Live Band, Six Lines from Daisy Jones and The Six

Paul Seiz on April 26, 2023

I love playing in a live band, and I love reading live bands

Just finished reading Daisy Jones and The Six, by Taylor Jenkins-Reid. A lovely story about love, heartache, and rock and roll, set in the backdrop of 1970’s Los Angeles, a hotbed of live-music creativity in the 20th century. Here are my six favorite lines from the book that line up with our experience as Songwheels the live-band.

1. Win The Battle Before Its Begun

Win the battle before it’s begun
BiLLY: I stood there in front of that crowd, stone sober, feeling their excitement, knowing “Honeycomb” was heading for the Top 10. And I knew I had those people in the palm of my hand. I knew they wanted to like us. They already liked us. I didn’t have to win them over. I stood on that stage and … we’d already won.

Okay, still with me here, but this sounds like one of my favorite passages from The Art of War.

In these lie the expert’s victory in arms.  Such strategies are not to be divulged beforehand, nor can they be taught before the battle.  Now, the one who has the most tallies in the “temple calculations” before battle will surely be victorious over the one with fewer, let alone the one who has no tallies at all!  From this I conclude that victory and defeat can be foreseen.

Using the temple calculations above, victory and defeat can be foreseen.  The battle has already been determined.  The win/loss outcome is already set.  But there’s a crucial piece missing here, something we must address.  In battle, there is a winner and loser.  Similarly in sporting events, one team defeats the other team, the we count scoreTh at the end of the game, we all go home knowing who won and who lost.  We don’t have this in the arts.  What constitutes a win?

As performers in a live band, we believe that a great show is a win-win situation. We have a great time on stage, and the audience has a great time with us. Billy’s “temple calculations” were complete; his band was strategically positioned to win. What a great feeling…

2. Risk and Confidence Onstage


BILLY: Daisy didn’t actually have confidence. She was always good. Confidence is okay being bad, not okay being good.

We take a ton of risks in a Songwheels live band show. The audience will challenge us to perform unusual material, sometimes completely un-rehearsed. When that happens, the band instinctively trusts each other. We look around the stage for confidence, knowing that even if this is bad, we’ll have a great time and look forward to the next tune. There’s no moment so bad that we can’t fix it! Having that trust in each other allows us to risk the show for a great moment.

Live band, how Songwheels is like Daisy Jones and The Six
Paul and Misha performing in a Songwheels live band show in Kansas City, MO

3. Managing Conflict in live band


On Conflict
WARREN: Some people just don’t threaten each other. And other people threaten everything about each other. Just the way it is.

Onstage chemistry is undeniable. I’ve been in live bands that didn’t gel musically, but we were great at partying as soon as the show was over. I’ve also been in bands that were made up of musical geniuses, and we all hated each other. Finding the right crew of people that balance respect, musicianship, professionalism…it’s not easy. When you’ve got it, hold on to it! We’ve finally found that in our collective of Kansas City musicians, and we love it!

4. Self-Acceptance


On self-acceptance
DAISY: Knowing you’re good can only take you so far. At some point, you need someone else to see it, too. Appreciation from people you admire changes how you see yourself…Everybody wants somebody to hold up the right mirror.

Daisy is a character in perpetual struggle of accepting herself. This line is an example of a broken clock being right, twice a day. I can identify times in my life when I agree with what Daisy is saying here, but I’ve also had times of supreme confidence and personal acceptance. Times when I didn’t need any outside validation. But I find myself asking what is the difference between validation and accountability. Completely disregarding the opinions of others, 100% of the time, certainly sounds like an exciting way to live. But it’s also alienating to those around you. In this passage, Daisy admits, with difficulty, that she desires some validation of certain people. Is this a flaw? Maybe, but it’s certainly human.

Live band, how Songwheels is like Daisy Jones and The Six
Spencer, Kaydee, and Paul perform a Songwheels live band show in Kansas City, MO

5. Difficult Artists

TEDDY: Someone who insists on the perfect conditions to make art isn’t an artist. They’re an asshole.

I embrace professional challenges. While some of them can be annoying, like playing three hours on a keyboard with a broken middle-C, I try to reframe them as opportunities. Having a challenge when I perform keeps me engaged, keeps me alive, and I believe that translates to the audience. Some musicians want to do it the same way, every time, with minimal effort. They believe this puts them in the zone, but it really just frees up their brain to space out and think about other things instead of the show. I’m guilty of that too, and a few audience members have been brave enough to point out when I’m coasting. That’s a signal to me that I’m too comfortable, and I’m not growing.

6. Artistic Expectations in a Live Band


On artistic expectations
DAISY: …I told him I felt like I’d made something that wasn’t exactly what I’d envisioned, but it was maybe good in it’s own right. I said it felt like me but it didn’t sound like me and I had no idea whether it was brilliant or awful or somewhere in between. And Teddy laughed and said I sounded like an artist. I liked that.

2023 is a funny time to create music. With a single computer, or a phone, a trained user can produce a professional-grade, world-class hit-song. As professional musicians in a live band, we know we have these tools, and some of us enjoy being deep in a well of our own creation, writing and performing all of the parts. Sometimes it’s as simple as “drag-and-drop” your drummer into track, other times you can draw a keyboard part without ever touching an instrument. I like that Daisy is discovering how to let go of her personal vision, and accept that her ideas come forth, they pass through the filter of her limits, and through the filter of her collaborators. What comes out on the other side is simply what’s meant to be.

7. Pacing A Live Show

Okay, my 7 favorite lines! lol
On pacing
BILLY: People like it when you make them sad, I think. But people hat it when you leave them sad. Great albums have to be roller coaster that end on top. You gotta leave people with a little bit of hope.

The true pros in a Songwheels live band are constantly aware of pacing. We’re feeling out the audience, keeping an eye on their energy. We always want to be one step ahead, one notch higher. If our energy is lower, we’re failing them. But to Billy’s point, we can still do a sad song with energy, passion, and enthusiasm, and bring the audience with us on a moment. After a moment like that, it’s up to us where we drive the bus next. Most of the time, it’s time to ramp up the energy again, and the roller coaster ride continues.

New Recipes

Paul Seiz on June 25, 2020

Gears are turning, and it’s likely I’ll have regular gigs again.

In the midst of the pandemic, I’m asking myself what entertainment even means.  Ask the crowd to throw their worries away, and live care-free while they sway along to our groovy tunes?  As a nation, we’re more fractured than ever before.  Over the years, my band has made efforts to steer away from material or themes that are political.  Now, it seems the mere act of standing close to me without a mask…is political?  Or merely ignorant?  How much does somebody have a right to be ignorant in the midst of a health-crisis?  By accepting a gig in a public space, am I dishonoring the efforts of those who valiantly quarantine?

Here’s my loose plan, that still has a modicum of honor in it.  We’re all craving human connection.  While we’re discouraged from congregating, anybody who walks into a bar isn’t looking for alcohol.  They want people.  They want to feel alive.

So make people feel alive.  I’m going to reprint a section of Consider This, Chuck Palahniuk’s semi-autographical manual for writing.

Think of a story as a stream of information.  At best it’s an ever-changing series of rhythms.  Now think of yourself, the writer, as a DJ mixing tracks.

            The more music you have to sample from (the more records you have to spin) the more likely you’ll keep your audience dancing.  You’ll have more tricks to control the mood.  To calm it down to a lull.  Then to raise it to a crescendo.  But to always keep changing, varying, evolving the stream of information so it seems fresh and immediate and keeps the reader hooked.

            If you were my student I’d want you to be aware of the many different “textures” of information at your disposal.  These are best defined by the examples that follow.

            When telling a story, consider mixing any or all of the following:

…description, instruction, exclamation (onomatopoeia)…

…Three parts description.  Two parts instruction.  One part onomatopoeia.  Mix to taste.

 

Okay, then.  New recipes for entertainment.  The above recipe is reversed for musicians.  The onomatopoeia is our singing, our music.  That’s dominant, that’s three parts.  Two parts instruction?  I get this, it’s telling the crowd what to do .  Giving them enough structure so they understand when to clap, when to sing along, when it’s okay to laugh, and -crucially- when to applaud when you’re done.

The “description” I’m very guilty of overdoing.  This is elaborating to your audience about context, exposition, or any other education.  Done wrong, it’s condescending.  Done right, it’s a good quick story, with it’s own pace and recipe.  So instead of three parts description, this should be minimized.  It’s still important, because it develops that human connection I was waxing about.  It humanizes the performer.

That’s extra important if you’re performing for droves of strangers.  They are lost, confused, scared.  They want humans.

Here we come.

This Weird, Freaky Bird

Paul Seiz on June 5, 2020

Here’s one of my favorite paradoxes, courtesy of Bruce Springsteen, from his 2012 SXSX Keynote Address:

Don’t take yourself too seriously, and take yourself as seriously as death itself. Don’t worry. Worry your ass off. Have ironclad confidence, but doubt – it keeps you awake and alert. Believe you are the baddest ass in town, and, you suck!

It keeps you honest. It keeps you honest. Be able to keep two completely contradictory ideas alive and well inside of your heart and head at all times. If it doesn’t drive you crazy, it will make you strong. And stay hard, stay hungry, and stay alive. And when you walk onstage on tonight to bring the noise, treat it like it’s all we have. And then remember, it’s only rock and roll.

