Thoughts on the Rock (not Tim Raines, or the Rock)

Some more good news. Talked to the Old Dog on Monday and there might be another opportunity for us to open for Curbside Life. They offered us a gig at the “Blank” (I forgot the name) Theatre. We couldn’t make that show because of prior commitments. I think they replaced us with The Commitments. While I’m on The Commitments…

Q: How many times can you play Mustang Sally before it loses all meaning?
A: One.

I like doing stuff with Joe’s brother. He certainly is tenacious. I wish I had his business sense – I mean, I can be a sort of hustler when it comes to raising money to make a record or do some sort of fucked up project. I’m good at that. But as far as being a hustler to promote a record or a band – Ol’ Gill is slicker than me. Meh, whatttaya gonna do? What the hell was that?

The last thing I think we need to think about doing (wha?) – with these shows coming up – I think we need to talk to the Dark Squirrel about doing live recordings. This isn’t just because I wrote (a coupla blogs ago) that I had so much fun making records with DK Squirrel…and I miss our misadventures…This has more to do with what I think our record should be. I’m the first guy to say – making rock records – pretty far down on the creative food chain relative to writing a book, making a film, painting, and/or art made via technology. The one thing that is cool (possibly cooler, or at least I like it more) is that a rock band is a thing that can make recordings and also play live. Rock bands can do two things. They can almost have two different identities. I mean good filmmakers and good authors can take different approaches from project to project – whatever. But once the book is done – that’s it – it is what it is and the author can’t change it…unless they add a new preface celebrating the 10th Anniversary of the first printing – “An Attempt at a Self-Criticism” – whatever. The same thing goes for the filmmaker. Once the dopey rock band makes it’s record (and let me repeat rock band – probably lower form of art than the book guy or movie guy…I hope that makes this sound less pretentious than it already is) – but once rock band makes it’s record that’s only part of what the song is (whatever). I should give up on these thoughts. I’m sounding like a real fool. Hey, has that ever stopped me before?

Maybe a new paragraph will help. Ahhh, that’s better. Once the band starts playing live there is a lot of freedom to fuck around with the songs…to get direct feedback from an audience…to fuck around with feedback…to fuck around with an audience. See – it all sounds fun. Many times the ‘fuck around factor’ has led bands I’ve played in – into (What is this? The middle of the list of 40 Commonly Used Prepositions?) – into some trouble. The You Know What shows that went really well, and people talk about – nobody remembers what songs we played. And they don’t just remember the show because I barfed on stage. The most memorable shows were ones where friends and strangers were joking around with us on stage. We took chances with songs and were able to laugh at the attempts that fell short and smile and use that shit to our advantage when something went well. After saying all that – and discrediting myself henceforth and forthwith suffice it to say: I like being in a band because I like recording and playing live and I think since our recordings kick ass maybe live recordings will kick ass in a different way.

I’m so bleeping tired after last night/this morning. What am I complaining about? All I did is sit on the couch and watch a baseball game – and drank one beer. Pathetic.