that you were ready, and he gave all to you, no matter what his personal agenda might have been at the time.

That education was critical in any other professional endeavor I have undertaken since, and I will always owe him a deep debt and expression of gratitude for it.

This is my own way of doing just that.


THE TOP DOWN INTEGRATED USE OF RHETORICAL COMPARISON

Let's kick this off with a definition of terms.

rhet·o·ric   /ˈrɛtərɪk/
[ret-er-ik]

–noun

1. (in writing or speech) the undue use of exaggeration or display; bombast.

2. the art or science of all specialized literary uses of language in prose or verse, including the figures of speech.

3. the study of the effective use of language.

4. the ability to use language effectively.

5. the art of prose in general as opposed to verse.

6. the art of making persuasive speeches; oratory.

7. (in classical oratory) the art of influencing the thought and conduct of an audience.

8. (in older use) a work on rhetoric.

Although all eight points are important when studying the ancient Greek written and oratorical art as defined by Aristotle, for this missive just keep numbers 6 and 7 in the back of your mind as we soldier ahead.

So what is rhetorical comparison?

Simply? A rhetorical comparison connects our feelings about an entity to the entities that we compare it against.



Now take a look at this teaser trailer for "The Meeting", a documentary currently under production of the life and times of Ed Hamell. Pay attention to Ed's machine-gunned rapid-fire voice over at the onset where he references Little Richard, Joan Jett, Gary Glitter, Bob Seeger, Neil Young, Huey Piano Smith and the Clowns, Aerosmith, AC/DC, The Beatles, Chrissie Hynde via Sam Cooke, and then shifting into a broken spaced cadence to hit you over the head with a Contours reference all while you're staring at art cards of three movie style blurbs from the NY Postand The Dallas Morning News; winding up the the blurb of the most import, and thus the most screen time; a quote from David Fricke of RollingStone magazine. All of this happens in about 22 seconds of elapsed time.

After the impressive series of personal testimonies from Henry Rollins, Ani DiFranco and the like and the next blurb that compares him to Bill Hicks, Hunter S. Thompson, and Joe Strummer, Ed in his typical charming and charismatic manner then runs down a litany of some of the greatest records ever made as he compares them to his most recent recorded output softened with self-effacing humble giggling, output evidently still under construction at the time this footage was shot. He's serious, but he's also letting you in on the joke, too.

It's a Rock and Roll knowledge and intellectually based "Velvet Rope" strategy: You get to be part of the club, but only if you have an an awareness of the references and can keep up to some degree.

Its targeted at the niche audience who knows exactly just what he's talking about; "...This is it for me man... this is my "Rumours", this is my "Dark Side of The Moon"...this is my "Appetite for Destruction"...this is my "Back In Black"....I'm not doin' this fuckin' again".

Again, Fleetwood Mac, Pink Floyd, Guns and Roses, and AC/DC all in two breaths. All epochal recordings in the history of rock and roll.

Aside from the effective rhetorical and oratorical device of repetition employed ("This is my.."), this teaser trailer is a two minute distillation of a strategy that Ed has been employing since the day I met him back in January 1982.

Context is everything. In the days of big bands, big self contained rolling shows of PA's,Lighting Rigs, Trucks, Road Crews, Bands, and all the expenses incurred in keeping those shows on the road a minimum of five to six days a week, THE WORKS as band and business had a major strike against it when competing with the field.

No cover material. Nada. Zilch. Maybe an ancient chestnut for the encore like Larry William's "Slow Down", or Sam The Sham and the Pharaoh's "Woolly Bully" to put three sets of original material all penned from the creative mind spring of Ed's brain into the proper historical perspective for the audience, but that's it.

THE WORKS could not, and did not, lean on familiarity in the age of cover bands that were cleaning up financially up and down the NYS Thruway. Our sets were not peppered with original material: Our sets were all original.

That in itself was a huge statement to make, and a huge public stance to take at least from the town that we all came from. We weren't "showcasing" in NY for the industry's hoi polloi, leading a double life.

We were a fully functioning organism with an attached culture. Every show was an uphill battle, and at least from the perspective of a guy that actually participated in those battles for almost seven years of his life from THE WORKS stage and bully pulpit, it was a battle willingly taken on.

You could not achieve true greatness without it. Ed knew it, and as previously mentioned, I clearly saw it. He didn't have to twist my arm to join the fight once he got around to asking me.

He had to win every heart and every mind, one at a time. He had to convince everybody along the way, from friends, family, band , crew, the regional intelligentsia; club owners, agents, and press conduit gatekeepers, but most importantly every single fan that he was up to something special, and they could be part of the process and lifestyle just as much as anybody else.

He wasn't in the business of garnering casual fans. To survive, he needed to be in the business of garnering acolytes and true believers. The evangelical fervor of every performance was steeped in one common concept. If you walked through the door and paid your two buck admission, you were going get the "works" according to our catch phrase that appeared in every, ad, mailer, or t-shirt produced at the time: 100%, ALL THE TIME.

He kept that promise to the band and its fans, always. I have never seen Ed "phone it in". Never. Ever.

Somewhere along the way though, that initial agenda point of "100%, All The Time" to achieving greatness transitioned and refined itself into the next catch phrase, "Let's Make History". That's when I got hip to his expert use of rhetoric in mass communications.

This was an actual song and lynch pin of the set that Ed had written comparing himself to The Wright Brothers, Thomas Edison,and various other trail blazers of American History, and an obvious rhetorical association.

During this time, the material, show, and visual presentation was transitioning from a form of R 'N' B based Springsteenian populism to reflect Ed's newly acquired punk sensibility.

The band was a bit slow on the uptick, myself included; but eventually Ed and I were pouring over, dog-earring and trading possesion of Penny Smith's photo-documentary book of The Clash as well as the records. We were always studying the craft and always learning. The cover of "London Calling" is a classic example of rhetorical comparison in the visual arts, a now time honored rock and roll tradition. Ed got the message, and I received through him.


