Let's Start Year 2

One year ago yesterday I left New York late in the morning not knowing what was ahead of me. I didn't know where I was going to live, I didn't know what I was going to do for money, I didn't know who I was going to meet, I didn't know what music I was going to make. I only knew where I was going and that I had to go. I spent that night in a shady, rundown Motel 6 in Wytheville, VA, following a mediocre meal at Applebee's (redundant?), and an emotionally and physically draining trip.

The next day - September 24th - I woke up, loaded back into the Manilow Van, and drove the final five hours west. My first stop in town was Panera Bread on 21st Ave. South, right by Vanderbilt University. It was a beautiful fall day, and after lunch I had an appointment to meet the owner of a house in Germantown and look at a potential room for rent. We ended up hanging out for two hours, talking about our common New York roots and influences, and listening to some music, and it became clear that this place immediately felt like the right place. I left there feeling excited and hopeful, and headed to the Airbnb that would be my home for a week. This was my first day living in Nashville, TN.

Recently, the changing weather and the smell of the fall air has been eliciting all sorts of memories of my first few weeks here. Hanging out in my Airbnb room with nothing to do, catching up on The Walking Dead. Going to my first Nashville open mic. Eating three meals at Applebee's thanks to a gift card. Seeing my first show at The Listening Room. Getting food for the first time at Martin's BBQ Joint. Joining the Nashville Songwriters Association. Eating four meals at Panera thanks to a gift card. Walking around Centennial Park. Discovering new supermarkets. Sleeping on the floor of my new room before my POD was delivered.

It's hard to believe that I've already been here a year, but today I have a much better understanding of the things I didn't know when I first arrived. The people that I've met, the experiences that I've had, and the music that I've been lucky enough to be a part of has all made it obviously clear how correct my move to Nashville was, and continues to be. I'm a better musician, I'm a better songwriter, I'm a better person.

Let's start year 2.

The Days Just Get Away From Me

It's true, and it's the reason I haven't posted here since March 2nd. The days just get away from me.

After that last post we had a few last days of winter weather here, followed by apartment searching. Then it was final daily rehearsals with Bearing Torches before hitting the studio March 13-15.

Pictures from our time recording at Blackbird Studios, March 13-15, 2015.
Posted by Steve Schultz on Tuesday, March 17, 2015

I fully intended to write my first time recording in a top-of-the-line professional Nashville studio, but then I was jumping through hoops trying to actually secure the apartment we wanted and set up things like cable, electricity, etc, followed by getting my limited amount of belongings ready to move and doing some incremental moving since my leases over-lapped. Then I was up to New York to pick up a truck, finish packing up my girlfriend's apartment, and drive her and her stuff down here to Nashville (1 day/950miles)...since that was the whole point of getting the new place! Then we've had issue after issue to deal with here at the apartment. The management company has been helpful, but quite honestly they've had to be helpful a lot. And I had to jump right back into rehearsals with Bearing Torches because we're back in the studio next week to finish recording the record!

Two days after the drive down we got to see Stevie Wonder, which was equal parts exciting and boring, and last week we went to the Opry - because they were both just regular Tuesday nights in Music City! Last weekend we went to Louisville, KY, to visit my former roommate and check out Thunder Over Louisville, the kickoff of the Kentucky Derby Festival. And we also stopped at the Jim Beam Distillery for a great tour and tasting.

So, like I said - the days just get away from me. But I'll try harder now. Lots of exciting stuff coming up.

The Psychic From Las Vegas

I've been having a some pain in my right hand. It's not a debilitating kind of pain, its just some pain. I first noticed it in my wrist when I was doing push-ups, and now notice it mostly in my hand when I'm trying to cut through something tough, like a block of cheese. I bought a big block of cheese a few weeks ago. Colby Jack, as a matter of fact, along with some Fire-Roasted Tomato & Olive Oil Triscuits and pepperoni. I'm all for eating healthy, but you know what? Sometimes you just want some cheese, crackers, and pepperoni. Or some chocolate. And cookies. And ice cream. And it really hits the spot, often times as an appetizer while I'm cooking dinner, or a snack in the afternoon. But I digress.

I really want to talk about my parents. And Las Vegas. You see, my parents love Las Vegas. It's their favorite place to be, and when they're there they're always out on the town, seeing shows, and hanging out with friends from all walks of life that you might never think my parents would walk in. They were just there recently, and my dad called me. It was before noon in Vegas, but like all good people there they were at the bar. And then he proceeded to tell me a story. He explained that the night before, my mom had gone to a party at a friend of a friend's house, and the party featured a psychic who was the host's daughter. Apparently, each guest got a chance to sit with the psychic for a number of minutes and get all psychic with her.

He then said, "She says you should put your right hand in ice water."

"Who said that?" I asked.

"The psychic said that you should put your right hand in ice water."

True story.

Grinding To A Halt

Last winter was pretty brutal. Lots of snow, wind, and temperatures that often times dipped into the single digits and below. I remember one morning my car doors wouldn't open and - frustrated from weeks and weeks of the frigid onslaught - I proceeded to kick my car, hoping that would get me in. And I succeeded! I manged to get my driver side door open, and my passenger side door came open while I was driving down the road on the way to work. In recent years Poughkeepsie has been notorious for having terribly treated roads (and terrible other things thanks to the guy in charge), and I had two road incidents last year: once where my car slide into a light pole while trying to make a turn, and another where it couldn't handle a slick off-ramp, which forced me stay straight and travel over the bridge. Neither incident occured while there was actual, you know, precipitation falling from the sky, but both had me telling myself that that winter was going to be my last in the northeast. In my mind I was planning a move to Los Angeles or Nashville - warmer climates, and warmer winters. Talk about some bullshit.

Last week I was able to be back in Poughkeepsie for my friend Brett's funeral, and subsequently my niece's birthday and Valentine's Day, as well. And surprise - it's another brutal winter in Poughkeepsie (and all of the northeast). The snow, the wind, the below zero temps? Yup, they were all there. While I was home Poughkeepsie set a record low of -14 degrees. I'll write that out for you: negative fourteen degrees. That's seriously cold, and it was seriously windy. So windy, in fact, that I changed my flight home from Sunday to Monday because of predicted 50mph winds in White Plains.

And then Winter Storm Octavia decided it was going to come right across Tennessee, hit Nashville with an ice storm, then proceeded through the upper south, hitting Charlotte, which was my connecting city. Apparently all that terrible winter weather that I chose to leave in the northeast decided to come visit me in Music City - only I wasn't there. So, I changed my flight from Monday to Wednesday, and hunkered down while the storm brought Nashville to a halt. Shows were cancelled. School was closed for the entire week. All while I cooked dinners, and hung out with my girlfriend and my family. And I did not have a guitar or a keyboard, but I was able to be at least a little productive in other ways.

When I did finally get back to Nashville on Wednesday, the interstates I rode home on were clear, but the side roads were not. In fact, even though I know the area isn't as experienced with this weather, and even though I know everyone here is working overtime as best they can, as a person from the northeast I still find the conditions of the roads to be...well, let's just say surprising. Imagine a road with two lanes in each direction and a turning lane in the middle, with the four main travel lanes relatively cleared and the middle turning lane not cleared at all. Imagine streets cleared only where the wheels of the cars actually hit the road. Imagine cars sitting at the bottom of driveways because they can't make it up the hills to the house. My street is on a small hill and I had the tires on my GMC Safari spinning the day I got home. One Friday on the way home from rehearsal I took a detour and found myself in two precarious positions: one where I had to back up very slowly to avoid the iced-over street ahead of me, and another where I was sliding, foot on the brake, down a slight hill toward an intersection, hoping I would stop in time. Luckily, I did. My housemate slide into the curb and had his hubcap knocked off.

The point is...winter sucks. All the way around. Except for maybe in Los Angeles? Well, I still think I made the right choice. Time to get the wheels moving again.

To My Friend, Brett

Mulligan's Irish House in Poughkeepsie became kind of like my unofficial home base. From my monthly solo/acoustic shows, to my bi-monthly solo/acoustic shows, to my Over The Edge Album Listening Party (and even to a bachelor party I threw there one time), my appearances at Mulligan's Irish House were epic - often epically under-attended, that is. But more often than not, you would find, sitting at the bar drinking a diet soda, my friend Brett. He would show up, hang out, make jokes with the rest of the regulars who would frequently come out to see me, and proceed to heckle me from the bar like Waldorf & Statler. And he could never get enough of constantly requesting that I play "MMMBop," by Hanson (which I never did), getting on the mic for background vocals in "Free Fallin'," by Tom Petty (which he did numerous times), and singing along to "Forever Young," by Rod Stewart (which I had learned just for him).

