Blog Cabin

Full of Thanks

2009-12-03T10:19:00.001-08:00

I am no longer full of Turkey (it's been a week, so that's really not newsworthy). I am, however, currently full of applejacks and cheerios.

Thanksgiving is a damn fine holiday, don't you agree? I played eight million games of nerf dart tag with my niece and nephew. I am full of thanks for that.

Two days I started on a cover of John Lennon's Happy Xmas (War is Over). I have an urge to get into the Holidays songs early, before the department stores make me curl up into the fetal position from Mariah Carey over-exposure.

I shall post my Christmas cover on the interwebs as soon as it is ready for consumption.

I enjoyed the movie The Fantastic Mr. Fox on my Thanksgiving break. I want to be a fox when I grow up, mostly for the fancy clothes.

Yesterday I went to the dentist for a cleaning. My teef are still in my head. I'm thankful for this as well. I'm hoping to floss at least as often as I blog. Maybe I'll blog while I floss, or vice versa.

I'm thankful you read this blog. Are you?

Tubes in the Sky

2009-11-19T10:46:00.000-08:00

I have a writing session today. It will be my second writing session with my friend Ron Irizarry. He lives in Florida. I do not. He is in Florida right now. I am not. How will we accomplish such a feat? Will it be the world's longest piece of string with two huge tin cans on either end? If you believe that the internet is a series of tubes, then the answer is yes-ish. We shall make beautiful music over video chat. The future is now... or wait... not yet... just a second... NOW. Yeah, that's the future.

It's manure season in Southern California. The weather is mild, and the landlord of the apartment complex I reside in wants to grow grass. How does he accomplish this? With large quantities of bags of cow poop. The weather is mild, but the windows are shut.

I flew home from my East Coast gigs with Fitz and the Tantrums on JetBlue. They have the TV on the JetBlue. On the TV they have the History Channel, which was featuring a show on 9/11. It's disturbing to watch a documentary on 9/11 at just about any moment. It's extra disturbing to watch the documentary when you're on a plane from JFK to LAX, but I couldn't turn it off. I can't believe it's been eight years already.

I lived in New York during September 11th, 2001. I flew to Los Angeles a few weeks after, at a time when people weren't ready to fly yet. The humongous plane I flew on was mostly empty except for me and a bunch of Los Angeles Firefighters who had flown out to help out with clean up and grief counseling. I sat next to a firefighter with a gigantic mustache and a fresh tattoo the size of a saucer on his bicep commemorating 9/11. I listened to him talk. He gave me an LAFD pen. I think I'd recognize him if I passed him on the street eight years later. I hope I do run into him so I can say thanks.

Prefection Part To

2009-11-14T12:42:00.000-08:00

Does anyone prefer to read prose that isn't proofread? I missed a couple errors in my last blog entry. Does that make me more "rock?"

One friend brought up the idea that editing should be used to correct great performances, not mediocre ones. I like this idea, and need to remember to keep that in mind.

Don Gehman, who produced my album "The Story So Far" noticed that the pitch center of the record was wide. I.E.: the variety of guitars and keyboards we used made it that notes that were not 100% in tune according to science sounded in tune, because it was in tune to, for example, the quirky Hammond organ. This leads to another discussion: time and practicality.

It is quick and easy to simply drop auto-tune on an instrument in the world of digital recording. Auto-tune pushes and pulls the pitch as close as you would like to "perfection." This does not take into account how in tune the rhythm guitar with the accidentally bent D string is.

It's more musical to listen to each vocal note alone with the guitar or piano and only adjust the notes that bug you. It's also significantly more time consuming.

Those of us who are pursuing music as a career are doing so at a time when people are buying less records. I am a full-time musician. I need the music that I make to create income for me. What's the best way for me to do that?

Lately I've been writing music with and for other artists. This is in hopes that I can find other people who will take the baton and find a home and a market for the songs we create. Is it in my best interests to write one song that I spend 80 hours making or eight songs that I spend ten hours on? That depends. If the artist is someone who is already established and I know their record is going to see the light of day, then theoretically I should spend the extra time on it. That doesn't necessarily mean that the song is going to turn out better.

This all comes down to taste. This is the job of the artist and the record producer.

In a conversation with Fitz, the singer of the band I'm touring with, he more or less said: "vibe is the one commodity that is still valuable in the digital age." Almost everyone has access to computers that can make your music sound huge and "good" in a subjective way. Creativity and finding that perfect sound, maybe you use a rickety upright piano, or a $15 garage sale casio keyboard, is the one aspect that still separates the women from the girls.

Knowing when to say when is enlightenment.

Let's keep working, but let's know when to stop.

mafia pitch correction? fughettaboudit

2009-11-13T17:22:00.001-08:00

Read me:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/monitormix/2009/11/the_death_of_mistakes_means_th.html

And then, let's discuss:

I agree with the gist of this article. Over-correcting is a serious problem in modern music. Also, the dynamic range of modern rock and pop has become teeny-tiny.

As a musician I have spent many hours in the practice room trying to "perfect" my playing. The studio allows me to reach that goal in some ways which were not possible before digital recording. How do you know when to stop? If you're a model would you not want a blemish photoshopped out of a picture?

This reminds me of a part of an Ayn Rand book I read which more or less stated: if you see a person who's physically beautiful but has a weird birthmark on their face, you overlook it. If you see a painting of a beautiful person with a hairy mole on their face it's a giant slap in the face. It's a statement.

How does that relate to music?

Read this excerpt of Bill Evans' liner notes for the Miles Davis album "Kind of Blue"

http://www.billevanswebpages.com/kindblue.html

I agree that music is better with the blemishes left on it. I believe that dynamic range is a good thing. I'm also simultaneously worried that if I make a recording that could be used in a movie or a tv show and it's going up against another song that sounds bigger I'll lose the gig.

It's not possible for society to move back in time. It trips me out that we'll never again be in a movie theater that there isn't at least the possibility of someone forgetting to turn their cell phone off. This is the world we live in.

The great music of the 60's was recorded with eight or less tracks. That limitation was part of the creative process, and helped the artist achieve greater heights.

Read this for more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_multitrack_recording

Those limitations are toast, and there's no going back. You won't see athletes avoiding creatine and modern dietary supplements unless they're outlawed.

If we passed legislation banning auto-tune, wouldn't that just give way to bootleg-mafia pitch correction?

It's time to get dressed for my gig, so I'll have to leave this right where it is for the moment.

Tell me what you think...

Falafel? No, I'm feeling great, thanks.

2009-11-12T11:10:00.000-08:00

The rain in New York falls mainly on the ground.

The rats in New York hang out mainly near the trash bags.

I spotted five of New York's Furriest/Grossest on my way from recording studio to R train last night at 2 AM. I played the fretless bass on a "what the heck, let's record something" session with Bill Campbell, Ryan Scott. and Christina Courtin. My apologies to anyone who hears that recording and has perfect or relative pitch.

Driving play by play:

Now it's on to Connecticut. I'm enjoying of the view of the East River. Kind of nervous on the bridge. I shall overcome.

Ok, we're safely on to gentrified sections of Brooklyn now.

There are three remaining days for me on the tour. Fitz and the Tantrums shall carry on with the incomparable Jeremy Ruzumna resume-na-ing his keyboard duties with the band.

I'm imagining it will be warmer in Los Angeles than it is in the Northeast. I'm also imagining that the falafels won't be as good as they are at Taim in the Village. These are the tradeoffs you make in life.

hither, yon shouts out

2009-11-10T12:14:00.001-08:00

Ah, New York. It is good to be back in you for a few days.

Yesterday was a tour de force involving some of my closest New York friends (a tour de friends?). I had a leisurely, margarita-y lunch at Rosa Mexicano with stellar saxophonist (say it: sacks-often-ist) Rob Wilkerson, followed by an intimate beer or two with my old bandmate Bill Campbell at Kettle o' Fish in the village, followed by a nightcap of jazzy awesomeness at the Village Vanguard. I got to witness my old college roommate and fellow Nebraskan, Frank Basile, live the dream. He plays baritone sax with the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, my favorite ensemble with more than ten and less than 30 members (yes I like them better than the Los Angeles Lakers).

I love and am proud of my friends.

I walked hither and yon throughout lower Manhattan. In Los Angeles, we'll walk hither, but we'll have to drive to get there. Yon is just out of the question.

Today we're driving our faces off to Blacksburb, VA, home of Virginia Tech, which is the locale of a concert I did with the Plain White T's back in 2k3 or so. My friend who facilitated that concert, Nada, is having a kidney transplant very soon, so everybody do a shout out to whoever you shout to for such events.

We woke up at 6 am, and are now close to arriving, therefore it's time to post this blog and shut down the lappy. Sleep is for non-New Yorkers, by the way. I'm a non-New Yorker, and will therefore soon need a nap.

I could milk somebodeeeaah

2009-11-08T11:46:00.000-08:00

Oh blog. It's been too long. I got a very thoughtful email from a fan about re-starting this here thing, and it's time. I feel some imaginary, self-induced pressure to have this particular blog entry be the best ever, since my last entry was five months ago. So... here we go!

*Cricket*

*Cricket*

*Cricket*

I'm currently in the back seat captain's chair of a Sprinter van. We have wifi. We have an XBox. We have The Talking Heads burning down the house on the radio. We are Fitz and The Tantrums. I am playing keys with "we" for a week, whilst we open for "they." "They" are Maroon 5.

They talk a lot, don't they.

Tonight we shall play Cornell University. We're about 30 miles out right now. The farmhouses are purty and neat. I want to milk something. That's my favorite Kings of Leon song, incidentally, or is that "Milk SomeBODY"? I forget.

Yesterday our dressing room was a basketball court. This was a dream come true. We had plush couches, chips, salsa, peanut butter, jelly, and, after harassing a few friendly St. John's student-employees, a basketball. I was in heaven, and my heart beat so that I could hardly speak.

My jump shot was semi-silky at fleeting moments.

Meanwhile, back in LA, I've been busy writing songs, some poppy, some rocky, all with chords and melodies. The new album is still only a faint glimmer on the horizon, but I'm optimistic. The good news is: I'm creating music. The bad news: there are nowhere near enough hours in the day.

Let's do this again before another five months go by.

Tale of Two Four Year-olds

2009-05-18T09:36:00.000-07:00

Oh kay. Where are we? I am home! I am back. The road was grand. I have a three way tie for best hosts on Earth award: Tyson Leslie, Kevin/Ina Steinman, and my folks. They drove me to the airport and back repeatedly. They kept me well fed and sane. I only wish I could freeload longer.

Go to Chino Latino in Minneapolis and eat their $1 happy hour tacos. You will like it. I know this because I liked it.

This tour was really about the youth demographic. KC badass/musician/host/friend Tyson Leslie's brilliant li'l four year-older and I became fast friends. Young Nathan's quote: "I'm still getting used to Zack, so I'm going to sleep in his bed tonight." I'm considering getting that tattooed on my back.

I played a friend's wedding in Omaha, and there was another equally precocious four year-older at that gig. Her name is Julia, and she told her mom that she no longer wants to marry her younger brother when she grows up. She wants to marry me. Also, she referred to me as "Zack Expert". I really hope that nickname sticks.

So what now? Bask in the glory of the adoration of four year-olds? No! Write songs! Make records! Score a movie! Do some gigs with Drake Bell! Play the Side Door in Manhattan Beach on Friday!

The Drake Bell band will play Hershey, PA at the end o' May. Last time we played there we were escorted to the front of the roller coaster lines, where we laughed at the little children who had waited patiently and feasted on their tears. Ok that's not true, I did feel a little guilty, but really enjoyed getting the bejesus scared out of me when the roller coaster took off so fast that the only tears to be feasted on were mine. The sheer velocity forced them out of my eye sockets, I wasn't crying because I was frightened, I promise.

Right before I left for the road I finished scoring three short films. When/if they are available online I'll put them up for your viewing pleasure. I finished the last one, La Pastisserie at 4:15 AM. I left with the Drake Bell band for the road fifteen minutes later.

This lack of sleep to start the tour, plus the impending doom of Swine Flu being all the rage, made for a nervous couple of days. I inherited what I call a "Swine Cold" which is still vaguely lingering two weeks later. I think I'm going to amputate my sinuses if this doesn't clear up in the next year or two.

Oof dah

2009-04-22T12:49:00.000-07:00

The bone-melting heat has subsided in Los Angeles. I can now go outside without fear of spontaneously combusting.

So what am I doing at this computer? I'm getting cracking on the three (possibly four) short films I'm scoring.

Each of them will be six and a half minutes long. One is a Japanese war film, one is set in Spain at a bakery, and the other is a comedy that tours classic movie locales (Blade Runner, Back to the Future, Die Hard).

Tonight will be our first rehearsal in many moons with the Drake Bell band to prep for our jaunt through Illinois. This makes me happy.

Friday I'll be playing a gig with my Norwegian singer friend Therese Ulvan. We're doing a private concert for a Norwegian school that's on a field trip to LA. As my Norwegian grandma would say: Oof dah.

Let's get Bizet.

Favorite Spheres

2009-04-20T16:00:00.001-07:00

Hello blogosphere!
What is happening?
Not much here, just cooking inside my skin, inside this sweltering atmosphere. Blogo, and atmo are two of my favorite speres, by the by, followed closely by basketballs and tennis balls.

I'm getting geared up for the Midwest Tour.

Here's the deal:

May 4, 2009 : Lee's Smmit, MO (Kansas City) : Performing at Jerry’s Bait Shop
May 6, 2009 : Lee's Smmit, MO (Kansas City) : Performing at Jerry’s Bait Shop
May 7, 2009 : Minneapolis, Minnesota : Performing with Kevin Steinman at 400 Bar
May 10, 2009 : Omaha, Nebraska : Performing at Slow Down
May 11, 2009 : Chicago, Illinois : In-store performance at Apple
May 11, 2009 : Chicago, Illinois : Performing at Subterranean

Won't that be neat? I think it will.

Did I mention that I'm at http://twitter.com/zackhexum fifteen times? Ok, good.

I had a dang fun time sitting with Tim Fagan at the Witches Brew. We did mad covers. It inspired me to learn a few myself. Yesterday I mostly learned Wilco's "Jesus, Etc" and The Shinses' "Australia". It was a beautiful way to spend a Sunday. The trick is to commit the lyrics to memory. I don't have a hard time remembering my own songs once I write them, since I have to listen to them a billionty times. I've discovered my memory works best when I don't think about it at all. If I start to think ahead to what line comes next it's a fairly sure path to disaster. I have to use both hands to cram information into my brain, but once it's in there it's semi-permanent.

micro-payment of attention

2009-04-06T11:32:00.000-07:00

Two open letters to my last two venues:

Dear Zoey's,
You are real nice to me. I had a damn fine time with you on Friday night. Jes Hudak sang real purty. Your renovations and cafe spot downstairs are perfect additions to your beautiful space. Let's do it again real soon.

Sincerely,
Xaque

Dear Hotel Cafe,
We done did it again. There were many old/new friends at you. Erik Kertes played his bass/face off at you. Joel the Martin and John the Wicks brought beautiful happy vibes to you/me/the audience. I salute you, and after I'm finished saluting you, I welcome our next encounter with open arms.

Sincerely,
Zack

Yes folks, I'm in the afterglow of a couple of darn fun concerts. What now? A busy week of writing, recording, and weaving (What? I don't know how to weave or bob, for that matter. Start making sense or I'm weaving!).

As you can deduce the caffeine is in full effect, and I don't feel the least bit bad about it.

I started reading James Michener's "Alaska" this weekend. 950 pages to go: better pack a lunch.

I think the reason that Twittering is such an addictive habit is because it's a micro-payment of attention. When I write a blog, I want to make it worth while (so I suppose now is as good a time as any to say "whoops, my bad!"). When I write a tweet, I can do it in line at the post office. I suppose I could approach blogs in the same way, but/yet I do not.

So what do I have to say that's worth while: the sun is shining in California and there are infinite possibilities. Let's go effect the outcome.

Hotel Cafe V-Flyer with Indian Food

2009-03-21T11:22:00.001-07:00

It's cloudy in Los Angeles, but my sunny personality shall not be dimmed. It's been a week full of writing, recording, and many other pleasant -ings (shaving, castigating, bingeing). I recorded the jazzy organ trio at Loyola Marymount University. John Wicks on the drums and Luke Miller on the jazzy organ both played like the intuitive and dynamic dynamos they are. We will use the recording to get some jazzy organ trio gigs, hopefully a residency at a bar in Los Angeles.

Last night I enjoyed the Indian food at Salomi in North Hollywood. My sis lives in the Bay Area, and there's a favorite Indian restaurant we partake of whenever I visit. This restaurant is the Holy Grail of all Indian restaurants (and I can't remember what the hell it's called). Salomi was, as Monica Lewinksy wouldn't say "close, but no cigar." And yes, I mangled that joke from Tina Fey's Twitter page.

In other news, I'm prepared for some serious action at the Hotel Cafe this Thursday. So prepared, in fact that I made a video flyer for it:

Bird brains

2009-03-07T13:22:00.001-08:00

I feel like I'm cheating on my blog by Twittering. Really, though blog, she doesn't mean anything to me. You're my first internet love, well you and yourethemannowdog.com.

I'm still here, lurking in the intershadows. Semi-constantly pondering new blog topics. The new death star (i.e. studio) is almost operational. I'm updating software and bringing twigs to fortify my nest.

For some reason the heat just got turned on here, and I'm feeling like a rotisserie chicken.

I got cracking on a new song with my friend Luke Adams. I've known Luke since my days of yore (and by yore I mean college). As soon as it's ready for prime time I'll pop it online so that we can share it with you. The song started with a vaguely Jeff Buckley-esque melodic idea, and has morphed into something else, perhaps with an aroma of Coldplay.

