Second Star to the Right

It was crazy.  There were phone calls.  There was panic.

I remember calling my boss about half an hour after I'd arrived at work to let him know that I had to bug out.  Roulette was headed to the hospital, and I met her there.

False alarm.  Go home, lady... it isn't time yet.

Okay.  We're home.  Before long, she's wandering around the house groaning, then crying... then I'm calling again.  Okay, they say.  Bring her up. 

So I did.

We arrived at 12:56 PM.  At 1:11, after only fifteen minutes of utter chaos and running and screaming and pain and cursing and crying for drugs... it was over.

My baby boy turns a year old today.

It happened way... too... fast.... 
*sniffles*

I can't say enough good things about this show.  And yet, to say too much would be to give away the details that made the story truly remarkable.

Along with a few hundred other radid theater-goers, Roulette and I descended on Century II Concert Hall here in Wichita yesterday afternoon for a matinee performance of Broadway's latest sensation, Wicked.  It was a 2 o'clock show, and the theater was packed.  I saw remarkably few empty seats in the house.  Our tickets were comp tickets provided for local air talent, so I expected the seats to be horrible... remarkably, we ended up about seven or eight rows back, nearly dead center.  We could clearly see the expressions on the actors' faces, could clearly hear every word, every note.

The sets were the most elaborate I have ever seen.  The artistry involved in the sets and the way they were lit was simply breathtaking.  A massive dragon hovered atop the stage, directly over our heads, and the show started with its glowing eyes, moving claws and wings, and smoke pouring from its snout.  Then there were flying monkeys dancing across the stage, and the fun was underway.

The story, without giving too much away, is the tale of Elphaba, later known as the Wicked Witch of the West, and Glinda the Good, and their complex and intriguing friendship.  We begin the tale with an accounting of Elphaba's birth, then proceed to her college career in the company of her crippled sister, Nessarose.  Glinda - called Ga-linda at university - is an annoyingly popular girl who gets thrown into an unlikely relationship with the verdant sorceress when they are forced to room together.  Another principal character is Fiyero, a lackadaisical troublemaker who creates something of a love triangle with the witches that creates predictable tension in their relationship.  The first act ends with a visit to the Emerald City and a meeting with the venerable Wizard of Oz, who turns out to be more of an antagonist in the story than anything else.

The music was amazing, the performances compelling... the end of the first act left us in tears.  The amazing thing was to realize that the story didn't end there.  Elphaba's tale continues all the way to its tragic conclusion, with surprises along the way that will leave your head spinning.  Though few of the songs in the latter half of the show can rival the best of the first, the second act is even more fun in its quasi-familiar entry into the story with which we are already accustomed.  There are certainly more than a few liberties taken with L. Frank Baum's original material, but the story holds up with remarkable homage to the beloved story we all grew up with.  There are precious few inconsistencies with the 1939 classic motion picture - amazing, considering how dear the character of the wicked witch is to us in this particular production - and it generally enriches the mythology in a very charming manner.

I loved this show.  Glinda starts as a spoiled rich girl who turns out to have a good, if somewhat misguided and slightly tarnished, heart, whilst Elphaba is presented to us as a misunderstood intellectual who sacrifices personal safety for her activist beliefs.  Their friendship, while strained at times, is genuinely beautiful to be a part of.  Wicked is easily one of the most extraordinary theater experiences of my life.  It's laced with hope and heartbreak, with plenty of light-hearted lyrics to keep you moving with the story.  It was nearly three hours long, including the 15-minute intermission, and the tickets are ungodly expensive... but after seeing it, I understand.  The production must be ridiculously expensive to maintain.

See it.  You'll love it.  Guaranteed.

I can't seem to help it...

Last night, I'm having a perfectly enjoyable conversation with my Dungeon Master - which probably sounds like a weird thing to keep hearing me say, since so many of my friends are unaccustomed to seeing me anywhere but the DM's seat - when, at some point, I feel the irresistable urge to Push A Button.  Tying a quick gag on the little voice in the back of my head that clearly knows better, I take the opportunity to slide in a small barb of criticism regarding an element of his GMing style.  Predictably, it creates an awkward moment in the conversation.  We recovered, but I have no idea how he felt about it later.

Here's the thing.  (And I'm obviously in a position to offer a heartfelt apology, since Carl's known to peruse my blog.)  I do this sort of shit ALL the time.  It's almost a little psychological game I play with myself.  I'll use the flow of conversation to insert an idea that seems both horribly topical and relatively disruptive at the same time, as if I'm trying to see if I can throw a person off.  It's a trick I use in general discussion to grow the conversation, and in that context it's just fine.  But I'm talking about the moments when I say something personal or critical just to see how someone reacts and how they deal with the insertion of that idea.  I don't mean anything by it, particularly since I'm uninclined to offer pure bullshit, but I can't seem to keep it in check.

Many of my friends are long since accustomed to my little quirks, since conversation is one of our favorite hobbies.  I did have to learn how to curb this tiny appetite for tension when Roulette and I got together, since I quickly discovered that she doesn't tolerate it overly well.

As an apology to Carl, I didn't intend to sound critical.  If I'd really felt like it was a relevent criticism, I'd have been inclined to bring it up in some other manner.  We had been talking about the game, and it was a random thought which had trampled through my brain a time or two since the last session... Obviously a simple consequence of being a DM observing a DM.  I'm sure you can relate.  That doesn't make it okay... but I hope that you understand that I wasn't trying to offend.  I do enjoy gaming with you, sir.  Enough, thus far, to even overcome my distaste with the 4E game system.

Sometimes, I'm obviously applying that gag to the wrong inner monologue.

(Bullet points!  Get it...?)

• Exhausted last night... D&D game was okay, but slow.  I didn't really want to rush things too much, since the last few sessions were so combat-heavy.  This session was a few minutes to take a breather, do a little healing, try and decipher the clues to their next destination, and sift through the treasure vault.  (That last bit was really popular...!)  Then, at the end, the next challenge arose like a dragon skeleton spontaneously coming to life down the hall and roaring to shake the very foundations of the caslte... in fact, that's exactly what it was!
   
• Roulette needs a new job.  She came home very upset... once again, her boss set to rippin' her right in the middle of the office over some small error that was simply the result of a confused system of expectations.  She felt small, she felt stupid... and it's all because her boss wanted her to feel that way.  I've been in management; I can tell.  He may have been upset, but he elected to handle it in a manner that's designed to tear down an employee's confidence, morale and interest in doing their job.  And by including the entire office in the debacle, he made sure to spread these feelings around.  Mind you, he's a small business owner and can do as he wishes, but despite the state of the economy, I find it difficult to understand how he retains his employees.
   
• Unsurprisingly, school has turned out to be something of a challenge.  Roulette and I both joined the University of Phoenix online college in September.  It's very different from traditional college.  The classes do most of their work through daily discussion threads, and all you have to do is kinda bullshit your way through it.  I find it interesting... Roulette, not so much.  But I think she'd prefer real classes if she had the time.  Which she doesn't.  Of course, it doesn't help that our first classes were somewhat less than exciting selections, since they were both required courses for their online learning program.  Much of what they covered isn't new to Roulette, and seems like stuff I could easily have picked up in progress.  But they're credits.
   
