Dr Dan in Laurel Canyon

Dr Dan In Laurel Canyon

There’s nothing to this old road except everything…

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Rockie & Me

Rockie and Me

I was explaining to Rockie that I was Fake Keith.

Back in 1995 I played a show in Jersey City opening for a Stones cover band called Sticky Fingers. Fake Mick and I hit it off and enjoyed some groupies and 420 in the Men’s Room. I told him we had fun dancing to his music, but that we needed a ride back to Hoboken because the rest of the band didn’t want to stay for the cover band. Fake Mick told me that he thought I played guitar like Keith, but that we should just walk home or take a cab. It was such a good night that we didn’t care.

About two months later Fake Mick called me from his home base in Boston and asked me if I wanted to do a Southern tour. He said that he and Fake Keith were fighting and that Fake Bill and Fake Charlie didn’t want to travel all that distance. I don’t remember what Fake Ronnie/ Brian/ Mick Taylor thought.

I was living with a punk band and we needed rent money so the timing was impeccable. The pay was $300 per show, plus per diem. This was by far the best paying gig I had, and yet I felt so dirty when I agreed to be the musical director. I hired the punk band to back us up, augmented by an alcoholic Americana guitar genius from the band The Ex-Husbands. We played the Stones with a punk edge – awesome on When The Whip Comes Down, and it really worked down South where one radio guy said we sounded like Skynard playing the Stones. Fake Mick encouraged us to jam and entertain the crowd by playing with our teeth or behind our backs or jumping into the crowd.

One night I did the rock star back bend on my knees. I had my eyes closed when I felt my face and my guitar covered in something wet. Fake Mick had done a whole sex thing where he blew a beer in my face, much to the audience’s delight.

The audience was full of drunks, sometimes women jumped on stage and started dancing, we played behind chicken fence one night in a roadhouse in Georgia, and we had a bad night only once when we lost out to the Beatle cover band. Damn that Fake McCartney.

Anyway, Rockie couldn’t get past the money. He keeps harping on how short sighted I was not to keep playing with those guys. I told Rockie, I know that now! But he just keeps coming back to it. He says that’s why I need him. He says he is more objective about the business side. He also says I am dating the wrong women, but that he’s going to help me with that too.

A Postmodern Internet’s Impact On Music

A Postmodern Internet’s Impact On Music, Art, Fashion and Writing

Tasting like a burst of sour when you bite into an unsqueezed slice of lemon, the distribution and marketing of music has changed in the same way that cities have grown – not with class and planning, but through the shortest method to the quickest buck.

My premise here is that the mountain pass is too narrow for a corporation to slip through. You have to have the ability to move fast and be prepared to take unexpected hits that you often can’t see the impact of until time has passed and the fire has started. And that fire will spread.

The lessons I learned at Cornell on Deconstruction, and the time I spent as an apprentice writer to the most important minimalist author to walk the planet, John Barth, exposed to me to possibilities of unconventional storytelling. The medium of the Internet is the perfect canvas for post-modern authors.

I was at a real Hollywood party with actually funny writers – and even if they write drivel for money, they often have very amusing observations that make you think and laugh, especially if you’ve got your mojo going. Anyway, I was introduced as the great writer that doesn’t write anymore. I explained that writing novels seemed to me to be almost like riding a horse and buggy to work. I love pretentious writers, and I fancy myself to be one as well. However, I need feedback on what I write and sitting in a room of pretentious writers, which is what we did at Johns Hopkins and in my writing groups, doesn’t represent the real world.

I also need support. I am not continuing on this topic unless I get some hard data to suggest it’s worth the time.

What does that mean, I don’t know. Maybe you can tell me?

1-15-13 All Access Pass

Walk On The Wild Side

The New York session players can make you sound really good or really bad. Luckily they were with me tonight. We covered Lou Reed like he was Bob Dylan, and Bob Dylan like he was Tom Petty and Tom Petty like he was Janis Joplin…

Family Dynamics for John Lennon

It’s a cold, winter day in NYC and I hear John Lennon’s music in myhead – there’s no way to shut it off or turn it down, and that’s a good thing…

Mother is God-like to an infant, and father is less important.  Clearly, there is a dynamic that moves as father becomes more powerful in the perception of a child.   This dynamic also greatly effects the child, and the child’s future relationships.  When John Lennon was  lad, as the story goes, he had to choose between his mother and father.  Who knows what really happened, but the family dynamics are reflected in songs like “Mother,” and “Isolation.”  But if you look at the dynamics of John and his wife, Yoko, and you look at John as a father to BOTH of his sons, you may begin to see the mirror image of what likely happened to John.  

A friend just told me a story about a drunken John Lennon pissing on a fan at the Rainbow.  I guess you do have to have been pissed on as a kid to do something like that?  The fan was a good sport, but if it were me I probably wouldn’t have been as understanding.  How about you?

‘roids, Oprah, Lance Armstrong and Sheryl Crow

I feel like I am watching a very slow version Melrose Place – a bunch of good-looking people running about, emoting fiercely …

1) Armstrong used steroids and won the Tour De France and that’s too bad, but it’s not something the average person can do even if they do take steroids. What does it mean? It means the world is a complicated place?

2) Why is Oprah focused on gossip as opposed to stopping the war? I know it’s a business but she’s done very well, and she has the potential to contribute more to her audience – the people who have given her so much, so why not give them something of real value instead of a car which is like giving a few random audience members a hit of dope?

3) Sheryl Crow (I just wanted to mention her)

Country Stars Tweet Prayers

OFFSTAGE: Country Stars Tweet Prayers
August 15, 2011; Written by Alison Bonaguro

When it comes to the power of prayer, I think social media works wonders. When the country artists we know and love tweet that they are praying for the people of Indiana after the tragic stage collapse prior to a Sugarland concert on Saturday night (Aug. 13), their followers may join them in that prayer. It’s a ripple effect, in the best way. Here are some of the recent tweets I read that made me pray a little harder:

Dierks Bentley: “man… my heart goes out to all the country fans at the Indiana state fair. praying for you all…. #fb”

Little Big Town: “Our hearts are heavy this morning for the people of Indiana and for our dear friends in Sugarland. Our thoughts & prayers are with you. J”

David Nail: “Huge knot in stomach, feeling completely sick watching/reading about Indy! All of us in Idaho are praying for ya!”

Blake Shelton: “My prayers to the people at the Sugarland concert in Indianapolis…. Absolutely shocking and hard to comprehend… Beyond belief…”

Martina McBride: “So sad to hear about the State Fair in Indianapolis. Our prayers are with Sugarland, their fans, and all the personnel working there. And most importantly, our prayers are with the families of the injured and the families of the four people who were killed.”

Rascal Flatts’ Jay DeMarcus: “All thoughts and prayers go to the folks in Indy and Sugarlands camp tonight… What an awful tragedy…”

Jake Owen: “Every guy in our crew has thoughts and prayers going out to folks at Indiana State Fair and our friends @Sugarlandmusic”

Brad Paisley: “Really sad about the sugarland stage collapse. What a tragedy.”

Keith Urban: “I just saw the footage from Indiana State Fair tonight on youtube and am absolutely in shock. We send our prayers and thoughts to each and every one of you who were there and your families and loved ones as well. God bless you all.”

Reba: “What happened in Indianapolis tonight is what promoters, artists, crews and fans pray never happens. From my band, crew and the entire Starstruck organization, we send our thoughts and prayers to the 4 people who lost their lives tonight and to everyone who was at the concert. Jennifer and Kristian, I love you both.”