Why I owe Eric Clapton my gratitude

While you would notice a large selection of varied music on my CD racks (and piles and stacks) as of late, the guitar / bass / drums trios have been finding their way onto my car’s CD player. (If you recall from previous posts, the driver’s seat is the spot where I do most of my listening.)

One of my most vivid music memories is seeing the Cream perform live on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour many years ago. I recall returning home far into the evening from some Sunday family soujourn. My mother took my little sister up stairs for her bath (yes, before showers were the norm) and I turned the television on at the request of my father. Now, I did know that the Cream would be on the Smothers Brothers show, but I also knew my father would probably not want to watch them, especially after a long, involved day of driving and visiting relatives. As this was before remotes, he asked me to switch through the stations until some police drama appeared (The FBI?). Of course, I began to quietly panic as my hopes of hearing Sunshine of Your Love live started to dwindle. But I had one last hope: my father’s fatigue would work in my favor. As Efram Zimbalist pursued the next criminal bent on bringing down the USA, I cautiously watched as my father’s eyelids fluttered, his head rolled just a little to one side, his eyes closed and his chin clamped down on his chest. I remember counting silently to 10 then leaning forward and changing the station. He didn’t stir.

Of course, I turned the volume down as I watched Tom Smothers make a brief introductory statement that ended with “The Cream”. Bath water was running upstairs so I knew my mother would be busy scrubbing away at my sister and I had lucked out. The opening notes with guitar and bass came out of the speaker and I saw three shaggy hippies standing in the now-classic power trio configuration (drums in the center). It sounded different – rawer, more energized. It was live! I stayed close to the back-and-white screen, keeping the sound at a level only audible to me. The song progressed and it sounded so much better than the radio version – then the guitar solo. A long impassioned, energized solo that had a different sound here. Only the fuzzy bass guitar and explosive drums were behind – no overdubs, no enhancements. I don’t remember moving until the applause came in, at which time my father made some sort of throaty noise and I quickly clicked back to Efram Zimbalist walking up some sort of official-looking steps. My father resumed his nearly-silent sleep and I felt victorious. I quietly made my way into the kitchen and stood silently, re-playing the performance in my mind.

The next day in school (fifth grade, I think) I was one of only three people that actually saw The Cream. Other kids weren’t allowed to watch ‘hippie junk’, ‘horrible trash’ or ‘loud noise’ and had the channel switched or were told to leave the room (mom and dad watched?). The thing is, one of my friends from that time reminded me years later, after hearing my trio perform, that he remembered my excited fascination when I related seeing the Cream way back when. ‘Now I know why you always have a trio,’ he told me.

He may just be right.

In the meantime, here are some of the trios I’ve been checking out lately:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eE4ExKQ5XZI Rez Abassi’s trio

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSMgOyn5HGU Eric Johnson’s group

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iINA9sjORCI Allan Holdsworth’s best trio (in my (not so) humble opinion

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JECJ8AZznk Peter Bernstein’s trio (sorry it’s not a live video — but it’s really superb)

It’s not just about the musicianship — it’s the interplay, the musical conversation, that catches my attention. It’s what I prefer to do with my group too.

Until next time…..

Matt

Wonderful show

I’m very pleased with the show I played at Sellersville Theater Thursday night, 4/18. If you’ve been following along with my various declarations and presentations you know that I opened for guitarist Peppino D’Agostino at this superb venue about 45 minutes north of Philadelphia. Of course, the opening spot is always a make-it/break-it situation. You run the risk of having the true fans of the headliner shun you or compare you (usually unfavorably) to him/her and find the perceived shortcomings that go along with openers. Not so, not this time.

I wrestled with my set list — I am notorious for writing up a set then just making-it-up-as-I-go, which I’m finding out is not the best way to go about things. I was booked to play for 25 minutes and I intended to make it memorable.

