Jaybee: 1977

Back in June, as part of my Secret History series, I posted about 1977.

And any time I post about a year based on when music gets released, I’ve got my own personal version of that year, too, based on what I bought/experienced.  

As a kid, you’re pretty dependant on the radio, so you have the current music of the day to tie to your memories. I was no different, but once I got a job and some spending money (about 1974) I began seriously buying records, and not always getting what was current.

So from then on my recollections were not always stamped with the then current music. And I suspect I’ll be remembering 2012 via the Small Faces’ “Ogden’s Gone Nut Flake” released in 1968.

Add to that the fact that the punk explosion of 1977 was neither televised nor radio-ized, unless the purpose was to denigrate it.  So 1977’s significant music was twice removed from me. The punk world was exploding while mine was only growing more insular.

And I had my own experiences: turning twenty, changing my appearance, changing my major, changing friends, meeting (or rather not meeting) girls. Nothing earthshaking, but I still think of it as a very emotional time. Translation: I was sad a lot.

But in a lot of ways, it was a great year. When I really take stock of it, I can think of a dozen great moments, but I have no music to bring me back to them.  The closest thing is Feats Don’t Fail Me Now by Little Feat, which was constantly on my turntable that year. Perhaps because it’s rock and roll party music, I don’t have the intense emotional attachment to it that I do for the records below.

Because they so strongly evoke the sadder moments, they cause me to remember the times as sadder than they actually were.

So I may love these records way out of proportion to what I would otherwise perceive as their merits. Whenever I play them, I’m brought to tears. Every time.


Aztec Two Step:
I would not blame you for judging this record to be lame hippie crap, but songs like "Prisoner" reminds me of unrequited love.
And if you can somehow apply romanticized vision of the beatnik life to your own with "Highway Song", all the better:


Alan Price’s Between Today and Yesterday:

As I did with Aztec, I listened to Alan Price this during the winter, holed up in my room, alone. I think I was between friends at the time:

Is the title song depressing enough for you?  

But Alan could be gentle, too, but only he made you earn it. And even here, it’s far from joyous. Who’s kidding whom, right Alan?

The loneliness lasted into the summer.  I remember taking a week off from work and not having the slightest idea what to do with it. My friends were all working and my girlfriend, well, she didn’t actually exist.  Elvis decided to die that week, too, but since I hadn’t warmed to him yet, I couldn’t even sincerely partake in the grief.

So I’d wander the city by myself and go to the local bar.  Sad any day, but pathetic on a Tuesday.


Karla Bonoff:

By the end of the year, things were looking up.  I could listen to sad music like "Falling Star" and not want to slit my wrists.

The incredibly sappy arrangement of “Flying High” doesn’t even rate a youtube video. (and, no I’m too old to figure out how to do that.), which is a shame because it will always evoke being out to dinner with friends, which beat being in the bar with them.  There we were, a mix of boys and girls, all platonic relationships.  And for once, feeling completely comfortable with it because we genuinely liked each other.  

As it turned out there was another group of friends waiting in the wings, too. I’d hung with them a bit during the year, and they’d turn out to be keepers


A Hopeful Ending:
So what was there to be so miserable about? I don’t know. The music maybe. Most likely, it was just being twenty, an age that I could really do something with now, but that at the time seemed so difficult.

And to just finish it off, here’s another song from Aztec Two Step. You may not think it’s great. That’s okay.  I not only love it, but find the part between 1:30 and 2:00 to be transcendent:

Dancer’s All:

But that’s just me liking it more than I should.

It's All Good!

The first time I heard the phrase It’s All Good was a few years ago during a very tense work meeting. Something got royally screwed up, but someone - not me - had the presence of mind to not let the negativity get out of hand, and said it.

What a magical phrase, I thought! Let’s get past the negatives and just make the best of the situation, it seemed to say, and I was all for that!

But alas, the phrase may have had its day.


The Wedding Feast of Orlando, or Jaybee Turns Hot Coffee Into... Cold Coffee

The Jaybee Family attended a wedding last month, and by guy measures, it all went great.  There was, however, a minor mishap the next morning, when everyone gathered for breakfast.at the hotel.  The hostess didn’t know we were coming so not everyone (us) got to sit together.  By gal measures, this qualified as a catastrophe.

And every time another relative walked into the restaurant, they’d stop by our table, and we’d go through the minutia of the situation all over again. The fact that it was an all you can eat buffet didn’t seem to matter. So having anointed myself the All Wise One, I tried to calm everyone down by saying, It’s All Good, and watch that phrase work its magic on everyone, or go get more home fries..

But after about the tenth time the magic wore off and my wife replied:

“It is NOT all good!  They messed up the arrangements and Michelle (the bride) is upset!”

Okay, I guess that counts as not all good.  Point taken. Nonetheless, I countered with the usually decisive: It Is What It Is.

But Mrs. Jaybee riposted with the admittedly all-powerful F*ck off.

So that’s two of my favorite phrases biting the dust in the space of a single conversation. Mrs. Jaybee’s phrase - immune to fads - has the staying power, it seems.


I Swear It’s True, I Got It Off the Internet:

If you study the etymology of “it’s all good”, you’ll find that it originated in Auschwitz in 1939. In German, “Ich al Guden”’ literally means “I’m not Jewish”, but quickly evolved to mean “Oh, that’s your problem”. (Curiously, in Yiddish, it translates into “We’re f*cked”.)

Over time, this meaning has been lost, and in an age where irony no longer exists (see the RNC platform) it evolved into a positive statement.  Apparently this is the last phase before a phrase passes into actual obsolescence, which is marked by the use of the phrase F*ck off in reply.

So not only is It’s All Good now passing away. As a former adherent, I am also willing to admit that this is a good thing.


Hooray for Everything!:

I say this because I want to complain.  This hasn’t been the best summer - too hot and humid for my taste. But of course, how bad can summer be?  So overall, it was only Good.

And it hasn’t been a great year for music, either.

Oh, It’s been good.  But as I’ve said on other occasions, good just isn’t good enough any more.

Why? Because I don’t have the time I used to have.  And I want to fill that time up with great.

So far, I’ve gotten more music this year than I normally do. This is due to some gift cards, and Amazon.com’s monthly $5 mp3 sales. And I’m having a good time.  There’s been a lot of good music.

But not much GREAT music.

Nothing that changes your life, that interrupts your day, even though it isn’t on.  The closest so far has been Beck’s Sea Change and Imperial Teen’s On.

I’m slowly drowning in a sea of good, when I’d just as soon die from a blast of GREAT to the head.

But when I’m feeling this way, there’s one thing I tell myself that puts it all into perspective:

Hey, Whatta You Gonna Do?

Not What I Wanted to Talk About

Amazon.com Strikes Again:

Well, Amazon struck again this month, this time with another $2.99 MP3 special. And this time I broke one of my own rules - not the first time, though - by buying music I (mostly) already had on vinyl.

But that’s not what I wanted to talk about.


Missing the Actual Thing:

I still struggle with CDs vs. MP3s. I’m saving space and the environment, but I miss the liner notes! And according to allmusic.com this album has some fine ones. I’d love to be able to access the liner notes and I’ve been trying with linernotes.com.  Meh.

But that’s not what I wanted to talk about, either..


If I Ruled the World...

The first thing I’d do (after World Peace, of course. You’re welcome Andie Macdowell!) is correct all the Greatest Hits Albums.

Come on, you know exactly what I’m talking about! When you see a Greatest Hits record from an artist you like, you mentally correct the song list. You favor the hidden gems over the big hits. And with no licensing or back catalog sales issues to consider, you’re bound to do a better job.

So now with World Peace out of the way (oh, and I slipped in getting a fridge that keeps beer at the perfect temperature) I’m ready to take on improving The Best of the Monkees.

It’s comprised basically of their set list from last year’s tour: And it’s not bad at all.  But with a few tweaks it could be perfect:

• They missed a couple of good ones from the first record - I would have included the King-Goffin penned “Take a Giant Step” and David Gates great “Saturday’s Child”.
• There’s a really bad version of “I Want to be Free”. It’s a loud, smarmy, overplayed, oversung travesty. The swirling organ leads me to suspect that they were going for “Like a Rolling Stone”. It’s likely an early version, before they realized that Davey would be the sensitive one.
• And I’d swap the sweet “Papa Gene’s Blues” for the rowdy “Sweet Young Thing”. But it’s close - James Burton and Glenn Campbell are on both.
• My only problem with the picks from More of the Monkees is that they didn’t leave enough room for “When Love Comes Knocking at Your Door”.  By the way, I don’t know why other singers (Smashmouth, I’m talking to you) don’t know how to sing “I’m a Believer”. Micky gently bends the notes and raises the song from the merely excellent to the euphoric.
• And aside from the Mike Nesmith penned “You Told Me” and “Sunny Girlfriend” among the missing, the selections from Headquarters are on the money.

“A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You” convinces me that Neil Diamond should have stuck to writing songs for the Monkees. But no! He had to trade in his guitar for an orchestra. And a cape.

I remember spending an entire summer afternoon listening to the excellent “Words”, thinking it was the A-side of a single. The A-side was, ahem,  “Pleasant Valley Sunday”.  Technologically obsolete Life lesson: Always listen to the other side at least once.

“Porpoise Song” is a pretty cool spacey song that shows what results when the Monkees let some drugs - and Jack Nicholson - into the studio.

But I have to admit, that’s not what I wanted to talk about either.


Jaybee-Childhood-Friend-Mike L:

What I really wanted to talk about was how Jaybee-Childhood-Friend-Mike-L
(not to be confused with:

• Jaybee-Childhood-Friend-Mike-C, who had all the Beatle albums, or
• Jaybee-Roommate/Friend-Mike-F who liked Television, or for that matter
• Jaybee-Son-Mike, who plays a great guitar, or
• any of the several other Jaybee-Friends/Acquaintance-Named-Mike who haven’t made it onto the blog yet)

was just so full of crap. And this record - now, almost 50 years later in clear MP3 - confirms it.  

Let me explain

Back in 1966, me and my friends - Mike L among them - were big Monkees fans. (So big, in fact that we pretended to be them.  I played curtain rod/guitar. Mike played sofa pillow/drums.) And with old record players being what they were, you couldn’t always make out the lyrics. So there certainly was room for misinterpretation. And friend Mike L took that room and the patio, too. His interpretations were of a singularly juvenile nature. After all, he was ten. (I was only nine, but being Irish Catholic, you have to add fifty years.)

Take the following examples:

From “I’m a Believer”:
What I heard: When I needed sunshine, I got rain.
What Mike heard: When I needed sunshine, on my brain

And it get’s worse. This, from “Steppin’ Stone”::
Me: And now you’re walkin’ round like your front page news.
Mike: And now you’re walkin’ round like you’re f*cking news

From “Shades of Grey”:
Me. We had never lived with doubt, or tasted fear
Mike: blah, blah, blah.... tasted beer

And finally, “Some Time in the Morning” - one of the greatest songs of the decade:
Me: And you need no longer wear a disguise
Mike: And you give your underwear to this guy.

And he’d argue with a straight face! He really wanted to believe his versions were the correct ones. The more serious the song, the more ludicrous his interpretation. I guess he felt life was more interesting this way. Thank God Belle and Sebastian’s “Stars of Track and Field” didn’t come out until the nineties. Otherwise he would have been insufferable.

Or maybe he was just messing with me. Either way, I was dumb enough to argue with him. He’s probably laughing as we speak, 50 years later.

And his influence is still felt today, both in the music industry - have you noticed how as sound quality improves, lyrics are getting more juvenile? - but more importantly, in his role as translator at the UN.


Let’s not even discuss Jaybee-Adolescent-Friend-Joe...

...and brother of Mike-C, who took over for Mike L as I hit my teens, giving me all of the sexual and drug interpretations of rock songs. Him being such a huge Zeppelin fan, he was sort of an authority.

And of course, he was always right. You really couldn’t put up much of an argument over “The Lemon Song.”

And sadly, these revelations made rock and roll less fun for me. Just like how your teen years are less fun than your childhood.

But like I said, that’s not what I wanted to talk about.

Confessions of St. Jaybee: My Cover Story

Dear Mike:

I have a confession.  I’ve committed the sin of lameness. (Eleventh Commandment, I believe). I’m telling you because I need dispensation.

What did I do, you ask? Well, I went to see a cover band.  

I told you it was lame.

But I have an excuse! The band was covering Television. Get that? A. Television. Cover. Band. I didn’t think such things existed either.

I’m aware of the many such bands that play at BB Kings all time. They imitate Billy Joel, the Rolling Stones, Elton John, U2, Led Zeppelin, etc. You name a classic rock band, and there’ll be a tribute band for them. We even took my son and nephew to a “Beatles Brunch” there, but I had an excuse: it was for the kids. Yeah, sure.

