California King Music

First writing session with Diane

2012-02-01T07:19:00.000-08:00

Last Saturday marked an historic event - the first real studio jam session / writing session with Diane and Larry!

(more soon - off to work now, at my NEW day job...)

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If You Can Believe All the Hype....

2012-01-15T11:06:00.001-08:00

Since there were no gigs on the calendar and no rehearsals scheduled, I figured I might as well start entering the band in contests.

In December, I received notice that Symon's New Blue Diamonds had been selected as a featured artist at Skope Media:

"Thanks so much for your submission to Skopemag.com! We have just reviewed your profile and would like to feature your music on Skope for 1 month. Please feel free to email 1 MP3 or 1 URL to your music video via Youtube/Vimeo/Myspace. We would like you to choose the current single that you are most currently promoting."

(I should be mentioned that I had originally submitted to this contest through the ReverbNation contest page) I sent Skope a link to the video for Girls Who Drink, after reading the fine print that reveals that my video will be one of dozens of videos in random rotation on the home page for a month.

I tested it out - I sat on the home page at Skope for almost an hour and kept refreshing my browser to reload the page, and I never saw our video come up even once in the viewer. In the meantime, Skope started sending me invitations to sign up for pay-by-the-month subscrription-style services, which I'm sure are just fine, but I dunno... spending my own money on "digital online promotion" instead of actual physical event promotion seems rather foolish at this point.

I really need to get my ass busy and book a show somewhere. It's rather ironic because money is not really the resource issue at this point, it's TIME. I'm right in the middle of changing up my day job for something new, and that is taking all my effort. Also, since the band does not have a real club-going following anymore or a presence in the local scene, I will have to hire someone who knows what they are doing to pump our one gig in 2012 AND also rent a club somewhere to throw the event. yEEEeeeesh!

In the meantime - I also entered all five videos on the Symon's New Blue Diamonds Vimeo web site to the Annual Vimeo Festival Awards contest. It was cheap and from what I saw when I checked it out, they have a little bit of everything featured in various catagories. There are CASH prizes, too - up to $50,000 in prize packages and incentives for the purpose of shooting more videos, which is all right by me. I dropped almost $5,000 shooting the Rhino video, so I know how much winning this contest could help defray the cost of yet more silliness.

The Vimeo site says this about the contest:
"Entries will be judged between February 21, 2012 and April 30, 2012 (the "Judging Period"). Awards will be announced on or before June 7, 2012."

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Happy New Year!

2012-01-01T18:56:00.001-08:00

Just wanted to wish everyone a very Happy New Year!

I only made one New Year's resolution for the new year, and that is to not be phased or upset by anything in 2012 if I can possibly avoid doing so. I'm going to be Mister Mellow this year and just not get overly excited by angry people, my day job, or anything else.

Last year I was pissing blood on and off for several months, and a battery of doctors couldn't find anything wrong with me, even after months of tests. I worried about my boss's angry threats, which started in mid-year and continued all the way up to the end of the year, and amazingly, I'm still employed. And despite the doubts of some of my old associates, I am still married and my wife tells me that one year later she has "never been happier". (She's pretty outspoken and I have to believe she is telling me the truth on this one.)

I'm not really advocating apathy, but if you have your health and a loving family, you probably already have what you need to do well. I'm getting back to my roots and putting all my anger, frustration and other bullshit whining crap into the new album, which will probably be recorded in Los Angeles sometime after we move. I have no real band at the moment, it's just me writing and arranging as fast as I can before the moving company shows up.

Here's a sneak peek at the new music for those of you who are following what is going on. These are test tracks that were put together on my humble laptop in the new studio down on McKinnon St. (there is also test artwork but I cannot show it to anyone yet as negotiations with the artist are at a critical stage)
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First violin chart is finished!

2011-12-18T10:54:00.000-08:00

I was able to finally finish the first violin chart, actually for the title cut from "Another Second Childhood". This is purely an experiment, as I have not tried mixing violin and saxophone since "The Julie Andrews Series" of compositions I wrote for KPFA radio almost 25 years ago. (I have looked everywhere for these and I cannot find the recordings we made)

Here we see a not-so-excited Diane looking over the chart that I will eventually force her to play:

There is also finally some momentum behind the artwork for the new CD. I ran an ad for an artist on Craig's List several months ago, and received 30 replies. I was able to narrow this down to four contenders, as most of the stuff just doesn't seem like a good fit.

It amazes me that so many people have web pages touting themselves as "working artists", complete with email addresses, and then when you contact them and try to actually buy some of their artwork, they never actually get back to you. Doesn't anyone want to make any money? I feel like I should be up on the roof shouting: "YOO-HOO! I HAVE CASH, PEOPLE!"

Better get it now, peoples...

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Another crushing blow to the family jewels...

2011-12-13T07:34:00.000-08:00

This year has been a series of cascading failures and disappointments for me, music-career wise. Before I delve into the black hole of reality: granted that 2011 will go down in history as the year that I married the most incredible woman I have ever met, however, I'm still hanging onto that fantasy that many musicians subscribe to that states that you can "do your artwork without 'selling out' and end up enjoying a comfortable living..." Yeah, right. The sad truth is, it's probably not even possible to sell out anymore!

So, on to the notable failures for 2011 - Once upon a time, my music was listed with many of the popular music library websites, with high hopes that I could at least license something. Unfortunately this was not the case, and at least 1/2 of all the indy music pimps that I signed on with over the last three years are completely out of business in Dec 2011.

That's all I can focus on at the moment - There were no appreciable royalty or licensing payments for 2011, even though I busted my ass to self-publicize and make good use of all the "new technology" that promised so much and actually delivered so very little in the end.
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The holidays are almost upon us...

2011-11-30T09:35:00.000-08:00

That's right. I'm still trying to make sense of the way time seems to be going by so very fast, and why I was not able to put together any type of Christmas show this year. Also, I just have not been able to get around to editing the Seven Knees video, probably because it is not actually connected with anything on an album that I'm working on.

So, here's a consolation prize for the holidays - a test clip from early concept shooting for Horse On Crack:

The storyboard has been rewritten several times and now there are more horses involved, so it's going to be interesting when we finally get around to putting it all together. This is of course the answer video to Squirrel On Acid, which will also be on the new album.

All skate slowly,

-->S.

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Mas Koga and the Asian American Orchestra

2011-11-05T09:39:00.000-07:00

Recently, Diane and I had the pleasure of attending a performance of the SF Asian American Orchestra at Yoshi's SF.

More than just a collection of jazz tunes, this show featured ghost stories, modern jazz featuring a selection of kotos, interpretive dance, acapella singing, and tycho drum performances. Diane and I were mainly going to see Mas Koga, our downstairs neighbor, who played alto sax and flute during the performance.

The flow of the evening's events was driven by storyteller Brenda Wong Aoki.

The food at Yoshi's San Francisco is also excellent. The sushi is very fresh and I can highly recommended the chocolate sliders...

So - how does an afternoon of jazz and food break down, money-wise? General admission tickets for two came to $30 plus some kind of $6 "convenience fee". Should really be called an inconvenience fee...) We drove my car and parked in the garage, another $14. Food and drink ran about $65, but this was dinner for us, and we drank liquor and had dessert, too. So we topped out at $115, not bad for dinner and two hours of live entertainment.

Artists:
Brenda Wong Aoki, drama, vocals
Mark Izu, bass, multi-reed Japanese and Chinese instruments
Dr. Anthony Brown, percussion
Shoko Hikage, Japanese zither
Masaru Koga, Japanese end-blown flute, saxophone
Janet Kolke, Japanese taiko drum, percussion
P.J. Hirabayashi, Japanese taiko drums, percussion
Moy Eng, vocals

Click here to buy my music!

Click here to see our videos!

New album, video coming soon...

2011-10-27T07:26:00.000-07:00

Despite the well-intentioned meddling of one over-eager administrator at Craig's List and despite the 70% no-show rate from the models at the video shoot, Seven Knees will be released in time for Christmas, our free gift to you.

This will be the first project I will have published with Diane since we got married, and the audio was recorded under less-than-ideal conditions at Lennon Studios, so I dunno how this will turn out. I realized when we were listening to the mixes that Lennon Studios is a rehearsal joint, not set up for recording, DUH...

So we'll have to see what happens. Also starting the first serious work on Another Second Childhood, the new album. Yes, despite working seemingly constantly, studying and sneaking out to interview for new jobs every week, I am actually starting work on yet another album that no one will probably ever hear or purchase.

YAHOO! The show must go on. Or as Chuck Negron once sang: "I must let the show go on..."

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Why I Quit The Smart Phone Business

2011-10-13T06:32:00.000-07:00

My friends all complained and complained: "You never know what's going on! You never look at your FaceBook pages, we invite you to stuff and you never know about it until the event is already over!" and: "You never answer your cel phone, and I send you text messages all the time and you never write back!"

"What the hell is wrong with you, anyway?!"

Finally bowing to popular pressure, I purchased one these so-called "smart phones", an Android model, from Metro PCS.

Let's leave Metro PCS out of the story for now, since that's an entirely different universe of unhappiness, disappointment and stupidity, and for now let's just say that the so-called "smart phone" was not any fun to use, was confusing to operate, and finally just pushed the wrong buttons in my head after a week of struggle and cursing.

Looks like it's smashy-smashy time!

I put the phone on the kitchen table and hit it with my framing hammer. Nothing happened - the phone seemed to get a tiny bit thinner, but was otherwise intact. Feeling like I should be considerate of the environment, I opened the back and took out the battery and (whatever-it's-called) storage chip, then hit it again with the hammer. Still nothing.

I went and got a small drift pin out of my tool box, turned the phone over, and set the pin in the lens of the built-in camera, then took another swing with the hammer. This time there was a satisfying crunch as the energy of my blow was directed into the back of the phone. Bye-bye, Ansel Adams!

Since I had better luck with the drift pin than just the hammer alone, I decided to continue the experiment along that line. Back on the front side, I used the pin to create two small punctures in the front screen of the phone which resembled bullet holes, then tried a frontal attack with the blunt end of the hammer. Still, the effect was less than satisfying, so I went and dug up a pair of Vice Grips.

By grabbing the two ends of the phone with the two pairs of Vice Grip pliers and flexing back and forth, I was finally able to get the guts of the phone to give way. With a sickening crunch, the Android finally gave up, separating into two pieces in a shower of tiny plastic (I suppose) particles.

The sound of the dying Android and the tinkling of tiny particles on the floor reminded me of the sensation of biting into a Tootsie Pop. It's hard to describe, but there is a tactile memory associated with that simple pleasure - crunching the candy between your teeth - and for a brief moment I wanted a grape Tootsie Pop real bad...

I took some pictures with my other digital camera, then cleaned up the mess, chuckling the whole time. I doubt that this will end up becoming the album cover for the new album Another Second Childhood, but then again, you just never know...

Click here to get our music!

Click here to see our videos!

Welcome to new higher pricing...

2011-10-03T06:35:00.000-07:00

If there is one thing I have learned from working retail, it's that if you under-price your goods too much, everyone becomes suspicious and backs away. When I first set my music up for sale online, I deliberately tried lowering the price as much as possible. I figured that I'd follow the Henry Ford model and entice people to download my songs more frequently by keeping the prices low.

The sad truth is, these days you cannot even give music away for free - it seems like there is so much of it, no one wants it (or more likely, no one notices anymore since everyone is deluged with advertising at every turn.) So as an experiment, I went back to my online shops and jacked up the cost of everything.

My physical CDs now range in price from $29.95 up to a whopping $49.95 for Cram It Down, our first CD. Individual song downloads cost $4.95 EACH, and just for fun, I randomly made a bunch of cuts unavailable as downloads - you will have to purchase the entire album in order to hear everything. To add to the overall bewilderment, I made One Hundred Nights Of Passion completely unavailable as a digital download. There are only five physical copies left in the world, and when they're gone, that's it!

You can still get all of the albums for $9.99 on iTunes (I think) and possibly from Amazon, too. The so-called "royalty payments" you get from Amazon digital download sales amount to a few thousandths of a cent each, and is anyone really keeping tabs on Amazon's record-keeping?

We'll just have to wait and see if my so-now-I've-become-a-rare-collectible-item approach works out or not. (and if you're really strapped for cash, check you local landfill for my CDs and records. Green Citizen here in S.F. has been a tremendous help in getting my original music back to nature!)

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Semi-Finalist at 2011 Song Of The Year Competition...

