Rice Crispies and Gin

With these song blogs I always post a listen link about halfway through the blog but I'm going to do some thing a little different this time.

First, go put on a pair of good over-the-ear headphones if you have some. Turn up the volume to a respectable level. If you don't have good head phones, listening through speakers will do if you place yourself between them and turn em' up good and loud.

In either case turn out all the lights while you listen or at least close your eyes. Forget about the rest of the blog for a minute, just sit down and listen.

I'll do it too, I promise, just like I recommended here in my hotel room in Toronto.

Got your headphones? Are the all lights turned off? Good. 
 

Here's the link

Did you listen? Kinda freaky huh? It still creeps me out; and I wrote the darn thing.

When I recorded this song, I wasn't sure about posting a demo.

I thought the song might be a bit too weird. After all, it contained only bass droning one note for ten minutes and quasi-a cappella singing about some sort of crime that is never made clear, only implied.

Oh 'me' of little faith.

I posted it anyway, perhaps three years ago. Since then I have gotten more plays and I have received more comments about this song than anything I have ever written, posted or performed.

The comments are usually like, “Dude, This is the creepiest thing I've ever heard... I love it!”

Go figure.

Fade to the back-story...

A friend of mine told me about a particular black sheep in their extended family. This guy had a demon's breakfast of some seriously twisted parental practices. And of course, he churned out a number of highly messed-up step and foster kids.

I say: “messed-up”... I'm being polite.

If one entertains the stereotypical reputation the circus has had for being a dysfunctional enclave of poverty on wheels, a refuge for the depraved, it could be considered of collection of runaways with no where left to go.

So what kind of person runs away from the circus?

Okay, so I'm letting my HBO Carnivale days get the better of me.

One of those messed-up kids from that messed-up family had indeed joined a circus, but the circus found him a bit too depraved for even their standards and kicked him to the curb. He claimed he was quitting anyway.

He found himself homeless and near a family house that had been largely abandoned. Naturally, he decided to break in and squat for a spell.

Later, the family found evidence of his being there. He had apparently made use of what little was there in the house. He'd slept on a couch and he'd finished off an ancient box of cornflakes in the cupboard. Next to the bowl was a bottle of gin or perhaps it was vodka.

That's pretty much it.

It's not really even a story on it's own. I found it fascinating as a character sketch though and my imagination took over. Someone returning to the scene of the crime. Maybe crimes against him, maybe his crimes against others, or both.

Things I made unspeakable, simply by not speaking of them.

What had brought up this account of the family vagrant up in the first place was my mentioning a skit on SCTV, an old Canadian TV show that was the launch pad for talents like John Candy, Rick Moranis and Catherine O'Hara. This particular skit portrayed “Leave It to Beaver” 25 years later. The 'Beav' played by John Candy, was an adult, unemployed, still living at home. June Cleaver was having an affair and Ward had become a stumbling alcoholic that poured gin on his Weetabix.

The actual SCTV sketch that started it all

“That reminds me of something” my friend had said before telling me the tale.

To me, to whom cereal is a sacred thing. Eating stale cereal with alcohol instead of milk, although far from the ultimate sin, is clear evidence of a person with very few morals and capable of nearly anything!

For God's sake not the cereal man!

Poetic license changed the Corn Flakes to Rice Crispies and Vodka. A desire not to slander the name of a similarly named breakfast cereal altered the spelling.

Rice Crispies and Gin

© 2007 Joel T Johnson

He was gunna run away from the circus

But they'd already ask him to go

The old house seemed dark and empty

So he stood back

And kicked-in the front door

There was only cereal in the cupboard

Stale and getting' older by the minute

Well, sickness and hunger don't give a damn

Now for something to pour in it

Rice crispies and gin

Rice crispies and gin

There is no peace there is no sin

Rice crispies and gin

He passed out like the dead

On the couch

Years of dust brought memories to his nose

Was it real, the things he done

It's still dark when he gets up and goes

Years later

She gets chills in this place

Her skin like spiders still crawls

She knows that something

Very wrong and forgotten

Is stained in these childhood walls

Rice crispies and gin

Rice crispies and gin

There is no peace there is no sin

Washed down with...

Rice crispies and gin

All she knows is what they found

A blanket a bowl and spoon

And empty bottle deep in back yard

Hurled in fury

At the moon

And in the peeling wall paper

Scraped and scrawled with a knife

Your a fool if you think that cause I've gone

That I'm gone from out of your life

Cause every little noise gunna make you shutter

Every dream's gunna scare you awake

Your a fool if you think I'm sorry

Ain't no givin' back

The things that I take

Rice crispies and gin

Rice crispies and gin

There is no peace there is no sin

Like that...

Washed down with...

Rice crispies and gin

–

The song asks far more questions than it answers. And if you ask me any of them, I'll just say: “What do you think?”

The Recording

Only bass and my voice were harmed in the recording of this tune, period.

There are some wind chimes and some other ambient stuff that happened to get picked-up in the background. There are a couple of things that sound like a synthesizer or a guitar; these are filters and distortion effects, but it all came from bass, upright bass and my voice.

I use a looping device called an “Electrix Repeater.” Simply put, the looper records what I play or sing until I hit a 'loop' button or foot switch then it plays back the recording from the beginning and repeats it ad infinitum. It doesn't stop there, for I can continue to record on top of that as many times as I like and can even record on separate tracks so certain loops and be faded or muted while others play.

Most of 'Rice Crispies', the main droning sounds and effects, was recorded right to the Repeater.

I used several techniques to get the sounds that I did: using the Leatherman at the end of the string to buzz against the vibrating E-string; using lots of reverb and delay, playing tracks backwards; using two different parts of the Leatherman for two different violin sounding bowing effects; using the Leatherman as a slide; rapidly swishing my hand over the strings; scraping the E-string with my thumbnail right near the bridge which gives a creepy-crawly sound.

I transferred the Repeater memory card to a computer where I flew them into Cubase, my main recording software. From there the song became the biggest editing and mixing project I have ever undertaken. Even though it is only voice and bass this song is by far the most complex mix on the album.

During recording sessions recording Anna Stadlman's upright bass at her house, I rolled tape (hard disk) and spent about five minutes using the bow near the bridge to create scary, squawky sound effects. Like all the tracks I recorded at Anna's, the wind chimes outside her open door can be heard in the background whenever the upright tracks are present. As a bonus, her Spanish speaking neighbors walked by. Their talking can be heard on the final track around 5:40 though the effects make them sound otherworldly.

The a cappella style singing on the track was directly inspired by “O Death” by Ralph Stanley on the “Oh Brother Where Art Thou” sound track, an album that had a pretty big impact on my music in general.

I also made use of my rudimentary Tuvan tone singing abilities. For lack of a better description, imagine the low guttural tones Tibetan monks make. This effect first show up in my recording at around 3:10. I feed them into a distorted guitar amp effect not long after that.

I was concerned about the fact that the song is over ten minutes long, but I couldn't think of anyway of make it shorter without seriously diluting the song. Besides, as I pointed out earlier, people seem to love this song in spite of the formula rules it breaks... maybe that's part of why?

Maybe I should have made it longer?

Loser's Treason, Part II

Scroll down or click on the left to read “Loser's Treason Part I” if you haven't read it already.

My friend Earl was having trouble in several areas of his life while mine seemed to be getting better. I felt for him but I also knew most of his problems were the result of his choices and attitudes about employers and employment. I knew my doing better and his doing worse was going to create tension.

I never kept track of all the small loans I gave him.

I had a hard time getting a hold of Earl for a couple of days. Then he resurfaced with a plausible excuse that I was happy enough to believe.

It happened again, and again. I had a bad feeling but I hoped for the best. Earl stopped showing up for his job for over a week. They called me and asked me if I knew anything. I said I didn't but in my heart I knew what was going on.

I had to face it. He was 'using' again. He had locked himself in his apartment and closed all the curtains and had even taped over the peep hole in his front door. I found out later, he felt certain that soldiers were creeping down from the hills near where he lived to come get him.

Denial is a powerful thing... but I'm not talking about Earl; I'm talking about me.

Earl and I had an unspoken rule. I didn't treat him like a drug addict; I was the clean friend, the antidote to all the other recovering drug addicts in his life and the people he had alienated in the past. For his part, he didn't drag the drug world with all its dysfunction, recovering or not, into mine.

