There were times when I blundered and got the dreaded look from the lads. But that was a good sign. It showed I’d attempted something I’d not tried before.
– John Bonham
Fills bring the thrills, but grooves pay the bills.
– Steve Gadd
The funk isn’t in what you play. It’s in what you don’t play. It’s in the space between the notes.
– Clyde Stubblefield
LOS ANGELES – JUNE 03: Drummer John Bonham of the rock band ‘Led Zeppelin’ performs onstage at the Forum on June 3, 1973 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)
This week has been a full on, intensely stressful one at my day gig. One that saw the music vibes down to a trickle. These ones always drag. I’m the kind of character who needs to be creating something to feel connected and grounded. I’ve been recently reintroduced me to the concept of radical acceptance. It requires being cool with everything as it is, especially the hard stuff. Timely, but also difficult, trying to apply it to situations aflame with conflicting personalities and an avoidable disarray regarding the planning and execution of work.
It’s now Saturday morning in the window of the local. The sun is shining in. Friends pass by and we catch up. I sat with my coffee and listened down to my new tracks in their current state. About half of the record’s been recorded. The working title is Misfit & Rhyme. It’s all sounding great. The next phase of the recording is live drums.
I have the capacity to record almost everything at home but a full drum kit. I got in touch with an old friend, Cory Blackburn, of the Blackburn Brothers. We’ve been mates since high school. We share friendship, but also musical lineage: both of our papas were players on the Yonge St. scene in the mid-60s. Cory and the brothers have been doing amazingly. After years of slugging in out on the bar scene, they released a killer record and have been playing a lot of huge North American and European festivals. It’s awesome to watch. It’s also been hard to get our schedules together! We finally made it happen. Drum sessions are booked for later this month and I’m super pumped. I’ll send Cory scratch tracks of me singing and playing the acoustic. He loads them into his system and I’ll sit behind his drums for the first time in years and let ‘er rip. The kit is a beautiful Gretsch in silver sparkle and Cory, being a drummer himself, is a whiz at getting killer sounds. I’ve played this set many times and I know sitting behind it again will feel like coming home. There are fives songs in the queue.
I’ll spend the next two weeks laying down the vox and guitar bits and getting them mixed down for the sessions. I’ll send the lot to Cory, along with tempo. We’ll talk about how we’ll approach the recording. What sound we’re going for. All the juicy stuff.
It feels great to have the next wave of the project sorted. I’ve been feeling a bit rudderless for the last few weeks. I have something to hang my hat on now. And I haven’t seen Cory for a million years. It’s going to be a musical and family reunion.
Taken New Year’s Eve on Busy Street, just before meeting the man in the shiny jacket.
We chased our pleasures here Dug our treasures there But can you still recall The time we cried Break on through to the other side Break on through to the other side
– Jim Morrison, Break On Through
He approached me through the drizzling rain, his jacket a twinkling shine large silver, green and red sequins. I think he was wearing antlers, or maybe they were alien antennae. It was dark. I was high on painkillers and THC oil and probably shouldn’t have been out in public, for I was not feeling at all fit for human consumption. He, in a gentle voice, said to me “Hi, good evening. We’re hosting a free event tonight. We have musicians set up and they’ll start to play in a few minutes. You’re welcome to join us.”
I looked through the open door into the event. Cartoons were playing on a large screen on one wall. The lighting was low and attractive. I felt a pull to go in. “Will you be here for the countdown?” I asked.
“Yes, we’ll be here until 1am.” he said.
I thanked him and kept on. This was on Busy Street, a short, charming stretch of road that runs behind the Value Village in Leslieville. It reminds me more of something out the the Bowery in 1970s New York City than something you’d see in modern day Toronto. While I walked home, I opened a discussion in my head, lobbing the pros and cons of going or not going. I felt like it was somewhere I should be, to ring in the fucking new year and all that.
“The fucking new year?” I can hear you saying to yourself. Where’s he going with this? Is this going to be a pile of major bitterness?” Well, yes, and no.
In the past, I’ve been the first one to hit the socials and ring in the annual turnover with all the righteous platitudes. This year was different, for two main reasons: the first is that I’m more and more sick of social media all the time. The clickbait, the phony, staged bullshit and, most of all, the desperation. We artists posting like crazy, our creations there for a nanosecond, then evaporated into the mists of digital nevermore. I get why we need to do this and admire those of us with the wherewithal to continue to do it without choking on the puke in our mouths.There are so many breathtaking bits of artistic heroism out there, but it’s so disappointingly momentary. And the sheer volume of it. I’m not good with too much of anything. I’d prefer less and social media is the not the landscape where less is the order of the day. It might help us all if I decided to shit or get off the pot. To go all in with it, especially with a new record to promote, or to delete all my accounts and go dark. The second reason is the deep depression that I’ve found myself in, and fighting against. It’s been here very intensely for the last year, ramping up towards year’s end, as my chronic pain issues have increased and become more debilitating. I’ve become, this season, acutely aware that the pain from my hip surgery and trashed nervous system may be things that I may have to live with for the rest of my life. Aware that management, rather than a curative solution, may be the new reality. It would require an acceptance and a process of grieving that I’ve been struggling with accepting for weeks. I’ve tried everything, and spent thousands in different therapies, working on a solution, all to no avail.
