Triumph of The Average

(Claude Monet: The Magpie, 1868-1869)

When I was in 8^th grade in San Diego I had a Social Studies teacher named Mr. Sheridan who I remember as an exceptionally un-engaging instructor. I remember stewing with regret that I hadn’t been assigned to the other Social Studies class in my grade, where all my best friends were and who seemed to be having a great time, (judging by the talk at lunch time).

I suffered through those months comforted by the two girls I sat with, Lisa and Sherra. We would share our secret crushes with each other, and sometimes they would campaign on my behalf, a favor that I was deeply grateful for.

Some time towards the end of the year Mr. Sheridan broke the monotony by surprising us with an oil painting he had been working on. He explained that he had no inclination to paint from a technical point of view, but had decided to take a painting class to see how he did.

He walked us through the steps, showing us how the art teacher had demonstrated perspective, beginning by penciling the layout and then adding the oils, enhancing depth.

The part that made an impression on me was seeing Mr. Sheridan’s limited skills as an illustrator in the early sketches of his accompanying notebook. I could see he would have been fairly hopeless if left to his own devices. But the nearly finished oil was unexpectedly convincing. It showed a very cliché scene of snow over a farm landscape. But I believed it.

This memory of an amateur prevailing over his art returned to me many times over my life, and has recently become a private analogy as I explore my own singing capabilities.

This year I became a fan of local folk singer Maria Quiles and her partner Rory Cloud. When I hear Maria sing, it must be like Andrew Wyeth was to Mr. Sheridan. Her voice reminds me of how a painting feels when it hits you perfectly, like how I have felt in the presence of a Monet for example.

If I had lived in late 19^th century France and had been shown a Monet at the time he was painting, I might have missed his innovative beauty, possibly being one of his doubters if I was in some kind of hurry and was used to more conventional styles popular at the time.

Music can be that way; it might require a relaxed listening environment to let it take hold. People at the Clinical Lab where I work put on the radio and they have certain listening needs to get through their day. In the main technical area, there is no time or patience for anything but what they’ve heard the day or week before. But if you go into the quieter Blood Bank, some of those Techs have a taste for subtlety.

Quiles and Cloud’s Folk/Americana flavored music can be called a common style in the SF Bay Area music scene. And yet Maria’s voice won me over in an uncommon way the very first time I heard her.

What I didn’t expect was to experience the healing feeling that can come from repeated listenings to something great. I needed to hear Maria’s songs more than once in a reasonably quiet environment to get to that level.

That might be the ideal I am looking for in my own art, to warrant more than one listening and to discover that my music took someone somewhere they wanted to go but didn’t expect.

As a musician, when I hear Maria and Rory sing, I feel like Mr. Sheridan. I think of his nearly finished painting of the snowscape and how I believed it.

This week I will listen to the unfinished recordings of my own voice and ask myself if it works like that painting worked, and whether I believe it.

And I will let the rest take care of itself.

Loving Music on the Wrong Side of History: Jethro Tull’s “A Passion Play”; A defense of my favorite album as a teenager

There was a kid whose name I don’t remember who went to my High School in La Mesa CA and had the distinction of coming from a family who owned one of the local music stores. (Albert’s Music City). For casual interaction on the school Quad, this credential gave him a kind of extra rank when it came to musical discussion, and I remember him telling me with profound sincerity how much he loved Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of The Moon. I could tell by his hushed enthusiasm that he was into this album as deeply as I was into Jethro Tull’s A Passion Play, and I remember comparing notes with him.

During those 70’s years the really big rock bands were Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin, and at the time Jethro Tull was considered nearly tied in popularity based on their very successful albums Aqualung and Thick as a Brick. Zeppelin’s audience was very crude then, lots of rougher kids in worn bell-bottoms and non-upper-middle-class upbringings. These same teens were the first ones to get stoned and make out openly on school property, and there would not be much discussion about the actual music.

Zeppelin at that time was a soundtrack to ditching school, drinking Annie Green Springs sparkling wine and hanging out at the pinball or pizza places, and that wasn’t strictly my personality. Privately I would feel the hair on my arm raise when I heard the guitar solos on songs such as Whole Lotta Love, Black Dog, and Stairway to Heaven, but I expressed my enthusiasm only to other guitarists and felt Led Zep’s popularity would run its course after their time was over.

Pink Floyd by contrast was largely considered a synthesizer band at the time and no one knew much about the musicians individually. We saw that the bass player did a lot of the singing, but in the mid-70’s we had the impression the keyboardist was the driving force behind their genius. So they were mysterious, and the themes were often about alienation, which except for their novelty went unnoticed in content until the audience grew older.

By very slight contrast to these bands, Jethro Tull seemed intellectual and still rocked hard, tackling the heavy themes of rebellion against religion and society (Aqualung and Thick As A Brick). The lyrics were clever and witty, and spoke to teenagers facing a potential future of decisions planned out for them by their parents. Tull seemed dangerous, but upon closer inspection they were moderate, even intriguingly critical against drug use in interviews. The fact that they had layers of intelligence to be discovered after liking the band’s sound made them a perfect band for me during my High School years.

After I wore out the two copies of Aqualung and Brick I had borrowed from the older sister of my best friend, I went to Wherehouse Records (the word “Wherehouse” is flagging me under spell-check, another reminder that my own kids are barely aware there were actual record stores then), and went looking carefully through the Tull section before picking out their latest: A Passion Play. It looked great: it seemed to be one long composition with an Intermission break in the middle, and came with a subtle lampoon of a Theatre Program featuring fake names, puns and in-jokes. This kind of humor was very popular then coming in part from Monty Python skits, so the jokes gave the album an up-front qualifier not to take it TOO seriously; after all, that was our parents’ mistake.

When I got home I was overjoyed with the difficult lyrics, the themes of life and death, and the questioning of Christian themes. It was Aqualung for College students, and I was the first in line.

I listened to this album each day the way the born-again Christian kids I went to school with read their bible. I studied each guitar part, and then began analyzing the keyboards, flute, drums, bass, etc. Everything on that record worked for me, and it seemed these guys played like one person. I loved how Ian Anderson unexpectedly picked up Soprano and Sopranino Saxes and blew the same fantastic solos he would do on flute without worrying too much about his tone, which sounded naïve in a very appealing way, another indication they were having too much fun to worry…

During this period Ian Anderson would give very charming interviews in which he would speak of various topics in a way that would charm the Queen herself, and then make a witty self-deprecating joke at his own expense. The Brits are great at this, taking the piss out of themselves, distinguishing themselves from stuffy posh types. It still works to this day.

“A Passion Play” was a huge and instant commercial success among their fans. Jethro Tull set concert attendance records that year (1973-4) and the album went Gold and Platinum in short order. But there was one very serious problem: the critics panned it unanimously. I remember pausing with concern when my Mother showed me the New York Times review with the headline “Jethro Dull”. But this didn’t bother me. I considered it a sign that older people didn’t get it, (and I had no trouble finding kids that agreed with me, because after Aqualung even the most disaffected teenager at that time would sit through anything Tull did in the hopes of another Locomotive Breath).

So the critical drubbing never got to me. But something else did: following these reviews Ian Anderson was announced to have hastily broken up the band for less than a week, then quickly reformed, the episode subsequently blamed on an “exhaustion breakdown” by his spokesman. Yet the music from APP was eliminated from future shows, even short excerpts despite frequent airplay. War Child was the follow-up, and featured many connections to A Passion Play, but talk of a film based on the album never materialized.

But I stayed loyal, even though I was moving on musically. Nothing would change my love of middle period Tull. As an audience member I would compare myself then and now to those old people that still cry when they watch Casablanca alone in a darkened cinema. For me, the mid 70’s was a time and a place that could never be repeated, but could be vividly recalled like Bogey and Bergman projected for those that lived through WWII.

But then the next betrayal came: Ian Anderson chose to disband the classic lineup of the band in the summer of 1980. I remember back-packing through Europe that summer when I saw the headline in New Musical Express: “TULL SPLITS!”. I threw down my back pack and spent half my lunch money on the newspaper, reading it to myself on a street in Italy, consumed in disappointment. Aside from the wise concession of keeping longtime guitarist Martin Barre, there was no explanation given other than “musical differences”. But this seemed like nonsense! This was as if Paul and John kicked out George and Ringo because they wanted the guys in Toto to play with The Beatles instead. This felt like some kind of control trip, and it seemed unnecessary.

Over the next decade it became apparent that between Anderson’s growing self-importance and the amputation of a great band, Tull was destined to go down as a footnote in Rock history, even sustaining humiliation when the Grammys bogusly awarded JT Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance over Metallica in 1989 and exposed a corrupt voting process. Tull then became the poster child for falsely rewarded insiders, the worst of all fates for a band that would have mocked their own success in their day.

My own hypothetical theory goes like this: perhaps if Ian had continued to integrate his interactions with the current musical world and not isolated himself critically or creatively with effectively hired musicians, he could have handily reversed his band’s destiny of irrelevance. The Stones did it. Neil Young did it. Bowie did it. The Eagles did it. Pink Floyd did it. Zeppelin did it. In six completely different ways, these bands could have all been ridiculous sounding in the present day if they were not handled correctly. In each case, these now-classic bands were carefully marketed over the years and had a special kind of personality to back up their claims. Their music is not considered a time capsule, it feels relevant because of the personalities that made it and their ability to grow along with us in interviews and current shows.

Incidentally, there is a very amusing Lester Bangs review of JT called “Jethro Tull in Vietnam” that was written at the height of the period discussed here. He made the case that Tull had no “rebop”, meaning a direct and sincere feel and emotion worthy of more genuine jazz , blues, or rock, and I respect his opinion. But of course, I disgree. Listen to the free jam that opens side two of Brick for instance and I submit this band had plenty of rebop.

It’s how they handled their career. If Ian had kept his playful dialog with the press, shown a sincere interest in current music and dispensed with the greatest hits concerts and sour grapes comments, his band could have been remembered differently. Ask Neil Young, a guy who very much does things his way but has reinvented himself over and over. If Neil had sung Southern Man too many times in the wrong situations and made irrelevant comments about himself and the best music of today’s world he could be in the same boat.

So thank you Jethro Tull, I will always love your mid-70’s period. And I will always feel your stuff was as good as the current classics, but for reasons that probably have nothing to do with the actual music, my devotion will always be on the wrong side of history.

Not for Photographers Only

When I got my first (and still only) iPhone 3G in December 2008 one of the first unexpected Apps I discovered was Toy Camera, which came to me from Laurie Wagner (who is the first to tell me lots of things). I remember thinking “but why do I need a quirky little photo processor when we have iPhoto and Picasa on our computers?” Well the Toy Camera App does stuff you just can’t recreate on casual photog programs, and the pics look great.

Then late last year I glanced across a NY Times article about hot new Apps and wrote down “Hipstamatic” ($2 I think). Well I eventually got around to getting it and it blew me away and continues to. It comes with all these minuses, such as an unnecessarily small viewfinder for instance, and no zoom feature like on the regular iPhone Camera. (Smart asses. Why do that??) In a subtle way they seem to not want you to know what’s coming, and that becomes part of the fun.

This issue reminds me of Brian Eno, who has talked about limiting your creative options instead of increasing them and how that can lead to great discoveries. It’s nicer if someone else makes the limiting choices for you, and it’s really telling if you get better results when you don’t know how you did it.

After a few weeks of taking really nice pictures I logged on and bought every single extra accessory Hipstamatic sells (it came to 6 or $8), set the camera on Random and then headed on the road with Madison and a friend to the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose for a rainy first day of Spring Break.

After two very enjoyable hours of listening to absolutely rapturous East Indian guitar music on my iPod while taking hundreds of pictures, I stood randomly gazing into the gift shop rafters while the girls made a purchase and thought about qualifying photographic subjects/objects.

What makes a subject relevant? What makes it appealing? Why do we care? For example, as a photographer I have recently been appreciating objects that include rust and decay, but unless you’re strictly going for texture, a subject like that can quickly lose its relevance without the context of the past.

This year, no one cares about an 8-year-old Dell computer monitor sitting on the sidewalk, but in 50 years when Monitors may be virtually projected from our reading glasses onto a weightless virtual screen, that Dell might make an amazing snapshot. We won’t know until we get there, and until someone takes a good picture.

As I continued to gaze into the ceiling area of this particular gift shop I noticed discrete fluorescent track lighting, air conditioning fixtures and early 80’s spittoon shaped speakers for Muzak. At that moment, these things struck me as aesthetically offensive after a day of seeking what I currently consider photographic pearls on Sarah Winchester’s nearly psychotic estate.

My mind began to wander to painter Jasper Johns’ oddly placid and reconceived paintings of the American flag, and then to Igor’s Stravinsky’s initially hostile reception at the premier of The Rite of Spring. Finally I thought about some very gross vintage 70’s Chandeliers I saw selling for $1500 at a boutique shop in the Rockridge District in Oakland (that I admit are suddenly interesting to me because the guy selling them was wearing an exceptional old Rock T-shirt I hadn’t seen before).

Context is everything, the question is: whose context are we talking about? What was going through Stravinsky’s mind as he composed each movement of his classic masterpiece? As crowds of people lined up to buy tickets to hear Brahms or Romantic symphonies in 1913 Paris or New York, one imagines the outside world becoming a quiet universe in Stravinsky’s mind as motifs played out through his composer’s pen.

Somewhere this week someone with a smart phone is taking pictures of 80’s Muzak Spittoon speakers, or discarded Dell Monitors, or perhaps only 5-year-old Ikea furniture already on its way to the landfill, because they see something.

I want to see that too.

As a composing musician myself I have learned that by ignoring any creeping impulse to be original and not being afraid to comply with written and unwritten rules I have been able to unexpectedly step creatively closer to who I feel I am. My plan is to apply this same approach to my newly renewed interest in photography.

I am having too much fun to do otherwise.

For Singers Only: Ed’s Vocal Warmup Routine

Recently my writer friend Laurie Wagner asked me to get together with her visual artist friend Kc Rosenberg to help her explore her new interest in singing and music. I would describe Laurie as God’s gift to creative people, (or to use another analogy, if creative people were plants she is like sunlight, water and that special dirt they sell in bags at Home Depot). Laurie has several things going that help creative people get closer to being creatively successful. One of those qualities is that she’s a natural born networking person with many interesting friends, and when she asked me to hook up with Kc, I said “done”.