Slicked back sided pompadours, vintage '50's clothing, gritty black and white photo journalism, art cards and every piece of printed material that emanated from the camp were soon to follow and were all extensions of the material he wrote.

Darker, angrier and more confrontational lyric content that framed the band and its followers as "downtrodden" began to emerge. "Rag Picker" and "Grovers and Schallers" are tunes that come immediately to mind. Still populist, but of a different kind.

But the point is that this was a "top down" integration of that simple rhetorical device and every single platform, right down to how we lived our lives (a platform that was clearly on display to our fan base)

That's a blog for another day, but this all culminated in THE WORKS placing a series of ads in the classified section of ROLLINGSTONE magazine, specifically calling out the most respected rock critics of the day by name (Dave Marsh, Griel Marcus, Robert Christgau)declaring ourselves "Greatest Rock and Roll Band in America".

That may seem naive to some. Nobody in history of popular rock and roll of the day had the balls to do something like that. Ed did, and we believed we could back up the boast.

So at worst, I'd call that little maneuver naively brilliant.

It was a classic "Little Richard/ Mohamed Ali/ Stagger Lee Legend" public relations strategy.

"We are THE GREATEST, and FUCK YOU", aimed directly at the little spot between the collective eyes of the taste makers and rock and roll intelligentsia of the day.

Targeted and narrow beamed like a laser. If they read it, they were going to know exactly what that little declarative statement meant; what it signified, how it was designed and from where, and just who THE WORKS were comparing themselves to.

Just like a 30 second Hollywood production pitch, you connect the mixture of references to the entity, and you plant the seed that the entity is equally valid as the success rate of the references to achieve a "greenlight".

Remember: A rhetorical comparison connects our feelings about an entity to the entities that we compare it against

If you can succeed at that, you have won 75% of the battle over owning the collective hearts and minds. The other 25% is achieved through the strength of the material and the show, two entities at the time that all of us felt we had covered in spades.

Its a very small distance to traverse in the mind. All you had to do was to allow your target audience to make the conceptual jump from "I am the equivalent of all things of historical import" to "I am the same as all the references: I AM HISTORY, AND THE LOGICAL CONTINUATION OF IT", through the undeniable power of performance.

Hamell has been honing and refining this rhetorical technique, along with his performance and songwriting abilities ever since. Study the sheer breathtaking volume of HAMELL ON TRIAL's creative output from the release of 1989's "Conviction" to present day, along with the evolution of his show.

He has pursued this strategy with a dogged and detirmined persistence continuously. He's never waivered from the rhetorical strategy; he just got better at it through the years.

Some would argue that the unrelenting implementation of this device is a bit ham-fisted. The norm is to hide influences and shade influences. Nobody wants anybody to know where you're stealing from.

Ed goes in the polar opposite direction, in full transparency. The obvious rebuttal to the critique of a ham-fisted rhetorical approach would be this:

Are they making a documentary of your life? What kind of professional track record in terms of output have you left in your wake, as you pursue your dreams?

Who has a higher probability of being a permanent fixture in the celestial sphere and rock and roll firmament?

You, or him?

That one is easy to answer for most of us.

EPILOGUE:

The last time I talked to Ed, I told him that in my opinion, he was the best practicing songwriter in he United States.

Twenty or more so odd years later, that personal assessment of his abilities hasn't changed.

That's a pretty bold statement for me, admittedly, and not one made lightly... but one I firmly believed that Ed could back up then, and even more strongly still, back up now.

Please bear in mind that as I discuss the finer points of the stewardship of a career in Rock and Roll that I may be aware of, none of it means shit if you can't back it up.

You can have all the frosting you want, but if you are applying it to a shaky cake, the cake will eventually collapse on itself.

Frosting is an integral component of the whole cake experience. This rhetorical device has been, and always will be very effective frosting.

A cake collapse hasn't happened in Hamell's case. He knows his shit, and he's not afraid to tell you and most importantly show you any and every chance he gets. His cake is made of concrete and tungsten steel, sitting on a plate of solid rock.

Try to take a bite out of the cake he's developed, all you'll do is break your own teeth off.

If he doesn't come up with a complete crystallized distillation of The complete recorded Specialty output of Little Richard, Jerry Lee on Sun and Mercury, Elvis on Sun and RCA, Muddy Waters and Chuck Berry on Chess and Fats Domino on Imperial /the entire Meet The Beatles through the Abbey Road run / Dark Side Of The Moon / Bridge Over Troubled Water/ Pet Sounds / Are You Experienced?/ Hank Williams Greatest Hits/ Blonde on Blonde / Highway 61 / Rumours / Raw Power / Music From Big Pink / London Calling / Live at The Apollo Vol 2/ After The Goldrush / Sly and The Family Stone's Greatest Hits / Modern Sounds In Country Western Vol I and II /Imagine/ Back in Black / Transformer/ Sign O' The Times / LIVE at Folsom Prison/ In Utero/ Kind Of Blue / Never Mind The Bollocks / Straight Outta Compton/ Born to Run / Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders From Mars/ The Joshua Tree/ Led Zeppelin IV / The Beggars Banquet through Exile On Main Street run, plus Some Girls and Tattoo You / It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back/ Thriller and the entire collection of Lenny Bruce records that I'm still waiting for him to return with his next shot across the bow of "recorded output" in the archaic form of a song cycle contained in the silver pits of a compact disc....

He will the next time, and the next time, and the next time.

Until he succeeds or drops dead trying.

Don't believe him for one second when he says at the end of the teaser trailer "I'm not doing this fucking again"

He's "All In", in the Texas Hold 'Em Vernacular. A walking compendium of the unruly caterwauling of rock and roll, Art History, Jungian Psychology and general Historical knowledge plus he's holding couple of additional aces in his hand: The living embodiment of a "Go Big or Go Home" lifestyle and career choice.

Anything less than that type of commitment will consign you to an eventual irrelevancy, as far as history is concerned.

THAT'S Rock and Roll, and if you don't think so, I would advise you as I imagine Ed Hamell would:

Go Fuck Yourself.

