The Revenge of Mr. No-So-Cool

A re-write from my old Myspace blog "Diesel Fumes"

During high school I was not cool. I was not an athlete. I had never won anything, not a contest, not a raffle, not classroom bingo, nothing. I was quite conscious of this; probably why I didn't win.

In school, my academics were poor. I have mentioned my so-called learning disability in a previous post. This was a factor of course but I also just didn't care that much. I might not have cared at all, but my brother was getting excellent grades and my parents were both teachers. They were good not to pressure me to the point of rebellion but I knew they were at least a little disappointed. My teachers, noting that I was actually pretty intelligent would say “If only he'd apply himself..."

Okay, I'll do better. I'll work hard and... I'll just do better. I promised myself.

I studied, I did homework, I but after just a few minutes it was as if I was just looking at a different language on the page. Each word would evaporate from my mind as I read them. Soon my desire to pick up my bass won out over the books. I was breaking new ground on bass but looking at C's and D's as ever in school.

My social life wasn't going that well either. In my school, one of those places where everyone was very much caught up with football, we were known as “band fags” or 'biffs'. Nice huh? If I were to have listened to the masses I would have thought of myself as being the bottom of the food chain. Which of course I did. I was in high school with a low self esteem, not some semi-enlightened adult. Though I claimed to disdain them, the popular kids were royalty. I effectively bowed when they passed and cared very much what they thought of me which as a result, wasn't very much.

Girls: I thought about them all the time. The ones I liked I could barely utter an intelligent syllable to and I pretty much liked them all.

Music was what I was good at. It was my island it; the 'Earth' where I was superman and high school was my Krypton where I was just another weakling.

But music, my island paradise, had it's problems too.

I was not, nor have I ever really been, a disciplined or academic musician. I didn't practice as often as i should have and when I did I played what I felt like, not learning scales or practicing reading music—my big weak point. I had barely mustered a B- on my NYSMA (New York State School Music Association) solo competition solo on upright bass and I think they were being kind. As a bass player in the school music groups I was in, and even the rock bands I played in, I was always in the background, there was always some else in the spot light. As with many bass players, it was my self-image that had really put me there, not my choice of instrument.

Auditions, I hated them. It was not just about how well I could play, which was pretty good, it was about having the cool confidence to play before scrutinizing ears and eyes, by myself. It was a test of mojo, not just musicianship. During my senior year I went to Penn Yan, New York to audition for the Area All State Jazz Ensemble. There were several others auditioning, but I primarily noticed this one local guy warming up. He was a skinny kid that had a silk shirt with pictures of little records on it. He was playing some Led Zeppelin tune to warm up. He wore his bass strap very low, his bass almost to his knee. "Mr. Cool."

"No problem", I thought, "I can outplay this guy. I'll clean up Mr. Cool without breaking a sweat."

During my audition though, things did not go smoothly. There was no drummer, no band to play along with I was completely exposed. My mojo was out by the highway thumbing a ride back to Canandaigua. For the site reading one of the judges handed me a chart for a piece that he himself had composed and that I had never seen before (the whole point of site reading). Without anyone else to play with, I could barely get out the notes let alone lay down the good feel, the thing I was best at.

Did I mention this particular judge was also from Penn Yan: Mr. Cool's music teacher? No matter.

Mr. Cool was in and I was out. I was disappointed even a little pissed that I would have to sit out area allstate my senior year. I had put all my eggs in one basket and didn't audition for the allstate orchestra. I put it out of my mind and I most certainly didn't go to the concert.

Shelly Binder, was a stellar trumpet player from our school. She passed her audition with ease and played lead trumpet for the Area Allstate Jazz Band. She was a great player both academically and in the true musical sense. She also had what I lacked back then: self confidence. Shelly was also a good egg and has lent me some of her chutzpah on more than one occasion. When she returned from performing with the select group, the one with Mr. Cool on bass, she brought with her a jazz-rock chart that they had performed. During jazz band rehearsal she mentioned that the Pen Yan bass player, "Mr. Cool", had taken a solo in the piece. My blood began to boil but then she finished. "Joel would have done better. He should take a solo too." Mr Peters, our director agree and I was given eight bars of spotlight.

You can bet I worked my ass off on a rockin' solo.

Later that year the Canandaigua Academy Jazz Band, our jazz band, was at a jazz competition at Haverling High School in Hammondsport, New York. We were backstage, on-deck to perform. There was another band milling about that was playing after us. Among them was a tall beautiful girl in a yellow dress with a Les Paul Custom guitar strapped on.

