KEVIN EMMERICK ON MABBOPALOOSA 2010 SUMMER THREE DAY TOUR
This is a thread written by Kevin Emmerick, from Crosette, Va. As he attended a three day songwriters “TOUR” put on by MAB in July 2010. It is as good a break down as I have ever seen.
Ahhh, what a great experience. I have a lot to write about, but I have a 4-hour web training session coming up here at 9am and I guess I should make sure everything works (ha, ha). I'll just set the stage here with my last Thursday experience. Instead of re-writing it (the fish in the story always gets bigger and bigger), I'll just copy my songramp post here.
I'll be going over the tour day by day -- but feel free to interrupt and ask any specific questions about the tour or Nashville. If I don't know the answer, I'll find it out.
Note: I was supposed to meet everyone at the Commodore Lounge to watch a writer's night, so I was hurrying to get there on time!
******* Start Thursday, July 15, 2010 - Nashville Trip summary *******
Hello there, I am in Nashville!!!
I had a little setback on the way here. I was on I-40 out of Knoxville when I had a killer idea (I hope) for a song for the Saturday write-up. I pulled over into a rest area to jot down a few lines so I wouldn't forget (not write the song, just some ideas). As I was getting up to leave, the picnic table was a total one piece stone structure -- so I tripped over the part connecting the bench to the table. Cooler went flying, pens and paper, too. As I was falling through time and space, I said "Kevin (that's me), I'm glad you brought the Motrin".
I managed to scrape an elbow, one knee and put a nice gash on my leg. (All in all a fairly good trade -- who woulda thunk that songwriting was such as dangerous endeavor). Of course, my travel first aid kit is safely sitting on my basement office table. I cleaned up as best I could and proceeded down the road. I found a Wal*Mart a couple of exits down and bought a bunch of medical supplies. I then went out to parking lot and performed surgery on myself. I felt like that alien in the predator movie! Except I didn't scream -- although I considered it when the isopropyl alcohol hit the wounds!
I am now sitting in the hotel room knowing that I have to take a shower and clean and re-dress the wounds. I'm scared. Rum and cokes to the rescue.
So what was supposed to be a 9 hour trip became 11 hours and I am going to miss the Commodore gig tonight. I was really, really looking forward to that to kick off the weekend and get me super excited.
Oh well, I hope the idea I came up with is worth the disasters. If this is the price I have to pay every time I have a good idea -- I'm taking up cultivating orchids.
See you all tomorrow!!
******* end Thursday Nashville Trip summary ******
Kevin Emmerick - Friday July 16th in Nashville -- Part II (the evening)
I am realizing that I didn't take very good notes for the performance type stuff, so this part of it will be pretty weak.
We were going to a place called Calhoun's for dinner and a writer's night playing experience -- and I was going to be expected to play, yikes! This is the main reason that I played at least one open mic night in Crozet before I left home and did my best to memorize two songs! Now this might not seem like much to those of you that play a lot and learn lots of songs, but I don't learn any covers and all of my playing is -- writing, composing, recording, play all sorts of parts, mix and then move on to the next one (as Ricki might say, before I have really "finished" the first one -- ha, ha).. I also do very little in just a guitar/vocal only format. So I must admit being a little worried about that -- not a lot, but enough for me to make sure my tunes were known backwards and forwards.
After visiting Mt. Richmore (John “Big and Rich” Rich’s house), I went back over to MAB's to test out Matt's guitar (another tour participant and a very good dude). Come to find out that all guitars require a direct plug in and just the vocals are mic'd. My guitar has a Martin thin-line pickup in it, but the bass "E" string rings out volume-wise more than the other strings. It is just not right. So not only was this my first writer's night in Nashville, but I had to play an unknown guitar which could have added to the tensions. Luckily for me, Matt's guitar was easy to play and was not going to be something I could blame if things went south (dang!). So if you are going to Nashville to do writer's nights make sure you have your acoustic amplified. I am sure there are some places that mic guitars -- but MAB says it is too much of a hassle and feedback becomes a never-ending problem. Six mics are harder to control than 3 vocal mics and 3 guitars plugged in.