Here’s a similar one from author Elizabeth Gilbert, taken from her book Big Magic.

…Art is absolutely meaningless.  It is, however, also deeply meaningful.

That’s a paradox of course, but we’re all adults here, and I think we can handle it.  I think we can all hold two mutually contradictory ideas at the same time without our heads exploding.  So let’s give this one a try.  The paradox that you need to comfortably inhabit, if you wish to live a contented life, goes something like this.  “My creative expression must be the most important thing in the world to me (If I am to live artistically), and it also must not matter at all (if I am to live sanely)

Gilbert goes to on claim that we need the mental agility to leap between these two polar opposite in a matter of minutes.

So if I attack these paradoxes from a different angle, do we actually find balance?  That seems more like an ideal, not quite a practical way of living.   The equality of the paradoxical ideas is an illusion.  We must accept the paradox, but then also accept that we will forever be sliding back and forth between these ideas.

I can’t freeze my mind the moment that It trips the threshold between the ideas.  My mind is too fluid.  Perhaps that’s a lie I’m telling myself.  To slow my mind down, find the balance between contradictory ideas…that would probably earn me some genial applause from the zen masters.

In reality, when I find myself too far on one end of the spectrum, the other end beckons.  It calls to me, either “Get serious” or “Relax!”, depending on where I find myself.

I frequently fumbled this balance as a leader.  I always espoused to my band that our music was important, that we were part of Kansas City’s heritage, that we were bringing people together with the power of live music.  I worshipped that god every night.  I transformed our stage into an altar, and I sacrificed myself on it, again and again.  I cared about every random customer that stumbled into our bar, rushing over to them in exultation.

This was really intense to be around, and it wasn’t easy to talk me down from this position.  The only compromise I was willing to make was that we had to entertain these people.  To be an effective professional entertainer is to step outside of yourself and take a seat in your own audience.  You must observe how you appear to others.

So here we find that rack that I was mounted on for six years.  I was a slave to the holy mistress of music, while also a professional entertainer.  Was this a perfect balance?

Depends on your viewpoint of me at the time.  If you were a patron, stumbling into our bar, looking for a good time, a good beer, or good company, then you probably saw a professional entertainer onstage.  I loathed being self indulgent, and the interactive element of our platform allowed me to directly poll the audience for the kind of music they wanted.

However, if you were a fellow musician, in a band with me, then I was a fireball of passion, angst, and sacrifice. This was tough to take for long periods of time, anything more than a few minutes.  These dogged professionals, their skin burned from my heat, have been thankful to be away from me during the pandemic.  I might never recover them.

It runs counter to my narrative that the power of live music pulls us together.  But we’re not talking about music now.  We’re talking about egos (crowds love me!), sacrifice (extra rehearsal to get this bass-line right), determination (this isn’t good because we didn’t practice enough), and disappointment (we worked on that and the crowd didn’t care).  The artist in me says that all of these things are necessary steps on a journey.  The human side of me, my heart that values connection, is unsure what I gained from all that tension.

We’re so bad at saying goodbyes these days.  Social Media allows us to stay connected forever; we’re perpetually presented with photos and videos of anybody, ranging an entire life span.  There’s a distinct possibility that I’ll never see some of these musicians again, but the more I evaluate that, the more remote it seems.  What’s lost forever is our context, not necessarily our bond.  Live music is being reborn like a phoenix, and we don’t know what the plumage will be for this weird, freaky bird.  We sure as hell watched it burn, though.

Now we see it again, so small and fragile, yipping around in the ashes of what it was.

            This eternal, mythical phoenix is also a contradiction.  It’s always dying, and it’s always being born, in a cycle.  There’s a big burst of fire when the cycle starts over, but it’s death and birth at the same time.

            Death and birth at the same time.

Unique, But Not Special

Paul Seiz on June 4, 2020

I’m up really damn early today.

            There are humans out there, getting up even earlier.  Pounding it harder.

            The pandemic draws me to stillness.  The morning hours, so peaceful, before my kids wake up, transforming the home into a crowded bounce house.  This place, this mind, asks not for more noise.  I’m seeking ease and calm.  Time to be alone with my thoughts.  This journal.

            There are musicians getting up before me, and practicing.  Athletes who are rising and stretching, exercising.  Some of them even do it with kids, even in a pandemic.  Some of them are sick, some are near death.

            I’m unique, but not special.

            I know all these people are out there, some in my neighborhood, many scattered across the globe.  Artistic, creative, passionate people.  They are unencumbered by all the things I complain about.  Sure, they’ve got their own demons, their own battles, their own injustices to rail against.  But they complain less than me.  Some don’t whine at all.