Now he had broken the deal. There I was, clueless about addicts, addiction and all it's signs and pitfalls, pounding on his doors and windows. knowing he was inside, ignoring me and doing God-knows what.

I learned later that he had become so paranoid he put tape over the peep lens in his front door, convinced soldiers were coming down from the hills to get him and could see in the peep hole.

Eventually I gave up. Short of breaking a window (and then what?), I didn't know what to do. I didn't know how to be the friend of a drug abuser. None of the normal rules of social behavior seemed to apply.

In addition to, and probably because of his drug addiction, Earl suffered from depression, another area I was clueless about.

This blew my mind. He seemed to me to be the antithesis of depression. He was always up, always sociable, always the clown.

As you can tell, I didn't have a clue about depression either.

I don't know how Earl got to rehab, but he did. I got a call from him many weeks later when he had earned visiting and phone privileges.

I visited him and brought him some snacks and things he requested from Trader Joe's. It was all thoroughly checked over by the staff.

Earl seemed a new man. He talked about his desire to become a rehab counselor where we was staying. He seemed really into his program, really gung ho.

I went away relieved. When he moved out of rehab everything was good again. We worked on the Squeedle album from time to time, though I didn't have the kind of time to spend on it as I did before. I was married now, in a handful of bands and working on music that I intended to release as my own.

Earl was working steadily and living in a good apartment. His girlfriend had had some troubles of her own but was doing very well around that time. She was in school and enthusiastic about the prospect of a new career as a professional. She and Earl got engaged. It looked as though everything was finally going to be okay.

I have since learned that, for people with depression, sometimes the prospect of everything “being okay” can be terrifying. Earl wasted no time making sure “okay” didn't unpack its bags.

I got a full-time gig playing with a band that traveled across the country. Earl was supportive and happy for me but I could tell he was feeling badly that I had become a full time musician without him.

On one of my brief breaks from the road we went to dinner with Earl and his girlfriend at an Ethiopian restaurant. As we walked to our cars afterwords, we parted in four different directions.
Earl's girlfriend went to stay in Texas for a while to take care of some family business.
My wife went to stay with her parents in the Inland Empire.
I headed back out on the road. 
Earl stayed in LA.

It was the last time I saw him on good terms.

While his girlfriend was away, Earl harbored a delusion that she was sleeping with some sort of construction crew that was working on her grandmother's house. Complete jealous paranoia. When she returned, their relationship was strained by his crazy accusations but she remained with him for some reason.

Audra and I went to New York for Christmas that year. As we had in the past, we asked Earl to stop by and put out food for the cats. While we were in NY, Earl's Girlfriend called us saying that she had not been able to get a hold of him for several days. They lived together at the time so she suspected he was holed up in our apartment. This worry put a damper on our holiday and an urgency on getting back home.

We returned to find our apartment rather disheveled and smelling funny. Sure enough, there was a piece of tape over the peep hole in the door.

We hadn't been an home for an hour when Earl arrived and opened the door with his key, quite surprised to find us home. He said he'd thought we were going to be away longer but I could tell he, in a his drug stupor, had lost track of what day it was. He gave the excuse that it was medication for back pain that was making him act as he was.

I shouldn't have let him drive but I was so sideways about the state he had left things, I just wanted him gone.

Later we found a crack pipe and some cash missing.

Earl had broken my last thread of trust. I am very understanding and tolerant to a point. When that point is crossed, I am done, end of story. It was time for me to break my end of the unspoken agreement. For the first time I had to treat him like the drug addict he was and confront him with it.

It was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do. It may not seem like much to some folks, but for me, it was huge.

I called and told him I knew he was using, I knew he had been lying and stealing from us. I told him that I loved him, but I could no longer have any contact with him until got himself checked into rehab. He offered excuse after excuse; denial after denial. I held my ground and merely repeated my demand each time he tried to shuck and jive.

It was the first time I had stood up and been a true friend. Besides his lies and excuses, all he had to say was: “So you don't want to be friends anymore?”

Not surprisingly, he ignore my ultimatum. He didn't get help and kept on using crack and apparently abusing alcohol.

Sometime after that, Earl was arrested for attempting to shoplift some beer. Combined with several bench warrants for other unsettled offences, it looked like the theft was going to send him to prison.

