Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Emerald & Alba

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights... - James 1:17

When I was younger, I discovered that the land of my distant heritage was one that enraptured my imagination. I fell in love with that which is Celtic – the music, the landscape, the history. I bought albums with harps, fiddles, bodhrans, penny whistles, Uilleann & bagpipes. I bought books about Scotland’s role in history and their role in shaping the Western world. I bought wall calendars with pictures of castles, hillsides, lochs, moors, and mountains to afford me the opportunity to look at something Celtic and beautiful every day. Scotland and Ireland became the landscape of my dreams. I invested time daydreaming about overcast skies, old stone bridges, ancient cathedrals, fog on the Highlands, and dinner at small pubs complete with fireplaces and fresh Guinness. I began many sentences about this wonderful part of the world with the phrase, “One day….” and no-doubt exhausted my family and friends with declarations about how I couldn’t wait to get over here.

This morning, I woke up in Dublin and am currently on a ferry headed for the coast of Scotland, on my way to play music in Glasgow.

Christchurch Cathedral, Dublin - circa 1030 AD

When I was younger, two bands changed the course of my life forever. I discovered U2 and The Police when I was 13 years-old and became convinced that a musical road was the one I was meant to travel on for the rest of my life. It is no exaggeration to say that The Joshua Tree completely altered my young understanding of what rock music could do to a person’s spirit and consciousness, and when I finally got a chance to watch Rattle and Hum and saw Larry Mullen, Jr. slam out his groove to the Beatles’ Helter Skelter, I said, “That, right there, is what I want to do for people.” Most all of my musical experience has flowed from the seed that those four guys from Ireland planted.

Last night I played a sold-out gig at a venue that U2 themselves performed at a handful of decades ago.

The River Liffey in the beautiful city.

Dreams are sacred things. They are gifts to us, not of our own making, and they are meant to be safeguarded, fought for, entreated over, and cherished throughout our lives. We hold them before God with an open hand and wage war for them with a sword in the other. To achieve one’s dreams takes persistence and the forsaking of both comfort and the status quo: one must endure criticism and degradation and resist the call of his own spirit to give up an unnecessary struggle and succumb to the flow of the world around him. We are not required to pursue our dreams, of course, but we might just have to answer for whether or not we did and why.

But once you reach the top of that mountain…. Once you make it around that curve in the road…. The view is absolutely breathtaking.

I’ve found myself several times on this tour stunned by the reality of the situation I’m in. I sit in the front of our tour van in order to take in all that’s around me as we pass by. I wave my touristy flag high as I break out my camera to take a picture of an old church, a river walk, or something else that the locals pass by every single day. I queue up old U2 albums or the Braveheart soundtrack on the iPod while we pass through the countryside. I am not particularly given to too much sentimentality (a few doses of it is quite healthy, I’m sure), but over here I cannot manage to get enough.

I suppose that what I’m attempting to get out in the midst of all this is that the joy that comes from seeing one’s dreams realized is well-worth the blood, sweat, and tears required to reach them. God gives us dreams to show us what is possible in life: He wants us to live and not simply to exist. He wants to illustrate to us the reality of unimaginable riches beyond what is normal, what is usual, what is standard. Don’t bury your talent. Acknowledge where it came from, invest it, and never give up the fight.

The prize is completely worth the price.

Sunday, February 26, 2012

Dear Manchester,

That was awesome.

Sincerely,
Tyler, Josh, and Joel


Saturday, February 25, 2012

London Calling

Here we are, backstage at the University of Manchester's Academy 3. It's early and they've provided us with free broadband; I've come to learn that I need to take advantage whenever I can!

Midday in Manchester

We are only two shows into this tour, and already I find myself enamored with this British isle. London is truly a city all its own. Large, to be sure; massive, even. But without the claustrophobia or grime of other huge towns. She is busy and active and jam-packed with class: thousands of people fill the main thoroughfares, all seemingly with their own unique and individual style. On top of it all, the Londoners are accommodating and genuinely nice. I have been won over.

