30 april recap: yesterday, i got so old...
as one ages, their sense of time actually shrinks. weeks seem like days, days like weeks.
part of me has thought that our memories and perception of time are a function of how long we've been doing the internal mind-recording of our life. but blogs like livejournal allow us to write these things down real-time as they are happening to us. in this age of cheap memory, are our memories cheapened?
i will assert that that is hardly the case. i think that the mind is the ultimate player in this and that its recollection of things, while really good when triggered with a scent or a touch, is awful at remembrance for just remembrance's sake. time seems to flow so quickly as we are older because we only remember big events. similarly in the history books, history of a thousand years can be taught in a day by perusing only the major events. but you're never getting the whole story.
i've now been at this more or less ten years. in cure-time that was when robert was in the kiss me era. he'd already been through the drugs of the pornography era, simon had already left the band and come back, porl had rejoined a couple of years ago. the band had already imploded, essentially breaking up, during the time of the top. boris had already left the thompson twins to be in the band, and he'd finally gotten a full-time keyboard player.
ten (or so) years into it, i'm starting to feel this way. the last ten years have been rocky. early on in the band, it was difficult to keep members in because it was 'just a cover band'. a keyboard player had always been difficult to track down, and once tracked down, hold on to (to the eXtent that i actually played keys for several years in the band). when gino left, we had essentially broken up... i scrapped a crew together in 2003 to play a show in seattle for halloween that year; but we were in the top era of the band at that time, four years in.
going to master's school put this on hold, more or less, for another year, and somehow i was able to resurrect it (much of the energy i needed at that time was garnered through lorenna and ross, who both kept the fire burning for me). but now, i am feeling like we're finally doing what we've been meaning to do. our lineup is solid (although our bassist isn't permanent... we still have a contingency plan so there's no panic or implosive worries), we're blowing through the songs (our repertoire is very big, especially considering we've only been a unit for about 5 weeks), and after reviewing the recording we had taken at the tonic, we're finally playing these songs they way i've always wanted to do them.
i understand more and more why robert thought to give up on it in 1989 in the disintegration era. being in a band, especially one like ours who works their ass off and still maintains families and day jobs, is eXcruciatingly difficult work. but the high you feel after playing, after sharing this passion with the crowd and with fans... it is immeasurable.
i went to a barbecue the day after our tonic show, and a long-time friend and fan gushed about how what we do brought her back to when she was 15. seeing the cure now doesn't even do that because of all the changes in time, place, and people. that re-creation is eXactly what i've been working toward and i think we're finally there.
while on stage at the show, i was dealing with this temporal mind-fuck. in the audience were people who have been there the whole time, since the actual first show, and people who had never seen us before (but had been waiting to). our new, devoutist-of-fans was also there, and i almost started crying when i climbed up on stage. during strange day, i couldn't help it... i just let it happen, which was disguised in the little fit i throw at the back of the stage during that song. that song breaks me down nearly every time.
this last show gave me a bit of hope for the successes of playing music. it gave me the confidence to even get out of the doldrums of the bar scene where we are generally underappreciated monetarily yet treated very well by our fans. we're now a crew of pretty savvy musicians and we're looking for a way to hold on to this so that the tenets of capitalism and money don't corrupt the art that we're doing. money has been dogging me with bands for 15 years; and i'm now starting to just shy away from the money and do it more for the art. but in our society, when you spend that much time on something, you eXpect to be paid for it in some real way.
our facebook page has 27 followers. in this age of marketing, i've always felt a failure in my ability to market the band. i now know that the measure of any success with a band is its marketing prowess... something i sorely lack. i'm looking for help at this point to make this band what i want it to be. but it has to be bigger than me, more than what i alone can do. i need to give up on my control and my notions, not that i haven't been willing to do that in the past. since things are moving toward facebook, if you are reading this, would you please become a fan on facebook? facebook provides us an opportunity to see who our fans are demographically. we've noticed more and more parents and people (mostly women, at 67%) in their 30s and 40s. that doesn't lend itself to a show at a bar, and we're trying to tailor our events to match who we're playing to. and as always, if you're a fan of ours and you want to see us somewhere, or you can help in any capacity, i will say now, as always, i can certainly use the help. i want to revamp the website, i want help with flyers, i want connections to different events and venues. i am a very busy person in my normal life and i only devote one day a week to this band; i'm in another band and i have a life outside music. i don't want to see this wither due to my lack of attention to it. new energy, new blood, new hope will assure its success. this isn't my baby... it is all of ours.
that said, i've put my heart, my money, and all of my energy in to this project. at times i've really felt unrewarded by it in the past, like it wasn't worth my time and effort. but seeing an old friend break down into tears because of the awesome time she had at our show... that makes it worth doing.
i want to thank my band for being completely awesome that night and off stage. we are amigos, we are partners in music, and it is impossible for me to do this without the companionship and musicianship of this band. this is the 4th or 5th lineup this band has had (it is hard to measure what constitutes a 'new lineup'. is that a swapping of keyboard players, or a mass eXodus of 3 or 4 members? i generally just go with the latter), and i'm happy we are doing what we're doing.
so, here's the set list; new items that we've never played before (in ten years!) are starred:
Holy Hour
Play For Today
Just Like Heaven
Charlotte Sometimes
In Your House
Other Voices
A Strange Day
Hanging Garden*
Inbetween Days
Lovesong
Lament
Lovecats*
10:15 Saturday Night
Jumping Someone Else's Train*
Sinking
Killing an Arab
--
All Cats Are Grey*
A Forest
that night, i was so happy that so many requested all cats are grey. george and jill (a new fan) both talked to me about it in the audience that night. being able to give that to them felt pretty good.
so, we're going to put up video from this show pretty soon. it is just a lot of work/effort to do. our plans to do a show at an old church are in the making, but i'm really going to need help to make it happen. it can't happen with our current, lacking infrastructure. it will require a newer website, ticketing, and relationships with venues who may be tenuous about having a band play there; nevertheless, i know you guys: no one reading this will ever hurt anything in any venue. simply put, money is the monster here and we can't fund the risk of not having people show up because they can't get daycare or have to work that night. if you want it bad enough, as i do, we're going to have to figure out a way to do this together... which has been my aim all along.
much of this, i probably 'shouldn't' be saying. it looks bad, it isn't the right thing to say to people. contrary to the items in this, i'm not worried a lot about money; it is just one of the things that makes all of this difficult because we have to put up a lot of the money and rarely break even. it doesn't make a lot of sense to do that, and i'm trying to change the model for us. but i've also taken an oath to be more authentic, more transparent. this is what's on my mind and this is the forum for that. so, this is the real me... hopefully you'll forgive any trespasses.
i need you, the fans, to be more vocal, more involved. i need you to tell me what you want to hear, what you want to see, and who you are. so speak up... my email is always active (cedric at theXplodingboys.com).
thanks for your ear, and thanks for your years,
~thedrowningman
part of me has thought that our memories and perception of time are a function of how long we've been doing the internal mind-recording of our life. but blogs like livejournal allow us to write these things down real-time as they are happening to us. in this age of cheap memory, are our memories cheapened?
i will assert that that is hardly the case. i think that the mind is the ultimate player in this and that its recollection of things, while really good when triggered with a scent or a touch, is awful at remembrance for just remembrance's sake. time seems to flow so quickly as we are older because we only remember big events. similarly in the history books, history of a thousand years can be taught in a day by perusing only the major events. but you're never getting the whole story.
i've now been at this more or less ten years. in cure-time that was when robert was in the kiss me era. he'd already been through the drugs of the pornography era, simon had already left the band and come back, porl had rejoined a couple of years ago. the band had already imploded, essentially breaking up, during the time of the top. boris had already left the thompson twins to be in the band, and he'd finally gotten a full-time keyboard player.
ten (or so) years into it, i'm starting to feel this way. the last ten years have been rocky. early on in the band, it was difficult to keep members in because it was 'just a cover band'. a keyboard player had always been difficult to track down, and once tracked down, hold on to (to the eXtent that i actually played keys for several years in the band). when gino left, we had essentially broken up... i scrapped a crew together in 2003 to play a show in seattle for halloween that year; but we were in the top era of the band at that time, four years in.
going to master's school put this on hold, more or less, for another year, and somehow i was able to resurrect it (much of the energy i needed at that time was garnered through lorenna and ross, who both kept the fire burning for me). but now, i am feeling like we're finally doing what we've been meaning to do. our lineup is solid (although our bassist isn't permanent... we still have a contingency plan so there's no panic or implosive worries), we're blowing through the songs (our repertoire is very big, especially considering we've only been a unit for about 5 weeks), and after reviewing the recording we had taken at the tonic, we're finally playing these songs they way i've always wanted to do them.
i understand more and more why robert thought to give up on it in 1989 in the disintegration era. being in a band, especially one like ours who works their ass off and still maintains families and day jobs, is eXcruciatingly difficult work. but the high you feel after playing, after sharing this passion with the crowd and with fans... it is immeasurable.