"You may shoot for the stars and end up in a back alley behind Pluto, beaten and bloodied, but at least I dare to dream, and that’s better than being Earthbound, mired in the muck of mediocrity.

I judge my forward progress and success by the crushingly epic nature of my failures.

The more epic the crash, the more I’m convinced I must be doing something right"

AS ALWAYS: PLEASE FEEL FREE TO COMMENT, SUBSCRIBE, AND SHARE THIS BLOG ADDRESS VIA COPY AND PASTE IN AN EMAIL, THROUGH THE TWITTER OR FACEBOOK "SHARE" BUTTONS,WORD OF MOUTH, FILTHY WHISPERED GOSSIP, FALSE NARRATIVE, TIN CAN AND STRING CONFIGURATIONS, PONY EXPRESS, OR CARRIER PIGEON. WITHOUT FEEDBACK OR ACTIVE "SHARING", WHAT YOU JUST READ.... DOESN'T EXIST!


THANK YOU KINDLY,

COLONEL BEAUREGARD "IRON THIGHS" JEFFERSON, A.K.A. "THE MANAGEMENT"

Daily Dose #27 (06/23/11)

BREAKFAST WITH IAN "MAC" McLAGAN: A LIVING HISTORY

As I was driving up from NYC on Memorial Day Weekend, I received an unexpected phone call from my old friend Jon Notarthomas.

Although I never played music with Jon (I did play quite a bit with his brother Jaime, however... more on that in subsequent blogs), he and I have been intersecting for decades, mostly for the good. We have had a few minor bumps in the road as well, but nothing so damaging that we couldn't negotiate our way through, as real friends always should do if they are functioning as such.

Jon's travels led him eventually to Austin, Texas. He operates an award winning, great wiener cart business on 6th street called "THE BEST WURST", considered world wide to be required street food fare when cruising the Austin strip.

But currently, Jon is distancing himself from wearing the crown of the "Hot Dog King Of Austin", and has refocused himself back to things musical, primarily by working and touring with a sure to be Rock and Roll Hall of Famer, Ian McLagan.

Jon was calling me as he was en route to New Orleans with Mac, and was looking for a good place in French Quarter place to eat that wasn't a tourist trap, and phoned for guidance. But also to invite me to an upcoming stop on the two man tour, at The Catherine Cummings Theater in Cazenovia, NY on June 16th.


Mac joined The Small Faces in 1965, along with Kenney Jones, Steve Marriot, and Ronnie Lane. On the forefront of the mod movement along with The Who, The Small Faces pretty much defined what would to become the Britpop movements of the late '70's and 1990's. They enjoyed more chart success in the UK than the US, but I remember this sucker simply on the basis of Steve Marriot's killer hook delivery to the Universal Question, "What did you do there?". You know the answer.



Ian McLagan was there.

Too much in the distant past for you? After Marriot went on the form Humble Pie with Peter Frampton, the rest of The Small Faces recruited two nobodies by the respective names of Rod Stewart and Ron Wood, and formed Faces (Sometimes known as The Faces).



How important were The Faces to the ultimate architecture and edifice known as Rock and Roll? Aside from the post Faces careers of Stewart and Wood, I don't have enough time to explain it to you, but roughly, they along with The Stones defined the British version of drunken "I-don't-give-a-tumbling-fuck-careening-around-Pluto- without-any-brakes" rock and roll music. Just watch how seriously they're taking their lip syncing duties! The Faces represent huge shoulders on which the next 30 or so years of modern rock was built upon.

And Ian McLagan was there.

Still not impressed? After The Faces were no more, MacLagan went on to be a keyboardist gun for hire, and has done recording and touring stints with The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Bonnie Raitt, Bruce Springsteen, Taj Mahal, John Hiatt, David Lindley, Paul Westerberg, Billy Bragg and Patty Griffin, to name but just a few.

Remember seeing Stones in the newly constructed Carrier Dome? You know, the Tattoo You tour... The last tour they did before becoming the world's longest and slickest touring Broadway show that re-defined the technical construct and business model of modern stadium touring, right down to selling the right to have Jovan Musk print their logo on tickets for a million bucks? This was the last tour where The Stones still played it fast and loose, and dared to suck, solidifying their right to call themselves "The Greatest Rock and Roll Band In The World". Were you there?



Ian McLagan was there, playing organ next to longtime original Stones pianist Ian Stewart, one of the finer rock and roll pianists that came out of the London scene.

So for my good friend Jon to not only have the opportunity to play music and learn from this pivotal figure in Rock and Roll history, but to log hours of car time with Mac.... to hear THOSE stories? Holy crap. That's beyond a P.H.D. degree in rock history. I wouldn't even know how to define it. I'm so happy for him.

So I headed east to Caz on the 16th, to catch a glimpse of all that transpired before, and much of what inspired me as a musician through the stories and songs presented by one of the greatest rock and roll keyboardists that ever was.

The Cummings Theater is affiliated with Cazenovia College, and its a wonderfully intimate venue. They have a little jazz fest there every year that when I'm in town I try to attend, as its always a high quality show. The acoustics are stellar, and it can't seat more than 300 people max. I was very excited to be in a place where that true intimacy can be achieved between an artist and audience.

Gary Frenay and Artie Lenin opened the show. Those who have read "The Gratitude Files" in the Blog-O-Thon are pretty familiar by now with what I call, "The Frenay Effect". When Gary is around and in proximity, magic happens. This night would be no different.

Jon sat in with Gary and Artie, and positively owned the bridge in The Beatles classic "This Boy". Although brother Jaime might be wider known, ALL them Notarthomas boys can sing their butts off, and along with brothers Michael and Tony, Jon is no different.

Then Mac took the stage alone. He told the story of a life lived, through stories, jokes, and tales of great loss. The music was of a caliber rarely heard on stages in CNY, and when Jon took the stage to accompany Mac, I was blown away just how much Jon has improved as a musician under the tutelage of a master.