Anywah, it's time to enjoy this beauteous day, and walk away from computer screens. Let's do it together.

Three....

Two....

One....

"Are you sure you want to shut down your computer now?"

Consequences be damned

2009-02-19T11:58:00.000-08:00

I'm a man about town of late

Monday nights I've been a regular at Molly Malone's, enjoying the musics of Brandon Rogers, Amie Miriello, and David Hodges. I highly recommend it, and not just because of Amie's potty-mouth banter.

Tuesday I sat in at the F.O.C.K.R.'s jam at the Kibbitz Room and earred my way through some Billy Joel on the saxamaphone. It's easy to stand out when no one else plays your instrument, that's why I'm in the market for a sacbut.

Last night I enjoyed the music of Geoff Pearlman at Cafe Cordiale. Geoff is an architect with the songs he writes. There's an intrinsic logic to the harmonic lines that weave through his stories that makes me musically horny.

Music enthusiast by night, music creator/meeting taker by day

I'm keeping on a strict diet of writing one new song a day. I'm planting musical seeds. Some will grow into b-sides, some into chart-topping anthems, and some into birdcage liner. Only time will tell.

I've got a new manager. You may notice a more meaty presence on my myspace and facebook pages in the future. We've been galavanting around LA to line up my behind the scenes army. I like meetings that involve sushi.

Illness is my least favorite "ness"

I'm still feeling the lingering effects of a sinus thing. It seems to have settled into my throat (~~that's what she said~~). As a result I've skipped my running regimen for the last week. My alarm clock was a calf cramp at 5:30 AM. This is no bueno (I learned those two words on the Drake Bell Mexico Tour '08). I'm going running. Consequences be damned. I'll need a banana afterwards, and perhaps a new throat. Till then.

Leave Me Blue

2009-02-16T18:54:00.001-08:00

no metal toilets

2009-02-03T15:08:00.001-08:00

And we're back!

Regrettably I was unable to give you the kind of play by play I would enjoy from a tour. I left my laptop at home in favor of a lighter load, and couldn't find the physical/mental space or the thumb flexibility to post from my iPhone.

Here's how it went:

I met some great people.

I played those people my music.

I froze my extremities off.

I finished and enjoyed the book "The Likeness" by Tana French. "Take what you want and pay for it, says God." -Spanish proverb (via Ms. French)

I drove a heaping quantity of hours. For some reason the extra painful early morning shift when everyone else in the van is passed out was my favorite. I communed with nature, music, concrete, and steel. The miles melted quickly away and my mind unwound its nots and knots.

I had my first extended bonding session with my recently acquired alto saxophone.

I had my first extended tour-bonding session with my friend Ryan Cabrera. That's my dawg.

I had my first encounters with Gregg the tour-booker, and Jesse Ruben. We're now bonded for life, not unlike what I guess it must be like to have a cellmate, only without the metal toilets. Here's to not finding out how apropos that comparison is.

Highlights:

-losing my hearing after playing for various screaming sorority girls.

-eating guacamole with truffles in Philly.

-playing my music, and Ryan's music for friendly sold-out crowds.

-seeing old friends in NYC.

Lowlights:

-running out of CDs to sell to the aforementioned friendlies.

-having the box of discs that were sent to replenish my supply lost at the Pittsburgh post office.

-accidentally heaving Ryan's beautiful guitar to the floor at the Bitter End in NYC.

And now that I'm home, what do I do? I pick up the pieces. I decompress. I catch up internet duties. I write songs. I sleep in my own bed. I download this month's supply of new music from emusic.com. Thus far I've picked some winners: The Dodos, Bon Iver, Andrew Bird, Larry Goldings album "Long Story Short", and Sia doing "Paranoid Android". I read "What is the What" by Dave Eggers, which gave me this gem:

"The pain is not great, but the symbolism is disagreeable."

Till next time,

high volume of new music

2009-01-08T10:55:00.000-08:00

Let's do it again.

It's my special time of the month. Time to download my 75 songs from emusic.com. I took my brother's advice and downloaded The Avett Brothers as well as a bunch of world and classical music. Since it's the new year I wiped as much music as I possibly could stand to from my overflowing ipod. In its stead I've put Paul Lewis' Beethoven: Piano Sonatas, Vol. 4, Hari Prasad Chaurasia (Indian flute music, who just played a phrase that sounds like "don't cry for me Argentina"), She & Him Volume One, Best of the Staple Singers (and no that's not a collection of National Anthem's before Laker games), Thievery Corporation, Aaron Copland, Sia, Mstislav Rostropovich (I'd like to buy a vowel), and Okkervil River. These are not endorsements of these artists yet. I need to start training for a marathon so I can have time to listen to this, and the other couple of hundred songs I've downloaded in the past few months. I will, however, say that I love Vampire Weekend.

I live in an apartment in Los Angeles. I like to recycle. In LA we use blue bins to recycle stuff. My apartment doesn't have separate blue bins. I used to stockpile cardboard and other recycle-y items and do nighttime commando runs to stuff them in my neighbors blue bins (yes, this is strange behavior). Recently, I said to myself: "self, there must be a better way." I spent some time on the interwebs at LARecycles.org and discovered that if you live in an apartment building that the city will provide free blue bins for your building, and take them out to the street. All you gots to do is call, and you've got a friend. I wrote my landlord a letter to ask him if he'd opposed to putting the recycling bins at our place. It turns out that everything that goes into my dumpster gets sorted and recycled after the fact anyway. All my stockpiling and strange behavior was for naught. Anywah, I wanted to share that with you, because it's worth finding out if you don't already recycle whether your trash goes to a great trash heap in the sky (and by sky, I mean ground) or gets reincarnated into something useful.

Speaking of recycling. This is an interesting NYTimes article on water usage I've been meaning to post. It discusses, among other things using "greywater" i.e. post-dishwasher/laundry/shower water to water your lawn. "Landscape watering accounts for 50% of usage in most districts." It also has some great photos of living roofs. That's my next project to bug my landlord with.

And now: time to listen to music until my ears bleed.

What?

Three Cups of Tea for the New Year

2009-01-06T12:12:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year, ladies and gentlemen. I'm nestled into my computer chair making a venti-sized to do list for **two-thousand-fine**. An excerpt:

-Stop bouncing off ceiling from caffeine O.D.

-Comb hair

-Cut hair

-Breathe in

-Find out who has video of last night's Michael McDonald karoake impersonation and destroy all copies of said video

-Do push ups

-Breathe out

-Finish the highlight reel of my film and television music

-Roll in my Benjamins

-Eat canned tuna to save aforementioned Benjis

-Breathe in

-Beat heart

-Breathe out

As you can see it's going to be the best year ever, even better than two-thousand-great.

I'm almost finished reading the book Three Cups of Tea. Side note: I'm almost finished drinking three cups of tea today as well. Point being, Three Cups of Tea, is simply an inspiring and crucial story, a method for combating terrorism and poverty with the most effective weapon: education.

More to come.

Cold turkey on cold turkey

2008-12-02T10:54:00.000-08:00

I have spent the last few days acting like one of those animatronic mannequins from a Disney ride doing the same motion over and over. My motion: eating cubic hectares of Thanksgiving leftovers. I even made a yogurt smoothie out of the leftovers from the homemade cranberry sauce. It was dee-licious. Alas, my binge is coming to a screeching halt as my gravy train runs dry. I'm going cold turkey on cold turkey.

Tonight I'm going to the premiere of the Drake and Josh movie. I'm bringing a little red napkin to use as a mini-red carpet just in case.

Ironically the first two full-length movies I have scored are both Christmas movies. I'm hoping to expand to Easter films in '09.

Happy Holidays is screening in New York this Saturday. This is good news for all of you New Yorkers who are weeping that you have to miss my show in LA at the Mint on Saturday. You can go see a movie with my music in it. Listen closely and you'll hear my cameo as a radio DJ.

Here are the details for the screening:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Happy-Holidays/28747205098?ref=ts#/event.php?eid=42656852535

Atrophied extremities

2008-11-20T13:24:00.000-08:00

Hello interweb. Remember me? I have neglected my bloggy duties in favor of helping score the music to "Merry Christmas Drake and Josh". We worked long and hard (that's what she said) to get 'er done (which is what that comedian from Nebraska said) on time (which is what the train conductor said).

Originally I thought this gig would be "ghost writing" which is spooky, but only partially neat because you don't get to see your name in the credits. Good news, though, I shall be officially credited as "additional music by"!

Now that I'm not working the twelve to fifteen hour days I have to prioritize my newfound freedom.

I'm planning to:

-Enjoy this "sunlight" that you hear so much about

-Blog once a week

-Write music that doesn't use pizzicato strings

-Use my atrophied extremities (I feel like I've been in a cast for a month only without the weird smell)

-Buy a houseplant

I'm proud of my hometown!

I'm playing December 6th at the Mint (it's not just for toothpaste flavor anymore) at 9:00. I'm going to round up some friends to perform some holiday-themed goodies with me. Won't that be nice?

¡Viva Mexico!

2008-10-21T15:42:00.000-07:00

It's been an insane couple of weeks. Backhouse Mike, né Michael Corcoran, and I spent many moons working out horn arrangements for a Drake Bell tour in Mexico. We arranged a bucket o' tunes for trumpet, tenor saxophone, and trombone. After a quick show in Denver and a trio of rehearsals we hopped on a plane headed para Ciudad Mexico.

I took Spanish in elementary school and in seventh grade. In high school I switched to Français. Seeing as how I now live in driving distance of a nation of Spanish speakers, this may have been a poor choice. Somehow, by the end of the week, I was remembering palabras de Señora Rhoda, my elementary school Spanish teacher, whose fashion sense, even to my untrained, fifth-grade eye was a decade or two behind the times. I vividly remember the middle school Spanish teacher informing us how to use the phrase "que lastima!" "You don't have your homework done? ¡Que lastima!" Why my brain hasn't ejected this moment in favor of other current pertinent data, such as the serial number of my stolen alto saxophone, I will never know.

My favorite aspect of the trip was trying to communicate my ideas to the locals using my hyper-limited vocab. This mix of Spanish and English was also particularly apropos because I'm in the middle-end of reading "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" by Junot Diaz. This book has introduced me to vocabulary words such as culo and ripio (these are not family friendly words you learn in elementary school).

The tour was an unequivocal success. We played five sold out shows to about 10,000 peeps a pop. I've uploaded a video of what it looked like from behind the organ:

That was with the volume turned down to ten percent. I wear in ear monitors to keep from going deaf.

Now that I'm back in town, I'm about to get busy doing some ghost-writing (spooky-style, just in time for Halloween) on a movie.

Before I descend into the paincave of the studio for weeks upon end, I'll come up for air in time to play a show at the Hotel Cafe this Friday at 11 pm.

Nice hat, Picasso

2008-10-06T12:46:00.000-07:00

I set a new personal best for traveling hellishness yesterday. We had a weekend o' Drake Bell gigs, starting with Tulsa on Saturday, and finishing with Richmond, VA on Sunday. Sunday "morning" (if 4:25 in the AM can really be named as such) I awoke before my alarm, because my desire to avoid oversleeping overrides my desire for sleep. We hopped a plane to Cincinnati (I think). It was not a jumbo jet. It was a "let's gate check your saxophone, because if it's bigger than a box of kleenex it won't fit in the overhead bin" plane. The nice lady who was in charge of the gate-checked luggage said "we'll take good care of this" when I handed her my baby (and by baby, I mean Mark VI Selmer sacks o' fun, not an actual infant). When we landed everyone got their gate checked luggage after we walked off the six steps from the plane to the tarmac. Everyone, that is, except for me. After a tense five minutes of waiting for the also-nice luggage lady in Cincy to find my saxophone she said "it must have been stuff under some other bags, because it was hard to find." In the words of Bill Lumbergh, that'd be greeeaaaaaaaat.

We had three more flights after that point, with an afternoon gig in Richmond mixed in. All in all it was 24 hours from waking hotel bed to sleeping home bed. There were no alarm clocks in my life today.

I almost forgot! Whilst in Richmond I was talking on the phone to a friend. I was wearing a hat at this moment. I was backstage, and standing next to a fence. On the opposite side of said fence was the parking lot. A friendly fellow was strolling past and heckled me with this line: "nice hat, Picasso!" To which I should've replied, "yeah, but at least I haven't mailed an ear yet!" I was wearing one of these hats:

Perhaps he mistook my chapeau for a beret, the kind you find in a secondhand store.

I posted this heckle on Facebook and a friend replied with this:

"Picasso did love his hats. I for one like am delighted to hear that people are still referencing obscure artist biographical details in every day life. Does the heart good."

Now I'm back in the mix. Tomorrow (Tuesday, 10/6/08) I'm playing a solo show at Boardner's in Hollywood. See you there.

clutter fried brainbox

2008-09-25T12:26:00.001-07:00

My quest to write one song a week is on track! Sort of!

Everyday this week I've come up with pieces of songs, usually one verse and a chorus. Nothing's finished yet, but I'm moving in the right direction. A friend told me about the book "The Artist's Way," and some of the exercises therein. I'm three-fourths of the way through "Shantaram" by Gregory David Roberts and I have no intention of cracking another book until I'm finished. Instead I'm beginning my creative process each day with a page or two of free association. This has given birth to little two word babies like "befriend anemone" and "clutter fry" As to whether or not this scribed babbling will lead to a song, yo no se. I feel like these pages are mental calisthenics, so as long as I don't pull a hammy in my brainbox, everything should be good.

I can't help but wonder how James Mercer comes up with these gems:

"But when they're parking their cars on your chest
You've still got a view of the summer sky
To make it hurt twice when your restless body
Caves to its whims
And suddenly struggles to take flight..."

I'll have what he's having.

Speaking of free association, last night I put popcorn in a bowl of turkey chili, and it was delicious.

My next voyage is October 7th at Boardner's in Hollywood. It'll be solo electric, and I'll mash my fingers way up on the tiny strings.

Seal and the President

2008-09-17T11:41:00.000-07:00

I have an upright bass. It was originally purchased by my brother for my Introducing Zack Hexum record. It stayed at his house for the last decade or so, and was a (slightly dusty) fixture in his living room. A year or so ago it was bequeathed to me. Now it's an extremely dusty figure in my living room. Through a friend of a friend of a friend it's now on it's way in an SUV to be used in a music video for Seal. I should've slipped a note in the fingerboard letting Mr. Seal know that I used to play his first album real loud in the (not dusty) living room when I was thirteen. I may or may not have danced around a little bit too. You'll never know, and neither will he.

According to his Wikipedia page Seal had six birth names, which he has since whittled down to one. That has to be a record. I wish I could have that kind of efficiency with my CD collection. Perhaps that kind of ability to cut away the fat would be good in the political process.

After reading about and watching some of the Sarah Palin interview with Charlie Gibson, and her failing the pop quiz on the Bush Doctrine (or as I've nicknamed it the oxy-doctrine-moron, because "anticipatory self-defense" sounds like something a locker-stuffing high school bully who was on the debate team would make up) I found myself thinking...

Who would you vote for if there were such thing as a Presidential Aptitude Test (PAT, henceforth), and your life depended on the candidate's score*. Let's say that the PAT has some multiple choice questions on current events (with extra credit for knowing how many houses you own), a speech section where you have to make Vin Diesel shed a tear, a diplomacy challenge where you have to convince a despotic military leader to trade you his chicken burrito from Chipotle for a can of spam, and finally a lie-detector with a full-blast-tazer attached that the candidates are hooked up to while watching their own commercials.

If my life was on the line I'm not picking the party who picked a VP that left her town of 9,000 people 20 million dollars in debt after her mayorship. Although, if she would've used the cash she kept from the "thanks, but no thanks" bridge to nowhere, I guess she could pay that debt back...

I'm also not picking the party that picked the V.P. candidate who still thinks that Iraq has links to Al Qaeda, even though the Bush Administration, who originally perpetrated that falsehood, have admitted there is no connection.

Tonight I play with my jazzy trio at Aura in Studio City at 10 PM.

*This was inspired by a Bill Simmons column about determining the NBA MVP race by picking one player as your teammate if your life was at stake.

Invoking Nickelback in the political debate

2008-09-05T11:19:00.000-07:00

I was awakened this morning by what I think was the voice of a fireman on a fire truck. He was using his loudspeaker and a deep and burly voice to say "get off the phone!" to a driver who was practicing some civil disobedience by driving while talking on his/her cellie. I'm hoping to hear that same voice of reason command my neighbors to "pick up your dog's poo!" Or maybe tell me "stop watching TV and go play tennis!" This could be an invaluable motivational tool.

WARNING political viewpoints to follow, I won't be offended if you click the back button instead of reading on.

I was listening to the radio yesterday, and John McCain's life story was being retold with a tender piano accompaniment at the RNC. They put a cute little anecdote about both John and Cindy lying about their age when they met. They left out any part about Senator McCain already being married at that moment, I guess that wouldn't play well for the family-values party, but at least we're out of the airport bathrooms.

I'd like to reflect on Governor Palin and former Mayor Giuliani's mocking of Senator Obama's stint as a community organizer. Click here for Barack's timeline. In 1983 Obama was a full time organizer for City College in Harlem who mobilized student volunteers. 1985 was the year he began his three year stint as a grass-roots community organizer in Chicago. At the same time Ms. Palin was coming in second in a beauty pageant, and would then go on to an eerily Vice Presidential career where she would get paid to talk about hockey on TV, but that's not the point.

