tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12308975377179631202024-02-08T07:27:19.800-08:00Stewart Francke JournalStewart Franckehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05928285155163194350noreply@blogger.comBlogger53125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1230897537717963120.post-35129737799452443962012-11-28T13:52:00.002-08:002012-11-28T13:53:32.715-08:00Love Implied is fini!!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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What a relief, getting new cd all mixed and mastered--mixed by my brother Bryan Reilly and mastered by another brother Jim Kissling. Songs are anthemic rock and soul, I think. I hope y'all download at itunes or wherever, or buy from stewartfrancke.com or come to a show and pick up either vinyl or cd. See you soon and I'll be posting regularly here!Stewart Franckehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05928285155163194350noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1230897537717963120.post-474944948774520172011-06-13T12:04:00.001-07:002011-06-13T12:04:06.217-07:00<a href="http://ping.fm/xZkzy">http://ping.fm/xZkzy</a>Stewart Franckehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05928285155163194350noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1230897537717963120.post-76229857609032442242011-05-02T14:48:00.001-07:002011-05-02T14:48:40.174-07:00aarrggh! I'm trapped in a facebook-twitter satanic vortex of promotional promises and the cd ain't even out yet. My life is on life support.Stewart Franckehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05928285155163194350noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1230897537717963120.post-2702508214732656652011-04-29T11:51:00.001-07:002011-04-29T11:51:57.913-07:00My friend Sue Whitall has written an excellent new book on my favorite singer ever, Little Willie John. Check out the page. <a href="http://ping.fm/XqLne">http://ping.fm/XqLne</a>Stewart Franckehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05928285155163194350noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1230897537717963120.post-2850445289524720482011-04-26T14:29:00.001-07:002011-04-26T14:29:46.282-07:00We're doing tons of new things to talk to people about this new record as it's a brand new biz. Any promotional ideas out there?Stewart Franckehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05928285155163194350noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1230897537717963120.post-40119880642683953372011-04-25T10:05:00.001-07:002011-04-25T10:05:23.511-07:00New cd is going out to kickstarter supporters next 2 weeks. Official release 5/17 thru website--natl release 5/31. Callahan's show is 6/3.Stewart Franckehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05928285155163194350noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1230897537717963120.post-73541601753492512572011-04-06T20:46:00.001-07:002011-04-06T20:46:39.818-07:00Thursday night Cleveland gig with Seger & SBB has been postponed until May. We'll see you then. Feel better Bob (flu).Stewart Franckehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05928285155163194350noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1230897537717963120.post-84039349423662921322011-04-03T19:33:00.001-07:002011-04-03T19:33:53.959-07:00Looking forward to playing Cleveland this Thursday, opening for Bob Seger & the SBB at Quicken Loans Arena. Give a shout if you're going.Stewart Franckehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05928285155163194350noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1230897537717963120.post-45280911554433021972011-03-30T11:56:00.001-07:002011-03-30T11:56:52.052-07:00For the out of towners: <a href="http://ping.fm/IPL7Z">http://ping.fm/IPL7Z</a>Stewart Franckehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05928285155163194350noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1230897537717963120.post-83818450526765735362011-03-29T16:36:00.000-07:002011-03-29T16:40:20.860-07:00Opening The Bob Seger Tour<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:donotoptimizeforbrowser/> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Century Gothic"; color: black;">When you play a show, particularly a big show like last night with Bob Seger, everything moves fast.<span style=""> </span>It’s a heightened reality with a thousand mini-events removed from ordinary life—all part of why I love it and why my band members love it.<span style=""> </span>What stays with you is the feeling the music gives you, how well you connected with the faces in the crowd, the people you see and make your music with, and maybe a couple other flashes of things.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Century Gothic"; color: black;">But last night in Toledo, my band & I will surely recall one singular thing when we think about this gig months from now.<span style=""> </span>In the midst of our soundcheck, we all looked out in the sea of empty seats to find Bob Seger sitting alone, listening to us.<span style=""> </span>Folks, this doesn’t happen.<span style=""> </span>I’ve opened for dozens of the big time acts that come through town, and you rarely <i>see</i> the headliner, let alone have him sit and check you out.<span style=""> </span>This kind of interest and respect from a superstar is unheard of, and it quickened our purpose, got our mojo workin’.<span style=""> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Century Gothic"; color: black;">I carry a large band too, and we arrived at the Huntington Center in downtown Toledo just before Bob’s soundcheck.<span style=""> </span>His production staff and sound crew immediately found me and my manager and we went over details with a quick efficiency.<span style=""> </span>Again, this is not the norm—generally the opening act has to chase somebody—anybody--down and sneak in a line check before doors open.<span style=""> </span>As we were soundchecking, up one of aisles walked Seger’s longtime manager Punch Andrews, who shouted up to the stage with his usual<span style=""> </span>pugnacious encouragement, “Mr Francke…kick some ass!”<span style=""> </span>This was, of course, our singular mission.<span style=""> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Century Gothic"; color: black;">I’ve been around rock’n’roll and show biz organizations long enough now to know that the vibe of the crew, management, tech people—everyone associated with the star—takes their attitude cue from the demeanor of the artist.<span style=""> </span>Exuding the same warmth and empathy found in his songs, Seger’s team treated us not as some pain-in-the-butt ancillary act, but rather as an integral part of the evening’s entertainment.<span style=""> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Century Gothic"; color: black;">To his fans, Bob Seger is the last of the great lion-hearted rockers, a true working class hero who has lent big time rock and roll the common qualities of dignity and empathy.<span style=""> </span>So to join Bob on a date in the Midwest, playing to folks in Michigan and Ohio, is to some extent a celebration of who we are around here and what we believe in. Hearing his amazing book of songs both in soundcheck and in his show carries a connection with the way we reacted to signs of life in our youth: how we came to love a Seger song, where we were and who we were with, and how we came to feel that his songs were our own—a part of our own life.<span style=""> </span>It's not the flavor of the month; it</span><span style="font-family: "WP TypographicSymbols"; color: black;">=</span><span style="font-family: "Century Gothic"; color: black;">s not Rhianna or Lady Gaga.<span style=""> </span>His songs are more like oxygen.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Century Gothic"; color: black;">The first rock concert I ever went to was a Seger show at the Saginaw Civic Center.<span style=""> </span>I was 15.<span style=""> </span>Seger had recently released <i>Live Bullet</i>, just months after performing at my sister's High School Senior party in Bridgeport, Michigan.<span style=""> </span>Bob had been a road dog for many years already at that point and had worked hard and waited longer than most to make it. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Century Gothic"; color: black;">Last night, during “Night Moves,” Bob’s finest moment, his enduring appeal became clear to me--<span style=""></span>why we continue to care so deeply.