Busking

The day was cooler than normal and there was an arts event downtown producing foot traffic, so I decided to go a busking.  For those unacquainted with the term, busking is street performing.  Singers, find a spot, open the case, take out the guitar and sing for tips. 

There is an entertainment district with mapped out locations for buskers and times of the week when this is allowed. Before these districts were established busking was considered pandering and a performer could pay a fine or be arrested, To boost foot traffic for the sake of businesses such as restaurants, busking was legitimized. It is Free Entertainment for the businesses who used to pay performers. Oh boy, but ok.   Couldn't be simpler.

Not quite.

1.  Location Location Location.   Where you setup makes a difference.  There are sweet spots and of course, if you need a PA (and you do), you have to plug the electron hose in.   The best spots are near the restaurants where there is a seated crowd.  The next best are the spots away from the entrances.  The why is people entering or leaving are focused on getting somewhere and they usually do not pause.  So even though you will be seen, tips are thin.  Caveat vendor,

2, May Be Hazardous.  If it was all foot traffic, it would be ok but these are streets with cars driving along them slowly.  You are singing and inhaling a not inconsiderable amount of car emissions.  It won't take long for your throat and lungs to notice.  So just as rooms are eliminating cigarette smoke, the cars are there to put the carbon dioxide back.

3.  Trolls.  The "I Have Taste and I Matter" folk are everywhere and like web trolls, they are there to tell you about that.  Smile and nod.  Or ask them if you can come to their job and tell them how to do it.  Your choice.

4.  Crazies. They can get quite physically close and you don't have the slight advantage of a club manager or bouncer,   This is an open carry environment meaning they have had time to down a few brews and if combined with other substances, they can be very dangerous.  Ninety nine percent of the passerbyes are fine folk but there will always be at least one wasted I Just Got Out Of Prison wacko wandering in.  Stay cool, nod, don't engage,  You can be hurt and very fast.   This is the one undeniable risk.

5.  Material.  Some of us are screamers, some of us are whisperers and some are a mix.   You are outside and unless you have a PA, the traffic both auto and human will drown you out.  Choose wisely.  Some acts are not suitable for the street and no one is that interested because they can walk a half block and listen to another act,

Understand the environment and prepare and busking is great fun.  You can try out new material without wounding the business of a club owner, you can meet people, you can do what you love to do.   Unless you pick the event the money won't be that good but if you pay for gas and a meal, you've helped yourself better than practicing alone.  You can check out your brother and sister performers (aka, competitors), see what is working for them, maybe make a few contacts.   Is it begging?  Sort of but that's ok. Name a job of any kind these days that isn't.  Remember if you sell merc you are not busking.  You are a street vendor and you will need a license for that.

Entertainment opportunities change with economies.  I've seen times when singer songwriters could fill stadiums and times when they have to give it away,   These times are more like the latter but these are opportunities to play if the money isn't the main objective.  And remember this isn't just about the solo artists, it is also the problem for the B-list and former A-list bands who are having to play strip malls.  So no matter how good you think it is for others, everyone is scrambling.   It gets competitive and you have to smile, play more and get by with less.   Adapt, innovate and keep at it.

Unfollowing: The Real Power of Social Media

Daryl Hannah posted a wonderfully sad, gentle, soft and salving video to her Facebook feed.   How do I know it was herself and not Team Daryl?   I asked and she replied quite quickly:  "There is no Team Daryl Hannah. xo"  Just that.  Sweet and with a kiss.   Perfect.

 Then there is Bette Midler.  She posts to her own page instead of having Team Bette do it. Or if she does, she's fooling me well enough to keep it entertaining or makes me think, And that is why she stays in my feed. The cause posts are ok. Those are passions and shared passions are essential to conversation.  It doesn't matter that she doesn't speak directly to me.  She is an a-lister with limited time and hundreds of thousands of fans.   I get that.   It matters that her posts are her voice, her thoughts,  It matters that she respects us enough not to fool us to advance a cause or sell a t-shirt or even an album.  I don't care that she does that as long as she does that.

I've begun to unfollow the celebrities who have Team Zeds, the professional social media experts who post for them, build their brand, sell their bric a brac and otherwise try to create an illusion of involvement, of engagement, of caring.   I am fatigued by the marketing, the shallow engagements, the little dismissives, the big frauds who consume attention and offer cotton candy comforts.   Enough.