The point is after 1985 Senator Obama continued and elevated his distinguished career as a public servant (editing the Harvard Law Review, registering 150,000 voters, teaching constitutional law, being elected to the Illinois State Senate, passing legislation requiring interrogations be recorded, writing two books, and being elected to the U.S. Senate). Comparing Sarah Palin's penultimate job as mayor of a city of 9000 to Barack's post-Columbia pre-Harvard job is like Nickelback (sorry Canada) putting down Radiohead's Pablo Honey. It's nowhere near the whole picture.

the horror, the horror

2008-09-04T10:55:00.000-07:00

I can't stomach it. I can't watch the Republican National Convention. It's the scariest fictional horror movie of all time, because it can become real.

I can, however, watch The Daily Show, and feel a little better:

Later in that show Newt Gingrich says that Sarah Palin has more experience than Obama, Biden, or McCain. Apparently, you're only qualified to be President if you're a former Governor, because that's worked out so well for Still-President Bush.

I'm going to go take a deep breath now.

celebrity purse attack

2008-09-03T13:03:00.000-07:00

It's time. I'm picking up the pen and the microphone. Yes, it's time for new music, folks. I'm hoping to get back on the one-song-a-week pace that I was on the year before I recorded The Story So Far.

I wrote my song for the week today, so I guess I can get back to watching Simpsons reruns in a dirty undershirt and growing a beard. I don't know what the song will be named yet. It's about optimism, mostly, which is a challenging perspective during the Republican National Convention, but I digress.

The Hotel Cafe was a rip-roarin' good time. Thanks to everybody who came out, and especially those who came and brought fresh bodies/new people to the cult/concert. I salute you.

Michael Corcoran played guitar on Beyond My Means and Done Him Wrong. He also sang and tickled the ivories on Dr. John's "Such a Night". I moved Michael into my top friends so all can know where and how to find him.

Here's the setlist:

sun still shines
only a rehearsal
met a girl
what if I
hold on
open to close
beyond my means
such a night
done him wrong

I'm playing Aura in Studio City on September 17th with the jazzy organ trio.

I was a spectator last night at the Hotel Cafe. Dave Yaden and Josh Kelley performed. It's been too long since I've been an audience member there. Highlights included reuniting with some music folks I haven't seen in a good long while, having Katherine Heigl's purse whap me in the stomach when she squeezed by, and hearing some excellent musicians. What more could I hope for? (This is where "I Love LA" should be piped in, but I haven't paid for the licensing rights.)

lonely t, meedley meedley meeeeee

2008-08-27T11:19:00.001-07:00

My

internet

connection

at

home

is

painfully

slow

right

now

and

I

don't

know

why.

I wanted to recreate the experience, for you, dear readers. Let's move on.

My Olympic Fever is dying down, thanks to lots of clear liquids and tylenol (which, by the way, is "lonely t" spelled backwards). I have a burning desire to play volleyball after watching the U.S. mens team beat Brazil, but methinks it wouldn't be good for my nimble, yet breakable fingers. Instead I'll just have to pine for a time when I could've been a gold medalist in the freestyle 120 bpm scale relay.

Impending downtime from the road has gotten me motivated to get more students (I teach saxophone, guitar, piano, etc.). With some help, I've written my first ever resumé. I'm all growns-up, apparently. If you or someone you love/know wants to take some lessons in meedley, meedley, please send them my way.

In other news, Friday (8.29.08) I shall play the Hotel Cafe at 11, and I juuuust added an acoustic gig at Saint Rocke in Hermosa Beach on Sunday. Details for Sunday will be posted on the profile just as soon as I get 'em.

burning gas

2008-08-18T15:20:00.000-07:00

I'm thinking about starting my own music company called Nabadybies Records.

I survived a cross country trek/mini-tour. Chicago was gently decimated. Omaha was slightly laid waste. Denver was spared. I was supposed to play a Drake Bell show there, but Mother Nature said "oh no, you di'n't" so instead we fled to Los Angeles, 14 hours straight putting us in after foe in the moe-nin.

The purpose of the trip was two-fold (much like my wallet). My friend Dan needed to move from Chicago to LA, and I needed to rock!

Downside: my guitar started crackling like an old-timey phonograph during my show at Uncommon Ground. During the set at Mick's in Omaha all heck (maybe just some heck, or heck-some if you like) broke loose. I had to finish "Two Times Two" in an a capella style. Fortunately, new friend and formidable talent Korey Anderson saved my ax, as it were, and let me use his guitar (which sounded much better than mine, hmm...).

Upside: to the many friendly faces in Omaha and Chicago, I thank you.

Tropic Thunder: totally ridiculous and highly recommended.

On the drive home we stopped at the same gas station that we previously stopped after a Drake Bell gig. That gas station stands out in my mind because a family followed us to that same service station for at least thirty minutes to get an autograph. Upon return I can only assume that this same family burned the gas station in our honor:

I know gas prices have been heating up, but that is just too far.

Now after a morning on hitting tennis balls I'm back in the swing of things. I'm excited to conquer the Hotel Cafe on August 29th. I hope you'll be there if you can.

drunken, serial killing, cab thief

2008-08-12T16:37:00.000-07:00

Sunday night I played saxophone on a jazzy gig that was a stone's throw from my apartment. I walked the mile or so to the gig, attempting to shrink my carbon footprint (don't tell anyone that my footprint went clown-sized by flying to Chicago a day later).

The gig got done about 12:30 AM, and I wasn't pleased about the prospect of walking home that late with my saxophone. I hailed a cab after a few quick minutes. When I got in the taxi's meter was at $30. This was my first indication that something strange was afoot.

The driver, a youngish dude, was chummy. After exchanging pleasantries I asked, "aren't you going to reset the meter?" To which he replied "oh yeah!" because it had apparently slipped his mind. He hit the button on top, which turned the meter to "off".

This is where I calculated that there were three possible reasons:

1. He was a serial killer and wanted to turn me into house slippers.

2. He was high/drunk out of his mind.

3. He had stolen the cab and didn't know how to work the meter except to hit the button on top.

Of course it's also possible he was a drunken, serial killing, cab thief. In fact, I think that's the most likely outcome.

The rest of the two minute ride climaxed with him zooming upwards of 50 MPH in the right lane to pass a bus. Fortunately, we didn't die in a fiery crash and the ride was over after our near Back-to-the-Future-level venture into the non-passing lane.

We screeched to a halt, and I said "how much do I owe you?"

"Whatever you think is fair." I calculated that I was leaving with my life in tact, and not as a pair of house slippers and decided that five bucks was a fair fare.

Tonight I play Uncommon Ground in Chicago.

Tomorrow I play Mick's in Omaha.

Zoom!

A trip in pix

2008-08-06T12:21:00.000-07:00

It's a blur, for sure. I'm back from New York. Here's a photo essay to show how I spent my Summer vacation.

Woodstock, NY is a magical place with antique, yet funky drum machines.

It's good to stay indoors and use drum machines when it looks like this outside...

Although back in Brooklyn, it's bright when you're staying in the living room.

And scary when there's a bloated pigeon blocking the door.

I played basketball for the first time in a long while. The gym had no air conditioning and the sweat flowed like wine.

On the way back I flew over a farm where they grow records.

On Monday I'm off to Chicago...

NY state of blog

2008-07-27T22:27:00.000-07:00

I already posted a blog on my myspace, but since I can't cut and paste on my iPhone, I'll write you fine folks a different one.

I played the cutting room in NYC on Friday. Twas a great time. It was a reunion of my old running mates, and not in a Lieberman, Edwards kind of way.

I won't say that I miss living in New York, but I do miss my peeps there, much in the same way as you might miss former cellmates, you know cuz of the bonding that happens in adverse situations.

I spent the weekend with Jesse Chandler, the Brooks to my Andy in Shawshank terms (but without the noose and the chair), in Woodstock. We recorded a cover of "girl don't tell me" by the Beach Boys using a drum machine from 1969 and other fun toys.

I might just have to throw that online for your consumption when I'm home.

Thursday I conquer Ohio...

Now I sleep.

hoosegow

2008-07-18T09:39:00.000-07:00

It was a musical odyssey. I don't know if anyone recorded the set from Aura last night. If not, there's no hard proof, and I can either tell you it was the greatest or worst show in the history of the world and you'll never find evidence to the contrary. Let's go with somewhere in the middle, yet leaning towards the greater side.

John Wicks plays drums, and plays them well. The show was our first extended musical experience together. Joel and I have played together for most of my six years in Los Angeles, and his ability to grow as a musician never ceases to amaze. We had moments of sublime empathy last night.

Playing improvised music provides a meditation for me on stage. I find myself in an entirely different state of mind then during my rock performances. During our rendition of Beck's "Nobody's Fault But My Own" (thank you Rob for the charts) I felt the audience was with me on each note. I played soprano, and I slipped away from the microphone to release all my air into the horn.

While my jazzy ambitions took a step forward, my career as a standup comedian took a step back last night. I brought my Nalgene bottle filled with water on stage. Joel asked what kind of concoction I was drinking and I said "water". He said "Daddy's water tastes like fire." I "lol"ed and repeated his line into the microphone to share with the audience. This was met by a deafening silence (and chances are high you're not laughing right now either). To which I replied, "even the banter is going to be esoteric and totally incomprehensible tonight."

What else do I know?

I got an iPhone. I did not buy the new one, I got one from a friend. I may or may not have tweaked it out, and I may or may not be playing Mike Tyson's Punch Out on my mobile telephone next time you see me. Aren't I stealthy? I feel like I should be wearing a trench coat filled with wristwatches.

I am on call for jury duty next week. This may not work out well because I'm flying to New York on Thursday. I informed the nice jury-duty-phone-line woman of this, and she said, "that's ok, just tell them when you get there what your schedule is." I'm not afraid of being on a jury. I think it would be an interesting experience, and I believe in the concept of civic duty. I'm a little perplexed as to how, as a self-employed entrepreneurial type, I'm supposed to keep my life moving if I got called into an epic O.J.-style trial. Fortunately I can blog from my iPhone now, although the typing is nowhere near fifty words a minute. Has this episode of Law and Order happened? Musician is thrown in the hoosegow for updating his myspace page in the jurors box while McDonald's is on trial for having coffee that's hot... *bong-bong*

falling coaster parts

2008-07-14T15:22:00.001-07:00

I am the weekend warrior. Drake Bell and band have officially survived our fourth weekend in a row of plane-filled, rockutastic fun.

Our grand finale was Oklahoma City this Saturday. We witnessed a gigantic piece of metal fall off the roller coaster track and tumble fifty feet. The metal was not injured, but I bet the dirt underneath smarts a little. All the people were safe, and the band decided unanimously not to ride the rides that day.

Now I'm back home, recovering from a menage a trois de tennis (couldn't find a fourth for doubles, this is a family program). I forgot that I was wearing a collared shirt (mock me later), and have a bright red triangle of sun where I neglected to put sunscreen. This triangle looks vaguely like the brand the Beastmaster had on his hand. I wonder if that means I can talk to the ants in my kitchen now?

Nice marmot.

I've added a show on August 12th at Uncommon Ground in Chicago. Ow!

books and planes

2008-07-08T09:15:00.000-07:00

I'm back from another weekend binge of plane flights and Drake Bell gigs. I've got a couple thousand more frequent flyer miles to my name, which is good for vacationing, and not so good for my carbon footprint. At least we flew in the carpool lane. Also, I've discovered that the book is not an electronic device and therefore can be used during takeoff and landing. As a result I've got some book recommendations for you.

I'm almost finished with the book This is Your Brain on Music. I've discovered I may have an usually large cerebellum. No, that's not a pickup line. The book is dense at moments, but definitely worth the brain power.

Book recommendation number two: Ken Follett's World Without End. It's the sequel to one of my all-time faves Pillars of the Earth. I'm sad that I'm finished with World w/o End. I miss the characters. Maybe they'll myspace me or something (they had ye olde internets in medieval England, right?).

One of the unexpected side effects of reading those Follett books is learning that back in the day your last name was often determined by your career. I've delved into a decently wide variety of music related jobs so would my full name in olden days be: Zachary Songwritersaxophonistteachercomposersidemanblogger? I'd have to get yardsticks to use as business cards. The abbreviated "Zachary Songwriter" is pretty decent, although I'm partial to Hexum, so I won't be pulling a Prince/Diddy anytime soon.

My next gig with the Zack Hexum trio is right around the corner. Here's a flyer:

feet on the ground, power not grounded

2008-07-01T13:53:00.000-07:00

I just got finished with a four-gig/five-days-of-flights-rampage with Drake the Bell. I brought my laptop with me in hopes of being able to blog a bit from the road. Alas, I was so wiped and wifi was so not-free that I essentially only got my computer out in time to put it into it's own little rubbermaid tray and have it x-rayed to deaf.

The good news, I'm back! The bad news, I leave again tomorrow. I'm leaving this here laptop right at home, so my next blog will either be typed with a BlackBerry Pearl (no iPhone for me yet, but I do enjoy imagining my ownership of said gadget) or it won't be typed until I'm back home in the good ol' Los of Angeles.

The four show run was eventful, to say the least. We were harassed and perhaps even intimidated by a power-hungry woman who wore Crocs. We played Six Flags Atlanta, where the poor kid had the roller coaster-fence-hopping accident just one day before. I got the crap shocked out of me three gigs in a row when I touched a metal part underneath the rented Hammond B-3 and microphone simultaneously. I think I took the Lord's name in vain into the aforementioned microphone when that happened. You're not supposed to do that at soundchecks in the South. The only gig where I didn't get shocked was the one where the show got cut short by lightning. Go figure.

Continuing on my power riff, as of yesterday, my folks' place in Omaha is one of 20,000 homes that have been without electricity for a couple days in a row. Fortunately no trees were embedded in the Hexum family roof, so no harm no foul.

I posted four shots from the Hotel Cafe show on the myspace page.

Zap!

Ow!

backhanded conundrums

2008-06-13T20:13:00.000-07:00

If Rafael Nadal is right-handed, but plays tennis left-handed does he get the left-handed slightly shorter life expectancy? Or does he just get the good batting average? Does right-handed baller, but left-handed eater/writer LeBron James shop at the leftorium for everything but his sneakers? Do you even need to shop for sneakers when you have an eight-figure (or is it nine?) endorsement with Nike? I think not.

Why Lakers, Why?!

2008-06-13T19:29:00.000-07:00

I've been attempting to come to grips with the colossal failure of my beloved Los Angeles Lakers last night, and more specifically why I care like I do when they lose, and why the hell I bother to follow sports to begin with. I came up with this, which was written in a message to someone who was pondering related issues:

Following sports is great because it's roller coaster ride on invisible tracks. You watch a movie, and you more or less know what's going to happen and that the good guys are going to win. In sports all that stuff is off. Even if you believe that the refs are betting on games, you don't know which side they've bet on beforehand. It's such a great ride when you've got your Rain Man-style statistics at the ready, you read every column and scouting report, and your team wins. You feel like you had some cosmic part in willing your team to victory, especially since you wore your lucky Magic Johnson '87 MVP t-shirt.

On the other hand, I'm simply pissed the Lakers "wet the bed" after having a 24 point lead. The fan, especially when watching the game on TV and not at the arena, has exactly zero percent input on the outcome of the game. The fan thinks, "I would've known to at least foul Ray Allen, or punch him in the kidney or something." When they lose it really makes me think, couldn't I have been learning origami, or trying to end world hunger instead of screaming at a television?

It's very anti-Zen following a team, all highs and lows, no creamy middle. Those stakes only get raised as the playoffs stretch onward towards infinity. At the beginning of the season, with Kobe demanding a trade to Chicago (so he could lose to the Celtics more often, no doubt) I thought there was no way we were going to be in the Finals, but here we are (and by "we" I mean a team that I don't play on) and now I'm mad we're losing!

Even though a team has never come back from a deficit of this margin in the Finals, I still have a sliver of a glimpse of hope. That doesn't really make any sense to me, but I guess in the end that's why I love sports. Nobody knows for sure that the good guys will win.

A Ditty (no relation to P Diddy)

2008-06-11T17:17:00.000-07:00

Ladies and Gentledudes! Boys and girls! Feast your eyes on the first-ever-in-the-history-of-the-world (as far as I know) video flyer!

I wrote myself a little jingle for the upcoming show at the Hotel Cafe on the 24th. I hope you like it.

Marylandfarmer!

2008-06-10T11:37:00.000-07:00

I feel like the NBA playoffs are at least as long as the Democratic Primary process. Unfortunately the Lakers are looking at a Hillary-style deficit if they don't pull out some serious mojo in game three. If you only count LA county, I think the Lakers will win the popular vote either way, so we'll always have that. I smell a return to the not so pleasant, 60's style feeling of losing to the Celts in the Finals if the Lake Show doesn't annihilate Boston tonight.

One bright spot of the seemingly endless playoff season has been the constant barrage of the Docker's commercial that features Marlena Shaw's California Soul. A rare benefit of the modern cross-marketing-assault of everything under the sun is the chance to discover some little-known brilliance that has fallen by the wayside.

As a result, an ad for middle-aged-man-pants got me into a little googling, and it makes me wonder if I should start with Miss Shaw's hit-the-nail-on-the-head-titled album "Who is This *bleep*, Anyway?" (And no, I'm not comfortable typing the "b" word. And yes, that's the actual title. Let's just move on.)

Perhaps my first record would've landed me a commercial for car insurance long after it's original release had it been called "Zack Hexum: Whoever, That Motherfather Is" instead of "Introducing Zack Hexum".

Sidenote: a year or two ago I watched Tarrantino's "Jackie Brown" on a network that was not allowed to say naughty words. Motherfather was one of the somehow more colorful substitutes for dropping the MF bomb. Another that I keep planning on adding to my lexicon is "Maryland Farmer", a little bulkier than the original, but what it lacks in poetic grace it makes up for in goofiness. Substituting the so-called bad words in a Tarrantino movie is a mammoth undertaking, somewhat akin to counting the number of choruses of blues B.B. King has played, or the number of Milwaukee's Beasts consumed at UNT drumline parties.