Be still my heart! A cute girl with a Les Paul! I was instantly in love; that happened a lot (not seeing cute girls with Les Pauls around their necks, falling in love with cute girls with pretty much anything around their necks).

I attempted to make conversation with her but she, noting I was wearing a cheap, Korean-built Hondo II P-bass copy, was well aware that she outclassed me by around a thousand dollars. There was no talking to her. It didn't bother me too much though. I knew what was coming.

Onstage, in the late measures of our last piece, that same jazz-rock piece that Shelly brought in, I reached back and twisted the volume knob up on my Fender Bassman. I spun around in time to light into my solo. I wailed, my fingers flew, the notes came together together like Swiss gears and left my amp like a forest fire. I was completely in the moment. I relished every note.

The Five Points of 'Mr. Not-So-Cool's (my) Revenge:

1. I didn't even look at the snobby chic guitarist with the Les Paul as we left the stage. Maybe she was impressed with what a cheap bass could do in the hands of a bad ass bass mo-fo, maybe she wasn't, I didn't think about it much frankly. She was a lightweight who'd borrowed her daddy's guitar and could barely play with the feel of a cardboard box as far as I was concerned, and I hadn't even heard her play.

2. Mr. Cool was also in attendance for the solo. My friend Scott, also a Penn Yan student, was sitting next to him and told me that Mr. Cool was quite impressed with what I had done with 'his' solo (I choose to believe that meant intimidated as hell). My revenge was complete…

Or was it?

3. After all the bands had played everyone assembled in the auditorium to hear who had won the competition. Like with all award ceremonies they can't just read third, second, first place and be done with it, there always has to be a bunch of other stupid awards like 'best dressed trombonist' or most in-tune sax player. I didn't know, I wasn't paying attention, such awards never applied to me and definitely not to bass pla...

"The bass player from Canandaigua."

Whaa? What did they say?

There was back-slapping from all directions, otherwise I'd have thought I was hearing things. Apparently it was the award for 'best soloist'. Stunned, I began to rise from my seat to redeem my award, but the slapping hands pulled me back. Karl Taylor, our band's representative was already onstage to receive all our awards. Our band won the overall competition as well. 

I still have the plaque

4. Still reeling from my award and life's shift away from never having won anything, I sat on the bus with the rest of the band waiting for our director, Barry Peters, to return from the judges meeting. We were all on a psych from the win. Everyone continued slapping me on the back and shaking my hand. They had known about the Area Allstate thing. I got the feeling they were nearly as happy about my unexpected win as the band's championship.

When Mr. Peters reached the bus it was plain that he was very pleased too. He came right up to me grinning like the Cheshire cat: "One of the judges is the jazz band director at St. Bonaventure University. He was really impressed with your playing. In fact, he wants to pay you a scholarship to go to school there and play in their jazz band."

I've never been so blown away in my life. I was already adjusting to my first "win". The word "scholarship" didn't belong in the same sentence with anything having to do with me. Frankly, it was a little hard to take, all this honor and attention—it was also mentioned during the morning announcements the next day at school. It was all great and wonderful but I was completely unprepared to know how to feel.

5. By the time the bus reached our school and drove home it was after midnight. I rapped gently on my parents' bedroom door and stepped into the dark of their room.

"You'll never guess what," I said.

DOUBLE J's Double Take

A Music & Personal Update

I just returned home from the second and final weekend of the Hyundai 'event' I was working on. This Weekend we were in Paso Robles in Central California. the weather couldn't have been any more perfect, even if not compared to last weekend's 100 degree plus sweaty fry-fest in Arizona. Even better, our hotel, The Carlton Hotel was this awesome little restored hotel in Atescadero, California, about ten miles from our shooting location. A nice restaurant and I had a really charming very large and luxurious room, one of the nicest I've stayed in. The price: a steal at $150 a night. I highly recommend the place. I car-pooled up and back with a couple of great guys. One I already knew and one I had just met on this project who has lead an amazing life so far and had many fascinating tales to tell. Now I'm home and in about eight hours (2:30AM) I start my first shift covering Wimbledon at Tennis Channel. Afterwords I going to work sorting out the gear from the Hyundai thing. Tomorrow's going to be a long day! I got a couple rehearsals in last week. Lets see if i can get three in this week.

The 10 Missions of Joelifornia

There are 21 missions in California.

Musically speaking, I have 10 of my own, though Huell Hauser* is unlikely to visit any of mine.

