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Muzik Reviews.com Review of Songs from the Black Book
25 January 2009
Below is the latest review of my album—enjoy! To read the original review at MusikReviews.com, click here.
January 4, 2009
Review: Songs from the Black Book
by Matt Jaworski–Muzikreviews.com Staff
© MuzikReviews.com
Ahh yes, the music industry… “It’s not what it used to be” or “it’s changed” is what many musically-inclined folks find themselves saying and hearing nowadays: it’s all about writing a hit song that immediately soars to #1 and then wears itself out soon thereafter. It’s rare when an artist arrives on the popular music scene (or in the 2008 major motion picture soundtrack for Prom Night) by simply writing songs that encapsulate “a diary of sorts” about their “life’s ups and downs”, but Gary King’s debut album Songs From The Black Book fits the bill.
Hailing from Los Angeles, this Berklee Music grad has compiled a collection that not only allows listeners to hear a fantastic voice at work, but thirteen tracks with positively-charged lyrics and outstanding musical companions as well. “White Blip On My Radar Screen” opens the album with just that – blips – followed by Gary’s first vocal entrance of the collection over a lightly sampled backbeat; his voice is thick, endearing, and pitch-perfect, calling to mind the likes of Maxwell and Nathan Morris (Boyz II Men). “Victim of Ur Love” follows three tracks later as the most memorable track of the album – with a nicely harmonized chorus, backing horn section, and medium-tempo groove – the high point of the album.
From the fifth track onward, Mr. King croons and woos with his intimate vocal performances overtop the funky, soulful 1970’s throwback “All the Love in the World”, the TLC-like backgrounds of “Crayons”, and the lush jazz voicings of “Lady Love” (his finest vocal performance aboard Songs From The Black Book). “Winter Eyes” further showcases Mr. King’s versatility by tossing in a taste of a 1980’s power ballad, with chorus-flavored guitars and punchy, syncopated synthesizer hits. The closing track, “Climb Your Mountains” features the powerful tones of the Confirmation Choir in an up-tempo, gospel-flavored groove and more positively-charged lyrics (such a nice thing to hear nowadays: positive lyrics).
Being Mr. King’s debut album in what is sure to be the first of many, his voice, the musicianship and mixing account for three well-earned gold stars, but on the whole, the album lacks varied vocal interpretation. While listeners are treated to many different styles of music, the vocal interpretation from track to track lacks variety and errs more on the side of playing safe than taking chances and reaching for new dimensions (and yes, Mr. King does have it in him). While the album is a pleasant listen, each track does also lose listeners’ interest as they constantly reach and surpass the four and five minute marks; while “Victim of Ur Love” nears it, a noteworthy chorus is what listeners are awaiting.
While Songs From The Black Book has its minor shortcomings, the good news is that Gary King has the difficult part in tow – an unforgettable voice and passion for his craft. Hopefully, Mr. King will begin Book II of his diary memoirs soon – perhaps a different pen and paper will pull it all together.
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Barack or Bust: “Priority Number One” — My First Political Song
19 October 2008
My people! How goes it? It’s been a minute. I’m doing my part in the upcoming election by posting this latest song that I’ve written called “Priority No. 1.” It is officially my first political song ever (Whoa—in my best ”Joey” voice from that show Blossom—Gary didn’t write another song that has to do with breaking up with somebody, getting broken up with, liking some random girl he saw on the street, or how much he loves his parents. Whoa—Gary is writing about himself in the 3rd person).
You can download it here, or listen to it here. Interesting note about the song: make sure you listen to the whole thing—there are a lot of nice little surprises throughout the song, starting with the intro to the very end. Let’s just say a lot of different historical and current figures make cameos throughout the song.
The lyrics follow below, and in sharing them with you, I’m ostensibly wearing my political heart on my sleeve for the world to see. One caveat though, for those of you who would read too much into the song: I have friends and family on both sides of the political fence, Dems, Republicans, Libertarian, and Alaskan. In other words, as Barack pointed out in the last debate, it’s okay—no, in fact, it’s preferred—if we disagree, even rigorously, as long as we are talking about the issues that matter. What’s important is that you form some kind of an opinion about the world around you based on (hopefully) a healthy intellectual curiosity and above all, some modicum of belief that doesn’t wither away at the first hint of debate or challenge.
Always have the courage to have an opinion. Remember, you can always change your mind later and blame your problems on those jerks on Wall St. since everything is their fault anyway—at least for the forseeable future.
In case you didn’t notice, “Priority No. 1” is a free download. So, with my blessing, please download away and share it with your friends so they can get all inspired to go out and vote and stuff. I avoided calling the song “The Barack Song” so as not to be completely obvious, but I think you can all do the math and see who I’m rooting for.
Here are the lyrics:
CHORUS
We can change the world if we take it
Little by little, we try to find our way
We can change the world if we make it
At the top of our To-Do List
Priority number one
Don’t run away
Responsibility
Beckoning
You and me
VERSE 1
We can change the world if we take it
Just a little bit more seriously
We can choose to live or to fake it
Four more years of the status quo
No no no no no no—no no no God please no more
Eight long years
In the name of a made-up war
In the name of a made-up war
CHORUS
VERSE 2
And if we’re not careful you know history repeats itself
Repeats itself
Repeats itself
Repeats itself
There’s a revolution goin’ on right under your nose
Don’t be that someone who never chose
Who never had an opinion
You can always change your mind
CHORUS
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Feature Story on SPasifikMag.com!
23 April 2008
I guess people take notice when you have a song in the 1 Movie in America. The writer, James Atoa, called me the other day to interview me. Here’s the story he wrote.
Peace,
G
[Thanks to the editors at SPacifikaMag and to James for the Interview.]
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How I Met Stevie Wonder!
15 April 2008
Journal entry. Thursday, October 18, 2007. Brushed teeth. Washed hair. Went to post office. Met Stevie Wonder today.
Hard to believe, but if I asked you which of the above statements was false, you would probably pick the last one. You would be wrong. In fact, I did not go to the post office on this day. I did, however, meet Stevie Wonder.
A small disclaimer about this little story I’m about to tell: It’s not so much that my meeting Stevie was this particularly unique event. Musical legends like Stevie meet everyday folks like me all the time. It’s part of their job. But there are such things as serendipity and by extension, moments when we find ourselves drawn into circumstances and events that lie just outside the domain of what we would normally chalk up to mere coincidence. My story is one of those times when a series of seemingly benign and unrelated events took on a life of their own and formed a wonderful, chain-link bridge between the past, present, and future in ways I never could have imagined.
In the winter months of 2006, I accepted an invite to play a gig at BB King’s. I was excited. I had never played there before, and I was on a really good bill that included feature act Jon B and major-label artist Lina, who at the time was enjoying an R&B hit single, Smooth. The entire show was being sponsored by R&B/Soul radio station KJLH (102.3) in honor of their drive-time personality DJ Adai Lamar’s birthday. Stevie Wonder owns KJLH, and there were rumblings that he would be in attendance on Adai’s special night. Add in the fact that Stevie is notorious for impromptu performances, and the stage was literally and figuratively set for an interesting evening.
My performance came and went, and in a whirlwind moment, it happened: Stevie showed up. Like a tsunami, we were held captive in the wake of what turned out to be a 40 or so minute set by a musical genius that raged well into the wee hours of the morning. Feature performer Jon B wisely decided to take a raincheck. Who could have followed that? Stevie’s set was pure bliss. I wrote a much more detailed blog about it here. In the blog, I described my failure that evening at getting through to the owner of BB King’s via a variety of different mediums: phone calls, praying, and of course, everyone’s favorite past-time nowadays, text messaging. The owner was a stone’s throw away at all times that night but obviously, quite busy. The meet-and-greet with Stevie that I had envisioned for my band and me never materialized. I ended my blog with a prescient vow to one day meet Stevie but my claim was surely more bravado than not, a flimsy mask behind which I hid my true fear, that the chance would not come around again any time soon.
Fast forward to early fall of 2007. I’m checking my MySpace messages, and the subject header of one of them reads “Stevie Wonder Blog..BB Kings.” Question marks pop in front of me, and I open the email. It’s from Adai Lamar, the DJ whose birthday party Stevie “crashed” the year before. In the email, Adai describes surfing the web and randomly finding my blog post about her birthday party. She enjoyed reading it so much that she makes a mind-boggling offer: to arrange for me to meet Stevie in person, at the KJLH studios. I am numb. I wrote the blog almost a year ago and never expected a response from anyone remotely involved in that special night, let alone Adai, whose birthday was the reason we were all there in the first place.
I tell my co-producer Nate the news. He is ecstatic. Curiously enough, though Adai gives me her office number in her message, I choose to email her first and wait for a response. The strangeness begins here: When I don’t hear from her right away, I don’t follow up with a phone call. This gracious woman has offered to arrange for me to meet my idol, the Stevie Wonder, a musical genius, and instead of desperately clawing at the opportunity like most sane people would, lest it disappear with the wind, I wait (drum roll)....almost 4 weeks. Four weeks before I call her back. Don’t know why I did it, but I did. I’m still typing, so clearly, though I never meant it to work out this way, my decision to wait so long ended up working out in our favor.
I finally call Adai and leave a message. In two hours, I have a voicemail response from her. She says quite tersely and simply: “Stevie’ll be in tomorrow off tour, so come by the studio with Nate in the morning and we’ll hook it up. See ya then!” And that was it. We were on our way. I tell Nate about the message. We are both starting to feel as if outside forces are in play.
Nate and I barely sleep the night before, and we’re both up at the crack of dawn. Only Stevie Wonder could have this effect on me: I iron my clothes. I almost never iron. I ignore the fact that Stevie won’t notice my pressed shirt and pleated pants. Today is different, and we both feel it. We leave with plenty of time to spare and get to the radio station a little after 7 a.m. The studio is less than half a mile away from our apartment, which we moved into less than 6 months before. A security guard lets us in, and I meekly announce that Adai is expecting us. He walks down a long corridor and disappears behind one of those official-looking, thick metal doors with a small window pane tacked onto the upper half. The guard returns after what seems like an eternity and says Adai will be with us shortly. We sit. We wait. Shortly thereafter, someone enters the lobby, a well-dressed gentleman with the air of an academic. He looks at Nate first and then me. I acknowledge him with a Samoan raise of my eyebrows (only brown folk from the island will understand this reference). Nate ignores him, because, well, Nate is blind. Yes, blind. Since he was 10. He plays drums like a beast, and he’s blind.
The “academic” turns out to be Dr. Mark Humayun, an eye specialist over at USC. He takes an unusual interest in Nate and in particular, the fact that Nate is blind. He explains that Stevie has invited him to be interviewed on air about the special program he runs. Special program? Nate and I shift in our seats almost simultaneously, already nervous about meeting Stevie but now somewhat weirded out by the sudden but welcome intrusion in the form of...an eye doctor. An eye doctor who happens to be scheduled to be interviewed on-air the same day that I, after almost a month delay, happened to arrange our little groupie meet-and-greet. What are the chances?
Adai finally comes out. She is beautiful, confident, and clearly does not have a face for radio. She expected Nate and me, but the doctor’s presence is a surprise to her. Stevie arranged for the doctor to come on his own, without really telling anybody. Adai smiles. She’s used to it and takes everything in stride.
We follow her back into the belly of the station. We pass the main broadcast room. The “On-Air” light is red, and we see movement in the studio through the small rectangular door window. Stevie is close, separated by just a few feet of floor and mere inches of steel. She leads Dr. Humayun elsewhere, and sets us down in a small office adjacent the broadcast area. We are smiling and trying to seem cool. We are not cool.
Ten or so minutes later, Adai returns and leads us into the actual broadcast booth where Stevie and the morning DJs are bantering in between commercial breaks. We can’t believe it’s happening. Adai announces us to Stevie, and we both step up in succession to shake hands with him. I mutter something about it being an honor before I lead Nate over to shake his hand. Nate also mutters something bordering on trite as he shakes Stevie’s hand. He’s right there, sitting in front of us. I’m watching his every move. He really bobs his head from side to side. It’s graceful, though, with some seemingly invisible rhythm guiding his movement. And his speech is rapid-fire and poly-rhythmic, yet also fluid, graceful and—get this—melodic, in a lilting, almost hypnotic way. Classical musicians would call it legatto. Everything Stevie does is musical. I’m in awe.
In an instant, it’s over. Is that it, we wonder? One shake of the hand, and you’re done? Adai asks if we can stay until after the show so we can spend a little more time chatting with Stevie and take pictures. The decision is unanimous and of course, was never in question. Adai leads us back out, this time, to a larger conference room with a long, rectangular table. We sit and wait some more.
Nate and I catch our breath and try to manage the huge grins on our face at this point. A few minutes later, a staff member leads Dr. Humayun back into the room. After the requisite pleasantry exchange, he starts peppering Nate with questions, very specific inquiries that would seem to suggest he assumes that Nate is there today as “blind” Nate and not “Stevie Groupie” Nate. We find out why. Dr. Humayan has developed a special microchip that allows viable blind candidates to partially recover their sight. That’s right. The guy literally helps blind people see again. Stevie invited him to talk about the chip and to publicize an upcoming outreach campaign soliciting potential candidates for the procedure (they are still in Phase I testing). Things are starting to happen in slow motion now, and Nate and I, without saying a word, are both majorly weirded out by everything. It gets better. Nate and Dr. Humayan have hit it off, and Nate shares the story of how he lost his sight when he was 10. The doctor asks where he had his last surgery. Nate says in Baltimore, at John Hopkins University, in 1985. “John Hopkins? 1985?” Dr. Humayan says with surprise. “I was a resident at Hopkins that year! Which doctor did you see?” he asks. Nate says the names of two specialists who worked on him, one of whom was the same doctor who reattached Sugar Ray Leonard’s retina after the famous Duran bout. “I worked under both those doctors!” he exclaims. Nate and I shift in our seats somewhat uncomfortably a second time. Did I already mention we are both majorly being weirded out at this point?
It’s time for Dr. Humayun to go on-air with Stevie. Someone comes in and whisks him away. Alone for just a few minutes, Nate and I shake our heads at the amazing coincidence we’ve just realized is taking place. An eye specialist who literally worked at the same hospital under the same doctors who treated Nate when he was 10 is now being interviewed on-air with Stevie Wonder about helping blind people see. And, we just so happen to be there on the same day, when our visit should have actually already taken place, if not for my procrastinating self.
