Monday, December 29, 2014

2014: Wow, I Did A Lot Of Stuff!

Time is a funny thing to me, because we tend to talk about it like it's simultaneously slow and fast, big and small. That event 4 months from now? It's so far away, but it'll be here before you know it. Looking back on a year can make it feel insignificant and fleeting, but we often forget how much stuff happens over the course of an entire 12 months. Here are some highlights from my 2014:

-I saw Billy Joel for the 6th time - my 2nd time at MSG.
-I got my first tattoo.
-I visited Nashville, TN, with my (now) girlfriend.
-I toured the Jack Daniel's Distillery with my (now) girlfriend.
-I saw Bruce Springsteen for the 12th time - the 2nd time with my (now) girlfriend.
-I went to the Grand Ole Opry with my (now) girlfriend.
-I spent 3 days in Washington, DC, & Northern VA.
-I went to my 2nd Washington Nationals game, got drunk on Miller Lites, Dos Equis, and tequila, and then walked though our nation's capitol back to my friend's apartment.
-I visited the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center National Air & Space Museum.
-I spent Memorial Day weekend in Ocean City, MD, saw 3 shows of my friend's reggae band, drank my fill of Miller Lites, and spent 11 hours on the road trying to get back home that Monday.
-I said goodbye to Poughkeepsie High School and the Poughkeepsie City School District for the 2nd time in my life, this time after 8 years of having worked there as a way to supplement my music career.
-I bought my first new keyboard in 6 years: a Nord Stage 2 Compact.
-I played 28 shows with my cover band In The Pocket, including our farewell show on August 16th that required months of planning.
-I played in my 2nd New York Songwriters Circle showcase at the Bitter End.
-I played my last show in my home state before moving out of it.
-After 4 years of group lessons, group lesson, and recitals, I taught my final piano lesson at the Newburgh Performing Arts Academy.
-I saw Wicked on Broadway with my (now) girlfriend.
-I spent a weekend in Atlantic City for the bachelor party of one of my best friends.
-I took a trip to Walt Disney World with my (now) girlfriend - my first in 15 years - and put on what had to have been 20 pounds in 4.5 days.
-After 10 years, I finally had to say goodbye to my 1999 Chevy Malibu. It had belonged to my pseudo-grandmother and was given to me in 2004 after she passed away.
-I moved to Nashville, TN.
-I was a groomsman in my friend's wedding in Sea Bright, NJ. I looked good. I got completely wrecked on Jack Daniel's.
-I got involved in the Nashville Songwriters Association International.
-I went to the 48th Annual CMA Awards here in Nashville with my (now) girlfriend, courtesy of The Doobie Brothers.
-My girlfriend officially became my girlfriend, even though everyone - including you - saw that she was my girlfriend long before then.
-I attended 2 Tennessee Titans games in less than 3 weeks - both for free.
-I spent my Thanksgiving volunteering with Gobble Gobble Give Nashville, then stuffing myself with BBQ.
-I experienced holiday air travel for the first time.

My 2014 was a year full of firsts, seconds, sixths, twelfths, lasts, and more. I'm sure yours was, too, but if you don't look close enough you just might miss it.

Here's to 2015 and the adventures that lie ahead! Happy New Year!

Monday, December 22, 2014

"Home For The Holidays" Actually Means Something To Me Now

As we're getting closer to Christmas and I'm getting ready for my flight home, it occurs to me that these past three months in Nashville have been the longest amount I've ever spent out of New York. When I was in college it's possible I spent more than three months away from home (though at this point who can remember), but since I went to school in Western New York I was still in the state. Up until September, the longest I had ever spent out of New York was a two-week family trip to Florida when I was ten - not exactly the kind of life-changing adventure that my current one has been. And in an ironic and somewhat poetic turn of events, I'm traveling back to New York exactly three months to the day since I left.

I'm very much looking forward to being home for the holidays, and I'd be lying if I said that this year the season didn't feel just a little bit more special than it has in the past. I guess the term "home for the holidays" can only really be understood when "home" is no longer where you live all the time. A 2008 survey found that almost 60% of Americans never live outside their home state, and almost 40% never leave their hometown. But now when I hear the song on the radio as I'm driving around my new town I can't help but feel differently about it...albeit with a slight change in the lyric. Its been six weeks since I last saw my girlfriend, and I haven't seen my parents, my siblings, my nieces and nephews, my extended family, or my closest friends in at least three months - for some longer than that. Sure, I've talked to many of them on the phone and online, but it's not the same as being able to share a meal or a drink with them.

I realize that to some people, this may seem like no big deal. I'm sure that many are jaded from the years and years of holiday traveling that they've done. But for me these past three months have felt like non-stop new experiences - new people, new places, new music, new opportunities, new responsibilities. Even when I'm not around town doing things and meeting people, just being here can still feel a bit foreign, so I'm excited to take a step back for a little while and enjoy things that I already know. People and places that are familiar. Yes, I'm not able to spend as much money on presents as I would like. Yes, my childhood home is now owned and lived-in by someone else. But in the end those little things aren't going to matter. Home isn't the amount of gifts below the tree or the roof under which that tree has been placed. Home is the people you surround yourself with, and that's where I'm going.

I'm going home for the holidays.

I met a man who lives in Tennessee and he was heading for
Upstate New York and some homemade pumpkin pie...

