Monday, June 11, 2012

Karaoke

Karoke isn't for me, it's for others to get a glimpse of the world I'm lucky enough to live in every day!
One of my Facebook friends posted this morning about Karaoke that, "I stink at it but it was a lot of fun." And that's what it's really all about. I once took a class in college called "Acting for Non-Majors," which gave me a glimpse of how much fun real actors must have. Similarly, Karaoke is very much "Singing for Non-Singers."

I read someplace that the word "Karaoke," translated from the Japanese, means "Tone Deaf."  How fitting! When someone is up there with a few drinks in them, singing really badly but giving it all they've got, that's what Karoke is all about. They're embracing the Joy of Music; something I get to experience every day.

Sometimes I'll be someplace where there's Karaoke and I'll sing, but in some ways I'll always feel like an interloper. My wife Terri (who is a fantastic, accomplished singer) won't even get up, sneering, "Divas don't DO Karaoke!" But while she may give the impression that it's beneath her, the truth is that Karaoke has a completely different set of rules than the ones that apply to us as working musicians. That is, how well you sing is not the main criteria.

Rule # 1: Know the Hierarchy
Regardless of your skill level as a singer, there is a certain hierearchy in Karaoke that you should be aware of: 
  • Being a good singer doesn't necessarily mean you'll get over! Karaoke is at its best when someone is really drunk and singing really, really badly but giving it all they've got as if they were really good.
  • A bad singer with a good song trumps a good singer with a mediocre song.
  • Good-looking generally trumps good singing. For example, a group of attractive college girls singing in a pack will always wow 'em, no matter how bad/drunk they are.  Same with attractive women, especially if they're wearing something sexy. This principle works to a much lesser degree for handsome men, unless you're in a gay bar.
  • Kids always get a "free pass."
 Rule #2: Song Selection is Key!
The worst thing you can do in Karaoke is dig up some obscure song that nobody knows.I t's always best to go with the "big tunes" everybody knows. Stay with the hits - you want to sing a big "up tune" to get the crowd going or a big ballad to bring a tear to their eyes.  If it's something people can sing along with, so much the better. Remember, Karaoke is essentially a communal experience. It also helps if you can figure out which songs are best suited to your voice. Give yourself a chance to succeed. 

Rule #3: Know Your Audience
You have to understand who's listening. For example, your version of "The Way We Were" might kill in your local gay bar but not get over so well at, say, Fridays. Coversely, your "Pour Some Sugar On Me" that wows them in your local pub might not get over so well in some fern bar in the Hamptons. And please, rein in the risque tunes in places like Disney or other family resorts.

Rule #4: Be Aware of the Time
This is a very simple rule. Up tunes early, ballads late. "Get This Party Started" works great during Happy Hour, but you don't want to be singing it at Last Call. People are partied out; some are crying in their beers over the troubles they can't drink away. "Closing Time" or "Quarter to Three" are always good at the end of the night.

Rule #5: Work the Room
Regardless of your singng ability, the audience responds to the way you engage the room. If you look at your shoes people won't respond and will ignore you. Look around the room, make eye contact with people on either side of the room and in the center. Confidence is a huge key to Karaoke. Carry yourself as if you have something to offer. Sell the song. Sell yourself.

I'm a guy who sings every day of his life, always trying to get better.  The kind of guy who puts "Al Green's Greatest Hits," Michael McDonald's "Motown" or Luther  Vandross' "Dance With My Father" on in the car for a week, trying to study their vocal styles. I almost always do well at Karaoke, but it's because I understand the unwritten rules of the game. Sometimes the place where I'm singing Karaoke happens to have a contest going and I've been offered prizes, but I never take them. I'll say something like, "I lost my amateur status a long time ago." At the end of the day, Karaoke is not for me - it's for others to get a glimpse of the world I get to live in every day.

Sunday, February 6, 2011

The Mythologizing of Ronald Reagan

The 100th Anniversary of Ronald Reagan's birth is nothing to celebrate.