This is a conversational medium. The a-listers who get that know if they don't actually communicate, if they let Team Zed do it, then maybe they don't need fans. And that turns us into consumers. Same as TV. And that turns my feed into a street lamp covered with old band posters. The best hope for changing or healing or offering a bit of comfort in daunting times is smart people having smart conversations because choosing who chooses our choices is the ultimate surrender of our power to another, not quite love because that surrenders our selves, but certainly a choice to be made passionately.

Daryl and Bette stay on my feed.  I am grateful they are offering their unique passionate points of view.   So it's a privilege to share a sweet, sad gentle song in which a genuine person sings backup, Daryl Hannah.   She is a Seyfert: a rare kind galaxy because at it's center instead of a void, there is a glowing heart.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoQmHxGjR1I&app=desktop 

So You're Playing Songwriter's Open Mic:

So you're playing songwriter's open mic:

1. WHO ARE YOU? Always tell us your name. No, just because you have recorded two songs locally, we may not know who you are. Tell us your name at the beginning and end of your set.
2. Tune up BEFORE you get on stage. Really.
3. Bring your own stuff. We all forget things but best to check your gear before you leave the house. Picks, capo, spare strings, oxycontin, these are things one shouldn't have to borrow. (we all have to do it but try not to).
4. If you wrote the song yesterday, it's ok to bring the lyrics. Really it is. We all make mistakes. If you blow it and have to start over, smile and do that. Long apologies aren't necessary. Audiences understand.
5. Warm up at home. Loosens up the muscles and settles the nerves. DO NOT warm up while others are performing and don't play along from the audience.
6. If there are many performers and each get three songs before the next act, DO ONLY THREE SONGs and skip the long personal introductions to them. You are chewing up other performer's time and THEY KNOW IT. Amy Kurland, who created The Bluebird, would explain the rules for the Bluebird audition thus: "Tell us your name. Tell us the name of the song. Play until I say stop." If you violated any of these rules, you failed the audition. It is a business where following instructions is very important because time is money and she was the gatekeeper. No matter how well you played, sang or how good your song was, if you violated any of the rules you didn't pass. You could come back but...
7. New strings pre-stretched if possible. OTW, old strings pre-stretched. (IOW, see rule 2.)
8. Play Sober. Drunk or stoned, it shows. We've all done it.... badly. And COFFEE IS A DRUG. If you are not first, watch out for over caffeinating. Combined with adrenalin, it will make you shake, Water is better. Then when done, have at.
9. Everyone has a CD or iTunes site. That's cool. You can say that. Sell it later.
10. Do you have a business card? If you don't that once in a lifetime chance may just pass you by. No one remembers names and phone numbers scribbled on napkins tend to disappear.

It is a privilege to be in front of an audience; not an entitlement. Be the best you can be everytime even if the only person listening is also sweeping the floor. Good luck and enjoy it.

Sarah Lee Guthrie and Johnny Irion: A Concert

While it is not always a polite turn to review the work of other musicians, I'm making an exception.  Last night it was my privilege to attend a concert by Sarah Lee Guthrie and Johnny Irion.  Short version: they were awesome.

Long version:

I first heard Sarah Lee some years ago when I chanced upon a YouTube video of her performing Pete Seeger's Sailing on The Golden River with her father, Arlo Guthrie.  She has the voice of a sparrow and the nearest comparison I have is Edith Piaf in that small frames and supple voices produce a unique soprano sound.  More about that later.   She has her mother's light figure and the intense studious expression of her father on the cover of Washington County.

Five years ago I traveled with my wife to see Arlo perform at the Guthrie Center in Great Barrington, Massachusetts in the Western Berkshires a few miles from Stockbridge.  Arlo fans know this is the Church where Alice's Restaurant was filmed and the area surrounding it is where the events that are the basis for the movie occurred, or as Sarah Lee called it, "the hippie stuff".   It was one of the best journeys I've taken meeting some of the nicest most sincere caring folks I've known.  It is a journey to an ashram of my generation and I highly recommend it, but this is not about the Restaurant or the Church or even Alice.

