My Personal Take on My Music

Here’s my personal take: I did NOT spend 50+ years trying to perfect my singing, playing, and writing with over 2,650 songs/compositions, plus 14 years of playing live box office concerts, plus a 10 year 150 song studio recording project of the “Hunkasaurus and His Pet Dog Guitar” , outside the box, Set, PLUS 25 years of publishing my zine Musea at 200+ issues, that advocates for all artists, to – at the top of my talent,
give it all up,
allow 3 CEOS to block me and every other talent out of careers,
and RETIRE.
NO!

Why would I give up NOW? I want a fair chance at a BIG CAREER that is as big as I can make it, and at least a little closer to my abilities and talent and hard work than what I’ve gotten so far.

I want it for others too, and I see that 3 old men, 3 CEOS of the Big 3 Labels, and their parent media companies, are the only thing standing in the way.

SO when someone asks you do you know anyone in music trying to build a career – you may say YOU are not interested, but add this – YES I DO – THAT GUY! and point them to me.

Rock and Roll Doesn’t Rock No More

ROCK AND ROLL DOESN’T ROCK NO MORE

Rock and roll doesn’t rock no more.
It’s turned middle age and become a bore.
It’s everything it used to oppose.
Rock and roll doesn’t rock no more.

Rock and roll is corporate and dull.
It’s phony music that’s lost its soul.
It’s paint-by-number and rotten to the core.
Rock and roll doesn’t rock no more.

Rock and roll has got to go.
Base, drums, and guitars are so so-so.
Enough of the clones of clones of clones.
Rock and roll doesn’t rock no more.

Rock and roll has got to go.
Its taken 60 years but now it’s so.
It’s lost the beat and doesn’t roll.
Rock and roll doesn’t rock no more.

Rock and roll doesn’t rock no more.
It’s a has-been and It’s your father’s olds.
It’s spirit is gone and the choir all knows
Rock and roll doesn’t rock no more.

c Tom Hendricks, 2010
but free to reprint in full.
(Just one person’s opinion)

Not Easy on Adele

Not Easy on You Adele
The reaction for Adele’s new single is a 90% bought and paid for marketing scheme.
We heard about this single, Easy On Me on everything from ABC Nightly News, to NPR radio. There was never such pre promotion across so many media outlets like that for any other star. Not for Barbra Streisand, Aretha Franklin, Janis Joplin, Whitney Houston, Amy Winehouse, etc.

Let’s say there was a fair music media instead of this marketing set up. Would Katy Perry”s single, Dark Horse, have had an advertising budget of $11.7 million – for promoting one song! That’s not recording it, just promoting it!

Think of how many musical careers that same money could have started!!!

Back to Adele. Had this been a fair music industry instead of the mess we have now:

1. She would not have had any pre promotion like this. There would be real competition and each month there would be 100 major single releases. Each of those 100+ would have had to compete on merit. None would have gotten the excess promotion that Adele did.

2. Her career would quickly be buried if she didn’t release a hit single every 4 months. Just ask the Beatles or Rolling Stones or Motown, or Michael Jackson, who all had to compete in a more fair music industry were 100’s of labels competed, not just three.

3. The new release by Adele called, Easy on Me, is not a classic, and the stripped down arrangement is very bland. The single is just ok, and not very good. She has a fine voice but this is not a song to match. She has now amassed a 190 million personal fortune. I would think she could buy a better song than this. Sounds like a good singer singing to karaoke. Remember if Adele is really that good she can handle some real competition!

The reason many care for her and this song, or have even heard about it ,and it’s release, and her comeback after 6 years, is because it has been marketed as newsworthy and one of the biggest stories in music!

When an over consolidated music industry – now down to the Big 3 Labels that control the industry (Warner, Universal, Sony) – only prop up a few pop stars – the results are strange to say the least – or devastating to be honest.

A few like Swift, Beyonce, Perry, Ga Ga, Grande, Sheeran, Drake, Bieber, Kanye and Adele make mega millions. But the 99% of the rest don’t make fast food money, and the ENTIRE MUSIC INDUSTRY is in a severe slump with sales this year only HALF of what they were in 1999, 20 years ago!!!

Oh, no one mentioned that last FACT in their flowery puffed up promotion did they?
Let’s repeat it. THE MUSIC INDUSTRY MAKES HALF OF WHAT IT DID IN 1999!!!

Time for a fair music industry, and a fair media that will talk about: the music revolution against all this excess, and for all musicians! That in turn just might save a failing industry.
Musea since 1992

Tom, Why Don’t You Play Your Guitar Right?

