I hope you've got some time because this is going to be a long story. I recorded a couple of videos earlier and saw a comment come across the "Sunday Papers" video I posted this morning. It was a request to do a cover of "War Pigs" from Dylan Sanchez and, while I had everything set up, I thought I'd oblige him with a one take shot at the song. I think there's a pretty good chance that the video will get blocked, if it does, I'll get it back up lickety-split. I learned this song for a short notice gig a couple of weeks ago and is an example of how I might go about learning a song that I might be playing live. For my videos I normally agonize over the correctness of every note but I'm not quite so demanding of myself for live material. I tend to pick and choose my favorite licks that I consider to be important and signature to the song. In this song I'm, for the most part, ad-libbing my way through the guitar solo parts and even borrowed a line or two from how Rudy Sarzo played the song during his stint with Ozzy. For me, the most important thing during the solos was to just keep playing. Back on 4/8, I got a message from Fluffy Wagglekins on Facebook. He said that he gave my number to a fellow who needed a bass player for a one set show at an Earth Day street festival down in Nyack, NY. Fluffy is very active in the live music scene down in Rockland County. I rarely leave my room and don't like playing live. I told him I probably wouldn't be interested but thanked him politely for thinking of me. He actually said, "This guy plays all sorts of weird shit and you were the first person I thought of." Then he told me the guy's name, Jeff Rubin. It turns out, Jeff used to run an open mike night at a club down in Nyack around 28 years ago at a time when I was very musically active. It was like live band karaoke. Bands could get up and play or single players/singers could get up and sit in with the house band. The ability levels of the participants covered the spectrum. Jeff would sing, play, back people up or step off the stage, depending on what was going on. I was always impressed by his musical vocabulary (he seemed to know a million songs) and his ability to both blend in in a supporting role or step up as a front man. Two of his signature songs were Aqualung and Hocus Pocus by Focus. The drummer I was playing with at the time was sort of a local legend himself and we decided to get up and play one night. Not that night, as we wanted to rehearse the songs ourselves before going up. We figured if Jeff could make even the most mediocre of players sound good that we would blow the place up. We rehearsed and showed up one night to play and it was a disappointment. I can't put my finger on what made it disappointing but it was just a lackluster performance and was a bit of a letdown. This had nothing to do with Jeff, it was all me and Tom, the drummer. Not long after that, Jeff auditioned for and joined the band Oingo Boingo. Not sure if you've ever heard of them but they had some international popularity. The real thing of interest about that band was the leader, Danny Elfman who went on to be an incredibly famous composer. I'm sure you've heard of him. He does all of Tim Burton's movies and, most notably, The Simpsons' theme. I've never forgotten the experience and thought this would be an opportunity to redeem myself since those two songs were still in his setlist. I told Jeff the story and that this was the primary reason I'd even considered doing the gig. He laughed and gave me a list of 15 eclectic songs which I set out to learn. The gig was on the 18th, so I had 10 days. Out of the 15 songs, 2 of them I somewhat knew - Aqualung and the Focus song (though it had been 28 years since I'd last played that one.) Another 6 songs, I'd heard so many times before that I more or less knew the arrangements even if I didn't know all the notes. The remaining 7 songs, I was not familiar with at all. I had committed to putting myself in this uncomfortable situation and set about learning the songs. War Pigs was one of the songs that I was very familiar with but had never really learned or played before. I'd touched on it when I was a very young player but it was well over my head at that time and by the time I had developed enough skills to have learned/played it, I'd discovered Rush and had moved on. I should also say that I'd never met the drummer before and the gig was done with no rehearsals. I just showed up, shook hands and played. I must say that I thought the set went very well and I was sort of proud that I'd challenged myself and, more or less, risen to the occasion. The only thing that was disappointing was that Jeff had over budgeted the time we had to play and we never got to do my redemption songs - Aqualung and Hocus Pocus. It figures. Now I'll have to go back again in another 28 years.

• published: 03 May 2015
• views: 33368