Another KJLH staffer comes by and kindly asks if we want any refreshments. They have catering at the radio station, apparently, every Thursday. On this particular day, it’s Soul Food. Say no more, I think, and I leave to get Nate and I some grub. I return a few minutes later with aforesaid grub in hand to find the second link in this coincidence chain that seems to have slowly wrapped itself around the two of us and won’t let go. There is a new participant in this little dramedy in the room when I return. A beautiful woman is sitting across from Nate, and they are making small talk. I recognize her. She’s an actress from one of my favorite movies, Independence Day. It’s Vivica Fox. I’m not surprised in the least by her presence given what’s transpired so far. As a matter of fact, I almost shrug. Stevie Wonder. The eye doctor from Nate’s past. Vivica Fox. We’re just getting started here, I think to myself. I mean, really, who’s next? Blair Underwood from LA Law? Yes, Blaire Underwood makes a cameo later on. I quickly join the conversation and start cracking jokes like an old Hollywood pro, trying to balance that mix of interest and disinterest that’s necessary to operate in the same league as someone of Vivica’s calibre. Or at least that’s what I tell myself I’m doing. Vivica is quite gracious and politely banters with Nate and I for the duration. Oh, and she’s drop-dead gorgeous in person.
Turns out Vivica is there promoting her latest endeavor, a touring play in which she’s the star. Her co-star in the play, she explains, is running late and will be there in a few minutes. His name is Boris Kodjoe. (Most women, and perhaps a few men, swooned upon reading that last sentence.) An up-and-coming actor, Kodjoe falls within that coveted category that all woman would classify as eye candy. It’s a tough job, and Kodjoe is equipped to do it—tall, handsome, square jaw, and ripped, Hollywood-trainer abs. Here’s yet another clincher: Kodjoe also happens to be the lead actor in a little indie film called All About Us. Nate and I had met him before at a closed screening of the film earlier that year. We attended the screening as producers and writers: 5 of my compositions appear in the movie, including the title song itself. Kodjoe eventually arrived and did not immediately recognize either Nate or me, though I quickly reminded him of our connection. The mere act of being able to say that we were producers with music in a film that he starred in temporarily gave us license to appear as something other than what we actually were and still are to this day: Stevie Wonder groupies who happen to record music in their living room (although now we record in a garage). Nate and I shifted in our seats yet again, and for the third time that day, we were officially “weirded-out.” With my newfound license to talk, however, I held court perhaps even more than I normally would have, coaxing Vivica to talk of her days living in, of all places, Indiana and about other random tidbits that were, at the time, the most fascinating things I had ever heard. I officially had a crush on Vivica.
But my mind was ultimately still on Stevie. Both Nate and I did our best to avoid what had become an obvious elephant in the room, a question that burned in our minds: Did Stevie realize Nate was blind? We didn’t think so. Let me explain. It wasn’t even so much about being “discovered” or having Stevie swoop in and sign us to a record deal or give us a huge advance or anything along those lines. We simply wanted a genuine and real connection with the man other than one where we were two more faceless strangers in a long line of people that he might meet over the course of his daily duties as a living and breathing musical legend. This idea, that we wanted to meet Stevie on our own terms and as unique individuals whom he might remember later on, was the primary reason behind why we left the BB King’s gig early the year before. Instead of trying to force our way into the VIP area that night, we decided, in an almost Zen moment, that it wasn’t right, that our time to meet Stevie would come later and would happen in a much more profound and memorable way. Clearly, today was that day. But how to execute this tricky maneuver short of busting through the studio doors with a machine gun, yelling “Stevie, Nate is blind! Nate is blind!” So, yes, dammit, we unintentionally found ourselves trying to play the blind card. Wouldn’t you? Sue us. Neither of us said anything at the time, but we both admitted afterwards that we were thinking the same thing, that Dr. Humayan would play a key role in helping us meet Stevie in that special way we had been seeking. Mind you, we had already met Stevie and were going to meet him one more time, regardless. We just wanted to stand out a little more. In the end, we were right. Dr. Humayan was clutch.
We continue to make small talk when Adai comes back into the room and whispers in my ear:
“Stevie wants to interview Nate on air with the doctor. Stevie didn’t realize Nate was blind, and the doctor mentioned him. He wants to see if Nate might be a good fit for this procedure. Would you guys be okay with being on air?”
The operative word of the day is cool, even though my heart is beating at a pretty good clip by this time. I reply cooly, “Oh, sure, that would fine,” as if to say, “Hmm, yes, I would be amenable to that. Sure. Whatever.” I smile at myself and how quickly I’ve transformed into some weird amalgam of the Dalai Lama and Michael Ovitz. Nate is still listening to miscellaneous Hollywood banter across from Vivica. I lean over and whisper the news. He shakes his head. We’re both completely, absolutely petrified, but in a good way.
Vivica and crew eventually leave for their talk with Stevie, and Nate and I are alone with our thoughts yet again, except now we’re trying to prepare mentally for this completely unexpected moment in the spotlight. We had originally hoped for a handshake, a few short sentences bandied about amongst friends, and perhaps a picture with Stevie. Now, we were going to be on air with the man, participating in what was ostensibly our first radio interview ever. Nice.
Half an hour seemed like forever, but eventually, our time came. An assistant comes in and says those two words that performers know so well: “You’re on!”
She leads us into the studio along with Dr. Humayun, who had rejoined us after Vivica left. The sight of the studio console, the engineer and main DJ, along with Adai and Stevie seated next to each other was an immediate and visceral thrill. The room was filled with the kind of vibrant energy that only major radio market personalities like Adai and her staff could conjure. They bantered, joked, and segued from one topic to another with ease. Stevie was clearly good at it too. Is there anything this guy can’t do, I think quietly to myself. Master singer, songwriter, instrumentalist, oh, and hey, I think I’ll kick some major ass at being a DJ too! Adai reintroduces Nate and I to Stevie on a commercial break, explaining the story of my blog and how we just missed meeting him the year before at her birthday party. Stevie nods and smiles a 3,000 watt smile that could power a small city. Our photo-op moment comes, and I hand Adai my camera. She takes the picture, Nate and Dr. Humayun bookending Stevie in the middle with me kneeling in the foreground. I feel like I’m dreaming. We’re all eventually led into position, given headphones, and in an instant, we’re waiting to go live on air with Stevie Wonder. Amazingly enough, Nate and I apparently still have some residual courage left over from our Vivica Fox bantering session, and we both engage in some conversation with Stevie and the other DJs during commercial breaks. Stevie asks Nate some questions, and at one point, Nate even cracks a funny. Everyone laughs, and being the attention whore that everyone knows I am, I try my hand at being funny with what I believe at the time is a humorous anecdotal reference. I was wrong. But everyone is polite and the show goes on. We’re on air.
Adai introduces Nate and me and explains the backstory behind why we’re there. She asks me to introduce myself and Nate, and somehow, some way, I force a few sentences out of my mouth. My first words begin with what seems to me like an interminable stutter, but I plow my way through and am able somehow to communicate a complete thought, something along the lines of “We’re producers and writers and we do muh-muh-muh-muh-muh-muuuuu-sic...” Stevie reintroduces Dr. Humayun and asks him to talk a little about the microchip and what’s involved in the procedure. Nate answers some questions from Stevie as well, talks about his life and about being blind. Before we know it, our time is almost up, but not before Stevie dramatically asks the doctor this: “So, doc, do you think we can get our man Nate tested to see if he’s a candidate for the procedure?”
Two weeks later, Nate went to his first appointment with the good doctor. Though Dr. Humayun explained early on that it’s a long shot because of the kind of damage that initially caused Nate’s blindness, he has not given up and is still in the process of determining whether Nate is a viable candidate.
Our interview ended with, as I hinted earlier, a surprise visit by none other than former LA Law star Blair Underwood, who stopped by to plug a fundraiser in Inglewood that weekend for an iconic, independent bookstore that was facing closure. At that point, the President of the United States could have swung by, and Nate and I would have been less impressed. We had just met Stevie Wonder, and we had done it on-air, live, broadcast to literally tens of thousands of listeners throughout the greater Los Angeles metro area. We left the studio happy, bewildered, and somehow invigorated by the idea that, for the briefest of moments, we were able to hang with the man himself. It was a good day, I thought. As we walked back to the car, I panicked for a second, realizing that I had not left enough money in the parking meter. I stopped myself and realized, with an almost uncanny certainty, that there would be no parking ticket on my windshield. It wasn’t that kind of day. I was right. Later that night, I met up with a friend to watch the Red Sox play. They won. I crossed that off my check-list of things to do that day: 1. Meet Stevie Wonder. Check. Watch Red Sox win on their way to 2nd World Series in 4 years. Check. Blatantly flout parking meter signs, leave too little money in your meter, and get away with it. Check. I left that bar and went somewhere else with another good friend. I shared my Stevie story—already at that point the stuff of legend— with him. We celebrated with a quick drink and toast.
In the midst of a Santa Monica club and a fray of twenty and thirty-somethings out having a good time, the DJ spun appropriately contemporary hip hop and R&B, the kind of stuff you might hear on MTV or the radio. I smiled at how we often have moments of introspection in loud environments and in the unlikeliest of places: clubs, bars, train stations, airports—places where a sea of humanity and its attendant noise seem to paradoxically open a door to a deeper consciousness we tend to associate with isolation and nature. I thought about all the signposts along the way that led to my and Nate’s meeting Stevie Wonder, all the strange yet compelling little coincidences. Was there anything else left? Perhaps there was one last signpost. The DJ suddenly played a song that I hadn’t heard in a while, No Diggity, by Blackstreet. Up to that point, his playlist comprised strictly current fare, songs that had come out in the last two years or so. The second he played the song, I experienced this eerie feeling of de ja vu. I had heard it one other time that day. Earlier that morning, they had played No Diggity at KJLH as part of a regular call-in contest—whoever could identify the artist and song after hearing just a snippet. I smiled again and for a fleeting moment, felt a twinge of sadness knowing the day would end and that other lesser days lay ahead, when parking attendants would not inexplicably leave me alone, when DJs in random clubs would not leave virtual signposts in the form of specific songs in their playlist, and when Stevie Wonder would no longer ask me or Nate about our lives on air in front of tens of thousands of people. It was a good day.
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Prom Night #1 Movie in America!
14 April 2008
Well, crazier things have happened. A song that I sang and co-wrote is in the Number 1 movie in America. It grossed almost $23 million over the weekend. Go figure. Click here to read the full story.
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My Song on the Prom Night Soundtrack!
23 March 2008
Some more news from my musical world. Some of you may have seen trailers for the new movie, Prom Night. A song that I co-wrote with my good friend Mike Baiardi is in the movie, and as the singer of the song, Your Eyes, I am one of the featured artists on the movie soundtrack that is being released by well-known, movie soundtrack specialists Lakeshore Records. Lakeshore Records has been behind the soundtracks for movies like Shutter, Doomsday, Under the Same Moon, Jumper, The Spiderwyck Chronicles, LIttle Miss Sunshine, Superbad, and a host of other big-name movies. Click here to see me as one of the Top Friends on the official Prom Night MySpace page, and click here to visit my MySpace page to hear the actual song that will appear in the movie (see the first song in my music player, Your Eyes). Admittedly, my song is not quite standard “slasher” fare—I am the lone, tinkly, piano-based R&B artist on the soundtrack. The rest of the artists are rockers like Ben Tayor, Quietdrive, Rock Kills Kid, Bloc Party, Mr. Me Innit, Consequence, and more. I have not seen the segment for which my song plays as the underscore, but from my understanding, my ballad segues nicely into a very dark and brooding, sinister, orchestral score, presumably right before everybody gets their head chopped off on the night of the dance. Nice! (A special thanks to my friend Mike for making this happen.)
The film is a remake of the 1980 original starring Jamie Lee Curtis. Brittany Snow reprises the original Curtis’ role of Donna, who deftly avoids the usual assortment of knife stabs through shower curtains and boogeymen jumping out of closets and hiding out underneath beds. Click here to see the trailer. Nice!
The official movie soundtrack drops on April 1, and you can check out the movie in theaters near you on opening day, Friday, April 11. That’s two days before my next monthly residency night at Mai Tai’s in Long Beach!
One last thing before I go: Click here to check out the song “Brown Skin Beauty” on my boy DJ Stylez’ MySpace music player. The song is featured on rapper E-Kredible’s latest album, which was released late last year. I arranged the background vocals on the song and sang the hook. If you’re on MySpace and not already DJ Stylez’ friend, add him and leave him a comment about the song and his other tunes—he’s a talented brother out of Vegas. The song was a collaboration we did a while back, and E included DJ Stylez and I as guest artists on his album, which is getting airplay in Samoa and New Zealand. Visit E’s MySpace page to purchase the song or the entire album.
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Another Glowing Review of SFTBB!
18 February 2008
The following review of my debut album, Songs from the Black Book, appeared online at www.soulsite.de, a German R&B/Soul website. Thanks go out to my friend Jan Stolpe for the English translation that follows below. Click here to read the original review in German.
Cheers
Gary King’s album Songs From The Black Book is a timeless masterpiece.
The record consists of delicately crafted lyrics, excellent vocal work and an equally high standard in regards to musical craft, with a steady drive for perfection.
King opens up a virtual “black book” of soul and R&B (with a sprinkling of jazz throughout) with the song White Blip On My Radar Screen. He sings with a powerful and crystal clear voice. The production never obscures his performance, allowing it to move beautifully and expressively to the foreground and leaving the listener with a vibrant, ambient setting. It is as if King is singing right beside you in the middle of a room. The rather subtle beats and instruments are well-placed and add to the high level of expressiveness. The drum programming is equally sensitive and balanced.
The first half of the album consists of a rhythmic, mid-tempo mix of fine soul and R&B. On Baby (I’m a Better Man), King again displays enormous vocal potential. He scales into his higher register at an artistic skill level that is reminiscent of Maxwell himself. From here, the record is an increasingly diverse one. Lady Love reveals a light jazz feel, while the song Winter Eyes succeeds as a subtle pop tune. King shows off more vocal acrobatics with Hopeless in Love, and closes SFTBB in good, old gospel fashion.
With a passion for melody and meaningful words in his stories, King creates a powerful mood throughout. One gladly puts time away to enjoy a true discovery such as this. Like a great book, Songs from the Black Book is suspenseful in its development and is replete with wonderful, little surprises and skillfully executed musical twists.
