Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    


"Blue Roses" is more or less "about" the drive home from seeing the Dead in
Portland in 1974.  Which, I would like to point out, predates the "blue rose"
GD poster by four years.  But aside from borrowing a symbol that is central
to Robert Hunter's mythology, it's not much about the Dead.

"Who Killed Uncle John?" does indeed owe a major debt to Bob Dylan, who in
turn owes a debt to "Who Killed Cock Robin," etc.  We call this "the folk
process," and burble about "let him who is without sin" and all that.

I know I've heard Emmylou's "Waltz Across Texas Tonight," but I can't hear it
in my mind.  If I borrowed from it, it was unconscious.  The reference to
"Waltz Across Texas" is verbal only, not at all musical (for one thing, my
song is not in waltz time).


> And I love seeing or hearing things like that line from The Waybacks.  I
> haven't heard the song; do they have that line scan the same way Dylan's
> line does?

There is a certain rhythmic congruence between the two, but I wouldn't say
Stevie copped the lyric or the melody.  Just a really effective reference.
  

    
I like the phrase "more or less 'about'."  Although we were talking
about narratives a few days ago, this suggests that you think of lyrics
(Blue Roses) more in terms of their evocative qualities than in terms
of explicit (or specific) narratives.  Although some of the -- like An
American Family -- are actually quite specific in the stories they
tell.

Is that another "continuum" -- lyric content can fall anywhere in
between pure poetic evocation and linear storytelling?

Do you see your lyrics tending toward one end or the other of such a
continuum?

And I have always wondered: does the title "An American Family"
intentionally allude to the old PBS documentary series about the Loud
family?
  

    

I never saw that PBS program, although I was certainly aware of it.  
"An American Family" is the title because the three characters in the song 
( lyrics are here: http://dgans.com/lyrics.html#AmFam ; audio is at 
http://www.dgans.com/inkwell ) are victims of the corporate capitalism
that is (in my opinion) destroying America.
  

    

> Is that another "continuum" -- lyric content can fall anywhere in between
> pure poetic evocation and linear storytelling?

>Do you see your lyrics tending toward one end or the other of such a con-
>tinuum?

For sure.  I think we're seeing a blurring of that line in literature these
days, with the confessional autobiography being all the rage, and fiction
presented as same being the scandal du jour.  And in journalism, the Jayson
Blair scandal etc.  In my neck of the creative woods, I have no standard of
truth to uphold.

I have some songs that tell my story pretty faithfully, and some that take my
life as source material, and some that are entirely fabricated.  As it should
be.
  

    
Interesting that there's no intentional connection between your "An
American Family" and the TV series.  I could quite easily spin out an
interpretation of the song based on the premise that the connection is
intended that would, I think, still be true to the song but would also,
because it's based on a false premise, be quite wrong.

Obviously, mis-readings happen all the time, and we obviously see it
all the time in the Grateful Dead world, with wild-eyed DeadHeads
seeing cosmic portent in lyrics in ways that simply could not have been
intended.

Have you ever been put into the position of having to "correct"
listeners' misapprehension of your work?
  

    
It somehow also seems apropos here to note that in the "Nutrition
Facts" column at http://www.trufun.com/inkwell/, "Total Tale" comes in
at 81g, but the componant parts ("Truth" and "Fiction," each of which
is 38g) add up to only 76g.

Which, I guess, leaves 5g that can only be described as "something
else."
  

    

Would that my fame were so widespread that a culture of interpretation sprang
up!  Let alone misinterpretation.

I've taken some heat for "Who Killed Uncle John?" (lyrics below; audio at 
http://www.dgans.com/inkwell ) from Deadheads who felt I was dining on steaks 
cut from their sacred cow.  How dare he point the finger at me!  No one 
killed Jerry!  etc.

Well, uh, duh.

Fortunately, I had a few defenders out there, and I also was able to convince
some of my detractors that several of the characters in the song were, to
greater or lesser degree, embodiments of my ownself.


