My LA Tribe Coming Back into My Life
I was working on grading a driveway for my 23 acre property. No small task. I was about a week into a 4 week stint, when I got a message from someone I haven't seen 39 years. Steve Motz my business partner in a demo studio in LA messaged me over Facebook. It was the last thing I expected. My mind was blown. He said he and Debra were looking me. Debra had tracked me through LinkedIn and then used the photo to do an image search where she found the FB page.
Even though I work for a tech company, I hadn't gotten into the whole social media thing at all. In fact, I had just posted a Facebook page about couple of months ago only for the sake of standing up a songwriting career. And there we were on a three way call while I had dinner at a Mexican restaurant. It was like no time passed at all. The three of us just as we were. It was the voices that I knew real well. We caught up, swapped stories, it was just amazing. They both had children, multiple phases of life, we went back in time and shared things that had happened to us. What I know is I had let go of that time, and those connections, they have come back. I won't let go again.
Steve is still playing guitar in bands, but it turns out Debra was writing music. I'm thinking excellent, me too. And made we make plans to share our material. I thought, I'm writing, you're writing, let's get together and see what we can do. Nashville is all about the cowrite. What I remember is Debbie playing in a hard rock band called Phantom Blue as a bass player. I was there when they played the Troubadour. The band sandbagged them all. They clunked their stings, made it sound like they didn't know what they were doing. I looked down the bar, and saw the smirks. All the leather jacketed dudes thinking this is going to suck. I knew what was coming. Wait for it....then they launched. Every head down the bar, went "What?" The backs straightened, all the heads pivoted at the same time. The mouths opened, and almost in unison, they went, "WTF?" It's no wonder Shrapnel signed them, and they ended up at Geffen.
But I never heard Debbie sing. I do know she was always writing poetry and lyrics. We used to talk about a lot of things we shared interests in. I'd see her at times working away at writing something. I think we dabbled a little bit in writing together. She told me she had a tape that we did. I still haven't heard it, but truthfully, I don't remember. I was busy working on the studio and getting that going...
Well, I was sitting in my F250, one of the many rain stops while I was working on the dig, and Debbie sent me a song. I clicked the button. The phone is blue toothed to my truck radio. It came on. I heard the opening bars of the music, the beginning verse, then the melody lifted, and took off. The lyric was just right. The melody and the lyric fused, and the story unfolded and the whole song got in my mind. She had told me she was working on her 'dumb little songs.' Nothing could have been further from the truth. The weren't dumb, they weren't little. Most of the time when you listen to someone's songs, there are varying degrees on reaction, for this, I was stunned. My thought was somebody in the sync world has to hear this. HOME does monthly meet with industry sync producers. So, that's where I'll eventually go with it.
Let me tell you this. It wasn't just me. I showed it to people I know. I told them you've got to hear this. They had the same reaction. I was in my hotel room, playing along to it to learn the music. I had played it at night. And I was doing it again in the morning before I left for the day, and I had someone pounding on my door. I thought, well, maybe I was disturbing someone. I opened the door, and this guy was standing there. He looked at me, and then looked around me. He said, "We're you just playing that song?" I said, "It's a song a friend of mine sent me to hear. I was playing along to it to learn it." I was on it pretty good. So, he had heard the music, the guitar, and the singing and was captivated by it. He probably thought he was going to met the woman who's voice was on the recording. He probably thought she is playing guitar and singing in the room next door. Instead he got me. He looked at me, and said, "I don't know enough about music to know if you got what it takes, but SHE DOES! I'm still laughing about it. Off he went, and I went on with my day.
Well, it gets better. I'm thinking, well, I asked Debbie, how about I send you some music. I have something maybe you'd like so see what you think of it. So, I send some music to Debbie. I called it Morning Robin. Sammi my friend in Texas always called it Sammi's Song, and it still is. I had written it on her back patio. A robin sat a few feet away listening to what I was doing. It was a wonderful moment. I created the main parts, then tinkered with it for a few days.
In a few days, maybe a week, back comes a song. I'm back in my truck, another rain delay. Imagine that. No wonder the grass is green around here in TN. Sure as hell ain't Texas where I lived for the last 30 years. I clicked the button. Again, the opening bars of music. The first line of the verse, and again, the melody lifted, and took off. It took me on ride. It was an amalgam of the working title, things we talked about recently, the spirit of the music and topline came together, and again, I was stunned. I heard a perfectly formed song. Some production glitches, but the chords, the topline were all perfectly in place. I basically cried when I heard it. I don't mind saying that, it was beautiful. I sat in my truck and got to hear our shared creation. You see, Debbie stopped playing music for decades. She had only recently returned to doing a few years back. About the same time, I started really writing music. It totally smacks of synchronicity.
Debra is in the center of the photo to the left of the guy in the red jacket (some of you might know who that is). I'm in the lower left hand corner with Cathy. This is Thanksgiving 1987.
This is Steve on the right, with you know who.
You know people say, you have to go find you 'tribe' when you get to Nashville. Well, I've made a start with that, and I'm really pleased with the people I have met, but my old tribe just found me. And I'm completely blown away. I have my new world and old world coming together. I now have 2 excellent cowriters I get to work with...
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