badlybent.ca

Well, it’s done.  The 2010 RPM Challenge is over,  and you know what ?

I did it.

Yup, yours truly, the Procrastibator himself actually finished it.   And it feels awesome!   You know what else feels awesome?  Yes, that too, but I’m talking in the context of the Challenge here.  Two other people whom I know and consider friends and fantastic songwriters also finished.  Don Sawchuk and Robbie Hancock, whom I had told about the challenge and had entered on their own did it too.  Maybe that’s what helped push me towards completion when the going was rough - knowing that 2 other guys I knew and respected were doing it, and most likely going to complete it, and there was no way that I, the guy that brought up the whole thing in the first place, wasn’t going to make it as well.

In case you don’t feel like following the above link, here is the Challenge in a nutshell:

A) Record an album - 35 minutes - of material in the time period of Feb. 1 to Feb. 28.  For the hardcore out there, it’s also preferable if you wrote the album in Feb. as well.

B) Send it in to RPM headquarters in New Hampshire.  Must be postmarked no later then noon on March 1.

C) Raise arms in victory.

D) Catch up on sleep, and detox.

And I did it.  I still can’t believe I did, but I did.  I know, holy shit, eh ?  It was close, very close.  I was doing the final mix of the final song at 11:55 on Feb. 28, and coincidentally I dropped it off at the post office at exactly 11:55 AM the next day.  I had to literally speed walk to the post office to do it, but it got done.

I almost once again fell victim to what i call the “Procrasti-Monster”.   Oh, it started off great: January 25th I got one of those write-on/wipe-off calendars and planned the month out completely.  I even had most of the songs already written.  I know that it’s preferable to write everything in Feb. as well, but hey, it was my first Challenge, and I didn’t want to try to accomplish too much in case I accomplished nothing.

As I was saying, the entire month was planned out, I contacted some visual artists I really respect to put some album art together, and as of Feb. 1 I was ready to roll.  In fact, just to make a point I started laying drum tracks down at 12:01 am on Feb 1.

My first track was a spoken word piece, inspired by a poem that The Scarborough Dude wrote and read on his podcast.  In fact, it was so inspiring that I decided to scrap Plan A entirely, and go with a newly-improvised Plan B.  It would be a…CONCEPT ALBUM! Yes - inspired by Scarborough Dude and the Olympics I decided to have a theme of Canada…with a couple of songs about cats just to round things out.  That would be awesome!  I was a musical GENIUS!  I began planning the new album immediately…..

….then something happened: I got a writer’s block.  Here I was with the greatest idea for a concept album since Pink Floyd’s The Wall (okay, not really, but at the time it seemed like it) and I couldn’t get things to flow the way I wanted them to.

Some people know how to deal with writer’s block.  I’ve tried dozens of methods over the year, and I’ll let ya’ll in on a few of them someday, but this time, maybe because I had an actual physical deadline nothing was working.  So I did the most logical thing….

…I froze.  Up.  completely.  I neither wrote nor recorded anything for almost 2 straight weeks.  I watched a little Olympic coverage, some American Idol (yes, I was that desperate) and puttered around the house.

With a little less then 2 weeks to go, a plan started to emerge from the fog.  It was an idea for another concept album, one that would free me from the constraints of having to do picture-perfect recordings, would allow me to write it in February after all, and one that I could actually pull off!

I’ll get into more detail about the album in my next post, but suffice it to say that I’ve got a lot of people to thank for getting done what I needed done, whether it be collaborative work, ideas, voices, etc.   I’ll mention them here, but I go into greater detail in the liner notes, and will also go into more detail on my post regarding the album itself. In no special order, I’d like to thank The Luverly Michelle(tm), Mark and Natalie Shantz, The Scarborough Dude, Paul, Tanja and Mackenzie McCallum, Dr. Ignatio Castillo, Robbie Hancock, Don Sawchuk,  and Mike the guitar tech from Sherwood Music.  If it wasn’t for the above people, well, the album might have got done, but it wouldn’t have been nearly as cool as it turned out.

Perhaps most of all, however, I’d like to thank the people behind the RPM Challenge.  What they do over there is pure brilliance.   As they like to say “it doesn’t have to be the album, it just has to be an album”.  While I’m not sure anyone who participated in the Challenge thinks that their Challenge album is the best thing they’ve ever produced, it’s a good way to force people to write and record.  As Robbie said at one point it got him “motivated to record some songs that should have been recorded years ago”.  Amen brother.  The Challenge got me thinking, writing and recording.  It’s a known fact that the more you do something, the better you get at it.  The RPM Challenge got me to write an album that would never have existed otherwise.  I guess the reason that I dig the Challenge so much is because it also does what I tried to get people to do with the Monthly Sieve Song Challenge.  Anytime somebody creates a song that never existed before, the world is a better place.  Unless it’s Nickelback, but face it, they’ve been creating the same song over and over for years anyways.

