“- The Kid: I ain’t got time for your b——t, Billy. What do you want?
– Billy: This stage is no place for your personal s–t, man!
– The Kid: That’s life, man.
– Billy: Life, my ass, m———-r! This is a business, and you too far gone to see that yet! I told you before, you’re not packin’ them in like you used to. No one digs your music but yourself.”

The above quote is from the movie PURPLE RAIN. Everyone pretty much knows the story about Prince being The Kid and being blown away by Morris Day and The Time yet fails to do anything about it until he writes the song “Purple Rain” (along with Lisa and Wendy). I obviously edited the curse words.

So why did I post this?

I played the first of four shows with Supernova last night at Black River Barn. This was my fourth time (or fifth?) playing with them and last night’s show was amazing! The band sounded great, firing on all cylinders, the crowd were dancing and pointing at me whenever I did funny noises on the guitar. Did songs ranging from Metallica to Queen to Zach Brown Band, even KC & The Sunshine Band. And you know what?

It was all about entertaining the crowd.

Did I finally wake up and see the light?

I have a lot of pride in myself as a musician. But as I said in a previous blog, musicianship alone does not and never will sell music. Songs do, and people have to feel the music, whether it’s a dance number or a ballad. Yes I get to indulge some of my delusional guitar god licks here and there but while I was receiving very nice compliments, it was more important to hear the BAND sounded great. And that everyone were boppin’ around all night.

Did I just say boppin’? Lord help me.

By no means, am I putting away my creativity. If anything, it’s strong. Yet let’s be honest…nobody wants to hear anything from me lately, and I’m learning to accept that. While it was nice to hear “Wow you can really play” and “I love your guitar tone”, I drove home last night thinking “People smiled. That’s what my job is, to make people smile.”

Hard to smile while listening to crazy instrumental metal.

But still I will do that, even if it’s for one more album.

Hence the quote above when the club owner Billy tells The Kid that nobody likes his music but himself. As artists, we have to be proud of our work. Or else, why are we doing it? Some musicians/performers write purely for money, and while I don’t subscribe to that, I get it. I won’t write what I call Hallmark Card music. When I write something, it’s from my aging black heart. If others like it, even better. But I stopped expecting people to dig what I do. Nobody’s going to say “Dude, because of you, I stopped listening to (insert generic band).

Never going to happen. Ever.

Strangely enough, when I was asked to do “Eruption” by Eddie Van Halen, people were digging it. Interesting, really. Same people liked the ray-gun sound I did in Billy Idol’s “Rebel Yell” or that I “nailed” the guitar tones for “Anyway You Want It” by Journey.

*My friend Deb noticed some George Benson licks I did in one song. Can’t sneak anything past her LOL!

All told, the night was a great success in so many ways. The hour drive there and back, the load-in/load-out, and living on four hours sleep right now was worth it.

We do it again this coming Friday October 18 at Mrs. Riley’s Public House in High Bridge, NJ.

I’ve lived in NJ for almost 55 years and am hearing of places for the first time.

This old dog learns new tricks.

Let’s see…four shows this month with Supernova. Another on November 10 in NYC for TM Stevens tribute. I can sleep afterwards, right?

Not on life’s watch (hence the image above)

Received a text last week from singer Alana Quartuccio, asking if Rock Hard could be available for a November 16th gig. Myself, along with bassist Tom Tsilionis and drummer James Bruno said “We’re in”.

It’s for a 40th high school reunion in Rockaway, NJ.

Just when I think there are no other options open for me…

Needless to say, we will be playing only songs from the 80s as most of the set is tailored like that anyway. Might have to add a few more but the guy hosting the event is a huge fan of Rainbow! So I shall brush up my Ritchie Blackmore chops (and get my revenge on being teased in middle school for liking the band). Am sure we will honor songs that were hits in 1984 too.

No this isn’t anyone in the band’s high school reunion. We have no clue who these people are, and that will be the fun part. It will be held at a place called Adam’s Beer Garden (and I don’t drink!!!) So expect the unexpected, as I always say.

I will have a break the weekend of November 2nd…my 55th birthday!! And then back to fumbling around various towns in my titanium tour bus.

I just realized something though: this year I graduated 8th grade…FORTY FRIGGIN’ YEARS AGO?!

Get me my walker…

Last blog, I said I wasn’t ready for this.

Now it’s your turn.

I’ve been going over the songs for the four Supernova gigs, as well as the tribute concert for TM Stevens. An epiphany hit me (when doesn’t one?!) while working on songs by Jimmy Eat World, Oasis, Van Halen, Zach Brown, as well as the TM tunes:

Musicianship in and of itself does not sell.

HUH?

Yes you read that right. Read it again.

If people bought music purely based on talent, Yngwie Malmsteen would be in the top 10 every week. Steve Vai would be as household a name as Post Malone. Yes I am painfully aware of sounding like Rick Beato but facts are facts. SONGS SELL, not talent. Why did this thought enter my brain?

I went to a local show last Friday night and met up with some friends. As usual, I hear things like “You’re SO good/talented” and while it’s nice, it doesn’t really mean anything in the grand scheme of things. I have a lot of pride in who I am and what I’ve accomplished. My guitar playing is very good, and it’s only improving thanks to the many students that keep me on my toes. But again, NOBODY CARES how well you or I play.

Sad but true.

They THINK they care but in all actuality, they want to see a band go through the motions, play the hits like the album, and be careful not to ruin awkward high school memories. This is why cover/tribute bands are all the rage. All about memories. Period. You will hear things like “Close your eyes, you’d swear you were watching AC/DC” or whatever. Even with original bands, they are too busy imitating instead of emulating. It’s tough to be original but being unique doesn’t hurt.

Maybe?

I won’t bite the hand that’s feeding me. When a cover band wants my talents, and I’m available, I will step in. I will stick as close to the recording as possible but my style will kick in. One guy even said to me a while back that “You changed a bit of ‘Eruption’, not sure if I like that.” Oh I played it a bit faster…oops! My bad!

I will let it happen again.

With the TM songs, I am going over the songs during my tenure with the band between 2012-2014. Still waiting word on if/when rehearsals are happening, as I’ve not played these songs since 2014. Thankfully I remember a bulk of the songs. Doesn’t hurt to go over them here at home though. Preparation is key. Songs like “Supernatural” and “Turn Me On”…man those are still fun to play!! Challenging as hell but I’m ready!

Here’s the rub: TM was (and still is, to my ears) one of the best bassists in the world. He never truly scaled the heights of other legendary bassists but when people find out he is on such songs as “Unchain My Heart” by Joe Cocker, “Don’t Get Me Wrong” by Pretenders, or “Living In America” by James Brown, they say “THAT WAS HIM!!?!?” He was also in the Whitney Houston video for “So Emotional” and Steve Vai’s “Deep Down Into The Pain”. For someone who had a wild image and an even wilder playing style, he flew under some radars over the years.

Meanwhile Nikki Sixx gets all the love.

Again, not about being a stellar player. All about the songs.

I write cool songs. Always said that. My songs will never rival the Beatles or Led Zeppelin. But I write catchy stuff. And yet “You need a singer.” I proved that I don’t. I’m trapped in a world where nostalgia rules the day. I don’t remind anyone of their past. And today’s generation could care less about what I do.

So I think people are happier when I do someone else’s material.

Wish granted.

Well from the “I didn’t see this coming” file…

I received a text from bassist Anthony Buono of the cover band Supernova. He said that his guitarist Frank will be sidelined with shoulder surgery, and would I be into helping the band with some shows. I said “Sure, why not!”

Four shows in October?!

My “tour” is back on track, apparently.

Last time I played with this band was back in March this year (!) at Sparta Lanes, and that was one of the most fun shows I ever played. I always have a good time with this band. Anthony, drummer Christian Miller, and singer/guitarist Michael McCormick are pros, enjoy what they do, and like when I make bad noises on my guitar for a few hours too.

My main focus is obviously the TM Stevens benefit show, and the band understands that. Fortunately I have a decent-enough opening in my window to do these four shows. I am still waiting word on rehearsals for the Shocka Zooloo band, so when they ring my phone, I am dropping everything. So for now, these shows in October are rock-solid.

I wasn’t ready for this.

Guess I will be starting October 11.

Let’s rock!

Tickets for the TM Stevens benefit/tribute concert will finally go on sale today 4pm through Cutting Room website only!!!

$50 for GA, $75 for VIP. All proceeds will go towards the TM Stevens Music Scholarship Fund.

The show will be on Sunday November 10, doors open 5pm. Appearing in order: Stanley Jordan (jazz/fusion guitarist extraordinaire), Living Colour (need I say more?) and surviving members of Shocka Zooloo band, featuring myself on guitar and drummer TC Tolliver. Other musicians to be named soon.

I am super confident that this will be a tremendous send-off for one of the best bass players in the world.

Period.

I am typing this on a Saturday night so that it will be posted this coming Tuesday September 17th.

So I’m from the future.

Tickets for the upcoming TM Stevens benefit concert at The Cutting Room were supposed to go on sale September 12. But whatever the reason, that didn’t happen. So now, I received word from Jan that they will be ready on Friday September 20th.

I do have to clear the air about something though.

It is very nice to hear some of you say “Wow, you’re playing a show with your heroes”, referring to Living Colour. Yes it is very humbling but as I have said, and will keep saying, THIS SHOW IS NOT ABOUT ME. If I was opening for Colour in a different forum, yes then I can run around and brag my head off about it. But in this case, this is a night for and about TM. Period.

