You are Gonna Pull Something If You Don't Stretch

I've been asked a bunch about songwriting. It is a craft I dearly love. I plan on writing a book about it at some point but for now I'm too busy writing songs to write a book.

But as I get started today I am reminded of one element of song writing that many songwriters mistakenly skip. 

And that's the warm up. 

Maybe, I'll just warm up and show ya what I mean.

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I have a stack of songs I need to finish. 

Today I am in the right state of mind to make headway. State of mind makes head way. Head way for my mind. What's a head weigh? 8 lbs if it is more fuller than mine. If it's a mine, I've apparently been mind shafted. Can ya dig it? 

But the point is, I feel like writing/righting. And when I'm in this zone , 

I can't just run into running , you see? 

"..one doesn't fly into flying" said Neitzche. 

I like to start with a little linguistic yoga. I like to unscrew the top of my noggin and let the words fall out like cooked noodles. Al dente. 

It's the stretch before the marathon. You know? The marathon of carefully placed thoughts that stretch for 26 smiles and a little more. So this is the stretch before the stretch, that eventually leads to the home stretch. (I know that's stretching it, but I don't wanna pull anything)

So today before any attempt I have at serious artistic thought, I have to get my brain out of gear. So I will kill 2 birds with one stone (NOTE: no animals were harmed in the writing/righting of this blog) and stretch here on my blog. 

You will be my sounding board

Sounding board.

Sounding Bored? 

No. Not all. Writing without rules excites me. I'm only getting started.

Seems like I am getting to the point. 

I can't get to the point when there isn't one. (question: doesn't every sentence that reaches a period get to the point? Well obviously that one didn't, but this one did. After a pause for the comma.)

In this happy place where nothing is wrong, it's simple to begin.

No topic is taboo.

If you want,

Use Bipartisan Political Puppetry, ala Sesame Street residents to make the country's candidates for Presidense 

seem to mock us with an intent that is too bent to make sense ....of.

Oh no I need to wear gloves

So my 9th grade English Tsar/CSI TV star will not see my fingerprints all over the last dense sentence which ended with a preposition. Those are horrible thing to end sentences with. 

I did it again. This time on purpose. Don't tell. 

See? We are pissing off teachers, that means we are using our reachers.

Stretch. this is the stretch remember?

The goal here isn't to reach a destination. Actually it isn't even to move toward it. 

We are simply warming up. This is free form motion of the faculties.

Facul-tease. Stop that. 

Ok. I'm feeling good about the flowetry and prose that arose from me. It was fun but have we begun? I guess, supposedly.

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(After I have loosened up by just writing free form silliness and word play like I have above for a while I turn to a slightly more structured writing. This writing should be timed. I'd say somewhere between 5-10 minutes. The purpose of this writing is to be descriptive as possible about a specific singular object. The idea is to tell an engrossing story about the selected object. This story should be succinct and not terribly long,  being as you are only allowing yourself 5-10 minutes to create it. And a great idea is to focus on the senses. Really think about sight, sound, taste, touch, smell. This is objective, creative writing. The act of doing it will greatly benefit the creative process once we reach that phase.)

Let's try it.

Here we go.

Object: Old Muffler in my neighbor's yard

7 min of Writing:

       The pale blue moon light reflects from the fog and almost lights the path to it. Although vegetation has done its best to disguise with years of growth, this is a path I'll never forget. I'm closing in. The last 10 feet. I feel slowly forward. My bare feet grip the damp ground that feels like cotton candy but smells metallic. I inch closer until the moon paints the dim silhouette of the muffler. I can still hear echoes of spark plugs from the car's prime pulsing. I imagine the engine when it was new, throbbing and growling on a night like this. Now the last of the echoes are still trying to reach the cool night air and be heard after all these years. My hands slide along the jagged wreck. This long forgotten coarse piece of chrysler guiding my course. X marks the spot. I get on all fours and begin to dig my hands into the soil beneath the twisted shrapnel. I move forward and feel the roughness scrape my neck to remind me not to raise up. I push my fingers deeper into the ground, pulling out scoop by scoop until I finally reach it. It was still there after.....

The timer went off. My 7 minutes are up. 

