music: Grateful Dead- 4/11/1978
The Ides of March are behind us, the Equinox directly in front of us, the full moon just past, the end of Daylight Savings is nigh, and the days are lengthening. Time once again for our hero to fix his eyes on the horizon and stumble over things directly in front of him.
Teaching is a Faustian bargian of sorts: you essentially give up the majority of your weekends from September through June, but get all the time back all at once in July and August. I’ve maximized utility on the summer front for the past two years: 2004 involved driving around the American West, hiking, and playing music with AJM. 2005 took me overseas to Australia and Hawai’i. Each of the previous two years involved a lot of distance and a wide variety of activities. Plans for 2006 have been in the works for a couple months, and the plans involve something much more focused and restricted as far as distance. 211 miles, to be exact about it. This summer AJM and I will be hiking the John Muir Trail.
I’m one of those that likes to put 50 lbs (more, sometimes) on my back and walk up and down mountains for fun. This is more or less unfathomable to people who don’t do it, but whatever. I’ve done some pretty wild hikes and have pushed me and my backpack past the point of common sense on occasion, but nothing I’ve done will measure up to this. The JMT is rugged terrain, snaking thorugh some of the best scenery the High Sierras of California has to offer, but it’s remote. We will be out for a total of 26 days. We will be several days’ walk away from paved surfaces for most of it, dependent on food cache drops and prearranged resupplies every 5-7 days. We’ll be doing anywhere from 7-15 miles on any given day, plus elevation changes of up to 3,000’. And we’ll be doing all of it above 7,500’ until we descend into Yosemite Valley and wrap the thing up.
This is an intimidating undertaking. I’m rarely nervous when it comes to hiking trips, but this is one for which I have a very healthy respect. No matter, we’re going to do it. Everyone I’ve talked to that has done it says it was one of the highlights of their life. We have the experience, we have the training, we have the gear, we have the motivation, and despite the advice of many distance hikers, we have the travel guitars to write a song about it as we go. This weekend I finished the first draft of our itinerary and with it the ideations about doing the JMT this summer have become much more real. The wheels are in motion for a very different sort of adventure this summer. Next up: dates, permits, gear lists, training…gettin’ there. as always.
music: The Beatles- Rubber Soul
The internet gnomes working in the dungeons of anize.org HQ have been on paid leave, it seems. At least, they aren’t covering my slips of the keyboard. I’ve been getting hammered with spam and tried to set up some filters to keep the viagra and online poker ads out but in doing so I think I messed up the ability for anyone to comment. Which is pretty negative; this soapbox of mine isn’t nearly as fun if people don’t shout back. I’m not into censorship at all, but that’s not the case here at all. It’s just the end result.
The photo gallery has been down too, I understand. Weeds are growing all over this little plot of virtual real estate, and I don’t have the knowhow to do anything about it. Until the cavalry arrives we’ll all have to sit tight. And I’ll have to get up on my soapbox and shout into the anonymous receptive silence of the internet.
music: The Hackensaw Boys- Love What You Do
A while back I answered an ad on craigslist for a guitarist needed. Turns out the ad was for someone to do some studio work up in Billerica, which I wasn’t aware of when I answered it. I went ahead with it anyway when he finally responded. About a month ago I went up to Billerica with my rig and jammed with a bassist and drummer. The whole thing was recorded in 16 track digital with separate channels for each instrument. By my ears the session was not all that great; I set up too close to my amp and had problems with feedback all night. Several of our jams were messy, distorted affairs closer to bands like Tool than the standard whitebread rock/funk I usally produce. But he seemed to dig it. A bunch of time went by before the guy got back to me and I sort of wrote it off so when he did I was pretty surprised. He wanted me back up to do some studio overdubs and rework some sections. I haven’t ever really been interested in doing anything like this, but that could in part be due to the fact that I haven’t had the opportunity.
Hearing the tracks from last time really surprised me. It sounded a lot better than I remembered, plus he had a keyboard player come in and do overdubs on some of the stuff we recorded. It was a strange phenomenon listening to a jam you remember as mediocre at best with a keyboard track that was not originally there. All told it came together quite nicely, but something didn’t sit well.
Studio work is an exercise in detail, and an endless stretch towards perfection. Over the course of three hours I probably added about 30 seconds of sound to the existing tracks, along with splashes of chords here and there. I’m not sure that the tiny changes amounted to all that much but the guy seemed to be pretty happy about it. I kept thinking that you could keep tweaking and punching in and overdubing forever and never be satisfied with the outcome. I was glad for the experience, but left thinking about how much I prefer to play with people who are actually there. And moreover, I like the blemishes, those little honest moments, that you can only get by playing live. It’s a lot messier at points, risky too, but it’s also a lot more revealing and cathartic to put yourself out there with no chance for post-production, editing, or mixdowns.
