Jim Baumer's Blog, page 5

Can I Get an Amen? Rock and Roll Church Update

My time in the pool during my twice-weekly swims are very productive. Not only are they good for me, physically—they are also where I work through ideas—like how to make the most of the idea for what I’ve been referring to as “Rock and Roll Church” each Sunday.

Sunday morning at the First Congregational Bunker Rock Church of Lo-Fi Salvation

I admit, week one was one bumpy ride. My live stream went down, and there were a host of other issues. My main beta testers were patient. One so-called friend I asked basically walked away from our friendship with a two-line email. Oh well. Don’t let the door hit you in the ass. It’s too bad you can’t read, or have an ounce of patience and compassion. But looking back on whatever we had—friendship would be too generous for me—you’ve always missed basic queues (and not just with me).

But hey, it’s another week and another chance to come to the alter of rock and roll and party like it’s 1999, or so sang the purple one, Prince.

I’ve got it figured out. Live streaming isn’t necessary. No! We can all gather on Sunday morning and at least for the Sunday services from the First Congregational Bunker Rock Church of Lo-Fi Salvation, I can pre-record them and that way, no streaming messes to clean up or fix. Better than that for you, dear worship participant: you are not locked-in to Sunday mornings. I know you’re busy cleaning the tiles in your shower and with other important things like organizing your sock drawer.

I’ll embargo the videos until 8:00 a.m. on Sunday morning. Then, they’ll be there for you to watch at your leisure, when you aren’t so strapped for time. I think I’ll split the service into three videos. Music pre-sermon, then the sermon from Rev. Jimi, and then, post-sermon, more music from JimBaumerMe. That seems to make sense to me.

Then, there are the logistic of weekly services and the prep that goes into making them mildly entertaining. I think I’m going to do the Sunday services twice a month. Then, on the weeks when there is no Sunday morning Rock and Roll Church, let’s gather together on Thursday nights at 7:00 for an Unplugged Prayer Service. That one will be live-streamed, with JimBaumerMe strumming along on his acoustic.

Here is the schedule I’ve mapped out for March and April. We’ll see how things go. I know in May, open mics are opening up. Perhaps by then, I’ll be gigging so much, we won’t need to gather on Sundays, or maybe we do these once a month instead.

But for now, plan for the following over the next seven week:

Sunday Morning Rock and Roll Church

March 7

March 21

April 4

April 18

Unplugged Prayer Service (Thursday nights)

March 18

April 1

April 16

April 30

To the Bunker, Earthlings!

 

Not To Be Deterred

Since I began streaming at the beginning of COVID, I’ve been chasing improvement in the audio of each subsequent stream. I did okay when I played everything on the acoustic, save for the first disastrous foray with YouTube’s live streaming option. What they do is “squeeze” bandwidth if you are using the free version of their live service.

To be fair, YouTube’s strong suit is that it allows you to store your videos and not chew up bandwidth on your own website. For that, they are awesome.

Of course, everyone uses Facebook for everything—including streaming. I get it. You can roll out of bed, push the hair out of your face, grab a guitar and warble out a few tunes.

But what if you are like me, trying to capture a live sound that’s more than you plinking out three chords on your ukulele? Rock and roll (the lo-fi variety) with an electric guitar pushed through an amp and—oh my God!! Distortion!! Then, if you top it with some drums—what the fuck?

Anyways, I decided that OBS might be the way to go. Then, when I began ironing out my mix, then tested it last Thursday on Facebook—major problems. That was it for me and Facebook. I don’t like Zuckerberg for reasons I won’t bother with here. But the major reason is I can’t do what I want to do with Facebook.

Then I had a great idea. I’ve had my JBE WordPress site—this one—since 2013. I’ve been kind of neglecting it the past year, or maybe, a better way of framing it is this way. Rather than recognizing WordPress is a site for my writing, it’s actually quite capable of supporting my music endeavors. With a plug-in or two, I should be able to stream on this site, right? Well, not necessarily.

For those of you who consider technological nirvana, turning your smartphone on and off and setting up your voicemail, this isn’t for you. Hell, I’m not going to elaborate any further than to say, there were more speed bumps than I anticipated. Due to that, I couldn’t capture the actual live stream via video, so I took some time Monday after work to create a facsimile. It comes pretty damn close in capturing the music from Sunday’s first service of the First Bunker Rock Church of Lo-Fi Salvation.

JimBaumerMe delivers, per usual, even if it’s his Plan B, or Plan M.

Stay tuned for the next advisement about our next service—it will be here, not on Facebook.

Launching Rock and Roll Church-Sunday Service

New England-style Congregational Church (Maine Memory Network)

There was a time when salvation really mattered to me. Perhaps it still does—just in a different way than before.

Music has been something that has offered me a way forward following the tragic death of my son, Mark. Back in August 2018, I never thought I’d be sitting here, promoting a Facebook live event—especially not an event like Rock and Roll Church.

What do I hope to accomplish with a facsimile of a Sunday morning worship service, sans the usual spiritual trappings? Actually, music has a spiritual component that’s often overlooked. I mean, Larry Norman, the father of contemporary Christian music, did ask the question, “why should the devil have all the good music?” Really! Norman knew that music was a medium that could be used powerfully—in his case—to glorify the god who he believed in and exalted in his music.

With a new EP out and songs that I’ve been playing now for a few months, I thought the time was right to roll out a setlist made up of these songs and a few others. Also, as COVID has shut down regular opportunities to play each week via open mics and gigs at music venues, this is a good time to develop some momentum with regular streaming gigs.

I plan to play for an hour or so. I’ll blend a few covers and I’ll probably offer some between song banter, some thoughts on things going on in the world, and a bit of background about the songs I’ll be playing.

Come on down to the First Congregational Bunker Rock Church of Lo-Fi Salvation and join the JimBaumerMe/aka, Reverend Jimi as he shepherd rock lovers through a unique rock and roll experience.

Rock and Roll Church
Facebook Live
Sunday10am

Get Back to Rock and Roll!!

Making the (music) News

I’ve been reading Aimsel Ponti’s coverage of music for local pubs for years—certainly well over a decade or more. Whether writing about national acts, or local musicians looking to break out of Portland’s crowded music channel, she writes with passion, as well as an understanding that’s all-too-rare in music critics.

When I was cranking out books about baseball, Moxie, and local themes with my book of essays, I knew it was important to let others know about these releases. As I often told my writing students, “never under-estimate the importance of writing a compelling press release.” Many writers (and yes, musicians) miss that lesson.

Can you imagine my surprise while working last week to see a text that said,” Jim, this is Aimsel Ponti…check your email.” I’m glad I did.

She’d sent me some questions and was on deadline for her latest Face the Music column. Could I answer and get them back, along with a photo? You don’t have to ask twice on that one, Aimsel!

Photo of JimBaumerMe, making music in The Bunker (Mary Baumer photo)

This morning, I am featured along with three other artists in her music column, as musicians who’ve made the most of the last year of lockdown. I’m honored to share space with fellow Maine artists, Alice Limoges, Stephanie Atkins, and Oshima Brothers.

I liked that she described my music as having elements of “fuzzy guitar, some grungy, lo-fi sensibility and leaving it all-on-the-field lyrics.” That would be JimBaumerMe and the EP she featured, “All You Stupid Sheep.”

If you have difficulty accessing the link, here is a PDF of the article:

pressherald.com-Face the Music Fresh crop of music from four Maine artists-1

Making the News-Face the Music

I’ve been reading Aimsel Ponti’s coverage of music for local pubs for years—certainly well over a decade or more. Whether writing about national acts, or local musicians looking to break out of Portland’s crowded music channel, she writes with passion, as well as an understanding that’s all-too-rare in music critics.

When I was cranking out books about baseball, Moxie, and local themes with my book of essays, I knew it was important to let others know about these releases. As I often told my writing students, “never under-estimate the importance of writing a compelling press release.” Many writers (and yes, musicians) miss that lesson.

Can you imagine my surprise while working last week to see a text that said,” Jim, this is Aimsel Ponti…check your email.” I’m glad I did.

She’d sent me some questions and was on deadline for her latest Face the Music column. Could I answer and get them back, along with a photo? You don’t have to ask twice on that one, Aimsel!

Photo of JimBaumerMe, making music in The Bunker (Mary Baumer photo)

This morning, I am featured along with three other artists in her music column, as musicians who’ve made the most of the last year of lockdown. I’m honored to share space with fellow Maine artists, Alice Limoges, Stephanie Atkins, and Oshima Brothers.

