Todd Rundgren Interview

PHILLY ROCK LEGEND TO PLAY HAPPY VALLEY

By Don Bedell

Originally published in The Centre County Gazette, May 17, 2012

Rock and Roll legend Todd Rundgren, who is best known for hit songs like “Hello It’s Me,” “I Saw The Light,” “Can We Still Be Friends,” and “Love Is The Answer,” will make a tour stop in State College this month for a Memorial Day weekend performance at The State Theatre.

Todd Rundgren

Rundgren hails from Upper Darby, a Philadelphia suburb.  Inspired by groups like The Beatles, he started playing in bands in high school.  After graduation, while still in his late teens, Rundgren started the band The Nazz.  They gained some regional success and recorded the original version of Rundgren’s “Hello It’s Me.”  In 1969, he left the band to pursue a solo career.  Starting with 1970’s Runt, he released a succession of albums throughout the 1970s generating much radio airplay.  The name of his 1973 album, A Wizard, A True Star, soon became a moniker of the man himself.  As a multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, computer software developer, video music pioneer and record producer, Rundgren soon became known in the industry as a Rock ‘Wunderkind.” 

Never one to get too settled in any one style, in 1974, Rundgren started the progressive rock band Utopia, much to the surprise of many fans and others in the industry.  By 1977, Utopia became a four-piece band with Rundgren sharing the lead vocals and songwriting with the other members.

In addition to his solo and group work, Rundgren also became a well-known record producer working with artists such as Grand Funk Railroad, Patti Smith, Cheap Trick, Meatloaf, Hall and Oates, and XTC.

In the late 70s, Rundgren had already begun experimenting with the emerging genre of music video.  In 1981, the video for his song “Time Heals” became the second ever video played on MTV, immediately following “Video Killed The Radio Star.”

Rundgren now resides in Kilauea, Hawaii where he spoke by phone this week about the upcoming show in State College, his summer tour with a Beatle and his future plans.

CCG:  It’s great to have you playing here in State College.  I read on a message board that the last time you played State College was on Utopia’s Deface The Music tour (1980).  Do you remember the last time you played here?

TR: It's been quite awhile as far as I can remember.  I couldn't give you an exact date but it's been at least that long I think.

CCG: Maybe you played at Rec Hall?

TR:  I think we did.  And as I recall we had a bomb threat that night.  A fraternity was having a party and thought that we were competing with them.  So, in order to get people to their kegger, somebody phoned in a bomb threat.  (laughs)

CCG: You’ve had different themes with some of your past tours.  I read a review of a previous show on this tour that mentioned you referring to it as ‘a collection of songs that you would play if you took requests.’  What can we expect with the show here in State College?

TR: It's what we call the 'Performing Arts Center' show.  A Performing Arts Center usually has season ticket holders and what that means is that some percentage of the audience may have come to the show because they have a season ticket and not because they are your biggest fan.  So, some segment will be there out of curiosity, I guess and you have play a somewhat broader range of material instead of focusing, as I often do, on one or two most recent records.  And, of course, we have to do include what some people euphemistically refer to as my 'hits.' (laughs)  Of which, there are probably two or three.  We play some of the more familiar material so that those people who may not be up on whatever's been happening in recent years will find some entertainment, I think.

CCG: One of your original Utopia bandmates, Moogy Klingman, lost his battle with cancer in November of last year.  You did a Utopia reunion in January of 2011 in New York City as a benefit for Moogy.  Is that what inspired the reunion tour that happened last November?

TR: We hadn't really planned to do a tour the first time.  We were all sort of pleasantly surprised to the two shows we did in New York.  And that was sort of the basis for thinking about doing a tour.  At first, I wasn't really keen on the idea because nature didn't give us enough time to rehearse.  I had two flights in a row snowed out so I couldn't get from California to New York for rehearsals.  As it turned out, we had like one hurried, three or four-hour rehearsal the night before we played the benefit.  I didn't really want to go out and cobble something together half-heartedly and not commit enough rehearsal so that we could play at least in a manner that somewhat approached how we played back in the day.  So, it took us that long to find a window where we could accomplish those things.  By the time we did find that window in November, Moogy had become ill to the point that he couldn't travel anymore.  So, while we had originally planned to have the entire original membership, sans Roger Powell who has retired from touring, unfortunately Moogy's health deteriorated and he died before we got to the end of the tour.  But, he was sort of the catalyst for the band getting back together.  I don't know that the band would have performed just because somebody got it into their head.