But my history with Brett extends back much further than shows at Mulligan's Irish House - more than 20 years, in fact. Brett and his brother, Dan, were my camp counselors when I attended YWCA Camp Cedarcliff - a small summer day camp that I always went to because my mom worked at the YWCA, and at which I ended up as a counselor myself for my first job. Every two weeks or so at camp there was an event called "Parent Sharing," where the families of campers would come and the different groups of kids would perform skits or songs, sometimes based on a theme. One time, under Brett's direction, my group performed an infamously bad rendition of Rod Stewart's "Forever Young," which has become the stuff of legend and inspired me learning the song for him. It was always performed tongue-in-cheek.

When I was younger, my family and Brett's family were both mutually close with my brother-in-law's family, so he would always be around. Summer parties, holiday meals, New Years celebrations, and late-night movie screenings thanks to my brother-in-law's movie theater connections (I still can't believe that he didn't like Galaxy Quest, by the way - I mean seriously), and even though he was a decade older than me and had been my camp counselor, as time went on and I got older he became much more of a peer and a friend than a "grown up." Maybe that was because I was growing up, or that he had such an irreverent sense-of-humor, or an affable personality, or his closeness to my brother-in-law, or a combination of all of it. Brett was a "brother from another mother" to my brother-in-law, so just like my brother-in-law's actual brother he because a part of my extended family. When my sister got married in Vermont in 2006, Brett and I shared a room at the inn. A couple years ago when he directed a sanitized, age-appropriate version of the play Election at the middle school where he worked, I was there to support him the way that he had always been there to support me at Mulligan's.

We got word yesterday that Brett suddenly and unexpectedly passed away, and it's shocking for everyone who knew him - friends, family, and friends who were family. It's surreal, to be sure, and being so far away from home all I can really do is share a few memories of my friend. And maybe have a diet Pepsi in his name. As my brother-in-law writes, "A whole freakin candelabra has gone out and it's going to take a long time for our eyes to adjust to the darkness."

 

In an mmmbop...

2015 - Full Steam Ahead

For all the posts I've made about Nashville - what goes on here, what it's like, how it's different, etc. - I really haven't made any posts about what I'm actually up to in Nashville. You know, in terms of like...music. Well, I've been here four months so I guess it's about time I clue you in.

I'm the new drummer for Slipknot. I know, I know - most of the internet believes it's Jay Weinberg, son of E Street Band drummer Max Weinberg, but that's just how good a job we did at hiding my real identity. Currently, we're on tour in Europe, and I'm having a blast!

But when I'm not thrashing about with them, for the past 2 months I've been working with a band who moved to town from Kansas City the same time that I did. We were lucky enough to connect and really click in terms of style, influences, and personality, and it's been an exciting time playing with them more days than not, firming up arrangements, and tightening the sound of the group in preparation for some serious studio time in the coming months. The plan is to live-track as much as possible in order to fully capture the energy of the band, and that's a different way of how I've usually worked in the past. My album Over The Edge, for example, was strictly multi-tracked piece by piece - first we did drums, then bass, then guitars, keys, horns, and so on until all the instruments were there. Live-tracking requires a lot of preparation and practice beforehand to do it right, but I'm excited for the challenge and the opportunity.

I'll post more about the band and what we're up to as things continue to progress, but the plan is to be doing my first Nashville studio sessions less than six months after moving here - not bad when you consider I knew only one person who lives here, he is not in the music industry, and I haven't even seen him because he had his first kid right after I arrived.

Onward and upward, baby. 2015 - full steam ahead.

P.S. No, I'm not really the new drummer for Slipknot. C'mon, people, get your heads in the game!

The Most Out of Place I've Felt In Nashville

It can be stressful moving to a new place. A new city, a new state - they can make you feel like you don't belong. Like you're a traveler in a foreign land. Like everyone else knows how things work and you don't. Frankly, like you're a bit of an idiot, and quite possibly that everyone is staring at you thinking, Hey, who's that dumbass Yankee from New York? Of course, I'm speaking purely hypothetically.