I liked that she described my music as having elements of “fuzzy guitar, some grungy, lo-fi sensibility and leaving it all-on-the-field lyrics.” That would be JimBaumerMe and the EP she featured, “All You Stupid Sheep.”

If you have difficulty accessing the link, here is a PDF of the article:

pressherald.com-Face the Music Fresh crop of music from four Maine artists-1

The Art of Songwriting: Tom Brady (GOAT)

I’m someone with considerable experience listening to sports talk radio over the course of the past 35 years. The week leading up to the Super Bowl has always been something I’ve kept on my personal radar. This year, the strangest year ever, things about sports (even the Super Bowl) seem to have been pushed to the fringes, shoved there by all-things-COVID.

Perhaps it has something to do with not really running with a tribe anymore. Or, not working in a physical space with other humans. Every workplace I’ve ever been part of would have had someone running a Super Bowl pool, soliciting predictions with a pot of cash going to the winner. Maybe New Englanders were depressed because their favorite son had found success somewhere else, out from the constraints of the Krafts and the Hoodie Man.

But this year, nothing: nada! Working from home, the daily Skype was filled with the usual inane banter about dogs and things people didn’t know about how to do their jobs. Nothing about Tom Brady, or thoughts about how New England’s favorite son might fare in the land of the sun. No openings to insert, “I just wrote a song about Tom Brady–check it out.” Actually, no one at work gives two shits about anything related to my life–I learned that all-too-well the week of the fourth anniversary of Mark’s death. Not one note or inquiry like, “how are you doing” from a team leader or manager. Oh well.

But the JBE rolls on, undeterred. Last Monday morning after scribbling and waiting to start my late morning phone shift, I scribbled a few rhyming couplets down on a piece of scrap paper. Many of the songs I’ve written commenced like ‘dat. Then, after taking calls in my corner office until late in the afternoon, I retired to my bunker and tuned up my acoustic. I had an idea for a chord progression. By dinner, I had a framework of a song.

Like many songs I’ve written, this one was in the key of D. My scrap paper notes had been transferred to a note book I use as a sketch pad for lyrics once I have the makings of a song. The framework for “In Tom We Trust (GOAT)” was in process.

Twenty-four hours later, I had something worthy of playing for Miss Mary. She’s a capable sounding board for my songwriting and run-throughs of potential new songs. I had an idea about a role for her in my new song. That’s how my creativity rolls.

During COVID, the one thing people have more of (in many cases) is time. Time spent being a part of an organization, or attending board meetings, or simply hanging out at the local bar are all things that have been put on hold.

Being locked away at home, it’s easy to feel blue, or worse. Social isolation isn’t healthy for anyone, but isolated we remain, with policies dictated by people who may not have our best interests at heart. But having time and wisely using that time aren’t one and the same.

Because I talk to more than 100 people a day in my job, I occasionally ask a random client what they’ve been doing during this past year of social distancing. More often than not, I’m told “nothing, really,” or something similar. That’s a shame.

I have spent a minimum of two hours each weekday (after work) playing, practicing, and yes, writing songs. On weekends, it’s not unusual for me to spend five, six, or more hours playing. The weekend I launched my first EP, “All You Stupid Sheep, on Bandcamp, I spent 16 hours recording, mixing, and creating cover art.

My basement has been transformed into a bunker of creativity. This level of productivity has been gratifying and so much more. To say it’s been my refuge from sadness and hopelessness would not be a stretch.

Writing a topical song about Tom Brady and Super Bowl LVI prompted me to “seize the opportunity.” How was I going to do that? At the very least, if I could have my Brady-centric song up on Bandcamp by midweek, I could possibly get some run for my efforts (or so I thought). Wednesday night, I had a track but the mix wasn’t right. I decided to re-record it. I added a snippet of Mary doing a Tom Brady “cheer” at the end. I got it up on the Bandcamp platform on my JimBaumerMe page.

Thursday is my usual day off from work. I had an early morning appointment with my eye doctor in Lewiston, an hour away. Luckily, I’d booked the appoint for 7:30. Afterwards, I came through the old home town and stopped to see my sister. I’ve been making time in my life for the few people who matter to me. We had a nice visit. Then, it was home to make a video.

I got home, wolfed down a piece of cold pizza and dragged my gear up from the basement to the Double Deuce, our saloon in our home. I ran through the new song a couple of time. I started the video camera and got a take. I didn’t like it. I did another one. The sound was good and I decided it was good enough to post to YouTube. By 4:30, my video for “In Tom We Trust (GOAT)” had been posted.