During that weekend, we were to attend two performances of Arlo and his family in what was a dress rehearsal for their upcoming tour.  On the first night, unfortunately, Arlo had to be treated for a fall and could not perform.  We were lined up in front of the Church and thought we would have to return to the hotel when the word went out that the rest of the family would go on with the concert.  With not much time to get ready, they did exactly that and the evening was a rousing success.  Watching them it was notable that parts of the evening were Johnny and Sarah filling in with their own act.  While Abe Guthrie held the band together, Sarah was directing, quiet but determined.  She had steel in her spine, the Guthrie sense of show and the love of music and the people who had come to see them.  Tiny but tough; again, Piaf.  

Johnny was acquitting himself as a fine singer and guitarist playing blues, folk and rock with equal parts imitation and original feel. Being on a stage with a family of performers, he was fitting in, accenting and otherwise helping Sarah and the Guthrie sisters, Cathy (Folk Uke) and Annie (a solo performer) take care of the Guthrie kids on stage with them.  Even when chaotic, it was entertaining and dearly real.

The next evening, Arlo came and it was a fine start to the family tour.  I've videos of both evenings and an excerpt of that is at my YouTube site featuring Arlo and the Family playing Gypsy Davey.  As I said to friends before leaving that night, I felt that I was watching not a passing of the torch, but a reassurance of continuity, that the legacy of Woody Guthrie passed to Arlo Guthrie would be in very capable hands when he passed that torch to his children.

I was delighted to read that Sarah and Johnny were coming to Huntsville Alabama.  No Guthrie has ever come here to my knowledge.  Aside:  Johnny told the audience he lived in Huntsville when a toddler.  Sarah responded she didn't know that and then asked if he had been here why did he get them lost on the way?  In this, watching them is like watching Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme: a married couple who know how to perform together and make their family kibitzing entertaining.

The Straight to Ale Brewpub is a largish commercial building in a commercial district of South Huntsville.  A small wooden platform stage is set up at the end of the brew room across from the tanks and in front of the barrels and decorated with the brewery emblem, a red and white devil symbol with a trident in the middle (yes, the Straight to Ale name is that).  It is a cold room as in frosty.  It was sold out to the tune of 60 more tickets than seats so a well-attended show.  This is a listening room and Stephen, the impressario, was sure to remind everyone to "listen".  Dana and I arrived early to get the reserved front row seats and thus got the best seats in the house directly center front.

This is not a songlist review.  First, Sarah amd Johnny do not play songs most of us know.  They play their own songs and occasionally a song by Pete Seeger or her grandfather, Woody Guthrie.  Even then as Sarah said, they tend to do the obscure songs from other writers.  What follows is my sense of their performance.

Their songs are extremely well-crafted.  I am a songwriter and I understand how much work goes into that.  The emotions are painted not in cheerful contrasting colors but blended thoughtfully and still spontaneously.  While Sarah Lee is the name, certainly the looks and the wistful voice, Johnny is the engine, a strong player and writer, passionate ranging vocal, moving and twisting as he physically wrenches the notes from his guitar.  He is a consummate chord master and confident.  Whereas far too many so-called new tradition folkies limit themselves to traditional progressions as if the ghosts of the Nashville Chord Police and the limited style of Woody frowns down on them, Johnny's arrangements have hints of Neil Young and America with a little Steely Dan for flavoring.  There is a Beatle-like cheerfulness even in the somber ballads.  He is a craftsman, an artist and if he continues to hone his craft will emerge as one of the best songwriters and stylists of this new generation of songwriters.  He will not be constrained by a genre.  He will surpass it and there is where his inate astute genius will be realized.

They are very aware of their sound physically and emotionally.  You can watch them position themselves to take maximum advantage of microphone proximity and how it affects their dynamic vocal blending.  Their voices are perfectly matched even.  Johnny has considerable range, embraces his falsetto and uses it to perfectly match Sarah's natural high voice.  They never overpower each other and that is a difficult trick to master.  Here is where the time on the road together shows.  They meet each other in the soaring harmonies in an exquisite twisting melodicism as if their love for each other and their audience were a children's playground of slides, tilt a whirls and swings pushing each other in cascading arcs.

