Music Before the Money

Sunday was travel day because almost every bar band worked 6 nights a week. (You had to to make ends meet and pay for the equipment leases.)

It started at 2:00am, or after the last encore. This where the artistry of packing up came in. Every band member I knew could wrap cords, tear down gear and load the vehicle while engaging no fewer than three conversations with bar patrons, staff and each other.

Now, it doesn’t matter if it’s a 4-piece country band or the Rollings Stones A Bigger Bang Tour, every piece of kit has its place. That means that packing comes so automatically that I can only remember the tough loads where we had to pack a Yamaha Electric Grand and a PA up two flights of stairs.

Although there were times when it was tough to say goodbye (Meeting the ultimate love interest was especially hard because these encounters only happened on Saturday night) all the feelings of attachment faded during the first hour of the road.

Every band member had his preference during the Sunday drive, especially if it was a long trip. In Sensation, we had two vans. Randy drove the first leg and usually we switched before the sun came up. Ray Anderson, our guitar player, slept on top of the equipment. On one trip from Vernon, B.C. to Regina, Saskatchewan Ray slept through a snow storm, rain and a severe dust storm. He never knew about the rain or snow and only saw the end of the dust storm when we entered Regina.

A couple of times we arrived at the new gig before the other band had torn down. We always considered this poor manners and never thought too highly of the guys in the band. It really threw off the remainder of the day when we had to wait. Luckily this only happened twice.

A good setup was to get the gear up in the late afternoon (Sunday) and then hit the smorgasbord. The guys had been travelling this road longer than me and knew the the best buffets (and cheapest) in Canada. If you didn’t eat five times what the food would have cost on the menu you weren’t hungry enough!

This goes with the camaraderie of bands.

An elder Cherokee Native American was teaching his grandchildren about life. He said to them…

“A fight is going on inside me. It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One wolf represents fear, anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority and ego.

The other stands for joy, peace, love, hope, sharing, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, friendship, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.

This same fight is going on inside you and every other person, too.”

They thought about this for a minute, and then one child asked his grandfather… “Which wolf will win?”

The old Cherokee simply replied… “The one you feed.”

In my many years on this planet I’ve taken both piano and guitar lessons. However, most of this time was spent learning the two instruments in a variety of ways: listening to recordings, jamming with guys better than me and watching bands.

I learned piano from a teacher from an early age and then it slide in favor of the tenor banjo because the folk era was big. Although I never picked piano up again for more than 10 years what did stay with me was the technique: how to hold my hands.

Guitar, on the other hand, was mostly self-taught and I have a lot of bad habits as a result. Taking classical guitar lessons helped immensely and I restructured my hand positions. Later on I lost the left hand technique but I still have the “PIMA” positioning when I finger pick with the left hand.

And I watch pickers who could be a lot more effective if they weren’t resting their hands on the top of the guitar and turning their hands in a more sideways attitude. There are lots that do this and it cuts down on finger mobility.

Now-a-days you can learn rock guitar or jazz piano at specialized classes from the get-go. Gone are the Mel Bay books (although there were some good technique drills in those books) where you learned the notes playing The Old Gray Goose. In fact my kids all learned piano from professional teachers and have better technique than the old man.

And guess what? An old dog and a new trick - now that’s a stretch.

It all begins when the soul would have its way with you.
—Emerson

Begin at the beginning… and go on till you come to the end: then stop.
— Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll 1832-1898

You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star.
- Fredrich Neitzche

A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step
— Lao-tsu c. 604-c.531 BC

Look with favour upon a bold beginning
— Virgil 70-90 BC, Georgics I.L.30

The first beginnings of things cannot be distinguished by the eye.
— Lucretius 99-55 BC

Individuality of expression is the beginning and end of all art.
— Johannes Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) Proverbs in Prose

When the first baby laughed for the first time, the laugh broke into a thousand pieces and they went skipping about and that was the beginning of fairies.
— Sir James Mathiew Barrie ( 1860-1937)

The births of all things are weak and tender and therefore we should have our eyes intent on beginnings.
— Michel E. Montaigne (1533-1582),

The great majority of men are bundles of beginnings.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson (1802-1882)

It is better to begin in the evening than not at all.
— English proverb

We will either find a way, or make one
— Hannibal

It wasn’t raining when Noah built the ark.
- Howard Ruff

It is necessary; therefore, it is possible.
— Guiseppe Borghese

In creating, the only hard thing’s to begin; A grass-blade’s no easier to make than an oak.
— James Russell Lowell

The Gretsch 6120 is by far the most common Gretsch guitar made, only usurped in fame by the double-cutaway model George Harrison used when The Beatles played on The Ed Sullivan Show in February 1964. They came in a soft orange color and the sound was distinct, made more so by artists like Duane Eddy in Rabble Rouser and other “cowboy instrumentals” like the theme from the T.V. show Bonanza.

Due to changes in musical tastes and changes in ownership in the late 1960s resulting in deteriorating quality, production of the 6120 ceased in the late 1970s. Values of the existing instruments soared when rockabilly artist Brian Setzer of The Stray Cats was seen playing an old 6120 in his early-80s music videos. Gretsch subsequently went back into the guitar business and new 6120 guitars are widely available.

Today, a wide range of 6120 models are available, including an assortment of Brian Setzer signature models and faithful reissues of 50s classics. Like most Gretsch guitars, production is now based in Japan, although custom-shop American-made 6120s are also available.

My friend Rick Evans played in a band with Freddie Turner, later of of BTO fame, and his axe was a 1957 6120 Chet Atkins. It was stored improperly and over the years needed work.

I now own that guitar and I don’t mind the red sunburst, although it’s definitely not the original color.