Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

Archives for December 2008

getting up to speed / my musical existence

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Who could have known that after my night in the smokey room the voice I would lose would be this one, rather than my physical one?

The last week has been an awesome proof-of-concept that I truly am living a duality of professional and musician, which is something I’ve wanted for myself for many years.

It has also illustrated that I a wee bit over-extended, and that after blogging the next thing I have to sacrifice to keep things up and running is my own sanity – not necessarily a bad thing, but not always a practical choice.

So, here’s essentially a week full of posts, because I really don’t have enough time or willpower right now to go back and post them all to the days they ought to have been posted on.

Wednesday. The story starts ten days ago, when I took the day off from work to record a new Live @ Rehearsal disc with Gina.

We had plans to just hit the four songs we had never recorded, but we wound up with eleven, including one I didn’t plan to record, three oldies we took random (successful) shots at, and three of our most frequent covers. Of the eleven I only discarded two for being a little subpar, which meant I had nine songs to mix and master and six days to do it.

Thursday. I could have just locked myself in the house and mixed for a week, but I had so many other plans that I was hesitant to sacrifice. Plan #1 involved dashing out of the house still chewing the last bite of my dinner to leap into the car of Mike from Shackamaxon, who organizes an amazing Philly Songwriters In The Round concert once a month at The Auction House in Audubon, South Jersey.

I attended to have a chance to see Mike and support his event, but I came away a huge fan. Mike’s trio of ITR artists were the increasingly national John Francis, Joshua Britton of melancholy favorite Sweetheart Parade, and one unknown quantity – Mike Baker of The Spinning Leaves.

I couldn’t get a read on Mike Baker in the car on the way to the show, and when I asked host-Mike what kind of music to expect from him I effectively heard “you’ll see.” And, see I did. And hear. Mr. Baker is an absolutely gem – a treasure of the Philadelphia scene. His stuff swung from key-shifting freak folk to lilting murder ballads to an impromptu, note-for-note take on “Paranoid Android” (with the other gentlemen completing the verbatim arrangement acappella). He also added harmonica wailing and pitch-perfect harmony to the songs of his compatriots.

Auction House features Philly Songwriters In The Round once a month, and if this one was any indication it’s always an amazing evening to drop $7 on.

Friday. So, despite my dire post about smoke inhalation, this was actually an amazing concert. I’m shocked again and again by the depth of talent in the Philadelphia music scene – you can hit a show full of people you’ve never heard of and wind up seeing some of the best musicians in the city, and you can probably replicate that experience multiple times a week, because Philly has that many amazing musicans.

Friday’s show was sponsored and anchored by The Spinning Leaves, who were every bit as great as Mike’s Thursday performance presaged – paired with his female half the band sounds like Arcati Crisis through a filter of Devendra Barnhart. However, I was equally delighted by Joshua Park’s melodic blues, and absolutely entranced by the sparse arrangements and killer fretwork of Chris Kasper, who at one point was joined on harmony by Adrien Reju – one of the Philly acts I have been the most delinquent in catching.

(I sadly missed Tin Bird Choir due to my smoke-induced illness, but I definitely plan on seeing them in ’09 – boy/girl acts are hard to come by!)

Saturday. After a quiet day Elise and I ventured out to catch the 2nd Annual PhilACappella – one of three yearly acappella concerts organized and hosted by The Drexel Treblemakers.

I was around at the outset of the group in 2001 when they hurriedly threw three songs together for their debut at the concert of another group. I’m so, so, so very gratified that in 2008 the group is over a dozen singers strong and full of amazing frontwomen who give the original artists runs for their money on songs like “Grace Kelly,” “Disturbia,” “Torn,” and “Dream On” (yes, Aerosmith’s “Dream On.” One of the best acappella performances I’ve seen in my life.)

The girls also debuted my arrangement of Paramore’s “That’s What You Get,” which still needs a bit of retooling before it’s as awesome as the rest of their rep. I still have machinations of doing a Rilo Kiley song for them, but cannot decide between “Portions for Foxes” and “Breakin’ Up.”

