Musical blessings

It has been a wild and woolly couple of weeks for me - being on vacation and then two conferences.

The second conference was the regional Folk Alliance conference called FARWest.   FARWest is essentially a trade conference for acoustic musicians and bookers.    There are workshops aimed at helping touring musicians and venues to do what they do better and lots and lots and lots of music.  The performances begin in mid afternoon and run until 2:30 in the morning... followed by an open jam session for those who still don't want to go to bed.  Add getting to spend time with old friends and make some new ones.

I have no idea how many performers there were but between the official showcases and coffeehouse and the guerrilla showcases that take place in hotel rooms, I think I saw at least 40-50 different acts.  Some literally knocked my socks off and I hope to book them for Cambridge Drive Concerts.   Some were really great but didn't seem as if they would be the right acts for Cambridge Drive.  Others... didn't click for me... which is not a swipe at the quality of the performer's art, only a statement that it wasn't my cup of tea for a variety of reasons.  Depending on how I was feeling at any given point it was either musical nirvana or musical overload. 

Then, I got home and began working on music for a gig I have this Friday (10/23) with Robin Howe and the Darin Lee Project.  They've got a full band for this gig with Grace Feldman on drums, Eric Brittain on guitar, and me on bass.  It is some very nicely crafted pop music and I' looking forward to the gig.  At the same time, it has been a long time since I've played with a full fledged rocking band... and I forgot my earplugs for rehearsal.   I'll not do that again.  If you're in greater Santa Barbara this weekend, we're at The Brewhouse at 8:30.  Stop by for some really great music.

On Sunday, I am back playing bass with our excellent church band.  We do a very wide variety of musical styles and (if I do say so myself) are one of the better church bands that I've heard, especially when you realize that our players are mostly volunteers while the big churches mostly have paid players.  IMHO we hold our own or better any of the bands I've heard.  Still, church music is not about performance.  It is about experiencing the presence of God.  I can only speak for myself there, but I certainly feel God's presence in the music this band makes.

Back to Cambridge Drive Concerts... more wonderful music.  We present on the first Friday of each month and have a great show coming up in a bit more than two weeks from this writing with Dulcie Taylor as our headline act and banjo gal, Donna Lynn Caskey opening.

All in all... I am blessed with the opportunity to hear and play some wonderful music.

GAS

Guitar players talk about an affliction called GAS - Guitar Acquisition Syndrome. It stems from this belief that if only I can finally find the right guitar, the perfect guitar, then my playing will be incredible and the music of the spheres will find its release through my fingers. Two other ideas feed it - the first is that we live in the golden age of guitar building. There are literally hundreds of incredible builders who, in spite of the growing scarcity of the best wood, are building better guitars in more designs than have ever been done in history. This excellence trickles down even to the larger factory companies like Martin and Taylor building as many as 400 guitars a day and to the least expensive guitars built in Asian factories at numbers dwarfing the American factories. The second idea goes back to the Summer of Love. Back in the hippie days, consumerism was frowned upon and owning more than you needed was a serious no no... except when it came to musical instruments, especially guitars. Somehow, it was still OK to have very expensive guitars.

The three ideas come together and many guitar players go through instruments like candy. If you look at the classifieds on any guitar forum, you'll see significant numbers of hand built instruments for sale with prices nearing 5 figures or passing that barrier. Wherever you see a gathering of guitar players with their instruments, you're likely to see some serious and beautiful guitars.

I'm not as susceptible to GAS as I once was because I'm pretty happy with my Lowden which is pictured above. When my previous Lowden was stolen in Philadelphia in '99, the folk at Lowden were amazing to me and built me a very special guitar. George himself carved the bracing in my guitar. I've been playing Lowdens since about '87 and the sound fits me. So, even though I deeply appreciate the art and beauty of lots of what I see out there, it is difficult to imagine finding something that I really want instead of my Lowden.

FAR-West was one of the largest gatherings of guitar players I've attended so it was fun to see what instruments the performers had and what accessories they were using (also included under the general malady of GAS). I didn't count anything so these are just guesstimates... but fun for me none the less. It seemed that the single most popular make of guitar was Martin. That surprised me. I thought Martin had been dethroned by Taylor... which seemed to be the second most popular company. I wasn't surprised that neither one was a majority. I saw lots of smaller company guitars and a number of high end single luthier built instruments. I know how much money guitar players make so that part does surprise me... There was a very small number of Asian built guitars and one or two Larrivees, a quality Canadian factory built guitar that also has a factory in California.

Among the small shop guitars I saw a number from Santa Cruz Guitar Company who build Martin inspired guitars of very high quality and a few from James Goodall who builds a more modern style of guitar. I didn't see any Lowdens, Collings, or Bourgeois. I didn't see all of the players so I may have missed one or more of any of these companies. Then, I saw a number of the single luthier guitars... I saw one each of a Greenfield, a Sexhauer, a Wingert, and an Olson. All of those guitars pushed me towards a bout with GAS - beautiful sound, immaculate craftsmanship, sublime materials - although my wallet is nowhere near fat enough to even consider one. Then there were a few guitars that I didn't recognize which were likely built by other single luthiers without the same degree of recognition, at least to me.

