New Trail Coaching, Scott Malyszka

I am trying to adjust to the changes to Sirius radio’s music programming since they merged with XM this month:

I love Bob Dyln’s Theme Time show after my first listen. It is well-produced and I’m sure there is a crew of dozens behind it researching and writing. But Dylan sounds so great talking through the show, and the music is sweet too. The Deep Tracks channel in general is pretty sweet. It seems that I like everything I hear whenever I turn it on.

Larry Kerwin was one of the best DJs on Sirius, and now he’s gone. Even the channel name “Disorder” was cool. I’m still trying to figure out if Vin Scelsa and Les Davis are still around. Man I hope so. I can hardly find the channels I want, let alone the individual DJ schedules.

Larry, wherever you turn up next, I’ll be listening for you.

Last night I saw Stacey Earle and Mark Stuart perform in Herndon VA. The room was small and not completely sold out, which may have disappointed the folks who booked them. But man I loved their show so damn much, and the other listeners were also enthusiastic with their applause and cheers.

Mark is a great picker. He had played lead guitar for Freddie Fender and some other big-time acts, though I wasn’t familiar with his playing before this show. Lots of Chet Atkins stuff, a little bottleneck, and just good rocking stuff on plugged-in acoustic. He had a unique thing going where he would play thumpy dampened bass runs while Stacey played straight-up rhythm guitar, and they both sang on top of it. I guess plugging in your acoustic guitar is the only way you could pull off the bass thing. It was really sweet sounding, two guitars and two voices all complementing each other.

I have always liked Stacey Earle’s songwriting when I’ve heard her here and there on Americana radio shows etc. She loads up with lots of emotions but in a subtle, real way. Not sappy or dramatic too much, but real emotions that stir up my feelings. Her song, “Just Another Day,” about going through a long, listless day feeling very lonely, that one grabbed me last night. She had me and probably many others crying with her story about getting a phone call to say that her son had passed on in a military accident, only to get another call saying that he was actually OK. She walked around the room as she told the story, very connected with the audience.

They both walked around the room unplugged to finish the second set, with guitars and voices creating such sweet sounds in stereo right around everyone’s ears. I can’t see well enough to notice such things, but a friend told me that they really looked like they loved each other. Oh yeah, they are married and have been performing together for many years.

Before Stacey and Mark started, there was a brief open mike. Three of us sang a song each. I sang a brand new song that no one has heard before, called “Stranger In The Rain.” I got a lot of compliments on it, and our friend Fang told me she could just hear some good harmony vocal parts for it. During the intermission, Stacey told me she liked my picking and that my song was very well crafted. What a sweetheart she was. I asked her if her song “just Another Day” was on a CD. She looked at one, then another, but she couldn’t find it. So I bought their “Town Square” CD and took my seat at the other side of the room. She came across the room a few minutes later and said, “Here’s the song you wanted, on our live CD. Do you want this one instead?” I thought she was very thoughtful to make such a fuss like that.

Yeah, what a great show, and some warm-hearted conversations from two great musicians.

Yesterday a friend told me about seeing a musical duo perform twice within a short time, where the first gig was amazing but the second was rather dull. That conversation reminded me of another friend who told me the same thing a few years ago. That guy went to see one of the legendary flatpickers, and he really had his life changed. Then he dragged a friend along to see the same picker a year or so later, and the show was just slow and boring, as he recalled it.

Those stories reminded me of what I wrote here yesterday, about our band’s performance that was fun for us but maybe not appreciated much by the folks at the event, at least from what I could tell.

What does it mean? I don’t know. I guess you win some and you lose some, as a performer.

I started performing my songs back in the summer of 1989. I had only played my original stuff once or twice when I was asked to sing at some sort of pep rally to kick off the new school year at United Wesleyan College, where I was a senior. The agenda turned out to be a surprise. There was some group singing and praying, since this was a Bible college. Then at some point the school’s acapella quartet performed several numbers. These were four music majors who had been performing together all summer at churches and camps to recruite new students. They were tight and awesome, and the audience thoroughly enjoyed them as usual. Then came stupid old me to close the whole thing. Man, I was up there with my guitar, harmonica around my neck, and one microphone, in a gym. I was supposed to follow up those music majors–ugh. Who the heck decided to put me there, anyway?

I first told the audience, “I’m sorry, I didn’t know I was supposed to follow them. They were so great. I really don’t think I can do much after that.” (I don’t remember the exact wording, but it was an apology of that sort.) I wasn’t a slick musician. I wasn’t a music major. I didn’t know how to sing, and I couldn’t stay on key. Good greif.

Then I sang a simple prayerful song that I had written. It was one of the first songs I ever wrote, and it wasn’t all that great. But I stood there, blew my harp, mumbeled and sang through my song, then walked away to put my guitar in its case. The audience applauded, which made me feel good. At least I hadn’t totally messed up the whole thing. I put my guitar in my case, then something felt weird. What was going on? I looked up from the side of the gym bleachers, and they were giving me a standing ovation. I was shocked. Oh well, you never know.