It’s great to hear such kind words but this is not a career move, as a couple of people have said. “This could be your big break.” NO! This is not about moving up the food chain, being seen by record labels, whatever. My ship sailed a while back and that’s okay. I am more relaxed with playing guitar, as I no longer feel the need to impress people.

This opportunity came up and of course I seized it. This is about paying homage to someone who was a friend for 30 years. Sadly the last few years of our friendship were mired with dementia, but who knew at the time? I was upset for a while at him, not going to lie there. I forgave him in my mind when TC told me the news about the dementia. It would behoove me to think “Yeah well, he still said hurtful things.” Dementia is cruel for everyone. After watching the special about Glen Campbell, I understood it better.

If some of you still insist this is my dream gig, my time to be a guitar god, fine. I know in my mind and my heart that those are not the cases at all. Am I proud to be sharing a stage with Colour? Absolutely. That’s as far as I go.

Now to relearn TM songs I’d not touched since 2014. Which, incidentally, around this time ten years ago, I did the one and so far only tour ever, and it was with TM and TC. Everything comes full circle.

I hope to make TM proud.

Former Yes/King Crimson drummer Bill Bruford said something to the effect of showing admirable restraint when listening to a song and it didn’t need anything. So he sat there and still got paid for it.

I had to show a LOT of restraint since July 9!!!!

On that particular day, I received a phone call from promoter Jan Greiner (I am friends with her son Bryan). She said she was doing a tribute concert for TM Stevens at The Cutting Room in NYC on Sunday November 10. I said “That’s great!” And then she added “You’re playing with whomever we can get from Shocka Zooloo (TM’s band over the years) as well as…Stanley Jordan and Living Colour!”

Yeah my face dropped big-time.

I was told to not say one word but I was bursting at the seams here. Granted, while sharing the stage with Living Colour has always been a HUGE dream of mine, this show is NOT about me or anyone else. It’s about the life, work, and legacy of TM. And since he fully believed in music education, all the proceeds will go towards that. Period.

Jan mentioned this back in May when we attended TM’s funeral. So while I admit that I thought “Wow sounds cool” and moved on with my life, hearing her say “It’s happening” and that I’m playing is just…holy moly! I only played a handful of shows with TM but what a ride it was!!! So to be part of this send-off is tremendous.

More ticket info will follow soon but SAVE THE DATE!!! NOVEMBER 10 Doors open 5pm, show starts at 6!

And the next day is a holiday!

Typing this on August 31 at 2:53pm, so you will see this tomorrow September 1st.

I’m from the future!

The year is 3/4 gone and as we all say in unison: “THIS WENT FAST!” The summer especially sped by like it was caught robbing a bank. For me personally, the first few months of this year were honestly a pain in the ass. Slow and croaking along, felt like there was no end in sight. But once Memorial Day weekend hit, my life just went ZOOM!

Actually played some real live gigs! Mother of all things holy…I strapped on a piece of wood with strings, made noise and a few bucks too. While it’s okay playing cover songs (I still say cover bands are way more cut-throat than original ones), I want to get back to doing my own music. But not so fast, Sparky…

I will never lie to anyone: my confidence was shattered real bad due to the lack of warmth surrounding my last cd. I was proud of it, and can still be, but I equate “albums sold” with “good stuff”. Not so. There are moments on that album where I can say “That was some cool shit” but other parts, no. Some of you may say or think “You’re being too critical” and you’d be right. But I tried a bit too hard to write super-heavy music and it didn’t click well with people. I own up to my errors and am hoping to right the wrongs.

But as I always opine, I can’t and won’t force things to happen. A few blogs back, I expressed interest in trying my hand at a funk/fusion thing, and while I had some decent ideas, my black heart still wants things heavy. Doesn’t always have to mean gobs of distortion. More about conviction and attitude. If I don’t feel it, why play it? A funk riff here and there is cool, but too much of it can be monotonous. I still enjoy the new Cory Wong album but to do a WHOLE album like that? It wouldn’t work for me. Maybe more fusion elements? Yeah I can do those. But again…if there’s no balls behind it, what’s the point? There’s plenty of room-temperature artists out there.

You spot ’em, okay?

And while I won’t make any stellar predictions at all, I do feel a change is coming. What it is, I have no clue. Could be a false alarm and I continue my life as a basement dweller surrounded by guitars, amps, and cats. Or the muse might say “Okay Bello, you did your penance, here’s your reward.”

I’m pretty friggin’ deep for a metal player, huh?

Or am I not metal enough?

I simply don’t care anymore.

I write and play MUSIC.

Period.

