10-28 The Music Seen
The Lee Harris 3 will appear on WCVE Channel 23's "The Music Seen" on October 28th

Tsunami benefit show - In and Out
Mood:  crushed out
Now Playing: If You had Eyes in the Back of Your Head - Lee Harris 3
Topic: Lee Harris 3 Gig
What a hectic weekend. The Tsunami show was postponed 2 weeks from the end of January to February 13th. I hired a helper for my paper route - and was in bed around 8 AM Sunday morning. I woke up I don't even remember when and gathered up my guitar and "amp-in-a-box", shaved & showered and headed downtown for the hour drive to the Canal Club.

I arrived around 4 PM - and Page Wilson was telling me to find the rest of my band, 'cause they were running a little early and we would go on as soon as Susan Greenbaum was finished. She was just starting her set - so I got on the cell phone to call the boys. Turned out they were standing in the audience watching the show.

I paced around nervously and counted my patch cords over and over to make sure I had everything I needed. Guitar pick, strap, wires, AC plugs...There was nothing to do backstage so I wandered downstairs for a beer and a smoke. Talked with my old friend Jason down there for awhile and noticed Corey beckoning me from the balcony.

Wandering back upstairs, Susan was coming off the stage and I gathered all my stuff and went onstage and plugged in as Bill Bevins was at the mic thanking corporate sponsers and whatnot. He turned to us and asked if the orchestra was ready - but I still had to tune so I said no - in a second.

Then it was time to start - and I belted out the a capella intro to song 1, "Poor Me." All I could hear in the moniters was myself - the guitar and vocal. No bass, and Monty seemed like he was 1,000 light-years away. I've been in situations like this before, and have learned in my 20 plus years of playing live to soldier ahead and hope we were all on the same page. I sensed they couldn't hear me either, but we know these songs inside and out, so all I could do was hope.

We had decided to do an all-guitar set since we only had 20 or so minutes, and switching between piano and guitar would be a hassle. Make it short, punchy & sweet. "Poor me" is about 2 minutes long, so I pounded right into "Without You" which also has a short a capella opening. These two songs were written by Monty and me in our "let's write songs like Weezer" phase that lasted a few weeks, and were probably the 2 newest songs of the set.

The next one was something we'd only learned a couple of practices earlier, "I'm Not Gonna Let You Break My Heart." I recorded a demo of this with Greg Garner on drums, Corey and Nick on guitars. It was something I wrote on a 20-song writing bender over the course of a few days when I was unemployed. Other songs from this period are Country Sunshine's "Waiting to Hit the Stage," "Out of Her Elements Again," and God knows what else. We did okay on this one considering, but due to the moniter situation we flubbed the end up a bit. Oh well.

"Remember Me" was next up to bat, and it felt really good. Seemed to get the biggest audience response. Then we closed it out with what IS actually the newest song of the lot, "Nancy #1," which I wrote about 5 months ago, and "Powhatan, Virginia."

I managed to remember to plug this website, and we were off the stage. I had no idea how we had sounded, but me being me assumed we must have sounded horrible. I had another beer downstairs, chatting with Corey & Kristi. I went backstage again to gather my guitar and stuff, and found myself standing between Tim Kaine, who is the former Richmond mayor and is running for Governor, and Cheryl Miller, a local anchorwoman-type person. They were rocking out with the paperboy from Powhatan.

A week later a DVD showed up in the mail of the show. I wasn't expecting this at all, and was a bit tepid about taking a look - but when I got the nerve up (about ten minutes) we actually sounded good. Hooray!

Another Poe's Wednsday Night
Well, our CD release party at Poe's has come and gone. Our loyal following appeared and enjoyed a night of music from Nick Doyle (of the Christmas CD fame (?), pent-up house of Lewis fame, and us.

My original setlist for the gig had us starting with the guitar songs (the peppy ones), then sliding into the acoustic guitar songs, then onto piano alley. When we practiced the set that way Monty thought we were starting with the worst songs first. In his words, anyways. So I re-tooled the set for the next practice, and we started with piano alley, onto acoustic junction, then guitar paradise.

