Sans Direction’s last blog post..He Likes To Make A Livin’ Runnin’ ‘Round

…like I said, I’m going to withhold judgment on the songwriting during the first run through. Sometimes the stuff that sounds trite the first time, seems brilliant later on and, the opposite can be true as well.

Let me see if I can make this Amicable to all you’se
Commentary Part I
And Sans I bow to the violin, let me explain my-seeelf:
There were these tenuous nights in my past, and I was between marriages, when I had made the decision to subsist for one year on alcoholic beverages and carrots, living in a totally quiet small town, way off the beaten path. Then after a year, I would return to my new love interest and wed her, Lord willin’ ,as I certainly was willin’. Isn’t that romantic?

Well, after meeting Pribek he learned that there was always a twenty-four pack in my fridge, so he would happen by and leave a post-it that he had been over. And he is courteous, so there were always two beers and all the carrots left in there for me after work.

The reason of this clip is not about alcohol, because I gave it up after my year and Pribek so too has swept out all solvents, as I catch up with him twelve years later. The point is his courteous nature.

He had this blues band called the Fugitives [because "Sax and Violins" was taken], that doubled for country when Bill the Hat was available. Five piece band, reliable folks, could play anything, true musicians all. Guitarist Ron [names escape me] played lots of pedal stuff, and could roll into jazzy space cowboy solos that defy description and gravity, while Jack and bassist lay back. Normal stuff, except Ron could really augment… one time I clapped loudly after Ron gave up the ghost on one solo, as he nodded back to the singer. Then Ron looked at me with the most puzzled expression, no one had ever applauded his effort?

So that is the courtesy factor in band situations, that is so missing throughout music culture today: hangin’ back, applauding the soloist, and nodding to the audience. It is a year I learned to listen better, because Jack would follow Ron and introduce the next layer with one of those “pick scrapes” I call triads. So what? Hey, that was an education for me who learned music as a stage band clarinet dude. Our conductor always clicked the music stand three times to get our attention. So it got my attention, eh.

The pick scrape of Pribek is a percussion, like a cymbal crash that introduces his Tele version of what Ron just said, and he is coming despite all you’se unappreciative skuffling, waitress grabbing doo-wops — who should be clapping for my brother in arms, Ron…!! When you gonna wake up? See why I am happy to hear some of those credential pick scrapes on the album?

“I hate that…” once said Jack. He sat in with a group of old swing band cowboys with Martins, and as he pushed their envelope… he did one of those pick scrapes leading into shuckster licks, and well the old guys started following him like sheep “walkin’ on their hind legs,” while Jack was wanting them to just do their thing, and let him rest a while from leading. Jack, don’t be so humble, they aren’t scrapes, they are three distinct notes.

Commentary Part II
Leadership courtesy is what I am preaching today. Call me Poindexter, but this is Mothers’ Day Weekend and I would like to remind you reading this– if you have leadership qualities and are courteous, it is probably due your God-sent mothers. [you guessed it; I am correlating pick scrapes to Mothers' Day] Pick up that phone and let her know it’s getting done! My Mother led me to music, God bless her octogenarian self.

Yes, I appeal today that Heaven-sent are all parents, and have dealt with us on earth as best they are able. As parents your selves, you must surely be aware of this volunteer-ism known as Mom and Dad. I wish all within earshot to hear a Pick Scrape Triad right now prompting everyone — applaud all the Mammies this weekend!! Nuff said, “’nuff.”

Love and hugs to all, Pat Darnell and friends, and all left feet.

Pat Darnell and Friends’s last blog post..How can I Safely and Effectively….

Sans Direction’s last blog post..He Likes To Make A Livin’ Runnin’ ‘Round

Speaking of picking a record apart and regarding 1:29 and 4:08, 3:15, 3:26 etc…those little pick scrapes and such well…I guess I do more of that than I’m aware of PD. A lot of times those things don’t work well when recording but, a producer like Lou Whitney has a good hang on mic. placement, pre amps and compression as well-you can’t eq those things to make them sound good and you can’t eq them out.

I feel like I can say this now that we are all grown up: Pribek has a signature that appears in all his pickin’. I knew if I ever said anything he might get too mindful of it and have a brain cramp when he hears himself doing it… because as it has been over the years before, it comes off like he doesn’t realize he does it — using the reverbnation tracks and time signatures in sidebar:

1:29 and 4:08 “Trouble Ain’t Over…”

3:15, 3:26 and sort of ends on one at 5:24 “MUNK” (occurring right after Wurlitzer solo)

2:18, “Rule of Seven”

In a music composition that you guys do, I say the signature is a link in a chain-drive capable of reverse and forward. That signature “lick, chop, pluck, run” is not necessarily a weak link. But it can be if it is not done properly.

