Making Up For Lost Time

Vol. 1, Issue 3.
Think of all the things that you can't do. Even the most talented people are only good at like ten things. I am only good at one thing, and okay at one other. You know what's awesome? Focusing on your these things. You know what is even better than that? When other people get to focus on these weaknesses. Like, when they get to really hone in and make a good clean assessment on something that you really suck at and then offer their opinions and feedback on it. Now that, that is really good old fashioned fun.

One can get carried away in this life with focusing too much on one's strengths. Maybe you think you are pretty hot stuff, and you just may be, but most likely you are hot stuff at only one or two things. Even then, you're probably not that good. If you were you'd be rich, maybe famous, and surely not reading this blog but out driving your Ferrari or something.

Take rock stars and professional athletes for example. Both groups are extremely good at at least one thing each. Athletes = Athletics. Rock star = Showmanship.
(You may suppose rock stars would = rock, but this would imply that being a rock star actually takes some kind of musical talent. This has been disproved time and time again by "rock" bands/stars like Aerosmith, Motley Crue, and Bryan Adams. In fact, most contemporary rock stars do not even play rock. Katy Perry and Kanye West are rock stars but I bet neither of them even plays guitar. How can you be a rock star if you don't even play guitar!!)

You might be thinking "I've heard of Nirvana and Beatles from my parents, but who the hell cares about rock anymore ?"If you are thinking this, you are not wrong per se. I mean there are still millions of people that care about the particular genre called rock, but largely these people (us rockers) are looked upon by the general pop-loving, hip-hop obsessed culture as quaint, or at least hipsters.

If "what's rock?" is all that's going through your head please let me know because this would be truly awesome. Way awesomer than all that focusing on your weakness stuff I mentioned before.

If you are literally are so inundated with Gaga madness (A phrase I coined. There was no such thing as "Gaga madness"... until now) that you've never heard any song that was not released before the year 2000 in mp3 format and you think the Venga Boys are Old School, or, if you wonder how people ever went out to record stores to buy music because there would have always been the slight chance that their cell phone batteries might have died while they were there and they might have God forbid missed a text so it's better to be safe then sorry and never leave the house, or, if you heard a 2003 remix of "Summer of 69" that had a distorted guitar in it and you thought the radio DJ had accidentally put on the heavy metal instead of the reggaeton, we have to talk. Not knowing what rock is would be hilarious, but more importantly, I hoping you'll be able to teach me how not-know what modern Country is so I teach the skill to my brother and dad, and then the rest of the world.

So since I didn't write anything here last week I thought I'd make up for it by posting a paragraph or two from a new story I'm working on.

Happy Monday.

The Feathered Glory are finishing their last song as the Dudes make their way into the back room. Duder is already back there with Ozz. The Feathered Glory are a mix of 7 kids from 10 other bands. One of the guitar players is in the signed band Daft Craft Circus. Daft Craft Circus is a heavier, groovier, tighter band than FG. Tickets to see DCC cost like 12 bucks. They are not on tonight’s bill, sadly.

There are a couple of the FG kids who have just started playing their instruments, not just as in the immediate present tense such as “I just started the car,” but in a more general application of just started such as, “I just started learning Thai, not literally just now, but over the last three months.” In other words, these kids suck, but damn do they look cool doing it.

The front man smacks a bass around repeating one-note patterns for bars and bars while slurring what sound like lead vocals. It’s hard to really call he is doing ‘playing,’ He himself calls it mulching. They are a mulch-rock band. The drummer is slightly behind the beat and sounds to be a bit off. He is one of the ones that has only started playing recently. He has only been playing for two years and he is actually pretty drunk. The two guitarists are both wearing sunglasses and playing nicely complicated patterns with great tone that fit perfectly together with each other but not at all with what the bass and drums are doing. The keyboardist is the only girl. She's playing some kind of 80’s synth patch through some crappy Radio Shack keyboard attached to a speak-and-spell. It sounds good mixed through the cacophony. She is also mouthing what look like back up harmonies, but her vocal mic, which was functioning fine earlier in the night seems to have been turned off.

The remaining three members are kids that went to high school with one of the guitarists and/or the lead singer and have never-ever played instruments before this. Again, not literally “before this” as in this exact time, place and event, but “this” as in before joining the band three weeks ago. This is their first gig ever.

The three of them all have some kind of brass instruments; one kid has an actual sousaphone with the stencil “Patrick Swayze School of Dance” around the bell. They are marching around the front of the stage playing indistinguishable three note patterns. There does not sound to be any discernible tonal key to what is they are playing, nor any discernible musical sense. The combination of all seven members playing parts ranging from horrible to fair comes together to form an overall product of that is somewhat discernibly okay, maybe even surprisingly good.

The room is packed. It’s a small room so it doesn’t take too many people to make it look packed, but right now it is actually packed. The crowd sways back and forth. They are into the music. They are enamored with the music. The majority are yelling stuff and spilling their cans of PBR and bottles of High-Life, the champagne of beers, all over the floor, and all over each other. The Feathered Glory comes to the end of their song. The horn players are just blowing random notes as loud as they can. One is down on his knees. The drummer is bashing everything in the vicinity. One guitarist is on the floor twiddling the knobs of his delay pedal. The other guitarist already has his patch cable wound up, his guitar in it’s case and is off stage with a lit cigarette in this non-smoking venue, before the others have even finished playing the last note. It’s pretty funny. They finish, everybody cheers.