To celebrate the victory that Robbie, Don and I had just achieved, I invited them over to my place on March 1 for a “Listening Party” so we could hear what each other had done, and open the bottle of champagne that I had purchased for the occasion.  Listening to what Don and Robbie did reminded me again that they are both great songwriters, and it was a pleasure to be able to hear new stuff from both of them.   As I expected, after hearing what both of them had done, mine was a complete left-turn.

Speaking of how my album turned out, I have to say that although I’m thrilled to death with it, I’m also not totally happy with the final product.  See, when you have a deadline that’s zooming at you like a runaway Toyota you tend to have to say “that’s good enough” a lot .  There are a lot of mistakes on the album, a lot of production tweaks that need to be made, little touch ups here and there to be done, and to be totally honest two more tracks to be recorded that I didn’t have the time to do.

So, I’m going to spend the next couple of months lovingly tuning and honing each track until it’s as polished as it needs to be for me to be happy with it, and then maybe I’ll throw it up on iTunes and put out the CD for sale.  Who knows?

This Challenge has given me lots of ideas, most of which are still sitting there, waiting to be snatched up and placed with care into their own cradles of song, and I’ve learned a lot more about the recording, editing and mixing process.   And, it’s given me something I never had before: and actual ALBUM.

As a matter of fact, it’s given lots of people albums, and even more then that, it’s helped midwife into existence a ton of music that never even existed before February 1, 2010.

And that can only be a good thing.

Peace, Love, and Guiness,

Stevie Z

OR - “I must be outta my %&#@ mind”

Someone who either thinks I’m more talented then I am, or really really hates me turned me on to something called “The RPM Challenge“.

The RPM Challenge is something to inspire musicians to record, in a similar way that NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) in November challenges authors to, well, auth.   NaNoWriMo Challenges writers to write 1,700 words per day for the entire month of November.  It’s an exercise to get people writing.  The good people at the RPM Challenge, and also the ones at fawm.org (February Album Writing Month) have taken this idea and given it a musical spin.  They are challenging songwriters to record 1 Album (10 songs, or approx. 35 minutes of recorded material) during the month of February.

That’s right - less then 3 days per song to get it all down and finished.  And then, when you’re all done, send a copy of the CD to RPM Headquarters and they’ll put stuff up on the net…and other stuff.  I’m not really sure everything that happens, but I know that I really want to give this a kick.  I’ve already gotten 8 songs written that I’ve wanted to record for a while now, and this is the perfect reason.  That still leaves 2 to write though, and I think it would be extra cool to actually write 2 during the month of February as well.

For all the gory details go to rpmchallenge.com and check it out.  There are message boards for people that need collaborations, inspiration, help, etc.  so you’re not alone in this.  They also aren’t nearly as concerned about recording quality as they are just you getting yourself down on “tape”.  And of course, the bastards just had to pick the shortest month of the year, didn’t they?  Oh well, I guess most people are locked inside their warm cozy houses at that time of the year, and starting to go a litle Stir Crazy anyways.  At least those of us in northern climes anyways.  I live in Canada and the only winter activities I take part in are A) Freezing my nuts off, and B) Drinking more Vodka to try to prevent (A).

If any of you follow my blog or podcast (remember my podcast?) then you know that I’m a huge fan of trying to get songwriters writing.  My Sieve Song Challenge aimed at doing the same thing, but at the rate of 1 song per month.   That reminds me - in the next couple weeks look for a new podcast aimed at songwriting specifically.  It will recap the Songwriting Challenge as well as reintroduce it, better and stronger then it was before.  Yay.  I’m actually really excited about that.  I’m also all fired up about the RPM Challenge.  As I get songs done I’ll put em up here for you to check out as well.

If any of you are songwriters as well, I’d encourage you to check out the RPM Challenge and sign up, and if you do, drop me a line and let me know, I’d love to hear about it.  I’d also be more then happy to showcase some of the talent right here and on my podcast as well.

I’m also going to introduce a new Song Challenge of my own for February because I figure if you all are going to be recording and/or writing anyways you might as well kill a couple of buzzards with one rock.  Also, it never hurts to have a little more inspiration when you’re writing tunes.

In fact, if you sign up for the RPM Challenge and let me know, I’ll email you 2 song ideas every day (if you want) from the time you let me know you’re going to do it, until the end of February.  Wow, way to give myself more work to do.  Meh, it’s all part of wanting to help people write songs…..

So let me know if you’re going to do the Challenge, and if you are, good luck.  And oh yeah, if you need a hand with some co-writing, or guitar stuff, or something, drop me a line as well.  Always happy to help, as long as you promise to thank me in your liner notes in your Grammy Winning album…..

Take Care and Happy Writing!

Stevie Z

By Stevie Z

    Well, it’s that time of the year again: time for either myself or The Luverly Michelle™ to purchase something for ourselves.  Every year at Christmas we are ‘allowed’ to buy something worth more money then we would usually spend.  I don’t mean ‘allowed’ by each other, but more along the lines of it taking most of the year to save up the cash to purchase something that costs a little extra dough.  Each Christmas we buy each other a few smaller things, and then we alternate each year on whom gets the bonus ‘goodie’.

