Today, I suddenly looked up and saw that it’s been weeks since I posted about music, shared a crazy story, or put the next installment of memoir excerpts up here for your enjoyment.

It’s been said before, I know, but this winter was a rough one. Right when it started to warm up here in NYC, I went to Montreal, Canada for the St. Paddy’s Day Parade and Party (hosted by one of my best and oldest friends, Niki). It’s been nice and sunny and even warm the last two times I came up here to start my spring. This time was a tad different.

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Unlike in NYC, however, the scene is always chill. No drunken buffoons fighting and hitting their girlfriends. Very polite. You could get right down to the edge of the street and cheer. The spot we chose had a big overhang so we were out of the hard-falling snow. Clean bathrooms and hot coffee were right near where we were staying.

It was fun being there. But coming back to yet more cold, falling slush, and grey skies truly bummed me out.

I got distracted from the KirbZONE by doing deep dives into aspects of the publishing game like social media presence and marketing, looking for agents and writing queries. All important to be sure.

But I’m back, baby! I’ll be posting the next installment of memoir excerpts this week. Cabin Fever was so well loved, I’ll continue with more of my musical adventures in the real world of clubs, bars, art spaces and live music.

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And speaking of the the real world, I’m happy to hip you KirbZONERS to two of my favorite radio shows. Yes, radio shows. They’re streaming of course since both stations are hundreds of miles away.

Tonight it’s my favorite show on streaming/radio is Beats Per Mom (BPM). broadcasting from station KHHA 94.7 FM, Arcata, CA. You can join me and others around the world checking out their stream here. They have a great community there, and a great community station. BPM is tonight’s mom DDubs, and her partners LTree and nevaregreta. DDubs always plays music I never heard or knew about. Like her show on hip hop from Greenland and modern sounds from Venezuela. Catch her at 5:00 PST live or the station archive, which goes back two weeks from today. BPM also has many shows archived on the Mixcloud website here.

Art Carlson is a long-time friend and former collaborator in several bands. He was there at many of my life’s peak musical moments as has be documented here at this site in the Tales of Old New York section. He lives and broadcasts from Tivoli, NY on the freshly launched and christened WXTI 97.3 LPFM. Check the website here for scheduling here.

This station, broadcasting to the town a few surrounding areas, put the community in community radio. he dee jays play whatever they want and there’s a great variety of music played. Art’s show is on Tuesday 6-8pm and is called (Tivoli) Against the World.

Check out these shows and remember how it was before streaming and downloads and Youtube, when you tuned into a station and discovered a new world that you didn’t know you were looking for.

There lots more stories and wacky hijinks in The Kirbzone.

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Every superhero has an origin story. So does everybody else. That includes a kid, sitting at his mom’s dining room with his buddy Karl Meekins, listening to a song on the radio coming from the kitchen.

Lately I’ve been wondering how did people decide to do what they did? What was that spark? Was it waking up one day, like out of a vivid dream, with a clear vision of your life? Or did you look at possibilities and, one by one, like playing a lotto scratch off, narrow them down to the jackpot?

Just like there are billions of people, there are billions of stories. My story is neither Earth shattering, nor world changing in importance…except to me.

Summer, 1969.

The song that inspired me was one I heard often. When DJs on soul station WOL - AM would do microphone checks - name the songs, do an ad for a local business - they would talk over an instrumental song. They used James Brown cuts like “Soul Pride Part 1 & 2”. With its funk-soaked bass and drums, set off nicely by strident horn hits and twangy jazzy guitars, the track provided the perfect background for his soulful spiel.

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The DJ Petey Green, a major cultural figure in Washington, D.C., and a hero for many reasons to Black America, would rhyme and “jive talk” on his mic checks, which was unique to radio at the time. He’d go off on Black power-laden diatribes, and critical takes on race, drugs, and community. He spoke to what most Black folks in our town were concerned about and we loved him.

The song he used in this, the summer of ‘67, was by a heretofore unknown band from New Orleans, The Meters. The song was “Cissy Strut” which became a black radio hit by sheer DJ strength. The drum beat is derived from the rhythms of New Orleans’ Mardi Gras Indians, a deep culture with Afrocentric roots, played by the innovative master Ziggy Modeliste. His dense cross rhythms were based on NOLA’s “second line”. These parade marchers played on cow bells, hand drums, and tambourines. He boiled this sound down into a swinging, funky gumbo that slips and slides, but always winds up on point.

I went to the local record store, Waxie Maxie’s, and bought The Meters’ seven inch single and played it. A lot.

As you may have guessed, the kid sitting with his buddy Karl at his Mom’s dining room table was me. “Cissy Strut” played and Karl said, “I love this drum beat.” Using his fingers and he heels of his hands, he tapped out Ziggy’s groove right there on the wooden table.

Suddenly I was seized by some force, and, in this fugue state, I did the unthinkable: I went to knock on the door of the den, where Dad was taking his scared Saturday afternoon nap. You would never wake him up unless the house was on fire. And only then if you couldn’t put it out yourself with the garden hose. I knocked on the door, not gently, but firm, a wake-up knock.

“What do you want?” he grumbled. I opened the door.

“Dad, I want a drum set. I want to play drums.” Normally, he would have been annoyed, even mad, starting his response with ‘goddamnit, Mark’, but he sat up. He must have heard something in my voice.

“What was that?”

“I want to play drums.”

I looked at him. He looked at me. Silence.

“Well, okay, let’s talk about it later. You have a birthday coming up.” He lay back down and I closed the door.

This was a major turning point. I got the drums and never left them for very long ever since.

November 2012.

Hurricane Sandy hit New York City, and there was no power below 39th Street on the East Side, but on the West Side there was no power below 43^rd Street,. This was a super bummer for me. My man Kid Charlemagne* had gotten us tickets to see The Meters at the Times Square area club B.B. King’s. Zigaboo himself was making a rare appearance with the band.

After Hurricane Katrina smashed New Orleans, many people’s fate was cast to the winds and they landed wherever they could. Ziggy wound up in Austin, Texas and later San Francisco. I heard he decided not to come back to the Big Easy. Most of The Meters shows after that had another drummer and they called themselves The Funky Meters.

But this was perhaps a once in a century chance to see three original members - Zigaboo, Leo Nocenteli on guitar, George Porter, Jr on bass - with Page McConnell, of the hippie jam band Phish, on keyboards. I got religion at this moment, praying to all the gods, because the show would be cancelled if power was not restored, and my chance to see the man who inspired me to pick up the sticks would pass. Damn you, Mother Nature!

My prayers were answered. Praise Jah. The West Side above 40^th Street now had power! The show would go on!

The Kid and I usually had dinner at a kosher Chinese restaurant before big shows, but the hurricane claimed our dinner as a victim. That didn’t matter. I was hungry to see Ziggy!

We had seats in the balcony, with a perfect view of the drums. He sat straight backed and regal, like he was born to that throne. He wore wrap around shades. I got to see how he played the beats. On the song “Africa” he played a mutated, tom tom heavy, Nawlin’s marching beat. Not only that, he sang, too. The whole band stretched out, extending the song into a jam journey of solos and storytelling interplay. Throughout, Ziggy pushed and pulled the music along. Like other master drummers I’d seen, what he did seemed simple and sparse, and had awesome power.

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Drummers Max Roach and Buddy Rich were among my earliest memories. I see in my mind’s eye the cover of two drummers facing each other, their drum kits like fortresses, sticks held like weapons.

Dad’s album Rich Versus Roach was a record my infant ears heard and a cover I held with my baby hands.

Long before he became a solo artist and band leader, he created a revolutionary style of drumming with the Miles Davis Quintet. He layered rhythms and counter-rhythms over and under the modal, spacious compositions of Wayne Shorter and Miles, accenting in surprising places with cymbal crashes and high-speed buzzes on the snare drum.

I came to this music many years later after jazz class in college, and the musical context didn’t overwhelm me. I had heard music like this for years. However, to my young, early teenage ears, Mr. Williams’ thousand round barrage of percussive onslaught on the album Tony Williams’ LIFETIME EMERGENCY! was beyond my comprehension.

His sophomore adventure Turn It Over was in the same vein: explosions of electric rock, powerful with intense distortion and overdriven organ, with more of Williams’ surreal vocals that often sound like someone slightly drunk and high in a darkened corner of a bar singing odd songs to himself.

