Youtube daily Follow Sep 5 2017

- [Radio announcer 1] The music industry no longer controls

the distribution of its own product.

- [Radio announcer 2] Fans had always paid for music.

Now they could get it for free.

- [Man] If you're selling water in the desert

and it starts to rain,

you might consider a different business.

- [Woman reporter] 2013 saw a 51% jump in usage

of streaming sites, but still saw a decline

in global music revenue of 1.5 billion dollars.

- [Narrator] For me, being a success in music wasn't

always about recording,

then exchanging money for listens.

It was about movement, progression,

and telling stories from the heart.

From a live performance,

the hope is to give someone a slice of life

and a strong lasting memory.

Now if you could do that, you're a success.

- [Man] Last year more than half the music

acquired in the US was not paid for.

- [Man] The majority of my music is

pretty much illegally downloaded.

- [Man] The Institute for Policy Innovation

estimates that piracy causes huge losses

to the US economy.

Talkin' about 12 and a half billion dollars

and 70,000 jobs when you add it all together.

People don't buy albums anymore.

- [Man] Yes.

- [Man] People buy songs,

and that changes the dynamic in terms of

how you produce music, how you market music.

- [Narrator] Now music has evolved from the stage

to albums and to a few fleeting digits

on a computer screen,

leaving thousands of out-of-work musicians in its wake.

- [Man] For a lot of kids,

if it's free, it's not stealing.

- [Young Man] A lot of my friends did the same thing.

We just don't buy music.

We just, we'll share it with each other.

You know, check out this band, download it,

and if we like it, we'll go to a concert.

That's how we pay the artist.

- [Narrator] They've become like warriors without a master

in an over-saturated market.

Taking up jobs and other responsibilities

out of necessity.

Forced to squeeze in some playing time

whenever they can.

Some have given up.

Some have moved on.

But others are still out there,

fighting and following what's deep inside.

(rock music)

(phone ringing)

- Our download speed is .65.

Our upload speed is 10 megabytes.

It will just limp along at slow Internet speeds and,

and ah, I'll go see...

Okay, sorry, I thought when I was forwarded to you

and I called the network service tech--

Great, I'm ready to rec, great.

Give me the number.

(laughing)

So are you gonna do anything?

Nope.

What's the number?

One minute. (laughing)

I don't even know, ah.

Every day's a diamond, man.

Some week's it's tough.

During my day job I do some IT

and I do research for a brokerage firm.

They'll be some mornings where I'll go in,

help somebody fix their computer,

and then I'll attend a private equity meeting

about genetically improved and redesigned pigs

and what that means to the Chinese market.

And pretend like I know what the fuck

they're talking about.

And then pick up my kid in high school.

How was it?

- It was good. Can I drive?

Yes!

Absolutely.

- Right on.

I have a son.

I have a 15-year-old son.

How's your homework situation tonight?

- [Jake] Not too bad.

I only have--

- Oh, heads up, heads up, heads up.

Watch out for the bike.

(soft instrumental music)

You didn't kill us.

I'm so happy.

Get him home, put a hamburger in his face.

Then I'll change strings on my guitar

and load up the gear.

Packin' it up.

Often I have to load, unload five times in a week.

Five gigs a week, sometimes two a day.

And look at this, it's like Tetris.

And I'm off playing at a club where you drive

three hours, you get there and you set it all up,

now go.

Have to be on and entertain people,

and meanwhile you're trying to sell

one of your CDs,

and then some drunk asshole comes up

and asks me to sing Beyonce and he's fucking serious.

(laughing)

Yeah, that's a grind.

Now it's work.

♪ Ooh, yeah, yeah, yeah

I thank you.

(applause)

(soft instrumental music)

(muffled music in background)

♪ I'll buy you a diamond ring my friend

♪ If it make me feel all right

♪ I gotta feel the love

- [Narrator] Bob Dylan once said a man is a success

if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night,

and in-between he does what he wants to do.

♪ I'm gonna shine like a diamond

- [Narrator] But it's not that easy.

♪ I'm a diamond in the rough.

- [Narrator] It's hard to keep fighting

to do what you love.

Most people in this world that I've met

do what someone else wants them to do

and they complained about it along the way.

Very few people measure up to Dylan's words.

My new friend, George McKelvey,

former Soul Asylum sideman,

is one of those rare cases.

He's known what he loves to do

even at an early age.

(acoustic guitar music)

(upbeat horn music)

- [George] This house used to be home to the Ellicksons.

Jane Ellickson was a great piano teacher,

but she was a very linear piano teacher,

which didn't really jive.

And I think I was just whippin' rocks down the street,

and I winged one,

and man, I shattered it.

That used to be a full picture window.

Freaked her out.

But it's one of those things like,

did I mean to do that?

Maybe I had a mean streak like Doug Galinski,

who stabbed me with a butter knife.

(evil laughter)

- [Narrator] So what's the success that Bob Dylan

was talking about?

As a former musician turned TV producer,

I wanted to find out.

♪ Everyday is a diamond

♪ Never want a single one to end

- [Narrator] So George McKelvey from Burnsville, Minnesota

became my case study.

♪ As long as I can call you

♪ Crazy enough to call on you, my friend

- It's something I often say sarcastically.

Usually when I say every day's a diamond,

it's a pretty good catch all.

Not only is it a positive thing,

but it catches people off guard

and every day is a blessing.

You get to follow your passion

and do what you love to do.

- [Narrator] When I met George,

I knew he was different.

I liked him right away, though.

He was a ball of nervous energy.

But his pleasant manner, wit,

and middle American sensibilities

kept me at ease.

That being said, I found that beneath his sarcasm

there was still something boiling deep inside.

- George's personality can be a bull in a China shop,

and it can be sweet as flowers.

- George is a very sweet,

very smart guy.

But there's a switch that can flip sometimes

where he's got a chip on his shoulder.

- Yeah, we've had some pretty good blowouts.

I might be more or less talk about it

and hug it out.

He might be more like, I'm right.

Let me tell ya how I'm right. (chuckles)

- And he's infuriating.

I love him, but (chuckles) he's...

but I love hitting the stage with him every night.

He's a trip.

- He is kind of a lone wolf at times.

Like band leader makes the set list

and says what we're playin'.

And there's been times in that band

where I've seen him decide we're gonna do something else.

And you go with it and you follow,

and it may not go so well.

And you're like, well, that didn't work, you know.

But there's been other occasions

when the lone wolf goes off and it can be

music in its purest form because you

don't know what's happening.

And it'll work great and you'll be like,

man, that was the right call.

You know. This night was kind of flat.

Now look what happened when he did that.

- I've been watching George for years

and years and years.

And he'll be playing in the background,

and next thing you know,

once he starts up, he turns heads,

and people focus in on what he's doing.

- It all kind of radiates from his rhythm.

He's just a deeply, funky player.

Like a serious pocket.

And whenever I play with him,

I feel like I can kind of sit in his pocket

while we're playing.

He's phenomenal.

- That's a bass player term.

It's everybody's concern when you're

a professional musician.

You want someone who's got a rhythmic sense to him.

They gotta be in the pocket, you know?

He's solid.

- [Narrator] As a sideman,

George is always playing to make the frontman shine.

And he's good at it.

He's diverse, easily adapting to last minute changes,

and able to support his fellow conspirators on stage.

He has a dedicated in the pocket rhythm

that often becomes the cornerstone

to each song he performs.

But somehow along the way,

George forgot about his desire to be a frontman.

And I'm pretty sure his memory's starting to return.

- One of my favorite things about this place

is that it has famous Minnesotan pictures on the wall.

Here, of course, we have Bob Dylan.

Harry Dean Anderson, I think.

TV's MacGyver.

Harmon Killabrew, Minnesota Twin.

And uh...

George Scot McKelvey.

The man's gotta have dreams.

(laughing)

- [Narrator] George is no longer a full-time

touring musician.

Nowadays with a family to support,

he slums it with the rest of us,

clocking in to a nine to five.

In the middle of it all,

it's hard to keep fighting to follow

the music inside.

He told me in reference to his situation,

it's not ideal, but it's a means to an end.

I wonder what that end will be for George.

- So there's definitely a network issue.

I will say, when I was a carpenter,

you'd walk outside of the house after a day

of building and finishing,

and you look back on it and you go, did that.

Proud of what I've done.

And you can see a tangible progression of your day.

Like, I did that.

That's why another important thing about recording is,

I get hit by a bus tomorrow,

I have three, four albums of stuff

that people can listen to

and I leave a piece of myself here.

It's almost as good as making babies.

(laughing)

But largely, most of society is impermanent,

and getting more so.

Any sort of permanence, a record,

a feeling, a positive energy,

that you can put out there, it's important.

- If he takes the dive and says I'm going all in,

he'll do great at it.

It's harder to do that.

As you get older, you know,

you cover more than one base.

You're not 18 and livin' on a friend's couch anymore.

(soft instrumental music)

- Well, I think as an artist you have to

keep plowing forward.

After years of playing, making records with others,

I wanted to do it where I was somewhat

at the helm creatively.

So my main motivation was just to have something

that's more indicative of what my sound is now,

my natural progression.

Not only lyrically, but musically.

(cars whooshing by)

I wanted to be a musician or a pilot.

I wonder which would've had me be gone

from home more. (chuckles)

I don't know.

Tomorrow we're gonna try to cut three songs.

I'm...

...shittin' my pants a little bit.

But I'm shitting my pants in a good way. (chuckles)

I think in the two weeks leading up to LA,

I had 11 shows, and I had some strong ideas,

but then I kind of put my ass into the fire

a little bit.

Being a sideman, you just trust in the artist

that you work with.

But when you're in charge of that creative overview,

there's just so many different avenues

a song can go down.

Can we cut?

I'm just, I've been on for a long time a day.

- [Man] Yeah.

(upbeat rock music)

- Yo, yo.

- Welcome to LA.

- Guess we're doing this.

I've always had great for John as a person

and as a musical mind.

Finding a producer is a lot like finding a girlfriend.

You get the hottest one you can.

(laughing)

(soft instrumental music)

- You get a little sleep on the flight?

I heard you played a couple gigs yesterday.

- I did.

Six gigs in the last four days.

And I'm crispy,

and what the hell are we doin'?

- No idea.

(laughing)

I met George in 1992.

And we were kind of fledgling Minneapolis musicians

wantin' our piece of the pie.

- [George] John was born to produce.

I think when he was like 16,

he was a huge Todd Rundgren fan.

And he wanted Todd Rundgren to hear

the first thing he had produced,

and it was a dance record and he threw a hundred

of them on Todd's lawn.

- Whoa.

(bongo drum music)

- Ken Chastain is a ball of positivity.

He's an awesome dude to work with.

(upbeat drum music)

- We all met when Sean Fields moved to Minneapolis.

I had a band called Beat the Clock

and my band and their bands were coming together.

They had a band called Q.

- This is a song called Guard.

This is our first hit, so bear with us.

- I was into Star Trek big time

and there was this character on Star Trek

who was like the omnipotent being, Q.

He would like dress up as a human just so that

they could even understand him.

If he came to them in his natural state,

they would be just so freaked out.

He's like, you humans are just ugly bags of water.

(laughing)

And his name was just Q, the letter.

I was like, wow, that's a good band name.

And we did it, we made stickers 'n all.

Gold stickers with black Q on 'em.

One, two, chorus

♪ I'm super sad

♪ I'm super sad now

- Yeah, feels good.

♪ Love you so bad

- Well, George wanted to get some new music out

and so we worked on some new songs

that he had written.

♪ I'm super sad

♪ I'm super sad now

Super Sad is a riff I came up with,

Ken talking about how I didn't want

to make another super sad white guy

freakin' wah-wah record.

I didn't want a bunch of blocky acoustic guitar chords,

singin' about this broke my heart.

- He just doesn't want to be the guy

that goes oh, super sad, I'm super sad now.

He sang that to me and as soon as he finished it,

I'm like, that's awesome.

Because he was mocking himself when he played it.

I took that and wrote some lyrics

and then the verses are all about how

with the shit that I've got goin' on,

I have no excuse to be sad.

And then here I am at the chorus, I'm super sad.

♪ It seems so easy

♪ I got what I need to please me

- [Man] Shucks.

♪ All that I have

♪ Now I'm super sad

I wanted it to be sardonic, you know?

Is there a way to cut open a vein

without cutting open a vein?

Yeah, maybe, it's music.

Yeah, I'll make a joke at a funeral.

(laughing)

We're all gonna die.

(record scratching)

(laughing)

(bluesy electric guitar music)

I'm a dip shit from Burnsville, Minnesota

that gets to make rock with his buddies in Hollywood

with real guys that have done it.

Hearing a song and gettin' to sing it

and re-sing it, make it feel right,

is really exciting for me.

The recordings I love all

kind of suck a little bit in some way

that makes it even special

and life is messy,

so a recording should be, too.

- [Narrator] Despite positive energy from

great friends and talented musicians,

George came unprepared.

And there's disappointment in the air.

Maybe it was his own fault,

and maybe it's just collateral damage

from his relentless gigging.

Either way, songs were recorded.

But not fast enough for the project's timeline.

- I think my normal thing is about one song a day.

Start with like from nothing to something.

Usually it's about a day.

So he was a little ambitious on the two song a day plan.

You know, if we were fast enough,

we could've done it, but we weren't.

So we ended up with three

and a half.

- I'm happy with what we did.

I would have loved it if we'd had even more material,

just because John Fields,

he's the most efficient man I've ever made music with,

and so it sort of a,

you need to have three things for him to do at once.

If we'd had more material,

we would've cut more material just because

we can't go faster than John can take things

and put them in place.

- [Narrator] There are mistakes to be made with George,

but according to him, that's okay.

It's a part of breathing.

It's the part of a story that successful people remember.

So does that mean that George's story is one of success?

I don't know.

We'll see.

(airplane engine rumbling)

♪ I look upon

♪ A beautiful, untainted clearing

- [Narrator] With only a few songs completed in LA,

my friend George returns to the grind,

where progress is slow when measured against responsibility.

He's got a long way to go in order to

build a hit record in this cynical industry.

It's a place where record stores have gone to die,

and the physical album has become

an electronic handshake.