Speaking of ale and the like, here's John McCain's new strategy for tapping into the teetotaller demographic.

If I could veto one thing out of existence it would have to be C.G.I. animals acting cute in mostly live action movies. I see you George Lucas! Not to beat a previously whipped groundhog, but this was the first thing to come to mind. Stick with what you know.

Finally, pack your bags folks, because we're going to the Hotel Cafe on June 24th at 10 PM. Be there... or... I guess... don't.

Mozart's Punch-Out

2008-06-02T10:37:00.000-07:00

The day that began with seeing Craig Kilborn on the tennis courts carried on with a phone call from my friend asking me to haul it over to the studio to lay down some baritone saxophone on Beach Boys legend, Brian Wilson's, new record. If you don't think I'm introducing myself as "hello, I'm Zack Hexum and I played on Brian Wilson new record" for the next couple years, you're crazy.

I didn't get to meet Brian, but rumor has it he drank one of the bottles of water I bought and left at the studio. This makes me feel like one of the *ahem* "enthusiastic" Drake Bell fans who hangs out after the gig and screams like they're on fire when I throw them one of Drake's guitar picks after the show. I suppose that ecstatic joy is the common thread of all music fans, it's just degrees and fear of large men with needles that keeps me from getting the artist's face tattooed on my kneecap.

That momentous day concluded with a friend getting me a ticket to a semi-secret Elvis Costello show at The El Rey Theater (I still hate saying "the el", but I'll move on with a twinge of cognitive dissonance). Twas my first time seeing Elvis. On recent records his vibrato is a bit much for me. Live he blew my socks off. Fortunately I was wearing comfortable shoes, so it worked out well.

After last Wednesday's series of unbelievable events, I had a quick jaunt to Iowa for a gig with Drake the Bell. We played Waterloo. Alas, I was unable to find the time to hit up a pawn shop and have another Little City Driver-style Dobro experience. We did, however enjoy rocking out. We're going to add Jellyfish's "Joining a Fanclub" to our repertoire before our next batch o' shows. Best be warned.

Sunday, SUNDAY, ¡SUNDAY! was the recording session for Brandon Rogers' single "Broken". I was there in my capacity as string quartet arranger, and let me tell ya, folks: there ain't nothin' like the real thing. When I was doing ghost-writing for TV over the last few months I used sampled strings, because I didn't have the budget or the time to employ an orchestra, or more specifically use anyone who's name wasn't Zack Hexum, or at least someone who was wearing his underwear. Yesterday, however Brandon hired the über string quartet "The Section". I felt like Thomas Edison, listening to parts I invented being played by flesh, blood, and wood musicians and their instruments. I'm already scheming for my next opportunity in that department.

Mozart wrote his first symphony at age eight (I knew how to get thirty lives on Contra for Nintendo when I was 8 years-old, and I may have learned how to ride a bike by then, too). I'm writing my first piece for string quartet at an age when I'm old enough to have fathered an eight-year old, but that's ok. I'm on my own pace here, folks. I could totally take Mozart in Mike Tyson's Punch-Out (if it were a two-player game).

Sunday's string-stravaganza ended with a quiet and 99% pleasant evening at Libertine. The artist who was on after me had what I assume to be either a mom or manager (or a momager, as I have dubbed this archetypal character) patrolling the crowd who shushed me and a group of friends for talking during the line check (this means the artist hadn't started performing yet). She asked us to kindly move to the other end of the bar and topped it off with a "you understand". Yes, I understand. You're asking a portion of the audience to move away from the artist during the performance, thus erasing the likelihood of creating new fans who aren't specifically there to see them, and annoying/alienating (annoylienating?) complaining blogging musicians, such as myself.

I've played a decent amount of solo shows where I've battled talkers, drunk talkers, drunk-dancing talkers, drunk-dialing talkers, Weird Al, talking heads, headless talkers, and most of the in between. A silent audience may be golden, but the artist has to earn it.

Anywah, it's been a busy and unbelievably lucky couple of days. Time to get back to it, and manufacture more of those.

Faux Paws

2008-05-28T13:03:00.000-07:00

As often as possible I make it over to my neighborhood tennis courts to hit some balls with a friend. We usually play five games to eleven, we don't serve to start off, it's more like table tennis with gigantism. In the middle of game three my friend recognized Craig Kilborn looking for a tennis court.

Here's my history with Craig:

Anywah, I haven't seen him since the day the show aired. It was fun to catch up. He's still abnormally nice to me, and I hope to be able to lone him a kidney at some point to return the favor. We talked about Frank Sinatra and this song.

Craig reminds me of Neil Slater, the director of the One o'Clock Lab Band at North Texas. They're both real tall, have a sharp biting wit, and have a goofy side that's unexpected. Also, I can now add that they're both tennis enthusiasts to the list of shared mannerisms.

There are many Neil Slater moments and quotes that were gently scarring, but mostly make for good stories after the fact. Among them: "it's not too late to go to med school." The rest involve adult language and belittling oversleeping drummers. We'll save those for another time.

My time spent with Craig significantly more brief than my five semesters in the One o'Clock Band, but Mr. Kilborn's half-joshing "don't fuck this up" before I performed on the show was definitely Slaterian.

Now it's back to work. On my plate today: I'm arranging some strings for Brandon the Rogers today. He's going to record a version of "Broken" and I'm sitting down with a couple of wikipedia pages to remind me of the appropriate playing ranges and Beethoven's String Quartet in C sharp minor, to remind me of how a string quartet is supposed to sound).

This will be my first time writing for a string ensemble, which is one of the reasons I jumped at the chance to do it. I'm hoping to avoid any amateur-hour missteps (by the way, what's the plural for "faux pas", is it "faux paws"?). I guess I'll start by writing in pencil. After that I'm gonna go for the gusto like Sasha Vujacic shoots threes.

Wish me luck.

biting a hole

2008-05-27T11:49:00.001-07:00

And the Oscar for worst use of CGI groundhogs in a live action movie goes to....

Indiana Jones and the Disappointing Skills!

Accepting the award will be George Lucas, who previously earned an award for giving birth to the worst character in the history of cinema (Jar Jar Binks, Star Wars: Episode One).

And the Oscar for most depressing and simultaneously enraging cable movie goes to....

Recount!

I haven't finished this movie yet, but I have a pretty good idea that Gov. Bush becomes President. Wimper, sigh, shudder. The only way the bad feelings that surround this movie could be topped for me personally is if they made a movie about the game of intramural basketball where the dude shoved me from behind causing my knee to implode.

Back in the real, un-cinematic portion of Hollywood, I had a heckuva time at the inaugural gig of the Zack Hexum Trio. Kevin Kanner, and Luke Miller played great. Lots of peeps turned out. Many thanks to ye.

Much to my neighbors chagrin my saxophone practice routine continues on, even though the jazz gig has come and gone. I spent most of Memorial Day weekend nearly biting a hole in my lower lip, as I got intimately familiar with my still-new-yet-sixty-year-old alto saxophone. I also penned a new jazzy composition in anticipation of the next trio gig. I'm hoping it'll be July 18th at Tommy Ray's, but that's not set in stone yet.

Now I turn my attention to other matters. Sunday will be the return of my acoustic guitar and vocal cords at Libertine on Sunset. Get out your lighters (or cell phones) and prepare to semi-quietly rock!

you've got to follow through

2008-05-20T09:57:00.000-07:00

It's time for a montage, folks. Duh duh-duh-duh duh-duh duh duh duh... (that was supposed to be the start of the theme from Rocky). I'm training like Sylvester Stallone: chasing chickens around my apartment, and punching frozen tofu (since I've given up red meat). I think there's even likelihood of a happy mob chasing me around Hollywood on the way to the grocery store. Friday is the world premiere of the Zack Hexum Trio. I've put myself on a saxophone practicing routine for the first time since skaters wore baggy pants. This blog will serve as an open letter to my neighbors thanking them for not throwing bars of soap at my door, like my suite-mates in Kerr Hall did in college. Yes, love and saxiness are in the air.

It's nothing spectacular really, I start off playing long tones, i.e. going from one note to another very slowly. Next I go through a particular minor scale through the entire range of the horn, then do the scale in thirds, and then play the arpeggio. I then repeat this drill through all twelve keys. This is the way good ol' Mr. Riggs taught me to do it, back in '97.

As an aside, Mr. Riggs, creamed-corn enthusiast, is retiring after this year. Everything I know about how to sing a melody I learned through him. He once said, and then had me repeat the phrase "the smallest increments are felt by your audience." This phrase was my "use of the force, Luke". I think he meants that the work you do matters. Johnny Jazzfan might not know that you're playing the major ninth instead of the flat nine on the half-diminished chord, but he can feel it.

My practice routine then carries on with improvising on the chord progression to a golden jazzy oldie, such as "I've Got Rhythm" in all twelve keys. I follow that up with working on memorizing the material for the upcoming gig.

Practicing saxophone makes you sweat, if you're doing it right. It's like driving up-hill in a Prius. It just takes a bit more fuel than other activities.

I've taken to watching the Tennis Channel a bit in between things. I'm hoping that some of the expertise I'm witnessing will transfer to my game. Thus far I've re-learned that 80's Andre Agassi could've been a stunt double for David Lee Roth, and that Rafael Nadal "adjusts" the back side of his capri pants a lot.

You've got to follow through on your forehand:

And on that note, it's back to running up stairs and punching Dolph Lundgren in the face.

ever serve time?

2008-05-14T12:09:00.001-07:00

The pajamas are off, ladies and gentlemen, and it's 11:06 AM. I think I'm mostly human again (my bionic earlobe notwithstanding).

The tea is hot, the window is open and Spring is springing.

I've added three Southern Californy area shows, in addition to the jazz gig at Tommy Ray's on May 23rd:

Libertine on the Sunset Strip June 1st, 8:45 PM.

Hotel Cafe on June 24th, 8 PM.

Zoey's in Ventura on July 11th, 8 PM.

I've been coming back to this blog for almost an hour now, hoping for divine comedic inspiration to strike...

Instead I'll steal from Chevy Chase, and keep with the gastroenterological humor of the week:

hello my baby, hello my honey

2008-05-13T13:03:00.001-07:00

I watched a Simpsons episode whilst couch-ridden that had a quote that was apropos to my last few days: "The terrifying lows, the dizzying highs, the creamy middles."

In the dizzying highs category:

On Friday I had a fantastic marathon day in Phoenix. I performed for a non-profit called the "Musician's Enrichment Foundation" or MEF. The concert was held at St. Mary's High School, and it was a heckuva time. I got to play in a saxophone quartet for the first time since I don't remember when. The second half of the concert was me performing songs from "Open to Close" with flute, alto sax, trombone, and bass clarinet. I'm anxiously awaiting a copy of the video from the concert so that I might share it with the internets.

In the department of creamy middles:

On Saturday we had a Drake Bell gig at Union Station in Downtown LA. I awoke at the early hour of 4 AM, and made it to the gig without a hitch. Things would take an unexpected turn for the worst after a lunch at Luz del Dia (which I'm pretty sure must be Spanish for, "questionable results in your stomach are soon to follow"). Now, everyone had the same thing as me, two chicken tacos (I'm still avoiding red meat, but the occasional chicken has proven hard to avoid in my quest to be a semi-vegetarian), and no one else reported the same amount of destruction that was to follow me around for the next 72 hours. I'm not calling for a boycott, I'm just sayin'.

The terrifying lows:

I have spent lots of time with my bathroom and on my couch since Saturday evening. I polished off the John Adams mini-series I've been saving a for a rainy (poopy?) day. It's Tuesday now, and I don't feel like this anymore:

I'm still wearing pajama pants and it's one PM, so life isn't quite back to normal, but I'm optimistic.

fiery-toothed guitar

2008-05-06T09:58:00.000-07:00

I'm officially going back to college to get a degree in cryptology. I updated my email (long overdue, dude!), and many of the handwritten email addresses are highly "artistic". I need to stop giving people massive quantities of muscle relaxants at my shows, because this is just not working. And yes, for the record, my handwriting is as bad as most righties when they try to right lefty. I'm just sayin'.

Because of this I did a little informal survey. Lots of people use gmail, hotmail, and yahoo. A surprising number also use "fake.com" or "poopypants.org" as well. Who knew?

My company whilst I worked on the email list assembly line was a live in home performance of Duke Ellington on Digital Video Disc. It was as if the whole band was in my living room, only my living room was Europe in the late 50's (and therefore black and white). Ain't technology grand?

I got my acoustic guitar out of the case after this weekend's beach bash and it smells like firewood. I'm not planning on lighting it on fire to see if it burns, so don't even ask. That would be a page out of the Jimi Hendrix book I don't need to swipe. Playing with my teeth is also not high on my list, although that would've been interesting when I had my braces in high school.

undefeated

2008-05-05T12:42:00.000-07:00

And we're back. I took a "personal week" from my bloggy duties. Being 30 feels mighty nice, and kind of tastes like chicken. Thanks for all the nice burrthday wishes.

I had a heckuva time at Julie G's b-day-beach party on Sunday. I did my best to overcome the competing noise from the drum circle and the relatively chilly weather. I can officially feel my fingers now.

The Lakers are undefeated in the playoffs, and so am I. Of course, I'm not actually playing, so I'll be bringing that up in my post-season interview.

I'm excited about the big Phoenix show this weekend. I wrote arrangements for eight different songs for flute, alto sax, trombone, and bass clarinet. You do the math on the number of charts. Thus far I've been informed that I wrote a treble clef on one of the trombone charts. I think North Texas is knocking on the door to revoke my diploma. In the words of the great Paris Rutherford "feel that!". That doesn't make sense to anyone who I didn't go to school with, but it's real funny to me.

I'm holding fairly strong on my pseudo-vegetarianism, although my mom wasn't stoked "what will I cook for you?" I guess the beef broth with burgers, on a bed of steak won't be on the menu.

On that note. I'm off to lunch.

a rant

2008-04-23T11:17:00.000-07:00

The Superdelegate phenomenon is rearing its ugly head again. If Hillary loses the popular vote, the delegate count, and still somehow convinces the professional politicians in the Democratic party to make her the nominee I'm officially retiring from amateur politics (again). This possibility makes me want to hurl large objects. I'm trying to find a happy place in my mind, but with no avail.

I believe that Senator Clinton has to know deep down inside that this is just bad pool. If she can become a nominee after losing the nominating process that's really no better than President Bush becoming the "leader of the free world" after losing the election to Al Gore. Boo! Between that and the 3 AM fear-mongering ads I hope she thanks Karl Rove and the Republican Party for inspiring her campaign tactics during her acceptance speech.

I finally got around to watching Barack Obama's speech on race. I would run into a burning building for this guy. I haven't donated to either candidate until now. We must not waste the opportunity to elect a once-in-a-generation leader. Make the right choice now and we'll be telling our grandkids about what we did to make a difference after what is among the darkest eight years in our country's political history.

Ok, I feel better now, kind of (grrrrrr!).

More good meat debate after the last blog. Good times!

Meanwhile, I'm still a musician. I was just about to recommend that you go listen to Caribou only to discover they're playing The El Rey (yes, it kind of hurts to type "the el", but that's just how we do it) tomorrow. I gotsta gets me some tix.

A Farewell to Meat, Day One

2008-04-22T11:33:00.000-07:00

I received a lot of quality responses after my throwing down the meat-free gauntlet to myself. Thank you. After reflecting a bit I've decided that I'm still going to eat fish, preferably sushi, and also eggs, preferably scrambled. The plan is to go beef and chicken free for one week and reevaluate from there. Unfortunately my first day as a semi-vegetarian (fish&veg&eggetarian?) had an inauspicious debut.

I was sharing my quest for meatless-ness with a couple of friends on the way to lunch. We went to Porto's Bakery. The "potato balls" were recommended as a must-have by one of the aforementioned friends. I ordered a veggie sandwich and a potato ball. I was less than pleased to find out during my first bite that the full name of the potato ball is probably potato MEAT ball. That 2 inch ball of goodness is going to be my last bite of bovine for at least a week, as long as I don't get hoodwinked into accidentally ordering a strawberry shake with steak in it.

After my meat debacle I spent the evening tinkering with my new pedal board and a hot glue gun. I avoided the very real possibility of fastening my new Memory Man delay pedal to my forehead, so I consider it a success.

I just looked at my iTunes sales report and 14 people downloaded "I Met a Girl Like You Once" last week. I smell a meatless steak celebration in my future!

See you at the birthday party at Libertine on Sundee.

meedley meedley monday morning

2008-04-21T09:56:00.000-07:00

Good morning internet. How are you? Don't you know me? I'm your naive son.

I am feeling good, in a Nina Simone-ish kind of way. I'm feeling good despite a couple of not-so-fresh feelings:

I had a weekend of gigs with Drake Bell in Vegas. I've expanded my gambling habit to include blackjack. It felt pretty decent to have won $25 the first night I played. It felt incredibly stupid to have had a net loss of $60 on the second night I played. I think I'm going to stick to music and save the card counting for Hallmark's product managers.

Another idea is bouncing around my head. World food prices are on the rise. It takes 16 pounds of grain to produce one pound of edible animal flesh. I also can't shake conversations I've had with friends about meat contributing to some types of cancer. I love In 'n Out burger real hard. It's a deep, profound, and perhaps unconditional love. I think it's time that meat and I went our separate ways. Like the dude says, "at least I'm housebroken", no wait! I meant the other dude, the one who says "be the change you want to see in the world." And since I'm not planning on morphing into a couple of quarters and a dime, I need to start with red meat. Yes, I'm going to ween myself from the teat of meat. I may very well fail. If you see me on youtube David-Hasselhoff-style, shirtless and surrounded by burgers, that may the time when I admit I'm powerless over a higher power (in this case the higher power of fast food).

The big three-oh is fast approaching, folks. Am I worried? I've had just as many days on Earth as everyone else who's 29 and 11/12ths years old. No, I'm not worried. My (perhaps obnoxious) motto on the subject is: if you live to be 100, you're going to feel really stupid if you look back and realize you've felt old for 70 percent of your life. It also doesn't hurt that I was carded not once, but twice while gambling this weekend. I won't be going out for any high-school-age acting roles, or any other roles for that matter, but I'm happy with where I am, and more specifically when I am.

Don't forget to come to the really big shew this Sunday at Libertine on Sunset to celebrate the aforementioned passing of my 20's.

Now I'm off to practice all my meedley-meedley's...

by the guay

2008-04-17T13:11:00.001-07:00

I'm taking a trip down mammary lane (wait, I think that means something else...). I dusted off an old timey mp3 of a concert I did with Rob Wilkerson. It's from a gig at a place called The Rising in Brooklyn back in 2002. Oh New York, I never really felt at home in you, but I sure did have some great times playing music, and the camaraderie we had was profound. In the name of full disclosure: I had to consult the ol' spell check on that one, my thinking was comrade is spelled like that, therefore comraderie should be spelled like that. Who needs a college degree when you have the internets! I guess that's why I came in 2nd in that elementary school spelling bee.

Now I am here, and am happy to be(e). It's laundry day. It's also take-my-new-alto-to-the-repair-guy-to-have-it-looked-at day. That's a national holiday in Paraguay, by the guay.

Back to the tangent of the internets, or at least my corners: I put up the information for my concert in Phoenix that's on May 9th. I'll be performing for MEF, which is a music school thingy. I'm writing arrangements for flute, alto sax, trombone, and bass clarinet of seven or so of my songs. I'm excited! Lots of pencil and paper work to do now.

Until next time, thanks for stopping by, but mostly stay classy.

they won't carve my face into a mountain, but...

2008-04-16T10:08:00.001-07:00

As Gloria Gaynor said, "I have survived." Ok, that's not what she said, but we'll be creative with tenses for the porpoise of this blog. I'm officially done with my first job writing music for TV. I turned in my final episode Monday. The show I'm working on, which shall remain nameless since I'm "ghost writing" (it's really not as spooky as it sounds), has had it's series finale.

It was a success for these reasons:

-I didn't get fired.

-My rent is paid, and there's food in the cupboard.

-I quintupled my producing/recording/mixing experience.

The process went something like this: the producers of the show messenger over a VHS tape with timecode on it, the main composer and I divvy up the scenes, then we furiously and simultaneously compose and record music that's exactly lined up to the various scenes. Next we mix the finished product, and finally upload the music to an FTP server. On average I did about eight minutes of music a week. The first scene I did took me 20 hours to do two minutes of music. By the last episode it took six hours to do the same amount.

I'm hoping to do more television and film in the near future, but for now I'm excited to get back to booking some tour dates. I'll be hacking away at that over the next few weeks, and I'll put 'em online as soon as I know 'em.

Jon Stewart on elitism and the presidential race:

“If you do your job well, they might carve your head into a mountain. If you don’t think you’re better than us, then what the fuck are you doing?”

compound words get fractured

2008-04-07T11:31:00.001-07:00

Saturday was a bucket o' fun. Videos were made of the show at the Mint. Enjoy one here:

Click on the user to see more of 'em.

Musically it was perhaps my favorite show that I've done. Luke, Joel, and Charles, you are worth your weight in doubloons.

I'm currently locked back in the studio working on the ol' television music stuff. My last day off feels like it was Christmas. Can you feel my whiny tears through the blog? I wonder if the teardrops will short out the motherboard on this here computer.

It's good to be busy, and complaining about not having stuff to do is nowhere near as fun.

Tomorrow (Tuesday, April 8th) I'm playing the Plush Cafe in Fullerton. Details are on the profile. The lovely and talented Thomas Freund (some call him
Tom) will also be performing. I'm imagining we will be sitting in with on each other's sets. I'd like to say that eachother should be one word and not too. For instance if nowhere is one word... I'm just sayin'. Maybe I'll go German style and start connectingthewordssimplybecause I can. Ok, maybe not.

Back to work! Mush! Mush, I say! See you tomorry.

a good day

2008-04-02T12:06:00.000-07:00

It's a big day folks. I got my special advance copy of Jessie Baylin's new album Firesight. The song we wrote "Not a Day More" is on the record! Ow! I'm excited. You can pre-order it off Amazon through that link. I listened to the first four tracks on the drive to the studio today, and it sounds beautiful. I'm honored to have played a part in its creation.

Second big piece o' news: I got my new very old saxophone! I changed game plan from the previous blog in which I debated the pros and cons of paying for a top of the line new horn or a medium of the line new horn. Instead I found a beautiful silver plated Selmer Super Balanced Action alto on Craigslist. The previous owner bought the horn in Paris in the 50's. He kept it in immaculate (I that word started with an "e", but spellcheck disagrees, and who am I to argue?) condition for 55 years! This thing has mojo. I'll be posting pictures, and probably making a YouTube video of it before too long as well. Good times!

I also renewed the warranty on my 1 year-old laptop! Go ahead logic board, break! I dare you! Just kidding. Please, please, please don't, it's a big pain in the ax, even if it's covered.

It's been a momentous day thus far, and it's only lunch time. Maybe I should go buy a lottery ticket. On the other hand, I'm hoping to avoid heavy falling objects for the rest of the day.

slap back

2008-04-01T15:56:00.001-07:00

Last Summer I toured with Drake Bell. Today we got the band back together for a li'l performance at an elementary school. Jamie plays drums in Drake's band. We invaded his son Carter's music class today. It was a surprise. The way I know it was a surprise was because every ear drum within a ten mile radius must still be ringing from the squeals and screams of delight. We played two songs, Drake answered a few questions, "what's with the beard?" being my fave, and split. It's nice to make kiddies happy.

The rest of the day is filled with pizzicato strings, and electric guitars here at the studio. I'm working on TV stuff, and it's going very well, thank you.

Subliminal promotion: Hello, (come to my show at the Mint on Saturday) how are you?

Didn't that make you want buttered popcorn?

Yesterday I typed the sentence "I think I'll go bowling in in his honor." I sometimes like to add what we in the music biz call "slap-back delay" to words words. Doesn't it make me sound sound like like an an early early Elvis Elvis record record?

Back to work!

baked-sugary-goodness

2008-03-31T14:05:00.000-07:00

i have been remiss in my blogitude lately. Yet here I am, and with a renewed purpose.

What have I been doing? Composing music like it's going out of style, which it may very well be.

A heckuva time was had at the Hotel de Cafe last Saturday. Luke Miller filled in the bass frequencies (plus many more) on the keyboard/organ. It was the first show of the post-Shupp era. I think I'll go bowling in in his honor.

Last week I also played keys 'n saxamaphone with Charles Robert Paxson. He has a rehearsal space downtown. I like to drive with the windows down whenever it's reasonably possible. If you go just a bit past downtown on the 101 there's a bridge that you cross that smells like baked-sugary-goodness. I don't know what it is or where it comes from (hopefully that's not what anthrax smells like), but every time I pass that bridge now I start sniffing like a drug addict.

Next Saturday I'll be at The Mint, which doesn't actually smell "minty" since we're on the subject. Nonetheless, it shall be a great show if all goes according to plan.

I'm purty sure this is the Hotel set from the other night:

Beyond My Means
What if I
Little City Driver
Done Him Wrong
Only a Rehearsal
How Many Times
Hold On
Princess of Darkness
Is This Love (Bob Marley)
One Spin

Let's save more for tomorrow.

sweet 16 thousand

2008-03-12T18:41:00.001-07:00

Oh snap!

I have exactly 16,000 friends right now. Let's hope no one deletes me as a friend, or their own profile. Also, let's hope my flakey friend approving stays flakey. That's a pretty safe bet.

Brandon and I are formulating a secret plan of attack for Saturday's show at Zoey's in Ventura. I am excited. Art thou?

I have been poking around the YouTube, and I discovered this is how you practice if you are a badass:

Whammy!

I haven't posted a blog this late in the day in a long time. It feels pretty good. The sky is extra dusty looking. I wonder if there's a fire somewhere that I am not privy too.

Final thoughts: Geraldine Ferraro, for the love of Oprah, please stop talking!

What's in a name?

2008-03-06T10:15:00.001-08:00

I posted a new hootenanny of a video on the youtubes. It's a duet with the brother and I. In case you would prefer not to click on the above link, let's go ahead and post it right here.

Related note: this is not one of the Hexum Brothers:

But a little wah wah guitar never hurt anoyone, I suppose.

I decided to snoop around the internet and see if I could learn something about my last name. I came up with this from ancestry.com:

I'm a mystery, apparently. Spoooooky

Today feels more Monday than Thursday to me. I think that's because I had a show on Tuesday, which made that feel like a Saturday. Therefore Wednesday become Sunday, and now here we are.

What will tomorrow feel like? Only time will tell.

before I get too deep

2008-02-21T11:58:00.000-08:00

I'm reading The Inner Game of Tennis right now. I attended a jazz "band camp" (hee hee) when I was in high school and one of my teachers recommended it to me for it's philosophical approach that can be applied to playing music. It's only taken me 12 years to get around to it.

The book talks about avoiding negative judgments in your playing, and this can be applied to tennis, music, or any complicated task or hobby. (Hobbit? No.) Point being, one would be better served to observe then to criticize. The line judge in a tennis match doesn't say "that ball was out, and boy, your backhand sucks," or "that ball was in, and you are a much better player than your opponent." By avoiding these judgments we can avoid mental pratfalls, and the snowball effect that comes with beating yourself up (aren't the challenges of the game, and a willing and occasionally able opponent trying to beat you enough?).

I teach guitar and piano lessons. Applying the ideas of the Inner Game to teaching is really intriguing to me. The problem is, I feel that I need to learn how to get out of the way, and let the student teach themselves. No matter who your teacher is, the individual always teaches his or her own self best.

It seems to me that it's impossible to improve at a task without having positive and negative reinforcement. Without a sense of what quality is, and therefore "good" and "bad", there's nothing to teach. I suppose the trick of applying the ideas of the book as a teacher are to get the student to get past judgment and get to observation. I guess this means I'll have to stop saying things like "you messed up the fourth measure, and this means you are a very bad person."

My final pondering for the day is related, and one that I've wondered about for a while. It relates to the four truths of Buddhism. There's a more detailed explanation on that link, but it says the truths are:

Life is suffering.

The origin of suffering is attachment.

The cessation of suffering is attainable.

The path to the cessation of suffering.

This fourth truth seems to be a sentence fragment to me at first glance, but that's not the part that bothers me. What bothers me is what place do achievement and quality have in Buddhism? Without hard work and ambition would we have a cure for polio, Michael Jordan, or Apple MacBook computers? Doesn't the existence of excellence lessen the amount of suffering the rest of us experience? I imagine that many successful and ambitious artists, athletes, and entrepreneurs don't follow these four truths and have a hard time dealing with life when their heyday is in the past. Are the people who achieve excellence martyrs for humanity?

I try to approach my career from a Buddhist point of view. I don't crave fame or wealth (except for the necessary wealth to purchase a new saxophone, pay rent, get sushi from time to time, and see an occasional movie). I crave the ability to keep going, to write better music, to be inspired, and to communicate.

Does the Dalai Lama have a myspace page? What are the chances he checks his own mesages? What are the chances he'll read this blog and add me as a friend?

Until next time...

Go Lakers.

Om.

cheap hobbies and cheaper puns

2008-02-19T15:51:00.000-08:00

Behold, oh internet. I hath added a couple shows up in this webspace.

Some shall be solo. One shall be a full-banded excursion.

Zoey's will be also be featuring the vocal and electric piano stylings of one Brandon C. Rogers. Brandon is doing his own set, but chances are high that there will be at least one duet.

I watched ye olde NBA All Star Game in New Orleans and was reminded that Branford Marsalis is a mighty fine saxophonist, or as I like to pronounce it "sacks-often-ist".

My alto saxophone (sacks-often?) was stolen (grrr). I now have an insurance check that is burning a whole in my bank account. I'm either going to buy a Yamaha saxophone for two g's, that is medium fancy, or this beautiful, highly fancy Selmer alto for the low, low price of $4000:

Maybe I should've taken up a cheaper hobby in high school, like spaghetti collecting or cross-stitching pocket lent. Perhaps I could've taken up a cheaper Hobbit, like Samwise.

As Krusty said, "puns are lazy writing!" But what else will I do with my spare time that doesn't cost $4000?

brick-o-fructose

2008-02-12T11:25:00.000-08:00

Sorry neighbors. I wrote a new song yesterday. Whenever this happens the stereo goes on repeat so I can get into the meat of what the song is about and where it should go. I'm expecting a brick-o-gram through the window with a "stop playing that song!" post-it attached at any moment.

One of the new tricks I've learned from my TV scoring Yoda to my Luke (a.k.a. my boss) is that if you want your background vocals to sound like the Beach Boys, sing 'em loud! That's a primary feature of yesterday's new ditty. I've been listening to "Our Prayer" from Brian Wilson's Smile, and the a cappella break in "Sloop John B." The sound of that vocal wall is tasty like high fructose corn syrup, but much healthier for you. "Wall o' Vocals" are a new staple of my diet.

Other than my plans at juggling masonry, and high fructose similes it's a simple day over here. I'm off to play some yellow-ball in a moment.

Yesterday I was asked what candidate I'm supporting. I'm leaning Barack, but I've got a lot of love for Hillary. But instead of my opinions, let's think about yours for a moment. Click this link for a non-partisan survey that will help you figure out which candidate you line up with.

kang, kodos, and my life of crime

2008-02-11T11:27:00.000-08:00

In case you missed a previous blog, I'm ghost writing music for a TV show these days. A friend who scores a couple of shows has a wee bit too much on his plate, so I'm doing half the music for a particular show (which shall remain nameless). Last week I was holed up in the studio, scoring early and often. This week I'm off, and back to the more important work of talking about myself.

Today I return to the world of the living. I'll be seeing sunlight firsthand (and not through the studio skylight), getting worked over on the tennis court, replying to myspace friend requests, finally updating the email list, and booking a show or two.

I've been reading a bit about how "superdelegates" will effect the outcome of the Democratic Presidential nomination. What with the record voter turnout that's being reported around the country, that personally makes me want to kick me heels up and shout "what the hizzle?!" That's got to be number two on the top ten ways to make people disenchanted with the democratic process, right above Kang and Kodos taking off their Barack and Hillary disguises at the eleventh hour and revealing their true policy goals of enslaving the human race.

Nevertheless, I shall carry on with my obsessive trolling of the news of the Presidential race, and my new found poli-crush on Hendrik Hertzberg.

This weekend I went to Vegas to visit friends and lost 100% of the seven dollars I invested in "jacks or better" video game poker. This is one of those experiences where early failure in the short term may be best for the long run. For example, coughing your brains out the first time you try a cigarette, or getting caught shoplifting baseball cards* on your first attempt doesn't feel great in the moment. Fortunately, when you're tallying up the plusses and minuses of the human condition down the road, these moments will lead to a relative karmic jackpot. On the other hand, maybe I'm missing my calling by not pulling a bank or stagecoach heist.

We'll never know. Instead I'll teach myself Joni's "Raised on Robbery" and ponder.

*It was fourth grade, and I blame my delinquent friend, Freddie, for talking me into it.

Blue Sting

2008-02-04T10:28:00.000-08:00

Saturday was a good one. I played the Hotel Cafe. We sent Bill Shupp off to San Francisco with a bang.

I'm attempting to start a new tradition where the band does an "in the style of" cover at every gig. Saturday we did Radiohead's "Karma Police" in the style of The Police. No, not with donuts, but rather with stacked fifths on the guitars, lots of "eeh oh"s, and plenty of hi hat fills.

Two notes on the picture that will follow:

Is Sting doing Blue Steel?

Craig Kilborn said I look like Stewart Copeland, but I'm thinking I could be Andy Summers' stunt double.

Here's the setlist:

only a rehearsal
how many times
done him wrong
little city driver
beyond my means
what if I
2x2
hold on
karma police
open to close
one spin

Don't forget to be super tomorrow, Californians.

Groundhog's Gig

2008-01-31T14:47:00.000-08:00

My calendar has just informed me that my show on Saturday is on Groundhog's Day. Someone get Bill Murray on the phone and have him teach me how to sculpt ice.

When last we left off I was getting ready to play a gig with Charlie Paxson. We had a hoot. Charlie's boss, Colin Hay, was there. He's a congenial guy, in addition to being a great singer and writer. I'm in his top myspace friends. Booyah.

For a long time the change your top friends was only sortable by email. This was real annoying to me, because I didn't have the patience to sort, or the email addresses of some of my friends profiles. You can sort by myspace url now, so I'm finally able to return Colin's favor and put him up there. Good times.

Slow news day again?

Purrhaps.

Saturday will be a bittersweet show, and not because of the possibility of six more weeks of Winter. Bill Shupp, is moving to San Francisco. Bill or "Shupp" or "Shuppstitution" or "The Shuppster" has played with me for more than five years now! He's played bass, drums, and acoustic guitar, or filled every role on the bandstand except for my own. This Saturday will be his grand finale with me (at least for the foreseeable future). I'm planning a 20 minute Rush medley with a 40 minute slap-bass solo as a tribute to Bill.