<span style=""> </span>If you grew up in the time and place that I did, "Night Moves" contained nearly everything you cared about or did: The loss of innocence, in hopes of a greater awakening; backseat sex, because there truly was no particular place to go; the movement of weather, especially in summer; and the identification of an idealism we were just beginning to harness.<span style=""> </span>In short, "Night Moves" is about a love of the world.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Century Gothic"; color: black;">The reality of the demands in life has never been more concrete.<span style=""> </span>If you grow older (which is the most pleasant condition when faced with its alternative), you meet them, embrace them, struggle with them, avoid them, or dismiss them.<span style=""> </span>What's in question, and what Bob Seger is singing about, is the character you exhibit when meeting these demands.<span style=""> </span>What kind of courage it takes, what kind of grace, how much vision is required.<span style=""> </span>The point of </span><span style="font-family: "WP TypographicSymbols"; color: black;">"</span><span style="font-family: "Century Gothic"; color: black;">Night Moves"</span><span style="font-family: "WP TypographicSymbols"; color: black;"></span><span style="font-family: "Century Gothic"; color: black;"> is this: You can't cheat life.<span style=""> </span>You pay for everything. As I looked out at the audience while performing last night I thought,<span style=""> </span>“Where were we going, riding around in those cars all night on empty two lane roads when we were younger?” Well, here we all are.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Century Gothic"; color: black;">So thanks for the great gig Bob.<span style=""> </span>Thanks for lending us your genial, accommodating crew, the artistic legitimacy of your stage, and mostly, your faithful audience and their knowing adoration.<span style=""> </span>The folks in your audience know what it means to fight hard, win and lose; they know how rough<span style=""> </span>it’s been around here lately; but they also know that layin’ down that hard earned cash for a ticket to a Seger show is a sure thing.<span style=""> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Century Gothic"; color: black;">We were on the receiving end of the emotional largesse from this audience as well.<span style=""> </span>It’s rare for an opening act to play to a full house, and rarer still for that crowd to listen and respond, but that’s what Bob’s audience gave us. Thanks Bob, for the great gig.<br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Century Gothic"; color: black;"> </span></p>Stewart Franckehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05928285155163194350noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1230897537717963120.post-7705592993687972812011-03-21T05:57:00.001-07:002011-03-21T05:57:51.600-07:00Stewart Francke To Open First Night of 2011 Bob Seger Tour, March 26 at Toledo’s Huntington Center.Stewart Franckehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05928285155163194350noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1230897537717963120.post-66788969476212131772011-03-14T07:36:00.001-07:002011-03-14T07:36:26.042-07:00Finishing mixes for new cd--just wrapped one with Thornetta singing--made it sound like an old Bond track. She's amazin, a natural resource.Stewart Franckehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05928285155163194350noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1230897537717963120.post-61504584196449840092011-03-11T08:32:00.001-08:002011-03-11T08:32:16.273-08:00Signed a deal yesterday with Untreed Reads, e-book publisher, to write memoir about my experience with leukemia & bone marrow transplant.Stewart Franckehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05928285155163194350noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1230897537717963120.post-3353715345786751942011-02-28T07:04:00.000-08:002011-02-28T07:36:39.111-08:00Radiohead's "Creep"<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:donotoptimizeforbrowser/> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--> <div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" class="Section1"> <span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">This is another piece from </span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Between The Ground & God</span><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">, a collection of writings published in book form in 2005 by Ridgeway Press. This piece first appeared in the Metro Times in 1994.</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Radiohead's "Creep" is an amazing record; it may be post-punk rock's most fully realized link with the varied elements of early rock and roll.<span style=""> </span>Even though Radiohead writer/singer Thom Yorke may have been attempting to distance himself from the clutches of classic rock traditions, "Creep" cements a deal between grunge and pre-Beatles rock.<span style=";font-family:";" ><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:";" >And like a lot of the most interesting rock songs, "Creep" is something of a one-off, an isolated event.<span style=""> </span>Originally hidden on a 1993 album called <i>Pablo Honey</i>, the song is now a re-released hit on alternative radio.<span style=""> </span>It came well before <i>Kid A </i>&<i> OK Computer</i>, Radiohead</span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:";" >'</span><span style=";font-family:";" ><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">s twin masterpieces.</span><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style=";font-family:";" >Slurring out a story of immense alienation, Yorke's singing sounds like the sluggish dissolve of a fading siren.<span style=""> </span>Where blues singers use broken cadence and the dropped word to match the feel of the rhythm section, Yorke uses the punk's swollen alliteration to sound even more like the ugly outsider.<span style=""> </span>He's not the classic rock anti-hero who will one day be redeemed by a large audience for the purity of his stance; the guy in "Creep" is too consumed by self-loathing and misanthropy to even strike a pose.<br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style=";font-family:";" >"<i>I wish I was special, you're so fucking special</i></span><span style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><i><span style=";font-family:";" >But I'm a creep, I'm a weirdo</span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style=""><i><span style=";font-family:";" >What the hell am I doing here? I don't belong here</span></i><span style=";font-family:";" >."<br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style=";font-family:";" >The singer is trapped first by his alienation, then by his desire, and finally by his lack of humanity.<span style=""> </span>Yorke whispers the final chorus without any guts or vision.<span style=""> </span>He (the singer's character, which may actually be the singer himself) <i>is</i> a creep, not to be admired or dismissed.<span style=""> </span>What "Creep" is really about is loving the refuge that rock and roll provides, loving all of its stylistic and emotional possibilities.<span style=""> </span>The creep does belong, finally, in a song with virulent guitars and the general dis-ease of a Dostoyevsky story.</span><br /></p></div><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:";font-size:10pt;color:black;" ></span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:";color:black;" >Yorke also tosses jabs at popular culture and the alluring promise of the ad world--"I want a perfect body"--before sullenly addressing the object of his desire and the distance of his alienation: "You're just like an angel, you float like a feather in a beautiful world."</span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:";color:black;" ><br /></span><div class="Section2"> <p class="MsoNormal" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style=";font-family:";" >But it's not the world Yorke dwells in.<span style=""> </span>His is a world of masks, of the spiritually dead.<span style=""> </span>The social contradictions in the song are nearly hopeless--what's left after the failure of innocence?<span style=""> </span>We guess that Yorke is crushed by the plasticized consumer culture while the girl, via her unrequested beauty, is naturally included.<br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:";color:black;" >About mid-song Yorke breaks into a chilling falsetto, as if there was nowhere left for his physical expression to go.