Well, I may change that title before I post this, but it speaks perfectly to the subject. For the first time since I started keeping this journal, I’m tempted to drop the anonymity just so I can publicly bust this fuckhead for the bullshit-playing, hate-filled, has been, jive-ass motherfucking phoney he is, but then I’d have to go back and redact the whole blog out of respect for the not-public-figure humans I’ve mentioned (as aliases) in these pages.
And it doesn’t matter. And I don’t want to provoke even the slightest curiosity that might lead to selling even a single one of his songs on iTunes. But “has been” isn’t quite it; “never was” is closer to the mark. Shit, I never was, neither, but I ain’t making claims. I’ve played some real good music with some real fine musicians, though, and I’m proud of the ridiculously eclectic and eccentric musics this haunted little rift in the spacetime fabric of Texas seems to consistently produce.
Where to start, where to start…
I got a call from a booking agent I know, he said, “Hey man, I got a coupla gigs if you want them, this guy Fuckstick McHair* outta LA, he’s amazing, man, and I told him all about you, and he really wants to play with you.”
As it happens, I’d actually played a little with Fuckstick in 2007**, but he was working his way up the Austin foodchain, and I was insane at the time, so I may not have really registered on his social-climbing radar or answered his phone calls or emails for like 8 months or something. I do remember through the cloud of madness thinking, wow, this guy’s really a smarmy, unpleasant fuck, and I really loathe this fucking Los Angeles studio musician 11th chord suspension and modulating shit with this 53rd string Mose Alison vocal on top of it crap.
But that was last year, and, as you might have gleaned, I wasn’t exactly functioning at peak mental efficiency back then, and besides that, there was a certain wheedle to my booking agent pal’s (he’s also very, very sick) voice that told me I’d be doing him a solid.
I’m all about doing a solid, so I said yes, telling myself, maybe it was just the fog I was in, maybe the music wasn’t that awful, and learning a book, doing two gigs, it’ll be good discipline.
I was already sure, if it came to pass at all, that I’d only do the two shows, because I am sick to death of guitar music; fucking cliché-ridden electric guitar bluesrock swill is about the most tiresome thing on earth. I’d played with one of the best guitarists in the world at doing that stuff, and one of the reasons he’s not famous-er than god is precisely because he tried to play out of that horrible tired box those fuckers live in.
So anyway, I said, “Well, tell him to call me, he has my number, I’ll see if those dates are open.”
“Oh, thankyouthankyouthankyou, Seven, man, I really appreciate it, and this could be like a ton of road work, recording, fame, fortune, limos, lear jets…”
uh-huh.
About 30 seconds later, Fuckstick called me himself. He told me how great I am, that he wanted to learn my songs, send him an mp3 — and I already I feel like I’m being played. He tells me the dates, pumps the gigs up like I’m gonna be in Carnegie Hall before I know it, and the second one, the really important one, it’s a show with up and coming guitar acts — and there’s gonna be Fender reps there.
Well, hang on a sec, let me just empty my diaper, there, partner! You say a guitar company is gonna be there? And 2 other mediocre-ass bluesrock trios are on the bill? Lord, have I died and gone to heaven?
Truth is (I’ll bet you’re way ahead of me on this), I shouldn’t have taken the gigs. I was already looking at a crazy nosleepnosleepNOSLEEP! upcoming two weeks: I’d just joined another band, my increasingly full roster of students needed more thought and planning, I could barely walk because I’d torn a muscle running, my day gig (it still feels strange, typing that) was, well, taking my days –
– and oh, did I mention I fucking hate guitar bands?
But I did take the dates, against my better judgment, mainly because I’m an idiot and because it came to me in the form of a favor for a friend.
So we set up a CD and chart exchange, a couple of rehearsal dates, and Fuckstick emails me a songlist. At some point I set aside 5 minutes to peruse the material, and I realize, oh, no! — make that multiple oh, nos: these are the worst charts ever written; virtually every song shows up in this pile of 5 CDs in at least 3 different versions (seriously); almost every song is a cover (a bad cover); the originals are bad-Jeff-Beck-as-played-by-the-knowitall-fuckhead-salesman-at-the-Guitar-Center-on-Sunset Blvd., and each and every arrangement offers all kinds of little squirrelly details: little unison rifflets that you’re only supposed to play on the 3rd and 8th repeats (complexity in arrangements isn’t a bad thing — in fact, that was the element that sustained me through this whole ordeal. What you hope for is a reason for every gesture a composer makes), multiple modulations (oh, yuck)…
and some of the songs are MEDLEYS (oh a medley is a loathsome thing).