• Speaking of online schools, Demi has been struggling with the Insight high school format.  Her biggest problem seems to be keeping up, however, since we put her in the position to be responsible for her own schedule.  Part of the problem is just an extension of the difficulty she has always had in school... she's dyslexic; if it involves reading, it's gonna take her a while.  But she has also demonstrated a remarkable willingness to procrastinate on doing the work she struggles with the most, which means she simply falls further and further behind.  Her grades aren't bad... I would like to establish a system of incentives for getting A's, but I can't see rewarding her for one grade when another class is three weeks behind.  We're going to establish a daily schedule of assignments to get caught up.  It isn't going to be much fun.

• My band has basically fallen apart.  Not maliciously, but anything I do at this point is basically a whole new project.  We've been unable to maintain any kind of rehearsal schedule, for varying reasons, and people have started to drift away.  I've been networking, so mayhap something will turn up, but it's a grave disappointment to find myself so close to where I started.  (I might be overdramatizing a bit, since it's not as if I've really discussed the situation with my colleagues overly much, but it feels like starting over...)

• On an UP note, my radio perks are paying off a little.  I already have tickets to take my family to Trans-Siberian Orchestra on the 2nd.  This will be my fourth TSO show, Roulette's third, Demi's second... and my mom's first!  So that's pretty exciting.  Even more exciting to me, I may have two tickets to Wicked this Thursday at Century II!  I've been lamenting my inability to afford tickets for the past six months, since we were originally told there would be no comp tickets for radio personnel... but the word just came down last week that Theater League is offereing free tickets to air staff.  I haven't received confirmation on my seats yet, but I'm cautiously optimistic...

Sorry for the downers.  It's been a rough week.  I suppose that's why I haven't been blogging as much lately.  If I had a seventh bullet, I'd mention that the house had a flu goin' around for about a week, but everybody's better now.  Our 4E DM's family's been dealing with it, too, so there hasn't been any Sunday games lately... though that's okay.  It's been a heavy day for getting schoolwork done the last couple of weeks.

Keep in mind... I'm not complaining.  I'm just talkin'.  Life is really pretty good for the most part... I have plenty to be thankful for.  I have a lot of love in my house, and we meet the challenges of our everyday life head-on and do our best to put them behind us.  And I recently discovered Leverage.  And we may not be utterly broke at Christmas this year.  It's not all doom and gloom.

Yes... Leverage rocks.

That's what it amounted to.  Three whole hours.  If that.

Had our weekly Monday night D&D game last night.  It was pretty decent... the heroes launched themselves into the climactic battle for the current adventure.  It took them a while to build up to it.  There was a mechanical lift that would carry them to the upper story of the castle, effectively no other way to get there, and it was noisy enough to give the inhabitants plenty of warning and time to set up an ambush.  I actually broke out tacticals for this one, printing a map and constructing a bunch of tokens... of course, as uber-prepared as I tend to be, I did all that about three weeks ago.  I was really proud of the character counters for the PCs... I scoured the internet for artwork that would meet as many of the details of the character's physical description as possible and carry with it a feel for each of them.  I think I'll post the counters with some basic details about each character over at http://wbscampaign.livejournal.com.

We ended the session at a turning point in the combat, where the initial ambush had been dealt with but the big boss and his retinue came onto the scene, so next session should have an adrenalin-charged start.  We actually whipped out the digital camera and snapped a pic of everyone's current position... worked out pretty well.  I'm lookin' forward to the follow-up.

Didn't get a lot of sleep after that.  I've been coughing a little, and the session was kinda hard on my throat, but Gabriel was just miserable.  He was couging and crying most of the night.  Roulette got up and dealt with it quite a bit, then Moonled took him off our hands at about 4:30 or so, but I still only slept for about three hours.  Surprisingly, I'm okay.  A little medicated, but on my feet.  That's saying a lot.

Another 4E D&D session yesterday...

For the unitiated, Roulette and I joined a local 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons group to try out the game for a bit and see how we like it.  I ran a trial run last June when the new edition first hit the shelves, and the game simply didn't appeal to my group's play style as much as the previous ruleset.  Still, it's a pretty cool system with some interesting new rules, so Roulette and I had talked about experimenting with it again some time in the future.  I met our new DM in the months following, and we eventually decided to do some gaming together.  He and his players are currently 4E all the way... so that made it the obvious choice.

Our first session was a few weeks ago.  It was a little clunky... Roulette and I are still trying to adjust to the play style suggested by the game system, which is readily embraced by the other players, and said DM seemed a little nervous and underprepared.  Understandable... like us, they have busy lives.  And there's an obvious period of adjustment when gaming with new people.  You have to get to know each other.

Session Number Two was considerably better.  I had a chance to actually get involved in the combat, a pleasant departure from the first session when I spent several rounds dazed and cursed with exceedingly poor die rolls, and the group of us did a good deal more roleplaying.  Some of the awkwardness of the first session had dissipated, and we began to settle into the experience.  Roulette and I both had more effective roles in the combat that erupted in the last couple hours of the game, and it was easier to remain focused throughout.

It wasn't what we are used to.  I'm not gonna kid ya... if not for the exciting experience of gaming with new friends, this isn't something we'd have much enthusiasm for.  We are consummate roleplayers, from a group that promotes roleplaying and characterization above combat and cool powers.  Or perhaps more accurately, a character's combat experiences and abilities are part of the total package, never the point of it.  This is an approach to D&D that 4E doesn't reflect well.  And more poignantly, one might expect that in a group of comfortable roleplaying companions who have a similar take on the game, you could make a serious effort to bend the rules to your needs as a group.  But that's not what we're dealing with...

I'm not an elitist, by the way.  I was... about ten years ago.  The truth of the tabletop RPG phenomenon is that there is no "wrong" way to play... just different ways.  Now that being said, compatibility matters.  This group is a good example of mixed play styles that probably aren't overly compatible.  We can still have fun with it though... it's just a matter of meeting in the middle a little bit.  The DM said he liked the idea of mixing in players who are more focused on roleplaying, and we both felt that the mixture, as challenging as it might be, could provide a new and interesting play experience for everyone involved.  It gives his other players exposure to "hard-core" roleplayers (which might be starting to annoy them a bit... but we'll see), and it gives Roulette and I a chance to experience 4E with an enthusiastic group of devotees.

It's not perfect, but the experience improved exponentially from one session to the next, and I'm curious to see how it's going to progress.  4E will never be our game of choice, but we're giving it a chance...

... After all, that's the least you can do for the game you've always loved, right?

*Incidentally, 10 points to anyone who can identify the quote in the subject line... it's from a movie! (of course)

... I've spent time with my mother on her birthday.  She drove up from Dodge on Friday, and spent the weekend.  It was a fun weekend, too.  Gabriel seemed to connect a little more with her this time.  We visited the Old Town Farmers' Market on Saturday morning (and took the kids, since Roulette was at work), then had a light brunch at La Gallette in Delano.  When Roulette got off work, we had lunch at Marchello's down on South Seneca.  Mmmm... good stuff.  And we ran into ravenx99 and gamehawk, so that was cool.  After that...

