I used my phone to record two minutes of something I was playing. It was a simple melody, mostly two chords with a few notes thrown in for color. Then I added another chord, played that a few times and went back to the first part. When I was done with that I added some distortion and played a four note solo over the rhythm. I didn’t think, just played. Didn’t try to play the right notes, just kind of hit them anyway, mostly. It was the most fun I’ve had with a guitar, ever.
Considering I’ve had guitars around since I was fourteen, and tinkered with them fairly regularly one would think that I’d have figured out how to actually enjoy playing the things by now, but that simple pleasure has eluded me. I’ve focused on playing other people’s music, and learned a ton of beginnings but never quite followed through with the rest of the song. Playing does not come easy to me. It takes forever for me to learn the simplest things. But learn them I have.
I read somewhere that it takes 10,000 hours to get really good at something. I must be at 9500, because things are coming along nicely. It’s not complicated, but it sure is fun.
Three songs to get us going – Have You Ever Seen the Rain by Creedence Clearwater Revival, Jumpin’ Jack Flash by the Rolling Stones and Secret Agent Man by Johnny Rivers. Those three songs are an indelible part of the soundtrack of my youth. None of the three were favorites, but I liked them well enough.
I had some time to sort things out on my own, getting older comes with far more things to do than getting together to play, and that suits me fine. I’ve never been a fast learner, and the guitar exceedingly slow. So I put some time in, Jumpin’ Jack Flash came easy – well, easy for me, just a few hours of repetitive barre chords and humming about toothless bearded hags and howling rain and I managed to play along with the original fairly well. Well enough for me, anyway, figured when I got together with Eric we’d iron things out.
Have You Ever Seen the Rain was a bit more challenging. Problem is, it sounds so easy. And four chords is all it takes. And I know all of those chords, and have been playing them since 1975. For reasons that remain a mystery to me, when I put those chords together and played the song, using the chords and lyrics I had printed from the internet something resembling a song appeared, but nothing like it was supposed to. Back to YouTube I went and found a twenty minute loop, Am, C, F then G. Then again. And again. And again and again and again. I even had John Fogarty singing along. Took me hours, but I’ve almost got it.
On to Secret Agent Man, another easy one. Still haven’t got it, but not from lack of trying. I’m close, but still miles away. I feel like I’m leading a life of danger every time I veer off into what should be a simple solo; E Pentatonic that I just can’t nail down. Might be because I stumbled on The Ventures version, which is a surf sounding masterpiece that I keep trying, and the Devo version is stuck in my head so everything is all gummed up!
Anyway, it’s only Rock and Roll. And I Like it.
Yes I do.
Even when it’s hard.
Image of two of my guitars, I’ve had the black one since 1977, the Stratocaster is new to me, a very much appreciated and unexpected gift. Thank you Eric!
Every now and then the world gives me a gift – a moment in time, unexpected, unsolicited and unplanned – when everything is just right.
I was playing Sympathy for the Devil by the Stones, the kids were singing back up, kind of, I taught them to do the “woo hoo” part during the chorus and between stuffing their faces with Popsicles, and Mr. Wilson was just happy to be part of the Front Porch Crew, when my daughter came back from wherever she was and took this picture. She sent it to me yesterday, and it made me remember to always leave the door open for possibilities, memorable moments are within reach, and most of them don’t come with pictures.
But this one did, and I am grateful.
Today me and Eric worked on Jumpin” Jack Flash for an hour or so, in the room where we practice was a pile of packages waiting to be opened. Those packages contained gifts that Eric’s wife, Stephanie ordered from her hospital bed, wondering if she would make it home for Christmas. The home was filled with the aroma from a gravy simmering on the stove, waiting for Stephanie’s sisters to join Eric and the family so they could open those boxes and finish planning the Celebration of Life planned for next month.
Who was Stephanie thinking of when she ordered those gifts? I guess the survivors will figure that out tonight, and I cannot imagine being part of such a heartbreaking moment. I sat next to the gathered gifts, and played the song, and listened to Eric playing the bass line, his eyes drifting to the pile, and managing to play through.
I guess that’s what we do. Play through. Fake it till we make it. Soldier on. The show keeps going even when the players want to give in. I put the guitar down and held onto the dog Stephanie had rescued, grabbed his ears and snuggled his face, rubbed his back and said, “good boy, Johnny Cash. Stay.”
I left after an hour or so, knowing that the gathering that was to follow needed some air. Johnny Cash sat next to the packages and watched me go.
Once upon a time the world was a mystical place. Books about a world at war were cleverly concealed inside epic fantasy novels, Gollum, the Evil One searched the scorched earth for a ring to bind the continents, heroes resided in common folks, willing to risk it all to stop him.
