The Closing Night Of The Rock And Roll Rehab Show At The Hayworth Theater

Last Saturday night was the final performance of Rock & Roll Rehab at the Hayworth Theater. It’s been a great run that was extended two weeks from the originally scheduled six weeks to a total of two months. Now we’re forced to close due to our star Greg Piper’s other show, the John Lennon themed Just Imagine returning to the Hayworth on March 9 at 8:00. He can’t do two shows at the same time, just lazy I guess, and there seems to be more Beatles fans than Tooners fans (that’s just crazy) so we get put aside for a while.

I want to thank all those who came to see us. It’s a tricky time when a show or a band tries to build an audience since it doesn’t so much builds an audience as finds an audience. You need to play to as many people as possible to find those few people in each audience with whom you strike a repoire. Most people can take you or leave you, some will hate you which is actually good since that means there are some who will love you. You need to ignore those for whom you simply are not their cup of tea and don’t take their rejection personally. You play for the fans, for those people who really appreciate what you’re doing. All the others don’t count.

The trick of course is to slowly build up your fan base from those simply curious to those who actually enjoy you and we were well on our way with the audiences growing each week from freebie tickets to paid admissions. So it is a bad time to stop but we have to do what pays us our living and unfortunately our hours coincide with the show’s schedule.

Please check out our Youtube channel to see the video we’ve been shooting from the show and our continuing saga of The Tooners’ Rock & Roll Rehab!

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Goodbye Davy Jones, The Daydream Believer

Yesterday Davy Jones of the Monkees died and a little piece of my childhood died with him. I remember looking forward to the premier of The Monkees TV show as we neighborhood kids were fans of Last Train To Clarksville, the hit song released before the show was on the air. I even was a big enough fan to buy a song book of sheet music to the songs on their first album.

Over the years I have had some association with the Monkees in the 'Six Degrees of Separation' type. My parents had friends who lived down the street from where two of the Monkees were renting a house and complained to my mother that they were seen skinny dipping with young girls in their swimming pool late at night. This is a little more scandalous because the swimming pool was in the front yard with no wall or fence.

The Tooners' close friend and social media guru, Ami, also has known Micky Dolenz personally for quite a few years and before the advent of the home computer I was known to use 'White Out' from time to time.

Davy was 'the cute one' in The Monkees and like The Beatles on which they were modeled, it is difficult to think of the band without all four original members. The death at age sixty-six of Davy Jones is also the death of The Monkees. He, and they, will be missed.

So long, Davy.

The Alchemy Of A Rock And Roll Band

It’s funny how a band sounds a certain way, unlike any other configuration of it. There are bands that undergo multiple personnel changes over the years and still keep their basic sound intact such as Fleetwood Mac or Genesis or The Eagles but if the original members reunite they instantly sound the way they did when they started. Even when the new members who are often times much better musicians play the old parts note for note, when the original players perform together it has their unique quality.

I noticed this with my old band, Womanizer. Over the years Womanizer has had ten different musicians as members. We always played the same songs with the same arrangements and instrumentation but when the original members would reunite at a birthday party jam we instantly sounded like the old band.

Even the substitution of a bass player or a rhythm guitarist made a big difference in our sound even when the new guy would play the same parts using the same sounds. The playing itself, the touch of the fingers on the strings, adds so much unique quality and texture that it changes the overall sound noticeably.

If you like the way your band sounds and if you like the band’s overall ‘character’ think twice about replacing a member simple because you have an opportunity to get someone who’s a better musician. The change may not make for a better band at all.

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The Delicate Balancing Act Of Life

I was watching Nick Cannon doing his stand up routine and talking about how great it is to be married to Mariah Carey. Part of the greatness of being married to her was that they were ‘recession proof’ and that he had ‘traded up’. In other words, she’s rich so he doesn’t have to worry about money.

Unfortunately his marriage to a successful, talented and beautiful woman didn’t prevent him from having kidney failure or keep him from losing his radio show due to blood clots in his lungs and it reminded me of the balance of life.

The Delicate Balancing Act Of Life means we have three main aspects to our lives; love, wealth and health. We as beings crave challenge and we will set ourselves challenges whether we want them or not. If we have health and wealth then it’s love that gives us the challenge. Why is the divorce rate 50% in the general population but up to 80% of celebrity marriages? Why would the rich have a harder time with marriage and love than less fortunate people? Maybe it’s because they have a high standard and can afford multiple divorces.

What happens when someone has a great marriage and is very successful? Ask Paul McCartney whose wealth couldn’t keep his 27 year old marriage to Linda since his money couldn’t cure her cancer.

Personally, I would rather struggle with my career (I’m apparently getting my wish) and have a reasonably happy home life and good health. Perhaps this belief, which I actually do believe, has been sabotaging my career but I also believe a balance can be achieved. So far, two out of three ain’t bad and as long as you have your health you at least have the potential to get love and money.

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Working For A Living Rather Than Living For Work

I worked for thirty years as a professional animator, before that I was a published cartoonist and throughout those years I played lead guitar in my rock bands. After the Animation Industry sent the last of the jobs overseas and to computers, also overseas, I took the first jobs in my life that were not art oriented.

In 2005 I worked for several banks doing site inspections for businesses applying for SBA loans. I had to drive sometimes hundreds of miles to a small business like a gas station or a car wash or a liquor store, take photos of the property and write up a report describing the property for the bank making it a loan. In 2009 / 2010 I worked for the US Census starting as an enumerator mapping addresses to eventually a trainer and then a crew leader.
When I took these jobs I thought I’d hate them. I was an artist and had been a professional since graduating high school and these jobs were average, nine to five jobs where no special skill or talent was required. I just needed some training and a deadline oriented work ethic and reliability I acquired in the film business.