—by Erich Rittig
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Flotsam and Jetsam and Other Assorted News
25 October 2007
Hello all,
It’s been some time since I’ve sent out one of my little missives updating you on my goings-on. That doesn’t mean there haven’t been any particular “goings-on” in my life, just that I haven’t taken the time to sit down and craft one of these random forays into the absurd that I often take. And so, without further adieu, allow me to recap some of the “goings-on” in my world. People don’t use that word, “goings-on,” enough. “Goings-on.” I like that word.
(Disclaimer: This is a long blog. If you read to the end, however, I promise there is a wonderful little news item that will tickle your fancy. (I’ve never actually witnessed anyone tickle a “fancy,” but I hear it’s all the rage.) There’s no need to kill yourself reading the whole thing in one sitting. Skip from chapter to chapter at your leisure, and if possible, I highly recommend printing an actual copy to take home with you. Excellent writing and pictures [or at least links to pictures]—perfect bathroom reading. Works well next to a wide assortment of magazines, from Popular Mechanics, Maxim, to US News & World Report, Time, and Newsweek.)
All About Us Screens this Weekend
Original Music by Me and Nate
First things first: This weekend, Friday and Saturday specifically, the movie I mentioned a while back that features some of my music is making its LA debut at the American Black Film Festival. Tickets will be available beginning Monday, October 22 for $12. Get them ASAP before the screening fills up as I hear the theaters are on the smaller side. Click here to purchase tickets for the movie online at ticketweb.com or take your chances at the box office window. Nate and I will be at the Saturday screening.
_______________________________________
“All About Us” Screening Info
1. Friday, October 26 @ 12 noon, Screen # 1
Talkback with Christine, the director, afterwards.
2. Saturday, October 27 @ 2:00 pm, Screen #2
Tickets: $12, available at ticketweb.com or at box office
To purchase tickets online, click here.
Beverly Center 13 Cinemas
Directions, click here
8522 Beverly Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90048 United States
310.652.7760
_______________________________________
I have 7 songs appearing in this movie, 3 of which are original compositions that I wrote specifically for the movie and one of which is the title song for the movie, entitled “All About Us.” Click here to read about the husband-and-wife team behind the movie, Michael and Christine Swanson. They previously released the indie success “All About You” and very kindly gave Nate and I an “Original Music” credit at the end of this latest film—which they did not have to do.
The movie is about two Hollywood filmmakers and their attempt to find Morgan Freeman in Mississippi and convince him to star in their next movie. When life gets in their way, they soon discover what matters to them most. Inspired by a true story.
(Special note for the ladies: Boris Kodjoe stars in this film. For men: Ryan Michelle Bathe also stars in this movie. Oh yeah, and Oscar-winner and former Electric Company standout Morgan Freeman makes a cameo in the movie too. And for you lovers of craft—the craft of acting that is—the legendary Ruby Dee has a pivotal role in the film.)
Gary’s Music Video: “Brothers and Sisters”
My first music video is finished and up. Click here to check it out or click here to read my blog about the shoot. Visit the director of the music video here. The song was inspired by the loss of my parents. Warning: Don’t watch it if you’re not in the mood to cry. It’s kind of a downer. But sometimes, we all need a good cry. One last cry, before I leave it all behind. I’m gonna put you out of my mind. Okay, I’ll stop.
The Love Chronicles Vol. 1
My second album is almost done. We need to record live drums and horns, add some background vocals, and add the usual minor tweaks, overdubs, etc. that always make a difference. Stay tuned. The album will be released in the spring of 2008.
Don L Castor’s Album is Available!
Nate and I had the pleasure of working with a talented singer based here in LA, Don L Castor. We co-wrote/produced/arranged 6 of the tracks on the album and co-produced/arranged a 7th song as well. The debut album, “Quest,” is now available on his website. Look out for more info coming soon on the CD release party.
Billboard VMEs Showcase
Had a wonderful time a couple of weeks back performing at an industry showcase at the annual Billboard VME music conference in Vegas. Shared the stage with a host of talented artists like Mz. Rachel, Natusol, Nonosina, and the reggae sensation Bonafide, with special guest Fiji. Sponsored by the folks behind ProPlayer, the popular energy drink making quite the buzz right now, the eclectic evening was filled with lots of great music and of course, a wonderful assortment of beverages, food, and scantily clad women. My good friends Teresa and JT were also there working in conjunction with ProPlayer to make everything happen. Great job guys! Click here to see pictures of me with random people, some of whom you may know, some of whom you probably don’t know.
MaiTai’s Residency Every Second Sunday of the Month
I’ve been extremely remiss in keeping people abreast of my gigs, which have been sparse recently because of all the studio stuff that Nate and I are doing. However, I still occasionally play out, and one of the places where I do appear regularly is in Long Beach, at MaiTai’s bar. I have a standing gig there every second Sunday of the month, so come on by, have a drink and a listen. Sometimes, we have special guests show up, so you never really know what you’re gonna get—kind of like a box of chocolates.
Nate and I Met Stevie Wonder
Yes, I saved the best for last. This is all I have to say about that—for now. Check for updates on my blog regarding this very wonderful, amazing, and serendipitous story. It’s a true story. And yes, to quote the immortal Ice Cube, it was most certainly a good day.
That’s it for my long-winded post. Thank you for reading this far, and I hope to see you soon at a show, maybe the mall, or even at the movies.
Peace,
Gary
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Climbing Trees: You Can Take the Boy Out of Samoa, but You Can’t Take the Samoa Out of the Boy
02 October 2007
So I had a wonderful time last night at my usual hangout, Mai Tai’s in Long Beach. Every other Monday night, Hidden Music Entertainment hosts an open mic that’s starting to make quite the name for itself. Lots of talented people come out, like Wayne M. Lucas, Tahera, and ”Murl”—sing their asses off, and everybody wins: the audience gets to hear really great music while enjoying a drink or two, and artists get a chance to strut their stuff in public. I ended up guest-hosting last night in place of the usual host, my very talented friend Kenyatta Mackey, who was a little under the weather (We missed you Kenny!). I didn’t really appreciate how much work goes into hosting even just a quote unquote “little” event like an open mic—until last night. By the end of the night, I was pretty beat, and I didn’t get home until 2:30 a.m. This is going somewhere folks, I promise.
This left me only a few hours of sleep before it was time to rise and shine and begin my day again. And so, the next day, I woke up feeling pretty groggy and out of it. I stumbled to the bathroom, and then went to the kitchen to grab my first drink of water of the day. I did a fairly good job of navigating the obstacle course of my room (let’s just say there is no clear path to anything in my room), but I failed miserably on my exit into the hallway that leads into the common areas of my apartment.
[Official Gary rant begins here:]
You ever have one of those moments where you walk into the kitchen to grab a cup of coffee, and instead of pouring the cup of coffee and drinking it like a normal person, instead, you proceed to put it in the refrigerator, then walk away? It’s usually because you’re tired or your thoughts lie elsewhere, far, far away from this world. Well, I had one of those brain fart moments: As I left my room, for whatever reason, in my groggy haze of half-awake, half-asleep consciousness, I locked my door, then closed it behind me. Problem is, there is no key to my bedroom door. You lock the door, you lock the door—that’s it. Door is closed, until further notice.
And why is it that when you lock something (usually a car or house door—really, any door will do), you always realize that you are mistakenly/unintentionally locking the door—as the door latches behind you. The very second you hear that “click” of the door locking, your brain somehow snaps back into reality and says, “Hey, you weren’t supposed to do that.” You never lock a car door behind you, then 3 hours later say, “Oh, I locked the car door accidentally.” You always realize it at the very last second, leaving you with the incorrect idea that if you had just realized it a second sooner, you could have somehow put your hands in between the door (only to have your fingers get crushed) and stopped it from closing.
It’s the same thing with trying to hold it in when you need to go to the bathroom really bad. You could successfully walk 100 miles on a hot, desert road holding either No. 1 or No. 2 in, then, inexplicably, as soon as you are within 15 feet of a bathroom/toilet/any appropriate hole, all of a sudden, it’s as if your bowels and bladder hear that “click” of the door locking and say, “Hey, it’s time for you to go, right now. We’ve walked 100 miles in the hot desert sun with you, but we can’t hold out for this last 15 feet, sorry—you lose.” And then, bam. It must be some kind of Pavlovian/Darwinian thing. I think cavemen must have had this built-in “snap-back-into-reality” thing because if they left their cave and accidentally rolled the rock over the entrance without anybody inside to let them back in, they were royally screwed because they would get eaten by a Mastodon or Saber-toothed Tiger. Okay, just ignore the fact the cavemen never actually co-existed with dinosaurs.
[Gary rant ends here.]
So anyway, these are the things I think about—the things that make you go “hmm”—and this is essentially what happened to me as the door closed behind me. Millions of years of evolution distilled into one second of an “Aha!” moment, as I stood there, helpless, the door closed behind me. I’m just happy I remembered to put clothes on before all of this happened. I tried the usual, most-obvious, MacGyver response: “Oh, I’ll get a butter knife and jimmy it open.” Bzzzz. Wrong. I was on the wrong side of the door to do this. I quickly gave up on this method, as the only thing I was doing was warping the doorframe and scraping wood fragments in and around the doorknob area. Next attempt: there is a hole in the middle of my doorknob. Luckily for me, I thought to myself as I rifled through the kitchen drawer, I happened to have some handy shish kabob sticks/skewers that would do just the job (they were from way back when I went to a bonfire and needed skewers to do the whole ”smores” thing). Yes, people, wooden shish kabob sticks were the answer to my prayers. I excitedly grabbed a skewer, then alternated poking both the sharp and flat end through the doorknob hole. Bzzzz. Wrong again. Nothing.
I was desperate and panicking. For those of you who know me, this means that I was basically very quiet and still, extremely calm, and running through different scenarios in my mind. This is what “Gary” desperate and panicking is like. It’s very boring, so for those of you who wanted a little more arc to this portion of my narrative, I apologize profusely.
I realized I had some other options. I could climb over the top of my building (on top of a shingled, Spanish-style roof). I wasn’t really feeling this option, as it would have meant a somewhat tricky ascent up the side of my building and then, hoping and praying that the shingles didn’t slide underneath my feet as I walked on top of them. My landlord wouldn’t be happy about that.
I decided that my best bet was to climb up the side of a tree on the backside of my building. It’s only about 15 feet high, it sits just a few mere feet away from the wall of the building, and the topmost branches lead you right onto my neighbor’s roof, which is adjacent to my bedroom. Okay, so basically, I’ve just handed anyone a script on how to sneak into my bedroom and kill/maim me when I’m asleep or steal from me when I’m not there. Nice. So I’ve got that going for me.
The problem is, it’s not all that obvious to the naked eye that you might be able to climb up this tree to get to the roof. This only occurred to me because 1) a stray cat who looks just like my cat Harry uses this tree to come visit from time to time and 2) I’m Samoan, and I grew up climbing trees while children across America were wasting their time in malls watching bad 80s movies and filling their tanks up on Orange Julius. There are no branches on the bottom portion of the tree to get you to the top, no proverbial “tree” stepladder. I’m willing to bet the average person would find the idea of climbing this tree a little daunting and at this point, would have simply called the landlord to come unhinge the door in order to get them back inside.
Not me. I looked at the tree, and I saw an opportunity: The opportunity to avoid having my landlord or his maintenance person see how messy my room was, and the opportunity, most importantly, to climb a tree. I was a little rusty. It had been years since I had climbed a tree like this. The last time I climbed a tree was in college at 2 a.m. in the morning when, well, let’s just say I had had a little to drink, and in a matter of seconds, had scaled 20 feet into my friend’s front yard tree. There was some grunting and screaming involved and maybe some proclamations that I was indeed drunk. I did not yell, ”I’m on top of the world,” however, as this was pre-the Titanic. I dated myself. Oh darn.
I was up the tree and back in my room in a matter of seconds, and for a brief moment, I remembered what it was like playing “tag” in my neighbor’s front yard pua tree as a kid. What was it like? Really dangerous. But for a few seconds of my life, living dangerously had paid off. Now I can save that phone call to my landlord when I really need him, like if the water main breaks or something. Hopefully, I’ll have cleaned my room by then.
Peace,
Gary
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My First Music Video: Brothers and Sisters
14 June 2007
Well, it’s finished. My first music video. The song is Brothers and Sisters. Click here to read my original blog about the song. Click here to see the video. Click here to visit my friend Peter Tang’s page—Peter was the catalyst behind the video, an extremely talented director who is destined to do big things. He came up with the concept for the video, organized the crew, basically, he made the ish happen. The whole thing, the visual tone, the script, the concept, was all Peter. Without him, no video, and I’m stuck blogging about my cat Harry instead of writing this little ditty.
I’d like to publicly offer up my humble thanks to you, Peter (and his entire Epic Circle crew), for blessing me with your talent and vision. We actually shot two music videos, the 2nd one which will be released later this year to coincide with the release of my 2nd album, The Love Chronicles Vol. 1, which Nate and I are hard at work on.
If I’ve been absent or late in replying or commenting on your MySpace pages, please accept my apologies. We are all busy with our respective lives, doing the things that are important to us, and hopefully, creating the lives, each day, that we want to live. I hope this message/blog finds you all happy and doing well so far in 2007.
Soifua,
Gary
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Please Read! Help Save Internet Radio!
04 May 2007
Hey all,
Pardon the interruption. I have nothing to sell, no upcoming gig or CD to promote. I’m emailing on behalf of my good friend Puukani, who recently asked me to help raise awareness on a very important issue that will profoundly affect the future of radio webcasters like Puukani, who owns and operates a very cool webcast at Pipeline2Paradise.com.
For anyone that listens to music online, this is no laughing matter, and it is the reason why I am taking the time to craft this email and send it to those of you on this list. This is not some silly email forward/internet hoax, so, if you care about keeping independent Internat radio/webcasting alive (ie. Listening to the kind of music you want to listen to online) please read on.
I am posting Puukani’s original message for you to read below, and then immediately after that, I’m also posting a link to an article that goes into detail about what a small panel of judges have recently done and how it will affect Internet radio as we know it. I will also give you an abbreviated summary of why and how Internet Radio is being threatened in the following paragraph.
The short of it is this, and I suppose it always boils down to this: Money. A small group of judges recently raised the royalty rates that Internet broadcasters have to pay. At first glance, not a big deal, just a few pennies. However, the increases they have proposed will effectively put small, independent webcasters like Puukani out of business. It’s no secret that the people behind these increases are a very powerful lobby, the RIAA, the trade association for the music industry. There are over 52 million estimated web radio listeners each year. If these rates are allowed to stay in effect, we will be losing out on a diversity of music that web radio has given us in the last decade or so since webcasting first came to the fore.
