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.

Highs and Lows, and I'm Not Talking Musical Notes

Band rehearsals can be pretty fun. When we played "Superfreak" a couple days ago, we got ourselves in the right frame of mind by pulling up the 1981 Rick James video on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75qXUfp4wtw). Mic innocently professed he had no idea the song was about prostitutes when he selected it for KEIT to play. We were not fooled.

We had Chinese food delivered (if the rock-n-roll lifestyle is about subsisting on delivered pizza and moo shu pork, I will be a Grammy contender by the end of this month) and then Mic warmed up in the studio on "the device" and Peter, Rachel and I ran through the vocals upstairs. It quickly became apparent that I should have chosen more songs that feature, as "Superfreak" does, 1) back-up singers, and 2) lyrics like "yeow" and "blow, daddy!" Interestingly, I should have known this from my novel, when I had my characters choose songs based on the fact that the lyrics contained whooping and shouting.

It was just plain fun. We married it all together for a few live -- and lively -- run-throughs, then sequentially recorded keyboard (including a drum beat), vocals, and back-up vocals. It did take longer than expected. We were supposed to wrap up by 10:00; it was 10:45 by the time we finished. I'm sure my neighbors were delighted.

Unfortunately, that's when the fun kind of dwindled a little. I was supposed to play with the software the next night, but I was in a gloomy mood, so I let it go. Then last night Mic was the only band member available, and he and I spent lonely hours trying to pick out the piano notes and chords in "Happy, The End" because we couldn't get the sheet music. We only got about half-way through, but KEIT was supposed to have finished that song. I am not sure how the grueling schedule is going to accomodate spending more time on it to whip it into shape. Sigh.

So the latest lessons learned about one-month album recording are that you should pick songs with sheet music, back-up singers, and super-freaky lyrics, and it is important for band morale to get as many band members as possible together simultaneously for some jam sessions, even if you are recording their pieces separately.

Incidentally, I should mention the band dress code, as the pictures of Peter and Rachel sharing a set of headphones might raise some questions on that point (and other points, but I digress...). Band members are encouraged to dress like Beyonce or Snoop Dogg to the greatest extent possible, but business suits and pajamas are also acceptable. At least Peter took off his tie.