Nine o’clock at night.
I had a nap from five o’clock until now. Poor Aesop still has fleas and I’m responsible for helping him out with them.
Between noon and one o’clock today, I made a lot of racket on my G&L bass, doing songs like “You Can’t Hurry Love” by Diana Ross and others from the eighties and nineties with bass lines by Pino Palladino and Flea. The Kiloton really rocks, having a tone similar to a Stingray, but it does it without a built in preamp because the pickup is already hot enough to make your ears burn. I also played around with “Three Views of a Secret” by Jaco Pastorius. I think Night Passage is my favorite album by Weather Report.
The main barrier to playing with other musicians right now is transportation, and also I don’t want to deal with substance use in the community. And finally, I run into many musicians who talk themselves up but can’t deliver the goods for lack of talent or the willingness to work at their instrument; they just aren’t serious about making music with quality. A lot of times it’s a failure to be honest and realistic about their abilities. Like everything, being a good musician takes a great deal of work and time investment; there are no shortcuts, and it’s about a lot more than the image of rock stardom. People try to substitute a shallow appearance for real substance and ultimately these people will have a hard time as musicians and, more importantly, as human beings.
robgradens 