As it turned out, there was some sort of ‘ghost’ haunting the sound system, causing unacceptable levels of noise in the DIs. Both my guitar and Peppino’s encountered the same amount of hiss — there had been some upgrades to power lines or something similar that seemed to cause this. I mentioned I would be comfortable with just a mic on my guitar — the sound techs both agreed it would eliminate the problem and Peppino agreed. The small diaphragm mics worked perfectly (I have, in fact, been using a single small condenser mic from time to time on my own gigs so I knew it would work). It did – both Peppino and I had first-rate sound. It wasn’t just the mics — the sound techs both took the time to adjust EQ and tune the sound to the room with great results.

After chanting and reciting my Buddhist gongyo I was prepared to make the most of my 25 minutes. I opened with A In Blues Major, then played Bossa For George and Ballad. I then performed my latest rendition of Lennon & McCartney’s All My Loving and closed with I Shot The Sheriff. The audience was right with me through the set, even with the short-story intros. Of course, I was delighted that Peppino responded immediately after the set with compliments and observations. It’s nice to hear good things from your peers. Peppino’s comments provided that bit of validity that makes you want to go further.

Peppino played a 60-minute + set that covered  his usual range of exciting and laid-back, all presented with his incredible knack for altering tunings between tunes while disclosing details about the upcoming song. I did ask about the altered tunings (which I have attempted and fumbled through once or twice) — he tells me ‘it’s like muscle memory — you work it out and just do it’. Almost the same thing Richard Leo Johnson told me 10 years ago. While For Chance is in an altered tuning (EGDGAE, if I recall) it was quite by chance that it worked so well in the studio — try as I might I can’t replicate it in any tuning. (FYI – the piece is dedicated to the memory of Peter Sellers, and his character Chancey Gardner from Being There.)

Sad to say, my son Matthew wasn’t able to record video in the theater. Even his usually superb photography was limited by the fact that the camera had a small orange light that came on and illuminated the audience just before he’d take the shot. There are about a half-dozen shots, one of which is included here.

That’s all for this time. See you soon.

Matt

Opening for Peppino D’Agostino…

…. is going to be first-rate. He’s one of a few solo guitarists that I can fit comfortably with on a booking. Stylistically, he’s in his own place, but it’s a well-developed, highly musical place. Playing mostly original pieces he does utilize alternate tunings but it’s not just the same song with different notes — his music is, for lack of a better descriptive, musical. A lot of the players re-tune and play these static pieces that result from the tuning. It tends to be a bit light on melody, flow, direction. Peppino’s music is engaging — the tuning is secondary to the piece. He’s also a Godin endorsee (like me) playing Seagull guitars. Of course, I’ll be utilizing my LaPatrie classical cutaway (which has opened up a lot in the past few months). This is a promo that been making the rounds:

Sellersville promo

Still wrestling with my set list — I want the perfect opener! Maybe it doesn’t matter what I play but how I play it…..

Back to practicing — I’ll post updates from the show as they happen (twitter.com/mattrichguitar).

See you soon….. or maybe at the Sellersville Theater!

Matt

 

And things keep moving along

Well, it seems I’ve survived my first flu bout in seven years — I did follow my son’s week-long lethargy with five days of my own sleepiness and general misery. Strangely, it began as a cold (another rare malady for me), progressed to real flu symptoms the next day, then returned to cold-style suffering along with additional fatigue. Of course, I do remember how to handle this sort of thing, which includes mega-dosing vitamins and certain amino acids and sleeping quite a lot. Obviously, we never get flu shots — I’m not certain if once-every-seven-years makes it necessary now. (Actually, this was the first time ever for my son getting the flu.) I’ve got time to research and consider for next year….

Prior to my illness I did play a great solo show at Jeanes Memorial Library. Sadly, the turnout was less than great, probably due to the 6pm start time. However, things worked very well — the small but very involved audience had an up-close-and-personal concert, including questions and answers about the music, the guitar and my experiences. This is something that wouldn’t be do-able with a large audience and I enjoy the intimacy and direct connections that result from these small gatherings. I always determine to connect directly to everyone that I perform for regardless of the size of the size of the venue — while a full house makes me feel energized, it’s important to play at my best no matter what. If only one person shows up I want that person to have a fantastic experience. And, yes, there is video of the show — overall quality is good for a side-angle the entire time. The sound is a bit thin (probably due to the position of the camera) — after I allow the ‘cooling process’ to take place (and I forget what I thought were rough spots at the time), I’ll edit , tweak and upload to my YouTube page.