I never set out to be an instrumental artist. It all happened purely by accident via my Ibanez endorsement 21 years ago. I used to do instrumental demos in the hopes of finding a big-named band but who knew that it would ultimately by my so-called career?

Certainly not me.

When I would play in bands during my awkward high school and college years, my dad would tell me “Ditch the singer, go instrumental.” I would say “Well, you need a frontman to get noticed, get signed” and all that. I always had this inability to work with singers. I can blame myself because I am stubborn and want the attention. Some singers were damn near difficult to be around and work with (or work FOR, depending on how they over-estimated themselves). But still, if I wanted to make it, I had to be in a band with a vocalist.

Or so I thought.

After I did the first album TWISTED METAL in 2003, a funny thing happened. It got nice press. People said they liked it, but added things like “It’s kinda weird”. What else is new, right? Did I think I would do a second album, a third, etc, up to a ninth?

Certainly not me.

As a teenager, I was sucked into the whole Yngwie Malmsteen thing and it was easy to see why. Then I bought albums by other instrumental artists and ultimately thought “Where are the songs?” I can see why some people can’t dig instrumentals but it was all the rage in the 80s with Shrapnel Records.

Know what’s weird? I wasn’t crazy about most of those albums on that label. Boring as toast for the most part.

However…

Upon hearing Joe Satriani’s SURFING WITH THE ALIEN, I thought “Now there’s songs along with crazy guitar work!” Of course, another benchmark called PASSION AND WARFARE by Steve Vai, who was once a student of Satriani’s, really spun my head around. Still never thought I could be an instrumental artist.

I check out instrumental albums on YouTube and honestly, nothing grabs me. Some things are cool but again, if I can’t tap my foot to it, or do the slow mile-wide headbang, forget it. I am a fan of Steve Steven’s MEMORY CRASH album. Two songs have vocals but overall, the album has really incredible guitar work! And the tunes are cool!

So will I ever have vocals on a song? Probably not, unless Freddie Mercury or Ronnie James Dio come back from their graves.

Maybe if Mike Patton isn’t busy…or Corey Glover.

I don’t have that kind of money though.

So I stick to doing instrumentals.

How do you love something that never loved you back? Easy…you don’t argue, don’t over-explain, just walk away and close the door.

That’s exactly what I did after the failure of my latest cd.

Also, not being accepted by the gatekeeping metal world forced me to re-think things. Do I still love heavy music? Absolutely. It’s in my DNA. But after years of hearing “I hate when you do that” and “Can’t you write something normal?”, it’s time to give up the ghost. Like Ricky Nelson once sang, “Can’t please everyone so you gotta please yourself.”

Been listening to Cory Wong/Vulfpeck, Mark Lettieri, High Fade and other funky acts as of late. Maybe it’s the pompous ass in me thinking “Yeah that’s where I belong” but my gut instinct is telling me “Yeah, that’s where you fit.” Even when I write heavy stuff, it has a swing and groove to it. As much as I love Iron Maiden and Slayer, I take my cues more from Living Colour and fusion acts like Tony Williams Lifetime and mid-70s Jeff Beck.

I’m not going to say I’m a funk expert at all. I cut my teeth in a funk-metal band in 1990, as well as my own music since 2003. Though some have told me “I don’t really hear funk in your music”, it’s there. Once in a while I throw in a Jimmy Nolan funk lick, or a Prince vibe. Oh and I played with TM Stevens, who seriously educated me. I thought I was funky then.

Nowhere close.

Will I go pure funk? Probably not. I still need doses of metal distortion in my diet. I could easily do a radical 180 and throw people way off-axis. (OH THAT WOULD BE SO MUCH FUN!) But I think my days of wanting to melt faces are over. I want to see smiling faces, people dancing, not just stand there and think “I hope he covers Metallica poorly.”

As I listen to this new Cory Wong album STARSHIP SYNCOPATION, I am taken aback by the purity of the guitar tones as well as the overt 70s disco/funk/R&B vibes. High Fade is a power trio (hmmm…) that has a guitarist who can turn his phrases on a dime (another hmmm…) Of course, when I chuck on Living Colour, that to me speaks volumes. Hearing them back in 1988 sent me over the edge, got me thinking “THIS is for me!” I said the same thing about thrash metal early on but I wasn’t cool enough to hang with the metal crowd even in high school.

Idiots.

So where is the music taking me? Right now, I am in NO rush at all to do anything. I have been writing a lot of demos since last September (even before my last cd came out…go figure) but listening to them now, they sound so trite and angry. I don’t like that. I have no problem tearing everything apart and starting over again. I’ve done it before. And sometimes the results were better. I have to do what’s in my heart, and if doing more funky music is the way to go, then fine.

There are plenty of metal bands doing it better than me anyway.

Too much competition anyway.

Still not cutting my hair though 🙂