Accessories were also interesting... I participate on the Acoustic Guitar Forum where a regular discussion comes up about cases vs. gig bags. It feels almost like my teen years when you were either a Ford or a Chevy person. There are a variety of different ways to carry and protect an instrument from high cost, extremely protective,low weight carbon fiber cases to cheap gig bags that are little more than a nylon grocery bag which do nothing more than keep the dust off. There are lots in the middle. Again, no counting, but from what I saw people carrying around, about 1/3 seemed to have Caltons. These are relatively expensive (around $800), very heavy fiberglass touring cases. If you're going to hand a $10K guitar to a baggage handler... they are a good idea but because of weight and size, don't ever expect to carry one onto a plane and figure that if you have to carry it very far, your arms will stretch to orangutan length. I had one for a while and appreciated the protectiveness of it, but it was far too heavy and bulky for me so I sold it. Another 1/3 had high quality gig bags. These usually run from about $150-$350 and are made of heavy nylon or leather with thick foam padding. They are much smaller and lighter than the Caltons and usually have some system of straps to wear them on your back. The argument for them is that because of the smaller size and weight, it is easier to keep your guitar in your hands or on your back and safe. FWIW, all of my guitars live in quality gig bags including a wonderful custom leather bag for my Lowden made by Glenn Cronkhite. The rest were in factory hard cases - the kind that usually come with a guitar when you purchase it and cost from about $80-200 on the aftermarket depending on the quality and company. I didn't see any carbon fiber cases even with the most expensive guitars.

So...no GAS for me... but I got very, very close to catching it again.

FAR-West

In earlier posts - here and here, I've talked about the Cambridge Drive Concert Series. We have our second show coming up next week, Novemeber 5, with a wonderful performer named Anna Coogan for our headliner and Christina Grimm opening. More about that in a post to come...

Last week I was able to attend most of FAR-West, the western regional convention of the Folk Alliance International. The Folk Alliance is a professional organization dedicated to improving the ecology of folk music, building stronger artists, presenters, and audiences. How that plays out at the conventions is that there are workshops aimed at helping artists and presenters do what they do better and lots and lots and lots of performances.

I went as a presenter and so was there to learn things that would help us improve our concert series and to hear some acts for possible bookings. Both things happened.

The biggest learning for me was one which had to do with which artists I should book. Some of the more experienced presenters said that it is clear that the best concerts happen when the presenter truly likes the performer but that the audience should be the primary consideration. The performer must fit with the audience the venue has cultivated. So... a performer who fits the audience and whom the presenter likes is the best case scenario. Second comes a performer who fits the audience but isn't a favorite of the presenter. Last is an act that is a fav of the presenter but doesn't fit the audience. Given this, the mantra for presenters is, "know your audience."

We aren't there yet at the Cambridge Drive Concerts. We haven't yet developed our audience. Still, I need to be careful and book performers who I think will fit... and as I make these early booking decisions, I will likely shape the audience we will have in the future.

To the performers, the lesson here was that when a presenter does or does not book you, you know little about whether they like your music. It may be that you are their favorite among everything they've heard, but for some reason you don't work for their audience. Or - and this piece was a surprise to me - they may love you but just don't have a slot for you. Most of the presenters were booked at least a year out and some were booked multiple years out. One festival presenter said he sometimes is thinking 3 or 4 years down the road. That is astounding to me. I can't wrap my head around planning that far in advance. Who knows what wonderful new performers will appear between now and then... or whether some favorite will decide to give up the life of a traveling musician... My gut tells me not to book any more than a year out - ever - but I wonder whether that will preclude me from booking some acts that I would really like to present. Time will tell. For what it's worth, right now we're booked about 5 months out for the headliners and I'm waiting to hear back from one or two others so within a few days I could have my headline acts booked through May of 2011.

The performances are mind boggling. There are official "Premier Showcases," each giving half hour slots to 7 performers on Friday and 6 on Saturday in three rooms, chosen by a panel... so 21 Premiere Showcase performances took place on Friday and 18 on Saturday. Then there were two "Featured Performers" who also performed at the same time in two different rooms on Friday evening and one on Saturday. So, you listen for a song or two and then off to the next room to hear another performer for a song or two... Beside this, there is serious craziness - Guerrilla Showcases. A performer rents a hotel room, pushes the beds up against the wall and adds a few chairs and maybe some mood lighting and snacks and then books performers, usually in half hour slots, sometimes from late afternoon but certainly after the Premiere showcases ave ended at 10:00 until the wee hours of the morning. There were 25 Guerrilla Showcase rooms all on one floor of the hotel. Imagine the cacophony... and the difficulty when an acapella Celtic singer is performing in a room across the hall from a bluegrass band. Still, it was a great way to get little tastes of a LOT of music in a short time. The currency of the conference are 3X5 cards with a photo of the performer and name on one side and their schedule of Guerrilla Showcases on the other side.

I heard some wonderful music that I am working to book... and some wonderful music that may not work for our series. We've already booked James Hurley for January and Cindy Kalmenson for March and I'm talking with a number of other possibilities.