Mr. Shupp, your impeccable musicianship, professionalism, sunny disposition, and tech geekery will be sorely missed. Perhaps we'll figure out a way to have him play future gigs via webcast.

butter knives

2008-01-29T12:29:00.000-08:00

Tonight the tables will turn and I'll be a part of "and band". I'm sitting in on the saxamaphone with my compadre Charlie Paxson at the Silverlake Lounge tonight at 9 PM.

In related news, I will soon be contributing $70 to Los Angeles County. After a little rehearsal for the aforementioned gig, I double parked in front of my apartment so that I could load the ol' saxophone into the residence, and not have to walk around with my horn late at night. My hazard lights were just the beacon the parking authority needed to leave me a $70 love note from the city of LA. I'm hoping my experience as a driver/parker in Los Angeles will be $70 better afterwards, but I'm guessing not.

Charlie will be playing in my band at the Hotel Cafe this Saturday. It will be neat.

I've really been enjoying toast with honey lately. That has become a problem, because I haven't been washing the dishes frequently enough to keep up with the accelerated use of butter knives, and now I have to use a spoon.

It's a slow news day, apparently.

I've been listening to a speech on the Word for Word podcast by President Clinton. He asserted that if we got serious about getting buildings around the country up to the environmentally friendly standards we would have a veritable ton of new jobs at many different skill levels. I think the public often doesn't associate being environmentally conscious with economic friendliness. The economy grows anytime there are new things to be sold, and a new set of services to be provided (like with the explosion of tech companies in the 90's). This could be one of those times.

making oohs

2008-01-28T11:21:00.001-08:00

The clouds have parted. Rumors were swelling that they were going to replace the "Sunny" in Sunny Southern California with "Rainy" if the precipitation didn't stop by today. Fortunately all epithets are in tact. I'm still the Lego Maniac. Randy Savage is still the Macho Man. Karl Rove is still the Prince of Darkness.

I have been remiss in my bloggy duties lately. That's because I've taken on a new Winter/Spring job of ghost-writing music for a TV show. I'm not going to tell ya which one, because I don't know if I'm allowed to. Hint the theme's lyrics start out with: "so no one told you life was going to be this way". Ok, not really. That show isn't on the air anymore. The West Wing, Six Feet Under, and The Sopranos aren't on the air anymore either, so I'll have to hold out that Alf Clausen has too much work and calls me to help out with The Simpsons if I want to score one of my all-time favorite shows.

Point being, I've been holed up in a studio making marches, vocal oohs, and ten second segues. It's been a great challenge, and mostly very fun. Because of this golden opportunity I'm going to put touring on hold until the season gets finished. That means I should be back on the road in the Summer, barring any unforeseen stuff.

The good news for you Angelenos, other than the rain relenting, is that I'm playing the Hotel Cafe this Saturday. It'll be a full band show, with full band shenanigans. I'm thinking of pulling a "Hannah Montana" and asking Zac Efron to be my body double while I do a costume change into my pleather one-piece leotard.

More on that and other disturbing ideas next time.

five cents on the dollar

2008-01-14T10:33:00.001-08:00

I've been availing myself of the free downloads from iTunes U. Did you know that if we keep up the current rate of oil consumption that it will all be doneski in 40 years? When you think about it like that, it's amazing gas isn't $10 a gallon. Get your calf muscles ready, because we're going to be riding the bicycle much more often about the time that some of us hit 64 years-old. As Ricky Bobby said, "with advances in modern science and my high level income, it's not crazy to think I can live to be 245, maybe 300. Heck, I just read in the newspaper that they put a pig heart in some guy from Russia. Do you know what that means?" From that perspective riding a Schwinn at 64 doesn't seem so bad. That's not even middle-aged yet.

Other podcast/lecture highlights:

In "The Writer's Almanac" Garrison Keiller reads Louis Jenkins' poem "Too much snow".

My favorite line:

"Someone wished for this snow. Someone got a deal, five cents on the dollar, and spent the entire family fortune."

We don't have that problem in Southern California. As a matter of fact the weather couldn't be more mild if you had your hand on an outdoor thermostat. That was ideal for yesterday's 3 Hour Tour. All went well, and as you can probably guess, I'm not writing this blog from a deserted island. I made new friends and ate more fried chicken then I care to admit.

Zoey's was also a hoot as usual. I've found that as a performer every once in a while I'll get a glimpse of a new level of creativity and comfort on stage. Friday was one of those nights. On Sunday I didn't achieve that same level of inner mojo, but I know it's out there, or in there, as the case may be, and I am determined to grab it and make it mine every day.

Here's to getting better, and staying better.

My next opportunity to slay the dragon will be at the Hotel Cafe on February 2nd. Hope to see you there.

Zing?

doppelganger, except with names

2008-01-11T12:53:00.000-08:00

The weekend looms large, ladies and gentledudes.

Tonight a little voyage up to Zoey's Cafe and Loft in Ventura, CA is on the itinerary. Sunday, a little voyage in a boat will set sail (or set motor, more likely) on The 3 Hour Tour. I shall be there. Shall you? Or "shell you?" to make a horrible nautical pun.

Last night, things were jazzy at the Pasadena Jazz Institute. I played saxophone with my tromboning friend Garrett Smith. There was another Zack H. on the stage, although his folks and my folks had differences on how to spell our first name. His name is Zach Harmon, and he plays them drums and them cymbals real nice, although it's not this newly discovered Zach Harmon. How many Zack/Zak/Zach H's are there?! This reminds me of that Edie Brickell song, "someone there's somebody that looks just like you do, acts just like you do, with a different name, and a face that looks like you"

Anywah, I'm excited to get this party started. In case you are wondering what you've been missing, here's a li'l audience perspective from the Plush Lounge.

Finally, I leave you with these parting words:

Open sesame.

air/fire guitar

2008-01-08T12:09:00.001-08:00

I think I found the meaning of life in a myspace captcha. Then the comment went through and I forgot it.

Good news is I still have Brad Mehldau's jazziness playing on my iPod to keep me comp'nee and enlighten me.

Tonight (Tuesday) I'm playing the Plush Cafe in Fullerton. I've been polishing my guitars and practicing all my guitar pyrotechnics.

If this happens, someone bring a fire extinguisher, or I'll have to play air guitar on future gigs.

What with the political process in the news, I thought I'd share this blog with ye:

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/hendrikhertzberg

I'm back on the jazz horse this week, playing a gig Thursday night in Pasadena. Details to follow...

Also, don't forget Zoey's Friday and The 3 Hour Tour on Sundae.

If you did eat a sundae for 3 straight hours, you would probably have a massive brain-freeze (or nose ache, as I called them in my youth).

I got an early copy of the new Big Believers album, and it's delicious.

Till next time... Zing!

Rain, man. Chandler.

2008-01-04T12:21:00.000-08:00

As Radiohead once said:
The raindrops, the raindrops, the raindrops

Maybe I can keep this going and make my blog "a six degrees of Radiohead quotes" kind of thing.

Or maybe not.

It's raining in Southern California. This is newsworthy, because it's not supposed to rain or be cold here. Also, everyone here has plastic surgery and a script in their back pockets at all times.

Should I be writing a script instead of these words? Probably not.

Continuing yesterblog's theme of reconnecting with artists who have inspired me, I started re-reading Raymond Chandler. To put it briefly, Chandler wrote noir detective books set in Los Angeles. Chandler's "The Big Sleep" became a movie featuring Humprey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. Two of my favorite movies, "L.A. Confidential" and in a more subtle way, "The Big Lebowski" are both grandchildren of Chandler's body of work.

Chandler lived in thirty-some different residences in Los Angeles, in just about every conceivable neighborhood. After reading an article in the L.A. Times (that I can't find, but there's a similar one here) I decided it's time to revisit my first favorite author. Thus far it's been a treat. I'm hoping to work in some snappy/witty, tough-guy dialogue into my blogs.

"I don't like your manner."

"That's alright, I'm not selling it."

Zing!

I've decided to change the spelling of my name back to Zack, or maybe I should call myself "Zing" Hexum. As in Zing a zong of zixpence.

If it rains as hard as they say it will, I wonder if the 3 Hour Tour, will turn into an ark. Tickets are still available, so just in case...

Till next time, don't forget your raincoat.

typos and corrections

2008-01-03T10:14:00.000-08:00

Corrections:

Reno is actually known as "the biggest little city in the world," not Las Vegas.

and

"Fitter, Happier" is from OK Computer, not Kid A.

and

My name is really spelled "Zatch", I've just been putting you guys on all these years.

*Cricket*

*Cricket*

I teach guitar lessons. Yesterday we listened to Elliott Smith's music to illustrate the concept of voice leading on guitar. Elliott's music had slipped out of my mind a bit, I'm glad he's back. Time to practice!

I got a nice mega-sized bump from a 311 MySpace bulletin yesterday, so that extra digit or two in play count for the day wasn't a typo. I'm doing my best to send a "hello" to each new friend, so some of those requests may sit in the inbox for a minute or two. Thank you!

Lost Vegans

2008-01-02T09:55:00.001-08:00

Happy New Year.

I have a printer. I have labels. I try and combine these two items when it comes time to send out the ol' PayPal orders of the new album. I ran out of magenta ink. You wouldn't think this is a problem, since I don't print labels in magenta (although, maybe that should be my New Year's resolution). However, the lovely engineers at the Brother corporation have deemed that you must have all varieties of ink in order to simply print black. This is poor.

As a result I have been handwriting the last batch or two of orders until my ink gets here (I ordered it online, because it's a whole lot cheaper). Sometimes my mind wonders/wanders when I write these addresses. Yesterday I addressed a CD to a music fan in Las Vegan, NV. Somehow I don't associate vegan-dom with the neon lights of Las Vegas. Any vegans in Las Vegas surely must be lost, no? Welcome to Lost Vegans, NV, the biggest little city in the world.

As you can see my endless appetite for puns (better puns then destruction) hasn't abated in 2008.

I think this is a fine opportunity to make bad jokes like "Oh Em Gee, I haven't seen you all year!"

I don't have a lot of resolutions to put into practice. There are the ever present Kid-A-style "fitter, happier" ones, but in general things seem to be going right on schedule. Mostly, I want to see through a bunch of the ideas that have been bouncing around in my head. The first episode of the Talking Music Show needs to be edited. I have a burning desire to play saxophone, and have been considering getting together a group, or a "combo" as the jazzy folk say, to assuage those feelings.

I'm close to finished with Chuck Palahniuk's "Survivor" and I can't say that I'd recommend it, at this point.

I saw "I am Legend" last night, and I would say that I recommend it. It may not be the most ground-breaking film of all time, but it's definitely entertaining.

Speaking of being a vegan (which I am assuredly not) one New Year's resolution I'd like to put into practice is finding a CSA (community supported agriculture) farm to get more tasty and more responsible meals happening. All this was inspired by my favorite book of '07, The Omnivore's Dilemma.

I'll leave you with the thought that if you're reading this, you've survived 2007, and at least one of my blogs. Health and happiness in the Near Year to you.

Post-Christmas Cheer

2007-12-26T11:03:00.000-08:00

It is the day after Christmas and all through the apartment, not a creature was stirring except for me writing this blog on some parchment.

Which is totally true, except for by parchment, I mean laptop.

Santa was nice. The reindeer didn't mess up the shingles on the roof.

I'm drinking tea. Can you feel the caffeine?

The Lakers won on Christmas, but my tivo lost, and did not record the game. Boo!

In the meantime, there's lots more family bonding and board games to be had before the Holiday season is over. Therefore, the blogs will be pithy for a few more days.

This year the meaning of Christmas is seeing your pint-sized relatives wearing their new pint-sized Chuck Taylor's with the special shoelaces.

I'm off to the post office to mail some Post-Christmas presents to some ZackHexum.com shoppers.

Don't forget to buy your ticket to the 3 Hour Tour before it sells out.

the compact disc is officially released

2007-12-21T11:48:00.001-08:00

We done did it. The CD release party was a full-fledged success. Many to thanks to the fans, the bands, and everyone else in the building.

Here's the setlist:

Done him wrong
Easy for you
What if I
Beyond my means
Only a rehearsal
Hold on
Who knew
Little city driver
Jealous guy
Open to close
One spin

I gorged myself on cupcakes and In 'n Out afterwards (take THAT Elvis!). In a moment I'm off to the Post Office, my new home away from home, to mail out last minute Christmas gifts ("Open to Close" CDs, of course). It's not too late to get your copy of the disc. In fact, it probably will never be too late to buy a CD in my opinion, but for that matter it won't be too soon, so what are we waiting for?

I've been listening to the song "July Jones" by The New Pornographers on repeat today because yesterday I kept saying "behind the daaaayliiight" over and over again. I'm hoping this purges the parasitic grip this song has on my head. If not, we may have to amputate.

On that pleasant note...

Merry Christmas!

Giant, Salty Steps

2007-12-19T10:09:00.000-08:00

Ladies and gentlemen, when the oatmeal makers say "a dash of salt" they really mean one and only one. I made a bowl o' oats for breakfast and spaced out on that little detail. It tasted like I made my breakfast in the Dead Sea.

In other news, all of my headless-chicken-runnings yesterday were fruitful, and the first batch of Open to Close CDs were sent out (complete with autographs, if he/she responded to my email). You can order yours here.

I've been avoiding buying Microsoft Word because I am stubborn. (They say as a taurus that's part of my nature, but I don't believe them! I refuse to believe it! You can't convince me! No, I say!) As a Mac user I was then forced into using AppleWorks. Because of all this CD mailing I've been trying to do a "mail merge" to print labels from a database -"Musicians, they're just like us!"- Did anyone send me a myspace message about putting the cover sheets on the TPS reports? This is another in a long line of tasks I didn't imagine myself doing when I was practicing "Giant Steps" in high school.

Yet I digress, and ramble, and carry-on. Point being I downloaded an open source program called open office. Click on the open source link if you wanna know in-depth stuff, but essentially this means: the program is homemade by computer programmers just like... umm... "you and me?" Perhaps just like my bass-playing-computer-whiz compadre Bill Shupp. Point being, it's free! I also found a free PhotoShop type program as well as a free Illustrator program for graphics.

I made this all by myself:

Can you believe it?

I'll be going hog-wild with flyers before ya know it.

In the meantime I'll be playing my CD release show at the Hotel Cafe tomorrow (Thursday, at 9 PM).

Here's a hog-wild flyer just for you, dear readers:

Tour Cliff Notes

2007-12-18T11:33:00.001-08:00

Where does the time go?

I've got a magna carta sized list of things to do now that I'm back in ~~sunny~~ rainy California.

So I'll write a brief synopsis of the plot from the final week of the December Tour:

Knickerbocker's in Lincoln was grand and started a three day stretch of seeing my name gently misspelled, this time as "Zak Hexum".

Jerry's Bait Shop in Kansas City was also grand. Lots of familiar faces (at all of the gigs, really). Tyson Leslie sat in on keys. He's my hero. My name was written as simply "Zak", no last name. If I become a pro-wrestler, this might be the way to do it.

Rock 'n Racquets at the Qwest Center: the anthem went very well (my dad liked it, too). I give myself an A minus, because there's always room for improvement. I was supposed to go on at 7 o'clock or so. We ended up starting about a half hour late. I spent that entire half hour pacing back and forth and lightly singing "oh say", "oh say", "oh say" a billionty times, so I wouldn't forget the key. This was akin to a basketball team taking a time out before the second free throw at the end of the game, but hoorah, it worked out.

Also, at Rock 'n Racquets, I got to play two points with Andy Roddick. The first one was nice and slow. The second one, he turned up the heat because the M.C. told him he had to rap if he lost the point. I saw my life flash before my eyes when he hit that ball at me. By the glory of luck, I returned one lightning fast stroke, yet was unable to make it to the other side of the court for his return.

Mick's in Omaha was great, filled with friends from elementary school and old high school teachers.

That's all I got for now.

Here's a flyer for Thursday's show:

magic eight blog

2007-12-11T14:40:00.000-08:00

Oh the weather outside is snowy
and I'm glad I don't have anywhere where to go (e?)

The first week of the December mini-tour is in the books. It feels great to be back in the saddle and seeing familiar faces in relatively far-off places. A special heart-felt thanks to everyone who came to the shows, and extra special props for the people who bought the new album. We've been pre-ordering the new tote bags and t-shirts. They're being shipped via FedEx to Omaha, so they'll be in the mail to your hot hands by the end of the week. The new album is officially available via PayPal through ZackHexum.com!

This week I'm back in Omaha. I was planning on getting back to ol' Westside High School and helping out with my old jazz band today, but wouldn't you know it, it's a snow day.

My high school friend Carey had a syndrome called "Bed, aaaah" that occurred on school snow days. It went like this: you woke up and got on the phone to call the school hotline (it was programmed on the speed dial of my childhood kitchen phone) and got the very rare, and very lovely recorded voice saying "Westside Community Schools are cancelled for December 11th." At that point you would most likely scream and race back into your bed, at which time you would say: "Bed, aaaah." Then you would sleep in real hard for two more hours. I imagined everyone in the city of Omaha doing this at exactly the same time, so if you listened carefully you could hear a few thousand kids hitting the pillow at the exact same moment.

Tomorrow I'm playing Lincoln, NE, followed by Kansas City on Thursday, then back to Omaha for the big Rock 'n Racquets event on Friday, and Mick's on Saturday.