Who Killed Uncle John?

Who killed Uncle John
And kept the show from going on?
"Not I," said the nitrous man
Counting money in his van
"The parking lot's my neighborhood
I'm sure the show inside was good"
"Not I," said the tribute band
Playing for nostalgic fans
"It's everybody's flame to keep
Twice as high and half as deep"
It wasn't me who stopped his heart
I served the man who served his art

Who killed Uncle John
And kept the show from going on?
"Not I," said the idiot
Flaming on the Internet
"He owed his wealth to guys like me
I take his work so seriously"
"Not I," said the completist
Fondling his compact discs
"I'm sorry that he's gone away
I'll soon own every note he played"
It wasn't me who stopped his heart
I served the man who served his art

Who killed Uncle John
And kept the show from going on?
"Not I," said the mainstream press
"I found his image ludicrous
His followers were so uncool
I made him out to be a fool"
"Not I," said the publicist
Protecting him from journalists
"I'm writing his biography
I needed him to talk to me"
It wasn't me who stopped his heart
I served the man who served his art

"Not I," said the acid-head
"And I don't think he's really dead
He served his time in hell on earth
Only I know his true worth"
"Not I," said the heroin
Slouching into Terrapin
"I helped him to escape his fame
By letting him forget his name"
It wasn't me who stopped his heart
I served the man who served his art

Who killed Uncle John
And kept the show from going on?
"Not I," said the engineer
Whispering in someone's ear
"I woke up worried every day
And went to bed each night that way"
"Not I," said the kwipment krew
"He loved me and hated you
Guts to open, trips to win
I stayed right in the game with him"
It wasn't me who stopped his heart
I served the man who served his art

Who killed Uncle John
And kept the show from going on?
"Not I," said the dharma bum
Speaking through his talking drum
"Not I," said the entourage
manufacturing mirage
"Not I," said the man from merch
Selling souvenirs in church
"Not I," said the radio host
Refusing to give up the ghost
"Not I," said the DEA
Deploying agents where he played
"Not I," said the troubadour
"Not I" --

"Not I," said the dancing girl
Interrupted in mid-twirl
"I'll show you where the spirit went
I'll meet you at the Incident"
  

    

Slippage.  Gary, the "nutrition facts" panel was literally dreamed up.
I go tup in the middle of the night and wrote some of that down, and made up
the rest in the morning.  I didn't think too much about it, and I
deliberately did not edit after the fact.  So it's a mystery to me, too.
  

    
Love the line "twice as high and half as deep" so much.
  

    

Hard to sing that in front of some of my GD-tribute-band friends, but the
good ones know who they are and the others tend not to recognize themselves.
  

    
Ain't that always the way?
  

    

'strue.
  

    
Stevie Nicks keeps a pad of paper by her bedside for those dreamtime
revelations. Randy Newman said so in the interview you posted. Do you?
  

    

Randy Newman explicitly said that he DIDN'T do that.

I do.
  

    
I know. He said he didn't do that, but that Stevie and Paul Simon do.
  

    
It sounds clear that you are not making music to make money. But you
have economic obligations. And you need to buy strings and fancy foot
boxes.

So, David, can you talk a bit about the business of modern music?

What's it like dealing with managers, booking agents, promoters? How
much do you do on your own for the tour? 

When it comes to producing and marketing your music on compact disc,
how hard is it to turn a profit? 

And what about the role of the Internet in marketing your music? 
  

    

I am making music to make money.  That's not the only reason I make music, of
course, nor is it the main reason.  I make music because it's what I do.  I
would like to earn enough of a living from music to be able to do it full-
time.  (Not that I am at all unhappy with my day job!)

The business of music is, in a word, difficult.  It's harder now to make a
living as a musician - at least the way I do it - than it was 30 years ago,
when I got onto this path.  In the '70s, songwriters had their songs recorded
by other musicians, and they made records of their own.  They played on each
other's records.

