It’s the day before my 36th birthday, my hands feel like Hell, I’m tired and the cats are whining. And I feel great.
Last night we played to a packed house at Teavolve in Baltimore City. I wouldn’t say I played my best, I was a little distracted by running sound – and running sound for ilyAIMY with 13 channels, a separate monitor mix, listening to the sound output of five musicians and the simultaneous sound INPUT of those five musicians, trying to adjust for all of that whilst still remembering my lyrics and playing guitar like “a motherfucking possessed whatchamacallit” (thank you!) is getting to be a bit much.
I’m sad my father isn’t alive to go with us. He worked for NASA and had a great affection for these old craft – and a lot of knowledge as well. He took to see a Shuttle launch when I was… I don’t know HOW young I was. I remember it being actinic and massively loud. Like Metallica if they were on fire.
Oh, AND I used my wah pedal. So… you know, my foot was busy too. God I Love that wah pedal.
But it WAS an awesome show. We played a couple of good long sets and at the end of the night I was absolutely beat. Perhaps I wrote the sets a little bit long, but I basically just went through and wrote down everything I wanted to play and endeavoured to make everything fit. Bringing Strain back into the setlist has been an awesome choice. It’s just SO FUN to play at that gallop.
I’m just so sad that my Grandfather isn’t alive to go with us. He was in the Air Force and had a great affection for these old planes – and a lot of knowledge as well. The museum is immense – possibly the second largest enclosed space I’ve ever been in….
After the gig we dropped by the Double T, and perhaps to make up for the fact that some roast beef made me incredibly ill for all of last weekend, I ordered one of their open faced “sandwiches” which basically consisted of a pile of meat shavings and gravy and a slice of white bread somewhere below. Absolutely delicious. I conquered my meat mountain, we struggled home, dragged all the gear over the lingering snow and ice, into the house and around the cats… who acted as if they had never seen this gear before and went absolutely nuts, racing from one end of the house to the other apparently firm in their belief that the two Behringer 15s were monolithic altars to the coming apolcalypse and that the world was ending right before their eyes. Panic ensued. Orion, wild-eyed and frantic decided that if the universe really WAS collapsing right at this moment perhaps could we see our way to feeding him and making sure he didn’t die with an empty belly… and Cassie just vanished by leaping into a space between the gear that was really GOING to be occupied by an amplifier – an amplifier which then had to find another home because no matter how frustrated I am with the cats, I can’t bring myself to set an amplifier on one of them.
Also, I’m not quite sure what it says about our world that some of our greatest accomplishments (Moon landings, supersonic civilian airflight like the Concorde above) are abandoned because they’re too much trouble. I guess the Moon landing gave us our ICBMs and the Concorde’s engineering helped us towards the F-35 and once the end product’s able to kill enough people the project can be canceled. Also, I’m not sure what it says about ME that I wasn’t willing to lean a LITTLE further and get this beautiful aircraft’s NOSE in the picture! It’s stunning to remember how far we’ve come in such a short time. As I write this the phone sitting next to me is more powerful than all the computers we’ve ever sent into space combined… not counting the laptops they shoot up in the Space Shuttle. It’s easier to send astronauts into orbit with laptops and PDAs then to upgrade the old 386s that still control the spacecraft itself…
Well, most days.
I’d get cat guts on it.
Exhausted, full of meat, I was really hoping to fall right to sleep, but Fugazi invaded my brain and wouldn’t let me alone. “Waiting Room” played on and on and on in my head. I got up and played the bass line a couple of times in the hope that this would purge my skull – to no avail. I got up again and played through the whole song twice. Three times. Lying there in the dark, my Alvarez lying next to me, Fugazi played on and on and on and on….
I must’ve fallen asleep at some point. I was in the middle of a REALLY, REALLY good dream when my alarm woke me up. I might just spend the whole day in a state of embarrassing priapism. Well, probably not actually. I’m able to use my laptop, after all.