The story about the muffler sucks. It's isn't great. I obviously wrote too slowly and thought about it too much because I didn't get to the end. But that isn't the point. The point of this is to exercise writing freely.

And that.......I have done.

So now I am ready to actually take on the righting/writing of a song. 

There are no guarantees that I will create something stellar today, but having done exercises like the one above for years I can tell you that they help. 

It is much easier to write something creative and of quality when your mind has been allowed to warm up.

This may have been a random post and I may have to elaborate on it later, but it has helped me get my mind ready to write. So thank you for being my sounding board. You have helped me get ready to create. 

And hopefully...... maybe .....by seeing the silly, loosening up exercises I use, your creative writing may benefit as well.

Try it. 

Even if you don't want to write a song or poem, it's kind of fun to free form write just as a stress reliever.

So for your own sanity......write. 

Worst case scenario you will feel better. Best case scenario you will feel better AND you will create something you are proud of. 

Could You Speak French? I Can't Understand Your English.

I have had the privilege of hanging out in Orange Beach all week with Beverly Jo Scott, Sirius Plan and the Belgian film crew that has been filming a documentary about BJ.

I've known BJ for years. I have hung out with Sirius Plan for most of their visit, And I did interviews with the film crew (well i knew Francoise and Virginie. the guys were new to me. But very nice) during my visit to Belgium earlier this year. So I was basically hanging out all week with my good friends and colleagues. It was great.

In addition to being super nice people, all the folks I talked about above speak French (not surprising since it is their native tongue).

For those of you that don't know I love the French language and enjoy any opportunity to practice. This week provided ample opportunity for that.

I must say Thank you to all my new French teachers for their patience. Im sure it was annoying but they were all so nice and helped me.

But as I hacked my way through French all week, I was reminded of a funny trip from my past.

In 2005 Dale Drinkard Jr , Jay Hines and myself went to France and Italy. During our trip there we had a couple of long train rides.

This train ride was from Florence to Rome. We find our compartment. It is a small room with 3 seats on one wall facing 3 seats on the other wall.

These other 3 seats were filled by the time we arrived.

Upon getting situated we struck up a conversation. After a little engagement we realize that the 3 men are Italian. One speaks English very well, the other two speak Italian only. So its obvious that the bilingual guy will be our Rosetta Stone.

After a little conversation we realize he also speaks French.
As I said above I take any opportunity to try (wretchedly) to speak French. So I began speaking horrible French with the "translator". His face lights up.

He says I can understand when he speaks (pointing at Dale)

He says I can understand when he speaks (pointing at Jay)

But I can't understand unless you speak French.

This made me feel great and bad simultaneously.

On the one hand my French must be ok enough for him to understand because he is insisting I speak only in French for the remainder of the trip. This is a big pat on the back. My French must be better than I thought (NOTE: my French is highly rusty at this point but during the 2005 trip I had practiced a lot and brushed up on a lot of vocabulary and grammar. So it was much better then than it is now. Hopefully my hanging with my Belgian friends in America and in Europe will help me get better at speaking French)


But on the other hand , the Italian man was letting me know that I mumble and under enunciate English so badly that he couldn't understand me. Hahaha wow.

He had unknowingly insulted and complimented me. But since the purpose of language is really just communicating , he was actually trying to facilitate the transferring of information. Which is the goal.

It just made me laugh.

I had been focusing so hard on using the correct words with the correct pronunciation in another language that I lost focus on my own language.

We had an enjoyable trip with the Italians. I wish I had recorded the trip though. It would have been strange to listen to I believe.

Italian from the Italian only speakers to the "Rosetta Stone" guy
English to us.
English from Jay and Dale back to Rosetta Stone guy
French from me back to him.

Repeat for about 2-3 hours.


That trip always pops in my mind when other languages are flying around me (as they were this week). I Unfortunately have let my French slip but I plan to fix that situation and be more proficient by the time I return to Europe.

Luckily my next trip overseas is to Australia. I'm pretty sure I'll be able to understand them. Of course the Italian train scene reminds me that I may want to work on my English before I leave so they can understand me. Hahaha

A Funny Thing Happened At Chickfest

Today is Chickfest. 

Chickfest is an incredible annual concert that is put on by Veet's in Mobile.
(NOTE: If you are unfamiliar with Veet's. It is my favorite watering hole/live music venue/family operated business/place to hang, see friends and eat. If you are ever in Mobile Alabama you owe it to yourself to go. http://www.veetsbarandgrill.com/about.asp)

So once a year Veet's turns the spotlight on the ladies specifically. And when I say the ladies I don't mean just any ladies. I mean some heavy hitting international celebrity talent as well as our local super talented ladies. Well tonight is the night. The headliners are JoAnna Berlage, Sirius Plan (incredible trio from Belgium), the legendary Donna Hall, and international star Beverly Jo Scott. (Beverly Jo is the kind soul that set my entire visit to Belgium up and hosted me the whole time. Love her).

Well this is the second year I've been asked to be a part of the backing band. I am unbelievably happy about this. Not only do I get to accompany some of the best female vocalists I've ever heard , I also get to play along side an incredible backing band. 

So tonight will be a great time. 
(Come listen if you're in the area. 7pm at Veet's. You will not be disappointed).

But this year's Chickfest got me thinking about last year's Chickfest and it reminded me of one of my favorite music stories. 

There were plenty of remarkable, memorable performance moments from last year's show but the memory I had this time was a funny one about rehearsal. 

Since the backing band for Chickfest is assembled specifically for one night, we are inherently unfamiliar with the material and hence require a couple days of rehearsal.  

A couple of rehearsals is a relatively short time frame to cram a concert the size of Chickfest together. It requires a very experienced band. Luckily Veet's makes sure we can assemble such a group. Because of the casting each year has been a wonder show. 

Last year the concert was a little ambitious with the amount of material that was to be done by the backing band. It was more than double the songs for this year. 

Therefore during rehearsals the band was sweating and scribbling notes. Due to the volume of material in that show we only had about 8-10 minutes per song to rehearse. Then we had to move on to the next one and hope we had written notes well enough to remember the previous song when it was show time. 

Well I've been in this type of environment many times. And when everyone in the band is intensely and consistently focused on song after song for hours, a simple song can be a lifesaver. It is a chance to stop looking at a sheet of paper and just play from familiarity. It is a beautiful and necessary relaxing point (during rehearsal and subsequently the show) that refreshes the band and helps them regain focus when they return to less familiar territory. 

It is with this in mind that I tell you seeing "Respect" by Aretha Franklin on the list made every band member happy. Whew. That would be a recharging spot for sure. We had all played that one enough times that we could play it in our sleep. 

So we thought. 

The artist that would be singing this song at the show was the very talented Carmilla Ali.  

Unbeknownst to us, she had intentions of playing a version of "Respect" that was so far removed from the original version that it might as well be another song. 

Uh oh. 

That's even worse than being unfamiliar with a tune. Since the band were so accustomed to the original version, we were having to focus extra hard to fight our instincts to play it like the record. (So much for the relaxing spot in the rehearsal and show. This instantly got flipped into the most intense section of focusing and remembering in the whole shebang). 

Well after me and my flustered brethren fumbled through the twisted version of the tune a couple times, I could see the uneasiness on everyone's faces This song was understandably shaky on our part. We were shell shocked by the odd version, plus (as I said before) we were struggling to NOT play it like the classic version everyone is familiar with.

As we were trying to soothe the shrapnel wounds we just received to our psyche, we were given a harder task. We were informed the song was going to have a syncopated James Brown type ending. 

Oh lord. This song was gonna be the death of us. 

But we are all experienced guys so we buckle up for the onslaught. 

We worked and we worked and we worked. 
The instructions for the ending were all kind of vague (i.e.-"when y'all do the DAA NAA NAA NAA DAA DAA part twice then come in with ....NAA........DAA DAA DAA .....NAA NAA.....DAA DAA DAA DAA!") but we were determined to get it right. We all tried things, asked questions and attempted to write out the actual rhythm notation for NAA........DAA DAA DAA .....NAA NAA.....DAA DAA DAA DAA! Or at least a notation that would remind us individually how the part went. 

Fast forward through a lot of toil and grief. We finally got it after about 40-50min. Remember that we had been spending 8-10 per song up until this point, so this "simple song" had eaten up a bulk of a rehearsal just for itself and most of that time was spent hammering out the 7 second ending. 

But all of our efforts were worth it. This surprisingly tricky song was locked in now. The band was solid on the whole thing, even the ending. 

Now Fast Forward to the show. We have a few equipment glitches initially but other than that it is smooth sailing. The ladies are all on their A game. They are dazzling the crowd song after song and we are providing the backdrop for them to do so. 

The band all looks on the list and see "Respect" is next. We exchange a quick smile as if to say "Hang On. We got this."

We kick off into it and the song feels good. Carmilla is putting on a performance that would make Aretha jealous. She is killing it. Her energy is infectious. The crowd is feeding off of it. The band is feeding off of it. 

The band really sinks into the groove and the tune feels great. I'm thinking  maybe this strange version of this tune was worth the brain hemorrhage after all. Well only if we "stick the landing". 

We are approaching the end of the tune. The eyes of each band member widens. I could see the anticipation on each of their faces. 
I gripped the guitar a little tighter and braced myself. It all came down to this. The NAA........DAA DAA DAA .....NAA NAA.....DAA DAA DAA DAA! Was coming in 4 measures, 3 measures,2 measures....

Then Carmilla (who was understandably wound up giving the performance of her life and having the crowd eat it up), turns toward the band and gives us the unmistakable , be all to end all hand gesture that she was about to end the song. In that millisecond I saw her hand held high I thought, "She's not about to forego the ending. I mean THE ENDING. You know the NAA........DAA DAA DAA .....NAA NAA.....DAA DAA DAA DAA! We spent most of a rehearsal (and untold brain damage) learning"

But sure enough, she swung her arm down and like any professional group of musicians would do....stopped on a dime. 

The bar before the NAA........DAA DAA DAA .....NAA NAA.....DAA DAA DAA DAA!

Well, the crowd erupted in applause (and they should have. That was a great rendition of that song and Carmilla had truly delivered a stellar performance). The audience felt no lacking because they had never been exposed to the NAA........DAA DAA DAA .....NAA NAA.....DAA DAA DAA DAA! In the first place. So they didn't miss it. 

The band however was staring at each other in a state of disbelief. Our ending. The hours of toiling. The chunk of soul with which we paid for the learning of said ending. All passed with one drop of a hand. 

In retrospect it is hilarious to think of those band member's expressions. It was part terror, disappointment, shock, and bewilderment. 

We were so knock back by that shock that it took a song or two before we really found the groove again but I have to commend that group of guys. 

Due to the amount of effort and that went into NAA........DAA DAA DAA .....NAA NAA.....DAA DAA DAA DAA! Without it ever getting performed would have caused lesser men to collapse in a heap. 

Although it was definitely jarring to them, the improv abbreviated ending didn't stop the band from doing our job. 

Although I know we are much more prepared for tonight's show, I can't wait to see what little magical moments await. 

Hopefully they won't entail a missing ending this year. 

Focus On The Revolution

Focus on the Revolution.

I've been absent from the blog for a little bit. This was not intentional. But a neccesary byproduct of life.

I've been revolutionizing some things. And revolution takes time. Revolution takes....focus.

Since my last blog I've written two songs, started collaborating with two (way above my pay grade) songwriters, started working out and eating right again, booked a 3 month Australian tour, booked two weeks of session work/writing time at a studio in LA, started a new side business and highly edited my business model for my main business/"real job" music career.

Whew.

But I also did one more thing. I realized I had a focus problem. I don't mean that I found out I have ADHD, or that I lacked focus. Far from it. I have always been one of the most focused people I know. I realized I was misusing my focus.

Part of my new "lifestyle change" if you will, is that in addition to actual exercise I'm going to walk a little every morning as a kind of meditation and mental focus time. I love being outside. But I rarely just walk. I usually like doing something more aggressive or active. Usually if I simply walk I eventually get bored and then jog or run part of my journeys. Therefore I devised a plan. I will bring a ball with me everyday and bounce it. This will keep my pace slow and therefore allow my mind to be what is exercised (My physical exercise is going to be done at a different time slot). The walk is for meditation purposes.