*Huell Howser is a California celebrity of sorts. He hosts several shows that highlight California sites of interest with an almost over-the-top enthusiasm and, oddly enough, a thick Tennessee accent. He has even been parodied on the “Simpsons” falling off a turnip truck as “Howel Hueser”.

I hate the term “mission statement”. It has been used and abused in too many cube farms to be taken seriously. I prefer just “mission” or “road map”. Like all road maps, some are more detailed than others. This one has the Interstates and a few state routes on it. The local roads and the side streets we’ll fill in later as we get closer.

I have personal road maps as well but this is just about music.

"Just head straight on down route life-line over the palm till you see and old pinky dog.
If-in that pinky dog is asleep you gunna take a left.
If-in he's awake you gunna keep on going straight till ya hit the ole love-line road...

This will not be a typical blog. I’ll be taming lions and super gluing myself to airplanes later on just for your entertainment. As I get (re)started, I believe it’s important not only to establish a road map but to put it out there, give it over to God, cast it into the Universe… No matter how we say it, this is me broadcasting my intentions and some specific corresponding goals (in blue text). Though they say you are supposed to write goals in present tense, as if the goal has already been reached, I believe for a blog that lacks journalistic clarity so I have taken a future tense but I really really mean it!

I also ask you to forgive me if I sound narcissistic here and there. It’s even a bit uncomfortable for me to write about myself in such high falutin’ terms but I am about to market myself as a product and compete with some truly narcissistic artists so we’re just going to have to get over it. Some of my goals may seem lofty and even laughable. I believe in shooting high and thinking big, even if it’s a little embarrassing to lay it all out like this. If my ego ever gets out of check, my wife will surely give me a healthy kick to the reality.

The 10 Missions of Joelifornia:

1. Be True to The Art and The Audience
I am not about to slick down, grease up and hot glue glitter on my music to please the greatest common denominator of poster pop flavor-of-the-week twenty/teeny/tweeny-somethings and the general throngs of mediocrity.

I will make music on my terms and to my liking.

At the same time, my music is never going to be so artsy that everyone is going to have to look up at my nostrils—“yeesh, do you ever trim these things?” This music is to be enjoyed by anyone who is so inclined regardless of background or education. The only requirement for enjoyment will be the slightest of an open mind and possession of the human condition.

• The press will call my music “populist” but not pop, “progressive” but not prog*

*Prog is short for progressive rock, a genre of long complex and ‘artsy’ music works typified by bands like “Yes”, “Emerson Lake and Palmer” and “King Crimson”. It is often thought of as pretentious. I LOVE it, but I don’t want to be accused of it stylistically.

2. Tell Compelling Stories
David Byrne once said that “Singing is just a trick to get people to listen to the music longer.” I use my music to tell stories and I use stories to tell music. I know that one or the other will capture the imagination and open the doors of a new experience. The characters and story lines have their own life so they may go places outside of my own experience or morals. The real trick is if you play my music backwards you inevitably hear a large duck ordering sushi in Oslo or Marrakesh (depending on the playback speed).

• I will be noted for my storytelling
Kind of an abstract goal I know. I can’t really think of a measurable way to quantify. Any ideas?


3. Make A Difference
I not only want to participate in the music world, I want to change it through innovation and creative outside-the-box thinking. Much of popular music is guitar centric. There are many good reasons for this. It is a relatively easy instrument for anyone to play, perfect to accompany singing as it occupies a slightly lower frequency range than singing when playing most chords and basically the same range when soloing.

I believe music listeners, musicians, even other bass players are missing a wealth of potential in the bass guitar simply because the electric guitar has filled that main role and “that’s how it’s been done” for 30, 40, 70, years.

I mean to change the way people think about bass, exhaust its possibilities and constantly push the envelope of my own skill and proficiency while expanding the perception of bass from a support instrument in the rhythm section to its own substantial entity with possibilities limited only by the imaginations of its players and listeners.

Hey, get that smirk off your face. I know it sounds awful in concept. Wait and listen, wait and listen.

• There will be an article about me in Bass Player Magazine noting my contributions to the role of the bass guitar

If I ever do make the cover I hope they use a better
photo than I did

4. Make It Good
Seems like a no brainer but after twenty takes it’s so easy to say ‘eh, that’s good enough when it just ain’t. I will have the discipline to go the extra ‘whatever’ to improve my performances, songwriting and my recordings within a realistic budget of both time and money. I am also keeping in mind that the classic amateur trap is to tweak the snot out of a recording and squash the life, including some cool-sounding mistakes, from music.

