Music Rights Organizations

I have never receive a check directly from my music rights org, BMI, and that might be partly my fault as I probably failed to navigate the labyrinthine process of registering my songs. But they don't make it easy. I've gotten some money for co-writes with Tif Ginn and Elizabeth McQueen, but in both cases the money came from the co-writers after they received it from BMI.
I joined up with BMI in expectation that it was just a matter of time before I had some radio play and I would need them to collect the royalties. I expected them to work for me but I don't really feel like they have the needs of lower level artists in mind as they develop their agenda. I feel the same way about them as I do about joining the Democratic Party. The stated principles were all about getting me signed up but their activities and their energy reflect an entirely different set of principles.
For one thing, the collection and distribution of royalties is totally geared to toward the bigger artists (and ultimately, their managers). But for another thing, they go around and hassle small, independent music venues and shake them down for cash.
Here are some thoughts on that second point.
Music itself belongs to no one. To go around and tell restaurants, bars, yoga studios, campgrounds, etc. that they have to pay royalties if they are going to host a live music event is just wrong. Say what you want about the 'rights of the songwriters', but I'm one, and I'm not buying it. If I write music and perform music, I should be able to go out to a club and play show without the venue having to to worry about the BMI, ASCAP or SESAC rep walking in demanding money. I can understand royalties from radio stations and other broadcast entities. But a club that presents me is not just selling my music, or enhancing the dining experience by providing my music. They are selling a 'show', entertainment, and that is much more than lyrics and melody. I make my money selling tickets and CDs and I ought to have the right to do that without this organization this is supposed to be working for me coming along and shaking down the club-owners. And I wouldn't feel differently if they were actually handing that money over to me, but the fact that they never hand any money over to me really chaps my ass.

Black Beans

Over the last couple of years, I have totally reconsidered and adjusted the way I eat. Looking back, it seems easy, but I think that is because I did it by degrees. Briefly, I cut out, one by one, the bad habits (soda, fried food, fast food, starchy foods) and started replacing them with good habits (robust, healthy breakfast, lots of good foods like beans, yogurt, vegetables, fruits, nuts, water, garlic, healthy oils, quinoa, chia). I also ate somewhat less all the way around and tried to get my heart rate up early and often.
You might have noticed "beans" in my list of good habits. I didn't think of beans as 'good' or 'bad' until I started seeking out protein sources, but it turns out that beans are one of the healthiest, most nutritious foods available to us. I started eating black beans when I moved to Austin in 1994 and developed a taste for them ever since. Looking back, I remember my pal Peter Keane eating tons of black beans and rice back then. I worked in restaurants that made good use of them, and never suffered any ill effects, so that's where I started.
I know about 50% of my readership is going to say "Oh I can't eat black beans, they give me gas" or something to that effect. Stop! I suggest giving them another chance. There are a couple reasons that black beans can mess with your digestive tract. The first is that they were not prepared in a way that exhausts the gas. If you drain and rinse them and cook them for a long time, uncovered, the gas will escape before it gets in your stomach.
The other reason is one of the great reasons for eating them: black beans stabilize your digestive tract and aid in digestion. BUT if you have been eating a steady diet of Whoppers and fries, you can expect to have some negative feeling impacts when you start cleaning it out. Blaming black beans for intestinal distress is like blaming Windex for the dirt on your windows. If you are making changes to your diet, take it slow and don't be surprised when your body responds.
I'm going to include a simple and delicious way to enjoy black beans below but I have a few more easy suggestions if you want to make a positive change to your diet. Eat Greek yogurt for breakfast with some nuts, berries, granola mixed in. The live acidopholus in Greek yogurt also has a great effect on your digestive tract. Greek yogurt is widely available, I recommend Greek Gods, either 'Honey' or 'Vanilla' or get 'Plain' and mix in some local honey (great to combat seasonal allergies). The 'Plain' is also a great substitute for sour cream in your black beans!
Bill's Black Beans
Two cans of black beans, drained and rinsed
One can of Rotel tomatoes and chilis with juice
Tablespoon of ground cumin
Teaspoon of black pepper
Salt to taste
Add avocado or sour cream/greek yogurt or queso fresco or feta or any combination
Cook the beans and Rotel for an hour or more, add a little oil or water if it gets too thick. First bring them to a boil, then simmer until you are ready to eat them. Add the cumin, pepper and salt toward the end of the process. I put hot sauce in for heat.
Also, you can toss in a cup of corn, peas, kale, carrots...
I like to serve this over a quinoa pilaf, though wild rice would be a great alternative.
I'm guessing this meal will cost less than $5 and will serve 3 or 4. Enjoy.

Without Fred, All is Lost (excerpt from Bill Poss Travelogue)

This is another excerpt from my new book Bill Poss Travelogue, available at www.billpossmusic.com:

Without Fred, All is Lost

The last gig before the break was weird in that their were really normal people and absurdly wealthy people sharing the same space. It's a common California phenomenon and yet it remains weird. But that's not why we were all a little on edge. We were all on edge because after the gig, on the way back to our temporary home in Capitola, Fred would be dropped off at the San Jose airport and leave us to fend for ourselves. Big mistake. 

It was cold and wet in the mountains surrounding Santa Cruz. We had driven from Rancho Nicasio (yes, THAT Rancho Nicasio) in a few hours and were debating where to park for the night. We were staying at a house, about a block from the beach (about a 100 yard walk down a park path), that our friend Barry had leant to us. It was a little tricky trying to back the RV into Barry's driveway even in the light of day, but at night, I was loath to even attempt it. Where the park path meets the beach, there was a park and a parking lot. Some folks had told us that we could just park there at night and we were willing to take our chances at 3 a.m. Even thought sign clearly stated "No Overnight Parking." I'm a firm believer that most bad judgement is borne out of exhaustion.

Meanwhile, Zinger was driving the band bus somewhere en route from the San Jose airport to  Santa Cruz when he got a text from Fred reminding him to get some diesel. So Zinger got off the highway and searched in vain for diesel for about an hour before determining that he was not going to find any. Though the white bus has two tanks, neither has a working gauge, so it's hard to know when the tanks are low, unless you are watching the odometer. That's Fred's job. 

So they had two options: get three hotel rooms or make a run for Capitola, 20 miles away. Zinger figured if he could make it over the hill, he would be home free, and he was right. But he didn't make it. The bus ran out of diesel at the top of the pass. The band (and Fred's daughter Jessi) was exhausted and Justine was sick. So Zinger called a taxi to deliver them to the house in Capitola, while he stayed with the bus to solve the problem. But things get confused at 4 a.m. on the top of a mountain and when the taxi got them to the house, no one had a key to the house. But by time they came to that conclusion, huddled in the dark and the cold and the rain, under the tiny awning at the front door, the taxi had gone. So they waited... for us. 

We had the other key but, of course, we were one hundred yards away and sleeping soundly. They made a few attempts to text us and then waited. Matty made an effort to pick the lock, to no avail. Finally, someone got through to Barry, who came and let Kori, Matty, Justine and Jesse into the house and then (heroically I'd say) brought diesel to Zinger up on the pass. They primed the engine and got the bus down to the house around sun-up. Meanwhile...

The knock at the door was loud, abrupt, belligerent around 7 a.m. I knew it wasn't the welcome wagon. I threw on my pants and rushed to the door hoping to answer before they banged again and woke up Blue. When I opened the door, I was greeted by a couple of Capitola's finest. They didn't seem sympathetic to my attempts to keep the volume down. I got to hear a lengthy lecture about how camping in the beach parks is not allowed and how if every vagrant in America was allowed to trespass on the beach, there would be no room for the local residents, etc... After I told them about our situation, they asked if I was part of Fred's band. Turns out the same cops had been summoned a week earlier when we arrived at Barry's house and parked our vehicles on that exclusive real estate. They didn't ticket me, but told me to leave pronto, and then added that it was probably going to be difficult to do so because I have left the lights on all night. Shit. 

