Hey everyone. Scotty C., here. just thought i'd update y'all on what i'm up to these days.
school and work, actually. full-time student with 3 jobs. i'm a music student; it's not like i am not making music! i'm writing new songs all the time, i just haven't been recording any of them. if i record, i generally want to make it as good as possible, and i just don't have the time to focus on that right now. right now, it's all about Jazz Improv. i'm getting intimately acquainted with my instrument in a way i'd previously only dreamed i could. i'm taking a jazz improv class, all year, playing w/ a full ensemble, it's wonderfully challenging and more fun than i ever imagined. i'm also playing w/ the school band, it's a cover band, also a full ensemble, and that is also fun and a great experience- there are 5 other guitarists in that band in addition to myself, we gotta work together, make out parts so nobody's playing the same thing. it's cool as hell! i spent 11 years as a working bassist, but since i switched to guitar as my main instrument, i've only done solo gigs. so this is really good for me. i surprised myself; i'm what you'd call "first-chair rhythm guitar, 2nd-chair overall"... i'm the most vocal of the group, as far as communicating w/ the other musicians. my role is pretty huge, actually. i love it. we'll put on a big show at the end of every term (both classes- i'll be on stage the entire night!), and we'll also play at graduation, which will be a Huge gig, at least in terms of audience size. but that's my focus right now, learning tons of songs, tons of new chords, learning my way around the fretboard, every note of every fret, soloing in any/all keys, major, minor, modal....knowing how to play a G9 (for example) in multiple positions, simply by knowing what notes make the chord, and where they are on the neck... inversions. tons of inversions. until the end of time, inversions.....i've got a bunch of new songs up my sleeve, and when the time is right, i'll record them and release an album. it will be good. it will be better than anything i've done so far, light years above and beyond the stuff you've heard from me. i haven't even gotten started.

but we all have to be patient....

now, to field a couple of FAQ's:

yes, i was having some serious health problems earlier this year. i'd rather not go into detail. i will say that i could see the vultures circling; my personal trainer/health care practitioner straight-out told me that it was time to "choose life, or death". i made drastic changes. EXTREME. the most extreme detoxification process a person can put himself through. not only did i come through with flying colors, i also inspired Four very close friends to do the same, and they did it, with just as much success! unfortunately i went right back into my old habits pretty much immediately, but knowing i can do that anytime i need to do it, man, that is the fountain of youth and the key to eternity! i absolutely intend to do that once every other year, if not yearly. i'm going to live forever! you'll never be rid of me AH-ah-ah-aaaaa (that's the voice of The Count, from Sesame Street, doing that laugh, btw...)

and one more, this is a quote from a friend on Facebook:
"you can't possibly be that diverse. you don't actually listen to all that stuff. wtf is your musical background?"

lately, i'm becoming sort of known for my music collection. i'm a collector, and a wanna-be ethnomusicologist. "wanna-be" meaning, i'd like to make a living at it somehow. I AM, in fact, an ethnomusicologist. i took classes last year that opened my eyes to worlds of music i'd never explored, namely, jazz and folk. we examined music that was being made as far back as Americans were making music. i dug it- now i have 100 years or so of catching up to do!

me, everything was always about music from my earliest memories. my dad wasn't a musician but he did know some songs on the guitar, old timey stuff, some johnny cash and old country tunes. i remember him playing and singing for us. i grew up in Minnesota, country music was the Thing at the time. my earliest faves were the vocal harmony groups, the Statler Brothers, the Glaser Brothers, the Oak Ridge Boys, the Gatlin Brothers. (ironic, because i can't sing harmony worth a damn)... i'd listen on the radio in the mornings, and in the car. around the age of 4, my older brother got sent to juvie hall or reform school or something, but my folks kept his room for him. my sister and i snuck in and raided his record collection! omg, such wonderous artists such as KISS, Alice Cooper, Ted Nugent, BTO, Three Dog Night, Wings, on and on and on! we absorbed Everything. KISS was the coolest! i was 4 years old and knew every lyric, every guitar lick, to songs like "Cold Gin", "Hotter Than Hell", "Strutter", and of course, the lifelong-favorite "Go To Hell" by Alice Cooper! my friends and I would put on "Kiss Concerts" for our friends, dress up in whatever makeup we could get our hands on, use tennis rackets for guitars, and act out the whole album for whoever would sit thru it! and we were like, 4,5,6 years old! lol! eventually my brother moved back home, took back all his records, and i finagled my way into the spare bedroom w/ the radio/turntable in it. back to the world of country top-40, which was pretty great at the time. Ronnie Milsap, Anne Murray, Statlers, Oak Ridge Boys, Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, Waylon, so many great artists dominating the top-40 at the time! you don't hear that nowadays, that sort of talent and songwriting in country music. we also had a turntable in the basement, and i had a bunch of .45's by like, Sha Na Na, and Elvis, the Rovers, Lesley Gore... we also had some 8-tracks that my older sisters had left behind, and i was turned on to the likes of Pink Floyd, Eric Clapton, the Pointer Sisters, J. Geils Band, Genesis, the Eagles, etc... the border between "classic rock" and "80's music"...
but anyway, the first major turning point came when i was ten. (i digress: a few years earlier, my brother and i made a bet as to who could destroy the most toys, the most thoroughly. i won- 2 bucks from my brother, which i spent on a magazine full of KISS posters, which i hung all over my bedroom walls. omg, my parents Fucking Freaked! he was supposed to be babysitting me!  we got in so much fucking trouble over that, i decided i'd had my fill of rock music for a while. this decision being made around age seven...)
so i was happy w/ country music for a while. then, when i was ten, i went to a party w/ my parents. it must've been new year's eve, i dont remember, but there was a big concert on TV, and i saw John Cougar perform "hurts so good" and "jack and diane" on that show. O.M.F.G. ... he was the Coolest fucking thing i'd ever seen in my life! that's when i ditched country music for rock. for several years. top-40 rock, which was pretty good at the time also: the Police, Blondie, Talking Heads, bands like that were still dominant. soon the '80's came in, w/ Hall & Oates, Wham!, and tons of other bands. i was in on the first wave of music videos, pre-MTV, where i got turned on to bands like Art Of Noise, David Bowie, and Herbie Hancock. i was also collecting tapes; any song i liked, i bought the tape. ("this song is great! and here there's nine more? i gotta have it!").....  "Modern Love" by David Bowie was a particular first favorite rock song. it was like 1983, and i couldn't believe a guy who looked so old was having his first hit! LMAO, what did i know? nothing! lol....
but then came "Thriller", and shortly thereafter, "Purple Rain". i loved both. the first time i saw the movie "Purple Rain" = absolutely a life-changing event. there was no turning back, at that point! Prince was my obsession for a couple years. i'm still a huge fan, and i have all of that old shit. by this time it's about 1986 and my parents move to Wisconsin, right in the middle of my freshman year! talk about culture shock, in addition to the usual adolescence drama! those kids didnt listen to Prince. they turned me on to Zeppelin, Van Halen, Sabbath, the Doobie Brothers, the Doors, Creedence, all that good ol' classic rock stuff! Led Zeppelin, and Jimmy Page in particular, became my obsession for a year or so...i didnt want to be "like" Jimmy Page: i wanted to BE Jimmy Page !!!
Major Turning Point #1 - my sister Emily had gone off to college in Madison, WI. by this time her, me, and everyone around me was heavily into pot and acid, and alcohol. but she came back for a visit, and she'd gotten turned onto this band, the Grateful Dead, and she had a bootleg tape that she played for me..."Iko Iko" was the first Dead song i ever heard, we listened to it while we blazed up in the backyard. my older sister Kate found out we were dabbling, and turned us on proper. (to the band i mean ;O)..... lol)...
Major Turning Point #2 - this is the Big One. Xmas eve, 1988, i was 16. my sister's gift to me was renting the Grateful Dead Movie, and she gave me a hit of acid to watch it with. i had to work that night so i watched it afterwards, around 1AM.. it Blew My Mind. the best shit ever. period. that began an obsession w/ the Grateful Dead that lasted about 3 years. i didnt listen to anything else in that time. we collected thousands of bootlegs. Thousands. i also started going to Dead shows, another turning point which would require a seperate blog all it's own.
simultaneously, while this was going on, my sister and i were both working part time at my dad's radio station, which played country music, and had a 2-hour long Polka Show every weeknight, which i engineered. those were the days where DJ's could play whatever they wanted, and man, i dug fucking Deep! Flatt & Scruggs, Doc Watson, the Louvin Brothers, Jerry Reed, Hank Sr., Ernest Tubb, Merle Travis, Chet Atkins, Buck Owens and Don Rich.. all that old shit! not to mention the Polka show, where i was forced to find music i liked, which i did. Frankie Yankovic, Erwin Seuss and the Hoolerie Dutchmen, whatever,  you're there on the job, for hours, it's either find music you like, or, well, there was no other option...  fuck man i havent thought about that in a while! absolutely stoned on pot 24/7, that job was Heaven, to me!!!!
and also, simultaneously, i was in high school but i hung out with much older people. LSD became the way of life, and i must also mention Todd Roensch, who dated my sister briefly but ended up becoming my best friend for years: he was much older than me, and he turned me on to Pink Floyd proper, also more obscure stuff like Roy Buchanan and yes, Shakti and John McLaughlin.... i also got turned onto the Beatles around this time. the first time i heard "sgt pepper", i was riding shotgun home from out of town, with like half a pound of pot, in a massive blizzard, shrooming my fucking balls off, the windshield wipers looked like Japanese fans! and wow, i heard that album for the first time that night. i'll Never, Ever forget that night!
1990, graduation, moved the fuck out of my folks' house and that little town.  started going to Dead shows all the time. (one regret, if i have one, is that i spent so much time, money, and effort going to see other people's shows. if i'd spent that on my own craft, my own career, god knows where i'd be now. but whateva, i had a blast, i been Around, yo!).... but yeah, if the Dead were playing, and i couldnt get off work, i'd quit the fucking job. i travelled all over the fucking country, often getting by just w/ my wits. i'm talkin' 19 years old, hitchhiking to Denver, selling acid to feed myself, ride-hopping to NYC, crashing the gate at MSG TWICE!!! (im very proud of that!), climbing up an elevator shaft at the Garden, bar-hopping alone after the shows, hooking up w/ random strangers, crowds of black dudes, doing heroin in the doorways of closed shops, going into bar after bar, "One shot of Jameson's. GONE, next bar. One shot of Jameson's. GONE, next bar..."... i was a ballsy little kid, i gotta give myself that~ too stupid to know fear, i was!!!!
1992, i got turned on to Phish. dropped the Dead like a hot potato, started going to Phish shows. saw them all over the fucking country, no distance was too far to drive! man, that was great. this is in the era that i lived in South Lake Tahoe, CA for a while, then moved back to Wisconsin. i got turned on to Zappa, They Might Be Giants, and Ween, all in a matter of a couple years.... the Phish obsession lasts on and off, and it's still ON.... took a break from it all for a few years, i met Timothy Buehler, who became my lifelong best friend. we went off the deep end, searching for the extreme... him and i discovered the joys of bands like Godflesh, Swans, Neurosis, Mr. Bungle, Wu-Tang Clan, and so many, many others, as heavy and as far out as we could find... Neurosis was The Shit, for years. we formed a band playing music in that style, extreme metal is the only thing you could call it. we called ourselves Consume, and that would require another seperate blog just to even come close to describing what we did..... Swans, too. Swans was an obsession of mine for a few years. mid-to-late 20's by this time. i got way too far into Swans. they changed the way i think. not necessarily a good thing, but Damn, what a band! i still fucking love Swans. not so much Angels Of Light.... Geoffrey Hurlburt, another lifelong friend, came swooping in and rescued me from my own darkness. we started going to Phish shows like crazy again. it was great! all over the fucking country!
i turn myself onto new bands/artists. i hear a word, a recommendation, a "sense", i go for it.

but i never knew jazz. and i never knew folk music at all, until last year when i took those classes. the folk music class, when i learned that all those early Dead tunes evolved out of the Folk Process, wow that was a new one. and of course i knew the Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers from my days as a DJ at WRDN.... i jumped right into that. i've got Negro Prison Work Songs, i've got songs from Parchman Farm, I got all the Labor / Union songs, Railroad Songs; i love Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger! man, that dude Seeger was cutting-fucking-Edge at that time! great stuff!
but the jazz, im only now getting into it, 'cause im in the Improv class.. jazz is the toughest, trickiest, slipperiest music to play, and i'm starting to seriously Dig it!

so there you go. that's how i got here... I got ears.. and i've never given one single thought as to who may think what about my tastes in music. like, you get a new shirt, you wear it to school, everyone makes fun of it:  you Never, ever wear that shirt again to school... but people would make fun of my choices in music, and for me, it's always been "no no, man, you just aren't hearing it, this shit is Great!"....

and by the way. did you know that Jaco Pastorius was really John Francis Pastorius III, a white kid / beach bum from Florida? i just found that out yesterday. i had no fucking idea. blew my fucking mind!

okay im done. later. pop in once in a while, i'll keep this site updated until i have something better.
<3
xoxo
Scotty