Deconstructing "New York State of Mind": Part I

I've gotten a bunch of questions about my recently released video for "New York State of Mind" - everything from what was your itinerary, to did you visit places that didn't make the video, to how dirty was that shirt by the end of shooting? So, let's break it down. First, the video:

I wanted to include a cover song as a bonus track on Over The Edge from the beginning, and since "New York State of Mind" has become a bit of a standard for me it was obviously the most appropriate song. But I wanted it to be more than that. So early on the idea came to make a video about me traveling around New York State to go with the recording. I distinctly remembering having my first conversation about it with Tony Basile at Gourmet Pizza in New Paltz late one night in August/September 2010 (that's how long I've been planning this out). It was very important to me that we show New York State as more than just "the city," which is what a lot of non-New Yorkers think when you tell them where you're from.

The first 3 days of shooting took place September 25-27, 2012, and they broke down like this: Wappingers Falls to Buffalo, Buffalo to Potsdam, Potsdam to Wappingers Falls. We traveled over 1,400 miles, and our days started at 5 or 6 in the morning and didn't end until 9 or 10 at night. It was 3 days on the road and it was a lot of fun. Some places I had never been to and more places Tony had never been to. Niagara Falls was great (the only part of the video filmed outside of New York), as was going to the top of Whiteface Mountain (which neither of us had done before). And I think I can speak for Tony when I say that the best place we ate along the way was Piggy Pat's BBQ outside Utica, which we were turned on to by my friend Matt Taube.

One Sunday afternoon the next month, we were supposed to do some shooting for the "Shadow" video, but we had to reschedule. So, Tony & I decided to use the time to instead shoot some of the historic areas near us in the Hudson Valley. And it was that day at the FDR Presidential Library where this picture occured:

Bad ass.

The next plan was to shoot Long Island, but we got hit with conflicting schedules, Hurricane Sandy, and winter, so we had to wait. Shooting resumed on June 18, 2013, with a one-day trip through Long Island and back. I very much wanted to get shots of the historic Montauk Point Lighthouse at the tip of the island, and we got there at 5:15PM. It closes at 5:30. We got lucky. The most fun of that day was shooting the test-of-strength scene at Adventureland in East Farmingdale, but damn was it hot.

Six days later, on June 24, we set out to do all 5 boroughs of NYC. This turned out to be somewhat tricky because you could make multiple videos of just New York City, so we had to pick and choose what we shot. And again, my plan was to show that New York State was more than just NYC, so we didn't want to overload the video, anyway. We hit the Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn, and Staten Island, then took the Staten Island Ferry into Manhattan. We then went up to 125th St. and started making our way down the island. Its safe to say that we walked well over 60 blocks, and believe me when I tell you it was hot and humid, and I was wearing jeans, two shirts, a fedora, and very inappropriate walking shoes. Plus I was carrying my trumpet for the scene at the Apollo Theatre. It was an adventure.

All in we traveled over 2,500 miles to shoot what we did. Obviously we could've traveled more, but time kept us from getting everywhere we wanted.

That seems like enough for now. More breakdown in my next blog!

The. Worst. Gig. Ever.

Getting paid to spend a Sunday afternoon playing with my band right on the edge of the Hudson River in Poughkeepsie for an estimated crowd of about 1,200 sounds like a fantastic way to spend a day, doesn't it? Sunshine, the river, a large audience, music - how could that miss? I'll tell you how: rain. Lots and lots and lots of rain. And thunder. And lightning.

Sure the day started out beautiful. We got there, enjoyed some rudeness from the event organizer over how many cars we had brought, set up, and sound checked. Everything sounded good, the sun was out, I had rocked the sunblock so as to not burn from the sun bouncing off the water, and we were ready to go. In fact, we actually got going. We played about 11 songs before it started to rain. And it wasn't coming down hard at first, but to protect our equipment we had to unplug the electric (to the distress of the event organizer who didn't understand why we couldn't have the PA on playing music). But then we looked at the radar. Bad news bears.

It's hard to put into words just how much rain came down and how wet our equipment got. Luckily, I don't have to so much because I took some video:


As you can see, damn. And that rain went on for like 45 minutes at least. It's worth noting that the tents you saw over us are more for shade than for protecting the equipment from that kind of weather. You may have also noticed a couple non band members standing under the tents with us. Those were either event volunteers or attendees helping us hold the tents down to keep them from flying away. Yes, there was that much wind. At one point we almost had one tent fly away and that would've been game over for some of our equipment. By the end of the storm, I was so wet it was like I had jumped into the river itself.

But we got through it, and everything seems to be in proper working order. I shall never forget you, worst gig ever. May we never meet again.

The Road Trip Playlist: Part II

Way back on October 2nd, I wrote about a 3-day, 1400+ mile road trip that I took and the long list of albums that we listened to along the way. Well, last week I took a related 1-day, 430-mile road trip...and hopefully very soon I'll be able to show you why I have been taking these trips! But until then, here is the playlist for the 1-day road trip:

Matchbox 20 - North
Rob Thomas - Cradlesong
Jimmy Cliff - Rebirth
Billy Joel - Piano Man
Billy Joel - 52nd Street
Billy Joel - Songs In The Attic
Billy Joel - The Nylon Curtain
Billy Joel - Glass Houses
Billy Joel - The Bridge
Billy Joel - Storm Front
Billy Joel - River of Dreams

I guess we went a little heavy on the Billy Joel, but it felt appropriate. In fact, it's a bit of a clue as to where I was. Hmm. You'll find out soon...

Favorite Album Launch Party Moment?