The piano set fell a little flat, due in part I'm guessing to my decision to run the keyboard through the PA instead of an amp-I heard the sound was a little muddy. No fear, though-when we got to guitar paradise I was running through the amp and we pepped things up a bit. I hope.

It was good to get out and play after our exile in CD-making land, and it was good to see some McCormacks and Bredimus' in the bar. Sold some CD's, drank a few beers, and headed back to non rock-star reality with the paper route. Lewis was cracking me up all night-he introduced his new drummer by his first name. He said he wasn't ready to make a last name commitment with the guy. (Lewis' band has been through so many drummers Monty and me wrote a song about it for the Ukulele Hipster Kings that we sang opening up for them once.)

I've written and recorded 5 new songs in the meantime that I'm tweaking and mixing--one of them will end up going with the country band I'm in, the other four we'll see. I tried writing a "political" song called "Right Wing Hate Machine" that verges on being idiotic, but I might mess with it some more and re-record it. I also wrote one called "Do You Believe What You Read" that isn't quite there yet-need to redo it I'm afraid. There is one called "Gone" that I will be posting any day now-I'm happy with that one.

I've also written 7 or 8 Xmas songs for this years CD already. Time to get around to laying those down for the world to hear.

Thanks to all for coming to the show, and hopefully we'll see you next time!

Irony
Topic: Ukulele Hipster Kings gig
So my life all of a sudden gets hectic and interesting and I never have time to post anything here to ye old Live Journal.

The Ukulele Hipster Kings played a gig last Saturday at McCormack's Pub. Here was my schedule.

Saturday-deliver newspapers until 7 a m
Get to sleep.
Wake up around 6 p m
Go to gig
We start playing after midnite.
Get done at 1:05
Drive back to Powhatan (about an hour)
Deliver the mammoth 4-section Sunday paper 'til after 8 am.
Stay up and leave home at 10:30 to go to my family reunion.
Stay at the reunion until 4:30
Come home, finally go to sleep around 10 pm
Get up at 1 AM to deliver papers until 6 AM.
Stay up 'til about 10 AM, go to sleep.

How many hours of sleep was that?

The highlights of the gig were seeing lots of friends, making funny "bass face" faces. I begged Monty to ask the other band if we could play first, since I have a paper route and all. He wouldn't budge. Also, the usually surly soundman apparently liked us. This is the third or fourth band I've played at Swingers with. (well-McCormack's Pub used to be Swingers.) Citizen's Band was supposed play there too-the week they all quit the band the day before the gig.

At the family reunion someone brought a picture of my grandfather I'd never seen. And I was able to give my great-aunt Kas a picture I had taken of her "snowball bush" a few years ago. Did you know you can print digital photos @ Target on Kodak paper for 23 cents? I went to Kas' 80's birthday party a few months ago and she asked me about the picture.

My grandma had alot of sisters. She was 'Sis.' Her sisters were Dos, Boots, Kas, Frances, Anne, and E-Laine. 2 Brothers, too. Shelton and Marvin. I don't remember them-I was told Shelton killed himself and I don't ever remember meeting Marvin. Anne ran off and abandoned her daughter. My grandparents ended up raising her, and Shelton's son. Anyways-there was a lady at the reunion who was married to one of my great-grandfathers' brothers. Yikes.

I learned how to play "Match Game" on the bass.

I went to Nags Head for a couple of days. saw a truck painted as an American Flag. Ate at a place that had "Freedom Toast" in lieu of French Toast. I never realised that place was so hillbilly. I saw an Egrit. And lots of Pelicans. And Monty. He found out where I was staying and found me on the beach. So the next day I saw his truck by the side of the road and went to find him on the beach-I missed him and saw him getting in his truck, so I stood by the road hitchiking. I'm so FUNNY!

I got to drink some whiskey.

I bought a new Pioneer Tivo/DVD-R Burner combo, that burns the shows onto DVD @ 18X. I now have 5 DVD Burners. With rebates and coupons I got the dang thing for 439 dollars. It was 999 in the paper 2 months ago.