Despite my efforts to gin up a little interest and buzz around the song on Bandcamp and the video on YouTube, it was basically ignored. Those things happen. It wasn’t for lack of effort on my part.

I had fun writing the song and performing it, too. The lyrics really speak to Tom Brady’s past year and his overall career. I’m not surprised that my hopes came to fruition: Mr. Brady is now sporting seven Super Bowl crowns. The Hoodie Man and the Krafts disrespected arguably, the greatest QB of all time. He took his talents elsewhere and led a new cast to the promised land. And is ‘ole friend Gronk caught not one, but two TD passes from the GOAT.

Creativity isn’t something that arrives on the breeze. I believe that making music, like writing, is work. Granted, it’s work that I wish I could monetize better so I didn’t have to give up 30+ hours a week doing something for a paycheck that’s way less fun than playing guitar or crafting an essay (or a song). But I’m going to keep working at these creative endeavors and we’ll see where things are in another year.

John Prine Didn’t Do Lo-fi

America is an atomized and disconnected space. I’ve felt that disconnection in a visceral way since January 21, 2017. That’s the night my wife and I learned that our only son had been killed: walking along an isolated stretch of highway in Florida. Mark had just turned 33.

In my case, loneliness feels exacerbated by social media. To be truthful, there are moments when it seems like it might be part of sinister plan concocted by our overlords to keep us as divided and disconnected as never before. Why even make the effort to remain connected when you can push a button on your screen?

I don’t know a lot about Ben Sasse, senator from Nebraska. I’ve heard him speak on news shows and I know he has a book called Them: Why We Hate Each Other—and How To Heal. Personally, I have little hope that we’ll stop hating each other—that’s not my point, here. But in reading something over the weekend about Sasse and his book, I was reminded again about my opening point: our isolation (and how I cope daily with my own).

Sasse’s book addresses elements like an “evaporation of social capital,” which is the “glue that binds us together,” as I’ve written about before. This one item struck me just like someone had slapped me in the face. “Loneliness—not obesity, cancer or heart disease—is the nation’s number one health crisis.” Sasse writes that “persistent loneliness reduces average longevity more than twice as much as does heavy drinking and more than three times as much as obesity, which often is a consequence of loneliness.” Or, you could be so fucking lonely that you just end it for good and kill yourself. To feel isolated day after day takes a toll.

But let’s put that aside and return to music, this post’s main point. Hang with me if you can. I think it will make some sense if you can do something other than scroll to the end, or close your browser. But feel free to tune out at any time. It’s how we live today when we feel dissonance and discomfort.

Music means different things to people. For some, it’s simply background noise. Those people are not who this blog post is intended for.

Mary my wife is one of those people. For her to be married to a music nut like me seems like a total mismatch. But that’s probably part of the old “opposites attract” meme or whatever that’s supposed to be about. At the very least, she’s amazingly supportive of my ongoing musical adventures, which is all I can ask for. And she even ventures out to see me play (back before COVID shut us down) and is a good sport about my “racketeering” below her in The Bunker.

There are others: music for them is something more. Some of these people live for music—whether playing it, or, listening to it. Music frames their existence. To resort to a cliché: it’s the soundtrack of their lives. I’d fall into that latter category.

Even though music aficionados share a mutual love of music, one’s choices are very subjective affairs. I get that everyone’s taste in who they listen to varies. Not everyone likes the same beer, wine, or rock and roll band.

I’ve written a lot about music over the course of several blogs I’ve maintained since I hit the ground running as a writer back in 2001. This year is my 20th anniversary as a published writer. Hurray for me!! Whatever.

How I came to music (or I could say, came back to it) in the summer of 2018 is something I’ve written about numerous times, since. This would be a good blog post for getting up-to-speed on my musical journey, if you’re sitting there reading this blog post and your thought is, “I didn’t know Jim played music—I thought he was a writer.” I’m finding that I can do more than one thing, creatively.

In 1991, I bought a Yamaha acoustic at Buckdancer’s Choice in Portland. I took a few lessons, learned a few songs and then, for some reason, let my guitar-playing languish. There was one brief period in the mid-1990s, however, when—inspired by a legion of indie rock bands and artists—I got the notion that I could become one of those home recording auteurs.

For most people—even the most passionate of rock and roll fans—the music you grew up with and have continued listening to relies on production to make it sound good on whatever you play it on. Granted, nothing sounds good on stupid phone with a thimble-sized speakers. I’m talking about high-fidelity equipment, or at least a car stereo or even a small Bose speaker that you use to stream from your digital devices. Headphones will suffice, too.

I don’t want this to devolve into a expository essay on sound systems. My point is that whoever you listen to: Bruce Springsteen, Tina Turner, Taylor Swift, AC/DC, Fifty Cent, Celine Dion—their music has been recorded in a professional studio and then, mixed down by people who do this for a living. Then, there are guys like Bob Ludwig in little ole’ Portland, Maine, who make magic by mastering the final product for pop music stars. Look on nearly any record and see if Ludwig isn’t listed as mastering it.

There have always been people pushing back against music that’s “over-produced” and “slick.” Punk was one genre of rock where rawness and DIY sensibilities permeated recordings. Garage bands would be another element of artists “staying true” to the raw sound of rock.

For me and those who gravitated to lo-fi, however, we’re into something even more authentically homespun than those outliers.

Many of the artists I found captivating, like Guided by Voices, weren’t necessarily aiming for a lo-fi aesthetic. No, they were limited by choice mainly—they didn’t have access to high-priced recording studios with hourly rates costing more than most made in a week. So they started recording on things like tape recorders and some used four-track machines and a few had 8-track Tascam decks. All of these artists branded “lo-fi” put out recordings characterized by similar things, though: room and background noise, tape hiss, recording levels bleeding into the red and clipping (causing distortion) and other sounds that would be easily removed by a recording engineer at mixdown.

Analog glory!

I actually learned from this article that the inspiration for lo-fi actually comes from the field recordings done by Harry Smith and Alan Lomax, utilizing “portable” equipment that “now seems prehistoric and cumbersome,” not to mention, not great at sound-capture. But Smith and Lomax were committed to documenting native folksinger and other musicians on location. Think old blues recordings of someone like Robert Johnson.

One of the artists I was captivated by the very first time I heard one of his recordings was F.M. Cornog, who used the moniker East River Pipe to release his music. I’d say he’s a good touchstone to get what I’m aiming for in what I’m laying down and producing (basically on my laptop and equipment that’s minimalist, at best).

During a period of time in the late 1980s, he ended up homeless due to drug abuse, alcoholism, and probably, mental illness. This was when he first met Barbara Powers who was running the small, indie label, Hell Gate. Powers released a batch of his home-recorded cassettes and 7” singles. These singles garnered attention from the UK-based Sarah Records, and they signed him. Finally, in 1994, Ajax Records brought out his first full-length, Shining Hours In A Can. He’s since put out a bunch of stuff for Merge Records, the label run by Superchunk bandmates, Mac McCaughan and Laura Balance.

Cornog and similar artists were popular with many of my fellow WBOR DJs back in the mid-1990s. I bought a Tascam 4-track and tried making my own recordings with no success. My biggest fault at the time is that I simply couldn’t play guitar worth shit—not even well enough to get through a few songs without totally fucking them up. I tried to be a “noise” artist, but eventually, I put all this way.

So here we are in 2021, during a historic pandemic. Over the past 16 months, I’ve written 20 songs. The first one was “Walking Down the Road,” a paean to my son. The songs I’ve written are good, a few really good. How do I know? I’m a writer and I’ve been listening to great songwriters since I was seven or eight-years-old. In the batch, there are a few throwaways. So what? With that ever-growing list, I realize that I’m now at a point where it makes sense to be posting many of them on Bandcamp,

I began blogging as an enticement to “ship” my stuff and get it out to a few readers. Bandcamp feels similar from the music side—a place to post songs and longer works either as a waystation to something bigger, or a place to make music available to fans.

Last weekend, I decided that six of these songs that I’d written and had watched evolve through playing them seemed to have a common thread. Each one of them have become much more than they were when I scratched them out longhand, on a legal pad. My songwriting method often finds a genesis in a basic chord progression or melody. Then I work on the words. A couple actually came from times spent scribbling out rhyming couplets during a lunch break at work.

The short of it: my music doesn’t sound like the over-produced fodder served to the masses by our corporate overseers as “art.” Okay—my ego speaking. But, Taylor Swift is definitely not someone I’m trying to sound like. Better perhaps given that he’s a male vocalist, a more apt crosshair could be Frankie Ocean.

Stay out of the red.

A couple of times someone mentioned listening to something I’d posted at Soundcloud or Bandcamp and complained that they couldn’t “hear the words.” Newsflash—I’m not aiming for a vocal-forward recording, even if I had Ludwig doing my final master. Can I boost my vocals a bit in the mix? Yes—my goal has been to do this as I learn on the fly, gleaning new things during my Recording 101 phase of the music production.

Cornog wasn’t fixated on his production. He wanted to get ideas down and then try to capture them on something. His choice was a tape recorder. Today, it’s more likely to be our phones. I’ve gotten some decent tracks down on my phone before.

I understand that you don’t know who F.M. Cornog is. But you probably have heard of Beck. The guy who did “Loser”? He came to the attention of the bigwigs back in the days of record labels trolling for talent. You probably have seen him perform at the Grammys or somewhere else (he’s got one, too).

Lo-fi Beck, before Grammy fame.

Are you still wondering about the John Prine subject line?

Over the summer, I decided the only way to get better at playing and performing was to begin hitting open mics. Back to Seth Godin and shipping and the whole success, fail, fail, succeed, fail, succeed, and on and on it goes…

No matter how many times you play a song in the confines of your basement, something happens when that perfected song gets dumped on a stage in front of a hostile, or maybe better, indifferent audience. You’re apt to forget the riff, opening chord, lyrics (your name?). Nerves and stage fright does that to you. But, each time, you get a little better. At least that’s how it’s been working (or was working—thanks Janet Mills!!) for me.

I played Bentley’s in Arundel several times. Jimmy the Greek’s in OOB. I’d hit the Wolves Club the prior January before COVID shut everything down. I began going all the way to Mechanic Falls and even Brunswick to play. A few people came out. Most did not. Instead, they’d send me a note to “let them know the next time” I played. Okay. Let me find the perfect time for you—not!!

One open mic in Gray became a favorite. A bit different in that I usually wasn’t playing three or four songs and then onto the next guy format. This one was more a jam session. The two hosts were great. I learned to play a bunch of new songs and jam with other musicians. I had fun.

This club was just down the road from people we knew well from Mark’s baseball days. I don’t know why, but when the wife was posting about the death of John Prine, it pissed me off. Someone she only knew because of records—she’d never met him or interacted with him, personally. But god forbid—drive five minutes and support some guy who raised a fine young man and who’s been reeling for months—oh, no—can’t do that. There have been others. I wonder how John Prine would have felt if he’d spent the majority of his music life with a system that allowed people to play his music for free and then move on. But back when he got his start, if you wanted to hear his music, you bought a record.

Then, there’s the reality that many people as they get older stop going out to see live music. I’m not sure why. Maybe that’s what makes you seem like a geezer at some point. I’m doing my best not to be “one of those people.”

Save for a handful of people—like the old high school classmate who caught my set at The Millhouse Pub in Mechanic Falls after seeing my Facebook post—familiar faces in the audience at any of the open mics I played in 2020 were few. One co-worker, who time-and-time again said “let me know when you’re playing in Brunswick. When I was playing in Brunswick on a Sunday and I Skyped her, she gave me the “I’ll take a rain check.” Baby, no rain checks will be coming!

This post has become a long way of saying—how about you buy my new EP? Take a chance on some lo-fi music, written from the personal experience of a dad who is still reeling (four years later) from the death of his son. And the only thing that seems to mitigate a fraction of the pain from the loss seems is making music and writing songs. Some of you owe me a beer. Buy my EP instead. Five bucks is a bargain in my mind. And since I’ve had a history of supporting other artists that exist outside the mainstream, it seems I’m due for some karmic reciprocation.

But even if I never get many more than three followers and those okay with listening and not “dropping any change into my case,” I plan to keep plodding along.

Predictions for a New Year

Last year at Christmas, I could barely play 5 songs. By “play,” I mean sitting with my guitar and being able to make it through a song, knowing the words and chords without relying on sheet music. I had a couple of songs I was close to “nailing,” but the others I cloyed my way through.

A year later, I can now play an hour’s worth of music (or more) and my setlist is now in the double digits. I’ll still miss a chord change now-and-then, but I’m confident in my ability to play music. This from someone who believed the messaging that he’d never be good enough to perform with a guitar.

