The Thousand Yard Stare

Okay, I know I said we’d talk about publishing deals this time out, but I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about what I call “Fallout from the alternative revolution” and I want to talk to you about it.

Hark back to the Eighties with me (yeah, I know it hurts): remember staying in your room playing your guitar for hours? Remember turning on MTV and having your choice of either M.C. Hammer or Paula Abdul? Remember wondering why everybody looked so stupid and why everything sucked so much? Ah, but do you remember Metallica, that huge but somehow underground band who brought hard rock back? Remember Jane’s Addiction, the deranged genre-busting art-metal band who sparked off Lollapalooza? Do you remember the first time you heard Nirvana on the radio?

It was pretty exciting in the late eighties/early nineties when things started to change and real bands started to get exposure. The utterly fantastic concept of making music that you wanted to make, being who you really were, and actually getting signed because of it became a reality. Now, at the end of ’96, a lot of people who “got with the program” during that time (Let’s record with a big-name producer! Let’s spend a lot of money on the video!) are bitter about the choices they made. You wouldn’t believe how many times I’ve heard, “we kinda got screwed,” “there was no time to think” and even, “it sort of made me hate music.” I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again (especially now that labels are snapping up everything they can get their hands on): think about what you really want.

I’m not saying that getting signed to a big label is an expressway to hell or that you’re guaranteed to lose all control-my experiences have generally been pretty good. What I want to get across is that you don’t have to automatically assume that it’s the right thing to do, or that all bands on small labels (or who do everything themselves) are suffering while they dream of their chance to work with a major.

Consider the nutty punk band NOFX: they play packed clubs wherever they go; they make their own merchandise and sell tons of it. I haven’t seen an NOFX bank statement, but I’d be willing to bet that by eliminating the major label middleman (keep reminding yourself: a record label is like a bank-anything you receive money for is recoupable, i.e. a loan to be paid back out of your royalties), they are not hurting for cash.

There’s a trade-off here: because do-it-yourself bands, well, do everything themselves; they keep a much greater percentage of their profits while actually selling their records for a lower price than stores would. With the giant overhead involved in making, promoting and selling a major-label record, oftentimes an indie band can make the same money selling 200,000 copies that a signed band would make selling 1,000,000! Of course, an indie band without the benefit of the aforementioned label machine will have a much harder time selling records at all: no MTV, no promo people to get the songs on the radio, no distribution company. Selling your records to distributors, doing mail order, producing your own recordings, booking your own tours-I’m not saying it’s easy to do these things, just that it may be more satisfying, and in some cases even more profitable to control your own destiny.

That’s my thought for the day, now let’s get back to normal and into some stuff that sucks

Here’s something else to think about: along with hiring a lawyer (we talked about this a couple of columns ago), you may want to hire a manager. This is another area where there is no “right way” to do things, and a lot depends on where you want to go. If your aim is to get signed and conquer the world, you may want to employ the services of a professional manager. Hooking up with one can happen in a number of ways-through your label after you’ve gotten a deal, through your lawyer, or sometimes even from soliciting a management company yourself (remember, though, what we said about sending out tapes. . .)

You don’t necessarily need to hire a professional. If you’ve just started gigging, the jobs that you, your roadie, and your manager do are going to be pretty similar. A friend who wants to help out, has a lot of common sense and can deal with problems (and can’t tune a guitar to save his/her life) may be the someone to make part of your team and to grow with. If you want to know what it’s like in the “big leagues,” pay this person 20 percent of everything you make-it sucks, right? Get used to it.

At first, your manager will probably be doing things like booking shows, basic tour managing, writing the rent checks for your rehearsal room, things that you could do but would rather leave to someone else so you can concentrate on your music. This doesn’t mean that you should call anyone who hangs around and puts up a flyer “manager.” Along with your roadies and your lawyer, your manager will at times be like an extra member of the band-someone to grow with you, who you trust to represent you.

There are a lot of bands who are self-managed, even big groups on major labels! It all comes down to how much work you’re willing to do yourself and how much control you want to keep over your own career, versus using (or maybe being used by) the giant network of labels, managers, publishers and lawyers known as the music industry.

Here are the next eight bars of the “I Am Legend” (La Sexorcisto) intro (see FIGURE 1)-some real “clawfinger” chords. Next month I promise we’ll talk about publishing. See you then.

* The first 4 bars are the same as the last 4 bars from last months lesson, minus the opening slide.

Like I said last month, welcome to the club. C’mon in and set a spell! You’ll like it here with us touring musicians-we’re all either crazy, stupid or both. So let’s see… You’ve been on tour and you’ve frozen and starved all over America-in fact, maybe you’ve even managed to starve and freeze in exotic foreign countries! By now you’ve probably been ripped off by club owners and promoters; your van has broken down in the middle of nowhere at 3 a.m.; you’ve been stopped and searched by the cops; you’ve managed to lose seven different guitar tuners. Believe it or not though, these are “the good ol’ days!” Someday you’re going to look back and laugh (keep telling yourself that-it works, believe me) but for now, we have to get into some stuff that really sucks-namely, business.

Believe me, I’m with you. The only business I want to concern myself with is the business of SOUND-making it, listening to it…. hooking 12 stomp boxes together just to see what it sounds like. You know, the cool stuff. More often than not, creative people aren’t very practical, and vice-versa. This is why there’s a long line of sharks waiting for fresh talent to come along. The industry will chew you up and spit you out and that’s the way it’s always been. You have to protect yourself and your music and you really have to keep on top of your business.

Once your band has become a solid “thing”-you write your own songs, you tour, you make a little money here and there and people dig you- you should start thinking about moving up to the next level. For example, you’ll want to start thinking about what kind of deal you’re going to set your sights on: whether you want to press your own CD or vinyl (and maybe start your own record company) or if you want to sign some kind of a deal with an independent company. Maybe you want to concentrate on getting a major label deal. Whichever path you choose, you have to start making business decisions.

I know a couple of musicians that are right on the brink-they’re just getting into dealing with little labels and all of a sudden they’re freaking out. They aren’t sure about what they’re signing and the labels are trying to get them to do things that they don’t want to do. Project one, I tell them, numero uno-the most important thing to do-is GET A LAWYER. Entertainment lawyers don’t come cheap, but there’s really no way to avoid using their services. It takes some of the fun out of it, but if you learn to think of a record label as a bank (they lend you money to record and make videos, and they take a lot of vacations), and your band as a business (you have to work really hard all the time to sell your products and services), then the need for a lawyer becomes more obvious. You wouldn’t want to bankrupt your business, right?

If you’re going to move up to this new level that I’m talking about, you’re going to start having to make decisions that could really screw you later on-that’s where a good entertainment lawyer comes in. As well as helping you to make the right choices and to understand the music business better (make your lawyer explain everything in simple terms; it’s what he or she gets paid for!), a good lawyer can actually help you shop your demo. As I said several columns back, labels don’t generally listen to unsolicited tapes-a single demo tape in the hands of a well-connected lawyer could do more for your band than mailing out two hundred.

Don’t automatically go with the first entertainment lawyer you find. Just because someone has a law degree and specializes in music doesn’t automatically mean that they’re going to be good for you. It’s important to hook up with one that has a good understanding of what you’re trying to do and is hip to the type of music you play-meet with a few before you make your choice.

One of the first business-type things that you’ll want to do is to do a title search of your band’s name. Good names are getting harder and harder to come up with and it would be a shame if, having finally found one you really like, some other group ends up claiming and using it. You’d have to modify yours if you didn’t want to just give up and find another. This happens all the time; have you heard of The English Beat, for example? The L.A. power pop band The Beat were around first, so the English band had to change their name. Other good examples are Wrathchild America, The Mission U.K. and Dinosaur Jr. Also, did you know that in Canada, Bush are called Bush X? It should go without saying that it’s not a good idea to borrow a name that you know is a registered trademark-just ask Redd Kross and the Low and Sweet orchestra! I can’t for the life of me figure out why the bug spray company never came after Black Flag. Lucky for them, I guess…. Anyway, we’re out of space. More on trademarks, copyrights, business, the law and other things that suck next month.

People sometimes ask me to show them how to play the clean intro passage to “I Am Legend” (side two, song one on La Sexorcisto). Over the next few columns that’s what I’m going to do. It’s mostly based around chords I stumbled onto while messing around; FIGURE 1 is the first four bars.

See you next month.

Let’s assume you’ve decided to do it. That’s right, you hocked the family jewels, your significant other is crying, and your parents think you’re a freak (so what’s new?). You’ve got strings, picks, extra tubes, extra fuses, an extra strap, a road case for your head, extra instrument and speaker cables, a sleeping bag, a reading light, 10 to 20 good tapes, a third-hand van (get AAA-trust me on this!) and a burning desire to rock anywhere, anyhow, anytime. Cool. You’ve just joined an exclusive club who’s members include everyone from Django to Les Paul to Jimi to Eddie Van Halen. Have a good tour and let’s talk about what to do when you get back.

If you’re in a band, you probably need a day job (those of you named Vanderbilt proceed directly to this month’s lesson), but the screwy thing is that most jobs that aren’t embarrassingly uncool involve nighttime hours or weekends (record stores, guitar stores, clubs, bars). Those are times when you’re supposed to be playing or practicing! Another problem: employers don’t take very kindly to the attitude of, “Well I’m gonna keep my hair the way it is and I don’t care what you say. Basically, I’m not really interested in you or your job but I’ll force myself to do it because I need to make money right now. And, by the way, I have to leave all the time to go on tour so please hire me again whenever I come back.”

Whether you like it or not, starting your first low-level tour will invariably involve quitting your job (I fondly remember the feeling of telling my boss to stick it, pulling away from the curb and heading into the wilderness of New Jersey), which may or may not be a good thing. If you’re still in school, you might be able to save up some money and tour during the summer, but if you’re working, it may be really hard to find one of those kind, understanding bosses who’ll keep your job waiting for you. Of course, there’s usually a place in every town where people in bands work-try your local espresso spot, comic book store or groovy toy shop: the last “straight” job I had was working at a toy store that, at various other times, employed members of Hole, STP and Redd Kross. The pay was crap but you could look like Satan and go on tour. ‘Nuff said.

The scary thing about touring is that you’re really on your own. A lot of smaller bands enjoy going to Europe (an entirely different can of worms that we’ll open at a later date) because the clubs over there generally feed you and a lot of times will put you up for the night as well. Clubs over here basically couldn’t care less about you. I’m serious: it’ll be hard to get a lot of places you’ll be playing to even give you water, let alone food or decent money. As I see it, you’ve got three priorities on the road:

1. Keep the van running.
2. Keep the gear working.
3. Keep everyone fed.

Most of what you make will go for gas, but why not take what’s left over and establish a food allowance (show me a band member and I’ll show you someone who is very capable of living on five dollars a day). It’s not a bad idea to keep stuff like peanut butter and rice cakes around and a lot of bands even bring a little sterno-stove with them. It’s not very much fun to eat cheap (how many ways can you make macaroni and cheese?), but you’ll be really glad you have some money saved up when your transmission falls out on the highway.

Life on the road can be harsh, and don’t think that getting a record deal will miraculously change things-it won’t. I was still riding in a van and hauling Ampeg SVT cabinets at two a.m. six months after we released our first major label album. It’s funny, but even at a relatively high level of touring comfort with buses, a crew, catering and hotel rooms, people will come along for a few days and say, “I don’t know how you can live like this!” to which I reply, “Try spending two months using your Marshall head as a pillow!”

If you think you have what it takes, and most people don’t, why not set yourself a time limit of, say, two years where you do nothing but work towards making your band happen. You will probably suffer, but you won’t be alone. Ever hear the story about Metallica living in a rehearsal room in New York? The guys in Anthrax lent them a space heater so that at least they wouldn’t freeze while they were starving. The positive side to all this, and I know I sound like your crusty grandpa, is that sleeping in practice spaces and in stuffy vans definitely helps you develop character. So, if you don’t give in or break up, you’ll have one of the tightest, strongest bands around by the time you finish your first tour. The really bad thing about the “alternative explosion” or whatever it’s called this week, is that a lot of bands are making records without going through some of the things that really give music its soul. Biff, bam, pow: form a band, make a record, get on a tour bus, complain that life is hard.

Sometimes I think there oughtta be a law: no record deal until you tour for a year. There are some great bands that get to live well right out of the box, but there are also an awful lot of mediocre ones.

Well, enough of my bitching. Over the last couple of columns we’ve learned the intro solo to “Super Charger Heaven,” from Astro Creep 2000… This time we’re gonna zip through the first half of the second solo in the song. It’s more of the really straightforward, “Chuck Berry from Mars” stuff and is shown in FIGURE 1.

See you next month.

Hi and welcome to Astro Ink #9. This month, we’re going to continue talking about getting out there and trying to make things happen for your band as best you can. Let’s start by talking about a subject we touched on in the “Getting Down To Biz” section of the last column-merchandising.

Assuming you’ve reached the stage where your band is regularly playing shows and has finally started to make some money (yeah, right-$107) and you’ve been able to set-up some kind of band fund, merchandising is a great way of making your money grow. First of all, if you’ve recorded and packaged your demo like we’ve already discussed, you can sell it at your gigs. Second, don’t forget that people love T-shirts, for a variety of reasons: they’re fun, they’re cool-looking (hopefully), and as your band develops into a “thing,” your shirt becomes symbolic of a whole lifestyle. Next time you go out, try counting the number of times you see the Nine Inch Nails logo on shirts, bumper stickers, etc., and you’ll see what I mean. Badges are good, although not as popular as they were in the Seventies and Eighties. Stickers are very good-they cost a lot to make, but at a dollar or two each, you can sell a lot of them to people who can’t afford the 10 or 15 bucks for a T-shirt.

You can really cut down on costs if you make this stuff yourself by buying your own silk-screening kit, bulk shirts (wholesale!), and sheets of adhesive vinyl (at your local art-supplies store a place that, along with your local Kinkos, you should become familiar with). If you go to high school, check out the graphic arts department; I used to hang out in the print shop at my high school after class and make bootleg shirts of my favorite bands-for a grade!

Last time we talked about how you probably have friends who want to hang out with your band and be cool and how to put them to work moving equipment and selling merchandise for you. You should also put them to work by setting up a mailing list at the merch table. This is a great way of letting people know what your band is up to, and reminds them that you’re still out there doing things even though you might not have played a gig near them lately. If you really want to get into it and have fun, create your own newsletter. This sort of stuff works. White Zombie’s Psychoholics Anonymous Fan club sends out a “Zombiezine,” and a lot of really big bands publish similar types of newsletters. The saying “out of sight, out of mind” definitely applies here, especially today when there are so many acts fighting for attention. Anything you can do to keep the name of your band out there is a good thing.

As I said in my first column, I didn’t start playing guitar because I had aspirations of being a guitar hero. I started because I wanted to be in a band playing music and the guitar seemed like the logical choice of instrument. That’s not to say that I don’t like to solo; I like wanking as much as the next guy, but only if it enhances the song. In my opinion, playing a solo just for the sake of having a solo is boring, pointless and predictable. That’s why a lot of our songs don’t have lead breaks-they either didn’t need them, or something else, like a riff or a sample, worked better. Having said that, “Super-Charger Heaven,” from Astro Creep 2000… features quite a bit of lead work and, as we haven’t really touched on the subject of soloing yet, let’s take a look at it.

Basically, this whole song grew out of a jam. John [Tempesta, drums] was playing a fast beat and I started playing this kinda hot-rod, surf, Link-Wray-meets-Nineties-metal riff. This track is really, really fun to play ’cause it’s got a lot of Chuck Berry-type solos, but they’re all minor and “spy” sounding. When I recorded those leads, we opened up the amp room and put mikes all over the wood floor to try and get a Gretsch-like reverb slap-back. We were really into the idea of this being some kind of rockabilly song from the future. Basically, we were losing our minds at that point.

The backing part, over which I play all the lead work, is the chorus riff of the song. The intro solo (FIGURE 1) begins in the 10th position on the neck with me fretting the note at the 10th fret on the B string (A) with my index finger and the note at the 12th fret on the G string (G) with my ring finger. I pick/strum the two strings together, then immediately bend the G-string note up to the same pitch as the B-string note (A). (This type of unison bend is a typical Chuck Berry move.) I then move down the neck (towards the nut) to the 9th- and then 8th-fret notes on the G string to add some discordant tension to the proceedings.

The second phrase of this intro lead (bars 3 and 4) is almost the same as the first (bars 1 and 2), except at the very end I use the note at the 11th fret on the high E string, (D#) which adds to the skronk factor. We’ll finish this solo and rap about using the Internet to get DIY gigging/touring information next month.

Last month we started talking about gigging and touched on stuff like playing anywhere you possibly can, getting your own soundman, having friends help carry your shit, transportation and networking. This month we’re gonna add more to this angle.

One thing that almost every good live band does is to structure their set to achieve maximum impact. Don’t just go out there and play your songs in any random order. Plan your set out so that it has peaks and valleys, especially if you’re in a high-energy band. Start with two or three “thrashers” and then maybe ease off a little and play something slower so you and the audience can rest.

The science of dynamics, or volume contrasts, dictates that if you come out blazing and then keep on blazing without pause, people will start becoming numb to it. Then, no matter how heavy your stuff gets, it’ll lack impact. But if you play something heavy and then follow it with something quieter, then go back to playing something heavy again, it will seem really heavy (listen to some Nirvana records-they were masters of this art). Also, once you’ve played out a couple of times and recorded some stuff for people to take home, you’ll probably have one or two songs that are your most popular; play one at the beginning of your set and one at the end-in with a bang, out with a bang.

Some bands like to keep things spontaneous and loose by playing gigs with no set list and deciding collectively what song they’re gonna play next while they’re actually on stage. That may be cool and adventurous for you, but it can also be really unfair to the audience if you have a lot of dead space between songs. PEOPLE NEED TO ROCK! Take your audience into consideration they came to see you to have a good time.

Obviously, when you’re playing live shows, something will go wrong with your gear sooner or later. Make sure you bring a spare of anything that could possibly break-you’ll be really, really glad that you did. If it can break, it will. Bring spare strings, instrument and speaker cables, picks, drum sticks, drum heads, a spare snare drum (if you can afford it), batteries (if you’re using stomp boxes), tubes (if you’re using a tube amp) and definitely amp fuses. The latter is something I never thought about until my Marshall head blew up. My advice is to get one of those little metal boxes that you store spare fuses in and tape it to the back of your amp.

Another thing you should definitely have a spare of, if at all possible, is a guitar. Even if your backup axe is really lame, it’s infinitely better to be able to continue your set with a less-than-perfect sound than to have to stop the gig altogether if something goes wrong. There’s nothing as bad as watching a show where the guitarist breaks a string and then has to actually stand there on stage and put a new one on. I once saw that happen to the guitar player in a band you’ve heard of: he snapped a string on a Jackson with a Floyd Rose locking system on it, which was his only guitar. Because he had the bridge set up to “float” (so he could pull the bar up as well as push it down), as soon as the string broke, the guitar went way out of tune. So, the band had to stop playing while he stood onstage, undid the locking nut, took the old string off, snipped the ball-end off the new string, put it on, stretched the new string out, re-tuned the guitar, locked the nut up again and re-tuned again. It took five long minutes and it sucked!

Can you imagine the most super-rich rock star you know of standing outside of a club handing out gig fliers in the middle of winter, freezing his or her ass off? Or running around at four o’clock in the morning with a bucket of wheat paste, putting up posters? Well, they all did it. Flyers for shows are good because they help let people know what’s going on when, where and for how much. It’s good to create some form of band logo (the Kiss and Metallica logos are great examples) or symbol that people will instantly identify with your band. There are countless computer graphics programs that can help make type look cool.

As well as handing out gig fliers at clubs and on the streets there may be guitar and record stores that will let you put one up on their bulletin board. You can also put fliers on telephone poles if there’s a hip neighborhood in your town where a lot of people will see them. Before you do this, though, check your town’s local laws regarding postering: there are a lot of places where it’s illegal!

Having a band is kind of like having a company. Unfortunately, especially at the beginning, you’re going to have to keep putting your money into the band without any return on your investment. No one’s paying you yet, but you have to buy equipment and maintain it, afford a practice space, transportation and so on. It sucks, but that’s just the way it is-it’s a test of faith, really. But, if you stick with it, one day you might actually start making some bucks and at that point you definitely want to have some form of band fund-maybe even a band bank account. This way, you’ll have a pool of money that you can tap into to pay for photocopying fliers, financing a demo, printing T-shirts, stickers, whatever. Decide who in the band is the most responsible, and designate him/her as band accountant. Damn. I’ve talked so much we don’t have much room left for playing this month. To make up for this, we’ll do a lot more playing next issue. FIGURE 1 is the “spy movie theme” verse riff of “Super-Charger Heaven” from Astro-Creep 2000 and is a good example of two ideas we’ve discussed in recent columns octaves and skronking. The octaves occur in bar 2, while the skronk (which is caused by the fretted Bb note on the low E string ringing against the open A note) happens at the end of bar 4.

Hi. Last month we talked about the purpose of recording a demo tape: to get you gigs. We also touched on how to package your tape properly, but we didn’t get into how you can make a decent-sounding demo without going broke-a financial state you’re probably already in.

If you already own a four-track machine, you’ll be pleased to hear that it is possible to record an acceptable-sounding demo tape on it. I’ve heard plenty of clear, powerful demos that were done on four tracks. But, before trying to make yours, you should either get a book on recording techniques or get some advice, because recording an actual band on a four-track is a difficult thing to do well. Let me explain: you’ve only got four tracks to work with and, on many machines, you can only record on two at any one time. As a result, you may have to record several things at once–like, for example, the whole drum kit on one track and the rhythm guitar and bass together on another. You’re obviously going to have to make sure that the relative balance of the instruments is perfect. If the bass ends up being too quiet relative to the guitar, or the cymbals are too loud compared to the rest of the kit, you’re not going to be able to “fix it in the mix.”

It is possible to bounce tracks together on a four-track, but the more you do it, the more you’re going to diminish sound quality. As a general rule, bouncing should be kept to a minimum. Having said that, all those great-sounding Beatles records were recorded with a four-track (it’s all that was available at the time), and they bounced tracks like crazy. You can get good at anything, providing you work on it enough.

You’re not going to have much opportunity to do guitar and vocal overdubs on a four-track. But that’s okay: it’s best to keep things simple for a demo. To do it right, you’re going to need at least two decent mikes. I recommend a Shure SM-57 for instruments and an SM-58 for vocals. These are the same high-quality mikes used by the pros, and you can get them for about 100 bucks each. As for the space, your rehearsal space should do just fine.

If you own a four-track machine but what I’ve said thus far sounds like too much of a hassle, you might want to record your demo at a cheap 8- or 16-track studio. Inexpensive ADAT (digital 8-track recorder) studios are popping up all over the place so you should be able to find one through your local music entertainment paper. There are always ads for cheap recording places on the bulletin board at your local music or record store, so check them out, too.

Before booking time in a studio, make sure your whole band knows the songs you intend to record and can play them together as a band. Even the cheapest recording studio known to man is an expensive place to rehearse in. What you don’t want to do is get there, set up, start recording and then suddenly realize that someone doesn’t have his or her shit together. Treat your recording session like a gig: make sure your guitars have new strings on them and that everyone has spares of stuff that might break or need to be replaced: strings, batteries (believe me, there’s nothing worse than trying to find a 9-volt at 3:30 in the morning), guitar cables, amp fuses, spare tubes, drum sticks and drum heads. Even if there is a music store near the studio you’re using, you don’t want to pay for studio time while someone runs out to get whatever it is you need to continue. If you’re recording late at night or on a Sunday, the store probably won’t be open anyway. Recording studios charge you by the hour, regardless of whether you ‘re recording or not.

That’s enough talk for this column, let’s play . . . The Skronk Chord. In the previous two issues, we looked at riffs that feature notes that “rub” against each other to create an unsettling, dissonant sound. I call this skronking. This month we’re gonna learn a nasty-sounding chord comprised of two notes that, when combined, have a high skronk factor: the root and the diminished fifth. FIGURE 1 is a chord diagram of this moveable chord shape. with the root on the low E string. FIGURE 2 is the exact same chord but with the root note on the A string. As you’ll hear, these two chords sound pretty dark and dissonant, even when played with a clean tone. Adding distortion makes the picture even uglier. To make ’em sound even bigger, you can double the root an octave higher, as shown in FIGURES 3 and 4.

A good example of this chord in action is found in the main verse riff of “Blur the Technicolor,” on Astro Creep: 2000. FIGURE 5 depicts the riff played using single notes, while FIGURE 6 shows the riff with the chord. Play the two versions back to back and you’ll hear the skronk factor added by this simple chord shape. To modulate the sound even more on the LP, I used an MXR Phase 901 bought from a junkie for ten bucks. Try using this chord in some of your own stuff, but don’t overdo it. There’s truth in that old saying about the pitfalls of having too much of a good thing.