Luckily, though, I haven't had too many experiences feeling that I'm a fish out of water. Nashville is a very welcoming place, especially within the music community. Everyone is from somewhere else, but it keeps the southern hospitality mentality. But do you want to know the time I really felt most out of place in my new surroundings? Because I'll tell you if you come in close and promise not to go around telling people. It wasn't at the tons of open mics that I've been to. It was at the two Titans games that I went to. It wasn't at NSAI events that I've been to, even when a publisher and a bunch of other songwriters have been listening to my music and judging it. It wasn't even at the CMA Awards when a joke about the Democrats losing the senate made the crowd to wild. You really want to know what it was? It was when I got my oil changed.

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, WTF?! I get it, but hear me out. When you go to Valvoline in New York, you park your car by the garage entrance, get out, and tell the service technician what you're looking to have done. Then they get into the car, drive it into the garage, do the work, drive it out, and let you know when it's ready, all while you wait in the waiting area with the bad coffee, boring magazines, and The Weather Channel on the TV. But in Tennessee? Oh, in Tennessee you drive the car into the garage yourself and then stay in it while they do the work. And it confused the hell out of me - not because I didn't understand what was going on, but because all my life I've gotten out of the car when I got my oil changed. I mean every time. But this time I got out and the service attendant was like, "You can get back in - we don't take that long." All I had to do was roll down my window to talk to him as he stood at a computer station. Honestly, I felt like I was doing something wrong; like I was breaking some rule. But he was right: they didn't take that long.

And now I know. And hopefully next time when they mentally identify me as a "Yankee from New York" they'll leave out the "dumbass" part. Hopefully.

Stepping Inside RCA Studio A

When word started coming out in late June of last year that RCA Studio A - currently operated by Ben Folds and his team, and called Grand Victor Sound Nashville - was to be sold, demolished, and replaced by a mixed-use luxury condo complex, I was still living in New York, wrapping things up before I could make the move to Tennessee. And quite honestly, I had nowhere near any kind of complete knowledge about the studio other than its connection to Ben Folds. And I still don't. But through the campaign waged by Ben and others like Trey Bruce, Sharon Corbitt-House, and Mike Kopp, I became a supporter of #SaveStudioA, as did many others. Specifically, Aubrey Preston, Mike Curb, and Chuck Elcan, who each stepped up to save the studio that witnessed the recordings of classics songs like Dolly Parton's "Jolene." All seven of them were named Nashville Scene's "2014 Nashvillians Of The Year," and you can read the whole compelling story about the effort here. And on Monday the 12th, I finally got to step inside RCA Studio A.

 

On that day, there was an open-to-the-public press conference announcing a partnership between the Music Industry Coalition - the organization put together to represent "the past and future of Nashville's music industry and its birthplace, Music Row" - and the National Trust for Historic Preservation. So, of course I went, because why not? I mean, Mayor Karl Dean was there. Congressman Jim Cooper was there. The Nashvillians Of The Year were there. Why shouldn't I be there?! Read about the event here.

Despite the water for the peppermint tea being lukewarm, actually being inside that studio was great. First of all, it is by far the biggest studio I have ever been in, and could probably house at least fifty of the studio we built and recorded Over The Edge in. It has four grand pianos, two upright pianos, countless organs, synthesizers, and other keyboards, drums, guitars, basses, huge moveable baffle walls, a full hi-fi listening area set up like a little living room, a staircase up to a second floor room, and some seriously sexy microphones that just seemed to be casually hanging around. Having been built in the 60s, it also has a certain decor that I've often found myself (maybe oddly) fond of - a feeling that I similarly feel whenever I visit the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC - and that was all just the live room! I sadly didn't have a chance to look into the control room. But you could feel an energy that honestly came off as very unassuming; you walk into 30 Music Square West and the studio is just the door on the left. As often as I drive by it, it's cool to wonder who is working just behind the the outside wall. As a matter of fact, the day of the event the organizers encouraged us to stay, but to not stay too long because Ben had to get back to finishing his new album. Music happens there. I stole a fun-sized crunch bar on my way out.

This past Saturday night I was hanging out in front of Ernest Tubb Record Shop on Broadway, talking to a guy that I knew from a couple open mics who was playing on the street, when I notice a taller guy standing in front of us looking into the store. I immediately recognized him as Aubrey Preston. I introduced myself to him and his wife, shook his hand, and thanked him for all he's done for RCA Studio A.