2011-09-08T08:12:00.000-07:00

Once again I submitted to the annual Song Of The Year songwriting competition, and once again I did not win first place in the Instrumental category. Somehow, I had this fantasy that I would blow away the judges with my "emotionally-charged" clarinet playing...

However, I may be doing slightly better than my Honorable Mention placement from last year. This time around, my submission "Summer And Snowy Walk" landed me a rating of Semi-Finalist

Kelly from administration wrote to tell me:

"Even though your material did not place as a Winner or Finalist, you still did incredibly well in the contest. You had an entry that received the Semi-Finalist placement. The "Semi-Finalist" placement is the highest placement next only to the one winner and four finalists from each category.

You can check out my submission at CD Baby by checking out the album that first featured it, the very first CD the band put out: Cram It Down, all the way back in 1993.
What a lot of people probably wouldn't know is that the original title of the composition was Tiny Song, but what happened was that I had also drawn a cartoon drawing titled "Summer And Snowy Walk", and shortly thereafter the song was re-titled to go along with the cartoon:

This, of course, was back in the happy days when I actually had TIME for art, before it was "work-work-work" and before my day job morphed into a rabid dog, chasing me day and night and forcing me to run until I am simply too exhausted to go any further...

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The new studio is up and running!

2011-09-01T06:04:00.000-07:00

For my fiftieth birthday,
my wife Diane decided to rent me my very own rehearsal room over at Secret Studios. Since the main building has been completely full for many years, we ended up in the new building over on McKinnon St.

I decided to bring Larry along as a sub-tenant, since this way he'd have a place to practice while his new house was still under construction.

Figure 1: Happy Larry seen rolling around on the floor of the new studio:

Fig 2: Grumpy Larry putting in the new shelving:

Having access to a studio that's all ours will be essential for more than one reason. Now Diane has a private space where she can go to play her violin, I have a place to work on composition and practice, and Larry has a place to play his Missing Persons CDs at full volume without fear of embarrassment.

YOW! Life just got better!

Click here to get our music!

Click here to see our videos!

Click here to GO STRAIGHT TO HELL!

ANNOUNCING "Girls Who Drink" - FINALLY RELEASED!!

2011-08-19T08:49:00.000-07:00

The Girls Who Drink video is here:

It's been a long wait, but we think you'll all enjoy the results!

More soon,

-->S.

Click here to buy our music!

The honeymoon's over...

2011-08-08T21:58:00.000-07:00

Diane and I are back from our honeymoon voyage to NYC, Montreal and Quebec. What a party! Traveling by train is definitely a fun and relaxing way to experience the beauty of Canada, and I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to get away and see some beautiful countryside.

Dealing with Amtrak and the Canadian Rail Authority, however, was an exercise in patience and self-control. These guys own the railroad, and they sure know it. On a positive note - food service on the Canadian trains was very, very good. Again, you should really experience travel this way sometime if you can.

So we had no computers, television (and almost no cel phones) for two weeks - FANTASTIC! I can't wait to do it again. We very deliberately did not take a laptop with us and guess what - we never even needed or missed it.

In NYC, we did not see very many people walking along, staring at their cel phones and pecking away like zombie robots (which is typical of behavior you see everyday in San Francisco). In the Big Apple, people still look where they are going, make eye contact and interact with you like you really exist, even if it's just to exchange insults. This alone was more refreshing than you can imagine.

Anyway - I know that I am going to be saying that every chance I get for awhile: "OK, the honeymoon's over!" (har-dee-har-har)

There was a lot to see and do in NYC, but there just wasn't enough time to do it all. We went to some museums, visited with family and friends (and Choy Raj!), and made it out to the Boat House in Central Park. While we where there, I also made a point of walking over to the Sheep's Meadow and finding the exact view of Central Park East that must have inspired the cover art for Joni Mitchel's album The Hissing of Summer Lawns.

But yeah - back to work. The Seven Knees video shoot is on Saturday afternoon, and Girls Who Drink will officially release in three weeks.

Always late to the party...

2011-07-18T06:33:00.001-07:00

It is hard to think of anyone creating "competition" for a service like YouTube, which is essentially free, but someone has done it. I recently discovered something called Vimeo, an online community of film makers and photography fans who have carved out a space on the information superhighway for sharing and discussing original film and video works.

(To be completely accurate - Vimeo has more than likely been around for years, and I am just now discovering it. I spend most of my non-working time either with my new family or playing the sax, so I seem to be spending less and less time online as time goes on)

I've been playing around with this for about a week now and I like it a lot. There are several tiers of service, but the free level seems pretty robust - I got to create my own unique public-facing account URL, and I am allowed to upload my own thumbnails for videos that I post, a feature that is not currently available on YouTube.

Two more cool things I like about this site are the fact that there is almost NO ADVERTISING as far as I can see, and online community that exists features a wide mix of original material that is actually interesting.

So, as an experiment, I have gone ahead and published the final version of Girls Who Drink on the band's Vimeo account, a full month ahead of the official release date for YouTube. I am curious to see if I can actually drive any traffic to the new site using all of the NEW online publishing mechanisms that I have created, no less than EIGHTEEN accounts pumping advertising into the void!

In the end, I know that I will go back to working in advertising. In an age where you can't even give original music away for free, it is becoming apparent that this is the only way I am ever going to see any money at all for my creative efforts.

Click here to get our music!

Click here to see our videos!

Into the Woodshed

2011-07-05T07:09:00.000-07:00

With the studio in boxes, no way really record anything and no gigs on the calendar, the question comes up : "What the hell am I doing now?"

The only real choice was to head back into the closet and practice. If I can't work on my writing, I'll work on my performing (or so the logic goes). I was a bit surprised at how out-of-shape my lip had become, but I can slowly feel my wind and strength coming back. My other minor medical issues seem to have stabilized and so it's time to get my chops back.

Knowing the correct method of practicing is essential, and thanks to years of blowing scales, I know exactly what to do. The idea is to use little chunks of time on a regular basis, always use a metronome, and steadily improve on breathing, tempo and pitch/timbre.

Without going insane - I always reserve at least 15 minutes at the end of the practice time for playing along with my iPod or CDs of my own tracks, just to keep from going crazy! (Blowing scales all the time will tend to make you and your neighbors go crazy, I suspect...)

More soon. We are still unpacking, making regular runs to GoodWill, and getting ready for our honeymoon. Hope to be in the new studio space sometime in early September.

Click here to get our music!

Click here to see our videos!

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Moving up and moving on...

2011-06-17T06:44:00.000-07:00

At the end of this month, in just a few short weeks, actually, my wife Diane will be completely moved out of L.A. and here with me in San Francisco.

I suppose that in the broader sense I am arriving a bit late to the party, as usual. Many of my close friends have already been married once or twice and are now divorced or separated, and there is good-natured banter that goes along the lines of "Gee, Symon - it took you long enough!" or, "Hey, pal, I'm real happy for ya. Let me know when she gets sick of your bullshit and kicks you out!" (etc).

And if anyone knows of a 2 bedroom apartment for rent somewhere in San Francisco, please be sure to drop me a line using the CalKing mail address, as we are looking to move into a larger space sometime in August. My apartment is just a wee bit cozy...

Here's a picture of Diane taken in the studio, recording tracks for what will become the "Seven Knees" video (to be released later this year). She's a phenomenal violinist and I'm already putting her to work in the family sweatshop!

In response, I usually reply that I finally met someone that I am undeniably in love with. And if I had met Diane at any time before I actually did meet her, I know that I would not have been ready. So I suppose everything happens when it is supposed to.

As my friend Cory from the Billy Nayer Show once put it; "It's raining pitchforks and women / but you really only need one pitchfork...". After all these years, I finally found the right pitchfork (er, woman. It's a metaphor).

Click here to get our music!

Click here to see our videos!

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When the going gets tough...

2011-05-24T20:56:00.000-07:00

...the tough enter free contests! (or possibly go on a crime spree)

The band is now officially OUT OF MONEY, so now I am entering every free contest there is. Since I'm already paying for one of those fancy-schmancy "EPK" things on Reverb Nation, I decided to enter every free contest I could, without any regard for what was really practical or do-able.

I spent the last couple of weeks sorting through my crap, throwing stuff out. All the unplayable CDRs from just a few years ago got chopped in half and hand-carried down to Green Citizen. What a great service they provide, if in fact that's what they really do. Who really knows?

The studio and all the recording gear has been packed up into boxes and put in to storage, and essentially there will be no more recording until Diane has moved up to SF, we have come back from the honeymoon, and we are in that theoretical Larger Apartment that I keep dreaming about.

Since my drummer just bought a house and is busily moving into his new space, I suppose it is all for the best, since everyone seems to be getting re-organized at this time anyway. It's kind of strange when you realize that your day job is the most predictable and constant thing at the moment.

The Girls Who Drink video will be released this summer. It's already shot and edited, but we're not allowed to talk about it just yet. :-)

Next next live performance: June 23, 2012
Still needed: $1,453

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The making of "Girls Who Drink" - the video

2011-05-13T16:56:00.000-07:00

Now that the 2011 performance season is behind us, it's time to get back to editing video.

We will be releasing the Girls Who Drink video sometime in July. It will be our first attempt at animation, and will be very different from the live action stuff we've done in the past.

Stay tuned for more details! In the meantime, I am traveling down to L.A. to help my wife pack for her move up to San Francisco in June.
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Video from Red Poppy Art House show

2011-04-28T07:16:00.000-07:00

There is a TON of video available from our live show last weekend at The Red Poppy Art House in SF, but getting it edited and up on the web is turning out to be a bigger task than I ever imagined. The sheer number of choices inside the editing software for codecs, frame rate, and aspect ratio is simply mind-boggling. And when you finally get something rendered, the way it looks on your PC may or may not have anything to do with how it looks once it's up on some share site and streaming back at you through any number of browsers. Holy CRAP!

We had two HD video cameras running, recording both audio and video, as well as my digital event recorder onstage. This means we ended up with an "A" and a "B" roll, as well as three tracks of stereo sound, to work with in post.

The sound captured from the cameras surprised me. I was expecting the usual boomy, out-of-phase murkiness that I have experienced in the past, but these are brand new HD cameras that fall into the "serious hobbyist" category, as I was told by someone who knows about these things. So we ended up with three stereo signals that I was able to equalize for boosted treble and bass and then pan hard Left, Middle and hard Right in the final stereo mix. It sounds much richer and fuller than I could have imagined, and if you listen to it through headphones with your eyes closed, it's almost like being there.

Which you should have been - SHAME ON YOU if you missed our show! It was a lot of fun and most likely will be our only live performance for 2011. I'll try to post more of the footage as it comes out of the editing bench.

And don't forget - Our video for Girls Who Drink will be releasing in sometime in August. If you can't wait that long, your can always log into CD Baby and download the audio track. It's only 50 cents!

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Less than three hours to go!

2011-04-23T11:26:00.000-07:00

In less than three hours, we'll be hitting the stage at The Red Poppy Art House.

Hope to see you there!

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"You've got the horn..."

2011-04-14T06:52:00.000-07:00

Prince once stated in a song lyric: "You've got the horn. So why don't you blow it?"

So, I'm blowing my horn here. I just entered the 2011 Song Of The Year competition, just got listed on The 3000 DJ promotional list, and rehearsals for our live show next week are going well.

AND - I just got paid $12.21 from CD Baby! (sound of trumpets) Now that I have all that cash, maybe I should take Diane's advice and just BUY a house instead of renting one? (Shit, let's just buy a couple of houses while we're at it!)

Please note that the performance on Saturday 4/23 at the Red Poppy Art House will be the band's only live performance for 2011, unless we place in either the Song Of The Year contest or the L.A.. Music Awards competition, both of which I have entered.

The show on 4/23 is a FREE all-ages show, and there will be no liquor served. Be sure to come by and get your groove on with Guillermo the Rhino (shown here recovering from the flight in from Buenos Aires).

Also, we will be videotaping and exploiting EVERYTHING for promotional purposes, so if you are coming, just remember to dress to impress.

"Down to the night club.... (bomp, bomp, bo-bomp)"
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2011-04-05T06:04:00.001-07:00

Symon's New Blue Diamonds
Performing LIVE

The Red Poppy Art House
2698 Folsom St. San Francisco (at 23rd)
Saturday April 23rd
3:00 PM sharp

FREE show - kids welcome (no alcohol)
Walking distance from 24th St BART Station
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And, we're having a DANCE CONTEST!
Come strut your stuff with Guillermo the Rhino and win
one of THREE FABULOUS PRIZES

(All contest decisions made by the Rhino will be final)
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The Rhino on Costume Shop website!

