There I was, Camera 2 on a tripod mounted at Front of House. Instructed over my head com to push in with the lens and get a closer view of the electric guitar on the left side of the platform.
What a sound! The number 4 camera got a really nice shot and the director kept that shot on the side screens and lobby screens for a LONG time as Troy played the song. ..” I see creatures all around you, thunders and lightnings” of the Revelation song. It was loud, wicked and over the top” You could see troy with his famous grin, enjoying the worship with a heart filled with adoration. He was having too much fun.
The steam powered Bigsby bar sound coupled with a metal finger slide brought the house down and suddenly, there was a loud scream from the front of the room: “I’ve been washed!”
She was dancing and leaping about and kept her hand over her heart and security just stood there amazed, stunned and reassured that the Holy Spirit was in full force in the room and in them. A thousand people or more just filled with Joy they never experienced nor expected.
We got it all and the simulcast went all over the world. Things began to happen in England, Poland, Australia and other places too fast to type down off the internet feed. It was glorious. The room began a conga line up and down the aisles, laughing and enjoying the joy that spread throughout…everywhere. “Holy, Holy is the Lord God almighty” was heard six times every second around the world. The speed of light is like that. Fast.
There was a sea of glass in all skies, blazing and the man with eyes of fire replaced the sun and moon and called us to join him in rapture. Forever. It was pretty good! Norm Peterson / JackGator
Many thanks to Mitch Teemley for capturing the picture of the guitar
On through the midwest, avoiding Chicago. Touring to and fro. Coffee houses, clubs and university auditoriums with basketball courts.
Broken strings and lost flat picks. Hangnails from metal fingerpicks. Tuning in bathrooms.
Sweet harmonies with one another, appearing polished at the next gig. Rough working mens songs, love missed and lost, broken people and police cold metal racks and bars.
Canning workers in the far North West coast. Looking for women that a laborer can afford.
Poetry with country blues chords and the twang of a Dobro and Banjo dueling with one another as I tried to keep up with improvised keys and balky capos. Beautiful and these things understood by others that have travelled the D’ Adario paths. Poetry and country blues.
Sleeping on or in whatever was given. Green rooms with running water for the toilet and the good ones that had sinks. Now and then a real green room in the nicer venues.
Meals from the college cafes or with the student cafeteria on metal trays. Road food late at night on the highway to the next gig. Hot dogs on eternal greasy heated rollers and nicely wrapped things. Molten lava coffee or southern pop. Sweets that are in boxes of ten and small ones
aren’t on display. We didn’t need them either, they were icky and sticky and stale to boot.
Stopped by the highway patrol wary as they walked with unfastened pistol straps, out of state plates and a car full of musicians. Bright Mag lites through the windows on our sleepy faces.
Wallets with drivers licenses and enough cash to make it to the gas station and on to the next lucky town, waiting with baited breath for their music and stories.
Adventure, the time of our lives when that siren call pulls us to the Ionian sea for the horizon and it’s promise of interesting people and revelation of meaning to our lives.
I miss it or reminisce it as my left finger callouses fall away and I sit in my comfy living room chair. Praying for many things over my horizon that reveal real joy and eternal life. Life with listening and hearing. Harmonies from heaven this time. It’s pretty good. Norm/Jack
There it was, three sung notes that flooded memories and several dreams a few days later. The singer was featured as the closing song of a broadcast from Eagle Brook Church. It was Easter Sunday and I had seen the performance earlier in the week at my job at the Blaine campus.
At the Easter Sunday broadcast I was stunned by the song ‘Because He Lives’ sung at the closing. The woman singing was at a live performance I was at several years earlier. It was held at a new Eagle Brook campus in Downtown Minneapolis, close to Christmas. A Jazzy Christmas.
Eagle Brook church Minneapolis Campus
I was an usher at that time and I requested to pray for the music team and the production crew. I stated by telling them that this concert is the Magna Carta of one of the attending people maybe all of them! Looking upon these teams sitting in the seats in front of the stage I began to do a simple prayer that our Lord would guide them to shine out His glory to those people. Especially the ones that were going to be moved in their spirit for the first time in their lives.
After all, it was billed as Jazzy and that is a draw for a lot of music fans. And it was in the big city. It felt good and right to pray for them. At that time I was on the prayer team at the main campus in Lino lakes. Obviously, I love to pray. Anywhere, anytime Jesus tells me to do so.
At the end of that concert, I went up to the third floor balcony to see if the sound was as good as I expected it to be. I listened through the open door and an usher asked me if I would like to have a seat. I hesitated and he said there was one seat and I went in to see that seat. It was right where I sat before with a perfect view and a young woman scooted over so I sat at the very end of the pew that overlooked the whole room. The sound was magnificent and well done.
I was overcome with tears at one of the last songs as it was the song at another concert years before at a church near our home. (that I was reluctant to attend that night) that instantly sank into me at that time and I was convinced that Jesus created all things and me.Mary did you know is the song. “ Mary did you know those tiny hands flung the stars into the sky?” Yes I knew it was so. I always wondered how the universe came about. The big bang didn’t make sense. The song was spoken by one of the choir members and his face was directly facing me.
I have never been the same since. I understand now that is called a testimonial moment.
There I was at this Jazzy concert, years later, crying and holding my hands as high as I can, worshiping Jesus. The woman sitting next to me offered a Kleenex as she was weeping too. I got up to leave and thought I had caught her in my Pendelton shirt somehow and looked down to my left and she was holding my elbow. She said: “ My Father died on this date last year and I felt he was sitting next to me now” I did not know what to say and smiled and said “thank you!” as I left to help distribute hot cocoa to the crowd that was leaving.
I went down soon afterwards, the cocoa volunteers had everything under control, so I walked down to the stage as the crew was taking things down and I told the singers what had happened. Angie and T, just sat down on the stage, folded up in a way, and I thanked them for doing so well that night.
A few weeks later at the pre-service huddle at Lino Lakes, by Front of house booth I saw T there and again thanked her for her being there at the jazzy concert and singing that beautiful song. She said, “The whole concert was for you and what happened there” I did not know what to say. It was another moment I have never forgotten.
This year when I saw her sing at that simulcast I knew it was her. She had been through a lot of physical medical issues that were shown to us before that last song in a short video. I listened closely.
It was her. Those last three notes of the song she sang were almost similar in pitch and spirit as that concert three years ago. Operatic and powerful. I hardly moved off of my chair when the broadcast was over and the room began to mingle and talk. Chatting was impossible for me. Even afterwards when we all ate a wonderful prime rib dinner prepared by one of the members of that group, Dale, I could not speak. What would I say?
I dreamed about it that night and the next and decided to write this column. It’s a Very personal experience and tenderly unforgettable. One of the most significant things I have been gifted with by Jesus. His gifts are like that often, unexpected, perfect and beautiful.
It would seem like a natural event. Developing a friendship with someone that attracts your attention. Usual things. “It is not a reward for our discriminating and good taste”A. As usual, these things occur as a chosen event.
Examining friends of my past, I wonder about these things. What was it about Bruce for example that brought us together? Being the only veterans at an after hours beer joint?
It seemed so at the beginning when I offered him a shabby room to ‘crash’ where I lived in the other shabby room. A run down neighborhood on the wrong side of the tracks. A dump really. Bruce drove a really nice Austin Healy and I had my grandfathers old Buick. Ah yes, it was that both of us played guitar! You would think so, I did.
We both had things to teach one another and that was not obvious to either of us. It seems to me he had more to teach me but that isn’t the point at all. Neither of us had a clue about what to do with our lives and how to do it. Wine, women and song had been tried and found wanting.
Laughing a lot with the ‘Park Lanes” he smuggled in from Viet Nam in his stereo. We played music and found jobs with a third rate mobster that knew we had nothing to loose and had made our bones in the military. He spent six months at China Beach recovering from a near miss and I spent six months at hard labor paying for another near miss in Spain. Blown out of the military and we were brothers almost instantly. “you too! I thought I was the only one”B.
We traded the two cars for motorcycles and headed out on the highway, lookin’ for adventure. The song by Steppenwolf fit perfectly. We indeed, were born to be wild. We listened to that record along with Cream and other early metal music. Those songs were the ones that Bruce played while he drove through the ‘viles’ in Vietnam. Top volume on a loudspeaker on the roof of his 6×6. He would stop and show movies as part of the Psyops program while I was across the world in a top secret room getting messages from the CNO about our little war.
