Friday, February 29, 2008

The Maximum Leader Presents ...

In this new feature the Maximum Leader will bring you some inspiring words or a story, song, picture, or whatever, by someone other than me. Today's installment is a classic from my Soul Brother Number One, Rob K B:

"Now, I want you to think about your great great grandmother, but don't think about her the way you would think about her. Think about her the way I would think about her."

yeah, I have no idea either.

Nasmaste!

The Truth is a Lie #7

Are you better off now than your were four years ago? How about eight years ago?

I will start by saying that I am definitely worse off economically now than I was 4 years ago (lots of folks are in the same boat these days), and considerably worse than eight years ago too. Some of that is the fault of the nations economy. Much of it is no one fault's but my own. But still.

When you take that question beyond financial considerations, my life has been much better for the most of the last 8 eight years than it was in the years before that. There was very little love and rock and roll during the Clinton years. Yeah, those years started off pretty good, but sometime in 1995 I hit a slump that did not end until 2001. No love. No rock and roll. The country was in great shape, but I hit 200 lbs. and drowned in Coors Light and self pity. (Is that too candid for the blog? screw it, it's the truth.) The Clinton years were rough that way, but I had a good job and had plenty of money to blow on beer and so-called good times.

Then 2001 came around and things started to change. First of all George Bush sent me that check for 300 bucks. That was nice of him. Then I got myself one hell of a nice apartment at the train station, and the White Stripes came to Earnestine and Hazel's. The next morning the world was turned upside down, and everything we'd known seemed wrong. The slate had been cleared. The game was different. So, off into the new world I went, we all went. And there was fear, but there was also a feeling of resiliency. "We're not gonna let those bastards keep us from being free!" so off I went to Nashville to see Ryan Adams play at 328. That was Sept. 29, 2001. (If any of you don't know what happened that night I got a record I wrote about it. Shoot me a message and a few bucks and I'll send you one.) And the world was strange and scary and new and one adventure followed another.

The six years that followed that September were the best of my life so far. I shook loose of the doldrums and found the rock and roll, the spirit, the romance, and, finally, the love I'd been looking for all those long years. I don't necessarily have all of those things today, but, damn it, I know what they FEEL like. And that is more than a lot folks can say, and I'm thankful for it. I'm not still hanging in the beer garden any night in 1999 thinking about how great it's gonna be when I have myself a real rock and roll band and find a cool gal to spend my time with. I have had those things, and I know that they CAN be had. (now everyone might not be looking for a rock and roll band or a dark haired doll. but whatever it is you're looking for you CAN find it. The secret is...hell, I don't know the secret, but it does have something to do with not looking --- on the outside anyway.)

So, if we're talking about money then I am definitely not better off than I was eight years ago. But, if we're talking about living then yeah, I'm doing good. Does that mean I'm gonna vote for the Republican in November? No way in hell. I just hope I'm not doing myself in, and I hope that I have learned enough in these hard times to make the good times ahead that much better.

Thursday, February 28, 2008

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Country Music is Dead

I've been thinking a lot about country music lately. I do reside in Nashville after all, and country music is why I came up here --- even if it isn't necessarily the reason why I've been sticking around --- so I might as well keep letting you folks know how I feel about it.

A couple of weeks ago I had that meeting with the suit at BMI who told me about how it works and all that ... you know, about "who are you writing with"...if you don't recall that it's only a couple of posts down so... Anyway this past weekend a made two trips to the Country Music hall of Fame, where they mostly celebrate how things ought to work in Country Music or how they used to work. (I recently purchased a museum membership so I'm trying to get my money's worth.) The Hall of Fame's moto is "Honor thy Music." And they do a damn good job of it.

Saturday I stopped by the grand re-opening of the Hall of Fame store and saw Charlie Louvin sing. He was pretty damn solid for an 80 year old man who confessed that he still likes to have himself a smoke. ( And you know that puts him in good standing here at the Leader!) Sunday I went to a steel guitar demonstration then checked out the new Marty Robbins exhibit. After that I made a quick pass through the museum. It wasn't that long ago that I was there, and there wasn't much new to see, but I did stop in a couple of the "Hear a Classic Country Song" booths --- that was a great follow up to the steel guitar demo. I listened to "Slowly" by Webb Pierce twice, and it has never sounded better. I also checked out Jimmie Rogers and watched videos of Patty Loveless talking about growing up in Kentucky and Gillian Welch doing "I want to sing that Rock and Roll." David Rawlins guitar solo in that song touches something deep inside me every damn time I hear it.