Just another day where I can say: this is why I moved to Nashville.

Honoring Little Jimmy Dickens

The first time I visited the Grand Ole Opry House was Friday, April 19, on the final night in Nashville during my "let's check this town out" visit last year. My girlfriend (who is a much bigger country music fan and aficionado than I am) really wanted to go, and seeing that the Band Perry would be performing, I agreed. I never thought my second time there would be for a funeral.

Little Jimmy Dickens was - and is - a country music legend, having lived to the age of 94 and having a career lasting well over 70 years (learn a little about him here). To be honest, though, until his death on January 2, I had never really heard of him. Since I've never been a huge country music fan I don't have memories of Jimmy the way I do of other musicians and entertainers. But last Thursday the Opry was holding a public memorial service for Jimmy, and realizing that his life and work was an important part of what helped make Nashville Nashville (and as a result led me to be living here), I decided to go.

Walking into the Opry House felt like walking into a church, which probably isn't all that surprising given the ties and roots shared by country music and gospel music. Wreaths of flowers, pictures of Jimmy, attendees dressed in black down on the main floor, and the casket at the front of the house made me realize that this wasn't just going to be a memorial - it was going to be a full funeral. And it was, complete with eulogy, prayers, a sermon, and of course music. As I wrote above, I never knew him and don't have any real connection to him, but I couldn't help to be touched by the stories of the people who did. Each performer who came on the stage to sing and each person who stepped to the podium would tell stores of what Jimmy had meant to them, the country community, and the Opry - and it wasn't just musicians. One of the speakers was championship figure skater Scott Hamilton, whose inclusion was not only the most head-scratching to me, but also maybe the most demonstrative of how far Jimmy's friendship stretched. In fact, a story he told was one the of most touching, recounting an incident where Jimmy had played and sang for Hamilton's then 5-year-old son, and gave the guitar he was using as a gift that Hamilton's song still has and cherishes.

But my favorite anecdote came from Vince Gill, who before performing his song "Go Rest High On That Mountain" with Carrie Underwood explained about the guitar he was using: it had belonged to a member of Jimmy's band way back in the day, and had been used to backup Jimmy's Opry appearances many times. A few years back, Vince bought it, and he felt it was only fitting that it help support Jimmy at the Opry one last time.

See a clip of Brad Paisley performing here.
See a clip of Vince Gill and Carrie Underwood performing here.
See a clip of "Will The Circle Be Unbroken" here.
Read "The 10 best quotes from 'Little' Jimmy Dickens' funeral" here.

Greg From New Jersey

If you go to a writers round here in Nashville - whether pre-scheduled or open - one thing you'll likely see is performers accompanying each other on their songs. Even if they don't know someone else's song before it's played, other songwriters often jump in and play along. It's something that I never saw in New York and it took a little time to get used to, but it's part of the music community vibe and it can help make the song come to life more than with just one guitar and a voice can. Aubryn's Monday Open Mic at Daisy Dukes is a little different, though, because musicians come out specifically to back up the songwriters performing. Jase is usually there on guitar, and sometimes there's bass, percussion, and sax, but less regularly. Last night I happened to sit down next to a guy who introduced himself as Greg.

Greg is from New Jersey, goes to college in College Station, TX, and is taking a long, leisurely trip back to school. He was staying in Antioch with some friends (who are the kind of people that have been in the area for 8 years and have never been to downtown Nashville), and he wanted to make the most of his one night in town. Oh, and he also brought his cello. I don't know exactly how he ended up specifically at Daisy Duke's, but it sure was the right place for him to be. In an odd twist, I started introducing him to some of the people there (like I've been around for a long while and know everyone), and in a short time he had a seat on the stage, a mic on his cello, and he was backing up pretty much every songwriter along with Jase, Ryan on guitar, Lee on percussion, Chris on sax. He had a great time, and told me that it had been an amazing night and all he had been hoping it would be.

You don't get that kind of camaraderie at other open mics - in or out of town. A cello player who knows no one here for one night being immediately welcomed, and getting to sit in and play for basically the entire evening? Yeah, I think that's one of the reasons why I moved to Nashville. I just didn't know it when I did.