The Last One Downstairs

When you’re first starting out in band there are no 15 passenger vans, no tour buses, and no hotel beds to rest your head on at night after the show. The hope is that someone in the band happens to have a friend of a friend of an uncle who lives within an hour of the venue.

It’s late. You just played the gig and finished loading your gear out of the venue around 2am.  You try to find some food on the way to the house you’re staying at, but it’s all back roads so it’s a no-go.  Hopefully they’ve got some late night snicky snacks at the house.

You’re always more lucky when the people you’re staying with are a married couple. Sorry single people, it’s tried and true, you’re not as good at hosting bands.  Also, the older the couple is, the better…to a point.  

They’re kind of excited to have a rock band staying at their house so they leave a note on the kitchen island saying they’ll have breakfast ready in the morning around 8am.

Great. Just great. By now it’s 3am.  You want the FREE breakfast pretty badly and it’s going to be good. But that 8am number is screaming at you with a force of a thousand bass amps.

So this is the part I love.

A couple of the people in the band love mornings anyways, so they’re definitely going to be up.  Then there’s another one or two who will be polite and wake up at least in time to be at the breakfast table by 8:30am.

And then there’s the straggler.

I love this.

When he woke up he heard chatter and laughter in the kitchen and knew he was in trouble. He knows it’s well after 10am (much less 8 or 9) as he’s walking downstairs.  And when he finally rounds the corner to make his entrance into the kitchen, the comments just begin to flow. It’s merciless. It’s pomp and circumstance dedicated to this sorry, late, soul.

“Weeeeeeeell, look what the cat dragged in”

“Your eyes are puffy”

“So nice of you to join us/the land of the living”

“We thought you’d died in your sleep”

“Rough night?”

“If you’d have waited a little longer you would have been on time for lunch”

“You’re late”

“Don’t worry, we made the coffee extra strong”

Literally all of these plus a lot more get said almost at the exact same time. Everyone’s a comedian. The straggler doesn’t stand a chance.

A similar situation probably happened for some of you in your Christmas celebration this morning. The last one into the room gets it handed to them.

I’m not sure why this happens, but it happens every single time. You can set your watch.

How do I know this?

See you at 10am.  Bite me.

A Few Good Albums

The second someone recommends a song or album to me, my expectations start to rise.  For movies too.  I was worried when I went to see Interstellar because three of my really good friends had already seen the movie and had told me at length of how amazing it was. The movie overcame the build up and totally blew me away.

So for the end of the year in music, I want to pass along three bands/albums that I discovered this year and really enjoyed.  Instead of focusing on their music I’m going to focus more on the reason that I checked them out in the first place.  

Dovetail- Mount Karma- I’m so tired of seeing write ups where blogs/magazines/bios describe the new artist by saying “if so and so had a musical baby with so and so…”.  So dumb.  But when I was scrolling the internet before SXSW in March I saw a tiny little headline saying there was a band who sounded like The Beatles, The Beach Boys and Muse. MUSE?!  

For some reason adding Muse into the bag of usual suspects really perked my attention.  I’m not usually a sucker for headlines like that. But it worked this time. Glad it did.

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJRX2YzuVLs
Spotify: http://open.spotify.com/artist/6wkfUp3u5n3gNiK1tl0Fhi

Colony House- When I Was Younger- I’d heard they signed a record deal and were working on an album, I talked with their A&R guy earlier this year a couple times, their drummer, Will, bought a house in my neighborhood, the band I used to be in played a couple shows with them.  So when they actually released their album, there had been so many seemingly organic impressions, I was primed to connect with the album, I checked it out. 

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qodjejRp8I
Spotify: http://open.spotify.com/artist/6R664N4cEza3eORSqKSgO4

Augustana- Life Imitating Life- This was all about reputation and trust.  I loved their last album. I’ve probably written about it before.  Some guys I’ve been playing for really like Augustana and told me to check out their new album. I did. I didn’t like it as much as the previous one.  They told me to give it a few more listens.  I did. Now I love it.  

The reason why I took the time to listen to it a few more times was because Augustana was already a familiar voice.  A voice I trusted to sing to me and take me somewhere I wanted to go.  

Spotify: http://open.spotify.com/album/43mMU0PwhSXcS007HfrASo

Why does music work sometimes? I don’t know.  Do everything in excellence.   

Bands: Talk About This

When you’re in a band there’s a couple areas that seem very basic but are rarely approached…while being vital to success.

The first is to admit and discuss the idea of taking it seriously.  No one stumbles into success, no matter how much you want to believe it, no matter how easy some icons pawn it off to be.  At some point you must admit to yourself and to your band that it matters to you, that you have expectations, ideas and goals that you want this vehicle (the band) to help you achieve.  Talk about this.