Cheers.

The London performance took place at Dingwalls, a club that finds its home in historic Camden Town. A vibrant energy seeps from the very stones of the buildings and the crowd was no-less electric, helping to make a great memory for us American blokes. Before the show, I enjoyed my very first dinner of Bangers & Mash (exquisite); afterward, a drink with a fellow high school alumnus who was too good for any of us at the Hawley Arms, formerly owned by Amy Winehouse.

Lamps, hats, ties... Vibe.

The following day found our crew with no particular place to be, so of course my history bug flared up and I was able to convince the guys to spend the day taking on the city by foot. St. Paul's, Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, Parliament & Big Ben: the architecture and history undoubtedly speak for themselves over here.



"We are only two shows into this tour, and already I find myself enamored..."

This tour is quickly turning into the adventure I've always hoped it would be.

Historia Sustinet

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Rockin' Charlie Dickens' Hometown

Cheers, everyone.


I'm blogging from backstage here at the Wedgewood Rooms of Portsmouth, waiting to go on for Tyler Ward's first-ever headlining show in Europe. Despite the setback incurred by blowing a few fuses (240 British volts going right through everything), the sound check went swimmingly and the show will indeed go on.

Always cool using the I.

There is a noticeable difference so far in the way our British friends manage their smaller music venues. If I had to, I'd eat off the floor here... in the bathroom. Not to sound at all hyperbolic, but most of the American crews and club owners I've had to work with in the past could certainly learn a thing or two from their British counterparts. How nice it is to feel comfortable and taken care of when you're almost halfway around the world. (Despite the bizarre potato chip flavors, that is... Prawn Cocktail just doesn't seem quite right to me.)

Mercedes-Benz providing us our home away from home.

I can't relay just how excited and blessed we all feel to be on this tour. Dreams that have been fomenting for more than a decade will come to fruition tonight for this drummer, and I personally could not be more thankful. The vibe is chill, the mood is up, and everyone is feeling relaxed and excited for whatever comes our way over the next few weeks.

The Rented Party - a Yamaha Maple Custom

Keep checking in for more updates.... can't wait to post them!

Friday, February 17, 2012

The Americans Are Coming

The countdown is officially on.

First-time travel to Europe is reason enough to be excited. But the opportunity to do something we've never done before certainly ups the ante a bit. 

The last couple of weeks have been a bit of a whirlwind for us. First priority went, of course, to rehearsals. The standard we've set for Tyler Ward's first-ever (headlining) European tour is pretty high, so we've been intent on crafting a set that won't let anybody down. There are some familiar favorites, some brand new songs, and even a few surprises buried in the bottom of the cereal box. A bevy of different circumstances have forced us to restrict the personnel for this particular run to the titular Mr. Ward, the lifetime-appointed Minister of Suave, Joshua Corbett, and myself. It's been an interesting adventure to adapt Tyler's music to a three-piece format, but the results have turned out to be satisfactorily piquant and we can't wait to unveil a brand new kind of Tyler Ward performance.

We've also taken the time to record a special  EP to be sold exclusively at the shows on this particular tour. A brand spankin'-new song and a few re-imagined T-Ward classics (from way back before the days of YouTube) are going to be available to the European fans as a special way of saying "Thank you!" for all the incredible support they've thrown our way. But have no fear, non-Euro fans: something tells me that the music will make its way to your own collections soon enough....

Tyler & Josh get their tracking on.

The final piece of our Euro Tour Boot Camp was held last night at Lucky Joe's Bar in Ft. Collins, Colorado. Just a couple short years ago, you would've had a very good chance of sauntering in to hear a young troubadour by the name of Tyler Ward fill the late night air with classic covers and bar tunes played on his acoustic guitar. So, with a healthy dose of sentimentality we decided Lucky Joe's would be a fun place to stage a special live rehearsal performance of our set before we head off to where they drive on the other side of the road. The atmosphere was laid-back & fun (perhaps a little too fun at times...), and it was certainly good to get the kinks out a bit, both logistically and musically. Thanks to everyone who showed up to watch us practice in public - the one thing rehearsals never seem to have enough of is applause when you get something right!

