i just saw a coyote in the middle of the road at night
apparently this is not something that happens in movies only.
I saw my cousin, craig mc, play in a club in Los Angeles tonight for my friend and I and about five other people, plus various other musicians. I wondered how many musicians across LA, at that moment, were playing for similarly small audiences in the hope of making it big.
Yesterday I picked up drum sticks for more than five minutes for the first time in sixteen months and played for an hour with my friend JJ. I had forgotten the mechanics of going to a practice space, the general ambience (for Houstonians, it was a like a somewhat more sanitary and secure version of Francisco’s), but even more than that, what it was like to play with another person with no plan, stumbling around, trying to find a sound, syncing up for brief moments of something that could be something that is definitely satisfying and then having it promptly disappear from memory.
(In my old band, every time we jammed on something, we’d record it, because people would say “I really like what you did in that part in the middle”, and I’d have no idea what I did.)
Yesterday I also picked up drum sticks for a very different purpose. At a friend’s house we played Rock Band (a PS3 video game that’s like Singstar, Guitar Hero, and some drumming game all rolled into one), which I found moderately frustrating at first. Once you’re in the groove, though, the feel of playing the drum set is remarkably like the feeling of playing an actual drum set; the biggest problem is hitting parts of familiar songs where the drum beat is “dumbed down” so you can play some simulation of it, but you can’t predict how it will be simplified, so if you know how to play the instrument reasonably well it’s generally a recipe for disaster.
Next week: Jandek show report.
Ho first off congrats you are our 500th post!
Also , on the recording things. I don’t know how many cool LP4 things have been lost to “Oh I don’t want to set up microphones. ( Arguably they may be terrible the next day but at least that night it seemed to have potential. )
i fear hitting coyotes when i’m on the road to and from mexico. very real road hazard in those there parts.
tell jj i said hi!
who is jandek playing with?
One of my friends set up Rock Band on a screen at the River Oaks recently and I had the same problem with the drum kit. I just played it as if I were actually playing a real drum kit. Turns out I wasn’t doing what it thought I should be doing. So now I suck on real drums and fake ones. Also, everybody told me I was hitting the Rock Band drums too hard, which confused me because that’s how you are supposed to play drums.
Have you guys never tried Dance Dance Revolution?! Pads set up on the floor and you’re supposed to imitate the dance moves on screen. The most mechanical dancer always wins and I’d argue that it has nothing whatsoever to do with real dancing… must be the same with drums.
to me those games all seem like really fancy versions of Simon. Nothing really to do with music. Just pattern recognition and repetition. I’m sure they are just as addictive and good time killers.
Have you guys never tried Dance Dance Revolution?!
Yeah, but you can’t do DDR to Iron Maiden.
Have you guys never tried Dance Dance Revolution?!
When I took Electra to UpChuck E Cheese in Wichita recently, there was a 6 foot 5 dude with a genuine bowl cut dancing away on that thing. He was an employee there. Seems like Chucke E Cheese employees really are some of the most interesting people on the planet. But the food there… the food at that place comes from some secret underground sewage civilization. In fact, I think that underneath ever Chuck E Cheese, is a mega-plex of mole people sleeping in broken children’s props being jolted to attention every time the flashing red alarm goes off and they have a food order to put together out things from their necrotic asses.
C.H.U.D. E Cheese.
You’re welcome.
rosa, I think Jandek is playing with Tom Carter, actually, but I could be totally wrong.
John, after years of making CHUD jokes, I just bought it on DVD to watch with my bad-movie loving friends in New Zealand. Shooting for a double feature with LADY TERMINATOR or HORRORS OF MALFORMED MEN.
Coyotes aren’t just a pest of the west. I’ve seen them critters in downtown Chicago and Milwaukee.
You must be going to San Fran next. Tom’s Wholly Other report says he’s on the bill. I think playing bass.
C.H.U.D. E Cheeze… indeed. Thank you.