I was glad actually. He had always avoided prison before. Maybe it would provide the wake-up call he desperately needed. Perhaps this time around rehab he would experience some sort of significant core change not just going through the motions.

I was pretty much done with Earl, but he wasn't finished with me just yet.

No longer touring with the band, I had flown to Toronto to work on a show. While I was there on got a phone message from him saying that nothing was left, he had pawned away almost everything he owned and he was going to kill himself. “You're welcome to whatever is left,” he said.

I thought long and hard whether to respond just in case he was serious. Finally I decided not to take the bait and stick to my guns.

He didn't kill himself.

He called my parents and tried to get to me through them. They told him it was good to talk to him but that his relationship with me was his own business and that they wouldn't be messengers or advocates.

The Earl I had known seemed completely gone. I began to wonder if that person was ever real. What if the drug addict and social manipulator was the true Earl and my friend was complete fiction? A cult of personality that was only smoke and mirrors?

Earl had been in rehab a total of four times only fall back into heavy abuse for ride number five. I could now see the cycle all too plainly. I wanted off the merry-go-round and out of the amusement park.

I lost a friend. Not to death or geographic separation but through his own choices.

I avoided drug abuse myself only to have it sneak into my life in sheep's clothing and throw up on my clean floors and walk out the door with my possessions.

Earl continued to contact me. His girlfriend dragged him over one day to give my bass back after she paid to get it out of the pawn shop. I met him in front of the building. I said very little.

It hurt. It hurt a lot and still he wanted to burden me with the guilt and the responsibility choosing my own emotion health over what had become a dysfunctional friendship.

He commented on some Facebook posts as if nothing had happened. I could see that eventually I would get sucked back into the cycle unless I made myself absolutely clear.

I composed an email. It first it was venting and emotional but I revised it many times until it was composed and articulated only the facts; almost legalese. I said that I would always love him, but that he had abused my friendship beyond its elasticity.

I told him that I wanted absolutely no contact with him for five years. If he was interested in regaining my trust he would have to prove significant and deep self change that was reflected in his career, his relationships and his bank account.

There were a few more emails. I deleted them unread. They stopped altogether eventually.

Once in a while I will hear a tidbit about him from his now ex-girlfriend, like that he had completed rehab and was in school to become a chef.

He was always a pretty decent cook.

We actually passed him on the freeway a couple years ago. He was driving an old Volvo, like he always did. I couldn't help wondering how long it would be before he lost that one like all the others. I wondered about the new friends he had surely made with all his charisma. I wondered when he would loose those too.

We didn't honk or wave. He didn't see us and turned off on the next exit.

The Song

I don't especially like performing ballads, but Loser's Treason was an important song for me to write. I worked out my feelings as well as the melody and the words, often with with tears running down my cheeks. I choose to put it on the album because it turned out to be a pretty decent song that helped round out the variety of styles I wanted it to encompass.

Click here to listen to the song as you read on.

Loser's Treason

© 2009 Joel T Johnson

You are my friend

but I can't see you anymore

I can't even talk to you

You're not you

I don't know who this is

It's like you moved

And left a shell

But maybe it is

Maybe your real McCoy

You ran out of ways to hide

No more ways to lie

You still call me up

And tell me you're going to kill yourself.

You've been killing yourself for years

The one lie too many

The one that made me turn and see

The ten-thousand

That came before

You left me nothing

Nothing I can even cry about

Except the lessons

Of being taken for a fool

You wouldn't do it for yourself

Wouldn't do it for your kids

What made me think

You'd listen to me

It might not make sense

But you are my friend

I went on

I did well

That didn't do too well with you

A loser's treason

Another loser's treason is to win

You are my friend

You are my brother

You know I pray

I pray for you to heal

Hope is eternal

But the hopeless infernal

There's only one thing

That I know for sure

That you are my friend

Always be my friend

You are my friend

You are my friend

The Recording

The main bass part was just an idea that I had put on tape years ago. I thought of it as a going to a song that had hope and positive energy. When I transferred the tape to a digital file I was forced to name it something.

“Peace to You” I called it.

The song started out simple with just the main bass line and a voice. I still perform on stage it this way and it works well.

In my recording I wanted to show to myself and the world that I could arrange a produce a polished ballad. I  included drums, a drum machine, keyboards, backing vocals, strings and one more important ingredient...

