It was Larry Coryell.

He was in town for a gig a Pace University, staying at a nearby hotel. He wanted to know if he could take me to lunch. We met at Gee Wiz, the local diner (befitting the occasion), where we caught up. It was over 13 years ago that Larry  came to my apartment for the first of many occasional guitar lessons.

Larry & I have breakfast after a show at The Blue Note

His expression froze, then morphed in slow motion to one of confusion, then surprise, then recognition, as his neuron-based pattern recognition software informed him of the identity of the subject of his retinal impression. “Oh My God!” was exclaimed a few times before he &  Larry locked in a hug.

Later in the cafe over tea, I asked Larry if he had a chance to listen to my CD, The Other Side Of Somehow, which I’d given him back in February, at his show in upstate Pauling. He said no; the best way to get him to listen to something is to sit him down and play it.

So at my suggestion, we went back to my place, where I sat him down and played it. He ended up listening to all nine songs, and had very nice things to say overall. He always liked ‘My So-Called Democracy,’ ever since I first played it for him back in 2005, when I first wrote it (after which he said it sounded like The Kingston Trio). He was able to hear the odd meter in the chorus of ‘Alive.’ No surprise for a guy who helped make odd meters standard Jazz-Rock vocabulary.

We also listened to radio broadcasts from the late 40s of Charlie Parker & friends at the Royal Roost, historic recordings hosted by Symphony Sid. (It’s great fun to listen to the adds for soap & such.) After listening to ‘Cheryl,’ a blues, he asked me to show him my ‘progress’ on guitar. We went to my studio, where I broke out the chart for ‘Cheryl,’ and proceeded to stumble my way through the not-so-trivial head.

That evening, my friend Graham & I went to see him at Pace performing with his Indian Jazz combo, Bombay Jazz, where Larry and his stage-mates put on a jaw-dropping show.

Afterwards, we helped Larry pack up. Graham was noticeably excited to meet a real-life Guitar God. And after 13 years, so was I, as I carried Larry’s guitar out to the street where we waited for a cab.

The moral of the story?
ABP: Always Be Practicing; you never know when Larry Coryell might drop in for a pop Jazz quiz.

And don’t forget to take a few pictures.

I don’t mean to brag, but…well, hell yeah, I’ll brag like I mean it: the 9 songs on the CD have won a total of 18 songwriting awards. So buy mass quantities for $5 each by dropping me a line at ShootTheMessenger@gmail.com.

More importantly, here’s what Jack Douglas, producer for John Lennon, The Who, Aerosmith, Patti Smith, et. al. had to say about some of the songs when he listened in July, 2010:

Overall Comments
• I am going to keep my eyes open and try to catch you some time in the city.
I really enjoyed your music. It is very unique and I had a good laugh.

What Did I Miss?
• Very inventive! Totally unique.

This Is Why Life Sucks
• You had me up dancing a jig on that one.

Here’s a synopsis of some of the songs:

• What Did I Miss? about an Iraqi mans’ 21 year plight to get the last laugh on Saddam Hussein;

• My So-Called Democracy about the pervasive perversion of the media by its’ corporate pimps (My So-Called Democracy);

• The Other Side Of Somehow about the working classes’ disposability by the corporate kleptocracy, where justice is blind – to greed gone wild
(a 2010 Billboard Song Contest winner).

So by buying mass quantities for $5 each, you’ll visibly glow in the good vibes that come from supporting a most euthenticlectic (unique, authentic, eclectic) artistic expression. And the USDA recommends good vibes daily, along with fiber, so it’s win-win.

And with that glow,  your lover will love you even more.

McBean agreed to meet them at the EMI House in Manchester Square, London around mid-February 1963. The photographer recalled later:

As I went into the door I was in the staircase well. Someone looked over the banister – I asked if the boys were in the building, and the answer was yes. “Well”, I said, “get them to look over, and I will take them from here.”

I only had my ordinary portrait lens, so to get the picture, I had to lie flat on my back in the entrance. I took some shots and I said, “That’ll do.”

The Creative Opportunist strikes again. See the photo here.

Cut to July, 2003. I was working on some lyrics in the wee hours (to What Did I Miss? ?), when something reminded me of The Sex Pistols’ Anarchy In The UK. Thinking I’d like to cover the song with Shoot The Messenger at some point, I scribbled down the title on a sticky note.

The next day, when I tried to read the note, it said Anarchy In The OK. Immediately, a narrative of Dodge City, Wyatt Earp, Doc Holiday, & the OK Corral unfurled in my brain. After about 20 minutes, I had myself a nice little Sex Pistols parody. We’ve performed it many times since.

The moral of the story…we’ll I think you get the gist (Hey, what a great band name, The Gist!).

Anarchy In The OK Corral

By Rob Frail, ©2010, All Rights Reserved

And that is the True Genius of Picasso.

This could be a physical pattern (always acting nervous when your partner speaks); a verbal pattern (a mispronounced word that gets repeated, and/or extended to other words or meanings); or a scenic pattern (always reacting fondly to any reminiscence, no matter how inappropriate; then justifying it).

