i woke still tired from the trip, and rather than get up and work & or do what needs to be done around here, or deal with ANYTHING, have decided to drink coffee, smoke & write, as i watch the breeze in the trees outside my window -which i took the aluminum foil off this morning. as beautiful as the weather is, i dont even feel like being outside. BUT might sit & write in my journal, on the patio [thank you sisters & marsh] before the mosquitoes come to feed on me. true blood, indeed.
my sister says i 'rattle on' so since she said i rattle, i have named myself Mr. Rattle. i do. i always have. i have always had hypergraphia.i have always felt compelled to write or draw since childhood; write in my book form journals & diaries; TYPE [writer] poems; and in the old days, hand written or typed letters & journals etc; now, emails and blurbs on FB- and my blogs which i prefer to FB. but i truly prefer blank books, and paper; fountain pens & manual typewriters [of which i have collection]... my favorite being my Hermes, which stays in Switzerland. my favorite here? an old Royal i bought in a garage sale in Hollywood- beautiful/elegant machines.
I had a lot of angst about coming home, yesterday [and weeks before]; coming back to all the memories and sadness I physically left here; but carried within me to Europe. my time ‘at home’ in Switzerland, was cathartic, therapeutic, and healing. i was a recluse & 'hermit monk'- i never left the house except when i HAD to [concerts etc] - i wrote [improvised] & recorded music daily. I got back in touch with feelings and emotions via ‘music therapy’ that I have been shunning for the last few years; if not decades [especially the last few months] never ever touching a piano except when doing a concert; only writing songs when I needed new material for a new cd; or occasionally making loop based tracks in Acid, which i filed and forgot, when bored. But that has changed.
The passing of my beloved precious mama, and my daddy, our dear friend & next door neighbor, James Smith, and one of my oldest & dearest friends, Doug Johnson; all within 3.5 months was just too overwhelming; especially when I think about the fact that I have already lost almost all my family [my nephew Brian last year] and so many of my closest old friends over the last few years. i walked out today & saw a mushroom & thought of Edmund. It all hit me before i left- and put me down in a seriously bad place. It also made me realize how fragile and short life is; and how much I had & have taken for granted. But that has changed.
Losing my Mama who had been my rock & best friend for 61 years, was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. Coming home the day after the 5th month anniversary of her death [yesterday] was hard. I was worried how I would react, walking into her house, where I have been staying constantly [even though my house is next door] to look after her, for, at least, the past 10-12 years- from various illnesses- and finally after she was told she could not live alone. But, I had been w/her ever since I moved home from new Orleans- off & on- since about 1992; except at the beginning of my move- then after my cancer surgery, when I chose to be alone in my house, to cope with the emotional, the 'mortality' thoughts, and the whole of it, & 6 months of chemo therapy. But she had been my constant companion & vice versa for the last decade+ [I only left to go on tour in Europe] but we had always been extremely close; closer than any two people I have ever known. Not just mother & son, but best friends, companions, confidantes, sharing everything. now i am here alone and trying to come to terms with everything, again.
There were so many reminders everywhere of all the others in my life I have lost- my brother, grandparents, aunts and uncles, friends before I left for Europe; I put away all photos of everyone who has passed, except my immediate family: mama, daddy & my brother. I felt surrounded by death. It’s still hard – and as my friend joe marchese said “grief is not linear” it is like a roller coaster. There are days I am ok, and days I am absolutely devastated. Thank God for my ‘family of friends’, & my cousin & niece, who have been my support group and have helped me immeasurably through these terrible times. I could not have gotten through it without them, their love and understanding.
Even though I was in Switzerland [my 2nd home for 18 years] for 6 weeks this trip, the time flew. I spent almost every day, all day through the night, when I wasn’t doing a concert [except when we went to Dresden for 3 days] writing and recording as ‘music therapy’, but more as meditation and prayer.
