Futile Horn

07.24.2003 - 1:03 pm (it's time to reveal myself; I am the Messiah)

Down on South Street they’ve got a free concert series during the summer, and tonight is Dan Bern, whom I want to see, but alas, I can’t find anyone to go with me. His voice sounds a bit like Dylan’s, and his lyrical sensibility is Dylan-like, but he’s also just as prolific and insightful and one of the few songwriters I know who can be political and entertaining at the same time (I’ve tried it myself once or twice and found it to be quite difficult and I would conclude impossible if not for the occasional evidence to the contrary). Someone once told him that the only reason he got a record deal is because of some international Jewish banking conspiracy, so then he went and named his band the IJBC, which is about as cool as it gets. He did a live concert for the local radio station, and it was another brand of awesome. Huh, maybe I should go anyway.

My dad is in the neighborhood. There is to be a protest up the street at City Hall against the smoking ban, which goes statewide today. As a proprietor of a bar restaurant he stands to lose from it. We went to breakfast this morning then he had me drop him off on the train station. He hasn’t taken the subway in so long he no longer knew how a fare is paid. So I had to drive his boat of a car home. I kept thinking to myself, this thing is built like a Buick until… yeah, it’s um, a Buick.

Last night I met some friends for a CD burning/computer games/jam session. We had a capo argument. They insist it is near useless whereas in my hyperbolic tendencies I say it’s more important that the strings themselves. I guess it all depends if you want an open string sound. Right now to me it is unthinkable that anyone wouldn’t.

The guy also had a nail clipper in his guitar case. I thought that was kinda strange until I realized just this week I was having a fit because about half the time I would mute, say, the first string on a C or Am chord, and then I remembered a conversation on the radio where a guitarist was talking about her acrylic “drag queen” nails (This was the male host’s term; I’ve no idea what a female drag queen would be.), and how it had been frustrating for her at first fretting the fingerboard and… yeah, I realize my damn nails were just too long. It was a relief to find out I wouldn’t have to spend the rest of the day crying about a sudden and inexplicable psychological block against playing guitar.

Tom asked me to play some “BB style” blues. I said I didn’t really know how to do blues phrasing, so I just played him some 12 bar kinda thing, and he was all, “No no, BB King doesn’t play chords just single n-” and I barked back, “Dude, what the hell did I just say?”

See how this journal deteriorates. Now I am just recounting arguments.

But yeah, I should see what I can learn about blues phrasing. I’m sure that was the point.

Born to play the funky céilí,
Futile Horn