Archive for the ‘Music’ Category
Playing “Full Circle” at the Shaskeen for Juice’s SongPull.
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Since coming home from Nashville I’ve been having a tough time adjusting. Being so unfettered and happy down there made me realize that my business is really getting me down at the moment. I’ve had a streak of clients who have really been taking a toll on me; it seems as though nothing I do is good enough, or they can’t understand why they can’t have $50,000 worth of work for $500, and it’s sucking the sunshine from my soul.
I was so full of joy everyday in Nashville. I was doing what I’ve wanted to do my entire life, and if we experienced any setbacks they were minor disappointments. Since I’ve been home, I’ve been bombarded by people who are taking their unhappiness out on me. I’d be a liar if I said it doesn’t affect me.
All I want to do with my life is bring people happiness. With my business, my entire goal was to help people look and feel more professional, and help them stand out with their businesses, not to go home and burst into tears from their nasty emails.
Being Carlene, I have found a silver lining to all this. I’m constantly being told how tough the music business is, but know what? The music business can’t criticize me anywhere near as harshly as my customers can. ”Her voice was off-pitch and the song was uninspiring,” or “She’s got cellulite and a lousy bikini body” is a hell of a lot easier for me to handle than “After taking hours and hours of your time so you could hold my hand and help me make a simple decision about the font on my business card, I hate everything we’ve done and when can I expect my refund?”
In my eyes, owning a small business has been the boot camp of the music industry. There’s nowhere to go from here but up.
Since Jeff and Mr. Michael are not independently wealthy and therefore could not afford to skip work for a week to chauffer us around, Gia and I decided to fend for ourselves and visit all the famous sights in Nashville, like Sonic Burger and the Parthenon.
Sonic!
Visiting Tennessee's answer to ancient Greece
During my recording session with Jeff the evening before, my guitar had encountered a mishap that involved the cheap stock plug-in falling into the body of my guitar, so Gia & I headed over to Glaser’s Instruments, one of Nashville’s best-known lutherie (guitar fixin’) shops. I believe they were also working on one of Toby Keith’s guitars while I was in, if that gives a better idea of their reputation.
The guys there were super nice – Floyd took care of me directly, and I had a great time talking with Tom and Joe while waiting – and even though the average wait is a minimum of 5 days, they had me in and out of there in a jiffy. Even cooler, they also slid me in for a fret dressing on their absolutely ridiculous Plek dressing machine. Here is the official Plek page if you’re a guitar nut.
Tom and Floyd at Glaser's
To explain this tech talk in very basic language, the frets on a guitar neck are metal, as are the strings. Any difference, however small, in height on the metal frets can cause sound issues from buzzing to lousy tone. Basically, it sounds ugly, and is also distracting for both the player as well as listener. The Plek machine, to dumb it down, makes the guitar neck as close to perfect as it can get by reshaping the metal frets.
My new and improved guitar is wonderful. I am not a guitar player at heart; I play out of necessity because it’s been such a challenge to find musicians professional enough to not flake out. I won’t let myself be held back by other people, so I just go forward and know in my heart that one day I will find musicians who love my project and share a similar work ethic to myself.
And really, that’s the beautiful thing about the new guitar. Having the frets perfected has made it much easier for me to play, and anything that makes that uphill battle any easier is worth the money. If you’re in Nashville, want the service done and have 3-5 days where you can be without your guitar, I highly recommend giving Glaser’s a call: (615)298-1139.
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The crew: Jeff, Mister Michael, Gia
The past few nights have been a whirlwind of fun and excitement, Nashville-style. We’ve been trying to hit up an open mike every night, and with the exception of a night out on the town on Wednesday we have accomplished that. The night out included slightly drunken late-night karaoke, so at the very least there’s been a full week of singing.
Jeff works at the Guitar Center in Nashville. At first glance that doesn’t seem terribly impressive, they’re everywhere, and then you enter the store. And it goes for miles. Besides Jeff letting me stick my naughty fingers all over expensive music equipment, he set up the sound and light show for us in the Room Of Speakers (as I dubbed it), handed me a $600 mike, and let me go crazy all over the stage while the laser lights and music took over the room.
It doesn’t take much encouragement to get me going, as anyone who has spent a day with me will tell you.
Gia & I onstage at Nashville's Guitar Center, dancing and singing to the light show
Jeff doing his sound engineer thing....go buy something from him at Guitar Center!
That night I played out at the Douglas Corner Cafe’s famous open mike. They lined us up four at a time onstage, and as a conscientious open mike attendee I am ashamed to say that the evening went on for a long, long time and during a particularly sad set of songs I nodded off for a few minutes. Jeff & Mr. Michael’s third roommate Jason nudged me awake right before I went up onstage, and while half asleep I played one of my best performances yet in Nashville.
Playing at the Douglas Cafe open mike
One of the best thing that happened this week was Jeff and Mr. Michael both having the same day off, so Gia and I were escorted around Nashville like proper Southern belles. We saw the Grand Ole Opry, I made about ten zillion new friends, and the highlight of the day was finding COOTERS restaurant (best name ever). I have never seen an exact replica of General Lee from the Dukes of Hazzard, let alone three all in one place.
The Grand Ole Opry...and me
Cooter's...need I say more?
General Lee at Cooter's
We tore up the town at night, and sampled some fine beers at The Flying Saucer before heading downtown for some authentic Nashville nightlife. I am in love with “the Batman Tower,” as the AT&T building is referred to, so I was excited to be in photo-op areas. I was equally as excited to sing lousy karaoke at Lonnie’s (next to the nude karaoke bar, which we unfortunately did not hit up). After the night flew by and 3am overtook us, we went home and called the evening a smashing success.
Nashville at night
The Batman Building
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I have never had such a good time as I’ve been having in Nashville. When Jeff offered to put me and Gia up for the week, I was thinking that we’d be in and out and we would try to keep out of the way of him and his roommates. Instead, from the first night we stepped foot into their living room, Gia, Jeff, Mr. Michael and I have all become fast friends.
After my 12-hour drive from my sister’s house in Batavia, NY you might think I would be tired, but instead I was, as Ian loves to quote from Talladega Nights, “all jacked up on Mountain Deeeew,” minus the Mountain Dew part. I think the combination of having a fun visit with my sister and my niece & nephew, driving my sassy new car, and driving through the unexpectedly awesome state of Kentucky had me amped up.
The first indication I had that this might be a good trip came when I crossed the border from Kentucky into Tennessee and saw that the very first exit was Exit 117, my number. I said, “Thanks, Universe!” and chuckled to myself; my GPS had taken me an unusual way down to Nashville, and now I knew why.
Interestingly enough, the drive down had a few unexpected detours – I left an hour later than anticipated, I went for an accidental hour-long adventure off an exit in Ohio, and I must have had to stop to pee 10 times. As usual, it all worked out perfectly and exactly as planned (by the big U, not by me), as I pulled into the Nashville airport exactly on time to pick up Miss Gia. If not for all my delays, I would have sat at the airport for three hours, because in addition to the delays I had completely forgotten about the time change in Tennessee.
Picking up Gia from the airport
My goals in Nashville were very specific. I wanted to play the famous Monday night open mike at the Bluebird Cafe, and I wanted to record my songs. The first goal was a stretch; the Bluebird’s stage is a tough one to get onto because of its fame and how many people try to sign up for the very short open mike. The way they work around this is to collect names in two baskets – Basket One is for people who didn’t get to go last week and have a stamped name slip. Basket Two is for first-timers, and they let you know that you’re probably not making it onstage.
Gia and I stood in line, shuffled inside, I put my name in the first-timer basket, and we sat down and made some new friends (who all told us to hang on to the stamped ticket, because I wasn’t getting onstage). Barbara Cloyd (the host) announced that there were 50 people signed up, 20 of them were second-timers with first picks, and that there was time for 21 people. She read out the order…..and I was number 23, the last name she read before saying, “And I’m not calling any more names because they won’t get to go.”
The famous Bluebird Cafe
The line at the Bluebird Cafe
To sum up an otherwise long story, I GOT ONSTAGE AT THE BLUEBIRD CAFE!!! A fantastic act, Isaac Clark (accompanied by his friend Dusty Parker), performed one of the most rockin’ country songs I’ve ever heard (it’s the first song on his MySpace page), and then said, “We’re just playing this one song tonight so someone else will have a chance.” Well, baby, that was ME. Isaac & Dusty, I hope everyone reading this blog takes a listen to your song 7 Redneck Sins, hope you sell it to Brad Paisley and make millions.
So, Goal #1 was accomplished, and then Jeff and I recorded live takes of my songs, so Goal #2 was quickly accomplished, and since then Gia and I have been having a blast being shown around the city by Jeff and Mr. Michael (dubbed Mr. Michael because he is a true Southern gentleman).
A quick plug for Jeff – he is a sound engineering genius with a solid formal education behind him and plenty of hands-on experience. For a day job he works at Guitar Center selling equipment to Paramore and other local celebrities, and if you ever find yourself in need of a knowledgeable, reasonably-priced sound guy his MySpace page is HERE.
Jeff giving me what can only be termed "a look"
I know I’m getting a little long-winded so I’ll leave off here. Today Gia and I are off to get my guitar repaired at the famous Glaser’s, and tonight I’ll be playing Cafe Coco’s open mike, so I can already tell this is going to be a great day.
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