So... it's been a while... but an album project got done!

Where have I been? Well, I've been a tad busy. Starting in the summer of '22 I got deep into a project in which I was asked to write horn parts (and perform them) for a pop/funk project. It was a lot of work, but I really wanted to do stuff that stretched the boundaries a tad in that idiom.

Oh! And... no! That's not me! The photo above is of multi-instrumentalist and singer/songwriter George Hrab who was my client/boss in this particular endeavor. I’ve known George for well over 20 years and occasionally been involved in his projects - they’re always, fun, deeply intelligent and usually somewhat experimental (even though George works in popular forms). If George wants to do something, I am invariably up for it, but this one… had unique challenges.

George explained he didn’t want me to just play on a tune or something, he wanted me to write horn parts for nearly the whole record (it ended up being eight tunes). There was a lot to do, but there was a catch. George wanted to record the album… backwards. He wanted to record all the rhythm section tracks and then my stuff and then add the melodies. It’s something David Byrne did with the Talking Heads many years ago and he wanted to do THAT. It’s a fine idea, but there’s a reason nobody does that and that’s because it’s darn near impossible. How do you write horn parts - an accompaniment to a melody - when there isn’t a melody? Hmmmm… that got me interested. I thought about it for a long time. I finally decided I had a few responsibilities - first off, I had to make sure that nothing I wrote should get in the way of his ability to write said melody. What could I do? Well, it seemed to me that my stuff should be simple but… big. Full of color. The job of the horns should be to thicken the broth of a mighty cauldron of soup. I pictured the horns as a vocal choir and started listening to the introduction to “Road To Nowhere” (Talking Heads) to get some ideas. I decided to channel the harmonies of Jeff Lynne, Steely Dan and occasionally Brad Mehldau. I wrote most of the parts last summer into this past fall.

There was a second challenge however. I was writing for 4-7 instruments and they weren’t all going to be trumpet parts that I could record. Where were the others going to come from? I wasn’t hiring guys to come in and do sax/bone parts, I needed to have all those lower parts realized by me in my studio. How? Well, I made some calls to some producers I know, presented them with the problem and my proposed solution and they said, “Yeah, you can do that!” I decided to use samplers. I have some extraordinary ones, but there is a tendency for them to sound… like samplers. Not human. How to fix that was the conundrum. I decided to record the trumpet parts and write sax and bone parts for the sampler. Then… I needed to EQ me… to sound like a sampler and I needed to work the sampler (and there are a zillion knobs on a sampler) to sound like me. Because the lead lines would be a human, I was pretty sure that the listener (including myself) would hear the end result and be convinced those were horns (which they partially are). They would also be deep in a mix… I figured I could make that work and it seems that I have. I’m really happy with how they came out. I can’t hear where I end and the samplers pick up… I just hear horns.

When I dive into these sorts of things... I really dive in. It becomes an all day/all night sort of thing and that means blogging... is not necessarily on the front burner. So, I have been a delinquent boy, but... a cool project got completed. I finished recording my parts in February and by April... a record was released. When I finally got to hear the completed mixes (and remember part of the experiment was I couldn't know what was going to be done melodically... after I did my parts), it was fun to hear what was utilized and how by George and his producer Slau Halatyn (who was a joy to work with). The name of George's record is Terpsichore (the Greek God of dance, I believe) and although it can be found on virtually every platform, I encourage you to check it out and make a buy at Bandcamp.

Fun project and I definitely learned some things from taking part. What's next? Well, after completing a project for a producer in Switzerland (I was just a hired hand on flugel), I'm now engaged in doing cues for sync licensing, while also working on an electronic project of original material.

Joe Rogan lacks judgement, but why does THAT guy have credibility with many in the first place?

Ah, the Joe Rogan thing... I've been trying to figure out why I disliked his whole bag in the first place and then... Neil Young woke me up! Thanks, Neil. Neil wanted his music off Spotify once he realized that Rogan, as a matter of course in the world of Joe Rogan, was pushing anti-vax talking points. Joni Mitchell and a few other have followed suit. What it made clear is, that you can say no to the supposedly "indispensable service" for very good reasons: ethical ones.

My own issue with Rogan, and many others who either are, or are on board with, the "intellectual dark web" has always been a question of judgement. If you postulate that the beginning of the intellectual journey begins with the idea that there is no idea that cannot be discussed and dissected - an idea as old as Thales of Miletus - you're off to a good start. This is Rogan's starting point and it's a good one - in a time of political correctness and people telling you there are all sorts of things that cannot be discussed - Rogan says, "Let's talk about all of it!" Again, that's a great start.

But.... that's all it is. It's not the end of the intellectual journey... it's a necessary starting point. Guess what? Once all the ideas are out there... there's more to do! Not all ideas are created equal - some are better than others. Some need to get rigorously tested, because by doing so... they frequently fall apart. There's a great deal more to do and there is, luckily for us, an enormous body of knowledge out there... we already know the answer to many of the easier things!

"But Dave, shouldn't those ideas be scrutinized... too???"

Sure, if you feel you need the exercise, but the truth is basic arithmetic, gravity, whether the Earth is round... I mean, these things shouldn't take too long.

Rogan's issue... is a deep paranoia. Joe sees himself as a "regular guy" and thinks that, for the most part... he's been lied to his whole life. The body of knowledge and the people who recognize that there is such a thing... are immediately suspect to Joe Rogan. It leads to thinking that all ideas are equal and an inability to be able to tell the truly awful from something actually valuable and enlightening. Joe sees the logic in everybody's program - he's as likely to agree with out and out fascists as Martin Luther King - they're all just guys with ideas to him. That's where he blows it and disqualifies himself. In the days of gatekeepers, Joe Rogan probably wouldn't have had a gig because that sort of thinking... that all ideas are somehow equivalent, would have been recognized as being simply bad for the public good and the sort of thing that would have lowered the conversation to a dark place. But today? Hey, if it'll make a buck, it must be a good idea, right? I mean, all that really matters is the money, right?

