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Sunday, May 24, 2015

The Stupidest Thing I've Heard This Year

The Stupidest Thing I've Heard This Year

If you read the blog, or follow me on Facebook, you'll know that I recently bought into a small bar here called The Cork and Stogie.  I wrote about it shortly after I made the move on April 1st. In that blog I mentioned that I was previously attempting to buy Viva Zapata with two other partners, but in the long run we realized we didn't have enough money to pull it off. The rent would be raising 50% after the first three months and it would be double what we started, three months after that. To make matters more nervous, this would be going into the slowest part of the year here.

http://keywestmusic.blogspot.com/2015/04/i-bought-bar-in-key-west.html

Before we pulled the plug on it we entertained the idea of having an additional partner and had one guy who expressed interest. We'll just call him R. Well, R was a pretty well known individual and had been around town for many years. Consequently, he also knew a lot of people. Knowing the right people, particularly in city planning and government can definitely be a feather in one's cap.

I had met R a few years back at one of the songwriter's festivals. The Key West Songwriter's Festival is full of people from Nashville. When I first struck up a conversation with R, he was wearing jeans and cowboy boots. Naturally, I thought he was from Nashville. To my surprise, he was a local. Every time I've seen him since, he's always got on long pants. It's not that wearing long pants is bad, but in this town, it's odd. Odd enough to say to yourself "Hummmm. This guy always wears long pants. I wonder what's up with him?". If I saw him around with shorts from time to time, the question would never come about.

Bear in mind that it doesn't mean they can't be trusted or anything. My friend Schmegley never wears shorts and he's a great guy! However, one does tend to at least ask the question when the long pants come into play and shorts never do.

One night in the beginning of March one of my partners in the Viva Zapata adventure and I were out on the sidewalk talking to R about to impending venture. He had some interesting ideas, I will say. He also had a few ideas that were completely off the wall, such as making Viva Zapata into a fine dining restaurant.

He also flagged down some city government employee who walked by and chatted with him for a few minutes. Then another guy who walked by whom he hadn't seen in years, by knew of this guy's escapades here and in Panama, with what the guy said was with the C.I.A. The guy wasn't drunk, he was in-the-bag shitfaced. He made the most outrageous statements about blowing up an airport in Panama, in between swaying back and forth and almost falling over a couple of times. R seemed to have some sort of knowledge about this as well and asked the pertinent questions as the guy swayed to and fro. The next day someone Facebook posted a picture of the guy unconscious, laying in a random front yard, with a comical statement to go with it.

The next day the partner who was talking with R and myself asked if he could talk to me in private. We'll call this individual K. K is a great guy it's always great to see him. He has a great disposition and laughs easily.

We sat down and he says to me "Hey, I was talking to R and he was saying that he knows you're into the Trop Rock music, but he says that he wants you to understand that if he invests here, he said he doesn't want this place to become a Trop Rock bar or anything".

My reply to K was "Lets see what develops. So far he hasn't committed anything but talk" which K agreed with.

On the flip side however, I was completely amazed. What an extraordinary thing  for R to say! I mean, here is a guy who has lived here for quite some time, I think over two decades, and the bottom line is, he just doesn't get it. Again, I thought he was from Nashville when we originally met. Now I was thinking he should try his luck in a place like Nashville.

Lets look at Key West and the Florida Keys biggest resource: Tourism.

Who come here and why?

Getting the specific stats on tourism isn't easy. However I will say this. Key West gets a lot of visitors from outside the U.S. Having said that, the amount of Americans visiting here far outnumbers all combined visitors.  

Why do Americans come to Key West? Americans come to Key West because of what Key West is:

A tropical island, many consider part of the Caribbean (Hey, if Bermuda is considered part of the Caribbean, there's no reason we wouldn't be) floating one hundred and six miles off the mainland loaded with palm trees, beaches, bars, restaurants, and art galleries. The best part? It's it's own country, the Conch Republic, albeit tongue-in-cheek, but it is part of the United States. One doesn't need a passport to get here. Call it the best of both worlds! It's the U.S. and a foreign country at the same time!