CCG: In June, you’ll be a part of Ringo Starr’s All Star Band again for the first time in about 15 years.  Since you site The Beatles as a major influence on you and your career, what is it like for you to be alongside a Beatle when you tour with Ringo?

TR:  I've always said, 'If a Beatle calls, you must answer' (laughs) because of the debt that so many of us owe (to them).  A lot of us would not be in the music business, were it not for the formula that the Beatles perfected - this self-contained unit that wrote their own stuff and played all their own instruments.  Prior to that things were more focused on the lead singer and everyone else was kind of in the back up band and more or less replaceable. That whole formula caused thousands upon thousands of young teenage boys to imagine being in a band.  Fortunately for me, I had some aptitude at music and managed to stay in the business.  Me and probably everyone else standing on the stage with Ringo are realizing, 'Hey, I'd be a used car salesman right now were it not for the success of the Beatles.' (laughs) Ringo doesn't treat you any differently because you're not a Beatle.  He treats everyone with a great deal of respect and good humor.  He's alot of fun to be around.  He's always cracking jokes.  It's really a band for the brief period that we'll be touring.  We all travel together.  It's a real band.

CCG: Fans will get a chance to be up close and personal with you and other musicians at your “Todd Rundgren’s Musical Revival Camp” this summer at the Full Moon Resort in New York’s Catskills Mountains.  Can you share a little insight on what campers might experience if they attend?

TR: Last year, we did a really serious, educational clinic.  We had two sessions in the morning lead by experts in various fields like how to make a video for yourself and get it on YouTube, making costumes for the stage and seminars about songwriting.  While everyone had a good time, it was a little too 'egg-headed,’ I guess. (laughs)  We were spending too much time sitting in rooms listening to each other talk and not enough time in the great outdoors.  So, we've changed our format this year to focus more on camp activities and instead of having a whole cavalcade of experts come in, we will have one friend of mine who will be the guest of the day on each of the consecutive days.  For instance, Peter Buck of R.E.M. will be our special guest one day.  We'll do a little Q&A with him, but otherwise he'll just be hanging around like the rest of the campers and anyone can ask him a question or jam with him (laughs) if they so desire.

CCG:  Something that many might not know about you is that your son Rex is a professional baseball player, originally signed by the Florida Marlins organization in 2001.  He’s now a member of the Somerset Patriots of the Atlantic League.  Do you get to see some of his games when you’re on the road?

TR:  I usually make time to see him.  I'm heading out in two weeks to the East Coast in order to do a number of things including the gig in State College and I'll see a couple of games then.  Then, when I finish my tour at the end of July, I'll see a few more games.

CCG: You’ve always been out in front when it comes to technology when it comes to making music.  Nowadays, people can record an album on a laptop and upload the music to the internet.  How do you think that technology has helped, or even hurt, the art of making music?

TR: This is where the question starts...people think that technology as applied to making music is the more significant question.  But, personally, I think that the way that technology has enable people to experience and to collect music has changed more even than the ways that we make the music.  People have been making little records for themselves since the late 70s and early 80s with primitive sequencers and drum machines and that sort of thing, so we're pretty well down the line now with that.  But what is more significant is that since music started being delivered online and particularly into handheld or personal devices, people have for instance, stopped buying albums for the most part and have gone back to buying single songs.  That's a factor of the costs of downloading the whole album.  People have data plans and things like that so they don't think 'I'm gonna download this album and I'm gonna download that album.'  They're thinking more 'I like this song, I'll download that' and it won't affect my monthly data plan.  That seems to have a bigger effect, I think, than even technology in the process of making the music.  Although, the social networking that's come out of these devices an the internet is often how people find out about the music as opposed to from the radio or seeing the act on television.  That's the more significant thing.  And, that affects what kind of music gets made because people are thinking more that they have to have the 'song' not so much that they have to have the album.  And that's affected my business, for instance, as a producer.  It used to be that you and the artist had a somewhat close relationship for the duration of the entire album project and you were helping them develop a larger piece of work.  Nowadays, if you look at the credits on a lot of the songs that are popular, you'll see that they have 3 or 4 producers on each one of them and a different bunch of producers on every song on a album.  So, the whole objective, in some ways, of making music has gone back to like the 50s, when people bought more singles than they did LPs.  It's not something that means anything to today's audience since they never lived through the 50s. (laughs)  They never experienced that original transition when suddenly everyone started buying albums particularly around The Beatles.  The Beatles had such, what we all considered, a uniform quality of performance that you would buy the albums because, first of all, you liked all the songs on the album and second of all, The Beatles eventually evolved into a band that put out albums with no singles on them such as 'Sgt. Pepper' and would still be hugely popular.  So, when I was first getting into the business that was the objective.  You wanted to come up with your own 'Sgt. Pepper."  Nowadays, you just want to come up with a single that creates and online buzz.  In that sense, the concepts have become somewhat smaller, musically.

CCG: What's next?  Are you working on new material?

TR:  I am working on a new record although I haven't gotten down to the actual writing part of it.  But, I'm conceptualizing how I want to make it and what it's essentially about.  As the year goes on and some of this touring is completed, I'm going to be investing more and more time on getting that completed because I have to deliver it by the end of the year which is sort of unusual.  I don't usually have a record label that's expecting my work nowadays.  I usually come up with the record and then we go out and shop it to find someone to distribute it.  But we have a label that has enough enthusiasm and enough money (laughs) that they want to pay me up front for a record just like the good old days.  I'll deliver it by the end of this year and it will be out in early 2013.

Rundgren and his band, Jesse Gress (guitar), Kasim Sulton (bass), Prairie Prince (drums) and John Ferenzik (keyboards), perform at the State Theatre in Downtown State College on Sunday night, May 27^th.  The show begins at 7pm.  As of the writing of this article, there were still a limited number of tickets available for the show.

Robert Cray Interview

INTERVIEW WITH BLUES GUITAR LEGEND ROBERT CRAY

Originally appeared in the Centre County Gazette, March 2010

By Don Bedell

Blues guitarist and five-time Grammy Award winner Robert Cray, currently on tour in support of his latest release, This Time, will make a stop in State College on Monday evening (3/29) at the State Theatre.  This Time is Cray’s first studio album on his own label, Nozzle Records.

Cray was born in Columbus, Georgia in 1953 but admits that he wasn’t there long.  “My father was in the Army, so I was born in Columbus, but only lived there for eleven months,” Cray remembers.  After that, it was on to another Army base outside Tacoma, Washington followed by two to three year stays at various other bases including Munich, Germany and Virginia, eventually settling back in Washington state.  The continuous moving helped shape Cray’s early musical influences, “What we did then, was we bought a lot of records at the Post Exchange (on base).  Back in that day, my dad was listening to a lot of different music … Gospel music on Sundays, in particular, but people like Ray Charles and Sarah Vaughn and even B.B. King and John Lee Hooker records were at our house.  My mom was into people like Sam Cooke and Bobby Bland and Jackie Wilson.  So, as a young kid back in the early sixties, I heard all that music growing up.”

Back in the states in the mid-60s, Cray got his first guitar.  It was at that same time that “Beatlemania” began.  “I got a guitar and that’s what I wanted to do.  I wanted to be a Beatle.”  (laughs)  “I played everything that was on the radio which included everything – everything was mixed up on the radio back in those days so all the R&B and that stuff was on the radio as well.”  During his teen years, with the family now in Virginia, Cray started his first band playing everything from Sam & Dave to Jimi Hendrix. 

Cray onstage at The State Theatre.  (Photo by Don Bedell)

Once back in Washington state in his later teens, Cray had attended some rock festivals and discovered electric blues guitar players like Albert Collins and that’s what got him hooked.  What was it that eventually drew him in to electric guitar and the blues?  “It was just the emotion and I hadn’t really picked up on that kind of soloing, that kind of emotion in the guitar playing, the power in the guitar playing.  You know, as you get older you start to hear it.  Also, at the same time … it was the whole fantasy.  Here we were these teenage guys … playing through a Super Reverb (amplifier) with the reverb turned up and envisioning ourselves to be B.B. and Buddy and Albert Collins and Albert King and Freddie King … everybody.  But also there were these guys who had all these cool nicknames like Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf.  And there was also the story about Robert Johnson and his, so-called, association with the devil.  We were reading books and listening to these songs and we were trying to figure out these people’s lives and their worlds.  These people became heroes to me and my friends so we went at it with gusto!”

By 1969, Cray had met bassist Richard Cousins and the Robert Cray Band began playing in Tacoma area bars and eventually moving to the college town of Eugene, Oregon.  The band was asked to tour with one of Cray’s musical inspirations, Albert Collins, during Collins’ Pacific Northwest Tour.  During this time, Cray also met comedian/actor John Belushi who gave Cray a small part in Animal House.  Cray (uncredited) plays the bassist in the house band “Otis Day & The Nights” in the film.

By the late 70’s, the Robert Cray Band had attracted the attention of a record label leading to the 1980 debut release, Who’s Been Talkin’?

In 1983, Cray’s second album, Bad Influence, was released which lead to an eventual meeting with Eric Clapton.  Cray and Clapton remain friends today.  The band had been offered the opportunity to do some shows with Clapton’s band in Europe.  The first of those shows was at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland.  The man who ran the festival came up to Cray during sound check telling him that he had a copy of Clapton’s version of Cray’s song Bad Influence.  “I hadn’t met Eric yet and then Eric showed up … and we sat on the lip of the stage and chatted about the upcoming tour and we became friends.  After that, Eric started showing up at a lot of our gigs when we’d show up in London, he’d just pop in.  Over the years, we’ve had a lot of opportunities to tour with Eric.  We recorded together on the Journeyman record that he did.  We co-wrote the song Old Love together, which was great.  It’s been a good relationship over the years.   He’s a great guy.”

Cray saw his biggest mainstream success with the 1986 release of Strong Persuader.  The album spawned a #22 Billboard Hot 100 hit with “Smokin’ Gun.”  That album was back in the headlines recently over the current Health Care Reform debate.  Representative John Larson, a Democratic Congressman from Connecticut, referred to Cray’s album when hailing President Obama’s re-invigorated attitude in persuading Americans to help pass the Health Care Bill.  Appearing on Chris Matthews’ MSNBC show ‘Hardball,’ Congressman Larson, when asked about the effectiveness of the President’s speech at recent Town Hall meetings discussing prospects of the complicated bill responded ”I’m glad to see he (the President) has got it back…he’s into his Robert Cray mode... he’s a Strong Persuader.”  Cray was watching as it happened, “My wife and I were sitting having a late lunch watching the Chris Matthews show and we both looked at each other and did a double take and said ‘Did he say what we thought he said?’ And we started laughing.  That was kinda funny.  It was cool.”

Robert Cray plays Fender Stratocaster guitars.  A relationship that lead to his designing his own Fender Signature Series guitar.  Cray explains, “I got contacted by a guy at Fender named John Grunder.  He approached me and he said that ‘We’d like to work on a Custom Shop Model of yours – your own signature.”  That was around 1989.  At that time, Cray was playing a 1964 Strat and a 1958 Strat Sunburst.  The ’58 is the model featured on the cover of Cray’s Strong Persuader album.  “What we did is we got those two guitars together and we tried to work out a medium between the necks of the two some pick-ups for the guitar.  We probably got the guitar out about ’91.  More recently, we’ve added a less expensive model.  Fender’s been a joy to work with.”

Cray’s new release This Time is a bit of returning to his roots, of sorts.  The new album brought a reunion with one of Cray’s oldest friends, bassist Richard Cousins.  “At the end of 2008, it was time for a change and so I had been talking to Richard about coming back to the band.  When the tour (with his previous band) ended, I contacted Richard … and said ‘We’ve got to get a drummer,’ and he (Cousins) just said, ‘Tony!’”  Cousins was referring to Tony Braunagel, who Cray and Cousins had played with at a benefit show.  The new lineup, which includes Jim Pugh, Cray’s keyboardist since 1989, started rehearsals in December of 2008 to start a tour, but also to prepare to enter the studio in January of 2009.  “So, we rented this farm house and did like the old hippie days and just made music … and brought in songs and rehearsed.  It was great, we had a really good time.  (There was) a lot of good energy in the band having Richard back.  He and I work really well together.  It was fun.  It was almost like starting a new band.  There was really good energy in the studio and I think it comes out on the record.”

The new album was a real collaborative effort with all members of the band contributing new songs.  It even includes a song co-written by Cray and his wife, Sue Turner-Cray.  The song, Forever Goodbye, deals with recent losses that they have experienced.  “My wife, Sue and myself have written (together) in the past, but we shared the lyric (on Forever Goodbye) because of loss that both of us had over the years in her mom and one of my brothers.  So, we put that song together.”

Cray says that needs “space” when writing new material.  “I need to have my head cleared from being out on the road.  When I’m on the road, my concern is the road.  It’s different than other people.  I know people that get up in the morning, have their coffee and they’re writing.  I can’t do that.  I have to clear my head from the road for a little bit and then I can have my coffee and write. (laughs)  And then it’s for an immediate purpose.  It’s for a deadline to go into the studio.  I work best under pressure.  I got a nickname from my old producer, Dennis Walker.  It’s ‘Last Minute Bob.’  (laughs)  It’s an on-going process anyway.  Once you’re in the studio and you’re signing your lyric, you’ve got a pencil there and you can change them.  That’s always the case.”

The current tour started off this year doing legs of about 2 weeks at a time.  That continues until April when they head to Japan for a series of shows at “Blue Note” clubs in Tokyo and Nagaya.  Then, it’s back to the States including the Doheny Blues Festival in Dana Point, California and the Crossroads Guitar Festival in Chicago.  July will take the band “across the pond” for shows in Ireland, the U.K., Switzerland and Italy.  The tour concludes back in the U.S. in August and September.  “We look forward to that.  It’s going to be a pretty busy year.”

Jorma Kaukonen Interview

Guitar Legends Light up the stage in State College

By Don Bedell

(Originally appeared in the Centre County Gazette, January 2010)

Guitarists David Bromberg and Jorma Kaukonen brought their finger-picking style of blues and folk to the State Theatre stage on Wednesday night.  On a crisp cold night outside, the setting inside was warm and intimate.  It was a feeling of friends sitting around the living room playing traditional songs and telling stories as opposed to a typical concert setting.

David Bromberg was born in Philadelphia but grew up in Tarrytown, New York.  He began studying the guitar at the age of 13 after being inspired by the music of folk legends like Pete Seeger and the Weavers.  He attended Columbia University in the 1960s and studied guitar with Reverend Gary Davis.  He has played with musicians like Willie Nelson, Bob Dylan, Jerry Garcia and co-wrote a song with former Beatle George Harrison for Bromberg’s 1971 self-titled album.  He currently lives in Wilmington, Delaware where he owns a violin sales and repair shop.  He is a collector and historian of American violins.  He has played as a sideman on over 100 albums and has recorded nearly 20 albums of his own.

Jorma Kaukonen was born and raised in the Washington, D.C. area.  He developed a love for blues and bluegrass music.  While growing up, he met Jack Casady.  The two still play music together to this day.  After a break from college and travel overseas, Kaukonen moved to California.  He started taking classes again and taught guitar to earn money.  Soon, he was asked to join a new rock band, and he reluctantly agreed.  That new band became The Jefferson Airplane.  When the band was in need of a new bass player, Jorma called his old friend Jack Casady and invited him to move to San Francisco and join him in The Jefferson Airplane.  Jack and Jorma eventually started playing shows together as a duo following performances by the Airplane.  After 5 years with the band, Casady and Kaukonen decided to focus on their own band and Hot Tuna was born.  Hot Tuna has recorded more than two-dozen records and still tours to this day.  Kaukonen has also recorded more than a dozen solo albums.  His latest CD, released in 2009, is titled “River of Time.”  He is also an inductee in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland.

I spoke with Jorma Kaukonen prior to the show via telephone to discuss his career and the upcoming show in State College.

DB: Being in San Francisco in the 60s must have been incredible with all the music coming out of that area.  Can you shed a little light on what that environment was like back then?