But George, he trudges on,

fighting to balance his life and to lie back,

hoping to reach fulfillment in a music scene

that runs deep with innovation.

Minneapolis, Minnesota.

- I came up in Minneapolis and there's one side

of it which was super sexy and super cool,

which is Prince,

which is the R&B side of Minneapolis music.

The other side of it was this tremendous

garage band movement that was happening

with Suicide Commandos, the Suburbs,

Hooskerdoo, eventually Soul Asylum.

But probably none of the Minneapolis music stuff

would happen without Prince.

Speaking of Prince,

I have really never met him,

but I've been in the same room with him twice

when my friend got a record deal

and they were recording at Paisley Park.

When I walked in,

Prince was doing a photo shoot there

with Carmen Electra.

Prince was the photographer.

And Prince was wearing a three-piece mustard suit

and he looked amazing,

and he's snapping around looking super sexy

while he's takin' the pictures.

He's like dancing.

I asked him if I could smoke.

Alarm goes off,

and the whole building goes up.

So people are scrambling

and Prince pokes his head in

and I turned to Tommy Tucker and I said,

dude, I am so sorry.

He's like, "No problem, man.

"George Clinton did it last week."

Said, "Yeah, except he did it with a blunt."

(laughing)

I'm like.

Burnsville is not Minneapolis.

It's 20 miles south.

Our downtown was a PDQ and a Mr. Movies.

As wonderful and idyllic a place as Burnsville

was to grow up,

it was not a cultural hot bed.

Starks,

Holzers,

Jeff LeBeau.

He always used to go,

"You wanna go look for a salamander

"in your window wells?"

Tiffany Sheppat, hottie.

Doug Galinski, who stabbed me with a butter knife.

That's my childhood home.

I lived there, I grew up there.

I didn't have anyone to play with in the neighborhood.

Maybe that's why I played music.

There was a ton of kids around,

but they were all assholes.

- [Narrator] It's obvious George hasn't been

through his childhood neighborhood in awhile.

Almost as if he forgot how this all began.

- Look at this, man.

This doesn't suck growing up here.

Right?

This is a lot to process.

I used to sit down here and play guitar quite a bit.

My buddy Dave Marshall had a guitar.

He said he wasn't interested in playing it.

I borrowed it and two years later

I was playing the thing till my fingers bled literally.

The first song I wrote,

it had a motif that you could follow

and a story to tell.

I wrote it in that garage when I was 18.

It's about wanting to experience something more.

To live a life less ordinary.

And certainly this is idyllic.

It's beautiful.

This is a trip, this is a lot.

- [Narrator] The camera seemed to bug George,

but his story still came across.

And I wanted to jump back in time

and help George throw another rock

at his piano teacher's house.

- This is the house where I received piano lessons.

How you doin', man?

Ah, we're making a movie

and I used to get piano lessons,

and I'm truly sorry, I threw a rock through your window

37 years ago. (laughing)

Forgive me. (laughing)

Okay, but right now you're wrecking our shot.

So if we get. (laughing)

Just kiddin'. (laughing)

- [Narrator] Months went by and the album

remained on hold.

(water rushing)

(soft electronic music)

Eventually George booked some time at the Terrarium,

a studio mainstay in Minneapolis.

John Fields flew in to team up with Ken

in hopes to finish up the project.

Hopefully this will be the last piece

in George's puzzle.

(trumpet music)

- So Ken was saying if you were to

hit one diamond style,

it would be the second of the two.

♪ Ba de da be da dum

(cymbals clashing)

That's the one.

But let's try it.

- [Man] Okay.

Two.

(rock music)

(speech drowned out by music)

- Sounds good.

Oh yeah.

George has to write his own material

and find who he is.

He's written lots of songs over the years

and we're just kind of whittling them down

right now and trying to figure out

which ones most appropriately show

his new direction.

Oh, that's funky.

♪ Every day is a diamond

- I'm one of those guys that kind of got burnt

by the old-fashioned system of

distributing music.

And because of it I've always sort of

been just completely charmed by the fact

that those old methods are really dying at this point.

It's just completely different ballgame now.

- [Narrator] When the cold business of music changed,

so did George.

He evolved and adapted in order to remain current.

And most of all, to continue his love affair

inside the pocket.

- George is able to create a full on

sound scape for a song and entertain you

all the way through a whole song all by himself.

- He's developed this way of making

beats like into this

little boss pedal bloop box thing,

so he'd start like a beat like...

(beat boxing)

Then he'd play guitar on that and sounds like

he had a drummer there almost.

A lot of times he just plays straight up acoustic

and singing, but then to spice it up,

I mean, he played a two-hours show,

it's kind of cool to have some other

sound coming in other than acoustic guitar.

(acoustic guitar music)

- George has always been one of these guys

that gets in front of you and he knows

a million songs and he sings them

beautifully and he can finesse them in all these ways.

♪ You can know that I'm a sinner

♪ So this is more to me

♪ Than sing and play so happily

- He can create this beat in a rhythmic pattern

and then a melody and then start singing on top of that,

and then when he hits the chorus

and he goes into three-part harmony,

and this is all coming out of his feet

and his pedals.

♪ Just open up your heart

♪ And leave it all behind yeah

(crowd cheering)

- Thank you.

- [Narrator] It seems that making music

is something George does easily.

But making a living at it has its challenges

and its adventures.

- I worked so many different jobs in my life.

I was a janitor at the church when I was in high school.

I drove a truck, delivered furnaces.

I was a finish carpenter.

I got a job sellin' Christmas trees

for Moe's Christmas Tree lot.

My job was to not only sell the trees,

but to put them on top of cars.

I sold a Christmas tree to LL Cool J,

Peter Falk, TV's Columbo,

to Rachel Hunter, Rod Stewart's wife.

They had a brand-new Escalade.

And I sold her a nine-foot noble fir

for a $1000.

I'm like, I can have them put a wood stand on that for ya.

She's Australian.

She's like, "I don't care."

I threw a Christmas tree on top of that

thing with a metal stands.

I could hear the metal part hit the windshield

and man, she didn't even care.

The whole time she was arguing with someone

on the phone.

I assume it was Rod, she was yelling at him.

(laughing)

I'm like, oh man.

(tires squealing)

My jingle career started very Forest Gump-like,

where he just finds himself in these situations.

I was driving for a company named Prison Studios.

So I would drive tape and sound files and DATs

for jingle houses.

My buddy Chris goes, "Can you do a pirate?"

And I said, yo-ho-ho, motherfucker.

- George became one of my go-to singers

because he had sort of that kind of character

kind of, you know, who am I?

- Hold on, wait, you're breaking up.

Hello?

♪ Hello, hello

♪ Is someone there

♪ A cellphone in her hand

♪ She only gets a signal

♪ When she's by the garbage cans

- [Chris] Usually what happens when we're in the studio,

you'll just do a jingle and if it goes through

you'll get a residual check or checks.

But this was one where they couldn't find

actors to play the part and they needed musicians.

♪ You can't wrap joy

♪ You can't wrap peace

♪ You can't wrap Embark High Speed Internet

♪ For 24.95 a month for as long as you have the service

- My opinion on that is as soon as The Who

will put their music in front of CSI,

as soon as Zeppelin starts selling a Cadillac,

I think it's really cool, man.

At the time I was playing with Soul Asylum.

Thankfully it didn't play here.

And the lead singer of Soul Asylum,

he won't advertise for anybody.

I respect that about him,

but I'm much more of a whore than he is.

♪ Wendy wants high speed

♪ Wendy wants high speed Internet

- [George] Those purists are all fine and dandy

till they got a mortgage and kids.

♪ Oh Wendy, you're so smart

♪ And you're good-lookin' too

(laughing)

- I don't know.

Oh.

I'm gonna do one-handed.

I just had my gutters cleaned.

Our relationship is a week on with his mom,

week on with me.

Some weeks I'll be able to clear out my schedule,

and some weeks I'll have four gigs.

And if they're ones that he can come along,

I'll invite him.

You know, hoops in the driveway

is a great way for us to connect,

with his busy schedule now and mine as well.

We philosophize about

life and

God and

girls.

(laughing)

You know what the problem today is with youth?

- What's the problem?

- It's wasted on the young.

(laughing)

- That makes no sense.

- Nice.

That's two.

- [Narrator] With a son to raise,

maybe George's fight to pursue his dreams

stems from his hope for Jake to do the same.

Maybe that's enough for him.

Or maybe it's just a small part of the big picture

that keeps George going.

- [Jake] Oh!

- My commitment to music and having

two full-time jobs,

it hasn't worked out so well for my love relationships.

Wouldn't say it cost me my marriage,

but it certainly didn't help it,

working full-time and then playing four gigs a night,

getting home at two o'clock in the morning

with beer on my breath and then,

you know, we'll see ya tomorrow night.

- [Narrator] Maintaining relationships

is difficult in George's world.

Especially when he gigs five to seven times a week.

But he remains sharp,

and has become versed in a wide variety of music.

He is instantly ready to play a ballad

at a wedding or a country song at a Vikings game.

- This next song is called Overturn the Garbage Can of Love.

I think it's a great country song.

But I also think it's really pretty funny

and I want the concept to really sort of

pay homage to the genre,

but also have some fun with it.

- Get your tongue out of my mouth,

I'm kissin' you goodbye?

(laughing)

- [Narrator] With George's mixed skill set,

it's hard to find a unique cohesive sound.

Often he needs a second set of ears.

Noah Levy, George's good friend,

is the perfect person to bounce ideas off of.