I just love getting exposure to anyone working on their own art, and I especially like it when they are taking part in some creative category other than my own. Kc is the Director of the Freshman class at California College of the Arts, and she lives in an old Alameda Victorian house fabulously loaded with her visual work, which it turns out is only walking distance from my house. It’s a supercharge for my own creative energies to experience people like this in their own environment.

Kc’s new pursuit is singing rock music, and if this meeting had come only 3 years ago I would have had mainly an instrumentalist’s viewpoint to offer, but singing has become a focused passion of mine since the summer of 2008, so suddenly the topic holds many possibilities for discussion and participation.

For Kc’s benefit I have prepared my condensed thoughts about singing exercises into a short rundown, which I have shared below.

Most of these singing exercise tips came from my singing friends or Youtube videos. Between the intense competition of the singing field and my own modest talent, I can not currently claim to be an authority on vocal techniques, but I can begin by saying that I believe no advice below will ever hurt you. If you have been singing for years then I also believe anything below that you are not already doing will significantly benefit you.

Since I was a child I signed up for and sang in numerous choirs, and although I sang on pitch and in rhythm I felt consistently challenged and disappointed with my singing progress. This went on for years, even decades.

The fact that I am a modest talent as a singer is perhaps my best feature when I offer this singing advice. If you are as challenged as I am, then one of your biggest victories will be finding a way to enjoy doing these vocal workouts for pleasure, because enjoy it or not if you are in my position you will need to sing exercises every day for at least 8 minutes to make the kind of improvement I am promising. If you are just starting out you will be extraordinarily happy with your singing in 6 weeks time if you sing every day following the tips below.

(I am not selling anything though, no further promises are made, and this workout will not help you if you are threatened at the beach by a large muscular competitor to your companion).

Another source of vocal guidance came to me from my old High School friend Mark Oakley, who was the first guitarist I was ever in a band with. In addition to his own natural talent Mark had the good fortune to come from a musical family. His Mother Jackie Pack taught piano and voice lessons at their home, and she would remain available to us with such things as showing us how to chart out rock vocal harmonies, feeding us her very memorable homemade lasagna, and eventually giving in to Mark’s urgent pleadings for a Fender Twin Reverb Amplifier. She was right about earplugs too, which we gave in to begrudgingly and which basically saved us from years of true hearing regrets.

I remember Mark giving me bits of advice about vocals back in the day, and then much later in 1999 (around my 40th birthday) he sent me a cassette he made of his favorite warm-up routine. It sounds like a classic choir warm-up, but it has very carefully chosen ranges, starting in the middle and immediately going down at first, then moving up in half steps until reaching a reasonable G note above middle C, (a forgivably high note for male vocalists, but impossible for me in the beginning). Then it settles down in the middle of the range and repeats the strategy using arpeggios. The whole thing takes 8 minutes, and I’ve now sung it what feels like 10,000 times thanks to a solo driving commute and what must have been the last ever stock cassette deck in my cherished 2001 Suburu.


In addition to Mark and Jackie, special thanks also to Carmen Borgia, David Bell, Alison Davy and Maria Volonte who have all participated in the profession of singing and have each given me jewels to work with during my vocal journey.


If you are planning to record your singing, double the 8 minute warm-up routine to 16 minutes (do it twice with variations). The 8 minute routine alone will provide an 80% improvement in your vocal capabilities. Doing it twice will provide a 95% improvement. If you are planning to do some serious reaching of your limits, then doing the routine three times with variations will take you 99% there. The other 1% will have to come from you, your heart, or a potentially higher source.


I once read that Michael Jackson did a 2 hour warm-up every time he recorded. It doesn’t surprise me to hear that. By comparison, the pleasure and immense payoff of exercising your vocal instrument for 24 minutes before you sing songs is a small investment when you see how far some people take it.

To hear Mark's vocal warmup routine, click or cut and paste this link and choose "Vocal Warmups":

http://www.purevolume.com/EdFordSummerfield

Here are my compiled vocal tips:

1) Start with Throat Coat tea! Or your favorite Herbal tea, honey optional. Not too hot, (and never anything cold during singing). It’s nice to use an electric cup warmer; I love mine and consider it mandatory for long singing evenings. Sip or gargle with warm tea right before singing and every 20 minutes during your session. If a given song is the wailing barnburner of your repertoire, sip or gargle immediately before and after pushing your limits. This will make a huge difference in saving your voice that night and the next day.

2) Stretch by imitating a yawn, opening and closing your mouth widely and gently, like a limber ballet dancer stretching out. Feel the back of your jaw for any tightness and stretch and loosen like an athlete preparing for a run.

3) Begin by introducing yourself to the routine by singing all 8 minutes of the warm-up using a consonant/vowel such as “Na”.

4) After you are familiar with the warm-up, begin singing the routine using the following five Consonant/Vowel sounds: Na Nay Nee No Nu. When repeated 3 times this sequence will take you up and down a scale perfectly. (8 notes up and 7 notes down=15, and 5 vowels x 3=15). You may find this will take some practice at first and require a bit of vocal coordination. (This method affords the benefit of systematically introducing all the primary vowels to every note in your range).

5) Optional second and third set: repeat the warm-up routine again using the following 4 variations in whatever amounts you choose:

A) Sing “La ga, La ga” in place of the Na Nay Nee No Nu sequence.

B) Sing “Ung-ga, Ung-ga” in place of the Na Nay Nee No Nu sequence.

C) Sing using what is called the “vocal fry” which is the quiet little buzz in the back of your throat that a baby makes. (This amazed me when I first heard it because it seemed so insignificant. Then I realized how many singers use this component and how expressive it can be).

D) Sing using lip trills. This one wins the “feels like an idiot” award, because you move from the baby realm to the seeming maturity of a seven-year-old on the playground. Gently close your lips and then press the sides of your cheeks with your fingers to allow your lips to flap into a trill while singing “doo”. The finest opera singers do this all the time, and although I have been assured of some benefit of articulate flexibility, the true reason I have included this in my routine is because I love the contrast of how ridiculously childish it sounds versus their otherwise serious music.

6) Enhancement: while doing all these exercises, keep both feet flat on the ground and occasionally gently stretch one arm straight above your head keeping the other by your side. Then relax and alternate arms with each scale, feeling your diaphragm and body loosening up.

7) Sirens. Start near your lowest note and sing gently and smoothly with Glissando (like a Fire Engine) until you nearly reach your highest note, and then return down again. If you experience a break in your range along the way, explore by carefully lowering your volume and singing over that area until you discover why you are either cracking your voice or somehow faking your way through.

Most beginning singers are understandably concerned with the highest and lowest notes of their range and don’t realize there can be issues right in the very middle. Eventually you should be able to navigate through repeated sirens at every volume level without the slightest break in your voice.

8) Volume swells. Most singers want power available to them, and many understand the importance of dynamics. For these reasons, try singing both these exercises and actual songs as softly as possible and then build them slowly into your fullest voice. There are two approaches here:

A) Start a song very softly and then slowly build each line until you reach a crescendo at either what you feel is the most appropriate part of the song or the area that most challenges you. Then back off 20% as you finish the song or set of notes.

