Not Just A Rock Band: A Barack Band

The band took Tuesday night off to learn that at long, long last, we were not going to wake up the morning after a presidential election and wish we could just die. No, I am ecstatic that we have entered a new era, one filled with rainbows and puppies and other overwhelmingly happy phenomena. To illustrate the sweetness of victory, I baked blue Democratic cupcakes and frosted them with blue Democratic frosting. They were darned tasty.

You kind of assume that nothing will ever be lackluster again in the rainbow-and-puppydog era, but I have to confess that my faith in my insane band project has been foundering. Was it

 ludicrous to take this on? What have I gotten us all into?

The other members of the band cannot be held responsible for my doubts. A lot of it probably has nothing to do with the album at all. Everyone's life is complicated, right? I got back from a trip to India ten days ago and haven't fully unpacked. The election gave me piles of things to do at work. I have raccoons in my attic. I don't seem to own enough pairs of pants, and I don't seem to have time to shop for pants. I am preoccupied with family issues. RCN is switching to digital programming and I won't get any channels anymore. A guy I had a stupid crush on a decade ago appeared on MSNBC wearing a wedding ring. My Smartrip card spontaneously ceased working. I worry about money. 

So, let's not blame the album for my fretting about the album; there's got to be some transference going on here. But still, there are things that really ARE about the album that are gnawing at me. We're a week in, and we've got almost no tracks laid down to show for it. We spent an evening on Lucky's song, and I don't even know what it sounds like yet. Our drummer has been jetting around from continent to continent and won't be available for a rehearsal until the 15th. I haven't gotten past reading Chapter One in my illuminating book on GarageBand software. The thought of Chinese food, a rehearsal staple, is already starting to make me feel nauseous.

Really, I am happy that Bill has found fame and a successful career and a wife. Oh yeah. He deserves it. 

Cerin, who is my rock in addition to being a rockstar, reminded me that there are some real things to feel good about with respect to KEIT's work so far this month. Annimal's song, for example, is a seriously fun little number. People kept telling me "All Mine" would be hard, but Cerin has it down cold, and Mic called his part "a piece of piss," which translates from Irish to "it's easy" in English. We now know what MIDI is and we're not afraid to use it. We borrowed an amp from loyal KEIT groupie Chris Oropeza and it makes the guitar sound like an actual rock band guitar, which is so fantastic. It's too early to freak out and give up, Cerin said.

And probably I had these sort of doubts last year, early in the month. Probably I could just scroll down in this blog and be reassured that any doubts are normal and will fade away.

Whatever about Bill and his wife and his national television audience. I mean, I have a band, you know. Does Bill have a band? Oh please. I think not.

Tomorrow we'll be playing "Washington DC" with a huge cast, by our standards. There's going to be like five of us. I think we can do a live recording and the only thing we'll be missing is the bass, which we can layer on later.

Anyway, just because he's married doesn't mean he's happily married, not that I wish him anything but perfect wedded bliss, of course.