Does anyone want to buy my old Tivo or Phillips DVD Burner? I'm gonna sell 'em on ebay if nobody I know wants to buy 'em.

My substitute paper-carrier graduated from nursing college and bought a new car. I might have to find a new substitute. She called me tonight to tell me she loves track one on the Lee Harris 3 CD. That's the hit.

It's rained alot lately.

Over & Out.

And the Beat Goes On
Topic: Lee Harris 3 Recording
Monty is building a new Lee Harris 3 Website, and he's requested a tour journal from me from the gig we had a week and a half ago, so whenever that stuff gets cranked up I'll post a link.

I've ended up with 2 paper routes now, so the money situation is much better than it was in November. I spent 2 days in the studio trying to wrap up the LH3 album-Corey redid some vocals a week ago Monday, and I went in the next day for some mixing.

I came down with a case of sleep anxiety and ended up staying up more or less for 36 straight hours. That didn't make me much help at the mixing session, but I did get 2 DVDR's of the wav files of the sessions, so I've been mixing what we couldn't finish here on the computer-and I must say, it's all coming together nicely. I'm thinking in the future I'll pay for tracking time down at the studio and mix it myself here, then get it mastered there. We'll have to wait and see. I've gotten some new mics here for the home studio, so I might just record stuff here and mix it there. Who knows.

I've been following the presidential primaries and have yet to decide whom I'll vote for in Virginia's 2/10 primary. I actually need to look up some of that stuff and figure out where I cast my vote.

Now I need to look up all my previous tour-journals on live-journal and email 'em to Monty for the new website.

Over and Out.

Oh Yeah! We had a gig last week
Topic: Lee Harris 3 Gig
So

The LH3 played at a place called "daddio's" on the west end of richmond VA. It was on a Saturday night. I loaded up the car and got there around 7:40, and Monty and P were already there. Since the power in Richmond was still mostly out-the place was PACKED. Nothing like being the only game in town to attract a crowd. We decided to eschew a cover charge and rely on tips as a goodwill gesture. (That-and the fact that we didn't have a door-person.)

There is a jukebox at daddio's, and the people there seemed to be in a southern rock frame of mind. We heard two Lynyrd Skynyrd songs and "The Legend of Wooley Swamp" by Charlie Daniels. Monty and I decided they were gonna HATE us.

We set up anyways and started playing around 9:30 PM. We pretty much did our Roanoke setlist-except I realised a few days ago we forgot two of our new "playing in a bar for people that just want to drink and play pool" cover tunes. During the guitar portion of the show I, for reasons which elude me, decided we should do Hank Williams Jr.'s "Family Tradition." Someone then requested "Rocky Top," so we did that a little bit. We also got a request for "the Long Black Veil," which I did a verse and chorus of. I'm not sure Corey and Monty were pleased with my decisions, but that's showbiz.


There were also a bizarre amount of requests for The B-52's. I ended up throwing in a medley of "Rock Lobster," "Roam," "Love Shack," and "Private Idaho." Someone else wanted us to play The Crusaders, Steely Dan, or Herbie Hancock. A medley of "Do It Again,' and "Watermelon Man" followed. Weird night-which was nicely capped off by me doing my Sunday paper route.

Another gig under the belt, and the daddio's guy wants to book us again-so be on the lookout.

If a Band plays in Roanoke and Nobody Hears....
Topic: Lee Harris 3 Gig
The LH3's tenth show has come and gone and boy are my arms tired. I rented a minivan from a car rental place across the highway from me (how convenient!) and we were on the road at 6 PM. Mind you, we had planned on leaving around 4:30-but with jobs and my scatterbrained way of doing things (wait! I gotta go get a Coke!) things didn't work out like that. Putting blind faith into mapquest we headed west on RT 60, and along the way saw The Appomattox Courthouse, where I'm told something important happened, and we saw Liberty University (near the Falwell Airport.) We also were within a quarter of a mile of Jerry Seinfeld, who was performing in Roanoke. The highlight of the trip to Roanoke for me, however, was seeing not one, but TWO of those new retro Ford Thunderbirds. One in a driveway and one riding down RT 460. I shreiked both times eliciting sneers from my van and band-mates.

Attendance at the show was sparse. I'll quote Dennis, the friendly doorman at the Coffeepot, whom I overheard telling a bartender, "I've been working here 8 years and I've NEVER seen things so dead." Nothing like the magical showbiz pull of having the name "Lee Harris" on the marquee. Which it was. LEE HARRIS 3. Tomorrow night JACK ASS FLATS. At least it didn't say PUPPET SHOW and lee harris 3.

This being our second totally unattended show, we played magnificently. There's nothing like an empty club to really spur us to greatness. It's the epitome of indie-rock-we're so cool no one comes to see us play! Well, I'm exaggerating. Corey's girlfriend, Kristi, was there, and had the band all to herself. After each song she whooped and hollered and we took all of her requests.

Our first set was a rousing 17-song affair which lasted an hour and a half. We were able to expiriment a bit, and played "Mystified" really slow-so that may account for the length of the show. After a brief break, the guitar portion of the show started with "Make It Up as You Go Along," followed by "Everything is Possible Now," during which I broke a guitar string. That ended the guitar set, and we played through another 8 or so songs before calling it a night and drinking whiskey.

Dennis said he really liked us, and promised to put in a good word with Liz, whom books the place. 15 dollars in hand (our payment for the night), we careened off into the night back to Powhatan. Corey rode home with Kristi, and Monty slept in the back of the van. After unpacking the equipment and instruments, Monty hopped in his truck to leave and promptly scraped up Corey's car. We stared at the scratch and dent, Monty said "I guess I'll have to call him," and I went off to return the van and meet my substitute paper carrier to pay her and whatnot. Then I went to McDonald's and had breakfast, and fell asleep around 6 AM, in a strangely great mood-which by all accounts should not have been so great.

Oh well.

Rock, then Roll
Topic: Hollywood Squares
/24/03-Monty and I are the rhythm section in a band called The Hollywood Squares with Fred Schick on vocals and guitar, and Chris Roberson on guitar. We had our second gig with this lineup scheduled in Newark, Deleware Thursday night.

I called Monty, because we had been in the studio with Kieran the night before and I had left something there we needed. Monty agreed to go buy and pick it up. I then met up with Monty about 4 pm-and we had a meeting we went to concerning some Lee Harris 3 business. While at the restaraunt we met at, Kieran showed up to meet the guy Monty and I went there to meet. That's the kind of day we were expecting. We left and hit the road headed north.

Vermont, Delaware is 4 hours north of Richmond on I-95. There's one major obstacle in the way, and that's called Washingtom DC traffic. Why ANYONE would want to go through that crap every day is beyond me. Monty lived up there for awhile, so he suggested we take the Beltway around the west side of the city. We only hit one traffic snag that way which lasted a few minutes, so it worked out pretty good.

Odd things spotted on the way up-I saw THREE different people snapping photos of loved ones at the "Maryland House" rest-area. I can hear the conversations fourty years from now. "There's a picture of grandpa standing in front of a bathroom in Maryland." It was a pretty restroom stop, but are people that genuinely excited about bathrooms in Maryland? Maybe they're all planning coffee-table books about the rest areas of America.

Spotted a tractor-trailor with some sort of mushroom company, which is always fun. I'm not a proponent of hallucinegens (in fact I've never partook, but mushroom trucks still make me giggle.

The 2nd trip irritant was the FOUR DOLLAR TOLL in Maryland, which naturally we didn't have enough for. This marks the second time in 20 years I've gotten an IOU for a Maryland toll-road. I'd like to apologise to the 87 cars that got stuck behind us while I signed the IOU.

Maryland used to have three seperate $1.00 tolls each way-but apparently they've consolidated. They still have the $1.00 toll at the tunnel in Baltimore.

SO

We pulled into a food court/rest area thingy right before we got out of Maryland to eat, figuring any bar we were booked into wouldn't have food we wanted to eat-and we settled on Burger King. It was a self-serve BK, meaning the various culinary delights are there for the taking with a helpful sign in front of each. Whopper, Whopper with cheese, etc.

