My TOUR WORK - posted on January 18, 2016 by

Glenn Frey

So yeh, Glenn has died…another of the Greats now gone.

I’m not the one to eulogize him. I worked with him for several years and of course that means I got to know him to some small degree, but of course I also knew him in only one segment of his long and amazing career, and I can hardly say that I *KNEW* him. That’s for his family, of course the other Eagles, his long time business partners, and all the other musicians who all knew him longer, better, and deeper than I ever would have or did. The guys that I worked with when I was with him had almost all worked with him as the Eagles band as well, so there’s lots of other people who can speak about him much better than I.

But of course it affects me, and a lot of people know I worked with him and they’re concerned and interested, so I’ll say a couple things….

First of all, I liked Glenn.

He was always cool with me, was generous with me and others when I was working with him, and although of course rock lore is full of all kinda stories, MY experience of him was good. There were times he would be in the same restaurant that some of us might be eating in, and our waiter would come over and say something like “the gentleman that was sitting over there has picked up your check”, and it would be a pretty big tab, but I always thought that was very classy. He didn’t have to do that, he just did. We often rode with him in his jet, (yeh I know, tough life!!), and sometimes he would just wander from chair to chair talking with different guys and just kinda hanging…he did that with me once and it seemed that for a bit he was enjoying just doing what we do, playing music and then hanging about after the gig talking…

He knew a lot about what he did of course, and I learned a few things from him, which at this point is teaching an old dog some tricks, but was he was very good at this thing and he had good thoughts about how it should be done….and yes of course, if he wanted something done a certain way, that’s how it was to be, NO question. And that was fine, he knew how to be Glenn Frey better than anyone else did for damn sure. And he was a REALLY good Glenn Frey, he could really sing, he could really play in the groove, and he knew how to run a show like a CEO….but maybe most of all, I think he actually still really LIKED it…like the part of him that made him get into it in the first place was STILL in him after all those years, and he would sing himself hoarse, get covered in sweat, and leave it all out there….I thought that was awesome, it made me like him more for it.

With him I got to do some things I’d never done before, and to play with an amazing group of musicians playing some of the best popular music that has ever been made. And yes, I’d look over singing harmony with him on like “Lyin’ Eyes” or another song where I’d be singing with just him and me on one of the verses and think, “Holy Shit, this is actually happening!!”, and feel validated for my life choices in a way that most people who do what I do never get a chance to be. If you get to play with some someone like Glenn, it makes some of the downsides of this musician life seem not quite so silly, so irresponsible and childish. There’s not many people who will pooh-pooh doing THAT, and for a guy who grew up a bit on the iffy side in Alaska, it was powerful for me.

Playing with Glenn I also got a chance to get to know and play with Joe Walsh a bit, who was one of my serious idols as a young musician growing up in Alaska, and I can’t say enough good about that experience for me, he’s a sweet guy and one of the greats in Rock music, it was thrilling and an honor.

My time with Glenn came at a time in my life that was very tough for me on a personal level, a difficult and very low period that made the work with him all the better for me, and it helped balance things out, and I’m grateful to him and others that I worked with during that time, it really mattered. The guys in the band were wonderful to me, very supportive and helpful both on and off stage, I made good friends and had some great times.

Today I was sitting at a table in Starbucks when my phone started blowing up and I saw what I was being told was true….I was almost surprised how bad I felt about it, but I did; he was a Big Deal guy, but also someone that I worked with quite a bit and did a lot with, it matters.

I want to mention my good buddy Jonathan Clark. Without Jonathan I wouldn’t have had many of the good gigs I’ve had in my life…yes…WE have to carry our weight when we get in the room, but someone has to get us INTO the room, and a number of times for me that was Jonathan, and definitely so in the case of Glenn. Thank you for that!

I really enjoyed my time with Glenn, and it was truly an honor to have been involved with even my little small bit of that great story.

Thanks Glenn.

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POLITICS, Protect Yourself - posted on November 14, 2015 by

A mix of catalysts…

And here we go again, as tho we just never learn a thing from history, even when it’s recent.

It’s going to be bad everywhere, in the end this mixed with the immigrant thing is going to turn bad like the Bush administration mixed with 9/11 did, fear will replace hope, fists will replace open arms, cold streets will replace warm beds, violence, despair, freezing children, racism, maybe even rioting racism, governmental crackdowns of all kinds. 

 
It’s terrible, and predictable, and in many ways EXACTLY what many governments wanted.

I don’t believe for a second with all the monitoring that is done that SOMEONE didn’t know this was coming. Further, I believe they allowed it to happen so they can clamp down, extend control thru fear, institute MORE governmental powers and abilities to wrest even MORE power away from the people and into the hands of a few.

Just like 9/11, this will be a bellwether of the impending death of freedom, not because of terrorists, but because of the greed of power.

And the role of religion….when are we going to get this?

And of course, the associations with the immigrant exodus have already started, no accident, even if it seems reasonable. – THIS.

Fear wins again.

And of course, this thing itself is terrible, an unbelievable thing to contemplate, but to be caught IN IT?

A walking talking breathing nightmare…

As the PEOPLE of this little planet, we’ve really got our hands full.

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MY MUSIC, My TOUR WORK, Random STUFF - posted on November 9, 2015 by

Value/Meaning….

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. As a musician it’s tricky to understand what we do in the context of money and meaning. Lately I’m finding it much more useful to think of it in terms of how well I do it, and how much it brings to others.