The second is to identify and discuss the roles of the people in the band.  Well, if nothing else, speak out loud who the leader(s) are.  If you’ve been a band for more than 6 months, there is probably a general understanding of this, but bands rarely take the time to actually say it.  Talk about this.

A band is a strange beast, where all members are equal but each have a different value.  Talk about this. 

The Final Episode of Serial, Season One (Spoiler)

To sum up my feelings: I loved it.  See, the premise of the podcast wasn’t “based on a true story”. It was a real life story, with an unscripted plot line and an ever open ended conclusion.  Like life.  

If you were let down by the conclusion of the podcast, you’ve spent too much time watching Hollywood movies and TV dramas, enjoying the nice little bow at the end. 

Real life doesn’t fit into your script, your box, your expectations.  And certainly doesn’t provide the endings and outcomes you usually desire.  Sarah Koenig didn’t take liberty with the finale and didn’t succumb to giving listers anything that wasn’t authentic and true.  

Maybe Sarah’s the real story here, not Adnan, for providing a magnetic podcast, getting under people’s skin, developing her own “isms” and then having to live out her newly found fame in real time, right before our ears, while the expectations of her built and built each week from the outside world.

She didn’t buckle. She didn’t fabricate.  She gave all that she genuinely could while staying true to the very thing that roped us all in to begin with.  Herself.

I feel satisfied with episode 12, like I listened to, digested, and discussed with my friends something that was worth while.

The strangest feeling I have from the finale is coming to the conclusion that even if Adnan is guilty, he should’t be in jail.  

Because our justice system has nothing to do with the truth.  At it’s best, it only concerns itself with what you can prove.  Is that messed up? Is it the way it should be? Is there a better way?

The other little side note I thought of during this episode is…just because Jay knew where Hae’s car was when the officers interviewed him, doesn’t mean that’s where the car was since the day Hae disappeared.  What if someone put it there after the fact?  Or what if Jay only knew the car was there cause he just happened to be doing a drug deal there at some point in the month after Hae disappeared?

Cause if you can call into question the car thing from Jay’s story, it all falls apart…if it hadn’t already.

I know there will be a follow up article or podcast once the DNA testing is complete.  

I won’t be refreshing the Serial website, holding my breath for an official update (and neither will you, cause the truth is, we care more about entertainment than justice), but when when Sarah Koenig asks for my attention again, I’ll give it to her. She earned it.

A Few Good Books

A good friend of mine threw out the challenge at the beginning of 2014 to read one non-fiction book per month.  A pretty common challenge probably, but this was the first time I’d decided to commit to it.

I won’t bore you with my entire reading list, cause I did complete the challenge’s parameters, but wanted to pass along a few books that I think will help you and could make life better…

Boundaries- the only book I took time to read twice this year.  Henry Cloud does an excellent job of showing you that its ok to draw lines in your relationships.  Not out of spite or arrogance, but love and compassion for both yourself and others.  If you don’t read any other book in 2015, read this one.  I’m serious, just read it.

15 Invaluable Laws Of Growth- this book does an amazing job of speaking into many areas of life (personal, business, spiritual, etc), and encourages you to make a plan.  You can wander into the wilderness but you can’t wander out.  The mistake I made with this book was not reading it with a partner, talking and writing out the thoughts and questions that come at the end of each chapter.  I think that could be pretty huge.  I’ll probably try to do that in 2015.

Rich Dad, Poor Dad- this was the book that got me into and paying attention to personal finance six or seven years ago.  Going back and reading it again, I don’t agree with all the principals but does a great job of robbing you of excuses and redefining what real education is, where you can get it and what it’s worth.  Maybe this could be your introduction to getting interested in your own finances too.

So now I’ll pass along the challenge to you.  Reading a book per month really helped me in lots of ways, furthering thoughts and ideas I already had and also introducing new ones.  Will you commit to reading one non-fiction book per month in 2015?

Inspired To Find Inspiration

I spend too much time clicking around.  You do too.  I’m not a junkie for the funny videos or the crazy ones or the fail videos…I’m looking for inspiration.  In the form of a video, a song, an article, a tweet. I’ll take it anyway I can get it.

But I’ve realized that finding an inspiring video only makes me hungry for more inspiration.

I just want more of that phycological and emotional pop.

So the end result is the same as being a junkie for any other type of material.  If you love funny videos, you find one and then you want more so you click on the next one.  It’s hilarious so you keep clicking and clicking. Till when? Till they’re not funny anymore.  And then you walk away feeling a little let down.  Definitely not as elated as the beginning of your journey.

It’s the same thing with inspiration.  Instead of putting inspiration into action, I put inspiration into finding inspiration, and I’m always let down when that happens.

When I was a kid I was inspired by the Mighty Ducks movie.  I would watch it and immediately go to the pond out back and put on my ice skates and try to improve my 8yr old hockey skills.

I want to do that more.  Not the hockey part. The DOING part.