I began with my beautiful Burger & Jacoby acoustic upright piano, built in 1800 or 1880 in Biel- which Jacqueline & I found in a salvation army, and she made me a present of. It has a very warm tone and touch. I did a LOT of solo acoustic piano improv sessions in 2009 [over 60 songs] with it, which I have never listened to properly, but am about to, and edit and release... AFTER i release all i did this trip.
Almost like a child learning to crawl before walking: I began slowly. I would make coffee, roll 5 cigarettes [a symbolic/ritual thing with me], get my notebook & pen, then place my Tascam DR1 digital portable recorder behind the piano, turn it on, then go sit @ the piano, light a smoke, take a slug of coffee, & write down a key in my notebook [C, G/ Emin or F- or whatever] and begin playing in that key; automatic writing; just letting ‘the spirit’ guide my fingers. Everything was improvised; nothing was planned. Through doing so, I felt ‘the inner spirit’ [which to me is ‘the creator/which is God’] that so much noise, stress, computers, tvs, ‘busy-ness’ and racket in the modern day world blocks out/silences.
I would finish one piece then write down another key ad infinitum. Sometimes I did 12 songs per day, some days 9, some days 5… whenever I FELT the spirit. If I felt I was repeating myself, or not going ‘deep’ enough; I quit, burned a cd, listened… and left off for the evening.
I gave all first copies to Jacqueline, who was [and is] such an angel to put up with my neurosis; and did everything to let me work in peace & quiet; & make sure I was never interrupted; that I had everything I needed; and put up with the fact that I did not want to leave the house [even though it was-and is- paradise there] to go anywhere, except on the trip to Dresden, which we had planned to do in January, but my father passed on Janury 27, 2011- we canceled and I came home immediately. So even Dresden had a bittersweet feeling, but I remembered how my daddy always told me “go on and enjoy yourself, son; have a good time”- i lit candles in the Frauen Kirche
Jacqueline had gotten me an older Mac G4 last time I was there [which someone was giving away] and I had never even turned it on. This time I took out my old kawaii k1 which I had gotten in a junk shop for 100chf, and also never really used because it was not in tune. But I decided what the hell. Got it all out & up and running, downloaded Audacity for mac, and began multi tracking, discovering the sounds on the kawaii as I went along. I rediscovered my 1980-1990s roots: when I would record on my old 4 track cassette with old synths & drum machines for days & nights on end.on about 2 days before i left, i downloaded the Kawaii manual online, but understood nothing, but magically [angels/saints?] by a freak accident i discovered how to tune it. so now i can use it in acid without transposing... anyway...
I only used a ‘metronome’ click track, which I later deleted in most cases, and improvised tracks and tracks and tracks, forgetting ½ the time what I had just done on the previous track, but again: everything was improvised; nothing was planned. Layers on top of layers- always holding down the sustain pedal so sounds would blur [like I like in my photographs] & or due to my playing over “the sustain” be a huge sound of strangeness. Musical collage. It was an epiphany: it made me realize that the things I was doing in the 80s w/the synth and drum stuff- and even in the 60s onward, the astral projected solo acoustic piano sessions - WAS and IS the real me.
Thus I have decided to go forward in this genre… and not write anything ever again that is solely created with commercial purposes/intent in mind [i.e. “thinking up” a standard pop/blues 'radio friendly' etc song] or to please or cater to some imaginary audience that doesn’t exist. I am also not going to make physical cds anymore [due to the ecological factor] except for music I plan to perform live, and which will be available at concerts- and online for digital downloads only.
the majority of this work I will never play again; the creation was the performance. I am not editing any of the solo piano tracks; other than normalizing the tracks. I will make the works available for digital download, since I feel [as I have written] they came to me through the ether, the air, the Holy Spirit, they should be distributed through the ether, the air, fiber optics
As for the synthesizer improvisations- there are two versions: ones where I improvised various synth works- solo- directly to MiniDisc; which I will not edit, but release as created, other than normalizing. The others are the multitracked sessions, which I will tweak, and mix them- as some have 18 or 19 tracks- but do not plan to 'edit' - i will leave them as i wrote/recorded them.
