Episode 070: Teddy Kumpel
Good morning! This is Play It Like It’s Music. I’m Trevor, thanks for listening.
On Wednesday, January 13 of 2020 music is not content. It’s connection.
I said it last week and I’ll say it again: I’m going to put up an instrumental album on February 1st. It’s going well: I’m scared shitless and frustrated and sad a lot of the time but I guess those are signals that some vital work is taking place. I’m in it. We’ll see.
Non-musicians look at us and think we must have such a charmed existence. So many times I hear folks say things along the lines of “ah you’re a musician, that must be so amazing and so nice and sweet and liberating” yadda yadda etcetera. Like we get to live without fear or any normal kind of life challenges. Or maybe that making music is a balm that somehow makes the loneliness just go away.
Well let me tell you something: It’s great to be a musician and it’s an absolutely amazing process to make music. But it comes with great vulnerability. The volume of sheer fear and hopelessness that can sneak up on you at any moment will send you into spirals beyond imagining. The constant degradation of the value of our work in the marketplace will test our dignity in ways that make you want to set things on fire.
For me, every day is a miracle.
I look at how some people do it - which is dangerous because no two people can ever do it the same. But it’s easy to survey the landscape and conclude either that an easy life is just beyond reach, or that it’s hopeless to pursue it in the first place without first posessing untold truckloads of talent and charisma. In fact, neither are true.
Music is the stuff of life, and if it is in fact your lot to live in contact with it in any way… as a maker or listener or dancer or feeler or producer or (god help you) artist’s representative, it’s always appropriate to throw open your arms to the sky and give thanks for this doorway into the infinite.
It’s your choice and your chance to receive it. We open ourselves as it opens us. Which can sometimes feel unbearable, but stay in the game. Stay in it.
I’m not going to say anything about the assault on the Capitol. Those shows are all out there, this is not one of them. I’m a bit miffed that last week’s episode (with Mai Bloomfield) got totally upstaged by the world cracking open, but creativity lives in the cracks, and we have cracks in abundance right now. All kinds of cracks.
So crack open a cold one and settle in to enjoy some time with one of the greats. I’m a huge fan of the guy we’re talking to today, and maybe you are too. Or are about to be. Guy does things with a guitar that might be illegal in some states.
Teddy Kumpel was born and raised in Port Jefferson, NY on Long Island, into a musical family. Teddy’s mom was a classical pianist and church organist. His father was a mathematics professor who enjoyed singing, playing piano and ukulele with The Great American Songbook. His family was always playing music together, which inspired Teddy to write his first song at 4 years old. At around the same time, he began playing baritone ukulele as well as playing any instrument his parents had lying around the house…violin, flute, piano, organ and guitar.
After Teddy attended the University of Miami, Teddy spent some time on the road with Rare Silk and in New York City (between tours) to study with guitar legends Steve Khan, Dean Brown and Mick Goodrick.
He’s spent a lot of time in the trenches, toughing it out with the rest of the NY musicians doing whatever he could to get by.
Teddy’s always had a passion for making his own music, and he’s also worked on developing artists with major labels starting in the 90’s and continuing to this day.
In 2008 Teddy was creating a funk band with two guitar players, but couldn’t find another guitar player who was happy just playing rhythm guitar. Around this time, the first multi-track looping pedal came out and Teddy spent a couple of years figuring out how to loop with a live trio. This created, LOOPestra which played over 300 gigs at a Monday midnight residence at Rockwood Music Hall in NYC between 2011 and 2018. Those Monday LOOPestra live performances became a NYC institution and community building experience. Full disclosure: I’ve seen a few dozen of those (at least) and I also played on two of them.
And oh yeah, Teddy also toured with Joe Jackson between 2015 – 2019.
Guy’s got stories for days, we get into a lot of that lineage and plenty else. Good laughs too.
Quick ask: if you believe this show deserves a wider audience, please tell a friend:
Without further ado, here’s Teddy.
It’s an honor to have him on the show.
Press PLAY above to hear my conversation with Teddy Kumpel
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Thanks for listening to Play It Like It’s Music. Thanks so much to maestro Teddy Kumpel for spending some very generous time with us. You can find Teddy at Teddy Kumpel dot com and follow him on IG @teddykumpel.
And you know what? Go buy his music on Bandcamp!
I can’t believe we’ve gotten to 70 shows! If you believe this show deserves a wider audience in 2021, please tell a friend:
Follow me on twitter @trevorexter and talk to me on there if you have thoughts about the show.
We're all contending with a mutating professional landscape, jacked revenue streams, a catastrophic global pandemic and plenty of other noise out here.
But you gotta keep playing:
We don't draw any lines here between scenes or styles.
As always, thank you for listening and remember to play it like its music.
You can check out my music on bandcamp and other places. It’s all at my website, trevorexter.com. Sign the mailing list on substack to get this show sent right to you the very moment it comes out.
Music is a beautiful thing and it makes the world go round.
Big love to your ears.
Trevor
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