Rock’n’Roll Romantic Cover

DownTown Mystic will be releasing a new album in 2015, and as usual, I’ve got so much to talk about that there’s no way to keep it all in one post. So here’s Part 1 to get us started…

With the release of the DownTown Mystic CD in 2013, the awareness for DownTown Mystic was raised dramatically, as well as raising the bar musically. DownTown Mystic would stay on the Americana Music Association Radio Airplay Charts for 40 consecutive weeks. That’s 10 whole months hanging as an indie outsider with mainstay Americana acts, as well as veteran AAA acts!

DownTown Mystic also made a splash on the Independent Charts, hitting the Top 5 on the Alternate Roots 66 Airplay Chart and most notably, having the single Way To Know going to #1 and the DownTown Mystic album going to #3 on the Roots Music Report Charts. Of course, this makes for a bit more pressure in planning the next DownTown Mystic release. But at the same time it gives me the chance to do something that I’ve been thinking about for some time.

At this time in 2015, it is DownTown Mystic’s intention to create and release an unapologetic classic Rock’n’Roll Album, complete with underlying theme. As I said, this is something I’ve wanted to do for a while now and I think the moment has finally arrived. If any of you have been paying attention to the debate on whether the Album as a format is dead, then many of you know that it has been indeed pronounced DEAD. I wrote about it in a few blog posts back and not surprisingly, I came out in favor of the Album format, although I felt the issue had been kind of mixed up with the death of the CD. With vinyl making a strong comeback, the Album as a format will clearly make a comeback as well because I don’t think you can have one without the other.

The new album is called Rock’n’Roll Romantic and it’s release will be preceded by 2 Digital Singles, the 1^st of which, Turn Around and Go, comes out on March 23^rd. As I mentioned, there is an underlying theme to Rock’n’Roll Romantic. I know that people’s attention spans are one of the main reasons often cited in The Album is Dead movement, so I take full responsibility in getting people to listen to this album as a whole. It’s on me to make it interesting, so the buck stops here with me. I’m not looking for excuses. To make it work as an album I have to arrange the songs for CD as well as 2 sides for vinyl. Not too much pressure! lol

Turn Around and Go Digital Single Cover

Regarding the underlying theme to the album…As the title infers, all the songs on Rock’n’Roll Romantic deal with romance. That is, RnR Romance, which has a quality all its own. To be sure, when talking about affairs of the heart rock’n’roll style, the sex is always great and full of passion. But the people involved are crazy, so inevitably, they break up, make up and tear it up. Hearts are worn on sleeves and the emotions are raw. There are no happy endings here.

Songs about relationships are followed by songs with sad endings. Elton John sang “sad songs say so much”, and I believe there’s something in human nature that gravitates to sad songs. The one thing we all have in common are our emotions and I think when we listen to something that is gut-wrenching, in a weird sort of way, there’s something comforting about it. Maybe it’s because we can relate to what the singer is going through, and although we can identify with the emotions, it’s not directly happening to us. And believe me; in some of these songs, the listener will really feel for the singer and yet find comfort knowing they’re not as screwed. LOL

One of the main reasons I’m excited about this album is that the songs were recorded in the way DownTown Mystic was originally intended—as a vehicle to showcase my artistic side and to play with great musicians. Rock’n’Roll Romantic has 14 great musicians lending their talents like an ensemble cast, and the songs are some of the best I’ve ever written and collaborated on. Also, as it turns out, this is somewhat of a 20 year retrospective for me, but I’ll get into that more in Part 2.

Turn Around and Go

I think it was Bruce Springsteen who said, “From small things mama, big things one day come”…and that sentiment aptly describes my experience with the writing and recording of the song No Exceptions. The song started out as a riff that would become the centerpiece of the DownTown Mystic album.

Since the release of the DownTown Mystic album, I’ve received so many great emails from fans who like to tell me which song is their favorite. Overwhelmingly, the song that seems to get singled out as “epic” is No Exceptions, which is personally very gratifying because that’s exactly what I wanted to make the recording be—EPIC!

UK Americana reviewer Paul Kerr of Blabber’n’Smoke, singled out No Exceptions in his review of DownTown Mystic: “The best example here is the sinewy, snarled blues of No Exceptions and its tremendous harp wailing, guitar thrashing rush which builds into a fine frenzy. It’s a bit like the Allman Brothers doing an Exile on Main St song as the slide guitars lock in battle with the harp.”

The riff that the song is built on came to me on March 30, 2011. I immediately made a quick recording to save it, and the next day, worked on creating a melody to be sung over it. The interesting thing about the riff that caught my ear was playing an F to an A minor chord where traditionally the V (D) chord would go in a standard Blues progression. Once I had the melody I put the song away and didn’t pay it much mind after that.

About a year later I received some inspiration and began to work on a song that would become Some Day. As usual, I began to record the ideas for the song and came across the little riff I had written a year earlier. Now that I was in a writing mode, I decided to put lyrics to the riff and work on both songs at the same time. I don’t know why I do this, but it generally happens when I start feeling an urge to record again. It had been over 2 years since I had recorded the Standing Still album and the rush of new ideas was putting me in a creative mood to start thinking about doing another one. And sure enough, as soon as I started working on the riff song, a new 3^rd song began to rear its head.

Robert Allen with Breedlove Acoustic

Wanting to keep in a blues vein, the line “The road to hell is paved with good intentions” came into my mind. I had heard the saying many times, but googled it to make sure that it was the correct way that it was written, and found that it had biblical origins. “The road to hell is paved with good intentions” was something I could relate to and something I was feeling at the time. From that point I knew that I wanted the song to be about going to Hell and that the music needed to reflect that journey. Once I wrote “if you travel down this road, you’ll find there’s no exceptions” I knew I had my title—No Exceptions.

Once I finished the lyrics and began to play around with the song, the little riff started to take on bigger implications for me. The more I played with it the more it became apparent to me that this could become a huge track in the recording studio. I knew that I wanted to make it a planned jam with no less than 3 solos, and include harmonica and slide guitar. Once I decided I would go into the studio to record, I needed to create demos of the songs for Steve Holley and Paul Page, my Rhythm section.

Steve, Robert & Paul

When I cut the demo for No Exceptions, I knew I would be taking the 1^st solo and I played it pretty much the way I played it on the final recording. It’s a credit to Steve that he played some of his drum parts from what he heard on my demo, because when we cut the basic track, I hadn’t noticed what he played where my solo would be. It was only after I cut the solo and heard the mix that I realized that Steve was playing to the guitar solo I put on the demo, because even I couldn’t figure out at first how he had managed to play like I was cutting the solo on the basic track, which I didn’t! LOL

Steve Holley

When we were cutting the basic track in the studio, my main directive to Steve and Paul was about the jam, and increasing the dynamics where the last 2 solos would be. We ran through a few ideas for the groove since I really wasn’t sure about it. Both Steve and Paul had written “swamp” down for the groove when they heard my demo. The real question from me was how to translate “swamp”.

Paul Page

After we had gone over a few different grooves, Steve had decided what and how he would play. He told Paul “to keep it tight” and we were off. The track you hear was played fully in 1 final take. Steve and Paul just kill it and I can listen over and over to the track just for Steve’s drums. After we finished playing, Steve says in his offhand manner “that should work”, and I kept his line for posterity. Given the work we put into that take, it cracks me up every time I hear it.  🙂

Now that I had a finished basic track, I could record my guitar parts and then move onto the next part of the operation—the harmonica and slide guitar. I already knew who my slide player would be, but I needed to find a really good harp player. I had wanted to use a guy named Nasty Ned on a track on Standing Still, but we never got it together. I asked my Engineer and co-producer, Ben Elliott if Ned would be right for the track, and Ben said Ned would be perfect for it. He gave me his cell number and email address. I tried both, but as fate would have it, Hurricane Sandy would hit knocking out phone and internet service for a few days. Eventually, Ned contacted me and we were in business.

Robert & 1976 Les Paul

A month after Sandy hit I was back at Showplace Studios. From the vocal to the guitar sounds, I wanted to create the sonic journey of what it would sound like going to Hell. I think the sound of my Les Paul on the solo is the baddest sounding guitar I’ve ever put on tape. After laying down my guitar solo, Nasty Ned came in and proceeded to lay down 5 or 6 perfect takes. He killed on every take, nailing the bluesy wail of a tormented soul being chased by the Hounds of Hell.

Nasty Ned

At this point it was obvious how huge sounding the track had become. Now the only thing left to record was the 3^rd and final solo—the slide guitar. I already had my man picked for the job—Justin “JJ” Jordan! The following week, JJ came to the studio. I gave him my instructions. The 3^rd and final solo had to be WAILING!! Anything less and the whole track would fall apart. No pressure JJ!! LOL

JJ started playing right after my solo and the key change to get the flavor of the slide into the track. I play guitar lines throughout the track and JJ riffed off of them perfectly. When it came time for his solo, JJ knocked it out in a few takes, wailing his ass off!

JJ & Robert

When I heard the ruff mix that night I was truly floored. I could not believe what I was hearing! It’s one thing to have an idea in your head about how something should sound and plan it out. But it’s quite another thing to actually record it and have it come together in such a way that you never could dream of happening…and that’s what I was hearing! What did Bruce say,  “From small things mama, big things one day come”?

Ben Elliott at work

All that was left was to mix it. I had a ringside seat for the mix. Watching and listening to Ben Elliott’s masterful mix of the track was a thing to behold. With everything that is going on in the track, Ben somehow managed to catch all the nuances and keep them in play, given that this was one huge sounding track with drums pounding and guitars & harp wailing. This was everything and more that I could have wanted in this track…No Exceptions.  🙂

In Part 1 of my 2014 Review I basically covered the 1^st Quarter of the year, which featured highlights of the DownTown Mystic CD on the charts. Notably, the single Way To Know going to #1 and the album going to #3 on the Roots Music Report Chart. Dani Heyvaert/Rootstime in Belgium wrote a great review of the album and singled out Way To Know, saying “Way To Know…a straightforward rocker in the best Stones tradition…a perfect radio single”.

DownTown Mystic also broke into the Americana Music Association Radio Chart Top 100, rising to #65 after 20 consecutive weeks on the chart. This was only the midway point for the album, which still had another 20 to go before finishing in July after 10 months and 40 straight weeks. This was definitely mind-blowing for me!

Spring ushered in a new discovery for me when I happened upon a new band out of Winnipeg Canada called The Bros. Landreth. They had put out their own cd called Let It Lie, and I was immediately a fan after the 1^st listen. Since I was on a roll at Americana Radio with my own record, I reached out to Dave Stratton, the PD of WQBR. Dave was a big supporter of mine and a great music head. So I figured, who better to take Let It Lie to? I sent Dave a link to the track Tappin’ On The Glass and he emailed me back asking where could he get a copy of the cd.

I sent Dave the cd and he said he would play the band. I then got in contact with the band to let them know they had a fan at Americana Radio in the US. I heard back from Dave Landreth, the bass player, who couldn’t thank me enough for what I’d done. This was the start of a friendship. A few months later I sent Dave congratulations when the news broke that The Bros. Landreth had signed a deal with Slate Creek Records after playing a gig in Nashville. In September they played NYC for the 1^st time and I was able to finally meet the band! Their new record comes out this month.

Robert and Dave Landreth from The Bros. Landreth

The Bros. Landreth was the 1^st new band I had chanced upon since Band of Heathens, and the similarities weren’t lost on me. Both bands had great songs and players. It was very exciting for me to experience that same magical vibe, discovering something new. Then to make personal contact just moves it up a notch! And I was about to have some personal contact, which made the Summer Solstice extra special this year, because Band of Heathens played NYC!

A beautiful night in late June was made even better when I went to see Band of Heathens play a great set at Hill Country Barbecue. It was the 1^st time BOH was playing there, and the room was a perfect fit for them. It was also the 1^st time that I got to hear my fave Gordy Quist song, Second Line, played live. But the recorded acoustic version was given a rocking electric gospel styled arrangement that blew the doors down!

Robert with Gordy Quist & Ed Jurdi from Band of Heathens

After the show I got a chance to catch up and talk music with my main men, Gordy Quist & Ed Jurdi. They’re such cool talented guys and always a pleasure to speak with. The band is a great group of guys and a really tight musical unit. Band of Heathens would kick into a higher gear by the Fall with the release of the more rock oriented single Carry Your Love and Carry Your Love Tour, as well as backing Kid Rock on his new First Kiss album. How cool is that??

The BOH show was the perfect event to usher in the summer. There was a flurry of DownTown Mystic music featured on a bunch of cool Music Podcasts/Blogs. One of the highlights was having Way To Know getting the spotlight on a segment of Bike TV in Germany. The show features high end racing bicycles being tested and talked about in various videos for bike enthusiasts and Extreme bike riders. Way To Know starts at the 11:18 mark of show #217.

In July the unexpected arrived in the form of a check in the mail from Jingle Punks, the NYC Music Licensing company that places my music on TV. It was for a Dr Pepper ad on the Internet. WTF? Turns out I had 2 DownTown Mystic tracks featured in the ad…how cool! Now all needed was to find it. So I googled Dr Pepper and found the ad under Dr Pepper/1 Fan.

Seems that Dr Pepper was doing a series of these ads and my music was featured on the ad with Mickie James, the 8-time Female Wrestling Champ and Country Singer! Lost & Found and No Exceptions from the DownTown Mystic album get some nice time in this highly professional filmed and edited ad. This was a totally unexpected highlight of the summer!

Check out Dr Pepper/1 Fan: Mickie James Video

Meanwhile, there was a possible deal being shopped for DownTown Mystic in Europe. There appeared to be some interest and we were going back and forth with a couple of labels before a deal finally fell through at the last instant due to a twist of fate. Close but no cigar! Speaking of falling…The Fall rolled around and I was back in the studio spending time recording instrumental pieces I called SoundScapes.

These would coincide with a big announcement by my company Sha-La Music on a Publishing/Licensing Agreement with Music of The Sea and my good bud Eddie Caldwell. We’d been working together on and off since we met in Cannes at Midem 3 years ago. Eddie was responsible for getting my music placed with 1 of LA’s top Music Supervisors, Alexandra Patsavas of Chop Shop Music, who took 3 my songs for The Carrie Diaries on TV. Here’s the Press Release from November.

All in all, 2014 provided a lot of surprises and forward movement for me professionally. As the year came to a close I was already making plans for the next DownTown Mystic release. Keep an eye & ear out for Rock’n’Roll Romantic sometime in 2015. Visit DownTown Mystic on NoiseTrade to sample and download some free music. Thanks to all for your support an let’s keep it rockin’ in 2015!

2014 was some kind of a year for me personally & professionally. Where 2013 ended with the release of the DownTown Mystic CD in mid-October and breaking into the Top 100 on the Americana Music Association (AMA) Radio Airplay Chart at the end the year, 2014 would start with a few challenges.

While I was basking in the glow of finishing the year with 10 consecutive weeks on the AMA Chart and reaching our highest position at #82, I was already in uncharted waters as the New Year started. I had never been on the charts for more than 3 or 4 weeks previous to this release, so as far as I was concerned, I had already passed every conceivable goal. Kudos to my trusted team of Radio Promoters, Fred Boenig & Keith Parnell at AMP, for their stellar work.

As January started, I was losing a big supporter in Corpus Christi, TX. Daddy-D of KCCT had been our 1^st big Add at Radio, giving us 15 spins a week and that really helped us break into the Top 100. Now he had to make room for the new releases coming in the New Year. This was something I never had to deal with before. With the loss of those spins, DownTown Mystic was knocked out of the Top 100.

My radio man, Fred, said we just needed to add some new stations to replace Daddy-D and he was working on a few to come on board. Fred came through and the following week we broke back into the Top 100 and hit a new high at #78 on the AMA Chart, making for a nice birthday present. The following week DownTown Mystic moved up to #71 while I was getting a biopsy performed, thanks to a spike on my PSA test. 12 needles stuck up my-you-know-where…Happy New Year!!

Meanwhile, DownTown Mystic started 2014 at #14 on the Roots Music Report (RMR) Roots Rock Chart. This was very encouraging since the Roots Music Report claims to be the #1 Independent Music Chart in the world. In early February DownTown Mystic continued to hit new highs in spins, rising to #65 on the AMA Chart, breaking into the Top 50 in Total Spins. Meanwhile, the single Way To Know crossed over and debuted at #2 on the RMR Alt/Rock Song Chart. The DownTown Mystic album debuted at #7 on the RMR Alt/Rock Album Chart. This really was quite a surprise! But it was all a prelude to what would be the scariest and then probably the best day of the year for me. In just 24 hours I would go from the lowest of lows to the highest of highs!

On Feb. 22 I was at my oldest nephew David’s wedding. Having spent the previous night drinking a lot of wine at the Rehearsal Dinner, my stomach had paid the price during the day. The wedding was a huge affair but I only had a couple of drinks, still feeling the effects of the previous evening. Later in the night, as the Bride & Groom were cutting their cake and feeding it to each other, I was moving in close trying to get it all on video.