I went back to the hotel to re-do the bandages and was thinking about napping, but time had semi-run out. Now remember I am a morning person so it was 5am Friday morning when my eyes first opened up -- but it was 4am Nashville time (central)! I tried to stay in bed for awhile, but only made it an hour. So I am normally a 5am -- 10pm type of guy -- and the Nashville crowd runs on the other time clock that goes 'till late at night -- oh well. Of course, adrenaline helps out and I minimized my booze consumption.
Off to Calhoun’s. My Mapquest directions said to turn left onto I-40, so I turned left -- going I40W (supposed to be going east). Took me about 10 minutes to figure that out and get turned around -- so I now added 20 minutes to my travel time. MAB wanted us there at 6pm and now I was going to be late. Plus a huge lightening and rain storm enveloped me, there was construction going on -- a nice relaxing way to start the evening. But I made it.
The music started close to 7pm. I am a little sketchy on the first set. I seem to recall Dean/Devon, Matt (from the tour), some guy on the end I didn't know -- but then I recall Norm (tour) involved, too -- that's 4 and only three are up a time. Maybe the 3rd guy had guitar issues and came back later -- I can't recall (or I was trying to get a rum and coke and wasn't paying attention). Oh, a quick note on the format. In writer's nights they like to do something called "in the round". Three writer's get up at a time and each one plays one song in order and then they start over again (see this wiki about the Bluebird for more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluebird_Cafe ). It is a cool way to do it -- makes for better variety. If you know each other's songs, you could play along -- but if not, you just sit there, look interested and try to not to fall off the stool or drop your guitar. Each of those on stage got to do one song and they were all really good -- very entertaining.
The BIG ED came. Big Ed is a west coast dude that has gold/platinum records for doing hip/hop and rap style records (not sure if he is a writer or does mixing/production -- or all). He is working with MAB to learn the country stuff and do some interesting things. He talked to us later about that. In any case, it always said that he is part Dark Underlord, being 6'6", long black hair -- and he brings wind and rain wherever he goes. Remember that storm I mention earlier. When Big Ed appeared, it crashed into Calhoun's in full fury with lighting, thunder and wind swept rains. Oh by the way -- we were at the outside patio at Calhoun's (under a cover, though). Nonetheless we had to break everything down and go inside. MAB was actually going to have us setup and play un-amplified inside, but the management didn't want to do that, so we just waited and Big Ed gave us a little talk.
Big Ed, besides writing country songs himself (and good ones to boot), is starting to specialize in "Country Dance Mixes". This is where popular, danceable country songs are "extended" to 7 or 8 minutes and are intended to keep folks dancing at the DJ style clubs. In the most extreme format, Ed might dump of all the tracks except for the vocals and then just add back in more electronic low-end heavy bass, drum, keyboards, guitars to really make the dance factor stand out. Supposedly this is really big in Europe and is starting to catch on here. Obviously dance mixes have been around forever with pop music and dance clubs -- but I guess it is relatively new for country music. Big Ed actually works with the Record companies to get the tracks he needs and then does all the re-mixing and re-instrumentation. I asked him "Who gets paid for all this", and, to me, it doesn't seem like the artist or writers (or record company) make anything off this -- it is considered promotional. Of course, clubs pay ASCAP/BMI fees -- but payments to writers/publishers are based on radio play only (I think). Oh well, it is all too confusing. Big Ed also gave me a CD with 22 of his songs and told me it was meant to be play f'n loud (not just loud). I played it a couple times in my ride home on Monday -- pretty good stuff!! He also gave some great plug ins for my cakewalk recording software that I won't get to try out until the end of August or so.
OK, the storm finally moved on its way and we went back outside. With the big delay, I thought I was going to be off the hook, but MAB said "get up there". I can't even remember who was in my round (ha, ha), but I got through OK. I have got to work on my mic control. MAB said I move around and I need to "eat that mic" to get heard correctly. It is all a learning experience -- and those are things I can improve on with practice. So I just have to play out more (I did play another open mic last Wed and played three songs!). Then other MAB folks (have done earlier tours with him) got up and did their tunes, One note on memorizing your songs: In some avenues, having a cheat sheet or song book is OK, but memorizing is best. One guy had a double sided sheet of paper with lyrics and as he went to turn it around, he started to slip off the chair and dropped his guitar -- and it made one of the loudest rackets I have ever heard a guitar make. But it stayed in tune and the show went on.
