Info nom nom nom? Write a song instead?

How do you balance the need or desire to learn with the need or desire to create?

I’ve been long interested in learning about the machinations of the American music industry, but being in Tokyo, getting my hands on trade publications like Billboard is a bit tricky – and a bit expensive.

So it was with great joy that I belatedly discovered Google Reader. Yes, my 67-year-old mother who vividly remembers WWII has a Kindle and a SmartPhone and I didn’t even know about Google Reader? Shut it.

Unfortunately when I discover something new I’m like a kid on a sugar high and I ended up adding something like 40 music industry blogs to my Reader. Meaning 130+ posts to read a DAY. FML. Fortunately my undergrad literary theory days taught me how to skim, but trying so hard to keep on top of new industry developments makes me wonder if I should just shut the door on the noise (or rather close my browser), unsubscribe, shut off my computer and get back to songwriting.

For those of you creative types who are also info junkies, if you work too much on your craft do you worry you’re missing the passing technology ship? And if you’re too addicted to reading about industry developments, do you feel like you’re not creating enough?

How do you balance the need or desire to learn with the need or desire to create?

Happy 20th Anniversary to Me?

This month marks my 20th anniversary as a songwriter. There I was 20 years ago, 13 years old and sitting in Kathy Connon’s English class not paying attention as usual. Usually, my magical a.d.d. butterfly friends would transport me to a land filled with man-crushes covered in sequined Speedos and sparkly angel wings. But lo, this time, they took me to a far more enchanted and magical place – one where unicorns frolicked while shitting glitter and Pete Seeger songs played from a rinky-dink Fisher Price fake record player.

It was in this magical land that I penned my first song entitled “Daydream the World.” Looking back, it was one of the more earnest and creepy lyrics I’ve written.

Why earnest? Because at 13 I wasn’t faux-jaded yet. All I listened to was Erasure and The B-52’s. Happy gay music! Sure the jocks were cruel to me at that age but now that we’re friends on Facebook, it’s all water under the bridge. Or at least my therapist says so.

But why creepy? Lyrics included “Leave me now/I wanna be in a shell/Boxed up from/This real life of hell…” Boxed up? BOXED UP??

Sounds like I’m singing a folk song to a coffin. Egahds. But I digress…

As I thought about how to celebrate 20 years of folk-pop goodness, I was tempted to get myself a celebratory Cookie Puss Carvel cake. Then I realized FML I’m in Tokyo and the closest thing would be a Hello Kitty cake. Now THAT’S creepy.

Still, once I started thinking about cake and Cookie Puss, I had a flashback to a commercial like this one, forever etched into the Betamax in my mind…

As children of the 80s, with commercials like these, is it any wonder we’re all in therapy?

But yes, other than eating a cake that looks like an alien with a d*ck for a nose, how would you suggest I celebrate this 20 year milestone?

Tokyo Hummers

Get yo head out of the gutter, boy. It’s not what you think.

As probably the only person in Tokyo without an iPod or some other music playing device, I often hum to clear my head and drown out the constant barrage of noise that this city has to offer. While short on NYC’s charming horn-riding antics and inter-personal warfare, Tokyo’s got everything from train door closing chimes to shop owners screaming out “Welcome!” if you get within 5 feet of their property, and my personal favorite – trucks screaming out announcements in a high-pitched women’s voice that go “The truck is turning left, be careful! The truck is turning left, be careful!”

Seriously?

So what, do you ask, am I humming? Today it was an eclectic mix of “Edge of a Broken Heart” (Vixen), “Baby” (Justin Bieber – shut it) and “Defying Gravity” (wicked). No… homo?

On an aside, I’ve noticed the absence (thankfully!) of folks that sing or rap along to whatever they’re listening to. That shit drives me crazy since 9/10 people have no flow and are totally tone-deaf. Way to make my ears bleed.

So yeah – I’ve noticed that NO ONE IN TOKYO HUMS. It’s bizarre. They’re all so… quiet? Is humming considered culturally rude? According to this, humming is a rude habit – equal to drumming your fingers on the table: http://www.etiquettehell.com/smf/index.php?topic=76882.65;wap2

Do you hum when you go about your day? If so, why? If not, why?

The Sumo Playing Folky

Last Thursday was a Japanese national holiday whose name and purpose escapes me. But I took advantage of the day off to catch my first sumo tournament. Over five hours of lumbering giant sumo swagger. Highly recommended. Especially when drunk. And the fans are f*cking insane.

