Case Studies

The most enduring local bands do not necessarily have the greatest talent, but the greatest compatibility of temperament types. You can’t have a band with four charismatic leaders. There is a leader—often the person who felt the need for the band in the first place—and the others. No matter what they call themselves, they’re Giant Ego and the Yes Men, or Spotlight on Me and the Interchangeable Sidemen.

I suppose there are some musicians who put together bands because they enjoy playing music. Rather than ending with fireworks, they quietly peter out because the players can no longer find the time to practice or do the work involved in booking and performing. Or like Hootie and the Blowfish, they make their money, buy their houses, and retire early to play golf.

But more often there is always one person in the band who is the Problem, or as I like to call him, the Giant Asshole, the Ego from Hell, the Big Baby, the one who cannot comprehend that not everything is about him because, to him, it most surely is.

That’s why he’s in a band. For the attention-starved, it is necessary to stand in a spotlight and inflict your music on an indifferent audience and thus feel superior to those whose only talent is being the audience.

In one band I liked, three of the four enjoyed playing music, but all had day jobs. Music was a hobby. A record contract was a very distant dream, like winning the lottery.

The fourth was a full-blown Lost Boy in Neverland. He considered the band his full-time job, a luxury made possible by a girlfriend with a job. He did the booking, wrote many of the songs, fronted the band, got stinking drunk every show and fought with the bartenders. He complained endlessly that he had to do everything—the others never did anything—to advance the band. He was the hub and everything to do with the band revolved around him.

Then someone else in the band actually did something that advanced the band to the next level. You would think Mr. Hub would be happy. Instead, he fired the guy. When the dust settled, the psychology became clear. Hub’s need to be the catalyst of progress in the band was his only goal—more than having the band succeed. It was his excuse for never having to get a day job. Despite his complaints, if someone actually did anything to help the band, it diminished the band’s dependence on him. Thus, the band had to be destroyed.

Another band I enjoyed had two brilliant co-songwriters who could create genius together but not apart. The different bands they continually built around themselves were incidental.

The two couldn’t have been more different. One hated playing out and wanted to let demo records be the only road to the record deal. The other wanted the band to be lifted into stardom through playing out as much as possible and becoming a word of mouth sensation, much like the Dave Matthews Band did. To divert themselves from killing each other, they turned on their sidemen instead. They agreed — because they had to in order to stay together — that the problem was always the other guys. They invented faults and dramas to continually break the bands up without ever dealing with each other.

Then there was the Giant Asshole who played in a regional touring band, but he wasn’t the frontman who got the attention and a bigger cut of the money. So he started his own band, but he still needed a guy who could do all the things he could not—sing, talk to the audience, and yet not appear to be the frontman, even though he clearly would be.

Giant Asshole determined where everyone stood on stage, the song choices, what nights they practiced, which songs would go onto the costly CD where his guitar tracks would be layered in the dozens. He even determined who was allowed to collect the money at the end of the night.

The only thing he couldn’t control was the tendency of the audience and the media to focus on the guy who was singing. This is often a problem with guitar players and vocalists, whether it’s Jagger and Richards or Axl and Slash. Who represents the band? When the photograph in the paper shows only the vocalist, when the reporters tend to quote only the vocalist—the guitar-player wants to kill him. Like Eddie Van Halen, fire enough vocalists and you don’t have a band anymore.

Still Supporting Yoko and Heather

I guess I am a sucker for anything Beatles because I've bought their music many times over now. First, I bought the original LPs as they came out over the years, as well as all the 45 rpms. And don't think it was easy saving up the $3.99 or whatever the albums cost back then. I even bought the 101 Strings versions of Beatle songs. When I lost all my books and records in a move in 1969, I had to buy all the LPs over again, adding McCartney's first solo album to the group. I never bought anything by Wings or any other Beatle after that, although I would keep acquiring the same body of work over and over.

I sold all my records to buy a crib when I was a young, broke, almost homeless mom, and a couple of decades later, Frank, the beloved, shocked to learn I no longer had a single Beatles album, gave me a set of cassettes with every single song on them. Then I got a CD player and gradually bought all the albums on CD, although they were the British releases. I bought the three anthology double disc CDs, and gradually sold them off on eBay because after one or two listens, I really don't need to own old, scratchy cover tunes from when they were starting out, or the rejected versions of songs, or BBC studio versions. Then I bought the Beatles No. 1 hits CD. At this point, I really should be done. And yes, I have the Anthology on DVD, which I've watched a time or two. And the big book. What I liked the most about the Anthology video was the Shea Stadium scenes.

Over the years, I've bought DVDs with the Ed Sullivan shows, and the George Harrison tribute, watched them, and sold them on eBay. This was before Netflix. I don't collect anything that's John and Yoko, because she ruined him. She put him on a fatal pedestal. I can't look at photos of him with her. I am still on Team Cynthia.

Then my third husband gave me the boxed set of the American albums on CD, which I didn't even want. I doubt I've listened to these even once, but I own them. Seeing the old album covers again, covers I had studied so intently as a teen, was an odd feeling. I own a couple of CDs of bluegrass versions of Beatles songs, too. I like those because I love banjo. Last Christmas I bought the remix of "Let It Be," the way it was supposed to be before it was Phil Spectored. I listened to that twice. I like it better than the original "Let It Be."

Today, I bought the Cirque du Soleil mix "Love," put together by George Martin and his son, a mix of various Beatle tracks, all cooked and stirred into a big stew. The reviews for this album are all raves. Remember the Scariens? "Love" is like that, you hear the music to one song, but the lyrics to another, different combinations of songs lead in and out.

And what is my favorite Beatles songs? They're songs that never make it onto all these re-releases. I like two of the lesser known songs from the "Help" soundtrack, "The Night Before" and "Another Girl." My favorite 45 rpm was "I Feel Fine" with "She's a Woman" on the B side. They make me happy. When I hear those, I literally get a taste in my mouth that reminds me of my youth. I can smell the memories of where I was and who I used to be, with everything still in front of me, with the possibility of a good life still...possible.

Happy Again

It's the myspace.com phenom. Everyone has a page and so when the young die young, there's a mental photograph left behind. It collects clues to the mystery of life, and sometimes to the mystery of death, as in the case of Taylor Behl whose page linked her to her killer through their relationship as curious strangers intertwining in some bizarre, sick way.

I didn't go to Chris Williams' funeral because my husband arranged to go with friends so I wouldn't have to take off from work. I surfed over to his myspace page instead and picked up the last two entries. A week before he died, he posted to his fans that he had opted to "rejoin the fellows for our first official tour to promote the release of our upcoming DVD."

The post before that goes back four months to June. "I have been on a journey like no other the past couple of months. I have truly had to search deep within to find out who I am and what kind of person I want to be. Well, I figured it out. I want to be a man, a great husband eventually, a great father eventually, an amazing drummer, and most of all, a person that people enjoy being around. Hopefully my dad would be proud of the man that I am and the man I want to be! Happy again."

Happy again? So perhaps there was a crisis of identity, an unjoining with the band, that had been resolved briefly before the end. It reminded me of Frank, coming out of his second failed marriage, putting together what he perceived as his perfect band, finally getting the players he wanted, and then dying alone in the house. That's why I don't trust happiness. The journey like no other is always one of discomfort, pain, indecision, striving, trying, working hard, goals just out of reach. When you hit happy, it's like end game. I don't trust it.

The Drummer Dies

The phone rang kind of early this morning before we were up, and my husband kept saying, "oh man, oh man." 

When he got off the phone, he said the drummer of The Fifteen, a band he plays with occasionally, had passed out Friday night and whoever was there couldn't wake him up. Even though he didn't know the guy real well, he was in a spin all day, trying to find out when the funeral was. Nobody was answering their cell phones. Then he mentioned the guy also played in the Pat McGee Band, so I googled Pat McGee, which sent me to a Wikipedia entry, which had already been updated.

Drummer Chris Williams passed away peacefully in his home October 28th 2006.

So I Was High on the Hog Once

I mentioned to my husband the other day that I had come under fire for never having attended a High on the Hog. "Yes, we did," he said.

We went the one year it was held on Mayo Island, the year Chuck made the brown "Southpork" T-shirts when each character in South Park looked like a pig. According to the shirt, the bill that year (1998) was Page Wilson & Reckless Abandon, Jim Dudley's Chez Roue, the Janet Martin Band, Car Bomb Inc. (one of my favorites), and Bobby Parker and the Blues Night Band.

My husband literally has a hundred T-shirts or more, and this is after we took out three garbage bags full of them several years ago. His whole life story is told in souvenir T-shirts. And someone else's life as well, because his mother always brings him back a shirt from her vacations, so he has shirts from places he's never been. But he only wears about 10 of them, which reminds me of the Seinfeld episode where Jerry riffs on the theory of the favorite T-shirt, which one fateful day doesn't survive the wash and dry, and the second favorite T-shirt takes its place, and on down the line.