• I will constantly improve my proficiency, performance, recording and production skills and the quality of my 'product'
• I will one day play a headline date Radio City Music Hall

This is the wall paper on my laptop. Yes I Photoshop’d my name onto the marque and yes it’s a lofty scary goal that I set when I was working there on two different Jeopardy remotes. I almost decided not to mention it. Think big, put it out there. It will be mine, oh yes…

5. Open Source
As you can tell already, I don’t tend to hold a lot of secrets about myself. That's just how I roll. In this blog and my career I intend to lay my cards on the table for all to see—most of them anyway. To reserve some mystery is good; I will not be offering revealing, sexy Joel calendars and I won't be discussing my alien abductions (I still have one in the basement). I do want people to be able to observe, learn from and enjoy my music/production/career process just as I do. Of course this will be at the obvious expense of not always appearing completely polished.

You know: looking like an idiot.

• Through this blog I will journal all aspects of this album from studio to stage
• I upload unfinished, unflattering, rough mixes online for blog readers and friends to listen to my progress

Click here hear some now

• When the time comes, I will record my own live ‘bootlegs’ and sell them at performances
• I will openly discuss my sound, equipment and technique to anyone bored or geek enough to listen
• I will always consider ways of reasonably ‘giving it away’ as long as there’s a good chance of a reasonable return in some form
• A webcam in my bathroom
Just kidding :)

My away-from-home rig set up here in my in-laws' pool house
with another accessory from home:
Delilah, my cat

6. Smart Business

I didn’t become a musician to get rich; who does? However, good music is worth paying for and I intend to make a living at it. I operate sound ethical and efficient business practices engaging the expertise of others when I need to. I see that the money generated from my music endeavors goes to people who contribute not corporations that don’t.

In short: no record deals.

• I will make enough money from record sales: a hundred thousand units of this first album within two years of its release. Record and merchandise sales and performances fees will pay rent, bills and cover music related expenses
• Other non-music work (Television, graphics, erotic Thai-Swedish massage) will be as a choice to make extra money and for the fulfillment of that work

7. Promotion
Even though my music’s not meant to be for every man woman and monkey, I compose record and perform friggin’ fabulous and unique music that some folks are just going to love. It is my job to find them through performance, press and shameless yet sensible ethical promotion. If my ‘fans’ were looking for me, they would have found me long ago.

Shame; that would have been bloody convenient.

• I will have a social networking ‘group’ with twenty thousand plus ‘fans’ within two years of the albums release

8. Pass the Torch
There’s some teenage kid in Nebraska right now who will one day play bass like nobody’s business. I mean to be a springboard for that kid one way or another. If that’s the highlight of my career is to teach or inspire some bass players that can take me to the cleaners, I will be very happy.

• A noted bass player will someday cite me as an influence

9. Soli Deo Gloria
J.S. Bach added the initials SDG to the bottom of his manuscripts for many of his works and all of his cantatas. I will being doing the same on my album and following in the spirit that Bach did by writing them. The initials stood for Soli Deo Gloria or Glory to God Alone. Though my work is secular and I make no apologies for that, I want to give credit where it is due and offer the glory for what I create back to God. I make no apologies for that either.

• I will remember both publicly and privately where my ideas really come from

10. Reach Someone
I love to play bass. I love to sing my own songs and I love to perform. But that's not enough. I was in a band called: "The Great Divide" and we played for some very enthusiastic crowds and some completely apathetic crowds that consisted of a handful of folks at the bar and a couple guys who barely looked up from their game of pool. Even at our very worst gigs there was always someone who came up and told us personally how much they enjoyed what they heard. That kept us out there night after night. That's what I want to get out of every performance and recording; to reach someone.


• If I stop loving recording and performing and I find I'm not reaching anyone it’ll be time to reassess all the above

Padre Junipero Serra could really rock the low end

There they are, the ten missions of Joelifornia. They are not complete and all inclusive but it’s a jumping off point, so lets jump. And like the Spanish, I fully intend to exploit the natives, make them wear clothing (my merch T-shirts) and convert them into groove-worshiping, amp-carrying, bass-polishing, zombies … Mwahaha!…

MWHAHAHA!...

MWHAHAHAHA!

Welcome to the Secret Radio Tree House, my new blog

Every Saturday this blog will follow my music career, from studio to stage. I will also chronicle some goings-on in the television industry where I work and where I live here in Hollywood/Los Angeles as well as wherever I travel.

I may also go completely off-subject if I find something interesting or important enough.

