Adventures in Busking, vol. 2

So, lately I’ve been trying to get more into the busking gig and I’ve been going down to Santa Monica a little more often. I was down there the other day (Rachel was kind enough to go with me) and set up shop at what has become “my spot” – in the middle of the third block in between the Apple store and Victoria’s Secret.

So, I’m sitting there minding my own business playing some songs and this guy with a guitar down the street a ways starts jamming with a saxophone player. Now you haven’t heard saxophone until you’ve heard really-crap-busker-jazz-saxophone. I mean, this guy was loud as hell and was so bad that according to Rachel, and I quote, “this one old man with a can and a crazy eye stopped and said, ‘Sounds like shit!’.” So, it’s not just me.

Anyhow, they finished their song and the guy with the guitar started walking my way. I was in the middle of “Miles Away” and he walks right up to me whilst I’m playing. At first I thought there was gonna be a busker’s dual, but then I noticed the small camera crew that accompanied him and figured something more “Hollywood” was up. He asked if he could play a song with me and I replied with a hesitant, “Sure?” He then proceeded to introduce himself the way that only people with a certain sense of self-importance can.

"Have you heard of Loudon Wainwright?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, you just met him.”
“Right on.”

For those of you who don’t know, Loudon Wainwright III is a 70s singer/songwriter of some fame and perhaps better known amongst my generation as the gynecologist from “Knocked Up” and the father of singer/songwriters Rufus and Martha Wainwright.

Anyhow, he wanted to play one of my songs, so I taught him “Miles Away” and we played a shortened version of that song and then I played one of his songs with him. Turns out the cameras were for a presentation that Loudon was filming for a reality TV show that he’s hosting about one-thing-or-another. He was walking up and down the promenade with his guitar, talking to random people and playing a song or two with a few buskers. It was a lot of fun and actually brought a little business my way – sold a few CDs thanks to the Loudon association and one guy actually thought that he was my mentor.

Apparently you never know who you’re gonna run into down there and hopefully they’ll email me the video of us playing together, but I’m sure they won’t. Either way it was pretty cool.

Midwest Tour, vol. 4

I haven't really the energy to write a lengthy blog about the rest of the tour. I got food poisoning on Sunday from the venue of our second Cincy show and was sick all day Monday and part of Tuesday. I wasn't able to do the radio show with Julie at WNKU on account of being sick throughout the entire broadcast and had to cancel Monday night's show in Columbus, OH (sorry Carl).

We had a few days off to recoupe in Cincinnati and then headed down to Nashville where things didn't pan out exactly how we'd hoped but it was still nice to play down there. I also got to see my good friend Rob Robinson and hang out with him a bit so that was awesome since we hadn't seen each other in a year and a half. Had some good southern barbeque too....so that was cool.

Next came Louisville which is better left ignored.

Saturday saw me turning a cool 28-years-old and traveling from the aforementioned city to Chicago. We played an end-of-the-tour party in Chicago and then I ran over to Uncommon Ground and played a set there. All in all it was a good night.

Thanks to those of you who came out to the shows!
Twas fun to see you all and overall it was a great experience.
Can't wait to go out again.

Fin.

Midwest Tour, vol. 3

Volume 3 brings us near my hometown of Monroe, MI to Toledo, OH on Friday April 18. No offense to Toledoans, but every time I come to this area of the city it looks more and more depressed. Upon crossing the Maumee River we were greeted by a man getting arrested and tased on the side of the road. Gone are the youthful days of bliss, seeing Sloan a million times at the Main Event which is now a shut down sports bar covered in graffiti. Ah, Toledo. What a great city.

Load in was at 8pm and doors were supposed to be at 9pm. This works in theory, so long as they actually let us in at 8pm. We got into the venue about 8:20 and did a damn fine and efficient job of setting up in time to get the show started by 9:30. Great turn out of friends from Monroe and BG and the show went really well in my opinion. All three bands played well and I think everyone had a great time. It's always fun for me to play to this crowd and I thank all of you for showing up and supporting me and us. It was a blast. Hectic....but a blast.