Monday, December 15, 2014

They Hear What You Say Before They Hear What You Play

Last week I talked about Nashville being a small town and the importance of always doing your best to leave a good impression - specifically not giving up mid-song and and walking off the stage at an open mic because the EQ in your monitor isn't what you want it to be. If you ask me, that's pretty solid advice, and I think there are a lot of other people who would back me up on it. But making a good impression is more than just playing your song through to the end - it's also about presenting your song in a favorable way. Let me esplain. No, there is too much; let me sum up.

The other week on a very rainy night I took my first trip to Belcourt Taps in Hillsboro Village to see a songwriter I'm acquainted with perform in a round. It turned out that she wasn't actually playing, but I chose to stick around anyway, enjoy my first Sam Adams Winter Lager of the season, and listen to the writers who were. There were three of them, but one in particular that I want to talk about.

Prior to his last song, this writer gave an introduction where he talked about how it had been his first cut - a track on the second album of the band Train a band that you most definitely know. The album was the band's first smash success, went something like triple platinum, and included a #1 song that to this day I really dislike. So how did he get a cut on this album and reap the mechanical royalty benefits? Well, it turns out that at the time he was living on the couch of the band's drummer. That's a great story! And then right before he played the song he said that it had been a bit of a "filler song" on the album.

Wait.

Stop.

See the problem? Why would you ever describe a song you're about to play in a round as "filler"? Why would you ever play a song in a round that you might think of as "filler"? Why do I want to hear a song performed in a round that the songwriter believes is "filler"? I understand what he was saying, but that's not how he should've said it. That word makes me think, Oh, OK, this isn't something I need to listen to, and that's not the vibe you want to be sending to your audience. There was no further intro needed, but if he had to he should've said something like, "Unfortunately, it was never released as a single, but it's a great song and I'm still proud of it."

Remember: they hear what you say before they hear what you play. The listener's opinion of your song will always be influenced by your opinion of your song, even if you don't realize it. So make it a good one.

Monday, December 8, 2014

Nashville Is A Small Town

With a population over 600,000, you might not think Nashville is a small town, but it is. And in terms of the music industry, I've been told and I'm learning that it's very much a company town. Everybody talks to everybody. Reputations travel fast, and you never know who you might be talking to or who they might talk to. This person is friends with Eric Paslay, or that person used to live with Taylor Swift's bass player, or the table in the house that you live in used to belong to Alison Krauss. Nashville truly is a music community with ties running deep and wide, so be cool. Be positive. Be easy to work with. Be open to ideas. Be a generally good person to be around. These things - sometimes more than your talent and skill level - can honestly be the difference between watching that next door open or not.


As a new songwriter in town I try to go out to at least 3-5 open mics a week. They're good opportunities to try out new material and expose your music to other musicians and songwriters, as well as hear theirs. These people are your peers, colleagues, and potential collaborators, and even if you don't end up working with them you might work with someone connected through them. Yes, as I've written before open mics in Nashville are very much the same as open mics anywhere else, but where they differ is that we've all chosen this city and are all kinda in the same boat. I've met people and had some great conversations while just standing around, drinking a beer, waiting for our slots to come up on the list.

The other night I was out at a particular open mic, listening to a songwriter that I have heard and met before (we're not really friends, but we're acquaintances because if you go to enough open mics you start to see a lot of the same people and faces get familiar). He's a talented guy and a regular at this open mic and others, but about a minute into his intimate second song of the night he abruptly stopped and said with some frustration that the boomy bass EQ on his guitar through his on-stage monitor was too distracting for him to continue. It was a jarring moment when juxtaposed with the apparent quiet tenderness of the song and the usually lighthearted nature of these events (sure, your songs may be serious, but everyone is out to have a good time). He borrowed another musician's guitar and tried again, but encountered the same problem. And seemingly before I realized what was happening he was off the stage putting his guitar away directly in front of me, his aggravation showing through the way he was packing up. It caused me to stop for a second and say to myself, "What the hell just happened?" And I could hear the surprise in the voice of the host as she thanked the performers and introduced the next ones.

Two things: first, it has been my experience that open mics in Nashville have better sound quality than most if not all others that I've played at. Venues around here have on-stage monitors, and time is usually taken to get the levels and EQs right for each performer - a practice that is decidedly unusual in other places. Yes, there were some technical issues going on with the PA throughout the night, but even though that's the case this was still an open mic. Of course everyone wants to sound their best, but you can't expect things to be perfect. When he stopped playing it was abrupt and a little startling, particularly because the crowd was hearing none of the problem that he was apparently dealing with. As a professional, sometimes you have to work through conditions that are less than optimal.

Second, I've seen this guy play before. I know he's talented, my interactions with him have always been friendly, and for whatever reason he was obviously having a bad night. We all have them, and I wouldn't be surprised if he felt or feels bad about how he acted. It's not my intention to call him out, but rather to use the story to illustrate a point we should all keep in mind: what about the person there that night who hadn't seen him before? What were they thinking about the songwriter complaining and then leaving the stage because his monitor mix wasn't what he wanted it to be? First impressions are often the most important, everyone's trying to get it right the first time, and whenever you're playing an open mic you have to assume you're making a first impression on at least someone, if not a very important someone. And no matter how poorly you think you've played or the difficulties you had to deal with, you have to ask yourself: what kind of impression do you want to leave?

Nashville is a small town, and it's important to act like it.