Tuesday, May 29, 2018

Life's Little Injustices (Take XIII): No Drummer? No Booking


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Every musician experiences misadventure. I'm no different. I've weathered my fair shaer of them after My First Band, which probably sounds like Your First Band. 

Take the issue of getting shows, Your First Band's lifeblood. Without them, it's tough to justify all that time spent polishing those nuggets into songs, let alone recording (God forbid), or assembling, a release that somebody might want to buy (God forbid, again). You wouldn't hire a plumber sight unseen, so why buy a record you've never heard, right?

However, unless you're well-connected, getting to play venues that don't treat you like dirt, and pay decently, is next to impossible. I'm as DIY as the next man, but surely, Your First Band benefits from treading a few well-established boards, right? Remember, whether you book the gigs, or someone else does, you face the same challenge: getting people to show up (God forbid, yet again).

Then why's it so hard to score decent shows? Because the venues that matter are often run by a clique that spends much of its time and energy clanking up the drawbridges of their real or imagined castles against those dreaded outsiders. Every local music scene suffers from this syndrome, to varying degrees. Some places are better than others; such is life.

I learned this lesson the hard way, when I tried booking My First Band at Club Snoot. Our guitarist suggested it, because their management worked in tandem with our hometown watering hole, Romanov's (an hour and 70-odd miles south).

"If you're in, you're in," my guitarist prompted. "Bands that play one of those clubs usually play at the other."




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Thus encouraged, I dutifully phoned Club Snoot's booker, the bass player and frontman for a hot local prog-metal band. We'll call them Grey Matter Cartel. (Storyteller's Note: Names have been changed to avoid retribution from the guilty. It sucks, but it is what it is.) 

I ran down My First Band's sound and credentials, such as they were, after roughly a year of existence. We seemed to get on okay, until I mentioned our present lineup: my guitarist, and yours truly (bass, lead vocals). "We're between drummers right now," I explained, "so we're getting by with a drum machine. That's how we started, anyway, so it'll do, for now."

Grey Matter Cartel's mainman immediately took issue. In several exhaustive sentences, he claimed that Club Snoot's crowd weren't used to such fripperies, which they might take for self-indulgence on our part.

Hmm, I thought, doesn't bother the industrial music crowd! Ministry, Skinny Puppy, Sisters Of Mercy -- you name it, nary a drummer among 'em, and nobody's ever asked for their money back! Hell, even conventional bands have done it, including Echo & The Bunnymen,  (sparking a rumor that "Echo" referred to the machine, one the band hotly denied using).

I thought the objections were stupid. This being the late '90s, drummers had often become increasingly sidelined by all manner of mechano-beats, which those big hotshot producers found more expedient to use in their increasingly over-arranged, overly polished scheme of things. Time is money and all that, right?



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But I never got to explain those subtleties, such as they were, to Grey Matter Cartel's guiding light. The catch in his throat rang loud and clear: get lost. You aren't what I expect. You're dead meat.

He hemmed and hawed a minute longer. Finally he decided: "I'll book you when you have a drummer. Let me know when you do."

Click! There you had it. We didn't have a live human keeping the beat. Ergo, we couldn't be part of rock's holy trinity, its nuclear family, of guitar, bass and drums. That was that.

Club Snoot has long since closed, like so many dysfunctional dens of iniquity. Grey Matter Cartel itself called it a day in 2001. By then, the fellow I'd spoken to had replaced the whole band, with himself as the sole remaining original. So much for tradition, I suppose.

Still, after scouring the Internet, I've found no evidence of him releasing music after the mid-2000s. Aside from a couple of Grey Matter Cartel reunion shows that happened four years ago, he seems to have disappeared from the scene that he once lorded over.

So, while My First Band didn't go on to massive acclaim, neither has this gent, apparently. I'm still working, mostly on my own, which feels way more satisfying than dealing with the egos and excesses of trying to break My First Band. Or Your First Band, for that matter.

Roy Orbison said it best, I believe, and mind you, I'm working from memory. But the quote goes something like this: "Time takes care of a lot of things." That's my solace, and I'll have to take it. --The Reckoner

Sunday, May 13, 2018

Guest Cartoon: The Highwayman: "Arbeit Macht Frei: GOP Work Requirements Must Die"


<"Arbeit Macht Frei (GOP Style)": The Highwayman
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We all knew it couldn't last, here at Ramen Noodle Nation HQ: Michigan lawmakers can never rest until they make sure the Wolverine State becomes the butt of a new joke. In this case, it's Senate Bill 897, the creation of one Mike Shirkey, who apparently won't rest until he pries those people with disabilities and shiftless multiple job-holders (including yours truly) off their newly-minted, yet hard-won, Healthy Michigan Medicaid coverage.

In brief, Shirkey's bill would make recipients show they're working 29 hours per week, going to school, or getting job training, to keep their coverage. Otherwise, they're bounced off the rolls (or locked out for a year if they don't report their hours). A lot of ink has already been expended on this topic, but rather than rehash it, we urge you to check out the links below, and see how much havoc Mad Mike's creation would wreak, if it's passed as written.



You must have seen the ground 
where we upheld the Law
I was a young man then, 
I was a young man then

Spending time on the killing floor
Do as you would want to be


Joy of labour, sets you free
Motörhead, "Joy Of Labour"

Of course, this is the usual fuzzily-conceived GOP creation, one that harks back to a totally different era...when folks a) worked 40 hours, b) didn't need to take a second or third job to stay afloat, and c) had employer-provided health insurance -- in other words, features that have evaporated for the great majority. Nor does it fund trifles like assistance with daycare or transportation, two things that lower-income residents often lack. Without them, this bill is just a pipe dream.

And that's before we get to the shockingly racist aspect, in which counties with jobless rates of 8.5 percent or higher are exempt. This little twist leaves residents in mostly white counties off the hook, but not their minority counterparts in high unemployment cities like Detroit, or Flint, whose poisoned water represents a toxic legacy, in its most literal sense. Can we say 1916, anyone?

So far, these issues don't seem to faze Mad Mike and his cohorts, though Governor Rick Snyder's office is apparently prodding them to negotiate on some of the details...like the 29-hour requirement, which -- if it stands -- would be the most stringent in America. Ah, well, as The Highwayman and I would agree...it's good to see Michigan excel at something. Oh, and crank up "The Joy Of Labour," while you're at it. --The Reckoner

Links To Go (Hurry, Hurry,
Before Your Coverage Disappears):

Bridge.com: Racial Accuations
Embroil Michigan Medicaid Debate
https://www.bridgemi.com/public-sector/racial-accusations-embroil-michigan-medicaid-reform-debate

Motorhead: The Joy Of Labour (w/lyrics):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3H8klclUFI

The Macomb Daily:
Michigan Lawmakers
Move Toward Work Requirements
For Medicaid Recipients:
http://www.macombdaily.com/article/MD/20180507/NEWS/180509823

The Michigan Daily:
Republicans Medicaid Madness
https://www.michigandaily.com/section/columns/republicans-medicaid-madness

Do you even know what the devil does
He drives a man 'til he can't take no more
I was a young man then, 
I was a young man then
Spending time on the killing floor
Motörhead, "Joy Of Labour"