See below for a great example from the movie Spinal Tap. Another great example is Monty Pythons’  ‘Spanish Inqusition’ sketch, where Cardinal Ximenez, the lead inquisitor (Michael Palin) repeatedly stumbles over, then restates the list of their tools (“Our chief weapon is fear; fear & surprise – Our chief weapons are fear, surprise, and a ruthless..) In fact, the Pythons’ used this ‘mangling & restating a list’ game to the point of tedium (can I say that about them?)

Likewise, when I write a song, I try to ‘find the game’ of my song. For example, in Alive (My Iraqi War Diary, Part 1), the game is the narrators’ cynical, fatalistic, and brutally honest point of view (“I make the world safe for your SUV”).

In What Did I Miss? (My Iraqi War Diary, Part 2), the game is the answers to the question posed by the songs’ title: a recounting of the most trivial/superficial events of the past 21 years (at least until the last chorus; then Bam!…).

In My So-Called Democracy, the game is sarcasm. Lines like

where the fourth estate is bought by the second, I’m sure this is just what The Framers had reckoned

and

if the White House needs to pay the press, well, they’re only looking out for my best
and if rich folk are feeling oppressed, let’s give ‘em more tax breaks, ’cause that’s what’s best

state the opposite of what is meant for dramatic effect.

In the New Wave classic 88 Lines About 44 Women by The Nails, the game is stated right in the title: 44 women described 2 lines at a time. Listen carefully to every line: it’s a tour-de-force of lyric writing, eg:

Jackie was a rich punk-rocker, silver spoon and a paper plate.

Can you spell succinct?

Other popular songwriting ‘games’ include call-and-response, extreme variations in vocal range (eg, ‘emo’), and normal-time/double-time groove changes, where a songs’ choruses are twice/half the time as the verses.

My song On And Off (I Wanna See You) is a good example of this, as well as The Clash’s’ Should I Stay or Should I Go, and The Police’s’ So Lonely. The latter two double the time in the Chorus, whereas my song doubles the time in the Verses (or halves the time in the Chorus, said another way).

Not every song needs a ‘game,’ but it can jump-start your creativity and give your songs an additional hook.

Any other popular songs with games? Any games in your songs? Do tell.

- Rob

‘The Game’ of a Scene From Spinal Tap

Here’s a great definition and example from the movie Spinal Tap, from this excellent improv technique summary by Dan Goldstein:THE GAME OF THE SCENE SHOULD RHYME AND HEIGHTEN

Mark Twain had an adage that history doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes. The game of the scene is the thing that repeats. However, I don’t mean repeats exactly, which is why I say it rhymes. When you rhyme “star” with “are”, you take the word “star”, generalize it to the “-ar” family of rhymes, and find another specific member of that family. So it is with the game in the scene. You don’t want to repeat it exactly, but want to find another specific that rhymes with the general theme and heightens it.

Consider the following scene from Spinal Tap, with Marty interviewing Nigel about his Guitar collection:

Nigel Tufnel: Look… still has the old tag on, never even played it.

(Marty points his finger)

Nigel Tufnel: Don’t touch it!

Marty DiBergi: We’ll I wasn’t going to touch it, I was just pointing at it.

Nigel Tufnel: Well… don’t point!

Marty DiBergi: Don’t point, okay. Can I look at it?

Nigel Tufnel: No.

Notice that Nigel doesn’t insist on the guitar not being touched three times. Here, the pattern is: don’t touch, don’t point, don’t look. This is a rhyming pattern (all concerning observing a guitar). It is also a heightening, which is very important in game playing. Asking someone not to touch a prized guitar is a bit odd but understandable. Asking someone not to point to it is more strange, and asking someone not to look at it is heightening the game of “respecting the guitar” to an extreme.

Mike McHugh has booked many hot acts over 25 years including: Regina Spektor, G.E. Smith,  & Michelle Shocked.

I included never-or-rarely performed songs like Your Morning Smile, The Royal We, and Bleeding Heart (all award-winners, the last 2 in American Songwriter Magazines’ Lyric Contest). Left out were often performed songs My So-Called Democracy, and This Is Why Life Sucks. I also covered Watching The Detectives, in a slow, sultry groove, to great effect. Got it all on video; finally.

I had to rethink some arrangements, but I also had a great excuse to trot out my beautiful, but also-rarely-used-in-public Gibson ES-175, a rare 40th Anniversary Edition tricked out in gold hardware and cherry sunburst. It’s a great sounding/playing gem.

Taking my guitar teachers’ (Larry Coryell) advice, I finger-picked it most of evening.

To mix it up, I also bought a Roland RC-50 LoopStation the day before. Alas, not enuf time to work it in; but I did use it to provide drums on The Other Side Of Somehow.

Among regulars in attendance were recent email additions Deborah (from Wash. Sq. Park in August), and Marilyn (from the Haykos show in August); coincidence: turns out they’re good friends. So working the list pays off. We all went to The Olive Tree, on MacDougal St. for my Birthday Dinner.

A perfect Birthday.