So here’s what I’m asking you to do: Call or email your House representative and ask her/him to co-sponsor H.R. 2060, the Internet Radio Equality Act.
Want to find out who your rep is?
Go here -->
http://www3.capwiz.com/saveinternetradio/callalert/index.tt?alertid=9679516&type=TA
Want to read more specifics about how you can help?
Go here -->
http://www.live365.com/choice/
Thanks for reading and for taking a moment out of your busy day!
Have a great weekend,
Gary
*Here is Puukani’s original message below and then after that, a detailed article about the rate increases and how they will kill off independent radio if we don’t do something about it:
ORIGINAL MESSAGE FROM PUUKANI STARTS HERE -->
Aloha all. I share this with mix feelings. If you haven’t heard the Internet Radio industry is being threatened big time by high royaltiy fees imposed by the Copyright Royalty Board(CRB) that could literally close down 95% of internet stations worldwide, including Pipeline 2 Paradise Radio. You heard… including my station!
We (Live365) and other internet radio sites already pay millions and millions of dollars in royalties and they still want more. Hows this… the laws they have handed down doesn’t affect commercial radio!! How’s that for unfair? The commercial stations make billions of dollars and 99% of internet radio makes no profit, including myself. What’s wrong with that picture! I created Pipeline 2 Paradise Radio because my desire was to share Hawaiian and Island music with the world. I do this with great passion and love for the music and culture! This is very serious stuff. On May 15th Pipeline 2 Paradise Radio could shut down forever. I NEED YOUR KOKUA NOW!
If you believe that internet radio helps artists out, especially niche genres like Hawaiian music then I need you to help me out. REACT NOW FOR ME! REACT FOR HAWAIIAN MUSIC! Go to http://www.live365.com/choice, read what’s happening to us and then REACT ACCORDINGLY!! PLEASE… DON’T LET PIPELINE 2 PARADISE RADIO GET SHUT DOWN. PLEASE DON’T LET INTERNET RADIO DIE! WILL YOU HELP ME MY OHANA AND FRIENDS?
Mahalo nui and akua bless you all!
Pu’ukani Sebala
Owner and Operator
Pipeline 2 Paradise Radio
CLICK HERE TO READ THE ORIGINAL STORY ON WEBCASTING:
http://www.chicagoreader.com/features/stories/sharpdarts/070504/
OR JUST READ THE STORY PASTED BELOW:
By Miles Raymer
THERE’S A REASON you haven’t seen much in-depth coverage of what’s probably the most important federal ruling to affect the music business since the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998—a ruling that, if it goes into effect, will change how tens of millions of people listen to music and very possibly silence Internet radio altogether. The reason is it’s painfully boring. To weigh in with more than a sound bite, you’ve got to navigate legislative language that even the most impassioned players in the debate admit is difficult and dry. But all that legalese is hiding an ugly truth: the music industry, led by the RIAA, has once again enlisted the government to do its dirty work. This time it may very well have derailed the evolution of radio into the digital age.
On March 2 the Copyright Royalty Board—three judges who determine who pays how much for the use of copyrighted materials—handed down new regulations for webcasters to cover the period from 2006 till 2010. (Webcasting can mean anything from an online simulcast by a conventional broadcaster to a customizable streaming service like Pandora to a personal Internet radio station run from a laptop.) The rates are the same as those proposed by SoundExchange, a royalty-collection agency that spun off from the RIAA in 2003 and still has RIAA employees on its board; in fact the judges appear to have accepted the industry’s highball opening offer. An appeal for a rehearing, made by a coalition including NPR, was rejected April 16. If back royalties based on the new rates come due July 15 as scheduled, experts in the field say it’s likely that even giants like Yahoo! and AOL will shut down their webcasts.
Presently small webcasters pay a percentage of revenue as royalties and big ones pay per listener-hour. The new ruling requires an across-the-board switch to a per-play model and a steep rate hike. The retroactive rate for 2006 is $.0008 for each song increasing to $.0019 by 2010, paid not just per play but per listener. Local webcasting company AccuRadio (accuradio.com), which last year posted revenues of roughly $400,000 and has an average audience of just a few thousand, would owe about $600,000 for 2006 under the new rules. Another regulation sets a $500 minimum fee per channel—not a big deal for AccuRadio, which has 300 channels or so, but bad news for services like Pandora, where millions of users can create up to 100 channels apiece.
AccuRadio was launched in 2001 by some of the same people who founded the Radio and Internet Newsletter, an industry news site (kurthanson.com) that’s been around since 1999—basically since there’s been a webcasting industry for it to report on. Paul Maloney is editor of RAIN and vice president of music development at AccuRadio; Daniel McSwain is assistant editor at RAIN and music director at AccuRadio and also runs his own site, Future Perfect Radio. As longtime webcasters and observers of the business, they know as much about the current situation as anybody. As a couple of guys about to lose their jobs, they are pissed.
Many members of Congress, says Maloney, “are very much not in touch with the cutting edge of technology. And I say ‘cutting edge,’ but even things that people take for granted day to day. Cell phones, Blackberries, instant messaging.” (Remember Ted Stevens, the Republican senator from Alaska, and his “series of tubes”?) And because they don’t understand the digital world, he says, they’re easily manipulated by lobbyists for digital businesses. The DMCA is one famous result: it gives the home-electronics and entertainment industries unprecedented control over how consumers can use products they’ve legally purchased and even criminalizes acts that don’t infringe on copyright, like breaking DRM to make a fair-use copy of a song. “Lawmakers don’t write these laws. Lobbyists write these laws,” says Maloney.
In 1995 webcasting existed mostly in theory, but the RIAA was already lobbying Congress to regulate it. Existing laws didn’t allow labels to collect per-performance royalties when their songs were played on the radio—composers and performers got paid, but labels were considered compensated by the promotional value of the broadcast. The RIAA argued that Internet-based radio would be a completely different animal and persuaded Congress to pass the Digital Performance Right in Sound Recordings Act of 1995, which lifted the per-performance ban for webcasting based on the labels’ claim that it “has no promotional effect on record sales.”
According to a recent survey by media-research group Arbitron, roughly 52 million Americans now listen to webcasts each month (the satellite-radio industry claims just 14 million subscribers). But John Simson, executive director of SoundExchange, says he still doesn’t believe that Internet radio helps music sales, as he told an interviewer for online trade publication RoyaltyWeek: “Even though you don’t get the exact song you want there are so many channels and so many people out there that you can pretty much get what you want when you want it or that you’re [sic] listening experience is one that is so rich that you don’t need anything else.”
Considering that the RIAA is supposed to help the major labels, its efforts to squelch Internet radio are counterintuitive—there’s no hard data about webcasting and record sales, but it just seems reckless to dismiss 52 million listeners. “If you were to talk to someone who works in promotion for a major record label off the record,” Maloney says, “I’d bet you they’d agree with us.” He suspects the majors support the CRB ruling because they’re planning to set up backdoor deals with webcasters. Nothing in the law forbids copyright holders from waiving or modifying royalty fees on a case-by-case basis, which a label could agree to do in exchange for a promise that a webcaster would play certain artists. This would allow the industry to “dictate the look and sound of play-lists,” according to McSwain. “It takes away any autonomy from webcasters and puts it completely in the labels’ hands.”
McSwain and Maloney are also pretty sure the new royalty rates are an indirect way for the majors to strike a blow against the indies. Tech-savvy early adopters—those most likely to use webcasts—tend to listen to music from outside the mainstream. SoundExchange denies that its goal is to shut down Internet radio, but the fact remains that doing so would eliminate an outlet where indies have a big leg up on the majors. Though the RIAA only represents the Big Four, SoundExchange collects royalties on behalf of all copyright holders whether they claim them or not—which means it can take action even against webcasters who traffic exclusively in content from indie labels that would prefer to let things slide. To prevent such action a webcaster would have to negotiate exceptions with each label individually. “To eliminate the amount of digital competition in a field where [the majors] are not established, instead of trying to get into it, they’re saying ‘Fuck it. Just go away and we’ll keep doing what we’re doing,’” says McSwain. “If you don’t stop this thing from happening now, there’s no telling what future rulings will take away from you.”
What might stop it is the Internet Radio Equality Act, H.R. 2060, introduced April 26 by Washington Democrat Jay Inslee and Illinois Republican Donald Manzullo. The law would nullify the CRB’s ruling and put webcasting on the same footing as satellite radio—that is, with a royalty rate of .33 cents per listener-hour or 7.5 percent of total revenue, chosen by the provider. (According to estimates by tech site BetaNews, AOL would owe $916,000 for 2006 under H.R. 2060, as opposed to $23.7 million under the CRB’s scheme.) July 15 may seem a ways off—until this Tuesday the deadline was May 15—but Maloney and McSwain urge everyone to call their representatives in Congress now. The two went to Washington earlier this week to lobby legislators face-to-face, and they plan to return. Saturday at Subterranean there’s a show to raise awareness about the issue, hosted by Radio Free Chicago and savenetradio.org (a good source for updates). And Tuesday, May 8, the webcasting industry is planning a Day of Silence, for which many major webcasters will go off-line in protest.
If we lose webcasting, we’ll lose one of the best resources available to people who really care about music. As Maloney puts it: “When was the last time you heard anyone say, ‘I’m pretty happy with the choices on AM and FM, and I don’t need anything else’?”
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My Interview at Polynation The Magazine
05 March 2007
If I were more organized, I would have posted this link last week when the interview first appeared, but I’m not, so here I am on Monday posting it. Click here to read my interview currently featured at Poly Nation the Magazine. I’m also pasting my original answers below for those of you who are interested in the longer version.
Gary’s Original Answers:
1. What cultivated your love of music?
Definitely my parents and my siblings and growing up in Samoa. My parents
were music lovers, and my father was a former musician. He played the
fiddle and was a travelling, country musician in the 30s. My mother
dreamed of being a singer in her youth.
2. Did you have any formal education/training in music?
I went to the Berklee College of Music in Boston.
3. Is there any history behind any of the songs that you have written?
Definitely. Some of them are autobiographical. Some of them are tunes I
made up. And some are based on things that have happened to my friends or
things that I’ve read about.
4. What artist do you think has influenced your music most?
It’s a cliche, but Stevie Wonder, hands down.
5. Is there a moment that you can recall that was the turning point in
your career?
Well, it’s still turning. It’s making a soft left right about now. The
trick is not turning too much so you end up making a U-turn. No U-turns.
6. Are there any Polynesian artists that you enjoy listening to?
I’m old school when it comes to Polynesian music. I grew up listening to
people like Penina o Tiafau, Jerome Grey, Ava, Tiamaa, Five Star,
Punialavaa. Tiamaa Vol. 8 was a big album for me as a kid, produced by
J.R. Scanlan, whose music I also grew up listening to. I wore that album
out.
What about mainstream/contemporaries?
I’m a fan of TeVaka, Fiji, Adeaze, The FeelStyle. I was only recently
introduced to Afatia’s music, but I love what I’ve heard so far. I value
and prize uniqueness in a musical artist. Here in L.A., I’m a big fan of
Natusol, Sons of Manasseh, Local Culture, Natty Rootz. There’s a guy out
of Australia who’s really good too, Tolu Faletolu, who I just heard the
other day on MySpace. He’s great. I’m missing a lot of people. I can’t
think of everyone off the top of my head.
7. Tell me about your home life and how that cultivated your love for
music.....
Samoa is such a musical place. We sing everywhere. At functions, church,
school, it’s just such a natural part of life there, unlike here. No one
back home is shy to sing and everybody has the same shared musical
history. We know the same songs, and we are all mystically somehow able to
launch into a song spontaneously in the same key (it might take a second
or two, but we all gravitate into the same key, which almost never happens
here—anyone who’s listened to a group of people at a restaurant like
Friday’s, for example, sing Happy Birthday along with the waitstaff know
this). It also helped that my older brother and sister brainwashed me into
loving music when we were kids: We would listen to our parents’ record
collection and transcribe the lyrics and sing along. My brother would take
me along with him to buy records and tapes when I was a kid. I learned to
love the experience of opening an album, reading the liner notes and the
lyrics, looking at the pictures, and wondering what a Producer did when I
saw that in the credits. I learned to love going into a record store and
browsing. Mind you, this was Samoa, so we had only one Record Store, so,
there wasn’t all that much browsing to do. But what little browsing was
available to me, I used it up like a sponge. I was always singing songs
with my dad, and at school, in church. I was surrounded by music from a
young age.
8. Where would you like to see your career progress in the next four-five
years?
I’d like to put out at least 3 more albums of my own, as well as produce
other artists’ projects. I’d like to continue to write material for myself
and other artists, and explore film and TV as an avenue to get my music
out there. I would like to put out an album of traditional Samoan folk
music.
9. How important is the “5:54” concert tour to your career?
The tour is quite a blessing for me, and I feel honored to be one of the
opening acts for a fellow Polynesian as talented as Afatia. I was really
honored to be asked to be a part of the LA/Vegas leg of the tour, and it
will be fun for me to perform in front of a new audience that might not
have had a chance to hear my music yet.
10. What do you want listeners to know about you and your music?
I want them to know that it comes from a real place, and that the quality
of lyrics and melody are really important to me. I feel like those two
things—good, singable, memorable melodies and meaningful lyrics—are often
missing in today’s music. Commercial radio seems hell-bent on
spoon-feeding the masses the musical equivalent of Spam (not that there’s
anything wrong with Spam—I’m Samoan, so I love Spam). But sometimes, it’s
nice to have a little variety, maybe some chicken or even a steak. I want
my music to be like chicken or steak—a nice little, break from the usual
Spam that you might otherwise get the rest of the time.
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Some Rat Bastard Stole My Piano
09 January 2007
So with Ohio State summarily getting blown out by the end of the first half, I decided to work on music instead and finish up a sketch of a song that I had started writing this morning, entitled “The Sound of Your Name.” The original title of the song was “Someone Stole my Piano,” but that just wasn’t working. But the sentiment remains the same: Some RAT BASTARD stole my electric keyboard out of the back of my car this weekend. It happened either Saturday morning while I was playing basketball or sometime Saturday night/Sunday morning in my subterranean garage. In any event, by the time I finished the version currently posted as the first song in my Flash player, the Fox analysts were already dissecting what went wrong with Troy Smith and his merry legionaires. Rough, rough night for the Buckeyes.