Mostly, I want your company on this journey of mine while I step forth on this adventure.

Some Background

As a fresh start, and for those reading from the beginning here is some background: I grew up in Canandaigua, New York, an idyllic setting for an idyllic childhood. I had, and still have, awesome parents. I lived in the country across from a diary farm with lots of woods and gullies and fields to play in, all on a hill overlooking a beautiful lake.

Perhaps this is why I am generally a positive, glass-is-half-full person.

Optimist: The glass is half full
Pessimist: The glass is half empty
Engineer: The glass is twice as big as it needs to be

My wife (the-glass-is-half-empty-and-about-to-be stolen-anyway-by-evil-monkeys) sometimes calls me “Joeliana”

I had then, and still have, a so-called learning disability. This essentially means that my brain learns and thinks differently than other folks. In school I had a hard time learning and studying. This gave me some social and self-esteem issues too but who didn’t have those growing up?

My unique ‘scatter’ brain is both a difficult challenge and a tremendous asset. I mention the learning ‘disability’ not to illicit sympathy. Frankly, I would not trade being this way if I could. It is a character in this story that I will mention from time-to-time and thus requires an introduction.

I play bass. I play a bunch of other stuff too but my number one, desert island favorite is the bass guitar.

Admittedly, drums would be a good bit handier on a desert island. Signaling rescuers, no need to plug them in, the cymbals make handy sun hats, scaring away predators and above all: they are more likely to float a raft!

Bass is just so damn cool and I have always had a knack for it. I have developed, innovated, borrowed, altered and stolen a series of techniques for bass that make it, not only sound unique, but change its role in the band.

I also sing and write songs based, most often, on stories of Americana.

Singing did not come as easily as playing bass did. Though I sang and performed on stage as a kid, something happened when I was around 14 that created some sort of psychological block and it’s been a challenge to sing ever since. That struggle has caused me to work very hard at it and my voice has never sounded better. Still, after performing before thousands, I struggle with a fear of singing in front of people.

I was in a handful of some pretty cool bands throughout my twenties (late eighties/early nineties). We had dreams of making some really cool music and hitting it ‘big’.

The really cool music part: check. The hitting it big: not so check.

As the classic tale goes life intervened and we all gradually slipped into our jobs and mortgages.

We got married, we got ‘real’.

Frankly, I’m quite grateful that things didn’t go as they might have. Stardom, in-and-of itself, is an empty dream. Sounds like sour grapes, I know, but living where I do, I've seen it all too clearly. I would have easily been sucked into that vortex, that lifestyle and spit out after five years of record sales if I was lucky and wind up like the somewhat pathetic drug-addled old ‘rock stars’ that I see at the grocery store.

What? you've never seen "The Osbournes".

But still, my dream, not of ‘stardom’ but of recording my own music and making both a fair living and a difference at least to other musicians, persisted like an itch that wouldn’t go away. It seemed my band mates didn’t share my dream with quite the same commitment or fervor that I did. That's fine; they all have good lives and each keeps playing music on their own terms.

At the time however, I needed a new start and to cut the strings from the mental/emotional blocks that were telling me just to be sensible and live a normal life.

I sold the house, packed up what would fit into a 16 foot rental truck, and moved far enough away that I wouldn’t be tempted to turn tail and run home.

Los Angeles.

Eleven years later. I’ve done a lot of things: worked in film and television, written and recorded film scores, traveled the country in a tour bus, met the woman of my dreams and somehow tricked her into marrying me.

Here and there, I allowed myself to get distracted from my primary goal though: to make my own music and make half a dent in this hard town.

After I came off the road playing other people’s music, I felt like a fraud. I recommitted myself to produce an amazing album, perform it wherever I could and dare to think it will find a large enough audience to support a modest career and a respectful following of fellow bass players who will take my lead and forge their own 'new ground'.

Right now that album is about eighty percent complete. Even in its current state, it’s the best and most ambitious thing I have ever created. That last twenty percent is proving to be up-hill push. Financially and time-wise it's been tough going. Some of the pieces I am recording are technically daunting and performing them without 'cheating' is proving to be physically trying and a long-term challenge.

I am sometimes hampered psychologically too. I look back and see how I have subconsciously sabotaged my music career in the past. I can’t let that happen this time.

Hence this blog. It's not just to entertain with wit, and bawdy humor, it's to keep me present to my goals and to keep me accountable. To do that I will need a supportive and watchful eye:

Yours.

Next week's blog: The Mission, should I choose to wrestle it to the ground till it says "Uncle".