     Just to clarify - we’re not talking thousands of dollars here, last year I got an M-Audio MIDI controller keyboard, this year Michelle is getting a sewing machine.  These things generally amount to only a few hundred bucks.

      Since this year is Michelle’s year to get ‘The Big One’, it’s my year to get smaller stuff.  I’m always easy to buy for as far as the category of gifts go - something music-related.  See? Easy.  Where it gets agonizing is trying to decide which subcategory I’m leaning towards.  I look at it as 2 choices.

     Creation Vs. Consumption.

     Since I’m also a songwriter, and am aspiring to be a producer/engineer to some degree as well, I’m always looking at acquiring the stuff I need to achieve my goal of creating great songs, whether writing and playing my own, or helping someone else with theirs.

   While I know some people have a bad case of G.A.S. (Gear Acquisition Syndrome) wherein they’re always pining after (and buying!) the latest, greatest guitar/mic/software/effects, etc, I have a very concrete idea of what I want to achieve, and know what I need to get it.   I’ve never been a fan of newest/shiniest anyways, not when older/used/less expensive gets the job done. 

     At the other end of the equation sits Consumption.  By this I mean the act of listening to music that others have created, such as the latest Corb Lund album.   My MP3 player is an older Sansa SanDisk 8GB, and it’s starting to show it’s age.  When you think that I use it for an average of 4-5 hours per day for listening to podcasts and music in a not-so-healthy-for-electronics environment, I believe it’s held up amazingly well, and was a very good buy.  The only problems are, as I say, it’s getting older, and starting to act a little eccentric now and again, and also, for some reason nobody (including Sansa or Apple apparently) understands, my Mac won’t acknowledge the fact that it exists when I plug it in.  This means that I have to download music and podcasts to a memory stick, then use a windows (ick) based machine to transfer it to my MP3 Player.

     I know, I know.  I keep thinking it too: “Good lord you lazy bastard, 10 years ago the technology for this kind of portable music player wasn’t even within your grasp, and now you’re bitching because it takes you an extra 5 minutes to be able to perform the miracle of being able to hear whatever music you want, whenever you want!”  Yeah, it is kind of nit-picky.  And also, I feel really guilty whenever I think “man, I wish this thing was bigger then 8GB so I could have more music on it.”  I mean, seriously?  My first computer had, I believe, a 256k hard drive!  8GB is a lot of tunes.  I don’t really need an iPod….I mean, they’re neato, and shiny, and do lots of neat stuff, and if I spend enough on one (an iPod Touch, for example has music creation apps available for it) then I can kind of  bridge the gap between creation and consumption.  But we’re talking $400 plus, and I can’t really justify that, not even to myself, never mind Michelle.  Actually, Michelle is a lot more easy-going about that kind of thing. 

   So to help me decide, I asked myself the following question:

    Do I want the ability to be able to listen to Peter Judd’s songs wherever and whenever I want to, which I can already do, but make it slightly easier, or do I want the ability to help amazing songwriters like a Peter Judd or a Robbie Hancock get their songs out so other people can hear them?

     Feedback from other people who share this dilemma is welcome…..

    Stevie Z

I heard something that kind of upset me the other day on the Canadian Podcast Buffet:  Bob Goyetche was interviewing Andrea Ross, co-host of Just One More Book, about one of the main reasons that she and Mark Blevis pulled the plug on their podcast.

You can hear the complete interview here, and I strongly recommend that you do, especially if you’re a media creator or consumer.   Their show was a project of passion, and she put in an amazing amount of effort.  Both of them put in the blood, sweat, tears and toil (and cash!) because they loved what they were doing, as many creators do.

At the end of the day, all she asked was that she get some sort of return on her investment of passion and time.

Not necessarily money, she said, even recognition would have been nice.  However, it sounds like the Big Marketing Machine in the Sky basically started abusing their show as just another Cog in the process of selling.

It especially hit home after the interview when Mark Blevis point outed that most of the podcasts that he and Bob Goyetche are involved with are there mainly to edify other people:

Canadian Podcast Buffet - Shining a light on the Canadian podcast community, and helping to grow it.

Just One More Book - Pointing out great authors of childrens literature.

Mostly Tunes - Playing indie artists you might otherwise not get to hear.

Electric Sky - Interviews with fascinating people.

Normal media that we consume has a price - we pay a cable bill to get television, we pay ticket prices for movies, we buy music either in CD or online formats (yes, I know, all of the above can be downloaded for free if you really want to) however podcasts, with the exception of a rare few, are ‘free’.  Of the free ones a lot are geared strictly towards generating income for the producer(s) either directly or indirectly, but a remaining huge percentage are works of care, love, and passion for a subject.  For producing these, their creators get…..squat.  They spend their own time, money and resources creating something they love, for others to consume for free.  To me, this is one of the most magical things in the universe: that you can download someones creativity and effort for free, listen to it, enjoy the heck out of it, and delete it when you’re done, without having to give anything in return.

