singer/songwriter - Don Everett Pearce - Archives

New "Blog" Page

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Because I was able to add a new "Blog" page to this site, with its very bloggable format including comments section and RSS feed, this former News page page will now be reserved for all the older posts and news items that take too dang long to transfer over to the new page.

Growing Up in Encinitas, California

Sun, 06 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Last weekend my wife and I drove down to my old hometown of Encinitas, CA. Our last visit was only two years before but I’m still sort of culture-shocked each time I see the old place. I end up saying, over and over again, things like “I can’t believe all the people here!” and “it didn’t used to be like this!”

Yes, the sleepy little beach town of my youth has grown into some kind of yoga, pilates, massage, meditation, food & shopping destination for tourists and locals alike. Luxury vehicles prowl for parking space along the blocks of Highway 101 between D street and Swami’s temple as crowds stand waiting for sidewalk tables at the restaurants. This is the kind of future for Encinitas that was hard to foresee twenty years ago.

Encinitas in 1995 (Hwy 101 at E Street)

When I was growing up, downtown Encinitas was kinda shabby & empty. It was shabby & empty in a good way, though. No pretension, no gaudy displays of wealth. You had your liquor store, laundromat, saloon, guitar store, auto repair place, run-down old theater (La Paloma), a couple restaurants, an ice cream place, a dairy, a couple surf shops, a car wash, a gas station or two, a carpet store, a bike store and not much more. That might sound like a lot, but it was all very mellow.

It was a locals-only haven and the people who lived there and hung out there were mostly working-class types, surfers, artists and hippies. During the 70s and 80s, most of the newcomers, and particularly those with money, settled miles away in the canyons and hills way east of Interstate 5 in new housing tracts called La Costa, Village Park & Rancho-whatever. A bumper sticker of the time read “There is no life east of I-5.”

My parents moved to the area in 1971 and eventually settled us just barely east of I-5 in the hills near Batiquitos Lagoon. That was the cultural middle-ground between the beach neighborhoods along Highway 101 and those clean new suburbs in the back country.

When I was a kid, we used to go downtown for the occasional movie at La Paloma (which had these funky bed-like seats in the outside sections along the walls), or for ice cream at the Roxy when it was just a little ice cream place.

When I was in high school, the block of 101 between D & E streets was the closest thing we had to any kind of urban grit. The saloon, the liquor store and the laundromat on the west side of 101 were frequented by some of the harder-livin’ types. Lou’s Records arrived (at its original location) some time in the early 80s and brought with it some of that goth/punk new-wave style that was so fresh at the time. The people who worked there dressed in black, had dyed, spikey hair and facial piercings long before any of that stuff was standard youth fashion. To a 15-year old with his polo shirts and feathered hair, these older kids at Lou’s were cool beyond reach.

Between Lou’s Records and Blue Ridge Guitars I now had a reason to go downtown as often as I could. I’d ride my bike the 3 miles from my house down to Lou’s and pick up new LPs whenever my meager Wendy’s paycheck would allow it. I bought mostly Clash, Pretenders & U2 records at that time.

One of the first times I saw a real punk rocker it was a tall, skinny guy with a Mohawk and combat boots walking away down the alley between 101 and the railroad tracks. It was just this little snapshot of some kind of defiant individualism and swagger that made an impression at the time.

I stayed in North San Diego County probably a little longer than I should have before leaving for good in 1997. During my last couple years there, I spent quite a bit of time in Encinitas’ downtown strip. The coffeehouses Naked Bean (now Surfdog's Java Hut) and 25 East E (now demolished) were pretty good places to play gigs and to hang out with friends. I bought most of my clothes at Thrifty Threads and at the other place across the street that I can’t remember the name of.

I’m glad to see old Encinitas thriving and not just surviving. What’s reassuring for someone like me is to see how so many of the longtime businesses have survived the transition from shabby to chic and must be doing better business than ever now with all the crowds.

I could never live there again because I’ve been away for long enough that it’s just not mine anymore. As disorienting as it is to see the way it’s changed, I’m just glad it’s still there for other people to enjoy.

Dad's Records (How I Learned to Listen to Music)

Sun, 21 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

My dad is sitting in the well-worn, green-upholstered chair in the living room next to the stereo cabinet. His eyes are closed and the latest Jackson Browne album, The Pretender, is thumping loudly out of two speakers suspended from the ceiling on opposite sides of the fireplace. He’s got shoulder-length dark brown wavy hair and a California tan.

It’s 1976, or maybe ’77, and I’m 8 or 9 years old. While I’m aware that my dad is enjoying his music, I am where I prefer to be; in my own bedroom with my own stereo system. It’s a Fisher Price turntable with speakers made of blue and black plastic and I’m sitting on a basketball in the middle of the floor listening to the latest KISS album, Destroyer, and looking over the artwork on the record jacket.