Sorcerers of death’s construction were exposed in song as politicians hid themselves away, unable to pollute the consciousness of mankind with their brainwashing social media presence, poisoning the minds of the masses.
Pedophiles weren’t concealed behind a labtynth of secrecy preying on little girls whose daddy left them all alone – they were forced to sit on a park bench eying those little girls with bad intent.
The problem with getting better at playing is all you want to do is keep playing. And then, the more you play, the more guitars you need. And before you know it, they start talking to you.
And that, my friends, is when good things start to happen.
The newest member of my guitar family is a Fender Squire Stratocaster. It found its way into my hands last Wendsday and I’m finding it more and more difficult to put it down.
The Band is coming together, Eric has the practice space set up, the players are aligning and plans being made. For now we’re getting in synch, playing some blues standards, Killing Floor by Howling Wolf has some teeth, Green Onions by Booker T and the MG’s is coming together, How Many More Times by Led Zeppelin sounds like something and some Social Distortion, Ramones, Jim Caroll Band, Creedence and maybe a little ZZ Top if I can get the tone right.
The plan is to write some songs and see where it goes. Best part is, we have nothing to lose and long lives with tons of experience to draw from. And even better than that, the three of us possess an essential ingredient; we’re dreamers who understand that work turns dreams into reality.
Way back in the late 80’s and early 90’s we lived in a little house, shared an old car more often than not and worked. The kids shared a tiny bedroom and we all shared a little bathroom. I was doing construction by day and bartending a few nights a week. My wife picked up some house cleaning jobs between running our house and carting the kids to dance, soccer and the mall. We didn’t have much, but didn’t notice.
We printed up some business cards, called ourselves The Cleaning People, picked up some more houses and offices to clean on the weekends. Not bragging, but we made enough money to provide a fun, busy life. I think we were considered poor. Did that until I was hired as a Providence Firefighter. Still did it for the first ten years of my career.
I always chuckle when I hear some gasbag preach that he treats the janitor and the waiter with respect, which I guess in his worldview makes him an honorable man. Having been both, and never having been treated disrespectfully it just makes sense to me to just be decent, no matter what.
The soundtrack of my youth has survived. I was weaned on ’60’s music, mostly the folk songs my parents loved, Joni Mitchell, Simon and Garfunkel, a little Dylan and of course, The Beatles. I don’t mind that stuff, but what I love has lasted into my sixties. To this day I play Sabbath, Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and The Who nearly as much as The Ramones, The Clash, B-52’s, Social D and any number of bands influenced by the great bluesman of the 20’s and 30’s, Robert Johnson, Blind Melon Jefferson then Muddy Waters, BB King and Elvis.
We bought the albums, then the 8 tracks, cassettes and CD’s. The music was precious, and ever present. Somebody would carry a “ghetto blaster” into the woods, some other entrepreneurial kid would figure out how to get a keg or two and charge five bucks a cup and the crowd magically appeared. The music was our identity, and built a community among a bunch of teenaged kids desperate for the taste of freedom that we found through those speakers.
I’m looking forward to spring, and working outside, the echoes from the boom box replaced with ear buds, and the tunes delivered digitally. It amazes me how much is available for next to nothing, and even more how I can time travel just by listening.
Image is Black Sabbath’s first albulm, and the first album in my long gone collection of hundreds. Maybe thousands.
Boomers starting a band need patience. Life is already full, commitments need fulfilling, people need attention and the freedom from responsibility that gives flight to the spirit of music needs a little redirection. In other words, we need to make time, and that is a little more complicated than it used to be. Speaking of used to be, I used to respond to 911 calls for a living. The spirit of rock and roll was always with me . . .
Smoke fills the parking lot, obscuring the scene. It lifts a little, the crowd roars when the band steps out of their truck. A man is down, possibly injured, not breathing, no pulse. I need some rhythm, and the drummer and bass player start pumping. CPR at 120 beats per minute.
Two beats a second, 1-2-3-4 and 2-3-4 and 2-3-4 . . . The roadies move in, bundle up the patient and into the bus they go. The drummer keeps his steady beat, the wind section kicks in with a non-re-breather, the lead guitar player knocks out a face melting, adrenaline charged solo through the IV line…They stop, the crowd waits…
I feel for a pulse, watch the monitor, and kick the band back into rhythm. Our backups get the bus moving, we head for the show, but this is no practice session in the back of the bus, this is the show, mistakes are not part of the program. In perfect synchrony we play on, the steady beat from the rhythm section keeping the lead guitar focused, doing the things that make it all come together in perfect harmony.