During the matches I couldn’t help but think about how different the life of your average professional sumo player (or most likely the life of any professional athlete) must be from the rest of us. For one thing, once you decide to pursue sumo, there’s no turning back – as I understand it, you join your sumo stable (team/family) at around age 16-17 and then your entire life until retirement is about eating, breathing and sleeping sumo.

So what exactly does sumo have to do with the ramblings of a scatterbrained singer/songwriter?

At the risk of making some rather sweeping cultural generalizations, sumo reinforces my view of Japanese culture’s emphasis on repetition, perfection, linear thinking and upholding of rules and tradition. And while I was technically raised in a Japanese/Jewish household, as someone who can barely stick with a task for 10 minutes, I wonder if I’m a perverse representation of stereotypical American culture – bucking authority and rules, thinking non-linearly, being creative and intense but sometimes sloppy in execution.

I can’t even begin to fathom the mindset required to dedicate 1000% of my life to something. Sure, I’ve been doing music in one capacity or another for almost 30 years, but my goals and practices have deviated wildly from year to year. I honestly feel that the only thing that has stayed consistent is my desire to write and perform songs.

As someone with diagnosed a.d.d., I can’t help but wonder how much of my way of doing things is because I was raised in the U.S. What if I was raised in Japan instead. Would I be a more linear, methodical and even-tempered person? Would I have set my sights on trying to be a professional pop-rock star from the get-go without my deviations to angry folk rock and 80s covers? Or might I be stuck in an office job with a wife and kids – and if that was the case, would I even mind it that much?

Nature vs. nurture when it comes to how you approach your creativity and your career.

Given your current career and/or what you see as your life-path, how has the culture/country in which you were raised shaped it? Do you think you’d be that different if you were born and raised somewhere else?

Bikini clad folksy Google docs?

Admittedly the life of a folk-pop singer/songwriter is filled with plenty of Cristal and bikini clad chicks… right. Can you seriously imagine me in that kind of situation? Chances are I’d be in the corner sucking my thumb and crying into my blanket…

It’s more like at least 75% of my music business life is spent as “crouching sciatica hidden carpal tunnel syndrome” perched fighting stance with caffeine IV-drip in an uncomfortable office chair firing off emails and crunching numbers in Excel. Glam, I know. Bitches best recognize. Clerical assistant extraordinaire hooooooooo.

Bearing in mind I have the memory of a flea and the attention span of a gerbil on meth, handling the not-so-exciting business aspects can be quite the challenge. I mean – I can have an extremely productive Tuesday and then come Thursday I’m insanely depressed, feeling like an a.d.d. failure because I will have no recollection what I got accomplished on Tuesday.

Yes, my memory is THAT bad. (The only reason I ever get anything accomplished is that if 10 years of paralegaling taught me anything, it’s learn to fake whatever organizational skills you lack…)

A few posts back I asked how you organize your creativity (and – in some cases – your businesses as well). I got plenty of great replies and having sampled a few of them, wanted to share the ones that appear to be working great for me now. Of course, with my attention span I might forget I wrote this post in 5 minutes but be nice…

The basic survival tools:
1. Google Calendar with added task list feature for keeping track of pretty much anything that’s deadline specific – I cue reminders to be sent to my email and phone as well so there’s far less chance I’ll forget to do something. That is, if I remember to put it in the calendar in the first place…
2. Google docs – for budgeting I use the Spreadsheet feature and for blog drafts, brainstorms, lyrics, etc. I use the Document feature. All fine and dandy until the Cloud explodes (i.e. Google is cranky and doesn’t want to work)

Additional tools:
1. Etacts.com – like having a personal assistant reminding you to email folks. I love it.
2. Toggl.com – set up like a standard billing system, it’s an easy way to keep track of whatever you’re working on, and since I’m a sucker for analytics, I can see what percent of my day is being devoted to what tasks (e.g. songwriting vs. pr vs. administrative stuff, etc.) Definitely helpful when I want to determine what projects are worth outsourcing.

Do any of you use the above programs too? Are you happy with them? More importantly perhaps – do you think it’s the program or the user/uses that determine its effectiveness? (Musicians I’m definitely directing these questions to you, but everyone chime in!)

What makes for a good cover version of someone else’s song?

If you’ve caught my live shows you know I enjoy mixing in 80s songs with my originals. It puts the audience at ease by offering something familiar and nostalgic before I hit ‘em over the head with new Danny Katzisms. And since I’m taking a break from touring, I figured I could use my down time to upload some 80s covers to YouTube.

I was practicing Erasure’s “Chains of Love” last night (favorite group evahhh – you have not lived until you’ve been subjected to Andy Bell in red sequined speedos, body glitter and angel wings) and was trying to find a way to make my interpretation unique and worthy of a YouTube upload.

If you surf YouTube for a bit you get the impression that anyone and their mother can record a fairly decent cover version of a song – most pop songs are straightforward and if you can bang out 4 chords on a guitar you stand a chance of doing the song at least some justice. But it seems like the cover versions that truly captivate are by musicians who are extreme virtuosos and/or are extremely tech savy.

I posted to Facebook regarding what songs you would like me to do Danny Katz folk-pop style and got quite a nice range of responses – everything from Depeche Mode to NKOTB.

But given that I can’t even figure out how to turn on an iPod yet alone use one, what is a little simple folky like me to do – how can I make my cover versions remarkable? What makes for a good cover version of someone else’s song?

How Do You Organizing Your Creativity?

If you’re a scatterbrain in the Danny Katz tradition, your draft lyrics, poems, sketches, etc. end up all over the place – in truncated text messages, Word files, emails, post-it notes and even scattered across several lipstick covered alcohol-stained cocktail napkins (don’t judge).

As much as I enjoy the lyric writing process I find that I spend a good amount of time organizing and culling lyrics to try to make something seamless out of the jigsaw mess that is my mind.

Melodies fortunately gel quicker and more organically for me. But lyrics? Hello hot mess. And while at one point I had a nice little folder of finalized and draft lyrics on my desktop, it then crashed. Go figure.

So… how do you organize your creativity?

Music Made Me Insane

As a musician you might think I love being surrounded by music all the time and that music always brings me happiness. That was for the most part true until spending the past 6 months here in Tokyo. I mean — don’t get me wrong. I still love making and listening to music, but Tokyo has proven to me that when used in the wrong way, music can destroy you. Here’s my Top 10 list of the ways music used in Tokyo can crush your soul and make dolphins cry:

10. Coldstone – Yes, that Coldstone. From what I recall in the good ol’ U.S. of A., the staff will sing only when you tip them, which means often – though not always. At the Tokyo Coldstone, however, the staff sings for each customer while they’re preparing your ice cream. To their credit, they do ask “Do you mind if we sing?” Unfortunately most Japanese don’t want to be “rude” so they just nod “ok” and then the insanity begins. Sure, it’s entertaining at first – I can just hear some Japanese girl squeal “kawaii!!” (cute!!) like an ice-pick in my head – but it quickly descends into some quasi-Disney version of hell, where you’re surrounded by singers with English pronunciation so horrible that you’re left wondering what they’re singing beyond “happy!” and “smile!” You then notice that their blush is totally overdone and that they (men and women) look like cheap whores. And you’re probably there on a date with your wife who isn’t putting out anymore because she’s too busy raising your spoiled children… Incidentally, I went with a friend who very sternly said “NO!” when asked if they could sing. It was an absolutely amazing moment. They blushed. They awkwardly bowed. They looked down at the ice-cream in front of them and pondered questions like “why am I here?!” And for one glorious moment, Japan Inc. came to a grinding halt.

9. Right Wing Military Vans – Japan’s extreme right wing goons have this unfortunate habit of driving around in white or black vans blasting military music accompanied by announcements extolling the virtues of a “pure” Japan free of certain immigrants, foreigners, space aliens, etc. Given how annoying they are, I highly doubt they’re going to get any new recruits through their daily public service “announcements”. Seriously? If they want to recruit they should just get an anime girl with pink hair and giant boobies to flirt with wealthy captains of industry. She can then ask them to switch their political affiliation from moderate right winger to hard-core right winger/crypto-fascist conservative. Now – the music itself isn’t all that bad if you have a thing for military dirges but it’s SO LOUD plus with the announcements all the time I just want to cry. Even better is when the police escort them around like they’re BFF. Can I get a WTF? Thank you.

8. 7/11 – When you walk into any 7/11 convenience store here – and they are everywhere – you get assaulted by ::[bell-bell-bell]:: (as if the doors automatically opening don’t cue the staff that someone has entered) matched with cries of “Welcome!” You then notice that the store jingle “7/11 good feeling!!” is playing over and over and over interspersed with occasional rings, bird chirps and other random noises. If you listen closely you can make out a whisper of “would you like to play a game? How about Global Thermonuclear War?” from the ATM innocently glowing in the corner of the store.

On an aside, the 7/11 near my office is staffed by four crazies who – combined with the aforementioned soundtrack – might drive me to start drowning my morning Wheaties in warm sake: (1) “The crazy grandmother” – She mutters “welcome!” to no one in particular repeatedly while staring out the window as if remembering her childhood in a rice paddy. When she does notice you she speaks as if she’s jacked on speed. So HAPPY!! So DERANGED! Lord, get this woman back on her meds. Please. (2) “The gay magician” – This character is painfully skinny and flamboyantly gay. He likes to return change to you with a series of hand motions like he’s performing parlor tricks. (3) “The cartman” – This guy sounds just like a Japanese version of Cartman from Southpark. His voice can make paint peel. (4) “The brute” – Built like a linebacker she has all the grace of a hippo in a tutu.

7. The Life Department Store Jingle – Near my apartment is LIFE, an oddly named frumpy answer to the all-purpose higher-end department stores you find in more desirable parts of Tokyo (I live two stations north of Ikebukuro station – shit is country). Think of LIFE as K-Mart’s neglected step-child. Shopping there on weeknights is a decidedly understated affair but Sunday nights, thanks be to Jesus, they BLAST their stupid jingle on 6 different tape machines hidden throughout the grocery section. The jingle is about 30 seconds of pure torture – singers sounding like kids high on helium. If all 6 machines played the song at once, it might be tolerable but they’re Never. In. Sync. 6 machines! 6 Times the Insanity! The 6th level of Dante’s inferno!

6. Auld Lang Syne – This once-beautiful melody always signified closure on the year just passed and a deliriously optimistic (and shitfaced) look forward to the year ahead. But Japan has taken all the punch out of it… it’s played every time a business closes for the evening. The gym? Auld Lang Syne. The grocery store? Auld Lang Syne. The Pachinko (gambling) parlor? Auld Lang Syne… with an announcement in English saying “Thank you for shopping at our business. We hope to see you again soon!” As I have yet to see a non-Japanese person play Pachinko, I cannot for the life of me figure out why this announcement is in English – and further why it mentions shopping…

5. Gym Music – Music at the gym is not in of itself a bad thing. It can definitely help make workouts go by faster and, if the beat is good, motivate you to push harder. But at my local gym well… something’s not quite right. Perhaps it’s not just the music alone, but the juxtaposition of mediocre music and a very specific demographic. You see… if you mistakenly gaze into the aerobics room you will turn to a pillar of salt while leopard-print spandex-clad Japanese grandmothers do aerobics to dance remixes of such musical “gems” (vomit) as Celine Dion’s “Titanic” theme. Then afterwards they all mount stretching machines that closely resemble a mechanical bull/sex toy, rock back and forth on them in reckless abandon while lyrics such as “I wanna go down on you / taste your ice cream / in my mouth…” play on the gym speakers. I wish I was making this shit up folks.

4. Love Hotels – Yes I’ve been in them. Don’t judge. If you lived in an apartment made of timber with walls as thin as toilet paper, you would do the same. And if being in a hotel that exists solely for the purpose of having sex doesn’t bother you, the décor and music just might. Or so I hope. First, the visual inanity – upon entering you are confronted with any (or all) of the following: a Christmas tree, a bridal dress (that can be yours if you have 50 gazillion points – like every other business here Love Hotels allow you to accrue points on a point card which you can later redeem for gifts), a display case of hello kitty products (if you’re a slut you can get the whole collection in just one week!), plaster dogs dressed in wedding outfits, statues of Snow White and the 7 dwarfs, wrought iron farm animals and pretty much anything else you can conjure up while high.

How about the music that goes with the disturbing clusterf*ck visuals? More often than not Disney melodies played on a music box! To me it’s just downright creepy but this being Japan… In any event, if the lobby music (or that bridal dress!) doesn’t inspire you enough to get it on, each room is equipped with a television (for viewing porn or… the news?) and a karaoke machine (??)

