Happy Birthday to Cat!

A birthday for Cat is a major event and, like any good thing in Europe, one day is not enough to celebrate it.

Going to see the Buena Vista Social Club was the first part of the celebration and a few years previously she went to see George Benson.  Cat doesn't often go to major concerts but when she does she will be stylin'.

Her timing was perfect as this was just about the same time Obama announced U.S. and Cuba would open embassies again and soon it will be no problem to go to Havana to see Buena Vista Social Club play in their home country.  (I'm not sure how this will work but I'm sure people will carry the band forward)


The MusikCircus part of her birthday was on Thursday as the schedule started with Mario Zecca doing a show but Cat and I talked with the result being I would open for Mario.  I wasn't sure how my kit or I would handle doing a show so I took a nap with the plan being I would get up prior to playing to get everything all dialed and ready.

The phone rang (i.e. Skype) just before the alarm and Cat told me Paris Cloyd will play.

Um ... when will this happen, I confusedly wondered.  She said, oh, well ... now.

Frankly, I was a bit miffed as I have my pre-show protocol I follow so I'm ready to go as soon as the audio stream lights up.  Trying to do that while I'm tracking some other cat in his set is difficult but I had been looking forward to hearing Paris Cloyd play so let's get this party started or, more accurately, let's check out Paris getting the party started.

This made for an unusual situation as Paris Cloyd is the Fireman only think 'fireman' in the Ray Bradbury context; he doesn't come to douse fires, he comes to start them.  Paris Cloyd is one exceptionally fast-playing musician and he must have that titanium coating on his strings to prevent meltage.

Some call his style New School and Paris has the speed and sound for it nailed right down.  His guitar sound has all the beef you'll ever want and his speed would impress Rick Derringer.  Maybe you think I'm disrespectful in mentioning Derringer but he was one of the earliest I heard for playing ultra-fast electric guitar.  He didn't get much of a name for it but he had incredible speed.   Another speed demon who really never got full credit for it was Ronnie Montrose.

New School is more often associated with Metallica and that style of guitar work.  Whether that's good or bad isn't the purpose of this article as people can talk about that all day long but what I can tell you for sure is Paris Cloyd is damn good at it.


During the course of this, the Jehovah's Witnesses showed up carrying signs and carryin' on.  Art in America is a cheap suit talking about Jehovah on a hot day in July.  Well ... maybe.

That got me bugged as I don't particularly care what a cheap suit has to say about Jehovah in July but I care a lot about crashing parties, particularly this one.  In Second Life, this is called 'griefing' and a griefer's single purpose is to bring grief to other people regardless of whether they know them.  (It's no great social phenomenon as, in the meat world, we call them politicians.)

After a while the cheap suits went away and the focus got back to Paris.  I was scrambled for two reasons as first I was thinking just what will you do to follow this cat and, second, will this Jehovah's Witnesses stuff keep happening.  The trouble with the latter is they are highly single-minded and will start killing puppies if that's what it takes to get some attention.


Note:  the reference to Ray Bradbury and the Fireman is regarding "Fahrenheit 451" and that was a book written most likely in the 50's that describes the book burning taking place today in Texas.  In that story, Firemen don't extinguish fires but rather start them to burn books.  Paris Cloyd doesn't burn any books but guitars should be afraid, very afraid.


My plan for my own set was to start out with "Too Much or Not Enough" as that gives a taste of the harmonizer in the Vocalist and the Galaxy Guitar has a chance to sing a little bit at the end of it.  This thinking is what we call in the music biz a Really Bad Idea.  The Fireman has just started a major inferno so let's do a mushy gushy love song to follow.

That wasn't a prelude to the set disintegrating as it didn't.  No set ever goes as well as you hope as even if the audience doesn't hear your mistakes, you will.  That's not a big deal as it's just part of performing.

"I Love Rats" had to come into it and there were two reasons for that with the first being I seriously needed to step up the L.Q. (Loudness Quotient) for my set with some speed and some destructiveness.  The second was I wanted to hear Barry White say, "I love rats."

(Ed:  what's a Loudness Quotient?)

No idea.  I just liked the sound.  My music works the same way.


Paris Cloyd mentioned in chat maybe it would be a good idea to do a dual stream together sometime. That's when two or more online musicians can play together with one audio stream as the result and that goes into Second Life or whichever destination you like.  I was flattered but didn't think it would be such a good idea as the set would be extremely guitar-heavy which may sound like it's the New Millennium Stoner Outlaws coming to you from the New Millennium Muscle Shoals.  What I suggested was he should find himself a skinny chick singer to front his set to get all bad-ass with him.  I hope he does as that would be a cool combination.  No matter what he does, it'll be great to hear him again at the Circus.

Note:  'skinny' was a mistake as that was supposed to mean 'coked-up wild woman' but please do relax, big girls.  I know you can put some major whoop-ass on a song.  In fact, I know you can make her coked-up skinny voice sound like it comes from a canary.


Following me was Mario Zecca and he's the poet musician as he may do a reading or he may play ... or it may be a combination of the two.  He's kind of a New Millennium beat poet and all those beatniks would be snapping their fingers when he plays.  He brings thoughts of Jack Kerouac and Alan Ginsberg and people love to talk of 'retro' but there is nothing retrograde about incisive poetry, particularly when it's delivered with an innovative style.

Mario also reminds of lefty Unplugged as his lyrics have a taste of beat poetry as well.  It takes an extraordinary skill to take what is essentially open verse and then make that work within any rhythmic structure which is inherently not open.  Something like that can sound forced but these two make it natural.


The flow of the evening was unusual as maybe you look at the performance from Mario Zecca as kind of laid-back and you can enjoy a robust red wine as you enjoy the songs and think about his words.  My own performance is hopefully getting a bit of a fire started but tempered with mushball stuff.  Then there's Paris who is the total Fireman.  Doing it the other way around was a strange way to do a set but it's live and things shake out all kinds of ways.  Paris was available so let's do it and on with the show.


Of course it was on with the show as this was a special one.  Happy Birthday, Cat - I Love You!


In the following article, "Waiting on a Train" w/Guest Intro (audio) is a recording from the show.