How did this come to pass, you might ask? No? I’ll tell you anyway.

I found out about it through my trusty skint email, which announced a “Classic Album Night” at the Brooklyn Bowl. I could have ignored it easily enough, but when it said that the first of the three albums to be featured would be Television’s Marquee Moon, I did a double take. The second would be the Police’s Synchronicity, which would get Mrs. Jaybee to come along. The third was something by Pat Benatar, which I couldn’t even bear to stay for, even if it meant getting to mock people - my favorite pastime.

So we headed for the Brooklyn Bowl, where you can eat, drink, bowl and listen to music all in one place, and simultaneously if you really try. But they don’t recommend it. The main dish is fried chicken, and I expect they’ve had their share of flying bowling balls due to greasy fingers.

I would never try such a thing myself, having trouble with even a single activity involving motor skills and heavy objects. Besides, the last time I was in a bowling alley, I was having a bite to eat with friends while waiting for a lane to open up. Good times. Beers, burgers and lively conversation. So lively in fact that, at one point, I got distracted and tried to drink from the ketchup bottle while pouring beer on my burger.

So Mrs. Jaybee advised sticking to the eating drinking and listening, and leaving the bowling to the experts..

There were some pathetic geezers there, too, who didn’t know any better than to stand alone on the dance floor in their sandals and socks. But mostly it was young-ish people. Though  band was old enough to talk about “flipping the record over” half way through the set.

And Little Johnny and the Jewels did all right.  They were a bit sloppy, and didn’t try to look or sing like Tom Verlaine, thank god.  And they played bitchin’ guitars.  What more could I ask?

Then came New York’s Finest (get it?) to cover the Police. Now, Mrs. Jaybee is a big Police fan, which was the only way she was going to go.  And me? Well, I have a blog post drafted - but never posted - entitled “F*ck the Police”.  Which may be an overreaction. I don’t hate them. I just never loved them.

And why not? They put out five good to excellent records. Their musicianship is impeccable. They have their own, instantly recognizable sound.  Sting is an excellent songwriter, a good singer, a humanitarian, and damned good-looking, too. Ask Mrs. Jaybee. (Ahh, I think we’re getting to the root of the problem now....)

Television, on the other hand, only managed two studio albums, and one live one before breaking up. Some fans don’t even care for the second album. The leader sings/looks weird, and was considered to be almost as big an asshole as Lou Reed.  

And yet I like Television more. Maybe I just like my bands ugly. That way, I don’t get jealous.

But New York’s Finest came roaring out of the gate! (Maybe “roaring” is the wrong word. The singer is clearly Sting’s illegitimate son, who inherited dad’s high voice.)

And while the band played (perfectly, by the way) song after excellent song (except Andy Summer’s hilarious “Mother”, maybe because it was so un Police-like? Hey what kind of commitment is that?  Is it a Classic Album Night or what?) I had to admit to really respecting Synchronicity. It was as good as I remembered.

But as good as that is, I still don’t love it. Like Led Zeppelin IV, it’s a record whose popularity is completely understandable, but one that I’ll never fully embrace.   

And why am I giving this so much thought, anyway? Doesn’t that just make the whole enterprise that much more pathetic?  After all, don’t I pride myself on being the one who was always trying to broaden his horizons?  And here I am spending my time and money on a simulated experience.

Me - the one who once scoffed at a bouncer who tried to get a $14 cover out of me because the band inside “sounded just like the Doors”, and who went to the bar half a block away, the one with no cover and perfectly good blues band playing?

Maybe it was the fourteen bucks...

So Mike, get back to me and tell me that it was just a lark, that you don’t get to see a Television cover band every day, and that we never got to see the real thing to begin with.

And most of all, as I approach my 55th birthday, that I’m not the pathetic geezer I’m beginning to suspect I am.

Your friend (and new AARP member),

Jaybee

Being and Nothingness, or Jaybee Sartre's Virtual Record Store Trip, or Something

One of my New Year’s Resolutions this year was to buy more digital music. My goal was to make 50% of my music purchases mp3s. I’d dipped my toe in the digital water the year before with tUnE-YarDs
W H O K I L L , which , coincidentally, was my top record of the year.

My only complaint so far is that, with no jewelry case cover to look at, the tiny picture of the cover, which looks like this:


reminds me of nothing so much as a Subway sandwich ad.  Just looking at it makes me hungry. (Someone please tell me what this is.)