I am so fed up with reading and hearing about Ronald Reagan's "100th Birthday" as if it were something to celebrate. First of all, you stop having birthdays when you're dead; second of all the 100th anniversary of his birth is nothing to celebrate. Republicans continue to go all gooey over this guy, lauding him as the Father of Modern Conservatism or some other ridiculous mantle he doesn't deserve. I submit that the Reagan presidency might be one of the worst things ever to happen to America.

Ronald Reagan was often called "The Great Communicator" and yes, his years in Hollywood taught him how to effectively deliver his lines. He did a fantastic job in his role as President of the United States. He always acted the part and was great at making people feel good. He looked presidential and acted out the part quite effectively, but let's talk about the substance of his presidency.



Reagan was skilled at playing the "role" of President but the substance of what he did is another matter altogether.

Ronald Reagan gets credit for ending Communism, when he is just the beneficiary of it having ended on his watch. Big difference. Of course he had has his unforgettable, "Ich bin ein Berliner" moment out in front of Brandenburg Gate with his "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall" speech. Conservatives like to say that his tough stance toward to Soviets ended the Soviet Union and perhaps that's partially true. But what really ended Soviet Communism was that they were bankrupted by war in Afghanistan. They poured billions and billions of dollars into a war they couldn't win. Hmmm, why does this sound familiar?



Reagan gave a great speech at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin but the Soviet Union collapsed because it went broke fighting a war in Afghanistan. They must be laughing at us now!

Another thing we can thank Ronald Reagan for is the current anti-union activity in both the public and private sectors. When he dissolved the Air Traffic Controllers' union and fired all its members it was a real turning point in labor management relations and a serious blow to the union movement. It set the precent for naked union-busting that is even more in vogue today.

Thanks for bringing back union busting, Mr. President!

Ronald Reagan also presided over an era of unprecedented corruption on Wall Street. His notions of "smaller government" and "free markets" were just code words for eviscerating regulation of banking and businesses to let these institutions do whatever they wanted. Their mindset was personnified by the character Gordon Gecko, who said, "Greed is good!" It was the beginning of a massive transfer of wealth from the Middle Class to the Monied Elite. Its downstream repercussions are seen today in the mortgage bubble, which some economists say stole ten years' worth of growth from the American economy. Let's not forget the monstrous ecological disasters that have occured in the past few years such as the BP oil spill and the coal ash spill in Tennessee.

Another part of the Reagan Mythology was how he popularized the idea of "Trickle-Down Economics." That is the notion that if the Ruling Class and Big Business are doing well, everyone else will do well downstream in the Economy. The past few years have disavowed all but the most hard-core Conservatives of that notion, hasn't it? The U.S. Government spent trillions of dollars on the Wall Street bailout and everybody's doing so well, aren't they? The idea that if the people at the top of the economic food chain do well everyone else will to is pure garbage.

Ronald Reagan opened the door for secretive abuses of government that occurred under later presidents (one of whom is shown here).

Finally, we can thank Ronald Reagan for the "shadow government" that runs this country today. After he was shot at the first term, even his close advisors say he was never again the man he had been before. Cabinet members like Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney were asked to keep the government running. This is when these men learned the value of having a figurehead in charge while they did what they pleased behind the scenes. This gave birth to the Iran-Contra scandal and the much more widespread secretive operations that began under G.W. Bush and continue today.

So, when people laud Ronald Reagan as a Great American and a hero, call "Bullshit!" on them like I just did. Reagan is praised as a giant of Conservatism but he was just good at playing the part.

Monday, December 27, 2010

Reflections on 9-11, Nine Years Later: American Empire

As on December 7, 1941 or November 22, 1963 a generation earlier, everyone can tell you were they were on September 11, 2001, another "Day which will live in infamy!" The day the towers came down was the day America was changed forever. Future historians quite likely may reflect that American Democracy crumbled along with the Twin Towers that day.

There are so many lingering questions about 9-11 that haven't been answered, and we will likely never know the awful truth about them in our lifetimes. Was it just Bin Laden as the report said?