Having said all that,  the first thing that hit me while I was listening to the interview with Andrea was guilt.  I consume podcasts like Tom Cruise consumes crazy, and really when you get right down to it, I don’t give much back.

I’ll let you in on a little non-secret:  media creators (blogs, podcasters) love comments.  We drink them up like those sparkly doofuses (doofi?) from the Twilight movies drink blood - they energize us, make us feel good, and really give us the urge to create more.  And those are just the negative ones.  The positive ones can make us feel, I dunno, orgasmic really really good.

Bob said that “comments and emails and things are the currency that feeds podcasting” and, mixed metaphors aside, truer words were never spoken.

All of that made me feel horrible because I am just as guilty as anybody of listening to dozens of episodes of someones show, and have in quite a few cases never bothered to even drop them a note saying simply “hey, love the show, keep up the great work”.

The fascinating thing is that there have even been cases where some people tried to put projects together where the sole intention  was to have people start interacting more with the podcasts they enjoy.  Sean McGaughey started a project he called “K7 days” where he encouraged people to call in to the message services or even email the shows they love on days of the month that end in 7 (the 7th, 17th, 27th).  That’s only three communications a month.  I mean, how much time would it take to send 3-4 emails or make a couple phone calls in a month?  Probably not that much.  Here’s an idea: while you’re downloading a show, send a comment to the creator about the last one you listened to.  Or, if you’re listening at your computer, send an email before you delete the show.  If you listen to a show regularly, especially if you simply download it from iTunes, do yourself a favour: visit their blog.  Not only do they often have content there that’s not on the show, but it’s also a perfect opportunity to leave a comment or send a quick email.   Bear in mind, it wasn’t so long ago that people used to SIT DOWN, WRITE (BY HAND!) and MAIL letters to television and radio shows they liked.  Sending a comment or an email isn’t that hard, honestly.  I know that I sure as heck need to start doing it more.

We all need to start giving feedback to the creators of the media you enjoy, or they’re all going to stop producing it eventually, and we’ll be left with cable TV and Commercial Radio.  That thought gives me the shudders.

I think that one of the reasons all this really hit home with me is because I’m getting ready to launch not one, but two podcasts in the new year, both of them focused on showcasing singer-songwriters.  It got me thinking about how much effort is going to be required from myself and others to pull these off, and other then the fact that I’m so passionate about good original music that I have actually lost sleep over it, and I tend to jump at anything involving great original songs, why the hell am I going to go through all this effort?  Because I love it, that’s why.  I’m not expecting to make money, but it would be nice for me and the producers to get some encouragement along the way, so it doesn’t feel like it’s all for nothing.

But it makes me wonder - if an amazing, well-produced show with a huge audience like Just One More Book can’t generate enough feedback to keep Andrea and Mark going, what chance do shows like mine stand ?

After the interview with Andrea Mark said “I wonder how that story is going to effect the community, and make people think.”

I think I’m guilty as charged, but I’m ready to start my rehabilitation.  Now, where did I put those email addresses….

Stevie Z

(Photo by  Gurumustuk Singh)

….so there I was at Eastside Mario’s in Cambridge last night.  I highly recommend the joint - great food, great atmosphere and fantastic service, which is quite often hard to find in a chain restaurant.

I’m on the patio watching Robbie Hancock and Dennis Napper performing (by the way, these two guys play very well, both together and in their other respective combos) and enjoying a pint of my favourite chilled, hop and barley flavoured beverage, when he appeared.

I don’t know his name, so I’ll call him Chicken Wing Face.  It’s appropriate, trust me.  He got up from his table, where he was sitting with his buddies, and swaggers-slash-staggers up to the ’stage’, waving a half-consumed chicken wing bone  over his head, sauce dripping.  From his nose to his chin, and pretty much almost ear to ear he had chicken wing sauce smeared everywhere.  Not sure the flavour, and I wasn’t going to ask him….or lick his face to find out.  He looks back at his friends, convinced that they should be impressed cuz he’s got the  ‘mojo’ and the ‘moxy’ to actually speak to the performers.

Then, with an air of a dictator decreeing the new law of the land, he suggests that the band should play ’some ZZ Top’.

Now, before I continue, bear in mind that this is a singer/songwriter duo with acoustic guitars, on a restaurant patio.

“Sorry, no, we don’t know any ZZ Top.” says one of the performers apologetically.

Looking like a child whom had just had someone pee on his puppy, Chicken Wing Face makes his way back to his table, head down, partial chicken wing held dejectedly at his side.

And people wonder why I don’t like to go out in public that often.  I won’t be able to eat chicken wings for 2 months now thanks to him.  Unless, of course, somebody offers me one.    Mmmmmm……chicken wings……and ZZ Top…..