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Big guns and missiles, or automatic weapons and people that were the unfriendly kind. Take your pick, no choice really.
My columns ‘motorcycle pilgrimage’ have the details but what is more amazing is the arranged coincidences that enabled Bruce and I to meet and listen to one another.
We had adventure, whatever came and that was at the same time that Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper acted in Easy Rider. 1968. Bikes with kick starters and sleeping bags. Our guitars strapped on ‘sissy bars’. Not custom choppers like the movie, just an old Enfield and a BMW.
Death threats, lost highways off of route 66, Angels appearing and a Senator in the desert. Adventure we went on willingly, not the adventures we had in the military. We were in control and that is another great illusion of life.As music itself touches us in the deep parts, timeless music that goes beyond the spoken word or even the words of a song, the arrangement of the eternal music draws us closer to life.
All of our lives are parts in the everlasting orchestra and the conductor has set us for His pleasure in the first chair. Chosen by Him.
Bruce was and is my closest friend. And still is as time streams by so fast. He died years ago and I did not even know he was ill. That happens a lot to me. There is so much I do not know about these things. Why am I the survivor? It would seem many wondrous things have since come about, and I write about the blessings and struggles of life that we all know.
The conductor and author of the grand symphony has the score and we watch and pray as he once again, raises His baton and puts life before us. We indeed, are His instruments of the beauty we get a view of now and then. The love and hatred, losses and treasures. Pain and health all allowed and known on that narrow, beautiful road we all walk. It’s pretty good. Norm
A.& B. C.S. LewisThe problem of Pain
Bruce and his wife Cindy with me at their home in Minneapolis
It began in high school and the young physics students made friends. I was the teachers pet. I had all the math classes aced Solid, Trig, Quadratics and so on. I would stay after class and tidy up all the Bunsen burners and the testing equipment. One of the students, Don, stayed after with me and we began the friendship process geek to geek. Neither of us were on the any teams in sports or forensics or even knew any cheerleaders. Just a couple of guys interested in electronics.
My teacher, Miss Bertie, had the entire class come over to my house and see my ham radio setup. My rig was in my bedroom and the thrill of having one of the cheerleaders sitting on my bed while I explained and demonstrated the rig was a touchstone that lasted for a while.
Don was there too and he was hooked. I gave him his novice exam because I was licensed to do so and he got on the air too and soon had his general class license. He had a friend at another high school a little south of us and the three of us began to get serious about amateur radio. Especially the part about having cheerleaders sitting enthralled on my bed. One time deal though
The three of us started to be pretty good friends and their parents were pleased with our choices of classmates. I started to hang out with my new friends, Don and Loren and we all hung out at Loren’s place as his dad was a drummer in a Dixieland band that played downtown at Brady’s bar. We were allowed to stand in the back of the room and listen and watch Loren’s dad, Lloyd play with band that had a stage above the bar. Smokey and loud and our first taste of adults at play. We were not anywhere near 21 but we got free cokes and nods of approval.
The band was called the “Lloyd George Quintet” They were good. It was tough on Loren’s dad as he was a hemophiliac and his position as drummer was not a low impact one.
The patrons really liked the Quintet and there were always drinks handed up from the bar from appreciate listeners. A lot of drinks. The music flowed on for hours along with the booze.
We would pick Lloyd up after his gig, load the drums and pour Lloyd in the back seat and take him home. We had a big Plymouth with a bass drum in the back seat and we began ‘fronting’ down west Broadway and acting cool at the Clock drive in. Our ‘band’ was nonexistent but we already had a name ready. “the Fables” that’s what we were, a fabulous fable with ham radio geeks eating fries and burgers with all the looks of admiration we fantasized. My friends formed the band later but I was far away then. Loren was, of course, the drummer.
We had a little club every Friday night on air and would get together at 8 o’clock sharp on the ten meter band on AM (amplitude modulation..voice) and chat. I would lie on my sanctified bed and pull a string hooked up to my send and receive switch and lie down with my mic in my hand. It was about as geeky three guys get. We called our gathering “the fish net” This was what passed for our entertainment in the late fifties of the last century. Pretty swell eh?