Here we are nine years later and it is outrageous to me that Osama Bin Laden was never caught, nor is that failure even being discussed anymore. The guess here is that he's not in some cave in a godforsaken province of Pakistan but lounging on a beach on the French Riviera; hiding in plain sight with a new face and a new identity. The Bush Administration always acted as though catching him was never in their plans. After all, he was much more useful at large as a bogeyman they could trot out whenever they wanted to get their way. The Obama Administration barely brings up his name at all.

And yet the world we live in now is very much darkened by Bin Laden's menacing shadow. The threat of another "terrorist attack" (if that's indeed what it was) has been used to justify two wars (three if you count the shadow war being waged by mercenaries in Pakistan) with no clear purpose and no end in sight. The pretext was, as President Bush used to say, to "Fight them over there so we don't have to fight them over here."

The aftermath of 9-11 was used to justify the systemic elimination of our Constitutional rights. The Patriot Act eliminated the basic rights of the accused to face their accusers and answer to specific charges. In its broadest interpretation, you no longer have any rights to privacy. The Government can arbitrarily declare you a "terrorist;" can subject you to surveillence and monitor all your electronic communcation with no legal recourse. The Military Commissions act gave the Government the power to jail you as an "enemy combatant" and detain you indefinitely with no legal recourse.

The DOD's Total Information Awareness project is intended to use data mining to monitor every digital artifact generated in America to monitor the populace. If they don't have the bandwidth and processing power to do it they're close - they have a location in San Antonio the size of the Alamo Dome. There is no transparancy, no governance, no way to see how much money is being spent. It's all on a "Need to Know Basis," and YOU don't need to know.

The spectre of another terrorist attack, this time with the, "Smoking gun as a mushroom cloud," to paraphrase Dick Cheney, was used as an excuse to invade Iraq. What did Saddam Hussein have to do with bringing down the WTC? I'm still waiting for an explanation. Meanwhile, the Neocons were talking about war with Iraq as early as 1998 in their Project for a New American Century think tank. Almost every major Bush Administration apparatchik signed onto their manifesto. Cheney, Wolfowitz, Scooter Libby, John Bolton, even Dan Quayle! One white paper even specifically discusses how the American People would not buy into war with Iraq unless there were "a Pearl Harbor-type event." Hmmm...

9-11 continues to be the justification for this bogus and heartbreaking war in Afghanistan. The Neocons are evil but they are not stupid and they know their history. They know that the British Empire and the Soviet Union both failed to conquer Afghanistan. They can't think our chances of winning are any better, especially after the debacle of Vietnam. Of course they know this war is unwinnable - it's unwinnable by design. This war is intended to be an ongoing enterprise so it can be a cash cow for Big Business.

After the bonanza of Iraq in which billions of dollars were misappropriated or simply stolen outright, they have another bonanza in Afgahanistan. Not to mention the "shadow wars" in Pakistan and Yemen that nobody seems to want to talk about. Chalmers Johnson, once a true believer in and an instrument of our foreign policy, put it much more succinctly than I.

The failure to begin to deal with our bloated Military establishment and the profligate use of it in missions for which it is hopelessly inappropriate will, sooner or later, condemn the United States to a devastating trio of consequences: imperial overstretch, perpetual war, and insolvency, leading to a likely collapse similar to that of the Soviet Union.

- from "Dismantling the Empire - America's Last Best Hope"

In other words, it's all about the money. Coming soon to a TV near you: "War with Iran!"

Saturday, September 25, 2010

The GOP's "Pledge to America" - Same Old Same Old

Last week the GOP unveiled it "Pledge to America." Since not everybody speaks fluent "Republicese" I translated it for you

Well, the Republican Party unveiled its "Pledge to America" last week, which followed the format of their 1994 "Contract With America" that swept them into the House. Like a washed-up musician trying to recapture his past hits, the Republicans are recycling the same old tired riffs, hoping their fans will still buy them. Considering they totally failed to implement what they promised in 1994 even though they controlled the House, Senate and Presidency for eight years, that's pretty sad.

But here they are again, with their new promises that sound suspiciously like the same old policies that drove America to the precipice of depression and has immersed us in multiple wars after eight years of Republican rule. To paraphrase President Obama, they drove the car into the ditch and now they want us to give them back the keys.

