Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

lyndzapalooza

The Day That Was

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I take for granted that i have all this audio equipment, and microphone stands, and mixers, and, well, all the stuff i’ve accumulated over years of supplying equipment for Blogathon, Lyndzapalooza, and the Treblemakers. I take it for granted up until it’s the end of Lyndzapalooza and people are marvelling at all the equipment i have to pack or complimenting me on a job well done. I never feel like either is true, but i suppose the beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Today was a very awesome Lyndzapalooza, that classic all-day musical party and barbecue -in honor of our one and only Lindsay- that has supplanted Blogathon as my major yearly holiday.

It truly is a holiday. I look forward to it all year, i get excited to the point of distraction when it’s upcoming, and i’m drained as soon as it’s over. And it’s not even a holiday about me! You could argue that it’s about me because i get up on stage and perform, but with every year that passes that becomes increasingly more incidental. Hell, today i ditched half of a meticulously planned setlist for Kelly Clarkson covers and bringing random friends onstage to sing with me. I’m not picky.

My true role at Lyndzapalooza is to be completely and totally unobtrusive – i shouldn’t get in the way of bands when setting up their sound, and when i’m playing for someone it should be all about them and not at all about me. That way, if i do eventually take the stage myself, i can be enjoyed or ignored as my own phenomenon rather than as “the sound guy we have to listen to.”

We sure have come a long way from the first year of scrounged equipment scattered across the yard of an abandoned house and microphones affixed to broomsticks. I’m happy to say that, despite a handful of desperately grumpy moments during the day, i left this ‘palooza stress-free and without regret. I played as good as i can play, i mixed as well as i can mix, and i still somehow managed to drink and socialize while i was doing it.

Mayyybe i need more of a sound reinforcement committee next year, though. Especially if we’re going to have it on a farm or a mountain rather than in Dante’s back yard.

Thick Skinned

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The point isn’t really that I have to wear in some new callouses by Saturday so that I can make it through the four sets I’m playing on, but that my callouses grew. Thickened.

I’ve been playing guitar for eight years at the end of this month. I remember when I had been playing for two and a half years, and I would watch Anthony, who has two years of playing over me, and think “Wow, look what I’ll be able to do in two years.”

And, well, maybe I can do some of the things Anthony’s done now. Who knows? I realized that the path is not linear, and it’s not parallel to anyone else’s. Early on I learned how to churn out chunky, thumping chords, Ani-fying any song in an attempt to make it my own. Just now I am learning the strength of learning something note for note, rhythm for rhythm. Isn’t that backwards? Don’t most people play along to the disc first and then figure out their own way to do it? That’s what I’ve been told, anyhow.

On the scale of great I’m sure I hardly rank – plenty of practice left on that front, no disputing that. But, not only can I get better, but even with as much playing as I’ve done, there are new callouses to be made.