... Roulette took us to a little dress shop on Douglas where she had quietly selected... a wedding dress!  She claims she was stopping in to check out a dress in the window that she thought she'd like to scale down for her dolly clothes.  Somehow, this decision landed her in the back of the shop browsing through their bridal gowns.  And she found one she really loves.  It's beautiful... though she intends to add a feature or two.  *grins*  Go figure.  We then visited the Castle Inn Riverside and a couple other possible venues, and decided on a date for the wedding.

... I started school.  It's online... and when you have a busy life with a lot goin' on, it's brutal.  Only the very first day was overly forgiving, as Day 2 required about an hour of reading and considerable online discussion of what you read.  Not that it wasn't interesting... it largely centered around the development of social media and it's impact on the online market, which at least involved a couple of areas with which I had more than a passing familiarity.  It was just a lot of work for only the second day of class.  So far, so good.

... I ran my first D&D game in almost two weeks.  We'd canceled last week's session scheduled on Labor Day, since one of the players had family commitments.  It was a little disorienting, since I'd become accustomed to running longer games on the summer holidays, rather than none at all.  But that was only because everyone was available.  This guy's fairly new, so it didn't hit me until the week before.  Still, the other guys came over and we had a cookout and played video games... it was fun.  This Monday night's session wasn't bad.  Everyone seemed to really enjoy it, even though it was largely dominated by a single, massive combat.  *shrugs*

... I visited with a friend of a friend who hosted a jam session at his place.  It's always good to get out and play with new people, and this time I didn't have to upset my own household with all the noise.  Talented folk, too... I had a really good time.  I've noticed a proliferation of talented musicians in this town, and have been fortunate enough to trade licks/beats with more than a few of them.  Not a bad place to be.

Oh... and the wedding date?  March 20, 2010.  Life is good, friends....

MUSICAL DAILY



I was introduced to Styx when I was in high school.  Though my parents owned several of their albums on vinyl, I don't remember them coming out much during my childhood.  Not enough to make an impression, anyway.  But one of my players back in 1989 was a huge fan... and made sure than my musical education wasn't lacking for exposure to Dennis DeYoung and Company's creative ramblings.

Paradise Theatre is a fictional account of the rise and fall of an actual Chicago movie palace which opened in 1928 and closed in '56, to be demolished a few years later.  The tale is used as a metaphor for the changes American culture was experiencing in the late 70's and early 80's, and is woven with Styx's unique blend of harmonic intricacies and poetic flair, more hinting at the story than coming right out and explaining it.  It's a masterpiece of the era, and one of the band's more cohesive efforts, which also spawned a handful of radio singles and fan favorites.

It was also one of the first cassettes I ever went to the store and bought for myself, along with The Grand Illusion and Rush's 2112.

Notable cuts include Rockin' the Paradise, Snowblind, Too Much Time on My Hands and The Best of Times.  The latter two songs were Top 10 singles in 1981.

Life got busy again.  So much for my regular updates.  I'll try to back to it again soon...  Thank you for your patience.

Zzzzzzzzz.......

*sigh*

I was fired yesterday... from my band, not my job.  The de facto bandleader gave me a buzz yesterday afternoon and laid it on me over the phone, rather than make everyone deal with the awkwardness of a face-to-face at tonight's jam session.  For which I am especially grateful, since we jam at his place out in B.F.E.  Drew's gonna cart my rig back to town for me tonight.

I feel I should make a comment or two.  First, let me clarify that I'm not overly upset at this turn of events.  Disappointed, certainly... but very much at peace.  Said bandleader's assessment that we weren't entirely musically compatible may be a fairly accurate one.  There were certainly noticeable differences in our influences, our ideas and our interests.  Because of my positive experiences with these kinds of collaborations, I actually have a tendency to embrace such differences.  I like to see where it can lead.  It can (and did) create a sort of tension, which I find inspiring.  But people respond to friction in different ways... where I see potential, someone else may see nothing but headaches.  I don't begrudge them that.  Ultimately, that's the very definition of an irreconcilable difference.

It disappoints me because I don't feel that we were given a chance.  Rehearsals have been hit-and-miss the last few months, I've been terribly unhappy with my sound, and the band's been kind of in a holding pattern awaiting the return of our lead singer from the desert.  There was no discussion about the disparate directions that our sound may or may not be going.  I was never approached with the idea as something for consideration.  I was approached with questions regarding my commitment, my interest, my decision to pursue side projects, whether or not I was happy... I took these questions in stride and gave them honest and straight-forward answers that seemed to satisfy the needs of the situation.  I wasn't about to assume that this would turn out to be the best vehicle for my efforts as a songwriter, but I was very interested in giving it a shot.

That being said, I don't actually feel that Geoff made the wrong decision.  As artists, we have to focus on keeping the inspiration flowing, keeping the tools at our disposal honed and responsive to our needs.  If he feels that my contribution to the band is contrary to its needs, then he needs to do what he can to protect its interests.  I know that he discussed the matter with the others, but I also know that there wasn't some sort of unanimous push to expel the Captain.... but I am confident that everyone felt that the decision would be made after due consideration and that I would be handled with the utmost respect.  Geoff's that kind of guy.

They're very talented people, and like many of the musicians with whom I've taken to the stage or the studio over the years, I am honored to have had the opportunity to work with them.  We parted, by definition, quite amicably.

Well... those of us who parted, anyway.  Drew and Rachel are still in my blues band.

Okay... now, a couple of observations that I've carried away from this project.  It was obvious to me that the spirit of total collaboration is very important to them, and it's equally obvious that they've had unpleasant experiences in the past where it wasn't given its due.  Unfortunately, I feel that their execution is flawed.  On the upside, everybody has a voice in everything.  And every idea is met with a willingness to give it merit, to experiment with it... to make everyone feel that their opinion counts.  In my observation, however, this has led to a collective need to voice one's opinions regardless of need, encouraging unnecessary changes and the lingering feeling that the previous idea wasn't the right one.  It's a good nod toward the spirit of collaboration, but in practice it's more an exercise of compromise, in which you're ideas get munched pretty thoroughly.  And people who can't effectively communicate their ideas, or who are loathe to instruct others in what to play, or who simply lack confidence enough to insert their opinions... well, it's definitely a process that attempts to serve the band as a whole but fails to serve the individual.  It doesn't necessarily play to your strengths, and blatantly highlights your weaknesses.

With the right people on the same page, this could be an extraordinary creative process.  I hope it works for them, but it was likely to become a bigger problem for me over time.  I was working on learning to function with it, but it made me loathe to be a heavy contributor.  And ultimately, that's an irreconcilable difference.

Well... at least my Thursday nights are free....

MUSICAL DAILY:



In 1991, I was taking guitar lessons from an old country and blues picker in downtown Dodge City.  During this period, I made the acquaintance of one of my fellow students, a kid named Kurt, who haled from one of the tiny communities nearby and had images of grunge or metal pretensions in his future.  We jammed together a little, but didn't have any kind of chemistry (or much ability, for that matter... we were both beginners).  It really wasn't an overly memorable association - musically, anyway.  He was a pretty cool dude.

But one night in his truck, whilst we were cruisin' around, he threw in the brand new Pearl Jam CD... and it hit me in the gut.  I had never heard anything like it.  (And for probably the first time in my musical education, neither had almost anyone else outside of Seattle or L.A.)  The first couple singles were already out on MTV, and I kinda dug them... but it was the other songs on the album, the meandering vocal stylings and uniquely-textured guitar-work strewn unapologetically throughout the CD, that drew me in.  I remember having him cruise around half the night just cranking that album, so that I could hear it again and again.

Pearl Jam was part of the movement that changed the landscape of the music industry for all time, along with fellow Northwesterners Nirvana, Soundgarden, and Alice-in-Chains.  They've produced eight studio albums in the years since, but Ten was certainly the most commercially successful and always my favorite.  A recent reissue of the CD has appeared, including remixes of the original tracks that thicken up the sound considerably.  If you're a fan of the album, it's definitely worth a listen.

Notable cuts include four top-ten rock-chart singles: Alive, Even Flow, Black and the critically-acclaimed Jeremy.

I graduated high school in December of 1992.  I'd spent the last year-and-a-half or so doing everything I possibly could to make myself sick of school.  To make things worse, my father was pushing me to skip the whole junior college phase and head right to a four-year university.  My friends weren't quite as amenable, so I faced the dubious prospect of making the trip across state on my own... something that didn't sit too well with me in that day and age.  After a childhood of constant moving about, I'd finally settled on a group of friends I couldn't stomach the idea of voluntarily parting company with.  So I decided to take a year off from school.

Then I got a job.  Then I bought a guitar.  Then I started a band.  Months turned into years... my friends were still around, since they were attending the local JuCo.  About the time I started to seriously reconsider abandoning any kind of college plans, I landed a job in radio - on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week, launching myself quickly into middle management.  What with the job and the bands and the D&D games and all, I just didn't have time...

*rolls eyes*

Now I'm 34.  I still work full-time... I'm in a band... I have two weekly D&D games... AND I have kids.  So it only makes sense that I'd enroll in college.  *grins*  I've been thinking about it for years.  I no longer know what to expect from the broadcasting industry in the years ahead.  Technology has changed the industry so much, and whilst we're making every effort to keep up and develop new and interesting ways to use this technology, our core tech is about as old as it gets.  Shifts in society's habits will inevitably require a rather serious restructuring of the industry, and I'll suddenly be one of the dinosaurs.  A dinosaur without a college education.

Roulette and I have been quite impressed with the online high school program that Demi's now involved in, and the school is affiliated with University of Phoenix, which has a local campus and offers an entirely online cirriculum designed to aid working adults in obtaining their degrees.  They have programs for numerous fields of study at every level of college education.  Of course, I'm starting at the very bottom, with zero college credits to my name.  Roulette's working toward a Bachelor's in Accounting... she's done an awfully lot of school over the years, for one reason or another.  Even with full Pell Grants, we're going to have to take out some student loans... That kinda sux.

I'm excited, though.  I'm currently majoring in Psychology, because it interests me and I'd be a pretty good therapist, but I've got time to decide what I really want to do.  We start in a couple of weeks, so I guess I'd better rest up....

*rests up*

MUSICAL DAILY



Savatage - Edge of Thorns:  In 1993, I'd been trading letters for a time with an ex-boyfriend of Roulette's from back in high school.  He was a really cool guy, and it never seemed to bother him that we had designs on the same girl.  (He likely never saw me as much of a threat, since he was a lot skinnier than I was... my how the tables have turned! Mwahahaha!!)  One thing that Robert certainly had going for him, however, was pretty decent taste in music.  Savatage was one of the bands that he kept trying to push on me, and I couldn't seem to get past the sandpapery vocal stylings of founder Jon Oliva.  Then, Edge of Thorns happened.

Late one Saturday evening, my brother summoned me to the living room to check out Savatage's new music video on Headbanger's Ball.  I was floored.  New singer Zachary Stevens was of a breed more indicitave of the Hetfield era, a lower, more pleasant tenor with just enough edge to make him metal.  To seal the deal, the song (and consequentially, the entire album) was drenched in piano melodies mixed flawlessly with guitar-driven crunch.  I wasted no time getting my hands on the album, which was extraordinary from one end to the other.

Addendum:  Jon's exit from the spotlight was all part of his plan, and the piano work (and much of the composition) was intended to be his last real contribution to their music.  Tragically, his brother Criss, the band's guitarist, died in an automobile accident a year or two later, which kept Jon involved in the band and initiated a chain of musical bandmates to fill the gap.  Despite all this, their next few albums are prized selections from my personal library, and the band eventually cranked out an unprecedented offshoot in the holiday music genre with a splinter project entitled Trans-Siberian Orchestra... but we'll talk about their debut CD another day.

... In shades of reddish-brown.  Browns aren't usually amongst my favorite colors, but the specific shade we've selected for the trim in our family room is wonderful.  Granted, some portion of the wonder might very well be a consequence of contrast, as the trim starts to take shape around the lime sherbet and sunshine or whatever that now covers the walls.  *grins*  It's good actually... I'd show you a picture, but they never turn out worth a fig.

And I've had some pretty cheap figs.

Our D&D game was cancelled yesterday... *sad face*  It would have been the first actual session for our brand-spankin' new 4E game, and one of the players (and host for the game, for that matter) was unwell.  I'd initially been concerned that Roulette and I might have the same issue, but had been relieved when we were fairly well recovered by yesterday, but alas... 'twas not meant to be.  Maybe next week.  I'm still lookin' forward to it.

Of course, just as Roulette and Moonled and I are getting over the sickness, demi_sakura catches it.  Go figure.

So... we painted yesterday.  We didn't get a whole lot done, but only compared to the scope of the project as a whole.  We focused on one corner of the room so that we could move a computer desk back in there for Demi to use for school.  *sigh*  So much to do.

MUSICAL DAILY:



Dream Theater - Images and Words:  I first discovered Dream Theater in a Columbia House catalog back in 1992.  If you've never had the pleasure, the Columbia House catalog entries do their best to synopsize the album in a fashion that's sure to make you stand up and cheer for the sheer joy of owning such a marvelous piece of musical artistry.  This particular aim was generally quite... bad.  Not so much for this particular album, as it happened - at least, if you're talking to me.  The entry for the CD collectively conjured images of my three absolute favorite artists at the time, mentioning them by name: Yes, Queensryche and Metallica.  With that kind of name-dropping, how could I possibly ignore it...

So I ordered it.  And before it even arrived in the mail, I caught the video for Dream Theater's first single on MTV.  The song was Pull Me Under, cut number one from the album, and it was brilliant.  Seventeen years later, the band has enjoyed 10 studio albums, 4 live albums, 1 compilation album, 1 EP, 18 singles, 7 video albums, 10 music videos and 16 official bootlegs - much of which I proudly possess and almost never listen to - Dream Theater has managed to impress me time and again with their ability to produce fresh, powerful, emotionally-charged musical eccentricity laced with an instrumental complexity that leaves your head spinning.  Particularly if you're a musician.  Even so, Images and Words remains my favorite Dream Theater album to date... it never loses it's luster.