Musicians can be placed on a continuum according to their focus as related to this issue; on one end is the studio and on the other end is the live show. I think I’ve always been drawn to bands that tend towards the live side of the spectrum, even before I started playing myself. There’s an energy to the live music experience that you don’t get on an album, and there are moments of brilliance and humanity that somehow don’t translate to the studio. Live music reminds us that this sound is the creation of humans, real humans right there in front of you playing instruments, and that somehow puts the music in a different perspective. Of course there is some life-changing studio music out there. I love certain albums and will always love them. And I know the importance of studio work, how you can do things in the studio that you can’t reproduce live, that the most important rock band in history is almost completely a studio band. But studio sessions are sometimes so squeaky clean, the composition’s delivery so prototypical, that something vital is lost. There’s the other issue of packaging music and the problems in the industry with doing this now that people have the internet at their disposal, and how live music is the way for musicans to make a living without having to worry about people sharing their music. But that’s a rant for a different time.
It’s really a matter of medium, which brush auditory artists choose to paint with. And all else being equal, I’d rather go live. That might change now that I have almost an album’s worth of originals, but the thrill is not listening to a stitched-together piece of music in a soundproof booth and throwing in your part; the thrill is plugging in and sharing a desparate moment with other musicians, even if it doesn’t come out perfectly. You won’t find moments in a box, they say.
I think that this particular situation was a strange one because we had no preconceived compositions to track out in the studio; it was essentially a live jam recorded in the studio. Things might be different if I went into the studio with a band, people I have been playing and writing with. But here was a situation with two strangers, and some I’ve never met adding parts at later times. The illusion is quite convincing, but something doesn’t sit right with me about the whole setup. It’s a strange enough thing to collaborate on a creative improvisation with other people, but to put your piece down and then find that someone else has come along and thrown something on top of that calls the whole project into question. You never hear about four painters working on one canvas, even painters who know and respect each others’ work.
I came away from the studio experience intruiged, glad to have done it, but excited for band practice the next night. Band practice turned out to be the worst one we’ve ever had, but despite not clicking at all and quitting an hour early there were still moments where I was thought to myself, oh, this is why I do this. Something I could not get in the studio.
music: Santana- Live at the Fillmore ‘68
The last time I was in Northern California I was in the middle of a two month joyride around the American West. The time before that I was scouting grad school programs. Both times I found myself in the Bay Area, though, I kept wondering if there was a catch. In some ways, now that I’m back in Boston, I’m still wondering.
I spent last week in San Francisco paying some overdue visits and seeing what the place was all about. San Francisco has always been an outpost of people seeking their fortunes in one way or another, from the days of the Gold Rush and Manifest Destiny. It is one of those places where very few people are locals. It is a collection of self-uprooted transplants, those who are seeking something. Says the Northern California Handbook:
Californians tend to think life itself is a California invention, but “lifestyle” definitely is: people come to California to have one. Coming to California, novelist Stanley Elkin observes, ‘is a choice one makes, a blow one strikes for hope. No one ever wakes up one day and says ’ I must move to Missouri.’ No one chooses to find happiness in Oklahoma or Connecticut.’ And according to historian Kevin Starr, ‘California isn’t a place, it’s a need.’ Once arrived in California, according to the myth, the only reason to carry around the baggage of one’s previous life is if one chooses to.
San Francisco itself is a city. Undoubtedly. And as with any city it carries with it all the annoyances of urban living: traffic problems, having to lock your door, incessant noise, painful amounts of anonymity, and so on. It’s a city, there’s no getting around that. But as cities go, San Francisco seems to be one that has its priorities straight. The general consensus among the city’s residents is one that supports environmentally sustainable practices, public green space, talking to strangers, acceptance, and youthful attitudes. It’s probably no coincidence either that the Franciscian order is long associated with ecology and environment; San Francisco is in very close proximity to some of the most wonderous natural places I’ve seen. I took two day trips while I was there, one to a Redwood Grove named for another Wisconsin Boy who made his way West, and the other to the shores of the Pacific. And all this in a climate that is the stuff of dreams. All in all, San Francisco strikes me as a more humane city than the ones out East.
The first time I was in Northern California, in the spring of 2003, I almost moved there. The time was not right then; I had unfinished business in Boston. Now, approaching the spring of 2006, I am not so sure if my business in Boston is worth the cost of being here. I have lived on the East coast for nine years, which is sort of hard to fathom in and of itself. I’m not from here, and I’m pretty sure I don’t want to settle here. Always in motion is the future, and there is no telling what tomorrow holds, let alone the coming months and years, but I sense a change on the horizon. I sense a whiff of the freedom that Thoreau found only when walking West. And after spending time on the other ocean last week and visiting with some dear friends who have themselves gone seeking some new life out there, I don’t shy away from the possibility for myself.
This much is sure: I will be in California this summer. The maps for the 211 mile stretch between Mt. Whitney and Yosemite Valley arrived today. AJM and I will spend a good four weeks in the High Sierras this summer as we tackle the John Muir Trail, some of the most revered areas in the fog-laden wonderland out West made famous by another wanderer from Wisconsin.