B) Sing each individual song line or scale by beginning softly and then swelling into a full voice by the end of the line. Be willing to exaggerate your ability to be dynamic to the point of ridiculousness, but without hurting yourself. As you progress, find your weakest word/note combination and then stop and sing it soft to loud and soft again. Swell…swell…swell. Listen to your tone and ask yourself where the sweet spot is. When you find that sweet spot, burn the feeling into your mind for reference the next time you sing.

9) Extend the stomach/abdomen (diaphragm). If you slightly “push out” your abdomen to its full position you will discover an additional 10-20% of singing capacity you didn’t realize was there. You may have the very natural but musically mistaken instinct to hold your stomach in. This may happen for two reasons:

A) You’re consciously or unconsciously embarrassed to make yourself look like you have a pot belly. Pavarotti didn’t suck in his stomach and presumably didn’t care once he began singing. Follow the same approach and don’t allow self-consciousness to enter into it. In truth, your appearance will not appreciably change when you do this, and if you’re lucky enough to attract attention it will be your singing others will be paying attention to.

B) You may think that slightly or dramatically holding in your stomach is applying firm diaphragm control. It does not. Go ahead and hold in your stomach if you are posing in your swim suit, but unless you’re singing live in your briefs or bikini, don’t sweat it!

10) Be conscious of vibrato. It’s a common complaint in school choirs that some singers over-rely on or even abuse their vibrato. Begin by doing all warm-ups without vibrato, become aware of areas where you feel naked without it and then after establishing a confidence of straight tones add vibrato judiciously where you feel it makes the most musical sense.

11) Sing at half-speed or slower. Slow down a challenging song and take it one word at a time, sustaining each word and syllable into many seconds. Sing each note or word as many ways as you think sounds appropriate and then move to the next word. This is a fun exercise that can cause a song to last 10-15 minutes or more. Use it on the song selections you are preparing to perform or feel the most challenge or commitment to.

12) Sing A Capella. If you accompany yourself on guitar or piano, begin a song by playing at normal volume, and then bring down the volume of your instrument to a pianissimo, leaving your voice at the same regular volume. Then stop playing completely and finish singing the song A Cappella. Once you are fully singing by yourself you will find closing your eyes or even turning off the lights will allow you to more closely focus on your sound.

13) Sitting is great, but standing is best. Standing offers more capacity from your diaphragm than sitting. Sitting has been successfully proven countless times by singing piano players and folk singers, but standing will offer the singer more capacity and opportunity for power and range, so keep that opportunity in mind if there is no compelling reason to sit.

14) Double-check the larynx. Touch the larynx (voice box) on either side of your throat with the tips of the fingers of both hands as you sing. Feel for any unneeded rising of the larynx. The voice box should not rise excessively as if to overcompensate for lack of range or power.

15) Relax the muscle under the jaw by touching with your thumb as you sing. This jaw muscle (located under your tongue) does not need to be tense. Different vowels will play on this muscle, and when you sense or feel it tense with your fingers try relaxing it consciously and listen for a favorable improvement in your tone.

16) Find the sweet spot of your head position. Look down slightly and compare with looking up as you sing. Pointing the head down and slightly drawing in the throat will offer an unexpected openness you might not have expected. By contrast, peak moments of a song may call for pointing the head up and calling out the power of the chest, but notice that looking up too high will stretch the voice box unfavorably and restrict it.

17) Inhale all breaths through the nose. Yoga and athletic exercise both bring up this issue for various reasons but the conclusion is the same. Consistently inhaling through the nose may require repeat practice, but you will notice an elegance and relaxed control that is superior to inhaling through the mouth.

18) Explore singing until completely out of breath. Explore this sensation over and over and learn to not be afraid as your air depletes. There is a normal instinctive panic that any animal feels when running out of air. Find that place that is usually left to automatic reflex and become its master by negotiating how you will sound as you are on your last ounce of air. You can gain confidence as you explore this dark alley, and becoming familiar with it will remove another possible source of fear each time you sing.

19) No smoke of any kind. You may have heard the ugly rumor that cigarettes are harmful to all sorts of bodily organs, lungs being relevantly at the top of the list. Add the throat and you’ve got a very good reason to avoid this unbeneficial activity. (If you choose to smoke other stuff change immediately to cookies or brownies. Enough said!).

20) Try Listerine. Joseph Lister was a legend. Gargle before singing to clear food and reset your natural flora.

21) Avoid certain foods, especially scratchy and phlegmy foods. In truth I haven’t discovered a no-food list that I feel is universal. My advice for now is to avoid anything that leaves your throat feeling scratchy or with more phlegm. You will know from experience. Gargling with warm water followed by Listerine and/or Throat Coat tea will correct most food mistakes the singer may make.

22) Drink lots of water. Drink water before, during and after singing. Hydration is a big issue to singers, so take care of this consistently and you will notice a difference. Also important if you are including alcohol in your singing session.

23) Forget everything above, be yourself and trust your judgment. If you feel like I do you may choose to drill every one of these singing exercises until you absolutely drop…(without hurting yourself). Once you’re done, sing however the song feels right. After you are warmed up, practiced, and refreshed your own judgment will be the best judgment.

Best Friends and Recording Field Overdubs Guerilla-style

Last year my best friend Carmen Borgia lost his dear friend, some-time mentor and High School Drama teacher Tom Humphrey to unfortunate ongoing poor physical health. (A lifestyle like Tom’s would likely claim most of us far sooner. That was perhaps one of the reasons we all loved him. He was seemingly indestructible in his ability to affect everyone in his life, both good and bad).

If it weren’t for Tom there is a strong likelihood that Carmen would not have ended up at UCSD to attend college at the time I met him (1981). For this reason and many more I have always considered Tom a lucky totem, despite his many mostly humorous liabilities as documented by Carmen and his friends.

When Tom died a series of events followed, including the inspiration for Carmen to come out to California and help me get started on my own recording one year ago. Prior to his arrival he sent me a posthumous gift from Tom: a trusty Zoom H2 digital portable sound recorder. I was able to make live demos of my album for Carmen to review, and I discovered from experimentation that the Zoom has a sound and a handy accessibility that causes things to happen that wouldn’t otherwise, like the way handheld smart phones are changing the way we see videos for example.

Carmen and I have written to each other many times since 1981, and I've been so inspired by our communications that I once wrote an instrumental entitled “Letter From Carmen”, which I plan to include on a future album of solely instrumentals.

Here is the letter I wrote Carmen today, which I also wish to share with my friends…



Carmen-

I figure you’ve already thought of this, or heard of it, or maybe this is already last year’s news:

I had an epiphany last night…

I’ve been making new recordings lately with the Tom Humphrey Memorial Zoom H2 recorder, and I noticed I really like the sound of the piano in my living room on that thing. For practical reasons I’ve been having some agita over how to record in the house for my album, so since I like the sound of the Zoom it dawned on me I should try using it to record field overdubs.

Last night I sat on the piano bench with earbuds on listening to basic tracks on my iPod, then hit record on the Zoom and simply played along to one of my songs. These particular piano parts are simple, not rhythmically critical, so I don’t expect any significant timing issues when I fly the wav files into Protools. I will let you know if I have any trouble when I do the importing.