I had the privalege to catch these guys in concert five or six years back, opening for Yes at Red Rocks in Denver.  (If you haven't already figured out that I was on cloud nine over this one, then you don't know me at all.)  They were a delightful live act, eclipsed only by the decades of practice their tourmates had over them.
 

A little more than a month ago, I did the voicework for a new client called Insight School of Kansas.  I found the copy intriguing, but didn't really give it much thought.  It was actually advertising a couple of information sessions coming up here in Wichita, targeting parents who might want to know more about their unusual new program.

Insight is a fully-accredited online high school.  Now, to some parts of the country, perhaps even the world, this may not seem like such an unique idea.  Colleges have been doing online outreach programs for years, and I know there are plenty of high school students out there who have already experienced this particular phenomenon.  But let me clarify...  We live in KANSAS.  Yeah.  KANSAS.  Here in the heart of the good ol' U.S. of A., we're lucky we aren't still using rotary phones and saddlin' up the horses to get down Mr. Johnson's general store.  (Yes, I'm exaggerating, but not as much as you might think.)  So I wasn't initially inclined to take this idea too seriously.

But demi_sakura's had a bit of a struggle in school the last few years, and it's almost entirely due to socialization issues.  (By 7yh grade, she was begging to be home schooled.)  And yes, I know that a child will never learn how to deal with such issues without being forced to socialize, but her successful education is an unacceptable price. Niera's dyslexic, which has caused some developmental and self-confidence problems, particularly since the Kansas school system lacked the tools to identify and treat the problem, which consequentially remained a mystery until she was almost 12 years old.  That's grade six!!  While the rest of the kid's were reading just fine, Niera, who is a very intelligent girl, couldn't keep up... just because her head is wired backwards!  We got her some help... and she's pretty much ready for high school.

But this year, it's gonna be courtesy of the world wide web.

roulette_ and I were sold almost instantly when we attended the seminar.  A lot of the questions we had about the idea of enrolling Niera in an online cirriculum were answered to our satisfaction, including their devotion to servicing her I.E.P. There were some lingering concerns about her ability to handle a self-motivated routine, but not her ability to thrive in an online environment.  She already does.

Classes have gotten underway, and she seems to be picking it up rapidly.  There's a definite learning curve involved in doing everything through an internet connection.  It's an elegant system, with parental access and involvement at every level.  (Not for the parent who really just wants to send their kid to school and not deal with it.)  Her biggest hurdle as a dyslexic, her ability to read and comprehend things at any kind of speed, is nicely leapt by a utility that actually reads the textbooks aloud -  a tool that dyslexic educators have fought to implement for students of public schools.  The teachers and mentors are very involved in the students' individual educational needs, providing a program that serves many different approaches to learning.

At this point, except for a couple of the course schedules for her live online classes, I'm extraordinarily happy with the decision.  Niera's taken a vested interest in helping us establish a weekly schedule that will work for her and us alike, and as a gaming enthusiast she's very easy to keep on task.  Incentives are a cinch.

*winks*

MUSICAL DAILY

Metallica - Metallica:  For anyone who really knows me, this one is kind of obvious.  Prior to 1991, heavy metal held very little enchantment for me.  My favorite albums were instrumentally complex offerings with etheric vocal harmonies, often interlaced with lofty themes and poetic lyrics.  My brother's Slayer, Iron Maiden and Megadeth tapes lacked any redeeming qualities for me at the time, as I just couldn't wrap my head around such naked aggression.  The thundrous growls and piercing wails were unequal to the musicality of bands like Yes and Styx, their crunchy guitar riffs less elegant than the instrumental creativity of Pink Floyd and Blue Oyster Cult.

If Queensryche was the door through which I walked to find a new appreciation of hard-driven rock music, Metallica's "Black Album" was the force that locked it behind me.  As a sophomore in high school, I picked up the guitar, and one of the first songs I ever learned to play was Enter Sandman.  It wasn't love at first sound, but it was a breakthrough in my musical education, much as it was a pioneering event for the genre as a whole.  Metallica changed the face of contemporary rock music entirely by unapologetically destroying the barriers that kept heavy metal out of the mainstream, releasing a collection of songs that pared their usual flagrant celebration of dark-themed, guitar-driven composition down into more streamlined, more accessible offerings.  And it worked.  MTV picked up the video to Enter Sandman and ran with it, turning an underground metal act int a world-wide phenomenon, simultaneously paving the way for other metal bands to creep out of the woodwork.

Metallica's habit of hard-core touring for years at a shot helped motivate their superstardom, though it was 1996 before I finally had a chance to catch their live act.  I've seen them twice now, and they've blown me away on both occasions.

Many fans of the juggernaut were unhappy with the changes Metallica made as they moved forward, particularly after this album, but it was the Black Album to which I owe my heartfelt allegiance.  Much like everyone else I've talked about this week, Metallica has inspired me to become the musician I am, helping to forge my soul into what it is today.  I won't apologize for that... not ever.  And occasionally, I'll still jam out to songs from this album whenever it's just me and my guitar.

Notable songs include Enter Sandman, Sad But True, The Unforgiven, Wherever I May Roam and Nothing Else Matters.

*grins*

Steve and Drew and Rachel and I got together last night for an impromptu blues jam.  It was good.  We set up in Roulette's sewing room - Jason's former bedchamber, such as it is - and we had just enough room to comfortably situate ourselves around the room, with the drums eating up less than a quarter of the available space.  It was a little noisy, but quite comfortable.  And despite the above-ground location, the household seemed largely unaffected.

We jammed through about a half-dozen originals and about as many covers.  That's the nice thing about the blues... practiced musicians can just pick up and play the songs with little difficulty, they need only watch for cues and get to know the changes.  My fingers were pretty sore after a couple of hours, a little moreso than on Thursday nights when I play a lot more rhythm and foundation parts, but I played fairly well so the pain was... kinda nice, if you imagine that.  Proof positive, I suppose.

I slept really well after that.

Oh... and Drew brought everyone banana peppers... little baggies of them.  That was cool.

MUSICAL DAILY



Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble - Texas Flood:  I don't think this will come as a surprise to anyone, but this is easily one of the most influential music collections of my life.  Stevie's 1983 debut album came on the heels of his unusual collaboration with the godfather of glam, David Bowie, who reputedly knew the very first time he heard the man play that great things would inevitably follow.  Stevie's career was tragically short, but changed the texture of contemporary blues music with a deep Texas spirituality that touched the lives of millions.  Mine was one of them, but sadly not until long after he was gone.

In 1996, I joined the Kansas-based blues outfit Dangerous Dan Kelly and the Blues Junkies.  Despite my father's love for the genre and a beloved instructional video by B.B. King, my education in the blues was sadly lacking at this point.  But I was a pretty decent bass player, so Dan elected to continue my education.  This album was one of the first places he sent me.  Tommy Shannon's elegant basswork on the CD's title track gave me a new perspective on the genre and the instrument I was playin', and made me realize that there was a life hidden in the patterned mechanics of formula blues bass that would never lack for new possibilities.

