So, Jacob Scardino, a friend of mine whom I met at the Uxi Duxi,
back when he had the long and shaggy look of someone who might be into the esoteric goods inside the store; a look that, in retrospect, and after having visited his studio, was most likely his attempt to look like the Frank Zappa in the posters that were prominently displayed there- brought me to his studio, Monday afternoon.
The haircut in the photo to the left, he had undergone, in order to help him get a job, which he did, at the Uxi Duxi.
He quit during his third day of training, though. This did make me wonder how devoted a band-mate he might be in the future.
He showed up in a SUV type vehicle, to follow me to Sacred Heart Apartments where I rode my bike to drop it, and a bag of kitty litter off, while grabbing my gear.
It seemed like about a 30 mile ride.
Jacob wasn't sure if he should take the Interstate, being somewhat of a novice behind the wheel of a vehicle. He wasn't sure if he should allow me to smoke in that vehicle, which he told me he had only had for 2 days.
Bob, his "guardian" was a stickler about certain things.
Jacob declined to smoke a bit of weed, because of an undefined fear of Bob, also.
We got to the house, in Kenner, Louisianna, where they both lived.
I guess he has been under Bob's stewardship since the age of 14, and now he is about 20, and it's about time he get a job, hence the Uxi Duxi experiment.
The house wound up being "right up the same alley" with the house that I grew up in, you could have slipped it somewhere into my childhood neighborhood and it would have blended in. A ranch style brick house it was, although it could have just been brick-faced.
It would have been Mr. Mattson's house, up the street a few houses from ours.
Mr. Mattson might have been the "Bob" of our neighborhood.
Bob is Jacobs guardian, he is seventy years old, but looked 44, as he sat at a desk piled up so high with stuff that it probably blocked the view of the computer he was almost certainly on, because why else would a fellow sit there at a desk for at least the whole 2 hours that Jacob and I jammed in his studio.
Bob, "He,'s not a hoarder, but..." collected things.
Behind him, the wall was one whole bookshelf, with The Bible being the one book that's spine jumped out at me, it being in set in at least 4 times the font-size of any other book that was on that shelf. I thought that was a nice touch.
Jacob had notified me that his guardian was some kind of strict Christian.
The middle class people in our neighborhood had caught a nice wave, in that the values of their houses increasing over time, outpacing the increases in the cost of living, so that the monthly mortgage payments became a smaller and smaller slice of their income pies, as the years passed, and us kids grew into spoiled brats, totally unaware of the rude awakenings that awaited us.
Monthly payments, over the last ten years of the life of the mortgage became only a fraction of what it would cost to rent the same house, at the current market rates.
For example, when my parents remitted their final $228 to the bank, in 1987, you would have to pay more than twice that to rent a one-bedroom in a decent neighborhood. While they then owned outright a ranch style house, with a yard and a fence around the back one.
They had paid almost 3 times the selling price of the house, but, 40 years later, (after they had been living in it "all paid off" for 15 years, to boot) it sold for 14 times that amount.
Plus, as the "cost of living" went up, so did salaries.
So, by paying a mortgage, beginning in 1960, and ending in 1990, life was good.
This meant summer vacations, second cars, kids going to good colleges, and in the case of Mr. Mattson or Bob, being able to turn your house into a museum, crammed to the gills with collectibles, to include thousands of DVD's, books, and a whole hallway lined with autographed photos of famous people. There has to be at least a six-pack of Billy Beer somewhere in that house.
And, of course (it seems) they had Vietnamese neighbors...
Jacobs contribution to the collection (not horde) of stuff seemed to be the Frank Zappa paraphernalia, and alongside it the Elvis stuff. Jacob seems to be into that odd pair of entertainers.
"He,'s not a hoarder, but..." Jacob had said to me during our ride over there, as a way to prepare me for what I was about to see, I guess.
Behind Bob, the wall was one whole bookshelf, with The Bible being the one book that's spine jumped out at me, it being in set in at least 4 times the font-size of any other book that was on that shelf. I thought that was a nice touch.
Jacob had notified me that his guardian was some kind of strict Christian, as a way of preparing me for the sight of that, I also guess.
There were 3 organs, along with a bunch of collectible toys, such as Star Wars dolls, in a small room, that Jacob called "the toy room."
He had called the house: "The M.O.C." -for museum of crap.