<span style=""> </span>Howled over gristle and bone guitars, this middle eight ties together rock's great antiquarian highlights--Elvis Presley's "Blue Moon," Jimmy Logsdon's really weird "Midnight Blues," Roy Orbison's "In Dreams," even Marc Bolin's elegant explorations of exclusion--with the anti-romantic punk of the Sex Pistols and Nirvana.<span style=""> </span>"Creep" progresses on as well as it recalls earlier music; in this sense it has an achieved beauty that's as rare as it is difficult to sustain.</span><br /></p></div>Stewart Franckehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05928285155163194350noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1230897537717963120.post-85491988328847405262011-02-26T16:00:00.001-08:002011-02-26T16:06:20.107-08:00Hit The SF Facebook Fanpage<a href="http://www.facebook.com/jkerbaway">Stewart Francke Facebook Fanpage</a>Stewart Franckehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05928285155163194350noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1230897537717963120.post-77591420695434593952011-02-26T12:12:00.000-08:002011-02-26T12:53:41.214-08:00Happy Birthday Mitch Ryder: Devil With A Blue Dress<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:donotoptimizeforbrowser/> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--> <div class="Section1"> <p class="MsoNormal"><u><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" ><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:85%;" >Today is Mitch Ryder's 63rd birthday. Both a friend and mentor, Mitch is also one of the great rock singers and songwriters--a talent people don't often associate with him. We first met when I wrote this profile of Mitch for the Detroit Metro Times back in 1994. Here it is again, in celebration of his birthday. Mitch himself is touring in Europe as we speak--enjoying the success he describes in this piece as a form of salvation.<br /></span></span></u></p><p class="MsoNormal"><u><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" ><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:85%;" >Happy Birthday man, you're one of the great American artists. Here's many more years of hearing new records together...Love you.</span><br /></span></u><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" ></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" >"<span style="font-style: italic;">I don't know what it is about Mitch Ryder, but he has one of the greatest voices in America.</span>"<span style=""> </span>--Brian Wilson</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" >"<span style="font-style: italic;">Somewhere deep inside my wreckage, I will shine</span>."<span style=""> </span>--Mitch Ryder "Let It Shine"</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" >"A shouter is what they call me," says Mitch Ryder, now in his late 50s and still in search of his own soul.<span style=""> </span>The irony in Ryder's secondhand self-description comes both from time's indifferent march and his own sometimes-tortured progress:<span style=""> </span>That's to say, Mitch Ryder ain't Mitch Ryder anymore.<span style=""> </span>Not the one we know.<span style=""> </span>Hasn't been for some time.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" >The Mitch Ryder we speak of remains, of course, a boy, or at least a very young man: Dark hair hanging in a hip '60s slope, in chinos and a tight T-shirt, mouth stretched taut in a wild scream, a Marlon Brando look-alike singing some of the most joyous and unforgettable rock and roll ever made.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" >That Mitch Ryder is famous, a singer responsible for melding hard rock and R&B into what they called blue eyed soul, perhaps better than anyone, ever.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" >The Mitch Ryder sitting in front of me at a Royal Oak restaurant--hat on backwards, sunglasses, still athletic, his hairline the biggest concession to age--is a man who has worked hard to come to terms with that youthful specter of himself, that summer of love revenant who had the world at his feet.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" >To the current Mitch Ryder, that kid is a frozen image</span><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" >--</span><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" >an image that connected gloriously with his age, an image America fell in love with, but still an image. And that image creates an unsettling stir of expectation, frustration, broken promise, joy and heartache for Ryder today.</span><br /></p></div><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" >"Who cares who Mitch Ryder was in the '60s?" Ryder says.<span style=""> </span>"It's got to be irrelevant because it serves no purpose.<span style=""> </span>But it's also completely understandable.<span style=""> </span>At a very young age, we achieved the success that people strive their whole careers for.<span style=""> </span>It's unfortunate that we found success so early on in life.<span style=""> </span>I honestly feel when I listen to those old songs that they symbolize that success and also recall the memories of being a victim of a system that was in force at that time.<span style=""> </span>"Devil With A Blue Dress" is still included in the American landscape, whether it's at a sporting event or in a movie.<span style=""> </span>That little piece of us will go on."</span><div class="Section2"> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" >The tendency today is to reduce Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels to a kinetic period piece, to lump them in with classic rock or oldies tours.<span style=""> </span>Even astute rock critics have distilled Ryder's contribution to rock down to just a pair of exuberantly conceived medleys, 1965's "Jenny Take A Ride" and 1966's "Devil With A Blue Dress/Good Golly Miss Molly".</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" >The fact that the Wheels ended far too soon obscures their legacy.<span style=""> </span>Add to that Ryder's later move away from soul into a musical form characterized by a joyless expressiveness and commercial failure, and the conflict becomes clearer.<span style=""> </span>Yet the truth, marketplace be damned, is that he improved as he progressed.<span style=""> </span>Ryder's value lies first in the fact that he survived, and secondly in the manner in which he's survived.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" >"It could be very depressing, were it not for the fact that I found rebirth in Europe," Ryder says.<span style=""> </span>"I feel saved.<span style=""> </span>I've learned to accept the way that Americans feel.<span style=""> </span>But I don't have to let it stop me or slow me down.<span style=""> </span>I don't take it to heart.<span style=""> </span>I've put the memories in their proper place in my life, and I've allowed myself to move on and try to continue to fulfill my destiny as an artist."</span></p><iframe title="YouTube video player" width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Q2TeMpU4iu8" frameborder="0"></iframe><br /><br /><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" >Although the greater part of his career (everything after 1971) has been spent in a kind of obscurity, Ryder has increased the complexity of his search and the depth of his spiritual and moral investigation.<span style=""> </span>In the young Mitch Ryder, we hear a raw eroticism.<span style=""> </span>In his 11 records since that time (released independently and on Line Records, a German label), we hear a man attempting to make sense of his own often sordid experience.</span> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" >Before he was Mitch Ryder he was Billy Levise, a kid from a good home on Detroit's East Side in love with black music and Hank Williams.<span style=""> </span>In 1962, you could hear some of the good stuff on the radio, yet you could breathe it in downtown Detroit clubs like the Village (now a burlesque theater on Woodward just north of downtown's theater district) or the Twenty Grand (now known as the Grand Quarters on Grand Boulevard just east of Woodward).</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" >"I could tell there was a marked difference between Pat Boone and Little Richard," Ryder says of that time.<span style=""> </span>"Like any kid, I had to choose the kind of music that excited me; I had to claim it.<span style=""> </span>My heroes were black singers.<span style=""> </span>It just happened that way.