            For months, I’ve been a heartbeat away from renouncing the cloth and burning all the musical instruments in my house.  I’ve crafted goodbye speeches and drawn up wills, all in my head, all in my angst.

            For now, I don’t practice songs.  I practice something simpler.

            At the piano, I practice scales.  Technique, the mere art of having my fingers touching the keys.  Up and down, at a brisk pace around the circle of 5ths, back to home, back to middle C.  No songs, but it’s still undeniably musical.  Undeniably purposeful.  Gains. No wanderings.  The musical equivalent of push-ups, crunches, and jogging.  Training for the moment.  Conditioning for the moment.  Look at all these people, pushing themselves forward.  Look at the humans!  I can say it with joy:  I’m unique, but not special.  I’m not alone!

            How many of them train without knowing what it’s for?

            Martial artists train for a fight that might never come.  They can prepare their bodies and minds, but they know that the fight will have a host of variables beyond their control.  That’s okay.  The ones I admire bring a quiet sense of confidence, because they have a plan and have been trained to respond correctly.

            I train now for a different world, a world not seen for generations.

            We’ve been here before.  We humans made it through.  Look at the humans.

            I’m unique, but not special.

            I’m still here.

            I’m here.

Pre Jam Panic

Paul Seiz on May 23, 2020

I’m compiling a mental list of all the things I want to take to a blues jam at Knuckleheads, but might not. It will be my first encounter with other musicians in over two months. I have no friends there; all strangers. I’m not required to play; I could show up and sip beers and watch.

That part of me that wants to jump in and mess up as I go; it likes to play around with my ego. Those two parts of me, the jumper and the ego, have gotten me this far. It’s so important to be noticed, but I want to prevent myself from making a bad first impression.

From checking out the profiles of the hosts, there’s probably already a musician eco-system happening here. There was probably a scene before the pandemic. I won’t know if the musicians here are desperate for things to return to normal, and reboot their scene, or if they are scattered, lost, and confused. There really might be competing agendas here today.

I’m scattered, lost, and confused.

I’ll bring my bass. Bass players and keyboard players are usually in high demand, but that also means that they camp longer at jams. That’s awkward. The turn-around for guitarists and singer is always really fast, if the host is doing a good job of managing the flow of musicians. That’s mostly the challenge of an open mic host, dealing with guitarists and singers. The rhythm section players usually end of managing themselves, or in some cases stay static the whole time if they’ve been hired to play. So then this tension arises that if a different rhythm player (bass, piano, drums) asks to play, the current player onstage needs to police what’s happening at that instrument. Sometimes somebody is so bad, or just a pariah, that the open mic host will openly call for somebody else to come play.

So it’s hard to know if you’re asked to step away, was I bad? Or is someone legit trying to police the spirit of the jam and get more players up? Maybe the bassist just had to pee. Or they wanted a break to go talk to a friend in attendance. Or their tired and they want to go home.

This is why I become an intense observer at jams and open mics. Open mics are a different story, where there is no band and everybody in the audience is isolated in their anxiety and unable to actually listen to whatever is happening onstage. That’s probably why the most fun I’ve had at open mics are when I have no plans to play anything, or with anybody. I’m off the clock.

But if I’m trying to understand a scene, I’m watching the interactions between the players. Are they laughing and smiling at each other? Are they nervous? Are they just spaced out? Are they trying to communicate about the silliness of the lead singer? They do looks for that, and that’s an indication that they have discussions about the silliness of the singer offstage. Or maybe they just look impatient.

It could also be that they are locked in professionals. If they have blank faces, they are probably concentrating, doing their job, in the moment but passive at the same time. That’s zen, baby. I’ve spent so much time onstage, I need to be either paid extra or be really feeling it to plaster a smile on my face. It can be the marker of a professional entertainer, but it’s tough to sustain as a professional musician. Playing an iconic riff, watching the crowd react, jumping into the meat of the song. That’s like clockwork. Like a boulder rolling down a hill. A cascading waterfall.

Maybe I’ll get some of that today.

Gear Options:

Bass. P-80 piano (simple key sounds, piano + ep) or MOX8 (much more robust key sounds, including organs, clavicle, etc). Personal drum sticks. Cable for bass. Stark tuner for bass. Cable for keyboard.

I’ll need to dig a functional case for the MOX8 out of storage. It’s really heavy and unwieldy, so I’m tempted not to take it. I think my play is to scan the stage and see what the keyboard situation is before I bring on in. It’s possible there is none, which frees me up in a big way. If keyboard player is hesitant to let others touch the instrument because of coronavirus, I’ll probably stick to bass, or offer to bring in a keyboard from the van. Probably best to have my first beer just watching, and then decide what to go get.