Good Frames’ First Rehearsal Or: Absurd Is Not Enough

It’s been a few weeks because I’ve been preparing to visit my family and friends in NYC. But this needs to be documented because it goes to show just how mindlessly absurd life can be.

What follows is a short recounting of Good Frames’ first band rehearsal, a.k.a.,

The day I should have slept through:

Woke up. Exercised. Went singing. Got a migraine around noon. Spent 3.5 hours in bed with a heating pad on my face (burned my face with the heating pad). Got well. Did some packing for NYC. Practiced guitar for 30 minutes. Left the flat around 18:20 for the practice space (that’s when the nightmare began).

On the escalator and the amp falls off the cart on down a few steps (still in its packaging from when the shop shipped it to me). I’m standing there barely balancing on one leg trying to hold my guitar and keep the amp from falling and every human behind me literally just stared at me. As the amp got to the top of the escalator and the steps were just rolling underneath it and I was trying to keep things in order: NO HELP. People were just walking past me even though I was blocking the entire path. (we’re STILL at the beginning). So, I thought I’d get the S3 to Rummelsburg, take the M21 and be done. No. No S3 at Alexanderplatz. S75 to Ostkreuz, transfer to S3 one stop. Just missed the M21. Waited 20 minutes. Tram driver DROVE PAST MY STOP. Walked to the studio - finally got there around 20:00 (1 hour and 40 minutes later). Unwrap the amp. Plug in the new tubes. No sound. Turned out my cable crapped out between that day and the time I used it before then. Went to borrow a cable (thankfully we were in the same building as a friend). Cable works. Plug in again. No sound. 20 minutes, no sound. I noticed the two new tubes weren’t glowing. So I swapped them out for the old ones the amp came with. They started glowing. I had sound. We played a song. The amp stopped making sound. 20 more minutes of fidgeting around. Nothing. Fuck me. So then we’re walking back to the tram stop. Broken amp on this hand truck. I roll over a manhole cover. The FUCKING WHEEL BREAKS. The piece that keeps the wheel on the axle FELL INTO THE MANHOLE COVER…AND IT WASN’T MY HAND TRUCK!!! DKSGJFEHGSHFIGHET:@~#@%CVDFEHIG

And that is what we call life’s sense of humor. 

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David Toop Interview

Just found this great interview with David Toop. If you’re a musician and are unsure who he is, I can’t recommend exploring what his done (musically or in words). A really brilliant mind and someone who doesn’t draw borders at the usual demarcations of “style,” “genre” and “sound.” 

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Limited-Run Physical CDs Are Almost Done

Tonight I got together with my friend Lorenzo (This Is It, Forever) to start creating the limited edition physical versions of the Still EP. We finished enough for my Kickstarter supporters. Now to hand-number them, burn off the CDs, design and print the lyric sheets and print those tote bags!

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Making My Music Free: An Internal Discussion

I’ve been trying to learn how best to promote my music online and began sending the EP out for review to blogs this week. One blogger took the time to write a nice e-mail reply to me based on my attention to his guidelines that the music submitted to review on his blog should be available free to the public.

I wrote that I had one track available for free, but that it required the submission of the listener’s e-mail address to be added to my mailing list and that I’d understand if that was a deal breaker in terms of getting a review. “A fair deal,” I thought. Then I got the reply e-mail.

In it, the blogmaster simply stated that he thought it was putting the cart before the horse to ask listeners to sign up for a mailing list before they knew if they wanted the music in their library, but also that he completely understood how someone in my position (i.e., as a creator of said music) “justifiably” would feel differently. His mail showed both his respect for people who make music and also gave me some much-needed perspective. So I set the EP for free download and will leave it that way for the foreseeable future.

The question isn’t new, but it’s not something I spent much time considering outside of how it relates to my feelings about my own relationship with an audience (or the one I would like to have). I’d even go so far as to say it’s something I haven’t considered as much as I should have (or at least not as much from all the different perspectives there are to see this from).

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