Since this was day one , I had to find a ball. Well I'm a guy plus I am a former athlete. I didn't figure finding a ball in my house would be an issue. I went to grab a ball.

No ball.

Ummm....surely there's a tennis ball around here somewhere. Nope. Basketball? Dang. I am embarrassed that I do not have a ball in my house. Well I eventually came across an old hacky sack. It isn't a ball but I figured it would be a suitable replacement (for today anyway). I'd just have to toss it hand to hand instead of dribble it.

So I set out on my walk, hacky sack in hand. I tossed it from right hand to left. Then left to right. Repeated. Well after a couple throws my mind drifted to all of the career/life things I listed above. The throwing of the hacky sack was subconscious.

Well until I thought , "Wow, I'm throwing a hacky sack without focusing on it". That thought struck a chord with me.

I could have easily been staring at the hacky sack each throw, contemplating exactly how to let it roll off my fingers, exactly how much force to put behind the toss and exactly where to position my other hand to catch it. But I didn't. My mind was a million miles away from that hacky sack yet the task of catching was still accomplished.

This thought excited me.

How far could I take this?

I mean I had been mentally elsewhere, but I had still been keeping my eyes on the hacky sack as it flew through the air. My mental focus had definitely been elsewhere but my visual focus had stayed on the hacky sack.
Could I pay even less attention to the task and accomplish it?

For the rest of the 2.5 mile walk I intentionally focused my gaze nowhere near the hacky sack. I purposefully fixed my eyes on a point far down the road (my metaphoric and simultaneously real destination).

I tossed the hacky sack and still caught it. Again after a few tosses I let my mind drift back to all my new exciting affairs.

I kept catching the hacky sack.

Amazing.

I will admit that I dropped the hacky sack once in a while but with no more regularity than when I was keeping my eyes on it.

This experiment in peripheral vision and subconscious movement had some profound effect on me.

As I walked along I realized that my over active focus on music and business had been wasted (well partially wasted). I realized that just having focus isn't enough. Focus needs focusing too (if that makes sense).

Just like my attention to the hacky sack, many things that I had been devoting huge chunks of time and focus to were able to be accomplished with little or no focus. My over active focus is a good thing ......if and only if it is aimed.

So I've had a revolution in life approach. Some would just call it prioritizing. But it is slightly different than that (at least in my mind).

In addition to prioritizing (keeping my eyes down the road , focused on the "destination" and the most important things) I'm also not going to spend much time or focus, if any, on things that are on autopilot (I will treat them like I treat the catching of the hacky sack. Paying a little extra focus when an error occurs. Otherwise let it run on autopilot).

I believe there are tons of things in my life that have been time suckers and attention suckers. If those things require attention and time to work, THEN I have to decide if they are worth saving. If they can work on their own, I'm going to set them in motion and let em run. As I said, if a problem arises surely I'll have to spend a little time and effort fixing issues. But the time and effort will be minimal and more importantly it will be temporary.

I feel like I let lots of tasks consume a low level of my attention all the time. Not anymore.

The important things will now have more of my attention. The smaller (autopilot) tasks will fend for themselves. I'll tend those when needed.

I've only just begun this approach but I can tell you it feels great. It feels right. And I recommend you try it.


As a matter of fact try my experiment.

Get a ball or a hacky sack. Take a 20-30 min walk tomorrow morning. Start tossing the ball hand to hand. Initially you will need to focus on that action. But slowly move your focus to a spot down the road. Think about the things you plan to accomplish today or your grocery list or just let your mind wander. But let the tossing back and forth slide into your subconscious.

If you drop it , so what. Pick it up and start again.

When you return home, think about your figurative "spot down the road" that deserves more of your time and focus. Then find 3 tasks that you worry or toil over that could really be put on autopilot.

Then repeat tomorrow.

Hopefully it's as rewarding for you as it has been for me.

I Played the REAL L.A.

Last Night I played in L.A.

I was honored to be one of the artists featured at the L.A. Song Writer Festival. Getting recognition in L.A. is a pretty big deal. I remember being a 13 year old kid with a guitar and a dream. I used to imagine how it'd be to wow the regulars at some L.A. venue. And last night I was there. I had made it. Last night I played along side some of L.A.'s finest talent. And I felt like I belonged. ......Finally my songs had made an impression on L.A.