We heard at least three or four "up and coming" artists that probably have a shot in the future (or already are doing the music career thing successfully), but one thing I need to point out. If you are getting up there and just going strum, strum, strum -- your audience will probably tune you out. All of the folks playing did bass lines, riffs, turn arounds, and other guitar "things" to add interest to the songs. I changed up my patterns between the verse and chorus, but I really have to work on expanding my guitar work to include more complicated sounding stuff (doesn't need to be complicated -- just sound like it!). Since I mostly record, I lean on the multi-track thing to add variation. When it is just you and your guitar -- well, it's just you and your guitar.
Finally MAB got up, and for my benefit, he decided to slightly forget the words to the first couple of songs he was playing (ha, ha). I guess when you have 2,000 songs over the past few years, it might be tough to keep them all straight. It was my first time seeing MAB perform live (I missed Thursday night's gig) -- he is the real deal. Some people are just performers -- doesn't matter what they are singing or doing -- it is just entertaining. Of course, it helps when the songs are well crafted with interesting themes. Great time! I should have written down the songs done, but he did end up with his classic ode to lonely songwriters: "Tables and Chairs" ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bdWmgLH2M4 ).
After MAB, the host of the writer's night (Christina) got up and did a really cool, jazzier sultry tune -- and then she said she had only been playing guitar for 3 1/2 months!!!! I guess she took a class at the local community college and practices a lot! After that a waiter got up and played three or four songs (I wonder if he got in trouble for that?). By this time, I was burned out and ready to go and get some sleep -- a big day lay ahead! (I know I fizzled out a little on my Calhoun recollections -- but dang, it was over a week ago!!)
Remember -- I have only written about the first day so far!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
****** Saturday, July 17, 2010 in Nashville ****** - Kevin Emmerick – con’t
Ok, now it is nitty-gritty time -- today's the day MAB pairs us up with more experienced writers and we sit and co-write a song from scratch. Exciting and scary at the same time -- how am I going to "perform" in front of these "Nashville-style" writers? When I heard it was going to be four hours, I though, shoot, maybe we can do two songs. After all, I've done FAWM a couple of times and am on my second 50/90 -- and I think I can churn out decent enough lyrics under a time pressure situation, so I was looking forward to the event. Plus I had that "monster" idea that caused all my trials and tribulations at the rest area. First of all, breakfast at the waffle house with MAB, Matt, Norm, Ronnie and Me (any one else?). I can't for the life of me remember what we talked about, but it all seemed interesting at the time (ha, ha).
So we arrive at Doak Turner's house at 10am to start off the day. Doak is the ultimate Nashville networker and the house he lives in is really dedicated to music. He has bunches of rooms that can be used as "writing/playing rooms" and it actually used to be a recording studio and some famous bands lived there for months at a time. I believed Keith Urban was there for awhile and MAB told us about a few others, but I forget now. I think folks from out of town also stay there on their visits instead of paying for more expensive hotel rooms. All told there were 24 (or 27) of us and the first thing we did was to go around the group and quickly mention our names and our biggest musical influences. I went for Van Morrison, The Band and newer Americana groups, like the Avett Brothers, as my choices of influences. MAB then broke us up in to 8 (or 9) groups with three per group -- one "newbie" with two more seasoned writers.
I was pared with Lance Carpenter and Bob Paterno. The first thing the three of us did was just to try and get to know each other. The first thing I noticed was that Lance had a big ring on, so I asked him if that was a championship ring and he said he was a Tackle for an Arkansas football team in college (not division I -- I didn't get the school name). However, I decided right then and there that I was going like everything he proposed for the song (ha, ha). Lance works for FEMA and he was assigned to Nashville for the flood relief efforts. He was going to be moving to Nashville full-time in the near future. Big, burly guy with a pretty cool "Rodney Atkins" type voice. Bob was in from Dallas and was actually staying at Doak's and had writing appointments lined up for the time that he was in town. He was a quieter, unassuming type -- but it turns out he knows his music backwards and forwards -- I wouldn't be surprised if I saw him producing pro sessions in the future.