In recent years the GOP has gotten really good at code talking to their right-wing constituency. Happily, coming from a mixed political family I speak fluent "Republicese," so let me translate their "Pledge to America" into plain English for everybody.

“Dear America:

Our Great Nation is in trouble. The failed policies of out-of-touch elites have brought the country to the verge of bankruptcy and left us deeply divided. Therefore, to help us out of the hole we're in, we solemnly pledge the following:

1) Continued tax cuts for the Rich.
2) Zero oversight and regulation of Big Business.
3) Continue the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and "shadow wars" fought by mercenaries in Pakistan and Yemen. We promise war with Iran.
4) Not to prosecute corporate crime or financial misconduct.
5) Give banks free reign to hold on to bailout money and not lend it.
6) Not to rest until we destroy all labor unions.
7) Gut every environmental regulation so our energy companies can render our water undrinkable and our land uninhabitable. We will block every "Green" legislation. Global Warming doesn't exist.
8) Continue to appeal to people's baser instincts - their religious, ethnic and socioeconomic prejudices - and keep America divided so we can prevail.
9) Block any Democratic legislation - no matter what it is and regardless to whether the people will benefit. We promise to introduce ever more draconian, Right-wing legislation - because we believe in less government.
10) Above all, we pledge not to rest until the Negro President and every single one of his policies has been vanquished, and the inhabitant of the White House has been returned to its proper color.

Signed, The Republican Party

P.S. It's what we've always done.”

Saturday, September 4, 2010

Let's Hear it for Michael McDonald!

If I could sell my soul to the Devil to sing like any one male artist, it would be Michael McDonald!

If I could sell my soul to the Devil to sing like any one male artist, it would be Michael McDonald. I guess all musicians have their heroes that they look up to and he is definintely one of mine.

Although the Jones Beach "Dukes of September" show got canceled because of Hurrican Earl, I was thinking of all the recordings and concerts I've seen of his and what the highlights were. Maybe you want to share yours too.

The Doobies were always great but this is their best period IMHO.

In Concert:

Doobie Bros. at Belmont Park, 1981? They just blew me away with what a well-oiled machine they are, getting in over 20 songs in about 80 minutes.

Doobie Bros. Farewell Tour, Radio City 1983 The Doobies pulled all the stops, Edgar Winter guests on sax for the encore.

Steely Dan/Jones Beach 2007 - McDonald does double duty singing his solo material and sitting in on the last half of Steely Dan's set, reprising his role as keyboardist and backing vocalist.

Recordings:
Little Feat: "Red Streamliner" - Supposedly the first time McD and Pat Simmons sang together.
Bonnie Raitt: "Runaway" - McD as a session singer
Steely Dan: "Bad Sneakers" - "Yes I'm GOOOOINNNNN INNNNNN SANNNNNE" Awesome.
Steely Dan: "Rotoscope Down" Bootleg - Early Seventies Steely Dan show with MM as a sideman. "Well I stepped up-pon the PLLAAAATTTFORRRRMMM..."
Steely Dan: "Peg" - My brothers and I argued about what processing was on the backing vocals to make them sound like that until we realize it was the "McDonald Process!" LOL
Doobies: "Takin' it to the Street" - A classic.
Doobies: "How Do Those Fools Survive" - McD co-wrote this with Carol Bayer Sager and I would love to hear him put this back in his solo repertoire. I doubt the Doobies do it live anymore without him. A great song that I always thought got short shrift.
Doobies: "Minute by Minute" - Another classic.

"Running Sacred:" OK movie, great song!


Solo: "Sweet Freedom" - Movie song from "Running Scared" with Billy Crystal and Gregory Hines. OK movie, great song.
Solo: "Jah Mo B There" - Great duet with James Ingram
Solo: "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" - Best of his Motown phase.
Solo: "I Was Made to Love Her" - Another highlight of Motown phase
Solo: "Love TKO" - My fave track on "Soul Speak"

That's a lot of years, a lot of music. Looking forward to more from the great McD.

