Story #11 "I'd rather be right here"-- Adrian Belew

Cause I see enough; now I'm willing to be out of touch
Put my head in the sand
I wanna sit right down and take a stand
I don't need to be a traveling man; I'd rather be right here

In a previous post writing about The Church's "Electric Lash," and the story inspired by the title, I wanted to sing the praises a little bit more of the independent radio station in Pittsburgh that basically shaped me.

Around the same time I was discovering The Church and The Blue Aeroplanes, and starting my love of drumming by learning the basic beat to drum to Talking Heads, I also heard John Cale and Brian Eno's underrated but effortlessly beautiful album "Wrong Way Up."

So do the math, at least in my head: Eno is connected to Byrne is connected to Talking Heads is connected to Tom Tom Club is connected to Adrian Belew. At least that's how I got there.

Connect the dots is always the way. Anyway, the thing I love about Adrian besides how incredibly down to earth* he seems for one of the greatest guitarists living or dead is his ability to veer between dissonant sounds and progressive music to being unabashedly romantic. In a perfect world, Adrian Belew's 1992 album Inner Revolution would have been a monster hit. The songs are fantastic, catchy and memorable. "Member of the Tribe," celebrates the freaks and geeks and waves its freak flag proudly. "Big Blue Sun," holds a special place in my heart, "I walk alone" sounds like he's channeling David Byrne, "Everything," is McCartney-esque and then there's "I'd rather be right here."

It's a curious song because it's written by a rock star who has played all over the world and has discovered the joy of not traveling. Not sure whether the opening lines "When the pilot informed us of what he was planning, and I heard the dirty words emergency landing," are based on fact but that would sure be enough for someone to say "eff that, imma stay home with my wife and chill from now on," but even if it weren't based in fact it's still a fun idea.

In A-Sides and B-Sides, the story "I'd rather be right here,"does tap into the romance portion, but from a completely different place. I have no idea where the idea came but I suspect love had a lot to do with it as I was falling in love when I wrote it. I have no idea where the genesis of it came from. A rug that brings things to life like genetically modified soil? Hey, man. The mind travels where it wants to.

I guess in another way I can relate to Adrian's song because, I often feel like I don't need to travel because my imagination takes me far.

• Speaking of traveling, I do travel a lot, working in advertising and I meet a lot of people this way. One person I met virtually was Adrian. I took the initiative to email him about possibly licensing his song "Big Blue Sun," for a phone company. He was cool enough to record an instrumental that I will never share out of respect for him. Long story short the client passed and went with a Queen song that ended up being used in like, three other commercials within the next few years which was a missed opportunity to own something unique.

Fast forward a few years after that and, amazingly enough, for the same phone company, I'm recording one of my heroes, Bootsy Collins, in his home, for a bunch of radio spots. I mentioned trying to work with Adrian (as I know he kinda sorta grew up in the same area as Bootsy) and all of a sudden, Bootsy gets all excited and tells me to talk to him about rehearsing as I guess they shared the same rehearsal space in Covington, Kentucky or something like that. I never related this to Adrian but wow, it's so amazing how the dots connect.

A-Sides and B-Sides is available on iBook as well as Amazon and also Kobo and Nook. You can preview a nice chunk of it, too. Hope you'll consider buying if you like what you see. Here's what the cover looks like.

The guitar reminds me of someone humming with a stuffed up nose. I mean that as a good thing. Also, how much does it sound like he's singing with a smile on his face?