Afterward several people told me that my song was the best part of the program. One guy, a very sweet and hip youth pastor, told me that he liked my delivery and that it reminded him of Dylan. So something I did really worked that day.

About six months later, a friend and I went to play at the open mike at Godfrey Daniels in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. We had been writing songs like a lot of Bible college students do–a few good ones here and there, and then a lot of preachy crap quoting Bible verses and trying to make a hard-hitting statement about something. My friend was a much better songwriter than I was at that time, but neither of us had a clue about taking our goofy songs off-campus. We thought we were the Christian answer to the Indigo Girls.

There we were, playing our four-song preacher-boy set at the open mike. The only people in the room besides our various friends and girlfriends were the other open-mikers and a couple making out in the corner. And we sang away about the end of the world and looking for God’s love, or something like that. The guy running the open mike actually apologized to the room after we were done, saying, “Well, you never know what people are going to do at an open mike.” So no one booed, but we realized that we weren’t the next Larry Normans.

I am glad that I had a surprising success and then a surprising flop when I started performing back then. I think that those weird situations taught me to keep a level head and to know what the audience wants. Don’t give them Resurrection Band when they want James Taylor. And don’t be surprised if people sometimes like your songs. I still find that some gigs go well, some don’t, and I just keep plugging. I don’t do so-called Christian music anymore, so I don’t have the extra pressure of performing to meet a specific religious agenda from the audience.

I like to follow the old line that a lot of baseball managers and hockey coaches give: Don’t get too high with the highs, and don’t get too low with the lows.

Adios for now.

Last night I took in a marvelous performance by Barry McGuire at the Tortilla Factory in Herndon VA. The show was put on by the Folk Club of Reston-Herndon, and they usually start right off with a brief open mike. Eric Balkey played a song about having baseball just stuck deep in your soul, and it was just touching. Then, on to McGuire, whose personality hugely filled up the room right from his first comments. McGuire played a 12-string and threw in a little harmonica here and there. He said that he played the harp upside-down because that was how his mom handed his first harp to him when he was a little kid. Fascinating. He was joined by John York on 12-string and vocals. My hippie credentials fail a little at this point, because I can’t recall the group that York played with. I think he was in the Byrds for a bit, but I can’t remember. The folks sitting around me were all twenty or so years older than I, but I was the one to name York before he was introduced. Man, I love the sound of two 12-strings. York was playing Roger McGuinn-style leads and just rocking the place.

McGuire and York are playing a show called “Tripping The Sixties.” They played through McGuire’s hits with stories in between, and songs and stories by other acquaintances from that decade. “Eve Of Destruction” brought me to tears immediately, maybe for some sentimental reasons, but mostly because the song reminds us that the world has not gotten better in my short lifetime. McGuire sang his lead part from “Hair,” and for the first time I just absolutely loved that stuff. The energy in the room was exciting and tender. McGuire said at the end of the show, “We’ll never do this again,” telling us to just soak up the moment. He didn’t go anywhere near his Christian music, but that stuff wouldn’t pass with this audience. I remember a few touching spiritual songs from his “Seeds” album, but I probably would have been the only one in the room who has ever owned more than two or three contemporary Christian LPs. Thank goodness he didn’t try to pull out “Cosmic Cowboy” on these folkies.

On a separate topic, I got another airplay for my new CD. Larry Hilberg in Nevada City, CA played “Graven Image” as he told me he would. I was followed by Mississippi John Hurt, how embarassing for Mr. Hurt’s memory. I was glad to be on the same playlist as Eric Balkey whom I mentioned earlier. Makes my day all around.

First, I wrote a song called, “I Don’t Have Friends Anymore.” Next, I released a CD with that title. Over the past two months since the CD has been out there, I am finding that some other people are lacking in friends–not just the characters in my songs.

About once every two or three weekes, someone asks Google to search for the phrase, “I don’t have friends.” Google churns out a number of helpful ssites with practical answers to help these friendless folk. Among the top results shown is my CD’s page on www.cdbaby.com. I know this because I regularly watch the statistics that show how people get to my Web pages. Someone even searched for this phrase in the Slavic version of Google a few weeks ago and landed on my CD’s page.

I’m trying to figure out how to leverage this keyword quirk to sell boxfuls of CDs. ESPN has done it with “ESPN: The Magazine,” “ESPN: The TV channels,” “ESPN: The toothpaste,” and probably “ESPN: The Underwear.” Maybe I can find a similar success with, “I Don’t Have Friends Anymore: The Keyword Search.” I’m also thinking of a line of action figures and Saturday morning cartoons, targeted for introverted, introspective kids who have curly hair and would rather dance along. (Inside joke there. Read the CD lyrics and you’ll get it maybe.)

My apologies. This blog is supposed to be about music. Expect a tangent now and again. Bye for now.