Now, there may be some way to draw a line between Jimmie Rogers and Webb Pierce to Brooks and Dunn and Rascal Flatts. But I can't come up with it. The music the big wheels in this town make now is not even close to the same thing that has historically been called country music. This is not a new sentiment I know. Lots of folks feel this way, and it has been said about Nashville several times in the past. But damn.

(Just to present a different view... I'm in no way saying that country music should not change and evolve. But it's evolved right into some other life form.)

And that brings me to the other thing I was thinking about the last couple of days in regards to country music.

There's been a lot of controversy lately about some comments that Kix Brooks from Brooks and Dunn made about the festival formerly known as Fan Fair, now called the CMA Music Festival presented by ABC, Chevrolet, Wal-Mart, and a bunch of other multi-national corporations looking to play the branding game with the country music demographic. Anyway, Kix said that the CMA ought to pay the performers or risk losing them or the festival itself to another city. Performers have traditionally appeared at the festival formerly known as Fan Fair for free. It has been their way of giving back to the fans who made them successful. The stars would set up their autograph booths and meet all the folks. It was a big, down home, country party and illustrated one of the major ways that country music was different than many other forms of popular entertainment. But it ain't like that anymore.

I don't know how i come down on this issue. Is it really too much to ask a country star to perform a short set for free one night a year? On the other hand, it's not like it's a free concert.
Really, the whole thing has just gotten out of hand. Some folks seem to want to hold onto the old myth of country music being about the fans, the stars being just like the rest of us and all that. But it's a terribly corporate system. And business folks like to get paid.

We need to take the Hall of Fame's advice and honor country music because it's dead, and it ain't coming back.

Thursday, February 14, 2008

The Truth is a Sun Smile

"...why can't I just be the sun smile?" --- Bai Ling

I hear you Bai Ling. I've been feeling that way myself. Sometimes things get hard here at the Maximum Leader. But, hey, at least I haven't been swiping magazines and batteries at the Nashville airport, right? Maybe I ain't doing so bad after all.

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

The Truth is a Lie #6

Sorry for the absence. The Leader isn't a very good blogger. But the Leader finally has something to say.

This morning I had a meeting with a writer rep at BMI. And I want to let you know that it doesn't look like I will be a "Nashville Country Songwriter" any time soon. Apparently no publishers want to hear songs written by just one person. They only want to know "who are you writing with?" and that person better be a staff songwriter or an artist. There is no wonder all of the product coming out of the country music corporations is so pathetic.

I moved up here a year and half ago because I thought I could find someway to turn my songs into some kind of living. I had a meeting with a publisher right before I moved up here, and he told me that he liked my songs, but that there wasn't much chance of him getting them on the radio. And that's the only thing he cared about. He told me I'd be better off getting the Gunroom up here and getting them signed to a label. But the holding the gunroom together back then was enough of a challenge. And I moved on up here anyway. Maybe I should have known better, but I didn't really know what else to so. A year and half later I still don't, so I thought that BMI might be a good place to start. It doesn't hurt to hear what folks in the business have to say.

The guy at BMI told me that if I want to be a country song writer I should get out and go to showcases and number 1 parties, network, and meet other writers and try to get them to write with me ---- that's why you've got all these desperate folks running around looking for someone to write with. That's why no one can write a song by themselves any more. Because no one will listen to it unless it's got the right name on it. This system is Fucked! And I probably knew that going in, but I figured that my stuff is pretty damn good, so it's worth a shot. But you know what? It does not matter in the least how good it it.

So, I could either spend all of my free time going to parties full of people I don't know and asking people to "write with me" or I could shove that nonsense aside and get on with playing some music. I'd love for Tim McGraw to record "Hot Rod Century." But I sing it a lot better than he ever could. So that's what I'm gonna do. After this morning's meeting, I think that being an artist is the only way to go.

Be on the look out, because I'm coming to your town!

Bryan Hartley
Poet of Doom. Man of Style.
(Thanks to L. for the six word bio idea.)