There's very little guitar on my album but I never want it to be said this is because I don't love guitar because I do. This song needed a true guitar solo played by a gifted guitarist. My good friend Jim, who Earl and I hung out with like old mates when Earl came for Christmas, was the obvious choice. Jim was my sounding board for the whole tragic story and understood my part in it better than anyone besides my wife.

He's an amazingly expressive and virtuosic guitarist, he was the obvious choice.

I emailed Jim a copy of my latest mix and very soon afterwords received a guitar solo in my inbox.

Technology!

It was perfect! He conveyed the tragedy and healing of the song exactly as I knew he would.

Singing this song had been a challenge from day one. That challenge helped me grow from a relatively inexperienced singer. I have sung it hundreds of times to develop the melody and my performance. Even though I am mostly satisfied with my performance on the album I continue to work at the nuance of performing this song.

I had to learn to sing with the intensity of the personal experience the song comes from without simply 'belting it out' as I did in early renditions of the song. I had to hit some somewhat high notes while still singing relatively softly.

Once again, I owe credit to Roger Love and his Book/CD “Set Your Voice Free” and my friend Richard MacLemale for recommending it, for ever being able to pull this song off.

When I sent my recording to the CD manufacturer I gave them special instructions not to change or manipulate the endings of the songs. The endings of several of my songs contain material and sound effects after the song itself has ended. It is possible that a well-meaning technician might have lobbed off those extra sounds thinking they were mistakenly left on the end.

“Loser's Treason” is a prime example. Though the song develops into a full production from a simple beginning, by the time the last notes ring out, only the bass and drums remain.

I took this a step further by including the sound of the drummer and myself getting up from our stools, leaving the studio and closing the door. This was to symbolize my moving past my unfortunate experience with a drug abuser.

I don't think anyone ever 'gets over' loosing a close friend this way, but writing and producing this song was very healing.

Please support my efforts to promote the album by buying this song as a download for a just a buck, the whole album download for $9 or the CD for $12 + shipping all at CDBaby

The album and songs are also available on iTunes and Amazom.com 

Loser's Treason, Part I

This is a tough one. Of all of my songs this one comes the most deeply from personal experience. I have been dreading writing about it but here we are. I can't put if off any longer. 

Here goes...

After twelve years it could be said that I have a lot of friends in LA, yet not that many I that I feel could call for a ride to the airport, get help with something difficult like moving or just show up on their door unannounced.

In fact, I don't have any friends like that.

But I did once.

We'll call him “Earl”.

Earl was about ten years older than I and his background in life as well as music and music tastes were quite different than mine, but we found we had a similar sensibility about music art and just hanging out.

Earl was a recovering drug addict. That didn't bother me. He had been three years sober and seemed to have a solid handle on things. I had never had any direct experience with drug addiction or alcoholism, but I always considered myself a good judge of character and being blind to stereotypes.

Earl passed my tests, the one's that mattered.

He was funny, intelligent, good with people, responsible and a lot of fun. I just liked the guy. More than all that, he brought out good things in me.

Earl and I played in a band together which was essentially the house band for an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting place in Orange County. It was a horrible band from the start, but I had not played with any bands since I left New York and this seemed like a safe, low-key way of getting back into it. The band was aptly named “Loser Salute,” referring to the “L” one makes on the forehead.

When driving home from those AA gigs Earl and I would make the loser salute to each other from our respective cars as his lane split off to “The 5” and mine split to “The 101” as he went home to the Valley and I to Hollywood.

Earl was my social antithesis in many ways. Having grown up in LA and military bases around the world, he was outgoing, gregarious and streetwise. I was reserved and still relatively naïve from my idyllic childhood in rural Canandaigua.

Earl was good for me. He got me out and around. He showed me a side of LA I would not have ventured into on my own. We went to Taco joints were we were not only the only white guys in the place, but in the neighborhood. We went to bizarre places in the the Valley like C.I.A. (California Institute of Abnormal Arts), a sort of circus-museum/art gallery/music venue but there really is no describing the place.

Earl dragged me places: concerts, festivals, art... things, parties. Not the the wrap and production-related parties I normally went to; parties where there were poets, artists, writers and actors--even some I recognized.

He got me out and kept me from slipping into myself as I am still apt to do.