Lower Alabama.


Sure the show was at an American Legion in Lower Alabama ("L.A.") and not the Viper Room on Sunset. Sure  the room was filled with regular, salt of the Earth folks instead of movie stars. But as I sat there last night I had to smile to myself. I sat there and absolutely enjoyed listening to, playing with and playing for a true listening room audience and a group of amazing seasoned songwriting veterans. I had accomplished my "L.A." dreams without knowing.

I realized that my "L.A. Dreams" had come true a long long way from California, but they had come true nonetheless.

The reality I experienced last night was drastically ......almost unrecognizably different than the ideas that were in the head of younger me. But as I sat in that room last night it was blatantly obvious to me that those kid's dreams of mine were reality.

I sat among some of the best song writers and performers I have ever heard and I played my creations. I played them to the full house and people enjoyed them.

You see the "L.A. Dreams" I had in my head as a kid involved celebrities and velvet roped V.I.P. rooms and all sorts of pomp and circumstance that was missing at last night's show.

But the thought occurred to me: My younger dream had surely come true. It may have appeared that the Fairhope, Alabama American Legion post failed to live up to the grandeur of that Hollywood Club I envisioned or that the good people of the Gulf Coast were paltry in comparison to my imagined star-studded crowd , but that couldn't be more incorrect.

It was a different scene than I imagined it'd be, but that was because my young mind couldn't grasp the power and beauty of the simple.

The show last night was powerful not inspite of its simplicity, it was powerful because of it.

All the goofy trappings I had fantasized about in my youthful ignorance were nowhere to be found. That didn't lessen the power of the situation. It increased it. By having the silly , unnecessary sparkle and glitter of Hollywood stripped away, I saw what my actual dream was. I saw what the dream had always been.

The dream was to create art that I am proud of. I had done that.

The dream was to garner the respect of my fellow artists. I (felt like) I had done that.

And the dream was to play my songs for people who actually care about songs. I was currently doing that.

I was "Living the Dream". Truly.

Don't get me wrong, last night wasn't the first time I realized I am "Living the dream". As a matter of fact I feel like the luckiest guy alive most days. I truly get amazed a lot of the time that my life is so full and happy and filled with great people. But last night I did have a revelation about that younger dream of mine.

Had the 13 year old me stuck his head in last night, he would have ignorantly thought it was far beneath his ideal dream gig. But that wasn't because the gig was lacking. Far from it. He would've thought the gig / venue beneath his fantasy gig because his understanding was lacking.

All the additional elements of the fantasy gig I used to have were fake. Last night was real. The people were real. The artists were real. And most importantly the songs were real.

Last night, that American Legion WAS the dream gig. Last night was what all the struggle has been for. And worth every bead of sweat I've shed chasing it.

So I wanna say Thank you to every one in Fairhope who came to the American Legion last night.

You made the "L.A. Dreams" of a young man come true in ways he couldn't even imagine.

On the Other Hand....There's Humiliation

I'm sure everybody has had a moment where they wished they had kept their mouth shut (or I don't know.........a moment where they wish they hadn't basically flip off a machine gun toting Turkish guard with both hands : http://ericerdmanmusic.blogspot.com/2012/08/trip-to-istandbultwo-thumbs-up.html?m=1)

Well I have a long list of such embarassing stories.

Over the years I've told these stories to the amusement of myself and my friends.
Eventually they all began telling me THEIR embarrassing stories. I now have compiled dozens and dozens. I may write a book of them one day (changing the names to protect the less than innocent). I have loved telling these stories and hearing others' similar stories for years (so feel free to leave one of your own in the comments). But the first humiliating story for me, the story that started my infatuation with embarassment was the following:

I was 16 years old. It was a Friday night. I had played well in the baseball game earlier. School had been easy that week. I had no homework. I had just picked up my girlfriend and I was meeting all my close friends at the movie theater.

It sounds like a pretty spectacular night doesn't it?

Well it most definitely was. I was having the time of my life. Me and my girl laughed all the way to the theater. Once we arrived we met up with the rest of the gang.

We were being loud and obnoxious I'm sure. I , of course was being the most Loud and the most obnoxious as we waited in line to get our drinks and popcorn.