That said, I can’t help but wonder if my pain would lessen if I were spending my days doing what I love doing, instead of spending hours a day working at something that I’m not naturally inclined to excel at.
Yesterday I found myself cringing at the litany of posts on facebook and IG, with all the things everyone accomplished in 2024. Again, I’d usually be the first to champion my deeds. I don’t want to disparage anyone who worked their magic to make shit happen. This stuff is hard. I felt the way I did due to the stark reflection of my own feelings of failure and not meeting the sky high mark of my perfectionist standards staring back at me. I feel like I barely survived the year. My biggest accomplishments were taking Ava, my daughter, to New York City for our summer holiday, and, against the odds, finishing Stereophile (the record and the book). The latter took two and half years to complete. There were days and weeks where I was too damaged to make any progress. There were times where I worked longer sessions, in the timeless flow of creativity, only to suffer the physical effects of that, having to then take weeks off to heal. I had best laid plans to gig like hell last year, only to wake one night in February, from my second show of the year (which was great), with my body screaming at me to stand down. I listened, and stopped all work on the live shows, knowing that I couldn’t finish the record and gig concurrently, along with being a present Dad and solo householder with a day gig.
I didn’t go back to that warm and welcome room last night. I got home and barred the door, wept buckets for my broken body and battered mind, for the state of the world, and for what feels like the most disconnected and isolated I’ve ever been from everything. The attraction to that open door and the warmth within was the connection I’m missing and yearning for. Playing live music does this for me. It’s my primary source of feeling connected. It’s not just playing the music. It’s meeting people. It’s the hangs with friends old and new. It’s the natural high after the gig, that carries over into the days after. At that gig in February, which was through So Far Sounds Toronto, and in the basement of a local chap’s house, there was a queue for the bathroom after the show. One high point of the night was chatting with a girl in line. She was from Brazil and a few years new to Toronto. We didn’t get into anything deep. We connected. Plain and simple. Or not plain. Divine is a better word for it. The web of our humanity grows vaster and stronger with each of these interactions. We come away from them more beautiful for the experience.
I passed out last night listening to a live take of Roadhouse Blues. I woke this morning and listened to Break On Through. That lead to finding a clip from the Classic Albums series, where the people involved in classic records talk about what went into creating them. Often, if the engineers and musicians are still alive, they’re the ones involved. In the case of Break On Through, the engineer felt like Morrison had a Sinatra vibe, in that his vocals went from a crooner-type delivery to a soaring, visceral growl. When he showed Jim the vocal mic he’d be using, the singer was chuffed and said it was the same mic that Sinatra used. This is the stuff. I love it. Music nerdery at it’s best.
As I sit here at the local and write this, I’m feeling good. I’m writing and riffing on all the good feelings of creativity and connection. A dear friend sits beside me. People pass by, many bleary-eyed from last night’s revelry. We see other friends passing by. We meet new ones. It feels good to be here and feeling fine. Who knows what this year holds, what divine paths will cross and what wonders may come. Finishing the record and book are a massive victory. I hope to make a success of Stereophile. Mostly, I hope to connect with others via live music and real time social connection. Here’s to having the physical ability to do so. Here’s to the undeniable worth of us connecting through music. Here’s to seeing you out there sometime soon.
As always, thanks for reading. And Happy Fucking New Year 😉
“La Niña de Los Peines had to tear apart her voice, because she knew experts were listening, who demanded not form but the marrow of form, pure music with a body lean enough to float on air. She had to rob herself of skill and safety: that is to say, banish her Muse, and be helpless, so her duende might come, and deign to struggle with her at close quarters. And how she sang! Her voice no longer at play, her voice a jet of blood, worthy of her pain and her sincerity, opened like a ten-fingered hand as in the feet, nailed there but storm-filled, of a Christ by Juan de Juni.”