Nowadays there are many more musicians and fewer paths to success.  The
mainstream record business has always been designed to cheat artists.  But
that's irrelevant to me, because the kind of music I make isn't of interest
to the mainstream music business.  Nor am I interested in creating the kind
of music that is marketed that way.  Career longevity doesn't seem likely for
too many who do take that path, for sure.

The music I make, and most of the music I love, happens at the grass-roots
level and rarely shows up on the charts.  And that's really fine with me,
because I want to remain in control of my work.

I've produced all of my own releases, with the exception of the concert DVD
"Live at the Powerhouse," which was produced by an outside party that did
nothing to get it into the market.  I have a basement full of 'em, and so
does he.

Eric Rawlins and I raised the money for "Home By Morning," hired a producer,
paid the musicians and the studio and, hired and paid the artist who painted
the cover and the designer who created the package, and sent it off the the
pressing plant.  We haven't earned back all the money (ours and our friends')
we spent on it, but we sort of didn't expect to.  It was an adventure Eric
and I wanted to experience together.

"Home By Morning" provided part of the impetus to get me out on the road, and
it certainly added to my credibility when I was an unknown performer - a
radio guy stepping out from behind the microphone.

I funded the CD single "Monica Lewinsky" because I thought the song had some
potential as a topical record.  I did not have the resources to bring it to
market, but I think I've earned back most of what I spent on it.  Janey
Fritsche's cover art ( http://www.trufun.com/discography/MonicaLewinsky.jpg )
is brilliant, and I'm proud as hell to have this CD in my discography.

I put "Solo Acoustic" out in 2003 because I had to have something to sell on
tour and I didn't have any record companies offering to fund a project of any
kind.  I compiled it from live recordings, plus one song recorded in a
studio.  I used a photograph that my wife took at Joshua Tree,
psychedelicized in photoshop by my friend Ned, and paid a designer to create
the CD package.  I've pressed 3,000 of that one, I think, and probably sold
in the neighborhood of 1200.  I pay royalties on ten cover songs, but aside
from that, I keep all the proceeds.

My most recent release, "Solo Electric," is all originals (with two
collaborations - one with Lorin Rowan, one with Robert Hunter).  I designed
an insert card at home - a self-portrait on the front, and plain text on the
back.  The CD is burned, a hundred at a time, by the same guy who duplicates
my radio show every week.  It's a low-key package, but the music on it is
very good and I've sold several hundred copies.

Every nickel I take in from these CDs goes back into my musical career.

The profits from the discs are useful, of course, but from a marketing
standpoint, it's good to have four CDs and a concert DVD in that press kit
and on that web site.  I sell three of the CDs through CDBaby, which gets me
into the iTunes Music Store, and I have two for sale via amazon.com.  I don't
sell very many through either channel, but I get a small check from CDBaby
every now and then reflecting downloads of CDs and individual songs.

I don't make a huge amount of money from touring, either.  I'm not a major
draw anywhere, and I'm not even a minor draw in very mnany places.  I am
building an audience, and I have enough regular festival gigs that I can
afford to take modest guarantees for club gigs that I book around those
appearances.

Again, everything is an investment in the future and an ongoing enrichment of
my skills and experience.  I do my best to give a worthwhile performance
every time I get on stage, and the promoters who pay attention - who listen
with their ears instead of their wallets - are increasingly taking notice.

As my performance has evolved from solo acoustic to solo electric - that is,
as I've added the technological infrastructure to do something more
interesting than just stand there singing and playing - I think it's becoming
easier for me to differentiate myself from the "competition."

These things take time.  I am happy with my progress, and I am doing the best
work of my life both as a musician and as a radio producer.
  

    

I've had a booking agent for less than a year, and a manager for less time
than that.  It's great to have a team, and it's great to have people whose
job it is to know the venues and the markets and the competition, etc., so I
don't have to reinvent all those wheels and I don't have to spend time
reading Pollstar when I should be writing songs.