JK: I moved out there in ’62 to go to school.  It was one of those synchronous places where there was lot of art of various sorts going on and that’s just how it was.  And, the cast of characters that have become iconic over the years were just “the guys.”  As history unfolded, of course, it became more than that.  It was a nurturing time if you were an artist.  Everybody was just encouraged to just do what they wanted to do and they weren’t graded as if they were on “American Idol” or something like that.

DB: I heard it referred to that you were all a group of “folkies” that started playing electric rock & roll music.  How did that transition happen?

JK: At the time, I was sort of like a “folk nazi.”  But we all loved rock-n-roll and, guys my age, we all grew up with it.  And, I think what happened was, when bands like The Byrds made that step – they went from being “folkies” into being a national rock act, I think a lot of us started looking at things a bit differently.  But there’s no question that we looked around and said, “Wow, we could be somebody.  We could be louder.”  And we were and we did.

DB: Last year was the 40^th Anniversary of Woodstock.  Of course, you performed at Woodstock with Jefferson Airplane.  Do you think we’ll ever see anything quite like that again?

JK: Probably not.  We have these conversations because there are questions in all of us.  I suspect not, because there was a confluence of cultural influences that came together in that time that made that happen.  It was the first gigantic festival.  Secondly, there was this “us-them” consciousness that I don’t think exists anymore.  There was the Vietnam War.  There was Civil  Rights.  There were all these things that were coming together.  So, my guess on that one is probably not.  But if they do have one and I’m alive, I hope they ask me to play!

DB: With all the tumultuous stories in the history of Rock & Roll, how do you and Jack Casady (Jorma’s bandmate in both Jefferson Airplane and Hot Tuna), someone whom you’ve know since childhood, still play music together today?

JK:  Jack and I have played together for 52 years this year.  He’s my oldest friend.  We’ve been friends for so long and no matter what has happened in our lives, we have always respected each other and I think that’s the secret for us.

DB: You own Fur Peace Ranch, a guitar camp in Southeast Ohio, which is an area that I personally know very well having lived in Athens County for about six years and going to school there. How did you come to start Fur Peach Ranch and please tell our readers exactly what you do at the Ranch?

JK: I truly just lucked in to moving to SE Ohio.  I’ve been there for almost 20 years now.  I had an old friend from years ago who called me back in 1989 and said, “I own this piece of property in Pomeroy, Ohio.”  And land was really cheap back then, so we bought this 119 acres.  I got to thinking that it would be fun to start a guitar school.  My wife did the stuff that I never would have done like get permits and design the buildings.  We have about 25 buildings now.  We have a 200 seat theatre and a local NPR radio show at Ohio University.  We’re open pretty much from March through November.  Our goal is to make the learning of the music to be un-intimidating.  We try to make it very user-friendly.

DB:  Your last album, “River of Time” (2009) features not only songs that you wrote, but songs from some of your musical influences like Rev. Gary Davis.  How do you go about choosing songs for your records at this point in your career?

JK:  On some level, it’s probably the same.  You start out writing songs and then you have songs that you’re playing that you love and you want to make space for all these things.  The Rev. Gary Davis has always been very important to me and I love doing his music.  I’m not a tunesmith.  I don’t crank out songs like some of my friends do.  Something’s got to be going on, you know?  I had a couple of good years so I was able to collect some good songs to put on this record.  I’m not one of these guys that goes into the studio with 20 songs and have to pare it down.  I go in pretty much with what I know we’re going to put on the record.

DB: The tour makes its’ way to State College on Wednesday night at 8pm at the State Theatre, Downtown.  David Bromberg will open and you will close the show for this date.  Do you do any songs together as well?

JK: David and I are old buddies.  We’ve played together since the early 80s.  And, it’s not really like anybody opening the show for somebody else.  At some of the place, he goes first.  Some of the places I go first.  Whoever’s going first plays 35 or 40 minutes and does their thing.  Towards the end of the set, we get together and do another 30 or 40 minutes together.  And, we do that for both sets.  So, we both get to do our thing by ourselves and we both get to play together in both sets.

DB: I’m looking forward to seeing the show in State College next week.