The last time we met was when I was on liberty before my next duty station overseas as a radio operator. We watched the infamous Minneapolis tornadoes march across the sky south to north around 1965. My friends were still in college and exempt from the draft. The big Buick convertible of my mothers was rocking as we watched those tornadoes. The heavy Buick began to sway back and forth as we were up on a hill on memorial drive.
It was time to leave the danger zone and I drove home. They avoided serving in the danger zone in the military and stayed in college. And we all moved on. I was saved by God several times afterwards and Would like to share that with them today, but my letters go unanswered.
I am Puzzled. 73’s to you. 88’s to the cheerleader too.
Jack Gator K0JMV
P.S. Praise the Lord for pleasant and humorous memories and the miracles of life we are blessed with!
My second commercial airplane ride took me to San Diego for the second time in my life.
The first time was as a 17 year old representative of Fashion Curtain Company in Traverse City Michigan. This time I was bused to recruit depot at Camp Nimitz and met with a big Marine Gunny that became my new focus in life. The usual hair buzz cut and a lot of shouting and insults. Pukes, trainees, moms boys, etc. A lot of it was true and we shaped up fast. Fire watches, endless screaming and shouting and a little manhandling. Men that know basic training
can recall those things. Mostly with laughter and even fondness for finally some direction in our lives that actually changed us. With a laugh the gunny told me I got my draft notice in the mail
We trained on board the USS Recruit with many things a ship has to offer. Ladders, hatches, fire drills. Rope, line and small stuff for knot tying and spring lines and lanyards. Lots of knots. This was important stuff for us later on in life as well. How to tie your laundry on lines with small stuff, how to slide down a ‘ladder’ (stairs) on the rails. It was neat except for all the physical training and endless marching. Left, right, left right..pick it up! Those drill sergeants ran up walls and do more push ups than there were possible. And leap and clap their hands after coming up. We were wimps.
Suddenly, there was a call for musicians and singers! The Navy Choir need some guys that could sing and march and take orders well. I stepped forward (NEVER step forward to volunteer!) the choir director was from the Mormon Tabernacle and knew his stuff. “Sing these notes” In or out and sometimes got praise. There were 10 of us in the Blue Jackets Choir. I remember their faces I remember them and where some of them went afterwards. ‘Father Flanagan in the back row went on to Pensacola to be a Navel Aviator, things like that. I am in the front row 2nd from right. We sang ‘For those in Peril on the Sea’ the Navy anthem and the National anthem along with several classical church songs on Sunday at the officers services. Marching in parades and more boot camp stuff to go with it. We had our dress blues already and there were quite a few puzzled men in our class that could not understand why an E6 was in training with them (1st class petty officer with three red stripes and a ‘crow’ on my sleeve) would just answer that I was recruit education officer which was true in a way.
I skated through boot and was assigned to A school on base for training to be a radioman. Not to New London for Submarine training! I wanted to be a nuclear technician as a career choice but my color vision was inadequate and I wore glasses. Recruiter lied to me. A common procedure, after all, the draft was full bore and I did not want to go to Viet Nam under the national draft. As I mentioned, I was drafted in boot camp and just missed the chance to be discharged early and come home with a flag over me.
The Lord of my life was unfolding His plan and I had no idea that was happening. The hymns we sang in the choir were beautiful and that planted small seeds of wonder. Much later in my life I heard His voice save me from death and to say it was extraordinary is not enough. It was a miracle.
So after basic training I went to A school right there at the camp and I was turned into a teacher at radio school. My ham radio license paid off and I was given liberty every weekend and I realized soon that this was the best duty station I would have from then on. I was free to visit my ‘sister’ during the weekends and you can read about it in “A sister from Laguna Beach” here at Gatorsgracenotes.com.
It’s complex but it makes sense if you look at the end result. Everyone has seen those controls where music or vocal amplification is used. In small rooms or huge auditoriums there is a place where a technician operates the sound and sets it so that it can be heard well. It is a learning curve to get it right so everyone can hear well. On stage included. In big rooms there is a booth that is called front of house. Many control panels for the lights and screens and video as well.