This CD still gets spins in my house, in my car... It never gets old.

Rest In Peace, Stevie.

Notable cuts on the album include the title track, Love Struck Baby, Pride and Joy and Mary Had a Little Lamb.

Journal of Magrath Kelivare, Order of Ganen
Regarding the Unusual Circumstances of Khorzan of Hammerfell

It is with some trepidation that I greet the coming dawn, for naught is as it should be in this remarkable place.  It has been seven days since we entered the twilight realm referred to by scholars as the Feywild, in pursuit of our adversary and the artifact she has stolen.  My observations regarding the nature of this plane will doubtless fill a volume all their own, assuming my safe return to the mortal realm.

'Twas the night before last, however, that we came to the mountain known as the Shadowpeak, and it is a dark and forbidding place indeed.  The wilds of the faerie realm are tainted upon the slopes, touched by an unseelie wind.  It is to somewhere above us that our quarry now flees, and I begin to question the wisdom of our quest.

Our diminutive guide, Erol Redfen, was the first to succumb to the accursed magics of the mountain.  He has begun to lose his way, and spends many moments in an expressionless study of distant things.  This morning past, he did not know us for several minutes upon waking.  Even now I hear him weeping in the darkness, crying out for his lost love Kera, who died eight winters past.

The swordsman, Liam Al'Tharen, seems to be afflicted as well, and has begun to demonstrate a surliness and impatience unbefitting of a respected man of his years.  Upon realizing his condition, he drank himself into a stupor.  Were our enemy to come upon us now, I fear that he would be no aid in holding her off.

I, too, have felt the touch of this strange malady.  An hour past, I failed to recall the simplest spell, and found myself a bumbling novice as in my academy days, more decades past at this point than I would care to admit.

Only our dwarven companion, Khorzan, has shown a most unusual reaction to the curse.  Whereas the rest of us have suffered holes in our memory that confuse us and create inconsistencies in our personalities, I am convinced that a different personage entirely lurks in the spaces between the heir of Hammerfell's lucid periods.  It is almost as if he is besieged at these moments by a dwarven elder or patron entity, a hard man with little patience for our developing inadequacies.

And stranger still, whereas I can recall every moment of my misbegotten behavior, Khorzan seems blissfully unaware, remembering nothing of his brief transformations.

For the sake of our patron, this may yet prove to be a blessing, as Khordan, at the least, will likely make it to the top of the peak.  My confidence in the rest of us, I fear, is somewhat shaken.  Should these prove to be my very last words, I hope to have purported myself with the utmost dignity in the conflict to come.

~ Magrath

**********

Khorzan is my first 4E D&D character, a dwarven warlord who, following the strange curse atop the mountain, remembers nothing of his previous life.  In the heat of combat, he is overcome by the spirit of his long-deceased great-grandsire, and he now travels in the company of the eladrin woman he was pursuing, roulette_'s warlock PC, who has also lost her memory and still carries the mysterious artifact she had stolen..  though it seems little more than a curious trinket, given their affliction.

The game starts this Sunday, and I'm really looking forward to it!  I'll let you know how it goes...

MUSICAL DAILY



Queensryche - Operation: Mindcrime:  I was in high school when I first encountered the melodic, hard rock stylings of Seattle's 80s-underground fave Queensryche, courtesy of MTV.  Their Empire CD had just hit the shelves, but I wasn't yet convinced that I needed it in my primarily classic rock collection.  After years of unpleasant exposure to my brother's metal cassettes, I hadn't yet decided to be a fan of contemporary music, save for some of the 80's glam-rock party bands and pop icons.  I owned a few Weird Al and Yes tapes and a handful of classic rock and Madonna CDs, and that was very nearly it.  I was, however, the only one of my immediate peers to own a CD player in 1990, as my parents had somehow become prophetic enough to realize that my musical awakening was but a year or two away.

My friends always seemed determined to wake me up to newer music, and Roulette had a copy of Operation: Mindcrime on compact disc.  She'd bought it for someone else - she already had it on tape - but hadn't passed it on and decided to gift it to me when I moved away.  So I put it in with my other CDs and promptly forgot about it.  Eventually, I happened to purchase a cassette single of Silent Lucidity after the song became so prolific that I was hearing it in my sleep, and in a cleverly insightful move, the record company had decided to make the B-side a live version of The Mission, a cut from their prior album... which it didn't take me long to realize that I already owned a copy of.  So I put it on.

And changed my world forever.

In a fashion that immediately reminded me of some of the concept albums from a few of my favorite classic rock artists, Operation: Mindcrime was a rock opera that told the story of an underground revolution and one of their drug-addicted brainwashed assassins, and how he attempted to escape with the woman he'd fallen in love with. The record was laced with powerful themes - corruption in the government and the church, the irresponsible media, drug abuse and sexual obsession -  very topical for its day... ideas I'd been remarkably unassociated with in my fantasy-drenched escapist youth.  And it was all tied together with a musical complexity that spoke to me in a way I had yet to realize would become a cornerstone for the life I would soon be building.

Album Extra:  The Building Empires tour was reputedly the last time the band elected to play the entirety of the album on stage, an effort that was then filmed and released as a CD/VHS boxed set entitled Operation: Livecrime, which included an explanatory booklet.  And I Saw That It Was Good.

So... if I keep up this new blogging schedule, I suppose that Mondays are for talking about the weekend.

* In preparation for the slated November release of The Gathering Storm, the long-awaited twelfth book of Robert Jordan's literary extravaganza The Wheel of Time, I started reading Eye of the World again just last week, but it's always hard to get rolling on it... particularly since I've already read it three or four times.  This weekend I finally got past the first chapter.  Go me.

* On Saturday, roulette_  and I, and the kids, hit the pavement for a sojourn down to Winfield to see her grandmother. The two of them then spent the day canning.  Yes... canning.  They were making pickles.  We stopped at a Dillons on the way into town to pick up a couple of wayward ingredients for the project, including cinammon sticks and red hots.  I'm anticipating a most unusual pickle.  But I've never met a pickle I didn't like, so I'm rather looking forward to sampling the finished process.

* Friday night we launched a rather serious effort to clean Jason's old bedroom, ultimately intended to be used as a sewing room (which Roulette may actually need to use as such in coming months), in preparation for a Tuesday night jam session this week.  This time with drums.  That requires a little more space... so we're making it.  At least temporarily.  This sort of thing (the cleaning, not the jamming) always turns out to be a lot more work than you think it's gonna be going into it.  I'm finally down to a little bit of sweeping, however.

*Yesterday was our first get-together with a new gaming group.  With salad firmly in hand, we headed over to ravenx99's house for some spaghetti and some quality discourse.  After a few... um... hours of casual discussion about pretty much everything except the pending Dungeons & Dragons game, we quickly got down to business and hashed out the opening gambit.  Well... sorta.  We tried.  *looks defensive*  We should have it figured out by next Sunday.  Really.

*grins*

It was fun.