The charts — they’re like this (only handscrawled):
BBBB F#___________ Gb A#A# !!!!
(BbBbBbAbGGGGCD#D#)
– for, like, a whole page. For real. The !!!s? That wasn’t commentary from me, apparently that means accents, or hits… oh, boy.
The CDs — studio, live, different band, studio, outtake crap… with 3, 4 different arrangements, tempos, everything — which version should I learn?
Covers — well, I’d sworn off playing covers years before, which is not to say I’d taken a vow against playing songs by other people, but rather that I’d made a commitment to original music. The covers here — well the only way I can think of to characterize them is as novelty covers… I’m not gonna go into it too much, but imagine a Stevie Ray song emasculated, reharmonized, the melody given a whispery, faux-jazz reworking and delivered in a horrible imitation of some desperate, irradiated, dropped-on-its-head lovechild of Astrud Gilberto and Mose Alison…
…okay, I’m hyperventilating…
Gratuitous modulation is the first refuge of musical morons everywhere. I’ve studied classical music almost my entire life; I’m such a dork that I’ll buy a score and pass on bread for a month. Modulation (which means changing keys) is a subtle emotional art that composers go to considerable lengths to achieve seamlessly, but more importantly, musically. This stuff — BLANG – new key – BLANG – do it again — it’s jive, it’s jarring, it’s a cheap coat of yellow paint on a rusty piece of shit ‘78 Ford Maverick.
Medleys are of course both the work of SATAN and proof of his existence.
And this crap is slick. Slippery doo doo. That’s the the worst thing of all for music to be – slick. I’d rather hear some 4 year-old clawing at an out-of-tune banjo than listen to somebody’s slick fuckin shit. The players on Fuckstick’s CDs are LA session types, great players with plenty of chops, and I’ve gotta tell you it’s some toneless, souless fuckin bullshit. But look. I’m a bass player, right? I agreed to play this dreck, and so it was time to man up, learn the shit, play the gigs, and take it as a pure exercise in learning — and, may the gods of music assist me — forgetting.
So I was actually cheerful about it — hard to believe, given the bilious nature of every single paragraph in this piece so far, I know, but in the timeline of this association I truly welcomed the challenge, and Fuckstick was certainly very nice. It’s also true that I felt like I was being groped by a skeevy porn mogul, but hey! — it’s nice to be wanted, right?
A couple of days later Fuckstick came over to my apartment, and, as we began to set up, he started telling me what a fucked up town Austin is, how much he hates it here, how every single musician (except me, of course, I’m different) in my fair city plays nothing but strumsy-wumsy bullshit, how the guitarist I played with for so long (and whom I love as a brother) wasn’t all that, didn’t listen…
… then he launched into Stevie Ray, Alejandro, and several other leading lights, all Texans (except me), the weather, our dogs, the shape of our clouds… I don’t know, it was a stream of spew, it’s hard to describe the unpleasantness that was coming out of Fuckstick’s mouth, all delivered with a big smile and new age, fake Buddhist homilies. Takes the edge off, don’t you know, to say, “Everyone in Austin is a pig — but I love them and all is bliss.”
Inwardly reeling before this onslaught of arrogant bigotry, I muttered something about how I never had really belonged to any Austin cliques, and it wasn’t really about all that, anyway. Dark murder was in the room, and I was trying my best to master the lizardbrain within that commanded me to rend and tear Fuckstick limb from limb.
Typing this now, I’m wondering why I didn’t just throw him out on the spot. I think it was shock — shock at how violently I reacted. Only a week before, one of my coworkers was gently kidding me, and said, “Oh, Seven, when was the last time you got mad at anyone?” And I couldn’t remember! And there I was with medieval scenarios dancing in my brain…
Look. There’s lots of folks that need to elevate themselves, but since they have no lift, they have to bring everything down; you know them, I know them. My theory about Fuckstick (and why he thought this approach was going to what? — gain him a loyal minion?) goes something like this:
Fuckstick had come into Austin expecting to be worshipped in Guitartown, and discovered the painful truth, as true here as it is in LA, NYC, and Nashville — no one cares. On the strength of his jive and his resume and his connections, he was able to quickly insinuate himself among the Austin elite, aided by his cutthroat seduction technique, the very essence of survival among the second and third-rate in the SoCal desert. Because guess what, everybody likes to be told they’re beautiful, even by skeevy porn moguls. But the thing about us Austin players is, you can seduce us, but you can’t change us. It’s not really Guitartown, Stevie Ray and Eric J notwithstanding, it’s Eccentrictown, and that’s the real truth and the real heart of Austin music.
And that’s the heart of Austin. People come here thinking they’ll change this place, and oh, they upchuck their stripmalls and condotowers and prefab music, but they always either wind up hating this town and leaving it forever or being transformed by it. I believe there’s some deep and serious juju on this land, myself. I think it predates even Native American cultures, and goes all the way down to the core of the planet. There are places like that, you know, weird little pockets of magic, not always benign — New Mexico, Utah, Peru — LOTS of them, and this town is one of them, no doubt. I know; I’ve been everywhere, man.
Meanwhile, back at the rehearsal
Well, I could see this was going to go badly: bad charts, too many song versions, complicated, over-arranged material, all of that is easily surmounted, but you add in a despicable human (you’ll see) and dreadfully bad music, and oboy, where’s my motivation, as they say in Hollywood.
Our next rehearsal, a few days later, was with the drummer at a house of one of Fuckstick’s pals out Manchaca way, one of those ridiculously large places they build on the outskirts of every city in America. Inside, the decor was Dissolute SoCal Whiteflight Alcoholic Coke Dealer. Trash everywhere, piled high, but it was cartons of soy milk, tofu dog packages, and vodka bottles. We set up inside of that sprawling mess in a studio that must’ve easily cost over $100k. As we trudged through the musical muck, I observed a very good young drummer thoroughly cowed into removing all personal aspects of his playing to serve the Aesthetic Vision of Fuckstick McHair.
Depressing.
Out of solidarity for the drummer, I joined him in the task of soul removal — it was what our ‘leader’ wanted, you know? In a weird way, it was the musical thing to do — putting some soul into this crap would’ve actually made it worse by highlighting its fundamental hollowness. But the implicit oppression pained me. Why accept bullying from this little man with his small prospects? I know why I was putting up with it, a favor, two gigs and I’m out, learn a lot of stuff real fast is good brain exercise, etc… but why was this drummer putting up with it? — he plays with him on a regular basis.
And I thought back to when I was 20-something…
no, hahaha, I would’ve put a severe hurting on Fuckstick, lacking all the civilized restraint I now enjoy
Late teens…
Yeah, maybe. The music is hard, ultra-arranged, well-played, I wouldn’t have understood the chords very well. I suppose I could’ve easily been cowed by an LA session dude with an aggressive demeanor and famous musician stories to tell.
I felt for the kid. But he’s more like 27, voluntarily playing this bullshit — hell, he may like it, not for me to judge for anyone except me.
There was one more rehearsal before the gig. Unexpectedly I had a chunk of time open up, and I told myself I’d devote it to learning this dreadfully bad songlist before it rolled around.
But on the day I was paralyzed, man, it was like trying to pull out a healthy tooth. Instead I learned Relaxing at the Camarillo, a Charlie Parker tune , one of the coolest blues heads ever.
Austin slacker.
Still, by the time of the last rehearsal I felt I had a pretty good grasp of the tunes — how to decipher both the indecipherable charts and Fuckstick’s particular language (for example, “bomb” means “whole note”).
After his usual fellow-musician-slagging, Austin-hating preliminaries, we got down to bidness. As we went through the tunes, much to my bizarre combination of professional horror and profound human indifference, I couldn’t seem to retain anything about his horrible fucking music!
This is where I lay off of Fuckstick and take my own fuckhead self to task. Music is sacred to me, man. If I didn’t want to do it I should’ve said so, up front. All subsequent revelations about his mean-spiritedness and the profound terribleness of his music ain’t gonna get me off the hook. There I was, after THREE rehearsals, and ample time to review (ridiculously crowded schedule notwithstanding), incapable of remembering pretty much anything. And sitting here right now, intellectually recoiling from this severe, unpardonable lapse, in my heart, I remain, in truth, unmoved.
I guess I just can’t forgive dissing SRV — not to mention my best friend, the city where my daughter was born, the state where my ancestors lived and died… but you know, I’m a musician, I mean if, well, if Charlie Parker did that, I wouldn’t think twice: Yeah, you right, Bird, Austin sucks! — can we play Donna Lee now?
Inexcusable. This is an instance where I’m going to ignore my emotions and learn the lessons my brain commands me learn, which is (alone in) telling me I done wrong. My heart? My gut? They’re telling me I should’ve sabotaged his car, or superglued his face to a city bus.
And still Fuckstick was telling me how great I was, all about my spirit, my life, what I should be doing to be happy, did I wanna hook up with this woman he knows, and I’m thinking, it wouldn’t really even BE murder, right, I mean aren’t there instances where there’s implicit cosmic approval?
Come gig day, heeding my higher consciousness, I actually got up early, before my students started rolling through, and seriously knuckled down with the CDs for a few hours. After my last student left, I had a solid hour before I had to go to load in, and I filled it with more study on those horrible tunes. Dutifully, I wrote down questions about rifflets I didn’t have time to ear out (the charts were absolutely useless), arrangements (as in which of the many recorded versions should I heed), ectetera.
When I got up to the big, multi-room, something-for-everyone entertainment complex (which means you can listen to really loud country music while you play!), I loaded in my stuff, helped load in everybody else’s stuff (I’m a good guy to have in your band, honest I am), set up, asked my questions, clarified my rifflets, got the songlist in order. Then Fuckhead asked me if I’d go with him to grab a bite, and I said sure — my curiosity about other people is nearly bottomless, and it certainly wasn’t hard to get him talking about himself. We went to a Subway at a nearby freeway truckstop. I grabbed some trailmix and juice while he ordered up a sandwich. While we sat in the fluorescent yellow glory, eating, a family walked in –
“Look at those fat fuckers,” he hissed, “and LOOK! That one woman is wearing a Jesus t-shirt, she’s fat and ignorant.”
You go, boy, I thought, you’re actually dissing entire religions now.
Then he was off on Texas again, then all Southerners, with an aside for every human that walked in the door.
Walking back into the club, he looked at a couple in front of us and said something so vile I can’t repeat it here, not even in this invective-filled posting of mine. With that fucking Buddha twist on the end, too, and I realized, this is just one of the worst humans I’ve ever known.
You know, I did a pretty good job on the gig. I played the shit out of most of the songs, and expertly covered up the places where he changed thing up, or I’d completely forgotten. I definitely had a couple of brainblanks, but anyone would’ve on their first time on a gig as involved and arranged as that one.
On the first break he told me to put my bass amp on the ground, and I needed to play with more presence, man, music is about presence — this is Old Fart for turn up, I’m deaf. My good nature finally crumbled away and I said, “Back the fuck up. My rig stays where it’s at, my volume is fine, shut the fuck up.”
Well that drove him from the dressing room, and I fear it may have cast a permanent pall on our relationship, as well. Just then, the soundman put on a CD of me and my best friend, the brilliant guitarist Dervish, in all our ragged glory, and everything dropped into place, somehow.
And so it went, through 2 more sets. No one was there — why would they be? At the end of the night he called out the well-known sentimental standard he ends his nights with, and as I looked for the horrid chart to remind me of the modulations, he said loudly, dripping with sarcasm, “You don’t need a chart, do you?” and I hollered back, “I do when the changes are wrong and stupid,” but he didn’t hear me. Listening ain’t exactly Fuckhead’s long suit.
After the gig, I quickly tore down, loaded up my rig, and drove away. Before I left, the drummer said we should exchange numbers. He liked me. I liked him. Good player.
Halfway home, Fuckhead called me.
“Hey, where are you? I have your money!”
“Keep your fuckin money, I don’t want it.”
“You feel pretty bad, huh?” undoubtedly thinking I was agonizing over missed rifflet #9 on the second coda’s repeat in embarrassing cover song #33.
“Nope, I feel great,” I said, and I did — I was driving away from him and his lousy ass music.
It was dawning on him, at last. “Will you play that Fender showcase?”
“I will,” I said, “because I said I would. But here are my conditions. One rehearsal, no more, the drummer has to be there, and that’s it. And after that, you may never call me or email me again, ever. Is that clear?”
I haven’t heard back from him.
__________________________________
*Not his real name.
** Watch for my upcoming post (it’s still in draft form) called “Everything I did in 2007 was wrong”
