Hurry Up and Wait

My anxious cylinders have been on full blast these last couple of days. Negotiations, business, money, yaddah yaddah yaddah . . .

Scotty said "YES!"

What about the other guys? What do they say?

Too bad I have to be away from a computer for the next couple of days. I'll be in mid-breath for a week, waiting to know their answers . . .

Franz Ferdinand -- "I'm Your Villain"

Incest Not of Appalachia

Like the winds of time, their eyes doth turn
In spite of themselves, they turn to others
What they do not have, what makes them shiver
You have what they want. Not what they need.

----------------------------------------

I'm cursed with a "want" to please everybody around me. In recent years, this has waned a bit, having procured the experience to know the age old wisecrack "You can't please everybody" to be a true statement. You please some people, you disappoint others in the process. If you truly want to please everybody, don't do anything. Just sit in solitude playing cards in front of a fire in the woods.

Yet, this curse persists. I hate confrontation, yet I seem to find it regularly. If you take a lover, you're most likely breaking the heart of the recently separated past partner. If you happen to find yourself as a sloppy seconds to that same partner on more than one occasion . . . well, that's another story entirely.

Welcome to the Incestuous Circle.

I've found myself within these corridors of chaos more often than I care to count. If you have a co-ed group of friends, you're most likely going to sleep with one of them in your lifetime. If you're like me . . . I've found that most of the women I've had relations with have tended to bond together after the fact. Women from different circles, mind you. It's like a mass convention of post-Peter Moose Lodge VFW Veterans talking about life after the War, yet never talking of the War. You are non-existent in their conversation, most likely in their mind's eye, at that. If you bring it up to them they either seem startled and confused ("When did we . . . Oh! Right!") or downright insulted.

I'm not alluding to any notion that I've slept with countless amounts of women. I've dabbled, yes, but, it's a normal number. I just happen to have held minor courtship with most of my friends. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Picture the clown shrugging his shoulders . . .

When I reach a point where I'm out of the chaos and can relish in the friendship I hold with each of these lovers, it brings a smile to my face. It's funny and strange. "Yikes!" comes to mind. There's always a reasonable explanation.

In this case, there's one girl who was the cause . . .

She is a matchmaker. Having people meet others in full blown, unmasked dating hopefulness. This can be dangerous, I've found. A couple of my friends are matchmakers. It gets dangerous when these people are also introduced to a mass amount of friends, the matchmaker's group. You happen to be part of this group. You meet these matched up pairs knowing full well they are untouchable. But they carry the aura of one who is fully submerged in the dating world, so that if they happen to have their hold relinquished by the one they've been paired up with . . . well, it was never meant to be. Maybe it's better this way.

I've now done this twice to a friend. I know him to be the "former lover". I haven't hung out with him outside of large party events. So, I imagine it puts him in a tough spot. "I'm a thief," says my insecurity. But really? Everything's legal, right? I haven't traipsed on a clause detailing punishment for breaching a post-breakup agreement twice in a row, have I?

Alright, to make this incestuousness come full circle this man would have to date or become involved somehow with one of my past lovers. Within this group, though, they're all taken, currently. Taken with partners better than I, to tell the truth.

So, I can't help him in that regard. I guess a few beers out of my pocket will have to do . . .

Girls -- "Hellhole Ratrace"

Overlooked but Not Forgotten

In the hustle and bustle of getting Patch Live underway, I forget to mention news about "Schematics".

One mix session left . . . Tracks 1-3 are finished and sounding HUGE. Schuyler is saying that Tracks 4-5 are basically pretty good as is (these were the last two songs I worked on, and my own mixing skills were shaping up. That, or it's because the sound palette for both of these tracks is a little simpler.).

After my vacation, "Schematics" should be done in mixing.

Beck -- "Inferno"

The Final Piece

Scotty had his first sitdown with the band. It was amazing.

My lacking knowledge in music theory was supplemented and helped by Scotty's vast, almost Wikipedia-like knowledge on rhythm. If someone was having a problem with "Typosgraphy"'s bass or guitar riffs, Scotty would step in and ask, "Can I help?" He would then walk them through my own song, naming things that I never even knew were in my own piece of art. "Yeah, that's in 9/8, you just have to break it down like this and follow Pete's vocals. That's what I do. I'll show you."

He also asked questions regarding all of the little things one of us did wrong in the song. Little intricate parts that I picked up on but didn't necessarily address since I'd rather school the players one on one later, and since it was mainly a focus on the drums at the practice tonight. Scotty made it okay to fix one person's goof with everybody else present.

