Jet Lag is a funny thing. I was wide awake this morning at 7:30am , feeling like it was the late afternoon, so that can be kind of convenient. But I also nearly passed out last night at 8pm, while doing Karaoke to Dragonforce’s ” Through The Fire And Flames”. The pure joy of Wednesday night Karaoke is something more people should take advantage of.
Web Master TB and I were discussing musician proficiency. It started as a discussion of Indie music, because, well, what is indie music? You cant really define it. He said it is “music recorded with as few tracks as possible and maximum hiss added to the recording.” while that may be sometimes true, there are certainly grey areas. Like if the guy on the corner with a kazoo records something on a Dictaphone, that might be independent, but not in the sense we’re talking about. This led to another thought. As previously discussed, there are many people out there who can easily talk the talk, but the walk is not so walked.
So, this leads us to a type of license which should be attained. If you’re going to drive a car, someone needs to make sure you’re not going to run anyone over. Its the same here. If you’re going to try to pick up chicks and subject people to your noise, lets at least make sure your not just doin a bit of chain yankin. The idea was proposed to set a metronome to 120 bpm, the standard tempo, then you must play all of the major chords in the open position, on each quarter note. A-B-C-D-E-F-G, its not too hard. Then, just one major and minor Barre Chord, anywhere on the neck, then name one scale, other than major, minor, or pentatonic. you don’t even have to play it, just NAME it. You say A Major 7? You fail. Thats how it works. We may come off as elitist, but that is really not the case. This is way easier than parallel parking. Its the equivalent of making a right turn, and signaling first. If you can’t do that, you really shouldn’t be driving.
I’m going to see Dan Wilson from Semisonic tonight, opening for Sondre Lerche. I really want to talk to him, its a tiny venue, so I’m sure I can, but what would I say? “Hey Dan, I read that book your drummer wrote, you guys went though some crazy shit, ummm, what was that like?” I’ve had a history of Chris Farley-isms, and I’m determined to break that. I was mocked by Charlie Watts, Hubert Sumlin, and Billy Martin, I think thats certainly enough for one lifetime.