This is Not a Socialist Web Site

One thing I've always had to contend with during 11 years of doing a print version of the Richmond Music Journal was the theory that, despite the fact I owned it, produced it, sold the ads, did all the work, etc., some people thought it was supposed to be a people's newspaper and thus be what they wanted it to be, cover local music the way they thought it should be covered, include the bands they wanted to read about in a devoted, supportive way they imagined a local newspaper should be (on what planet, I don't know...papers that did take this approach never made it a year, if you recall).

They have called me every kind of ugly, sexist, woman-bashing name, both privately and publicly, for not meeting their expectations.

The paper was never a significant money-maker for me. My success was that it never went into debt as others did. I printed every submission about local music. Sorry, but I am not going to write everything, and if nobody else writes about it, then it's not going to be written about. I have never had a staff. Never could afford one. In that sense, the paper was socialist and open to everyone. But no one else wanted to do the work.

Those who I consider essential contributors to the paper were the infamous Killer Montone, my partners in the midnight rambling years, Lisa Honeycutt and Anne Soffee, and my last two devoted writers, Robert Stutler and Walter Boelt (who I never met in person). Other writers came and went, but those were the main ones. I had some very devoted advertisers, too, like Moondance, Poe's Pub, A Major Music, Boulevard Deli, and Oasis that kept the paper alive. And if you wrote a couple of things or contributed a few photos over the 11 years, thank you very, very much, but you didn't go to the mountain top with us so it's not like I owe you until the end of time.

The web site is even more mine, and I truly do what I want with it and what I have time to do. I pay for it, why shouldn't I? Do your own Web site.

And I have never, ever said I was an expert on music or even knew anything about it. I am good at publishing a paper that doesn't go into debt. That was my skill. I depended on other people's knowledge and tastes for content. When I wrote, it was about what I thought and where I wanted to go, without any claims that I was an expert. There are some local music events and traditions I have never attended, I admit. There's an in-crowd in the local music scene that I have never been a part of and didn't enjoy hanging out with because their heads were often very far up their butts. I sometimes  think they were part of the reason more things didn't happen in Richmond. Some of them were nice, but in the Richmond tradition, they just kept hanging on to the way things once were.

I'm not going to debate this with some of you anymore, especially those who haven't even noticed the paper has been gone for more than two years. Just like you were never required to read the paper, you need not visit here either. Go do your own web site.

Joe Camel stole my identity

I was in Cary Street Cafe and two guys come in with satchels and little handheld computer-y looking things. The first thing you think is suicide bombers, right? I notice they carefully select people to talk to in the bar, and whoever they select opens their wallet for them. What are they selling? They never talk to me, but I see my husband open his wallet for them. I now notice they are approaching only people who are smoking. Then I figure it out. Then I am appalled.

"Did you just let those guys scan your license?" I asked my trusting, naive husband.

"Yes?" he says, already knowing he did something goofy.

"And you did this for....let me guess, a free pack of cigarettes?!"

"Yes," he says, now even more ashamed. He knows he screwed up. "And they're Camels!" my Marlboro Man adds. He sold out for not even his brand.

I'm desperately thinking what kind of information is on his license. They've got our address, so I guess there will be plenty of mail coming. And if they want, they can reprint the license, replace his photo and now there will be hundreds of illegal aliens claiming to be my husband, living at my address.

I suppose there's some legal reason cigarette companies can't just hand out cigarettes to everyone in a bar like they used to; that they are now required to get and record ID, but it all seems sleazy and invasive. A machine that scans in your license for a pack of cigarettes. It's like Esau selling his birthright for a bowl of porridge. (Old Testament shout-out)

No Waffle for You!

For many musicians, Denny's probably means good memories, somewhere to go eat after a gig, even in Richmond (although here, it was often Toddle House, then Aunt Sara's, then Waffle House). But so far I am 0 for 2 for good memories at Denny's.

The first time was after a troublesome gig at a private party on the Potomac. Someone you all know booked our band, with many promises of money and great, free food and an attentive audience, and none of that materialized. The band had to play in a corner. Most people ignored it. After the music, the food was gone and we still had a long drive back to Richmond, none the richer and very hungry. In desperation, all the band cars pulled into a Denny's where the waitress was too busy to attend to us for a very long time even though the most drunk person in the group bellowed continually, "I need FUD."