<span style=""> </span>I didn't know what Little Richard was angry about, but I knew it came out in his sound.<span style=""> </span>I naturally chose to go near the people that were making that music.<span style=""> </span>The funny part is that it alienated me from my peers in school.<span style=""> </span>Their whole thing was a case of beer, a football game and getting laid that night.<span style=""> </span>So I went elsewhere and I found a great deal more than I was expecting."</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" >Ryder was drawn to this scene by the music's sensuality and its veiled political promise.<span style=""> </span>Bent on what they might later call the dream of democratic bliss, white kids fell in love with the sound and style of R&B in the early '60s.<span style=""> </span>In Ryder's story, two things of note happened at the Village:<span style=""> </span>He learned how to sing and he met Johnny Badanjek, Jimmy McCarty, Joe Kubert and Earl Elliott--The Detroit Wheels.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" >"They thought the way I did," Ryder says.<span style=""> </span>"We were kids that liked the same music.<span style=""> </span>The Beatles were very powerful at the time and like any American kid we said, "Fuck the British.<span style=""> </span>We can do that."<span style=""> </span>It</span><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" >=</span><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" >s a fierce anti-British thought that continues to this day.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" > </span></p> </div> <span style=";font-family:";color:black;" >Yet before they were officially the Wheels, they were Billy Lee and the Rivieras, playing sock hops and dances at the Walled Lake Casino or sitting in at the Village.<span style=""> </span>At 16, Ryder, with money from his parents, went to Los Angeles to fulfill what he considered to be his teenage destiny.</span><div class="Section3"> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" >"My parents were very supportive," Ryder says.<span style=""> </span>"They bought me a sharkskin suit, put me on a plane and gave me some money.<span style=""> </span>I was dropped off, petrified, at Hollywood and Vine.<span style=""> </span>I sat in the hotel room for days, just going out for food, and one day I put my suit on, walked out of the hotel, stopped and got my shoes shined and walked down to RCA.<span style=""> </span>The secretary was sitting in the lobby.<span style=""> </span>And I said something like, 'Is this who Elvis Presley records for?' She said 'Yeah.' I said, 'Well then, I'm at the right place.'<span style=""> </span>I went back to the hotel and waited.<span style=""> </span>Days passed.<span style=""> </span>I had to go back home with the bad news -- quite humiliating."</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" >When he returned from L.A., he cut a single, "Fool For You," for Carrie, a gospel label, and set about making the Rivieras happen.<span style=""> </span>In 1963, the band cut Bobby Freeman's "Do You Wanna Dance?" for Bryan Hyland's Hyland Records.<span style=""> </span>A year later, Billy Lee and the Rivieras became a sensation at the Walled Lake Casino, where they would play for as many as 3,000 kids a night.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" >"It was a very tight show," Ryder says, "a show we approached in warlike terms.<span style=""> </span>We did make a couple attempts at doing that British thing, but we realized it wasn't honest, wasn't righteous, and they were full of shit."</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" >After hearing of the band through local radio DJ Dave Prince, producer Bob Crewe -- then known for his work with the pop group the Four Seasons -- flew to Detroit to hear the Rivieras open for the Dave Clark Five.<span style=""> </span>After dragging his feet a bit, Crewe offered a recording contract.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" >By 1965, they became Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels, having selected the singer's name from a phone book in Manhattan, where Crewe had brought them to record.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" >"The hotel we were staying in had 19 or 20 lives in it and only five were human," Ryder says.<span style=""> </span>"It was at 71st and Broadway -- Needle Park.<span style=""> </span>We hung tight and waited."</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" >When they finally got into the studio and recorded a medley of Ma Rainey's "CC Rider" (via Chuck Willis) and Little Richard's "Jenny Take a Ride," the Wheels were just doing what they'd been doing all along back at the Casino.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" >"The medley thing came about because we never felt like stopping," Ryder says.<span style=""> </span>For the most, they cut things live in the studio.<span style=""> </span>One of the reasons for the manic, unhinged tempo of "Devil With a Blue Dress" was that the Rolling Stones happened to be present at the session.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" >"When the recordings came out, everything was primed to the point of perfection," Ryder says.<span style=""> </span>"Bob Crewe was a master at working the phone, a real hustler.<span style=""> </span>It exploded because everything was in the right place.<span style=""> </span>It took about four weeks for 'Jenny' to reach the top 10."</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" >Crewe was also skilled at cutting thrilling tracks.<span style=""> </span>Where he failed was in not seeing that Ryder's attractiveness was a combination of the singer's raw sexuality and the band's accomplished understanding of R&B forms.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" >Other hits -- "Little Latin Lupe Lu," "Sock It To Me Baby" -- made Ryder and the Wheels stars.<span style=""> </span>He was, the thinking went at the time, another acceptable white substitute for Little Richard.<span style=""> </span>The Wheels provided the sonic and spiritual groundwork for what would become the much-heralded, high-energy "Detroit sound".</span></p> </div> <span style=";font-family:";font-size:10pt;color:black;" ><br /></span> <div class="Section4"> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" >"Once they said, 'This is you, you have hit records and you'll continue to have them,' we started to take it all for granted," Ryder recalls.<span style=""> </span>"I can comfortably look back at that group and say we were deserving, but it's in the way we were manipulated and victimized that brings the painful memories up."</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" >Just as success arrived, Crewe felt Bandanjek, McCarty and Kubert to be expendable (Elliott had already left for the military).<span style=""> </span>In 1967, Crewe persuaded Ryder to go solo in bombastic fashion -- a big Vegas horn band, glitzy costumes and an album, "What Now My Love," that featured sappy arrangements and Rod McKuen's lyrics.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" >"The group should have stayed together," Ryder says flatly.<span style=""> </span>"Crewe drove a wedge into it.<span style=""> </span>His self-interest overruled the wisdom of giving us an identity.<span style=""> </span>His frame of reference was Vegas; in his mind that was as high as you could go.<span style=""> </span>He kept telling me I deserved more; he played on my vanity and my youth.<span style=""> </span>But you've got to understand:<span style=""> </span>The group was headed for a crisis anyway because of Jimmy and me.<span style=""> </span>Jimmy had the wisdom to see it was about guitars and drums.<span style=""> </span>I didn't feel that way.<span style=""> </span>I didn't have the courage to make it happen and neither did Jimmy.<span style=""> </span>Crewe exploited that.<span style=""> </span>Here I've got tons of money, girls everywhere, everything I've ever wanted.<span style=""> </span>Why?<span style=""> </span>Well it must be because I'm great.<span style=""> </span>It wasn't a hard sell."</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" >By early '67 it was all but over.<span style=""> </span>The Wheels continued for about a year without Mitch; Ryder himself toured with the show band for some time before it became evident it was all wrong.<span style=""> </span>The money was huge (as much as $18,000 per show), but it was squandered.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" >And the bad feelings among the Wheels lingered.