Skip to main content

Diseases of the Tongue

After a year and a half of not playing shows, our band played at the Cavern last night. The night went by very quickly and I'm still trying to collect my thoughts. To be honest, I felt we had a great set with no major slip-ups. Sure, there were some bum notes, forgotten lyrics and dropped beats, but the point was we came out strong and played well. This kind of satisfaction in a show like this has been a long time coming.

When I was very young, I thought it was cool to be up on a stage playing for adoring fans. When I actually started playing instruments like the drums and guitar, I realized that I enjoyed playing more than anything else that came with it. Sure, it's nice to play to a large and responsive crowd, but I've always chosen to focus on the people up on stage with me and how we play off each other. I've played to two people and I've played to 200 people and it's always been about the chemistry between me and my bandmates.

What's so strange about practicing for shows and playing them is that no matter how much you practice, it's never going to be the same as playing in front of people. In the case of Ashburne Glen, we practice at a moderately quiet volume level. When we play live, we play much louder and are way more intense. Weird things happen, like extended outros and a third verse with no vocals, even after you practice hard to get the songs down. It's what you do with the weird things that test your confidence and your improvisational skills.

I've played in bands before where it felt like there was a desire by other band members to get noticed (either by friends or A&R reps). That has never been a goal of mine and it wasn't a goal last night. Sure, we played to a lot of friends and a lot of people we didn't know, but the point was that we played well together. Whatever notice we receive afterwards is a nice extra pat on the back. I won't lie; it was really cool of Mark Reznicek (formerly of the Toadies) to come up to me, shake my hand and tell me I played well. I was pretty flattered by that.

Even though I had a very early morning wake-up call this morning (3:30) and a concern that I wouldn't wake up on time, I was glad I stuck with playing and focused on the fun factor of playing a show, regardless of time slot. While I was playing, I wasn't thinking of the infinite possibilities of what could go wrong nor whatever woes have been really challenging my patience as of late. That's the freeing thing about playing music; time doesn't really exist in its traditional form. Holding together a shared bond is special and means more than how we were paid, who forgot what or whoever had to leave as soon as the set was over.

Comments

pimplomat said…
But I was singing those lyrics...in my head.
Kev said…
It figures that your first show in the whole time we've known each other would be on a day when I'm out of town. I guess I'll mark my calendar for the next one...July of 2008, right? ;-)
Eric Grubbs said…
Nope. February 15th, '06 - again at the Cavern.
Eric said…
I did not know you had a band. I'm intrigued and will head over to myspace right now. Comments later.
Eric said…
Uhh your myspace link doesn't work.
Anonymous said…
wish I could of been there... glad to hear you were back on stage. rock the rock.
Nick @ Mission

Popular posts from this blog

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Catherine Wheel

Originally posted: Tuesday, August 29th, 2006 Despite managing to release five proper albums, Catherine Wheel was one of those bands that always seemed to slip past the mainstream rock crowd. Yes, they got some nice airplay in their day, but people seem to have forgotten about them. You may hear “Black Metallic” or “Waydown” on a “classic alternative” show on Sirius or XM or maybe even on terrestrial radio, but that’s about it. For me, they were one of most consistent rock bands of the ’90s, meandering through shoegazer, hard rock, space rock and pop rock, all while eluding mainstream pigeonholing. Led by the smooth, warm pipes of vocalist/guitarist Rob Dickinson (cousin of Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson), Catherine Wheel featured Brian Futter on lead guitar, Dave Hawes on bass and Neil Sims on drums. They weren’t a pretty-boy guitar band, but they weren’t a scuzzy bunch of ragamuffins either. Though the band hailed from England, Catherine Wheel found itself more welcome on American air

Best of 2021

  Last year, my attention span was not wide enough to listen to a lot of LPs from start to finish. Too much went on in 2020 to focus on 10-15 albums, so I went with only a couple to spotlight. Well, 2021 was a little better, as I have a list of top four records, and a lot of individual tracks.  (I made a lengthy Spotify playlist ) So, without further ado, here’s my list of favorites of the year: Albums Deafheaven, Infinite Granite (listen) Hands down, my favorite album of the year. I was not sure where Deafheaven would go after another record that brought My Bloody Valentine and death metal fans together, but they beautifully rebooted their sound on Infinite Granite. The divisive goblin vocals are vastly pared-down here, as are the blast beats. Sounding more inspired by Slowdive, the band has discovered a new sonic palette that I hope they explore more of in the future. It’s a welcome revelation. I still love their older material, but this has renewed my love of what these guys do.  J

Hello, Control

I'm still a big fan of iTunes . I haven't tried Napster , Urge or eMusic as I've been perfectly happy with Apple's program ever since I downloaded it two years ago. However, an annoying new feature has come up with its latest version, 7.0. Whenever you pull up your music library, a sidebar taking up 3/4ths of the screen appears plugging the iTunes Music Store. Why is this an annoyance? Well, first and foremost, since you can't close the sidebar, you can't escape it. I believe a music library is a private collection, a spot away from the music store. So what's the need for constant advertisements and plugs? To provide a better visual, let me describe what I see whenever I pull up a song in my iTunes library. When I listen to "This is a Fire Door Never Leave Open" by the Weakerthans, I see a graphic for Left and Leaving , the album that it comes from (and available in the iTunes Music Store), along with a list of the Weakerthans' other albums,