His third album, Ego, is a prime example of what the music known as fusion was originally and literally: the freedom and urgency and mind altered states found in rock, mixed with the sophistication and up-leveled musicianship of jazz. Some songs are electrified versions of jazz tunes like “Vashtar” by jazz composer Carla Bley, and “Spectrum” by Williams’ guitarist, the jazz luminary, John McLaughlin.

These songs fly as fast as the fastest bebop, like a speeding car flirting with flying off the road. Other songs have a demented, downcast, psychedelic quality like a Black jazz Pink Floyd, reflecting a twisted, yet thoughtful, mind.

On the songs that feature vocals, he sings softly in a raw, yet smooth, voice that reminds one of Bob Dylan and Syd Barrett, a mix of plainly stated sentiments and obtuse poetics.

While his explosive drum style reaches full bonkers frenzy mode on Emergency!, on Ego it’s more refined, showing maturity and confidence in his skills and vision of creating music unlike any heard at the time or since.

The record also asks the listener to consider the breadth and depth of the drums themselves. The first song, “Clap City,” is an intro to what the record is all about: rhythm and sound, here from hand claps and conga drums. Unlike his other recordings, Mr. Williams is sharing space and time with percussionists, Don Alias (Miles Davis, Joni Mitchell) and Warren Smith (Gil Evans, Max Roach’s M’boom Ensemble).

On the song “There Comes a Time,” they create a turbulent atmosphere of colorful sound with bongos, gongs and congas, which Williams fills with off kilter rumbling drums, military snare rolls and crashing cymbals,

Throbbing bass from Ron Carter (Below), shimmering organs and smooth, twangy guitar round out the music that he sings over in a baleful, yearning tone.

“I love you more when it’s over/ there comes a time when you’re helpful / there comes a time when you’re doubtful/ I love you more when you’re spiteful/ I love you more . . .”

“Lonesome Wells” is built on a straight up rock & soul drumbeat, on the two and the four, a descending melody and organ soloing throughout that reminds one of the Doors; funky chunky rhythm guitar and phat funky standup bass, mixing nicely with tympani rumbles and mysterioso organ riffs that moan, dance and shimmer. Soaring over the musical river, Mr. Williams sings in a mournful wail:

“Hearts/ broken hearts cryyyyyy/ there’s no need to dwell on Lonesome Wells.”

The song has deft, classic pop moments, like bridges between song sections, breakdowns from loud to quiet, and rhythm shifts that keep the music peculating. The final chapter of the song is a coda featuring fragment bombs of drums, dueling and dancing with the guitar and the other percussions, flowing together in a demented waltz, while Williams plays drums like an orchestra. This song captures the adventurous jamming found in rock and jazz at a time that encouraged, even demanded, risks be taken, forms shaken up.

This and most other songs show ego at its best. Williams is confident in and focused on his vision; taking jazz fusion down a different path from what others were doing, like a chef putting disparate ingredients together in ways no one else had thought of.

The promise shone by “The Urchins of Shermese,” the final piece of the album, is that out of the primordial ooze of mutant jazz, rock, Afro-Cuban percussion, and the classic organ trio, Williams created innovative and unique music. Is it organ funk, Afro-jazz, Black Americana, pure psychedelia? The answer is yes and no to all of that.

The song begins with a drums-only African waltz, followed by deep bass that lilts in an off point, on point rhythm. An eerie organ line with a Middle Eastern flavor flows softly alongside the wooden sound of the African balafon.

This tranquility is abruptly shattered by Williams’s signature drum explosions, rising percussion, strident guitar repeating a hypnotic sequence and organ playing that is discordant and beautiful. The song fades slowly into the distance, with Williams, bongos and shimmering metal the last music one hears. This is a book end companion to the beginning of the record. This piece of music could be seen as a template for a new song form.

This is a most enigmatic album by a most enigmatic drummer, composer and, yes, singer. He has crafted a record that is in an orbit all its own. In a Downbeat Magazine article, he described himself as a searcher, always looking for a sound and here he found it by following his muse down the rabbit hole.