To hear those stories, and to hear him play solo, if you are a true fan of the history of the craft of rock and roll... was revelatory.

McLagan has been through it all, and has lived to tell the tale. If you can get a chance to see him do one of these "storyteller" types of shows, I highly recommend it. It is a rare opportunity, and I was grateful to be able to experience it.

Mac did a brief meet and greet after the show at the foot of the stage, and basically invited everyone there to the bar at the Linklaen House for an after show pint. So not only did you get a master class in British rock and roll for the low admittance price of $15, you also got a chance to get pissed with the teacher after the show.

Now THAT's entertainment value for your buck!

I couldn't make the pub scene, but Jon invited me to breakfast the next morning at the Notarthomas Family manse on Woodbine Avenue in Eastwood, one of the more fertile areas for growing musicians around these parts. Ed Hamell and Dave Read grew up on the same block of Woodbine.

I love the Notarthomas family. As mentioned previously, I hung out in that house a lot. Mr. Notarthomas would always try to rip through Chopin's "Revolutionary Etude", I think in an attempt to remind me what "real" music was.

When I finally learned that etude when I lived in New Orleans, I always thought fondly of him as I played it. I was looking forward to seeing him and the rest of the clan after all these years, and breakfast with Ian McLagan was a pretty cool gift to anticipate as well... a gift shared freely via my good friend Jon.

But as I walked out of the theater, I had a niggling feeling that was irritating me.

During the pre-show hang in the theater, all the usual suspects were there. Bill Baldwin, Billy Holmes, Gretta Gallivan,Dave Frisina, Muscians that have been practicing the trade for over 25 years... even "The Dean" David Rezak. All the folks that were in some way responsible for ushering in, and /or stewarding the Renaissance of a true Syracuse Music Scene through the 70's, 80's and 90's.

But there were many that weren't there, that should have been... the most glaring absence was anybody under the age of fifty, with the exception of Nick Frenay, Gary's son (watch out for Nick... he's about to bust out on the national jazz scene. He's Momma brought him up right, and his Poppa installed the musical values. "The Frenay Effect")

Where were the students of the craft? All those kids that are slogging it out in the clubs, or the folks that think they are part of the local music intelligentsia.

They just weren't under represented. They weren't there.

That means that either there are no students, or there is no such thing as a craft anymore. Either way, it was a depressing thought.

The show may have been under-publicized, but it wasn't that under-publicized. That theater should have been filled with people that took the craft seriously and want to expand upon it. People thirsty for that kind of knowledge. People that need that knowledge to grow as musicians, plying the craft. The generations that need to know.

Instead the theater was only a third filled by people who already knew. And that not only was a shame, it was not a good harbinger of things to come.

When opportunity knocks, you have to answer the door. It clearly wasn't on this night.

Breakfast was pleasant. I joked to Ian that the last time I was in a room with him, there were 50,000 other folks there with us in the Carrier Dome, and having breakfast in the Notarthomas kitchen was much more preferable. He's a wonderful guy.

As breakfast wound down,group pix were taken, goodbye hugs were exchanged, and Jon and Ian hopped into an S.U.V. en route to their next gig in Cleveland.

Cleveland has a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. And hopefully for Ian and Jon's sake, Cleveland still rocks.

(all performance photos shot at the Catherine Cummings Theater are used courtesy of Thomas Honan)




"You may shoot for the stars and end up in a back alley behind Pluto, beaten and bloodied, but at least I dare to dream, and that’s better than being Earthbound, mired in the muck of mediocrity.

I judge my forward progress and success by the crushingly epic nature of my failures.

The more epic the crash, the more I’m convinced I must be doing something right"

AS ALWAYS: PLEASE FEEL FREE TO COMMENT, SUBSCRIBE, AND SHARE THIS BLOG ADDRESS VIA COPY AND PASTE IN AN EMAIL, THROUGH THE TWITTER OR FACEBOOK "SHARE" BUTTONS,WORD OF MOUTH, FILTHY WHISPERED GOSSIP, FALSE NARRATIVE, TIN CAN AND STRING CONFIGURATIONS, PONY EXPRESS, OR CARRIER PIGEON. WITHOUT FEEDBACK OR ACTIVE "SHARING", WHAT YOU JUST READ.... DOESN'T EXIST!


THANK YOU KINDLY,

COLONEL BEAUREGARD "IRON THIGHS" JEFFERSON, A.K.A. "THE MANAGEMENT"

Societal Shifts

Everybody has their own story to tell, and all of them are fascinating.

One of the self-preservation methodologies I've always employed (really the genesis of the character of "Little Georgie") is to take internal pain, and externalize it -- publicly, if possible.

In retrospect, I've actually been pretty lucky to have been able to do this; being a musician and entertainer allowed me to create a vehicle to use the stage and electronic media (like a CD) as a "Bully Pulpit" to exorcise personal demons.

Wounds heal faster if exposed to air and light. Humiliation ceases to be powerful if personal shame is discussed openly and confusion can morph into enlightenment, faster…if you have the capability to expose it openly with anyone who might be in ear or eyeshot.

"Little Georgie" was invented way before widespread usage of the Internet. Now, 17 years later, we have blogs, social networking sites, and most importantly, YouTube and vlogs, where a worldwide "Bully Pulpit" is available to anyone with a computer and a webcam.

Now, anyone can access this methodology, at anytime, and this is happening, now.....so quickly, that it's hard to notice.

But some people are noticing, and being very mindfully aware of a societal "shift". One of them is Michael Wesch.

I urge any one who reads this to check out this presentation:

The Anthropology of YouTube.

"Physician, heal Thyself". Now anyone can do it.

The Dark Side Rolls In, Buddy

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Dichotomy

I have never been able to resolve the battle of brain hemispheres...there are creative endeavors on one side (mmm....just like crack!) and being Billy Biz (mmm....just like crack!...only with the extra added bonus of grinding tedium thrown in).