– Federico Garcia Lorca, Obras Completas, Vol. 1
The passage above, from Lorca’s complete works, is preceded, in context, by the Spanish singer Pastora Pavon (La Nina) delivering a technique-perfect, but soulless round of songs to a crowd of the who’s who of the scenesters of the day. The audience sat quiet and still. No applause. Nothing. Nonina, as they say in Andalusia. Someone from the audience stands up from behind his brandy bottle and says ‘Here ability is not important, nor technique, nor skill. What matters here is something other.’
Pastora then digs deep, lets go, and lets loose.
I’ve only scratched the surface of Lorca’s vast beauty. What I do know of his work is wrapped in glorious romance, sadness and bravery. Everything I’ve experienced of his writing and life takes my breath away. It was he that introduced me to the concept of duende. The translation of the Spanish duende, to English, is elf. I love that, because elves, but it means so much more. Lorca refers to it this way:
“With idea, sound or gesture, the duende enjoys fighting the creator to the very rim of the well…the duende wounds. In the healing of that wound which never closes lies the invented strange qualities of an artist’s work.”
– Sidebar!: I’m sitting at my local, which I’m always sitting at when I write. A guy came in earlier, seeing a pic of Jimmy Carter on the wall while he was passing by. He came in and started talking to everyone in the cafe about Jimmy Carter pardoning all the American draft dodgers of the Vietnam war. He spoke to one of the folks sitting here who happened to be a U.S. war vet. They had an excellent conversation about the currently morbid state of America (See what I did there? Groaaaannn). He named all the Jimmies on the walls, except for the one hanging behind me. I told him it was Jimmy Page. He thanked us for our smiles and disappeared to go get his haircut by George, our local Greek barber, only to return a while later, hair intact because George is closed today. He told the ladies that work here that, because he came in with a Timmie’s cup earlier, he wanted to come back and do them a solid and buy a cup from them. Solid character, that. He and I talked for a good half hour about motorbikes (Triumph vs. Harley and the shaft drive on his ‘83 Honda Goldwing) and English history. This man, Toby by name, and an Englishman by way of Ireland, has a deep knowledge of the Brit’s legacy. Fascinating. Turns out he’s a local. I hope I see more of him. I also kinda hope he doesn’t get his hair cut. He’s got an epic topknot. I love this stuff; our connections. My morning here has been peppered with visits from locals that I call friends. I would say I digress, but I won’t, because this stuff is what makes our lives amazing. So, back to duende…
It’s on my radar, this ancient thing, while I tussle with a modern problem…social media. The first time I heard about Facebook, I thought “No good can come of this”. Now, all these years later, it feels like the damage social media has done to us outweighs the good it’s wrought. My hunch was accurate.
My social numbers have never been great. I’m in the process of yet another attempt to reattune myself to going fully into them, to promote Stereophile, my new record and accompanying small format book. I’m told that the reason for my low numbers is the irregularity with which I post. I get that. I also get, and I’ve said it before, that art should not be reduced to content. We’re all struggling so hard to produce, produce, produce. FOMO. Keep that shit going, or fall by the wayside while the true hustlers get Instafamous. Malarkey. What this constant need to produce has resulted in is a lot of disposable, disingenuous shite, borne of a desperation to go viral in a world where the arts, especially music, have been decimated. There is little duende in the social media landscape. A lack of grit, shadow or depth. I don’t think that’s news. Liam Gallagher said recently that everything is beige. Artists I know who have great followings see the socials as an albatross around their necks. A tiresome, necessary evil. They’re a drag on art.
A week ago I had my finger on the DELETE trigger of my IG and FB. My site analytics gave me pause. Lo! Traffic was up, due to me consistently composing and posting my writings. I’ve spent the week researching the best way to take a solid crack at the crazy game of online promo. To find the most effective, efficient way to get the goods out, that leaves more time to create and hang out with family and friends. A friend is helping get this together and we’re discussing her coming on board to help manage the promo regularly. This weekend I had a first rehearsal with a rhythm section of two fine chaps (more on them later). The team is growing, which is amazing for me and long overdue. I’ve felt isolated for a while now, having others to create with feels wonderful. Moreover, having pals to hang with is giving me all the good fuzzies.
The music is going great, that’s what matters most. At least it does to me. I don’t care much anymore for wearing all the hats that a modern singer/songwriter is expected to wear. I’m still not sure how the social monkey business will go. When a certain mood comes on, I find my fingers again hovering over the delete buttons. Whatever the case, I hope I can make my way into and through this vapid online wormhole with some sense of substance. To strike a fine balance between consistency and art. To do battle with the dark elf and pin the little fucker to the mat, and then sing about it, honouring the wound that heals but never closes.
I’ll keep you posted (See what I did there again? Groaaaannnn).
K. xo
ps. Here’s a link to the full piece that I pinched Lorca’s quotes from:
