The Oppenheimer Report 10/5/11

Sorry to be late posting this; I was down in Buffalo to sell Mom’s car and take care of some other estate business. Monday night, after a long day, I treated myself and played an open mic at a local Buffalo bar. I haven’t played in a while, and it felt good to perform in public again. The other day I was listening to a compilation CD put out for the 2010 Buffalo Music is Art Festival, and besides the fact that I like most of the cuts, by artist I’ve never heard of, what occurred to me is how many gifted people hail from my home town. When I play open mics in Buffalo, there is often some voice from my concert attending past that reminds me of this talent. Not too long ago I played The Sportsman’s in Buffalo, shortly before Grethen Schultz performed. She’s a Buffalo singer to whom I’ve been listening since the late 80’s. She’s got a good rock voice, and after she did a few Bowie tunes, I requested that she do one of her original tunes, “Cool Me Down.” She seemed taken aback that someone wanted to hear that song. What I did not know is that her partner Dave Morgano, who was playing with her at the time, wrote the tune. Every time I get the notion that I may have written a good song, I am presented with some Buffalo artist that puts me in my place.

One of my favorite musicians, Leo Kottke, covered a tune called “Louise” and I always loved that song. I Googled it the other day and don’t ask me why, but I mistakenly came to the conclusion that Willy DeVille of the Mink DeVilles wrote the tune. The good news about this misinformation is that I learned a little bit about Deville, who had what I thought was an interesting story. In fact “Louise” was written by a Buffalonian songwriter named Paul Siebel. I wouldn’t have known this except that I saw Leo play it in Toronto not too long ago, and he mentioned the guy’s name. He said Seibel hates getting up to perform his songs. Boy, do I know that feeling, and as much as artists tell me it’s a rush to play in front of a receptive audience, I’d be happy to acknowledge that success in the form of a royalty check, or kind words by a music critic. I think the fundamental issue here is that I blow as a performer. But perhaps I’m getting better.

My latest self-indulgence was the purchase of a Zoom H4N 4-track field recorder, which enables me to capture fairly accurate recordings of my and other artist’s performances at these open stages. I’m still learning to use it - it is a remarkable, reasonably priced recording device - and recently I brought it down to my favorite Toronto open mic to record what I heard. Of course, I inadvertently pushed the “pause” button when it came time for my performance, but perhaps that was meant to be, because I absolutely murdered a Neil Young Cover. One guy who played a Pearl Jam cover implored me to give him a copy of his performance. As you all may know, I shun technology like the Unibomber, but in keeping with my newfound philosophy to keep learning, I took the recording home, learned to use my Roxio software in order to compress the digital .WAV file into an MP3 format (less memory … easier to email) and emailed the file to the guy. Impressed? Didn’t think so! Of course, this is digital technology that the average teenager probably considers second nature, but for a 55 year-old man with severely atrophied learning skills, this accomplishment was huge for me. I believe that it is extremely helpful to hear oneself perform; humiliating sometimes, but constructive nonetheless. Many of the talented artists whose paths I have crossed have no recordings of their music, either because they are very poor or they simply don’t care about recognition. You’d be surprised how many creative people care nothing about fame; they’re too busy being prolific and self-destructive. I once recorded I guy I used to follow in Buffalo by the name of Jeff Goldstein, and I thought he was a very gifted songwriter. Unfortunately Jeff had a lot of problems, and I’m not sure he even performs anymore, but we laid down four demo tracks which I still have. I value those recordings as much as if they were made of a famous artist. I’d hoped he would use them to demonstrate to some club owner or music industry suit that he had what it takes. But like the Joplins and Jimis and Jacksons, talent is sometimes a by-product of dysfunction. Maybe there’s hope for me yet!

Believe me, I know I’m full of myself, and I also know that my musical aspirations are of little interest to most of my readers. Nevertheless I have come to learn something about myself. I am an archivist by nature, and one of my passions is giving a voice to the unheard. So far, I’ve recorded about six open mics and already have some decent material. What will I do with it all? Perhaps nothing, but maybe a distilled version will be available to the general public one day. One of my favorite albums is a field recording my cousin made at a music festival in Kerrville, Texas. Those recordings were made around the campfire, and every song was a magical performance by a noted songwriter. You can spend piles of money to attend a big name act at an arena concert and never capture the magic of these spontaneous live performances.

I promise, no music next week.



Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2011 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED