A while back, my pal Jon McAuliffe recommended me to the “Local Music Rocks” show on Westford Cable Access Television, hosted by Ike Keltz. For quite a while now, Ike’s been hosting local singer/songwriters in a half-hour format with music and interviews, and I was grateful to have the opportunity to do his show.
The big moment was this past Monday. The taping took two hours, most of which – as you’ve probably guessed, if you have any familiarity with recording – was taken up with sound checks, camera positioning, crew assembly, and various other technical issues. We taped the show live – there was a countdown timer running next to one of the cameras, and we came in right on time, I’m pleased to say. There was a large HDTV monitor immediately off-camera, where (a) I could admire myself, and (b) the image was about a half-second delayed – I’m not sure which was more distracting. But Dave and I were rockin’, and Ira asked all the right questions, and I gave all the interesting answers, and I just hoped that the zit on the end of my nose would be edited out in postproduction (spoiler: it wasn’t).
The show’s Web site is http://www.localmusicrocks.com (imagine that, out of all the local music shows in the world, it’s the Westford show that has that URL). You can see lots of shows past there, like Jon’s, and Don White, and Jeff Root, and tons of other folks. And soon, you’ll be able to see me there, too, and maybe even on your local cable station, if you live in Westford; for the moment, you’ll have to settle for watching the show on YouTube.
I enjoyed taping the show immensely. But I missed you folks a lot.
I’d listened to some previous episodes, and I was prepared to miss you folks. Last month’s episode featured the duo Flair (Roger Fluet and Lee Villaire), and they played mostly to silence. One or another of the crew applauded occasionally at the end of the song, but where you usually find an audience reaction, there was mostly just dead air. And while Roger and Lee were chatting between songs, there was nothing coming back from the “audience”.
The camera doesn’t laugh when we’re funny; doesn’t gasp when we’re shocking; doesn’t cry when we’re sad. It doesn’t heckle, cheer or applaud. It just watches. And that’s not enough for me.
By now, we’ve all heard of musicians who’ve done live Internet shows, or lean on social media to get the word out about their music, or owe their renown to YouTube videos. But that all leaves me cold, both as a producer and consumer of music. There’s something missing when I’m listening alone; and when I’m playing, well, you can put as many tweets as you want on the screen next to the camera, and you can swamp me with ROTFLs or whatever the current textual laughter is, but it does nothing for me, nothing at all.
Sure, it helps to be on TV, and to have music and videos on the Intertubes. And there are folks out there who say that live music is dying, that we’re all retreating into our living rooms to be entertained in the privacy of our own homes. And I’ll be the first to admit that I’d rather watch my beloved Celtics on television rather than go to the game in person, with all the noise, people, expense, and distance from the action. But music is different, I hope. Perhaps, someday, I’ll play the last concert there ever will be, before all the lights are dimmed and the mike stands put away. And I kinda hope you’ll be in the audience.