Stevie Z

I had one of those “aha” moments the other day.  No, not that A-Ha, the Swedish band from the 80’s.   Although come to think of it I was singing Take on Me last week too.  Wow, 1 sentence in and I’m already off-topic….that’s a new record, even for me.

As I was saying, a deep, profound thought occurred to me as I was being cut off in traffic be some asshat in a Mercedes who was obviously more important then I am.  Actually, two thoughts occurred to me, but I won’t print the first one, instead I’ll enlighten you on the second.  That thought was this: we could solve almost every single problem in the world if we all acted like everyone else on this planet was as important to us as we are to ourselves.

Or, as Bill and Ted said “Be excellent to each other.”

Makes sense, don’t it?  I mean, think about it, there probably isn’t a problem we couldn’t solve if we started putting others before ourselves.  Let’s take a look at a few examples:

•     World Peace - That’s kind of a duh.  We sure wouldn’t want to invade other countries and shoot people if we valued their lives more then our own.  And religious persecution and wars would halt immediately because we’d all just realize that you can have your God, I can have my God, and hey, what do you know, pretty much every God says we should all just get along and treat our fellow humans with respect.  Go figure.  People wouldn’t be persecuted for being gay, for being a different colour, etc.  We’d all just look at each other and say “cool, you like to do that, I like to do this.” This of course does not include fans of the “Twilight” vampire movie.  They will always continue to suck

•     Greed - One of the main reasons that the “hands of the have-nots keep on falling out of reach” to quote Gordon Lightfoot, is that you’re trying to get yours, and I’m trying to get mine.  There aren’t many people on earth who couldn’t give up something to help someone less fortunate.  And if we all cared more about other people, it would be a lot easier to put the systems in place so that what was needed got to where it was needed without involving massive corporations, charities, etc.  And corporations would stop making ‘getting your money’ their number 1 priority.

•    World Hunger - See above.  As I mentioned, if we all just gave a certain percentage where it was really needed, people could be fed.  And since a lot of hunger is caused by things like abject poverty, wars, and greed, then yeah, it could be fixed as well.

•    Disease - This one is both tricky and easy.  If I were a better writer I would sure as hell come up with a better way to say that, but here’s what I’m saying:  Do you know what kills more children in the world every year then anything?  Diarrhea.   Yup, good ole-fashioned diarrhea.  Children drink water that isn’t clean, it gives them diarrhea, and they get it so bad, and for so long, that they die of dehydration and malnutrition.   And it isn’t even that we have to purify the entire world’s water either, although that’d be a good idea too.  There are re-hydrating tablets available that can both help stop the diarrhea AND rehydrate the cells of the person.  They’re literally pennies a tablet.  PJ O’Rourke once looked into this very issue, and concluded that nobody gave a shit (pun intended) because it’s not a ‘glamorous’ cause, like AIDS or breast cancer.   He figured that to raise public awareness we should all wear brown ribbons and go with the slogan “Diarrhea, it can be contained”.  You should read him, he’s brilliant.  Oh, and while we’re on the subject - hey breast cancer marketing people, wanna lay off for a bit? Thanks.  There are a lot of other types of cancer that are out there too, all of em horrible and terrible, but all we hear about is breast cancer.  I should hire those P.R. people to work for me.  Which reminds me - you all know what a huge fan of irony I am, well, apparently there’s a company out there, I’m thinking it’s TFal for some reason, but I could be wrong, that’s selling Pink Frying Pans, with the proceeds going to breast cancer research.  Funny thing is, they’re Teflon coated pans……and Teflon is being researched as a possible cause of….drum roll please….CANCER.  Insert heavy sigh here…..

• The Environment/Climate Change - Look, we can all debate whether or not we humans are destroying Earth until, well, until the Planet dies, but let’s look at a couple of important things.  Firstly, if you look at most of the studies that are saying that humans are not responsible for climate change, you’ll find that they’re funded by interests that pollute.  They have a vested interest.  I don’t trust vested interests.  Hell, I don’t even trust people in vests.  Or ascots, the most unfortunately named piece of attire ever.  Say this out loud “hey, look everyone, I have my ascot around my neck!”  See?  In the interest of complete disclosure I’ll give you my view.  I think that part of what’s going on is a natural cycle.  Since we humans only live for about 80-90 years or so, if we’re lucky,  we tend to forget that the universe and nature can work in cycles of, say a million years.  It’s hard for us to comprehend because we as people think that we’re the centre of the universe, and that things started, and will stop with us.  Having said that, however, I also think that whatever natural cycles are taking place, human beings are also trying their damnedest to destroy the planet too.  How can even the most anti-climate change person in the world argue that cutting down areas of Rain Forest the size of Simon Cowell’s ego can be good for the planet?  Besides making Iceberg Vodka, what good are the polar ice caps melting?  Please tell me the advantage of forcing species after species of animals into extinction.  Cancer, asthma, etc.  rates are through the roof, and you can’t site there and tell me that at least some of that has to do with what we breathe and eat?  If you can seriously tell me that you honestly believe all that, then…well…..I don’t even know what to say to you.   “But Steve, what the hell does this have to do with putting others first?”  Well, it also relates to greed as well - people just have to have more money, and more stuff.  To do that, corporations just have to post as huge a profit as possible, almost to the complete exclusion of consequences, as long as they don’t break the law.  “Hey, this new manufacturing process that we have uses asbestos, UFA, arsenic, and Thalidomide, but it’ll raise our dividend an extra 4 cents per share” Most people don’t need a big huge SUV, but dammit I can afford it, so screw the rest of you.