As I drew near I suddenly saw my nephew and his new bride’s faces rushing towards me. WTF?? It was at this point that something in my brain told me this was not good, as I managed to avoid crashing into them, and fall to my knees to avoid an oncoming table. Dazed and feeling the blood rushing from me, I somehow got up and reeled towards my table, where my brother-in-law grabbed me and sat me on a chair. Seeing that I was going out, they put me on the floor.

The next thing I remember was people standing over me with my shirt ripped open, calling 911. It seems I had passed out and 2 young doctors attending the wedding in trying to get a pulse ripped my shirt open, popping off the buttons (that seems a bit dramatic, right?), in order to give me CPR. They thought I was dead. Luckily, my sister-in-law, the groom’s mom who’s a nurse, was familiar with me and told them my pulse was just very faint. Believe me, there was no white light and my life didn’t flash in front of me, so I was not dead. The EMTs arrived and carted me out to the ambulance. What a scene! 🙁

It turns out I had managed to dehydrate myself, mainly thanks to the night before. Too much alcohol, caffeine and chocolate are a bad combination when not drinking enough water. It caused a sudden drop in my blood pressure, which caused me to pass out and why they had such a hard time finding my pulse. What a major drag—I missed the dessert room, where everybody was going as I was being carted out!! If I hadn’t passed out I was surely going to OD on cannolis! 🙂

When I got back home the next day, I went online to check the RMR charts that had come out the night of the wedding. Unbelievably, Way To Know was now at #1 on the RMR Alt/Rock Song Chart…#1??!! WTF?? And that wasn’t all of it…the DownTown Mystic album was #3 on the RMR Alt/Rock Album Chart and Way To Know was also #6 on the RMR Rock Song Chart! In 2014, DownTown Mystic was on 7 different RMR Charts.

This was absolutely surreal! There’s got to be some kind of moral to the story here, no? On the same night, I was personally at my lowest and professionally at my highest…you can’t make this stuff up!! I guess the moral to the story is that “some things are just meant to be”…right? I mean, think about it…for an artist to drop dead at a huge party on the very same night his single goes to #1 and he never knows about it is incredibly ironic! It would also be quite sad, wouldn’t it? But that’s not how the story turned out. Nothing was going to stop that day from happening and I’m still here to talk about it. But is it believable?? 🙂

By the end of February DownTown Mystic was on the AMA charts for 20 straight weeks, and amazingly, this was only the halfway point! Thanks to the support of some great PDs like Dave Stratton/WQBR, Adam Phillips/WHAY, Ed Lang/WRRW, Cullen Kehoe/WFIV, Wildman Steve/WildmanSteve.com, and certainly our main man, Stan Edwards/CountryBear.com, the DownTown Mystic album had another 20 weeks to go!!

I want to acknowledge and thank these guys for putting us on the map. While DownTown Mystic only had a dozen or so stations officially add and play it, what really mattered was the amount of spins each one gave us. Many times I would see DownTown Mystic with more spins than other releases that had twice as many stations playing them. Certainly, every possible goal had been reached and surpassed by wide margins. The icing on the cake would be going over the 1000 spins mark on the AMA Charts!

2014 was only 2 months old and already off to a wild start. At this rate, I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to survive the rest of the year! Stay tuned for Part 2…

In Parts 1 & 2 of The Power of Music, I wrote about 2 great bands I had discovered in recent years—Band of Heathens and The Bros. Landreth. By any definition, both of these bands are very successful. But being a great band doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll have the kind of success that leads to great fame and fortune. Sometimes, the best you can hope for is just being in the game and competing.

Back in 1995 I put The Discontent in the studio to record for the 1^st time. I wanted to see what they could do. They had 6 songs ready to go and that’s what they recorded at Showplace Studios with Engineer Ben Elliott. I didn’t know it at the time, but Showplace Studios and Ben Elliott would play a big part in what would become DownTown Mystic.

The 1^st track The Discontent cut was a song called Bulletproof and it was clear to me that this band had something good to offer. I told the band to get another 6 songs together and we would go in and record them for a full CD release. In 1996 I put out their 1^st CD, societydidit. The 1^st single released to Radio was Bulletproof…it fell on deaf ears.

5 years later, in 2001, I re-mastered the Bulletproof alternate version that was a bonus track on societydidit and released it at the Specialty Shows on commercial Rock Radio. The Specialty Shows were the tastemakers for discovering new talent at Radio. By 2001 Specialty Radio was becoming THE place on the radio dial to get new music played on the airwaves. With playlists getting tighter and tighter, it was getting harder and harder for airplay. It didn’t matter if you were Radiohead…you needed to get played on the Specialty Shows to have your new release played on the radio.

So it was quite clear that the #1 place where there was a level playing field at Radio was on the Specialty Shows. That was the ONLY place on a commercial radio station that an unknown indie act could get played with major well known established acts. There were 3 major Charts at the time—the Radio & Records Specialty Chart, the VirtuallyAlternative Specialty Chart and the FMQB Specialty Chart. FMQB is the only one still in existence today.

So 5 years after the 1^st release of Bulletproof, I re-released it to the Specialty Shows and was rewarded for my faith in the song. It went Top 5 on all of the Specialty Charts! 2001 would be a defining year for The Discontent. I released their 3^rd album The Discontent a month after 9/11, which stayed on the Specialty Charts for 10 straight weeks. This resulted in the band being named to FMQB’s Top 10 Specialty Albums for 2001, placing #7, ahead of Radiohead and Ben Folds Five.

This was no small feat, given the competition for airplay. Especially against the major labels, who spent millions of dollars on radio promotion for their artists. Given the success at Specialty, it should have gotten The Discontent a deal with a major label, since radio airplay was the #1 way that labels sold records. If an unknown indie band could get the kind of airplay that The Discontent did, what could they do with a major label behind them?