Of course, you can check out the videos anytime: http://youtube.com/mattrichardsmusic.

Time to practice for my opener with Peppino D’Agostino.

Hasta pronto!

Going and Coming Up

I had a particularly superb night with my duo partner Tony Hughes at my/our favorite Philly jazz lounge, the Paris Wine Bar.  Sadly, the weather throughout the day on Saturday was miserable — a mix of snow and rain stuck to the lawns and sidewalks but didn’t slick up the roads. It did, however, keep our usual turnout home for the evening. Be that as it may, Tony and I dove in and pulled ideas and phrases out of each and every tune that kept our modest but appreciative audience in the room, enjoying our musical adventures.  We were most fortunate to have Bevin working as the server in the wine bar, assuring the customers as well as the musical artists (that’s us) were always taken care of. (On Friday evenings, John handles the room and provides exemplary attention to all.) While I admit to some self-serving promotion here, this is one of the best places in the city to relax, enjoy great wine, great food, great service and great music (even if a guitar duo isn’t on the program). http://londongrill.com.

For the guitar fans, I played my trusty 70s Hagstrom Viking on the Paris WB date — it has a bit of a hum due, probably, to the age of the ground wire (which is original). Additionally, my old reliable Peavey Backstage 110, which acted as if the speaker had blown on last month’s PWB date, worked like a champ the entire night. I’m not sure why it sounded so miserable last month, but after extensive testing at home I found nothing wrong so it made the gig again with sparkling results. While I do prefer the Lab L3, the Peavey is smaller to carry and at 65 watts has ample power. I do put an ART preamp into the signal loop to warm the midrange a bit and everything works the way I like it.

Grand Opera House 2012

This Thursday (3/21) I will perform in a solo acoustic setting at the William Jeanes Memorial Library in Lafayette Hill PA. Located literally minutes north of the Philadelphia/Montgomery county line, my performance is part of a program for the official dedication of the Karabots Learning Center which is a newly-built addition to the library. This is my first solo show in a while — I’m still tweaking the set list (one set of about 70 minutes).

I’m re-visiting older pieces from the first and second CDs (Hollow Victory, Beyond That Sign, Gente Humilde) for updated versions. I’ll mix them in with newer pieces (Bossa For George, Ballad, Ronnie’s Theme) and with my renditions of other artists’ pieces (George Harrison, Lennon & McCartney, Marley) that are not ‘covers’ as they aren’t note-for-note renditions of the originals. I am amazed that I can actually ascertain how much I’ve improved as a player since I originally recorded some of these pieces — after releasing As You Are I realized that some of my older work wasn’t as dated as I thought. I have tapped into it for my guitar/flute duo repertoire and took the next logical step to create solo renditions. In particular, Beyond That Sign has been a real challenge as I originally recorded it with four guitar tracks including fretless and I’ve finally gotten it into a manageable solo version. If you’re in the area please come by — admission is free! If you’re far, far away and don’t want to spend your tax refund entirely for plane fare (!?), we’ll be recording and, after I suffer over the files for a bit,  posting videos on YouTube.

Okay, I’m going back to practicing. Thanks for checking in.

Matt

http://MattRichardsMusic.net

Maybe it’s in the eye of the beholder(?)

You’ve probably heard of the pay to play situation — a venue will book your act/band and charge you a room rental fee, which is a flat rate amount, to cover the costs of turning on the lights, paying service people, etc. The idea, of course, is that you pay the fee up front then sell enough seats to cover this fee and, with a good turnout, make money in excess of the fee and realize a profit. While I can understand that the venue needs to make money (obviously), it seems somewhat unfair to out-of-town groups who are playing the location for the first time or on an infrequent basis.

No matter how well you promote yourself and how big your listener base is, there can always be valid reasons for a bad night:  weather, another gig / festival / event at that same time, road construction in the area…. These are situations I have dealt with personally in the years I have been performing. I have also witnessed established artists / acts suffer low turnouts because of these sort of situations. Of course, the venue is guaranteed a set fee whether you have two or two hundred seats filled. Your pocket takes the hit and, even if you’re not on the road, it can be devastating.

I recently received a booking offer from a highly visible and highly regarded venue (which shall go nameless) that explained that not only do they charge a room fee ($300) they also take 30% of the draw. Amazingly, when I checked their calendar they were booked solidly for six nights each week. Few of the groups / artists were major names and even the ones I recognized fit niche markets. I couldn’t help feeling shocked and disappointed that so many people are willing to cough up $300 just to appear in a club, then fork over 30% of their door take besides. To this venue’s credit, they do engage in promotion of the acts that are booked — many venues don’t bother to advertise on their own and expect the artist to do massive PR in a strange town to fill the club. (They will point the finger at you as being inefficient in your efforts if there is a low turnout. )

It may be the current economic times that force some venues to cover their own backsides through room fees.  Sadly, too many venues save money and effort by not advertising except for a small listing on  their website, often with little detail about the band / artist to attract perspective fans. It is in the interest of the venue to have a following of their own, to build a reputation as a club that features a certain type / types of music, that presents high-quality shows, that is worth checking out even when you don’t recognize the featured act.  This sort of formula existed when I was young, before I even started playing out. Then, when I had a band, we targeted venues that featured the type of music we played. In most cases, the venue featured a range of music (prog rock, folk, fusion, singer-songwriter) but always had the quality no matter who walked on the stage. My groups benefited from this sort of approach and gained fans (without YouTube, FaceBook, Twitter, etc.) because people came to check us out based on the venue’s reputation for good music.

While internet / social media developments in recent years have changed the way we relate to / do business with the public, they’ve allowed a shift away from a partnership between the venue and artist creating a successful ($$$) show to venues throwing the burden of making profit and the blame of bad nights entirely on the artists.

Someone did put out a rallying cry to all bands and musical artists to refuse to perform in major cities throughout the country for one week unless the bookers / venues agreed to at least pay minimum fees and engage in promotion.  It didn’t happen, of course, as most performers were scared to lose what they’ve become accustomed to — they figure that no matter how mediocre, something small is better than nothing at all. If you really do stop to think about it, if most of these venues opened their doors and featured no live music of any kind how big would the draw be?

It’s a difficult situation that too many accept as unchangeable — I don’t have a solution to suggest at this time. Going on strike would only work if everyone did it. I do know that I will never pay to play.

(I wanted to share my take on this situation — my next posting will be more upbeat, I promise.)

Matt

 

Always a challenge, it seems…

… to make phone calls to bookers. I always feel like I’ve got to do my  elevator pitch and enthrall him/her in spellbinding wonder with the outlandish (but true) benefits my performance will bring to their venue (in terms of artistic magnificence and of $$$ earned). On the bad days I can play mind games with myself and hope the voicemail picks up once three rings have gone by — of course, it’s better to get the actual person live on the phone rather than leaving a message which can be easily ignored/deleted when the person doesn’t immediately recognize my name. Truth be told, in most cases, when I do speak with someone it goes rather well — I attempt to sound professional and personable, experienced in this craft yet approachable without being desperate… I’m still trying to find a formula that I can just plug in and ride on that will guarantee success. I sort of know it doesn’t exist…..

LaPatrie top-down

I am pleased with the website: http://MattRichardsMusic.net. I carefully re-formatted pages and made it easier (I think) to navigate and find what needs to be found when it needs to be found. At odd times in the day or evening I’ll just jump onto the site and click around to assure it’s working properly and efficiently. It is. Funny thing, I really don’t know how I am able to work with html for the site — it’s totally trial/error. And patience when it’s more error than trial….

Time to practice before the guilt about the phone calls overtakes me.

A mas tarde!

Matt