There are a lot of great moments from Saturday night's Album Launch Party that I could point to and highlight. Performances of certain songs, friends coming out, the pizza - I could go on. But I've been trying to think about and pinpoint my favorite moment. And I don't know if I can, to be honest! But let's pretend that I can and I'll focus on the song I closed the night with, "The Hands of Angels."

On the album, "The Hands of Angels" is a comparatively sparse recording with a fantastic string arrangement by Brian Zeller. But obviously I can't have a string section for live performances, right? Right. So, I had to figure out something else, and the idea came in to arrange the string section for alto sax - an idea that was kind of inspired by Billy Joel's "Where's The Orchestra?" If you've ever seen me soundcheck you may have caught me playing it, and through the link you can hear that the song is also sparse and uses the alto sax very effectively. I wanted to try to capture that feeling with the live version of "The Hands of Angels."

Strings and saxes have very different characteristics and are capable of very different things, but upon listening back to the recording of the night I think it came off really well. The alto almost adds of bit of a jazzy flavor that gives the song another dimension, and since it essential makes the performance a duet between me and the sax player (in this case, Christopher Brellochs), it really showcases the intimacy that the song needs. You'll be hearing that again.

You can get your copy of "The Hands of Angels," and the entire Over The Edge album, here.

One Week Out

We're one week out from the full release of Over The Edge, and some things are starting to happen. A few of my new songs are getting some placements on various podcasts - one based out of South Carolina, another dedicated to jogging to up-tempo indie music. TheCelebrityCafe.com is current hosting a contest where 5 winners will receive a copy of the CD. I'm traveling up to Albany on Thursday to be interviewed for on The New School's internet radio, and June 21st I'm going to be featured on The Hudson Valley Music Spotlight on 100.7FM WHUD. All the lyric videos are done and will be posted on YouTube by this Friday. Other things are in the works.

The thing that still remains a challenge is booking - specifically outside of the Hudson Valley. Albany, New York City, western Connecticut, northern New Jersey - I've reached out to venues in each of these areas and haven't had much success. I've contacted other artists to talk about splitting shows in our respective home markets without anything panning out so far. It's almost like a catch-22: they won't book you unless they know you, but they won't know you until they book you. It's not a very easy environment to make headway in.

Most everything else are detail things. Making sure everything is lined up for the Album Launch Party on June 8. Rehearsing with the band. Planning the food and raffles. Following up with my PR company every day. Finishing up the next video (not really a details thing, but it is waiting to be finished). And as always, the thing that I never get to do enough is write. One day I will have resources, and do-it-yourself will no longer be do-it-all-yourself. I see other artists releasing 2 or more albums in the time it takes me to do 1. They're able to put together a tour and I struggle to book shows.

But there are better things coming up on the road ahead. I can feel it.

We're Lawbreakers

I've played a lot of gigs. Hundreds, I believe. Indoors, outdoors, large crowds, small crowds, jazz, rock, acoustic - a lot of gigs. But this past Friday with my cover band In The Pocket at the Quiet Man Pub, something happened that had never happened at one of my shows before: somebody called the cops. I feel like it's a rite of passage or something. We were being too loud - rocking it too hard - and someone had had enough.

About 1/3 of the way through the first of two sets (yes, we had barely gotten going), I watched as two police officers came in and began talking to the bartender, who was obviously pissed. This bar has been having live music for as long as I can remember, but recently one of the neighbors has started a battle of noise complaints, and honestly we were a little surprised. I mean, the weekend before a noise complaint was probably justified because the bar was hosting karaoke, but for us? It's Saturday night and we're not "noise." Get a nightlife, already.

Anyway, kept playing, the crowd kept on dancing, and the cops were there for about 4-5 songs. And while I'm sure they enjoyed what they heard (who wouldn't?), they ticketed the bar and were on their way. It unfortunately wasn't a scene from the end of The Beatles' Let It Be with the cops coming and shutting us down, which would've made for a much better story and a much better blog post. But I think it's enough to say that on Friday night the cops were called to our gig. We're officially lawbreakers, right?

DIAY

I am a DIY artist, and DIY, as you may know, stands for "Do It Yourself." But for an artist in the position that I am in, it's really much closer to DIAY - "Do It All Yourself." Consider the things that I have to handle: organizing the band, rehearsing the band, writing out the charts, booking (or trying) the shows, setting up the PR, reaching out to PR opportunities, managing a website, managing a Facebook page, managing a Twitter account, managing a YouTube channel (which includes shooting and editing videos), writing this blog, overseeing the design and production of merchandise, building my mailing list, writing and sending a bi-weekly email to my mailing list, networking with other industry people. Plus I have all of my commitments for In The Pocket and a few other things like giving lessons and playing in a jazz band. But, wait, I'm sure I'm forgetting something. Oh yeah: writing songs. That one's only kind of important, right?

There's a great song by Jackson Browne called "The Load Out," about what it's like being on tour, putting on a show in a different town day after day. And there's a lyric that says, "The only time that seems too short is the time that we get to play." Well, for me it's the time that I get to write. With all these things on my plate, the task that often gets pushed off is writing new songs, which is very frustrating because that's one of the main reasons I got into this gig. And because writing - for professionals, anyway - is not something that happens only whenever you get "inspired." You don't do job only when you're inspired, and neither do professional songwriters. And I'll admit that my time management skills could probably use a little more work and discipline, but whose couldn't?

At the beginning of the past couple years I've made it a goal to work on a new song each week, and as of now that has yet to happen. Why? Because looking at my workload, its quite possibly an impossible goal. But I'll keep working toward it.