- He came in with this song and I wanted to play brushes,

and he said, "No, no, no, no, dumber.

"Just play it really dumb."

So I played it dumb, which I like.

I'm a big fan of dumb.

(upbeat country music)

(laughing)

♪ When followin' a soft breeze in the rain

- Which Overturn the Garbage Can of Love,

at time we went, you know, yuck-yuck-yuck,

but it just didn't feel right.

And then we went back to the brushes

and through everybody's delivery

and it kind of had this mournful feel to it.

♪ Of love

♪ Well wantin's gone I'm beggin' for what's

- Noel will have a week, like,

I think my week's crazy.

I'm going to play the Brainard Street Dance.

And like, hey, how are you doin', man?

Good, it's good to be home with my kids.

Where were you?

I was just in Scotland with Tift Merritt

or I just did a tour with Brian Setzer.

- I do a lot of studio work.

I tour a lot.

I'm on the road a lot.

I love playing every night.

I still enjoy the travel some of the time.

I don't like being away from my kids.

I spent the better part of the last two years

on the road,

and that was pretty rough.

It's hard.

I'm a little worried that I'm losing my ambition

because I like being home.

- [Narrator] Like Noah, George has seen the good

and bad sides of life on the road,

which may be the reason why he stays so close to home.

George's biggest commercial break came

when he was introduced to the Grammy Award-winning

rock band Soul Asylum.

They needed a new bassist for their 2006 tour,

and George fit the bill.

- For me, coming where I came from,

it's great to be thankful about everything.

It's great to feel blessed.

But literally it changed my life.

Rollin' with those guys,

walkin' through an airport with Soul Asylum

was kind of like, it's not much different

than being in the X-Men.

We were playing like a strip mall in Cleveland,

billed with Joan Jett.

You know, the average size of the guys in Soul Asylum

when I was with them,

about 6'2", about 200, you know, we're all big guys.

And Joan Jett's band,

I think the tallest dude's about five foot five.

And they're all super-spiked up in nylon

and polka dots and nose piercings,

frickin' sleeves rolled up on their skinny arms.

(laughing)

And the four of us are in the four corners

of the elevator,

and Joan Jett's band gets on 'cause we're

all goin' to the same stage.

They all stand in the middle of the elevator,

the three little dudes.

Pirner goes, "Ah, you guys are pretty rock."

And none of them looked up or looked around.

They just stood in the middle of the elevator.

(laughing)

And it was silence.

And they all got out and all of us just laughing.

That's probably my favorite Soul Asylum story.

- [Narrator] By the time George's Soul Asylum

tour ended, the inexpensive digital single

overtook CD purchases with over $819 million in sales.

♪ Life brings so much pain to me

- [Narrator] The music industry was changing drastically.

Years past and George jumped from band to band

as a sideman,

never really achieving the commercial success

that he desired.

It makes me wonder if he missed his chance.

♪ Sunshine

♪ Moonshine

- [Clerk] George, how you doin', man?

- Good.

- [Clerk] Always a pleasure.

- Always a pleasure.

- What's happenin'?

- [George] It's all happening, man,

it's all happening at once.

- [Clerk] Spectroflex?

- I like that orange bad boy right there.

Some really nice guitars in here right now.

- The process of this record he's been working on,

sometimes like any other artist trying to write.

I think they all have their own challenges.

And for him, having a son and having a full-time

day job and then gigging five, six nights a week,

and it comes up quite often where he'll

just get a phone call and someone will say,

"Can you be here tonight?"

It's like in two hours and he has to be somewhere

and fill in and play a different instrument.

And he's the guy, he'll do it.

But I say if he narrows in on it, it's game on.

(soft synth music)

- [Narrator] Before another session at the Terrarium,

we had to stop and pick up George's son Jake

for another driving lesson.

It's true that Jake is his main priority in life,

but I wanted to see how Jake felt about it.

- We don't hang out as much as a normal family

with the father having just one job.

But whenever we can we kind of make the most of it.

- You can let this guy in.

Be generous.

Have good driving karma.

- [Jake] I'll be Ellen Degeneres.

- Ellen Degeneres,

oh, you're just master of the pun.

- Thank you, thank you.

I go to a couple of them.

It's really good music.

I really like it.

I like the emotion that he puts into the music.

It's not just straight forward I'm making music.

It's like, this is what he does

and he's trying to make it so it's happy

instead of him just playing the music.

He's very passionate about it.

♪ Overturn the garbage can of love

- I can just hear like, him working and writing,

and he definitely puts a lot of work into it.

It takes a lot of concentration.

I have to shut up so then he can get it done.

- I know that he sees how hard I work

to get out and play music,

and he certainly sees me strap on the boots

and put the guitar in the case

and walk out the door,

when he knows I'd rather be watchin'

the game with him.

I hope that it translates into whatever

he decides to pursue as a passion.

But that's his journey.