As a concession to my wiped-outedness, I missed the CD release party of Katie Barbato’s band The Sleepwells. I adore Katie and I’m so thankful for how hospitable she has been to me and my music in 2008. I definitely have to make up for my missed appearance by seeing another few shows of hers in ’09.

Sunday. Gina’s father-in-law Larry recently passed away.

I wasn’t especially close with him – I had met him at the holiday revue we’ll be playing tonight for the sixth year, and when we moved Gina and Wes into their house in 2007, plus a few other occasions. But, I very much liked him, and I expected he and his wife Joan would become a part of my extended family in the same way Gina’s parents indisputably are.

In lieu of a funeral, per Larry’s express wishes he had a wake at his favorite bar, full of food and drink, friends and family, and his favorite local live music. Throughout the day people from every corner of his life stood up to share a few words – not just extended family, but bands he had booked, scuba-diving buddies, former employees, and people he met while campaigning for Obama earlier this year.

Late in the proceedings Gina and I took the stage for an impromptu performance, offering our cover of Neil Young’s “Pocahantas.” Afterward Gina and Wes covered Neil’s “Helpless,” which I heard for the first time right hear on CK in 2003.

In the midst of sorrow for our loss, during that performance I found joy. In his passing Larry gave us all this amazing day, introducing every important person in his life to each other. More personally, he emphasized to me that I have been doing the right things with my time, because the bonds of music and friendship can last the length of a life and beyond.

.

I have to burn another sixty copies of our new demo CD and figure out a way to look attractive while Gina and I are acting as the holiday revue house-band in less than six hours. Oh, and my groomsmen just called to tell me they are kidnapping me right now to get fitted for tuxes.

Bye.

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So, this is sortof the intermission of the story of last night, which I have yet to write, but…

I spin this whole narrative, little singer and his lack of confidence, wrote songs in his rooms but didn’t play them in bars. And, you know, the growth was stunted – I’m seeing concerts now of people who were at some point my peers, but now they’re an echelon higher and I am a fourth wall away definitely a spectator to their art.

But, see, the story that’s going on under there is smoke. Bars in Philly – musical bars in Philly, especially – were nothing but smoke. A haze. It was prohibitive, and when I first started venturing back out in 2006 when I had my giant hair and before the smoking ban I would just wince at every cigarette lit, because I knew my thick Italian hair was just sucking it up. And, sure enough, when I would come home I’d have no choice but to deflate the cloud of smoke with a scalding hot shower, lest the scent seep into my bed in my sleep.

(I grew up with a smoker – with a family of smokers, and I don’t know how I did it. How everything I owned smelled like smoke, and how the only air I breathed was smokey. Now I can barely hack a car ride of it, even with the windows down.)

So, this is the untold story: I am not a big star because of smokey rooms. Other reasons too, I’m sure. But, the smokey rooms were primary, as I was reminded tonight – taking in some of the best talent of Philly and I had to leave midset. Me, leaving a concert, that asshole slipping away between songs. It’s completely unheard of.

The thing is, I couldn’t breath. A table at the front of weird little Connie’s Ric Rac (not a bar, so no smoking ban) with two new friends enjoying the music and suddenly my eyes couldn’t focus and I was like why is it that I’m not breathing? I thought, you know, maybe someone nearby had just lit a bad brand for me, and I needed some fresh air. So, I poked my head out the door, but when I slunk back in it was worse; pressing against me.

I’m not much of a claustrophobe, but this was too much. I sat back down at the table, but it was through my clothes now, on my skin, seeping in. Breathing was thick and heavy, and now my stomach was churning as well. It was that sort of toe-curling discomfort, where you are squeegeeing up your toes in your socks, clenching tight and willing your way past it.

I ran home, clothes infected, happy to breath crisp freezing point air if only because of the difference in pressure.