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People come here because they want the island life getaway experience. They want to feel the tropical island lifestyle and be part of it,  take it in. Many businesses here on the island insist on piping in island music, be it from this island, or others. I know of an art gallery which insists on having nothing but tropical music playing. It's common and they're not alone. This one particular gallery is very successful and has been here for over twenty years. Why do they play tropical music? The general manager stated "People come here to be in the island lifestyle and island music sets the stage for that."

Two of the most successful musicians on the island over the years, fall into the category of Trop music. About 15% of all the music in Key West is Trop Rock. With our band, The Shanty Hounds, our repertoire consists of about 1/3 Trop music, 2/3 other. We consider ourselves pretty well rounded. Yet, people are out there, such as R who have a thing against the Trop music and because we play some of it and he had an ax to grind with it, for whatever reason, he throws us into a category that he doesn't like and wants to make sure we don't play it.

What amazes me is that people like R can be so ignorant. Regretfully he's not alone. Fortunately, he never joined us (nothing to do with music) and also, we never bought Viva Zapata. Unfortunately, as remarkable as it may seem, in business some people often put their personal likes ahead of feeding their cash register. They cut off their nose in spite of their face.

Monday, May 18, 2015

ANOTHER WAY OF WRITING A SONG


ANOTHER WAY OF WRITING A SONG

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In the last blog I just posted, I talked about one way to write a song, being in the spirit right after the Key West Songwriters Festival concluded. I mentioned that was one way I write a song, however there were others. Regardless of where I'm coming from when writing a song, I will always have a pen and paper ready. As I play and lyrics come to mind, I'll flip the guitar over and write the line down that I come up with. I'll do that immediately. If not, I'll forget it. Likewise, if I'm out doing things and an idea comes to mind, be it a melody, lyric, or song idea, I'll note it in my phone as either a note, or a voice memo. If I don't, again, I'll forget it. A LOT of songwriters tell me they do the same.

 As I'm in the muse as far as writing goes and I'm on a roll, here's another way that I write a song.

Two songs here I'll extrapolate on, "Dildo Key" and "Island Blue".

In both of these cases, unlike the first songwriting post on "The Beach!!!!", which was based on spontaneity, these two songs were projects to be done before any music or lyrics were established.
In the case of "Dildo Key", what had happened was I was looking at a soundings chart of the upper Keys, which includes everything from Key Largo and Islemorada on the east, to the west coast of the tip of Florida. For those who don't know what a soundings chart is, it's basically a road map for boaters listing the depths of the water. It's also called a depth chart.

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Well, while looking at the chart my eyes almost popped out! There was an island named "Dildo Key"! I rubbed my eyes to make sure there wasn't an error, however it remained the same!
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This is not something that could be by-passed by a songwriter! How could you pass this up? No, here was a song that was being handed to me on a silver platter! In this case it was different than "The Beach!!!". As I said, "The Beach!!!!" was spontaneous. "Dildo Key" became a project in the making before any of it was ever looked at musically, or lyrically.

As I mentioned in my last blog, I write the music first. With that in mind, I needed a proper foundation to build on. For myself, it's like building a house. You don't start with the roof, or the first floor, you start with the foundation and build up from there. The way I look at it, the music is the most important part of the song. I've heard people who wrote the most prolific lyrics, but the music they applied to it, is a complete and utter sleeping pill, or mediocre. For others it works however, but not for me.

Therefore, I had the opportunity to set the stage for the song!
Now, with a name like "Dildo Key", it has to be something with a comic, fun feel. That goes without saying! I figured something along a barrel house blues could work. Me being me, the progression would have to have a traditional feel, yet be unique at the same time. As I mentioned earlier, it needed to also have a humorous twist! The end result is a progression that stands on it's own, related to virtually nothing else, yet at the same time, it sounds familiar.
What I came up with for the basic progression was:

E  C#7  F#7  B7    E C#7 F#7 B7   E  E7  A  A7     E  C#7  F#7 B7   and a turn around of E C#7 F#7 B7 E B7 E B7

That worked! It's it's own progression.

