Love the sound. Love the bass made out of a vintage automobile gas tank strung with weedwhackers. Even like the name “Split Lip Rayfield”.
Category: Music
Whitney Houston…
Artists need to understand something.
You may feel that your art is an expression of some of the deepest parts of your being. Often that’s very true. You may see it as the work of your lifetime, the reason you get up in the morning, the beauty in the drabness. Yet to the people who make a living off from your creativity its a business, a way to make money, and you are the one delivers the commodity they sell.
There’s a whole group of people out there who eat from your table. They scour the world looking for the next big thing and if they can find it, find a way to package and market it for sale, the people who provide it can become famous in an instant and fabulously wealthy. That a big “if” by the way.
Its a dark arrangement. As a musician you must sell your art in one form or another if you want to make a living at it so you find yourself in relationships with people who want to exploit your work for profit. There’s nothing necessarily bad about it but you, as an artist, need to understand that when push comes to shove you’re a commodity, your gift is something to be traded on the market. You may not like it but sometimes your masterpiece ends up as a car commercial. You get a check, they get your soul. Yet it keeps food on the table and that’s not all bad.
Whitney Houston was beautiful, possessed of an impossibly good voice, and when she was on her game she glowed like the sun. Even if you didn’t like her work you had to admit to the talent behind it. Now they say she may have been broke when she died. Who knows? Rumors. Yet she seemed to be in trouble, pills, alcohol, life stresses. They say you could hear it in her voice. Maybe as long as the money rolled in nobody particularly cared what happened. Just prop her up, get her on stage, and count the cash. Maybe the mythology of fame overcame her until one day her body couldn’t pay the bills. I don’t know.
I’m just sad for her. In the end there were reports that people in the music business were raising the prices of her downloads and who knows what album is yet to come. She’ll get none of it, maybe her family will. She seemed to be a beautiful and gifted soul who became a commodity with everybody trying to get a piece of the action. When the value began to diminish she became just another crazy celebrity and the industry moved on to the next voice to sell.
All I wish her is peace. I want her to be that little girl again singing in her church without the thought of schedules, sessions, business people, and no other fan than God. I suspect the good things can be very cool, but you’ve got to keep your heart.
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Epitaph for a Band…
From the time I was a child I loved music and loved making it happen. I performed for people in grade school and in all the turbulent years between then and grad school music was my companion. I survived high school largely because the music rooms were always open and welcoming when the lunch room wasn’t. In those days I believe God listened to my music and not my prayers because my music was real. I dreamed of being a performer, played in church when I could because I was the Pastor, and thought through it all that maybe, perhaps, my time would come.
It did, in the form of the local jams and one person who stepped out and formed a group with me. The local jams opened up to me almost magically. They were places where I could hone my skills, be challenged, be affirmed, and find people to make music with for the sheer love of doing it. Bassists need people, we give other musicians a foundation and they give us wings. In the jams I found out that I could not only survive but thrive, not simply muddle along but excel. And then there was Ross.
Ross was in his middle 60’s when we first met at the jams. His songs were eclectic, interesting, things not always heard but still worth listening to. He had the blues and I, with my double bass, had the rhythm. Quiet, spiritual, laid back, and funny he was, and is, easy to make music with, a mellow bastion of sanity in a music world full of pathological egos. We started playing together, Cajun songs, mining songs, folk songs, reggae songs, whatever suited our fancy. Then we traveled. Open mics, coffee shops, farmer’s markets, on the streets in Stillwater. People liked us. In a folk music world full of artists with morbid obsessions we were a dance band. As I said to one person “Ross and I have baggage, we just don’t sing about it.”
And people would join us, friends filling in at shows or coming up on stage during open mics. There was the two of us and whoever dropped in. Sometimes I would be on stage taking it all in and think to myself “This is really happening, this is really happening.” When the shows were done we’d practice at Ross’ house on a porch overlooking a pond, our only audience his two dogs who’d curl up on a chair and listen while we worked out the details.
Later we added Tilden, a talented mandolinist and guitarist and a generally good egg. We became regulars at a few coffee shops and made the kind get up and dance at the St. Paul Farmer’s Market. Finally, in the last few months, Collette, quiet and soulful with a passionate voice. Of course we were busy, we had lives, but those moments carved out with the band were special.
