Love Song Frustrations

I have been so busy lately that I haven't really had any time to sit down and do a review. The cds are stacking up and keep coming, but I will get to them eventually. I have a one time bass playing gig in which we will be playing love songs for couples. It will be interesting and there will be little or no practice. The guy in charge gave me a cd with the songs and lyrics written out with the chords listed. This is better than what I usually get, but the chords were wrong on a couple of the songs. This drove me up the wall a bit because I am really obsessive about getting songs right. I came home today and didn't stop until I got the songs right, first playing the bass to get roots, and then using the guitar to make sure I had the chords right. They probably think I am a freak, but it really bothers me when things are sloppy, and using the chord charts of random people just doesn't cut it. The two songs were Edwin McCain's "I Could Not Ask For More" and Bryan Adams' "Please Forgive Me". It feels like I am practicing for a wedding. There's one more practice before Friday night, when we will be playing a total of six songs. I hope it doesn't suck and I am trying to stay positive.

I finished using my free emusic downloads and will have to join to download more. The site, www.emusic.com is a great resource for downloading music from independent artists or from major artists' independent albums released before a major deal or after the deal disappeared. I got Elliott Smith's Either/Or, Josh Rouse's 1972, The Guggenheim Grotto's Waltzing Alone, and Denison Witmer's Safe Away. The drawback to using the site is the difficulty of searching for the artists with albums available on the site (of course I could have screwed that up). iTunes seems a lot easier, compared to emusic's randomly ordered lists of artists fitting a certain genre. I did find other albums which I want to purchase and with the 40 songs per month for $9.99 deal, it comes out to a quarter per song, which is a great deal.

I spent some of the weekend in Houston and didn't feel brave enough to go to the rodeo to hear music. It was really windly, so bad in fact that the sand on Galveston Beach hit my face so hard that it felt like I was getting sandblasted. Now I know how the walls feel.

Ryan

I Miss Elliott Smith

Although I never knew him, I really miss Elliott Smith. Unfortunately, I didn't discover his music until he had already passed away, even though I had read about him in Paste Magazine a couple of times. He put out such great music, even though from what I've read, it seems like he had a somewhat miserable life. It almost sounds shallow to say that I wish he still had more music coming out, but that's the only way I will ever know him. He killed himself and hearing his final cd Basement... is fairly depressing already without adding in that the album is basically his goodbye to life and the world we all know. I work with mentally ill people everyday and still I cannot get used to the idea that people just don't want to live. I haven't really been in that position, so I guess I can't relate to it very well, although being dead is probably easier than making certain decisions. Of course that's a matter of perspective.

American Idol is getting more annoying, so I am at the point of not watching or caring what happens next. I am sure I will hear the results somewhere after it's all over and I will hear the music while listening to Kidd Kraddick in the morning, along with Clarkson and all the Claymate jokes.

Looks like another bass gig is on the horizon; Bryan Adams stuff and some other rock songs yet to be determined. I need to write up the southern gospel gig, opening for the Crabb Family, but I have no time at the moment. I have heard we will be opening for the Talleys somewhere down the road. That should be interesting since I love southern gospel so much. I am a walking, breathing contradiction sometimes. I guess it's better to know that than to be ignorant of it.

Last week I read Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell. It was a very interesting book about the Christian faith and how screwed up some people have made it seem to the world. Right after finishing that, I turned around and read Rolling Stone's article on Scientology...very interesting and confusing stuff. I try to keep an open mind, but it seems really expensive. Someone like me could never pay for a single audit, I can't imagine tons of them.

Ryan (currently listening to Elliott Smith's Either/Or)

Falling In Between

One of my favorite bands of all time, Toto, has just released their latest album, Falling In Between. Okay, It wasn't just released in the U.S. It was released just about everywhere else first, then the U.S. I find this very frustrating. Toto is an American band. You would think they think of America first, but they can't afford to do this. The majority of people in the U.S. doesn't know Toto is still alive (although drummer Jeff Porcaro did die of an overdose, although a heart attack was first given as a cause of death; the band has been through numerous lead singers; and David Hungate ran out on the band to do Nashville studio work). In the world of music, Toto didn't really have noticeable success after Toto IV, which won them Grammies and other things I am not taking the time to research at the moment. When I say the world of music, I mean the U.S. and Britain. Outside of these two countries, Toto is a very successful band, hence they released their latest cd in Japan first. Only die hard fans like myself actually noticed the release here in the states even though the album hadn't hit the stores as of yet. I still haven't seen the album, but thankfully iTunes has it up, I just don't know if it's worth a buy. Melanie off of Mindfields was the last 'single' I actually heard on the radio, and that was satellite radio at Booksamillion, not on the top 40 crap station. The clips on iTunes weren't enough for me or my friend and fellow Toto fan, Rig (He actually saw Toto in Biloxi at a casino, which is were most washed up American bands make money in the States, staying way from large audiences because there's no way enough people would show too make it worth the effort. Their 25th anniversary Dvd was recorded in Amsterdam, not in Los Angeles, their home. All of the fans with visible mouths, were singing along word for word with the band, and those were the dutch. With a following like that, why bother to play dates in the States except to please the few fans). I still think Toto is great, but they are starting to fall in between the cracks in my cd collection which has just about every other release from them. I hate gambling with cds; do I take a chance wasting the money or save for something else? Who knows? This blog is probably not in the best order and may seem random. It's hard to type and watch episode 18 of Monty Python's Flying Circus at the same time.