As I lay in bed the next level of this dawned on me, (I just know someone’s already doing this): You go into a place like Lark in The Morning Music store or The Berkeley Jazz School (where they have things like Hammond Organs, Vibes, Marimbas, standup basses and Yamaha Grands in every room) or wherever else they have instruments that will take more than a lifetime to acquire. You’ve got your iPod with one earbud in and you noodle around with whatever instrument and inspiration calls you. Then you handily pull out your Zoom and touch record when the moment strikes, ambient noise and all, playing along to the basic track in your earbud. Then you fly it in at home to the master recording…

I figure there are people that are working on whole albums this way, entirely on instruments they don’t own, exploiting the ambient anomalies to their advantage. I’m seeing people getting chased out of Catholic Churches in the middle of an organ take, things like that. If I was movie-worthy I’d bust into the Carillon of a Bell Tower with my running shoes on, but I’m not made of that…

Perhaps it might be as simple as an inspired guitar solo on a trophy guitar from the vintage room right in the middle of Sam Ash or Guitar Center, with a full house of customers trying stuff out in the background.

I can hear the NPR sound bite and review already…

For me, I’m just sooo happy I finished another track last night.

I owe you all of this…once again, thank you for everything.

-Ed

Friends who changed me, #3 in a series: Dan Smolan

This past summer my 16-year-old daughter Haley tried out and made the High School Cheerleading Squad in Alameda. She spent a good portion of the summer practicing hard with the other cheerleaders, and since the school year began her mother and I have unexpectedly found ourselves enjoying the American ritual of attending football games in our home town and the surrounding areas of the East Bay.

All of this comes as a huge surprise to everyone, and yet in some ways it is totally understandable. Haley has been getting great energy physically and emotionally from her participation at this school activity, and we like how it has affected her spirits and sense of connection to her school.

But going in I was deeply suspicious: my experience with school spirit at my own high school in La Mesa was quite different from Haley’s. Cheerleaders that wanted to make the team in 1970’s La Mesa had to campaign and be voted in by the students themselves. It was a ballot, and ended up being a popularity contest. I remember feeling furious when an Iraqi girl in my English class named Sindus Habib didn’t make the cut, because she was so good at her cheers and fit the part perfectly. But although she was perfectly accepted by her friends I realized that she didn’t have the necessary killer instinct to do the deliberate socializing that was required for a girl to become popular enough to be voted on the team.

I loosened up at Haley’s school when I learned that the cheerleaders are chosen by the two women adult coaches. The girls simply have to have the ability to learn the moves and do them within a reasonable amount of time. The size of the squad increases and decreases without limits and with the number of qualified girls, including when grades slip and the cheerleader at risk must attend games but sit on the bench until her tests improve. I see girls of various races, cultures and body types on Haley’s team, and it’s a big relief to me. There are even a few somewhat socially shy girls participating, and they are on a level playing field with the other girls as soon as the uniform is put on.

All of Haley’s High School experiences, including the recurring sub-theme of insiders vs. outsiders bring back my own memories from time to time, including the following one:

As a young teenager I met an interesting guy named Dan Smolan on the Junior High school bus. He was a tall guy with a slightly goofy laugh who I noticed had an ability to hang with most of the varied cliques and groups at our school. His best friend was Mark Phillips, and since this early time these two were thick as thieves. They were the kind of guys that went through a phase of riding around on their ten-speeds during adolescence pulling down a few neighborhood mailboxes for laughs and maybe doing something mean to the school property on the weekend when no one was around. No fires or pipe bombs (which did happen occasionally), but more minor stuff they eventually grew out of within the year. But this made them different than me, and I thought of Dan as someone who would take certain chances to increase the laugh factor.

I remember one time hanging casually with Dan at the Homecoming school dance, and being surprised when he excused himself to go over to congratulate the Homecoming King. Dan was well recognized at that brief moment, but he didn’t hang around for the serious soc scene that ensued. The next year the same thing unexpectedly happened to me; a good friend of mine, Mike Ewing, was named the Homecoming King. Years later I realized the compelling reason I knew these guys was our tentative connection as creative types…

One afternoon Dan got a wild hair and drove me to La Jolla shores just to check things out. When we got there he pulled out a Canon camera and started shooting a roll of B&W film, possibly for school. But the engaged way he was doing it told me it wasn’t for an assignment, he was doing it for fun. As he stared at some pilings under a pier, he talked me into wading into the water and striking a pose that he demonstrated for me.

Later when he developed the film in the school darkroom I had a chance to see the shots he had taken. Every picture was remarkable. I had taken the same photography class and had learned the same darkroom techniques, and it was this familiarity that gave me the edge to see a striking difference between his work and mine: every one of his shots was an interesting and composed keeper. When I shot a roll I would hope for 2 or 3 good ones, and I’m often still that way, yet here was Dan with a full roll of noteworthy pictures.

Dan participated with the Annual Yearbook student staff during that Senior year and then something embarrassing happened: the shot of me under the pier had been chosen for the Yearbook. I protested weakly, but Dan’s goofy smile disarmed me. I felt queer about the picture because I hadn’t done the concept, but after seeing it again many months after school ended I realized the picture did have some connection to my personality. I was in a cross-like pose in a natural setting, suggesting a vague non-religious spirituality that would build privately over time.

Another very memorable event was the time Dan rounded up Mark Phillips and I, told us to dress up a little, and then drove us to downtown Horton Plaza on a weekend night. In those days, Horton Plaza was notoriously seedy and trashy, catering to sailors and society’s rejects. People from the suburbs would lock their car doors as they drove by, even in the day. One of my favorite details about this period of Horton Plaza was that drag queens would consistently appear around the fountain area at night, congregating for action and to socialize. More than once a street person blew me away with poetry or a song as we walked by.

On this particular night, the three of us went to the fountain area where there were large public underground rest rooms you would never go into alone. The walls were white tile, and like any bathroom the sound was just crying to be sung to. Dan seemed to know what was coming, and immediately we found four African-American guys standing in a circle sharing a single cigarette and singing in a lively Motown/R&B style. They were friendly, and Dan immediately produced a pack of filter-less cigarettes guaranteeing us the required admission to hang more than 5 minutes. These guys were making up a song on the spot; it was called “The Girl Next Door” and I still remember the tune very well. The hook stuck with me so effectively I still sing it from time to time 30 years later. The gentlemen’s voices were so authentic and soulful, and we encouraged them to record their song and send it in to the very popular local annual KGB Homegrown album contest. They had never heard of this of course, but that was the best we could do. It was a concert of one night only, and we parted ways with the singers forever when we left, but I never forgot the music. As we drove home in Dan’s truck, it was silently but laughably obvious that I would never have had this experience if it hadn’t been for him.

After about age 20 I never saw Dan again, but I heard an unconfirmed rumor in my mid -20’s that Dan had been found wrapped in a blanket on a cold morning on the SF State campus tripping hopelessly on acid, talking to himself incoherently as he was taken away. I was angry that I heard the rumor in an unsympathetic way and hoped he had recovered and had a chance to begin his journey to a happier place, the one most creative people take when they are in their 20’s (when they are lucky enough to get there).