Ovidiu: It’s like that wrong person in the wrong place thing.

Pribek: I don’t know..is the goal to establish an older artist with the younger and hipper audience or, try to make a proper record and the younger, hipper audience is a result of doing it right?

I never know who writes the songs, because it is not my interest to find out. Therefore in my subjectivity, some songs by Neil Diamond are outstanding, and works with Diamond’s raspy baritone to a tine, like a Hasidic diamond cutter on the job. But when a song is not of that cut, well I have to turn the damn thing off, quickly.

This one little funk triad of Pribek’s seems to link up everything for me, but I am prejudiced. Here follow more examples of Jack’s wainscot lick –
0:49, 1:38, “Cannonball”

3:01 and 4:50 on the fade out NOTE: “Country Mile” will give a listener a source of where it might have started… truncated wrist deadened chords [I forget what we used to call it]

0:37 [not truncated], then like at 1:35 and throughout “Soul Searchin’” I think this is a whammy version introduces background singers upbeat and to downbeat of syncopated lead singer

I’ll end here…. Any questions — no?

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Rick Rubin’s my friend, is all, and he spent five albums trying to reintroduce me to Johnny Cash. I have no problem with that. I don’t consider it “selling out” or anything like that.

Considering the art direction, the label, the choice of venue, the addition of a Danzig song to Johnny’s playlist, I think it’s clear that it was Rick’s desire to bring Johnny to a young, hip and affluent audience. The old, square and poor had known all about the Man in Black for years, and the Nashville labels dropped him because of it. I don’t consider it a bad thing that Rick was telling Gen X. My friend Rick got me into Run DMC, LL Cool J, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and the Jayhawks before that. He’s a friend with good taste. I don’t know that I would’ve ever gone back and got the Folsom and San Quentin discs or heard the Blood, Sweat and Tears recording without the prompting of American Recordings.

Part of the problem is the repackaging of inferior versions of earlier hits. Much of what you’d see in the stores under his name are lame hits packages and not proper albums. Proper albums were a part of it. But without the rest of it, without an extreme revision of the sound, without a strong and striking design, and without the money to get ads in Spin and Stone and MTV, without bringing in the people who buy records, it wouldn’t have worked.

And wouldn’t you know, Man Comes Around is the one American Cash disc I don’t have on my computer right now. But I recall the flow of fast songs and slow songs to work more like a rock album. C’est la vie.

(Why am I listening to the Residents right now?)

Sans Direction’s last blog post..He Likes To Make A Livin’ Runnin’ ‘Round

Sans, I’m not going to try and convince you that “Blood, Sweat and Tears” and “Folsom Prison” weren’t proper records because I don’t feel that way. I’m not trying to dismiss any earlier work.

The record I’m most familiar with from the American Recordings series is “The Man Comes Around”. I don’t think of it as a rock record.

I recognized some similar recording techniques on the Neil Diamond set with a cursory listening.

There is no set of rules for a producer-artist relationship and, unless you are in the room there is no way to know how much input comes from either side. But, you can, sometimes over a body of work, recognize some similar ideas, a lot of times technical things, and get some notion of how a producer functions.

OK, maybe not that far…..

Sans Direction’s last blog post..He Likes To Make A Livin’ Runnin’ ‘Round

I get where you’re going with the “proper album”, but to accept that, you’d have to convince me that Blood, Sweat and Tears and Folsom Prison are not “proper albums”. They’re not Rock albums, sure, but I find it hard to accept that as a ding against them. You’d also have to convince me that Johnny toured on American Recordings, rather than just playing the show in 1994 that he would’ve done in 1992 before meeting Rick Rubin. Everything I’ve heard says, besides a gig or two in the Viper Room, this isn’t true.

I love the American CDs. I like Van Lear Rose. I thought June Carter Cash’s last CD, Wildwood Flower, was painful to listen to because she just couldn’t find the notes, but I’m glad that Randy Scruggs made the effort. But I can tell that they were more than anything else crossover attempts.

Sans Direction’s last blog post..He Likes To Make A Livin’ Runnin’ ‘Round