I'm participating in a tennis clinic for Rock 'n Racquets on Friday. I'm currently wearing an early Christmas present: new tennis kicks. This is my first official pair of tennis shoes. No, this doesn't mean I've been wearing penny loafers my entire life, this means that these shoes are actually designed for running on a green court with white lines. I thought my court cred might be diminished if I was wearing my Forum-Blue-and-Gold (i. e. Laker-colored) Nike high-top-moon-boots. Of course my court cred might be diminished if I make an ass out of myself at the clinic, since I haven't had an opportunity to play tennis in the last week or two. Go easy on me, Qwest Center.

The Lakers seem to be doing moderately well despite the fact that I haven't been able to curse at the TV from the road. Whenever I write a blog that says they're doing well they immediately run off a three game losing streak. I bet you didn't know these blogs had such magical powers. Let's see if I can't create some other magic via weblog... Boy it sure sucks that there's no chance that they'll catch the scumbag who stole my alto saxophone last year.

Till tomorrow, stay warm, but mostly stay classy.

a note

2007-12-06T08:38:00.000-08:00

Just a quick note to say a couple of things:

By now I'm sure anyone who's watched the news over the last 24 hours has heard about has heard about the shooting at Westroads Mall in Omaha. My thoughts and prayers go out to the families of the victims. I'm thankful that my family and friends who reside in Omaha are all safe. I used to hang out at that mall when I was a kid. Scary stuff.

I'm hitting the road to Columbus in a minute.

See you Ohioans tonight.

air quotes, lazer, end air quotes

2007-12-05T14:43:00.000-08:00

I made it to the Midwest. Wouldn't you know it, it snows in December over here! Get out yo' shovel.

Airports and airplanes don't bring out the best in people. A ragaholic six-foot-teen-she-ogre tried to pick a fight with me for reclining my seat. I was hoping to avoid:

A. punching her

B. being punched by her

and

C. being tazed.

I succeeded, but it took all of the Zen I could muster.

Other fun sights and sound at LAX:

1. Man being cursed at by airline employee for being late.

2. Woman cursing at airline employee because she was late.

My solution? Taze them.

"Excuse me, I ordered a Diet Coke." Zap!

Tomorrow (Thursdee) I have a show in Columbus. I'm hoping I don't have to lazer my way through two feet of snow to get there. There was some start time confusion. I'm planning on hitting the stage at eight PM. Be there or be square, but preferably be there. If the snow is out of control and I get stuck in the snow in Indiana, I'll post it here.

In other news, they're raising the standards for MPGs to 35 by the year 2020. Does this mean that Hummers will be dirt cheap in 2019? Does this mean that SUVs will revolt like Johnny 5 in Short Circuit? Are we going to retrofit them with bicycle gears so we can still use them? If so, will soccer moms then have the biggest calf muscles in the world?

These are the questions I ponder.

Today I did a clinic for a couple of jazz bands at St. Pat's High School in Chicago. I talked about the nuts and bolts of what it's like to be a ~~starving artist~~ professional musician. I didn't tell them this old chestnut of a jazz joke:

Q. What's the difference between a jazz trombonist and a large pizza?

A. A large pizza can feed a family of five.

For the record, I don't think a large pizza is big enough to feed an entire family unless you get bread sticks and a salad.

Yet I digress. The clinic was a hoot. I really enjoy ~~talking about myself~~ teaching. The students asked some very astute questions. I think we avoided any "which do you like better, half notes or whole notes?" kind of moments. Hopefully the kiddies agree.

Till we meet again...

Wear your mittens.

no country for bad movies

2007-12-03T12:28:00.000-08:00

Good morning internet, how are you? Don't you know me? I'm your naîve son.

Today is the day, barring any disasters, when I pick up my new album! They're going to be ready at 4 pm. The suspense is killing me. Will the liner notes be accidentally typed in Spanish? Is my name spelled correctly? Are all the tracks backward ("I buried Paul"?)?

I'm not really worried about anything going wrong, but it's fun to pretend.

I'm shipping out on tour shortly as well. Take a trip to ZackHexum.com to make sure you're in the know. I've added some Southern California gigs in January, including the infamously famous 3 Hour Tour. More on this in future blogs.

The city of Los Angeles is working on a sewer near my apartment. I can smell their progress, and I'm not enjoying it.

*Movie opinion alert- if you have any plans on enjoying The Mist, skip the rest of this blog.*

Friday night I painted the town in movie-popcorn-butter yellow and saw "Stephen King's the Mist". Can I have a refund?

I'm a movie buff of sorts. Thanks to Rotten Tomatoes I've had a stellar six months as a moviegoer. Into the Wild, Michael Clayton, American Gangster, The Simpsons Movie, Gone Baby Gone, Rescue Dawn, Superbad and No Country For Old Men have all been thoroughly enjoyable. Unfortunately, Beowulf was a step in the wrong direction, and despite mostly decent reviews, The Mist was a leap off a cliff into murky, crap-filled waters.

I'm not going to give away the whole plot line of the movie, in part because I don't want to give this movie any more brain time than it's already receiving, and also because if you're a glutton for punishment you can still see this film and have your own set of "are you kidding me?" reactions.

Suffice to say a movie that leaves all but the most obvious metaphor on the cutting room floor and goes straight for the jugular with dialogue such as "I can't believe you think that, people are inherently good!" isn't going to be dissected in a humanities class anytime soon.

On a related note, Marcia Gay Harden's Old-Testament-Bible-thumper has to be the most over the top, unbelievable, nuance-free villain in modern movie history. She did a great job of being annoying (the audience clapped when bad stuff happened to her), but lawd almighty! I'd rather be trapped in an elevator with Dick Cheney. There's not a trace of humanity in her. Even Anton Chigurh, from No Country For Old Men, was more believable in his outright disregard for human life.

There's a scene involving tentacles that made the re-animation of Jabba the Hut, in the original Star Wars movie, seem like a well-executed and wise choice. As Butthead once said, "These effects aren't very special, Beavis." A slinky wrapped in tin foil would have looked more realistic.

Rice Milk Teeth

2007-11-29T11:56:00.001-08:00

Have you ever been on a plane with a head cold? I have. When we were landing I felt that the forward momentum shove my sinuses towards the guy in the seat in front of me when the rest of my noggin stayed attached to my buckled-in body.

Other than blowing my nose a record number of times all is well. I'm picking my new CD up from the printers either tomorrow or Monday.

I watched a thing on the local news about people camping out in front of stores to get first grab of stuff on Black Friday. As soon as the doors opened they were sprinting through the stores, presumably thinking "I NEED STUFF! GIVE ME STUFF!!" I understand that if people didn't buy stuff for Christmas the economy would go straight into the crapper, but perhaps we can think about buying recycled stuff for Christmas. That's my plan at least. I found this blog that has some links to some cool recycled Christmas gift idears. That way you can fulfill the "I NEED STUFF!" side of life without requiring new stuff to be made. By the way, if you're in my family, don't click on that link, because you'll know where Santa shops for you.

It's cute when your landlord schedules a plumber to work on the pipes and doesn't tell you the water is going to be shut off. This happened to me mid-shower when I lived in New York. I had to get the Brita filter out of the refrigerator and pour it on my head to wash off the shampoo. It was so cold it froze my thoughts. I'll guess I'll be brushing my teeth with Rice Milk today.

thank full of turkey

2007-11-26T11:23:00.001-08:00

Happy Post-Thanksgiving, dear readers. It's been a great week, lots of bonding with turkey and family.

What am I thankful for? I'm thankful for the newly discovered "Magic Wand Tool" on the cheapie version of photoshop. We have designs for a new t-shirt and tote bag that were drawn on paper. There was a wild ~~goose~~ turkey chase involving Kinko's and broken scanners, but in the end we overcame. Once the paper is scanned and neatly placed on your computer, you have to cut out all the white so the background is transparent. This is like removing the hay from a hay stack one needle at a time (at least it was until I found the magic wand).

I'm also thankful that I tried my hand at piano tuning this weekend. This is another arduous task, much like photoshopping the chest hair off of Robin Williams, but one that I enjoy. I got a socket wrench and went to town on all the As and Bbs I could find.

Use your imagination:

I'm thankful for not having access to the Lakers games on TV during their three game losing streak. Because why watch a bad thing unfold over three hours when you can read about it in five minutes and skip the agony?

It's time for turkey sandwich number nine (number nine, number nine, number nine).

Climbing the Charts

2007-11-16T12:57:00.001-08:00

Waking up to a weed whacker is not a good substitute for an alarm clock. In my groggy morning state I imagined a team of 12 foot-tall lumberjacks sawing my bed in half whilst I was clinging to my REM sleep.

Regardless, the show must go on, the weeds must be whacked, and most importantly, the cereal must be drowned in (rice) milk and made soggy.

Today will be the first taping of the Talking Music Show. My brother Nick, he's in a band called "311" (say it: three hundred eleven), will be stopping by to discuss life, music, the universe, and fishing lures.

I just now typed "talkingmusicshow.com" into my browser and found an empty, but nonetheless "real" website. Someone beat me to the punch on the title. As a result I've reverted to my old tricks and am using the babelfish translator to come up with a last minute new title for the program.

"Exposure of Music Communication"...

Not so much.

"Music That Speaks"

Maybe "Music Speaks" is a winner.

These are the decisions that control my day.

I have about three hours to make up my mind.

In other news, I have created a profile at OurStage.com. I'm new to the site, but it appears to be an online battle of the bands. This terrifies me a bit, because I don't have total faith in vox populi (how many albums did Creed sell?). On the other hand, why not? I entered "Little City Driver" in this month's Country/Americana contest and currently I'm 370th with a bullet! Look out world!

Striking Out

2007-11-15T13:23:00.000-08:00

It's a good day, folks. The Lakers beat the Rockets last night, despite making more turnovers than a bakery. My St. Louis show came together as did Lincoln. I'll be playing Pops Blue Moon on Saturday, December 8th in St. Lou and Knickerbockers in Lincoln on December 12th. The phone tag with the venue in Chicago has reached epic proportions. I'm considering resorting to telegrams and smoke signals. Despite that I'm optimistic, and as he whose name shall not be mentioned said fifty million times "we're staying the course."

I've discovered it's hard to play tetris if your head is leaning to one side. I was contemplating the day, in a sideways-Rodin-style pose, and all of the blocks were going one slot to the left of where they should've gone.

Speaking of sides and ways, last night a friend told me the other view of the writers strike. The producers (the people not holding the signs) say that they are not making any money off putting the shows online, and that the money to pay the writers what they want for internet residuals would make putting shows online a waste of money. I also heard that the top paid writers in TV get $400,000 a WEEK! OW! That hurts. From reading this blog it seems to be a bit challenging to figure out how much the average writer really gets. Suffice to say, Aaron Sorkin won't go from holding a picket sign to a will work for food sign in the near future.

Maybe MySpace artists should go on strike to get a percentage of the advertising revenue that we bring in! Of course, that doesn't make sense, since musicians need MySpace like Tyrone Biggums needs crack.

I do, however, advocate drug users going on strike against drugs.

And on that note...

I bid you a hearty grass-fed moo.

corn-fed blogging

2007-11-14T16:12:00.000-08:00

A couple of items of interest in the Open to Close/new album department:

-The album cover is done and has been posted online for your viewing pleasure.

-I'll be uploading "Open to Close" to iTunes today so it's ready to go on sale when I get the discs back from the printers. I'll be picking up a thousand or so copies of the album in the last week of November, assuming everything stays on schedule with the duplicator. The album will only be for sale through PayPal, iTunes, and at shows.

-"Beyond My Means" and "Little City Driver" have been added to my myspace player to tempt your eardrums.

-I've posted tour dates in December. Omaha, Columbus, and Kansas City are locked and loaded. Still to be added are Chicago (we're finalizing a venue), St. Louis (there was a wardrobe malfunction on scheduling this gig, but it's still looking highly possible), and Lincoln, NE.

I live in Hollywood. I leave my windows open whenever possible (i.e. not when there are evil particles in the air from rampant wildfires). Because of this I can occasionally hear nearby neighbors arguing. Since there are forty actors to every palm tree it's fun to guess whether these arguments are real or rehearsals for an audition or an acting class scene.

Occasionally I try to listens for film lines I might recognize like, "Oh, I'm sorry, did I break your concentration?" or "My sister! My daughter! My sister and my daughter!" or "go ahead, make my day." So far no luck.

Speaking of acting. I saw "No Country For Old Men" and it was alarming. It's one of those "stick with you"/"scar you for life" kind of movies. Be afraid.

Speaking of scarring you for life, and taking the "moo" out of "movies". I haven't ripped all the way through it, but "The Ominvore's Dilemma" is a fantastic and alarming book. What has it taught me thus far? I bought grass-fed beef for din-din, because cows are naturally supposed to eat grass, not corn. Cows have to have mad antibiotics to make corn digestible to them, and eating grass, if the cows are moved frequently, is better for the environment because it allows the natural cycle of consumption and growth to occur. Bet you didn't see that coming in this blog, did ya? Me neither. This is the part in the story where I get hate mail from my old Nebraska corn farming neighbors.*

*no, I didn't actually live on or near a farm when I grew up.

The taco conoco cat returns

2007-11-09T11:05:00.000-08:00

I'm looking at the clock and it says blog:30. That can only mean one thing! It's time to get a new clock.

My musings the other day on the writers' strike made me think. If the Daily Show can go into reruns, can a blog? For instance I found my old Journal and feel I should share this little snippet:

"I’ve been thinking about palindromes a lot lately. So for I’ve come up with “bird rib” and “taco conoco cat”. We had a conversation back in Denton about a guy who came up with one that was several hundred words long. Scary."

There's no way to imbed html code for canned laughter, is there?

A new palindrome for ye: "word row".

I saw Mark McGrath at a concert yesterday. I met him back in '98 or so through my brother. He's very nice and told me that he came across my MySpace page. That makes me wonder who else has viewed this cyberspace that I don't know about...

Dear Pauls (Simon and McCartney),
If you're reading this, I'd love to play in your band and open up for you.
Love,
Zack

Dear Joni Mitchell,
I like your music a lot. I tell people that you're my musical mother. I don't smoke cigarettes like you do, but I'd like to go on tour with you.
Yours,
Zack

They're the band that did the Macarena

2007-11-08T10:30:00.000-08:00

I'm off to the laundromat (that's where all the billionaires hang out) in a minute. This activity is so overdue that sorting the darks and the lights is like opening a time capsule. I think I found a Los Del Rio '95 Tour t-shirt wrapped up in a dirty sheet. I'm going to be folding like a very conservative card player (i.e. often).

Last night I had a bundle o' fun playing in Laguna Beach with Reina Boone and Alec Bridges. Reina gave me a hat she made. I wore it on the drive home (which was much quicker than the rush hour(s) drive to the gig).

Today should be the coup de gråce on the album artwork. Austen's coming over to finalize the album cover and photoshop a mustache onto my elbow.

blog writers lollipop guild

2007-11-06T10:03:00.000-08:00

Of all the things I imagined I wanted to be when I was a kid, "web designer" was nowhere near the top of the list. That's probably because when I was eight years-old being a "web designer" meant doodling Spiderman on a spiral notebook. I've never been particular adept at doodling. I am decent at googling, but I can't say there's an art to that.

Point being, ZackHexum.com has been redesigned! Austen Risolvato did the basic graphic layout and I've done the programming. There are still some trimmings to add to this turkey, but please stop by and take a lookski.

What's so dang new-fangled about it? We used the back cover of the new album as the main image to give it that jukeboxy-je-ne-sais-quoi. I set up a flickr page to host photos for those of you who don't like "the myspace". All the lyrics from the forthcoming release are already up. I'm going to put The Story So Far and Realistic Fantasy up in a hot minute as well.

My weekday blog writing streak came to a screeching halt yesterday. I wonder if you, the bloggy faithful, got nervous yesterday that the blog writers guild went on strike with that other writers guild. Yesterday's absence was not a gesture of protest, I spent yesterday programming HTML like it's going out of style. Which in a matter of speaking, it is, but I don't know how to do flash yet.

As a resident of L.A. I get to drive by the striking writers and their picket signs. I wouldn't imagine that people outside of the entertainment industry feel much compassion for people who are at least successful enough to pay union dues in a job that one would imagine most often is a dream come true. Maybe you feel that this issue is akin to the South Park episode where they mocked Britney for not being able to afford a new jet because people were illegally downloading her record instead of paying for it. (For the record, I felt that episode was an irresponsible way to portray an issue that effects musicians as much or more than it effects popstars and record label CEOs. I don't give a hoot about Britney's "jets" either, but that's not why you shouldn't illegally download music. My guess is that cheap concert tickets are a thing of yesteryear as much as a 99 cent gallon of gas.)

I wonder if the writers guild has consulted these guys for advice on how to get what they want? I hear their pension plan is fantastic.

I personally started to feel compassion for the writers when I realized The Daily Show will be airing re-runs until this thing is resolved. Pay them! I've got twenty bucks I'll kick in.

If you're thinking you're having a bad day, just be happy this isn't your x-ray:

Charmin-of-the-Cob

2007-11-02T11:05:00.000-07:00

Last night while reading "The Omnivore's Dilemma" by Michael Pollan, I learned that back in the day corn cobs were "stacked by the privy as a rough substitute for toilet paper. (Hence the American slang 'corn hole.')"

Ow! I love the internet and power steering as much as the next guy, but I have never felt such a need to squeeze the Charmin to celebrate the joy of the truly essential modern comforts.

I wonder if Charmin-of-the-Cob was used in the ol' West. Regardless, I felt no need to achieve that level of cowboy-realism when I donned my cardboard hat and pin on sheriff's badge on Halloween.

Bang bang:

Charlton Heston would be proud: apes and firearm enthusiasts stand together:

Maybe the guy on the left needs one of these beers more than I do:

Tonight I'm off to see The Polyphonic Spree play at the Henry Fonda. My ol' college friend Zac Giffel will be playing the slide trombone with them. I know some trombone jokes that I'd like to share, but they all require visuals. Ask me when you see me.