Now that that was established, I had a very original format to work lyrically within. this was exactly what my quest was. A solid, original foundation was ready to be built on. The lyrics would easily fit in this wheelhouse! Mind you, it doesn't happen all the time! This can bite you in the ass quite often, when you least expect it.

As an example of this, the title song of the album "Shanghai'd and Marooned in Key West - Things could be worse", never materialized. The song just never cut it for my standards. However that happens no matter how one writes.

With "Dildo Key", we were cooking with oil!

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The lyrics were naturally peppered with suggestive innuendos, as one would expect from a song named after a island called Dildo Key. How could it not be? It likewise didn't hurt that the key next to Dildo Key is Johnson Key... seriously, how did this happen?   

Lyrically "Dildo Key" turned out to be one of my longer songs, with six verses. The first verse was designed to set the stage of a guy singing happily and just heading out fishing in the Florida Keys. The next verse, he gets there, all is quite normal until he arrives at the destinaltion, Dildo Key, which immediately after it is named comes the "horror chord" hit suddenly and abruptly. It's EC#FGC#E... OUCH!!!!

As I say, the rest of the song is peppered with inuendos designed to crack a smile and hopefully some laughter!

I wanted Barry Cuda to play piano on the track. 'Cuda has been a Key West icon for thirty years and while being a great cut up, he's seriously a blues authority. I sent him a demo of the song and a lyric/chord chart to learn. Like almost all of the guys who played on the album, he arrived and when it came to playing the song he suddenly stopped and said "Hey! What's going on here?". This is an issue I always ran into as my songs aren't your basic chord progressions. It can be a pain in the ass, as a writer. It's also expensive when musicians realize there's a lot more to the song than they assumed and they wind up learning it in the studio. On the entire album, only Richard Crooks went over every song and charted it as well, before arriving in the studio.

'Cuda learned it very quickly however and did a superb job on the song as well! There are several people out there who tell me Dildo Key is my best work. I don't agree with them, however it is surely my most humorous! Tuba and all!!!

Dildo Key can be found on CD Baby, CD Universe and iTunes. Search "Key West Chris"
Here's the CDBaby link:  http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/keywestchris


ISLAND BLUE

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Another song written with a subject in mind was "Island Blue". My friend Misty Loggins called me from Nashville to say she was coming down to play for a week at Smokin Tuna. I said "Hey! Why don't we cut a song while you're here?" she thought it was a great idea. It was after I hung up that I realized I didn't have a song for her and it was only two weeks before she would be here. Uh Oh!

I went a week walking into walls. Nothing worked. Then, I was on my satee one morning trying to come up with something and went from an E to a B7 and it rung! Suddenly I was off to the races! I came up with an original progression that would fit the Patsy Cline/Willy Nelson genre of Country. The progression and song is entirely different, but you could easily put it in the same category as "Crazy". The progression went:

E, E7, B7, C#m7, F#m7, B7, E E7 A A7 E C9 B9 E Bdim
For the bridge:
A Maj 7, E Maj 7, A Maj7, E Maj7, E7, A E Maj7, E7, F#m7, G#m7 C#m7 Cm7 Bm7, A Maj7, F#m7, B7, E, C9, B9, E, Bdim

So, here I ended up with a very original progression with a foundation that was as solid as a rock, which invited lyrics to build off of.

The story would be of a person who visits the tropics from afar and decides to move and stay.

When we cut the song Misty asked if we could move the song a half step up, to accommodate her voice. No problem! So when we recorded it, we did it in F and it's been that way ever since, be it if Misty, myself, or Dani were singing it.

Here's the song. It will be on my next album "Jump Into De Fi-Ya!", although it will not be this particular cut. The one we'll use is a different mix altogether and with Dani on background vocals.