In that context, playing for not much money in some bar just kinda anywhere starts to take on a lot more meaning and value. People are enjoying their time together watching others do something they can’t really do, in a setting that allows and/or validates their feelings….being brought together to feel something that can’t be had alone at home with your tv and your bottle, it’s GOOD for people to do that, and not be alone.

People come up all the time to share how they feel about what they’ve just seen/experienced, and I think we as musicians forget what a gift that is….that they have felt something so powerfully that they need to come up and tell us about it, even to a total stranger who just stepped off the stage, even at the risk of being rebuffed or ignored…. and it’s hard to just walk up to someone and bare your soul, even a little, but they trust us to hear them, because they know we MUST understand, because we just did it!

Yes, maybe we hear it all the time, but for them, it’s special, and it’s NOW, and it really matters to them.

It has nothing to do with money, it has nothing to do with MOST valuations that are recognized as valid measures of what we do, but maybe it’s the most important thing of all, and we should pay a lot more attention to it, I think we would be happier and maybe even better people for it.

 

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POLITICS - posted on September 10, 2015 by

How can we allow this?

Refugees with young children
this?

I’d really like to understand.

Tell me how these little girls deserve to be bombed right out of their country, onto incredibly dangerous boat journeys, walking hundreds and hundreds of miles, starving, cold, sick, ignored or hated, attacked and raped and KILLED as they try to get to somewhere where they can just…live?

Tell me how it makes sense that we allow our giant Western Corporations and their Vampiric #TyrantClass Overlords start WAR in other countries for their own profit, and then we turn our backs as the regions go up in the flames that we’ve ignited, and the populations run for their lives, and we ignore them?

These are little kids, running for their lives, trusting their parents, dying with their parents, playing games with each other around fires, or dying alone of pneumonia in a bush their mother laid them in as she died, falling out of a boat in the middle of the sea in the dark night and hearing their mother’s frantic voice as she screams for you but she can’t see you to help you as you go beneath the waves…what could make this make sense to you? That this is correct, that this is ok?

This is all real. It’s all happening, and WE are to blame.

We allow it, even support it. We allow our “leaders” to con us into it, to believe in it, to scream at and fight each other for it, and then we sit back and popcorn/movie/Walmart/buy/complain/selfish as the hell we’ve unleashed on children just……happens. Over and over.

Well….I don’t know about you, but I’m going to do SOMETHING.

I don’t know what yet, but I’m going to learn more about this thing, and I’m going to find a way to help as many people as I can, and I’m going to put links and comments and info up here as I get it.

Maybe we can’t stop these #TyrantClass scum from doing this kind of thing in our names, maybe that’s too tall an order in this deeply divided and controlled and manipulated society, but maybe you or I can save one little girl, or feed one family, or give someone in a park a blanket, or WHATEVER we can do, SOMETHING!!

I have a little girl. I cannot imagine what the pressure would be that would make me go into this hellish journey these people are making with her in tow, going hungry and asking me questions and trying to stay alive; feet blistering, clothes and bodies unwashed, infections and disease and beating and being spit on and watching other die and be killed and feeling the hate of people and nations as you just try to save your child.

This feels like what the people on the upper floors of the WTC must have faced, dying in flames or jumping, and actually CHOOSING jumping, because that just seemed like the better choice. THAT was preferable.

I can’t stand this. I have to do something.

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POLITICS - posted on August 11, 2015 by

An interesting Bernie thing…

So Bernie Sanders is raising absolute hell, and the large scale media is basically ignoring him, or as in this case, questioning whether he can do it or not, but goddam!! He’s drawing GIANT crowds THIS early in, and let’s get clear, it’s not just that he drawing crowds, it’s that THE PEOPLE are so relieved that someone is actually addressing what THEY want to hear, that THEY are going.

I think the distinction is important because THEY really want to be heard, and they KNOW no one else hears them, and definitely no one else will speak for them, so it HAS to be Bernie, and they are going to force this thing forward. 

Bernie is right about the grassroots thing, and people know this is a crucial time, one where if this takeover isn’t beaten back now, the next few years are going to become very difficult for us as the 99%.

An interesting last note in this report – tomorrow Marc Rubio will be in town….to talk to a private gathering of petroleum manufacturers, (old white dudes with money who “matter”), and Jeb will be in Simi Valley talking to more of the same, tho I think that one is open to at least reporters.

http://abc7.com/920023/

I’m starting to worry for Bernie….his opposition isn’t truly Hillary or any of the other cabdidates, it’s in fact the #TyrantClass in total, and THEY know it. And as far as they’re concerned, this is literally trillions each year of what they consider to be their money being threatened. This is a group of people that care not what damage they do in the pursuit of money/power, be it killing innocent children in far away lands, or getting YOUR kids KILLED in far away lands killing the kids there, or poisoning entire populations both at home and abroad with Frankenfoods, shitting in literally every single thing we eat, place we visit, air we breath, water we drink, and planet we live on in the pursuit of an economic fiction that was made up to control people….what would YOU do if you were them and Bernie turned into a serious threat, or even won, and all your power/money was suddenly at risk?

I know what *I* think they would do, and I think they’ve done it before when Presidents have gotten out of line, (and don’t kid yourself, Obama was and still is entirely their man, watch what happens with the health industry consolidations).

So yeh, I worry for him. I think he knows exactly what he is dealing with, and I think it’s a terribly brave thing he’s doing, and I’m DAMN SURE going to honor that effort and sacrifice by voting for him…well…that and that I think he’s right about almost everything he speaks to.

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