<span style=""> </span>Since then, Badanjek has never seen a royalty check from those great Wheels singles.<span style=""> </span>And Ryder sees himself as the unknowing naif, victimized by a corrupt system.<span style=""> </span>In the summer, the oldies tours and the old hits help him financially; in the winter, the wolf is at the door.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" >Thinking back, Ryder recalls "a very dark time":<span style=""> </span>"My personal life suffered, my business dissolved," he says.<span style=""> </span>"I had a divorce pending and two lawsuits against management.<span style=""> </span>As far as I knew, everything was given to me and now they were taking it away.<span style=""> </span>Why?"</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" >In 1968, Ryder returned to Detroit briefly before going to Memphis to work with Steve Cropper and Duck Dunn at Stax.<span style=""> </span>Released in 1969, the <i>Detroit/Memphis Experiment </i>is a flawed masterpiece.<span style=""> </span>When Ryder sings with great acumen, he lacks soul.<span style=""> </span>When he sings with real conviction, he's a little out of the pocket.<span style=""> </span>Only on the marvelous "Liberty" is he both technically and emotionally sound.<span style=""> </span>As <i>The Detroit/Memphis Experiment </i>was about to be released, Ryder hooked up with Creem magazine founder Barry Kramer in a management situation.<span style=""> </span>Out of step with both psychedelia and the burgeoning singer/songwriter movement, the record stiffed.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" >"Barry set about trying to re-introduce me to an American audience," Ryder says.<span style=""> </span>"And here I am, hair down to the middle of my back with a mustache.<span style=""> </span>Becoming a hippie and losing myself."</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" >The Detroit Wheels got together one last time, on Sept. 17, 1969, in Sarnia, Ontario.<span style=""> </span>The event would have gotten noticed if it wasn't held on the last night of the Woodstock festival.<span style=""> </span>The closest the group ever came to re-forming with any meaning was with the short-lived 70s supergroup Detroit.<span style=""> </span>Featuring Ryder, Badanjek and guitarist Steve Hunter, the band released an eponymously titled album in 1971.<span style=""> </span>Full of ferocious guitars and hermetic grooves, <i>Detroit</i> is, along with the MC5's <i>Kick Out the Jams</i>, the seminal Motor City hard rock record -- complete with a scorching cover of Wilson Pickett's "I Found a Love" and Dave Marsh liner notes.</span></p> </div> <span style=";font-family:";color:black;" >The band's cover of Lou Reed's "Rock and Roll" became huge--an early '70s FM radio staple, yet that wasn't enough to keep Detroit from dissolving in front of Ryder's own eyes.</span><div class="Section5"> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" >"The problem was we lived what we were.<span style=""> </span>I had changed management and allowed my politics to affect the direction of my music.<span style=""> </span>So I hooked up with John Sinclair.<span style=""> </span>Now that was a wild experience."</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" >Then, the dark night of the soul.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" >"The subsequent years were the darkest period in my life," Ryder says.<span style=""> </span>"I was still living here, if you can call it that -- extremely paranoid and self-destructive.</span><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" >@</span><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" ></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" >Embittered, fractured and strung out, Ryder moved to Denver to work a day job and sort himself out.<span style=""> </span>He stayed five years.<span style=""> </span>"I was able to detox and become very spiritual," Ryder says.<span style=""> </span>"Not that I found God, but I found life.<span style=""> </span>I was completely out of the public eye.<span style=""> </span>I had to work for my support.<span style=""> </span>All of a sudden it was like what I felt as a teenager again.<span style=""> </span>I became extremely productive.<span style=""> </span>I'm thankful I was able to pull myself out of it.<span style=""> </span>I'm not here to tell anybody about drugs.<span style=""> </span>I'm saying that for me as a person, they're completely unproductive and hurtful.<span style=""> </span>I don't need 'em.<span style=""> </span>Not that I didn't go to therapy kicking and screaming."</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" >The musical result of his time in Colorado, 1978's <i>How I Spent My Vacation</i>, ranks with John Lennon's "Mother," Nick Drake's "Pink Moon" and Marvin Gaye's <i>Here, My Dear </i>as examples of personal honesty and artistic clarity.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" >Released on his own Seeds and Stems label (as was its follow-up, <i>Naked (But Not Dead</i>), <i>How I Spent My Vacation </i>runs from the poignant ("Passion's Wheel") to the sexually explicit ("The Jon") to stately punk rock ("Tough Kid").<span style=""> </span>The record is also notable for laying bare Ryder's sexual ambivalence.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" >"It's one thing to be frank about your sexuality," he says, "and it's quite another thing to be mistaken about your sexuality while you're being frank about it."</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" >More than that (or because of it), this was rock and roll of an uncompromising, unguarded nature as done by one of its troubled architects.<span style=""> </span>In its theme and tone, <i>How I Spent My Vacation </i>said that the world of appearances is both real and a mask through which we painfully see more ultimate forces at work--that our only protection from the destructiveness of self-deceit is the presence of others.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" >If the young Mitch Ryder wanted to sock it to you, and the Mitch Ryder of Detroit wanted to retreive something stolen from him, something he could barely recall, then this new Mitch Ryder wanted to above all else disturb you by shouting out the unwelcome truth.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" >Ryder's affiliation with Line Records produced more records -- <i>Live Talkies, Got Change For a Million, Smart Ass </i>-- before he again found himself at an American major label, this time at the insistence of John Mellencamp.<span style=""> </span>Their collaboration, 1983's <i>Never Kick A Sleeping Dog</i>, featured a torrid take on Prince's "When You Were Mine" as well as a bare duet with Marianne Faithfull.<span style=""> </span>The record's momentum eventually withered after selling a respectable 80,000 copies.<span style=""> </span>Two other Line records, <i>Red Blood, White Mink and In the China Shop</i>, were released after the Mellencamp record.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" > </span></p> </div> <span style=";font-family:";font-size:10pt;color:black;" ><br /></span> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" >Ryder still tours regularly, both here and in Germany, where his audience is larger, younger and more enthusiastic.<span style=""> </span>He will still occasionally perform with Johnny Bee and McCarty, as he did the night before we spoke.<span style=""> </span>But the Wheels, as they were in 1967, do not exist.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" >"I think it's been forgiven," Ryder says of their past trouble.<span style=""> </span>"I think they understand it wasn't my fault."</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" >Even so, the enigmatic McCarty wasn't present when Ryder and the Wheels were given lifetime achievement awards by the Motor City Music Awards in 1994.<span style=""> </span>Later, when Ryder sang "Devil With a Blue Dress" at the awards ceremony, it still sounded alive and relevant.<span style=""> </span>Yet he must dream of performing an American show where the emphasis is on the material from his later work rather than <i>Break Out</i>!</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" >The American record industry, he says, wants people to believe that "the only way you can be successful is to walk through fire."</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" >"Well, I've walked through the fire and I don't believe that's true.