After the preliminary introduction, it was time to get to work. Sorry to say, I tried to jump in with my picnic table story and my idea for the song -- but I could tell it didn't "grab them" (ha, ha -- all that pain and agony for nothing). The next thing was to get out their I-Phones and I-Pads are start looking at song titles and hook ideas that they had been compiling. Lance mentioned that one thing MAB had told him was to "round out his catalogue" with some "funny" or "grab the audience" type tunes. He discussed that MAB mentioned that if you get them in the face (smile) or stomach (laughing) with an earlier song, you will establish credibility with them and then they will listen more closely to songs that get them in the throat and heart (those deeply felt tunes). So he wanted a song that would be a good kick-off number at a writer's night type setting. Made perfect sense to me and Bob agreed whole-heartily. Now Bob mentioned that at co-writing sessions like this you have to throw the ideas out and not worry if they get shot down -- don't take it personally. At the same time, don't be afraid to shoot down ideas that I didn't care for. If you are used to business "brainstorming sessions", the concept is to throw out bunches of ideas -- without judging them. The start-off here was like that except ideas get shot down sometimes (ha, ha).
Two side points I want to make here.
1.) MAB told us that it is the job of the "new' writer (me) is to bring lots of ideas and hooks to the session -- as a newbie you have to pull your weight. These guys really don't need me to write a song, so I had better bring something worthwhile. I must confess on that front, I didn't hold up my end of the bargain. I had some ideas, but these guys were organized, focused and really had their stuff together. All in all, I was along for the ride! In the end, we got a pretty good song, so I think that these guys would give me a second shot -- but there probably wouldn't be a 3rd shot if I didn't contribute more. Unless, of course, a great song was written every time I was there. Then they would say "That Kevin ain't worth a sh** as a co-writer, but good things seems to happen when he is in the room!" Yes, I did comment on quite a few things and made suggestions whenever I thought of something -- but these two guys were driving the bus. The best thing I did was to not get in the way and impede the progress of the song. I definitely had checked my ego in at the front door, so I was not going to force my ideas/viewpoints on these two guys.
2.) Over in the Creative Writing forum, someone posted an interesting little piece about Nashville's Dirty Secret where the old guy (reminded me of the character in Crazy Heart) rambled on about today's Nashville. One of the things that he railed against was those "co-writing" sessions. Here's my viewpoint (after seeing it up close and personal): In the end, the creation, and writing and composing of a song is still ART -- any way you cut it. But these guys are serious about it and their time is limited. So why not use business-like practices in all the other parts of the process: keeping a lists of hooks/titles/ideas, scheduling writing sessions, having an encyclopedic memory of all the current songs out there (so you don't start treading on something that is already out there), etc. etc. etc.... If you "practice" creativity enough, maybe you can call it into the room when you need it. In any case, face to face co-writing by appointment works -- if you are creative AND organized.
Lance (I believe) threw out the idea of "Girlfriend For The Weekend" and that started the ball rolling. We worked through the story and looked at the different scenarios it could take on. As always we had too much of a story and had to cut back in the end -- but that was OK. Now, one good thing here is that when I threw out ideas/lines that didn't work (!), the two guys actually took the time to partially explain WHY they were turning it down ("remember what we did back here --- we need this cadence or rhyme scheme here" -- stuff like that). All in all, super cool learning experience. I won't go through every line, but after we had a verse and chorus, we stopped to talk about other things. They each played some tunes they were working on, played some recording of songs they were getting cuts on or friends of theirs were getting cut and generally had a good time. All in all, we probably killed off an hour or so -- but that's OK, we are also building relationships. Time for lunch!!!