Last year I received several Facebook links to my High School reunion and I clicked on a name page of no-shows, which included me. They had a special page that included photos of those who have passed on early, and I was deeply saddened to see Dan’s picture with a passing date of 1991. There was no further information, and I will be clicking on a few more friends’ pages hoping to eventually learn more to bring closure to the loss of a cool guy that I once knew.

But regardless of that loss, nothing can take away the treasured handful of unique and valued things that happened to me for merely knowing Dan Smolan.

No Prepared Stories Allowed

When I was a young boy, my parents often held dinner parties for their friends and professional acquaintances. These occurred in New York City and San Diego during the 60’s and early 70’s, and between the occasional neck scarves, cocktails, pipes and cigarettes they sometimes resembled Playboy After Dark or Mad Men episodes.

One classic feature of these get-togethers was hearing my parents tell the same stories we kids had heard so many times before. I would wince as soon as the first word came, knowing the punch-line in advance. I swore as a child that when I grew up I would not recycle the same joke at every party I went to, knowing from experience the wooden effect this sometimes had.

The following is my version of a story I would have told at parties all these years if I had been my parents; I will share it here just this once, (and you have my word I will not bring it up unless asked at any future party we might attend).

When I was 20 I got a job as a busboy and waiter at a busy coffee shop/dinner house (CoCo’s/Reuben’s) in La Mesa, California. There were 30 waitresses and 7 Waiters, and most were in their early 20’s and attending college. The work was fast-paced and the shifts and schedules were constantly changing each week, so it took a young person's stamina to generate the kind of frantic energy required for this otherwise simple job. The staff appeared to be mostly wholesome Co-ed types, and we all wore the same uniform which had a socially equalizing effect that I used to appreciate. But despite the seemingly homogenous group there was a range of personalities, including devout Christians, closet druggies, conservatives, radicals etc.

My Mom was recently divorced from my Dad then and I was still living at home, so I was very happy to discover that the restaurant offered partial Dental benefits. This meant I could spare my Mother the expense of having my impacted wisdom teeth removed, which made me very proud. One of the other Waitresses had also recently had her wisdoms out, so she enthusiastically evangelized to me about the healing properties of pineapple and assured me that my recovery would go much better if I tanked up on fresh pineapple before and after the procedure.

The next month, as I lay on the operating table counting to ten backwards, it seemed like only one minute had passed before my sister Jenna and our friend David Jurist had arrived to pick me up from the Oral Surgeon’s office. During the ride home I was delirious from the medication and was told I said funny things, but as the weekend played out the promise seemed to come true: I experienced very little pain and healed several days sooner than the Surgeon had predicted.

During my two recovery days I watched Franco Zeffirelli’s Jesus of Nazareth on TV, a very good quality made for TV miniseries that held my full attention. The Jesus actor had unlikely green eyes and seemed British in that vague rock star kind of way, so I was really pulled in to the story despite my vehemently agnostic attitudes.

When I returned to work there were two co-worker friends I couldn’t wait to talk to: the pineapple/natural foods disciple, and one devout Christian who I knew would love to hear my sincere enthusiasm about the Jesus movie.

As always, things were busy, so I quickly touched base with my pineapple friend and told her how right she was: I had gorged faithfully and the surgery had gone so well. She was thrilled to hear the news.

I waited until my first break so the Christian woman and I could relax and talk about Zeffirelli’s great movie. We got very involved discussing the whole story, and I enjoyed finding common ground with a believer and noted her implied respect for me as a card-carrying agnostic. We went through each chapter together, and she suddenly became very impassioned when we got to the scene depicting Christ’s suffering on the cross. “Oh, he suffered so much, he died for us; he felt so much pain…”

Just then, my other friend passed by in a hurry and caught the last part of our conversation.

With a surge of excitement, she asked “Has he tried pineapple??”

The Attraction List

Below is a list I recently made of some of the many reasons why I have been attracted to music over my lifetime…or realized someone else was. There are undoubtedly an infinite number of additional possibilities….




You have been soothed with a lullaby

You have awoken and now have the need to be excited

You are very young and a song calls up an odd emotion you can not name, much like a vegetable that you dislike

An exceptional television theme is worth humming

Your parents’ favorite music produces an ennui you can’t describe; you feel cold and austere like a cloudy day

Someone older than you plays a record at a key moment and you will never forget it

You feel rebellion

You discover a certain music and feel possessive of it

You heard a song when that cute girl/boy agreed to dance with you. You are correct that it was an amazing song to begin with

You have the need to define your identity…and what others are not

New trends and fashions emerge among your friends and disturb you

New trends and fashions emerge among your friends and excite you

You are willing to lead or follow but you will never get out of the way

The singers and/or guitarists of your favorite bands also possess interesting personalities; you like hearing them talk almost as much as you like their music

You have experienced the potential embarrassment of liking the “wrong” socially accepted music

Deep inside you is a message that already exists. An exceptional musician, possibly you, has been preparing to open that message and you are destined to experience it

You don’t know how some musicians do that thing they do. The duration of mystery increases with value over time

You listen to music with an appealing power to offend older people, as well as those your age that don’t get it, (and you don’t want them to)

Appealing to a darker side, you experience a private period of comforting seclusion

You have worked hard at work or school and the need to be entertained is now a quantifiable requirement

Driving a car, feeling the pace and experience of traveling, you find a music that traces the romance of a new place

You guess what will be corny and what will be classic years from now. You compare notes to yourself in 30-40 years

You like hearing music while you work. You choose the station but begin to feel the music on the radio was chosen for you

You play an album or group of songs every single day and then slowly grow out of that ritual

You noticed some time ago that you like music better and more deeply if it takes a little while to discover

You are disheartened to learn that music is so tangible that its dissemination can be directed by simple honesty, commerce or mafia-like violence

A recent sound is more refined than the last thing you enjoyed. You are basically powerless for the next 5 minutes. You then return to your tuna sandwich

A sudden change in context imparts a new listening experience for music with which you are already familiar

Someone plays a song you love rather poorly, and yet for that reason you notice some intrinsic element of excellence that you hadn’t previously appreciated

You like hearing music while you work. There are disputes over what kind of music to work to, so you consider leading the process and then decide to stay out of it

Your mind wanders to slaves in the fields and then Egyptian laborers whose music you will never hear. Why did they choose that rhythm, that melody? It makes perfect sense

Musicians that were oppressed and made to remain silent exist far away from your free world. Perhaps they composed silent songs. Someday someone will imagine and record that music

As an adult you are startled by a young child’s ability to make up a song to a live musician’s spontaneous playing

You feel a sheepishly functional swell of emotion during anthems, both political and non-political

In neighborhoods you do not live in, culture and tradition clash with a new generation. As the fight rages, you are duplicitously grateful for both armies

You enjoy some guilty pleasures, and are pleased nothing is stopping you

You hum a song that everyone loves at that moment, indulging in a simultaneous national or world experience

Curious…where did this new music come from? Tomorrow I might remember it as if it was always familiar

You no longer like hearing music while you work unless you are alone and can enjoy what you really like

You listen to Spiritual and holy music, relishing the need for music in a church you don’t attend

You realize that music can be a conduit to a higher level, perhaps in leaps or very gradual steps

Your long-held opinions are both confirmed and wholly revised by a change in the primary actors of your life