I had to compete with a drum kit for a spot on the floor to put my feet as I sat down with my guitar and harmonica in front of a microphone that was protruding towards me from out of a pile of Hans Solo figurines or something.
Jacob had the Audacity program on his laptop.
He clicked through its menus so frenetically that it seemed like he was abusing the machine. In situations where 3 clicks may be required to complete an operation, he would rattle all three of them off, like a rattlesnake striking, and the display on the screen would jerk and twitch, and I was fascinated by how in the space of a generation Man has become so adroit with a mouse.
I guess an old fogy was learning from a millenial how to save time, a millisecond at a time...
I wasn't sure what our recording session might yield. Jacob had seemed kind of tentative when he had asked me if I ever wanted to jam with a keyboard player. My ego driven thought was that he might have apprehensions about his ability to complement my music; that, perhaps I was in my own universe, immersed so deep that, No, I'm just a solo artist, dude... had crossed his mind.
Myself, I have been in the pickle of having decided to live in the present moment and not to even identify with thoughts of any "future," but at the same time, what did I have to lose, the guy at least had a keyboard and a drumkit, I gathered.
Jacob turned the microphone on, which was running through a USB mixer and into his laptop and began recording me just playing incomplete bits of some of my songs.
This was OK, it appears, because any verse that is missing can be inserted just using the repeat effect to make a prior one repeat.
These, Jacob will take, and, using the one Roland synthesizer that I had counted among the "3 organs" in the studio, will be able to add what I expect to be incredible musical parts to it.
He is a very competent keyboard player, the music of his that he played for me sounded amazingly like Frank Zappa, he had even used the pitch shifting effect that Audacity has to achieve a sound that I have heard on a lot of Zappa's stuff.
Jacob is kind of the Anti-Blaine, to me, referring, of course to Travis Blaine, once roommate of mine for nineteen days..
The Anti Travis
While Travis lived a sheltered existence, having probably had more contact with software than with human minds, he unfortunately came into contact with a small sample of humanity, in whose company he was apparently seen as a genius, having risen to the top of that hapless society.
The exclusive, highly competitive, famous and esteemed school that Travis was the valedictorian of, was probably peopled by the moronic children of other parents who attempted to shield their kids from the evils of the public school system by cloistering them there.
Travis; Claims to be a gifted musician, who almost toured with a band that almost went on a tour once. Upon picking up my guitar and approximating the chords to a Perl Jam song, he replaced it on my couch with a smug air of: "So, you can see, I know my shit when it comes to music."
Jacob: Expressed some doubts that he would even be able to contribute to my musical project, lamenting that he doesn't know how to read music. He picked up his guitar, and within a minute was playing a lead melody over one of my original songs.
Travis: Claimed to be "pretty good at chess." He then opened a game against me, a game that would never be finished because I decided not to waste my time, methodically defeating him after he had revealed himself to be an idiot when it came to playing chess with his very first mo(906587%*)ve, by playing a4.
There is probably no chess match between any players in any tournament where either player, with a U.S.C.F. rating of 400 (like I had when I was 12 years old and played against a chess computer that could rate a player's game) or better has started a game with that move.
There is, however a "gotcha!" type of "trick" series of moves that begins with that one. I think I may have fallen for it the very first time, when I was ten years old. Travis might have made some hay with that particular series of moves back at St. Mark's Academy for gifted geniuses in New York, but, you've got to be kidding me...should I play into his hands and make the ignorant blunder moves on my side to facilitate his ploy, and then pull the rug out from under him right before he gets to move that knight from out of nowhere to it's spot where he can check my king and then take my queen? was my response.
The GIMP Editor
I want to go back to fooling with the GIMP image editor.
Jacob: No data, we didn't play chess.
Just in demonstrating the Roland synthesizer keyboard to me, Jacob showed that, unlike Travis, the small sample of the human race that he came into contact with, having been similarly guarded over by Bob, was undoubtedly of a much higher caliber than the St. Mark's kids.
He can play like someone, who is at least on the same planet as Chopin was, on the keyboard, but has the diametrically opposed to Travis opinion that he isn't very good, because he can't read music.
I'll bet Travis can not just read music, but can read Gregorian chant notation, too! Enough so that he can say that he can, that is...
The haircut in the photo to the left, he had undergone, in order to help him get a job, which he did, at the Uxi Duxi.