Later records of his fit snugly in the jazz fusion and commercial funk modes, seemingly striving to be more mainstream. Those records have excellent moments and have some of his best playing and compositions. Still, none have followed in the bizarre footsteps of Ego

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The first musical scene in the documentary Summer of Soul is Stevie Wonder performing - on the drums, doing a massive drum solo. When it comes to Stevie Wonder you think of the angelic voice, the songs that span generations, and his recording studio wizardry. But what you really ought to be thinking is “Whoa, that’s Stevie on the drums? He’s a monster!”

True to both, but after hearing David Porter talk about how Stevie came down to Memphis, but they couldn’t do anything for him, I realized that though blind he had his own vision of how to play music early on.

Porter was one of the main songwriters and producers at Stax Records, the label that brought us Otis Redding (“Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay,”) Carla and Rufus Thomas, Isaac “Shaft” Hayes, and the Staples Singers, to name but a few.

He spoke at the world-famous Friars Club, where celebrities, going back to the 1960s, were roasted by their peers to the drunken laughs of all. He was interviewed by Warren Lee, co-founder of the Empire State Soul Club and an uber knowledgeable record collector.

One of the attendees, Paul Shaffer (Musical Director of the David Letterman Show and probably a podcaster) asked if there was competition between Stax Records, the Memphis-based label with the Southern Fried Sound, and Motown, the Detroit label deemed “the sound of young America” (including White Americans,) and the home of Stevie Wonder since he was ten years old.

Porter didn’t hesitate: “No, absolutely not. We all got along. In fact, myself and Isaac Hayes, we looked up to Motown. We wanted to be Gamble and Huff and Barry Gordy.” [Founder of Motown, man with sketchy past.]

They would send artists up to Motown just to see what would happen if their artists had the Motown sound, and vice versa: “They sent young Stevie Wonder down, but we told them, we can’t really do anything with him. He was already fully formed. He very much had his own thing,” Porter shared with the captive crowd.

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That was certainly clear when Gordy let young Stevie, who had just turned 20 years old, try his hand at producing a record for another group. The Spinners had a deal to record a one-off single “It’s a Shame.” Stevie wrote, arranged and produced the track. He used the usual amazing Motown in-house band, dubbed the Funk Brothers. At one point he became frustrated with the drummer who played his trademark soul drumbeats, so he kicked the man out of the drum chair and played what he heard in his head.

It starts out on a sparse frame of a soul song: guitars come in and play the ‘ear candy lick’ and another guitar twists and snakes under and around the candy, with bass laying down the rolling foundation.

Then Stevie comes in, shaping the song’s feel with bass drum hits and closed, tense hi-hat hits. He plays with just enough hiccup to bounce the groove along, starting the song’s journey.

Where conventional drumming rules dictate playing a steady, even pattern on the cymbal, Stevie puts moments of space in between the hits, adding a subtle feeling of anticipation, making your head jerk slightly to the smoothness of the beat.

As the vocals and horns enter, filling out the sound, Stevie keeps things grounded yet flowing, changing up the beat with accents and thunderous rolls that announce and spotlight dramatic moments; mixing soulful backbeats with the crashes and rumbles that occur in classical music and big band jazz.

Because he’s a blind musical genius who plays harmonica, saxophones and all manner of keyboards, he approaches the drums like any other musical instrument, giving it a voice - his voice - and playing with soaring musicality. Like many a classic soul song infused with the spirit of Black gospel, the Spinners’ weaving voices rise to the heights of musical heaven. Each step along the way the drums push, drive and support.

Stevie Wonder played drums in various styles of music, often mixing and matching elements of jazz, reggae, funk, soul and rock ‘n’ roll on this, and many other songs, doing what the the music calls for, yet with a personal voice.

Listen to any of his iconic records, like Talking Book and Innervisions, in particular. His drumming fits the songs in perfect and surprising ways that never calls attention to itself.

If you listen closely to his drumming, at some point you’ll say what I’ve said many times:

“This drummer, he’s not exactly normal, there’s something about this guy.”

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The first musical scene in the documentary Summer of Soul is Stevie Wonder performing - on the drums, doing a massive drum solo. When it comes to Stevie Wonder you think of the angelic voice, the songs that span generations, and his recording studio wizardry. But what you really ought to be thinking is “Whoa, that’s Stevie on the drums? He’s a monster!”

Read more