They buzzed off before I could ask for a jump. I was extremely sleepy and not altogether together, and getting a jump seemed like an utterly impossible thing to do.. I approached the maintenance woman but she told me the city had a strict 'no jumping' policy where public vehicles were concerned. I walked toward the beach to get a better grip on my surroundings and when I returned, I noticed a couple standing at the back of a Toyota Land Cruiser preparing to surf. I started to approach them but as I did, the most unexpected thing happened: They both stripped down to full-naked and put on wet-suits. They were like photos out of a sporting magazine: lean, tan, beautiful. And naked. I ended up walking a Z pattern on the parking lot as I tried not to create an awkward moment by approaching them in their full state of undress, but when I got to them, I knew it was too late. They just sort of looked at me while I asked for help and muttered hiply as they stepped off toward the beach to surf. I was never able to piece together what they said. 

But it just so happens that we weren't the only homeless people in that park. Some folks had done their legal research and one of them was hanging out in the truck next to the RV. He told me that you could park on certain streets all night and then when the sun comes up, you have to leave, because of the school buses and trash trucks, but by then you could come to the parks. So he had developed a routine. Turns out he was from Austin, TX and we had some mutual friends. So I got a boost from him and his little truck and it took a long time and I didn't mind at all. 

We made it back to the house around 9 a.m. where we were astonished to hear the rest of the story. Zinger was just asleep by then. 

Crazy (excerpted from the Bill Poss Travelogue)

This is about a third of this essay, Crazy, from my new book "Bill Poss Travelogue"
Crazy

We're all a little crazy in this group. In my experience, anyone who has been on the road for more than a tour or two is at least a little crazy. I'm not sure if this life makes people crazy or if crazy people are just naturally drawn to it. It might just be that all the normal people eventually go home, leaving an ever higher concentration of crazy on the bus. But I do think there is something about life on the road that teases up the crazy, drawing into to view what "normal" people hide in the basement or bury in the back yard. 

It comes and goes. I often look around and feel like the Marilyn Munster character in this particular show. But no doubt everyone takes their turn in that role. 

Maybe it's the shadow of our creative and artistic sides, articulated by exhaustion, overexposure to strangers and each other, booze, and what I call "no-nest-syndrome". 

No-nest-sydrome is the result of living on the road, where  you never really have a chance to get comfortable anywhere. Most touring acts 'go out on tour' for a week or two, whereas we 'come off the road' for a week or two, now and then. But even when we come off the road, we don't have a nest that is our comfort zone, at least not one that is our own. 

Fred is the only one who has his own place to go home to, but even that is just a big hall with a kitchen, downstairs from his studio. 

Another big factor is that we don't get to maintain our close relationships in a face-to-face manner. Even with modern technology, I can't get a phone plan that allows me to call my Mom (in Illinois) from Canada without paying around a dollar a minute. 

The flip side of that is that living three or four in a bus, spending most of our time rolling down the road and sleeping, it's really hard to find an opportunity to be alone. So we get a little claustrophobic as well. 

Then there is all the free booze. 

Ten years ago I was on the road with Slaid Cleaves. I had been driving around the country in my pickup truck,  playing bars and coffeehouses all over the US for a few years. I was happy to get a chance to open for Slaid on a run up through the Midwest. It meant playing for a hundred or more attentive listeners every night, which was a fairly new experience for me. 

I got the job by making myself useful. Slaid was riding the wave of his very successful "Broke Down" CD and was invited to play at Robert Earl Keen's Texas Uprising in Houston on the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend. The invitation had come in late and Slaid already had gigs booked in Oklahoma City on Friday and near Rolla, MO on Sun. So my job was to drive Slaid and the band to the airport on Sat. morning for their flight to Houston, then drive Slaid's van to St. Louis and pick them up on Sunday morning. But I had to have my truck for my solo tour home and that complicated matters for me. 

My plan was to drive from Austin to Rolla, catch a bus from Rolla to OKC, then the rest would make logistical sense. It's a long drive up to Rolla and I thought I might look for an opportunity to make a few dollars along the way. I was rolling through W. Missouri late in the day when I passed an old-school road house and decided that was my mark. I walked in with my guitar and was saddened to find that karaoke had taken over the stage for the night. But the karaoke had pretty much run its course and the bartender started asking me about my guitar. Turned out the bartender was the owner and he asked me to play a few songs on the mic, which I did. The karaoke crowd wasn't very impressed, but the owner fed me and bought me a few drinks. He also invited me to stay in his deer cabin, just a few hundred yards behind his house. 

He showed me around his bar as I drank his beer. Turns out he had spent a decade driving a tour bus for his wife's country band. There were photos all over the bar of the band on stage, in the bus, and pictures of the bus as well. He bought the bar with the proceeds from selling the tour coach. I asked him why they came off the road and he told me that everyone had lost their minds. 

It was late when we got the bar closed down and we arrived at the deer lodge for a night cap. He was a pretty 'country' fellow, but it seemed odd to me that he had a deer lodge within shouting distance of his actual house. I never met his wife but there were pictures of her all over the lodge, mostly "on-stage" photos. She was beautiful and appeared to be a real pro. She had released a record but it didn't sell well and the label lost interest. 

I drifted off to sleep on the couch while he was still talking. I knew it was rude, but I was starting to feel more like a hostage than a guest and I had nowhere to go, so I just let it happen. When I awoke it was quiet but there was smoke in the air. He was standing in the middle of the room with a cup in his hand and a straw in his mouth.

It must have three or four a.m. by this point and I tried to just close my eyes and go back to sleep. But it occurred to me that he wasn't smoking. Still, I figured if there was danger, he would have said something by now. But I was pretty sure he'd seen me open my eyes, so I sat up and took a closer look. It turns out we was smoking after all. But not like I'd ever seen it done. He was smoking crystal meth. 

I didn't want to be too nosy, but I figured that if he didn't want me to know he was smoking meth, he would have done it somewhere else. And it became clear that he wanted me to know. He wanted me to be his confessor. 

Easter Puppy

I told my 4 year old this story this morning. It's as true as I can remember, the hat may have been black or tan, but this is, essentially, non-fiction. 
Easter Puppy

I was 5 years old and my brothers, just a bit older, were playing with their new (plastic) golf clubs they had gotten for Easter. I wished I had golf clubs too, but I was more distracted by the thought of the 'big event' coming up. Every year, in Teutopolis, the tiny town where my mom grew up and where we spent most Sundays, the Knights of Columbus hosted a city-wide Easter Egg Hunt. I don't know if my brothers were too old for it or just didn't want to participate, but I was excited to go and my cousin Tim was too. 

My parents were off somewhere and we were staying with our grandparents and my Aunt Cathy, who was in high school at that time. I don't know who was supposed to be watching Tim and me, but in typical small town fashion, we were left to wander the field where the hunt was held. We filled our baskets up with colored boiled eggs and at the end, all the kids gathered around for the prizes. I was a pretty distracted child in general and I had no idea that there were any prizes to win. The men in charge, my grandpa among them in his brown cowboy hat and smoking a cigar, started calling out for specially marked eggs. They were standing by a table that had a number of prizes on it and I remember there was a cage with a beautiful puppy in it. 

One by one, the eggs were called (the blue egg with a white spot, the green and red egg, the egg with a star on it) and the kids would come forward and collect a prize. Most of the prizes were candy or cheap toys but toward the end, there were some fancier items like a Tonka truck and a toy John Deere tractor. I hadn't won anything and wasn't really expecting to. I had come to hunt eggs and I was pretty happy with my take. 

The excitement built as they were about to give away the grand prize and they asked who had the gold colored egg. I still wasn't really paying attention, and I think it was my cousin Tim who told me that I had the gold egg, I was the grand prize winner, I had won the puppy! Puppy? I won a puppy!? Tim and I were very excited about the puppy. I stepped forward with my egg and I showed it to my grandpa. 

"Oh boy" was his reaction. It wasn't "Oh boy!" like "Yay!", but the other "Oh boy", like "uh oh". There was some laughter at this as I walked over to the cage, Tim right beside me. And my grandpa leaned down and said, "Bill, are you sure you want a puppy?" My grandpa was a very smart man, and that is the dumbest thing I ever heard him say. Of course I wanted a puppy! I was a 5 year old boy! 