I had a dream last night that a couple of musicians were trying to teach me a song by bass player Steve Swallow:

I'm currently enjoying listening to M. Ward's "Transfiguration of Vincent" album. Observation: he seems to sing with a lisp at certain moments. My favorite lyric of his: "if life is really as short as they say, then why is the night so long?"

grip tape worm

2007-11-01T12:42:00.001-07:00

Dear internet,
I hope you had a spooky Halloween. Mine was grand. My costume involved a cardboard cowboy hat. I'll leave it at that until I get the pics online.

Today I've got a little rehearsal on the schedge with my brother Nick for the first episode of the Talking Music Show. We're going to dust off an old favorite from the Hexum Bros. Tour.

Yesterday I had a conversation about my tendency to find a hobby or subject that is new to me and obsess about said matter until I become a "trekkie" on the given topic. Cases in point: The Lakers, hot tea, The Shins, Wayne Shorter, West Wing, Apple Computers, etc. It's akin to a mild form of autism. This tape-worm-like ability to digest a topic is why I play many different musical instruments. I hope nobody convinces me to try crystal meth or these blogs could take a turn for the worse.

Tennis is my flavor of the year. I have the privilege of calling Venus and Serena Williams friends. Venus gave me my first tennis lesson, and, thanks to my skills at Simon Says, won a racquet at a party that Serena threw. Because of this I feel that I'm cosmically required to become a good tennis player; people who play tennis their entire lives and don't have the good fortune to be friendly with two of the all-time greats. With that in mind I've been playing tennis four or five times a week for the last month, and I'm actually starting to feel like a tennis player and not just the owner of a fancy racquet.

It's strange watching tennis on TV when you're used to watching the NBA. It's as quiet as a library during play, which is disconcerting at first. The upside is: you have a zero percent chance of hearing Soulja Boy in between points at the French Open. Each time I hear a piece of "Crank That" a little piece of my soul withers up.

This is also a good time to mention that I'll be back in Omaha to sing the National Anthem and an original song for rock-n-racquets". Andy Roddick and Serena will both be there (and you can bet your grip tape I'll be bringing a racquet).

I'm not planning on doing this version:

More Keytar!

2007-10-30T11:19:00.000-07:00

Sunday I went to see the Thelonius Monk International Jazz Trumpet Competition and Tribute to Herbie Hancock. The Monk Competition is essentially American Idol for "the jazzers" except Al Jarreau played the part of Paula Abdul (well-dressed but possibly totally insane).

I didn't know this beforehand, but my friend Ambrose Akinmusire was one of the three finalists for the competition. Ambrose played in my "Roller Derby" band at the Key Club last year. At the competition he played an original composition, and survived a tune with the aforementioned beret-enthusiast-skoobedoobee-scat-singing Al Jarreau.

"Take this Ambrose!"

After the three trumpet finalists performed there was a star-studded tribute to the legendary Herbie Hancock. At one moment four of my favorite musicians were on stage at the same time. Wayne Shorter, Joni Mitchell, and Sting were holding hands on stage to present Herbie with a humanitarian award. I had a total comic book guy moment, "best musicians ever!" Happily I avoided weeping like an old-timey Beatlemania victim and avoided the temptation of leaping from my balcony seat to the stage to seize the moment (or Wayne's saxophone reeds). The good news is Sting didn't appear to be any less muscley or flexible after his recent award for, ahem "Worst Lyricist Ever". Although I might give him a second "worst" award for some gentle mutilation of the melody to "My Funny Valentine". Don't worry Sting, we'll always have Dream of the Blue Turtles.

To make a longer story shorter (Wayne Shorter, if you will), Ambrose won the competition and joined the other jazzy folk on stage for "Chameleon". Herbie played what was undoubtedly the finest keytar solo of all-time (which really is an all-time category along the lines of "tallest midget", but who am I to judge?).

Friends don't let friends use one of these unless your first name is Herbie:

Last night I continued my assault on the jazz world and ventured to the dicey territory of an open jam. In New York jazzy jam sessions can be the worst of the worst of the worst. Your evening at a session in Small's could be filled with what seems like weeks of meandering 8th notes from every janitor-turned-saxophone player in the tri-state area. Your reward for surviving till the bitter, 6:00 AM end of one of these is to see people out for an early morning jog before work as the sun comes up in Manhattan.

Yet I digress, the jam session at The Mint has been berry, berry good to me (it only goes till 12:15 AM, which helps with the "what-am-I-doing-with-my-life-and-why-am-I-here" factor). Case in point, the surprise guest at last night's session was one of the judges for the Monk Competition, trumpeter Roy Hargrove. Roy sounded great, wore fancy jeans, and claimed to not know the tune "Inner Urge" which he then played with aplomb.

Now I'm back to the work of harassing Austen Risolvato on the home-stretch of the artwork for the new album. We've got the cover picked out and all we have to do is photoshop my head onto Sting's body!

I'll be playing a CD release show on December 20th at the Hotel Cafe. More details are forthcoming.

Also, I'm playing a free show at the Ocean Avenue Brewery in Laguna Beach on November 7th. Here's a flyer:

Skaffa

2007-10-18T12:07:00.000-07:00

Several lifetimes ago I was in a Ska band called Jimmy Skaffa. When I started playing alto saxophone in that sometimes-ten-piece-band I was 15, and because I only had a learner's permit I had to get carted to and from rehearsal by the elder statesmen of the band. All of them were somewhere in their 20's except for me and formerly-18-year-old Matt Nelson, the trombonist. We played Omaha, Chicago, Manhattan, KS, Minneapolis, Kansas City, and a few other places that I've blocked from my memory.

It was in that band that I learned how early gas stations in the Midwest close on a weekday. We had just played a random bar in Manhattan, KS (or was it Kansas City?), and decided to get gas once we got out of town instead of turning around when we realized that we were in desperate need of a fill-up. Now it's been a good solid decade since this went down, but I remember this: we were at least 20 miles away from anything in rural Kansas, it was around one AM, the needle was well below E, and I had school the next day. We found a bunch of gas stations that were shut tight for the night, and there was a how-to discussion on syphoning gas (make sure you spit out the gas once it gets to the end of the tube). There were no cell phones in the band, because it was 1993 and would've cost fifty dollars a minute to use a cell phone in the middle of a Children-of-the-Corn field. Right after despair had settled in, we found the only 24-hour gas station in between Omaha and Kansas and I avoided peeing my pants, swallowing gasoline, being killed in a cornfield/vegetable patch, or missing school (it's safe to say I had some Lisa Simpson tendencies happening back in the day).

Another memory of the band: the 15 passenger van we drove was originally owned by a lawn service company, I think. There were still remnants of the paint job and logo, but fortunately no smell of manure. I remember trying to sleep in the van on one of those brutal nights heading back to Omaha from a far-off gig and Ross Manheart, the singer, was listening to the loudest, fastest punk rock I have heard before or (thankfully) since to keep awake will driving. It brambled my scrain. Now you know why I am the way I am.

Why am I telling you all this? I got a friend request from the band today. Apparently they ska-ed together for another seven years after I left the band in '95 or so. I don't think we'll be winning any lifetime achievement grammy awards, but it's fun to turn back the clock to my first band experience.

In other news, I sat in with my friend Robby Marshall last night at SevenGrand in beautiful downtown Los Angeles last night. The band was great, and it felt mighty fine to play my horn. I'm playing a jazzy jam session today with a horn player friend I hadn't seen in a while till last night. I guess you could say I'm really getting back into the swing of playing jazz.

I'd like to find some other way to end this blog than with a horrible jazz joke, but I think I've done enough damage for one day.

I'll be seeing you Saturday in Ventura, CA at Zoey's if you're able.

Mommy, where do vocals come from?

2007-10-16T18:28:00.001-07:00

Searching for cover songs on YouTube is a sure-fire way to find unintentional comedy. You know those awkward moments at the Karaoke bar where the martini-diva sings "I Will Survive" in every key, at the same time? There are enough of these moments immortalized on the internet to keep you entertained until the cows come to the homepage. I searched "cover" and "shins" and found a sacrifice of "Kissing the Lipless". I thought to myself, "the original version has a crazy vocal range, this is going to be awful or amazing." This video taught me something new about music: if the song is too hard, just play it wrong and make it easy for yourself (if not your audience). I'm working on a kazoo medley of "Bohemian Rhapsody" and "Flight of the Bumblebee" to test this theorem.

There's an upside to this universal open mic night. Music lovers have rightfully become skeptical of what's "real" in popular music. If you're performing in your pajamas, chances are a million dollar producer didn't pay a ringer to sing the lead. We can blame Milli Vanilli, C+C Music Factory", and Paula Abdul for making us ask the question since the early 90's, "Mommy, where do vocals come from?" Those incidences of "who's actually singing this line anyway?" were all before auto-tune turned Nickelback and Britney Spears (yes, I know, leave her alone) into pitch-perfect studio performers.

These YouTube covers do allow us to see and hear music in it's most pure and occasionally horrific form. So without further ado, I've uploaded a living room recording of Bob Marley's "She's Gone". I'm not in my pajamas, but I may have bedhead.

Practice makes better

2007-10-15T11:56:00.000-07:00

Oh the Hotel Cafe how I love thee.

Good times were had last Saturday. I wore a new shirt. Many friends were in attendance. Here is the setlist:

how many times
beyond means
what if I
two times two
darken your sun
only a rehearsal
long distance
little city driver
princess of darkness
all I one spin*

*this was the, let's say "suspenseful", mash-up we performed of my two songs "All I Want" and "One Spin". Disclaimer: no musicians were irrevocably damaged in the performing of this piece of music.

Yesterday I sat in with Jessie Baylin for the first time in a good, long minute. I played keys on two of our co-writes, "Higher Altitudes" and "Not a Day More" as well as "Rocky Raccoon". Thank you, Beatles, for reminding me that great songs sometimes only have four chords. Jessie was at her melodious best, and her band was subtle and rocked hard at the appropriate moments.

Last night I got out the tripod and butchered my way through a videotaping of an electric piano version of "Only a Rehearsal". I woke up this morning and ironed out the messy parts, reaffirming my belief that practice makes better, if not actually perfect.

Today I look to the future. I wrote a setlist for the show at Zoey's next Saturday. I'm looking at 16 songs next Saturday instead of the usual ten I play at the Hotel.

Once this here web-log is ready to roll I'm going to do my best "leave Britney alone" and record another song or two to put up on youtube and my myspace profile.

Parting gifts: if you're looking for a quick read, don't go with "Grapes of Wrath". I'm enjoying it, but it's gently torturous getting to the end of those 450 pages. It feels like edu-tainment, with a little more "edu" then I bargained for.

Wood Shavings

2007-10-12T14:19:00.001-07:00

Last night, as promised, I partook of a Morrissey concert. His band is great, his fans are hardcore, and his voice has a great presence. There were lots of black t-shirts in the audience, but the skinny black pants weren't as ubiquitous as I had anticipated.

Afterwards we hightailed it to catch The Sheers at The Silverlake Lounge. They are a dang fine band. I have talented friends.

The Lakers owner, and dater of woman one quarter of his own age, has announced he's fielding offers to trade Kobe Bryant. He won't get equal value, because it doesn't exist. I have followed the Lakers for a long time. Kobe is roughly my same age, although we're in different tax brackets, and don't spend a lot of time together. Sometimes I wonder why I follow professional sports and why I don't fill my head with more useful things. You know, like Shakespeare, or the periodic table, or wood shavings. I have no answer for this. Anybody have a table saw and a two by four?

Here's a riddle:
What has eight hands, sixteen strings, and a couple of sticks?

My gig at the Hotel Cafe tomorrow (Saturday, October 13th) at 11 PM!

Ok bye.

Ima Believer

2007-10-11T12:35:00.001-07:00

Last night I went to see Joel Martin's band The Big Believers play. The band is: Joel (who's played in my band for nearly FIVE YEARS!) on many guitars, and Dave Johnstone (who was in Dead Language with Joel) playing the heck out of the drums. It's a great feeling to be surprised, nay, blown away by your friends. Their version of "Fixing a Hole" by The Beatles made my brain mushy and happy. They're going into the studio this weekend to make a record at New Monkey Studio where Elliott Smith recorded. It's gonna be freakin' sweet.

I talked to Jessie Baylin on the internets a minute ago and I'm going to be sitting in with her on Sunday at a shindig for KCRW. Details are on her myspace page.

Tonight I shall attend a Morrissey concert for the first time. I'm expecting lots of skinny black pants and some damn fine music.

My lips are no longer chapped.

Sometimes I make pancakes from scratch with whole wheat flour, wheat germ, flax meal, buttermilk, and blueberries. Sometimes there are too many to eat in one meal. Sometimes I put the leftovers in the freezer to make homemade Eggos out of them. Today I ate the frozen pancakes, and behold, they were good. I learned all of these actions from my sister.

Time for the mantra of the week: I'm playing the Hotel Cafe this Saturday at 11 PM.

In Slowbows

2007-10-10T13:35:00.001-07:00

I just found out there's a football player who's name is Craphonso. I'm sure every crappy joke has already been made, so I'll just leave it alone.

I'm trying to download the new radiohead album. They're making the digital download be "name your own price". You have to pay in pounds and pence. The place where you enter the price on the website has a colon in it instead of a decimal point. This makes me think of time, not money. Maybe that's an implication that time truly is money in Radioheadland. I think I just told them I'd buy the album at midnight.

Somehow I think I'm not the only person to do this, because the website is slower than friendster on a dial-up modem.

Maybe you're supposed to enter the hours and minutes it takes for the actual sale to go through as your price.

I saw the movie Michael Clayton last night. It is very good. Go see it. Go see Into the Wild as well if you haven't already.

My lips are chapped.

A haiku flyer:

I will play hotel
cafe on this saturday

eleven o'clock

Sesame Street Jedi Mash Up

2007-10-09T10:49:00.000-07:00

This past weekend I went to partake of a concert put on by The Shins. I've been a fan of theirs since the Hexum Bros. Tour of 2004. All three albums they've released have been thoroughly digested by me (and even paid for!). I've written on this very web-space how the song Australia helped me regain focus on the emotional response that I want as a listener and a performer. The show did not disappoint. The vocals were soaring and the guitarist on stage right rocked out. Other good news: a friend pointed out that James Mercer has a promising career as Kevin Spacey's stunt double.

Now I turn my attentions back towards my own ego and music. I have two shows right around the corner. I'm making a return to the Hotel Cafe this Saturday, October 13th at 11 pm, and a week after that I play a solo show at Zoey's Cafe and Loft in Ventura.

Last night we rehearsed and stewed up a few surprises for the Hotel show. We're going to do a mash-up of sorts and change around an intro or two. I won't spoil the punchline, but I haven't counted this hard since I tried to prove the intro to "Take it Easy" by The Eagles actually contains a bar of 9/8.

(This is where you smile and nod...)

I read The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell in an attempt to study Sesame Street and figure out how I can apply their strategic use of puppets to the youtube talk show I mentioned in a previous weblog.

Speaking of youtube-schemes, the title of the program will officially be Zack Hexum's Talking Music Show (unless I change my mind). I've already lined up a handful of musician friends who will be my guinea pigs. I'm dreaming up a bastardization of Bernard Pivot's bastardized questionnaire from Inside the Actor's Studio. Dryden from Alien Ant Farm suggested I ask my guests "what's your favorite sexual position?" Seeing as I'm probably going to interview my brother, I think I'll leave that one off.

I'll see you at the Hotel this Saturday (that was my attempt at a Jedi Mind Trick Promotion).

Till next time...

"never betray the way you've always known it is"

sewer suckers invade

2007-10-03T13:43:00.001-07:00

In this day and age you don't need a recording studio to record music. I have an M-Audio Firewire 410 that I have used to score a movie and finish up the bits and pieces from my upcoming new album (which will be called Open to Close, by the way). I'm a big fan of the show Weeds on Showtime. Each episode features a different artist doing their rendition of the theme, "Little Boxes." A week or two ago I decided I would try my hand at recording a version of theme. I used saxophone, bass clarinet, Fender Rhodes, and some other toys I have at my disposal.

Today my big plan was/is to record a second version of it. This time it'll be a cappella (or for those of you who don't speak Swedish, it'll be an all vocal version). This requires a relative amount of quiet from my Hollywood neighbors. Lo and behold, I sit down to fire up ProTools right as a gigantic blue truck pulls up in front of my apartment. This blue truck has a big label that says "Vactor Series 2100" on the side. It's currently set up camp and blocking one lane of traffic. It's also blocking my car from going anywhere. This truck is apparently a gigantic sewer-sucking vacuum cleaner. It has a long tentacle which it extended down a manhole and into the depths of hell. I guess it follows to reason that since in-home vacuum cleaners are loud, vacuum cleaners that are the size of a small house (or big truck in this case) would be proportionately several times louder than the regular ones.

This is my new neighbor:

Happily the Vactor Series has done all the sewer-sucking it needed to do in my neighborhood. It has moved on its merry way to mess up someone else's home studio, so I will return to the musical task at hand before a herd of buffalo, or the Hell's Angels decide to parade down my street.

Yet first I will leave you with these tidbits:

I saw Colin Hay play at the Canyon Club. He's a fantastic singer (I had to practice screaming along with "I can't get to sleep" during Overkill to see if I could hit the high notes), a great writer, and his in-between song banter is captivating.

I kid you not when I tell you that my upstairs neighbor is vacuuming his floor right now. Is this like yawning? Vacuuming is contagious, apparently.

I have a show at the Hotel Cafe on October 13th. It's a full band show.

Booyah!