<span style=""> </span>I believe there's another way -- I just haven't found it.<span style=""> </span>I can be satisfied knowing that I'm pursuing my art honestly or I can long for that mass adulation.<span style=""> </span>What's that worth in terms of me being able to live my life?<span style=""> </span>I'm in hot pursuit of a life that's peaceful and fulfilling, and still I'm wondering, 'Why can't I do this in America?'<span style=""> </span>I want to be famous again in America.<span style=""> </span>My music's good enough.<span style=""> </span>I don't know where the conflict comes from, but I can tell you I'll get to the bottom of it sooner or later.<span style=""> </span>It may come to pass that it's just a wish."</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" >After a couple of failed marriages, Ryder is again married and living in the Detroit area with his wife, Megan, and her children.<span style=""> </span>It is a measure of his own self-respect that he's now attentive to the fragile nature of familial connections; they matter greatly to him, perhaps as much as the artistic struggle.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" >"Right now I'd like to see all of us -- my stepchildren, me, my wife -- feel emotionally safe," he says.<span style=""> </span>"If I had a wish for anything in my life, it would be that we go on, on the best possible terms."</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" >If not resolved, then Ryder's conflict is well clarified-a beginning to peace of mind.<span style=""> </span>Maybe he's defeated that clinging notion of sorrow and self-doubt just by getting better at his craft and caring for his family.<span style=""> </span>Maybe that's all we have.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" >But you just can't kill those frozen images, those haunted pledges of a time when we all seemed so much younger.<span style=""> </span>And you can't, despite all of its promise and deliverance, rock and roll them to death.<span style=""> </span>You've got to swallow hard and learn to live with it, whatever it is.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" >"Rock and roll as defined is about rebellion, sex and unfortunately drugs," Ryder says.<span style=""> </span>"You have to accept it but you don't have to embrace it.<span style=""> </span>I've found I can't embrace the drug culture.<span style=""> </span>Questions of my own sexuality have been explored and dealt with through my music, so I'm comfortable with it.<span style=""> </span>That leaves rebellion.<span style=""> </span>It's the one anchor to rock and roll that I can't raise up out of the water.<span style=""> </span>Because I'm afraid I'll no longer know what the music is about.<span style=""> </span>Rebellion helps me define my youth; by holding on to it I can still claim my youth.<span style=""> </span>In the end, if you don't have the money and the mass adulation, at least you have your dignity and your self-respect intact.<span style=""> </span>You can say, 'Look, I've been true to this.'"</span></p>Stewart Franckehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05928285155163194350noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1230897537717963120.post-39649819157516167562011-01-03T08:16:00.000-08:002011-01-03T08:32:51.063-08:00WE MADE OUR FUNDING GOAL! A NOTE TO SUPPORTERS<div class="body" style="font-family:lucida grande;"><p><span style="font-size:100%;">Hi everyone...This Kickstarter cd funding campaign began 40 days ago with the hope that fans & friends would buy into the concept, then feel that new music of mine was worth layin' down some hard-earned money for--before they heard it. So with that hope was a <span style="font-style: italic;">large</span> amount of apprehension. Add to that the dark economy in Michigan and that I'd not released any new work since 2002 (except for "Motor City Serenade" with the Funk Brothers in 2006)---this was a very uncertain thing. </span></p> <p><span style="font-size:100%;">So to say this morning that I'm knocked out by the love and affirmation is to only speak to half my feeling and a quarter of my gratitude to you all. We not only made the goal but surpassed it! Great thanks to everyone in my audience. More than the money, the process brought ideas and ideals into clear focus about what it is I'm doing as a musician, who you are and what you want from me, what my songs are about and how they attempt to connect, and who we are as a community.<br /></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:100%;">Although I'd read and researched quite a bit about the concept of crowdfunding and this site specifically, it remains a new idea, largely untested. As I've said, I do believe it's the future for artists to continue working, a necessary part of a musician's ongoing relationship with audience as it relates to creating new music. It's worked well for acts with a larger international profile, but requires true commitment and loyalty in the artist-fan relationship. </span></p> <p><span style="font-size:100%;">We'll soon be in touch with all of you who pledged for your addresses, T-shirt size, instructions for shows and of course getting you the cd--everything associated with fulfilling these rewards. I've tried to thank all of you privately, and will, but several of you were very encouraging with ideas at the very beginning of this process (hey np) and a couple of you used your jobs and status as radio & tv show hosts, tastemakers and journalists to let the public know about this--thanks for that. </span></p> <p><span style="font-size:100%;">I also want to briefly say something about why I continue to live and work here in Detroit, and what that consciously means each day to me. When I first heard Mitch Ryder, Levi Stubbs, David Ruffin, Aretha Franklin, The MC5 or Bob Seger as a young kid, it completely turned my head around about new ways to think, dress, and live. We've now taken that music--our music--into what was once called middle age without any loss of passion, excitement or interest. We’re only now able to prove, just like sculptors and painters and pilots and accountants and corporate executives, that you can get better at songwriting and performing as you get older.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size:100%;">If you're a musician and you're from Detroit, I think there really is a certain way we do things around here. Yea, it’s always been about attitude--Kid Rock's built an empire on attitude. It's how we wear what we wear, and how we take the stage. But it's also about forgiveness and tolerance and soul and love and avoiding the chasm between artist and image. It's about leaving a part of yourself on every stage you take and never faking it, whether you’re playing powerfully loud rock and roll or soft jazz. The pure life in the phrase “Kick out the jams, Motherf*%^r” surely led to the equally redemptive phrase of Bruce Springsteen’s, “It Ain’t No Sin To Be Glad You’re Alive.” </span></p> <p><span style="font-size:100%;">It's a phrase many of us live by. I am alive, and I’m more than glad, as hard as these times have been.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size:100%;">As a musician and songwriter, I work in the complimentary genres of Rock and Soul for several reasons. One idea says that this kind of music has stayed with us for so long and with such popularity because it says that all of us are at heart alike in love, longing, fear, hope and ambition. I embrace that idea, largely cuz it's true.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size:100%;">Soul is, for better or worse, about suffering, survival and then, an ornery optimism. It’s about scar tissue. Soul is faith when cynicism is easier. It's hangin’ in there when you've had it. It’s knowing we’re born to die, yet living with real passion. It's not necessarily about unconditional love, but it is about letting a person's character be your main source for your judgment of him or her. Al Green says that soul is "fearing no evil." Maybe that describes it best. It's a quality of heart, especially after you know all there is to fear. The late great Solomon Burke said he dreamed of writing a song that would do no less than save the world if everyone sang it.