Lucky Buzz & the superstitious matter of guitar. (song notes & 8/28/98 live recording)

Let's slip outside the theater of reality for a moment to explore the absurdity of living within it. Stick with me here, then we'll get into the musical part of this newsletter.

            To live — fingers crossed with the guilt of being superstitious enough to not push luck you don't believe-in anyway — to mend the rifts that tie loose beginnings to open-ended conclusions that come to none . . .

. . . for instance: reasoning out an instrument with instructions spaced years & counties apart . . .

Begun with a Modesto babysitter who nurtured a few basic chords — dropped off at a Yuba-Sutter YMCA group class of staggered cluster-strumming — teenaged past Sierra Nevada jazzy private sessions that didn’t personally fit — drifted into a remote Deep Gap — occasionally anchored in Mel Bay — caught by the canyon folks — reared on Kern Tele fables — & later, schooled by peachy recordings of higher-string learning that chimed the remnants together into a crazy quilt sensory thread — from the static refrain of home to a mutt medley of curious inner movement . . .

. . . practiced secretly like the bad habit of an addictive dream to just live.

            Speaking of luck, this post is supposed to be about a song called Lucky Buzz from an album entitled Since, released-yet-not by MCA in 1998.

The lyrics suggest that I was checking-in with myself. Thirty-two was the age of my first ciggy & second album.

The line I traveled was a torrid blacktop vision seeing just itself through a heat dancing an inviting shimmer, waving while passing recognizable wrecks at their own dead-ends.

I wasn't attached to a soul or scene, allowing the expanse of time to spread faster than I could keep up with. I wondered how long I could last.

Everything was — & still is — a burning guess, a delusional bluff or an outright hallucination some are lucky enough to live through.

A fine-tuning footnote: Ego's, mentioned in the song, was the name of a bar in the basement of an office building that had lounge chairs with wheels, allowing you to roll around like a bumper car on the dancefloor & spinout to a band playing in the corner until — as the world would also spin — inevitably spitting you out, dizzy with no cash left nor ego intact.

This live version of Lucky Buzz, recorded for a promotional CD that the record label didn't promote, was performed at Schuba's Tavern 8/28/98 right after the pedal steel player on this track and I had finished our parts on Since & just kept going. Following the show, we aimlessly buzzed around Chicago until stumbling upon breakfast as the sun rose like a fried egg over a great lake of beer.

Lastly, on this song I use one guitar with two capos — the first one at the fifth fret to secure the high E (becoming an A), then capo'd again at the 7th fret over the lower 5 strings, leaving the high string to either peal in unison or question what the upper capo is ringing on about. There are possibly easier ways to get this effect, but, as is my way, I went with my first knee-jerk instinct.