HEY TOM, WHY DON’T. YOUR SONGS SOUND LIKE THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO SOUND?
Here are some differences that are on purpose!
For me songs should be at 2 minutes, 3 minutes for Ballads, that forces the song to have just the essentials and no excess repeats. Motto: stop playing before they stop listening!
The other thing is my guitar playing. This is what I call combo guitar style, not a singer songwriter, not a band something in between something new, where I play bass, rhythm, and lead, at the same time on one guitar. This single guitar leads to a more direct, passionate, and personal song. Though I will add that in my studio recordings I expand this to background vocals, and sometimes a 2nd standard guitar for a fuller sound.
Besides playing a lot of maj7, diminish, and suspended chords, I often play these with ringing open notes, such as an open A on a Bflat chord. I also often make up chords to enhance the melody.
So I encourage you to take these things as new ideas.
Those that like the older style are certainly welcome to do covers of my songs, some have already.

Fifty Years Ago, or The Ballad of John and Martha

FIFTY YEARS AGO , or The BALLAD of JOHN and MARTHA

This is a convoluted story about a MYSTERY TAPE. – with link and 2 photos!

George Gimarc has quite a bio in music. Here is a quote from his Wikipedia entry:

George Douglas Gimarc (born 1957) is an American disc jockey, record and radio program producer and author based in Texas and is in the Texas Radio Hall of Fame. He is known for his extensive and
authoritative knowledge about the classic rock radio format, recorded music in general, and specifically the era of punk rock. His broadcast programs have been heard in various formats in the US, Canada, Europe and New Zealand, via licensed stations and unlicensed pirate radio transmitters.

Through the years I have contacted him a few times about my music so we know each other. Then on August 6th, he emailed me with this message:
This is a sampler of an unlabeled tape found among the debris of Sellers Recording Studio. Is this collection of songs you?

He had added a link that had a sampler of the songs from a longer tape.

I listened … and went back 50 years. The technical sound was very very good, the instrumentation was simple and direct, but the straightforward voice was different and could have been me, or someone else …. I listened some more.

Then a few phrases popped up – that were definitely me – the lyrics of mine back then, were very specific so that I began to notice phrases that I had labored over during the making of this music – my first rock opera – John and Martha, a 5 act illustrated short story. I made it a point that each song would move the love story forward, so there was little wasted lyrics. The recording was made in the early 1970s when I had just gotten out of NTSU and moved to Dallas.

The Beatles album Sgt. Pepper had inspired me to connect my songs into a story. John and Martha was my first major illustrated short story. As I worked on it, the story began to evolve and included everything a short story would have: action, romance, some character development, and a plot. This recording was my first studio recording made somewhere between 1973-77.  I sang all four parts

Gimarc had found the boxes in storage on the Texas gulf coast. There was water damage on most of them. See the photo he sent me of a typical box.

He had rescued them just in time. They were soon to be destroyed as trash. Some tapes were completely ruined, some were playable. My tape was in its own individual box; but that had disintegrated from the weather and water damage. Remarkably the tape was in good condition. Whatever identification there had been though, was on the box that had disintegrated. There were no markings of any kind on the tape itself. Gimarc got the boxes of tapes back to Dallas and began to investigate.

Gimarc is not only a music collector; he has also issued certain albums of the treasures he has unearthed. Perhaps the most noteworthy include the Grammy award winning album, of previously unknown live recordings of Hank Williams from 1950 called The Garden Spot Programs; and Glen Campbell Sings for the King, a collection of demos for Elvis Presley sung by Glen Campbell!!! These collections of rarities are ongoing projects, and he tells me, more are on the way. I encourage readers to follow up on these historical releases.

Now back to the boxes of tapes and what was found inside them. He said most of the tapes were corporate ads of varying originality, lots of radio promos, and some assorted music like mine.

When it came to the mystery tape, he said that he had asked his friends and music contacts if anyone could identify the singer or the songs. Finally he found one that said it might be me, because he seemed to recall one of my 3 – VERY OBSCURE – how in the world anyone would remember – 45 singles that had two cuts from my John and Martha rock opera!

DESK CLERK/ OTHERS LIKE YOU. 1978. Two songs from my cast recording of John and Martha. I sang the uptempo song Desk Clerk, and Joy Tarver sang the ballad, Others LIke You. The main cast was Martha, sung by Karen Bella (a notable singer, composer in her own write – hear her on youtube!) and John, sung by me. This 45 was from a later version of John And Martha that had a 4 person cast. (See photo).

Those of you, patiently waiting, to hear this tape of the full recording of JOHN AND MARTHA will have to wait longer. We’ve decided to hold out a bit on that! But for those wanting to hear a sampler of the recovered tape; here is the link:

MYSTERY TAPE, JOHN AND MARTHA SAMPLER, by TOM HENDRICKS.
The 9 minute sampler file can be found at:
http://hunkasaurus.com/MysteryBand.mp3

Will you ever hear the entire first recording of John and Martha? Will you ever hear the later cast version of John and Martha? Who knows, we may have to wait 50 more years and see if it pops up again!!!

Tom Hendricks