• Stress - Most stress is caused by other people.  Traffic stress, job stress, etc.  People put stress on us because they are stressed out.  Assclown in the Mercedes that cut me off is under stress because he obviously has to get where he’s going in a hurry, so instead of driving with consideration, he drives like a maniac, not caring whom he cuts off.  Deadlines are caused by someone not having enough consideration for people to make sure that there is enough time to get things done properly, and without freaking out.

Okay, there you go - in one fell swoop I’ve solved everything.  All before lunch.  I’m kidding, obviously,  knowing is sometimes less then half the battle.  But if we don’t as a species, start thinking more about our fellow person, then we’re hooped.  Oh, just so anyone doesn’t sit there thinking “Gee, I wish we could all be perfect like Mr. Stevie Z here” then you’re way off.  I’m part of the problem.  The difference between me and some people, I think though, is that I recognize that I’m part of the problem, and am trying to fix it.   I said trying.  It’s not easy.  The fact that we live in a society that almost forces people to put themselves first doesn’t help.

So, what do we do?  Well, try this: every day, do one or two things that put other people first.  Even small things.  Let that guy in front of you who’s trying to turn out of that parking lot onto a busy street.  Give something to a food bank, or better yet, give some time to a food bank.  It’s really really easy, honest.  If everyone did that, there’d be 10 billion really, really nice things happening every day.  Wow, that’d be cool.

Stevie Z

Quick confession:  a lot of things have been getting me down over the past few months.  Don’t worry, I am going somewhere with this.  Everything from the ‘house renovation blues’ to my computer woes to the ‘issues with the misses’ to my complete and total musical block have really been taking their toll.  The real reason I think that things were getting to me, however, was that I forgot a key thing: PMA.

PMA stands for “Positive Mental Attitude” and it’s often the difference between being happy or miserable.  Someone famous once said something along the lines of “it’s not what happens to you in life, it’s how you deal with it”.  I’m not sure whether it was Ghandi, or maybe Mr. Hooper from Sesame Street.  Regardless, it’s the kind of thing that bears repeating:

“It’s not what happens to you in life, it’s how you deal with it”.

I’m not talking about walking around with a drooley smile on your face, ignoring the iceberg that you’re bearing down full speed on and simply ‘pretending’ that everything’s peachy.  That would be stupid.  I’m talking about how, when something comes along that falls in the ‘bad’ side of life, you process it and deal with it.

I’ve learned better ways to deal with crap from two people, and I’m going to discuss the first person here.  He goes by the handle of “Scarborough Dude” and you can find his blog and podcast here. (One Caveat: the language can be strong, and the opinions can be as well)

On his podcast he discusses his life:  his past, his present, and sometimes, almost begrudgingly, his future.  The two most common themes, however, are honesty and looking at the positive side of things.  His journey seems to be one of discovering why stuff happens. One of his common phrases is “what does it mean?”  I’ve tried to incorporate more of the honesty (to both myself, and others) in my daily life, and my writings.

The other part - the looking on the positive side, has been slightly more difficult.  I have had a bit of a temper for most of my life, and an urge to be ‘on top’ of things, as well as a definite bad reaction when things don’t go the way I think they should.  As you can imagine, this is not the easy road to travel.   Being a Production Manager for many years helped hone my desperate need to always be in control of everything…at all times.

Let me give you an example:  The Scarborough Dude loses half of his year’s income in one email.  He is upset, as he should be, however since there is literally nothing he can do about it, he doesn’t have a complete freak out, and he deals with it appropriately.  I get stuck in traffic, adding an extra 20 minutes to my drive and I act like someone is sawing off my right foot and have a meltdown.  In short, I’m not dealing well with stuff. Especially the little, stupid stuff that doesn’t matter in the big picture.

But, I’m getting better.  I’m starting to (slowly) learn to let go of what I can’t control.  I can’t control the weather, I can’t control other people in traffic, I can’t control my guitar strings breaking, I can’t control rude jackasses in bars braying loudly their idiot sentiments and pointless opinions on stuff nobody cares about, all while someone is pouring their heart out in a song they wrote and….oops, there I go again.