2011-03-17T06:47:00.000-07:00

When someone does a good job, be sure to let them know that they made you happy.

I had written a quick note to the customer service department of Costume Shop.com to thank them for helping me sort out the order (which went through some changes on the way to San Francisco) and I included a link to the new video so they could see how it all worked out.

They wrote back and said they loved it, and then asked if they could feature the new video on their website.

"You may certainly link to the video using the YouTube link. I would be honored!" I said. And so they did...

A very long time ago, I was making a living writing jingles and music for radio ads. I am beginning to wonder if I should go back and try it again?

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I'll Never Open Them...

2011-03-10T06:27:00.000-08:00

The phone rang last Monday night just as I walked in the door from my commute, and I was exhausted. But I picked up anyway, mostly from reflex. It's my friend Sally, who works for Bill Graham Presents (or One Big Happy Family or whatever they are calling it nowadays). She sounded out of breath and very excited about something.

"Hey, man - I brought you something from the Van Morrison show! A special souvenir!"

It took me a second to focus on this. "Oh, cool!" I said. "Uhhh... wasn't that two years ago? Or something like that?"

There was a pause, then Sally must have realized that my brain was still in nine-to-five work mode. "Yes, but so what? Listen to me - this was lost in the back of my car for a long time, and then I had to take it into the shop for some work and the mechanic found it buried in there somewhere and handed it to me. Anyway, I have this 'special Van Morrison thing' for you, and I want to give it to you. Trust me, you'll like it!"

At this point, I suddenly had a mental image of an elderly Van Morrison onstage, hacking and wheezing his way through "Brown-Eyed Girl" and then going into a coughing fit. His mouth opens wide and a piece of dental work suddenly takes a graceful arc into the front row, and then in the next instant Sally's outstretched hands are gently catching the toothy projectile before it can hit the floor. I shuddered inwardly.

"Cool!" I said at last. I'm not a huge Van Morrison fan, but Sally is known for throwing great parties and giving unique gifts on holidays. I had to know what she was holding for me. "When can I meet you?"

We got together at a local cafe on Saturday morning and after a bit of catching up, she suddenly said, "Oh, yeah - here's your backstage Van Morrison gift!" and pulled a small box out of her purse.

I took a look - she had snagged a box of Rico Select jazz reeds for alto sax, which are about the best that Rico makes, very pricey. For myself, I only use Van Doren flat-cut reeds on the alto, La Voz Med-Soft on the tenor, and Rico Royals on the baritone - but horn players tend to be very picky about these details and I had to give credit to the previous owner. This guy (or woman) had good taste, whoever they are.

"Are you sure that Van actually played the alto on this last tour?" I asked as I turned them over and over in my hand. "His baritone player is pretty famous, but all I ever hear about the guy is how he sounded when he sang such-and-such... I think he's mostly on guitar these days."

Sally narrowed her eyes at me suspiciously. "You know, you just have to take some things on faith, Symon! I went backstage after the show, and there they were. I like to think that he left them there for me to find and eventually give to you! It was FATE, man."

So I have them now, the magic Van Morrison alto sax reeds! I have come to believe that from the inception of the universe, I was meant to have these. And I will never open them... (being a Van Doren man and all)

But I'm still holding out for bridge work from some Famous Artist. Or maybe a glass eye from someone who is not-so-famous...

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RHINO - it's here!

2011-03-02T08:26:00.000-08:00

With all manner of hoopla and rigamarole...

Symon's New Blue Diamonds presents: RHINO!

RHINO

Starring Larry Heaton on drums, Symon Michael on saxophones and guitars, David Majka on bass. Cameras by Tripp Stapleton and Symon Michael. Art backgrounds by Matt Kowalski

[Copyright, (c) 2011 by California King Media - All Rights Reserved]

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Rhino video nears completion...

2011-02-28T06:56:00.000-08:00

February was a CRAZY month around here - I got married, my wife broke her foot, I had surgery for hernia-related problems, and rehearsals began for our April 23rd performance at The Red Poppy Art House in S.F.

But even with all this confusion and running around, work on the long-awaited Rhino video crept steadily forward, and it looks like we will make the official release date of March 14th.

During the past couple of months, I have learned so much about shooting and editing video (especially what NOT to do) that it doesn't even seem like work, more like a really fun way to get an education in electronic art!

Rhino features the artwork of fine artist Matt Kowalski, as well as the dancing talents of underground film personality and fine artist Teresa Moore. Both of these very talented folks may show up for the live show on April 23rd, so you won't want to miss it!

The April 23rd show is on a Saturday afternoon, is an all-ages FREE show, and will most likely be the only live Bay Area performance for Symon's New Blue Diamonds for 2011, so we hope to see you all there.

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Matt the Scatt...

2011-02-16T08:32:00.001-08:00

Recently, I found out that my longtime friend and fellow bandmate Matthew Kowalski (of Greed Incorporated fame) had been secretly making up lyrics and singing along to our last albumWhy I Quit The Music Business. Matt's been playing drums for the past few years and working on his painting, so I was a bit surprised when Matt's wife Kat first brought this to my attention.

"You know, Matt has been singing along with your CD while he's at work - you should check in with him about this, it's pretty cool stuff!"

Since all of my music actually starts out with lyrics (which end up being discarded at some point in the writing process), I was a bit surprised that anyone would do this. I already knew that Matt was a crazy genius, so Diane and I loaded up the car, then drove over to the Oakland Hills and set up everything in an unfinished room in Matt's new house. Then, amid piles of construction materials and buckets of paint, we laid down the tracks, one right after another.

The result? What we got was all pure Kowalski: political, philosophical, existential, and raw, all at the same time. I'm not sure if we'll end up publishing the tracks or re-recording them and cleaning them up, but I'm toying around with the idea of having Matt join us onstage at one of our upcoming shows...

Stay tuned for more details, or visit our website for a list of our upcoming live performances.

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The fat lady finally sings...

2011-02-07T19:02:00.000-08:00

Yep - we did it! Both Diane and I tend to be just a wee bit impatient when it comes to stuff like this, so after playing the long-distance dating game for slightly more than a year, we decided to just hop on a plane, fly to Vegas, and tie the knot.

We stayed at the Bellagio and got hitched at the fabulous Las Vegas Wedding Chapel. We were in town for a total of about 56 hours, then we had to kiss at the airport and go our separate ways (Diane's still living in L.A. and I am up here). So the next big project is getting Diane up here and then cramming all three of us (me, Stella and Diane) into a bigger apartment somewhere here in S.F.

Actually, come to think of it, the fat lady DID sing. Etta James was a bit chunky, from the pictures I have seen. And (shocking but true) I did not think in advance about paying a licensing fee for use of the song. Imagine me of all people, a publishing scofflaw! I received this warning from YouTube when I posted the video:

"Dear NewBlueDiamonds,
Your video may have content that is owned or licensed by EMI Publishing. No action is required on your part; however, if you are interested in learning how this affects your video, please visit the Content ID Matches section of your account for more information.
Sincerely,
- The YouTube Team "

So, I re-edited the final version, inserting a MIDI version of a song called "Angl Gabriel", written by James E. Stewart and Frank Dumont. This minstrel ditty was originally published by Oliver Ditson & Co., Boston back in 1883, and although the webpage that I found it on (all contents and all MIDI files) are copyrighted © 2001-2009 by Benjamin Robert Tubb, good ol' Robert was posting a re-worked version of a song that is over one hundred years old.

So I have taken his MIDI file, converted it into MP3 format, and added some of my own sonic editing, making the final edit a totally new arrangemtntof a pre-existing song that is already in the public domain to begin with.

So I think this should pretty much settle any argument.

YOW! Let the party begin...

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"Backwards" is the new "forwards"...

2011-01-24T07:04:00.000-08:00

For years, I've been hearing the same line: "Hey, we really like your music. But the sound quality isn't really up to par, so we can't use your music or pay you any money. But we really DO like your stuff!" (followed by a visual image of Shoeshine Boy getting a little pat on the head. "Bless you, sir!")

No shit. Even Getty Images, with whom I enjoy an ongoing "love-hate" relationship, turned down what I feel is one of my best collections because of this. So despite the fact that I personally LOVE the sound of garage band demos loaded with tape hiss, over-driven cheap microphones, and the edgy sound of buzzing guitar amplifiers, I shelled out the cash over the past few years and invested in some very expensive microphones and pre-amps. This was all done to try polish my sound and separate my composing style from being lumped in with the genre of how things get recorded. (if that makes any sense).

And still, everyone complained. But one day in conversation, an established composer friend of mine in L.A. mentioned that I might want actually to consider downgrading some of my equipment in order to get a better sound. It turns out that the MBox2 interface unit does not have the same hip front-end components as the older, boxy-looking MBox1 units. "See if you can find one on Craig's List", Alex advised.

So I actually found a used one down in San Jose for $120. I brought it home but have not hooked it up yet, as it occurred to me that I should get some half-completed work finished first before I potentially jeopardize my (currently-working) setup. It was a royal pain in the ass getting the iLok hooked up correctly with the MBox2, and I'm not in a hurry to rip it apart!

More details after we track Matt the Scat next weekend. This is an exciting little side project and we're doing pure musical experimentation.

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Cranking up the PR...

2011-01-11T21:25:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow I'm heading down to L.A., to spend a long weekend with my fiance and to begin shooting the video for Seven Knees, another piece of silliness that should be coming out sometime later this year. The Rhino video is officially in post-production, and it looks like we're on schedule for the March 13th release date. YAHOO! It's taking a long time to get this one in the can, but it's looking very cool so far and it's going to be worth the wait.

I also decided to hire the services of Indie Music Media this year to help promote the new CD and to get some more exposure. Part of the process involves completing a self-interview, ten questions that I found a bit harder to answer than I realized at first. You know, the sort like" "What was the inspiration for such-and-such a song?" and "What is the message of your music that you are trying to get across to your fans?"

Wow - heady stuff if you are not a full-time musician, and still spend most of your time toiling away doing something that's not related to your art! I suddenly realized that when I was a younger man, there was a point in my life where I only worked a part-time job and I was performing my original music almost every weekend. When I wasn't onstage, I was writing new stuff, dropping off a publicity package or driving to rehearsal - I was totally IN the game, even if I wasn't making much money doing it.

So the fact that I have to stop and ponder the deeper questions surrounding my art form really bothers me. I feel as if I've been away from the farm for too long, and I have to learn to milk cows and plant crops all over again.

Fortunately for me, I'm a quick learner...

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New Year's Resolutions, anyone?

2011-01-03T06:14:00.001-08:00

Of course, I just had to ask this question - it's required this time of year!

We Finally Get Reviewed!

2010-12-29T08:59:00.000-08:00

This was the perfect end to (what feels like) the most expensive year of my life - WE FINALLY GOT A REVIEW!

And it was a really good review, which is even better. Cyrus Rhodes of The Muse's Muse listened to Why I Quit The Music Business... and liked it!

Click here to read the review.

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The Chrylsers! Christmas Special - 2001

2010-12-17T06:37:00.001-08:00

If you know me personally, you know that I'm the kind of person who doesn't care to revisit the past very often. However, this one is just too good to resist.

Dave and I made a bunch of animated shorts back in 2001, when we were working on a local sketch comedy television show called "Sunday Night Blues" that aired every Sunday night on cable access SF Channel 25. Figuring that it would be much easier working with puppets than real human actors, we created The Chryslers!, an ongoing comedy about a young couple living and working in the (then burgeoning) San Francisco tech industry. Dave and I started with the actual faces of the talent appearing in "Sunday Night Blues" skits, then created a special miniature world for them and just went from there.

We wrote and shot six episodes before our contract with Viacom went up in flames. This is the last episode that was broadcast, originally aired on December 23rd 2001.

Click here to enjoy The Chrysler's Christmas Special! (And thanks to Dave for kindly posting this on YouTube).

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"Popular Moments" video releasing on Dec 25th...

2010-12-10T17:18:00.001-08:00

You've heard the song, and you voted for it at the International Song Of the Year 2010 a few months ago.