To my very pleasant surprise I actually enjoyed these jobs. The Census was temporary since the Census only hires people once every ten years and the job for the banks disappeared with the banking scandal and the financial meltdown of 2008 but then the Animation Industry is a seasonal job as well so I’m used to layoffs.

What I liked about these otherwise mundane jobs was that for the first time I could do a job that didn’t put my ego, sense of self worth and artistic integrity on the line every day. I simply had to show up on time, complete the day’s assignment and turn in my paperwork filled out correctly. A piece of cake compared to animating a full length feature or recording on 24 track analog equipment. When the job was done there was no one telling me how he would have done it better, or different, no one saying what crap the product is in general or saying the mix had too much bass, the footage needed more green or the timing was too fast. No one criticized my taste or decisions. Everyone has an opinion but when that opinion disagrees with yours it is dangerous since you’re suppose to be the professional and know what’s best. If your customer, the audience, disagrees enough with your decisions you risk losing your job, your sense of self worth and your artistic integrity.

It was a virtual vacation being able to earn a paycheck for day’s worth of honest work and not have to deal with some house wife telling me how horrible Saturday morning cartoon shows are, right to my face, when that’s how I was making a living. Those shows weren’t for forty year old women anyway. We rarely, if ever, got that crap from six year olds. They actually liked it.

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Art As A Journey Of Personal Discovery Continued One More Time

When of the interesting things I inadvertently have discovered about myself has come from reading my own writings. I’ve written two books and two live stage shows and in each a main theme and source of the humor has come from disappointment.

I apparently find disappointment extremely funny. That is, I like to build anticipation up to a point and then not deliver the goods. One example is in our current production of Rock & Roll Rehab at the Hayworth Theater. In the show we talk about a mythical movie called Rocktasia which was animation done to Classic Rock songs. The band is about to play the soundtrack to this film live as the movie is projected on a screen above the stage. It is the first time in the show that the band plays a known hit song as the show is all original music. A short movie trailer proceeds this which also builds anticipation but when the band begins to play the song, the Beatles’ I Am The Walrus, the show is stopped by a lawyer who has an injunction against playing copyrighted material in a theatrical setting.

Big disappointment, we don’t get to play the Beatles’ song. For some reason I can’t explain I find this hysterical. In the show I wrote for Tim Piper’s Working Class Hero, The John Lennon Experience, called A Day In His Life John is to perform on a television show in the mid-west in the 1970s. A snowstorm stops the show’s other guests and John’s band from showing up which ruins the TV taping, then the host gets drunk and has to leave and finally there’s a power failure. I know that does not seem at all funny but it was, very funny.

I find this same theme of disappointment used as humor in the books I’ve written as well. It is something of which I had no idea and did not do consciously but only discovered well afterward when enough time had passed that I could read my own works objectively. I wonder what else I don’t know about myself?

FRIDAY FUNNIES

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Art As A Journey Of Personal Discovery Continued Again

Just as Bruce Springsteen got annoyed with Ronald Reagan for co-opting his song, Born In The U.S.A. for Reagan’s election campaign song, even us nobodies and wannabes can be misunderstood as artists.

Back in those old Newwave days of the Reagan years I had written a song that was about a guy who just can’t stop chasing a girl who causes him nothing but grief. In one verse jealousy is the problem, in another STDs and in another getting caught in the act by the young lady’s father provides the drama. I thought it was pretty funny but when the band got reviewed this song got singled out as being a serious expose on the dangers of premarital sex and venereal disease. This was not the image the band wanted to project, we were called Womanizer after all. Judge for yourself, does this really come off as a serious cautionary tale?

Got Off You

Oh Lord, did you see what just walked through the door?
I thought I’d seen ‘em all but I just heard nature call and I gotta see one more.

Hey Babe, tell me, what are you tryin’ to save?
I can read it in your face so let’s head up to my place and you and I can misbehave.

Chorus:
And don’t be mad if I should brag ‘bout what I got off you.
Cause boys will talk about the way you walk and what I got off you.
So when you’re through remember my turn too, because I got off you.

But I’d take it back, take it back in a minute
Cause your jealousy is hell for me, oh baby, can’t you see?

Doctor Sir, please tell me what I got off her.
She brought me to my knees and gave me love’s disease so please, give me the cure.

Girl friend, next time I won’t rush in.
I’ll look before I leap and I’ll watch where I sleep until I know where they’ve been.

Chorus:
Cause you don’t stop givin’ what you’ve got and what I got off you.
I never thought my love could burn so hot from what I got off you.
Like it or not, it’s what I caught and what I got off you.

And I’d give it back, give it back in a minute
Cause it’s burnin’ me, I guess it’s learnin’ me that this shouldn't be.

Bridge:
It’s just my luck with ladies
Yes and nos and lots of maybes
A car, a lawn, a house and babies
It’s got to where this boy’s afraid he’s
Tirin’ of the fight, and I do alright,
So let’s not get caught tonight.

Chorus:
Baby, it’s ecstasy that I got off you.
And I’ll forget that I regret what I got off you.
Cause we were lovin’ like mad till in walked your Dad and I got off you.

But I’ll come back, come back in a minute
Cause you’re thrillin’ me, but it’s killin’ me, I’m on a losin’ spree.

What ever happened to the girl I once knew?
That woman is trouble, now I’m caught in the rubble of what I got off you.

I got off you.
I got off you
I got off you
I got off you
I got off you

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