Once we completed the concessions transaction , I led the way toward the theater.

As our group of 8-9 teenagers rolled closer to the entrance to the movie theater hallway (and therefore the man who tears the tickets) , I was at the climax of whatever story I was telling. With animated gestures and overly exuberant boisterousness I turned to face my "audience" as I backed the last few feet toward the man who tears the tickets.

I continued wrapping up my story (which I am sure had zero importance) and turned my head back slightly so I would know where to hand the ticket. Because my focus is much more locked on entertaining my friends than paying attention to where I'm backwardly walking, I only see the ticket tearer in my periphery.

98% of my attention is still aimed at the lobby and my listeners, 2% noticed from the corner of my eye something miraculous.

The ticket tearer had grabbed my ticket, torn it, and returned it to me. He had grabbed it in his right hand, instantly popped it with his two fingers and thumb, leaving him pointing just the stub towards me.

This lightening fast motion and the fact I was highly involved in my self importance and storytelling , made the man's action dazzling.

It had lasted less than a second but my brain was enthralled in the magic.

Again wanting to entertain my friends, it was more important for me to tell them what had just happened than to turn and see for myself what was going on.

I yelled, "DID YA'LL SEE THAT? THIS GUY JUST RIPPED MY TICKET WITH ONE HAND!!!!"

It was like seeing a sleight of hand for the first time. It was dazzling.

I was very genuinely impressed and very genuinely amazed.

I was more amazed when I FINALLY turned my attention back towards the direction of the theaters and the ticket man......because that was the moment I realized....

He had torn the ticket with one hand.......because he only had one hand.

Every drop of blood drained from my face. I instantly fell silent.

Apparently the expression on my face told the man that I was mortified and that I in no way meant to harm him with the words I had just spoken. He and I never spoke a word (I literally couldn't speak), but he gave me a smile that said, "Pay attention to your surroundings, kid. Some people aren't as kind and understanding as I am."

The potential anguish I COULD have dealt that man with my careless words really hit me hard.

I feel very lucky the man had a cool temperament and a kind heart.

It took hours for me to accept my error and get back to having fun. But the lesson has stuck with me ever since.

I still love to cut up. I still love to get loud.

But I always pay attention to the people and things around me. Always.

I suggest you do the same. Or don't and contribute your embarrassing stories to my collection.

Reggie's Ukulele Moment

One of the most exciting and fun times of my musical career was touring with Victor Wooten.
For those of you who are unfamiliar Victor Wooten is a revolutionary musician. He is a bassist who has literally changed the face of music. He is an innovator. He is a 5 time Grammy award winner. And he just so happens to be a friend.

My band, The Ugli Stick has had the honor of performing with Victor at his Bass/Nature Camps many times and we have been fortunate enough to have him jam with us at our NAMM shows in Anaheim, CA multiple times. (Here are some clips: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8kQX6980a4 , http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxlrBXlzjVI )

Although it still feels very strange for me to say, I can now say Victor is a friend of mine. (As a matter of fact he has agreed to an interview, which I will soon be posting here for you all to read).

But when Victor hit the road in 2010 he asked us to open the south east shows. This was a huge honor for us of course.

Victor's band was incredible. It consisted of : Derico Watson on Drums, Steve Weingart on keys, Reggie Wooten on Guitar and of course Victor on bass.

Watching them perform was like going to the circus and church all at once.
fearlessness
They play with fire and brimstone intensity but with childlike uplifting creativity. They jam in complex time signatures and odd progressions, but they do so in such an accessible way. It is so much fun to see a bunch of people dancing and smiling to a tune that is in 4 keys and has bars of 5 amid 7/4 time.

The band made complex stuff cotton candy simple. And they were having a great time doing it.

It was complex music without the slide rule. They were partying.

Anyway, getting to be a prat of all that was exciting to me. I was grinning from the beginning of the shows til the end.

But the one show in particular I wanna tell you about was at the HandleBar in Greenville, South Carolina.

We played our show to a very responsive crowd. I was beaming as I went out to meet and sell CDs. I danced and smiled along with all the rest of the audience as Victor and the boys took us all on a musical adventure.