WHAT? You haven't heard the song? And you didn't actually vote for it at the Song Of The Year competitions? Well, shame on you, then! You're sure to get a lump of coal in your Christmas stocking this year if you don't get your own copy of Why I Quit The Music Business and check out this tune. You can pick up your own copy of the entire album, featuring 14 other great tunes as well, from CD Baby for just $4.99.

Be sure to check your email on Christmas Day, when we'll give out the link to the video and you can see it at home, on your Aye-aye-phone, or wherever you like to get your streaming media content.

Wait a minute - you're not on the mailing list, either? OK, so click here to sign up for show and content release notifications, etc.

Popular Moments - the video
Cast: Larry Heaton on drums, Jeff Kane on guitar, Tarik Ragab on bass, and Symon Michael on tenor saxophone.
Director of Photography: Kimba Anderson
Production Assistant: Emi Stanley
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My Weirdo Sax Mute

2010-11-24T06:33:00.000-08:00

Don't know why it took so long, but someone finally invented a mute for the tenor sax that actually works!

It looks pretty strange and it's heavy as hell, but it DOES work reasonably well. Your sax fits completely inside, then the two clamshell pieces close around the horn. The whole thing goes over your neck and you reach in through two rubber-grommets (access holes) to reach the keys, like this:

I ran into some difficulties with reaching the side keys, especially during fast passages like all that old Greed Incorporated sutff, but for scale and long-tone work it is very quiet and delivers on the the promises the company makes.

There is a tiny microphone inside the shell which transmits the sound of the horn our through a headphone jack as shown here. The battery-powered amplifier module includes an aux input (so you can play along with your iPod) and even a metronome, which I found to work reasonably well.

Here's where you can read more about it, if you're interested:
http://www.bestbrass.jp/en/sound-t/e-sax.html

I paid about $350 (US) for mine, and I'm satisfied that I got my money's worth.
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Coming soon...

2010-11-03T09:07:00.001-07:00

The blog has been down for a few months for technical reasons.

Look for new EXCITING content soon!

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More from the CD Release Party

2010-08-08T10:02:00.000-07:00

I finally had a chance to take the flight recorder apart, here's what the lab says:

There is some video of the live show, which I am supposed to get from Larry soon.

Thanks to Jam, we DID get a really good live audio recording, which you can download for FREE if you sign the mailing list on Reverb Nation. (Link coming soon)

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After the show...

2010-08-02T21:02:00.000-07:00

The show went well, and was a total success as far as I'm concerned. I'm still a bit too close to the whole thing, but over the next few days I'll post some photos and (possibly) some of the recording.

As part of the bigger plan, I won't be recording any new music for awhile, but instead will be focusing on shooting new videos to go along with the tracks I've already recorded. Since the music is all instrumental, this just seems to be the next logical step, while Larry buys his house and does things he needs to do in the meantime. Dave and I have already story-boarded for "Girls Who Drink" (shooting in September) and "Rhino" (shooting in three weeks), and I've started writing for "Popular Moments". Also, I bought a new JVC HD video camera and I can't wait to get busy with that!

YOW! Now there's time and money for fun! And games! And new adventures!

But first:

ZZzzzzzzzz...

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The big show is this weekend...

2010-07-26T06:28:00.000-07:00

Saturday is coming!

Ready or not, our first live show in eighteen years is coming up this coming Saturday, 7/31/10, at The Blue Macaw. The big show starts at 9:30 PM (2565 Mission St in San Francisco) and includes performances by the Lee Vilensky Trio and Go Van Gogh.

We have confirmation that Martha will be joining us onstage, as well as Jamison Smeltz, so we will have a full horn section featuring two baritone saxes plus trumpet/flugelhorn.

The rehearsal last weekend went really well, so I'm not really worried, just a bit amazed that after all these weeks and months of planning, it's finally here!

Hope to see you all there!

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My very FIRST paycheck from Pump Audio!

2010-07-21T10:20:00.000-07:00

Yep, here it is... a whopping $46.38, but I never thought I'd actually sell anything through these guys, so this is a BIG DEAL. I've been getting steady paychecks from CD Baby over the last two years, but this is THE VERY FIRST time I've received a royalty payment from a third party vendor since the payments I got from BMI years ago for work I did for HBO.

For the moment, I'll put aside all of my irritation at the "less than industry standard" artist royalty payouts that Getty Images practices. I'm just very happy to have planted a flag here.

There were two licensing deals, apprently. One is for "I Found Out" (from the first album, Cram It Down) and was licensed by Simon & Schuster. The second was for "Arnie Likes It" and simply says "Science Fiction". (Yeah, recording that track was kinda like science fiction, now that I think about it!) There were actually two published versions of that one, but the original version (with vocal tracks, yeah!) has been lost over the years.

So I won't be buying my own airplane anytime soon, but $46 is probably enough for a decent steak dinner.

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New store is UP!

2010-07-10T08:26:00.000-07:00

In the tradition of P.T. Barnum, Colonel Tom Parker and countless other hucksters, I am launching not one, but TWO online web stores to sell Symon's New Blue Diamonds merchandise. The items for sale are an extension of the music, the videos, etc. and should stand on their own as relatively interesting bric-a-brac.

Everything operates under the established "on-demand" structure, so that the earth is not pillaged while stacks of unwanted T-shirts and other crap sits around in a warehouse (or more likely in my tiny apartment) gathering dust. Each of these items is freshly branded as they are ordered, so there is no dead inventory. (Hey! for any other old-timers out there reading this - remember finally going to your ex-girlfriend's parent's house and hauling your old band's records out of the basement while everyone the watched from the doorway? Remember the fond farewells as you drove hundreds of unsellable LPs to the city dump?)

The last thing the world needs is more crappy band T-shirts, but a re-usable "Sal" cloth melon bag is a very fun and practical thing to own:

So "Who is this "Sal" character?!", you might ask? Check out our latest video on You Tube and you'll know soon enough. Sal is a villian's villian, a true blackguard if there ever was one...

Noted that the Reverb Nation store is up and running, but the second store needs a bit more work. We're waiting for the release paperwork to come through (more details soon)

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Facebook experiment

2010-07-09T10:18:00.000-07:00

I decided to give FaceBook one more try, now that my previous history tree has essentially been scrubbed.

They keep saying that I can use FaceBook as a "social engine"to drive people to the ReverbNation site, where the real band content is. So we'll see what happens. If you look at the True Margrit entry, there are many thousands of people listed as "fans", and I'm wondering if they have even all listened to the music. Is there any real way to tell where your online traffic is coming from?

Meanwhile, I created some on-demand merchandise for the band, and it remains to be seen if there will be any interest (hell, I want a Cookie T-shirt!)

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You do not have any Friends.

2010-07-04T10:17:00.000-07:00

Kind of depressing if you let it get to you, but that's the message I get from most of these so-called social-networking websites when I look up "Symon's New Blue Diamonds". No one is listening to my music on these sites, much less actually buying any of it.

However, the band's videos on You Tube are getting a healthy number of clicks. I'm not sure how (or if) this somehow translates into sales of some sort, but it was fun to make the videos in any case.

I'm looking into the possibility of some weirdo Flash animation. MacroMedia lets you try Flash 5 for a month for free, which might be just long enough.

Also, finally made my first complete pass through the "Garbo" database, listing 318 music pimping sites, and eliminated at least half of them outright. The first batch to be cut were the obvious "fake" companies, abandoned or unresponsive sites or outright crooks. Also in this category are companies that either don't like working with independents or that are not currently accepting any new submissions.

Dang! (remember when it was all about going to the ABC, picking up a twelve pack of Carling Black Label, and heading to the studio for a jam session?!)

Shameless promotion follows, since after all Carling Black Label was the official beer of The Tibetan Boy Scouts:

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Finally, the new video is finished!

2010-06-26T17:19:00.000-07:00

OK, here it is!

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First nibble...

2010-06-08T06:40:00.000-07:00

So it looks like I may have my very first nibble with placement in a feature film. No more details at this time, but it's pretty exciting - this is the first positive sign I've seen since I started knocking on doors.

Also expanded the KAANGO ad campaign,and placed an ad for the new album in Seattle:
http://seattlepi.ca.kaango.com/ads/viewad?adid=16954342

I have several of these running on various Hearst publishing sites. They are free, and I have not seen any immediate increase in sales, but I have noticed a large spike in visits to one retail site under my control. You have to let people know you are there, even if they just stand around and shuffle their feet!

Also, very happy to announce that Jamison Smeltz will be joining us onstage at the CD release party in August, filling in on baritone and alto sax. He's also a key member in Ten Ton Chicken, and I highly recommend checking out their music - it rocks!

And finally... during investigation of Ten Ton Chicken, I discovered yet another "Music Social Networking" website. This one's called iLike. I have never heard of it, but it was fun and easy to create something, so here we are:

http://www.ilike.com/artist/Symon%27s+New+Blue+Diamonds

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The art of Alan Winkler...

2010-05-24T06:35:00.000-07:00

Hey, remember all that crazy life-size artwork that used to be on display in the windows in the old Lurie building at 801 Market St? Anyone living and working down on Market Street in the early eighties probably can't forget the life-size human figures and cartoon-like dioramma that stretched around the block at Fifth and Market Streets.

I had a dream about this guy last night, so I did a search for him online and discovered that he is alive and well in Kansas City MO.

You can check him out here: The Art of Alan Winkler

I remember meeting him at an art sale once, when he was selling some of his smaller ceramic pieces. He offered to sell something that looked like a small modified alligator, but I could not come up with $40 in cash at the time and I left the sale empty-handed. (I could have kicked myself later, but in those days I was one step away from living in my rehearsal studio, which I avoided only by squeezing pennies until they screamed)

Anyway, if you check out the site, be sure to read his philosophy on art being good for the soul. It's inspiring to me to see talent like this leave the Bay Area and yet flourish instead of just vanishing forever.

(And NO, I did not ask for permission to use these photos. But since I'm using them to promote the original artist, and also since no one else is attempting to sell these photographic images themselves for profit, I feel pretty OK about re-posting them)

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This week...

2010-05-18T07:05:00.000-07:00

Sometimes it's really just "business as usual" around here. This week:

1) Writing the stage-ready bari and alto chairs for WIQTMB (cause they just have to get done, dammit!)

2) Submit a copy of the new CD to a reviewer on the Muse's Muse website. Still trying to decide who the best choice is.

3) Waiting to hear back from (name witheld until we have confirmation) regarding sharing the stage with us on the CD release party on 7/31/10.

4) Entered some crazy contest held by Ernie Ball. The winner gets to play at a music festival in Chicagoland in June, and presumably hang out with Eric Clapton.

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Lovin' that Royer R-121...

2010-05-15T12:12:00.001-07:00

After we finished the mix for Why I Quit The Music Business, both Larry and I (and everyone else we asked) confirmed that the horns, in particular my Selmer tenor, sounded much better on this recording than anything I have ever done before. Not only do the horns have more clarity and presence, but the latest recordings captured more of whatever it is that makes my tenor sound "unique" and recognizable as me.

This really made be realize that I need to do a little better than a SM-57 for my home studio if I ever want people to sit up and take notice of my playing and composition.

So what I mean is - you can be the most brilliant writer and arranger in the world, but if your studio orchestra is recorded with a sub-par setup, no one is going to pay any attention. This is true no matter how clever or crafty those arrangements are. The listener will always go for the most clear-sounding and clean recording, even if the content is non-interesting. This can't really be helped, since as time goes on, the modern ear has become accustomed to cleaner and cleaner recordings in radio and TV advertising. It's almost an inevitable part of cultural evolution, if you think about it.

Not to decry the humble Shure SM-57, which is a great all-purpose microphone and probably the heart and soul of many home studio setups. BUT... when the blindfold test undeniably points to the elephant in the room, you have to pay attention.

So I ponied up some cash and purchased my very own Royer R-121 ribbon mic. Since these microphones require a preamp, I paired this up with my humble ART MP Series Tube Preamp. (For only about $25, anyone can get one of these babies, and it's well worth the investment) I have the cheapest version of the two-input M Audio box, which funnels everything into a $1,000 Gateway laptop running ProTools v 7.3, and I had some serious doubts that I would be able to capture the increase in fidelity that the ribbon mic should provide.

But boy, was I wrong! The difference was remarkable and very noticable, without any additional tinkering. I tried both the tenor and the baritone and A/B-ed the tracks, and the sound from the Royer was phenomenal.