The issue is a lot of people identify with Rogan - they see the world the same way, and when somebody like that gets a platform... it normalizes the views. This only compounds the issue - now plenty of people are thinking that the craziest idea is the same as 2+2. It's a problem.

What's gotten Rogan into trouble with Neil Young is his pushing of the anti-vax stuff, which... when you think about it... is rather incredible. Smallpox... Polio... we could go on and on. Most of us have been vaccinated our whole lives... cow heads are not suddenly growing out of our shoulders. If you just are so sure that any mainstream idea is wrong... because it's a mainstream idea... this is where you end up: buying into conspiracy theories. It means you have lost your tether - that you have no judgement. This is Joe Rogan-land. And think of it.... it took Neil Young... not what you would consider the sanest guy on the block to start with... to say, in essence, "Have you noticed what a nut Rogan is????" And Neil... is right! Neil... a man whose biography was entitled "Shaky", is the only clear thinking human among us.

Why does the Rogan paranoia have cultural cache? For a little over thirty years now, mainstream media and news in particular have been losing their credibility. News is simply something to get people riled up - virtually every story is an exercise in sensationalism. And that takes a tole. Nobody believes much of what most media has to say... Journalism, which once held incredible cultural power, now has... none. What's a shame is that because the water has been poisoned nobody is willing to drink from the well, which would seem reasonable, but... sometimes the news you get is accurate... but nobody can tell the difference any more.

Still... people remain curious... people still want to know.... but you can't go to the news... so you head to Joe Rogan. Rogan's thing works only in an environment where fact and fiction are indistinguishable.

So, what should the good citizen to do that wants to be informed? Work for it and demand it by simply not buying the sensationalist stories. There are news sources that will simply... state the facts. Try the Associated Press. Try Reuters. Try the BBC. Read the New York Times (leftist and getting it wrong) and the Wall Street Journal (Right wing and getting it wrong) and see where they're telling the same story! Compare notes! If they agree... you may have actually stumbled upon some facts! The bottom line it's on all of us to be informed... because those selling the news.... are just selling.

"You can't over-rotate..."

I don't talk about my wife a lot here or online generally, because... she likes her privacy and probably wouldn't be crazy about it, I suppose, but... recently I needed her take on something.

I watch the world and its various comings and goings via a wide variety of media and I do so because I realize that using any one of them exclusively will give you a skewed sense of reality. I like to check out a number of print/online outlets, maybe a bit of cable news and sometimes, because of the immediacy and wide range of perspectives, Twitter. That last one... can really get me into trouble. The world is a mess right now in many ways and it's headed for a crash of some kind, both here in the US, and internationally at large. Knowing that is not a great sensation and it often feels like we're all passengers on the Titanic - except we know what's coming and are powerless to stop it. As a citizen, all I have is the the vote, and it can only be exercised periodically, so... there's very little most of us can do to change things. The problems are too large, the institutions long having quit on living up to their responsibilities and an angry mob that will not go away unless by cataclysm awaits in the wings. Twitter may magnify just how bad it is... but it IS that bad. The bottom line is I find it rather nerve-wracking - how do you keep all of the issues, and their possible repercussions, from driving you nuts and ruining your productivity? It's hard, right? Then I though about my wife.

My wife is a top executive at a fortune 500 company of which we've all heard and probably made use of at some point. An antitrust lawyer by training, these days she manages a team of attorneys in the international regulatory environment. Her hours are generally 6 AM to 7 or 8 PM, plus additional work on weekends. When Covid hit, we beefed up her home office and on a few days weekly she'll be in there and I can hear her at least to a degree. She's on one call after another often for the entire day. The nature of the work frequently involves negotiations with representatives of foreign governments as well as our own regulatory agencies. These are frequently high stakes affairs and while the discussions are not necessarily heated they are extraordinarily frank - that's probably the best way to put it. There's a lot riding on these negotiations and the stress factor for all involved is high. But that's the gig! Sometimes things don't resolve themselves within the allotted time and the call comes to a close and then... a minute later... the next call starts... and she can't carry over whatever she was feeling from the last meeting into the next meeting. That would be unprofessional... It also sounds impossible. She does it as a matter of course. I finally had to ask her... "How the hell do you do that?" I mean, I'm getting depressed by Twitter, whereas she's dealing with real stuff... and just bounces back and gets ready to hit the next one out of the park. My question had a second part, "When you don't resolve something and all sorts of bad outcomes are now potentially in the offing... how do you not let that effect you???"

Her answer was, "You can't over-rotate...". What she meant was, and she took pains to explain it, was that you can only deal with what's in front of you at any given point of time and that you need to focus - and focus totally - on that. You can have a sense of what's coming and even be fearful about bad outcomes, but... it does you no good to dwell there or to work out all of those potential scenarios. Oh, you know they're real, but... they also may never come to fruition. You can't live as if the potential calamity has already happened... because it hasn't. To do so... is to over-rotate. Frankly, her take calmed me down somewhat and I thought that, quite frankly, it's damn good advice. It essentially says to stay in the moment, and... that's something we all should do more easily. It doesn't mean stick your head in the sand - it means do what you can and retain a sense of balance so that you're most effective, for yourself and for the world in general.