(cross-posted from Michael McDonald message board)



Saturday, August 21, 2010

Woodstock Reunion - Parr Meadows 1979

I went to this show and I have to say, the passage of time has been kinder to the recordings than my memories of the show had been. To me, it was a pale imitation of the original Woodstock with Steven Stills instead of CSNY, Leslie West instead of Mountain, Jorma instead of Jefferson Airplane, etc. Plus the ticket cost an unheard-of $35 (I smirk to myself as I write this).

In the "Spirit of the Original Woodstock," my friend GH and I were determined to get in free. We climbed the fence and ran in, under the nose of at least a squad of disengaged Suffolk Co. cops who barely looked up from their donuts.

Canned Heat's set was one of the highlights.

The show itself was mixed. I arrived at the end of John Sebastian's set.

Jorma Kaukonen had recently been estranged from Jack Casady so he and drummer Bob Steeler were playing Hot Tuna gigs as a duo. He'd gotten this Punk haircut and dyed his hair platinum blonde. Fans yelled "WHERE'S JACK?" through the whole set. They felt cheated, and rightfully so, that only 2/3 of Hot Tuna had shown up.

Michael Shrieve played this incomprehensible percussion/synth jam with synth genius Larry Fast. Technical difficulties kept several other members of the band from playing.

Many highlights, though. Stephen Stills played an impeccable set that made everybody forget about CSNY and focus on what a great guitarist and dynamic solo performer he was in his own right.

I remember being real impressed with Paul Butterfield, who was playing with Rick Danko of The Band. They played a mixed bag of Band songs and Blues, as I recall. They did a lot better with the Blues standards.

Paul Butterfield's playing really impressed me.

Leslie West solo wasn't Mountain but still damn good, although his set was not included in the King Biscuit recordings. I forget who he was playing with. I remember seeing him during this period at another gig at Ubie's OTJ (a local Rock club) with Busta C. Jones (later of Talking Heads) on bass and Dino Danelli from The Rascals on drums. He was a guitar god then, and remains so today.

Canned Heat really tore it up, as you can hear on the King Biscuit tapes. They were a band that were just consistently great whenever they played. They really don't get the credit they deserve and should be more popular than they are now. I think they're still playing gigs...?

But by far the best set of the day was by Johnny Winter who at this time was a headliner, at the peak of his popularity and his playing. He had the crowd eating of his hand and enjoyed interacting with them. When I recall how good Johnny was that day I have to smile, even so many years later.

Johnny Winter's set was easily the best of the day.

There were zero amenities or vendors that day at Parr Meadows, an unused, forgotten attempt at a racetrack in Suffolk County. It had never hosted a concert before and as far as I know, never did again. No food for an all-day show was not fun!

By the time the evening came most of the crowd had been without food and water for quite some time and were in an ugly mood. This was not helped by the obviously amateur concert Security staff, who roughly shoved people off the stage.

During Johnny Winter's set I had my elbows on the stage and some security goon roughly threw me off and I hit the ground with a loud, painful THUD! I got back up and latched on to the guys leg, fully intending to pull him off the stage and beat him. In hindsight I'm glad I didn't succeed.

By the time Michael Shrieve came on, the security staff and the audience were clearly at odds. There were significant technical difficulties during the transition and the crowd was close to open rebellion. Eventually they decided to start playing without guitar, bass and whoever else didn't play. As documented on the tapes it turned into this annoying free-form synth and percussion jam that did nothing to calm the crowd.

I guess a quick deal was made because by the time Shrieve had gotten three songs into his set there were members of the Pagans motorcycle gang lining the stage, replacing the concert security. They were the baddest guys going in those days and nobody with a lick of sense wanted to mess with them. My friend GH said that it looked more like an Altamont reunion than an event comemorating Woodstock.

Peace and love to all of you who were there. - GG

Crosby Stills & Nash - Jones Beach 8/20/10: Everything a Great Rock Band Should Be!