So what this means is that for the first time ever, I can work online with folks anywhere in the world and create tenor, bari and alto stem files with complete confidence that they will sound great when imported into the client project files, whether the final destination is ProTools, Q-Base, Logic, Audacity or whatever.

Sometimes, it's good to be wrong about something!
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Song Of The Year Contest...

2010-05-08T14:25:00.000-07:00

I can't believe I actually fell for this. I wasn't even drunk:

http://songoftheyear.com/success.htm

Cost me $29 to enter "Popular Moments" under the Instrumental catagory, but I just couldn't help myself. It's one of the best balads I've ever written and people need to hear it, even if "people" turn out to be washed-up musicians from yesteryear.

It was the picture of Willy Nelson in the advertising banner that probably did it. That guy just never quits!

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Why I Quit The Music Business...

2010-04-17T08:24:00.000-07:00

Very happy to announce that the new album is finally available!

Click here to download:

Physical disks, as well as digital downloads, are availble from CD Baby.

You can get it from iTunes, too, and from Amazon.

If there are physical copies of the CD available from Amazon, they are counterfeits. I understand that lots of counterfeit disks are sold on Amazon. Nobody gives a shit, nobody is doing anything about it, so why should I care? Why should anyone?

Oh yeah - I should mention that the official CD release party will be on Saturday July 31st at The Blue McCaw in San Francisco's Mission district.

Hope to see you there!
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The view from the fifth floor...

2010-04-07T12:29:00.001-07:00

Holed up in Portland, visiting Molly and friends. The Chicago junket is on hold for now (too much to think about, and too much money).

The word from the front office is that the first shipment of Why I Quit The Music Business has arrived from the pressing plant and is locked up in the tank down at Lee's Sax Worx. YAHOO! Diane will be the first one to see them, so I'm sitting here on pins and needles in the hotel room waiting for the report.

So much work to do yet. The official record release party is only twelve weeks away and I have no baritone player, no venue booked, no rehearsals scheduled or publicity started, a pile of unfinished charts and worst of all, NO SET LIST.

The importance of starting with a good set list cannot be overstated, since it really drives everything. The set list determines how long the show will be, what kind of venue and supporting bands you will need to hire, and how much you will be able to pay your band, etc.

But at least now I have PRODUCT! (and a freezer full of turkey burgers and coffee beans) There is nothing I cannot do.

One important footnote: On the drive up here, I saw the most beautiful site I think I have ever seen. While driving over the VFW Memorial Bridge, I looked down and saw Lake Shasta completely full of water! I mean, I think there was maybe three or four feet of shoreline, and all you could see in either direction was acres and acres of crystal clear water. It's a beautiful thing...

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Big as or slow as, what...?!

2010-03-29T07:45:00.000-07:00

Both of the "melon" video shoots went extremely well.

More soon, for right now it's back to the salt mine.

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See you in court, baby!

2010-03-23T11:41:00.000-07:00

Ok, so it's official: all fifteen tracks from Why I Quit The Music Business" are officially on-file at the US Copyright Office (Library of Congress) and protected by law for the next 75 years from being pirated.

I already have two lawyers, so please - go ahead and steal my tracks. I need the money!

More on that later... but I am free now to start spreading my WIQTMB seed all over the place.

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Costume shopping in L.A.

2010-03-16T06:24:00.000-07:00

After spending about some time looking for costumes for the "Melon" video shoot, I suddenly realized what should have been obvious from the beginning - I should have been looking in L.A., the movie and film-shoot capitol of the US!

This is me, having a moment of spontaneous joy as I realize that we have actually come to the right place at our very first stop:

Since I'm down there about twice a month now, I decided to look around. We made a list and started with the closest place:

Make Believe, Inc.

The staff was very friendly and had no trouble figuring out what I was looking for. Dee hit it off right away with the friendly staff and we went right into trying on jackets and other ideas for "Cookie", the drum majorette character who is the star of both videos.

The woman who waited on us is named Tani. She was very friendly an knowledgeable. I made a few statements about what we thought we were looking for, and then Di took over. The girls hit it off right away and pretty soon we were playing dress-up.

Here we see a slightly skeptical Di during the initial fitting:

There is nothing more exciting than being treated like a professional, especially when you are making stuff up as you go along. The storyboard for the video has been re-written several times and we're still not through with it, so it will be fun to see what happens during the shoot at the end of the month.

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Saint Mad is in the news!

2010-03-10T06:41:00.001-08:00

Yahoo!

The Saint Mad CDs are out!

Click here to order one.

FYI, by way of explanation - my sister Martha sings and plays horns in this band. They rock, and you should get their album.

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Latest news...

2010-03-05T07:09:00.000-08:00

The U.S. Post Office charges too much for C.O.D. handling.

I am giving the promotional EP away to anyone who asks, but thought I'd try to recover some of the postage and packaging fees so it wouldn't be a total reaming. So, guess what? The mailing envelopes are about $1 and domestic first-class US postage is about 1.45 or slightly less, but the Post Office charges $5.75 per item for basic C.O.D. processing. How does that stack up?

EP manfacturing and packaging = $2.93/unit
Mailing envelope = $1
Typical domestic postage = $2.95
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Total = $6.88/unit to give them away AND ship them for free.

OR - if I decide to just eat the CD manufacturing costs:

Mailing envelope = $1
Typical domestic postage = $2.95
USPS C.O.D. charge = $5.75
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Total = $9.75/unit to PAY THE US GOVT to help me GET THEM OFF MY HANDS.

I just want to get sick. Imagine if hookers PAID you to have sex with them?

On the other hand - if there's one thing I have learned over the years from watching marketing firms in action, it's that most Americans seem suspicious of anything that is given away freely. Most folks will gladly pay a small fee for something they can get for free because there is some weird implied "added value" implied by a modest charge. I'm considering going the opposite direction, and actually charging people $75 or $80 each for one of our CDs. I am quite confident that there are some folks out there who would actually order them if I did.

YAH! Enough of this depressing crap. We are shooting two new videos this month, importing talent from LA. This is gonna be fun...

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Always check the quality before logging out...

2010-02-28T23:14:00.000-08:00

FYI - if you are posting songs on IM Radio.com, you may run into this little situation with audio quality.

The files you upload are going to be converted into some other format which you cannot see, behind-the-scenes. In many cases, this is .ogg. If you upload your songs in almost any flavor of .mp3, the final streaming version (after the behind-the-scenes conversion takes place) will end up sounding like CRAP. This is because the MP3 file format utilizes data compression, and in order to convert from MP3 to antying else requires de-compressing the file, which adds a layer of distortion. This cannot be helped (read the fine print on MP3 file formatting if you don't believe me - it's all a subtractive process, unfortunately).

I spent several hours this weekend fooling around with different combinations and formats for use with the IM Radio "station" I created for the band, and the best I could come up with is good old-fashioned .wav file format (PCM signed 16 bit stero, to be exact).

Check it out here:
http://www.imradio.com/artists/symonnewbluediamonds

This is unfortunate because it means that uploading a handful of these files takes an eternity. Most of my short comedy tunes are anywhere between 25 and 35 megs in size in this format, and even with DSL it can take around 15 mintues per song to upload each one!

Anyway, this shit is free to stream and people really ARE listening (several hundred hits alone for some of my songs over the first week, before I yanked them in order to reload them in higher quality). So make yourself a pot of coffee and get ready for a long uploading session...

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FlikTrax launches - and we're on it!

2010-02-18T21:06:00.000-08:00

This is truly a big deal:

http://www.fliktrax.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=Symon

I have been in contact with these folks since they were first soliciting bands to submit material.

One of the most amazing things to me about this is that for once, I didn't have to manually upload, list and catagorize my own work, like a lot of these other online soundtrack sites. These folks just took my CD and then actually LISTENED to it, selected about 1/2 of the tunes, and spent time reviewing and catagorizing them. This is like being hand-picked and groomed for success! In addition, they offered the standard non-exclusive contract, and all of this without a yearly rental fee.

I wrote to Chris Davison to congratulate him on the launch of the site, and here's what he had to say:

"As you know, you are among the first in line to be profiled with us, and we are really not looking to became a monolithic K-Mart company, but rather, a high-end 'premier music' site, and company."

That's what it's all about, baby! We'll have to see what happens, but in the meantime, I am sending him the OHNOP disk, which he does not have yet.

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Free marketing tools from CD Baby...

2010-02-17T06:18:00.000-08:00

I recently ordered a free DVD from CD Baby called Achieving Success With Your Music. Very insprirational, and there are some really good ideas here:

http://www.discmakers.com/request/special_seminardvd.asp

Highly recommended, and FREE. Seems like what they are suggesting as a first step is something I already knew. I really need to take a moment and get a few things in order as a small business before I put any more money and effort into any sort of sales or manufacturing effort.

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If it walks like a scam and talks like a scam...

2010-02-12T09:02:00.000-08:00

In this modern age of the unregulated Internet con artist, it's becoming easier and eaier to spot an obvious scam. See the example I received today via email:

After we come back from the break, we'll discuss briefly why anyone should think twice about submitting anything to these people. (specific details blacked out to keep my ass from getting sued!)

I can see at least three obvious red flags here...

1) No contract, or even a link to a contract. Or even a MENTION of a contract of ANY KIND. This is so obviously unprofessional that it astounds me. Maybe these guys like spending time in court?

2) "We'd like to represent artists...". So, they are not even stating that they are in fact actually representing ANYTHING or anybody. I wonder what would happen if I sent them a bag of my dirty socks with a note attached stating "I'd like it very much if you'd wash these for me." ? Why would I send a CD of my music to any company like this?

As a footnote - I don't know why I even bother subscribing to these fly-by-night, so-called "film music listing services". I have been aggressively working this angle for my music for about two years now, and the example above is pretty typical of the bullshit offers that seem to slither in my direction.

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Day or night? (instead of day AND night)

2010-02-10T07:56:00.000-08:00

So I took a week of vacation time and mixed and mastered both the 4-song EP and the 15-song album, now we're fnishing up the artwork and dealing with manufacturing.

Turns out that working during the daytime instead of at night was a good move. Even though everyone is inside and there are no windows, there is a psychological difference between working at night and working during the day, and I felt less fatigued and irritable this time around.

Funny that stuff they never teach you in music class at school!

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Mixed and mastered!

2010-02-07T20:45:00.000-08:00

OK, so both CDs have been mixed and mastered! Thanks to a lot of hard work by everyone involved, we came in ahead of schedule and right on budget.

So - NOW what? Just have to finish the lithography and start cracking the whip at the plant.

I am well into my post-project depression. I allowed myself one day's rest, watched the Super Bowl (a little bit), some movies and lounged around my filthy apartment. This week, I'll start pushing the manufacturing and working on the live show (YES - we are planning on playing live very soon!)

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It Sure Ain't Glamorous...

2010-02-06T09:28:00.000-08:00

Mixing a record at 47 is not quite what many people probably think of as "rock star" behavior.

In our case, it's essentially a bunch of middle-aged dudes sitting in a stuffy little room in a warehouse, listening to the same twenty seconds of music over and over and over, making tiny adjustments and then running out to the parking lot to smoke and cuss. All this goes on while Johnny Monster Guitar rehearses the same guitar chord over and over in the room right next door at a deafening volume.

There are no models in high heels, no limousines and no cocaine, and Keith Richards does not drop by to bum twenty bucks or cigs from you.
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Because Two Disks are Twice As Much Fun...

2010-01-31T14:19:00.000-08:00

This week, it's all about the mix. Larry and I are jamming on the final mixes for WIQTMB and it looks like we are on schedule!

Also - we figured out that both "Five Car Garage" and "The Pompous Ass" simply aren't going to make it, and will be dropped from the final list of cuts.

This means that the two disks are shaping up like this:

Popular Moments

1. Red Lion Revenge
2. Grils Who Drink
3. Droppin' Trou
4. Popular Moments

Why I Quit The Music Business

1. Blue Ball Town
2. Eddie The Killjoy
3. Confusionville
4. Girls Who Drink
5. Droppin’ Trou
6. Crazy Cougars
7. Big As A Melon
8. Everyone’s A Victim
9. Going Back To Hong Kong
10. Popular Moments
11. Red Lion Revenge
12. Waiting On The Money Shot
13. Just Don’t Overdo It
14. Slow As A Melon
15. Why I Quit The Music Business

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New chompers...

2010-01-26T07:02:00.000-08:00

Haven't posted anything in about a month, wow - guess I've been busy!