But above and beyond my obsession with seeming cool to young people, there was the very practical possibility of literally running out of room in our house.

Most family members would like to be preferred over inanimate objects, so when a pile of one falls into a pile of the other, said family members prefer that I save them first. Daughter has stack of CDs fall on her, daughter prefers that father pull her out before checking if the CDs are scratched, etc. Quite reasonable if you’re normal.

Thus, another good reason to take advantage of the odd iTunes gift card and Amazon sales to get mp3s whenever possible.

I’d already resolved to get used instead of new CDs whenever possible. To be environmentally correct? Of course! The fact that they are cheaper never entered my mind...

So this would be another year of great music, just taking up less room and costing less. This is called Continuous Quality Improvement.

So how’m I doing?  Let’s see so far:


January:

First there was Radiohead’s Amnesiac and David Bowie’s Lodger. An of-the-moment record store link trip yielded these two kind-of-want-to-haves-and-at-$4.99-who-can-resists?

I thought that would be it for the month. Every year I have a standing Slow the F*ck Down With the Buying of the Music Resolution that rarely lasts the winter. And this year, not even January.

Thanks to Amazon’s monthly $5 mp3 sale.  And for January, instead of the usual 100 albums, they’ve got 1,000! Now, I’ve finally learned how to keep this kind of thing under control, and after writing up a list of 50 possible buys, I settle for two:  Essential Leonard Cohen and Wild Flag’s debut..

So, what was my score at the end of this first month of the year?

MP3: 2
Used: 0
Cheap: 2
Brand New: 0

So far, so good!


February:

So my son Michael mentions Television (a girl he knows brings them up - the Official Best Possible Reason to Talk About Music) which results in a major (at least 3 CDs worth) mp3 buy, and using a gift card no less! I’d call it a two-fer but it also resulted in a blog post.  

Another trip to the record store unearthed two jazz cheapies: Sidney Bechet Ken Burns’ Jazz and Coleman Hawkins Body and Soul

MP3: 5
Used: 0
Cheap: 7
Brand New: 0

Okay, not bad, but I can do better, right?


March:

Used record store Other Music strikes again.  This time with Jens Lekman's Night Falls Over Kortedala.

MP3: 5
Used: 1
Cheap: 7
Brand New: 0

Meh.


May:

Cabin Fever motivated me to plan a trip to both record stores once the weather got better. This resulted in cheapies Beck Sea Change and Wu Tang Clan Enter the Wu Tang, and used Bright Eyes Lifted and the Best of Bush. In a fit of remorse, I realized I could have gotten Bush as an MP3 for even cheaper.  So I’m penalizing myself by marking it as New. Ouch!

MP3: 5
Used: 3
Cheap: 8
Brand New: 1

I appear to be succeeding on the cheapness front (lots of practice) I’m paying the price on the environmental one. (Except that I’m not buying something brand new and thus taking up new resources, thus my carbon footprint blah, blah, blah...)


June:

A surprise while on a visit to a friend’s art show - it’s taking place in a used CD store! Quick! Retreat! Ah, too late! Thus Liz Phair’s Whitechocolatespaceegg, the Hives Veni Vidi Viscious, the Soft Boys Underwater Moonlight and Wire’s Pink Flag.

But I try to make up for it by going to my iTunes card. (The old more-is-somehow-less argument.) and get
Eno’s Music for Airports.  

But at this point, like global warming, I hit my 350 and there was no going back for room on the CD shelf. May our children’s children forgive us! ( Well, me anyway.)

MP3: 6
Used: 3
Cheap: 13
Brand New: 1


July

Amazon comes to the rescue twice with Bob Marley’s Legend and Postal Service’s Give Up each on sale for $2.99

MP3: 8
Used: 3
Cheap: 15
Brand New: 1

Which is how it stands right now. All things considered this doesn't suck exactly, but I've got work to do.


But Steinski Asks What Does it All Mean?:

But I miss the thing-ness of the CD (just like I missed the size of the LP, with the possibility that the cover could be a thing of beauty. Maybe even framed.  (Well, no, I never actually framed an album cover, but that was for convenience sake.  I was too lazy to do it, and besides what if I wanted to hear the record?)

And I miss the CD covers. I miss the liner notes, even though I can’t read them anymore.

The more serious and unexpected side effect of this foray into mp3s is that I am beginning to lose track of what I actually have and don’t have.  When I got Postal Service, I also got some free song along with it.  Do I remember what song it is? No. Did I Even Listen to It? No.  Do I Care? No.