They are very respecful of natural sound resisting the temptation to rely strictly on the PA.  At one point, Sarah Lee stepped to the front of the stage awsy from the microphones and sang acapella directly to the crowd.  In a room that big, that was a very brave move.  And it was exquisite.  No one in the room moved and barely breathed until she sang the last note.  Sitting just a few feet in front of her, Dana and I were enraptured.  Later both she and Johnny left the stage and stood on the floor in front of us and sang to the audience Sarah asking if the people in the back could hear.  It expressed something Arlo told us once on his arlo.net website, that a good sound sounds just like it does three feet in front of the singer.  This is where the tradition of folk singers is felt, that it is an intimate sound no matter the sixe of the crowd or the power of the singer.  And they nailed it every time.

They are both natural storytellers spicing up the air between songs with tales of living among the greats of the last generation of folk musicians, the friends of Arlo, life in the Berkshires which they love, living in a family on the mountain close but not "too close" to her legendary father.  Sarah spoke wistfully of her late mother, Jackie who passed last year and of her daughter that I had seen a few years earlier stomping on Sarah's dinner as she spoke to people in the Church foyer, that the girl spoke of seeing her "Nana" becoming an angel.

It was painful and honest and so completely Sarah.  In this she perfectly projects the love that characterizes the Guthries.  They are spirited, animated, giving and disdainful of the title of being the first family, the royalty of folk music yet completely aware of a responsibility or the gift to reach out to the audience and reflect the love projected on them.  It is the heroism of the tradition, that people matter, that love cannot be overtaken by events or even death.  Love endures.  That light shines from their eyes and they share it cheerfully and honestly.

This is much too long and the concert was much too short even as she said they were keeping us too long. Folk music may not be the power politic of her father's generation.  Still it was Arlo who stepped forward in dark times, scary times, times when people were dieing in VietNam and even on the American streets, it waa Arlo who found a humor that we could share and would get us through to the other side.  For this and other reasons Arlo Guthrie is a personal hero to me.  There is enormous joy in seeing Sarah Lee and Johnny carry that heroism forward, a heroism of caring about people, of forming and sustaining a community of like minded and even contrary individuals. 

And that is the beautiful thought I came away with last night: the spirit of the family, the legacy of Woody and the Weavers, of Pete Seeger, of all the singers and songwriters who always appear when we need them, the gifts of love and music are in such capable, gentle hands.  As she sings, she fills her Daddy's shoes and with her partner in music and life and love, Johnny, will carry on his work in their own way, for their own times with clarity, joy and affection.

Invite them back.  Bring their friends here.   We are an engineering city, a heart of darkness in a world of military contractors and harsh hard metal.  And they let a little light shine last night.   And it salves the pain.

Jamaica Farewell - len bullard with chris kidd

NSA, Privacy, Security Some Thoughts

Serious mindmelds required.

If the NSA sent me the same contract as Google and other dataHoovers use, I'd sign it. Both entities have the same problems of privacy. The NSA has security. So starting with what the web has already accepted as privacy for example in a contract with Google, work out to security. Some amateur thoughts...

Privacy. The legal solution has two parts: opt-in and penalty for failure to perform. The chasm is the assertion that citizens as groups do not legally bargain with the government over issues of opting in or out of policy and that the citizen does not have the right to seek redress (at least of winning). So penalty to perform only falls on the non-governmental entity in the transaction. Should a government as I suspect ALL will maintain a covert capability, there is no means to stop this effectively or over a lifecycle(n). For the agreement among nations to coordinate internet privacy to work, there would be enforceable agreements. And that turns the web into a profitable weapons market or full transparent inspection for less profit.

The reason is the business model is to use the data for profit and the security model is to use the data for defense. In both cases, political or economic advantagee pushes the information ecosystem toward the weapons market. In a dominantly capitalist system, profits win over social responsibility unless such responsibility is engendered by the use of the system itself. Building legal controls into digital systems is doable but is not well-understood at the international level past how we name the transactions: URn. Then it is an issue of expression: say RDF.

Security means access to a file. To fix this, you will need an uncrackable unhackable mcguffin, and at the rate of development in the information ecosystems, this is hard to maintain and be connected. However because we can represent the law as integrated policies over a multi-variate transition state space, we can give domains such as privacy and security relationships that state the legal declarations to any level of information such that the transition from private to public and any other domain can be ascertained and adjudicated.