Got my front teeth fixed, so now it doesn't hurt to play anymore. I thought I was going to end up with caps on my front teeth and all I really needed was two tiny fillings on the tips that cover the cracks and protect the nerves underneath. Viola! All of a sudden I can play until my lip gives out, instead of being forced to stop when my teeth gave out. (?!) The stuff they never teach you in music class...

The EP is almost finished. Thank God for Lamar - I could not do this mix without him! I'm running into some trouble just keeping everything organized from a marketing standpoint, but the excitement of getting this all put together seems to just flow over everything. This will be the best recording I have done in years, and we are on schedule for the trip to Chicago.

More soon...
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I thought what I'd do is make one of those 4-Song EP s in the meantime...

2009-12-25T08:03:00.000-08:00

It does not seem possible that we can get all seventeen new songs properly mixed and maastered by the March 15 deadline, so the the idea came up of making a four-song EP to be released in advance of the monster album.

The playlist is shaping up to be:

1) Girls Who Drink
2) Droppin' Trou
3) Red Lion Revenge
4) Popular Moments

The reference to "The Laughing Man" (from Ghost In The Shell) was deliberate. Love them crazy cartoons with half-nekkid womens!
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That Philly sound...

2009-12-20T09:30:00.000-08:00

The session with my sister Martha was truly amazing - we cranked out overdubs for fourteen songs in 4 hours. Many of these were done in one take.

It's really fun to be able to work with true professionals - really makes the whole process of making music seem like magic!

The glamour cocktail party and photo shoot for the rest of the band is this afternoon, and the rest of the artwork is pretty much shot or in final stages. All I have to do now is finish up a few small outstanding horn overdubs (alto, tenor and a few flute parts) and we are ready to start The Mix Of Death...

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Just the facts...

2009-11-25T08:41:00.000-08:00

In these perilous times, sometimes it's better just to give a report.

1) Martha is confirmed for recording on Dec 19th. YAHOO! We're making history here, folks.

2) This coming Sunday,I will pick up the painting that will become the tray liner art for Why I Quit The Music Business from artist Matt Kowalski. YAHOO again!

3) Cory McAbee's new film, "Stingray Sam" finally arrived at my house. It's amazing and fun, everyone should see it.

4) There is some kind of minimum charge from Band Camp for selling music. (Of course, this makes sense, but I suppose I never read the fine print). I'm trying to sell my albums for 99¢ and individual songs for 15¢. Considering that you can't even GIVE music away for free these days, that only seems fair. However, after making several sales at 15¢, I find that PayPal still shows me as a "0" balance. Have to investigate this further...

5) You cannot realistically use a free-standing storage drive on the end of a USB cable as your primary iTunes data store when you are juggling in excess of 18,000 songs without running into serious trouble. Thank GOD I remembered my DOS command set! ('nuff said)

6) Despite the relentless onward march of technology, there really still is nothing on TV worth watching.

Now on ReverbNation...

2009-11-13T07:49:00.000-08:00

I finally put a bunch of my music up on ReverbNation - not sure what took me so long to get here, but it is a very interesting collection of bands. The one nice thing I like about it is that you can easily search for and listen to bands from your own town, something that the clumsy, advertising-laden interface on "OurStage" doessn't do. (I've left the band's profile up on OurStage, but I have quietly just abandonned it - I'm not going back again, no reason to!)

Gotta rant for a minute - it is damn near impossbible to delete a song from your OurStage profile once you have posted it. This is insane, and I can't tell if it's poor coding on the part of OurStage or just a method for gaining permanent access to a band's music. In any case, this problem does not exist with ReverbNation - I've been playing with the song list for two days now, grooming it into a custom sampler that I think will entice people to maybe actually download some of my music. We'll see.

What's even more ironic is that I was just about to start coding a standalone mailing list tab for the California King website, and then I discovered that ReverbNation has a FREE plug-in system already set up for doing this. I'm going to give it a shot and see how it works out, as I'd much rather be writing and playing music than writing code...

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This is how we do it...

2009-11-06T20:19:00.000-08:00

This is what the horn planning and progress chart looked as of Nov 6th.

Call me old-fashioned, but I still think in terms of albums, or a collection of music played in a specific sequence - like a set list in a club. It's supposed to be a performance, not just a jumble of happy sound. There is nothing I hate worse than listening to CDs that bands have put together in apparently haphazard fashion, with songs in similar keys bak-to-back, etc. It's very confusing and not entertaining (but then again, I am more of an arranger than a composer, and I am trained to listen for this kind of thing).

As far as the Excel spreadsheet - I thought I was being neurotic by doing it this way, but in conversation with friends in LA and Oakland, I found out that "the pros" do it just like this. When you are working in film, every scene is unique and has to be planned and tracked for consistency, etc.

So I am getting the impression that I'm still on schedule. We record all the baritone and alto saxes on 11/14, then Martha is laying down the trumpet on 12/19. Somewhere in there I have to record a smattering of flute tracks and some extra tenor parts.

My guest appearance with True Margrit is next Sunday, and I haven't even started preparing. YIKES!
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Nuts on the wire...

2009-10-29T06:53:00.000-07:00

The current delivery schedule I am on has to be one of the cRaZiEsT that I have ever attempted. The basic tracks for Why I Quit The Music Business are completed, and now I just have to write horn sections for (GULP) seventeen different cuts of music.

The final programme list looks like this:

Why I Quit The Music Business (CL-157013)

1. Blue Ball Town    (0:25)
2. Crazy Cougars    (2:10)
3. Confusionville    (2:05)
4. Girls Who Drink    (4:01)
5. Droppin’ Trou    (3:08)
6. Eddie The Killjoy    (3:26)
7. Big As A Melon    (0:28)
8. Everyone’s A Victim    (3:01)
9. Five Car Garage    (2:32)
10. Don’t Go Back To Hong Kong    (3:25)
11. Popular Moments    (2:23)
12. The Pompous Ass    (2:20)
13. Red Lion Revenge    (3:03)
14. Waiting On The Money Shot    (5:14)
15. Just Don’t Overdo It    (2:20)
16. Slow As A Melon    (0:43)
17. Why I Quit The Music Business    (3:02)

Off to work, more soon...
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New online copyright registration service...

2009-10-23T17:16:00.000-07:00

Difficult as it is to believe, I think the Feds have finally done something right for once. There is a new online work registration and management system in place at the U.S. Copyright office called the eCO Online System,and quite frankly, it kicks ass.

I say this because I have been dealing with the U.S. copyright registration process since the early 1980's. Pretty much every single piece of music I have ever written (as well as several complete screenplays and a slew of advertisment treatments) is fully copyrighted and on file at the U.S. Library of Congress. (yeah, I'm one of those kinda freaks!) I do not condone and will not participate in the so-called "Creative Commons" licensing - essentially, if you use my music for ANYTHING besides your personal listening pleasure and I find out about it, I am fully obligated to sue you in court.

I also list and cross-reference everything with BMI, since they administer my licensing rights and collect license fees for me.

The stumbling block in the whole process has always been the U.S. Copyright Office, which in the past typcially took about a year to get back to applicants with an official status and/or registration number for copyright registration. This has resulted in delays of CD releases for me, and also made me miss out on a juicy film licensing opportunity once because I could not provide the music contractor with proof of copyright of my works.

So imagine how utterly cool it was to file a "PA" registration for Why I Quit The Music Business today from the privacy of my own home, pay online with a credit card (instead of a US money order, as in the past) and then upload MP3 files of all the songs, instead of burning a CD and waiting in line at the post office, and then waiting a full YEAR (or longer) to find out if everything was cool, and to get the precious filing number and official date of registration.

I received an email from the Libaray of Congress about two hours later, thanking me for my submission and payment and advising me that they would work on my claim and get back to me. We'll see how this goes - to me, it's nothing short of a miracle!

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Mr. Pink Rabbit and His Turkey Banjo Twins...

2009-10-18T23:53:00.000-07:00

This story defies analysis, and it's heavily rooted in tech. I am tired from a FANTASTICALLY SUCCESSFUL weekend in the recording studio, half drunk at the moment, and I have to assist in a work-related conference call tomorrow morning at 6:00 AM.

Common sense dictates that I go to bed NOW (as in "immediately if not sooner"), so I'll provide more details soon.

The bottom line is - I would not trade my life for anyone elses..., not even Oscart Wilde himself's.(Or is it "himselve's"...or "himselves'... or whatever.)

So very tired. :-)

NOTE: The director of operations over at Insane Cat Video contacted me and asked what I was doing in the way of videos for the new album. There was some discussion, some very excellent single malt scotch was consumed, and it seems that there will be TWO videos initially shot in support of Why I Quit The Music Business. That's all I can say for now, as we are storyboarding and they are forcing me to actually sign a legal contract this time around :-)

Need sleep, now down we go. I am going to see Heart in concert on Thursday, and Steely Dan on Saturday night. Does it get any better than this?

ZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzz...

We have a winner!

2009-10-07T12:12:00.000-07:00

The search for the tray liner artwork for Why I Quit The Music Business is over. Check it out:

This piece is titled Simple Conclusion, a Matt Kowalski original mix-media painting. You can view more of the artist's work online by clicking here.

As anyone who is familiar with stuff knows, I am always working on two recording projects simultaneously: the current CD and the one-after-that CD. There are just always more pieces recorded than can be included, so these usually end up on the next pressing. The tray liner art points to this new, TBA pressing and exists as a special tease for my fans who actually purchase the physical CD.

For example, Smashy-Smashy was the photo featured as the tray liner art on One Hundred Nights Of Passion, and it will be the cover art for Why I Quit The Music Business:

So, Matt's painting will be the cover art for the next CD after W.I.Q.T.M.B, probably released sometime in 2012, and will be called....

Hey, a guy's entitled to some secrets!
;-)

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She just won't shut up...

2009-10-03T08:28:00.000-07:00

Errr....I'm referring, of course, to the Muse. What a fickle bitch! Noticeably absent for weeks (or even months at a time), then suddenly back and clamoring for my undivided attention.

I've learned through experience that she's rarely predictable, but when she starts talking you have to drop everything and just go with it. On the train ride home from Olive the other night, I suddenly had the melody line for Guillermo Slowly Wakes Up, something I have been struggling with for several months.

I had nothing to write with at the time, and I wasn't in the car, so I didn't have my little dictation recorder to capture the melody on. Looking across the train platform, I spied a real, honest-to-goodness PAY PHONE (they still have them in the subway). I dug in my pocket and discovered that I had exactly two quarters on me, so I hopped over to the phone to see if it still worked.

It did. I called my home answering machine and whistled the melody line into it, then hung up and caught my train home. When I got in the house, I transfered the melody on answering machine to my laptop, and now I have the basis for Guillermo Slowly Wakes Up.

More later, off to rehearsal now.

Oh yeah, also:

"You're The Sand In My Oyster"
"Eleventh St. Walk Of Shame"
"Hillbilly Bookeeper"

and another phoney rock band called:

The Horrible Drummer Experience.

(are you experienced?!)

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You're not in Hawaii, kids...

2009-09-28T20:30:00.000-07:00

Here are the pics from my trip to Tahiti...

There are no jazz music clubs in Papeete.

In fact, there did not appear to be any music clubs at all, with the exception of two karaoke joints, both of which were closed for the season. (There was a loud discoteque that we carefully avoided)

We chatted up a couple of local prostitutes and finally asked where the "live music" was and they just laughed at us.

One bar featured 80's rock videos on multiple flatscreen TVs. The rest of the pubs were playing the same, tired old Edith Piaf tapes that we've all been listening to since the 80's...

By comparison, there is not much of a "music scene" in Hawaii from what I have seen, but at least there is a fair representation of traditional Hawaiian music, and it's not that hard to find. I don't know what traditional Polynesian music is suppose to sound like, but I'm pretty sure it ain't Dexy's Midnight Runners.

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Matching Luggage...

2009-09-24T06:57:00.000-07:00

I finally took the plunge and got rid of the old black wooden case that came with my bari, replacing it with - you guessed it - the uber-chic BAM baritone flight case.

I figure my Martin, which is considered an antique at this point, is worth protecting (plus this case is just easier to move aroung than the wooden "coffin"-style case that it came in). I'm broke now, but ready to hit the road!

What else? Adding horn parts to Zak Shepard's five-song EP before he heads to NYC to make it big. I'm actually using all three horns on this one, but for this project, the focus is on the alto. Imagine that! Zak has a really sweet voice and I hope the addition of horns works to showcase his natural talent.