And that is the story of how I didn’t get to hang around long enough to buy a handmade CD from Spinning Leaves, who I am in love with (and also probably the story of how I am going to miss the Sleepwell’s CD release tomorrow despite having it on my calendar for TWO MONTHS, because just the thought of going back into that place is raising hives on my forearms).

https://crushingkrisis.com/2008/12/3433/

The Cost of Maintaining Me

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One of the pitfalls of working in the middle of a major city is that it’s easy to blow your paycheck before it ever makes it into your bank account.

Since I don’t take actual lunch “breaks” too often (and because there is no guitar store in easy walking distance) I’ve stayed relatively insulated from midday shopping. Where I’m at risk is food.

When I first started working after graduation I was in the early throes of my obsessive budget-keeping, and I figured out quickly that the breakfast smoothies and muffins I had been accustomed to ordering every day during my internship added up to a bank-breaking amount over the course of a year – I wouldn’t have had to borrow money from my mother for a down payment on our first apartment if I had gone smoothlieless as an intern!

On my first day of full-time work I showed up with my own homemade smoothie and bagel, and continued to do so for several months, until finally my slothfulness caught up with my budget. Rather then blend up a confection every morning, I opted to allow myself a fixed weekly lunch budget to use however I pleased – buying groceries, eating modestly every day, or starving myself all week to go out for one big lunch.

Over four years of employment I’ve hewed pretty close to the budget, which rendered my $5 a day smoothie habit an obsolete luxury. The casualty was breakfast – I altogether stopped eating it, which made me a ravenous beast around 11:15 a.m.. I shrugged off plenty of health-concious co-workers bugging me to start my day with a meal, but when I began working on our healthy living initiatives earlier this year the message was drilled home by project after project: I was wrecking my naturally awesome metabolism, and I needed to eat more fresh fruit.

So, this summer when I found a nearby fruit cart that made $3.25 16oz. smoothies I was ecstatic – $16.15 a week was only a portion of my food budget, and it meant I’d actually eat my daily recommended servings of fruit. I immediately became a daily customer, and they’d have a smoothie ready to be blended when they saw me coming from a block away!

Two weeks ago my precious cart disappeared like clockwork on the first near-freezing morning, and without thinking about it I retreated to my four-year old smoothie/bagel habit. By the end of the week I had racked up $30 in spending – a huge chunk of my weekly food allowance, and over $1500 over the course of the year!

I had to put a stop to it, but I had become addicted to the energetic, breakfast-eating me I rediscovered over the summer. Could I produce my own smoothies and bagels for the convenient $16.25 I had been spending weekly over the summer?

The first hurdle was that I’d have to buy my supplies at the supermarket most convenient to me, which meant a slight markup. Five bananas came out to between $2-$3. Over the winter I’d rely on frozen organic strawberries, which were $.218 an ounce, and I’d need 50 oz. a week, for a total of $11. I’d also need a carton of off-brand OJ to fill out my concoction ($3), and a can or two of coconut milk to sweeten it a little (less than $2).

That’s a total of $18 for smoothie ingredients, proving the value of my cart-bound friend. Add to that a six-pack of everything bagels for $4 and $.90 weekly for my share of non-hydrogenated buttery spread for a total of $22.90 a week – a scant $7.10 savings over my gourmet breakfast. It would net me $555 in savings a year, but it still cost a bank-breaking $1195! And, that’s not including my time expenditure of thirty minutes of grocery shopping, plus 15 minutes a day of preparation.

No matter how I slice it, my morning smoothie is a major budget hit – a significant detraction from my ability to acquire new gear, my potential to pay off credit cards, my plan to save for a house.

Yet, what’s the comparative value of starting every day with a healthy breakfast, and getting my daily fix of fruit? Not to mention that my bagels and butter are healthier than the ones I’d be served in town. Sure, the monetary expense seems steep, but in the long term is it costing me less than the effects of eschewing fruit and starting my day with lunch?

Since the answer to that is unknowable at the moment, I’m going to have to find another way to justify my smoothie-enabling weekly shopping trips. Next steps? See if I can score my ingredients more cheaply elsewhere, or create a better economy of scale by also rolling in shopping for my lunch rather than buying it.