One lunch time story: We were standing around in the kitchen with Lance, MAB, me and one or two others and I mentioned that Bob and Lance were carrying all the water and Lance said, yea we are saving your butt. I then said "I owe you two for this” and Lance said "You don't owe me anything"-- you owe the next songwriter you meet down the line -- in other words, pay it forward, just help folks out. That is just a good life's lesson.
Do anyone of you remember how hot it was that weekend??? Well, there were a couple of teams outside and one of them said we gotta come inside! So we gave up our room and went outside (actually into the garage) and finished up the song. We struggled a little on the 2nd verse, so we skipped ahead to the 2nd chorus and the bridge and then came back to verse #2. Remember I thought we could easily knock out two songs -- well, we were scrambling to finish when the MABster was calling everyone in to play their songs for the group (and since we were running out of time, they actually used some of my lines -- ha, ha)! Now I want to tell you -- EVERY song from EVERY group turned out really, really good. The first couple of tunes were excellent, but more in the positive, uplifting experience type of thing (and nothing wrong with that), so when Lance and Bob got up to perform the tune (I didn't know the chords well enough to help out here), it was a total change in direction topic-wise and Lance really had the crowd laughing with his delivery. It is a song that I am definitely going to work into my little repertoire. I have that song in MP3 format, but I need to get permission to post -- but I'll post it when I can.
I think we went until about three and then it was time to break to get ready for the big MAB birthday party bash at the Listening Room. I'll come back and do part B later on (probably tomorrow night or even Wed. night -- I am on the road tomorrow). I am not sure how I am going to report on the party -- words are going to be tough and if I wrote about everything I heard or felt, it would probably be a long post (oh wait, I have those already, LOL!).
1.) One of the things that a co-writer from Saturday's session said to me (I think it was Bob) was "Don't tell any Nashville co-writer that you just write as a 'hobby'". Now, while I didn't say that, he could tell that I was one of those newbies that just wasn't sure where all this was going (ha, ha).
Now that statement wasn't meant derisively or in meanness -- it was just a fact and it makes sense. Most of these serious song writers are co-writing for as much the networking aspect as well as the better song ideas. There is no shortage of talented, potential co-writers in Nashville -- but there is a shortage of co-writing appointment time. So if you are going to co-write with someone, who are you going to pick? Someone who is going to play the tune out at writer nights, work on it some more, maybe show it around to his/her contacts/publisher/plugger, maybe want to pro demo it; or some guy who will go home and play it for his cat in his living room? It really is a no-brainer when you look at it like that.
2.) Another aspect of "Amateurism versus professionalism" is getting demos done. It seems to me that a logical extension of doing co-writes with serious writers is the inevitability of needing pro demos of songs that you want to pitch. Let's just say that Matt, Norm (two of MAB's group guys) and I co-write a tune and we are all excited about it. After a while Norm says "Hey I got this great female singer lined up, we have to do a full blown demo at Jay's and with the extra vocalist it will be $750 -- or $250 each." Now, I decide I have to pay mortgage instead and I just can't swing the $250 right now. I don't think Matt and Norm will hold it against me personally, but next time they want to do a co-write with a third person, maybe they will ask Becky instead.
I am one of those that got caught in the housing reversal, so I don't plan to go wild on spending money (at least for the next year or so). I don't mind sacrificing "this" to get "that" -- I just won't ask my family to sacrifice on something that is just Daddy's (what's a word for "hobby" that doesn't say "hobby" -- LOL!). However, if you want to write "professionally", doing demos is just a cost of doing business, or so it seems. Maybe I am wrong here, but it seems that if you want to play Nashville's game, you gotta play by the established rules -- and one of those rules seems to be you need pro level demos if you want to pitch. I realize that there are exceptions to every rule, but they are labeled "exceptions" for a reason.
Just a couple of thoughts.
Kevin
OK, where was I? Or I could ask "Where am I?" but that takes us down a whole different path. (by the way, I wrote these opening lines here and thought "hey that could be one of my 50/90 songs". The new song started out great and then fizzled out altogether -- but I posted it any way -- ha, ha).
It is now Saturday night and it is time for the MAB's 12th annual 49th birthday party. Actually I don't know how old MAB is, but I heard one of his daughter's is a grandmother. All in all he looks pretty good for one of those "old white guys" that were mentioned so prominently in another thread.
