Sonic Highways: A Lesson in Story Telling

 Thanks to a friend, I’ve been watching a set of DVDs which chronicle the Foo Fighters latest recording, a concept album called Sonic Highways. Whether or not you’re a music fan, the way the album and DVD are put together is an outstanding example of story telling.

In the DVDs, each episode shows the band arriving in a city, learning about the musical influences, and then recording a song that exudes the flavor of that space. Each piece usually incorporates a local guest recording artists (such as Joe Walsh in California).

Great music. But how is this related to literature or writing?

There’s a lot we, as writers, can learn from the way Dave Grohl creates his art. First of all, the whole concept of the project stresses the importance of setting. There are things that characters will often do in one location but not in others. As a writer, your story is always a mixture of the people involved and the place they’re in, and what took place in the past in order to create the current environment. A story’s setting isn’t just a location: it’s a place in time that’s the culmination of all that’s come before in that space.

The setting in which you place a story influences actions and sets mood. It’s the same in music as it is in literature as it is in life. What Dave Grohl is tapping into is the subtle differences in culture between cities on the same continent. He's also showing the impact of time on these things. Cities have personalities and atmospheres that have evolved in a particular manner.

Think about the setting in your writing almost as if it’s another character, because it’s just as important to moving the plot along. If you watch these DVDs, notice how different cities produce different musical sounds because of the unique mixture of people who live there or the kinds of struggles and achievements that took place in those locations. These nuances provide the rich texture and context for a story, and these are the kinds of details that bring a story to life.

The tag line on the DVD set is “Every city has a sound. Every sound has a story” and these DVDs tell those stories well. Highly recommended viewing.

How Life is Like Jazz

 

 A friend posted this meme on Facebook and it got me thinking that a lot of what applies to jazz also applies to life. So here are my thoughts on life and jazz this morning.

1. It exists in the moment. You can’t store it up or save it for later. It must be experienced now.

2. You have to constantly improvise for things to keep moving.

3. It’s always the right time to listen to others around you.

4. Everyone who wants it gets a chance to solo, if even for a brief moment.

5. It works best when everyone respects their peers.

6. You can jump back in and join the song at any time as long as you play well with others.

7. The more you play, the better you get.

8. If you’re dwelling on something other than the moment, things could train wreck. You can’t spend your time thinking about what happened at the beginning or trying to figure out where everything will end.

9. It’s beautiful when it’s done right.

Scarpati Interview: The Scorpions Deadly Sting Cover

Interview With John Scarpati

Introduction

You may not know the name John Scarpati, but I’m positive you’re familiar with his work. He’s a photographer who has done hundreds of album covers, including a number of which became gold and platinum records. Take a brief moment to look over the list on Scarpati's Wikipedia page (note: Wikipedia only has a partial list of his covers). He’s also published a book of some of his images from the 80s called Cramp Slash & Burn: When Punk and Glam Were Twins.

Scarpati is not just talented and extremely personable, he’s also a friend of mine (because I only hang around the nicest people). So I spent a few hours talking with him about some of the work he’s done and he graciously answered my questions. Below is part of our conversation on the making of the Scorpion’s Deadly Sting album cover.

Interview

Question: What is a typical job like?
Answer: There are no typical jobs. One of my favorite aspects of photography is problem solving and that no two jobs are the same. Especially if you’re doing concept photography, you never know what it’s going to take to build and bring a concept to fruition. It could be location, studio, props, getting the right team together. You can never be completely ready for a shoot and that’s what excites me about what I do. every day is a new adventure with a new set of problems.

Question: Tell me about shooting the Scorpions “Deadly Sting” cover. What kinds of problems did you have and how did you solve them?
Answer: For the Scorpions cover we needed 300 live African Emperor scorpions as part of the set.

Question: How do you find something like that?
Answer: Turns out there’s a guy named Jules Sylvester  who supplies reptiles and insects for movies and photo shoots, so I worked with him. He brought us a few different kinds of scorpions and several hundred of each so that we could pick the ones we wanted.

Question: So then Jules handled the scorpions for you?
Answer: You actually need one certified scorpion wrangler for each hundred scorpions on the set. This is required for insurance, so we had 3 animal wranglers on the set.

