Band-in-a-Box, but which box? Not a Mac.

BIAB for MAC

I have been buying Band-in-a-Box since the Atari version, back in the last century. The last version I bought for Windows was around 2004, it did everything I wanted. Then I switched to Mac and I found I had to keep my old PC laptop going to use the program.

I worked the piano bar on cruise ships and I had my laptop on the piano, BIAB running, earphone port plugged into an amp, and the display where the music stand would be. As it played the backing instruments the notation was presented to me with lyric and chord symbols close by the melody line. It was so easy to read and play that I could play anything! All the standards, Sinatra, Elton, Croce, Billy Joel, bossanovas, anything. (I turned so many passengers on to BIAB that I seriously considered becoming a rep and signed with PGmusic to do that. However, the ship frowned on it so that didn't go anywhere.)

The fly in the ointment was that I was using a PC, subject to annoying interruptions in service. So I switched to Mac and bought BIAB for Mac. The computer was steady as a rock but the program was rubbish compared to the PC version so I struggled on with the PC until I retired.

Yesterday I blew $89.27 usd and upgraded to the latest Mac version, highly touted on PGmusic's website. I thought surely in the last few years they must have fixed some of the most glaring deficiencies, and the price is the same as the full-featured Windows version. What a disappointment. The interface is still clunky, the lyrics still come up in a little box in the control area, hard to read and nowhere near the melody line, impossible to sight-read during a live performance. Basic conveniences that every other program now has, like "Open Recent" in the drop-down file menu, are missing. Yes, the RealTracks sound great but the old midi sounds were quite adequate for the piano-bar environment.

Apple is a major player in the sphere of music and so is BIAB. I am surprised and disappointed to find Mac marginalization at PGmusic.

London Bobby

Time traveller from the last century

No tracks please, we're musicians!

Tracks are boring. Tracks leave no leeway for expression or interpretation by the performer. Singing to tracks is karaoke, even if accompanied by the odd note on a guitar or a keyboard. Boring! Boring!

Use a band, or an accompanist or, if the worst comes to the worst, play the damn thing yourself. If you can't do that, learn! Don't go trolling round the internet for somebody else's work.

So, if you are performing somewhere and most of what we are hearing is from tracks, I won't be there.

Bob Smith, time traveler from the last century.

Time Travellers from the last century

I'm glad I am not the only dinosaur on the block. The man with the best possible career as a pianist excluding Iturbi and Liberace is Sid Wright, still active and starring in "The Three Pianists" concert. He is 89 and not a household name but worked in London solidly and simultaneously on radio, TV and in clubs for half a century.

I have just reconnected with my favourite entertainer of the 70s, Adam Timoon. Here he is playing Malagueña just a few weeks ago. He use to pack Adam's Inn at the Seaway Hotel when I was working at the Barmaid's Arms, both Toronto hotspots. Click here: Adam - Malaguena

London Bobby

Time traveller from the last century

When is it time to quit?

I have seen video of great artists performing when they were really past it, disappointing and somewhat upsetting when their previous great performances are still fresh in your memory. So I try to monitor myself. Voice: not too bad, appearance: not bad considering extreme age, piano technique: not as slick as it was, memory: senior moments occur, comedy: good! stage movement: lousy. So I had a committee meeting with myself and decided if impresarios still want to pay me, if anybody still wants to see me, I would still perform. So I am back in Toronto and not retired yet. My next gig is at the Nexus Piano Bar in Brampton, it is a particularly good restaurant in my humble opinion.

http://www.nexusfinefoods.com/

Fine dining at a reasonable price, nice ambience, a large saltwater aquarium and a grand piano, it's hard to beat the Nexus Piano Bar. I'll be playing there Thursday, Friday and Saturday this week, 6:30 to 9:30PM.

I would be tickled pink if you come.

The Three Pianists Concert

No grumble today except, perhaps, that my video camera is about three generations out of date in, it seems, about two years. The vicar's wife bravely held the heavy old Sony Camcorder for an hour to make this video. Thank you, Jette, and we excuse the shaky bits and love the selection of shots.

Search for excellence. Success! and failure:(

I love piano bar! Good music, pleasant atmosphere, a smiling pianist/vocalist and a grand piano with seats around it, direct interaction with the customers, an inclusive civilised way to drink. I found an ad for a small Italian fish restaurant, "Piano bar on Thursdays". I went for dinner and the food and wine was great. So was the music, cool and jazzy. So why am I not going to hurry back?