You would think, after more than forty years on the road, the Crosby Stills and Nash would lose their edge or their love of playing. That at some point gigs would become "Just another day at the office." That they would lose their desire and just live on their laurels as so many of the older Rock bands do. Well, if you did you'd be wrong. Judging by their show at Jones Beach last night, CSN aren't in danger of doing that anytime soon. To me they are, and remain, everything a great Rock band should be.

CSN have been idols of mine since the first Woodstock album came out.

"Great" is a word that is thrown about much too easily these days, especially when it comes to Rock and Roll. There are many young (and older) bands out there aspiring to the mantle, but last CSN showed once again while they are the template for a Great Rock band.

First, let's contemplate what makes a great Rock band.

Let's talk about songwriting. A great band has great songwriters and a large body of work. CSN easily qualifies in this category. They could play three nights in a row, never repeat a song and still put on a satisfying show. They have so many signature songs and so many huge hits that everyone knows they can't play them all in one night.

No other Rock band gets cheers specifically for their vocal harmonies!

Let's talk about singing. CSN have long been, and remain, the best-singing Rock band I've ever seen. OK, I saw them thirty years ago and their voices are a bit the worse for the wear and tear now. Their keyboard players have to carry the load on some of the high notes. But CSN still haven't lost their collective ability to harmonize and blend their voices with the unique beauty for which they are deservedly famous. In all the hundreds of Rock shows I've seen over the years, CSN is the only band I ever saw get cheers specifically for their vocal harmonies.

Let's talk about playing. While Crosby and Nash are certainly both competent instrumentalists, the real standout was Stephen Stills and his amazing guitar playing. When fans talk about the great Rock guitarists the name "Stephen Stills" rarely if ever comes up, but it really should.

Let's talk about showmanship. One thing that easily jumps out at you when you see CSN play is how they still love doing what they do. There is a lot of joy in their playing, maybe because they're older and they've learned to appreciate it more. But their enthusiasm comes across and it helps them engage the audience, who helped out on several sing-alongs.

But for all that, the thing that impressed me the most about CSN was how they have not been content to rest on their laurels. They are still writing new songs and performing new material. They are still very proudly liberal and anti-war, at a time when America needs to hear the message of peace. It needs to be said even more now than it did during the Sixties, because there are so fewer people out there saying it now. This was underscored by playing songs like "Chicago," "In Your Name" from the last tour and a new song, "Who Are These Men?" about the people who really run America.

To their credit though all three are two-time Rock and Roll Hall of Famers, CSN are not content to rest on their laurels. Nor have they muted their message of peace and love.

As far as songs, they did pretty much what they've been doing on this tour. They served up an abundant helping of old favorites like "Wooden Ships," "Long Time Gone, "Guinevere," "Woodstock" and "Southern Cross." They threw on some solo songs like "Military Madness and Buffalo Springfield songs like "Bluebird" and "For What It's Worth."

A new wrinkle in the band's set is that they are performing cover songs. As David Crosby put it, "We're playing songs we wish we had written." Hey guys, YOU WROTE SO MANY OF THE SONGS I WISH I'D WRITTEN!!! CSN really has no need to play other peoples' songs but they're doing it, as Crosby quipped, "Because the record company wants us to." I read in Rolling Stone that they're putting together an album of covers.

The cover material was well done, although some of the songs lent themselves to CSN's vocal style better than others. Their unique harmonies gave the Beatles' "Norwegian Wood" a whole new dimension. Another highlight was The Who's "Behind Blue Eyes." But CSN's treatment of The Stones' "Ruby Tuesday," Dylan's "Girl From the North Country" and the Allman Bros. staple "Midnight Rider" left me a little cold. It didn't annoy me as much as seeing Aerosmith spend half their show playing Blues standards, but to be honest would I rather have heard "Helplessly Hoping" and "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes."

But despite the minor flaws in the show, Crosby Stills and Nash remain everything a Rock band should be. They have a great acoustic thing, a great electric thing, and they're still relevant when many of their contemporaries have to play their hits in package shows like Hippiefest to get people to come see them.

It was hard to believe CSN couldn't sell out Jones Beach, because they are really a must-see.