JK:  Well, listen stop by and say hello and we’ll give each other the secret Athens/Meigs County handshake.  (laughs)

Bromberg opened the show and went through a set of standards like “Delia” (explaining the story behind the song in the middle) and originals like his own “Watch Baby Fall.”

Near the end of his set, Kaukonen and accompanist Barry Mitteroff joined Bromberg on stage.  Mitteroff added mandolin and baritone ukulele to the mix.  In typical blues or bluegrass style, each song featured solos by all three musicians.

After a brief intermission, Kaukonen and Mitteroff took the stage and also went through a set of traditional songs and originals.  Kaukonen played the title track from his 2009 album “River of Time” which was one of the top folk songs of the year on NPR’s Folk Alley.  During Kaukonen’s set, Mitteroff reminisced about his days with the bluegrass band The Tony Trischka Band in the 1980’s playing in State College at HiWay Pizza.

The show concluded with Bromberg re-joining Kaukonen and Mitteroff.  A Bromberg-Kaukonen show would not be complete without them paying homage to one of their musical mentors, the Rev. Gary Davis.  They played his “Hesitation Blues” as part of the last set.

The musicians joked with the crowd throughout the night.  At one point, after Bromberg had explained that they don’t take requests and a member of the audience shouted out a song, Bromberg joked, “We were going to play that song next, but now that you’ve requested it, we’re not going to do it.”  When another member of the audience shouted out a request of Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit” (Kaukonen was a founding member of Jefferson Airplane), Mitteroff started playing the intro of the song on mandolin to which Kaukonen joked, “I think I’m having a flashback.”

Kaukonen said during his set that they are having “a lot of fun” on this tour with Bromberg.  That was clearly evident to the sold-out crowd Wednesday night at the State Theatre. 

A Good Use of Billboards

In future postings, I will go through the different media and share my thoughts on the best (and worst) uses for each medium.

I'll start with Billboards.

Billboards can be effective if used in the correct way.  I recently saw a perfect use for a billboard so I had to pull over and snap a picture of it.

I know everything I need to know from looking at this billboard.  If I was going to turn into the shopping plaza on the right and go to West Coast Video, I would clearly see the crazy kid on the billboard pointing to the other side of the street.  Then, I could read the line "Now Across The Street" and could now make a left hand turn into the plaza across the street to find the new location of my video store.

Clear, simple, direct, great photo.  That's how to use a billboard.

I won't embarrass any businesses by showing a poor use of billboards, but let me just put it this way.  If you look at your billboard design on an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of paper and think that it looks great, try this exercise...

Have someone take the sheet of paper and walk about 5 or 6 feet away from you.  Have them hold the paper down facing away from you.  Then, when you say "Go," have them hold up the paper to face you and count to 3 before turning the paper over again.

How much of that design did you see before the paper was turned over?

Keep in mind someone driving in their car only has a few seconds to see and react to your billboard.  If it has too much text and that text is too small, it's just a waste of money.

Then, you have to consider placement.  If the billboard is a "left hand read,"  (a billboard on the left hand side of the road) a driver is even less likely to comprehend your message.  Keep in mind, they have oncoming traffic to deal with and your billboard is on the other side of the road.

Keep it simple when it comes to billboards.  Directions are a perfect use for billboards ... "TURN LEFT AT NEXT LIGHT."  Brilliant.

Just don't let a design team come up with something that looks great when you're looking at it on paper just a few inches away from your eyes, that will just get lost in the crowd out on the road.

Product Placement ... in Commercials?

Have you seen the new "Super Fan Nation" commercial from Old Navy?

If you haven't, check it out.  And, when you're watching, pay close attention to the Auburn fan who shows up at the end with pizza.



Wow!  Product placement for Dominos within the Old Navy commercial!

It got me thinking about how this could be done locally.  Of course, the first thing you could do is go to the business next door and agree to promote each other in all your ads.  "ABC Hardware, located right next door to XYZ Furniture on Main Street, Downtown."  Followed by ... "XYZ Furniture, located right next door to ABC Hardware on Main Street, Downtown."