I can certainly try to inspire him,

but his journey's his journey.

Man, I can't wait to see what choices he makes

and be ready to support him any way I can.

- Hey, George.

- Hey, strawberrious.

How you doin'?

John Munson, Ken Chastain,

Chandler Poling, and Steve Rome,

The New Standards.

I'm really excited to record this tune.

This is a very special song for me.

This is the first great rock show I ever saw

with Chan's band The Suburbs.

- I was studying music at Cal Arts in Los Angeles.

I was gonna do more kind of classical

contemporary stuff.

I came back here and I looked around town

and found some guys.

There was a little scene going on here in Minneapolis.

- And Chan was really part of the first flowering

of the Twin Cities scene.

Seeing people from your home town kind of

have that kind of success and go out,

and I mean, have national success

and have Rolling Stone writing about them

and they were on the cover of the newspaper

and stuff like that.

It made the dream that I had to play music

seem possible, much in the same way

that George describes.

I was having those same feelings.

- and then The Suburbs hit the stage

and Chan said, "Ladies and gentlemen,

"we're The Suburbs."

And they went right into Love is the Law

and it tore my face off and I went right out

and I bought the cassette.

They were a big deal.

They were the Minneapolis Stones.

Kind of interesting because your uncle Steven

produced the record.

- That is true.

- So it's a trip being able to play this song

with these guys today.

Really glad you're here to guide it.

- And I think the idea here is to just kind of

capture it like a live show, living room vibe.

- Gives me great pleasure to say this.

Love is the Law, take one.

What a trip.

(acoustic guitar music)

♪ Well I was walking

♪ Through the middle of town

- Well, I was walking down the street

and I saw spray painted on an underpass

the phrase love is the law.

And then I just basically,

the lyric is all about that.

We play it many, many times,

but this version is, it's much more contemplative and soft.

♪ People are breakin' their hearts

- [Chandler] It was really pretty.

I loved it.

George sings the shit out of it.

♪ Hey

♪ Love, love, love

♪ Love,

♪ Love is the law

- I like that style of reinventing a song.

If you're kind of in a rut and you don't know

like where it should go, what it should sound like,

turn it on its head and new ideas start happening.

And if everyone's open-minded enough,

you can actually go complete opposite direction

on a song stylistically.

And it becomes more exciting.

♪ Love is the law

- [Narrator] In 2014 the music industry

hit its rock bottom, with the global revenue

at its lowest in 30 years.

It's basically been cut in half in less than two decades.

And the physical CD is becoming a relic,

or just merchandise for live shows.

But George moves forward.

He understands these obstacles and focuses

on the execution of his new songs

as a package for his upcoming concert.

- Recorded music is so frequently pirated,

it's basically legal now.

So, you know, it's wonderful to hear it,

put it on my CD player,

and have that tangible thing that I'm actually

have the fruition of months of work

and lyrics that are close to my heart

and music that makes me groove and put it on

something that's tangible that you can print up.

But figuring out how to promote it

and be paid for all that work

and all the guys that do such great work

to get to this point,

that's the trick, isn't it?

- [Narrator] The demo tape has been around

since the inception of recorded music,

and the quality of them has slowly been rising.

With George's glorified demo,

and his live performance,

he's hopeful that he's making steps to increase

his fan base as a frontman.

And he's no stranger to shopping demos.

- I was watching Chris Isaak sing.

♪ I want to fall in love

And Prince and Kim Basinger drop by.

'Cause that shit used to happen in Minneapolis.

And I happened to have my Groove Chunks demo tape.

I did a shot of whiskey for courage and went

upstairs and approached his table.

And I'm like, man, just want to say I really

love what you do.

This is my band.

Prince just looked up at me and he sort of smiled at me.

A giant man goes, "Dude, no tapes.

"No tapes."

I did not want to be on the business end

of No Tapes.

- There you be.

- Wow, goosebumps.

Looks great.

I wonder if my CD player even works anymore.

Man, I hope so.

Well, here goes nothing.

Ah, the sweet, sweet sounds

of Sunshine.

Ah.

(upbeat rock music)

♪ You gotta know that I'm a cynic

♪ So this is new to me

♪ To sing and play so happily

If I sell these CDs online, I won't sell one.

They'll download a ton of them.

If I sell 'em at gigs,

I think people who really enjoy the show

will by them and support them.

And I think that's why everybody's still touring.

So they can sell merch at the shows.

I don't even know.

But that's above my pay grade.

I got a brand-new CD here and I got

a frickin' gig tonight.

Should be interesting.

- [Narrator] With the project almost done,

George consults with his producer John Fields

about what's next.

And with his busy schedule,

it looks like it's gonna be a big mountain to climb.

- So we got the four song EP out,

but when are we gonna finish this album up?

Not sure.

Maybe he's got some more songs.

Maybe he'll come back out one more time

and we'll probably make a full album.