My favorite love hotel (from which I am now banned – don’t ask) was a “Caribbean” themed one, replete with oversized parrot sculptures and fake coconut trees. While the lobby was remarkably free of music-box Disney melodies, once in the room we could not turn off the praise reggae soundtrack. There was something painfully amusing about getting it on while being immersed in refrains of “Lord save us! Lord save us!” Thinking we could escape from it in the bathroom, we were met with traditional Japanese post-war era songs. Wth, Japan.

3. Tofu Trucks – As Tokyo suffers under yet another summer of hell (Rain! Humidity! Mold! Body Odor!) I can feel my brain melting out my ear. I thought I had totally lost it a few weeks ago when I started hearing two notes over-and-over again on what sounded like a harmonica. Like a mosquito buzzing in my ear, I couldn’t quite find it and swat it. I couldn’t even tell if it was coming through my office window or from the depths of hell, those notes sound eerily like the theme to Jaws. The other day I was out getting lunch and heard it again. If you buy it they will come. I seriously thought the mothership had come to claim me. Or that a shark was about to jump through the pavement and maul me. I swung around ready to defend myself and saw a small Japanese woman pulling along a cart of tofu as she blew on what could best be described as a rinky-dink-plastic shofar. I was not amused. I have yet to try the tofu. It had better taste like Skittles and make me shit glitter.

2. Trucks Making Left Turns – Ok, I get it. Safety is important. People don’t kill people, trucks kill people. But is it really necessary every time a truck is turning left for it to blast an announcement that goes “[musical bells] The truck is turning left. Be careful! [musical bells] The truck is turning left. Be careful! [musical bells] The truck is turning…” … ::Danny hadoukens truck::

1. Door closing jingles - On many of Tokyo’s commuter trains and subways, music is played to advise passengers that the train doors are closing, as if we can’t tell by the “Be careful! The doors are closing!” announcements shouted multiple times. While door closing jingles are, I suppose, cute in theory there’s only so many times one can hear the Astro Boy theme song at Takadanobaba Station before wanting to light Astro Boy on fire. I’ve caught myself humming these door closing jingles as I go about my day, occasionally stopping to think “Who sings this song and how did it get stuck in my head? Oh that’s right – it’s the door closing jingle from Zoshigaya station?!?! FML!” This is not a good thing, trust me. It means I am losing my mind.

And there you have it, folks. Come visit But be sure to pack your iPod and your earplugs!

How about your life – what are some ways that music has driven you bonkers (and I don’t mean that positively)?

Danny

Does your organization represent a shamisen ensemble or an orchestra?

Today was our annual shamisen performance at the Brooklyn Botanic
Garden’s Cherry Blossom Festival.  Rehearsing our pieces reminded me
how challenging it is for our ensemble to perform together.  Not only
do we usually practice just one on one with our teacher (only rehearsing 4 times as a complete ensemble), we also function without a conductor.

In an orchestra, the conductor keeps the ensemble together.  They’re
almost always on a platform elevated so all members of the ensemble
can see them and follow.  By comparison, we have to pick up on subtle
body language from our key shamisen and koto players who are seated in
and performing as ensemble members.

Mind you – were we a small group, e.g. a string quartet, this wouldn’t
be such a big deal.  But when you’re dealing with 30 people, this proves to be quite challenging.

But each year we pull through with relatively few glitches.  And I think
this occurs for two reasons.

The first is that the key shamisen and koto player guide us rather than hold us to a strict baton rhythm.  What this means is that we REALLY have to listen to each other.  All the time.

At the risk of possibly oversimplifying (and because I’ve been reading
a shitload of business books lately), it’s like a business with
horizontal leadership, where the leadership consists of talented
listeners and gentle leaders.  And I think it works because we’re all
deeply committed to our ensemble (why else would we spent up to 15
hours in a given day preparing for one 5 minute performance?)

Does your organization represent a shamisen ensemble or an orchestra?
Which do you think is better?

The Music of Things

Today’s blog post title owes itself to the excellent debut CD by my music buddy John-Flor Sisante (www.myspace.com/johnflor).  You owe it to yourself to get “The Music of Things!”

Today I noticed myself humming a new melody over the sound of the late night subway workers doing track repairs.  Their repeated hammering provided the rhythmic background.

Thought it a bit odd that subway construction would lend itself to a melody.

What’s the most unusual place you’ve found yourself humming?