Not surprisingly, given the state of the major labels back then, that didn’t happen. The only solace I could take was in the fact that every time The Discontent got played, there was a major label artist not getting their slot. But it was small consolation for having a band that was clearly ahead of its time and a band that could have given Rock a much needed shot in the arm.

The original 4 members were main songwriter & guitarist Jessie Hobbs, bassist Eric Hoagland, guitarist John Borneo and drummer Tommy Mastro. John was replaced by lead guitarist Ozzie Caccavelli for the 2^nd release Falling Backwards and Tommy would leave, eventually returning for the final sessions, being replaced by drummers Adam “the Atom” Brown and Drae Alexander in the interim.

Of course, I have a fondness for The Discontent. Not only because I managed and produced them, but also because they played an integral part in DownTown Mystic lore. Working with them in the studio gave me the itch to start recording my own material again. I wondered what it would be like to have my songs played by younger rockers and one day I finally decided to act on it. It was just an experiment at the time when I went into the studio to cut 6 tracks with Tommy and Eric. But that would be the start of something, that even I didn’t know at the time, would become something much bigger for me.

I continued to work with the band, producing and co-writing songs on their last session in 2005. I also played guitar on the session, having become the 4^th member in rehearsals. I mention this because the 5 songs recorded in that session appear on the new The Discontent release coming out on Sha-La Music on 12/8/14.

I think it’s a fitting way to say goodbye to one of the great bands that most people never heard. A band that was making music back in the 90’s that would show up 10 years later in the music of bands like Green Day, The Foo Fighters and Blink-182. For me, songs like Bulletproof and I’m Gonna Crack are modern rock anthems that speak to and for their Generation.

As I’ve stated in previous blogs, I’m a firm believer in success being how you define it. By any definition, The Discontent were very successful. 🙂

In late February 2014 the DownTown Mystic cd was going strong at Americana Radio. Disaster nearly struck as I was in an accident but managed to come out ok. When I got home I found out that the single Way To Know had crossed over and gone to #1, with the album at #3 on the Roots Rock Report Alt/Rock Charts. What a surreal feeling!

About a week or so later, on the mend, I would come across this unknown indie band from Manitoba Canada called The Bros. Landreth. I checked out their music, and just like with The Band of Heathens, I was hooked on 1^st listening. The track Tappin’ On the Glass was immediate. So much so, I decided I would “pay it forward”, as it were. Since DownTown Mystic was enjoying some success, I sent an email out to the Americana Radio panel to let them know about this great new band from Canada.

I got an email back from Dave Stratton, the PD at WQBR, who’s been a big supporter of mine at Radio. He wanted to know how he could get his hands on the music, so I went on Amazon to buy The Bros. Landreth Let it Lie cd and had Amazon ship it directly to him. Dave really liked the cd and told me that he would be playing the band, which I thought was really cool of him. So did the band when I contacted them via their website.

Dave Landreth wrote me back and was so grateful for what I had done and thanked me profusely for it. I told him it was my pleasure to help in any way that I could. They made a great record and I thought people should know about it. Just like BoH, they were DIY, doing their own recordings and jumping in a van to tour around and play. I told Dave that if they were ever in NYC to let me know.

Robert and Dave Landreth from The Bros. Landreth

We stayed in touch over the next months and recently they announced that they had signed a Recording Deal with Slate Creek Records. It turns out that Slate Creek President Garth Fundis heard them play a show in Nashville and offered them a contract on the spot! It’s reassuring to know that there are still some good “ears” out there in this industry.  🙂

As it would happen, The Bros. Landreth were coming to play their 1^st show in NYC in late September, on the heels of their strong showing at the Americana Festival in Nashville the previous week. So strong in fact that they got their photo and a write-up in Rolling Stone for being one of the standout acts at this year’s festival. I emailed Dave to let him know that I was looking forward to seeing the band and finally meeting him.

I was on hand to welcome them to NYC. Again, like BoH, they’re super nice people who love what they’re doing. The Bros. Landreth, Dave & Joey, both thanked me again for helping to spread the word about them. I told them I was happy to help people who inspire me. I also gave them copies of the DownTown Mystic cd to introduce myself to them musically.

Their NYC set was real strong; with the band covering Paul McCartney’s Let ‘Em In as well as one from their musician father Wally. Unlike BoH, which has a couple of writers, The Bros. Landreth’s main writer is Joey. He’s a “triple threat”…meaning he writes great songs, plays killer slide guitar and has an incredible voice, that can be soft and soulful or rock out with the best of them!

Robert with Joey Landreth from The Bros. Landreth

At only 27 years of age, Joey’s already an “old pro”, having started playing and touring with name artists while still in high school. Older brother Dave, at 29, also has an extensive resume in touring around the world with Canadian artists. Putting a band together would seem to be a natural progression for the brothers. They enlisted long time cohort Ryan “Rhino” Voth to play drums and Alex Campbell on keyboards for the album, but replaced Alex with killer guitarist Ariel Posen for the live show. Just my kind of band—2 guitars , bass and drums! 🙂

After the show I got a chance to talk with Joey about some of his writing and guitar influences, particularly slide guitar, and the influence of the late great Lowell George of Little Feat. Like most kids, the parents’ taste in music plays a big influence and Joey and Dave’s dad Wally played a big part in their musical tastes. I told Joey that I heard a big Bruce Hornsby influence in his writing on the song Greenhouse. Joey smiled and said that he was a huge fan of Hornsby and was happy to hear that I had picked up on it and that it showed on that song.

Again, it was very cool to have stumbled onto this unknown band and months later be talking to them in person on a one to one level. It was also very cool to see that in 6 months’ time they were no longer that unknown. By the look of it, I think they’re going to be more and more known as more people discover this great band. The Bros. Landreth new album comes out on Slate Creek Records in January 2015. Keep an ear and eye out for it.