I have been waking every morning this September with the intent of exploring my new found love of writing...my creative half always gravitating to a medium that absolutely will not pay any monetary dividends. I spent the last three years playing Beethoven locked in my house on Bourbon Street as a perpetual party raged nightly outside my living room window...and somehow, I failed to notice.

Just like waking up and digging into the "Hammerklavier", recently waking up and answering the siren call of my computer keyboard and finding this outlet of creative expression has been....joyful. Possibilities have been unfolding, projects have been materializing, and my brain has been firing on all cylinders...and of course, whilst in the throes of a creative burn, I have totally ignored any real life concerns, such as:

1. How am I gonna pay the rent?

2. How am I gonna eat?

Every once in a while, my good friend and muse LB buys me a sammich, but man cannot survive on one sammich per week (or less, depending on how far into the hills I've driven her, screaming).

So for the past few days, I've been immersing myself in the "Bizness" of "Little Georgie"...which has always been interesting to me, but the sheer volume of time and creative energy involved to administer that business crowds out any
drive to sit down and write another installment of "Lake Boy", per example....and I'm in "Lake Boy Mode", so having to forcibly extricate yourself out of it to have a three hour co-ordinating meeting with marketing mavens who frankly can't do it as well as yourself.....sucks.

I have always dreamed of being in a position to delegate some of these business duties, but every time I try to do so, it results in a debacle of epic proportions (I'm not naming names, but this last attempt at "resurrecting Little Geo" was a true cluster fuck on the "Bizness" side of things....and a personal success on the creative and spiritual side).

And so I have to once again wrench the reins out of the hands of incompetents, and be the administrative captain of my ship.

So if you don't see a lot of activity in the blog, it's because I've gone to the Dark Side, Luke.

Strategical marketing plans, business plans, projections of profit, bookkeeping, internet whoring, etc....all result in tangible outcomes.

You do the work, the numbers rise and fall according to how much and how well you execute that work.

But none of those avenues of exploitation would be possible if I didn't allow my brain to freely traipse about the Universe, tra-la, tra-la, picking random daisies...and I just cannot do both simultaneously.

So the cycle begins...create/sell, create/sell. But there's a time inequity involved...it takes a whole lot more time and effort to sell than it does to create....and I can't shake the feeling that I would be a whole lot better at creating if I didn't have to fuck with spreadsheets all day.

Perhaps this situation is a by-product of my bi-polar mind...a good friend who administers the Music Business program at Syracuse University told me once, "Of all the musicians I've dealt with in my career (which was considerably long and storied, BTW), you are the only one who had a firm grasp of the business side of the equation".

A grand compliment, but the unspoken reply? "Thanks, but I DON'T WANT TO BE THAT GUY!"

So the battle rages, and both sides suffer great loss, and a considerable amount of collateral damage is unduly created in the fire fight.

"War....what's it good for? Absolutely Nuthin..."

Epic Failure #2 -- or: Keep Smiling, Monkey Boy

I was chatting with my buddy "Fuzz", a friend who has been involved with the rock and roll “industry” for as long as I have, and the conversation always turns to the phenomena of brushing the brass ring with your fingertips, but it invariably always evades your grasp. It’s happened so many times to the both of us, that now we actually find these stories amusing, but at the time, they are the farthest things from it.

"Fuzz" road manages “Otis Day and The Knights” (the penultimate frat house party band of “Animal House” fame) as his bread and butter gig. He was advancing an upcoming gig for a private party to be held at the 2008 Republican National Convention, and was bitching about the amount of paperwork and hoops you have to jump through with the Secret Service and National Security wogs (basically, every member of the band and entourage has to be completely vetted, just in case a terrorist/axe murderer happens to be the bass player, for example).

And, yup, you guessed it, every one in the band either has a past as checkered as a chessboard, or long standing drug issues, so getting them cleared by various governmental security agencies is...

a stone bitch. It’s a lot of extra work on top of the normal hurdles that need to be negotiated (either leapt over, walked around or crawled under) to make it a smooth experience for the act you happen to represent.

As he was kvetching about the succession of dis-organized assholes from the RNC and Secret Service that he was dealing with on an hourly and daily basis leading up to ushering a posse of substance abusing, non-payment of parking tickets, arrest warrants issued for various misdemeanors musicians to a high paying gig, I had to tell him about my own brush with the Secret Service and the N.S.A, one of many of the files stored in my “Epic Failure Folder” of memory:

It was the spring of ’97.

I had just booked The Shuffling Hungarians (for those uninitiated, a 15 piece greasy soul orchestra-circus, fronted by yours truly) at a club in Martha’s Vineyard called the Hot Tin Roof (owned by Carly Simon) for Saturday August 30th.

The premier club, at the premier Eastern Seaboard vacation spot, on the premier night of the summer season.

The Hungarians had a lot of national buzz behind them, as I had just released a double “LIVE” recording and was furiously trying to get it noticed, and doing pretty well at it, quite frankly, which is why I got the gig. (Insert the sound of me patting myself on the back here)

Immediately after the signed contract was returned to me, I got a phone call from a 202 area code -- we were doing a lot of marketing in DC at the time, so that wasn’t too unusual.

Me: “Good Morning, Queen Bee Brand Records and Furniture O' Rama. How may I help
You?”

202 Area Code: “This is the Office of The President. May I speak to Mr. George Rossi, social security number XXX -XX-XXX?”

Me (in my internal monologue): “What the Fuck?”

Ok, here’s the skinny: somebody in Martha’s Vineyard talked to somebody in DC, and somebody on the Bill Clinton's PR team thought it would be a good idea to have him show up at The Hungarian’s Vineyard Wing Ding (we were pretty media “warm” at that point) and leak it to the press.

Sounds good to me. little did I know what I was getting into.

On a daily basis, I had to deal with some knucklehead from the Secret Service, the NSA or The Office of the President. I had to hire a lawyer to clean up all the arrest records of various band members (constant conference calling between the Embassy of Trinidad and Tobago, the Secret Service, and myself on the behalf of our percussionist was a particular “head in the pencil sharpener” exercise of note), which of course put a marginally profitable gig squarely in the red financial “loss” column.