MUSICAL DAILY

What I'm gonna do this week is select an album from my collection - something I've listened to or caught a piece of in the last 24 hours or so - and reminisce.  As a musician, a radio disc jockey, and just someone who's had a love affair with music since I was very young, I have very eclectic tastes and love to talk about them.  We'll start with a selection from my favorite musical act of all time:



Yes - 90125:  Despite my father's best efforts, my first real interest in Yes didn't occur until this 1983 release, which spawned the progressive rock outfit's first and only Billboard chart-topper Owner of a Lonely Heart.  My parents had loved Yes since the early 70's, but my real musical awakening had yet to occur.  I was maybe eight years old, or nearly so, and we were at my grandfather's house in Shawnee, Kansas.  My parents went out, and returned with two shiny new LPs.  One of them, they'd purchased for me... that was Michael Jackson's Thriller.  We were a cable family, and MTV had made him an instant celebrity to my younger brother and I.  The other album was the brand new offering from Yes, and their more streamlined entry into the 80's era of glamorous musical rediscovery assaulted my imagination in a way they'd not managed to do prior to that point.  Over the next few years, I would play that album virtually to death, go on to get it (and their next record) on cassette and play those to death, and eventually come to consume the entirety of their classic catalog.  I now an entire shelf full of Yes CD's, and I'll buy each and every one they release even though I no longer listen to CDs.  Because despite playing musical musicians (pun intended) and demonstrating a remarkable penchant for chameleon-like transformations of their sound, they've never disappointed me.  Some albums are better than others, of course... but none of them suck.  And that alone is worth my devotion.

Yes has proven, time and again, to be one of the most talented groups of musicians ever assembled.  With nineteen original studio albums and numerous hits collections and live recordings, and more than a dozen lineup switches in the last 40 years, they've survived the changing landscape of music with grace and a clear devotion to providing a level of quality and creativity that refuses to be buried in the trappings of the era.  I've loved them since I was eight years old, and I owe it all to 90125.

Other well-known pieces from this album include Leave It and It Can Happen.  It was the first YES album to include South African guitarist Trevor Rabin, who wrote much of the music.  The accompanying tour went on to spawn an award-winning concert motion picture entitled 9012Live, which included most of the cuts from the album and two classic selections.

Something I saw on Youtube (which wasn't actually that funny, so I shan't bother linking it here) reminded me of this amusing little anecdote from mine beloved:

users.livejournal.com/roulette_/37006.html

I'm relatively certain that I failed to find this situation as amusing at the time, but I really did make a very poor "house husband".  I was unemployed for a while after moving to Wichita, and I was determined to help make up for it with a liberal assumption of housekeeping duties.  In my defense, I was well aware of the potential damage pertinent to the business end of my rapier and knew precisely what I was doing.  Up until I stabbed it through the side of the hose, anyway.  I couldn't seem to come up with some masculine explanation for how that was part of the plan.  Somehow, I don't think Roulette felt that a sword was the best tool for the job.

I thought so.  It was, after all, quite pointy.

MUSICAL DAILY 8/20/09
(Aretha Franklin) A Natural Woman
(Chicago) Wishing You Were Here
(Metallica) 2 X 4
(Led Zeppelin) Dazed and Confused
(Meat Loaf) Hot Patootie
(Boys Like Girls) Love Drunk
(Black Eyed Peas) Boom Boom Pow
(Pitbull) You Know You Want Me
(Backporch Mary) Falling Backwards
(Nickelback) Should've Listened
(The Who) Who are You

Had dinner last night with ravenx99 .  Theoretically, we got together to talk about gaming... he's going to be running a 4E game for me and roulette_ and his wife and a couple other peoples.  We're getting together this weekend as a group to get things rollin', but we thought we'd catch up last night and see if there was anything we wanted to discuss.

Which turns out to be a little bit of everything BUT gaming (or damn near, anyway).

I think this is interesting.  Gaming is what put us in contact, got us hanging out.  He lives close and works from home a lot, so we've able to catch a lunch here and there... but every time we sit down to have any kind of conversation, the minutes can turn to hours before we know it.  It's really cool to know people that you can just talk to.  And it isn't necessarily unusual to meet a fellow gamer who has other common interests... as a subcultural phenomenon, numerous geeky interests tend to walk hand-in-hand with roleplaying games, even though tabletop roleplaying as a hobby has long-since expanded to appeal to a much broader audience than its roots suggest.  I've had geeks, jocks, punks, preps, boys and girls of every color, kids and oldtimers, artists and musicians, actors, teachers, preachers, outdoorsmen - I've had all kinds of people at my table over the years.

From fantasy to science-fiction, books and movies, music, games and comics, renaissance faires and SCA and gaming clubs and online communities.  Star Wars and Star Trek, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Buffy and Angel and Firefly, James Bond, Final Fantasy, Halo and World of Warcraft, X-Men, X-Files, Farscape, Lost, The Sword of Truth and The Wheel of Time, Douglas Adams, H.P. Lovecraft, Giger, Vallejo and Aliens and Predators.  From Superman to Jack O'Neill to John Crighton to Kirk and Spock and everyone in between.  We are a culture in love with the impossible in all it's many forms, and Dungeons & Dragons and similar offerings are the ultimate expression of this devotion.

What's interesting is that we found so little need to talk about gaming at all, except how it mutually influences every other part of our lives.  Almost like a casual frame of reference for other things.  It's kinda cool...

No... it's really cool.  And I'm really lookin' forward to the games.

Incidentally, speaking of games... I'm in the process of working up some more campaign journals for those of you following my War of the Burning Sky campaign.  Keep an eye on wbscampaign for updates!

MUSICAL DAILY 8/19/09
(Eric Clapton) Tears in Heaven
(Devo) Whip It
(Rent OST) Santa Fe
(Red Hot Chili Peppers) Scar Tissue
(Cobra Starship) Good Girls Go Bad
(Black Eyed Peas) I Gotta Feeling
(Yes) It Can Happen
(The Doobie Brothers) Takin' It to the Streets
(Faster Pussycat) House of Pain
(Dream Theater) A Change of Seasons
(Rush) 2112

UBER BADASS UNDEAD WARLORD GUY:  You, Dread Wraith servant of mine! There are adventurers in my castle... float down to the barracks and tell my small army of minions to spread out and find them!  Kill them all!!  MWAHAHAHAH!

DREAD WRAITH:  Yess, Master...!

*Several minutes pass... Dread Wraith returns*

DREAD WRAITH:  Um... Master...?  You know the barracks...?  *clears incorporeal throat*  Um... well, it appears that the adventurers have already... um... been there...

*******

It's a castle full of undead baddies, and the players have quite an effort ahead of them... but they unwittingly just made their job a bit easier by taking a left inside the main gate... and doing what comes naturally.  It was a relatively easy fight for them, too, since their cleric just kinda walked in and started blowin' em up with his divine mojo.  Of course, said mojo is about used up, and they're kinda on a time table... but that's what makes it fun, right?

8/17/09 Session Analysis:

PROS:  No more patrols to keep track of, since the PCs walked in and dissuaded them from moving about... violently...  And we got two larger combat scenes out of the way.  The group is firmly inside the dungeon.