The thing is, this happens all the time to musicians like me. Someone stole my friend Matt’s most cherished electric bass 2 years ago, and my friend Andy also was the victim of theft when someone stole his most prized electric guitar a while back. So if anyone reading this ever has the opportunity to stop, report, or convince someone not to steal a musician’s most prized possession, their bread and butter, their instrument of choice..please do it. It’s an evil, evil thing to do, and people don’t realize how much it drains us financially. My keyboard initially retailed at around $1,000, so it’s not a drop in the bucket.
It’s times like this that I wish I was more of a rocker, because in that instance, surely an event of this magnitude would have inspired me to write a rockin’, edgy, hard-hitting, aggressive, fuzzy, distorted guitar anthem of a song along the lines of “F..k You You Rat Bastard Who Stole My Piano.” Instead, I came up with this brooding, tinkly, piano-based Billy Joel song using the loss of a piano as a metaphor for someone’s tale of woe about moving on and of course, with an obligatory, wimpy-ass refrain, in this case, about the “sound of someone’s name.” Boo, freakin’ hoo. Next time, I’m rockin’ out.
So I’m putting this out there into the world: Rat Bastard, wherever you may be, I hope you fall and break both your legs and arms, and bust your lip and forehead while you’re at it, too. My keyboard is a Yamaha 88-key P80 with weighted keys. The left panel is slightly unhinged and has white glue remnants around the edges. If you see the Rat bastard with my keyboard, please do me a favor and hit him/her over the head with a mallet of some sort, just hard enough to daze them, but not quite hard enough to give them permanent brain damage and what not. “What not” is such a great way to end a sentence, and what not. The lyrics to the song appear in the blog post entitled “The Sound of Your Name.” Oh well, at least I got a song out of it.
I’m out. Peace.
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Who Goes to Ball Rooms Anymore? Exactly
29 December 2006
This is an exchange that recently took place in the Forums section of my website (at http://www.garykingmusic.com/forums), and I thought it was important to include it here because it speaks to the essence of what I am trying to do as a songwriter more often than not. Someone asked me why I included the image of a “ballroom” in the song Rhythm of Romance...he asked “who goes to ballrooms anymore?” It was a valid question. This was my response.....
Exactly. Who goes to ball rooms..you hit the nail on the head. That’s why I put it in the song, because there are no songs that use this kind of imagery in them anymore. Number 1, kids still have proms in ballrooms, but that is besides the point. That’s too literal and it misses the point. What this song is truly about is something other than just stripping your clothes off and having sex, bumping and grinding. I love a good sweaty, dirty, grimy torch song as much as the next person. But the pendulum has swung way to far in the other direction. In Rhythm of Romance, the setting takes place at a dance, but the song is essentially about things that songwriters today seem to have no time for: Young love, springtime, the innocence of love..the whole nine yards. I wrote this song inspired by the naivete of romance that we’ve all experienced at one point. I envisioned a couple at the dance for the first time, could be 8th grade, could be 12th grade. The point was, I wanted to write a sort of lullabye for kids as an alternative to all the overtly sexualized material that commercial radio seems hell-bent on spoonfeeding them today. Lionel Richie once said in response to questions about why he wrote so many love songs, “What else is there?” He was right. But a quick listen on today’s radio dial gives you a different answer. What else is there? Today’s answer would be quite different from Lionel’s and it would include things like “Magic Sticks,” “Riding Dirty,” falling in love with Strippers (not that there’s anything wrong with that, mind you..strippers need love too). The point is, nothing is left to the imagination anymore in today’s songs. Nothing. Everything starts at full-blast, butt-nekkid proportions and then goes from there. There’s no nuance. There’s no romance. And there’s a generation of kids growing up without the wonderful process of discovery that we got to experience as children. This is one of the reasons why I write music, and this is why I included an image of a ballroom in a love song in the year 2006. I have nephews and nieces, as we all do, real people, who deserve to hear music that isn’t all about the act.
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Stevie Wonder at BB King’s
02 December 2006
Stevie Wonder.
What else is there to say, when the name says it all? Actually, all you really need to say is “Stevie,” and people immediately know who you’re talking about. He’s one of those icons whom people know by just a single word. Tiger. Mike. Stevie. It’s rare company, and for one night, I performed on the same stage that he would later take and own in a way that only a legend can.
Let me make this clear: I did not open for Stevie. Stevie’s impromptu set was the kind of delicious surprise that fans and musicians dream about, but 9 times of ten, it never happens like that. No one goes to see some shmoe named Gary King and a host of other talented, but relative unknowns perform, and then ends up seeing a legend like Stevie come out and kill it. It would be akin to going to a pop warner game, then afterwards, getting to see Joe Montana play pickup football with Jerry Rice. Just doesn’t happen. On this night, it did.
I knew going into my performance at BB King’s that Stevie would be there. On KJLH’s Thursday morning show, Stevie had already confirmed that he would attend the huge birthday party bash that 102.3 was throwing for their own radio personality/DJ Adai Lamar the following night. Basically, the whole evening, with performances by some notable people, was an excuse to party, and Stevie has never been one to miss a good party. The evening had been heavily promoted in the preceding weeks, with tickets for the show going for $20 and for the afterparty for $50. R&B artist Jon B was the featured act, along with Lina, an up-and-coming Neo-Soul singer/songwriter whose debut single, “Smooth,” has been in heavy rotation on KJLH and other R&B stations around the country. (Lina is signed to Hidden Beach records, the home of Jill Scott, among others.) Kevin Nash, another KJLH DJ and artist as well, was also slated to perform. It was shaping up to be an interesting evening, with local artists like the Polyesta Playas, Daniel, Sanya Moore, and myself also on the bill.
So I knew he would be there. I just didn’t know when and in what capacity. Would he neatly tuck himself away in a corner of the club, content to avoid all the riff-raff like me who would inevitably descend upon him to touch greatness, even if only for the briefest of moments? Would he mingle? Or—gasp!—might he even get up on stage and perform? These thoughts swirled through my head over the course of the evening. I should have known better than to even entertain the notion that Stevie would somehow keep himself separate from the audience, especially on a night of celebration for one of his own employees (Stevie happens to own KJLH for those of you who don’t know). No, Stevie could never in a million years do such a thing. By all accounts, Stevie is the consumate performer. He loves to perform, and having been brought up in the Motown farm system, it made perfect sense that he would end up later that evening on stage, playing and singing his heart out.
The other sets were really good, and everybody did their thing. That’s all the recap I will give on that front, however, because what I really want to talk about is Stevie and his performance that night. It was special for me, not because I hadn’t seen Stevie perform live before (I have, 4 years ago at the Forum at his annual Toys for Tots Holiday Concert), but because on this night, I would be able to see him up close, in a very intimate setting. At the Forum, I was one in a crowd of thousands, and I was seated far from the main stage; from my vantage point, Stevie was barely half the length of my pinkie. At BB King’s from the second floor, I was able to see his fingers move up and down the keyboard. I saw the veins in his neck expand and contract with each note as he sang with a conviction and passion that is more often than not lacking in today’s bland, commercial R&B format. I was able to literally feel his performance in a very visceral way that is only possible in a small to mid-size venue like BB King’s. I saw my roommate, friend, and co-conspirator-in-crime Nate (who is also blind, but a drummer) listen to the first few notes Stevie played on keys and grin the widest smile possible, immediately resting his head in his hand and shaking it, awed at the technique, fluidity, and melodic sensibility that Stevie was capable of in only the first few measures of music he played. Neither of us said anything throughout the performance. We simply smiled, listened, and watched (well, I watched for both of us, anyway). Everyone was transfixed. It’s an amazing feeling being in a fairly large crowd of people spontaneously responding in unison to a performance by just one individual.
Whether on keys, harmonica, or singing, with Stevie, it’s always been about melody. Seeing Stevie’s melodic prowess in person was awe-inspiring for me as a musician and fan. Stevie is not just a singer or keyboard player. He is not just an instrumentalist. He is a composer—a songwriter of the highest order. So, naturally, his compositional abilities were on display this evening as well. Lina’s band was still on stage when Stevie joined them. They continued softly vamping on Lina’s song “Smooth” while a keyboard (a Yamaha Motif, for you gearheads, probably the keyboard du jour amongst most pro keyboardists today—everyone on tour has at least one) was brought out for Stevie to play. They hooked it into the system, and before we knew it, Stevie was improvising keyboard lines over the vamp.
And then, Stevie did what Stevie does. In the immortal words of Ray Charles, he did what it do. On the spot, Stevie came up with a background vocal part. It wasn’t too difficult, but it wasn’t high school choir either. It was musically interesting enough to know your average singer wouldn’t have come up with something so good on the spot, but it was simple enough so that most people with a rudimentary feel for music could sing it. He sang a part for the men to sing, and then one for the women. The vocal parts Stevie came up with were contrapuntal (basically, they sounded good when layered together) and they fit with what the band was playing. They could have been on the album. After a little touch and go (like I said, these vocal parts weren’t too hard, but they weren’t too easy either), the audience finally got it together and was able to sing their parts in tune and in time with the band. The whole time, Stevie was guiding us, conducting us, showing us the way like an experienced choir director. At one point, the men kept messing up by singing when they weren’t supposed to, so Stevie, when the part came back around, the one where we were supposed to be silent, Stevie cupped his mouth at just the right moment as if to say “Now, you all shut up here on this part.” The crowd roared with laughter. It worked. Eventually, we got it. The men came in with their parts, and a few beats later, the women cascaded down from the higher register with an arpeggio that fit perfectly. Pure. Magic. It was a great moment, the kind that only a seasoned veteran like Stevie could have pulled off so effortlessly.
Without warning, Stevie launched into the minor chords of a familiar song, and within seconds, we had collectively and successfully named that tune: It was “Creep.” An old chestnut of a song from his 70s catalog that Luther Vandross covered quite nicely back in the 80s. The crowd went nuts, and suddenly, we were in the midst of a full-out, no-holds-barred walk down memory lane. Stevie sang the first half of the song laid back, but by the end, started to show some of the soaring vocal ad libs that have made him so famous. People erupted with joy upon hearing the first few notes of the next song, Ribbon in the Sky. Like any great artist and singer, Stevie held onto notes, caressed them, sitting just behind the beat, waiting for just the right time to add a little quiver to his voice. He reached skyward into the rafters on some high notes, only to come right back down into his mid to lower register, conjuring a raspy, gospel growl amidst the backdrop of a crowd that was, simply put, in awe.
Stevie wasn’t done. He segued into the next song with a funky bass line we’ve all heard before: “I Wish.” Everybody who’s anybody knows that bass line, and as soon as we heard it, we were silly putty in his hands. Stevie didn’t go right into it though: He has quite the sense of humor. The opening line to that song is, for the uninitiated, is “Lookin’ back on when I was a little, nappy-headed boy.” So what does Stevie do? Stevie and the band are vamping on the intro, and he says to the crowd with this mischievous smile, “Now, I want all the white people up in here to sing this opening part.” Classic. We roared with approval. Stevie counted everyone in, and before we knew what was happening, the small handful of white people who were in the club that night sang perhaps the most ironic piece of audience participation that has ever taken place in BB King’s. Stevie’s comping and piano playing on this number were, of course, amazing. At one point, he literally pounded his right hand with his left hand, punching away keyboard stabs at a rapid clip. It was showmanship at its best and simply put, funky, bad-ass playing.
He ended with another crowd-favorite, “That Girl.” Again, he killed it. What was amazing was seeing a lifetime of music encapsulated in basically a 1/2 hour set. Here was this legend on stage, performing songs that he had written so long ago—songs that had long since left the confines of his mind and imagination and essentially become part of the world’s musical history who-knows-how-many-times over—for a small group of people who had come out to see a relatively modest night of music. The wonderful thing about a legend is seeing grown-ass adults reduced to giggles, smiles, and all-around mush. The owners of BB King’s, who are normally cool, collected, serious guys, were on stage, swaying and singing along like kids in a candy store, just as awed and happy to be a part of something so special as the next person. We all were. I was so enraptured by the whole thing, I completely forgot to take pictures, and this after I had borrowed my friend’s camera for that expressed purpose. It was truly magical, a great memory that I’m glad to have in my collection. I did not, unfortunately, get to meet Stevie. I had spoken with one of the owners earlier in the evening, and he told me there would be an opportunity, but alas, it wasn’t meant to be on this night. There were just too many people pining and hoping for the same thing, so it was difficult getting through this virtual wall. So I’m putting this out into the universe: Stevie, I’m going to meet you one way or the other. Oh yes, you will be mine. You will be mine. Okay, that was weird. Sorry. I’m out.
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The Small Things
03 November 2006
Things/people that I love and that give me a tremendous sense of satisfation: my family and friends, flattening the tube of toothpaste when there’s nothing left, getting all the leftover sand out of my running shoes by smacking them together repeatedly after a run on the beach, finding a newspaper (bonus points if it’s the Sports or Arts section) that someone left on a bus, train, or bench (ie. any random place to sit), finding money on the ground (any denomination, any amount), playing a good game of pickup basketball, taking a less talented group of pickup basketball players (whom you’ve never played with), playing as a team and then beating a more talented group of pickup players who know each other well but who don’t play as a team, running on the beach, running on a good trail, playing basketball next to the beach, the sound of ocean waves coming to shore, driving anywhere along the coast while listening to good music with no destination in mind, finding an artist you’ve never heard of before at a record store (bonus points if it’s in the discount bin), taking it home to listen to and finding out that it’s really incredible music, good conversation over a good bottle of wine with good friends, a rousing game of Pirate’s Tales, a hot cup of cocoa on a cold winter night, playing my acoustic piano in the dark late at night or first thing in the morning when no one else is awake, writing a song on my acoustic piano, eating brunch at Ronnie’s on a lazy Sunday morning with my friends, the memory of the sound of my mother’s and father’s voices, memories of growing up in Samoa with my friends from Amouli, the ocean (bonus points if it’s the Pacific), watching the dunk contest and the 3 point contest during All-Star weekend, watching the Celtics, Patriots, or Red Sox win, watching basketball in general, going to the movies, watching a good movie on DVD at home, flipping through radio stations while driving, listening to Morning Becomes Eclectic.
Eh, there’s so much more. I have to stop for now. I’ll add to the list later.