The Trio @ Lucky Joe's

So that brings us to now: only one weekend and one ocean stand between us and our first European tour, the first Tyler Ward Trio performances, and my first trip across the pond. It's hard to say exactly what the most exciting element of all this happens to be, but it's sure to be an experience none of us will ever forget.

Friday, February 10, 2012

An unintended consequence of music's awesomeness.

A picture is worth a thousand words.....

....which probably explains why this picture is so true.

Sounding Off: What We Like vs. What Is Good

This picture says it all.


Just about anyone not completely hypnotized by the current allure of the modern music scene would probably agree that the quality of popular music has recently taken a very precipitous tumble in a very short span of time. A blog about music that happens to be written by a musician should jump at the chance to discuss music in whatever context it can get its grubby little hands on, so, here we are.

Welcome to a new series of blog posts entitled, Sounding Off. Think of it as a sort-of State Of The Union discussion oriented around music: what went wrong and how we can get the wonder back. Don't worry. I won't take too much of your time: I'll write this stuff somewhat episodically so as not to bore anyone. So, here we go.

It seems to me that one of the most pressing issues restricting the discussion & advancement of great music (and all kinds of great art, for that matter) is the confusion of personal taste with artistic excellence. In short, what I mean is that too many people today view their own subjective likes and dislikes as the absolute standard of what is good and bad. Call it narcissism or self-involvement, (perhaps it's the result of over-emphasis on the idea of relative truth for the past couple of decades), but most people walk around thinking that their own ideas of what's cool are the perfect examples of what's artistically great, whether or not they know the first thing about what makes something great in the first place.

This kind of thinking plays out like this: a person thinks or says (sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously), "If I like it, it's good. If I don't like it, it sucks." It is my hypothesis that this kind of thought process is not only doing nothing good for the cause of great art in our culture; it's actually hurting it.

When people's only standard for excellence or beauty is what they themselves instinctively deem to be beautiful or excellent, they insulate themselves from an expansion of their understanding and consciousness of art. They have effectively made themselves the center of their own artistic universe and cannot be bothered to step outside of it. A diversity of artistic expressions is as valuable to a culture as a diversity of heritage or viewpoints, and people should require themselves to be humble and honest enough to admit that they don't know all that there is to know about anything, let alone the massively diverse and varied world of music and art.

I'll give you an example from my own catalog of preferences: I love AC/DC. I own their albums and have seen them on tour. I love cranking their tunes when I'm driving or working out or just feeling the need to get a little testosterone flowing. But I am fully aware that AC/DC is a band that has essentially built a 30+ year career out of one song. They play one kind of riff with one kind of drum beat and typically don't vary it a whole lot from one track to the next. And what's more is that this one thing that AC/DC does (arguably better than anyone else, I'll admit) is not the most musically exacting. They have capitalized on a musically simple and straight-forward idea (usually a recipe for a very short-lived and brief career). They are not a band that I would necessarily recommend for up-and-coming musicians to emulate or learn from; there are much better artists and groups form which to take your leads and lessons. That all being admitted, I still love them, and probably always will.

On the flip side of the coin, Dream Theater, an amazingly talented group of musicians, has never really appealed to me. Their musicianship is obvious & ubiquitous throughout their music and they can do things that many other professional musicians will never be able to execute. But their stuff has never really spoken to me. The tuning fork that goes off in my soul when I hear an AC/DC riff is never activated when I hear Dream Theater. And that's ok.

What would not be ok is for me to conclude that Dream Theater is comprised of worse musicians than AC/DC simply because I like one and not the other. My preferences are my preferences and in no way an ultimate objective standard of what is good or what is bad. I fully admit that I listen to AC/DC and not Dream Theater, but I also admit that the guys in Dream Theater are greater players than the guys in AC/DC will probably ever be. My subjective valuing of one over the other does not equate to an objective ruling of the same.

