I'm excited with my new solo format... I'm using the very powerful Ableton Live program along with many midi controllers to be able to make anything I want on the fly. However, with only one week of integration/implimentation, the only thing I made was misfired samples, feedback, and out-of-sync loops. Two wonderful people drove two hours to see the carnage, and there was a point when I was leaning far to the right to try and sing into the misplaced microphone, sacrificing any decent piano playing in the process, and my voice cracked. In the middle of a children's song. And just then my brain was screaming to just stop because I was doing more damage to my career than good and my nerves just couldn't take it anymore. I'd spent 10+ hours a day for five days preparing, hadn't even seen the FL sun or eaten more than one meal a day, and my body was just really irritated with me. The biggest show I ever played was in front of 7500 people. That nervousness was an empanada in comparison to what I'd been going through for the last two days. Seconds away from walking off stage mid-song I remembered those two people and felt like they deserved more than two songs. One of them had superglued a fake goatee on his chin in order to make the 18+ cutoff (he's 16). Turns out everything following the voice crack made my butchered children's song sound like an empanada in comparison. I was so relieved when it was all over that I went into the bathroom and vomited. Then I gave those two special people shirts with my face on them, as some sort of clumsy apology. Then I got to watch my friends Brian and Neal absolutely murder things with their band The Captives. By the time One Drop went on, I was so relieved to be through it that I actually played very well, even taking into account our having only rehearsed for three hours in two years.
After the show we all went to Flaco's to have their amazing food. But they were kind of closed so all that were available were plantains and Empanadas. I was very excited (because I happen to enjoy the spanish delicacy) until I bit into one of the four I purchased, and found it to be uninspired at best.
It was a happy ending for this band in a way. I guess that's a lucky thing. We were able to get back to the feeling that you bask in when you first start the band: the simple enjoyment of playing these songs with one another. No money issues, no life choices, no drug-gorging, no fan-pandering. Just music.
That was four hours ago, before they accused my midi drum pads of being a security threat (level chartreuse?). Now I want to sleep off this whole trip and pretend music never happened.
This is what I look like right now:
