Music Before the Money

I first saw the Chapman Stick in a copy of Guitar Player magazine in 1973. As the name implies it looks like a piece of 2 X 6 with strings, or something from a Medieval orchestra. This instrument was created by guitarist Emmett Chapman around 1970 in order for him to playing a style of guitar he developed. By creating a two-handed technique that encompassed tapping Chapman was able to play two musical ideas simultaneously like pianists did.

The two-handed tapping is what guitarists would call hammer-ons. The player’s fingers attack the strings in much the same manner as they would a piano thereby producing tones. Since an ordinary guitar is limited in this use the Chapman Stick filled this void.

The first prototype of Chapman’s instrument, called “The Electric Stick,” was first played in 1970. Later refinements produced a commercial model in 1974 that was sold to the public as the “Chapman Stick”.

Looks-wise, Emmett Chapman’s “Stick” is a long guitar-like fingerboard that uses 10 strings (or 12 strings for the new Grand Stick) up 25 frets. There is a stereo pickup near the base and conventional tuning pegs on the machine head at the other end. The neck is a narrow 3 1/4 inches wide and stretches 34 inches from nut to bridge.

The floating, stereo allows the treble and bass to be passed through separate amplifiers for different effects which makes for a very full sound. There are individual volume controls the pickup easily accessible for the right hand.

There have been many varieties of materials used in the manufacture of the Chapman Stick during its long run. In the late 1980’s, when experimental guitars like the Bond Electraglide were in vogue, a small number of polycarbonate graphite Sticks were produced. These were heavier, came in a variety of colors and the tones were crisper. However, most of the Sticks were, and still are, made in one piece from warmer-sounding exotic hardwoods such as rosewood. Because the grains are different no two Sticks are exactly alike except in quality.

Through the years the most accomplished Stick player has been Tony Levin, who performed with Peter Gabriel and King Crimson. Levin also did a cuts on the Pink Floyd album Momentary Lapse of Reason. Alphonso Johnson has played with Santana and Fergus Marsh was a Stick player with Bruce Cockburn. Locally, Brian Bourne is featured with the group the Newfoundland group, Rawlins Cross.

The Chapman Stick retails from between $2,000 and $3,000 depending on the number of strings and pickup type.

When I see a boy band playing fuzz guitar at knee level or a stage full of dancers shaking their butts I tend to rant and rave about where music is going these days. To me, a bunch a dancers lip-syncing a computerized version of a great old song is not really music.

However, I sometimes forget that when the Beatles were on the Ed Sullivan Show in February 1964 people like my father and Frank Sinatra were not to happy about them either. Frankie complained the music had no soul and that it it didn’t take talent to play it. Sound familiar?

Computers have definitely changed music. Many musicians claim that computers have made it easy for people with little talent to get into the business. This is what was said about drums and electric guitars. Because you didn’t have to be Gene Krupa or Joe Pass to play in a garage band and Louis Louis was said to have been recorded in someone’s front room. Even though, as it turned out, Ringo was a very competent drummer.

Another group of purists complain that Guitar Hero has brought a new generation of “posers,” people who are famous for plucking a plastic strip and are fast at following colored buttons. They say that this toy is only making groups like Aerosmith richer from royalties.

Well, my view is if Steve Tyler has good marketing skills, good on him. Because after everything is said and done music has been a marketing job since before Mozart. Remember the scene in Amadeus where Mozart’s orchestra finishes the opera and they sit in strained silence waiting for Emperor Joseph’s response. When he finally stood up and clapped then the whole opera house exploded in applause. If he hadn’t then a now-famous opera might have been tucked away and maybe even lost.

This is similar to today’s music. we tend to judge it on yesterday’s precepts because, in reality, we are yesterday’s people. We were brought up on Gene Autry, the Beatles and Steely Dan. If the truth be known we are a kind of intellectual snobs because we feel that we hold the Holy Grail of music in our hands and everything that came after was crap.

I don’t like a lot of the music that has come down the pike but to the wire-trailing, mp3 generation it is their music. In fact, unlike Austria in the 1700’s or the $150 an hour recording studios of the 1970’s no one will ever again be able to hoard music. Computers have enabled the kid in Uganda to someday become a David Foster if he or she wants. These are just tools and it is the genius and will that drives good music.

However, the cream will always rise and stay at the top long after the reality-show divas and charm boys have faded. And people like me can always see shows like Australian Pink Floyd and the latest incarnation of the Beach Boys to get a glimpse of how it once was. And my Mom has a box set of Frank Sinatra, Connie Francis and Mafia’s Greatest Hits to enable her to call back her music.

Happy New Year!

In many of my postings I stressed how I am a fiend at musicians being ultimate professionals. I also maintain that the Musicians’ Union, an organization that I belonged to for 20 years, is a great organization for putting a bottom line to the music business. This includes recording, television and other activities. However, I have never held to the idea that popular music should be subject to these rules because it is a supply-and-demand business.

In fact, I think that most non-union players I know were more professional because they never believed in the 40-on-20-off union rule. My own belief was, “If the people are there, you play.” This always worked for me and got me return gigs. Nothing against the union. In fact I paid them thousands over the years and I hope this money went to good causes.

That said, I have never witnessed a performance like I did last night when Rawlins Cross, that venerable Newfoundland band who made “fish music” popular, performed in a snow storm. In fact, Geoff Panting,  the keyboard player kept brushing snow off the keys and the bagpiper, Ian MacKinnon, played while chilling winds gripped his fingers.

Rawlins Cross defied all commercial music precepts by mixing Scottish, Irish, Celtic, and modern rock together to create Celtic-instrumental,  blues, folk and rock music. In fact if you listen to the new Hockey Night in Canada theme song its sounds like it might well be written and performed by Rawlins Cross.

Reel and Roll was their big hit and they played it though the driving snow storm. I mean the Howie Southwood, the drummer was smiling through the whole show as snow bounced off his drums with each hit. In fact you could barley read the “Sabian” brand on his cymbals for the snow. Joey Kitson, the lead singer, was dressed in a warm down jacket and had an inch of snow on his shoulders while Brian Bourne’s fingers tapped his amazing Chapman Stick in the cold.

Rawlins Cross are probably union members. Most touring bands are. But they went above and beyond the call of duty and brought in the New Year like nothing I’ve ever seen before.

Good on yah, b’ys!

Except for the first few New Year’s gigs I didn’t like doing them much. Oh the money was great but, like many a gig, the people on the floor were having the good time. And I wanted to join them.

New Year’s gigs are hard work especially if you’ve never been to the venue before. There is such a chain of things that can go south, from the contact person being an idiot to the job itself. And then there are the botch-ups that happen in between. That said, most of the times it went over well.

As in a wedding the band and the food make the occasion. I have never been to a New Year’s job where the food was bad. In a few occasions there was lobster and each member of the band got one. Not bad, huh?

You always had to have a time-keeper because no one wanted the responsibility of screwing up the countdown to the New Year. I have heard where the guy in the band dedicated to keeping time lost time and had people in the crowd start the countdown without the band. Can you imaging having to switch to Auld Lang Sine in the middle of a song because you were on the wrong time?

I’ve seen one fight and one woman rushed to the hospital where she had the 2nd baby born in the New Year. On one occasion the power went out just after midnight and didn’t come back on. The band was sidelined but the people partied anyway.

In 1995 i was on a cruise ship sitting on the docks in Newcastle, England. The ship left shortly after the fireworks went off. On New Year’s Day we were in sub-hurricane winds and waves. In Bergen, Norway, nine ambulances showed up to get people with broken limbs and other maladies off the ship.

In 1980 I split my pants when I stretched to pick up the drummer’s stick. I heard the rip and was glad I was a keyboard player because I never went out from beyond the boards until the gig was over.

From 1996 to 2004  I was at White Point Beach Resort and we would all go out to the ocean afterward. In all those years January 1st was always calm and moonlit.

I lied. I really liked playing New Years. Because now, I just watch the band!

Happy New Year and I hope things begin to calm down out there.

A year ago I wrote a series called Piano Bar Primers and in Piano Bar Primer IV I encouraged new players to “get in front of people” and think about the money later on. In today’s economy and the way things are going with entertainment serious players and bands have to make their own way. Gone are the agents who can pot you on a tour of bars, lounges or cabarets because these venues just don’t exist in the numbers that thy did 20 years ago.

After speaking with many musicians in the area I come to find that a qute a few great musicians do not have a New year’s gig. As for me, since 1973 I have missed playing only 7 New Years (8 coming up and the last 2 were because I didn’t want to play). So that’s 27 times I played New Years!

My drummer pal, Rob Filek, came up with an idea that we didn’t have time to put into focus this year but could well go over next year. Get 5 groups together, rent a hall and sell tickets. Because when you think of it the food isn’t what you go out for it’s celebrating the New Near with cheap champagne and your friends!

If you are starting out in a band you don’t have to wait until a big celebration to get your own venue going. My first gig was at Carol Huba’s party where we payed for $2. We played the same 10 songs over and over and what we gained was a following. This is how it gets going and this is how you begin to get gigs.

Every musician has a friend who couldn’t sing a note but is a good talker. Okay, try him or her out as a manager. With Facebook and the other social media on your side your manager don’t have to waste money on newspaper ads like we had to or phoning for hours. However, even when we had a successful touring band we always phoned people when we got into their town.

So just because the bars don’t want you there are lots of people who wouldn’t mind hanging around a band and put them to work on helping you put on shows.

This is how it starts . . . and Rob reminded me that this is the way it had always been for new faces.