The mp3 file on the
website this month is:
"Charlie
Watts"
. . . by Bland Lemon
Denton
No one will
ever
mistake me for an
actual musician. For one thing, I play drums. And
whenever I do happen to pick up a guitar, I play it as if I were
still playing drums.
But middle-aged American men are required to either
buy a red sports car or join a rock'n'roll band. It's the
law.
I started playing drums with various bands when I was thirty-one, so
I was a bit ahead of the middle-aged curve. However,
I didn't start messing with guitars in earnest until I was over
forty, which means I can blame bad notes and muffed chords on
age-stiffened fingers.
I know I'll never be a great player, so I feel no pressure
to try to make music that's "perfect." This is in marked
contrast to my compulsive rewriting and revision of novels and stories
. . . but then, music is transitory
and can never be performed exactly the same way twice, while the
printed page is permanent. Or seems permanent,
anyway.
So you won't
find great art on this "Music" page. All you'll find here
are some noise and some friends that help me keep my head from
exploding.
In 2004-05, I played
gigs in three bands and as a solo act. The
bands are:
Ax
Nelson
I
joined Ax Nelson in January 1993. The other guys in
the band had already been playing together for eons by then,
going through drummers at a Spinal Tappian rate. I'm not the
best one they've had, but I've stuck around the
longest.
Ax
Nelson is mainly a blues band, although we do some country and
straight-ahead rock tunes as well. I play drums
and harmonica, and I also do some vocals.
The other members of Ax
Nelson are --
Efraim
Armendariz on guitar and vocals. In his other
life, Efraim is Chairman of the Math Department at the University of
Texas. He's married to Edna Armendariz, who
tolerates her husband's I-must-buy-more-and-more-guitars
compulsion with incredible patience.
Ben
Armendariz on bass and backing vocals.
Ben is an accountant who may also be the world's
nicest bass player. (Normally, bassists tend to be surly. But not
Ben.) He's married to Helen Armendariz, who
is there to support the band at every gig.
Cameron
Gordon on guitar and occasional
vocals (whenever we do an Elvis number). Cameron is a
world-renowned topologist -- and in 2005, he was made a
Corresponding Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
[Drummer: "Cameron! I hear they made you a
fellow!" Guitarist (modestly): "Uh, well, yes, yes, they
did . . . " Drummer: "That must have been VERY complicated
surgery!" Guitarist (after a pause): "Har.
Har."] Cameron is married to Sue Gordon, who doesn't seem to
mind all the racket.
Efraim, Ben, and
Cameron were the models for the Flying Armendariz Brothers in my
story "Blackburn's Lady" -- which appeared in the program book for
the 26th World Fantasy Convention in 2000, and was published as a
chapbook by Subterranean Press in 2001. (Copies of the
chapbook are still available at Realms of Fantasy
Books.)
In 1998, Ax Nelson went into a studio and
recorded a CD entitled Racing with the Moon. We had
originally planned to spread out the recording sessions over two
weeks -- but circumstances forced us to do it all in two days.
So each of the ten tracks on the album was done "live" in one take,
complete with scratch vocals. That left us enough time to
overdub most of the final vocals (including some backing vocals by
Gilda Ginsel and
Caroline Spector ), but everything
else was slapped down as if we were playing a bar gig. No
click track to force a steady tempo, and no Pro Tools to hammer
every nail head flat. No stopping and going back to make it
all purty.
So Racing with
the Moon is both Ax
Nelson's only studio CD and only live-in-concert CD. At the time, I longed
for the luxury of second takes and the opportunity to polish . . . but now, I think
Racing with the Moon has a good raw energy.
It sounds as if it was being recorded by a band under the gun. And
it was.
Through June
2006, my song "Botany Bay"
from Racing with the Moon is
available as an mp3 file here on the website.
It's
free to share under a Creative Commons Music Sharing
License.
By the way: "Ax Nelson" was the name of a pioneering
rock climber . . . and it makes at least as much sense for a
band moniker as "Uriah Heep."
Two-Headed Baby
While
Ax Nelson is mainly a blues band, Two-Headed Baby is mainly a
rock'n'roll band. After all, the blues had a baby, and they
called it rock and roll . . . so clearly, it had two
heads.
Two-Headed Baby began
as a weekend jam band. But when Ax Nelson was unavailable to
play at the ArmadilloCon Dance in 2003, Two-Headed Baby did the gig
-- and did it again in 2004. The Baby hasn't done any
recording yet, but I suspect it'll cut a few home-studio tracks in
2006.
I'm
Two-Headed Baby's drummer and harp blower,
just as I am with Ax Nelson. But once in a while, the
Baby lets me get out from behind the kit, grab my Telecaster, and soothe my inner
Keef as well as my inner Charlie.