Such is the power of music—to pick us up when we’re feeling down, as well as deliver us to new heights with inspiration. It’s been a power in my life and I hope it continues to grow stronger, allowing me to discover more talents like The Band of Heathens and The Bros. Landreth. 🙂

Check out The Bros. Landreth

Since this is my blog, I get to share my personal experiences with the world and promote my music, while hopefully providing some insight into what I do. And since this is my blog, I can talk about anything I want. From time to time I would like to “pass it forward” and talk about other bands and artists I find noteworthy.

Probably the earliest memories that I have of growing up, is always hearing music playing on the radio in my house. I think it got under my skin and instilled the love of music in me. Fast forward to the present day, and I still can’t get enough of music. So much so, that I’m writing and producing it more than ever. One of the things that have kept me going has been to discover new music for inspiration. That’s what fuels my fires. Hearing something new that makes me take notice and want to create something new for myself.

One of the great things about doing the DownTown Mystic project was releasing it in the Americana/Roots genre. There’s a serious appreciation from fans of this type of music, and for me, I’ve discovered new music from Artists that are totally new to me. Case in point, when I released Standing Still in 2010, I was doing a promotion with an internet radio station. I was sponsoring an Alt/Country station and I would check in from time to time to listen to it.

Every time I seemed to tune in I would hear a track from this one band I had never heard of. But every time I heard them it reminded me of what it was like hearing The Band or Little Feat for the 1^st time, which got my attention. These guys weren’t just about writing a song and recording it. There was something more in regards to sound, arrangement, performance and creating something to capture on tape.

Luckily, the station would provide a list of the artists that had just been played, and I found out that the band I kept hearing was called The Band of Heathens, out of Austin, TX. I was so impressed with their sound that I went and checked them out on Amazon.com. To my surprise, I found that they had more than 1 release. How could a band this good have more than 1 release and this is the first I’m hearing of them?? Amazing, I thought! It showed me just how much the music industry was broken. How could a band this good not have gotten signed by some major label? Even a decent Indie?

I was shocked! I was also hooked. I bought all their cds on Amazon and became a fan. Like me, The Band of Heathens had a DIY attitude and I could tell that they really cared about “making records”. In the past when something was called an “indie record”, it was meant as a put down for 2^nd rate product. But that was not the case with BoH and it really provided some inspiration for me.

In April 2013, 3 years after I had discovered BoH, I went to see them play in a club in NYC. Before the show I met the 2 main guys, Gordy Quist and Ed Jurdi, who also happened to be 2 of the nicest people you could meet. I got to hang out with them after the show and talk to them about their music. I told them how much I enjoyed their music and how much of an inspiration they were to me. I thought it was very important that a band like BoH was out there, setting an example for others.

Robert with Gordy Quist & Ed Jurdi from Band of Heathens

By the time I saw them there had been many big changes in the band. Besides having to replace their long time bassist Seth Whitney and drummer John Chipman, they also lost founding member Colin Brooks at the end of 2012. I asked Gordy & Ed about Colin and they were still a bit dumbfounded about it too.  Maybe it was all the touring because this band tours constantly. I can understand how people can get to a certain point in their life and say they’re done, because the road can wear people down.

Whatever is the case; Colin was a big part of their sound and recordings. I certainly would miss him. His voice and playing have such an authenticity to them. They all do, but Colin has something unique. One of the interesting things for me about BoH was that Colin, Gordy & Ed were all singer/songwriters who put out their own solo albums and decided to put a band together, which is not something you usually see. I asked Gordy what it was like to start a band with 3 singer/songwriters. To my surprise he said that the band originally started with 4 of them and then just gave me this look that said “that’s completely nuts, right”? LOL

At the start of  October 2013 they were in NYC again to play, having just released their new Sunday Morning Record a few weeks prior. This was Gordy & Ed’s new version of BoH, which had to have been taken on with a good deal of forethought. Trevor Nealon steps up more on keyboards, while the new guys, Richard Millsap on drums and Scott Davis on bass are very organic together. The result is The Band of Heathens evolving into a newer version that is very solid.

Sunday Morning Record is the 4^th studio album by the band and the 1^st one without Colin. Just before taking the stage, I saw Gordy and congratulated him on the new record. I told him that I thought it was a step up from the previous one and Gordy agreed, saying they liked it better too. I thought it also showed in the band’s live performance. Compared to the show back in April, they seemed to possess new energy and were really kicking it.

Their show was also a good omen for me. I had just received the new DownTown Mystic cds from the pressing plant earlier that day, in time for the show. So after the show, I gave them the new DownTown Mystic cd, and believe me; it wasn’t lost on me that I was holding my CD Release Party with The Band of Heathens. LOL

It was very cool and quite symbolic for me to have them be the 1^st ones to get my new CD. To have been listening to such a great band for years and then get to meet and hang out with them, for me, it doesn’t get any better than that! Such is the power of music. 🙂

Check out The Band of Heathens

In my last blog post I was talking about Sync Licensing and how it’s helped to get the music of DownTown Mystic on TV. I was primarily talking about how the instrumental tracks of DownTown’s songs are used. What I didn’t really get into was what it’s also done for me as a musician and a composer.

I was hanging out with 2 guys who are very big in Sync Licensing—Eddie Caldwell of Music of The Sea and James “Desi” Desmond of BeatClock Productions. We were hanging out one night in NYC on the roof of one of those swanky hotels, and Des asked me if I played acoustic guitar. I had only met Des, via Eddie in LA a couple of months prior, so we didn’t really know each other. I told him I did and asked him why.

Des proceeded to show me some pix off his iPhone of this studio up in New Hampshire he said he recorded at, and that he needed some acoustic guitar tracks for his catalog. He said if I was interested, I should check my schedule and let him know because he could get the studio and have the run of the place for a few days. Being somewhat jaded by the biz, it sounded like an LA “let’s do lunch” sort of thing that never amounts to anything. But Des was cool and I thought, ok why not?

I contacted Des with my schedule and a few weeks later, true to his word, we were up in New Hampshire working at Studio Metronome. For 4 days, Des, his engineer pal Panuah Kalayeh and I had the run of the place, cutting tracks and making music. The great thing for me was I didn’t have to worry about writing lyrics. I could just concentrate on playing and writing music. It was a truly enjoyable experience! We cut 15 tracks all together.

I guess my work with Des gave Eddie some ideas because he hit me up to do some tracks for him. He had his guy Floyd send me some tracks to work on and do whatever I wanted with them. Again, it was very freeing for me musically. I find it allows me to experiment more than I would if I had to write and cut tracks for an album, which does wonders for my head!

One of the last tracks I cut for Eddie was this jam that I recorded using only 1 guitar—my vintage 1964 Fender Stratocaster. In its honor I called the track StratoBlaster. The track came out so cool that I decided to create a video using it for the soundtrack. Playing off the word strata, which has to do to with rocks, it gave me the idea to use the photos from a trip to Utah a few years ago.

1964 Strat

The photos were taken from visiting the national parks that are located in Utah—Bryce Canyon, Zion and Arches. Being from the NJ/NY area, Utah is not a state that would come to mind to visit on a vacation, unless I was a skier. If my nephew David hadn’t taken a job in Salt Lake City, I would never have gone there with his family to visit him. While there, we decided we’d rent a van and do some sight-seeing, driving down to Arizona to see the Grand Canyon.

On the way down to Arizona were the national parks in Utah. I came away from the experience with a new appreciation for the Country that I live in—the US of A! Without a doubt, I saw things that do not exist anywhere else on planet Earth. The awesome beauty of nature was on full display. At times the landscapes resembled something out of a sci-fi movie and you could only imagine what it must have been like for the early pioneers that ventured west.

The weather can turn on a dime out there. We stopped for gas a half hour outside of Bryce Canyon and the outside temperature read 105 degrees. By the time we got to the road that you take to the park entrance, a giant black cloud opened up a hail storm. Within minutes the road was all white, covered in hail stones as big as golf balls and the temperature had dropped to 55 degrees. 15 minutes later we were entering the park with the sun shining and the temp was 85 and rising!

The video is made up mostly of photos of the Hoodoos in Bryce Canyon. The Hoodoos are those rock pillars that look like they were sculpted by hand and not by erosion from water, ice and gravity. Millions of years ago they were under water and now they’re some 8,000 feet above sea level. The local Native Americans called them “Legend People” that were turned to stone. If you look closely you can see faces in the stone. It’s kind of freaky. You can’t really appreciate the scale of them until you’re right there in person because they’re huge!

The Garden of Hoodoos

Hoodoo City

So that’s the story behind the video. Check it out and see what you see in the rocks, set to the rhythm and sound of StratoBlaster. To quote Sly Stone, I want to  give thanks to Des and Eddie,  “for letting me be myself again”.  🙂

In the last installment of this blog I talked about whether the CD was dead or still alive. Even though it might be on life support, my decision to release a new DownTown Mystic CD was a no-brainer for me…and I’m so glad I did!

This past year has been special in many ways. The release of the DownTown Mystic CD took on a life of its own at Americana Radio, spending 40 consecutive weeks on the AMA Radio Charts!! That was something really special for me and it never would have happened if I had gone with the current thought that the CD was dead.

If that wasn’t enough proof for releasing the cd, then going to #1 on the Roots Music Report’s Alt/Rock Song Chart and #3 on the RMR Alt/Rock Album Chart in the same week surely was!! As they say, “The proof is in the pudding” (what does that mean?) and, at least for me, the results of releasing a CD more than proved it’s still alive and kicking.

While I might have answered my own question Re: the CD, the real reason I’m writing this blog installment is to talk about Synch Licensing and how important it is today for Artists. If the radio airplay for DownTown Mystic was successful, it pales in comparison to the Sync Licensing of the music for TV and such.

I don’t think an artist can rely on any one thing these days, but it’s becoming more and more obvious that Sync Licensing should be at the top of their todo list. The best thing I ever did was to hookup the music of DownTown Mystic with Jingle Punks for getting the music placed on TV. I didn’t know it at the time, but Jingle Punks was becoming a hip NYC boutique music licensing company that would become one of the leaders in supplying music for Cable and Network TV shows.

Most of the sync deals are non-exclusive, which allowed me to hook up with similar companies like Jingle Punks. But it was Jingle Punks that really took off. The thing I really like about them is that everyone that works there seems to be a musician. Jingle Jared Gutstadt (CEO and Co-Founder) has assembled a group of very talented creative people.

Also, becoming an Exclusive Jingle Punks Artist has proven to be quite beneficial for Downtown Mystic. Jingle Punks placed Way To Know on The Voice at least a half dozen times, including one of the Live Finals shows. That was the #1 show in the US at the time and I’ve got to believe that millions of people have heard it, even if only subliminally. There might be some truth there because when Sha-La Music released Way To Know  as a digital single in 2013, it garnered worldwide radio play on over 10,000 stations prior to the release of the DownTown Mystic album. Coincidence??

Besides having DownTown Mystic with Jingle Punks, I also caught on with another rising star in the Sync field — Eddie Caldwell of Music of The Sea in Chicago. My outside work as a Writer/Producer paid off when Eddie placed my track Fly Like The Wind with Alexandra Patsavas of Chop Shop Music, for the 80s-based show The Carrie Diaries. Patsavas, arguably the #1 Music Supervisor in LA, would end up selecting 3 of my songs for the show.