Transactions are measured at that transition boundary. Think of it as a phase space transition. The static model isn't difficult. It's the dynamic model we'd have to trust our globe to manage.

Ne Me Quitte Pas (If You Go Away) (Brel/McKuen)

I arranged and recorded this wonderful song by Jacques Brel and Rod McKuen as a study in Brel's style as applied to small orchestra, guitar and voice. The choice of actress came out of my wife telling me it has a film noir feel, so it came down to Audrey Hepburn or Barbara Stanwyck. Audrey wins for the French taste and well... expression.

French is one of two classes I flunked in my first year at college. Apologies for my lack of skill, but I chalk it up to nothing is ever wasted and one never knows what might come in handy years later. :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVeAuKoemNo&feature=c4-overview&list=UUQvOiEo12qnnekOauzmXY_Q

Another Time Like Now (+playlist)

Web Piracy: The Worm is Turning and Getting Teeth

I follow The Trichordist blog (www.trichordist.com) to keep up with issues of web piracy.  I recommend it for those in or out of the entertainment industry because David Lowery and his crew fight the good fight.   After decades of hearing nothing can be done, it is good to see some doing something.

This fight is going better.  More a-listers are speaking out and there is (looking at an earlier post) finally a focus on transactional models that bring to the discussion what is necessary;  standards for tracking and reporting based on computer science concepts that can be implemented and reported.  Excellent.  I recently noted a blog from a colleague lamenting timbl explaining that drm standards as much as so many of the digerati hate them are necessary.   That is good news for the creative industry over all.  It is not possible to stop piracy on the internet.   There is every possibility to improve the situation such that it is a reasonable business.  

The revelations about privacy, government snooping etc. even the problems with the obamacare website are bursting the myth of the web bubble: that it is an irrresistable juggernaut of technology innovation, resistance is futile, yadda yadda.   The web isn't going away and no one believes the creative industries can be turned back in time,  But there is finally a sober conversation that technology serves human needs and not the other way around, that technologists are not the moral arbiters of social progress and in fact in too many cases have been social morons.

Until we have transactional standards for transparent auditing and models for transactional pricing we won't be there, but at long last the conversation is realistic and those who say "it can't be done" are being held in the same regard as the tea party for the same reasons:  fools for the pirates of the economy are still fools.

Que bueno.

They may want to write some articles about developments in digital fingerprinting and tracking for media files.   Laws without teeth are games for monopoly money.  This has to be real and it has to have consequences both good and bad.

How to Navigate ROL

An old friend commented on the scene on my Facebook page. It is a screen snap from a virtual reality album I created called "The River of Life". It is on the web at the address below.

You will require a plugin or browser that can render VRML97. A suggestion is the Blaxxun browser at BitManagement
(if others work, please say).

To experience the world:

1. Copy the URL into your browser address box.
2. Let the world load completely. You will hear music.
3. If you have Blaxxun, right click and choose view my avatar.
4. Put your avatar on the boat or right click and select Viewpoints/The Boat.

The Boat will take you to the entrance to the temple grounds. Go to the woman on the bridge. When she refuses yoo,
touch her heart and you are bound to her. Whatever she worships, touch. When she has taught you all
she knows of love, she will release you to roam the world freely.

http://home.hiwaay.net/~cbullard/rol/TheRiverofLife.wrl

If the project interests you, there is a tutorial about this project including code examples in the first articles of this blog:

http://3donthewebcheap.blogspot.com

Softly As I Leave You

This is a style study for me, working out the arrangement of classic jazz ballads by ear and arranging them so I can record them. Thanks Eydie. Vaya con dios.

Enough Of Me

Do you feel that since you got the Internet you just haven't had a minute alone?

The Call

A fractured fairy tale. Lyric below. :)



Radiant creatures surely come
Dawn will be your way
The time for this has come around
Today

See you on the gentle lane
Friend to you at last
Every thought is slipping to the past

Empty only call my name
Waiting for the man
Time and all the things you wait for go
Fade away

Maybe, I’ll be here to sleep
You will cross the empty sea
Arriving now and waiting for
The Call.

