April 13th, 2005
Band practice is getting more fun everytime, and it was already fun to begin with. This is more progress than I've made with anyone in the last two years. We're starting to feel our own unique identity as a band take form. We record all of our practices so we don't lose any productivity. Then, I take the recordings home and edit each song or song idea into individual tracks. So we all have a cd of our band and we listen to our music outside of practice-- it's almost all we listen to. We've become addicted to our tracks, and Joel sings them at work.
We have enough recordings now that we've started to forget certain songs. There was one today that I listened to, heard myself singing, and thought, "Whoa... I don't remember this. This is awesome!" There are at least 13 songs developing right now. One of the great things about our music is that we have some wicked hardcore rock and then we have lighter songs, like songs that could be on Dawson's Creek.
In the Tri-Cities, the musicians were consumed by a constant need to prove how intelligent they were, or to get the one up on everyone else. Most of the time, no one wanted to agree with anyone else, and if someone had started a song already, it was a part of them, and if you wanted to change anything about it that meant that you were insulting them as well. It was always awkward and people always seemed fragile.
Here in Seattle, at least with my cousin Joel and our band, it's the real thing. We draw the structure of our songs on a whiteboard and rehearse variations until we decide what we like best. Everyone contributes ideas. Nobody is caught up trying to be "the star". We can sit down by a keyboard and go over chord progressions, then translate them into guitar riffs. I can take our music home and work on it in my room, on my own keyboard, and then bring that work to practice.
Tonight, I told Scott that Cheetos burn for a long time and could be used to illuminate your way through a cavern. He had Cheetos and lit one of them on fire. It's true! Cheetos are like torches! If you bundled some together and lit them on fire, you'd have a big old flame! They do burn for a long time.
I sent an e-mail to some of my friends in the Tri-Cities today. When they replied, they both said life was the same old same old. My old bassist said things were the same old too. He's the one I used to be in a cover band with. I can't help but fear the possibilities when I think, "If I was still in the Tri-Cities, would nothing have changed for me either?" The Tri-Cities is like the land of sleepiness. Life is so different here. People are doing things here. I have stories to tell here, but it seems my friends back there have very little to say.