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size:100%;">The romantic aspects in my songs come from trying to find what's heroic when faced with any kind of unrelenting reality, whether it's no job, no money, cancer, loss, any unlivable situation that you must live with. Maybe just facing it is heroic. Everyone has their own moment of hardcore reality, where they see who they really are and what their life is really worth. I try and tell myself this: No one gets out alive. It's not like you're gonna do something so great or make so much money and you're then gonna get a reprieve from this sentence and live forever. So why not approach problems with a joyous heart, in touch with community, and the knowledge that it's just a brief trip through time. </span></p> <p><span style="font-size:100%;">Easier said than done. But looking into the abyss is no way to make a living. Music at its best should compel those that hear it toward some kind of physical change: learn more, have more compassion, become interested in its shared ideals, open up, dance your ass off, let it reach you, have some fun. Music is the one art form principally about feeling. I’ve seen this in action when playing at large venues, bars, weddings, wherever--the individual waking up to the community and a community alive, open and aware enough to welcome him or her into it. Which is what you've just done for me--I'll soon return the favor with music and shows.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size:100%;">Have a great 2011, and I'll talk to you soon. </span></p></div>Stewart Franckehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05928285155163194350noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1230897537717963120.post-89493421674453828342010-12-27T11:33:00.001-08:002010-12-27T11:33:10.282-08:00We're just a few bucks shy of our goal with less than a week to go. Response has been fantastic, and a little more help would put us over--very important because this is an all-or-nothing funding site. You get rewards for different amounts donated, with most pledges just $15 or $25. Kickstarter SF link: <a href="http://kck.st/edX8ix">http://kck.st/edX8ix</a>Stewart Franckehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05928285155163194350noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1230897537717963120.post-66280674573148055952010-12-22T09:12:00.001-08:002010-12-22T09:12:45.004-08:00My new cd funding is close to $12,000...we just need $3000 to reach goal. Thanks. Help out at link -- Merry Christmas! <a href="http://kck.st/edX8ix">http://kck.st/edX8ix</a>Stewart Franckehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05928285155163194350noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1230897537717963120.post-19921149402294397702010-12-19T09:14:00.000-08:002010-12-19T09:22:41.036-08:00A Few Thoughts On The Biz: Where We Are NowThis is a note to all the supporter of my kickstarter funding project, about the changes in the music business and the fresh opportunities for independent artists. If you'd like to pledge, hit this link:<br /> <a href="http://kck.st/edX8ix" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://kck.st/edX8ix</a><br /><br />Welcome to this creative project funding platform, a part of the new normal in the music biz. The change in the business over the last couple years means exciting times for independent artists and music entrepreneurs. In this new era, the traditional gatekeepers are disappearing, and new distribution outlets, marketing techniques, and business models are popping up all the time.<br /><br />Because of the internet, every artist is a world artist, with the ability to reach fans in other countries. And the business change affects musical content too—although this new record of mine will be a full length cd, in the coming year I would also like to release a 6 song cd after it, or a 3-song EP every three months or even a song every month. The new model is about you, and my musical relationship with you. Much is possible.<br /><br />No excuse exists with today’s technology to wait for the star-making machinery to make it happen for you, but that’s always how I’ve conducted my career. In fact, so much of what’s happening now has been my reality for many years as an independent, DIY musician—funding production, using smaller distribution on a budget, talking personally to radio about airplay based on the quality of the songs, working in a niche creatively, doing regional press, investing in your own career, being a part of a music scene and playing shows in unusual venues.<br /><br />Over the past several years we’ve worked hard to firm up quality business relationships, with publishing administration (Casablanca Media in the US & Canada, Open Times in the UK & Europe), distributors, licensing companies and all areas of the media. But the most important aspect to success as an independent artist is to keep it fresh. New songs and new shows and new ideas. This is where your funding is crucial right now; I’ll get new music out on a very consistent basis.<br /><br />The marketing and promotional ideas we’ll be using once this record is released include reaching out through social networks, blog tours, traditional print and all forms of TV, satellite and terrestrial radio, online and physical retail, and continued communication through the website with all of you.<br /><br />The new model hinges on the fact that recorded music, in downloads or physical cds, is now the loss leader of the entertainment industry. Downloads are free, by and large, to a lot of music lovers, especially younger ones. Whatever the many reasons, the old model has disintegrated, and the reality is that fewer and fewer people are paying for music.<br /><br />It seems like arguing against file sharing or free downloads is kind of like getting pissed at water for being wet--it's something that simply is, and is here to stay. And from where I sit as an independent artist, if I'm candid about it, free music is both angel and devil--my primary interest as a musician is to communicate and connect with my audience the emotion and ideas in a song, to pass the buzz of creation along and have it become part of your life.<br /><br />So songs passing freely from ear to ear is what I want to happen! But I also need to continue to do my job as a functioning, air breathing, bill paying, food eating artist who lives in the commodified real world. Mozart went to Emperor Josef, one sole patron. With this model, there are hundreds and eventually thousands of supporters, and it’s a healthy conversation -- the artist creating their music, the fans communicating directly with the artist, although I ain’t no Mozart.<br /><br />With free music as the norm, the fear is that we'll eventually just have records from superstars on one end and hobbyists on the other, squeezing out the regional artists and bands, the older singers and songwriters, and the crucial contributions of the more eccentric and avant garde. But I'm surely not telling you to stop downloading free stuff or file sharing—on the contrary. I’m just saying a) make sure it’s not my stuff (smile) and b) I think it’s a mistake to think we’re making some grand statement against corporate fat cats and their out-of-control capitalist ways by downloading free music.<br /><br />And I'm also saying to all of you how much I appreciate your support in this, how important it is in today's new world, and how you're making our world a sane, thinking and fair one by sanctioning this transaction and others like them. Thank you for having some faith in me, my work and my commitment to it.<br /><br />Making a record--from the writing of melodies and lyrics, arranging, casting musicians, recording basic tracks, myriad overdubs of vocals, solos, strings and horns, rewriting, re-recording, hiring art design for a cover, then mixing and mastering and manufacturing--takes every bit of focus and vitality I have to give. If I do it with full emotional wattage, (and there ain't no other way), it allows precious else in its orbit. It's the most demanding of any possible mistress--imagine the Glenn Close character in Fatal Attraction on steroids, even crazier, screaming “do it again!” Devoting yourself fully to it makes your knees weak, makes your roof leak, makes your bones squeak--and there's nothing else I'd rather do.<br /><br />Then, when the record's done and coming out, it calls for an entirely different skill set that involves: promotional persistence (which leaves you feeling spent and icky--imagine asking your father in law for money 200 times a day), marketing moxie, an understanding of brand and image (that feels contrary to the very real human connection you seek when actually writing and recording the music) and most importantly, functioning as a bandleader and employer of other musicians and taking the songs out in front of people--maybe the most thrilling and challenging part of this large process.