I’ve actually found, when I get into situations that start my blood pressure soaring,  and get my dander up, asking myself “What would Scarborough Dude do?“  And then, if nothing else, I get a chuckle out of it, but ya know, I also find myself more and more often just talking myself down off of a ledge I shouldn’t have been on in the first place.

So do yourself a favour - head on over to The Scarborough Dude’s website, and have a listen to a few of his podcasts.  I recommend that you commit to 5 episodes.  It takes a few episodes to get used to his particular style, and leanings.  I’ll admit that the first time I listened to his show I thought he was a hippie-wacko-pinko-lunatic.   After calling myself a fan for over a year now…..well, I still think he’s a hippie-wacko-pinko-lunatic…but I also now mean that in an endearing sort of way, and I do believe I’ve learned a few things along the way.

So, thanks Dude.

Stevie Z

Last night marked the last of the Semi Final rounds of the Cambridge Songwriting Competition, and the second straight night I’ve been up until after 1 am in the morning….and loving it!  I’ve been a judge every week now for about 5-ish weeks, and I have to say that it’s truly been an awesome experience.  I’d heard of and/or seen a couple of the competitors before, but the vast majority of them were people I’d never heard the music of previously.

Let me explain that I don’t really like going to bars to see people perform.  It’s not that I don’t enjoy live performances, and don’t want to support local artists, in fact quite the opposite:  a true measure of a performer AS a performer is what they can do live.  Practically anyone can sound good digitally, however to perform live is to perform without an AutoTune net, so to speak.  And besides, some bands (Big Sugar, Gogol Bordello) can only be experienced properly live.  The problem I have isn’t with the venues themselves, either.  The bar as a concept is a great place to see live music - good food, good drink, decent acoustics most of the time, and an intimate setting for the performer(s) and the fans.

The problem I have with bars is the people in them.  Not all, of course. Ninety some-odd percent of the people are cool most of the time, but all it takes is one or two asshats to really ruin things.  I know, I’m too uptight.  I’m working on it though.  That’s another reason that I don’t perform much as well - I can’t stand jerks in bars.  And also, I don’t play Freebird.  Ever.

I do have to say though, that so far at the Cambridge Songwriting Competition it’s been really good.  A couple of jerks of course, but overall the crowd has been fairly respectful.  It’s being held at a bar called Mulligan’s in Cambridge, and the place has an interesting setup with a stage and area that’s almost a separate room, but not quite, so the entire bar can watch and listen to the performers, and us hard-core song junkies can sit up close too.  It’s also got an owner who loves good songwriting (ask him if he’s ever heard of some guy named Bruce Springsteen) and also likes to support local artists.

I believe that there was 65 entrants, and I’ve seen almost all of them.  The songwriting has run the gamut from mediocre to completely mind-blowing, as have the performances.  That’s what I love about a thing like this competition though - it gets people out who have maybe never performed their songs for an audience of strangers before, especially strangers who want to hear their songs.

One thing that organizer Robbie Hancock has done, which is fantastic, is to make it purely and completely about the song.  He’s drummed that into the judge’s heads every single week, and testified it to the audience too - “The Song Is the Star” as he puts it.  It’s not a ‘talent’ competition.  It’s not about who’s prettiest, or who can sing the best, or who the best guitar/piano etc. player is - it’s about the songs they’re performing.  ARE YOU LISTENING CANADIAN IDOL?!?!?

I’d rather hear a decent song performed by the writer then some over-produced, over-hyped and overdone song any day.  Don’t get me wrong, a well-polished and well-produced song can be awe-inspiring too, but there’s something about a songwriter onstage, just them and their songs, (with a person or two accompanying them sometimes) that really makes it special, and really lays bare the true art of the song itself.   Without an entire fleet of instrumentation or effects to dig through, the song itself becomes the focal point, and that’s where the magic happens.

I’m hoping to showcase a lot of the entrants from the competition over the next weeks on the podcast (yes, I do still have a podcast, and yes, it’s going to be re-launched shortly) but I’m waiting until the competition is over before I start approaching the artists regarding their material.

If you live anywhere within driving distance of Cambridge, Ontario, and you’re not undergoing open-anything surgery next Wednesday, June 24, 2009, I invite you to drop by Mulligan’s for what will truly be an astounding evening of entertainment that you would be hard pressed to find anywhere else.  Tickets are available online here, or at the door for a couple of bucks more.

Stevie Z

Pea Ess - Oh yeah, the judges for the Finals will be:

Miss Angel Brown
Carroll Baker
Greg Fritz Hinz
Glenn Reid

and Yours Truly, Stevie Z  ( you didn’t just click on that link…did you? )

By Stevie Z

    I was speaking to a couple of artists last night, and as per the usual pleasantries and conversations we exchanged contact info with a look at doing some future projects together.  They both gave me MySpace info.  (Insert frustrated sigh here).

    It seems that most musicians and artists I meet are either completely oblivious to the importance of an online presence, know that ‘yeah, I knowI should do some online stuff at some point’, or just kinda dabble in ‘the usual’ IE MySpace, FaceBook, more recently Twitter, etc.

     I think that what most people miss is the fact that all the above-mentioned sites are great for connecting and promotion as well, but when you get right down to it, you control nothingwhen it comes to your image if your presence ends there.  MyBook and FaceSpace et al are all companies that could disappear tomorrow.  And if they did, so does your online world.  There have been cases where a band had a MySpace page, and MySpace decided for some reason that it violated their Terms of Service, and POOF, page is gone.  Any of those companies could shut you down for any reason they feel like, not to mention the company could just shut everything down without notice.  I know a lot of people who started building an online presence with mp3.com back in the day.  That went sideways and a lot of people were left with nothing online.

   Another thing to remember is this - all these free social media sites make money because they bring information to advertisers and other companies.  Why should you bring your fanbase to them?  Why give Facebook all your best:  songs, blog posts, photos, etc.  Same goes for YouTube.  Sure, you can post your stuff to YouTube, but then own your own domain where you can link to the video (thereby saving yourself the bandwidth) but have control over the context the videos live in.

   Also - comments.  A lot of these sites require people to be signed in to their service in order to comment on, or in some cases, sadly enough, even see your content.  What if I don’t want to be a member of Facebook - oops, can’t read your post unless I am….guess I’ll just move along….

   If you wrote it/took a photo of it/composed it/whatever, then you should own where and how it’s offered to the world.

    Bob Goyetche, podcasting and social media guru-type-guy once gave me some very sage advice over a beer at a conference called Podcasters Across Borders (check it out, it’s an amazing conference that takes place in Kingston, Ontario Canada every year in June).   I had asked him about this very type of thing - about the social media sites that everyone seems to flock to.  One of the best pieces of advice that Bob gave me was to get my own domain (hence the badlybent.ca website) because no matter what happens, as long as I pay for it, I’ll own it.  I can move it from provider to provider, from host to host, and that site, and any emails I attach TO it, will always be mine.

    So if you’re a band, or an artist, or have something to promote at all, one of the best possible things you can do for yourself or your career is to get yourself a domain.  Even www.yourname.com for example, is a great start, and then you can build from there.  That’s another great piece of advice that Bob gave me - have yourself as the ‘brand’ and then have all your projects branch out from there. 

    That’s all pretty damn good advice, and I think I should probably buy Bob a beer for it.  Of course, you can buy Bob a beer too, if you like.  I’m sure he (and his liver) would appreciate it…..

Stevie Z

   If you want some more info about getting your own domain, or host suggestions, please don’t hesitate to drop me a line at badlybentpub@yahoo.ca. 

     Yeah, I know.  I’ve been reminded by several kind, well-meaning people, some with a degree of subtlety and some without that I’ve still to put a podcast out.  I whined previously that my Wincrap Shitstsa computer sucked too much, and that I needed something that would work.  So, I got a Mac, which incidentally works better then any computer I’ve ever even dreamed of using.  So what’s the holdup ?

     Well…..it’s me, basically.  I’ve been suffering a sort of ‘crisis of faith’ for a little while now, as far as the blog and podcast go - I’ve wanted to do a few different things, none of which went very well together, and I wanted to prevent The Sieve! from becoming one of those rambly mish-mashy podcasts which I hate. 

    To that end, I believe I’m going to do the following:  I’m going to re-launch The Sieve! in May, retooled and re tweaked, and I’m also going to launch another podcast in May as well, that will showcase an entire different world of stuff.  The Sieve! will also showcase the songwriting challenge, which I’ve had a lot of emails and IMs asking about.l  I think the blog here at badlybent.ca will continue to be a catch-all for everything that is Stevie Z (sorry about that ;)  but I think I’ll also launch another blog site as well for the new podcast.

    Now, I can hear you all already “but face it, asshat, you don’t even do one show on a regular basis, do you expect us to believe that you’re going to do two now?!?!”  Well, yes, because the new format for The Sieve! and the new podcast will be much simpler, more effective, and more entertaining then ever.  Hard to believe?  Believe it, mes amis!  And also, I’m really hoping to bring in some co-hosts, which make my job easier.

    So expect the next couple of weeks to be filled with the sounds of hammers, saws, drills, marmots, and cussin’ because we’re talking some major overhauls….

    One last note - one of the reasons for bringing back The Sieve! Song Challenge and really really wanting to promote it is partly because A) I want an excuse to play my own crap on the air, and B) I had the extreme honour of being a judge for the Inaugural Cambridge Songwriting Competition two weeks in a row, and I’ve met some amazing people, both onstage and at the judges table, who have really reminded me how much j’adore independent, unusual, and to some extent, local, music and musicians.  That got me itchin’ to start recording my own stuff again, and more importantly to offer yet another platform for the unheard to be, well, heard.

    Of course, I might sober up tomorrow and decide that all this is bull and just keep putting out a show every two months, filled with worthless meanderings…..

    Peace, Love, and Songwriting!

    Stevie Z