You are comforted by an implied musical message that someone is like you, these are your people, and there are millions like you out there

You are comforted by an implied musical message that you are fairly rare and yet not alone, for this is being heard by at least a few more

You experience a faint but consistent Déjà vu when you hear some type of music that has nothing to do with your race, culture, or time period

You discover that self-described tone-deaf people with no apparent rhythmic abilities and little education can reveal something critically valued about music you didn’t know

As you fall asleep to what is effectively your favorite lullaby, you glimpse what you can never explain

My Light in a Milky Way of Stars

(Photo by Carmen Borgia, 2/2010)

Like most of the rest of the universe of aspiring musicians, I have had dreams as big as you can have them. Dreams are one of the critical ingredients of any success story, and as a youth I never held back my wishes for musical success. Decades down the road now, I know I am in a large club of players who went for something big and ended up taking home the music I made, the treasured memories of having made it, and not much more. After the breakup of my San Francisco-based band The Secret Sons of The Pope in June 1985, I made a carefully considered decision to let go of pursuing a career based on popularity as my primary goal. Following this decision, (which I admit I made by necessity) I immediately felt a burden lifted from my shoulders, which I felt narrowed my goal to the music itself. But then soon returned my ongoing issue of aspiring to a musically high standard. I have wrestled with this off and on since my first band, and sometimes I get over it and other times I’m just not satisfied. Did you see the Lovely Bones movie? If you read the book, you might have been as excited as I was that Peter Jackson had chosen to make a movie out of this very good story. Jackson can be called an experienced Director, and they even secured one of my very favorite participants in music, Brian Eno, to contribute to the soundtrack. But art is fickle enough that even experienced experts can put their foot in it and come up with less than they expected despite their best efforts. IMO the movie landed wrong, and in this case, I think it had something to do with the 100 year-old mystery of translating the art forms of book to movie. We go to movies for different reasons than we read a book, and The Lovely Bones film seemed to end up betraying its benefit to the audience. Another older example of this might be the dreadful Fountainhead movie remake of the book, with Gary Cooper. A horrible outcome, and author Ayn Rand herself wrote the misguided screenplay. Recently I’ve been recording songs that I’ve been playing to myself acoustically for years, and the process is alternately rewarding and vexing. On one hand I am wrestling with my skills of execution, but I am also reckoning with the unexpected result that can appear once committed to tape. (They still say “tape” these days to mean recorded, I heard an NPR commentator use it this week. As a musician I gotta love that). Shall I play it dramatically or understated? Joyful or downbeat? Pull out the stops or reign it in? One wrong decision and the whole song can start to mean a different thing. I remember one time in 7th grade my late childhood friend Scott was goofing around in our Social Studies class. He was the film Monitor, and it was his job to run the projector when we watched a short movie about a given subject. Scott was the class clown, and in a casual moment he picked up the flat brown metal circular lid for the 16mm film canister and pressed it slightly sideways on his head, like a hat. It looked silly that way, and he made a perfect silly voice to go with it. I remember instantly realizing that Scott hadn’t done that before, and yet he knew how he looked without looking in the mirror. It made a big impression on me, because I knew if I had tried the same thing I would have never realized the effect until I saw myself. For me, making music has been a process of not knowing the final result until I try something and then put myself in the audience’s position (listen back without playing). Sometimes I need to come back later and pretend I haven’t heard this music before, with the goal of removing as much personal bias as possible. Occasionally I have the good luck of total amnesia when I return to something and completely fail to remember ever having played it. Then I am in the best position to make a judgment on what I consider to be good, bad, or sending a message of any kind. Some artists like my friend Scott, (who was an actor) have the gift of knowing what they’re doing the moment they are doing it. In my case, I have had to make my temporary blindness an asset, by playing, forgetting, and returning over and over, note by note, until I dictate something/anything of meaning. It’s soooo much slower, but maybe this has given me some kind of advantage I didn’t know I had. Regardless, the two bottom lines will always be, is this any good and did I mean to say it? As I work at home each night on my latest recording, I am reckoning with both.

Friends Who Changed Me, (#1 in an Ongoing Series): "Ken"

 

I was born in Massachusetts in 1959, and before I turned one my father was offered a CBS fellowship in Communications at Columbia University, so he and my Mom moved to New York City with their infant child just as the 60’s were beginning. Within a year my Dad was tapped to head up the new PBS/NPR radio station WRVR, which was located at Riverside Church on Riverside Drive. Soon my sister Jenna was born, and we lived our early childhood in Manhattan.

 

During this first decade of my youth, my father held many staff parties at our NY apartment and country house in Connecticut, and I regularly visited the radio station as a boy just one block from where we lived.

 

The people I met on my Dad’s staff were always unique personalities and frequently had creative talents, interesting viewpoints, and engaging stories to tell.

 

When we moved to San Diego in 1970, my Dad used to tell this joke which he credited to Neil Simon:

 

When it’s 102 degrees in New York, it’s 78 in LA.

 

When it’s 2 degrees below zero in New York, it’s 78 in LA.

 

There are 6 million interesting people in New York, and 78 in LA.

 

This joke seemed to speak to both the relief we felt when we escaped the stress and pressures of inner-city life in the 60’s, and the culture shock we felt as we settled into a totally new world.

 

As I look back on my process of finishing growing up in California, I see how my attraction to interesting and creative people was ingrained from my earliest youth.

 

And I met many…

 

During my Freshman year in High School I qualified for Honors English, which I realize now was my weakest subject at the time. Thank goodness I got in that class though, because I immediately realized that the students would be the best part. There seemed to be one of every type in there, a Christian, a stoner, one bespectacled nerdy type, the studious Architect, kids so gifted and funny that they wrote long story scripts just to satisfy their creative urges. Everyone in that class (over a 3-4 year period) was so distinct and non-average in their way, even the social types had something going.

 

We had a fairly large High School, so I might not see these students in my other classes, but one exception was Ken who was also in my PE class. Our PE was in the morning, and we would “dress out” and then wait for 20 minutes until the distracted PE teacher would show up and put us through whatever sport we were supposed to learn.

 

During this time I would find Ken sitting in the bleachers talking casually about music or a movie, and there was always something intriguing about his comments. I almost immediately became Ken’s friend, and it was a big relief having someone smart to talk to during any class.

 

I was already a musician then, and I remember disrespecting Alice Cooper and David Bowie when they first came out (people my age might remember they were almost coordinated together in the media that first year). I was a Beatle and Neil Young fan in 1973, and I considered these new guys an empty novelty, capitalizing on androgyny as a gimmick. Even Cheech and Chong did a parody of them during a late-night TV skit, and I didn’t pay any attention to the music.

 

Then Ken showed up at my house with an armload of Bowie records; this was late 1973 or 1974, when Bowie was already finishing his Ziggy period as the rest of the world caught up, including radio. Ken generously left those records at my house for months, and I went wild as I listened to them. The kicker came when my guitar teacher Jack came over to give me my lesson and flipped out with me as we played each album. Pretty soon Jack had the cassettes playing in his car, and I felt I was on the inside of something amazing.

