I Love Los Angeles

I love Los Angeles. I love living here for so many reasons. The weather is some of the best in the country, the coastline is gorgeous and readily accessible, the people make every effort to be pretty (lest they miss a chance to be discovered), and there are lots of vegan restaurants to keep me from becoming a true Los Angeles skinny bitch. I also have to admit that as a person who grew up in a small New England town, once and a while I find myself secretly thrilled when I happen upon unique situations that can really only be described as “soooooo L.A.” Truly, there is a certain allure to living here. Los Angeles draws people in from all over the world, and if we’re fortunate enough, we get to stay and enjoy the magic and history of this beautiful and, admittedly, self-obsessed city, where sometimes dreams actually do come true.

This past weekend I had one of those totally awesome “sooooo L.A.” experiences. My wife and I attended the wedding of a good friend of ours who was born and raised in Los Angeles; a true native. She (the bride) shared a childhood with a playgroup in Bel Air, later graduating from Beverly Hills High School. Despite all of my TV and movie-inspired preconceptions about the snobbery of both Bel Air and Beverly Hills, the bride is one of the most down-to-earth, unpretentious people I know. She lives a modest, fun life as a realtor (and once worked as a talent agent) and has an incredibly magnetic personality, hence the 175+ wedding guest list.

The wedding was held at The Beverly Hills Hotel, which has been on my list of places to see since I moved here over five years ago. The hotel itself is iconic. It has housed movie stars and rock stars for many generations (Marilyn Monroe, Liz Taylor, John and Yoko, etc.). It even has a recording studio in it that Bono is rumored to have used, which of course stirs the music nerd in me. The hotel also happens to be the place where Morrissey rests his head when he’s in town. Now, I’ve been a fan of The Smiths’ and Morrissey’s music since it was possible to actually walk into a record store and buy a 7” vinyl copy of a single on the day it was released. So anywhere that Moz goes in my adopted city, I feel compelled to peek. You know, if it’s good enough for Moz…

Anyway, the Missus and I arrived at the hotel, feelin’ all fancy in our wedding guest attire. I wore a black velvet suit and a burgundy button-down shirt with French cuffs. The wife wore a long, crimson designer gown, complete with a small train (that I admittedly stepped on at least twice during the evening – D’oh!). The ceremony was held in the Polo Garden and officiated, with a refreshingly casual style, by the bride’s brother. Perhaps the most striking moment of the ceremony for me came as he revealed that the bride’s parents were also married at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Theirs is truly an L.A. family to the core.

Cut to the reception. The wife and I were seated at a table just off the stage, with “front row” seats for the band, who started playing just as everyone was entering the ballroom and getting settled. The band had two lead singers, a man who goes by the name of Masta, and a woman named Alexx D., both African American. They were accompanied by a drummer, bass player, guitar player, keyboard player and two horn players. The band started with typical wedding selections like “At Last,” and admittedly, I was like, “Meh.” But then, things got interesting. This was a Jewish wedding, so before I knew it, this seemingly bland r&b wedding band burst into a near fist-pumping rendition of “Hava Nagila” and had that ballroom jumpin’! Soon chairs were up in the air, and some of Beverly Hills High School’s finest alumni, in their best Louboutins and Valentinos, were stomping, clapping, and twirling around the newlyweds like nobody’s business. This was truly a sight to see. Masta, a cross between Morris Day and Al Jarreau, alongside Alexx D., a modern-day Natalie Cole/Beyonce hybrid, were singing “Hava Nagila” with the boldest, bad-ass vibrato tornado that swanky hotel may have ever seen. It was fucking awesome!

Wedding disaster nearly struck in the middle of the song when the hotel’s sound system let out an awful howl of feedback and gut-busting, low-end roar. The band stopped, and many a hairy eyeball was thrown toward the hotel tech dude, who was twiddling knobs, checking connections and scratching his head. Finally, after several minutes of dead air and a nod from the aforementioned tech dude, the band started up again with a different tune, not realizing the chair raising hadn’t yet graced the parents of the bride. Major Jewish wedding faux pas! Luckily, as any decent L.A. experience would have it, Tori Spelling just happened to be on hand as a bridesmaid. Tori rushed to the stage, demanding, “Start again!” They did, and soon chairs were back up in the air, and the room livened anew as if nothing interrupted the celebratory dance. Tori saved the day for her BFF. Pretty fierce.

As the evening continued, the Missus and I found ourselves seated among hairdressers and attorneys working for both social justice organizations and social networking companies. We were the typically Californian lesbian vegans who were served special meals, and ended up fielding about an hour’s worth of how-do-you-do-it questions from the carnivores at the table. At one point someone said, “Oh, her blood type is totally meat and protein, so she could never go vegan.” Ummm, what?

