A Guitar Called Harry V and the Cover Band Conundrum (eBook)

Scott Paris (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2025 | 1. Auflage
292 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
979-8-3509-9211-3 (ISBN)

Infos

'A Guitar Called Harry V and the Cover Band Conundrum' is the debut offering from longtime music performer, Scott Paris. Scott spent a year chronicling the day-to-day doldrums and illusive triumphs in the career of a dive-bar cover-band entertainer. The book is meant to inspire, enlighten, and poke fun at the carnivalesque lifestyle of a travelling musician. Lighthearted for the most part, Paris examines what leads people to this line of work, and if it all pays off in the end.

Scott Paris is a nationally touring musician, podcast host, and author. His debut book, a chronicle of a multi-decade career in the music industry, is intended to inspire (or perhaps dissuade) anyone to follow in his footsteps.

Textauszug

1

March 8th, 2024

With only a few tweaks, my brand new Fender Acoustasonic Telecaster was ready for the bright lights of the stage. I already have a great feeling about this thing, and usually it takes me more than just a few weeks to get comfortable with a new guitar. Whether it’s full-blown neurosis or a mild case of persnickety-ness, I always feel a need to swap out the stock parts on a guitar until the “feng shui” is right… until it’s mine. Not dissimilar to a lightsaber, you have to make it your own. Tuners, Pickups, Knobs, etc. I have never (that I can remember) been happy with a guitar right out of its box. This one, though, didn’t bug me at all and I’m cautiously optimistic… for now. I used to do the same thing with bicycles as a teenager, switching out handle grips, pedals, and those long pegs on the back wheels that allow for passengers, or tricks to be done. I could never do the tricks, but I wanted to look like I could to the gawking passersby. My inner showman was developing, even then.

Our first show together was at a local concert venue in my hometown of Canton, Ohio… called The Auricle. The Auricle was originally in the basement of a medical building downtown. Loading gear in and out was always interesting there, as you knew you were taking the same elevators to the lower level that almost assuredly someone died in, hoping to reach the operating level up top. I’d always assumed that, anyway. I don’t think any of us knew what type of treatments were actually performed up there. The mind wanders in a situation like that - folklore is created.

We only ever headed directly to the Jazz-club turned Rock-bar downstairs, by way of either that lobby elevator or the never-ending descending staircase on the rear side of the building by the parking lot. These were the days of heavy amplifiers. Lugging amps down those stairs would afford plenty of time and opportunity to invent new and interesting swear-word combinations, maybe even a visit to the medical side. The old Auricle also had the most amazing green room, with a shower and a fold-out couch so that travelling groups could stay there overnight. Perhaps I’ll elaborate on my love of a good green room down the road.

The Auricle eventually left that medical building location, and moved a few streets down into a once popular but now abandoned Burger King. Presently, you only share the risk of loading-in through the same entrance that once possibly a disgruntled teenager stormed out of their job, mid-shift, leaving a full dining room of angry patrons. My money says that that has definitely happened - Again, the mind wanders. This Auricle 2.0 also has a green room, with couches and plenty of space to stretch out. There are spare speakers, drum cases, guitar cases, and wardrobe bags where I reckon once might have been racks of hamburger buns and boxes of cardboard crowns. The main venue room has everything you’d expect though, huge sound system, black lights, vintage video games, and a full bar.

The event we’re hosting tonight in this new Auricle, is a fundraiser for our friend Jon who plays guitar in my cover band, called Imaginary Cookies. His car had been broken into at Christmas time and most of his gear was taken. Very un-Christmas-like, indeed! The proceeds of this show will (hopefully) soften the burden of rebuying everything. Musical gear, and guitars in particular, tend to be very expensive. My new one was around $1,000… and would have been twice that for the American version - more on that later. At least it wasn’t drums that he lost, they’re even more expensive (as is their upkeep).

The drummer of my high school band used to swear by not locking his car doors. His philosophy was, “If someone is going to steal my stuff – they’re going to steal my stuff… at least I won’t have to also pay to replace a broken window.” I couldn’t disagree with the logic at the time. Irony later struck though, as he had his entire drum kit stolen from the back of an open truck bed in the parking lot of a club called Sadie Rene’s. We had been an opening act there, and were inside watching the other bands perform as it happened. On the bright side, he did not have to replace any windows. For a while, I had also subscribed to not locking my vehicle doors. That lasted until the morning I went to leave for work and discovered my door ajar and my radio missing. If there were a plus side, it’s that the extra time offered to the crook from not having to make a racket was repaid by them gently draping my now disconnected (not severed or yanked) cables over the open crevice of the dash. I was able to simply drive to Best Buy after work and buy a replacement. I wouldn’t be the least bit disappointed to learn that it was actually Geek Squad team members doing the break-ins, to boost numbers for their store.

Jon’s car was in his apartment’s car port on the night in question, and locked. It’s in a decent area, which matters less than you wish it would. He had simply done what I have also been very guilty of before too; coming home tired after a late gig, not wanting to unload equipment, and being too trusting that a home in a decent area is impervious to criminal activity. The thugs hit almost every car in that port, they just lucked out that one of the cars had a jackpot of gear in it. It was as random as it gets.

Your first thought might be, “Why didn’t he (or any of us) insure the equipment?” That’s a tricky answer though, because if you play for fun – you’re shit-out-of-luck. If you play professionally, you’re still not much better off. There’s “Public Liability Insurance,” “Travelling Vendor Insurance,” ”Damage Coverage,” ”Cancellation,” etc. There are many confusing and expensive choices, and as with any insurance coverage or company, the one you pick will likely try to weasel out of covering the thing you need covered on the day you come to collect. No one that I know in the minor leagues earns enough to dish that out, so most of us risk it and go without. What you do occasionally lose might be a cheaper amount to replace than what you’d have paid to protect it.

Did you know that you need a million dollar policy, coverage wise, to perform at a casino? If I had to guess, someone (if not many someones) have tried to hustle casinos in the past by faking injury on site. Like seeing the warning label on a plastic bag, spelling out that infants should not put this over their head, for fear of asphyxiation – you know that someone did something stupid once and now the rules have all changed. If you don’t own that million dollar insurance policy yourself, you need a *gasp* booking agent… Legit agents have blanket-coverage policies that protect you during the gigs you’re contracted for… and for this, you’ll pay dearly. Agents are sleazy for the most part, and take too large of a cut, and they have names like “Skip.” I used one such racketeer, years ago, to play a casino owned by Hard Rock. I’d rather have my shit stolen.

I actually did have a guitar stolen from my car once, and it’s not a nice feeling at all. I was with the singer of Hey Monea, listening to the final mix of what was to be their debut album and drinking tequila in his second floor apartment. Meanwhile, at street level, my car was being smashed up and all my stuff taken by a vandal on foot. My gear was still in the car from an earlier gig and I had not planned on staying so long, or for so much tequila. Shame on me. Actually, shame on Dan Monea, you temptress. No, it’s me, I should have known better.

The crook got my guitar, GPS, and a few CDs… but he gave up on my heavy amplifier, which I found a few yards down the street, abandoned. I don’t blame him for abandoning it, as I also don’t enjoy lugging it around… or taking it down descending staircases. After almost a year of searching for it and ultimately giving up, the guitar was found in a local pawnshop by a friend and I was able to get it back. You might recall I mentioned always swapping out parts on my guitars, and ironically, a modification I had made to this one made it instantly recognizable to the players in town. Score one point for neurosis?

It was an American Fender Stratocaster, and I had put an Indonesian neck on it. That may not sound that bad to you, but it is utter blasphemy to a purist. How DARE I mix expensive and inexpensive parts, foreign and domestic, for the sake of how it feels to play it? The original neck on the guitar was very thick, sometimes known as a “baseball bat.” There are more shapes for guitar necks than you’d think; C, D, U, V, come to mind. If you look at those letters sideways, the humpier part would visually represent the radius of the curve. I prefer thinner necks, a “C” or less, and happened to have a C-shaped Jazzmaster neck just lying around. People like me have things like that just lying around, it’s perfectly normal.

The secret I’ll share next might floor you… Wood is wood… and 90% of modern instruments are cut out on a CNC machine. It doesn’t really matter where on earth that happens. As long as it’s a similar wood type, you get a very similar result. Sometimes you really are just paying for a name.

Fender guitars, made in America, are very similar to Fender guitars made in Indonesia, or Japan, or Ensenada. You could argue about the virtues of Mahogany vs Ash vs Alder… but where the wood is from, to me, is moot. The Gibson guitar company got in hot water in 2011 for sourcing Ebony wood from Madagascar, illegally, violating the Lacey Act that protects...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 25.2.2025
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Kunst / Musik / Theater ► Musik
• ISBN-13: 979-8-3509-9211-3 / 9798350992113