Ok, so things have been going very well for the music of DownTown Mystic with sync licensing but it might never have happened at all if I didn’t learn a costly lesson. The main thing every artist should remember to do when recording is always do an instrumental mix. After you do a final mix on a song, do 1 more by muting all the vocals and running an instrumental mix. It’s the instrumental mix that the sync companies will use for TV shows.

As I said, I learned this the hard way when I didn’t do any instrumental mixes on a project I was doing. Sync Licensing was just starting to happen and I was not aware of it yet. Ouch! By the next year I knew what it was and I was kicking myself for not doing the instrumental mixes when I had the chance. All that work and money spent in recording and mixing, and I couldn’t take advantage of it!

But I learned my lesson the hard way and the following year I was back in the studio recording a new project and this time I made sure we clicked a few buttons when it came time to do the mixes. From there on, the DownTown Mystic Brand began to grow via radio and syncs. The latest sync for DownTown Mystic is a very cool one.

Thanks to Jingle Punks, DownTown Mystic has 2 tracks, Lost & Found and No Exceptions featured in a web video promoting Dr. Pepper and 8-time Female Wrestling Champ/Country Singer, Mickie James. The video features James as being “1 of a kind,” like Dr. Pepper, which is a perfect setting for DownTown Mystic’s brand of  vintage yet modern music—a unique “1 of a kind” sound that sync licensing is helping to take DownTown Mystic to the next level.

All during the recording of the new DownTown Mystic CD I was reading about the death of the CD and the Album as an art form. I was in a recording studio, where time is money, wondering what I’m going to do with the music I’m recording once I finish. The engineer will burn me a CDr with whatever I’ve recorded each day to listen to in my car. I’ll come home and upload the cd to my computer so I can have digital files to play with. When I’m done with recording in the studio, I’ll have a dozen or so CDrs that have been created so that I can listen on my computer, my stereo system, my car stereo system and whatever other system I can check out to hear what my music actually sounds like when played on various sound systems.

At the end of all of it, I’ll wonder if it will make any difference to the average listener out there. Did I just waste my time and money, as well as years of experience on something that nobody is going to pay attention to? Do I want to stick my music on a piece of plastic anymore and release it?

One thing that I did notice when I thought about putting an album’s worth of music together was that I didn’t want to listen to more than 6 songs at 1 sitting. I didn’t seem to want to hear a full cd’s worth of music from any 1 artist, even if I was the artist! So putting together 10-12 songs was becoming harder to do for me than in the past. Certainly, the days of filling up a cd with 15 or 16 songs was long over.

The new approach being bandied about in the Blogosphere was to release singles at regular intervals. Why put out 10-12 songs in 1 shot when most people were only listening to 1 track at a time from various artists? By releasing singles, you would be able to get music out more frequently to fans over a period of months rather than them having to wait a year or two before you released a full album. And with attention spans becoming shorter and shorter, can an artist afford to wait 1-2 years not having their product out and expect to have fans stick around waiting for them? Some will and some won’t because there’s so much competition out there now from all over the world.

It made a lot of sense to me…especially with the digital format and downloading now becoming an accepted way to purchase and listen to music. I believe you have to “change with the changes”.  The Internet is the #1 way to be seen and heard today. With DownTown Mystic getting radio airplay in Europe, I only saw Radio being on the Internet because the only way for me to hear those stations playing me was by listening to them on the Internet! This is very cool and very new for anyone who is used to listening to a radio station by tuning in the dial of a radio. 🙂

The other thing about releasing singles that I liked was that it’s really an old school practice. Back to the birth of rock’n’roll, singles were the main way to get heard. Back then, an artist would sign a Singles Deal with a record company, not an Album Deal. An artist needed to have a few hit singles before they would get the chance to record an album. With DownTown Mystic being considered “retro” and having Digital Distribution with The Orchard, I really liked the idea of releasing some digital singles and working my way up to an album release.

But I am “old school” and I do like the album as an art form. Having grown up buying LPs on vinyl, I also like having the physical product in my hand, looking at the cover art and reading the credits and lyrics and whatever else is included. And because I grew up listening to 45s and LPs, I became interested in quality sounding recordings. Now we can argue about Vinyl vs CD in terms of which is better sounding, but 1 thing audiophiles can all agree on is that both are far superior to the MP3.

The Record Business became successful thanks to my age group—the Baby Boomers. And as it turns out, many in my age group who are on the radio side, still prefer listening to physical product as opposed to digital. When it came to making the decision whether to do a CD, it was a “no brainer” for me because I wanted to hear my music while holding and looking at my own CD and I wanted to create it for the people who also like doing that.

Now making an Album to put on cd was my challenge. I wanted my Album to have a “vibe” to it. Part of creating the “vibe” is the pacing of the songs and somehow putting them together in such a way as to tell a story. I do think that the CD had a good deal to do with the “death of the Album as an art form”. The vinyl LP has 2 sides, which means breaking up the songs to 5 or 6 a side. In the past, because of the format, great LPs would put emphasis on the opening and closing tracks to each side of the record.

I think that was definitely lost with CDs, where you listen to 10-12 songs in a row. With the LP, an artist had to have 3 or 4 songs that were standouts to lead off or close a side. But with attention spans getting shorter, an artist is confronted with having to put the best songs at the start of a CD because people might not get through to the end. Also, with the LP there’s the physical act of having to get up and flip the record over to listen to the other side. So just having to do that breaks up the flow of music, which can be good or bad, depending on the listener.

So how do I feel about the death of the CD and Album as an art form? As I stated earlier, I’m “old school” and like having my music on a physical format. As long as there are people like me, I’ll continue to make CDs. As for the album as an art form, I think the jury is still out on that. Like anything else, an art form is only as good as the artists who use it and take pride in it. 🙂

Lost & Found