A prior patron had special ordered 3 fish sandwiches with "no cheese or tartar sauce," so naturally BK anarchy ensued. Not a terribly exciting anarchy, but the end result was a gentleman standing behind Monty and I YELLING about fish sandwiches at the top of his lungs. "ARE THOSE FISH SANDWICHES SPECIAL ORDERS?" Repeat that sentence five times with a heavy Brooklyn accent. Then add "CAN ANYONE HERE SPEAK FUCKING ENGLISH?" Throw in a few stray commandment-breaking lord name in vains, and you get giggling Lee and Monty. "Chill, dude, you'll get a fish sandwich of your very own." Ahh-Yankees!

We got to the bar around 9:30, Fred bought us a beer, then it was time to play. We blazed through a blistering 7 song, 25 minute set-then I took my bass equipment, Monty took his drum accessories, we got in the car...and LEFT. We were at the bar maybe one hour tops. Monty had to work Friday-in fact, his boss had asked him to be there bright and early at 7 am with a smile on his face for HER boss whom he was to meet for the first time. Oy Vey.

Now, I'd be lying to you if I told you that any of these gigs I write about up here are teeming with screaming fans. The audience usually consists of the bartender and Monty's girlfriend. This particular night, however, we had a packed house-there must have been 150 people in that little bar. There was a patio that was FULL, and an inside bar area, also full. People were milling about in the parking lot. College-aged, attractive people. Nice-looking young ladies and gentlemen, who would have been fun to spend a wild night drinking at a bar with.

Chris had a hotel room right next to the bar-I mean-you walk out of the bar's door and there's Chris' hotel room, so we could have had a wild drunken fun night. But Monty had to work. So while Monty tried to sleep on the way home, I listened to a Waylon Jennings live CD.

The trip home ranks up there with one of my most horrible I-95 experiences. Before the Baltimore tunnel, there was "road work." I sat still in traffic for 30 minutes. AHHHHHHHHH the joy of finally getting to that "single lane that's still open" and the feeling of freedom and victory when you pass that last traffic cone and shoot over to the right lane free as a bird.

To celebrate, I stopped at an Exxon station to get gas, take a restroom break, and buy some sort of carbohydrate-drenched snack. Standing at the pump, I couldn't help but overhear a man on the next island over yelling incoherantly to someone holding the door open of the Tiger Mart.

Once inside, I heard people saying things like "He's on PUMP TWO" followed by "well I authorised him on Pump One, that's what he told me." This exchange continued a minute or so, then an angry presence entered the Tiger Mart yelling "I'M ON PUMP TWO." Then a meek "OK, I just authorised you on pump two, but you told me pump one."

Then the yelling entity snapped "I don't WANT your gas-just gimme my money back!" to which the meek voice said "You're authorised on pump two!" "I DONT WANT YOUR GAS I WANT MY MONEY BACK!"

It was at this point I put down the bag of curley-q jalapeno Fritos in defeat, realising the cashier was gonna be tied up for a few minutes. Monty optimistically was standing in line with a Nutty Buddy. I thought I'd go get an ice cream sandwich, hoping the yelling presence would recoil in defeat and use his authorised pump. It's then I heard meekly "I'm sorry, I'm new."

"YEAH I CAN SEE THAT" the angry entity sneered.

I wanted to have a retail intervention-to stand between them and beg the angry entity to chill the fuck out and go pump his fucking gas. I didn't-I just suggested to Monty that we hit the road, and we did.

It's as if the angry entity felt he would strike a blow against the mighty Exxon empire by getting his money back.

So, we get back on the road, chat a bit, Monty falls asleep, and guess what? Tail lights. Road construction. 30 minutes. This time it was a bit more interesting, because there appeared to be a young couple in the car behind me engaged in illicit activities. At least it was something to watch, wondering if I was seeing what I thought I was seeing. I don't think I was, but you can never be too sure. I was either seeing what I thought I was seeing, or the young lady behind me kept looking for something in her boyfriend's lap.

Freedom again, last cone again, pure joy.