It's also great to have advocates.  When I started touring, I was booked by
John Metzger, the editor of an online music magazine called The Music Box (
http://musicbox-online.com/ ).  He encouraged me, and he knocked on doors on
my behalf, and he got me out there.  We parted on good terms a while ago, and
I booked myself for a few years.  Then I was approached by Nancy Lewis-Pegel,
based in Decatur, Georgia, and I very happily signed on with her company,
Brilliant Productions.  She has several other clients, and she knows talent
buyers and venues and markets and trends and all sorts of other things I am
only dimly aware of.

Likewise my manager, Neil Glazer.  He recently stepped out on his own after
several years with another management company.  He's hungry and he's growing,
and he knows I'm going to do what I need to do without requiring him to be a
babysitter.

I'm in my tenth year as a would-be national act, but I've been in and around
the music industry for 35 years.  I know what I can do ad I have few
illusions about the business.  My team knows I'm not going to drive them
crazy, and I know they can't make miracles happen.
  

    

More later.
  

    
Interview in today's IJ with Stevie Coyle:

http://marinij.com/lifestyles/ci_3969010
  

    
Thanks for the pointer, Ruth!
  

    

I had to go to a neighborhood meeting.  Back now.

Managers and booking agents can be a great asset, or they can kill your
career.  Managers look at the big picture, make connections with other
artists for tours and co-bills, negotiate record deals, advise, support,
counsel, assist, support, and on occasion, kick ass (yours or someone
else's).  Booking agents, same thing: they know what's going in in your
career and in your market and in your touring zones, now and in the past and
in the future.

That's when they're doing their jobs.

I've never had to deal with a representative who fell asleep at the switch,
got fucked up on drugs, lost interest, lost the will to live, etc.  But I
know others who have.

It's hard to find a booking agent.  It's Catch-22 all over the place: they
won't sign you until you're making this much money, and you can't make this
much money without an agent going to bat for you.  Clubs won't book you
unless you can demonstrate a draw, and you can't build a following if you
can't get booked.

Wen I started touring in earnest in the summer of 1998, I had an advantage
that was also a disadvantage: name recognition, but not as a musician.  I was
able to get gigs on a certain level because I'm a well-known Grateful Dead
radio "deejay," but that didn't necessarily mean people would come out and
spend money to hear me perform.  I had no intention of going out there as a
Grateful Dead cover act, and I winced every time I saw "Host of the Grateful
Dead Hour" in the advertisements for the gigs: Why would anyone want to hear
a dick jockey play and sing?

My notoriety in that field brought me great good will among a segment of the
Deadhead crowd, but it also brought derision from others who are intensely
protective of their notion of what's appropriate in that world.  Fortunately
for me, the "cashing in" bullshit subsided pretty quickly; those who bothered
to listen to what I was doing soon came to recognize that I have a voice and
a story of my own.
  

    

When I mention your music while out and about, and believe me, I do, I've 
learned to make sure there is a CD in my truck handy. I can say, yeah, 
David Gans the GD Hour guy, but then back it up with  hey! here listen to 
this song by him.  
  

    

That's the way to do it.  Thank you!
  

    
And now, a commercial interruption:



Hello, friends - happy SUMMER!!

I've got three Bay Area gigs this weekend, and I hit the road next
week for my first festival of the season.

The in-between gigs are still being confirmed; please see
http://www.dgans.com/gigs.html for the latest.

I'm in the middle of an online interview at
http://www.well.com/inkwell - talking with Gary Burnett and other
interlocutors about my adventures in the music bizniz, the mysteries
of creativity, and various other subjects.  You can contribute to the
dialogue by sending email to inkwell@well.com

There are some samples of my new recording work at
http://www.dgans.com/private-tunes.html .  The new CD will be called
"Cloud Surfing"; I had hoped to have it ready in time for Grateful
Fest, but these things take time, and it's better not to rush.  I
have been working with two brilliant sound designers - Jeremy Goody
and Jim LeBrecht - and I'm just delighted with the work we've been
doing.