I believe this to be an important lesson for all music and art lovers in our culture to learn. If we insist that what we like is artistically good simply because we like it (whether or not we know the first thing about how to make something good), the appreciation of the creative process will no longer be celebrated unless it serves to stroke our own egos through our own personal preferences.

The solution is simple. All we need to learn how to do is say two things:

1) "Band X may not be the most talented group of musicians on the planet, but I dig their stuff. I admit they're not the best, but they speak to me."

2) "Band Y is amazing. It's obvious that they know what they're doing and are incredible at it. I just don't dig it. And no, they don't suck just because I don't like them. Props to them for being awesome, it's just not for me."

It's not hard, folks. It just takes admitting that we're not the center of the universe.

Thursday, February 2, 2012

Long Live The Players

They are the unsung heroes of the music universe. You may see them in the unfocused background of the videos or on the darker parts of the stage, but without them, music does not happen. The “musicians” we celebrate are nothing without them and the true artists will be the first to admit it.

They are the players. They are the wizards who breathe life into the songs that will forever be credited to somebody else, even though it is their creativity, their skill, and their passion that make the songs worth listening to. They are the ones that bring colors to the palette and flavors to the dish. They are poets without words, speaking through their instruments so that somebody else’s voice is heard more clearly, more distinctly, more beautifully.

And most of us don’t even know their names.

While the people on the album covers get the interviews, the awards, and the lucrative record deals, it is the ones whose faces you hardly ever see that truly make the music. It is their beats that you dance to, their grooves that you feel, and their guitar solos that you belt at the top of your lungs. Without them, the vast majority of modern artists are nothing more than a few chords, shallow lyrics, and a moderately catchy melody… if they’re lucky. Without them, most of music as we know and hear it would simply not exist.

Indeed, part of the beauty of music is the many parts of the whole; the group speaking with one voice. This is not to say that solo music cannot be beautiful; far from it. But there is certainly a unique power that is created by several different people on several different instruments simultaneously painting the same picture. There is a unique intensity to it; the telling of the same story with many different voices all speaking at the same time. The band creates a sort of community that no single person can, in and of themselves, accomplish. Even musical geniuses and prodigies cannot do it all, and supposing they could, they couldn’t do it all at once. Thusly, we buy albums and go to concerts based on one person’s name, but we are more-often-than-not exposed to a band of players; a group of musicians whose efforts are no less important, no less valuable, and, most times, much more difficult. We may pay more attention to the one underneath the spotlight at the front of the stage, but make no mistake: what we feel, what we hear, what we experience and what we love is largely the creation of people we wouldn’t recognize if we bumped into them walking down the street.

It’s true that modern technology has attempted to reduce the need for the great players, but the real appreciators of music will always know the difference. Drum grooves that come from a box and the robotic corrections of ProTools will never be able to replace the human touch of the live musician. In art, the perfect is the enemy of the good, and no computer will ever make music as beautiful, as real, or as genuine as is made by a person.

So, long live the players. Long live the music makers. Long live those whose passion is the performance and not the fame. Long live those whose talents and abilities are bigger than mere commercialism. Long live those who love music and not trend. Long live the perpetual students and the self-denying masters. Long live innovation and not derivation.

Long live the players.


Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Clapton's Final Paragraph

"The music scene as I look at it today is little different from when I was growing up. The percentages are roughly the same - 95% rubbish, 5% pure. However, the systems of marketing and distribution are in the middle of a huge shift, and by the end of this decade I think it's unlikely that any of the existing record companies will still be in business. With the greatest respect to all involved, that would be no great loss. Music will always find its way to us... Music survives everything, and like God, it is always present. It needs no help, and suffers no hindrance. It has always found me, and with God's blessing and permission, it always will."

- Eric Clapton, The Autobiography

(Courtesy: askmen.com)

How True It Is

NBAwesome.

I posted this:



Eppic responded with this:


Touche, Eppic. Touche.
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