Earl could strike up a conversation with any stranger wherever he was; something that terrified me. We might be at a light next to a police car. Earl would roll down his window and start talking to the cops about whatever.

Once, a transvestite and his/her friend were standing on Santa Monica Boulevard, asthey tend to do. When Earl pulled up to a light, the non-cross-dressing friend said to Earl, pointing at the cross-dresser, “she likes you”.

Earl, without missing a beat, replied, “Ha! Yeah, she likes everybody.”

Walking down Sunset Boulevard, Earl and I saw a couple of plain-clothes cops ducking in doorways and looking left and right. It was obvious they were following someone 'on the sly'. Earl unabashedly walked up to one of the hiding cops.

“Hey man, anything we should be worried about?” Earl said.

The cop should his head and nervously waved Earl on. When we caught up to the prostitute that Earl figured they were shadowing, he nonchalantly said, “they're on to you baby.”

Life was always more interesting when I was around Earl. Someone should have been following him around with a camera. 

Even though he got me out of my comfort zone, I never felt in danger or like I'd wished I stayed home. He never got us into trouble and if he had, I have little doubt he could have charmed us out of it.

Eventually Earl and I quit “Loser Salute” and formed our own band.

“Squeedle,” as we called it, was an experimental project which often involved my writing and performing songs while Earl created ambient walls of noise using his guitar and effect pedals. Earl wrote some songs too. They weren't often my taste: sparse semi punk/folk tunes that sounded spoken more than sung, but they were still interesting and I apprecitaed them on an artistic level if not a visceral one. lt also kept me from having to be the front man all the time. Something I was still... am still... terrified of.

Earl also wrote lyrics for a tune of mine that I later replaced with my own words and melody. It's now called “Rain Don't Follow the Plow”.

Where we were the most different was instrumentally. Even though I was largely self taught on the bass guitar I had learned up right bass and piano from lessons and music theory from high school and college courses. I had played in youth symphonies, jazz bands and pit orchestras.

Earl had played in punk and rock bands. His philosophy on playing guitar was never allowing your ability to rise above the bare minimum of what you need to play.

His punk philosophy often clashed with my quasi-virtuosic approach to playing and progressive rock, more-is-more sense of arranging, but there was always the feeling that together, our unlikely collaboration was something pretty unique and worthwhile.

“Squeedle” was at it's best when I was doing my thing; playing songs and accompanying myself on bass, while Earl was sitting on the floor sculpting sound with his guitar pedals, often with his guitar just sitting in his lap on it's stand, ringing and feeding back.

This noise making process something that Earl was really good at, almost a master.

“Squee” he called it.

I have hours and hours of recordings of Earl creating “squee”. While he was warming-up, fooling around and experimenting, I would roll tape without telling him. That's how we got his best stuff.

We played concerts as well. Due to Earl's social fearlessness and his social network of recovering drug addicts, the venues we played were interesting if not outright bizarre. We played some rather interesting private parties, and even stranger places like an inventor's convention, poetry readings, and—I shit you not—a retirement home called “Golden Years” for the birthday party of a ninety year old woman.

We were getting coffee at a funky little coffee shop in my neighborhood. Earl casually asked them to book our band. To my great surprise, the guy behind the counter said yes without so much as hearing a demo. Not only did they book us, we were instantly their Thursday night house band and they still hadn't heard a note. It should be noted that this was a free gig, but if you know LA, that's still incredible.

We played that gig for about two months until the owner, who also happened to be a recovering drug addict, fell off the wagon and crack smoked away his coffee shop.

We had often talked about making a Squeedle recording. “Let's make a record” Earl would always say when he showed up at my studio with his guitar. We had accumulated nearly enough material to fill a CD. About half of it was remixes of Earl's “Squee” recordings. I layered multiple tracks of squee and added beats, keyboards, effects and sometimes bass. It was some pretty cool stuff and quite unique.

I'm not going to post any links as I was only one half of the project, but suffice to say if one were curious enough, there are sample “Squeedle” recordings to be Googled out there.

Besides being in a band together Earl and I were always friends first. There wasn't a week that went by that we didn't hang out. A movie or some bizarre concert or art gallery—often one in the same. We would often be at each others' apartment for a home cooked dinner and watch a video. No matter what we did, we had fun, there was always lots of laughter.

