How I GOT PAID

Last Saturday night, I had the pleasure of performing with my good friend and gifted Americana artist Neil Cribbs at The Alamo in Newnan GA. I always love playing there and was pleasantly surprised when they threw us some extra cash after our performance….As usual, I lugged my equipment out of the bar and got ready to make the 40 mile drive back to Atlanta. Just as I was leaving, a wild eyed man approached me with a tempting proposition….I don’t remember the gentleman’s name, so I’ll call him “Steve”. Steve was thin, halfway to being completely bald, must have been about 35, and stood 6’3. His eyes held an intense focus and  he was dressed in penny loafers, standard khaki pants, and a long sleeve button up.

“Look, I’ll pay you $XXX right here, right now if you’ll go get your equipment from your van and run sound for my friend and I to play for all of our friends”, he said with the voice of a man that meant what he said regardless of his extreme inebriation….I was taken aback…I’d never been offered more than my normal weekly wage to work for 2 hours..It definitely sounded too good to be true. After some persistence on Steve’s part, I talked with bar management who okay’d the situation…

When I want back to Steve to tell him I’d do it, he’d apparently conferred with his friend and come down on his price. “Look, I can only pay your $XXX…take it or leave it…” he said solidly as he opened his wallet to reveal an army of 20 dollar bills mingling with one another. The amount he showed me was still greater than most average gigging weeks. I pretended to reconsider for about 10 seconds, then took the cash and agreed to the deal. Steve’s friend turned out to be a good guitar player, and while Steve possessed little mic etiquette, he actually sang on key. Upon his insistence I let him air guitar on my un-amped electric, so he could maximize his coolness on-stage. I also procured and lit cigarettes for him.

Thanks to Steve and his alcohol intake, I made out like a bandit and created a great memory. This week I’m thankful for drunk guys with dreams of bar star grandeur and money to waste. Maybe we’ll work out the same deal next time I’m in town! And that my friends is a story of how I GOT PAID ; )

3 months ago  /  0 notes

McNary Update - 02/15/2012

Monday March 5th = ONE Year full time in the music biz ; )
Your financial and moral support, guidance, and encouragement have been a huge part of this!
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Recording Date Set for Monday, June 11th, 2012
I will begin recording my second album, Empty Are We? on Monday, June 11th.
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I need to raise $8,260 over the next four months in order to afford making this record.
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I’m only barely getting by money-wise, but with your support, I KNOW a record of the highest caliber is possible!!
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You can DONATE ONLINE at www.mcnarymusic.com
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Members needed for Album Fundraising Committee (Event to be held Sunday, May 6th)
I’ll be thowing a music festival to raise funds for the recording of my upcoming album, Empty Are We?.
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If you’d like to help, please e-mail me at mcnaryinc@gmail.com
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In Other News :
I recently cut a demo of my song Lonely Tonite with Nashville Drummer and multi-instrumentalist, Jake Caldwell. If you’d like to hear it, E-mail me at mcnaryinc@gmail.com and I’ll send it to your INBOX.

3 months ago  /  0 notes

dumbfounded

I am dumbfounded as to how I can play 142 shows in one year, be a full time musician, have stood on a stage opening up for the Civil Wars with little nerves, and still get jello hands and a dry voice when I play the open mic at Eddie’s Attic..It is a strange phenomenon indeed. I guess that means I need to keep on playing there until I get ZERO nerves..Looks like I’ll keep on signing up on the Standby list whether I feel like it or not.

3 months ago  /  0 notes

An Unforgettable night in the boonies

The Setup

This weekend was nothing if not an experiment. After some band line up changes, I decided to wait a while before forming a permanent line-up again.  The “band” this weekend consisted of  Sasha on Keyboards/Organ/Harmonica, Eric on Congas/random percussion,  and me on guitar and vocals. While both musicians were more than qualified and very talented, we’d never rehearsed as a group, and that made me a tad uneasy..Especially since 800 miles, 3 days, and 10 hours of performance lay ahead of us…..

Play by Play

Nights 1 & 2

Thankfully, we performed sufficiently well not to embarrass ourselves during  the first night in Charlotte, NC. We even began to gel and compliment each other a good bit by the second night.  Everything was going very smoothly.

After our second night’s show in Columbia, we had the distinct pleasure of staying with my very good friend, Toby, instead of dingy Motel 6. The best part about it was the incomparable breakfast of sausage, bacon, eggs, coffee, and grapefruit juice. After a restful afternoon, We headed hopefully out of town towards our 3rd and final show of the weekend in Bumblefuck, SC. It was to be a very interesting evening.

The Night of Reckoning - Bumblefuck, SC

We pulled into town just as the foggy, cool, deep south night was coming into it’s own. Entering the city limits everything appeared very generic and completely unremarkable. The main stretch was dotted with car dealerships and fast food joints….However, as we got closer to the bar, the landscape became a bit more menacing. Dingy florescent street lights dotted the shoulder of the road along side some railroad tracks. On the other side of the road, boarded up houses and empty business parks stared blankly.