CONS:  Session was largely eaten up by combat.  Two big fights, each of which took more than an hour... Didn't seem to affect the mood, however; roleplaying between fights was solid and very interactive.  Unfortunately, they didn't cover much ground in this time.

*******

MUSICAL DAILY 8/18/09
(Flo Rida) Low
(Megadeth) Anarchy in the UK
(Evanescence) Like You
(Collective Soul) The World I Know
(Boys Like Girls) Love Drunk
(Yes) Awaken
(Corrine Bailey Rae) Put Your Records On

*sigh*

Ever since I first sat in the basement at my buddy Chad's house back in 1996 and laid out my best basswork for Dangerous Dan Kelly, in hopes that he'd find me a suitable sidekick for his blues act, I've been hooked.   My dad had always been a lover of the blues, but despite his best efforts I'd only showed a passing interest up to that point.  Despite my relative indifference, I'd first learned the basics of guitar and bass from an old country and blues picker who taught lessons in an antiquated little downtown studio, and I'd picked up a lot of bluesy bass patterns and learned enough theory to extrapolate from there.  Fortunately, Dan was suitably impressed enough to give me a shot, and the Blues Junkies were born.

Needless to say, my father was ecstatic.

I had a good time jammin' with Dan over the next few years.  Eventually, he skipped town, and I made the decision to stay.  That was generally the end of my blues career.  I spent the next several years playing guitar and bass with a couple of cover bands, only really getting the chance to do much original music when my ex-wife and I hit the variety shows and open mic events.  And it wasn't the blues.  Not yet, anyway.

I then spent four or five years playing lead guitar in a rock 'n roll cover band.  We played bars and dance clubs, and I had a lot of fun.  It was a great way to keep my chops, continue developing skills as a lead player, and enjoy interacting with an audience... but it wasn't musically very satisfying.  (Don't get me wrong... it was a blast!  But it certainly wasn't a vehicle for my songwriting, which is ultimately what drove me to music to begin with.)  Then, during my divorce in 2006, I once again encountered my "blues muse" and found myself neck deep in my own music.  I started writing songs... and they were good.

It's been a few years since that all went down, and I've only written a few songs since... but every time I try to go somewhere else with my music, I find myself drawn back to my blues roots.  So I began a new journey just last year, in the months before my son was born, to try and find local colleagues who might be interested in working with me.  It wasn't easy, and then Gabriel's birth inevitably assumed a very central role in my life and I just didn't have the time anymore.  Eventually, one of the few musicians with whom I'd jammed briefly during my search looked me up and invited me to check out the new band he'd hooked up with in the months since, as they were lookin' for another axe.

These guys are good, and I'm glad I decided to audition for them.  It's been a really cool experience, and I hope to stay with it for a while, see what comes of it.  We focus on original material, and we've started collaborating on new songs together... which is a feeling I've missed in the last ten years.  It isn't perfect... we're still feeling it out, and some of their old material isn't real intuitive to me, but they're definitely worth the effort.  And Drew, the dude who brought me in... he's become more than just a colleague.  He's a friend.  The demand to step up my game time and again over the years has jaded me somewhat on this idea, as I've had to move from jammin' with my friends, when we were all amatuers, to seeking out other more dedicated musicians like myself, whom inevitably turn out to be people with whom I have remarkably little in common outside of the music.  It's nice to break the pattern a little bit.

So Drew and I started jammin' a little on the side.  He wanted to play more than once a week, and wanted the chance to work on his chops and go over some of the songs.  As did Rachel, as it turned out... one of our singers.  And the vibe between the three of us - who are also, incidentally, the three newest members of the band - is fantastic.  But I didn't have much of a grasp on the bands older tunes yet, and I was contemplating bringing more of my own material to the table, so I blew the dust off a couple of my blues tunes and we started workin' over some of that material.

Now I feel like I should explain that the band I've joined would be perfectly capable of diggin' on my blues jams and turnin' out some quality songs, and I've been encouraged to bring 'em out... but there's also a very clear understanding that the pieces will undergo a certain amount of retooling.  Which is fine... but many of these songs are basically already polished in my head, lacking only the money to make a decent recording to make them a done deal.  I don't begrudge the band they're creativity, but I decided I'd rather focus on new material for the group and keep most of my old songs... well... mine.  They're good songs, and Drew and Rachel seemed to take to them instantly.

So I started thinkin' about my blues project again... and playing out.

It took me several weeks to come to the conclusion that I should give it a shot.  I don't want to take anything away from the time and energy I spend on the other band, but I've juggled projects before and found the experience fairly rewarding.  There's a commute involved in the band, so we only jam once a week... and though we have eventual plans to play out, that's a while off yet and we'll be playing 50-minute sets at shows with two or three other acts.  Not what I'm used to... and probably not enough for me.  If I could field a local blues act, I could hit the stage every two or three weeks for a 3 or 4 hour show.  That's a little more like what I'm used to...

So... I found a drummer.  We'd jammed before, and I'd told him that if I got a blues group together I'd give him a call.  But now, just as things are lookin' up, it's unclear whether Drew's gonna have the time to stay with it.  Which is understandable... juggling projects can take a bit of time, and he's got a lot goin' on.  But the timing is unfortunate... I don't wanna see my chance to work these songs up the way I hear them in my head slip away.  *sigh*  We'll see what happens...

*crosses fingers*

MUSIC DAILY - 08/17/09
(Bon Jovi) Always
(Queensryche) Jet City Woman
(The Buggles) Video Killed the Radio Star
(The Who) Pinball Wizard
(Metallica) Leper Messiah
(Kings of Leon) Use Somebody
(Jordan Sparks) Battlefield
(Boston) A Man I'll Never Be
(Shadow Gallery) Out of Nowhere
(Motley Crue) Dr. Feelgood
 

Last week, I started logging what I've been listening to.  I received a new MP3 player as a gift from my mum and me brudder, and I wasted little time loading it up with pretty much everything I thoroughly enjoy listening to from my computer library.  That's a lot of songs.
I've got over 10,000 tunes to choose from, from over a thousand artists... it took a couple hours a day over the course of three days to get it loaded.

Then it occurred to me... I wonder how the music I'm exposed to, the songs that I jam out to, affect my daily life.  We tend to take music for granted, as a culture.  It's largely passive entertainment, something we can enjoy at whatever level of immersion we prefer at any given moment, often whilst engaged in other activities.  As a musician, I feel that the artistry involved deserves a more relevant place in my life...

Of course, society has a significant impact.  We have become an instant-gratification culture, with the ability to get what we want, when we want.  On-Demand television, online movies, wireless internet, online shopping, cellular phones, portable game systems, laptops, MP3 players... you can see why it's easy to take these things for granted.  They've become a casual part of life.

But I remember.  My father used to buy an album (vinyl LP's, which you had to go to the local record store and flip through records to find), play it once to record it to cassette (so it might never again touch a needle), then spend the occasional evening just parked in front of the stereo with his headphones on.  That was entertainment.

( I thought I might share my daily dosage... )