Mistakes are made seldom but one of the worst ones is called feedback. You may have heard that screeching sound that in the sound controllers humor is called a sound engineers solo. People in the audience swivel their heads and look back instinctively to the sound booth. Oops. Turn a knob or push down the volume or even mute the microphone that could be causing that. It is technically called a sound loop where the speakers are feeding their output into the mikes.
There are two controls that can be set wrongly to cause this. Gain and output. Makes sense. What is coming in or what is going out. This is what happens when in a conversation between two or more people goes awry. We don’t really notice it except when feedback occurs and two people are talking at the same time. Confusing and a mess to comprehend. This is usually caused by us thinking of something to say about what is being said and just blurting it out. Very rude and mostly not thought of as such by the speakers involved. Mostly, not always.
I have noticed the same mistake when I am alone with my thoughts! I interfere with what I am observing or hearing and put my own spin into the experience. When I ask our Lord a question and He gives me His response, I get impatient and say to myself what I anticipate he will say. Staying silent and listening can be developed but it takes a bit of awareness about my anxiety. I am learning to listen to people who speak to me and listen alone. You know how to do this. The facial expressions, nodding and smiling result from communication. A brief flash of your car lights when a tractor-trailer is passing is sometimes returned with a brief flash of his rear running lights. Thank you for paying attention is the message. Now it’s your turn to travel along the road knowing that others are listening to you and your acknowledgment of them. Gain is good for clarity. It’s output that needs attention. Watch, listen and pray. Turn down your output and turn up the gain. It’s pretty good. Jack Gator
It’s a real easy thing to do with music, if you play that is. If you play in front of people. A hushed room, listening to every key change, every high tempo from the kick drum. Listening when the whole outfit stops playing and just sings Capella. Most everyone in the band knows their parts and if the sound engineer knows their stuff, the band knows what everyone else is doing at any one time. Applause if you do it right and stay in key. Play off key, just surround it with friendly melody and no one will ever know the mistake. 1,.
The problem begins when you have a ‘gig’ (music world for job to play) and are really not in the mood, tired and just beating yourself up about the gestalt of performance. It’s a huge step to exclusively change from playing every two bit bar within driving range, and change to playing for a worship group or band. After a short while, the change to Holy music from Holly music seems to be harder, much harder. Holy means touching eternity and it’s pretty good!
There is a fallback when you have to play and would rather not. You put your musical skills on the line and play in Georgia Overdrive. Put everything in neutral and just coast. It sounds good but you know it doesn’t sound like anything. Just making the moves. Waiting for a touch from the numinous Lord, waiting to hear ‘those’ notes.
As the joke goes, “it’s OK if you like music” It’s a subtle and yet extremely powerful touch or kiss that thrills musicians. Sometimes you can tell with an ensemble when someone transcends all the sharts and flaps and begins to really play or sing. Rhythm surprises were a favorite fallback for me. I was nicknamed ‘the rhythm monster’ by a square dance group I played with for years. The changed notes or rhythm,they catch attention and start an interest. It can be compared to a flicker of light at sunset in the clouds.
Focus on an unknown algorithm that begins the solving of the connection to the conductor of the music. You can feel Him listening and watching what the Holy music is saying to Him. His delight in the formula found to draw near is palpable.
It’s more than just performing for the Holy one, Jesus. It starts with performance at the outset. Akin to handling a blueprint and ‘playing’ with it. A musical intonation that isn’t too complicated but intriguing. A few fumbled chord changes and the groove is coming into focus. Do your part you hear, it’s just made for you to play.
Use the blueprint to get to the right foundation of the music building and ‘look around’ at the other musical carpenters. They are waiting for the moment too. Suddenly, unexpectedly, a harmonic sounds and two instruments play it together. Improvisation rather than notes on a page. Primitive and not very professional but fun. It’s easier to play jazz if you don’t worry about it. Just play what shows up in your spirit and be delighted when it gets picked up.
Noted gypsy guitar player a generation or so ago, Django Rheinhart was asked what key he wanted to play in. He responded. “Key? What is Key?” Gifted beyond comprehension when he played with Stephan Grapelli on violin. If you can get a vinyl recording of these sessions, hang on to it. It’s worth a bundle. Vinyl, it’s the closest thing to actually being there.
Play well and play with heart and spirit giving you the rhythm and scale of things., It’s pretty good.
Jack gators grace notes 