Question: How did all those scorpions do on the set?
Answer: They got really aggressive under the lights because the tungsten lights are very warm. So we had a small window of opportunity to work with them before they became too aggressive and feisty.

Question: Is there a way to calm them down? Or how did you handle that?
Answer: They calm down when they’re cooler, so we had to cool them off in the refrigerator.

Question: Was this a special refrigerator unit?
Answer: It was a regular kitchen refrigerator. We unpacked everything to make room and the wranglers put the scorpions in containers so we could cool them down. We went back and forth between the refrigerator and the set. We had about 5 minutes under the lights before the scorpions became too aggressive and all hell broke loose where they tried to get out of the set.

Question: Did the scorpions naturally get into the poses you wanted or did you have to work with the temperature as they became more aggressive?
Answer: If they’re calm, you can blow on them with a straw to get them into the hero pose. So we had this small window of time where the wranglers were blowing on them and I had move the camera into the set and set the shot.

Question: What about the girl? Was she on the set with these scorpions?
Answer: The girl in that shoot was a lot safer than you might think. She was photographed separately against a 20 foot by 20 foot sky backdrop and the scorpions on her were ones that had died in transit. We superglued the dead scorpions into aggressive positions and placed them on the model’s body. Then we used photoshop to put the image of the model into the picture with the live scorpions.

Question: Were you glad to be done working with scorpions when the shoot was over?
Answer: Actually, I picked the biggest scorpion on the set, which turns out was also the oldest, and I kept him for a pet for about three years until he died. It was a normal lifespan for a scorpion because he was already old when I got him, but I named him Klaus, after the lead singer of the Scorpions.


Finally, take 2 minutes to watch this short video on the making of Scarpati's book Cramp, Slash & Burn. Some of the canvases will be on display at Bongo Java in Nashville during the month of May.



Cramp, Slash & Burn... "When Punk and Glam were Twins" from john scarpati on Vimeo.

More about Scarpati:

He wanted to be a painter.
He wanted to be a rock star.
He ended up being neither – and both.

Links:
Scarpati’s Website
On LinkedIn
Scarpati's Wikipedia Page

More Info on Cramp, Slash, and Burn:
CSB Website
CSB on Facebook
Online Book Preview
thebook@crampslashandburn.com

Links for Scarpati's Book Eyes Wide Open:
Online Book Preview
Eyes Wide Open on Facebook

Making Up Band Names ... Again!

Been a little swamped in the new year, but I suddenly realized that I haven’t made up any new band names for awhile. So here we go ...

Illicit label
A Rap/ Hip Hop band that cross markets in the liquor industry to endorse a spirit of the same name. Whenever I’m in the “Wine and Spirits” store I often ask the manager for the section of “slightly mischievous but not quite evil spirits,” so perhaps Illicit Label Spirits will use my tag line on the bottles and it they will say: “slightly mischievous, but not quite evil. Illicit in both label and attitude.”

Eyesore Across the Alley
A Grunge Band, of course. All the band photos should be taken in alleys where famous people have died.

Small Gods
This is the name of one of my favorite books by Terry Pratchett and as soon as I saw the title I thought it would be an awesome band name. So here it is. After all, rock stars are really small gods in our culture so why not be honest about it?

Downtown Beaver Dam
A bluegrass band.  That jug player better hit his pitch or we’re not letting him choose the contents of the jug.

Crime Slut
This is another all girl band and all I can visualize is black leather and glossy red lips. If you dress the women appropriately it doesn’t matter what they sound like.

Your Conscience
I just think it would be funny for the band to announce “Thank you for coming to hear us. We are Your Conscience.”


For those of you who missed them, my previous posts on band names with such classics as “Funky Cupcake” and “Pancake Maggots” are located here and here.  Enjoy and keep rocking in the new year!

Life Lessons From The Drum Show

 This past weekend I attended the Nashville Drum Show. If I had to describe this event in one word, it would be LOUD. Imagine a room with a cement floor, cinder block walls, tin roof, and hundreds of drums and drummers. Even the sales reps were wearing earplugs.