Going to see Steely Dan next month with the Blue Cat Sandwich crowd, including piano player Kitty Martin. Going camping this weekend at Lake Eleanor with the guitarist from local C&W band Jeremiah. I went to school with Cisco and yeah, us mountain boys still like to hike and fish. :-)

I'm going to have to miss the Folsom Street Fair this weekend (aw, shucks!)... actually, I'm selling all my old leather biker and bondage gear at Worn Out West this week, so if y'all want a taste of the Dark Side of my past, head on up and check it out.
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Two for one...

2009-09-20T17:42:00.000-07:00

Rehearsal last week went GREAT. Click here if you are curious (the link will be taken down eventually).

Yes - having two drummers at your beck and call is SIMPLY THE BEST - especially when they are two of THE BEST drummers!

All of the rehearsal tracks were recorded using a simple Zoom H2 digital recorder. I dunno if I have ever yakked about this thing before, but IT ROCKS. Anyone who is playing in a band should get one - six total hours of recording time, and NO MOVING PARTS. It runs on simple AA batteries that can be picked up almost anywhere, and there is a USB jack so you can copy files right into your computer. It has other cool features, too, but you'll have to read about it on the manaufacturer's website. (Or better yet, just go buy one. I paid $160 for it online from one of those wholesaler places.

I've also been doing some arranging work and horn overdubs for local singer Zach Shepard (formerly of The Caves). Screw what anyone thinks - I LOVE POP MUSIC, dammit!
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A Farewell To 92.7 FM....

2009-09-15T06:33:00.000-07:00

Boy, I never imagined that the day would come where I'd bemoan the loss of a radio station, but here I am...

92.7 FM, the Bay Area dance radio station, is GONE. Apparently there was some change of format, and that's that. Overnight, my favorite "fuckhouse disco" and modern music station is no more.

Here is what I was able to find out...
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I t ' s a r e u n i o n

2009-09-06T11:43:00.000-07:00

Went to see the 415 Records Reunion Show at Slim's last night and got to catch a set by Debora Iyall - fantastic! She sounded better than ever and the band totally smoked.

Dave Sheff did double duty, playing drums for both Deborah and Translator. Lamar and I both had rehearsals on Sunday, so we had to leave before Wire Train took the stage. (old age sucks!)

Here's a video clip of a track from the show.

Hearing those old tunes brought back some deep memories and I am still a bit awash this morning in all of it. Benjamin is not playing sax anymore, but opened the set with some acoustic guitar work that was a bit hard to make out. He mentioned that he is also doing some busking in SF around town, so I may go out and see if I can track him down.

Rehearsals looking better...

2009-08-26T14:17:00.000-07:00

Lamar and I had a GREAT rehearsal last weekend, and were able to work out a better arrangement for the drums on "Droppin' Trou". Sometimes you just gotta play the damn tune a few times, and the good stuff just naturally floats to the top.

Also, it looks now like Tarik Ragab will be available for both of the final sessions. (COWABUNGA!) This was my best-case scenario and it looks like it might actually work out.

Holy shit! I may actually wind up finishing this damn thing before I'm 70...
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Don't quit your day job...

2009-08-20T19:21:00.000-07:00

Back from Dave and Daisy's wedding and an extended weekend in Boston. The boys from The East Side Groove nixed the idea of having me sit in with them on baritone at the wedding reception, which was perfectly cool (and I had my hands full anyway since I was busy in my role as the best man). The situation was further compounded by the fact that the management at the Copper Lantern Motor Lodge was convinced Mark Frizzel was a satanic priest and had threatened to kick us all out. All because he showed up dressed in a Luthern-esque cassock and had black fingernails! You just gotta love them Bible-thumping country folks!

Rehearsal this weekend, but I won't get much done this week as Lamar and I are turning right around and leaving for ten days of snorkeling, drinking and general hell-raising in Tahiti and Bora-Bora.

While I was sitting on the runway at Logan waiting for takeoff and washing down a 10 mg Valium with that crappy "blended" cabernet that all the airlines seem to feature, it suddenly occured to me that if I was working full-time as a musician, I wouldn't be able to afford this kind of stuff. Ironically enough, I probably wouldn't even be able to afford the upkeep on my music gear!

I play the California Lottery every week, but I haven't won yet. In all probability, in future years I will simply vanish into history as just another kook who played the saxophone.

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Chicago calling...

2009-07-25T07:52:00.000-07:00

Chicago is calling me. There is absolutely no doubt about it.

It started out innnocently enough - first, I read The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America. This book (written by Erik Larsen) was required reading for one of my book clubs, but it got me thinking. There is supposed to be lots of art and music in Chicago, and I've never been there. Why not go check it out?

The San Francisco Bay Area essentially chased most of its artist community away during the so-called "dot-com boom" of the late nineties, making promisises to hordes of shiny people who came out of nowhere and and acted like they owned the place. Not many of these greed-based pipe dreams seem to have panned out. What is left is an environment of vacant buildings and corporate chain stores, which popped up like open sores and replaced many of the indigenous family-owned businesses that had existed here for decades. (Way to go, San Francisco!)

The writing is on the wall - these people are simply not coming back. Where did they go, if not to some place like Chicago, with an already established art community and a lower cost of living than either San Francisco or New York?

So I began planning an extended trip to Chicago and the surrounding areas for sometime next spring. I plan on driving up to Oregon and leaving my cat Stella with a friend in Portland, then driving on up to Seattle for a brief visit, then across the top of the country to Chicago. I kept telling myself that I didn't know a single person there, but that I'd meet people. And while I'm in the vicinity, there is also the lure of Canada, with its own unique art centers and state-funded cultural programs, just a short drive or train ride away...

Out of the blue, I received an email from a friend of mine (we'll call her 'Amanda') who had recently moved from Berkeley to Chicago to take a new job. This seemed pretty ironic, since I figured I'd never hear from her again, what with her starting a new life and all in another part of the country.

So then I was sitting in a downtown bar, having lunch with a friend and recanting all of this, and suddenly I realized that the music system in the pub was playing "Yesterday", an old pop tune performed by - you guessed it - the rock band Chicago. I almost choked on my cheese steak sandwich.

Coincidence? Who knows, but I know that I can't wait to get up there and find out!
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Planning the album layout...

2009-07-18T23:35:00.000-07:00

Now that the actual track list for Why I Quit The Music Buisness is essentiallly completed, the challenging task of writing the horn arrangements and final sequencing begins..

(more tomorrow, exhausted...)

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Greed Incorporated Secret Jam Session 2009

2009-06-30T06:07:00.000-07:00

The recording session at Matt's house was a lot of fun! The lineup included me on tenor and baritone, Matt on guitar, Lamar on drums and Traik Ragab on bass.

We did slightly different versions of Victory At Any Cost, Kimba Watusi, etc. and made some recordings using a pair of direct-to-digital H2 recorders. Even though the setup was pretty low tech, the acoustics out in the garage were surprisingly good, and everyone played fairly quietly. You could hear everything and it just worked out.

He're a pic of Matt himself, corrupting Tarik Ragab's mind with some of those weirdo chord progressions we've all come to know and love:

It's really fantastic to realize that after all the craziness that has happened over the years and all the changes we have all been through, we can still manage to get together and have a good time without drugs, without fighting, etc.

If someone had told me twenty years ago that I would still be playing Piss Alley at the ripe old age of fourty-seven, I'd probably have told them they were crazy! But, once again "...There I was, mindin' my own..."

(And I still don't know shit from Shinola)

NOTE: A small number of disks of this session may become available to true die-hard Greed Incorporated fans. Write to me if you are interested.
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Thank God someone finally said something...

2009-06-23T07:30:00.000-07:00

In a recent interview for Magnet Magzine, Sir Mix-A-Lot is quoted as saying one of the most intelligent things I've heard in a long time.

"Let me start by saying, ain’t no hatin’ in me, but when the country that gave us Aretha, James, Marvin, Jimmy, Janis, Otis, Motown, Stax, hip hop and rock ‘n’ roll starts sending a message that the best talent is the person who can best sing someone else’s song, something is fucked.

Karaoke is fun to watch, but take a stroll through YouTube and type in “James Brown Sammy Davis” and watch James Brown run through a 10-minute medley of his own songs on a Sammy Davis special. Surely he would have lost on American Idol, but without a five-octave voice, dimples and a cute smile, James Brown left a mark on the game far beyond most of the perfect-singing, souless, pop icons out there..."

All I can say is Amen, brother! I just hope someone besides me is paying attention.

Full article:
http://www.magnetmagazine.com/2009/06/23/i-mack-sir-mix-a-lot-on-american-idol/
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New Yamaha Keyboard!

2009-06-17T06:52:00.000-07:00

Just got a new Yamaha keyboard, and I love it!

http://preview.tinyurl.com/groovyhippy

Already used it to send a bid to MTV, of all places. Then I received an email to the effect of: "Dear potential client - We are reviewing your submission and will contact you soon." I'm not gonna hold my breath, but it is kind exciting!

Work on WIQTMB continues, despite coming down with this killer flu bug last week (can you say: ROPES OF MUCUS?!) Both Droppin' Trou and Crazy Cougars are in the pipe and have been sent to the copyist. After some deliberation, I have decided to work on these four next:

Blue Ball Town
Waiting On The Money Shot
Those Clumsy Teens
Four Minutes Of Sleep

This will probably round out the playlist, unless I want to schedule to add the two dance tracks I've been working on.

Working with two distinctly different drummers is an amazing thing - each plays differently, each is really good, and both are coming through for me. I never had it so good!

Still up in the air regarding the artwork for the new release. There does not seem to be an obvious answer here, I still don't "feel" it as nothing is jumping out at me.
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Happy 29th...

2009-06-03T06:27:00.000-07:00

This past Tuesday marked my twenty-ninth year of becoming a Californian. On June 1st 1980, I graduated with honors from Bishop Walsh High School in western Maryland. The very next day, pounding hangover and all, I was on the plane to San Francisco.

I have never regretted it, and I've never looked back.
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Mentoring websites, etc...

2009-05-27T06:38:00.000-07:00

Over the past few weeks, it has really become apparent that this business of not having a professional mentor is probably the main thing that is holding me back, professionally. Without someone looking over your plan (or controlling calendar or "six month plan", whatever) it is almost impossible to effectively steer the ship, right?

So I did some digging online in an effort to see if any shudder! online resources existed that looked interesting.

Found this site in England, sort of a general-purpose approach to all sorts of career change: http://www.horsesmouth.co.uk/. There is a section on work/lofe balancing that is really worth checking out.

Also, there is Artist House Music, which seems to be specific to the music industry and features video interviews with folks who are already established in "the music industry". I have found these videos to be both inspriring and a little bit depressing, depending on your state of mind when you start viewing. The best part of this site is that it's completely free. I think they are using it as a portal for some kind of training, but I have not been hit with a lot of advertising yet. There is an embedded user profile section where you can create your own web page for their blogs and community stuff, and so far there are only about five hundred profiles, so it still feels kinda "cozy" at this point.

Not sure what all of this information could lead to, but at least I don't feel quite so alone now. It is still possible that I am really doing something completely and totally unique and no mentor may actually exist at this point anywhere in the world, but to me that's just all the more reason to let everyone know that I am here and still writing, still creating.
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More about my romance... (Part I)

2009-05-08T23:45:00.000-07:00

It seems like I have been watching a lot of Ed Harris movies lately, and he is playing the same role in all of them - an older artist who is washed up and on the skids. In three different films, his character only successfully recovered the ball in one of them.

It's leading me to wonder about the Muse, and the Seduction Of The Muse. I've been blessed lately with a lot of time to myself in the studio, and I'm feeling like my writing has improved as a result. I've got two rounds of mixes in the can for WIQTMB, and I was shitting bricks a month ago when I was wondering how I was going to finish it. After taking a short break and getting some family business taken care of, I went back and took a real critical listen to the half-finished stuff that I was planning on recording in August.

Killingswörth

Most of it I simply threw out - seems like I have some fresher ideas now and I'll be putting those into temp tracks over the next few weeks, then starting the chair parts for the band. I could never have imagined that I would just start tossing stuff, but most of the stuff I wrote back in January that didn't get recorded so far is just not interesting enough to persue anymore, which totally makes sense if you think about it. If you write fifteen songs and only have time and money to record about half of them right away, you're going to pick your favorites first, right? The ones you really enjoy playing. The rest get put into the "tomorrow" pile, and just like the phone call you meant to return to that weird guy who took a shine to you in the bar a few weeks ago, you just somehow just never got around to it (even though he DID buy you a drink, you ungrateful bastard!)