He quit during his third day of training, though. This did make me wonder how devoted a band-mate he might be in the future.
He showed up in a SUV type vehicle, to follow me to Sacred Heart Apartments where I rode my bike to drop it, and a bag of kitty litter off, while grabbing my gear.
It seemed like about a 30 mile ride.
Jacob wasn't sure if he should take the Interstate, being somewhat of a novice behind the wheel of a vehicle. He wasn't sure if he should allow me to smoke in that vehicle, which he told me he had only had for 2 days.
Bob, his "guardian" was a stickler about certain things.
Jacob declined to smoke a bit of weed, because of an undefined fear of Bob, also.
We got to the house, in Kenner, Louisianna, where they both lived.
I guess he has been under Bob's stewardship since the age of 14, and now he is about 20, and it's about time he get a job, hence the Uxi Duxi experiment.
The house wound up being "right up the same alley" with the house that I grew up in, you could have slipped it somewhere into my childhood neighborhood and it would have blended in. A ranch style brick house it was, although it could have just been brick-faced.
It would have been Mr. Mattson's house, up the street a few houses from ours.
Mr. Mattson might have been the "Bob" of our neighborhood.
Bob is Jacobs guardian, he is seventy years old, but looked 44, as he sat at a desk piled up so high with stuff that it probably blocked the view of the computer he was almost certainly on, because why else would a fellow sit there at a desk for at least the whole 2 hours that Jacob and I jammed in his studio.
Bob, "He,'s not a hoarder, but..." collected things.
Behind him, the wall was one whole bookshelf, with The Bible being the one book that's spine jumped out at me, it being in set in at least 4 times the font-size of any other book that was on that shelf. I thought that was a nice touch.
Jacob had notified me that his guardian was some kind of strict Christian.
The middle class people in our neighborhood had caught a nice wave, in that the values of their houses increasing over time, outpacing the increases in the cost of living, so that the monthly mortgage payments became a smaller and smaller slice of their income pies, as the years passed, and us kids grew into spoiled brats, totally unaware of the rude awakenings that awaited us.
Monthly payments, over the last ten years of the life of the mortgage became only a fraction of what it would cost to rent the same house, at the current market rates.
For example, when my parents remitted their final $228 to the bank, in 1987, you would have to pay more than twice that to rent a one-bedroom in a decent neighborhood. While they then owned outright a ranch style house, with a yard and a fence around the back one.
They had paid almost 3 times the selling price of the house, but, 40 years later, (after they had been living in it "all paid off" for 15 years, to boot) it sold for 14 times that amount.
Plus, as the "cost of living" went up, so did salaries.
So, by paying a mortgage, beginning in 1960, and ending in 1990, life was good.
This meant summer vacations, second cars, kids going to good colleges, and in the case of Mr. Mattson or Bob, being able to turn your house into a museum, crammed to the gills with collectibles, to include thousands of DVD's, books, and a whole hallway lined with autographed photos of famous people. There has to be at least a six-pack of Billy Beer somewhere in that house.
And, of course (it seems) they had Vietnamese neighbors...
Jacobs contribution to the collection (not horde) of stuff seemed to be the Frank Zappa paraphernalia, and alongside it the Elvis stuff. Jacob seems to be into that odd pair of entertainers.
"He,'s not a hoarder, but..." Jacob had said to me during our ride over there, as a way to prepare me for what I was about to see, I guess.
Behind Bob, the wall was one whole bookshelf, with The Bible being the one book that's spine jumped out at me, it being in set in at least 4 times the font-size of any other book that was on that shelf. I thought that was a nice touch.
Jacob had notified me that his guardian was some kind of strict Christian, as a way of preparing me for the sight of that, I also guess.
There were 3 organs, along with a bunch of collectible toys, such as Star Wars dolls, in a small room, that Jacob called "the toy room."
He had called the house: "The M.O.C." -for museum of crap.
I had to compete with a drum kit for a spot on the floor to put my feet as I sat down with my guitar and harmonica in front of a microphone that was protruding towards me from out of a pile of Hans Solo figurines or something.
Jacob had the Audacity program on his laptop.
He clicked through its menus so frenetically that it seemed like he was abusing the machine. In situations where 3 clicks may be required to complete an operation, he would rattle all three of them off, like a rattlesnake striking, and the display on the screen would jerk and twitch, and I was fascinated by how in the space of a generation Man has become so adroit with a mouse.