 

I might have thought that Ken would continue to lead me to the next big thing in Pop, but instead he moved on to large Wagner opera box sets and Van Der Graaf Generator albums, which led to more and different discoveries. Then came the Fellini and Bunuel movies and other foreign art films, which he would take me to at the smaller art cinemas. I discovered the composer Nino Rota from this, and that music became one of my escape hatches from the dead-end I was feeling from corporate rock in my later teens. Then in 1977 Talking Heads, Elvis Costello, The Ramones, and The Sex Pistols saved us with a new and exciting direction, and we were off and running. Most of my musician friends were not quick to pick up on the new music; they were still wondering how to compete with Boston and Kansas records, and this only hardened my rebellion.

 

Knowing Ken led to a social nucleus that included Wiley and my sister Jenna, and several other friends who changed me forever. (Matt and David).

 

Ken had an instant recognition of genuinely creative things, (and he was deeply funny when suffering the aesthetically mundane). New music would normally take me weeks to digest and sort through, but Ken would immediately understand when the rules had changed. For years having him for a friend was a constant flashlight as I discovered my next source of interest…

 

In our late teens Ken started to slowly turn his attention from films to 20^th century art, and this opened up a new source of both exciting creative influences and some controversy. Challenging the audience was a common ground with the new music I was participating in, and the art world often had the same goal. Clearing the room sometimes became a source of pride…

 

 

There were times when Ken would transmit his personality on simple occasions like giving Xmas gifts or DJ’ing an informal party that gave a special feeling I can’t quite describe, but that I never saw anyone else ever do again. It was like receiving a private message…

 

Another example of his indescribable impact was one time when he held a piece of paper up to the color TV as we watched a show in the middle of the afternoon after school. He would cover only a certain part of the screen, then change it. We saw things we never expected; I remember Jenna and I were floored, the effect was devastating. He often did a similar thing with the radio, choosing the stations seemingly at random and playing with the volume in unexpected ways.

 

One time as I was getting off work late at night from my job as a dinner house waiter, I exited through the back door with another artist friend, and we heard a sound coming from my car. Ken had set up a windup record player and rigged some kind of broken recording with several visual props chosen for the moment and set them in and around my car, with the door wide open. He and Wiley laid in wait and flashed his car headlights on us at the precise moment, like a film noir movie.

 

Art didn’t just imitate life, it became it, and there were powerful moments I will never forget, such as the time one of our closest friends over-ingested several drugs and caused a scandal as he acted out loudly with a frightening expressiveness. He roamed through the backyards and the foothills where we lived ranting wildly and uncontrollably until we finally had to call his family to come get him. The quality and content of his rant was so compelling that it caused different reactions among us, including the mixed feelings of acute admiration and total fear.

 

This same close friend would do things like not wear clothing as he went to gas his car at the big box store (Fed-Mart), playing it straight as he paid the attendant, and not for candid camera type laughs either. The years of popular streaking were long over and forgotten by then, and our friend’s well-deserved credentials as an art guerrilla were apparent only to the fewest insiders.

 

 

After College almost every one of my friends moved from San Diego to another city. Ken moved to New York, a city we had discussed many times, and continues to live there today. I have no doubt that the people who know Ken now appreciate he’s there, and my guess is they are discovering their own insights from his unique ability to see art and the world itself in the flow of its time and context.

 

 

If I hadn’t begun my life in New York I’m sure I would have still gravitated to Ken, but I feel having an opening introduction to one of the greatest creative centers of the world instilled in me an attraction to one of the world's best and brightest minds. 

Looking at Trees

Ever since my Dad died in ’07 I’ve had a completely different outlook on life. It comes when I glance up at the trees in my backyard, which has always been fairly often, but feels different now.

I just had the 50-year physical checkup done, and most but not all results are in. It’s feeling good so far, but one never looks a healthy horse straight in the mouth, because one never knows. My Colonoscopist takes pride that he finds at least one polyp in 42% of his patients, and last week he was able to add me to his “find” list. There was a single one, (that’s the point of checking, right?), and we will see what the results show before the final Harvest Ale is opened in celebration. (BTW, this year’s Sierra Nevada batch is as good as ever, I’ve already cracked one following my Glaucoma check, which was “negative”. Another reason to be thankful).

So what happens if that little polyp is the evil gremlin, destined to give me grief in the form of active cancer, and forcing me to fight an open battle for my privilege to live this complete lifetime? My childhood friend Scott discovered he had melanoma when he was 36 years old, and lived 10 more years, an amazing record given his prognosis. He had just had his 2nd baby boy when he first learned of his illness, and this son was able to know his Dad until he was 10, giving him the gift of memories he will have and keep for his own lifetime.

Scott fought like hell, putting up with all sorts of humiliations to prolong his life. Painful biopsies and surgeries, scheduled flu-like symptoms at a time of career changes, pre-existing condition denials from his new employer’s HMO, bankruptcy, the whole list. He kicked ass to keep it together, weathering every knock that was required to keep his family moving in a healthy direction together.

Despite the universal fears of dying, on some level I already feel resigned to leave this life at a time that feels right. Emphasis on “feels right”. I know the perception of unfinished business would be a real issue, as I expect it would be for most people. If you have kids and they are not grown, for example, there will always be a feeling of loss if you anticipate being separated prematurely. It’s biological.

I made this excellent corned beef dinner a few weeks ago, and from the first bite it was a great tasting piece of meat. I saw that there were many fatty parts, so I gave my wife and daughters the best pieces and settled for the chewy ones. At other meals I might have split it up equally, but this time it felt right in a way that I think a parent understands. If a mother or father was cold themselves and their kid needed a jacket, they would take it off and give it to their kid, it’s just built-in. You might have some bickering about bringing your jacket next time, but in the moment you would do what was necessary.

So I see what Scott did as coming from a very deep place.

In addition to these universal motivations, I have an agenda of leaving some music behind, something listenable more than once. That’s my minimum standard: you’ve heard it once and wouldn’t mind hearing it a second time. In a world of nearly infinite access to the greatest music of the world, it’s asking a lot.

I don’t know Steve Earle’s music that well, but I heard him say after he finished his first album, “I can die now”. I know just what he means. My first album isn’t done, so I don’t feel ready to die yet, but speaking of that if you would like to hear the first song, click on:

http://www.imeem.com/people/tfx-Ytc/music/-wmar6LN/ed-ford-summerfield-the-bhonging-angel-final-mix-8/

That’s me playing my best on all instruments as well as I can (save for the drums, which were very nicely played by John Hall). It was fun to practice that hard, I went further into myself than I have in the past.

There’s a funny story about the bass player for Fleetwood Mac, John McVie working on his bass part for a song on the first attempt of the Rumors album (they did it twice). After months of work the band knew it was time to call it a day when they found John in the studio staring at an East Indian deity’s picture while he played his bass line over and over, trying to nail his part. For John it didn’t work, but if that gets you the musical take you want I'm with you all the way.

Lately I’ve been singing and practicing myself into a near-rapturous state every night, almost exalted. Other musicians are born with most of their talent from the start. I was not short-changed with my basic gifts, but I now find it necessary and feel quite willing to fight for every note to get even a little better. Fight as hard as Scott did.

So after the kids are grown and some music has been expressed I think I will look up at the trees and feel differently than I do now. I’m not there yet, but my eye is on the ball every day.

And meanwhile, thank you for today.