The other members of
Two-Headed Baby are:
Gilda
Ginsel on vocals and percussion. Simply the best
singer I've ever known, with tons of soul and the ability to bust a
windshield while keeping the note sweet. (Also, she's a fan of
my novel Laughin' Boy -- so she has exquisite
taste, too.) Sf writer Walton "Bud" Simons is
her husband.
Warren
Spector
on guitar, vocals, and occasional keyboards. In
addition to being a skilled and tasteful guitarist, he's also a
legend in the game industry. Among his many other
accomplishments, he originated and produced Deus
Ex, the best computer
game of all time. He's now the President of Junction Point
Studios.
Caroline
Spector on bass, vocals, and occasional
cello. Caroline spent her teenage years in various orchestras, so she's
the most highly-trained and skilled musician of the bunch.
She's also a wonderful science-fiction and fantasy author whose
novel Scars has
just been published. Buy it.
Chad
Warren on guitar and vocals. Chad served as the
Baby's roadie at the 2003 'dilloCon Dance, then ran sound for us at
the 2004 gig. But he's also a swell rhythm guitarist --
and in that capacity, he's added a hip Dylanesque
vibe to the band.
Rory
Harper on lead guitar and occasional vocals. Rory's my
brother. I've known him for twenty years, and in the late 80s
and early 90s we played together in the legendary Los Blues Guys (and
also in the Terraplanes). He's a great writer,
and a story he wrote in collaboration with Steve Gould is
now online at Revolution
SF.
Baby Face
Nelson
For the
2005 ArmadilloCon Dance on Saturday, August 20 at the Doubletree Hotel
in Austin, Texas, we decided to combine Ax Nelson with Two-Headed
Baby to make one really big, loud, dangerous band -- Baby Face
Nelson.
Unfortunately, Cameron
was doing something knotty in Moscow that weekend. But
everyone else from both bands was there . . . and for some numbers,
we even had two guest guitarists: Science-fiction and fantasy
artist David Lee
Anderson and Tor Books editor Patrick Nielsen
Hayden.
We had a great crowd of
dancers, and we played until the hotel kicked us
out.
And the solo act is:
Bland Lemon
Denton
Photo by Keith Stokes (from the MidAmerican Fan Photo Archive)
The world's oldest (and
worst) bluesman, Bland Lemon Denton has been playing guitar, blowing
harp, and wailing the blues since the days when a vast sheet of ice
covered the Great Plains. You'd think he'd be better at it by
now.
The earliest known reference to Bland
Lemon Denton in modern times was on a flame-scorched scrap of paper
found in Robert Johnson's pocket on the night he died in 1938.
It read:
"Dear Bobby,
After my failure
to teach that damn Lemon Denton the difference between a fretboard
and an ax handle, I just
about gave up on the whole crossroads thing.
But then you came
along. Thanks for restoring my faith in
humanity!
See you soon --
your pal,
'Big
D.'"
Despite his lack
of talent, Bland Lemon performed at one juke joint after
another throughout the South from about 1911 through 1982. It
was during this period that some folks began referring
to him as "Blind Lemon Denton" rather than "Bland
Lemon Denton" -- because in the South, "blind" and "bland" have almost
identical pronunciations.
Bland Lemon dropped
out of sight for fifteen years between 1982 and 1997, during
which time he was rumored to be operating the Sno-Cone concession at
Point Barrow. He reappeared (without his guitar, but with a
Pignose amplifier to boost his harp volume) in Independence, Missouri in 1997.
His mission, he said, was to teach the blues to the fans at Contraception
9, a local science-fiction
convention. By one measure, he was successful -- because
by the end of his presentation, the entire audience
was singing "I Just Want to Make Love to You." By
another measure, however, he failed -- because it turned out they didn't
mean it.
The Kansas City area
couldn't get enough of Bland Lemon . . . so after his
triumphant 1997 appearance, he was quickly booked for a return
engagement over Memorial Day Weekend 2005. A young blues
enthusiast named James Hollaman held a science-fiction convention
called RoomCon
in his hotel room on Saturday night during ConQuesT
36, and the Music Guest was none other than Bland Lemon
Denton.
On the way to RoomCon, Lemon got lost and played for an hour in
the Men's room of the gas station across the street. Once
he managed to find the actual location of Mr. Hollaman's
convention, however, he gave it his all . . . playing for an hour and a
half, jamming with other guests, and even taking a request for
"Free Bird." (It should be noted that although Lemon didn't
actually know "Free Bird," that didn't stop him from playing
it.)
RoomCon presented Bland
Lemon Denton with a bottle of Kentucky bourbon and a small stainless-steel
flask. It was his highest-paying gig ever.
Photo by Keith Stokes (from the MidAmerican Fan Photo
Archive)
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