Anyway, as the night went on, so did the band. The instrumentalists were all quite good, and I guessed that most of them are probably studio musicians who’ve played on countless records at some of the finest studios in town. They had major chops. Most impressive though, were the singers. They were true entertainers in every sense of the word. Masta spent the evening mimicking nearly every male singer’s voice in popular music, tackling a wide-ranging repertoire with ease. He was toooooo smooooth. His female counterpart was super hot, and moved from Amy Winehouse to Natalie Cole to Beyonce without breaking a sweat. She also had a way with pantomiming along with lyrics that was in some instances fittingly reminiscent of Motown girl groups, and in others simply hilarious.

For example, when the band performed their rendition of Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy,” Masta was fully embracing the falsetto wails toward the end of the tune in a way that almost concerned me (like, whoa, Dude), while Alexx D. accompanied him, singing the oooohs and circling the side of her head with her left hand in true “you are coo-coo” motion. Yep, it was kinda funny and kinda 60s throwback cool all at once.

The big crowd favorite came as the band burst into a version of “Bad Romance” toward the end of the night. Vocally, Alexx D. did a damn good Lady Gaga and, once again, employed her best pantomiming skills, this time wielding air cursive as she sang, “You and me could write a bad romance.” The dance floor was completely packed with the most awesomely eclectic wedding crowd of young, old, middle-aged, straight, and gay people who are lawyers, Federal Judges, hairdressers, musicians, actors, designers, realtors, and of course the previously mentioned day-saving BFF and her formidable posse. At times I felt like I was in an Adam Sandler movie with Crazy Singer Man edging slightly over-the-top with his belting out of hit songs. Mostly, I was really happy to be there, witnessing this incredible slice of Los Angeles life that, as a miserable teenager in a tiny, cold town in Massachusetts, I never would have thought I’d be a part of.

At the end of the night, my wife and I said our goodbyes and well-wishes to the newlyweds, then headed out to retrieve our car from the valets. As we approached the waiting area, Dean McDermott was walking back toward the ballroom. As the Missus and I were waiting for our car, one of the valets parked a very fine German automobile in front of us. I shook my head at an approaching valet, who then turned to the driver and said, “Whose car is this?” The driver replied, “Some dude’s. He went to get his wife.” The valet rolled his eyes and gave out a slightly annoyed, “Hhmmff.”

My wife and I looked at each other knowingly. I secretly wished our car would be delayed until the Big Celeb Departure, during which both valets would probably wear big OOPS facial expressions that come with referring to Dean McDermott as “Some Dude” and Tori Spelling as “His Wife.” However, our car arrived moments later, so we missed it. As we drove home on Sunset Boulevard in our medium-fine German automobile, I was filled with wonder and amusement at the city I now call home. Los Angeles; a city where all walks of good folks can celebrate together at legendary hotels, with r&b bands singing Hava Nagila, under the same roof that housed Marilyn Monroe and Morrissey. I love you, Los Angeles. I really do.

Edited by Alix Krijgsman

Where Are The Women Drummers?

Last night I had a dream in which a prominent male session drummer barged into my private rehearsal space and without asking or even speaking to me, loaded in about twenty drumsets and began filling the place with his gear. Shortly after arranging his shiny, super-pro, custom gear, the rehearsal space morphed into an open space at the bottom of a big, grassy hill. Session drummer boy and I were standing at the edge of the rehearsal space when my friend (and entertainment lawyer to rock stars) came whizzing down the hill on her bicycle. Upon seeing session drummer boy and me, my friend skidded to a halt and proceeded to exuberantly greet session drummer boy, while totally and completely ignoring me. Then I woke up.

For me, figuring out this dream is no big stretch. I’ve been playing drums for twenty-seven years, and during that time I’ve experienced the most painful and ridiculous exclusion throughout my journey in various worlds of music. I’ve been denied auditions and scholarships, been granted auditions only to be rejected for lesser players because they were male, and asked more times than I can count if the equipment I was buying at music stores was for my boyfriend. The dream I had is merely the latest confirmation that as a woman musician, and specifically as a woman drummer, I feel invisible.

Visibility and representation in popular music are luxuries women instrumentalists are almost never afforded. When I was growing up, playing drums every day, working with top teachers, and winning awards for my drumming from Berklee College of Music, the only women drummers I ever saw were Gina Shock from The Go-Go’s and Shelia E. (although I never saw her behind a drumset until Ellen Degeneres put together a band for the Grammy Music Awards in 1996). While I’ve admired and have been influenced by several male drummers, the lack of female role models in the music I love has always left me feeling alone and longing for drummers I could identify with as a woman. My solution: The music business needs gender-based affirmative action, and it needs it now.

I live in Los Angeles, where a majority of major label records are made. Since moving here several years ago, I’ve become friends with three other women drummers who play at the pro level. Two of them have played with major “household name” rock acts (both female-fronted). Yet all four of us work our asses off, struggling to get paying gigs, while two or three male drummers are given all the drumming work in town. WTF?! Most recently, it seems that artists, their managers, and record producers don’t even bother with auditions. They play it safe, hire the guys who they think must be great because everybody’s using them, and women don’t even get a chance to get in the door to show them what we can do.

And, just to be clear, I’m not talking exclusively about male artists, managers, and producers here. Women are just as guilty as men at this exclusion. Yes, even those who call themselves feminists, or claim to support women in the music business routinely ignore women instrumentalists. Check out the liner notes in your favorite major label CDs (if you still have CDs, that is). I can almost guarantee that you’ll see one or two names coming up as drummer over and over again. Are these guys good drummers? Yes, obviously they are qualified for the work that they do. The problem is that there are plenty of fully qualified women out there who can do the same job, if not do it better, and who rarely, if ever, get hired. This is discrimination, plain and simple. Women are just as qualified and are not getting hired. Searching through the L.A. Craigslist for drumming gigs I’ve even seen ads that blatantly discriminate. “Male drummer wanted for pro paying gig,” is not only discriminatory, it’s against employment laws.

I recently went to a live taping of The Jimmy Kimmel Show to see Katharine McPhee perform (I work with her mom). Katharine and her team put together an almost exclusively female band, including Cindy Blackman on drums (you may recognize Cindy from Lenny Kravitz videos). I had the pleasure of meeting Cindy and was reminded again of the problem the music business has with hiring women. Cindy is an incredible drummer, well-versed in several styles, and in a blind drum battle against these dudes who get all the work in town, she would tastefully kick their asses every time. (Seriously, check out some of her You Tube drumming videos.) For every one gig these male drummers get, Cindy should get a dozen or more.

It’s been almost thirty years since The Go-Go’s hit the scene, and since then I can still count the number of women drummers in mainstream music on one hand. The music business is obviously not capable of evolving to a gender-balanced industry on its own. Women need to be hired, heard, seen, and paid. Down for the cause? Want to help us out? Social media is a great way to interact with your favorite artists. The next time you’re checking your Twitter or Facebook accounts, message your favorite artists and ask them what they are doing to advance women instrumentalists in music. Ask them if they hold open auditions for any available positions in their bands, and if so, how and where they advertise. Let them know there are women out there who are qualified for the gigs, women who need and want the work. Most importantly, let them know you want to see women rock!

Drum Workout

I hate to exercise.  Yes, exercise is one of those necessary evils that shouldn’t be ignored, but I absolutely hate working out.  The thought of going to a gym makes my stomach turn and simultaneously fills me with anxiety.  Locker rooms, over-sized mirrors, public sweating, and tight clothing all make my skin crawl.  Bleck!  Besides all of that, I see going to the gym as a total waste of time and a completely unnecessary assault on my near-o.c.d. level of cleanliness.  What?  I have to leave my house, drive somewhere, change in front of strangers, use equipment that other sweaty humans use all day long and then shower in a public bathroom?  No thanks.

However, I’ve been playing drums for 26 years and I can tell you that exercising is a vital part of being a great drummer.  My drum mentor, Greg Caputo, swims laps a couple of times a week at the YMCA to make sure he is fit and ready for his big band gigs.  Also, most drummers who tour a lot will tell you that just playing the night’s set is not enough to burn off the insane amount of calories found in tour food, so they take up running or use hotel fitness centers.  Touring and even some recording sessions don’t allow for regular amounts of sleep either, and exercising can help cure insomnia and help you sleep more soundly when you do actually have the time to.

When I was in Tribe 8, our shows were at least 45 minutes long and every song was f-a-s-t FAST.  We often played in clubs with horrible sound and/or not enough microphones, so I was constantly pushed to play as loud as I could, pretty much as fast as I could.  Our shows and rehearsals kept me in tip-top performance shape and the rest of my life benefited greatly from that super-physical playing.

But I am no longer playing music like that on a regular basis, and when I sat down to play this past Christmas Eve after not playing for about a year, my arms felt like lead window weights.  Boy was I pissed!  What do you mean I can’t just pick up where I left off ?! Hello reality check.  I needed a plan of action and I needed it quick.