So . . . both Tim and Scotty are hard contenders . . . but in a conversation with Tim tonight on Facebook, Tim expressed some honest feelings regarding Patch. Long story short, Tim's out by his own accord.

Let's hope Scotty bites . . .

Orba Squara -- "The Trouble with Flying"

One on One 2

Patch is currently in the midst of the second drummer audition. Tonight I held a one on one session with Scotty Horey, a Union scale percussionist I met while mixing with Schuyler a few weeks back. The only instrument I'm wary about with Patch is the drums, so I called in two different players to see who'd be the right fit. Both Tim and Scotty have been showing different positives. It's going to be a tough call.

Here's some footage of Scotty's one on one audition. Sadly, I don't have any of Tim's band audition last Saturday.

1) Scotty playing along to my Schematics version of "Trachomanic" on his laptop. He actually transcribed the two songs I asked him to prepare ("Typosgraphy" and "Trachomanic") in sheet music and then made up his own riffs for certain sections.


2) Scotty playing along with me on guitar for "Typosgraphy". This was the portion of the session where I gave him direction and scatted out new ideas for him to embark on within his interpretation of my music (EXTREMELY IMPORTANT aspect to gauge whether or not we'll have a good relationship within the band).


Tomorrow night we have the band audition with Scotty, working on the same material we worked on with Tim's band audition. After this, Patch will take a break for a week and half while I go on vacation to Los Angeles and Las Vegas, during which time we'll be talking as a band to decide who to keep as the permanent guy and who to keep for the experimental shows or future versions of the live band.

We hit the ground running December 1st . . .

Mastodon -- "Crack the Skye"

Another Check

Yesterday's post was entitled "A Day of Firsts" . . . here's the second "first":

I got into my first car accident last night.

It wasn't serious. And I wasn't shaken by it. But I was in one nontheless.

I find it ironic that whenever there seems to be a first day of live activity for Patch, I find myself in strange scenarios involving my car. Back in May, the day Greg and I started putting samples and electronics down in preparation for the whole band experience, I got pulled over in my own driveway for running a red light. The cop had witnessed someone getting their face blown off just prior and was in a complete tiff, disregarding any of my claims of dumbfoundness pertaining to the backslap of the red light. I got off, having persisted in my asking of "which light did I run through?" We made peace.

Yesterday, after a post-practice Spring Street Tavern celebration, I was giving Adri a ride home to Uptown. On 8th St. and University Ave. in Northeast, the light had just turned green for me. I started to slowly go through, a good five seconds after the light had turned. Some weirdo who was stopped perpendicular on the other street, who had a red light, started going slowly through the intersection. I had gone too far out into the middle of the street, so that even if I had stopped, he would have barreled into me. So I sped up to get out of this asshole's way, since he wasn't stopping. A good ten cars were idling on his street, and it seemed like such a buffoon move. I remember yelling and picturing a dunce cap covering the roof of the car.

He clipped my rear right door.

I pulled over immediately, and he turned and parked behind me. I got out, so did the person in the other car. The man who got out was an older man, perhaps in his late 30's/early 40's. He had a five o' clock shadow, and I couldn't help but think "failure". He said, "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I was distracted, I'm sorry."

The damage done to my car was a couple of ripples in the siding of the door, nothing serious. I have scrapes on the rear bumper that are worse. I sighed and looked at his car. His front bumper was scraped up and his license plate was hanging askew. He got it worse than I did. I nodded to myself and said internally, "He got it worse. Everything's fine." I shook his hand, no harm done, really. Adri and I got back in the car and drove off.

We talked about it for another two minutes, then went back to talking Patch. Another thing to add to the list of adventures experienced.

Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros -- "Home"

A Day of Firsts

Today marked the first day that Patch had a live rehearsal. Greg was away for a wedding, so I played the parts of both me and him.

The item for the day: get a feel for how each person interacts with eachother and my direction. See what they each come up with on their own. See how the different musical styles and schemas mesh with one another. How to do this? Practice a song entirely of the Patch sound: Typosgraphy. Strip away any sort of basic 4/4 beat and see how different time changes go over with each individual.

It went over very well. I'm shaking with excitement. Seriously, we're making a huge sound. A professional sound. A scary sound.

Welcome to the family: Dustin, Adri, and Tim.
King Crimson -- "Moonchild"

Trading Spaces

My workstation:
The Clash -- "The Guns of Brixton"

The Cost of Noise

Patch's rehearsal space is situated in the back of the Monroe house. It is nestled in a garage turned storage area, not connected to the main house. Electricity flows in and out, but that's it. There is no heat. It is a space.

