Year Four
April 20th 2012
Los Angeles, California
Off Day....Sort of
With the Win that was San Diego behind
me I had one more day between me and LA . No Gigs but plenty to do.
The Agenda
- Lay Around All Morning
- Meet Up With Melinda Rice at the Musician's Union
- Meet Up With Mary for a quick writing session for tomorrow's show
I had no problem with one. Laying
around meant I could take some phone calls, mostly from family
members and friends. I have a lot of thoughts on my life recently and
it was cool to share them with people I care about. Coffee was
involved once I got my ass out of bed.
Step Two would be a little bit harder.
I agreed to show up at my high school
classmate and friend Melinda Rice's violin class to talk to them
about music. At first I was like “Well what the hell do I know all
your students probably read better than me” when she explained she
wanted me to come in and talk to them about my life as a musician to
this point I was like “Well I can probably do that”
I've always thought working with kids
in some capacity is important to do. None of us shall be here forever
so it's important to pass on whatever you think you know to the next
generation so they don't make the same mistakes you did. Admittedly I
was nervous. I wasn't sure if they would be receptive. Kids are smart
for the most part and you can't really get anything past them and
truthfully it was a little rough at first. I basically condensed
this blog into a five minute introduction and then we chatted about
music for a bit and I wondered how things might be different had I
been exposed to music in the right way at that age.
Melinda and I also went through most of
the set for tomorrow's show in front of the class and she basically
taught them about how to interact with chord progressions as she and
I basically rehearsed. I gotta say that I love the way she plays,
she's not stiff, she gets what's happening, I can go ahead and add
her to list of genius musicians I know. Then she asked the kids to
play a long with Ex-Girlfriend. So there I am in the middle of this
class with like 12 kids and Melinda playing along as I play my
acoustic guitar and sing. It was an epic moment. I brought some CD's
and they sort of all ran to grab them and they asked me to sign them.
All in all it was a pretty amazing experience and I probably learned
more from them than they did from me. I left not only having enjoyed
myself thoroughly but pretty confident that tomorrow's show would be
good.
Step Three involved me leaving towards
the parking lot to meet Mary Scholz. Mary's an old friend from Philly
with whom I have any stories. She's good people and we've done quite
bit together show wise in the past year or two. So when I asked her
if she could set something up for me in LA this weekend and she said
yes I was over the moon.
Whenever we do shows it's customary
that we pick a few songs to sing/play together. Normally they are
covers but since we couldn't agree on anything we decided to write
something together. Generally I hate working with people cause I've
never found the right person to write with. I never found my Lennon
or Garfunkel or Oates. But Mary and I are like minded in the sense
that we like to get stuff done and the most important thing is that
the song is good so I figured that this would work.
It was an interesting window into
someone else's songwriting process. There are certain things she does
that I picked up on and will likely incorporate. I love that she
follows her instincts and kind of knows what the stuff should be
about. Def be interested in doing that some more.
3 hours later there was a song an hour
after that I was asleep.
LA Tomorrow
Get Excited
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