It was difficult to talk during the show, but I did see some very nice things. Check out the beautiful work on the drums in the photos in this post.

However, no matter how beautiful the drum is, what matters most is the sound and it was difficult to hear anything clearly amid all the noise.  It’s like trying to hear a conversation when there are a few hundred people shouting around you.

My husband and I talked when we left the show. He’s worked with a lot of drummers and he said that he’s found that some of them just hit as hard as they can and let the producer set the levels in the recordings (or sound guy in a live situation). Other drummers play according to the situation and adjust their volume to the size of the room, type of event, genre of music, and the people they’re playing with. In other words, some drummers pretty much do one thing: they’re very solid, lay down the beat, and let someone else make it fit. Other drummers are more collaborative in their approach and see making music as a team effort.

I think I’ve come across people who approach life from each of these perspectives, also. The ones who hit hard and let others sort it out have the ability to drive the song, but they also tend to leave a lot of broken pieces behind. The ones who adapt to the situation and adjust their playing accordingly have more friends. I don’t know if one approach is more valuable than the other, although I know which one I prefer. I know that sometimes what we need is a strong beat to help us keep going, but most of the time what we need are people who can work with us as collaborators. Those are the situations where life is most beautiful.

An Excerpt From My Conversation with John

Last week I met John Ford Coley at a party and really enjoyed talking with him. John is an interesting guy who told me that he gives two pieces of advice to musicians who are new to Nashville. The things he said could be beneficial to a person in just about any industry, so I thought I would share them here.

He said that there are basically two rules that you need to follow. My apologies to John for not remembering his exact wording, but here’s the general sense of what he said to me:

1. Don’t say anything negative about anyone else.
You might think that you’re “safe” talking about someone behind their back, but these things have a way of coming back on you. The person you’re talking with might even agree with you or might not have contact with the person you’re talking about, but it’s very likely that the person you talked to will talk to someone else. Nashville really is a small town and word gets around. Even if you work in a larger city, most professions have small communities and if you badmouth one of the members of that community it’s likely to get back to the person or to someone who knows the person. If you talk negatively about other people you may be burning bridges you didn’t know existed because eventually no one wants to talk with you.

2. Don’t get upset if someone less qualified or less talented gets a job that you thought you deserved.
This is a difficult one because in just about any profession you’ll see hacks making a lot of money doing poor quality work while more talented individuals get ignored. However, griping doesn’t change the situation and only makes you look bad. You may not like the work that someone else is doing, but calling attention to that person’s deficits will only make you bitter and appear less attractive to work with. Let it go and realize that your time will come. We can’t all be successful at the same time or in the same way, so be glad for someone else when their star shines. Eventually it will be your turn and hopefully others will be just as gracious with you.

John has a lot of maturity and wisdom. He knows that it takes more than talent to make it in any industry - it also takes being the sort of person that other people want to be around. Take the time to develop your skills, but also develop your character because even the best qualified people can't be successful alone.

Art and Eternity

My band released our first video this week.  Here it is, for those of you who are interested.

At the end of the video I wanted to put the quote below, but we decided against it because we were afraid it would take away from the music.  So I thought I’d share it here where words are expected.

“The only thing that’s real...

The only thing that lasts...

Is the art.”

Does this mean that I think souls aren’t real?

No.  It means that I think that souls are works of art.  

Each of us is a work of art, not for how we look on the outside, but for who we are and how our life experiences have changed us.  Some souls are highly polished and refined with intricate details.  Some are rustic and weathered forms that are beautiful for what they are: simple and authentic.  Some of us are fragmented like a Picasso.  Others are dark and mysterious. We are all different and these differences make us beautiful.  How we respond to what life gives us has the potential to make us even more so.

The Beet Chips

One of my favorite pastimes is making up band names.  See my previous posts here and here for more about this hobby.

However, the other day I was in the grocery store and saw a product called “Sweet Potato and Beet Chips” and I came up with another genius band name: The Beet Chips.