What’s the difference a year later?

A good portion of my growth can be attributed to practice. Most of the previous 365 days of 2020 (in the midst of a global pandemic), I spent hours alone in my basement: just me, three guitars (two electrics, one acoustic), a combo amp, a laptop, and a small Bose speaker. I acquired a two-channel PA midway through 2020 and a couple of microphones. These tools allowed me to approximate the live performance space, or a reasonable facsimile.

I have no crystal ball and hence, no sense of the next time I’ll be in front of an audience of flesh and blood humans. Once our “esteemed” leader, Governor “Crackhead,” shut everything down this fall, she deprived me of my weekly opportunity to get out and hit open mics. This was an essential part of my growth as a performer. No matter how much you practice, standing on a stage in front of a bunch of total strangers is an entirely different animal than sitting alone in the basement. Songs you’ve nailed time and time again become clunky messes played live in front of an audience. But, falling on my face made me better.

[I’m sure some people are like, “WTF–why you be callin’ our wonderful guvvie a “crackhead.” Well, there’s still some evidence from news reports in the early 1990s that have since been stuffed down the memory hole, as these things often do, when those in power are doing the wronging. I know, “just put your mask back on, Jim and get in compliance”!!–jbe]

Let’s get er’ back on da’ rails.

Seth Godin is someone I’d call a “guru” of success. I’ve returned to many of Godin’s prescriptions for “pushing through” failure time and time again. I’ve attained success with my writing and other endeavors. Mark liked Godin’s orientation and we talked a lot about his book, Poke the Box. I have no idea, but sometimes I feel Mark’s smile from somewhere when I’m playing music.

The time will come (I hope) when some normalcy returns in 2021. When it does, I’ll be ready with my guitar to make some noise in front of an audience, at a venue somewhere in Maine (and beyond?).

Speaking of guitars (and non-sequiturs), Phoebe Bridgers plays the same guitar I do, save that her Danelectro is more sparkly and she’s a shade prettier than I am (by just a hair).

I Started a Bandcamp

Most people rarely follow their hearts/dreams. It’s so much easier to simply wish upon a star.

Back in the late 1990s, I decided I wanted to be a writer. Then, Stephen King told me that being a writer wasn’t simply wishing you wanted to be a writer. “Oh,” I thought. I guess there’s some work involved. You have to write. Indeed.

I learned my lesson about writing. But what about music?

Playing the guitar is something I’ve always wanted to do. I’ve had a guitar and I’ve had seasons when I played it quite a bit. But inevitably, it would always end up back in the case, with the case building up a sheen of dust. Hard lessons don’t always stay with us.

My son was killed in 2017. Life came to a standstill for me, or pretty damn close. I could barely function for months. Then, one afternoon, my guitar came out of the case and it’s stayed out ever since.

I wrote “Walking Down the Road” last summer, in August, right after we moved to Biddeford. It’s about Mark’s final walk, as told in his voice, if he could still speak to us. I even have the first lo-fi recording of it made on my phone, in my clothes closet. I thought that would make for a great makeshift studio. I’ve since migrated to my basement, “my bunker” as my wife calls it. She actually decorated it a week ago, and now I have Christmas lights down there.

Having a Bandcamp page is something I’ve thought about. But for some reason, I held off setting one up. I guess I needed more time in the “woodshed.”

JimBaumerME on the Bandcamp

I’ve written 15 songs over the past year. I have an album’s worth of material. I’m starting to create some stark home recordings of my songs. Others like Guided by Voices, Swearing at Motorists, and Daniel Johnston have done similar things. They are certainly artists worth modeling myself after, but at the same time, I’m not really looking to be just like them–they’re guideposts for sure–but I have my own sense of where I want to go as a musician.

So, if you are inclined, bookmark my Bandcamp page. I’ll continue to post new songs and before long, there will be a full-length album.

 

Christmas Songs on Pearl Harbor Day

We have been focused on the COVID Cloud since last March. That’s eight months, earthlings!

Like most false narratives, the design of it fixates on some fractional element of a much larger malady and malfunction. In the case of the COVID (or the “Kovidika,” as I’ve started calling it, one of my numerous descriptors seeking to mock the fear and loathing all about me), Americans seem hard-wired against accepting anything that promises pain: we deny death, lack empathy for anyone suffering through tough times (like grief and loss), and perhaps worse—refuse to own any responsibility for the mess we find ourselves in. It’s as if we’re all clamoring for the Staples “easy button” in some national ceremonial act, hoping away the COVID. Oh, right. I almost forgot. The vaccine will save us. Stupid me.