I don't remember what kind of puppy it was, but no doubt it had a fine pedigree. People in Teutopolis in 1971, even the kids, would not have considered a dog worth anything if it couldn't do something, or at least have some promise to do something useful in the future. It might have been a german short-haired pointer or an Australian shepard. But to me, and to every five year old on the planet, it was a PUPPY. The only thing that could exceed the value of a puppy was a pony. 

The negotiation was swift and ruthless. Tim lobbied for the puppy and was quickly taken out. I cried a little bit and was mollified. But I remember my grandpa, faced with the possibility of sending me home to my mom with a puppy, said to me: "What do you want? Anything you want, what is it?" And that is how I got my first set of golf clubs. 

Dishes

It's March 25th and we have been without water in the new (old) bus since we left Effingham, IL on March 5th. It's been below freezing since then too, until the last 24 hours, so even if we had water, it would have been solid. In any case, we have been having to figure out how to cook and do dishes without running water in the kitchen. It's not a first, but it's the longest we have gone under these conditions. 

Mostly we put the dirty dishes in a big bag and take them into a legion or a hotel room, wash and dry them, and bring them back to the bus. We often, inexplicably, lose items. Most recently, we lost a coffee press and several forks. But mostly, it just makes cooking in the bus WAY more challenging. 

These lazy days of March, when we only have three for four gigs per week with not a lot of driving involved, we get to spend a little time in Port Dover. It's nice here for us because we have lots of people to visit with and there is a nice RV park with a playground and beautiful view of Lake Erie. But this time of year the RV park is closed and we are spending more extended time at friends' houses. 

Blue and I were loafing around at our friends Suzy and Darrel Miller's house this afternoon and evening, chewing the fat, playing games while Suzy made a big, delicious pot of chili. After we had some dinner, Suzy went for a walk and Darrel and I were talking about how nice it is to have a place to park our butts, talk, not talk, stare at computer monitors, and not feel like we are imposing. Also not feeling like anybody has to entertain anybody. 

I started doing the dishes and Darrel told me that I didn't need to. I'm pretty good at letting people take care of me, not feeling guilty about eating their food and watching them do the dishes while I drink their beer. Of course I'm also just as likely to make them dinner and do the dishes as I go, and to bring enough beer for everyone. Making dinner and cleaning up after can be one of the best social experiences in my world, especially when people stand around in the kitchen, pour wine, get in the way and talk and gossip on whatever topics come to mind. It makes me feel loved and it makes me feel welcome. 

But cooking and/or doing the dishes by myself can be one of the most personally rewarding activities for me. Something about that simple, menial chore puts me in a comfortable 'home' space. It has to do with the domestic nature of it, but there is also something about being useful, purposeful. It makes me feel like I'm at 'home'. That is a feeling that I miss. 

Bill Poss Dispatches

I have been touring for most of the last 17 years, one way or the other. Four years ago, The Ginn Sisters joined the Fred Eaglesmith Band and my touring reached a new level. I have lived in an RV since then, with my wife Tif Ginn, my son Blue and for much of that time with Tif's sister Brit Ginn and her dogs Sola and Flora, respectively. We have had a lot of fun and a lot of adventures and we have seen more of the North American continent in that time than most Americans or Canadians will ever see.
Toward the end of 2012, I decided I would write a book detailing some of our adventures. It was originally meant to be a sort of yearbook, but it developed into more of a memoir. I called it the Bill Poss Travelogue: Dispatches from the Fred Eaglesmith Traveling Steam Show. I wrote most of the essays in the book but there are also contributions from Tif Ginn, Robbie Fulks and Cal Orok.
It was great fun and a lot of work. I hope you will check it out on my web-site: www.billpossmusic.com
I'll be blogging from time to time and this where you can find it. I hope to contribute at least once a week, but no promises. I mean to talk about our travels, gigs, life on the road, life in general, probably not much about politics, but no promises. I hope you will subscribe and keep me up-to-date with any feedback.
Thanks for tuning in!