How do you describe this live extravaganza that MAB and his friends put together? If you like live acoustic music performed by great writers, musicians, singers and performers, with amazing variety, with newcomers mixed in with some of the big hit writers that were soundtracks to my life -- then I guess The Listening Room was the place to be!
The show started off with what MAB terms "Newbies", but in reality they are not "newbies" in either skills or performance chops. They are mostly just students of MAB in different stages of development. Having got to hear/talk to some of these "newbies", I would have to say that country music is still a vibrant spawning ground for new talent.
In the newbie round were:
Allen Shervelle/Bonnie Lee Panda/ Norm Bradley
Will Carter
Matt Hoggard
Rene Mauve/Shelagh Brown
Doak Turner
Jason Gregory
I could talk about the guys, but no one is interested in that (OK, maybe 1/2 the population is). I really enjoyed the Bonnie Lee and Shelagh parts of the show (ha, ha). OK, the guys did great, too. I can tell Matt loves to perform and MAB tells us that Norm is a poster boy for how far you can go if you work at it (he looked quite comfortable up there and did a rocking song). Allen/Bonnie are full of energy and excitement -- and have really cool songs. Renee accompanied Shelagh and was quite talented in his own right. I believe Renee is a founding member of a very popular Tex/Mex band up in Michigan. He also seems to have quite the eye for talent (co-coordinator for the NSAI chapter up there), as he has pointed at least 3 folks to MAB and one has a writing/record deal (Frankie Ballard). Jason is probably 6'3" or so and has that deep Randy Travis/Josh Turner voice -- the gals love 'em, the guys hate 'em -- ha, ha. Jason did a song that I got to hear at Calhoun's the previous night. Based on his distinctive voice, he has a chance. Doak (AKA Mr. Networking) was solid on his tune, too. I must have gone outside and fallen off the balcony and had to climb back up with one arm during Will's song -- because I missed that one. Ah yes, MAB/Norm just reminded me -- He was also the guy video taping the whole thing (and/or doing sound). One note on Allen -- he has a cool schtick (even though he doesn't need it). He wears a Superman "S" shirt at every performance -- I think he even referenced that "S" in one of the songs he did. I think it is a pretty good idea to have something else to make folks remember you (another type of hook!).
Now a quick word on these "newbie" songs. I believe they were all co-written with MAB as part of his teaching tours. I think MAB has said that he has written some 2000 songs with 1700 folks over the past 6 years as part of his "tours" or teaching positions. I haven't done the co-write thing with MAB yet (next visit!), but I think these songs are his "teaching tools.
Based on MAB's writings and conversations with others, it seems to me that these following things are what MAB tries to tackle in these intense co-writing sessions with him: What's the story? What's the hook? Are you writing TO the hook? Does every couple of lines make sense against that hook? Are you whining, preaching, ranting? (If so, get rid of it). Are you using action words instead of passive lines. Do you have tons of visual items in the song so folks can see something in their minds as they read/listen? If you are using metaphors/cliches are those metaphors/cliches soundly supported or "setup" by the visual items of the song. If you have to use a common cliche -- is there a new twist on it that makes it fresh? In fact, since every idea has been written thousands of times -- what is your new twist on the whole idea? Are there "elbow moments", where certain lines stick out as fresh/funny/interesting? Even if the song is not a happy one, is there an element of hope in there (folks got enough of their own problems). I think MAB probably spends a couple of hours on theses songs (finishes them with the student -- and probably does the lion's share of the writing here, using info from the "student"), but then it might to be up to the student to dig deeper, refine and do whatever they want with the tune. Are all these teaching songs great? MAB is pretty tough on himself, so he would say no -- but dang, I bet every one of those 2000 songs have addressed all the points above and therefore have all the elements that a great song would have. There are some real gems in that pile of "teaching" songs based on what I’ve heard lately.
All in all, if MAB had said, OK, that was the show for tonight --I would have been satisfied!!!
But wait there's more to come. I will definitely finish up Saturday night's story before the end of today.
Kevin