So when you get down to it, does it even matter whether I “have” it or not?

When you have a physical CD, you put it on. (This isn’t even getting into the area of If You Have It, You Can Burn It Right Onto Your PC So That When You Want to Play It, You Just Look It Up On Your Computer discussion.)

But if you only have the mp3 you look it up.

Aand if you don’t even “have” it, just search for it on Spotify or Youtube.  

What used to be the very solid demarcation line of ownership - you either have it or wait for it to get played on the radio - has virtually disappeared.

And when my PC’s hard disk dies, do I “lose” these albums? (Please let me know. I’m too lazy to find out.) And is it then pathetic of me to burn the album onto a blank CD that I then lose in my basement? I would have treated the official CD better.

And will we end up looking back on all this with embarrassment, like we do when we see 8 track tapes (which I’m still replacing)?

Well I never said I wasn’t getting old...

Driving Wheel, My Ass

Most of you know me as a man of many talents. Husband, father, writer (work emails and Facebook statuses, mostly), and avid eater of onion rings. But what many of you don’t know is that I’m also a musician.  

What instrument, you ask? The steering wheel, of course.

The one in our mini van.

Not familiar with that instrument, you say? Of course you are! You see a steering wheel every time you get into your car.  I understand that most people think it’s only use is for steering the car.  But I’ve discovered its true purpose.

The steering wheel is a multi-faceted instrument that can enhance whatever musical experience you are having in your vehicle. Whether it’s a song on the radio, a CD or a sing-along (group or solo), the steering wheel can make it better. I know. I’ve done it.

Who hasn’t tapped along on the odd inanimate (or animate, come to think of it) object, to simulated the drumming to a song on the radio?  Well, the steering wheel lends itself not only to that, but other instruments as well.  

Did you ever feel those little ridges on the wheel? Some people assume they’re there to give you a better grip while steering. Wrong! They’re there to simulate the frets on a guitar’s fretboard.  Or, if you like, the keys on a piano.

So you see, you’ve got an extremely versatile instrument there in your hands! (And guys, can you ever be told that too often?) Depending on the song, it can be used to play a bass, rhythm or lead guitar. Add to that keyboards or aforementioned drums (wind instruments are a bit of a stretch, but I’ve done it) and a synthesizer seems kind of lame (and doesn’t come standard with most vehicles).

During the course of a single song, you could play any or all of these instruments, but I frown on this practice. Unless it’s a great song, you should really stick to a single instrument. There are other musicians in the band, after all. It’s not all about you.

And doing solos while turning can be a little tricky.  But if you do it right, it’s can be quite thrilling.

We recently drove to D.C. (five hours on a good day, eight that day), which meant bringing the right CDs along for the trip.  And what better CD to bring (and to show the versatility of  the steering wheel) than the Beatles Abbey Road?

Here are just some of the parts you can play from that record:
Come Together - bass, drums
Something - lead guitar
Maxwell’s Silver Hammer - rhythm guitar, piano
Oh Darlin’ - rhythm guitar, piano
Octopus’s Garden - lead guitar
She’s So Heavy - lead, rhythm and bass guitar
Here Comes the Sun - acoustic guitar
Because - okay, you got me there, but harpsicord is doable
You Never Give Me Your Money - piano, lead guitar and bass
Sun King - rhythm and bass guitar
Mean Mr. Mustard - Rhythm guitar
Polythene Pam - Rhythm and lead
She Came in Through the Bathroom Window - lead guitar
Golden Slumbers - piano
Carry That Weight - rhythm guitar
The End - drums and guitars
Her Majesty - acoustic guitar

And, if you’ll forgive me, I must confess that, on “The End”, I do drums and all the guitar parts.  I just can’t resist. It took four Beatles to play it, but I’m able to do it all on a single steering wheel.

So, as you can see, a steering wheel really can enhance a piece of music for everyone in the vehicle. Or you, at least.


Oh, and we made it to DC okay.. 

Now, at the time, the wife and kids weren’t as enthusiastic about this... well, it’s a calling, really.  
But now that they’ve grown up and have their own cars, they actively encourage me. They’ve even considered getting me a fretboard-shaped steering wheel for Christmas.

But I passed on it. I’m a steering wheel man, all the way.

Anyone can play guitar.