The thing evolved from President Bill showing up, high fiving, and cruising back into the limo to President Bill wanting to sit in with the band. The set list had to be vetted for questionable lyric material. Charts were Fedexed directly to the White House. I had to go back into the studio and mix five songs in a “Music Minus One” format so he could practice along with a recording (Bill took his saxophonage seriously, evidently).

This was a ton of extra work and expense, but it was going to be a big break -- live feeds from every cable and “big three” network, print media, magazines...you name it, they were all gonna be there, all at once.

A global puff piece, but a piece shot ‘round the world. So well worth the monetary and sweat equity investment.

And of course, everyone in the band was well aware of what was going on, due to the total invasion of his or her collective privacy. But they recognized it a big break as well, and it was heartening to finally be able to deliver a big one to my extended “Hungarian Family”; all of us had been working hard, and it was morale-boosting to finally have something concrete in the form of a pay-off.

As we approached the big day, an Eagle Tour Bus was rented (you gotta fake it before ya make it, friends -- and another pre-programmed morale booster). The gear was stowed in the cargo hold, and we all piled in (getting 15 nut balls to collectively pile into a bus with surgical precision is a feat unto itself), and started the long trip from the East Side of Syracuse to the Wood’s Hole Ferry, for our date with destiny, well earned and long deserved. It was a fun trip.

When we arrived at the Hot Tin Roof for sound check, the parking lot was already starting to fill with mobile broadcast units from various global news agencies, their rooftop satellite dishes armed and ready to raise heavenward, for the eventual world wide broadcast of a sound bite of “The Hungarian Manifesto”, beamed into potentially millions of homes.

Everyone was frisked, metal-detected, every bag rooted through, every instrument case opened and every instrument thoroughly inspected, just in case the kick drum was packed with C-4 explosives or the trumpet was rigged for automatic rifle fire.

Amidst many individuals in black suits with earpieces, chatting into their sleeves, I relished this moment. It was time to go out and grab the ring, and I had been preparing for this moment my entire life.

The room was packed, and the excitement was palpable. The Novena candles were lit (about 300 of 'em... our trademark), the intro tape cued, the fog machine belching out its unique sickly-smelling cloud of noxious gas, and we started the show, a confident army of friends, battle tested and blazing. Five minutes before “The Prez” was about to make his grand entrance, a Secret Service Agent walks on stage and hands me a note. It read:

“Princess Diana has just died in a car accident. The President WILL NOT be appearing.”

That’s it. Just two sentences. The cabal of black suits disappeared from the wings of the stage, the camera crews de-materialized, and the limo pulled out of the lot. Just like that.

And I was left with the thought of my life and career crashing and burning around my brain pan just like Diana’s car crashing into the thirteenth pillar of a tunnel in Paris, all while looking at the lone fourth music stand in front of the horn section that would go unused that night and trying to entertain about 700 tweaking revelers and extended family members who had assembled for your big moment, fronting a band that was blissfully unaware of the disappointment that they were about to experience -- and making sure that know one knows anything that’s going on in your head, because that’s what entertainers do.

It ain’t your day kid. Only you can’t hit the showers. You still have to pretend that it is your day. Keep smiling, monkey boy.

This isn’t the first time this kind of thing has happened to me, and it was going to be the last. Unfortunately, I'm actually good at gracefully fiddling while Rome is burning. I've had lots of practice. The Universe likes to bat me down, hard, at the most inopportune moments it can pick.

I have become philosophical about these types of moments.

You may shoot for the stars and end up in a back alley behind Pluto, beaten and bloodied, but at least I dare to dream, and that’s better than being Earthbound.

I judge my forward progress and success by the crushingly epic nature of my failures.

The more epic the crash, the more I’m convinced I must be doing something right.

Epic Failure #1 -- or: "Wasn't That a Rug I Was Just Standing On?"

I spent most of my third decade on the planet pursuing the dream of being a “Rock Star”.

I quit high school to travel on that road, and stayed on it. Throughout my twenties I came very close to realizing that dream… but it always persisted in being just outside my grasp.

I closed that decade out as a member of a band that had a record deal ("The Bogeymen”, Delicious Vinyl). Delicious Vinyl was a hot little indie at the time, Tone-Loc, Young MC, and The Brand New Heavies being their most recognizable roster talent.

The brothers Ross ran Delicious V, and its creative output was overseen by Matt Dike (sort of the “West Coast” Rick Rubin, at the time)…. They embroiled us in legal sleight of hand and sued us for a year due to a contractual technicality to sign the band (another “Epic Failure File” in and of itself; more on that little “music biz” tale later), so we weren’t exactly happy campers by the time management conceded to accept a deal that was way below our market value.

But they basically left us alone to record the first record… and all the outwardly appearing steps toward eventual success were starting to materialize (advance money, drunken junkets to LA for mix down, video on MTV in nominal rotation, preparations for a tour, tons of international press, endorsements, etc.).

But then they became cash poor. So it was decided rather than hit the road and play, the band needed to get back in the studio and get another one in the can.

We spent about a year on that one, and by the time we delivered the master, the label was bankrupt. A year’s worth of work was permanently shelved, never to see the light of day. No more record deal, and the dream was hurled off a cliff in a mangled ball of fiery metallic twisted wreckage... again.

When everything officially crashed and burned, and I found myself penniless, jobless, my marriage also crashing and burning simultaneously (another forthcoming entry in the “Epic Failure Folder”)… I decided to basically hide under my bed for a few months.

All dreams shattered, all at once… I was living the nightmare, not the dream.

Out of the blue, in the depths of depression, I got a late night phone call:

Me: “Yeah?”

Them: “This is Henry Hirsch…may I speak to George Rossi?”

Henry Hirsch was Lenny Kravitz’s partner/producer. After giving me a little background on who he was (I already knew, but his schpiel was obviously honed and prepared…and I love a good schpiel.)

Tracing the linear history of how he got my phone number (The fellas at Delicious Vinyl to George Drakulious (Rick Rubin’s engineer and future producer of The Black Crowes) to him... evidently Matt and Mike felt bad about how things ended at Delicious Vinyl, so Karma points were and still are awarded), he made this offer:

Henry: “Lenny’s looking for a keyboard player to tour with him for the next three years ...would you like to audition?”

My Internal Monologue: “Holy Shit!”

Me: “Uh…. yeah, I guess so….”

The only problem was that auditions were being held the next day at 10am… in Hoboken, NJ. I was in Syracuse NY, about a five hour drive away, I didn’t own a car that could even remotely make that trip…and it was midnight.

So with no preparation whatsoever, sleep deprived and road weary, I pulled into the Hoboken parking lot (in a rented car) of Lenny’s and Henry’s warehouse studio facility at 9:45 am.

I’d like to tell you that my invitation was an exclusive one, but it wasn’t. There were about fifty leather-clad rock and rollers, way cooler looking than me, in full dress waiting in front of the studio’s door. It was a cattle call, and I was the last steer, bringing up the rear.

When it eventually came my turn to sit with Henry at the piano (Lenny skipped the audition process), his first point was they weren’t interested in “New Orleans Style” piano playing…a huge liability for me, since this was my area of expertise…and although familiar with the “Let Love Rule” record and never having heard Lenny’s sophomore effort, the music was piped in the piano room, and I was expected to shine.

I didn’t. I flat out sucked. Shot the pooch, ran over it with a tractor, and then had anal sex with it’s corpse kind of sucked.

So with the classic utterance of “Don’t call us, we’ll call you” ringing in my ears, I took the long drive home back to Syracuse, hoping to get there before I got charged another day’s rent on the rent-a-wreck.... the acrid taste of failure in the back of my throat for the entire trip.

Two weeks later, I received another midnight call.

Henry: “George, it’s Henry…. can you make a call back at 10am tomorrow?”

Me: “Jeez ,Henry…. I’m five hours away…couldn’t you give me a little advance notice?”

Henry: “If you want the gig…. be in Hoboken by 10am”

Me: “ See you tomorrow”

And so my dance with Henry and Lenny had officially started, always following the same pattern…the midnight call, the car rental, the incremental counting of chickens before the are hatched along with the Lenny “carrot” getting dangled closer and closer, the sleep deprived and absolute suck-ass playing during the private audition with Henry, the “don’t call us, we’ll call you” unceremonious kick out the door, and the long cross-eyed drive of savoring complete and utter failure back to the wastelands of Central NY.

But Henry kept calling (at midnight…every fucking time!)…finally admitting after four auditions that a field of two hundred and fifty candidates had been winnowed down to only two: Richard Bell (one of the greatest NY session players of all time) and me (the cross-eyed, sleep deprived, clueless one-handed pianna-plunkin’ choke artist). One more 10am, next day call back. But this time, Lenny will be there.

“Do not count your chickens, Jack…” was the basic mantra on the drive down.

So I went and did a private audition for Henry, Lenny and his entourage (never once did I actually get to play with the band), cross-eyed, sleep-deprived and shooting the pooch for the fifth time, and taking the same solo drive of failure: Sitting on my tail, which seemed to be getting quite comfortable on these Hoboken NJ to Syracuse NY treks in its familiar resting position of being situated firmly between my legs.

The midnight call came two evenings later.

Henry Hirsch: “George, it’s Henry”

Here comes the lowering of the boom…I’d love to say that at this point, getting hit in the head with the boom didn’t matter, but at this point…it did matter. It always hurts, and I had experienced enough boom lowering to last a lifetime…I know exactly how much it hurts, and how much recovery time is needed after getting your skull cracked.

Me: “ Hey, Henry…. what’s up?”

Henry: “ Congratulations, you got the gig. The tour starts in Japan in two weeks…. get down to Hoboken
five days from now…. Fax your passport info and lose fifteen pounds before you get
here.”

My Internal Monologue: “ Holy Shit!!!!” I had finally won one…and this was like hitting
the lottery.

Me: “Cool...”

So preparations were made and deals negotiated. I was to hustle down to NY to get “styled”, clothed, tattooed and pierced…. for three grand a week plus per diem for three years. No more living on Kraft Mac and Cheese. No more abject poverty. My moment has finally arrived. My ship has finally docked at port.

On the fifth moonrise, with my bags packed, plane tickets purchased and my incredibly bright future ahead of me, the phone rang one more time.

Henry Hirsch: “George…Lenny has decided to go out in a “power trio” format…. the
deal’s off. I’m so sorry…I know how disappointed you must be.”

Me: “No worries, Henry. You’re a real mensch. Business is business. Tell Lenny I hope
he has a wonderful tour, and thank him for the opportunity.”

My Internal Monologue: “ARRRRRGGHHHHH!!!!” (Insert the sound and visual of my
life’s dream, once again being hurled off the side of a cliff in a
mangled twisted metallic ball of fiery wreckage…here)

That boom can sure be a sneaky motherfucker when it wants to be.

"Are You Gonna Go My Way?"....evidently, not.

This isn’t the first time this kind of thing has happened to me, and it wasn't going to be the last. Unfortunately, I'm actually good at being graceful at fiddling while Rome is burning. I've had lots of practice. The Universe likes to bat me down, hard, at the most inopportune moments it can pick.

I have become philosophical about these types of moments.

You may shoot for the stars and end up in a back alley behind Pluto, beaten and bloodied…. but at least I dare to dream, and that’s better than being Earth bound.

I judge my forward progress and success by the crushingly epic nature of my failures.

The more epic the crash, the more I’m convinced I must be doing something right.


Flash Forward 17 years or so:

Lenny Kravitz hangs out quite a bit in New Orleans (my adopted residence of the past eleven years) nowadays. One of his former roadies ended up getting a post-Katrina no bid sweet-heart deal to start a garbage removal company, which basically is responsible for most of the city’s garbage removal biz. They’re pretty tight.