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Faux Deep Thoughts by Me
23 October 2006
Remove all the trappings of success and expectation, and all that remains is craft. The singular pursuit of craft defines art. It begins with curiosity and ends with a focus that can border on obsession. Craft begets art, and art begets transformation—first inner then outer. Art floats somewhere within a nebulous cloud of imagination and knowledge. It seeks that which it can never truly be: to be defined. It aspires to greatness, to move beyond the arbitrary limits placed upon it by conventional wisdom and societal inertia. Attempts at imposing rigid guidelines on art are inevitably futile. Every once in a while, someone clever comes along and moves the bar ever so slightly, nudging it closer to their vision. Then, the floodgates explode, and things are never the same.
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Play Dookey Dookey, Play Dookey Dookey
09 October 2006
I’m feeling a little nostalgic. I was having lunch today with a friend, and I heard two songs from my childhood: Kathy’s Clown by the Everly Brothers, and Rambling Rose, by Nat King Cole. They were played in succession and harkened back to a period in my life when all I knew was my older brother Bobby, my two sisters Sandra and Titi, my brother Mike and his wife, Lois, and their two daughters, Samantha and the eldest, Jennifer, my next door neighbors, the Porters, and of course, my mother and father. Oh, there was a flock of geese too, and they lived next to our house, my two dogs Popo and Binza, and random, feral cats whom I would try to pet, but they would scratch me. We lived in a house that would be considered by today’s Western standards (even though we never truly wanted for anything) dilapidated and run-down, with old louvres for windows, some of which had crusty, rusted-out hinges that could barely close. The smell of salt air permeated our home, mist from the sea occasionally carried into our house on an ocean breeze that waxed and waned like the crescent moon that sometimes rested on treetops on the hills behind us on warm, winter nights. Yes, the winters were warm.
A couple hundred yards or so away, on the beach, adjacent the mercurial Pacific, a small “faleo’o” or “traditional Samoan house” was nestled on an outcropping of grass. Just inches away, erosion gave way to a small strip of sand, and water gently crested inland, meeting up with rock and sand, sometimes peacefully and other times quite forcefully. The water always won. The beach falé was built communally alongside friends, family, the neighbors. The end result was a mish-mash of old and new construction methods, with coconut palm fronds for a roof, wooden pillars that were cut fresh and skinned from the aforementioned hills, and spare pieces of two by fours, nails, etc. that we cobbled together from everyone’s backyard stash. We raised the structure in one day, and afterwards, there was always a barbecue, food and drink to nourish and reward the many people who lent their time and effort. We drank, we ate. We listened to the radio, sat on the beach and watched the stars gradually appear as day gave way to night in that inimitable way that only nature can achieve. Once, my parent’s friend and employee, Palepoi, painted a landscape of the neighboring island, Aunuu, that was visible from our shoreline. I marvelled at how he implied the motion of waves with just a flick of his wrist and soft, white brushstrokes. Amidst the backdrop of all this, there was always music. We sang songs after the work was done. Someone inevitably played the guitar, and we joined each other in singing the songs of my homeland, of my people. Church songs, folk songs, traditional songs, pop songs of the day. We sang everything.
My brother and sister, Bobby and Sandra, played a big part in my earliest musical beginnings, and alongside an old RCA Victrola record player, they introduced me to the wonders of melody and lyric, songwriting and musical artistry. Our musical library was modest. I estimate anywhere between 15 to 20 (maybe slightly more, but no more than 30) records in my parents’ collection that we wore out every day. Our earliest musical mentors were Nat King Cole, Freddy Fender, Jim Reeves, Sione Aleki, Penina O Tiafau, Donna Summer, and a random Christmas record with various Island Artists. My favorite song on that album: Hukilau. For some incomprehensible reason, I couldn’t pronounce Hukilau, so I called it Dookey, Dookey. A legendary story in my family: I got sick once with a 106 fever, and in my fevered state at the hospital, I continually groaned and shouted out “Play Dookey Dookey! Play Dookey Dookey!” The doctor asked my father, “Jake, what the hell is Dookey Dookey?” That’s his favorite record, was the reply. Needless to say, they played Dookey Dookey. There were other records which I can’t remember at the moment.
Here are some of the lyrics to Dookey Dookey:
Oh we goin’ to the the hukilau
The huki huki huki huki hukilau
Everybody loves a hukilau
A huki huki huki huki hukilau
We throw our nets out into the sea
And all the ama ama comes swimming to me
Oh we goin, to the hukelau
The huki huki huki hukilaaaaaaau
Sandra and Bobby would sit for hours transcribing lyrics to these records, so they could sing along. When we didn’t know how to spell a word, we spelled it phonetically and sang along anyway. Of course, I didn’t know how to read, so I had to wait a few years before I could join the lyric-transcribing fray. Once I did know the basics of the alphabet, phonics, reading and writing, I was a transcribing fool. I learned my first two-part harmonies and the importance of thirds from the Everly Brothers. I learned the importance of groove and funk from the disco of Donna Summer. I learned the art of storytelling from the country stylings of Jim Reeves. My favorite song of his was The Blizzard, with the refrain “They were only 7 miles to Mary Ann’s” (with each verse, the refrain changes to reflect how much closer they’re getting, ie. they were only 7 miles...they were only 5 miles...they were only 2 more miles....etc). The song was one of my earliest memories of existential angst. The lyrics were about a man and his horse caught in a blizzard, and how with each successive verse, they get closer and closer to Mary Ann’s, his beloved. Just yards from the warmth of shelter, his horse dies, and instead of leaving him alone in the blistering snow, he stays with his horse and dies with him. I was probably about 3 or 4 when I first remember hearing this song, although I’m sure my parents played it for me even before that. This song moved me to no end, the idea that a person would die for his horse, despite being so close to surviving. He chose to stay, when he didn’t have to. I knew the premise was somewhat ridiculous, but I also knew that the gesture aspired to the kind of nobility and courage that we all seek in our lives. Okay, I didn’t consciously know it in the way that I just articulated, of course. But the sense of loyalty it conveyed to me inspired me. Moreover, the immense craft which the songwriter employed in building this profound story from verse to verse and in establishing these characters and a palpable sense of suspense (would he leave the horse or would he opt for the easy way out?) in the space of just 3 or so minutes has stayed with me to this day in my songwriting. It represents all that I strive for when I craft a song, this idea that a simple song, whatever the genre, can be so much more than just another cookie-cutter, cliched, hackneyed piece of elevator music. A song can change your perceptions, alter your mood, define your beliefs. Sure, it’s there to make you dance and to have fun in some instances. But lasting music rests on the bedrocks of truth, emotion, sincerity, and storytelling.
Thanks for reading.
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Luck = Focus + Preparation: Natusol Wins Mai Tai’s Battle of Bands
25 August 2006
It’s an interesting thing, seeing someone perform at the highest level at just the right moment. I witnessed that last night, and it was inspiring and magical, to say the least. A disclaimer: This entire column is an opportunity for me to brag about my friends Natusol who won Mai Tai’s first Battle of the Bands contest. Over the course of 6 weeks, Natusol competed every Thursday night, mowing through each round like a happy lawnmower on a Saturday afternoon on an oversized, grassy backyard lot. This culminated in them reaching the finals last night and delivering what was probably, imho, the best performance I’ve ever seen them give (and I’ve seen them play a few times.) They ripped through a blistering set of their best tunes, new and old, and had the crowd in the palm of their hands the entire time. JR killed it. Ivan killed it. Mata was on point. Eric was his usual, reliable and talented self. That much was a given in my mind. I know these guys’ playing ability. I knew they would deliver.
Here’s the thing, what was truly inspiring to me wasn’t actually that they won. I had a feeling they would, just based on a vibe I was getting the whole evening and because I knew they were good, no, make that great enough, to win the whole thing. To be sure, there were really good performances other than Natusol’s. Justin Young closed the evening with a solid performance, and the other bands that performed were all incredibly talented. Sons of Manasses won in the Reggae category (congrats to them as well, they were amazing too). But the real reason that I’m blogging this (aside from paying my due props to Natusol) was because they gave me an important gift last night, one of encouragement and reinforcement in my own pursuits.
Let me explain. In Natusol’s performance, I saw what every musician and artist strives for at the end of the day: The opportunity to transform the sum total of a collection of private moments (i.e. rehearsals, practicing in one’s room, writing a song in your head while you’re stuck in traffic, etc.) into a public moment (the performance itself in front of people)—and consequently, a public victory with an engaged audience. It is not a given that an audience is ever engaged in one’s performance, either, or naturally, that Natusol could have, should have, or would have won anything at all. But they did win, and they had to earn that right by delivering a great performance.
I recently heard Oprah say that she does not believe in luck. She’s apparently discussed this with renowned rich people like Bill Gates (who does believe in a little entropy and chaos when it comes to luck). She happens to respectfully disagree with Gates. It’s not the first time I’ve heard this particular take on things, which goes a little something like this: In Oprah’s mind, luck, as this amorphous, random lottery ticket, does not exist. Rather, luck is in reality simply when preparation and focus are firmly in place at any given time, allowing the individual or group to meet their moment when it does eventually arise. This is the essence of what I saw Natusol do. They met their moment.
The inspiring part was knowing, as a musician and friend of the band, just how much work they’ve put into their musical careers and seeing them rewarded for their efforts. I took voice lessons as a child with Mata’s father, Jerome Grey, so surely I’m a little more biased than most. Nonetheless, I’m a fan, and I can honestly and objectively say that these guys are an exciting young band to watch out for—they are, as they say in Hollywood, the real deal.
Boys, malo lava le taumafaiga.
Soifua,
Gary
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Gary’s Debut Gig in the OC with Natusol and Justin Young
20 August 2006
Remember these names: Natusol and Justin Young. They’re going places, and I was glad to hitch my wagon train to theirs for at least one night. Okay, that sentence sounds really weird the more I read it, but I’ll leave it in anyway. My gig last night with them was brilliant, just brilliant. (Disclaimer: I am trying this new thing where I adopt a British personality—per a recent conversation I had with a friend of mine about how cool British accents in general are and how they use cool words like “brilliant” and “knackered.”)
Anyhow, onto the topic at hand. As I was saying, Natusol and Justin Young. Justin Young opened the show up with a really impressive set. Think a soulful John Mayer: great acoustic guitar played alongside meaningful lyrics and a sweet but soulful tenor voice with hints of Stevie. I was up next after Justin, and we debuted a song that we really haven’t played as a band publicly before, White Blip on my Radar Screen. I played a new song by myself, So In Love, and we ended with Baby (I’m a Better Man). And then, it was the headline act’s turn. Natusol.
They blazed. They played a hot set that had everybody in the house on their feet, dancing, shaking their groove thang, whatever form of movement you could imagine, they were doing it on the dance floor. Great set, guys. The highlight of the evening for me? Seeing their keyboardist Eric bring the house down with his rapping on Gold Digger. Classic. Be sure to check them out this Thursday night, Aug. 24 at Mai Tai’s in Long Beach, where they are in the finals of the Battle of the Bands. I’ll be there rooting them on.
I also had lunch with my friend Kyle, who’s on tour with his band opening for this British rock band, The Clientele. We exchanged CDs and had a bite over at my favorite diner, Ronnie’s, in Mar Vista. Kyle’s playing bass with Great Lakes, and the music is awesome. Not that I would expect anything less from Kyle. His bandmates, Ben, the lead singer, and Mike, the drummer, were stand-up young lads. Kyle wouldn’t be involved in anything that was whack, unless it was actually physically whacking somebody (not in the mafioso, professional “hit” kind of way, but in the whacking-somebody-over the-head-with-a-newspaper-cause-they-needed-it kind of way).
I’m out. Toodloo. Is that what British people end their missives with? What exactly is a “missive?” I think I’ve used the word correctly in this situation, but honestly, I just don’t know.
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BB King’s Debut Gig a Hit! Hyperbole Rocks! Superlatives are AWESOME!
08 August 2006
My debut at BB King’s was a blast. Tons of people came out, and Mark (the same guy who did sound at my previous show at the Howl at the Moon) was on his game: people kept saying the sound was great. Too many people to thank individually for making it out on Saturday night, but you all know who you are. Faafetai for coming out and showing your support. A big thank you to D. Anthony, the owner of BB King’s for the opportunity, and Ginger Jackson for the introduction to D.
I started off my set with an impromptu a capella version of Stevie’s ”Knocks Me Off My Feet” and then went into a a 4-song set with the band, before breaking it down unplugged-style with Andy on guitar and me on piano. Okay, it really wasn’t “unplugged” technically speaking, but you know what I mean.
The other bands rocked: Elvin, Corey Lavelle, LA Old School, and the headliner, Sugarbitch.
Peace.
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Jazmin on Star Tomorrow, NBC’s Latest Reality Show
31 July 2006
Okay, so I HAD to blog this: my good friends Jazmin’ have made the initial cut of 100 on NBC’s latest reality show, Star Tomorrow, which is being judged by the likes of David Foster (uber-producer from the 80s responsible for perhaps the greatest pop-ballad soundtrack of all time, Glory of Love from Karate Kid II, among other things) and Mick Fleetwood (yes, that Mick Fleetwood). Apparently, at their audition last week, David Foster and Mick Fleetwood liked them so much that they both joined them onstage to accompany them in the middle of their audition song!
Nate and I have had the pleasure of working with these talented sisters in the studio over the last two years or so.
Please be sure to check out Star Tomorrow tonight on NBC at 8pm. Jazmin will definitely be featured somewhere on the show!
Afterwards, please go online to http://www.nbc.com/startomorrow where you can view Jazmin’s performances and vote, vote, vote ‘til your fingers cramp up from dialing.
Thank you all for your help and support, and now, back to your regularly scheduled blog programming.
Okay, one last plug—to find out more about Jazmin, go here:
or here:
www.myspace.com/jazminonline
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Howl at the Moon
25 July 2006
I don’t have words to express how much fun last night’s gig was. You don’t often meet people who balance extreme talent, humility, and graciousness in the way that our host for the night, Ginger Jackson, does—but she does it, and she does it well. Thank you Ginger for a wonderful night and for allowing me to share the stage with such tremendous talent. I met Ginger’s mom “Vi” (as in Violet) and her aunt, Bernice, who was in town visiting from one of my old haunts, (drum roll, please)....D.C.! Bernice is visiting from Silver Spring, Maryland, so we bonded over that after the show.
The Show
Tracey Amos and her very versatile guitarist got off to a rousing start with her unique blend of r&b/soul—with a tinge of rock—and a soulful voice that carried throughout the venue. She also had the distinction of doing the best cover of the night, imho: the Beatles’ Come Together. She is an artist to be reckoned with, so watch out for her.
I followed Stacy with a set that began with a cover of one of my favorite songs, Wherever, Whenever, Whatever, by Maxwell. Songs from the Black Book were next, beginning with Winter Eyes, Victim of Your Love, a new song (well, it’s an old one, but I had never played it in public) called Beautiful Face, and another new song that made its world debut (I just love saying that: World Debut, sounds so official and all), So in Love. I ended with Climb Your Mountains. My friend Andy played nylon guitar along with me on grand piano.
Sabrina Vargas came on after me and quickly set the tone with a soaring, soprano voice and songs that conveyed a depth of purpose so often lacking in today’s music landscape. There should be an equation that says “If x= HUGE voice, and if y= Sabrina Vargas, then Sabrina Vargas = HUGE voice, because x=y.” Kind of like the Pythagorean theorem of Sabrina Vargas. Sabrina had two guitarists who played some tasty, tasty stuff.
Our headliner for the evening, 102.3 FM’s own Kevin Nash, did not disappoint with a silky smooth voice that quivered, shook and squeezed every last drop of emotion out of classic melodies and lyrics about love and all that good stuff. He had a four piece band that included a 2nd pianist, a bassist, and of course, a drummer—they killed too. Not only did Kevin sang well, but he played keyboards like he was doing the thang. Okay, I’m not allowed to watch BET, MTV Cribs, or any other show along those lines anymore, because it’s unduly affecting my prose, cause, like, I’m frontin’ like I know. Okay, for real, that was my last tirade.
In between sets, Ginger blessed us with her vocal stylings, along with accompanist/pianist extraordinaire, Marcas Johnson. Ginger. Can. Sang. Her. Butt. Off. ‘Nuff said. Marcas can play his butt off too. I could be more descriptive about his playing, but somehow, throwing in the old “play his butt off” twice in a row seems more appropriate—moreso because I’m lazy than anything.
In all, a great night of music. Definitely put this regular series on your calendar at some point to see the talent that lurks just beneath the surface, bubbling and frothing like....eh, shut up, Gary.
Thank you to all the people who bought CDs, signed my email list, and came out on a Monday night for the gig. Special shout outs to: Robia, Mike, Alf, Erika, Germaine, Jacelyn, Cico, Kwame, Vida, Trish, Mike, Amy, Nate, Mina, Heather, Anthony, Eric, Jerry, Nate, and anyone else I may have missed.
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Deep Thoughts by Gary Handey: Quiet Solitude and Inspiration
12 June 2006
It’s been a minute since I’ve blogged consistently but rest assured, the laws of Newtonian physics are in place, and things have been in motion. Whoa, was that me tryin’a drop knowledge?
First, the simple: enjoyed an afternoon bbq with good friends Anna and Bob in Irvine. Anna made this sea bass dish that was, simply put, amazing. We gorged on that, some of Bob’s bbq chicken, kalbe beef, an assortment of chips and dip, ice cream cake, and more. We also spent a good majority of the evening singing karaoke—while Game 2 of the NBA Finals was on. Yes, you heard that correctly. I must be going soft in my old age. Nonetheless, a good time was had by all, and the game was a blowout anyway, so who cares.
Kwam and Vida picked me up to head down to Irvine at around 1:45, and I decided to sit down underneath the tree across the street from my apartment to wait for them and to watch the traffic pass. It must have been a weird sight, a growed man sitting underneath a tree next to traffic for no apparent reason. (Vida commented that I looked like a little Samoan boy waiting under a tree. She was very close to the truth.) I waited about 15 minutes, and in the midst of the whirring of cars, I sort of entered this zen mode of observation where you’re aware of every minute detail around you. I sat cross-legged, grabbed a wiry piece of stick that had fallen from the overhanging branches, and with my back up against the tree, starting digging a hole in the dirt, alternately stabbing a patch of earth that cropped out between small wisps of grass and swirling the newly disturbed dirt into an outward vortex, emptying the hole as I continued digging. I noticed a small band of ants making their way in wavy lines along the curb’s porous mesh of cement and an anonymous bug even smaller than those ants crawling on my shin, which I promptly blew off with a whoosh of air from my mouth.
It felt strangely familiar, sitting there observing ants and other bugs slicing their way through blades of grass, but it wasn’t de ja vu. It occurred to me that this simple act of sitting and just being was something I had experienced often as a child in Samoa. I noticed the bug I had blown off my shin just seconds before, crawling over reddish, brown dirt towards me again, unaware that it was I who had whisked him up off his little feet only moments before. I listened to the sound of cars and the blur of motion as they whizzed by while I dug my little hole that nobody would ever notice. The rugged contours of the tree’s bark made an impression on my back, and warm summer air wafted lazily through rustling leaves on the ground and overhead. In the midst of this traffic, on a busy L.A. street, I found peace and quiet and more importantly, a state of mind that I remembered immediately from my childhood days.
It was an interesting juxtaposition and a contrast from my state of mind just minutes before, where I had engaged in a little game of mental hijinx that we all play at some point. Think about it. We are restless in our pursuit of mental stimulation. We fixate. We fill our time with channel surfing, reading, infomercials, eating, the Internet. I did all these things in the minutes preceding my minor epiphany, trying to find any way that I could to entertain my busy mind. I obsessed over the clock: “Hmm, I have 5 more minutes before I actually have to head down and wait. I’m going to try to time it so that as soon as I walk out the door, they’ll be right there waiting for me, and all I’ll have to do is walk right through the open door of their waiting car. That way I don’t waste any time, and I’m still able to watch TV for a few minutes.” God forbid I actually stand there for a few minutes—with nothing to do. Walking down the stairs to head outside, I thought, “Maybe I should go back and get a book or something to read while I wait outside.” We’re talking about 10 to 15 minutes—tops—and I couldn’t bare to be with my alone with my thoughts for this insignificant amount of time.
There was a time when I gladly but unknowingly welcomed the quiet still of meaningful solitude. One of the songs off my debut album, Crayons, is a paean to this nexus between the intersection of inspiration and solitude. I remember when all I needed in this world was a sheet of paper and a box of 8 Crayola crayons. Or a little patch of land to sit on and watch the waves crash up against craggy, volcanic rock before dissipating back into the sea. These are the moments when the seeds for my own creativity were planted, but I’m left wondering where the next generation of artists will come from. Is there room for unique thought in an era where we gasp at the mere idea of existing without minute-by-minute, second-by-second entertainment? Text messaging? Hands-free (or not) cell phones? Despite living in an age of manufactured artistry and prepackaged product, I am still not arrogant enough to espouse that the world is bereft of artists and unique thought. Artists have been bemoaning the lack of artists since the dawn of time. But there is no denying that our numbers are dwindling. In an age of information, attention deficit disorders, and saturation, things seem to be different this time. It is harder and harder to hear one’s self above the din of this helter skelter existence, and this concerns me.
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Friday Night Lights
10 June 2006
Friday night, and the weekend’s here, and I need to unwind—where’s the party, Mr. D.J.? Or how about an open mic? Something, anything, a crumb—give me something! Ah, the pleasures of Zhane.
I spent my Friday night performing at Awakenings Coffeehouse in Lomita, where they hold an open mic every other Friday. Folks, this has to be one of the best open mics in greater Los Angeles. The crowd was attentive, supportive, interested, and the hosts, Ramon and Marcello, were classy and friendly in a non-superficial kind of way. I shared the bill with a talented group of people, some of whom I got to meet and chat with like Marissa and Chris, who both bought CDs (thanks guys).
To my ears, Marissa is a soulful, more R&B version of Gwen Stefani, with a little Jewell (with more panache) thrown in there for good measure. She’s working on her debut album and you should definitely check her out.
I sang 3 songs: As, Winter Eyes, and Crayons, before leaving in a blaze of glory. Okay, I’m exaggerating: There was no blaze of glory per se, but I was happy with the response. People tapped their toes, smiled, bobbed their heads, and seemed to generally enjoy my set, which as you and I both know, is still evolving. I was a little thrown off by the blender that went on midway through my first song (fruit shakes, gotta hav’em), but on the whole, it was a great vibe. If you’re in the neighborhood and you need a caffein fix, a muffin, or free use of a laptop and/or wireless Internet, you can’t beat this place.
In other news Friday night, my friend Brian Cockerham (he played on my debut album on Victim of Your Love, Crayons, and Climb Your Mountains) was in town playing bass with P.J. Morton at the Temple Bar in Santa Monica. I wasn’t able to make it, but Nate put in an appearance for the two of us and said that Frank McComb, who played afterwards, was killin. Nate missed P.J.’s set, unfortunately, but by all accounts, P.J. is a bad, bad man as well. For those of you who don’t know who Frank McComb is, if you happen to be an R&B/Soul fan, you should acquaint yourself with this guy right now. He’s that good. Wait, cancel that: If you happen to be a fan of music period, check him out. Definitely one of my idols and high on my list of artists to see live whenever I can.
My friend Lillian was at the open mic, and afterwards, she and I went to a local diner in Hermosa to share buffalo wings and a fruit bowl with raspberry yogurt, the latter of which only I partook. In all likelihood, I will return to perform again at Awakenings in two Fridays. And then I’ll probably have wings after that, too.
By the way, I can’t find my keyboard stand. If anyone’s seen it, please bring it back to me, no questions asked.
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Weekend Update
15 May 2006
Played a gig Saturday night with my boys Trevor and Keith. Trevor was on main keys and electric bass, Keith on drums, and I played second keys on most of the songs and some synth bass. I don’t have very many cover tunes under my fingers, so Trevor spent most of the night yelling chord changes at me, and in between sets, he was showing me different songs. We did a killin remix version of Marvin Gaye’s Let’s Get it On, and our host Damon and his family were kind enough to let us play a couple of my original tunes, Lady Love and Crayons. It was a really cool night. I sold some CDs, had some great food, and got to play in front of some true music afficianados (they actually listened to the lyrics of my songs and knew most of the words to the cover tunes we played, even helping me out on a couple of songs where I forgot some of the lyrics).
The only rough part about the gig was the distance: We were all the way out in Rancho Cucamonga. It took me and Keith about an hour to get home (it was an hour and half to the gig). Instead of being wise and heading home (we got back at 11:30), I promptly headed over to Chinatown to meet some friends at a birthday gathering for my friends Eric and Paul. It was a very velvet rope type affair, with plenty of hipster runoff from nearby Silver Lake/Hollywood/Los Feliz. I had a couple of drinks, before ending the night with Alf and Kwam at Norm’s on Lincoln in Santa Monica. I slept for a couple of hours, then got up to work the sound board at Hope’s House church in Van Nuys, before finishing the weekend up with a tasty brunch at The Kitchen in Los Feliz. I crashed on my friend’s Robs’ and Mike’s couch, then went home for more sleep. Hmm, sleep. That sounds like fun right about now.
Yes, this is the stuff blogs are made of. It’s great work if you can get it.
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Some Talented People Out There
12 May 2006
I do this weird thing before every gig where I imagine that the worse thing that could happen on the gig is that I could absolutely, completely, utterly suck. I imagine a train wreck on stage, an unmitigated disaster of epic proportions: cracked notes, forgotten lyrics, tomatoes thrown on stage, hissing and booing. I’m being a little dramatic, but the point is, before every gig, the process is the same: I accept the underlying fact that whatever happens, good or bad, I’ll still come out okay and ultimately be a good person. Think Stuart Smalley saying ”I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and gosh darnit, people like me.” By engaging in this bit of mental trickery, I’m free to actually focus on the task at hand and give a better performance than I would have had I pretended I wasn’t nervous at all. (A friend recently informed me that this is a common visualization technique that therapists across the country prescribe for people with anxiety disorders, those who are about to deliver some kind of a public performance, or even take a test.)
But I digress. I almost forgot: A big thank you to the following people for making it out on a work night to hear me sing my little Songs from the Black Book, which by the way, sits on my piano every day waiting for me to write new songs. Well, actually, sometimes it gets lost under the random flotsam and jetsam of my room, but otherwise, it’s on the piano. My man Al gets the Distance Award for driving up all the way from Huntington Beach. Kwame, the Recruiter’s Circle Award, for coercing his two co-workers (and new friends to me) Mina and Alisa representing the CC (Culver City, virtually my next-door neighbor) to come see someone they’d never heard live. Mina tipped the scale in favor of Long Beach being the most represented city tonight, forming a nice, little Long Beach cadre with my sweet cousin Maamu and her boyfriend Sauke, who both surprised me with a grand entrance during my first song. Samoans, eh, always late. My friends Rae and Jacelyn also made an appearance. Rae is a talented singer/actress with skills to pay the bills. To learn more about her, go here. Jacelyn, a near-and dear-friend, is my movie partner-in-crime and soon-to-be basketball/swimming apprentice. Last but not least, my main man Eric who is also my basketball apprentice. He’s going to hate me for that one, but so be it, it’s my blog. Sorry, E.
I shared the stage with some really talented people: Laura Cohn, West Rd, Jeff Laine, and Danielle Egnew—all great performers, songwriters, and artists. West Rd is having a CD release tomorrow, Saturday, May 13. For more details, go here. Danielle Egnew is busy working on her latest CD and closed the house down with a really rousing set. Her performance, combined with everyone else’s, really made me wonder: Just how many talented people out there are making great music that really never get a chance because it doesn’t have the backing of a large corporation (aka, any large, anonymous record label squeezed from the top down by a general music industry trend towards homogeneity and consolidation)? Not that Danielle hasn’t already had a lot of people hear her music. Danielle’s an extremely successful artist/songwriter/producer with a well-developed career. But my point is, there are huge segments of the population who don’t have access to Danielle’s music because she is not part of some Program Director’s playlist plans. Anyway, enough of my my deep thoughts for the day. More importantly, my sincere thanks to all those aforementioned artists for a great night of tunes.
I started off the night with one of my favorite Stevie tunes of all time, As, followed by some songs off my debut album, Winter Eyes, White Blip on My Radar Screen, All the Luv in the World, She, capped off with Climb Your Mountains.
The illustrious Sheena Metal was my host for the evening, and I met some other extremely cool people, Zane, a horn player and multi-instrumentalist, as well as Lane West, a multi-faceted and talented actress, radio host, and music supervisor.
The highlight of the night, other than listening to really good music? Finishing up my 10th day on the Master Cleanse. I enjoyed a Cobb Salad, and life hasn’t been the same since. Mmmm.
All in all, a real fun night. Thanks for those in attendance, and thanks Sheena for having me.
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Master Cleanse and Judy Garland
08 May 2006
Cayenne pepper. Lemons. And maple syrup. What do these things have in common? They are the ingredients of a liquid concoction that I’ve been drinking for a week now, since Monday, May 1st. Yes, I am on the Master Cleanser program. Google “master cleanser” and a whole host of information will pop up.
I have not eaten solid food for a week now. Enough said.
Hollywood folks are well-acquainted with this torturous little “cleanse” that is supposed to rid you of toxins and clear your entire digestive tract. The typical length of time is 10 days, although people have been known to keep the liquid diet for 40 days. I am not Jesus, so I will not attempt to do this.
My biggest test was the first couple of days, where I had to overcome the psychological need to eat—and oh yes, the physical need to eat as well. Days 3 I felt great, and Day 4 was good, up until the point when I attended a potluck dinner with almost 50 people who ate things like fried chicken, mashed potatoes, grilled chicken, wings, ribs, lasagna, chocolate chip cookies, an assortment of cakes, salads—not to mention sodas, beer, wine, voda, and a variety of fruit juices. Thankfully, my two friends, Tracy and Devon, who hosted the little shin-dig were regular practitioners of the master cleanse, having already done it earlier in the year. They both do it twice a year, and as such, were very encouraging to me. This helped a lot when I was watching people shovel copious amounts of food down their gullets, while I drank a pinkish, lemonade drink the entire night.
My friend Mike talked me into doing the cleanse. He did it last year, and swears by it, as does every other person I’ve met who has attempted this liquid diet. I was initially a little scared that I would be a walking zombie at work, but that hasn’t happened. I do feel a lot better, and if I could hear what was going on inside of me, I imagine things would sound very squeaky, as in clean. My sinuses have cleared up, and my singing voice is much stronger than it’s been in a while. One of my reasons for doing this was to address a problem I’ve been having with my singing voice: I found out I have acid-reflux last year after visiting with a voice specialist. My voice hasn’t felt this good in a couple of years.
Surprisingly, I am able to not only go to work and get through the day, I’m also able to engage in fairly strenuous activity. On two separate occasions, I played almost 4 hours of basketball this past weekend. And last week, I went rollerblading for 7 miles or so.
My mother would most assuredly not approve of this liquid diet thing. It’s a very un-Samoan thing to do, but I like a good challenge, and so, I am on Day 7, waiting fervently for Day 10 to arrive on Thursday, May 11. To celebrate the end of my cleanse, I’m playing a solo set at the Universal Bar and Grill, where I plan on having a Cobb Salad—again, a very un-Samoan thing to do. For details on the gig, go here.
I was going to quit tonight, but my roomate was somehow inspired to try the cleanse, and so, I have extended my fast to the full 10 days in support of him. Both he and I are very meat-and-potatoes kind of guys, so this is very unlike us. Did I mention I’m reading a biography of Judy Garland right now? She had a hard life, but I don’t think she ever did the master cleanse.
I am officially very Hollywood now.
G
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Songs from the Black Book Free CD Contest
21 April 2006
My web designer Reese thought it would be nice to sponsor a giveaway on her website, where she will randomly pick 2 winners on May 1 to get Songs from the Black Book. All you have to do is go to my mp3s page here and listen to a few songs. After you’ve heard enough to form an opinion, then you need to go here, scroll down til you see a link to a comments form and then click on the comments form to leave a comment about which musician I remind you of the most. See the example jpg I’ve posted to see a screenshot of where to go in order to post a comment and enter the contest. Good luck!
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Who is Nate Barnes?
15 April 2006
Nate is my roommate, and more importantly, very good friend and co-producer of my debut album, Songs from the Black Book. He is a talented, savant drummer who happens to be blind, and he was born and raised in Connecticut. I called Nate up one day and asked him to come help me finish the album. He graciously agreed, and the rest is history. We have formed a production team together known as NAG Productions. Ladies and gentlemen, Nate Barnes everybody.
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Album Credits
14 April 2006
1. White Blip On My Radar Screen
Johnny Najada – Guitar; Nate Barnes – Drum Programming, Synth Bass; Gary King
– Keyboards, Background Vocals; Recorded at NAG Studios, Mar Vista, CA; Guitars
Recorded at Johnny Najada’s Studio, Sherman Oaks, CA
2. *What Will I Do
Andrew Meixner – Acoustic Guitar; Andre Bowman – Electric Bass; Keith Harris
– Keyboards; Nate Barnes – Drums, Drum Programming, Synths; Tanisha Hall,
Gary King – Background Vocals; Recorded at NAG Studios, Mar Vista, CA; Soundfile
Productions Studios, Sherman Oaks, CA – Engineer, Michael Baiardi
3. Missing U 2 Long
Michael Tiny Lindsey – Electric Bass; Nate Barnes – Drums, Drum Programming,
Keyboards; Candice Bereal – Rhodes; Johnny Najada – Guitar; Recorded at NAG
Studios, Mar Vista, CA; Willowbridge Studios, Easton, CT - Engineer: Al Pason;
Guitars Recorded at Johnny Najada’s Studio, Sherman Oaks, CA
4. Victim of Ur Love
Brian Cochran – Electric Bass; Nate Barnes – Drums, Drum Programming,
Keyboards Andrew Meixner – Electric Guitar; Gary King – Piano, Background
Vocals; Trumpet – Cico Silva; Trombone – Kevin Williams, Jr.; Saxophone – Pete
Ortega; Recorded at NAG Studios, Mar Vista, CA; Willowbridge Studios, Easton, CT
- Engineer: Al Pason; Horns recorded at Soundfile Productions Studios, Sherman
Oaks, CA – Engineer, Michael Baiardi
5. †She
Kwame Jackson – Rap, Drum Programming; Gary King – Piano, Synths, Background
Vocals; Electric Bass - Michael Baiardi; Recorded at NAG Studios, Mar Vista, CA;
Kwame Jackson’s Studio, Santa Monica, CA - Engineer: Kwame Jackson; Soundfile
Productions Studios, Sherman Oaks, CA – Engineer, Michael Baiardi
6. All the Love in the World
Andre Bowman – Electric Bass; Rakiya Diggs – Rhodes; Nate Barnes – Drums,
Drum Programming, Synth Leads; Electric Guitar - Michael Baiardi; Gary King
- Background Vocals; Recorded at NAG Studios, Mar Vista, CA; Andre Bowman’s
Studio, Atlanta, GA; Julius Clinton’s Studio, Bridgeport, CT; Trevor Jenning’s Studio,
Hollywood, CA
7. Baby (I’m a Better Man)
Andre Bowman – Electric Bass; Lynette Williams – Keyboards; Andrew Meixner
– Electric Guitar; Tanisha Hall, Gary King – Background Vocals; Nate Barnes
– Drums, Drum Programming, Strings, Organ; Recorded at NAG Studios, Mar Vista,
CA; Soundfile Productions Studios, Sherman Oaks, CA – Engineer, Michael Baiardi
Records!
8. Crayons
La Niece McKay – Background Vocals; Brian Cochran – Electric Bass; Trumpet – Cico
Silva; Trombone – Kevin Williams, Jr.; Saxophone – Pete Ortega; Candice Bereal -
Rhodes; Gary King – Background Vocals; Nate Barnes – Drums, Drum Programming,
Synth Lead; Recorded at NAG Studios, Mar Vista, CA; Willowbridge Studios, Easton,
CT - Engineer: Al Pason; Horns recorded at Soundfile Productions Studios, Sherman
Oaks, CA – Engineer, Michael Baiardi
9. Lady Love
Jason Carpenter – Drums; Nate Barnes – Drum Programming, Synth Horns,
Clavinet; Lynette Williams – Keyboards; Gary King - Background Vocals; Recorded
at NAG Studios, Mar Vista, CA; Soundfile Productions Studios, Sherman Oaks, CA
– Engineer, Michael Baiardi
10. Winter Eyes
Chris Pottinger – Electric Bass; Keith Harris – Keyboards; Andrew Meixner – Electric
Guitar; Nate Barnes – Drums, Drum Programming, Synth Strings; Gary King – Synth
Guitar, Background Vocals; Recorded at NAG Studios, Mar Vista, CA; Soundfile
Productions Studios, Sherman Oaks, CA – Engineer, Michael Baiardi
11. Hopeless in Love
Gary King – Piano, Rhodes, Background Vocals; Recorded at NAG Studios, Mar Vista, CA
12. One of the Forgotten
Andre Bowman – Electric Bass; Jason Carpenter – Drums; Nate Barnes – Drum
Programming; Greg Jamrok – String Arrangement; Gary King – Piano, Background
Vocals; Tanisha Hall – Background Vocals; Andrew Meixner – Acoustic and Electric
Guitar; Recorded at NAG Studios, Mar Vista, CA; Soundfile Productions Studios,
Sherman Oaks, CA – Engineer, Michael Baiardi; Strings recorded at Greg Jamrok’s
Studio, Culver City, CA
13. Climb Your Mountains
Cico Silva - Trumpet ; Kevin Williams, Jr. - Trombone; Pete Ortega - Saxophone;
Dave Coleman – Piano; Kevin Crockett – Electric Guitar; Confirmation Choir, Gary
King – Background Vocals; Brian Cochran – Electric Bass; Trevor Jennings - Organ;
Nate Barnes – Drums, Drum Programming; Recorded at NAG Studios, Mar Vista,
CA; Willowbridge Studios, Easton, CT - Engineer: Al Pason; Dave Coleman’s Studio,
Boston, MA; Trevor Jenning’s Studio, Hollywood, CA
All rights reserved. ©2006
garykingmusic.com
Produced by Nate Barnes and Gary King, NAG Productions (visit NAGProductions.com)
All songs written by Gary King, except *What Will I Do (co-written with Andy Meixner)
and †She (co-written with Kwame Jackson).
Mixed by Michael Baiardi at Soundfile Productions studios in Sherman Oaks
Mastered by Robert Hadley at The Mastering Lab in Hollywood, CA
Manufactured by OasisCD
Gary King/Kelitupu Songs (BMI)/Soundfile Publishing (ASCAP)
Admin By Soundfile Publishing (ASCAP)
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American Samoa
12 April 2006
Okay, quick facts about where I’m from: American Samoa, a U.S. unincorporated territory roughly 2,600 miles SW of Hawaii, just below the equator and east of the International Dateline. Another way to think about it: a 5 hour plane ride from Hawaii. There are roughly 66,000 people on my island as of the last census, and when I was born, it was probably half that population.
I was born in the village of Fagatogo, before moving to Auasi, where I lived until I was 6. I then moved two villages over to Amouli, where I grew up until senior year in high school, when I moved to the village of Utulei. I lived on the far east side of the island most of my life but went to school both in elementary and in high school on the opposite side of the island.
I will post more later about my place of birth.
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teachingsofjon.com
10 April 2006
Random person that I am, I’ve chosen teachingsofjon.com as today’s blog topic, mainly because I just got through watching it on PBS. Yes, I watch PBS because I don’t have cable. My friends make fun of me for not having cable, which is fine, because while they may know all the contestants by name on American Idol, I’m much more fun at a cocktail party because I know random ish like, oh, I don’t know, teachingsofjon.com.
Great movie, really inspiring. Check out the website and read a little about an amazing family and how they learned compassion, patience, love, and purpose through their son with Down’s Syndrome.
Okay, onto the nitty gritty. The show is this Friday, and I hope to see you there. The band is sounding very good, and more importantly, I am sounding really good. I mean, like, I’m awesome. Seriously. I think I’m the best singer in Los Angeles right now. I mean, maybe Katherine Macphee is better, but that’s it. Oh yeah, there’s that other kid with the glasses. And then there’s....waitaminute: I just outed myself. I do watch American Idol.
I must sleep now. Good night.
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MySpace is Crack and I’m a Junkie
28 March 2006
Okay, I’m officially a recovering addict. Myspace is like crack, and if I had an IV drip going, I would keep it there. In the past 3 days, I’ve met new friends and old ones whom I hadn’t spoken with in years—it’s been so much fun. Too much, actually. I’m showing classic signs of addiction, checking my page every few hours, staying up late to answer posts and replies. I’m checking myself into rehab and hopefully, I can work something out. Faafetai to everyone who has added me as a friend and offered encouraging words. When I make it big and sell 500 CDs, I will remember all of you with fondness and alofa in my heart. Okay, make it 700 CDs.
I approved the artwork for the CD cover yesterday, which was essentially the last step before I get the CDs in the mail. They should be here in two weeks at the most.
Wish me luck. I must return to the real world beginning.....now.
Soifua,
Gary
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Ms. Perfect, The Album Release (April 14), and Lots of Laundry
26 March 2006
Well, here goes, my first blog entry. I finally went and did it, that is, set up my own MySpace page. Everybody I know has a MySpace page, and for the longest time, I was the only one without one. People looked at me kind of funny when I told them I DIDN’T have a MySpace page. “What, you don’t have one? Have you ever heard of it? You should really set one up. It’s really easy—just takes 10 or 15 minutes.” Yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it, EVERYONE needs a MySpace page, especially if you’re a “musician” because it’s a “great way to network” and get your name out there and then you’ll blow up in, like, 15 minutes. Whatever. It’s up, and I even put songs in my MP3 player like I was supposed to. Although I ended that last sentence with a preposition, which would make my 9th grade English teacher Ms. Perfect very disappointed in me if she found out. Yes, her name really was Ms. Perfect, and our whole class had a crush on her. Ms. Perfect, if you’re out there, please add me as a friend on your MySpace page, and then if you email me, I can send you my phone number and we could have lunch.
The album is at the manufacturing plant and should arrive in the next two weeks. The CD release is booked for the night of Friday, April 14, 10 p.m. Go to garykingmusic.com for more info and/or to pre-buy the CD. I have family coming all the way from Samoa and possibly, friends from back east. I have a band rehearsal tonight and have had two background rehearsals so far. Still waiting to schedule a horn rehearsal.
My website is almost ready to launch, and I have lots of laundry to do. Is that the kind of crazy stuff that blogs are made of? (Sorry Ms. Perfect, another preposition to end a sentence). Check back soon. I’ll have more songs from the album to preview and more of my boring day to share with you.
Peace
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