That is, until just before King's Dominion, a theme park north of Richmond. More road work. 15 minutes.

And again, right before richmond. Road work, 10 minutes.

I dropped Monty off at around 4:00 AM. Hope he made it to work bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.

The Studio
Topic: Lee Harris 3 Recording
Well, last Thursday we met at the Studio around 3 PM. It took about 3 hours to get all the mics set up and the levels adjusted and such-I plopped down in the "soundproof booth" with a nice $2,000 Neuman U-97 microphone and my keys, Monty was across the room and through the soundproof glass at his drumset, and Corey was off to my right with his amp securely placed in another soundproof area. We all had on headphone and proceeded to make rock in this unnatural way.

It soon became apparent that I sing too loud for the fancy mic, so I was downgraded to a $700 dynamic mic and we proceeded to roll through the songs live. We went back and patched a note here or there, but other than that it was all the way live.

Pizza break happened around 9 or ten, then we continued on, wrapping up around midnite for the tracking session. We managed to plop out 10 songs, and upon listening to the playback I decided I'd like to do my vocals over again. Corey spent an hour or so on the harmony vocals, I got a rough-mix disc, and blasted it all the way home. I got home around 5 AM.

The rough mix sounds great, and I really don't think we're gonna need to add too much to it-a touch here or there, but I think it'll end up being pretty raw, and hopefully it sounds like "us."

Now I have to save enough paper route money for a 3 hour vocal session, then a 6 hour mixing session, and we should have it ready to go. I might even save some money to make it a "real" CD as opposed to a CDR.

Cross that bridge when it gets here.

When I got to the studio there was a fella there picking up a disc who started talking to me about I don't know what. Something about "music on the radio" and "having fun with music." Not sure why he was talking to me-I guess he figured I might "be somebody," which I am not. I nodded my head and said "ha ha" every once in awhile, but was glad when he left.

Then another man, an older gentleman who referred to himself as "Mr. Flapjacks" was wandering around saying things like "I need you fellas to help me!" He has some sort of "novelty song" he has recorded on a cassette and he wants to put it on a record. Or something like that. Two good reasons I don't work in a recording studio-people are crazy, especially when it comes to what they percieve as "the entertainment industry."

And of these dreams, madness is born.

Return of the UHK
Topic: Ukulele Hipster Kings gig
So earlier this week we were supposed to have Hollywood Squares practice. Monty shows up so I walk over to get set up for practice, and he tells me that Chris couldn't make practice, so we cancelled. Then he said Dave had called and asked if he wanted to open for Meanflower in Charlottesville with his Ukulele. This devolved (or evolved) into a UHK reunion show (although we never broke up-we just stopped playing).

So all of a sudden the entire week had to be shuffled around-practices cancelled to make way for three UHK practices. In between all of this I am also recording stuff for Harry Gore's next e.p.-we spent most of Wednsday night working on that. I'm also working with Doyle to get the Country Sunshine demo e.p. mixed. We've got some good mixes, but in a band you gotta run 'em by everybody, so I've recieved some notes on what else needs to be done. I've also booked studio time for next week with Kieran at Montana, so I sort of wanted the LH3 to practice a few times to smooth out the songs and pick what we wanted to record. As it stands, though, we haven't practiced in a month and will only practice once before I plunk down 5 bills on a day of recording. C'est La Vie. There's also an issue with my paper route-the DM wants to cut my route 30 percent to help create a new route. I don't want this to happen.

Last night Hunter and Monty met up here, Hunter and I rolled seperate from Monty, who was meeting P so they could ride together. Did I mention what we had planned?

Monty dressed like a giant carrot, Hunter as a pumpkin, and I wore a bunny suit.

I'm not even sure what we did last night, as I was very hot in the suit. I think we played good. Tom was kind enough to man the video camera for the show-I'll try to get a still from it on the website. Hunter and I watched the video on the way home laughing all the way. I called Monty on his cell phone and was laughing so hard he started laughing-that must have gone on for ten minutes.

After we played we hung out front and enjoyed the Meanflower show from Lewis' perspective. Hard to explain, but it was funny.

Adios!