Yet things, all things and all people, grow old and tired. Ross needed to rest and be what he wants to be, a great soul playing music with friends. Tilden and I have other projects. Collette, I don’t know but there’s a place for her and I’d like to think that someday we’ll be listed in her biography as a place she got her start. The ending caught us, in some ways, by surprise but I think down in our heart we may have known all along. Right now all I can see is that special kind of happy sadness that comes when something of joy runs its natural course.
So here’s to Shoulder to the Plow, the little group where my lifelong dream of playing music for people finally came true, the little group that made people tap their toes while they sipped their coffee, the little group whose heart will always be on Ross back porch. Thank you for everything. Yes, of course we’ll bump in to each other somewhere, somehow because music makes us friends and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
And now on to whatever is next, all things being on God’s good hands.
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A Little Music Humor…
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Hymn from My Childhood…
Jesus! I am resting, resting
In the joy of what Thou art;
I am finding out the greatness
Of Thy loving heart.
Thou hast bid me gaze upon Thee,
And Thy beauty fills my soul,
For, by Thy transforming power,
Thou hast made me whole.
Oh, how great Thy loving kindness,
Vaster, broader than the sea:
Oh, how marvelous Thy goodness,
Lavished all on me!
Yes, I rest in Thee, Beloved,
Know what wealth of grace is Thine,
Know Thy certainty of promise,
And have made it mine.
Simply trusting Thee, Lord Jesus,
I behold Thee as Thou art,
And Thy love, so pure, so changeless,
Satisfies my heart,
Satisfies its deepest longings,
Meets, supplies its every need,
Compasseth me round with blessings,
Thine is love indeed.
Ever lift Thy face upon me,
As I work and wait for Thee;
Resting ‘neath Thy smile, Lord Jesus,
Earth’s dark shadows flee.
Brightness of my Father’s glory,
Sunshine of my Father’s face,
Keep me ever trusting, resting,
Fill me with Thy grace.
source: http://www.lyricsondemand.com/
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There's a lot of stir…
about potential new laws regarding the use of copyrighted, musical, and intellectual property on-line. I don’t know all the details but I do know this.
Music is work. The songs that people like to hear don’t show up by magic, they’re the products of weeks and month of work, of practice, and polishing a product to perfection. People only see or hear the finished product when it comes to music and they have no idea how long it takes and the effort involved to make it all happen. They also don’t know that a musician or group supports not just themselves but a whole group of people who depend on this product for their livelihood as well. From the owners of small coffee shops to the truck drivers on tour to the folks who sell concessions, all of them make a living off from the band.
So when you record music you didn’t pay for you’re really stealing, not just from a performer you think is rich (and by the way the vast majority of them make less than you do) but everyone else who counts on the income from the music to make a living. After all only about a dollar or less of every CD sold goes to the performer(s), the rest feeds a whole lot of mouths along the way.
So perhaps you can see why musicians, anyway, are trying to find a way to protect their own creations, a way to make somewhat of a living in a world where they work hard and people take what they make for a nickel on the dollar while the Googles of the world make billions.
If you don’t like the government snooping around the internet for illegal use and sale of copyrighted material and artistic creations there is one way to stop this and it’s just being honest. Pay for what you record online. Use only reputable download sites that at least try to assure that artists get something in return for their work. And no matter how much your friends ask just say no when they want your music, which took the artists and performers time and effort, for free.
If you don’t, don’t be surprised if the producers of art try to find a way to get the government to protect them from those who steal their work or barring that for them to just say “Forget it” and leave the world to its silence.
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After the show…
they call your name. Once, twice, three times and you’re done. Somebody else takes your place.
Outside the wind is cold. The band moves out into the night. The audience heads in from the cold after a last cigarette. It’s not much. A cot and a few feet of space. No privacy really. If someone snores everyone knows. The chapel where the show had been turns into a large bedroom faster than the band can get its gear into the parking lot.
But its warm and tonight the wind is cold. They say its going to get below zero and they call your name, once, twice, three times. If you don’t respond you lose your place. There’s always another person without a place to go, another body in need of a bed. Jesus said that the poor would always be with us and this mission never closes, never has to post a “vacancy” sign, never runs short of lost men needing to be found.