                                                              ISLAND BLUE
I
ISLAND BLUE YOU’RE GONNA TAKE ME
BACK THROUGH THE WINDS OF TIME
OH ISLAND BLUE YOU’RE GONNA CHANGE THIS HEART OF MINE
II
WHEN I CAME TO THIS ISLAND
FOR SUNSHINE AND MARITIME AIR
OH ISLAND BLUE, YOUR SANDY BEACHES, SEEM SO UNFAIR
(Bridge)
WHEN I CAME TO YOU I HAD NO WORRIES IN THE WORLD
I WAS AS FREE AS A SEAGUL IN FLIGHT
I STAYED A FEW DAYS I COULD FEEL IT
BENEATH MY FEET MY WHOLE WORLD WAS CHANGING
AND I KNEW, DEEP DOWN INSIDE
THIS WAS MY LIFE
III
SO ISLAND BLUE, NO I’M NOT CRYING
NO MISURY, NO PAIN
OH ISLAND BLUE IT JUST ISN’T FAIR
TO FEEL THIS WAY
(Bridge)
WHEN I CAME TO YOU I HAD NO WORRIES IN THE WORLD
I WAS AS FREE AS A SEAGUL IN FLIGHT
I STAYED A FEW DAYS I COULD FEEL IT
BENEATH MY FEET MY WHOLE WORLD WAS CHANGING
AND I KNEW, DEEP DOWN INSIDE
THIS WAS MY LIFE

IV
SO I SAID GOOD BY TO MY CITY
AU REVOIR TO MY FAMILY AND FRIENDS
AND HELLO TO THE TROPICS, ISLAND BLUE
AND HELLO TO THE TROPICS, ISLAND BLUE
©2011 Christopher R. Rehm, BMI






While there is no right way or a wrong way to write a song, in both this blog and the last you'll have read that I always set the foundation first and foremost. This works well for me. Lennon/McCartney, Jagger/Richards, Garcia/Hunter, and Jobim/Moraes among others, use(d) this method as well.






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All the Best From Key West!

Thank you for reading my Blog!!!!

Tuesday, May 12, 2015

Writing a Song - One Way Anyway

Writing a Song

At least one way I do it!
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With the Key West Songwriters Festival over until next year, I'll go about explaining on one way of how I write a song. There is no right way or wrong way to write a song, but there is a right way and a wrong way for particular individuals. This is fundamentally what works for me.

With myself, the first thing I do is come up with a melody. 60% of the time, it's by accident. I'm just noodling on the guitar and suddenly something sounds cool. Sometimes it's by experimentation, others by nothing better explained than as a mistake. I'll start playing around with it and out of the blue a lyric comes in out of nowhere. It's as though that's the lyric that was meant for the melody I was playing with. From there a story evolves around the melody/chord progression. One example of this is "The Beach!!!!"

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With this song I was in the key of A and going from A to A6 to E9 back to the A to A6 then to a E7. All of this on the A on the fifth fret. It was in a Cuban 4/4 time and really flowed. I was playing around with it for about two weeks. Just having fun with it. Then one morning I was messing with it again when out of the blue came the line "Today I'm going to the beach". The word "Today" was long and drawn out emphasizing the anticipated excitement of going to the beach!  The next line came right away "It's a sunny day and I'm on my way and I love to feel the heat" the progression had a Latin shuffle groove to it,  so I continued with it for one more verse, which likewise came right to me. The story was evolving and progressing quite quickly.I was thinking of the many times I rode my bike to Ft. Zachery Taylor State Park and the beach there, not far from my home.

"See palm trees and coconuts get the sand in my feet"

The progression with those lyrics had run it's course. The next line and chords came immediately as well, albeit a bit of a side step, by adding a chord that wasn't in key, but it worked. The progression went C#7 F#m7 Bm7 D7 E7 and the lyric  "And life just don't get better all the while, carpe dium, seize the day!"
The Latin phrase "Carpe Dium" was one I wanted to utilize and here was the opportunity! Bottom line, here was a progression and lyrics to go with it!

So what was at hand was the following:

TODAY ----------------------------
I’M GOING TO THE BEACH!
IT’S A SUNNY DAY AND I’M ON MY WAY, AND I LOVE TO FEEL THE HEAT
AND SEE PALM TREES WITH COCONUTS GET THE SAND, IN MY FEET
 AND LIFE JUST DON'T GET BETTER ALL THE WHILE, CARPE DIEM, YEAH! SIEZE THE DAY!

The next verse  likewise came as fast as lightning using the exact same foundation as the first verse.
TODAY------------------------------
I’M GOING TO THE BEACH!
HOP ON MY BIKE AND TAKE A RIDE, THE SUN, IS WHAT I SEEK
AND IT AIN’T FAR, WHO NEEDS A CAR? THIS IS ISLAND TIME, THIS IS MY BEAT
ON THE BEACH, OUT FROM THE STREET  SMELL THE FRIES COOKIN IN THE SUMMER HEAT

I wanted a bridge next and what came to mind worked perfectly, albeit a bit unusual in structure. Working within the Cuban rhythm that was at hand,  a Motown style bridge was added.  Bm7, C#m7,  D, E and the lyrics applied. Somehow it worked!
WON’T STAND BY THE WINDOW ON THE PHONE AND BE TALKIN’
GET OFF THAT COMPUTER AND BE ON MY WAY
TIME’S A WASTING, LIFE’S TOO PRECIOUS, I BETTER START WALKIN’
OUT THE DOOR, GET ON MY BIKE AND BE ON MY WAY

The bridge was actually very autobiographic actually. Often I need to kick myself in the ass to get off the computer and get out of the house!
So! Now I had a song structurally! The verse progression and the bridge progression. The story continued and the final outcome was the following:

                                                              THE BEACH!!!!
TODAY ----------------------------
I’M GOING TO THE BEACH!
IT’S A SUNNY DAY AND I’M ON MY WAY, AND I LOVE TO FEEL THE HEAT
AND SEE PALM TREES WITH COCONUTS GET THE SAND, IN MY FEET
 AND LIFE JUST DON'T GET BETTER ALL THE WHILE, CARPE DIEM, YEAH! SIEZE THE DAY!
2
TODAY------------------------------
I’M GOING TO THE BEACH!
HOP ON MY BIKE AND TAKE A RIDE, THE SUN, IS WHAT I SEEK
AND IT AIN’T FAR, WHO NEEDS A CAR? THIS IS ISLAND TIME, THIS IS MY BEAT
ON THE BEACH, OUT FROM THE STREET YOU SMELL THE FRIES COOKIN IN THE SUMMER HEAT

WON’T STAND BY THE WINDOW ON THE PHONE AND BE TALKIN’
GET OFF THAT COMPUTER AND BE ON MY WAY
TIME’S A WAISTING, LIFE’S TOO PRECIOUS, I BETTER START WALKIN’
OUT THE DOOR, GET ON MY BIKE AND BE ON MY WAY
3
TODAY----------------------
I WORSHIP THE SUN
I WORKED ALL WEEK, PAID MY DUES, DON’T YOU THINK, I DESERVE A LITTLE FUN?
I’M HEADIN’ TO THE BEACH, I’LL TAKE MY TIME, NO. I DON’T NEED TO RUN
EVERYONE ON THE BEACH WEARS A SMILE, THE GOOD TIMES HAVE BEGUN
4
TODAY -------------------
I AM AT THE BEACH!
THE SUN IS SHINING AND I AM SMILING, OH YEAH, WHAT A TREAT!
YEAH, THE SUN BEATS DOWN, I JUMP IN THE WATER….. YOU BET! HEY!!! I’M AT THE BEACH!
AND LIFE JUST DON'T GET BETTER ALL THE WHILE, CARPE DIEM, YEAH! SIEZE THE DAY!
© 2009 Christopher R. Rehm   BMI








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So, that's one way I write a song.... there are others, but I'll get into them another time.






In all my writing, I write the music first. The music is the foundation of any song, so it can't be compromised. So I write the music and tailor the lyrics to fit. It works for me, anyhow. Years after doing it this way, I had some encouragement when I learned that Lennon/McCarthy, Jagger/Richards, and Garcia/Hunter all did likewise


Download "The Beach!!!!" at:


http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/keywestchris 


Or at my web site:

http://keywestchris.com/ 

 Also available at iTunes. Search "Key West Chris"


Thank you everyone!!!

All the Best From Key West!

Key West Chris Rehm