The first multi-track session I did is called HYMNS and I will release it 1st; the 2nd session PRAYERS. These will only be available for downloads, either 1 song or the whole ‘mp3 album’ on amazon, I tunes etc. [same with the solo synth and solo piano albums]- they were and are meditations, hymns and prayers to God, to my parents, my ancestors, my lost friends
I also did 2 vocal ‘songs’- which began as lyrics. i was somehow inspired to write lyrics; so sat out on the terrace with my vintage Hermes typewriter as the sun set- wind chimes tinkling, trains going by in the distance- and as with the piano/improv stuff- the words just came; they flowed or gushed out. They did not need many [only very minor] edits- I did two with a ‘WALL OF SYNTHS” [multitracked] using the kawaii/mac & audacity, did the vocals with my DR1 [which wasn’t good- too much popping on the P’s and H’s] then transferred all the files to a flash drive/stick and into my laptop/to an external hard drive, then flew them all in to Acid, which is my editing/recording program of choice [been using it since 1998] –rough mixed, then rendered them as wavs- burned cds, listened and again thought- my God, it is like what I was doing in the 80s-90s- some very serious stuff- which tells me this is WHAT I should be doing, when I DO write songs for/with vocals again... and i will.
It brought back a lot of memories of mid 80s in little rock, when I was getting clean & sober: stopped drink, drugs, eating meat, having sex. [ but, I continued smoking 4 packs of Kool longs, daily- me & Aretha lol] I worked through that period via ‘music therapy’, also- writing/recording daily/nightly. Tim Blunk* [whom I miss terribly- RIP, my angel] would come over and add guitar parts to tracks I had done, and we’d sometimes do backing vocal sessions. I was certainly feeling & working with the Spirit then, and going VERY deep lyrically and musically. It's amazing how when you shut off all the noise around you, and listen closely, and open yourself to it, that happens. I was making serious ART!
I decided I wanted to perform that material LIVE. I booked some gigs.
I had doctor Pete Harris [who did pa/sound] mix down all the 4 tracks –music only- to 2 track stereo cassette [I wrote & played, arranged & produced everything on the 4 tracks but Tim's guitar and some sax [by mark Payne]- I, Linda Bailey, Tim*, and Bill Dunn+ [RIP] rehearsed in my apartment- then ‘took it to the stage’- I bought a ton of cloth black backdrops- Pete brought in the PA from hell, and woody did the lighting- it was fantastic- beautiful- classy elegant- great sound & lights- theater!
But it was too much for LR back then, and or probably too much for most places- except NYC or San Francisco- [or Europe] not only were people expecting a normal club cover band, playing instruments- they weren’t ready for the songs I’d written about suicide, death, drug and or sex addiction, and various & sundry unsavory realities. as said, it was musical theater, or as I called it ‘TECHNO DISCO CABARET’- the local newspaper critics loved it & thought it was innovative and amazing and "something only [I] would do" [it was] –this was way before people used backing tracks [which almost everyone does now]. We did 3 nights at some club in LR- then 1 here at the Bunny Day, which luckily thankfully I had Bob McElRoy [RIP] video for me; the sounds is bad but the video, even though a bit damaged from lying, forgotten about, for years- captured the show. that was that. 4 shows max. It was truly ART.