This month has been a tough one on a personal and professional level.
My dear friend Tina Loney, who was the "best man" at my wedding and
was my close friend and most trusted counselor for twenty years, lost
her long battle with lung cancer on June 8.  You'll find a picture of
her and a few words at http://gdhour.com/logblog/?p=126

And before we lost Tina, on June 2, Vince Welnick took his own life.
Vince was a member of The Tubes for 20 years and the Grateful Dead
for five; in the decade following the end of the Dead, I had many
opportunities to play music with him, each of which was a great
pleasure and a learning experience to boot.  I also worked with Vince
on Might as Well: The Persuasions Sing Grateful Dead, which I
co-produced with Jerry Lawson.  Vince and Jerry hit it off during
those sessions and remained friends from then on.  You'll find a lot
of music, and numerous tributes to Vince's soulful nature and musical
brilliance, at http://logblog.gdhour.com

I stayed home for most of the month of May in order to spend time
with Tina, and I experienced a great burst of creative energy that
I'm sure was fallout from the powerful emotions surrounding her
passing and Vince's.  The music I play this summer will reflect the
energy that came through our lives through these experiences.

--

Here's what I know about the summer as of now:

* Friday, June 23, 7:30-9:30pm: With Mario DeSio and Jeff Pehrson at
the Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Avenue, Oakland CA.  No cover, but you
have to buy some coffee and/or food

* Saturday, June 24, 9:30 am to 1:30 pm: Grand Lake Farmers' Market,
at Lake Park and Grand Avenues in Oakland CA (across from the Grand
Lake Theater).  Excellent produce (organic!), prepared foods, and
crafts. Free!

* Sunday, June 25: Far West Fest in Olema, California.  Benefit for
community radio station KWMR, with Alison Brown, The Mother Hips, Hot
Buttered Rum, et al., plus local organic food and beverage, crafts,
etc.  I play an unamplified acoustic set at around 4:30l Aaron Redner
of Hot Buttered Rum will
sit in on fiddle.

* Thursday, June 29: The Happy Dog, Cleveland OH. Details TBA
* July 4 weekend: GratefulFest at Nelson Ledges Quarry Park,
Garrettsville OH. Dark Star Ochestra, Hot Tuna, New Riders of the
Purple Sage, Zen Tricksters, and more! DG plays Friday, Sunday, and
Monday

* Friday, July 14: Master Musicians Festival, Somerset KY. (Festival
is July 14-15). Donna the Buffalo headlines Friday; others TBA
* Saturday, July 15, 7:30 pm: DG opens for The Waybacks at The Dame,
156 W. Main Street, Lexington KY. $5. 859-)226-9005

* Wednesday, August 9, 7:00 pm: Songs to Fill the Air - A Tribute to
Jerry Garcia. DG, Alligator, and the Chickenstand Throwdown Band. (DG
plays at 8:40). Makor, 35 W 67th Street (between Columbus Ave &
Central Park West), New York City. $15. 212-413-8809
* Thursday, August 10, 9-11pm EDT: DG appears on John Major's
Railroad Earth Happy Hour (probably in the second hour)
* Saturday, August 12, 8 pm: DG and the Shockenaw Mountain Boys
(members of Railroad Earth) at the Fountain House, 439 Rt. 94 South,
Newton NJ. 973-383-7976

* Fri-Sun, August 18-20: Gathering of the Vibes, Mariaville NY. DG
plays Saturday, August 19

* September 22-24: Terrapin Hill Festival, Harrodsburg KY

* October 19-22: MagnoliaFest, Live Oak FL. Donna the Buffalo, Sam
Bush, New Riders of the Purple Sage, The Duhks, Peter Rowan & Tony
Rice, many more!

--

More dates will be added for July, August, and September.  Stay tuned.

More information, web links, etc., at http://www.dgans.com/gigs.html