i went to a barbecue the day after our tonic show, and a long-time friend and fan gushed about how what we do brought her back to when she was 15. seeing the cure now doesn't even do that because of all the changes in time, place, and people. that re-creation is eXactly what i've been working toward and i think we're finally there.
while on stage at the show, i was dealing with this temporal mind-fuck. in the audience were people who have been there the whole time, since the actual first show, and people who had never seen us before (but had been waiting to). our new, devoutist-of-fans was also there, and i almost started crying when i climbed up on stage. during strange day, i couldn't help it... i just let it happen, which was disguised in the little fit i throw at the back of the stage during that song. that song breaks me down nearly every time.
this last show gave me a bit of hope for the successes of playing music. it gave me the confidence to even get out of the doldrums of the bar scene where we are generally underappreciated monetarily yet treated very well by our fans. we're now a crew of pretty savvy musicians and we're looking for a way to hold on to this so that the tenets of capitalism and money don't corrupt the art that we're doing. money has been dogging me with bands for 15 years; and i'm now starting to just shy away from the money and do it more for the art. but in our society, when you spend that much time on something, you eXpect to be paid for it in some real way.
our facebook page has 27 followers. in this age of marketing, i've always felt a failure in my ability to market the band. i now know that the measure of any success with a band is its marketing prowess... something i sorely lack. i'm looking for help at this point to make this band what i want it to be. but it has to be bigger than me, more than what i alone can do. i need to give up on my control and my notions, not that i haven't been willing to do that in the past. since things are moving toward facebook, if you are reading this, would you please become a fan on facebook? facebook provides us an opportunity to see who our fans are demographically. we've noticed more and more parents and people (mostly women, at 67%) in their 30s and 40s. that doesn't lend itself to a show at a bar, and we're trying to tailor our events to match who we're playing to. and as always, if you're a fan of ours and you want to see us somewhere, or you can help in any capacity, i will say now, as always, i can certainly use the help. i want to revamp the website, i want help with flyers, i want connections to different events and venues. i am a very busy person in my normal life and i only devote one day a week to this band; i'm in another band and i have a life outside music. i don't want to see this wither due to my lack of attention to it. new energy, new blood, new hope will assure its success. this isn't my baby... it is all of ours.
that said, i've put my heart, my money, and all of my energy in to this project. at times i've really felt unrewarded by it in the past, like it wasn't worth my time and effort. but seeing an old friend break down into tears because of the awesome time she had at our show... that makes it worth doing.
i want to thank my band for being completely awesome that night and off stage. we are amigos, we are partners in music, and it is impossible for me to do this without the companionship and musicianship of this band. this is the 4th or 5th lineup this band has had (it is hard to measure what constitutes a 'new lineup'. is that a swapping of keyboard players, or a mass eXodus of 3 or 4 members? i generally just go with the latter), and i'm happy we are doing what we're doing.
so, here's the set list; new items that we've never played before (in ten years!) are starred:
Holy Hour
Play For Today
Just Like Heaven
Charlotte Sometimes
In Your House
Other Voices
A Strange Day
Hanging Garden*
Inbetween Days
Lovesong
Lament
Lovecats*
10:15 Saturday Night
Jumping Someone Else's Train*
Sinking
Killing an Arab
--
All Cats Are Grey*
A Forest
that night, i was so happy that so many requested all cats are grey. george and jill (a new fan) both talked to me about it in the audience that night. being able to give that to them felt pretty good.
so, we're going to put up video from this show pretty soon. it is just a lot of work/effort to do. our plans to do a show at an old church are in the making, but i'm really going to need help to make it happen. it can't happen with our current, lacking infrastructure. it will require a newer website, ticketing, and relationships with venues who may be tenuous about having a band play there; nevertheless, i know you guys: no one reading this will ever hurt anything in any venue. simply put, money is the monster here and we can't fund the risk of not having people show up because they can't get daycare or have to work that night. if you want it bad enough, as i do, we're going to have to figure out a way to do this together... which has been my aim all along.
much of this, i probably 'shouldn't' be saying. it looks bad, it isn't the right thing to say to people. contrary to the items in this, i'm not worried a lot about money; it is just one of the things that makes all of this difficult because we have to put up a lot of the money and rarely break even. it doesn't make a lot of sense to do that, and i'm trying to change the model for us. but i've also taken an oath to be more authentic, more transparent. this is what's on my mind and this is the forum for that. so, this is the real me... hopefully you'll forgive any trespasses.
i need you, the fans, to be more vocal, more involved. i need you to tell me what you want to hear, what you want to see, and who you are. so speak up... my email is always active (cedric at theXplodingboys.com).
thanks for your ear, and thanks for your years,
~thedrowningman