I moved to Shreveport working with the stage 618 R&B big band- still clean & sober- and still dealing with my emotional and mental stuff via music therapy- still writing EXACTLY what I thought and felt; which was still not ready for prime time. Still too ahead of its time. Took the stuff to London in 87 and banged on every door of every record company i thought might be receptive, leaving a trail of cassettes/bios/fotos behind me, only to be told “thank you but…” they wanted George Michael & Michael Jackson who were the big deals at the time. Even took the stuff to the Eurhythmics label/company thinking they might be adventurous/daring enough... but nyet- but at least the Brits were polite and correct enough to send the cassettes and a personal reply back to me. I still have the envelopes/letters. They’ll go in the archives.[thank you, john]
So I moved back to New Orleans [again] Many of the songs from those writers’ tapes ended up being the repertoire for DOUG DUFFEY/STREET LEVEL/NEW ORLEANS** [myself, Tim* & Bill+]- but instead of using backing tracks we played live: Tim* on guitar/vocals, Bill+ on vocals/synth, flute, sax, percussion, and moi on lead vocal/synths/drum machine. We did some openings at Storyville for ‘the weather girls’ and ‘divine’- which was a good match- and shows here and there. Then Carl Whitehead joined the band on drums, synths, vocals, and it took on a whole bigger and better trip; we also added some of my rock stuff, w/him on real drums/and/or sometimes playing WITH the drum machine. We did a live broadcast via WTUL at Tipitina’s, which kicks butt- and did shows in Monroe & Shreveport & some in New Orleans- Bill+ eventually left and was replaced by Ricky Andrews, on moog and more synths and even electric bass I think- and the sound got even better. But alas- New Orleans is not and never was progressive- the band broke up due to lack of gigs/money- and that was the last time 90% of that material was ever heard- until I recorded many of the songs on my 1st cd “Danger Sex & Sound FX” [Rabadash Records/New Orleans] - which is to this day one of my, if not my, favorite ‘production’/multi tracked cds- mainly because of the lyric content and songs.
I recently digitized a lot of the DD/SL/NO** live shows, and even a lot of the 80s-90s writers tapes, which I played for Jacqueline, who flipped out and said ‘THIS NEEDS TO BE OUT NOW! Not sitting in some box somewhere in Louisiana”- and everyone else that heard it in Switzerland, this time over, felt the same way. So… there again… I feel the trip did me a world of good in re-establishing to myself, who I really am artistically, and what direction I should be going in from now on. the path i should have never strayed from.
The solo piano improv stuff goes back to the 60s when I would sit and play ‘off the top of my head’ for hours non stop. The synth stuff the 70s/80s when I 1st got my Sequential Circuits 6 Trak [yes I still have it] and the multi tracked stuff the 80s into early 90- before I became a solo blues slinging singer/pianist on Bourbon Street to make a living. So, I feel, after this time in switzerland with my musical therapy that: I’m baaaaaaaaaaaack.
But whereas before I was forever trying to pitch this kind of material to record labels, only to be rejected, thanks to cdbaby [which digitally distributes my work globally] and this epiphany, I don’t need them. I also have had 2nd thoughts [in the past] because of this ‘roots, blues, soul, La. R&B, persona’ image I have created- which IS valid; I was born in and am from the Mississippi delta, after all- but is NOT completely who I am- and anyone who knew me/my music from the 60s- 1989- knows my rock/funk/psychedelic side. I think its time to just throw it all out there. i'm not getting any younger, but might be getting better...
Doug Duffey the performing artiste might be a whole different animal than the recording artiste… even so, even as the writing/recording/music is changing and evolving, the solo & band performances are also … and to me, it is all for the better.
Maybe it took going through all this emotional pain suffering agony [which i still go thought daily] to come to this point of awareness. But I know my parents would not want me to be miserable; both always wanted me to be happy. My daddy always told me “don’t worry about anything, son; you cant do anything about it” and he was right. Worry & stress does nothing but destroy you- weaken you- and I blame them [worry & stress] both for my cancer; and thank God/the Holy & healing Spirit for my recovery.
As I refer to so many times, in comments or blogs, I truly believe in the Gospel of St. Thomas [which does not tell the story of the life and death of Jesus, but offers the reader his 'secret teachings' about the Kingdom of God- as do many of the Gnostic gospels/Nag Hamadi/books banned from the Bible by the 'church'/council of Nicea etc] when Jesus told him [and I know I repeat this ad nauseum] #70: "If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you." Well, I have been damned near destroyed, and I am ready to be saved [not in the born again/psycho christian sense; i was never unborn OR lost- but in the spiritual real one] so I am bringing forth what is inside me from now on; the kingdom of God is within [us]; seek & ye shall find; knock and the door shall be opened. hello? knock knock
Friday, September 16, 2011 Monroe, Louisiana, USA
[C]2011 DOUG DUFFEY
