La Vida Rockera

Musing about the role of music in my life after my first gig in a decade.

The members of 290 Way—me, Alex, and Zilmar—at our first gig in Fourth and Gill.

Words from the Wise

“No matter how corrupt, greedy, and heartless our government, our corporations, our media, and our religious and charitable institutions may become, the music will still be wonderful. If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:

THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED

FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD

WAS MUSIC.”

Kurt Vonnegut, A Man without A Country

For Your Ears and Eyes

Victor Wooten’s longevity as a bass player is out of this world. Mickey and I first found him on DVDs of “Best Drummers and Bassists” that we’d buy at Sound City, flea markets, or off eBay and play in our original Attic Club.

I’ve heard from nonmusical friends that they can’t pick out the bass’s presence in a song; in case that’s you too, I added a video of bass lines you will definitely recognize from popular songs.

Useful Trivia

Many of the world’s most popular musicians could not read or write music. These illiterate savants include Paul McCartney and John Lennon, Bob Dylan, Aretha Franklin, and Elvis Presley.

Music therapy researchers around the world have found that lullabies and other live music can slow the heart rate of premature babies, calm their breathing, and aid in feeding and sleep.

The catchiest English-language song in the world is “Wannabe” by The Spice Girls. The average person can identify it in 2.29 seconds (just ahead of Lou Bega’s “Mambo No. 5”).

Mull It Over

A few months ago, a friend from work invited me over to jam. Before then, we’d mostly chatted about soccer—after Argentina won the World Cup in 2022, he, a Brazilian, wrote me a congratulatory email and, in our next all-hands meeting, gifted me the set of Panini stickers he’d been collecting throughout the tournament (see here for why this is a very big deal).

Because I work mostly from home and on projects that rarely intersect with UT’s teaching faculty, Alex and I didn’t get much of a chance to talk about the other things that are important to us until he mentioned, in passing, that he was the drummer in a cover band of business professors. (The sideburns should’ve given him away long before that.) If I had been raised in the South, I might've said, “That’s cool! I play bass. We should jam sometime,” and then never brought it up again. But, by the grace of God, I was raised by foreigners in a state where no one bothers being nice to you if they don’t have to. Two days later, I lugged my amp into his garage, where Zilmar, a Brazilian Alex befriended at church, was also waiting to jam.