On Saturday morning we set out for Julie's hometown of Cincinnati where we actually played in Kentucky at a place called Molly Malone's. Molly Malone's is an Irish pub housed in a really cool old building right across the river from Cincy. The room that we played in was on the 3rd and highest floor and used to be a house of ill repute. Turns out the room is also haunted by a patron of the brothel who was found out by his wife. As the story goes, this gentleman used to frequent the establishment and one day his wife walked in with a gun and shot him dead whilst he was with a female companion. Now, I'm not usually one for stories like this, but an incident happened to Ted and I that made me actually consider the validity of this story. I'll leave out the details, but we certainly felt the presence of another being and some strange shit happened behind the bar when no one was in the room except for the band and everyone except Ted and I was on the other side of the room. So, we made nice with "Joe" and invited him to enjoy the festivities of the night without incident.

As for the show itself, it was great. Julie pre-sold about 150 tickets and around 200 people showed up. The place was rockin and it was a lot of fun. Good room, good stage, good sound, good atmosphere....in a lot of ways Saturday was great.

.........and then came Sunday.

Midwest Tour, vol. 2

I believe we last left off driving back to Chicago from Grand Rapids. In theory, Chicago's show on Thursday night should have been awesome. It was at Joe's which is a pretty good sized place (largest I've ever played in....) and we were opening for a national touring act called the Randy Rogers Band.

From the moment we arrived at the venue the scene was rife with confusion. We went from loading in from 5-6, to having sound check at 5 (RRB didn't end their check till 5:30), to performing at 6, to performing at 6:30, to not doing a check at all, to performing at 7:45 and then, finally, performing at 8:00 which is what we had thought and advertised all along.

That all being said, everyone at the venue was really nice and most had no idea of the confusing and constantly changing "schedule". They were just as frustrated as we were. It turns out, however, that the confusion was all caused by a silent auction that was going on in an ajoining room from 6-7:30, which is why we couldn't do a sound check. Anyhow, a large room looks incredibly empty with 75-100 people in it and that was certainly the case when we played with Julie. I think we played a pretty good show and the stage and sound were awesome, but it would have been nice to go on a little later when the people showed up......about 800 of them by 10:00. Oh well. It was a great experience and I'm sure it'll be that much better next time.

Midwest Tour, vol. 1

Alright, where to begin?

Well, the tour got under way for me one week ago today when I flew into Chicago to meet the rest of the folks involved. The lovely Ms. Neumark flew in on Tuesday afternoon and we had our first and only rehearsal that evening. Julie and I are touring with the Ted Wulfers Band and those guys are backing up Julie with me during her set. So, I took the el to a location sort of near the rehearsal studio and Ted picked me up on the corner of North and Clybourn and we went to a bar to meet the Julie and the rest of the guys.

Side-bar: Great way to meet somebody for the first time...jumping into their huge rapist style van on a corner in one of America's largest cities.

Note-to-self: If Ted and I ever start a band, call in North and Clybourn.

Anyhow, so we met at the bar, went to the rehearsal studio and rocked out for about 5 hours. Now that really is a cool way to meet musicians. Why not play some music for a few hours to break the ice? Jeff (drums), Aaron (guitar) and Aron (bass) are all really great guys and amazing musicians and it was a lot of fun to get this long jam in right at the beginning.

This brings us to Wednesday and the first show of the tour in Grand Rapids, MI. This was actually a great show to start off with. Cool small bar called Juke's that had a really great vibe with old record covers all over the walls, a decent sized stage for such a small place and a video camera broadcasting the show on two TVs in the bar. The owner, Dave, is a really nice guy and seemed pleased and appreciative to have some good out-of-town music in his bar instead of the regular open mic for the night. Hillbilly, our sound guy, was a cool and interesting cat from Alabama who was really into all three sets. So, drive back to Chicago at 3am aside, it was a good night and a promising start to the tour.

America's Next Top Idol

Earlier today I recorded vocals for a demo being pitched to the folks at American Idol for the winner to sing on the finale. That kind of thing just doesn't seem to happen in Michigan.

Adventures in Busking, Vol. 1

I got a busking permit last week.

For those of you who don't know (and I'm constantly finding out that most people don't) busking is a fancy word for "street performing", thus making a "busker" one who performs on the street for donations.

The City of Santa Monica requires street performer's (musicians, magicians, drawers, painters, fortune tellers, etc.) to purchase a $37 permit that is good for the calendar year. If you perform without one you will get a ticket that is likely not cheap nor worth the trouble. So last Tuesday I went down to Santa Monica and waltzed into City Hall prepared to sign my check for $37 and walk out with my permit. Quick and easy. When I got there, however, I was informed that I needed to give them two passport sized photos of my beautiful face for them to put on the permit. The kind gentleman in the City Clerk's office (that's not sarcasm) told me that there is a photo booth on Santa Monica Pier that they will accept photos from if I wanted to try that route, so off I went on a mission. Parking in Santa Monica is not the easiest thing in the world but I was lucky enough to find a meter right in front of City Hall. Problem is that it was only a 40 minute meter, so I was gonna have to rush. For the record, I hate rushing...but I always end up putting myself in positions where I have to.

Anyhow, I start walking down to the pier which is only about 3 blocks away, but there is construction on a the main road there so I have to bypass that to make it around and down to the pier as time continues to tick away. When I got there I realized that (surprise, surprise) my broke ass had no money. So, first thing's first, I needed to find an ATM. Sounds easy enough, right? I mean, it's Santa Monica Pier. It's world famous. It's gotta have plenty of ATM's. Well apparently not. Despite this being a major tourist attraction (arguably the biggest tourist location in Los Angeles) I only found 2 ATM's, and of those one was "Out of Service." So, after paying a $3 service charge I finally had my $20 and it was off to find the photo booth. *tick tock*

The photo booth costs $5 and, of course, only takes exact amounts (in all fairness though, that was to be expected). Anyhoo, the "restaurant" next to the photo booth wouldn't make change unless I bought something, and I didn't have time to mess about trying to get a $5 bill somewhere else so I bought a bottle of Pepsi bottled tap water for $2.75 and was finally in business. Once I got over the lameness of going into a photo booth alone I got my pictures and was ready to go.

So, I rushed back to City Hall, filled out the paper work, gave the dude my photo strip so he could cut out one of the pictures and gave him a $37 check for the privilege of being ignored by hundreds of people in one fell swoop while attempting to procure donations. I then rushed to my car and made it there sans ticket with 2 minutes to spare on my meter! *Phew!*

I picked up my permit on Friday and am now a proudly licensed street performer in the City of Santa Monica. And it only cost me about $50. Hopefully I can make that amount back quickly and start making a little loot so I can continue to avoid a normal job.

Top 5 Records of 2007

These are my Top 5 Records of 2007. The criteria isn't so much that the record came out in 2007 (though some did) but that I was first introduced to them in 2007. All of these records affected me in one way or another and I find myself coming back to them continually throughout the year. They are not listed in any particular order.


1. Sean Lennon - Friendly Fire

I saw Sean Lennon on MySpace and visited his sight as an, "Oh God, let's see what this is all about" sarcastic reaction. Much to my incredible surprise I was blown away by the youngest Lennon. His voice is a bit thin and nasal but the songs, melodies, production and orchestration are amazing.

Highlights: "Dead Meat", "Tomorrow"


2. Silverchair - Young Modern

To those of you who know me this should come as no surprise. Silverchair is undoubtedly one of my favorite bands of all time and I've taken a lot of shit for that. But Daniel Johns is a true rock star in an era when rockstars are few and far between. He has a killer voice and continues to grow musically. Add to that the orchestrations of Van Dyke Parks (the Beach Boys) and the addition of Paul Mac (the Dissociatives) and you have the Aussies' most ambitious record to date.

Highlights: "Those Thieving Birds", "Waiting All Day", "If You Keep Losing Sleep"


3. Ambulance LTD - Ambulance LTD

I was introduced to this band via a car commercial. After learning who they were from one of my friends (that means you Mary) I went to my favorite used CD store (CD Trader in Tarzana) and promptly made the purchase. That was in the summer and the disc hasn't left my car CD player since. Every song on this disc is great in it's own right. Few bands understand the use of space in a song and let songs breathe and take on a life of their own the way that Ambulance LTD does. It's a great CD to put on while you're driving, cleaning, dinking around....whatever. It has great individual tracks, but I recommend listening to it in it's entirety.

Highlights: "Primitive (The Way I Treat You)", "Anecdote"


4. Sigur Rós - ( )

I was listening to this CD last night and it is what prompted me to make up this list. Sigur Rós is an Icelandic band that can be best described as Ambient. No band explores musical ideas to the extent that these guys do and each one of their songs kind of takes on a life of it's own. Nevermind the fact that you have no idea what he's singing about, because it doesn't matter. All of the emotion and meaning comes through the music and it's delivery.

Highlights - "Track 3"


5. Radiohead - In Rainbows

Again, no surprise. One of my favorite bands of all time, I was extremely excited when I downloaded In Rainbows. Like listening to any Radiohead album for the first time, I didn't know quite what to expect. The record stays true to their development and doesn't sound like any other Radiohead album, but sounds influenced by all of them. Jonny Greenwood's orchestration rises to the top on this latest collection and the song writing hasn't slowed down either. In Rainbows features arguably the most beautiful song that the quintet has ever released ("Nude") and arguably the phattest beat that they've ever written ("All I Need"). Besides, how can you argue with a song that starts out with the lyrics "Wakey wakey, rise and shine..."? That's right, you can't.

Highlights - "Nude", "All I Need", "Faust Arp"

Buon Natale

Give the gift of Dave Carducci this Christmas and save 25%. Offer good thru January 2.

Cafe Classics - Dec. 28

Come celebrate the weekend between Christmas and New Year's with Dave at Cafe Classics in Monroe on Friday, December 28 at 7:30pm. There may or may not be some specials guests and a possible Freezing Mingus reuinion. Whether you know what that means or not, I assure you that it won't disappoint......or your money back. (p.s......it's free)

Semi-Unrelated Sidebar:

If you like Christmas songs and crooners, go here and download Richard Hawley's version of Silent Night from his MySpace. It's dreamy, and free.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year,

~dc~

With the lights out

For some reason VH1 Classic has a thing for Nirvana right now. I just watched thier MTV Unplugged from 1993 and now they are replaying a show that I watched yesterday about the making of Nevermind (which is a really neat behind the scenes look).

Seeing these shows is a bit weird for me. I remember being so excited about the Unplugged show and album when I was a kid and now I've been alive longer than I had been at the time the show originally aired (for those who can't follow that poorly constructed sentence it's been 14 years since it aired and I was 13 at the time). It's also strange because I am older now than Cobain was when he died*.

It's moments like these that musicians begin to question themselves. I mean, Cobain was dead by my age, so was Hendrix, and Morrison.....hell, Ringo (the oldest Beatle) hadn't even celebrated his 30th birthday when McCartney made the break-up official. So, what am I saying? I don't know. I guess just that it's time (in the eloquent words of my mother) to shit or get off the pot. '07 is nearly over and I've finally made some good strides, but it's time to really get it going and I'm confident and convinced that 2008 will be the Year of the Dave. That being said, look for more shows, more songs and more developments in the new year.

By the by, if you haven't listened to Nevermind in awhile throw it in your CD player, on your iPod, your Zune (does anyone actually own one of those?) or whatever it is that you listen to music on and give it a good play. I'm not talking just "Smells Like Teen Spirit" either. Do the right thing and listen to the whole album the way that it's supposed to be listened to. It's a damn fine record and stands up just as well today as it did 16 years ago when it was released.

*You say suicide, I say something more sinister. But maybe that because I love a good conspiracy.