Failure: Well, it wasn't a piano, it was a keyboard with rhythm machine built in and/or backing tracks. It might just as well have been a DJ. The guy may have been a great musician, but who can tell? Os it real or is it Memorex? I think he sang, there was a microphone there but there seemed to be more than one voice. Personality? Zilch. Sorry, but he never caught anyone's eye, never asked if anyone had a request, never spoke, never smiled. He disappeared on his breaks and left us with Diana Krall, Jobim and Stan Getz which is not all bad. But this is not piano bar. This is a keyboardist morphing into DJ.

Success! Where are the entertainers of today? Last night they were at Lula's Lounge in Toronto. The McFlies, a six-piece band playing acoustic instruments and packing the place solid with an enthusiastic young crowd. I had never seen a Cajon before. Its basically a wooden box and the musician sits on it and slaps the front of it, different sounds from different places. With a mic stuck in a hole in the back it's a hell of a drum set, this guy was driving the band. Individually the musicians were all extremely competent, as an ensemble they were fantastic. Tight arrangements, surprising repertoire including a Boy Gorge number and a song from Quiet Riot, "Come on feel the noise". I'll be at the next performance if I can find it.

Which brings me to today's grumble. Many bands and singles work in self-imposed anonymity. Three basic items to increase audience size and get more money, guys, the bottom line, listen, you need:

The band name displayed on or near the stage.
A guest book (or a groupy with a laptop) collecting names and email addresses.
A take-away piece with a photo, the website and contact info.

I am a time-traveller from the last century and I know.

Retired?

Semi-retired? Am I working or not?

I have a gig tomorrow so this should be short, I have to rehearse. Yes,I have been playing but working? Not really. This is how it is.

Entertainment is a commodity like shoes or shirts. It has to be crafted and it has to be sold. The creation and updating of the show is work but it is satisfying. Selling it is hard grunt work as every successful salesman knows. There has to be market research, brochures, photography, CDs and DVDs, bios and resumes, emails and web-site updates, advertising, correspondence, negotiations, contracts, collections, telephone calls, cold calls, just a lot of frequently frustrating work.

When the sale is made, if it's shirts or shoes, the work is done. If it is a show, the work begins. I myself am the product that has to be delivered, rehearsals, travelling, equipment set-up, sound checks and finally the show itself.

My next birthday is a big one and I am going to give myself a present, I am going to semi-retire. I am going to cut out all the above sales work and I am never going to carry keyboards or speakers again even though few venues seems to have a piano or a decent sound system any more. I am still good old available Bob but I probably won't get any gigs which is a pity because I still do well, still like to work, to play, that is. I still have this thing, this package, this cocktail of music and laughter which is quite rare to find and which I have been blessed with. It is a vanishing phenomenon, most of today's performers don't smile when they sing or play.

Every successful entertainer is an illusionist, he walks on to a stage and does his thing, everybody has a good time and he makes it look so easy, so effortless, so much so in fact that bookers say, "You want all that money, you are only on for forty minutes"! My answer is, "I'm working now, negotiating with you, the show itself is free. If I am not working, why aren't I sitting beside the pool with a book and a drink?".

An adoring audience is like a lover and applause gives me a high. That is why we entertainers do all that office work, carry those speakers, lif' dat bale. The show itself is free.

I probably won't get any more Legion gigs. Apart from letting their pianos go out of tune and fall to pieces, they seem to think I am a dance band and put the audience miles away from me on the other side of a bloody great dance floor and expect me to bring all the equipment and play and sing for four hours to an inattentive audience for a pittance. Or worse still, they expect me to do that AND all the publicity and promotion and work for "the door" and CD sales. Sod it. In coffee shops the sign says: no shoes, no shirt, no service. Now I say, no piano, no fee, no performance.

On the booker's side it is a fact that putting on the evening is a lot of work and heavy responsibility for the entertainment chairman. (As everybody knows, in every club 97% of the work is done by 3% of the members.) My part of the show, entertaining, is relatively easy and fun for me. Putting bums in seats and making sure they can see and hear me is the grunt work but it is the booker's work, not mine.

Today I am playing the grand piano in my daughter's living room. My gold record is on the wall smiling down at me. There is a dog here who likes it. I am rehearsing for my gig tomorrow, a private party in Brampton. i must go, work to do.