Different scenes, but really it’s just the son emulating the father. Engaged listening. Paying attention while the music plays.

Schooled in Lyrics

At this point in my life I had about 6 records in my collection; a couple of Elvis, one Elton John, two of Shaun Cassidy and one of Donny Osmond. My dad had maybe 50 or 60 records, but back then I was only really aware of his two favorite artists; Jackson Browne and Stevie Wonder.

If I happened to be in the living room while my dad was listening to his music, I might get a little education about what was going on in the lyrics. When Jackson sang “I’m gonna be a happy idiot and struggle for the legal tender,” it was explained to me that ”˜legal tender’ meant money. Hm”¦so he’s talking about struggling for money. I got that. Though my own struggles for the legal tender were still years off, it made some sense to me at the time anyway.

While KISS was cranking out killer guitar riffs and peddling lame sexual metaphors that were over my head at the time and that I took literally instead (see, I thought “Rocket Ride” was about space travel and I thought a “Love Gun” was a firearm), Jackson Browne was dealing in some really heavy, powerful stuff. I learned by way of explanation from Dad that “Sleep’s Dark and Silent Gate” was a metaphor for death and that the song was written about his wife who had committed suicide (“Sometimes I lie awake at night and wonder where my life will lead me, waiting to pass under sleep’s dark and silent gate”). Whoa, slow down, Dad. I’m only 9 years old!

Around this same time, Stevie Wonder had just released Songs in the Key of Life and that record got played a lot in our house. “Village Ghetto Land” painted a picture of a world that I didn’t have to experience firsthand, growing up near the beach in California. “Isn’t She Lovely” wasn’t about a lover, it was about his newborn baby. There were songs about brotherly love, ethnic pride and even God. Big, big stuff.

Sound Quality

My dad’s records didn’t just need to have good lyrics, they had to sound good, too. His home stereo system was carefully assembled from some of the best components that a working man’s wage could buy at the time. Some of the parts he even put together himself. Stereo Review magazine used to rate new albums on their sound quality as well as their artistry and he used the magazine as a guide to what was out there and what to check out. The culture of hi-fi home stereo enthusiasts was alive and well in the mid 70s when music was still recorded on tape and the compact disc didn’t yet exist. Songs in the Key of Life was state of the art in 1977 and it sounded great. It still sounds great today.

Expanding my Musical Horizons

Over the years, as I got older and I’d managed to “expand my musical horizons” beyond KISS (as my father had sagely advised me to do), and as my own LP collection of rock, punk and reggae grew about as fast as my Wendy’s paycheck would allow (I didn’t buy my first cd until sometime in the mid-90s), I’d occasionally go through my dad’s records just to see what I might come to like since I’d last checked. The records were stored on the bottom shelf of the stereo cabinet with the spines facing out so you could browse without having to touch and flip every album. I could dig a little Eric Clapton and Pink Floyd, Atlanta Rhythm Section and Fleetwood Mac were alright, BB King was cool and Joni Mitchell was intense.

These Days

Today I have a cd collection of several hundred and there are certain albums that I will always see as Dad’s records because that’s where I got to know them first. Van Morrison's Common One, Joni Mitchell's Hissing of Summer Lawns, Willie Nelson's Red Headed Stranger, Sonny Terry & Brownie McGee's Sonny & Terry and Donny Hathaway's LIVE, in addition to all of Stevie Wonder’s & Jackson Browne’s 70s work. In fact, even the sound of Jackson Browne’s voice carries in it for me kind of fatherly resonance.

A few years ago my dad told me how he’s tried repeatedly to get rid of certain records that he’s had for years and years but never listens to, only to change his mind and keep them. What happens is that he pulls an album out of the collection, looks at the cover, and then realizes that just looking at the cover is an experience in itself and it brings back memories in the same way that a photograph does. So then he just puts it back”¦never intending to listen to it, only intending to keep it around.

Coffee Songs vs. Whiskey Songs

Sun, 17 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

In my last post several weeks ago, I said that I would explore the subject of “coffee songs” vs. “whiskey songs” as it relates to playing a bar gig vs. a coffeehouse gig.

Without really thinking it through, I thought it would make for an interesting post.

After a couple of attempts at a draft, I soon realized that I was finding a very long-winded and overly analytical way of saying, “I think that some types of songs work better in bars than they do in coffeehouses.”

Well, duh.

So here is a much shorter exploration of the topic.

What I think of as “whiskey songs” seem to come up through the blues, jazz and country traditions. What all these traditions have in common is the tendency to celebrate the euphoric pleasures of life and to also unflinchingly plunge the depths of despair & dysfunction. These styles of music can really ride the emotional roller coaster of the human experience. Good times, bad times. Somehow it just seems right to have a drink in hand for either eventuality, doesn’t it?

“Coffee songs,” on the other hand, I tend to think of as going back to the 1930s with the topical folk songs of Woody Guthrie and the like. Labor songs, workers’ songs, fighting-for-your-rights songs were more emotionally restrained and more even-keel than blues, country or jazz. They had to be. How can you organize against the big boss man for your right to be paid a decent wage if you’re falling down drunk and moanin’ over your own inner demons all the time? Or if you’re out there falling in love and getting lost in romance? No, sir, you can’t. Standing on the picket line and busting the heads of scabs and getting your own head busted by goons requires clear focus!

As every fan of the folksinger/troubadour tradition knows, Woody Guthrie begat Bob Dylan and so it’s no wonder that a young Bob Dylan’s earnest musical stance against all forms of injustice, hypocrisy and stupidity found fertile ground in the early 60s beatnik coffeehouse scene of Greenwich Village.

To the dismay of many a politically-minded folk purist, that young Bob Dylan would very soon discover that he was really, really good at making “weed music” and he would go on to make some of the best, most poetic and spectacularly imaginative weed music ever made.

note: there will be no future post from me on the ins-and-outs of weed music. 1) I lack the first-hand ”˜expertise’ and 2) almost all styles of music have been influenced by pot in one way or another, for better or for worse.

Googie's show last Thursday

Sun, 29 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Googie’s Lounge show last Thursday took place on a rainy night. I just get lucky that way, it seems when I go back to play in New York. Out of the last 4 times I played a show in NYC, 3 of them ended up being rainy nights. It always makes me worry that people won’t show up. Thankfully, my worries have been unfounded.

Thanks so much to all who came out to Googie’s and made it a nice time. It was my first time playing for an audience since 2007 and my first show since releasing The Last Dive in Town. A rainy night in New York with friends is a great way to get my stage legs back again.

Just booked a show in Redondo Beach at the Welcome Cafe. This will be my first in the LA area since God knows when. I’m looking forward to it more than I expected. I think it’s because it’s a coffeehouse gig as opposed to a bar gig. I started out playing coffeehouses in San Diego and I think my excitement has something to do with being able to get a little break from what I call the “whiskey songs” and play a set that’s made up more of “coffee songs”. More on that little cultural nuance in a later post.

Watching the Regulars (Lunch at KJ’s Diner)

Thu, 26 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0800

A diner connected to a bowling alley. A place I’ve driven by about a hundred times on my way to other things.

It’s a small, corner room with oversized windows along two walls, providing lots of natural light. The décor is black & white, with a checkerboard counter.

There’s a decent lunchtime crowd and I’m sitting at a booth across the table from a friend, catching up on things. An elderly woman in a wheelchair greets her waitress with a “hello, Dear” and a kiss on the cheek. This atmosphere is calming and the coffee is perfect.

An old man in a black straw fedora with a much younger man (his grandson perhaps?) sits down at a dirty table by the door and stares expectantly toward a staff who has not yet seen fit to acknowledge his party. That’s the unmistakable look of a customer who wants attention. It’s a standoff that can’t last too long. And it doesn’t.

“Can we get a goddamn busboy over here!?” the old man wheezes with the effort of a shout as the young man smiles nervously.

A waitress promptly approaches. She’s tall and blonde, a hardened forty-something. “Now, you be quiet!” she scolds.

“What the hell is wrong with you people?” says the old man. A grin cracks on his face and then breaks out into a full smile.

So this is their little game. I wonder how many times this scene has been played out here.

My friend sees that I’m distracted and I apologize. I’m new here, and I’m just watching the regulars.

The New Album is Here!

Fri, 06 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0800

I've been predicting the imminent release of this album, The Last Dive in Town, for well over a year now, while the actual completion of it kept slipping off into the horizon.

But, at last, the final physical product is in hand and will be going up for sale on cdbaby within a couple of weeks.

It started out in 2006 in a rather spur-of-the-moment fashion with the band and me putting a few songs down "live" in the studio.

Overdubs were added, new acoustic songs were recorded and I had to learn a lot of new technical stuff along the way in order to get it done and, boy, am I glad it's done.

Of course it's my best record yet (the last one always is, isn't it?) and I want to thank everyone who played a role, especially the musicians; Steve Antonakos, Chris Benelli, Tony Tino, Ryan Williams, Neil Thomas, Whynot Jansveld, Craig Ferguson & Chris Tedesco.