So a couple of months ago, as I was sitting on my Bourbon Street stoop smoking a cigarette watching the sky darken and the stars materializing, Lenny happened to walk by and I struck up a conversation…and I regaled him with the events just outlined in this tale of woe.

We both laughed our asses off, with the French Quarter sounds of clacking mule hooves, train whistles, and the wheezing melodies of a steamboat calliope functioning as a soundtrack as I spun the yarn… the unique, faint olfactory combination of the hot, fetid breath of the Mississippi River, stale beer, mule shit and night blooming jasmine washing over us, the brightest stars oscillating as they made their first entrance on the stage of the night sky.

It was a good moment.

A Jerry Wexler Story

When I was right in the middle of the maelstrom of "Hungarimania" (more of a manifestation of my own twisted mind than what was actually any type of reality), every once in awhile, I would receive that little tidbit of validation that would keep me motivated to work 23 hours a day to maintain a 12 piece greasy soul orchestra and a blossoming independent record company. This is an example of one of the larger points of validation in my life, one that would be sorely mischaracterized as a "tidbit".

A little preamble:

As anyone who is in the business of selling records (especially little indies) there is a cycle of inception, production, and most labor intensive, the marketing cycle.

I had just released our double disc set, "LIVE" at Styleen's. All the initial radio packages had gone out (over 4,000 packages world wide), and it was imperative to stay by the phone and computer to solidify relationships with programmers and independent D.J.'s, either by following up or receiving calls as they came in (I set up an 800 number so they could talk to me on my own dime….ended up being a lot of dimes)….

But during this time, the Hungarians were also maintaining a pretty solid schedule of performances…on the particular night in question, we were playing a club in Rochester, NY called "The Creek", a pretty well known routing venue for national acts. We always did very well there, and this night was no exception, as the band was building a big head of publicity steam behind the new record.

As we were doing our patented mass levitation thing, The Dirty Dozen Brass Band (who had played a concert that night in town) walked in, and dug the band so much, they crashed the stage and jammed with us until closing time…. and the liquor was flowing quite freely…by the time I got in my battered Nissan truck to make the long drive to Syracuse…well lets just say driving wasn't an option. I slept for a couple of hours in the parking lot.

I will say that having real musicians from New Orleans grooving on the band put me on top of the world, albeit with questionable drunken equilibrium….and that was adrenaline producing enough for me to eventually make the drive home.

When I got there at around 7am, deader than the proverbial doorknob (drunker than the proverbial doorknob is more like it) I crawled into bed with my sweetie, Styleen. We were both working very hard long hours, and we had to steal our moments when moments became available….this was one of the rare ones.

So at the moment she straddled me and slipped me inside her, of course the phone rang.

"If you pick that thing up, you're a dead man", she hissed.

Now any man rooted in reality would have just let the damn thing ring…but if any devotee of things Little Georgie knows, one thing I'm not is rooted in reality…. especially in a manic phase of selling records. It was my radio cycle; all the DJ's that play independent music do so on public radio on Saturdays and Sundays…. I had to answer the phone.

Now if this moment couldn't get any more surreal, on the bedside table next to the phone was the recently published autobiography of Jerry Wexler, one of my music heroes…and as I snatched the receiver with one hand and assured Styleen that I would lose the call ASAP (Don't move!) I heard a crusty old guy yelling at the other end of the line yelling in a New Yorkeese accent, "Georgie? Georgie, is that you?"

"Who is this?"

"It's me….Jerry…Jerry Wexler!"

I thought it was one of my buddies pulling my leg.

"Yeah, and I'm fucking Ahmet Ertegun…who is this?"

"No really, it's Jerry Wexler…I wanna talk about your records"

And that my friends, was a start of one of the most amazing conversations I've ever had, with a true master craftsman of all the music that I truly love.

I forgot that I had hijacked the master contact list of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundation's Board members, and had sent packages to that entire database, including Allen Toussaint, Dr. John, and Mister Wexler....can't blame a snake oil salesman for buckshot promotional techniques, can ya?

This amazing man had taken detailed notes of every bar of music on the two recordings I had released to date, and for the next 3 hours he broke down every ancient reference I had intentionally peppered each record with, in the advent that someone musically erudite enough would read the transmission. Jerry Wexler caught them all.

"The thirteenth bar in "Gut Bucket….you stole that from Freddy Slack, didn't ya?"

I was flying around Pluto when I hung up the phone…that folks, is real validation. Jerry Wexler dug me, the architecture, the conceptual elements, the amazing band…. and on top of that, he got the deeply embedded musical messages and jokes.

Sorry darlin', but that beats morning sex any time…. A big contributing factor in why I have such a difficult time maintaining romantic relationships!

I remained in contact with Jerry through the years, and we exchanged the odd phone call, letters and postcards…. but as I got further away from "the biz", I kinda let this one slide…I have always felt guilty about doing so, but what would Jerry Wexler want with a schmuck that ended up playing "Piano Man" for drunken Tulane co-eds eight times a night at Pat O'Brien's Piano Bar and Plantation Vibe Emporium? I didn't feel I had anything to bring to his table. I had turned into a whore.

But I never forgot how he made me feel that first day…. that maybe what I was doing might have some lasting worth…. some lasting value.

Jerry passed on to the other side last weekend…I should have been around, and I shouldn't have hidden from him…. he was all about THE MUSIC: FIRST, and probably would have talked me out of turning myself into a Bourbon Street music prostitute. It would have saved me a whole lot of grief....

And being about music first probably rendered him useless in a business that sells music, but doesn't really concern itself with caring too much how it's created. I know he felt marginalized…. in my mind, a crime against nature, but he was pretty philosophical about it.

If you listen to any of those early Ray Charles records on Atlantic, or the classic Aretha Franklin recordings she did in Muscle Shoals / NY…Jerry was a producer that knew how the process of creating great art worked…I am grateful for his attempt to remind me to stay true to form, and always, be about the music.


Wish him well on his journey.