The Beet Chips is a group of five Guys names named “Chip” who sing songs about beets.  Their first album will be an EP with 5 cover tunes familiar to the average listener.  Only the most astute listeners will catch the nuance of the band singing about “beets” rather than “beats.” This is primarily because the difference in pronunciation will be difficult to detect because of the Chips’ accents (they’re going to be British).  The track listing on their EP will be something like this:

Beet It

Every Beet of My Heart

We Got the Beet

Rockin’ to the Beet

You Can’t Stop the Beat

Their second album, which is destined to fail miserably, will be a series of love songs to beets.  Songs will include such tracks as the ballad “I Wouldn’t Get My Iron Anywhere Else” or the pop tunes  “Purple Passion and Fiber” and “Borscht, Borscht, Baby.”

Critics and fans will, of course, disagree over the quality of the music with each party attempting to proclaim the album as more of a  miserable failure.  New words will be invented to describe the enormous level of suck and a media war will ensue as the album’s ratings continue to decline into negative numbers.

At this point two of the Chips will become severely depressed and question why the beet betrayed them.  One will turn to alcohol and make an appearance on Celebrity Rehab where Dr. Drew will attempt to get Chip to start eating beets again.  However, this treatment will later backfire as Chip eventually learns how to freebase beets from watching one of the other celebrities.

The most heartbreaking part of this fiasco is that 20 years later there will be 5 guys named Nick who repeat the entire cycle by forming a group called “The Beet Nicks.”  It just goes to show that you should always do your research.  But the Nicks won’t be that bright.  They will just look good in red turtlenecks and love songs about iron rich foods.

My First Vocal Recording Session

I spent last Saturday in the studio with my band Lucky Munk assisting the engineer and producer with vocal tracks for our first recording. I wasn’t singing (so you can all relax), but as the drummer in the group I was allowed into the session to provide creative input. So I made my input as creative as I could.

First of all, I gave good tips on tonal quality to the vocalist such as “You sounded a little like Kermit the Frog on that take” and “I’m still hearing Kermittone in your voice” or “I need a little more Fozzy here.” The Muppets are universal, by the way, so they provide an excellent reference for making a point. I also gave good advice such as “How about if you sing the lyrics on the sheet in front of you?” And I made sure to be supportive and told the vocalist how hot his butt looks when he’s singing because you’ve got to keep building the vocalist’s confidence no matter how much he asks, “but how did I sound?”

One of the coolest things about being in the studio is that on the computer you can see the sound waves as they’re being created on every take. As a visual person, I loved this. These were like little Rorschach ribbons endlessly spooling. We voted on which take was the best and while other people would say “number 4” or “number 7” I kept in mind that I was there for creative input and said, “I like the one that looks like two birds kissing” or “the one that looks like an evil sandwich.”

While we were recording, I also took the opportunity to ask a lot of questions of the Producer, such as, “Why do you take another aspirin after every time I speak?” (The answer, by the way, was “You have a natural ability to remind me that I need to reduce my stress level.). And, “Are those really aspirin? Because I don’t think you should be taking so many of them.” He just smiled politely, so I’m not sure how well he speaks English. He didn’t have an accent, but you can never tell.

Another tip in case you’re ever in the control room during a recording session. The producer likes it when you agree with him. He kept mentioning (and at odd times, like when things were very intense) that it would be nice if we had someone who could run to Starbucks and get coffee such as someone who was not producing or engineering. I always agreed and said, “Yes, it’s too bad we don’t have someone like that who also isn’t providing creative input.” Then the producer and engineer would smile at each other and that’s how I knew that I was doing the right thing by agreeing with him.

I was not in the control room on Sunday when guitar parts were recorded. Apparently, they had all the creative input they could handle for one weekend.

Here’s the link to the song we finished. WARNING: The contents of this MP3 may contain elements of Jazz and/or Blues. Listeners sensitive to these harmonies should proceed with caution. If you or someone in the room with you is adversely affected by the sound of a hollow body guitar, you may want to turn down the volume before clicking the link.

You can also go to our FaceBook page and leave comments on what you liked or didn’t like about the song. We really do want some feedback. And if you like what we’re doing or feel that the drums sound awesome, please also “like” our Facebook page. We appreciate it.