In the end there were five left and three spaces. The names were placed in a bucket and two were left out in the cold. There was nothing that could be done. There are thousands of fancy hotel beds but only a few places for the men with long hair who live in the alleys during the day and sleep in missions during the night.
Right now I’m home. The show is over. My gear is all safely inside. I’ll be in bed shortly. Somewhere out there are two men and probably more, the ones whose names weren’t picked, trying to find a place to keep alive as the wind rolls in from the northwest and the temperature sinks.
Lord have mercy.
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It Was a Quiet Afternoon…
yesterday. The weather was unseasonably warm. The sun was shining. A dog lay sleeping on the couch and outside the birds gathered their sustenance from a feeder without care, just like Jesus said.
It was just the two of us, people who wouldn’t have known each other except for the coincidence of history and music, going through the catalog of songs gone by. Nothing of ours is that modern and even the modern stuff is written to sound old. We’re old too, old and free from the need to shake our asses on stage or try to thrill people we don’t know, or maybe even care to know. A porch is fine with the trees for an audience and the wind for applause.
One song followed another in elegant simplicity. The best music seems to be that way, not a flurry of notes but each one picked specifically for its part, for its emotion. Songs from the mountains. Songs from New Orleans. Songs that really were prayers. Songs that made one wonder about the moment they came into being, the day, the hour, the flush of emotion that gave them light.
For that time, sitting on the porch with the dogs and the sun and the birds and our thinning hair, there was a great peace. Stuff was happening. Stuff is always happening. There was a world out there but there was a boundary too, an invisible line of music across which things troublesome were afraid to cross. Heaven must be, in part like this.
In truth its the only reason I would like to have some real money, so I could have a porch in the sun, a few old dogs, and enough time to sit and play the old songs with friends. Everything else is just a chase, running around a track set up by another to try to get to a destination of someone else’s choosing.
The world is, more or less, mad as a hatter. Except on front porches where people play old songs in the warm afternoon sun.
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They say…
they say i should cut my hair
its driving me insane
i grew it out long to make room for my brain
sometimes people don’t understand
whats a good boy doing in a rock and roll band?
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As the Music Door…
starts to swing open I find myself asking questions. Most of them are about faith.
For most of my adult life I’ve structured my Christian life around my work as a pastor. It’s rhythms and flows shaped what I did, where I went, and how I was a Christian. I know little of any other world. I’ve been preparing or serving in churches and chaplaincy since 1985. I’ve been involved in some sort of pastoral responsibility almost permanently in that time. So what would I do if that role was gone?
Could I be a faithful Christian if I wasn’t a Priest, if I didn’t have the order and duty of a Priest surrounding me? Would I end up being distracted? Would the cares of life and just all the busy things take me away? Would I lose my grip?
After all preparing to be, and serving in some ministry capacity is most of what I know. Even when I was bi-vocational for the past five years I thought of myself as a Priest and tried to live, as best I could, like one. If that part of my life ended what would it be like? More importantly how would I be a faithful Christian if my title was only “mister”?
Right now I’m glad to help where I can. I don’t mind traveling to make sure a church is served when their pastor needs a well deserved break. I’m good at doing an exclamation or two during the Liturgy and I can usually find something to do or clean when there’s down time, and there’s a lot of down time.
At the same time I am a good musician. People pay money to hear me. I’ve made friends. I’ve made connections. In the Church I’m on the side but on the stage I’m front and center. When I was a child I would dream about days like this and now they seem to be here. The doors seem really wide open.
Yet what good what any of this be without faith, without the life of God? In the end there’s only an audience of One that matters. What good would any of it be if at the end there was only the applause of earth? New directions are out there and they have a call but is this “the” call? Is this God or is it a clever ruse to take away the most important things and leave me stranded?
I’m still figuring these things out. One thing I do know is that my admiration for those people who live this Faith day in and day out in the “world” beyond the Church walls has grown. It’s easy, in some ways, to be a Christian when you have all the trappings of ordained ministry. The church walls can protect you and people’s expectations change when they see the collar. I am convinced that the true heroes of the Church are those people who find the way to be faithful without the props that come with vocational ministry.
Could it be that I am supposed to enter this world? Could it be that one part of my life is over and a new one has begun? I don’t know and frankly even the idea of asking such questions is frightening. I guess for right now its just about being faithful and putting one foot in front of the other.
The Beautiful Path 