You could take it a step further in print, TV and on the web.  For restaurants, why not talk to your local furniture store and ask that they have a family sitting around that new dining room set with take out food from your restaurant?  You could agree to feed the staff once or twice a month to get the product placement in their ads.  Another way a restaurant could do this is offer a business lunch for the staff x times per month in order to be called the "Official Restaurant of ......."  Then, get the business to allow you to put up signs throughout their business to promote your restaurant.  Offer them a percentage off their meal by showing their store receipt from the store you partner with.

You need to stay top of mind any way you can.  These are some simple ways without spending the huge bucks that I'm sure Dominos did in order to keep your business top of mind even when someone isn't seeing or hearing one of YOUR commercials.

Does humility sell?

Have you seen the new GM TV commercial?  They use images of people failing, falling down, losing.  You see Popeye sinking to the bottom of the ocean.  Evil Knievel crashing after a big jump.  You see the boys from Delta Tau Chi in "Animal House" down after getting kicked out of school by Dean Wormer.  Then, you see these people pick themselves up, (Popeye eats his spinach, for example) dust themselves off and turn things around.


Finally, at the end the graphic says, "We all fall down.  Thank you for helping us get back up."

My first reaction was that I was impressed with their humility.  The bailout of the auto companies was obviously a very tenuous situation.  Some say that this message might have been too little, too late.


Regardless of how you feel about GM overall, I think that this was the right way to go.  Earlier ads had GM CEO Ed Whitacre boasting that they had paid back their loan ahead of schedule.  This claim wasn't exactly true and caused a bit of a backlash for some.  This ad doesn't talk about the bailout per se.  It doesn't boast.  It doesn't even sell product.  It just shows images that we are all familiar with.  Our familiarity with these images gives us a positive feeling because we know how all these scenarios play out.  We know that Truman defeated Dewey, not the other way around.


So, when we get to the end of the commercial, (which is a :60, by the way) it has a "tugging at the heart strings" effect when they simply say, "Thanks."


I'm surprised that I haven't seen this commercial used more -- especially in this season of Thanksgiving.


Sometimes you don't have to sell a product.  Remember, advertising is about creating an emotion.  People make purchases -- especially automobile purchases -- based on emotion.


Think about your business.  What are you thankful for?  How can you use humility to create a positive emotional experience for your current and potential customers?


Nobody feels good about buying from someone who pounds their chest and says their the best.


Try being humble and see how it works.

Can convenience be BAD for business?

I stopped to get gas the other day and almost fell over from amazement at what I saw at the gas pump.  Right there, on the left hand side of the pump was a slot to feed cash into the pump!  That's right...not just the ability to pay with a credit or debit card, but the opportunity to pay at the pump with CASH!!!

Of course, everybody knows that Convenience Stores don't make any money on the gasoline.  They make their money by selling the highly marked up candy, snacks, cigarettes and of course, fountain drinks!  So, why would you give someone the added "convenience" of using their cash at the pump and avoiding coming into the store?

I started thinking about all the things that have made our lives more convenient and wondering if they are actually hurting business.

Ray Kroc, who built the McDonalds empire, changed the way everyone does business with his famous line, "Do you want fries with that?"  We all know that the easiest person to sell is a current customer.  Once we have them, it's a lot easier to sell them again (and again).  But we have to ask and we have to create the opportunities to sell them.  Keeping them outside at the pump and not inside at the counter won't help to sell them anything else.  Kroc understood that once he had them at the counter buying a hamburger, he could sell them fries and a shake too.

Why do you think that furniture stores set up their showrooms in a zig-zag pattern throughout the store and put the customer service desk at the far back of the store?  It's simple...it forces you to walk through every display in the store, looking at items that you didn't intend on seeing when you just went in to make a payment or to ask a simple question.


What things do you use in the sales process that are "convenient," but not necessarily good for business?  How about e-mail?  e-mail is a very convenient way to communicate with our clients, but it's also an easy way for your client to say no or to avoid you entirely.  "I don't think I ever received that e-mail," is a real convenient way to dismiss you.  It's a lot harder for a business owner to say that they never received something when you actually went into their office, talked to them and handed a proposal to them.  Nothing will replace face-to-face contact ... EVER.  And if we continue to find ways to make things more convenient for our customers, we'll also lose more and more opportunites to sell them additional products and services. 
 
Bring you customers inside from the pumps and never lose the opportunity to ask, "Do you want fries with that?"