We enter the arena, security parts the crowd, bright lights blind us, the trauma team waits. The body on the stretcher rises, the crowd goes wild . . .
Yeah, I’m a dork. But I’d rather be a dork who loves what he does than somebody who is so good at what he does he just goes through the motions, never gets excited and says things like, “been there, done that.”
I love EMS. Where else can a simple guy feel like a rock star. The roaring crowds are figments of my imagination, and the guitars and drums and all that just some goofy thing I wrote, but still, the feeling I get when responding to a call is as strong now as it was thirty years ago. (I know, I’m retired, but it seems like the bell could tip any minute)
Few people know true job satisfaction, and fewer still know that without a doubt what they did on any given day made a difference in another person’s life. Hardly anybody can say that they brought a life into the world, and cut an umbilical cord or three, or say they were with an elderly lady during her last graceful moments, or that they got somebody’s ticker ticking again.
“It’s all good, and its all in fun, so get in the pit and try and love someone!” – Kid Rock
Well, I’m no Kid Rock, but I do know how it feels to be in the pit and save someone. It doesn’t matter if nobody is listening, or cheering, because it felt great.
I scrimped and saved, fanagled a bit, raided my retirement fund and figured out how sell the modest home we had lived in for ten years to buy a run down house near the water, make it ADA compliant and comfortable.
Actually pulled it off.
Then came the reevaluation. My little house near the water, surrounded by little houses near the water is now worth a ton of money, according to the city of Warwick, RI. A few places near me, waterfront old beach houses that people with a lot of money bought for a lot of money created comps for the city to use. My property tax tripled.
Equity is great, I guess, when you are still in the game. Paying for unrealized capital gains when you have zero intention of capitalizing on those gains until you are dead or wish you were isn’t great at all, but here we are. And so are a lot of people, except for the people who can’t pay the tax and all that goes with it and are forced to sell their homes and find somewhere to live.
Practiced yesterday, things are starting to gel, I can hear it, but better yet, I can feel it . . .
Life is better with music, and the better the music, the better the life.
Back in the day we didn’t have much choice; two radio stations, both on the AM dial provided us with indelible memories. A song heard on a sultry night in the 1960s was magical, the tinny sound from a transistor radio mesmerizing as we swatted mosquitoes from our sweaty necks, citronella smoke doing next to nothing to keep them away and the chirp of crickets a constant companion just beneath the song we waited hours to hear.
Those songs hold the same power when heard some fifty years later in an air-conditioned home complete with mortgage payments and all that goes with it. For those three minutes anything is possible; love regains its allure, the future is full of promise and the powerlessness derived from decades of living is replaced with possibility.
Music defined us. It was at the heart of our world, provided a soundtrack to our lives and gave us identity. There were Greasers and Socs, Mods and Rockers, Punks and Skins and, in my neck of the woods, Hicks and Guidos. Most of us identified with one group, and dressed to fit the part, grew our hair or slicked it back, drove Trans Ams if we were wealthy, jalopies if we were not.
One thing those cars had in common was the sound system; preferably a Pioneer Super Tuner with Jensen speakers in boxes in the back, a power booster to kick things up and a willingness to forfeit conversation as we rode through town, or parked along the seawall or any number of places the cops let us gather.
The music held us together. AC/DC was universally accepted among the groups I grew up with, everybody related to “Problem Child,” and “Dirty Deeds,” and eventually “Back in Black.” The Hicks tolerated “Saturday Night Fever,” and Prince’s “Purple Rain” erased any barriers we had created. People on the opposite side of my musical proclivity felt the same recklessness in their heart when Metallica was playing as we could appreciate the sensuality of the top 40 hits being played over most of their FM stations.
In music we found community. Through our differences we had cohesion. We all knew the same songs, whether they were being played over the air or through the boom box that was as essential to us as backpacks are to the kids today. Music was in the air, not enclosed in private ear buds and tailored to each individual taste. Exposure to different musical styles was not an option. An appreciation of the varied sounds of the world around us developed, and tolerance was second nature.
I wonder what we have lost as a result of superior technology. There is no more waiting to hear a favorite song, if there even is such a thing. Customized play lists destroy the chance of hearing something new, something different, and something transformative. How many people will never know the power of “Night Moves,” as Autumn closes in, or discover the joy and sorrow of dancing in the “Purple Rain”? Will they be able to tell a lady’s man by the way they walk, or Imagine there’s no heaven?
I think it’s time to dust off some CDs and go for a ride. How loud does this thing get, anyway? Try not to laugh too hard if the old geezer with bleeding ears next to you at the stoplight is banging on his steering wheel, smiling from ear to ear and singing along to a song that sounds familiar.
by Michael Morse 