I guess an old fogy was learning from a millenial how to save time, a millisecond at a time...
I wasn't sure what our recording session might yield. Jacob had seemed kind of tentative when he had asked me if I ever wanted to jam with a keyboard player. My ego driven thought was that he might have apprehensions about his ability to complement my music; that, perhaps I was in my own universe, immersed so deep that, No, I'm just a solo artist, dude... had crossed his mind.
Myself, I have been in the pickle of having decided to live in the present moment and not to even identify with thoughts of any "future," but at the same time, what did I have to lose, the guy at least had a keyboard and a drumkit, I gathered.
Jacob turned the microphone on, which was running through a USB mixer and into his laptop and began recording me just playing incomplete bits of some of my songs.
This was OK, it appears, because any verse that is missing can be inserted just using the repeat effect to make a prior one repeat.
These, Jacob will take, and, using the one Roland synthesizer that I had counted among the "3 organs" in the studio, will be able to add what I expect to be incredible musical parts to it.
He is a very competent keyboard player, the music of his that he played for me sounded amazingly like Frank Zappa, he had even used the pitch shifting effect that Audacity has to achieve a sound that I have heard on a lot of Zappa's stuff.
Jacob is kind of the Anti-Blaine, to me, referring, of course to Travis Blaine, once roommate of mine for nineteen days..
The Anti Travis
The exclusive, highly competitive, famous and esteemed school that Travis was the valedictorian of, was probably peopled by the moronic children of other parents who attempted to shield their kids from the evils of the public school system by cloistering them there.
Travis; Claims to be a gifted musician, who almost toured with a band that almost went on a tour once. Upon picking up my guitar and approximating the chords to a Perl Jam song, he replaced it on my couch with a smug air of: "So, you can see, I know my shit when it comes to music."
Jacob: Expressed some doubts that he would even be able to contribute to my musical project, lamenting that he doesn't know how to read music. He picked up his guitar, and within a minute was playing a lead melody over one of my original songs.
Travis: Claimed to be "pretty good at chess." He then opened a game against me, a game that would never be finished because I decided not to waste my time, methodically defeating him after he had revealed himself to be an idiot when it came to playing chess with his very first mo(906587%*)ve, by playing a4.
There is probably no chess match between any players in any tournament where either player, with a U.S.C.F. rating of 400 (like I had when I was 12 years old and played against a chess computer that could rate a player's game) or better has started a game with that move.
The GIMP Editor
I want to go back to fooling with the GIMP image editor.
Jacob: No data, we didn't play chess.
Just in demonstrating the Roland synthesizer keyboard to me, Jacob showed that, unlike Travis, the small sample of the human race that he came into contact with, having been similarly guarded over by Bob, was undoubtedly of a much higher caliber than the St. Mark's kids.
He can play like someone, who is at least on the same planet as Chopin was, on the keyboard, but has the diametrically opposed to Travis opinion that he isn't very good, because he can't read music.
I'll bet Travis can not just read music, but can read Gregorian chant notation, too! Enough so that he can say that he can, that is...
Hey so you've got a jam buddy; awesome.
ReplyDeleteTell him that many greats could not read music, among them Chet Baker, Buddy Rich, and probably a whole hell of a lot of rock and roll guys. Hell, the guitar magazines still publish stuff in "tablature" these days.
I, myself, admit I'll probably never be a fluid reader of music. Buddy Rich would have a drummer who could read music play through a new piece a couple of times with his (Rich's)band, and then he'd (Rich) have it "down" and be able to play it. Imagine that! Being paid Union scale to play *for* Buddy Rich!
Fortunately, drum written music seems a bit simpler, and it's mainly about the beat, there are lots of beats to learn, like not only simple stuff like 4/4 and 2/4 and all that, but things like "samba" and "bossa nova" etc. The jazz drummers I listen to are the "advanced math" drummers because they have to be able to switch this stuff all up, in the middle of a 4/4 piece go into one of the Latin beats and back, it'a pretty crazy. But in jazz, interesting, the hi-hat will always tell you where you are. In rock and most music, I guess, it's the bass drum.
If your friend can get a good melody and improvise and all that, I'd not worry about it. I'm sure a lot of those old jazz pianists were not great readers either and they got by OK.