So The Muse is still singing to me (in fact, the bitch just won't shut up!). I've been able to pin down genres - I feel like I need about six more pieces, probably two slow blues ginders, two upbeat rock numbers, and two dance tunes, one of which is already written and in final assembly.

As always, the horn lines seem to come in pretty steadily while I am sleeping and have no affiliation to anything when I first hear them, so I just mumble them into a tape recorder I keep next to the bed, write tehm out as practice scores and file them away in Symon's Big Book Of Horniness. These are used only for woodshedding purposes until I find a frame to stuff them into.

Killingswörth

So to me, the Muse appears as an oversized sexy cat-thing who comes from the future and whose job it is to help you in your journey as an artist. If you look right at her, and ask her questions or try to lunge at her, she'll move away from you and hide on the ceiling until you calm down. If you spend too much time doing things other than writing, she will move across the street and stand in the neighbor's yard, looking at you longingly but not approaching you. And if you take up some other "hobby" like drinking or video games or dating, she'll wait until you go down to empty the trash, slip in past you, and leave a fresh turd in your bed and slip back outside, all before you manage to shut the door.

I need to sleep now, have an NLP workshop tomorrow. I'm not sure about anything around this, other than the need to have a clear head in the morning and maybe really making an effort not to put any expectations whatsoever on the outcome.

Hey, did I forget to mention that it's also my first day in the new Killingswörth rehearsal studio?

Fuck yeah, dude!

Killingswörth!!!
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Second basics session completed...

2009-05-04T11:04:00.000-07:00

Finally made it into the studio with the second rhythm section and laid down another batch of basic tracks for the new album. This time around, I played with Dave Rubin (drums), Jeff Kane (guitar), and Joe Kyle (bass).

The swing and disco tracks are all finished, and I had Dave record a new drum beat for "The Pompous Ass". The bass styling that Joe added during the disco section was hilarious!

Additionally, I hired Mark Pistol for a three-hour MIDI and ProTools workshop training, sort of a one-on-one training session where I went through all of the questions that had been bugging me and we discussed different methods of using ProTool. This has come up for me again and again - how to best utilize the power of ProTools during the compositional stage?

Mark recommended that I include Reason as part of my process, so I installed that and quickly realized that it's nothing short of an entire universe unto itself. I ordered a training course (book/exercize CD) from Amazon and suppose I'll just have to do my homework here. :-)

But the best news of all: Lamar and I got the rehearsal studio we were bidding on! So now, at last, I have a place to play my horn and practice my own technique outside of my apartment.
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Looking back at what worked

2009-04-25T16:29:00.001-07:00

My friend Lisa recently lost her dad to a long-standing battle with cancer. It was a very tramautic and sad time for the entire family, and she reached out to me recently and asked me how I dug my way out of the depression I went through after my own father died of Alzheimer's disease a few years ago.

I had to think about it for a minute as I never really enacted any special plan with any forethought, I just blundered along and looked for some answers. After the funeral I sort-of isolated myself from the rest of the family for awhile since I was forced to deal with intense work issues at the time. Everyone was getting laid off, massive re-organization was going on and no one knew if they should even bother coming in to work each morning. For about six months, I kind of forgot all about everything and dealt with the increased work load in the office, and then all of a sudden the emotional pain and grieving began.

First, I seem to remember going and getting accupuncture. This was a weekly thing for about two months, and really helped me calm down.

Then I went to my doctor and got some better meds for my insomnia. Discovered that I slept a lot better if I did not drink any coffee after 10 in the morning (like - DUH!). I also started using those Breathe-Right nose strip things at night to help combat my sleep apnia.

Went back to the gym, just a little (once a week at first). Sometimes I didn't really work out, just sat in the steam room, but it was worth it.

I got my teeth bleached, went to my dentist and had it done it right. Turns out my teeth were discolored from a reaction to antibiotics I took as a child, and those Crest Whitening Strips can't really correct that problem.

Somehow, I also remember reading these books in roughly this order:
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Bad Childhood, Good Life (by Laura Schlessinger)
Learned Optimism (by Martin Seligman)
I'm Not Really Here (by Tim Allen)
Ten Simple Solutions to Stress (by Claire Micheals Wheeler)
Creative Visualization (by Shakti Gawain)
Adult Children of Abusive Parents (by Steven Farmer)
Like a Lampshade In A Whorehouse (by Phyllis Diller)
The Magic Of Believing (by Claude M. Bristol)
Self Confidence Trainer (audio book from Uncommon Knowledge Ltd.)
The Power Of Self-Coaching (audio book by Joseph Luciano)
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And I just started playing my horn a bit more.
For the first time in forever, I really felt like playing again.
(I tried to convince Lisa to get a sax, but she's not into the idea.)
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Happiness is doing NOTHING... (for a few days anyway)

2009-04-21T17:13:00.000-07:00

Just got back from Portland, had fun doing a whole lot of nothing. All I really ever do up there is sit on Molly's front porch drinking coffee and shooting the shit, then we run the dogs in the park and go out to eat. I usually drive, which takes a day and a half and allows me to see the scenery along the way, but this time I flew. Ninety minutes and BAM! You're suddenly there.

I also took a lot of naps, took baths with smelly bath salts, rented movies and read books. It's HEAVEN - no computers, no cel phones, nothing! I even smoked a few tobacco cigs, something I never usually do.

I keep thinking I should buy a house up there, which I could probably afford to do all by myself, if I was a bit creative, and just move on up. But the quality of available studio musician simply is not the same, and my art would suffer.

No, correction - my art would STOP, completely! Who am I kidding? I can see myself getting totally lost in the stimulation - the lumberjack sex, all the young homesteader-types, the curvey girls with beautiful big boobs, all the excellent food and slower pace of life, the dogs and cats and bikes running through all the beautiful parks, going camping, snowshoeing, taking up kayaking, all the fresh air and water...

And then at the end of the day, no new music would get written. Unfortunately, there just doesn't seem to be time for everything.

(sigh) Back to work now...
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Welcome to the next level...

2009-04-17T22:26:00.000-07:00

So today I officially crossed the line and sent an original edit to a film board listing, instead of sending one of my "trunk" files, or anything from the library of original instrumental melodies I'm building over here.

I'm still not really all that comfortable using MIDI yet, but this was irrisistable - these guys needed: "Lyrical, quirky cue featuring pizzicato strings and string bass. Bass is playing a typical oom-pah line..."

I figured this was right up my alley, so I laid down a bass line on the Fender and then used Xpand! to create the violin line and called it Pizzicato Pie. We'll see if anything comes of it.

Very minimalist, and now that it's been submitted I'm wishing I had copied the downbeat hits from bar 1 and 5 into the rest of the progression, but I was down to the wire with the submission cutoff time and had to just stuff it in. I'm sure that as I slowly struggle to my feet with the MIDI stuff that it will all get easier (and I stil have my Yamaha WX-7 wind controller from back in the DogTalk days!)

So here we go... the door has finally been opened.

I'm definitely getting the bigger Axiom keyboard controller and maybe a different sample library to use with it. The trumpet samples inside ProTools absolutely suck...
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Easter Yowza...

2009-04-15T08:23:00.000-07:00

So Easter has come and gone, and some things are finally moving forward.

Since the demise of Rocker Studios, I've been without a bona-fide rehearsal space. I can play my horn to a certain extent in the apartment, but practicing squealing and high partials is dicey - even the cat gets a bit edgy!

However, it looks like Lamar and I will be moving into Secret, right up the road, if things work out OK. We are interviewing with a long-time resident (huge room) for a three-way share and it is looking good so far.

Also I'm finally writing again, after a short hiatus. Put new strings on my Ibanez Roadstar II and tried to write a guitar part for "Rise Of The Depressionistas", but all that came out was this dorky call and response melody line that sounded too "pop" for the satire required. Then I realized that this guitar line might actually work perfectly alongside the horn part I wrote for "Supershiner", which is intended to be nothing BUT hippy-trippy-pop-slop. So I suppose in the end, some progress really is being made.

And I'm NOT upgrading to ProTools v8 until after we have all of the basic tracks for WIQTMB finished. (Sorry but I just don't trust DigiDesign far enough to risk being caught on the rocks in mid-project). But I think I am getting the M-Audio Axiom 49 keyboard controller soon, now that my MIDI problems are pretty much solved. When combined with my WX-7 wind controller, it means that I can write trumpet lines in the middle of the night if I need to.
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Popping up everywhere...

2009-04-06T18:11:00.001-07:00

Wow - pretty amazing, but I have been accepted as a Jingle Punks artist.

http://www.jinglepunks.com/

Also, one of the cuts off the new new CD made it into finals for Mommy XXX, a reality show about a single parent somewhere in the midwest supporting her kids by being a hooker.

I don't think the general public realizes just how big the down-home sex industry has really become since the Internet came along...

So we'll see if I am actually placed. I also applied for the trailer for a new Eddie Murphy movie, sent them something pretty silly, and an Internet TV show out of Canada called Chris and John To the Rescue

Something has got to click, sooner or later.
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Narration as personal style...

2009-03-26T06:37:00.000-07:00

I belong to a Bay Area book club, and I've been reading The Wind-up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami. The book is very entertaining, well-paced, and the direction of the narrative cannot be predicted.

It suddenly occurred to me that the story is being told as a series of first-person narratives, and in a way, this is how I am approaching the music on "Why I Quit The Music Business"...

More on that later; have to get ready for work now.

Muzak? (For real?!)

2009-03-22T08:13:00.000-07:00

Seems lke a friend of mine told me recently that the Muzak Corporation was filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, which doesn't surprise me in a way. Most bars and restaraunts I go into now are either using an iPod as the music source or in some cases, satellite radio or cable music.

How could anyone who is still using a twentieth-century business model even hope to seriously compete with the iPod? I think I seem to recall that when a club signed up for Muzak, a bunch of guys from Muzak would actually arrive in a white panel van and actually install a custom sound system and tape player with custom-formatted tapes. Muzak probably did this to defend their little corner of the market, but the times they are-a-changin'...

And yet, at the same time, I just noticed that Muzak has an advertisement running on Sonic Bids, looking for "new and hip" urban music for a special project they have running called the Muzak Heart And Soul Foundation.

This could turn out to be nothing more than a set-up intended to give Muzak executives a break at tax time, but I like the concept. In Muzak's own words:

"We are a non-profit organization dedicated to redefining and expanding the scope of music education. In order to achieve this goal, the Foundation works to provide new and exciting ways to help kids achieve their musical aspirations.

Heart & Soul is just that, the heart and soul of Muzak—the world’s largest business music provider. The Foundation is rooted in Muzak’s core belief in the emotional power of music, and extending that power to the lives of today’s youth. Through Heart & Soul, Muzak exemplifies what it means to 'give from the heart' and give back to the community."

I think that's pretty cool, considering that in today's economy it seems like often times, paying for music lessons is the last thing many new parents are thinking about when they are raising children. I count myself extremely lucky in that regard.

So I am going to submit, since I already have mixes ready to go, and everything is instrumental anyway. For any other musicians reading this who feel like jumping into the pool, here is the submission address:

http://music.muzak.com/contact/

Look on the page for the Music Submissions Form.

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"Mr. Popularity" accepted at iStockphoto library.

2009-03-18T10:23:00.000-07:00

Hmmmm... pretty amazing.

Apparently, the old SNBD classic "Mister Popularity" has been added to the library over at iStock Photo. (?!)

This is a media library that licenses music as well as images. They are a division of Pump Audio/Getty Images, and after I went through the math, it looks like it would cost one of their customers somewhere between $57 and $90 for a one-time use of the music. This money would end up being split between myself and Dave Rubin, since he holds 1/11th of the copyright on the original published version (CL-136).

I think Getty is pretty big. (or maybe I'm confusing them with Gannett Publishing?)

It was fun to read the description on the advertiser's website: "Instrumental, Free Jazz, Expressing Positivity, Exhilaration, Bizarre, Eccentric, Humor, Mixed Tempo"

Probably "mixed tempo" since Morty suggested an accelerando in the second and third verses, which really made the piece come alive on stage.

Not sure where this is going, but I like what I'm seeing here. I'm also listed at the Film Composer's Network and have started getting job offers from them as well in email.