Today is the first Monday in December. Did you remember it’s National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day. Will the day come when white people will have to denounce the events that occurred on that day in 1941? Locally, another windstorm has darkened significant portions of Maine’s power grid. Does Janet Mills see this as a problem? I don’t imagine any of the media sock puppets consider thqt worth investigating any further than a perfunctory posting of numbers of people without power—just like they do each day, fogging their fear, telling us of more positive tests of peopl with COVID. They are invested in numbers lacking context or meaning.

Our infrastructure is badly in need of an upgrade. The solution seems to be stringing more fiber optic cable in order for us to Zoom in perpetuity. But what about our crumbling roads, a malfunctioning power grid that’s the same one we’ve had for 70 years, not to mention our buckling bridges. I have fostered a keen interest in the topic of infrastructure. In fact, I pitched a series of investigative articles to this guy back in the day. He handed me off to some American expat living in Germany who passed on my articles. Not that they weren’t any good, they just didn’t match his “style” of writing. He’s now manning the switch on a fear-fog machine of his own, like much of those remaining in the legacy media. All the journalists with any remaining moral compunction have abandoned panic porn to write honestly, like this guy. I admire his work along with a handful of others. The rest, I’ve left in the dust to pander and put forth their propaganda passing as news.

Why do we fear COVID so much? Rather than address root issues, let’s just shame the guy who’s not so stupid as to believe his mask out running is going to save him. The governor now believes the mask is what recently delivered a “negative” COVID test. That was reported on local news. See what I mean about toadies in the press? Where are the local journalists that used to actually provide some semblance of journalism? If you really care to understand why COVID has had such a significant effect on America, maybe try this podcast with Shawn Stevenson. If nothing else, listening to his podcasts might provide some tips so you can up your health and address your own immune deficiencies that pills and vaccines never will.

You see, however, for most, fear is acceptable to the alternative: actually facing up to the fact we’re a nation of sick people who are susceptible to succumbing to a common cold, let alone a viral infection packing any “ooompphh.” But let’s just blame it on the Orange Man, don a mask, and scold anyone that doesn’t want to do either. Oh, and let’s also defund the police, shame white people for their “sins,” and put up signs saying “Black Lives Matter” even though none of you have ever lived in close proximity to someone darker than you.

If anyone has been paying attention like maybe three people I know, there would be reason to be depressed and even, contemplate drinking a Dixie cup full of Jim Jones’ Kool-Aid.

I can’t lift our national veil of fear, all around us like a horror movie fog. What I can do is tell you that we all have a nascent potential for living a life that has some meaning, isn’t buffeted to and fro by the latest COVID numbers, and push back against people who don’t have your best interests in mind when they work to keep you cowed into submission by the fear-foggers.

This morning, I’m listing to Sufjan Stevens’ beautiful and sometimes quirky Songs for Christmas. Stevens is an interesting musician who I came across about 10 years ago. I have been listening to Christmas songs every morning for the past week. It seems to help, along with the lights from our Christmas tree, in pushing back the forces of darkness, or at least keeping them at an arm’s length.

Christmas gonna’ Christmas with Sufjan Stevens

One of his Christmas songs is called, “It’s Christmas! Let’s Be Glad!” That’s not a bad sentiment and I’m going to try to hold onto this for the next three weeks, at least. He also warbles his way through traditional tunes, like “Amazing Grace.” When it plays, I’m sure there will be tears streaming down my face. Partly, it will be due to me remembering Mark. The feeling will be a mix of both sad and happy at the same time. I remember our Christmases past with Mark and family. I’m remembering Christmases past when the Baumer clan would gather and my Nana and Opa would join us, along with the extended family. My French-Canadian grandmother on my mother’s side would come down from Lewiston with my aunt and uncle and my two cousins, along with my Aunt Dot. Those memories make me happy.

COVID gonna’ Kovidika. What are you going to do and not collapse into a ball of fear and anxiety? Maybe like me, you’ll just remember that there are alternatives. I’m going with Christmas gonna’ Christmas!

I’m so good, look at me–virtue signaling with my mask.