When they finished their "last song" and walked off stage the crowd erupted. There was no doubt that the crowd wanted more. After a few moments, Victor and the band came back on stage. Of course the crowd went wild.

Victor got on the mic and called us back on stage.

Then both bands proceeded to jam together for a few minutes. The entire crowd was moving to the music. Then Victor looked at me and kinda nodded towards the mic. I had been so caught up listening and dancing I hadn't even thought about getting close to a mic. I was an audience member. I just happened to have been invited on stage.

But when Victor asks.....well he won't have to ask twice. I was walking to the microphone and time seemed to stand still. I can still see the packed out club. I will always feel the intense groove being produced partially by my band and partially by a group of my heroes. It was very surreal.

I sang a little , I rapped a little then I turned it back over to the remarkable instrumentalists. But that was the most comfortable I've ever been while singing/rapping. The groove those guys were laying down was monstrous and the crowd was so into it too. It was a ton of fun.

After I did my few minutes, Dale sang some then we went into Sly & The Family Stone's "I wanna thank you for letting be myself again". That was probably the most fun I've had during a song. Everybody in the building was smiling.

We finished and the crowd again went wild.

At this point Dale and I adjourned to our dressing room. We were still in there smiling and laughing and letting the moment soak in.

For some reason we had brought Dale's Ukulele into the dressing room earlier, so we picked up the Uke and passed it back and forth (I think we still had some happy excited energy from that amazing encore we had just been a part of).

As we were laughing and playing songs on the Ukulele we heard a knock at the door. It was Reggie Wooten.

He said , "Can I come in?". We said of course. He told us he LOVES playing the Uke and as a matter of fact Ukulele was the first instrument they had. He played ukelele before learning guitar.

It was so cool to be hanging with one of our heroes and have him obviously feeling the same excitement as we were. He was beaming and didn't wanna stop playing for the night either.

Of course we handed him the ukulele and asked him to play. He was playing and singing and laughing. We were having a great time.

After a while there was another knock on the door. This time it was the tour manager. He said, "Reggie! Where have you been, man? They are waiting on you! Come On!"

Apparently there was a second encore about to commence but they were waiting on Reggie. We had accidentally confiscated his attention with our Uke.

Reggie just looked up and said, "Just a minute".

I'll never forget that moment. There was a thronging crowd awaiting an encore, there were 3/4 of a world class all star band on stage about to play and yet this musical master wanted to finish his Ukulele song before entertaining the idea of returning to the stage.

To see the look on his face and the enthusiasm with which he was playing that Uke, the tour manager had to concede.

Reggie finished his song (Which was "Mary, Mary" by the Monkees)...THEN he agreed to go play the final encore.

It was a beautiful moment to me. He wasn't by any means being a diva. Or saying "I will return to the stage when I'm good and ready". He was excited by the encore we had all played together and he was genuinely playing that Ukulele with excitement he had when he was a small child. He had been transported back to that time when he was first getting his hands around this magical stuff called music....and the power of that moment lit up his face. I could see it, Dale could see it and the tour manager could see it. That was more important than rushing back to the stage. He needed that extra minute and thirty seconds. And I did too.

Dale and I went back to side stage and watched Reggie join the band and then we watched them bring the house down one final time for the evening. They bowed. The crowd gave them a huge ovation. And the show was over.

But after seeing Reggie's Ukulele moment back stage I've been more aware of those magical musical moments. Reggie had been transported back to his childhood for a few moments and it made him as happy as I have ever seen a person. When he went back out on stage to perform some severely non-childlike music , this happiness brought the music an innocent simplicity.

It is from this that I noticed the entire band was playing with this attitude. That was how they made deeply mathematical music seem light and fun. They were all playing with the fearlessness and happiness of children.

Seeing my heroes approach complex music this way altered how I have approached music ever since. When I am fortunate enough to bump into moments, I cherish them. I love being transported back to the time I was just learning to play or just learning to sing or write. It fills my current writing and performing with so much passion and fire.

Of course technique and study are very very integral to making great music. However after seeing the excitement with which Reggie played that Ukulele spill over onto his jazz fusion playing I am more convinced than ever that all the technique in the world will not rival finding your own  "Reggie's Ukulele Moment".