Earl was also quite intelligent and well-read he had something interesting to say about nearly any subject. He was quite socialist in his views which was quite a ways to the left of mine but we didn't often talk politics. Earl's girlfriend, and eventually Audra after we met also came into the fold of our gatherings.

One year at Christmas Earl even went home with me to my folks house. He got to meet Jim, another great friend of mine. Both had heard me talk about the other so often it felt like the three of us had been buddies for years.

Musically, Squeedle was satisfying to a point, but I knew that I had to do other things. Other than his mastery of 'squee', Earl's basic skills on guitar were limiting for me; frustrating. He played the way he liked to but it didn't often fit with what I wanted to do. I loved the guy, but I could see the writing on the wall. He was never going to be a big part of my future in music.

I had always been honest about my intentions and feelings. Earl seemed to understand that our instrumental skill levels were oceans apart. He would often talk about the things I could do and the places I would go. He would brag of my bass playing abilities to anyone that he could... which was everyone.

I would brag about his genius with squee. 

At one point I was living with Audra and Earl with his girlfriend. When Audra and I got married in a simple and open elopement, besides the minister, Earl, as my best man, was the only one in attendance. He wore jeans, an untucked black shirt and a ratty straw cowboy hat.

After that I saw less of Earl. I was involved with other bands I was playing. More importantly, I had finally started working songs and recordings that would evolve into my album.

When I did see Earl, it wasn't quite the same as it was. He was having trouble with his girlfriend, he was having trouble at work.

I didn't realize he was slipping, or that he had already fallen. I wasn't paying attention. Maybe I just didn't want to.

Next week: Part II of Loser's Treason along with lyrics and a link to listen to the song.

What'd You Say to My Old Lady?

What'd You Say to My Old Lady

...or: Why bass guitar kicks ass as a stand-alone blues machine!

Think of music genres as stereotypical kids in a classroom:

• The over-achieving straight-A student (indy/retro)
• The jock (classic rock)
• The cheerleader (pop/dance)
• The shop class kid (country)
• The band geek (jazz)
• The quiet, moody emo (hardcore)
• The out-of-touch rich kid (classical)
• The chip-on-his-shoulder criminal (metal/rap)
• The freaky art student (folk/world/industrial)
  
  
  
  Aren't stereotypes fun?

Then there's the kid who sits in the back that hardly gets noticed. He's not a great student but not much of a trouble maker either. He's probably got some sort of learning disability but is pretty bright despite what everyone, including himself, thinks. He's inwardly passionate but not outwardly ambitious. Solid and dependable, he doesn't desire to be the center of attention but he's not shy either and doesn't have a problem making some noise when it's called for.

That's the blues kid.

I've also just described a typical bass player.

The Great James Jameson

A mach made in heaven.

Why then, I say, is guitar the king of the blues?

Lets argue, shall we?

GUITAR: The bass is needs to fill out the bottom end and hold the groove with the drummer, that's it job. It isn't real blues or rock without it.

BASS: Aren't you basically admitting that bass is more critical than guitar? So what's wrong with a couple bass players trading off playing traditional and non-tradition bass?

Dualing bass;

Berklee teacher Jim Stinnett and his former student Mike Gordon of Phish.

GUITAR: So who'd play guitar?

BASS: Who needs it? Why do we have to have guitar? Yeah it's cool and everything but like saxophone, is it really essential every moment of every song?

GUITAR: So all we're left with is “boom, boom boom” nothing else? Guitar is the standard accompaniment for popular vocalized music, it's what has worked for years.

BASS: So what. The harpsichord was the standard accompaniment back when the World was flat , everyone drank mead and died from a cut on their finger. Who says bass has to 'boom' all of the time just because it can?

GUITAR: But the bass is so limited compared to the guitar.

BASS: It depends on how you look at it. The way we have learned to think about the bass is limited not the instrument itself. I say, it is the guitar that is limited compared to the bass guitar. Try hitting a guitar with the full force of your hand. Try snapping the strings. Bass is harmonic melodic and percussive. Yet a bass can be strummed, picked, and finger picked just like a guitar.

GUITAR: But guitar has a greater note range than bass.