Last night we went to Denny's because we had a $5 off coupon. There were only a few people there, including our waitress, Dave Chappelle in a wig and dress. We ordered breakfast, and since I really, really wanted a Belgian waffle with strawberries and nothing else, I predicted I would not get one.

I didn't. After awhile, Waitress returned to say they couldn't get the waffle maker to work. I reluctantly switched to pancakes with strawberries. After awhile, Waitress returned with my husband's food, but she just waved my naked pancakes around without giving them to me. "You wanted strawberries, right?"

Right. I told my husband, "I'm not going to get them." Meanwhile, my pancakes are getting cold because she's walking all over the place with them.

Sure enough, after awhile, she comes back, without the pancakes, and says, "You are gonna be hot!" (Unlike the pancakes.) There's no strawberries. Just give me the pancakes then. I have already written off this meal as not part of my life experience. After another long while, she brings back the pancakes, which by this time have congealed into dry, rubbery flaps of tasteless flour.

So I'm finished with Denny's, although as long as I am married to a musician, I have the bad feeling it is not a definitive "finished."

(Although it is now summer of 2012, and I have not been back to a Denny's. So far, so good.)

A Night at the Market Cafe

We went out to the Market Cafe in Innsbrook on Wednesday to check out the band since my husband was playing there the following night for the first time. There is a vast difference between playing the Cafe on Wednesday and playing it on Thursday. Namely, people. On Wednesdays, you can't find a place to park because there is a show at the Innsbrook Pavilion, and even the Market Cafe is packed. I don't understand that. Why go there instead of the Pavilion?

On Thursday, without a show at the Pavilion, we had just a few tables of people who knew the band. There were few, if any, people who regularly dine or drink at the Market Cafe. You wouldn't go to there for dinner anyway unless you like dried up hot dogs and wilted salad bars. Fortunately, you don't play for the door, but unfortunately, the Market doesn't pay a lot. How can they when they aren't making much money on food or beer. We were there five and a half hours and my husband made $45, so that's $8.18 an hour. I love the music business.

When we pulled up, John said, "Well, so much for the easiest load-in ever," because you could pull up right behind the stage. But there's no gate on the back of the fence. No problem. Everything was hoisted over the fence except the new bass amp which I wheeled down the sidewalk and then pushed through the patio maze of chairs. It was like playing Frogger.

The Market sells you a literal bucket of beer, a tin bucket full of ice and beer. I remember Moondance used to sell buckets of Rolling Rock, but the buckets were smaller. These were big buckets, complete with a can opener. You could get a variety bucket with all sorts of things in it. That's cool, but I don't drink, so no bucket for me.

We were home by 10, which is great. I hate getting home at 3 a.m., especially on a work night. It was a very pleasant night, and being on an outdoor patio is a nice place to hear music. There are no neighbors around to call the police.

Burnt Like a Strawberry

Saturday morning, we drove across town so my husband could stand on the back of a flatbed trailer in the middle of a field under the blazing noon day sun and sing for no money. He's a musician, and more often than not the love of performing is more important than making money at it. Not for the drummer, though. He didn't come. And the frontman was sick. Still, they sounded very good. John and Joe (far left and far right) had already been on the back of the truck for the previous hour playing with the Squalor Hollow Boyz. I kicked myself for not bringing the video camera, because it was a beautiful, although windy, day. And my skin got fried. Should have brought sunblock, too. I'm just not thinking in terms of summer yet.

Meanwhile, the night before, my son was on assignment for Style Weekly, photographing Avail's surprise appearance with Lucero at Nanci Raygun's. The torch passes. Ten years ago, I was photographing bands at that same club (when it was Twisters), but for the Music Journal.

Elliott Yamin

I went to the James Center to see Elliott Yamin. Actually I had to photograph it as part of my day job, but I probably would have gone anyway. I just wouldn't have gotten as close as I did without being credentialed. No surprises. Sometimes you think movie stars are going to be bigger than life, and then you find they're much shorter. Elliott looked exactly like I expected, like he does on TV. Very humble guy. Must be weird to be a nobody on the local Richmond music scene...even a nobody on the total Richmond scene...and then in a span of six months or so, come home to this kind of huge reception.

Susan Greenbaum's band opened for him and ended up playing a half hour more than they planned because Elliott's limo was late.