Rick's dilemma..outta touch wit da kids!

Subject: RE: Rick's dilemma..outta touch wit da kids!
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 29 Apr 02 - 11:20 PM

Rick...perhaps you are out touch with yourself!!!

Were "you ever"....."did you ever"....."have you EVER" ...Wanted to BE "In Touch" with the "MAINSTREAM"?????

If it does not "disturb the stats quo"

if it does not bring "a little woe"

IF it does not question WHAT YOU "KNOW"

Aristotle had it straight, when expoused the Rhetoric,

The BEST possible means of persuasium in a given situation.

Step back and access your audience.

Sincerely
Gargoyle

Subject: RE: Rick's dilemma..outta touch wit da kids!
From: Devilmaster
Date: 30 Apr 02 - 04:12 AM

Just a simple suggestion Rick, and forgive me, if it ain't your style.

Perhaps to get their attention, (and kinda describing the group you have to play for) perhaps a delta blues song, maybe Leadbelly or something of the like to describe the early trials and tribulations of slaves in the south.
Some kids might get into a decent blues riff, especially if you can correllate it into the overall theme of song to describe hardship and protest.

Like I said, it might not be really your style. But that be my two cents.

Steve

Subject: RE: Rick's dilemma..outta touch wit da kids!
From: Fortunato
Date: 30 Apr 02 - 10:29 AM

You're a brave man, Brother Fielding. Since I was a teacher (yes, it was a one room school house), I think instead of singing protest songs to them, I would make it a workshop where I sang some examples and broke down the techniques used to protest: metaphors, analogies, narrative, symbolism, etc. and then help them to write a collective protest song. Use THEIR ideas. If they are creating they will be engaged. Sorry if I'm too late with suggestions.

Good luck, Chance.

Subject: RE: Rick's dilemma..outta touch wit da kids!
From: GUEST,jonesey
Date: 30 Apr 02 - 05:16 PM

Hi Dani, Got the info on the Beck song. The name of it is 'Mexico'. It's on an album(A compilation, I think)called 'Rare On Air'(Volume 1)-Mammoth Records MR0074-2. I'm going to do a search and see what I come up with. Good luck! cheers, jonesey

Subject: RE: Rick's dilemma..outta touch wit da kids!
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 30 Apr 02 - 05:49 PM

GIG REPORT.

It went amazingly well. Last night I printed out this thread and read it a couple of times. Lots of extremely good advice (including a couple of laughs c/o Anon. who had me going from being a commie to a fascist in two posts!)...all of it useful in different ways....and thanks for the PMs as well.

I'll set it up a bit for you. There were about 110 kids and fortunately they'd put up a couple of mikes and an adequate sound system. Just to make me do a bit MORE thinking (a dangerous process!) the teacher reminded me that the only performer to hold the kids' interest in the past was a very tough lady who calls herself "Bomba", who grew up on the city streets of Chile, and does a kind of 'South American Rap" thing.

I brought (along with the guitar) a dobro and banjo, and decided to try to get them to relate to MY experience rather than the other way around (as several Mudcat friends suggested). I thought it might be useful to let them know that my schooling was probably as frustrating to me as theirs currently is to them. Truth of the matter is, had there BEEN alternative schools for kids who couldn't hack it in the mainstream...I WOULD have been sent to one.

The one thing really different I did was think of how "QUICK CUTS" are now used in TV advertising and films...and that is what kids are used to....guess it's an 'attention span' kind of thing. So...I used snippets (a verse and chorus) from a couple of dozen songs (including several mentioned earlier here.

For example: I sang ONE verse of "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll", and then told them about how powerful the song was to so many people....AND....how, even though she died, Hattie's name has gone around the world....as has that of the man who killed her. We talked about how exposing that crime to the world (through music) was a much more powerful sentence than the one the man actually received.

Did the same thing with my songs, and let them know that in that group of a hundred kids, there had to be at least a dozen who can 'put a rhyme together', and it's up to them to use such a god-given talent to make others feel that someone is speaking for them.

Told 'em how much I loved the Blues, and that sometimes 'borrowing from another culture' is the only way to get your own into a creative frame of mind. Played them a couple of verses of Broonzy's "Black White and Brown Blues", and Leadbelly's "Bourgeois Blues", on the slide guitar....complete with a couple of hot solos (ha ha!)

Picked up the banjo and just as I was starting into Uncle Dave Macon's song about striking Miners (Buddy Won't you Roll Down The Line) a girl shouted out: My Dad could play "Foggy Mountain Breakdown"! Bet you can't! She said her father lived in Sudbury Ontario and had a little country band.....so I got a chance to tell about spending so many years touring Northern Ontario...and who knows may even have jammed with her dad. Picked the Foggy Mountain BD, and had a lot of fun with it.

After I finished, a kid got up and said 'Hey do you do any songs about LEGALIZING GRASS'?!! Thanks to Country Joe and the Fish, I actually remembered something up that alley!

Anyway, t'went very well, got asked back, and spent close to an hour showing the kids the dobro and banjo, which was fun. So once again MUDCAT comes through. Everyone who tried to be helpful gets my deepest thanks.

Cheers

Rick

Subject: RE: Rick's dilemma..outta touch wit da kids!
From: CapriUni
Date: 30 Apr 02 - 05:56 PM

Congrats, Rick!

Sounds to me like you weren't as outta touch as you feared! :-)

Subject: RE: Rick's dilemma..outta touch wit da kids!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 30 Apr 02 - 06:06 PM

AWRIGHT!!! Way to go, Rick!

- LH

Subject: RE: Rick's dilemma..outta touch wit da kids!
From: Peter T.
Date: 30 Apr 02 - 06:37 PM

Yeah, but when do the rest of us get this concert?

On a more sober note, when do we get "Rick N'Raffi?" for the really younger set? You must have a whale in the bathtub song in there somewhere.

yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: Rick's dilemma..outta touch wit da kids!
From: Big Mick
Date: 30 Apr 02 - 09:02 PM

Toldja you had a ton in common! Congrats, dear friend. Good feeling, eh?

Mick

Subject: RE: Rick's dilemma..outta touch wit da kids!
From: CapriUni
Date: 30 Apr 02 - 10:26 PM

Peter T. --

A whale in the bathtub song is a sober note?!

I can't imagine what you'd consider singing when you're feeling giddy!

;-)

Subject: RE: Rick's dilemma..outta touch wit da kids!
From: catspaw49
Date: 30 Apr 02 - 10:29 PM

I never thought you'd have a problem Rick. This is your job as it were. You're a folksinger. You did exactly what a good one does and has done for years......You related songs of the past to the present and present songs to the past.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Rick's dilemma..outta touch wit da kids!
From: wysiwyg
Date: 30 Apr 02 - 10:50 PM

And that hour afterwards.... that's where you did the REAL work, and I love you for it ALL!

Kept you in my thoughts the whole time, and I won't even get on your ass about your comment above about "god-given".... heh heh heh.... too late, oops!

Love,

~Susan

Subject: RE: Rick's dilemma..outta touch wit da kids!
From: Dani
Date: 01 May 02 - 08:47 AM

Yay, Rick!

Dani

Subject: RE: Rick's dilemma..outta touch wit da kids!
From: JedMarum
Date: 01 May 02 - 09:03 AM

Sound like a great event. I',m not surprised. Wish I could have been there!

Subject: RE: Rick's dilemma..outta touch wit da kids!
From: GUEST,Russ
Date: 01 May 02 - 10:07 AM

Well done. No surprise though. Sounds like business as usual for a true professional.

Subject: RE: Rick's dilemma..outta touch wit da kids!
From: hesperis
Date: 01 May 02 - 07:28 PM

Awesome, Rick! Glad that you had fun with it.

I'm with Peter T - when do WE get to hear it? Huh?

Subject: RE: Rick's dilemma..outta touch wit da kids!
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 02 May 02 - 01:36 AM

If I was one of the kids

My report would be "It Sucked"

Joe - You PREACHED - you did not COMMUNICATE!!!!

Thank heavens this is not a permanent gig.

You should be less Joe and more Fish and throw the Country in the toilet.

Sincerely,
Gargoyle