I developed a drumming workout for myself that is separate from (or additional to) the work I do as a professional drummer.  The workout gets my heart rate in the target zone, burns lots of calories (drumming burns an average of 262 calories an hour), and allows me to develop and grow as a musician.  The concept is very simple, and is a practice that I started when I was first playing rock drums as a teenager.  I play along to music with headphones (in-ear monitors).  These days, I am really interested in playing along to music that will not only get me in shape, but also help make me the most well-rounded musician I can be.  Admittedly, I’m not interested in being a drummer who can play epic solos wrought with flam taps and peradiddles for the big drum-off or whatever.  That’s just not my thing.

I choose songs for my playlists that demand different elements of musicianship.  I also design the order of the songs to challenge myself in ways that typical live sets or rehearsals or recording sessions may not.  If I’m playing with a specific artist, or preparing for a session, the playlists will, of course, be specific to that gig, but for the drum workouts, things are far more varied.  I also try to make my playlists run over two hours with the goal of playing for at least two hours.  From song to song, I switch up dynamic levels, speed, complexity, style, brain-busting tracks and endurance tracks.  If I design the list so I go from a mad-crazy, bombastically frenzied level of burning arms and legs jumping off pedals to a soft, slow, brainy little number, I force myself to switch physical gears as well as mental gears.  It’s not as easy as it seems, and by doing this, when the calls come in, I don’t hesitate.  I know I can play just about anything someone throws at me.

The easiest way to explain my method is to give you a portion of this week’s playlist.  Now, before I give it away, you should know that I choose the artists and songs in my playlists for different reasons.  Some musicians have issues telling people about the music they love and/or listen to because they don’t want their listeners to jump to conclusions about influences, etc.  Personally, I have nothing to hide.  Some songs are there because I love the artists and would maybe like to play with them someday, so working out while they sing to me is awesome and keeps the dream alive.  Some are there because the songs lend themselves to my drumming style or challenge me in certain ways.  There may also be a seemingly guilty pleasure or two in my playlists.  I can explain.

1. The Rain – Jen Schwartz

This is my new song and I am in the process of writing the drum part for it, so I work with it every day to prepare for recording.

2. Land’s End – Siouxsie and the Banshees

This is one of the only songs on the list I play pretty much note for note.  It’s perfect.  It took me forever to figure out what the hell Budgie was doing during the verses on this track and now that I have figured it out, it thrills me every time I get to play it.  Budgie was inspired to write his drum part by listening to Paul Simon’s 50 Ways To Leave Your Lover and the moment I found that out, I sat down at the kit and got it.  This song is a drummer’s dream because it has just about everything: tom/kick rolls, speedy dual-handed unison fills, a wide dynamic range, and lots of changes to keep us from getting bored.

3. Witness – Sarah McLachlan

I’d listened to this song for years before I sat down to play it and discovered the drum part is deceptively complicated.  I don’t know where Ashwin Sood came up with this one, but the juxtaposition of shuffle-esque right hand with the syncopated kick drum accents are pretty unusual and not easy.  The song challenges my brain and limbs to think outside of the “rock box.”

4.  There Is Nobody – Yoav

I love playing to this song because it has no drums, only a looped kick drum sound Mr. Yoav gets by thumping his acoustic guitar.  I can make up whatever drum part I want, so I shut off the snares and play lots of toms during the verses.  For the choruses, I play a little housey micro snare and hi-hat thing.  Fun stuff.  This song also gets the kick foot working.

5.  Cish Cash – Basement Jaxx & Siouxsie

I love this song and it is definitely an endurance-building track.  This is where I push the BPMs up and start to really sweat.

6.  Dreaming – Blondie

Another endurance-building track.  Clem Burke has been in my headphones since 1979 (I was just a kid), from Blondie to Eurythmics and back to Blondie.  SICK drumming!!!

7.  Another White Dash – Butterfly Boucher

I take an endurance break here and practice being steady after an insane song like Dreaming.  My right hand has to go from full mutha effin’ bore to stripped-down hi-hat off beats.  Also, this song has a lot of changes and hits all around the kit, so it’s good for the fills and good for the brain.

8.  We Got The Beat – The Go-Go’s

Hello kick foot!  Gina = Thumper.

9.  Since You Been Gone – Kelly Clarkson

This song is all about dynamics and staying right in the pocket, since half of it is drum programming (I think).  If you want to play with top artists, you have to be able to play with drum machine precision.

10.  March of the Pigs – Nine Inch Nails

Fast, loud, weird time signature tricks (blink and you’ll miss it and the song will fall apart) with a break between moments of insanity.

11.  Cuts You Up – Peter Murphy

I use this song to practice drumming and singing at the same time.  It’s got a pretty straightforward drum part, so I concentrate on staying in the pocket while singing.

12.  Dress – PJ Harvey

I beat the crap out of my drums during this song and really go for it.  It’s got some unusual syncopation too, so I am happily pounding while keeping up with the subtle little changes and resisting the urge to hit just the 2 and 4.

13.  El Dia de los Muertos – Siouxsie and the Banshees

Very technical drum part with the right hand hitting off beats on the bell of the ride and the left doing lots of syncopated work between the snare and rack tom.  There are also lots of stops and drum treats all over the song, so keeping up with all of that keeps my brain working as well as my heart rate up.

14.  Carbon (alternate with Spark)– Tori Amos

Hold on to your hats if you try this one, but don’t give up.  The time signature changes all over the place, so this is what I call a “brain-buster.”  I initially got the chart for Spark and memorized it so I could play it without the sheet music.  Moving to Carbon was a lot easier after learning Spark.

15.  That’s How People Grow Up – Morrissey

This is simply a transition to get back to straight-ahead rocking and I do love me some Moz.

The playlist continues for about another hour after this and ends with what I call the cool-down track, which is just a slow, easy song I use to segue out of the drum workout.  I always take a little time to stretch after playing like this.  My muscles have been working hard and need to be tended to before I go on with the rest of my day.  Stretching feels great, helps avoid injury, and makes it so much easier to go back to the kit for sessions, rehearsals, or even the next day’s drum workout.

The Song That Won’t Shut Up

I’m writing a song and it won’t shut up.  I mean, I’m grateful for this song, because for the last two years I haven’t had the luxury of being able to sit down for days on end and write music, but jeez!  All. Day. Long.  Various parts of the music run around in my head on a seemingly endless loop.  I wake up in the morning and there it is, awake before I am and ready to go.

Only thing is, for the last few days, when I sit down to get the song out of my head and into my DAW (digital audio workstation – nerd alert), it just gets stuck.  The initial, OMG this song is practically writing itself and is lift-me-out-of-my-chair awesome seems to have passed and now I am left to flesh out a stubborn little musical skeleton that doesn’t want to budge.  It’s just sitting there, singing the same parts over and over again, practically mocking me.  “You thought this was soooooooo easy,” it says as I stare at the DAW equivalent of the dreaded blinking cursor.  Yeah, for a minute there, I guess I did.

So now I have to face the old familiar fact that sometimes writing music is hard.  It is work.  It demands time and devotion. The thing is, it feels strange to even call it writing, because while I have studied music formally and have spent the greater part of my life practicing various musical instruments to improve technique etc., songs and song elements just have a way of showing up.  Or not.  For me, songs arrive in moments when everything drops away and I am unable to hear or feel anything but the music as it comes through me.  A song shows itself, delivered by some other-worldly force that totally and completely bewilders me and fills me with delight and gratitude. Something aligns somewhere, and if I happen to be in line with these fleeting forces, music is gifted to me.  I remember now that to be able to receive, I sometimes have to spend days on end with little bits of the melody on repeat while I sit with the keyboard or drumset or guitar, playing along until the cosmic musical cursor decides to move itself.

I took two (or so) years off to build myself a recording studio to work in.  I suppose forgetting the empty moments that go along with completing a phrase, a song, or an album, allowed me the strength to keep going even when the toils of construction were kicking my ass.  I spent filthy days in the crawl space under my house, running electrical lines and drain pipes when, if it weren’t for the hope of being able to play and write music on the other side of the wall, I would have given up completely.

I have to remember that I am really only the conduit for some greater force that serves the music to me when it is good and ready.  Forcing a song to flow out with only the desire to get it done does not work.  I can’t will a song into existence any more than I can shut it up when it wants to play itself to my mind’s ears without rest.  I am grateful.  I am (trying to be) patient.  And when the song strikes again, I will be ready.

Hello and Welcome

My name is Jen Schwartz and I am a musician.  I suppose that makes me a writer of sorts too, so I’m going to max that idea out and start this little blog.  As I write this, it is September 9, 2009.  Yep, 09/09/09.  About a month ago, I finished the construction of my recording studio.  I’ve started writing music again, and am working on my second solo record.  My goal is to release it in the spring of 2010.  This blog will track the process and progress of making this record.  At the moment, I am in the middle of writing my first new song in the new studio.  I’ve written a post about the song and my thoughts on the songwriting process.