Creation, Validation and Inspiration: Part 6 VALIDATION… OR: “WHAT A PIECE OF WORK IS MAN!” Ahh, validation. The fuel that keeps us “outer-directive’s” fires stoked. Is it necessary to have validation to continue to be creative, to continue to do the work against the crushing forces of pragmatism? I wish I could answer that for…
On Rhetorical Devices, Influences, and Making Art “Popular” . Introduction: I have promised readers of the DAILY DOSE that at some point, I’d be delving into the nuts and bolts of “How It’s Done” or at least “How I Did It”. Its time for me to impart not some, but ALL of the knowledge that…
Alan and Jamie Notarthomas One the most valuable series of lessons that still serve me today came from the tutelage of Alan Rowoth. I had just joined a band called The Works, and they were pretty hot at the time. The band had burned through two incredibly talented piannaplunkers, Tommy Canfield and Andy Rudy. Two…
As I was driving up from NYC on Memorial Day Weekend, I received an unexpected phone call from my old friend Jon Notarthomas. Although I never played music with Jon (I did play quite a bit with his brother Jaime, however… more on that in subsequent blogs), he and I have been intersecting for decades,…
The George-O-Lettes meet Bullwinkle To catch fish, you have to use good bait. The large scale version of The Shuffling Hungarians was a fantasy in my head in the late spring of 1993, but I had by that time identified the people that were going to bring that dream to life, even if that didn’t…
I alluded in a previous post (DOSE #21 /”PATINA”) about the effects of being driven to the point that “stopping to smell the roses” was ignored; Not doing so can result not only in a missed opportunity, it actually can cause a lot of damage. Waxing slightly poetic, in the closing of the piece I…
In the spring of 1994, my friend and production partner Bob Acquaviva started to assemble painstakingly the aural physical reality of a blueprint that was in the design process for three years, and mostly contained in my twisted brain. We had completed basic tracks in February over a seven day period, including minor fixes to…
Introduction I was at my friend Bob Acquaviva’s house yesterday, and ended up in his attic. He converted it into a studio, and we were listening to some new projects he’s producing, and looking at old Shuffling Hungarians video from a telethon shot way back when that a friend had recently mailed in. Funny stuff….
Everybody has their own story to tell, and all of them are fascinating. One of the self-preservation methodologies I’ve always employed (really the genesis of the character of “Little Georgie”) is to take internal pain, and externalize it — publicly, if possible. In retrospect, I’ve actually been pretty lucky to have been able to do…