Get it out on iTunes.

George Scot, and just attack the world.

Maybe leave it on SoundCloud for the moment,

book a real show at a great venue.

Maybe do that.

- People ask me, well, how do you promote it?

What's next?

And it's like, I don't know.

It's all free.

Part of the plan is figuring out what artists

actually do with music nowadays.

People are not making money off selling

their recorded music anymore.

If we lived in a world where music suddenly ceased,

I'd still be humming melodies and playing songs

on my teeth,

which is how I realized for the first time

that I was a musician.

It's not the most attractive thing,

so I prefer not to do it.

Mmm-mmm.

- You actually, I think you're doing it the best way

by being a frequent performer.

That's what a lot of people don't do.

I think the idea at the end of the day

is not necessarily to sell a million records,

but to get people to come out to the shows.

Music is almost like your business card,

so maybe your gigs start getting better

from acoustic stuff to a band stuff,

and next thing you know your headline

is on a Saturday night.

If that's the goal, I think you're doing the right thing.

- I guess with this I'm gonna see what

kind of splash it makes.

(sighing)

- There are different people in my life

that make music for different reasons.

George is a guy that makes music

because he loves to make music.

- I think without a doubt, without a doubt.

It's a part of his DNA.

- He's wound that way.

He loves it.

It goes back to why you're doing what you're doing

is 'cause there is no other way.

- It just goes to show you like, how much

he loves music and that he keeps doing it,

'cause it's tough.

You gotta wake up early for the job,

you gotta stay out late for the gig

three, four nights a week.

It's a lot, but he does it.

- There's a passion to communicate to the most

people that I possibly can and I think that

kind of leads to a kind of striving,

more than like the dream of the riches

of a hit record.

I mean, whatever.

But more ears, being understood by more people.

I think that's part of the musician's passion.

- I want people to hear some songs that make

them tear up, that make them bang their frickin' head,

that make them feel fucking great,

that 'em sad, make 'em happy,

to understand the story.

It's easy to lose focus and lose sight of that

when you're doing your day to day,

whether it's paying your phone bill,

taking care of your yard,

maintaining your relationships with people you love.

If every day is a diamond,

then isn't every song valuable?

Isn't every conversation expensive?

Isn't every relationship important?

I'm a work in progress,

trying to get stronger every day

and trying to value those relationships

and celebrate them with my music,

with my spirit, and with my soul.

Music is the vehicle for that

and I feel, I truly do feel fortunate

every day to have that as a way to communicate

how much I love the people around me.

I'm gonna go cry.

I'm not fucking kidding.

In a minute.

Ah.

- [Narrator] There's no question that George

is a complicated man.

But like Noah Levy said, he's a serious pocket.

Which means he provides something for all of us,

a place where we feel comfortable enough

to hear what he has to say.

And usually, that's at one of his live concerts.

- Is that my new EP called Pour Poor Me.

That's a full band CD and it's available here.

For free tonight just because you were here.

So please grab one.

(upbeat rock music)

- [Narrator] Over the past three years,

I watched George Scot McKelvey fight

and claw his way from a sideman to a frontman.

And to be honest, it wasn't to huge fan fare.

♪ I stir in the shadows ablaze

♪ The answer in this bottle haze

♪ In these heavy, heavy hands

♪ Tonight somebody understands

♪ Pour poor me

- [Narrator] It was however, exceptional,

heartfelt, emotional, messy,

and ultimately a success.

♪ Another beer, another shot

♪ Spin the the wheel and never stop

♪ Pour poor me

- [Narrator] Doin' what you love to do

is a hard road to walk in an unstable industry.

It's a cynical world we live in,

and George is someone that remains resilient.

He's following his heart,

writing about sadness and love within a melody,

performing music to reach people,

ultimately trying to be the best father he can be.

300 years ago music was made without monetary value.

And if George was alive then,

he'd be doing the same exact thing.

Making our culture better,

livelier, more rhythmic,

and closer to the pocket.

So when George's CD releases,

will he sell 100,000 records?

Maybe, maybe not.

But it doesn't matter.

Because at least I know he'll be fighting

to do so, and for me that's enough.

And maybe, just maybe,

it should be enough for the rest of us.

(upbeat rock music)

(crowd applauding)

- Thank you.

See that one right there...

♪ Well I was walking

♪ Through the middle of town

♪ I said to myself

♪ Yeah, what's going on

♪ People were breaking the law

♪ Just to make ends meet

♪ People were breaking their hearts

♪ Just to stay off the street

♪ And the words

♪ On the wall

♪ For everyone to read

♪ Was love is the law

(piano and acoustic guitar music)

♪ Oh, oh

♪ Love, love, love

♪ Love

♪ Love is the law

♪ Love, love

♪ Hey, hey

♪ Love, love, love, yeah, yeah, yeah

♪ Love

♪ Love is the law