BASS: Not as much as you might think. A plain old twenty-four fret, four-string bass has a range of forty notes, not counting harmonics; a standard six-string Stratocaster only has forty seven. Also the harmonic range of the guitar is in more direct conflict with the human voice. This is one reason why blues guitar often plays it's licks in between vocal lines. The predominant frequencies of the modern bass guitar very nicely book-end the human voice both meaty frequencies below and the snappy transient frequencies above, allowing it to play constantly without interfering, unless it chooses to play in that range.

GUITAR: But a bass just doesn't sound like a guitar?

BASS: Yes it does, and no it doesn't. Both are good things. You can plug a bass into a guitar amp and guess what? It can overdrive those tubes, growl and feed back just like a guitar can. Does it sound the same as a guitar then? No, it sounds better, fuller, more intense.

GUITAR: That's just your opinion.

BASS: Yes it is. It is a new sound; I'd like to think a welcome variation, a companion not a replacement. Again, most of the limitations for bass guitar are in our head, how we've chosen to see/hear it.

GUITAR: But tens of thousands of popular songs have used this paradigm to great success. It just works, and if it ain't broken, don't fix it, right?

BASS: But for me, it is broken. All these songs are fine but the bass isn't being used to a fraction of it's potential. I am fighting against a common perception of the bass guitar, inside my own head as well everyone elses'.

I don't really see the guitar as the enemy as I have fun implying. It is a wonderful beautiful instrument and I love to hear all the amazing things that masters have done over the years and continue to push the envelope. It is just sad to me that there aren't more masters on the bass guitar because of this limited perception we seem to all share.

To reenforce a new attitude about bass I have had to kick the guitar to the curb a little. Culturally, the iconic electric guitar is too bright a star. A lot of people will assume what I'm doing is on guitar unless I make a point of stating it's all bass.

One of things I would like to accomplish with this album and this blog to change people's feelings and artificial limitations on the bass, especially other bass players.

GUITAR: Um... can I go now?

BASS: Yeah, we're done here.

“What'd You Say to My old Lady” is probably the closest thing I've written to a traditional blues song right down to the title. I wrote it with the intent of using the bass as a traditional blues vehicle but playing in an non-traditional way.

Click here to listen to the song as you read on.

What'd You Say to My Old Lady

© 2009 Joel T Johnson

What'd you say

To my old lady

To make that poor girl cry

What'd you say

To my old lady

To make that poor little girl cry

When you treat her so bad

I can't look you in the eye

You gone and done it now

She's closed and locked the door

You gone and done it now

She's closed and locked the bedroom door

You know you better

I know you know better

Cuz we've been out here before

(bass solo)

You knew there was trouble

When the words they left your mouth

You knew there was trouble, yes you did

When those words left your mouth

But you went right on ahead, went right on

And let those poison words right out

(drum solo)

What'd you say

To my old lady

To make that poor girl cry

What'd you say

To my old lady

To make that poor little girl cry

When we hurt her so bad

I can't look me in the eye

Dry your tears

The Recording:

The main riff is played as pop and snap 'thumb' technique. Coupled with the distortion of the guitar amp and with a slowed-down back porch blues rhythm it sounds worlds away from the funk and R&B world that technique was born in.

The buzz-saw bass solo after the second verse (yes that is a bass) I consider to be a big step towards my goal in changing the bass's perception. It has all the energy and raw power of a guitar solo. It sounds like a guitar on the surface using the same sort of blues licks that many blues guitar solos do yet, because it's a bass and because it is physically different to play and a different signal coming from the instrument, it sounds like no guitar solo I've ever heard.

Just to mess things up further, the after the third verse I throw a bone to the other neglected instrument in the blues world: drums. The drum solo I tried to keep from being an indulgent look-at-me arena solo but instead, what a blues solo should be: an expression of feeling within the context and structure of the song.

In the recording I used a greater proportion of room mics in the mix to give it a raw, un-produced sound, then juxtaposed that with plenty of compression to keep it 'in-your-face' and somewhat modern.

As I performed, I deliberately copped an attitude. I danced around during the vocal track, I pointed to a pretend audience. I shouted to the drummer (who wasn't actually there--on two counts), I kept it loose, I had fun with it. I limited myself to two takes at a time with at least an hour break in between to make sure it stayed 'fun' and not faked. I think I had the take I wanted after three tries.

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