<br /><br />It’s very fashionable these days for small labels and bands to use analytics and other online marketing data to try and determine who their audience is and what they want. These tools eventually have their place somewhere in the post-release process, but I think it’s contrary to the pure artistic impulse. I make music that satisfies its own standards and traditions and tells my story, songs that will then hopefully reach you the same way I want to be reached. I want to be moved and move you, be excited and excite you--not market to you. I hope this update gives you some idea of how your money will be applied, and how we’ll make it work as efficiently as we can, in many different areas.<br /><br />A VERY Brief History of the Record Business<br /><br />1. Early 20th Century: Musicians play live music in symphonies, operas, chamber ensembles, pubs, houses, bars, fields and the workplace.<br />2. 1930s: The wide use of radio transformed time and space and made it possible for huge numbers of people to enjoy free music. Vinyl LPs allowed folks to take music home and play it.<br />3. Post WWII Expansion -- Record labels brought recorded music to market while publishing companies found ways to exploit the “song” through licensing.<br />4. 1960-2000 Motown, The Beatles, 45rpm vinyl singles, modern recording methods, Rock Star era, cassettes, cds, computers & mp3s.<br />5. File Sharing: Napster, itunes & the iPod -- The power shifts from the record companies to the tech companies, the music fans—and the artists themselves.<br />6. The End Of The Corporate Record Labels? -- When the labels realized people were trading MP3 files online--their own customers interested in music—they decided to aggressively sue them.<br />7. Where We Are Today—and why success for independent solo artist has never been more in focus. Large labels are becoming banks, and their problem is that the single income stream they have traditionally participated in (sales of recorded music) has drastically shrunk.<br />8. The New Artist Model --- The traditional record business has never really been good for MOST of us musicians. Technology has shifted the power base from the record labels to the artists and managers—but ultimately to you, the music fans. A middle class of musicians is forming where people can make a living or part of a living in music more predictably. They are pursuing a business model that puts them in the center of the equation and gives them more choice about their career path.<br />9. Creative Funding Platforms -- where performer and fan/patron are meeting with direct relationships enabled by interest & technology. Can't make a fortune anymore, but you can make a living. You are surrounded not by fad and infatuation, but by music Fans.<br />10. The Future -- Mobile music and images (content) on the UMD (Universal Mobile Device). Listen to music, watch your favorite artists rehearse, read lyrics, call home, call friends—limitless immediate involvement with music and artists. Artists can record today and get a new song to you tonight, with artwork & lyrics and video.Stewart Franckehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05928285155163194350noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1230897537717963120.post-84423954628981631962010-12-09T07:31:00.001-08:002010-12-09T07:31:20.044-08:00@ The Ark in Ann Arbor tonight. Concert for Peace. 7:30pm. See ya there.Stewart Franckehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05928285155163194350noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1230897537717963120.post-28449883480694561262010-11-05T09:09:00.000-07:002012-11-28T13:55:24.052-08:00SurvivingHere are the Ten Essential Emotional Realities that contributed to my survival:<br />1. Nowhere To Run To: facing your own reality honestly.<br />2. Hearing Your Own Heart: the gospel impulse says that it's not what happens to you, it's how you handle it. We will take this pain and suffering and turn it into something that endures or lives on through others should I die.<br />3. Surrendering Just Enough To Fight On: the paradox of survival and the possibility of grace in your case.<br />4. Hearing Your Own Music: move in step with yourself.<br />5. Friendship & Faith: taking others as they are and accepting help.<br />6. Heat and Passion: love of living despite the pain.<br />7. Peripheral Spiritual Vision: there’s more than meets the eye.<br />8. Anger and Impatience: Only The Pissed Survive.<br />9. Wearing Your Will Like Armor: determination & accepting the paradox that we are born to die. So we really live while we’re alive.<br />10. Surviving Survival: Learning To Laugh at Yourself.<br />Stewart Franckehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05928285155163194350noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1230897537717963120.post-20614732697481910602010-10-09T19:04:00.001-07:002010-10-09T19:09:26.436-07:00To My Son on Confirmation DayDear Stewie, <br /><br />The day you were born was one of the three great days of my life, not just because I had a son, but because it was you. You had a distinctive and attractive personality from the moment you opened your eyes. You staked a claim in my heart and in this world from your first howling cry.<br /><br />It’s hard to explain, but when you become a parent, you’re still just yourself, the guy you were in school and in bands and everywhere else, wondering how you can make your kid’s life a happy and productive one, and also wondering what kind of person you’re raising.<br /><br />You’ve evolved recently from being a happy and humorous little boy to being a kid, now on to being a teenager, and it’s been interesting and exciting to watch. You’ve always had a great yearning for adventure, and I think you’re sometimes worried you’re not always where the action is. But you have that wondrous gift of making things happen wherever you are—you're where the action is, because you make things fun around you.<br /><br />You’re an amazingly moral person, particularly for such a young guy, and you always have been—concerned with what was right and wrong, what was the best thing to do, and what the consequences were for other people should you or they do something. I’m very proud of you for many things, but that stands out. You deeply love your family, and that doesn’t stop with your parents and sister. You love your cousins and aunts and uncles, and you let them know you love them.<br /><br />That maybe is your most remarkable characteristic—you’re a joyously affectionate boy, and you need affection in return. Try not to lose that as you get older and bigger. It’s not a sign of weakness—in Europe the toughest, most macho men are also the most affectionate with friends and family. You’re a loving person, and what better thing can be said about someone?<br /><br />You’re an amazing athlete, with tremendous natural gifts. Plus you work hard to refine those gifts, and you put the time in to make yourself better. I’m very proud of you for that, and look forward to watching you make the most of your gifts. <br /><br />Your life is something great to watch and witness—such a huge creation coming from that great April day when you were born. You love and are loved in return, you’re great at things you love and want to sink your teeth into, you’re very very funny, with a crazy sense of humor, and you have a large and diverse interest in all things in this world, from sports to nature to cars to music to different places. <br /><br />Stay true, stay young, stay hungry, stay funny, stay interested, stay happy and loving. You’re a dream come true for me as your Dad, and I look forward to watching you grow into a young man. Love you with all my heart.Stewart Franckehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05928285155163194350noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1230897537717963120.post-55389800732598854802010-09-10T18:31:00.001-07:002010-09-10T18:31:16.239-07:00We're playing a show at the Trinity House tomorrow night, 9/11. 38840 6 Mile Road, Livonia. (734) 464-6302<br />Full band, w/ acoustic stuff 2.Stewart Franckehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05928285155163194350noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1230897537717963120.post-87610416735723519482010-09-01T15:54:00.001-07:002010-09-01T15:54:51.048-07:00PS to AB&E show announcement: I won't be packin' heat-not a gun anyway. Music is our weapon; songs r the ammo; we heal the wound with soul.Stewart Franckehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05928285155163194350noreply@blogger.com0