The first intent of Louie buying a house some two and a half years ago was to have a creative space where a band lived, breathed, and created together. Even before we moved in, item #1 was to have the back space all set up and ready to go as a practice area. It was big enough to house five guys and all their equipment. That summer (2007) and the proceeding fall we were in that room constantly, practicing for a handful of shows. November 2007 we started losing gusto and oomph. Dave left the band, the rest of us were kind of sick of how things were going. We had some drum auditions, but they proved to be lacking. WE proved to be lacking.

The last official Citizens Banned show was December 12, 2007. I was both lead singer and drummer. It was a fizzling moment, an epilogue to the end of CB. It was also when the practice space suffered in activity and upkeep.

It became a place of random storage. If someone didn't want to have something in the house it was placed in the back room. Creativity does not flow amongst clutter. No one went back into the room, save for Adri, who sometimes held impromptu practice sessions with Nikki Schultz's band. It became a pit of limbo, sometimes inviting us in for music jamming (and there were some projects happening back there, including a Smiths cover band, a birthday party show with everyone from Citizens Banned). Even recently, with The Lizard People pet project, it was still a mess. At this point, people were starting to move out of the house, using it as a prep point to keep piles and piles of shit until the big move. Lizard People held its practice sessions in the living room of the Monroe House, which for both the house and the neighbors was not ideal. The entire time we lamented about not being able to use the back room.

I got really fed up about it. I vowed that once everyone moved out and the new roommates moved in, I would turn that space into an even better practice area than what it was in the Citizens Banned days. It would be fully decorated, have a great PA system (CB's PA system was crap, nobody could hear vocals except for me since I put my voice into headphones in addition to the muffled speakers), refrigerator, television, a writing space, a nice storage area for cables and spare instruments, etc. This week we finally got the space cleaned out of all "storage" related material, and I set about making a fully workable music space.

Everything has been great so far . . . except the neighbors . . .

The price of having a free space to perform music, a preferred place untouched by anyone else where you can come and go as you please, is to have to compromise with neighbors on noise issues. Patch is loud. Louder than Citizens Banned. Everytime I've plugged an amp in or tuned the drums, the front door was pounded on by my neighbor yelling to "shut the music off".

One piece of back space construction: make peace with the neighbors.

So, after I got off work tonight, I ventured next door to my neighbor's front yard. The gate is hard to open, I had a little trouble getting the latch undone. On the other side, I shut the rusty gate, closed 'er down tight. I went up to the front door and knocked. Immediately a large dog named Bear started howling and barking furiously. Wasn't out of the ordinary, since he basically barks all of the goddamn time outside. He's part of the normal ambience.

Nobody came to the door. I knocked again. Strangely, the dog didn't bark on the other side. I was about to leave the yard, hoping the neighbor wouldn't call the cops on me the next night when drums would be wailed on at 8:00pm, when Bear came running along the side of the house into the front yard barking angrily. I froze. I saw it and immediately panicked. Do I bolt over the fence, risking my testicles in certain smashing, run for the hard to open gate, or stay where I am? I stayed put.

Bear started to bark in the other direction, looking for passing walkers. He turned, unsatisfied, and saw me standing on the front doorstep. I gulped. He ran at me, barking furiously. My voice started up in a rising scream. I turned into the doorway, and he grabbed my right leg in his jaws on the back of my upper thigh. He then proceeded to pull back. He took with him a chunk of my pants (ruined) and some skin. I didn't know I was bleeding quite yet. It just hurt like a motherfucker.

I turned to the neighbors shouting "BEAR!! STOP!!!" Bear ran away quickly, I turned, hiding my exposed underwear and most likely my nearly eaten man fruits.

Being the forgiving type, I left them without any ounce of the word "lawsuit". We also settled on noise being done at 9:00pm every night. I almost opted to say "Well, 10:00pm now that your dog destroyed my pants and gave me possible infection of God knows what!" But beggars can't be choosers.

I got the karma I deserved for making noise unannounced to the world around me, the way I see it. We're all square. But that dog, if it ever comes near me again, will have the police on him. Two little kids reside in the house neighboring on the other side of my own. I'm not fucking around next time, for their sake.

Mr. Bungle -- "Sweet Charity"

One on One 1

Had my first one on one with Dustin: lead guitarist.

We figured out his main distorted tone, and it was the beginning of a series of practice sessions geared to feel out how much direction I would be giving each member. How much they'll bring to the table. Up until next week, Patch Live 1.0 will be in this limbo stage of auditions and pre-pool showering.

It felt good to be in that space again. It's not completely set up yet, but at least it's already getting some action within its four dusty walls.

Pantera -- "13 Steps to Nowhere"