We found the bar by following an arrow near the end of a lifeless office park. It  directed us to a parking lot in the back. The parking lot was desolate and dreary like the set of Gotham City in a 90’s Batman movie. Walking up some stairs we spotted the sign for the bar…There was a “Members Only” sign posted outside…

As is often the case, the bar’s interior was a surprise only in that it was much nicer than it’s drab exterior may have indicated. Upon entering, I spotted a 50 something woman of about 5’3 with thick glasses & dull green eyes, dirty blonde hair pulled back into a long pony-tail, and a linear face with all the warmth of a rock. She was the owner. I’ll call her Jill.  Jill greeted me reservedly, offering her name. She said she’d been worried we weren’t going to show.  From there she asked me If I’d “brought the lights”…..”Lights” I thought. “Did she think she hired a Bon Jovi Cover Band??? When I told her we didn’t have a  “Light Show”, she was visibly perturbed…It did appear to be the kind of place were mid 40 something guys with mullets and acid wash jeans would perform the same Steve Miller band, Black Sabbath, and Pink Floyd tunes they’d been performing for 30 years….perhaps mixing in the occasional funk tune to keep some excitement on the dance floor.

As I often do, I began to fully observe my surroundings and their cultural implications. The average age in the bar was probably about 47 or so. There were a couple middle age white men with poofy 80s hair and mustaches sitting in bar stools with their arms crossed. I wasn’t sure if they always wore those subtle scowls on their faces, or if they felt the same way about us that Jill apparently did. There was middle age lady sitting at the bar. She was the proud owner of some long, stringy blonde hair and black cowboy attire complete with cowboy hat and leather jacket with those dangly leather pieces along the sleeves. Across from her was a frumpy bespectacled woman near 60  who appeared to be blitzed out of her mind. I could tell that my new bandmates had never performed at a venue with this much…shall we say….character. Having already performed at several other establishments of that caliber, I was relatively un-phased. As Ronnie Milsap blared over the radio, I knew it was going to be an interesting night….

Making my way to the stage, I began the mundane task of rolling out cables, unsheathing guitars, and hooking things up. I was wrenched from my musings by the throaty voice of a scowling Jill, “We don’t like no heavy metal and we don’t like no rap…Do ya’all play any of that”. When I assured her that neither of those styles was part of our musical vocabulary, she persisted , “Ya’all are gonna wow me right?”.  I dismissively assured her that we would…I believe she asked me that same question about 5 more times while I was a setting up. Each time I smiled a bit more dismissively, working on breathing deep and staying in my happy place. Did I mention that I’d been experiencing some pretty bad lower back pain ALL weekend? The kicker was when Jill asked us if we’d brought “dance music” to play during our breaks….I’m laughing out loud just writing this…”Dance Music”?? Since when is the band in charge of providing not only the PA, but also a lights show and Dance music?? WOW!! I thought I’d fully embraced the need to be multi-faceted , but this backwoods, gravel-throated woman was pushing the limit.

We kicked off the show as Jill watched from behind the bar scowling with her arms folded.  She left after two songs, saying nothing…She was relieved by a tall leather faced woman of average build. Her fine greasy brown hair was artfully streaked with blonde topped off only by the tanning bed orange that colored her skin.. We must have played near an hour and been asked to “turn down” twice. I can count the amount of times I’ve been asked to turn down on one finger..Also, at least seven people simply walked out, including the cowgirl. I saw the worry mounting in my band members’ faces as we left the stage for our first break. To make maters worse, I was starving and needed food badly. When I went to order a burger from the bar, I discovered the kitchen was closed…

Desperate for some energy, I hobbled out to the van and cracked open a new jar of peanut butter. I shoveled the thick substance down my throat nearly gagging a couple times in my haste to ingest some energy. I was relieved to discover about 3 shots worth of tequila left in the beer cooler to wash it down with…Just as I was girding up my loins to re-enter the twilight zone, Eric and Sasha came out to the van…They were angling to pack up and leave….Apparently they’d had a conversation with the bartender who’d accused us of running the customers out…Shit, in all honesty, a lack of classic rock tunes was probably a fatal flaw in that environment. In any case, she’d requested that we play something they “could dance to”.  The boys were convinced that we were going to finish the set and get shafted on the money  and that we should just cut our losses….The idea seemed rather appealing, except for the fact that without the money from the gig, I would effectively make nothing from 3 days of hard work after I’d paid the band and covered gas. We had to soldier on…

I cavalierly told the gentleman that everything would be fine..We just needed to keep smiling and barreling through the next 3 hours of the set…(For those of you who are thinking about doing this full time, I’d highly advise against booking 4 hour gigs in red neck bars in towns you’ve never been to) Just as we were making our way back onto the stage, a man in his 50’s approached me. Having seen him in the kitchen earlier in the night, I assumed he was the owner and was going to try to cut his losses by asking us to leave and paying us a fraction of the already miniscule amount we were supposed to make.

“Hi, I’m Brad”, he said.  “I LOVE your music. You guys are a real breath of fresh air around here. In fact, I’m going home to grab my girlfriend and bring her back here so she can hear you guys.” Those were the magic words. We entered the 2nd set with the confidence and energy of champions. Incidentally, we were not asked to turn down the music again for the next 3 hours. Brad came back with his girlfriend and two friends who proceeded to dance, drink, and tell us how amazing we were for the next three hours. Everyone else followed their lead and the bar got relatively busy. People began buying us drinks and all was right in the world. I made sure to ask the bartender for the money in front of some of our new fans just in case she’d thought of pulling a fast one on us. We got paid,packed up, signed some CDs for our new fans, jumped into the 98 Dodge Grande Caravan, and headed back to Atlanta through the fog. The moral to the story was the same as usual. JUST KEEP SMILING and things will get better. If they don’t…at least you’ll feel better  through the shit….Until Next Time

4 months ago  /  0 notes

Being Laid up/The New Record

Being Laid Up : (

Here I lay flat on my back, sprawled short ways on my queen size bed with my legs bent, sprawled, and cradling my laptop. It hurts to stand and it hurts even more to walk. There are 500 things I need to be doing today that are nearly impossible in my current situation. Circumstances like these are good patience incubators if you can ignore the frustration of productive impotence.

I’m going to start posting blogs daily regardless of what’s going on that specific day. Hopefully my brief thoughts will spur some dialogue with between us : )

Lovingkindess

In my personal life,  I’m thinking about the concept of Lovingkindess and how to apply it to my life. I’m so glad that I’ve found eastern thought in general. The idea of being the observer of one’s thoughts rather than thinking you are your thought coupled with the concept of becoming increasingly Present,  are concepts that really strike home with me. I’d be curious to get your opinions on those concepts if you’ve also studied up on them : )

Prep for the next Record…

In my music life, I’m going through the process of prepping to record my next record. I have about 12 songs I’d like to record, but I need to cut it down to 5 songs that will be fully produced and 1 song that will be done very simply and acoustically. I was initially going to do a full length album, but from a business perspective, spending less on a shorter record is much more feasible. Based on what I’ve seen from people’s reactions to my last record, there is a growing disconnect between what people hear live and what my last record sounds like. On the next record, I plan to identify a sound and make it more cohesive production wise and content wise. It won’t be contrived or lacking in feeling, it will just be tailored in the direction my sound is already heading, and more easily identifiable genre wise.

I have developed a great deal as musician, singer, and songwriter over the last couple years since we made the last record. I also experienced deep bouts of loneliness, despair, and depression. Due to what I was experiencing during the time the songs were written, “Empty Are  We” will be very emotional and generally a bit darker/more introspective than Pure Nite Air was…Honestly documenting my experiences and thoughts through song, is to me, part of being sincere with myself and my audience. The creation of art serves as a form of expression, therapy, and also as a way to connect with others. If I created music only to be mass consumed, I’d probably attempt to keep things more peppy. At the same time,  making a record that is a complete downer is not my goal. This record will ask alot of questions, and in a round about way, offer my version of the answers.

Raising Funds to make a Great Record (http://www.mcnarymusic.com/make-mcnary-in-2012)

The question of how I’m going to pay to record this album is weighing on my mind. I’m going to do it and I’m going to do it right. The question is how I’ll raise the money to record, master, mix, and reproduce the album. After all is said and done, it will cost around $10,000. It will probably cost near 8,000 to simply record the album. After that I’ll have to master and reproduce it. I’d like to go into the studio in Mid April if possible. If the funds are not available, I’ll have no option but to wait and go low-budget. I’ll be mounting my own version of Kickstarter campaign next week. It will be housed on my website and will include weekly videos and updates as to how the process is coming along.

Outside Investors??

I’m open to outside investors as well, should there be someone who believe in my music and is open to helping me make the dynamite record I know I’m capable of followed up by an online and physical add campaign that pushes the music forward.

If you made it this far through my ramblings, you are a patient soul : ) Pray for my back/send my back some positive energy if you don’t mind! Also check out my home made demo of one of my new songs, “Empty Are We” on sound cloud »http://soundcloud.com/mcnary/empty-are-we-c-2012

I wish you a day of peace and presence,

Tim

4 months ago  /  0 notes

Anonymous asked: What is the Meaning of Life?

; ) getting very deep here on the blog…It would say to understand acceptance and lovingkindness

4 months ago  /  1 note