The Call.

len bullard - june 2013

Let Me Be With Her In Heaven (For Sharon)

Cantor Sharon Kunitz and Len Bullard

Lord, do not part in Heaven
Whom you brought together in life
Let us travel there together
Beneath the wings of love and light
Compassion will not suffer
Separation and strife
Let me be with her in Heaven
As we were together in life.

You are the one true judge
Always thy will be done
But I cannot believe her grave
Is a wall that blocks the sun
The love we shared was holy
The intimate moments few
And now her endless journey
Draws her ever nearer to you

Lord do not part eternally
I ask in sorrowful song
For the troubled days are darker
And the darkness deep and long
But the summer evening lingers
To meet the tear filled dawn
Let me be with her in Heaven
For the sake of love now gone.

In the summerland of heaven
Past the water’s edge of Sheol
Let her smiling face there greet me
And then let us journey on
For what is Heaven’s reward
If parted from those we knew
Let me be with her in Heaven
And together there with you.

Len Bullard – May 25, 2013See More

— with Sharon Kunitz

Beth (Take a Sad Song and Make It Sadder... or funny)

My shaggy dog cover of the most famous song KISS ever recorded... to Gene Simmons' chagrin. C'mon Gene, it's a pretty song. :)

Happy Easter!

Why Do We Deactivate Our Facebook Accounts?

Why do we deactivate our Facebook accounts?

The common answer is "spending too much time". Fair enough. There are others and cleverfacebook has replied to most of these with suggestions because they don't want us to deactivate. In fact, they don't delete anything. They just set a bit that stops traffic but otherwise, it's all still there stuffed in the cracks of the iron the way a sharecropper stuffed newspaper in the cracks of a shack to keep out the wind. So, nothing is deleted and if we embarassed ourselves, we painted the rows and columns in bitter permanent red ink.

Is it like heroin or cigarettes? The only way to stop is to be sure there is none around and no one who can provide any. Fine but what exactly is IT?

Security? There ain't none. After being riff'd from my last job a "visitor" entered my home studio and checked the contents of my computer, and left a recognizable sign so I'd know it was a professional courtesy. If someone wants us, that's way easy these days and no, there isn't much one can do unless one wants to sit in a corner locked and loaded. Sorry, I can't live like that and it doesn't frighten me.

Tired? Sure. That is pretty easy to understand. Of what? Answering. There comes a point when one realizes few are doing much more than advancing the same causes with slightly different ;icks like a song one sings over and over again until as Arlo wrote about CONO, he was planning dinner and Goodman deserved better. Nothing is being learned.

Not useful? I'm not sure we should use each other in conversation like that. I deleted most of the connections to people who only used FB to send me their gig dates or announcements. IOW, if the only point of the conversation was to sell me something, I didn't consider that a friendship, virtual or otherwise. It was too much like people who called me to sell life insurance or investments. I don't need friends to do that. I could put a new song there and maybe a few real friends would notice or care.

I need friends. A friend helps, a friend needs friends to help and when I can do that, it feels good. I want to feel good but slowly and inevitably I suppose, FB came to be a political party gathering where almost everyone is trying to argue about the future, blame the past, curse the present and otherwise, talk me into doing something I'd already made my mind up about. (bad sentence construction; frack strunk and white). Because of that, I kept censoring myself, trying to be too careful, too correct, too... not me.

There is something in that. Facebook becomes a false face. It is too much like going to the office where the boss has a Romney sticker on his desk (still) and his subordinate rants about Obamacare destroying America and I have to be silent. Romney Scouse Git, so to speak.

And I can't play or sing with a false face and all it seems I ever really wanted to do was play and sing like the doomed Grasshopper in the fable. And taxes are due and the girl has to go back to college and the mortgage is killing me. I guess Betty White was right: Facebook, what a waste of time....

I miss the Curvy Girls Appreciation Page.

An Important Conversation on IP, Piracy and Culture

This is a very important conversation.

Halelujah

The journey to freedom from bondage travels a trail of innocents lost to forces both terrible and hateful, forces that cover holy robes in blood and wanton destruction, that transform the young into warriors and old women into grieving mothers. Let us not become the monsters we behold. Let us pray for peace for ourselves and our neighbors. Shalom.

This is a cover of a Leonard Cohen song and I'm sure he had a meaning but the brilliance of his work is I can find another. Shalom.

I Will Vote for Obama