Burrito Run (walking at night)

Thu, 01 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

I forgot what it's like to go walking at night
On the sidewalk between lit-up storefronts
and the headlights of cars swishing past

Guys shoot pool and shout in a Christmas light-strewn neighborhood dive bar
while women shop at Salvation Army and at the Goodwill on the next block
They stand in line, clothes draped over their arms
They glance out toward the street
maybe just catching their own reflections in the glass for a moment
while I look in on a quick walk past
I read somwhere that business is up this year at the Goodwills and such
The liquor store man attempts repair on a weathered banner

My destination tonight is El Indio Tortilla Factory
My mission, my purpose, is a chile relleno burrito for myself
and a chicken quesadilla for the missuz
I shall walk back home with the goods
feeling free and wondering why I don't do this sort of thing more often,
this walking at night

(Dec. 30, 2008)

Another One Bites the Dust

Thu, 11 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

They disappear before you ever really notice them. I'm talking about houses. Simple little one-story family homes that have been sitting where they sat for 40, 50, 60 or 70 years on lots double the size of the homes themselves. Evidence that once upon a time in Southern California it was considered something of value to have a real yard.

So a couple weeks ago I was taking a walk in the neighborhood when I saw the signs of imminent doom on one particular house: the head-high chain link fence with a green tarp surrounding the property. A few days later, the house was gone completely. Nothing but churned earth and a single backhoe parked on the lot. Now, just this last week, they're already marking the perimeter of the new thing that's going up there. The new thing that's sure to be just like like all the other new things going up in this neighborhood over the last few years. It's the great Spanish McMansion, The faux-Tuscan plastic townhouse, those golden/sand-colored, clay tile-roofed behemoths that have been taking over the town. There will be no yard, but there will be a shiney new Lexus in a shiney, basin-like driveway for sure.

Now, this latest old house that I mourn was nothing special, I have to admit. It was the last house on that particular block on that particular side of the street. An off-white/ grayish stucco dwelling sandwiched between the 1970s-era mini-motel-style apartment building on one side and the back wall of the Albertson's supermarket on the other side. I seem to remember a Chevy El Camino parked in the driveway. I think it was brown.

Other houses that I've seen go down recently had similar characteristics; they were smaller than the lots on which they sat, they were not beautiful or even particularly well maintained, and didn't draw attention to themselves.

I think it's that last characteristic that makes me mourn their demise. They didn't draw attention to themselves. They were humble, unpretentious. They reminded me of the Southern California neighborhood I grew up in, where nobody made a show of their financial status and where luxury was having a front lawn for your kids to run and play on and a back yard for your dog to run and crap in.

That was then and this is now. It's a whole new culture that's coming up in these here parts, and I feel more like my grandfather all the time. (Everett Pearce circa 1980: "These kids today....they gotta have their dope and their rock and roll")

I'll let you what kind of status-symbol vehicle I see parked in the driveway a couple months from now when they finish the thing.

The Times They are A-Ruinin' My Breakfast

Tue, 11 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0800

I put a kettle on the stove this morning and went to the cd shelves to find something to put on the stereo. I was getting ready to work on more layout ideas for my album cover, and as is usual for morning music choices, I was looking for something mellow and unobtrusive. I was in the mood for something sparse, slow and austere.

I glanced over the usual suspects; Dave Alvin, Kris Kristofferson, Patty Griffin, Mississippi John Hurt, Nick Drake”¦.hm”¦

Ah, Bob Dylan! Early, early, Bob Dylan. The Times They are A-Changin’, his third album (1964) and the last of his original purist folky period, just before his music started to show the tell-tale signs of reefer madness (and then got a lot more interesting, in my opinion). Now that’s a bare-bones & stark collection of songs if ever there was one. I haven’t listened to that one in a long time.

I put it on and heard the first few seconds of that acoustic guitar strum and felt something”¦wrong, suspect”¦then came his voice, “Come gather ”˜round people, wherever you roam” and instantly I saw a grandfatherly old man jogging down a suburban street”¦and then the logo: Kaiser Permanente.

Dammit. This is how they kill us. Ever so slowly sucking the soul out of our culture.

I know, it’s very 80s and quaint to be bothered by the phenomenon of great artists selling out their cultural capital to TV commercials. This argument is pretty much considered over and Madison Avenue is clearly victorious (vik-ËˆtÅr-Ä“-É™s Secret no less!)

It’s not just the words and the melody of the songs that make the commercials sink deep into your brain and form a lasting image. it’s the sonic texture, the feel of that particular original recording as it’s been known for decades. If some knock-off band just sang the same song it wouldn’t do so much damage.

If a lesser-known or struggling artist licenses a song to a corporation it’s totally understandable. Some good friends of mine have done it and, whadya know, they don’t have to have day jobs anymore. What’s more difficult to understand is why a legendary career artist who’s already set for life and worth millions would do it. The pressure to sell, and the cash sums, must be incredible for that kind of cultural credibility.

But isn’t it ironic, doncha think, that the moment the artist uses his credibility for a commercial is the very moment that credibility is shot.

Hats off to Neil Young and to Tom Waits, to name only two, for resisting the pressure and thereby probably making their publishing and/or record labels hate them for passing up millions of dollars for doing nothing. As far as I know, their catalogs remain “pure” and I can safely play their music at home without seeing corporate logos dancing in my head.